The Night Stalker Case Revisited: Insights From the Lead Investigation

it is my pleasure to bring out the gentleman who's gonna be leading today's discussion Glenn Martin he is on the photo friends board he is the primary author of the book that he's been working on for a couple of years he is the curator of the exhibition downstairs he was also the co-author of the Los Angeles Times bestseller LAPD 50:53 work he created with world renowned novelist James Ellroy who generously wrote the foreword to our book following his graduation from USC Martin spent more than 30 years in and around the Los Angeles Police Department and continues to volunteer for the Los Angeles Police Memorial Foundation Martin was born and raised in Glendale where he still lives with his wife tune grow children in an oversized Labrador which I can attest is quite sweet despite his size Glenn come on out well thank you all for spending the afternoon with us I realize you've selected us over the NFL and that is quite a high honor I must say at this point in the season so I have the good fortune of looking at in front of me at what guys are looking at behind me and there's an awful lot of dope in that picture and some of its even on that table so the two guys in the center of my partner and I my partner happens to be the one it's just a scant bit taller than I am but this is a this was the record-setting seizure of cocaine for LAPD that we made back in 90 1991 its 4,600 pounds of cocaine and kilo and wrapt kilo packages on the table there a few months later we seized an additional 5,400 pounds on a connected case so the record still stands My partner nine ten thousand pounds of cocaine and I'm here to tell you that that every line of it made it into evidence so you know part of what we got to do here today is to dispel some of the myths about cops here and know cops don't have the best dope because because we had five tons of it and I never saw any of it anyway really this is just my introduction it's my time of the LAPD I spent 20 years as a sworn member of the department worked all over the city in uniform some notable specialized assignments major narcotics obviously three years of vice four years of terrorism the rest in uniform in all parts of the city shortly after my retirement I was recruited by the department to come back and run there the Los Angeles Police Museum which is a non-profit separate apart from the LAPD its resides in the old Highland Park police station I left there a couple years ago excuse me and I took a job at the Norton Simon museum so still in the museum world and enjoying my retirement from the LAPD and remain connected to the department through the police Memorial Foundation and the LA County Peace Officers Memorial Committee enough about me in my tenure at the at the police museum I did have the opportunity to co-author my first book LAPD 53 again with renowned offer author James Ellroy who's not even not only a colleague but a friend to the point that I was able to reach out to him for the Ford for this book really the story in this book is one of of teamwork because there was a whole bunch of folks that helped me put this book together and I think it's consistent or analogous with what went on with the nightstalker case the murders were spread through various and law enforcement jurisdictions and it took it took a taskforce to be assembled and some very talented folks on the task force to actually pull this together identify Richard Ramirez and bring him to justice and principle amongst those as our guest today he's retired from Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department 38 years in law enforcement 26 years in homicide 6 as a supervising lieutenant the rest is an investigator handled more than 400 homicides which in this day and age is a monstrous number considering the four million people in the city of Los Angeles less than 300 homicide 265 homicides in in 2014 right around the 300 numbers since then so stop and think about that you'll handle more than four four million people there's 300 murders so it's a huge huge number storied career and the fact that matter is he took Richard Ramirez off the street so that being said I'd like you guys to give a a warm welcome to retired lieutenant former Chief of Police Gil Carillo thank you and I gotta say it's a fantastic picture I love that picture I never looked at good realize yeah so we need to take a quick trip back to 1985 as I mentioned Gil spent a lot of time in homicide in fact that's where it was this is a photograph this is the day Gil's leading Richard Ramirez who's wearing the black Jack Daniel's t-shirt is that from lead numata Hollenback right that's right Yeah right leave them at a hollaback yeah and there's a there's a story behind that but I think we better get to the main story here I was working the special-problems unit which was we were deployed on various crime problems up in Hollywood that's me at the end of the blue arrow and in uniform again the guy in the middle was my longtime partner he's the one I work major narcotics with this is where we were in 1985 I was in Hollywood Gil was already handling homicides throughout the County of Los Angeles and really this is what we were both doing he was handling the investigative side trying to trying to close the net around Richard Ramirez for for us that were uniformed officers or plainclothes officers just regular boots on the ground cops at the time once Gil and his folks identified the pattern and put together the fact that this was the these murders and a whole series of murders were the deeds of one human being the police department the Los Angeles Police Department kind of changed things for us we were very restrictive on driving with our red lights and siren on a code 3 response and in police parlance when it was determined that this was the this was the work of one human being in particular one that the name the nightstalker stuck with Richard Ramirez they started dispatching calls code 3 sighting of a Night Stalker here sighting the night stocker their sighting the night stocker over here respond code 3 well as we know none of those calls were true because it was a group of committed citizens in East Los Angeles that grabbed him and despite all that dozens if not hundreds of calls I responded to think it was a Night Stalker in fact for the final month the in August of 85 my partner and I were assigned in plainclothes riding bicycles through the Hollywood neighborhoods with uniformed officers of support during the middle of the night looking for open doors and windows anything that could have been a target a Night Stalker and responding to burglary there are now calls pedaling our backsides off on bicycles Gil meanwhile was putting all the pieces together and if I don't want it you want it just scary I just at all [Laughter] how did it all start for you guys it started out you hate to say routine Monday murder but March 17 1985 I received a phone call that said you have a homicide payal Okazaki met her untimely demise and we're Amanda Hernandez was a surviving victim and I went to my first murder and then you just start looking at things that come up and similarities and dissimilarities and there was something there between the physical descriptions because one thing we weren't saying publicly I wrote a search warrant on April 10th about it but there were some child abductions going on and all of them had the same similar physical characteristics and there was one particular shoe print that showed up both at homicide scenes and with the child abductions and that was the shoe print of the via shoe that shoe of which once we start focusing on the shoe and just get some studies done I can tell you without equivocation that on january 9th 1985 1356 bear model for 4uv has arrived from in new york from taiwan for distribution throughout the u.s. of which six pair ended up in the state of california one pair ended up in LA so when you start putting stuff together it all come together I think that applause is way overdue I remember Gil telling in this a couple years ago when we first first sat down to talk about this and when he called out those numbers my you know because we're in law enforcement it