Born on February 29, 1960, in El Paso, Texas, Richard Ramirez was the youngest of five children in a struggling immigrant family. His childhood was filled with fear — “his father’s volatile temper and the family’s financial struggles created a tense home environment.” Several head injuries and emotional trauma marked his early years, which doctors later linked to behavioral problems.

As a teen, Richard drifted away from school and family. “Isolated and angry, he sought escape in the streets,” where he found temporary freedom. A horrifying encounter with a relative exposed him to extreme violence, leaving deep psychological scars and shaping his fascination with death and power.

He soon turned to drugs and petty crime. Substance abuse “dulled his emotions,” while theft and reckless acts fueled his growing detachment from reality.

By his twenties, living a transient life in California, Richard’s dark interests evolved into obsession. Between 1984 and 1985, a wave of brutal murders spread terror across Southern California — acts committed by the man who would be known as “The Night Stalker.”

Captured in 1985 and later convicted of multiple murders, Ramirez spent his remaining years in San Quentin State Prison, dying there in 2013 — a grim symbol of how trauma can warp the human mind.