my jaw to hang so I I was I was duly impressed so and this is why as he taught he touched on the first murder back in st. Patrick's Day 1985 our first murder here in Los Angeles should stay and this is why law enforcement was mobilized why Gil and his partners were in a task force configuration the crimes the crimes listed here are obviously extremely violent and very significant and I wasn't it wasn't it tuned to the child abductions were there any that were here that we could actually prove that we're him well we we initially filed it must have filed five what we call kiddie cases mmm when we filed the murders and there was one in particular was a six year old little girl from rkv that was kidnapped abducted taken down to a Skid Row hotel and we were told about it I was out there on the 28th of June because I had a murderer out there she had been abducted on the 26th of June and sergeant brands my female sergeant from Arcadia Police Department told me about it I said well just keep her in tow we don't know if anything's involved yet but wait until we have something and then we'll see you continue to work your case well we did and and we found out that she was part of it and at six years old she is the brightest sharpest little child I've ever met to include my I have three children of my own that her were mentally gifted minors but in there they're all here right I still worry about him and they're here they're here today at six years old I was introduced to her shoes we had a lineup downtown and she was covering a little coloring book and keep her occupied her parents god bless them they were super Pro police I walked up I introduced myself I said could you introduce your daughter to myself I said because we're gonna go in this room right now and you're not going to be able to go with her and a lot of kids are afraid of me because I'm so big and others you know I'm fine with well they said sweetheart one introduce you to somebody she'd turn rush goes well I know him that's detective Gil Carrillo he's working on the Nightstalker case I've seen him on the news now 41 44 47 are my kids their age today I still can't get them to watch the news this one was doing it at six years old we had the line up any questions go up and we instructed him if anybody wants to go up on stage to get a closer look at the lineup you line up against this wall you take your steps on up you stop in front of one you have to stop in front of all of them if not just walk to the end of the wall come back pick your seat don't talk don't say anything if you have a question raise your hand line up was done her hand was the first one it went up she was the first one in line by the way her hand went up and said yes sweetheart you have a question yes do I write the number I write the number two or go write the word two and said whatever you'd like and so we filed five cases that was September of 85 January of 86 we're getting ready we're preparing for preliminary hearing and so we went down her house he wanted interviewer it was the my partner Frank Salerno deputy da Phil helping and myself we went there and mom I open the doors just come on in and says how is she well I should've been after handsome but she knows she's gonna talk to you and she's okay so they walked around mommy walked her out with her hand and they sat down on the couch and mommy plopped her up on her lap and and she said sweetheart do you remember these gentlemen and she said yes and then she whispered something in mommy's ear and then she started laughing and she said she wants me to let you know pointing to me she remembers you the best because you remind her of her teddy bear [Laughter] I've never seen a tattooed teddy bear that's all buffed out with a rag on it he's mean looking bare so the DA asked her in in short do you remember going to that theater like with the citations yes and she does not remember picking number two and he says well okay well why do you remember picking number two so much because we want to make sure somebody hadn't been priming her and why did you pick number two schism I knew it was him as soon as he walked out but I knew how absolutely positive I had to be how important this was and I'll go to court and testify if it means keeping him locked up so we can't hurt any other little girls Wow incredible stuff it still bothers me yeah I got up I said excuse me and I walked out of the room I walked to the kitchen My partner Salerno lasted about 20 seconds longer than I did the DA he's an attorney's got no heart now he he lasted about a minute and then he came into the kitchen with us and he just said hey fellas what do you say we dismiss all the kiddie cases we've got enough with the adult murders I said fine you know no need to put the kids through it their families through it it was all gonna be eyewitness testimony there was no evidence of course entering in the kid case in the kid cases then in 2010 right after I retired I get a call from San Francisco and they had found an old case from 1984 there was a nine or a ten year old little girl and they made Richard through DNA which now you know gave us the link yes there's some physical evidence that he did did do this well it's an incredible story and Gil brings up some names a to familiarize you to to recognize him and three to thank them Frank Salerno was Gil's partner I believe was Frank that selected you for this case specifically no no the specific it was the less I answered the page no they called me so you got a murder I had a regular partner Jim Mercer at that time and so after we had a couple of these things and I started saying hey I think one man's doing this then the captain put Frank Salerno in charge like I'm a acting lieutenant in charge of a little group see if there's something there to really follow up on Frank was seeing if Frank and Gil ran ran this thing Phil Halpin and Allan yochelson Phil's passed away if I remember the old-fashioned way in Allen yochelson were the were the prosecutors on this case which since you've got the numbers in front of you obviously a very very complex case this many counts and I'm speaking from personal experience this many counts a it's difficult to get filed with the district attorney and be it's very difficult to convince a jury that somebody is guilty of 28 39:53 separate crimes these guys Gil Frank yochelson and Phil Halpin returned guilty verdicts on all of these counts and it's a phenomenal achievement in and of itself though this this is the other aspect of it and I'd like to say that when you bring a law enforcement together and in close proximity to one another with a common goal that everybody plays well in the sandbox but that's not necessarily the case I saw another level at which I admire Gil and and his task force for bringing this together because you look and see just in the City of LA alone there was you know downtown LA there was a crime Glassell Park Northridge Sun Valley and then all these neighboring jurisdictions Burbank Glendale Rosemead Whittier Monrovia Sierra Madre Diamond Bar and then the final crimes were Orange County if I remember correctly so and then the San Francisco was what he was just talking about about the the fine later on it was a nine year old girl that was murdered up there that was attributed to to Ramirez much after the prosecution his incarceration going back to this so you saw the huge number of crimes there it means all these or all these police organizations have to come together they've all got to decide that they want to cooperate with Gil and Frank and keep the old from coming out of his teddy bear mode so that in and of itself was was a challenge did you want it share with them some of the difficulties that you faced with something like this it's it's difficult because we're gonna work with cops everybody's got an ego and put this task force again everybody's got a suspect there but he has a favorite suspect and I heard everything from for those old time Dodger fans around here they thought it was Mariano Duncan because he was looking like the guy I had one guy one old-time ex-marine homicide investigator that was working on task force longtime friend Willie Wilson he sat there and he slamming stuff down he's upset and he's he was what we called a clue clown we'd give them they would be assigned clues and they were clue clowns go out and follow this up and he's cussing and spitting and so what's wrong now Willie yeah I'll look at this the guy looks just like him yet too dead to that to that the only problem is he says you get down to the bottom he says the guy's a and he so what he's done since yeah he says the guy's a short person he says he's less than 4 foot tall and I'm looking for it said ok Willie go get some more coffee and then get back at it and in trying to get everybody's favorite everybody wanted to push it on in you have the certainly the big wigs of the sheriff you have that time mr. Davis and you have sheriff block and they all want it solved because this is making them look bad a serial killer running around and we can't find and then you have the locals and everybody wants piece of the action let alone the stuff you got to deal with at work but then I know you're gonna find this difficult to believe I do have a wife and family and kids and sisters and mom and you know you're trying to you're worried about protecting them and their problems you know the pipe rope I don't care about any pipes right it's great and I was just reminding my wife the other day I'm calling home very typically calling to check on my family and she told me that she had caught my 13 year old daughter then caught her crying in the bedroom and she says what's wrong and she said nothing know something's wrong what is it she says I just want my dad hold got all up in my throat and I felt bad because I wasn't there and I hung up the phone and I wanted to beat my wife because how can you tell me this stuff right now you know I got to concentrate on murders and you know hearing this and oh it was it was really a tough road tough road to go only because I had good friends hard-working colleagues around me that allowed me to continue going forward and what gills related it's kind of the the direction that we wanted to take with this particular book there's an authoritative recounting of the crimes and whatnot of the book written by Philip Carlo and the name of it escapes from the specific name of it escapes me escapes him right now really the focus of this was what these crimes did to the Greater Los Angeles area and an entire region back in back in the summer in 1985 and as you can see nobody was immune to it the lead investigators own family here had their concerns about it it was a tough time for everybody and that was our focus here with our our interviews you know Gil's here to to talk about you know the important work that was done but the other the contributors and the other folks that we spoke to and putting this together it was just remarkable a the recall of how rotten that summer was and be the things that they did that were out of the ordinary out of the ordinary forum folks would never own a gun or it never owned a gun before had purchased guns you know people that you know had an outdoor dog that all of a sudden was barricaded in the bedroom with him all kinds of things that went on that just turned the turn the Southland on edge that here when you mentioned about all the folks that you've worked with I'd be neglecting something my father responded to the the couple of the Canadians in the City of Glendale he was in charge of the detectives at the time was this the centerpiece Wow that was kind of the nighttime burglaries I mean yeah that that was that was July the fifth we were out there and that was the Whitney Bennett residence and we went inside and she hadn't we were told we were called out and I can remember laughing at my partner because we've been working I mean we was got home about three o'clock in the morning now they're calling me up at four o'clock in the morning and they're saying you got another one you know it's uh pure sierra madre yeah all right they give me the information and they said well she's not dead yet but they want us to handle it and she's gonna die and I said okay fine and I said we'll go ahead and call your partner I said I you better let me call him he's not gonna be happy I know he's the Italian stallion and so I called him up and I said hey and he hates being called Frankie well hey Frankie we got one and he's just killed now's no time for your stupid jokes no Frankie this is the real deal we got one better get your paper or pencil before we get it we got a rope and he says Gil I'm telling you I'm tired don't be messing around it's okay Frank tell you what I'll give you the address you show up if you want to I'm going I ain't got time for this see you later Frankie Oakes see you at the party and I hung up on him well they showed up and it was a real call and we go out there and it's about 11:40 in the morning and giselle la Binet who looks like she should be on drag that has a little white coat on you know the lab coat and she had her hair in a bun she's from our she's a criminalist and she comes out of the bedroom and she says hey fellas found something may be of interest to you I think gotta come take a look at it and so we walked in the bedroom and there was a comforter with a bloody of via shoe print on it and a super the chills right now I'm telling you and I just said kiss my patooties or something like that and he said yeah kiss yer patoot errs and we walked back out into the living room and he says okay we've got us a serial kill this is the serial killer definitively and called a cap mob just say it's definitely on because now we can put that shoe print at various all the way back to March 29th and we can do it with a ten year old girl that was kidnapped out of Northeast Division we could put it in a few places and then the race came on and it was good and we had just found we found out two days after this we had found a partial bloody footprint and Mary cannons house in Arcadia just a couple of miles away from this residence and it was the avi also so that's one and we've been we'd kept the press at bay we've kept them at bay you know they saw us on June of 28 that had a residence and they said what's going on a routine mundane murder you know it's all it is and then four days later they see us a Mary cannons house and they said hey you were just over Patty Lane Higgins I'll see ya but since it's an Arcadia we're close we're either we just I will take it and they don't know what's going on and we didn't tell him about this one because you don't have to notify the press and unless it's murder and so we didn't notify them about this one so they didn't and by the way Whitney survived she did not die Oh just as a side note her name is now Whitney Salerno she got married in my partner's son so with three handsome young men going to college to him we're going to college now but on the seventh of July that's when the news media really gets involved because they go out there they say hey wait a minute now we're back in city of Monterey Park there's any wait a minute you guys were in our Cadia two days up there you guys are here they're catching up on things and they know the serial killer and that's what it was did everything hit the fan that was tough and perhaps you can tell us and this is going back to you know direction that that we were given working in Hollywood and I've heard it I too many times to count since since 1985 and I heard it again hear the other hear it here the other day was there anything - and you know I'm sure some of the folks out there I've heard it supposedly there was a profile to the and I know you've heard it - the residences that Ramirez selected and it was a yellow house with white trim at the end of the cul-de-sac he's any truth any of them know news media was putting out it appears that he's hitting yellow houses well if you remember if anybody can remember during that time everything was earth tones beige yellow you know was very earthy and Richard laughed later on when we spent time talking with him good friends that we were he says that was probably put out by Sinclair paints or something like that it to get you to buy their paint paint your house but there was no truth to that it was just all houses were like that and he hid they said and he's hitting near freeways well it's hard to find someplace in LA that ain't worked near a freeway you know so they just they write whatever they can whatever they want to you know what did this do in terms of the the coverage and more specifically and more importantly did this change anything in the way you approach your investigation not initially I'm just an honest man you'd show me that and I'd say Oh some kid trying to draw a star I had no idea about this pentagram stuff that's the pentagram that's the sign of the devil that's the Tanic in nature and I didn't know about I learned about it you know but I didn't know about it then so it didn't really mean much and we didn't put out any Satan worship stuff at the time I wasn't till after and it's it's funny because when I'm interviewing him he gets his finger and he starts going like this on the table right in front of us and I looked at him as he's doing I said go ahead and fill it in rich and he says what I said go ahead and fill it in the pentagram I said that that that stuff doesn't bother me that's one for you guys who believe in this stuff guys and the white hats always win don't you know that anyway luck erased it and so he every time he went out he tells us he used to put just get a pen and draw a pentagram on his arm that gave him strength and power when he ran away from officer star beause you drew a pentagram on the hood of the car really good guy and just to follow up on the running away part I wasn't exactly a shining moment for Los Angeles Police Department the officer that he described actually stopped Ramirez on a traffic stop after looking at him he questioning today something along the lines of hey you're not that guy that's killing everybody are you yeah and Richards response of course was to take off on foot not to be seen again until he was captured in East Los Angeles so yeah be a via footprint there it is yeah so that this is in these are kind of the two things that that were key in bringing this bringing us all together and Gil's talked about how many times that the footprint was found in various places and in in various media and dirt and blood on fabric so that shoe print tied every thing together that helped these guys learn that there was just a single very vile human being responsible for this but they still needed to know who it was and so that arrived via fingerprints right how many and I as you talked about multiple multiple locations with shoe prints how many how many locations did you guys successfully recover finger prints well I recovered a fingerprint two times once inside of the kitchen of a lady that survived she died of natural causes he did nothing to her I believe her name was Clara Hansel and that's because he broke into the house went in through the kitchen window and he put the foot print on it on the sink in a hand as he went in and it was a burglary no violent crime and we wouldn't use it we did nothing more than to use it for we didn't charge him with a crime to show that there was a fingerprint and the shoe print together in the same location yes because we did not want to minimize anything he did we wanted to focus on the murders and we didn't want to show that he was a nice guy didn't kill somebody so that was here then the most important print was found by was lifted by Orange County Sheriff and that's when they found it on a stolen car that he used down in Mission Viejo the car was recovered here in LA City was towed back because it was their vehicle using their crime not ours and they lifted a print you know and all that stuff then powerpoints far from being a comprehensive revisit of the case our our time here is limited but all the stuff that Gil's talking about is laid out laid out in the book photographs explanations and whatnot because that was the key to the case right yeah their key key to the arrest that was the key to the rest we they were able to get that print match it up to him because we had an informant working person that time told see guys name was Richard or ill des Bernardo or Ricky that's been either ones translated into English just means the uncombed one you know his hair is all curly and Ricky or Richard up in San Francisco they had a gentleman up there that got arrested Armando over the the investigator from San Francisco that had the Peter Pan case up there and that's his real name although it does sound Mickey Mouse no Peter Pan was his real name he they recovered some jewelry they heard about some jewelry and we did recover it and that guy gave a last name of Ramirez during that time we didn't have DNA fingerprints weren't automated other than for felony convictions Richard didn't have any felony convictions he had a misdemeanor conviction so we told him and search they came up with eight Richard ramirez's and then they matched one of them to the fingerprint and they said bingo they sent us a booking photo we showed it to our informant Friday at 3:00 in the afternoon August 30th he said that's it printed thousands of those pictures up and then they had a press conference at night said this is the guy we're looking for he's captured the next morning and the fingerprint again automation was just coming to the fingerprint system that was hand carried to Sacramento flown up to Sacramento I know went from San Francisco I don't know how they got it there the automatic rent no they had the name Richard Ramirez okay and then they had they had him fingerprint because he had been arrested in eight over in 84 so they matched Richard Ramirez with a fingerprint of an arrest over here that's where we got the booking photo from and I I would venture to say they had to a fax or something get it up there right away from Orange County I I wasn't you stumped me I don't know yes I you're the one that told me you know this was in here as a cue if so you could tell us how many pairs of shoes there were the other purpose of this was as you can see just from from a plain examination that's just looking at the shoe just just how clear a shoe print that they were able to recover not all of them were or this clear though were they no no that was that was absolutely taken out of the dump a plaster cast we had a pretty good one off of Joyce Nelson's house and that was dust lifted Chuck van der where the dusted the porch same thing out of the house in Sun Valley I got it out of there nice porch works that stuff came out good the rest of the plaster cast you could see it but and then Mary canons house she'd stepped on a rug brand new rug and we cut it up took Hulk out and had it code three down to the crime lab they took pictures of it three days later we find out yes it you know with the right lighting its anivia footprint cash right in before the pilot raised up in that saying kind of indicative of a the measures are the lengths to which Gill and his partners went to deal with this and B it speaks greatly to the benefit of DNA so you know the places that this has shown up its shown up in blood was what he's talking about his fingerprint dust was applied to concrete floor right seminal fluid seminal fluid all the all these different types of physical evidence that they had to a expertly gather be preserve and see identify and now I really I won't say everything but so much relies on DNA swabs and whatnot it was a a game-changer to law enforcement and specifically to homicide investigations that you know as you guys now know Gill did four typically what people do for a lawn for twenty six years which is a long time to be in the business much less to be chasing down murderers as we talked about this is the booking photo that Gil was just talking about saying was a car theft arrest in 1980s when ipv4 and rusted right downtown now downtown LA because he was in a stolen car and the informant told us he's arrested the stolen car downtown we're just misdemeanor conviction can find it we've really I'm assuming this was a plea if it was a misdemeanor yeah so yeah he gets arrested for a felony which is you know grand theft auto or driving without an owner's consent but he goes to court and they let him plead out to a misdemeanor which you know you stop and think well you know how big a deal isn't well Gill touched on it one of his saying one of the things he mentioned how big a deal it meant that his fingerprints didn't go into the automated system so arguably you could probably make an argument that the first time they came across the print had he pled to a felony or gone to trial and been convicted of a felony he'd have been yes correct he'd be identified early and now they're all it now everything's automated but back then it wasn't we just write in on our horses get up so this is kind of kind of where it came to an end I very much enjoyed the fact that somebody preserved a photograph of the address just probably the photographer or one of the crime-scene folks exactly again here's where we're at big picture evident yep so he got the call here you need to go to 37:33 Hubbard because you know they've just whooped ass on the Night Stalker and photographer took a photograph of it and here it lives on 30 plus years later initially was saying was the sheriff saying sheriff's deputies that responded took him into custody and then and then the Blue Meanies came across the screen LAPD there's jurisdictional line there was Indiana Street the west side was LAPD the east side was a county area the yellow dividing line separated about a half a block into the county side he had gotten off a bus that morning he was running he had ran across the Santa Ana freeway over the sound barriers over fences through Hillandale the guys kind of tired but he gets caught in the county side well LAPD is following 911 I'm gonna cry he just said much somebody in my backyard there and they're going from call to call and they finally catch up with him we've got him in custody and this guy Andy Ramirez god bless him who retired as a captain just last year good friend of mine and he was a bhoot rookie cop work in a one-man day car he's happy because he responded to a citizen holding a felony suspect that's a gimme arrest easier so he's got him in the back seat of the car he had called paramedics they had already put a turban on his head for him and he just sitting there well he's gathering information from witnesses here come to Blue Meanies they get out of the car one cop cop something says yep that's the guy we've been looking we've been chasing took him out of the car put him in their car and before you could whistle the USC fight song he was gone and then route to Holland back and the deputies from East LA station wanted to kick the living stuffing out of Andy Ramirez how could you let the biggest arrests of the decade go to the Blue Meanies he was our arrest and I just laughed I thought it was funny because I and I told the guys should we sell it had it gone the other way you guys would have done the same thing come on and I went down to Holland back that morning and a lieutenant my name of Ron Lewis was charge of Robbery Homicide detail he was down there it was a big room second floor at all in back station good-sized room you'd have thought there was a party going on cops in there yeah it was just so and Ron just said Gil you call the shots it's all yours your case and my partner hadn't arrived yet I said okay well we just are Mike let's clear out this room and got everybody out of the room and I had to go and take a peek I want to see him for sheriff and so I did and then we just waited you never want to get in a hurry so we waited til Frank got there wait until we got somebody from our latent print section there roll him for fingerprints do a comparison yes that's the guy now we can go to work and by this time as this picture depicts there were thousands of people outside I mean some madhouse outside and then somebody passed the word that they were gonna kill him when he came out and so myself and LAPD detective Paul Tipton was we're the keepers of the guns we've got guns our partners on the back seat with Richard and we have a motive we had to wait till we got more officers there they had a motorcade in front motorcade behind helicopters going overhead and you thought the president was in town it was all for Richard yeah was saying after we successfully kidnap Richard Ramirez from the Sheriff's our challenge really was this this crowd as he described there were thousands of people outside of Hollenbeck station and as Neil indicated there was a chant that went through the crowd you know to kill him Lynch II mean I think it it had a couple of different verses to it not depicted in the in the slide presentation here but in the book there's another photograph and it's Mayor Tom Bradley and he did did you did you see him that day yes and that's the speaks to the import of the case our mayor long serving mayor Los Angeles Tom Bradley he responded to Hollenbeck station probably to do the same thing gilded hey what's this guy look like the different Sara's and Tom Bradley was retired lieutenant from the LAPD the official story was he was there so he could calm the masses I'm not sure that he did that very well and did you get a chance to speak well they no no no we were we were tied up we didn't do anything you know I remember I called my wife now I affectionately call my wife sister Mary Clarence she's a sweetheart she's a nice lady doesn't use profanities most of the time I'm the Ethan you know that cartoon that's the angel over here I'm the one on this side to do it there do it and so I called her up and on August the 8th she moved out with the kids she took so I'm not coming back till this is over with and so she was gone I called her up I said it's over with we have them in custody what do you mean is in custody why isn't he dead I said dear calm down it's ungodly so I remember my cousin was getting married that day they had the big festivities at the Pasadena Hilton and so I just told her I said go there get a room to my daughters were had something to do with the wedding out passing out flowers selling Chiclets I don't know they were doing so I said I'll get down there when I can so about 8:30 that night I come walking in 8:30 9:00 o'clock and one of my sisters who never used to show affection towards me you one of my younger sisters she comes up she puts her arms ooh I want to walk in with you and she puts her arm around me I said what's this about what for you know why Alma saw you'll see and I walk in and I can hear people saying there he is that's him that's him and okay it's me but I'm just Gil and then my mom and sisters came up and we all started crying I said it's over it's over where's my wife she was up the road she was up in the room doing something I don't know she comes down and I said okay let's go to the bar I need a drink so I go to the bar and I order a cocktail and somebody says I'll buy his drink yeah I said oh think he's very kind sir and the bartender says if there's nobody here to sponsor drink it's on the house you pay nothing tonight and I said oh you could be best friends and I went out I said hello to my cousin and then I told my wife I say no what I'm gonna go up to the room this is it's my cousin's nights Tommy's night it's not my night it's his wedding I said I'm gonna go up to the room I'll be able not only that I'm tired and my daughter said I want to go with you and so we went up to the room she put her PJs on and all of a sudden the fire alarm starts going off and I said okay the old panic felt the door no heat no key slowly open up the door and then it's an all-clear it was an accident you know dry run and then the real work started went back to work the next day that's when the real work started so it was so between June about the end of September right I had no days off and it was just all it was all work an overdose of Richard Ramirez yeah so yeah so in August 31st of 85 for capture date that was his rusty and the turn of the trial and you went through motions and preliminary hearings and whatnot but the trial which was a protracted trial starts on the 22nd of July in 1988 you guys went in obviously very prepared and as you've talked about very selective about the counts that were filed yeah can you share with us what it was like in you know having sat at the iOS seat for a long periods of time I never sat there for almost a year and a half but I let these folks I know what what it's like when your life is court which for an investigator is high-stress because you don't want to come out there a loot come out of there loser and when you've got 50 some counts what was it like sitting in the in the i/os chair every day very boring you know you listen to everything you listen every word and everything you're doing it at very very intense you have to pay very close attention everything take notes and then when you're done with today everything you've done today you're just prepping for tomorrow so it's it's a long laborious thing my wife and one of my daughters it's here today I'll sit right here in front row they went to trial they they've never done anything you know my work is my work and they just with all the hoopla they wanted to see what it was like to go to Christ just got him in they went to sit there and that was the day that one of our victims took the stand and she cried her heart out she it was the defense counsel said isn't true the only reason you can pick my client out today is because you've seen his paper his picture in the paper right after it happened and she said no no and she started weeping openly crying said no I am a Shiite Muslim and I went into she went into hiding for 40 days and 40 nights when in seclusion 40 days 40 nights no television no radio no newspaper no nothing I know it's him because he did it you did this to me why did you do it to me you you took my child's father you took my husband he was my friend you had didn't have to do what I gave you what I had and oh gut wrenching everybody including the judge was crying and then she stopped and she said I apologized to the court back in or she was from she was a medical doctor and so she composers on should I apologize and he said would you like take a recess she says no we must continue and she went on so with some very compelling stuff trial everything was done where the real tension comes in as when you're waiting for a verdict every day you're waiting you know what are they gonna say what are they gonna do we'd had our problem one juror got don't believe one juror died you know they found her in her apartment and they had to dismiss some jurors and so now you're just waiting and then the day comes in and when they announced verdict on count one and I knew once they announced that verdict the rest him we're going to come in and I remember going home that night later that night I got home and went to bed I had never cried as an adult male and I got in bed and I started crying like a like a little like a little baby I started crying and my wife just leaned over and said it's okay he was with you I missed my dad I wished he could have I wished he could have been there on this day I was I know he'd been proud so was good and then I went to sleep didn't get in trouble didn't get yelled at just real quick yeah and you talked about how how tense it was in the time between the conclusion of the trial and awaiting the verdicts Ramirez churned through defense attorneys from during the course of those those those four years and at one point I think he wanted to defend himself no he didn't want a defendant he'd you didn't know what he wanted he'd write he had Allen at a shake from the right and then he had some guy from Oxnard come down and he died of a heart attack and so they said you know what's he doing and then he finally ended up with Arturo and Daniel Hernandez they weren't related but we used to call them together the hard and I a they were overwhelmed they had no idea what they were getting into this was their first multiple murder case they were proud of the fact they had one day and had one murder trial prior to this one and it got reversed because of attorney and competency and they were proud and then Michael Tainan during trial he could see the writing on the wall the judge the judge yes I'm Paul guys Michael pine and the judge the trial judge he appointed a good attorney to help him out so there was three attorneys on their side and still helping took the prelim deputy district attorney by himself he ended up with ulcers ended up in the hospital and so then they brought on Ellen yochelson for trial who was very competent but make no mistake about it Phil helped and ran the ship he ran all of us he was you roared like a lion but he was a good heart and best D I've ever worked with great to hear with this now three attorneys what kind of defense did these guys mount they tried the wrong guy you know Richard wasn't there then they tried taken apart the investigators and they couldn't find a weak link their attorney did they did some documentary in and the attorney that was assigned me says you know we were trying everything there was he says and we finally got Richards father to get up there and testify that Richard was back there during the time of some of these killings well when his dad did that I went home and I just have a binder with News newspaper Colombians kept everything else look so I went back and I started looking and I found a reporter that had interviewed the father the day after a Richards arrest and the dad says I haven't seen him in months so I immediately called up El Paso Texas hey I'm looking for this reporter so he's not long a worrier he left years ago about three or four years ago he left and I said where do you go he said we went to Miami I said okay thank you I called up by a me information give me the two biggest newspaper papers you have in Miami they gave him to me and I said okay I called the first one and I said hey please don't think I'm not some a cop from LA I'm looking for this oh yeah you want talking with you right now he got on the phone and said hey you remember doing this every SLO yeah I remember doing that how'd you like vacation Ellie so we bought him we brought him out here and then he got up there as a rebuttal witness right and it just blew daddy right out you know ray Clark was the diffuser and defense attorney and Ray Clark says hey they just blew us out of the water these guys were good at they did everything right and you take luck over skill any day I'm gonna submit that wasn't in it wasn't luck this was part of where I was going with this is the tense moments waiting between waiting during jury deliberation and the workload massive workload to put the case together trial starts and the work just continues and and Gil just touched about it because somebody gets on the witness stand and says something they've got to work to refute it and in this case and and I'm here to tell you from a professional standpoint that wasn't luck this is a guy that knew what he was doing and be a guy that wasn't gonna give up here so it's a great story hey what do you think about his vacation in LA I don't know everything was business I will I will share funny with you though as a result is Kevin we went back to do some homework because the father said he had been back there for a baptism and we knew where he worked I said okay so I called a buddy of mine from El Paso and I said hey we need to go out there guy's name was Dwayne Johnson Donald had called up Dwayne Johnson and said we need to go out there this is what we're looking for can you have things ready for us so we flew into El Paso and he picked us up at the airport he says okay he says you wanted the dad's work records he worked for the railroad yes I said okay and he wanted to find out if there have been yes okay we've already went to the church yes Richard was there we've got all the records we got that and what about dads ray says all his records are back in LA so that today is Friday how long you guys gonna be out here around well we got to be back my Sunday night this is okay you want to go to the hotel first or would you like to go what's your whistle first they had done all the work for us and it was a nice weekend yeah it's nice as it can be in El Paso that's right hey I tell you what they got they have a I call it a restaurant cuz bar sounds too tough on Sunday morning they open up at 6:00 in the morning with cocktails and Minu though it doesn't get any better than after people like and these are the gentlemen from the prosecutor from the district attorney's office Phil help and the bearded felon sorry for the pixelation I don't know what happen with that Alan yochelson was the co prosecutor and this is the this is probably most important part of it as we mentioned earlier guilty counts were returned on for every every criminal charge it was filed against him he was sentenced to death yeah that speaks for itself so it before we wrap that up and just want to talk to a couple talk to kill about a couple things that are specific to a courtroom behavior by Ramirez and then be some stuff that happened after he went to prison so when we talked to me back when you and you told me about his his behavior when he entered the courtroom held in a jail cell adjoining that's adjacent to the courtroom and then there's a big wooden door that they they pass through I think they're the photograph with the bailiff me it may have shown it when he walked in the courtroom what do you do I walked in the courtroom the first thing you do depending on what courtroom we were in he'd walk in and if in fact he's walking to the table this way the judge would be over here the audience would be over here he'd walk in and he'd scan the audience looking for good-looking women he'd pick one out that's the one he was gonna look in he'd go face the judge now when it's time to recess for him to get up everybody I'd remain in their seats and he'd get up and just smile and stare and give her winks whatever he wanted to do and he'd walk out and we tell about the attorneys yeah okay so one day sitting there council table testimonies going on the bailiff says hate and phones4u so I get up and I go sit next to the bailiff and I'm talking on the phone and finish my call hanging up and now they're going to recess Richard gets up I had noted there were two attorneys they were dressed to the 10th they were very nice-looking ladies reminded me so much of my wife and very attractive and so they walked in and they sat on the aisle so there is nothing between the aisles right here and Richards gonna walk in front of him and he had noted when and they smiled as he's walking on the way out the one on the aisle side looked at him he smiled and she opened up her legs ill on you I wanted to go into custody she did that and blew him a kiss and I'm saying holy jesus and I went back and I told my partner I said hey I want to get arrested as this one goes along with the territory I mean there were all kinds of women that would go in there to look at him and some very ugly some very attractive with these these were you'd think they were smart you know business attorneys and maybe she was just joking with him I don't know Oh terrible and there was one there was one other behavior that I thought was thought was very curious and it turns out that it was associated with Richards business aspirations his sunglasses well that he wanted to wear he didn't want to he didn't want to take off his sunglasses and he left them on and then we got him with pictures sunglasses you know the same ones he wore in there and there were things in a UV warm and God bless her soul free Dickman was a spry lady in her late 60s when this chat when this happened she had worked the psychiatric ward over a USC Medical Center and work emergency overseen all kinds of stuff and she testified that he was because he actually sexually assaulted her and had anal penetration so it was a sodomy and she said he was quite a handsome young man and she was afraid that because he couldn't maintain an erection that he might be embarrassed and kill her because he couldn't maintain any of out of embarrassment but he didn't and when he she said in courtroom that he was quite a handsome young man Richard turned around he was embarrassed then and he looks at me and he says that wasn't me and I'm so he's sick individual sick man did he express to you and at one point that he he thought he was going to establish his own line of sunglasses that I don't if it was ascribed to me and maybe I told you that I don't know was I my second glass of wine no I don't I don't remember what do you know that I can't say he did now over time following the conviction and you maintain contact with him infrequent but you did maintain contact with him you share with the folks what that was like well it there there's no you have to understand that yes he is the worst man I've ever talked to you know if you look at him in anything he there is but yet I have a job to do and my job was to try and gather evidence try and gather facts to make a presentation so in realities I talked to Richard no different than I talked to anybody else in life and I called him rich he called me Gill he called my partner mr. Salerno because mr. Salerno had been very public he had worked on the hillside strangler before and Richard was a well-read individual he was smarter than most than any murder suspect self-taught well-read than any murder suspect I'd ever ever interviewed and I said Ritchie calling me brother we get along you know and I know why we get along because I was product of the streets and I knew gang jargon and I knew talk where the other guys were not and so we got along good I said what you call him mr. Salerno yeah that's I said what do you think he was seven foot tall and Hubbard he puts his pants on just like one leg at a time just like me a new brother he says yeah but that's mr. Salerno Gill so he was awestruck with Salerno but he wasn't any different than anybody else when I go up there you know he sees him they made a big deal out of one day in court he walked in and he looked at me what I let gotta do and all the news media so what was that a threat what was going on the only one thing the only one that really understood was Tony Valdez from channel 11 and it still is a joke between Tony and myself Tony and not Tony and I turned out to be very dear friends I did Henry Alfaro at the time and every time I I still hear from Tony and you'll send me a text and he'll start over Lord I look out of the oh it was good when was the last time you saw him Richard yeah she's probably in the mid-90s early to mid 90s with last time I saw him they wanted to prosecute up in San Francisco and they and I thought it was absurd because by the time we already had him sentenced to death down here they wanted all of our surviving victims to go testify over there which would have been at least 10 to 15 years after the fact and if any of their testimony changed back then that would have give him grounds for right to give us a new trial down here and the DA up there was a was a guy by the name of Arlo Smith and he was running for office again and his opponent was saying Arlo is soft on crime so now he wanted to use all these cases down here so he could have multiple murderers up there and get the death penalty and I wouldn't help him out I said no no no they threatened the get a bench warrant out after me and I finally had to get an audience with the sheriff who sent me up with County I said I ain't going up there unless you give me county counsel and so County Council went up there I saw rich Richard told me that he would cop out to four more murderers that he had down here in LA but it was gonna take about seven years and he never did he didn't he got he got mad at me so I miss him he passed away on June 7th 2013 I was attending my grandson's graduation from junior high school that day the social butterfly and our family was up in the balcony she goes dad dad look Richard just a hypo in custody and I just said I don't care I'm here for my grandson I don't I don't give two two breaths about that stuff leave me alone so we went on this one hour forty more minutes we leave as soon as it's over I looked at my phone I had a ton of messages on there and by the time I got home within an hour after I got home I had channel 7 channel 2 Channel five they had a bunt they're all down my house looking for what did I think what anything well I just think he lost his appeal you know in that's and that's a great great end to the to the Richard Ramirez story and needless to say thanks for all the work you did but there's still one issue that we need to close up here we need some closure on before we head into questions and answers here can you let him know what happened to his pair of shoes what happened yeah yeah I'll tell you whatever it is I can about San Francisco mayor Feinstein and all of her infinite mayor mayor back then Feinstein and all of her infinite wisdom we went up to San Francisco and we showed them the avea footprint because they had to murder up there Peter Pan murderer and we went up there to take a look at it and we showed him some stuff and they said this is not for public consumption we're looking first we have a car we have these shoes we need these things and this is just for your cops this is not for public by the time we've got back to LA we walked into the old Hall of Justice and then as we walk in our information bureau or the news media section one's right there and they said hey fellas come on in here take a look at this and it's mayor Feinstein with our shoe prints with the car with a caliber gun and what we're doing and I remember I was so upset and we walked upstairs to our to our office and I finally just said forget this stuff let's go down to e me lose it was a local church down in Chinatown and so we went in there and our captain was in there and we're crying the Blues you know we need to do something you know you got to stand up with this lady and you know something's got to be done to stop this stuff and the sheriff's got to know about it and the sheriff was at some kind of parade in the Antelope Valley a big big parade for them out there and so the captain says all right I'm out here I gotta go you guys be careful he called up about 30 minutes later and he says you guys stop drinking get something to eat and be back here at 7 o'clock tonight so we went back the sheriff had come in and called for a press conference and I won't tell you what he said off camera but the bottom line was he says if she doesn't shut her trap I'll embarrass her and so he put it out to all politicians to please leave it alone and then we went back into his office and he said well fellas how'd you how did it go and I'm my only response was you know you just put a smile back on to otherwise tired and letdown cops we're ready to go back to work tomorrow morning boss so it's so it was she did it but I'm not angry did you ever find out where those shoes wound up yeah yeah Richard told us he threw him off the Golden Gate Bridge after heard they went public and a gun so some of the obviously and we we talked about the biggest evidence in the case unnecessarily got got tossed because of some indiscretions let's put it that way so we now know what happened to Richard we know what happened to the shoes Gill's been nothing but accommodating and and fascinating in my estimation so I want to open it up to questions [Applause] yes sir you need we need to get we need to get like oh oh I apologize hi I was asking you know about the fingerprints you're saying back in the days when they did when someone in what year did that change that loss that was it wasn't the law it was already in effect they had started by this time putting all felons in there it was just that there was so much work to be done once they got all the felons then they started adding misdemeanors to it it was already available so it was just a matter of catching up that's when they started putting misdemeanors in there so wasn't the law was passed and you have another question up there and then O'Reilly got a real in your time with Ramirez did he ever show any any sign of remorse for what he did you know excellent question he showed remorse two different occasions he asked us to send his apologies to Whitney Bennett the teenagers lived he also the only time he actually showed remorse and he's talking to us he kidnapped a girl out of Northeast Division she was 10 years old at the time took her sexually assaulted her and she survived all the kids around here all survived and he told us he told me later that his only concern was because he had been to that house once before and the night that he took her a little puppy got out and he felt bad for the puppy here he's oh gosh is right he's kidnapped the young lady a little girl but he felt bad for the puppy okay we have a question right over here and the lady that's gonna ask this question I didn't ask her to ask a question but she you know these are friends of mine all the way from high school days Yolanda nuri thank you for being here today our pleasure Gil knowing you and knowing pearl as long as you say well since high school and knowing your accomplishments especially with this situation and involvement in such a high you know profile case I always wondered knowing what you had to go through knowing that you had to sit across this individual which in all is evil and seeing that evil in his eye and seeing what you saw in what he committed my question for you is how long did it take you to actually recover from putting this all aside so that you could go back and make that relationship again telling your kids I'm back and I'm home it actually only took two trips of the code seven with Don Garcia he let me forget all i you know i don't i never had nightmares i had the support of friends you know we went through the trials and everything everything was you know it's like you talk about football players or baseball players are playing them for on game day they put on their game face and when they're not in game day they're just regular people and I hope that I've I hope that I've never changed I'm just I told a guy from the United Kingdom I was doing an interview and he said has this case impacted your life and I started laughing he says I'm quite serious and I said Eden you know it is this case impacted my life right now you're spending thousands and thousands of dollars to get this recording for your television program he says yes and I said you take away this case and I'm just another overweight Hispanic detective in LA County and I see there is no there is no difference so with the support of friends and my family of course and there's only been a couple of times in all the years that I really have had nightmares about Richard and Mike you tell my wife I hit her I thought she was him thank you I grew up in Pico Rivera yes as did I had what's so fellow Pico did I thought I had heard that there was a footprint found there it wasn't is that true there were two cases in Pico neither one of which got much publicity because it was just Pico no one was the home of John Rodriguez who was a deputy sheriff he was home he was asleep in the bedroom and the wife was asleep on the couch I don't know who was in trouble your honor he tells me she was sick when to live must have been a good illness they got divorced so I shouldn't laugh make fun of John but he's asleep in his bedroom and they hear some noise and she says John John is that you and he comes walking out of it it was worth me I was sleep it's just somebody just tried to come in through dynein windows no they didn't I can make fun of Hispanics because I'm Mexican myself he says remember when I painted last summer he says the paint's sealed around the window I never cleaned it up it's duck clothes too so he moved the curtain back and there's paint chips all over so she said call the cops and he says I am a cop she says no you're not you work the jails so she called the cops and this guy had put a box that the first patrol deputy had gotten there he put a box over the footprint and it was EVF foot Richard was there and he put this yellow crime scene tape around two houses and if anybody including me would have tried to get in their beer I'm going through him he to shot him and he did an excellent job so we hit that night and then he hit probably now my daughter lives in the house that I grew up in and pìkô and so he actually hit about two blocks away from the house and he got up went into the house and adapt what they call the old schoolboy press remember you got a guy down the ground and some of the guys Nizza right here on top of you you know call me uncle call me daddy or give me your money where's your mommy and so Richard is on top of her in bed and she didn't fight she's calmly said don't you have a mother you know what about your mother and Richard got up and walked out of the house and that was on loss totals just just a few blocks you know and I try to tell my mom mom because my mom says at that time during the time you could you know she's slimmer the door open the door unlocked just a screen door and I'm telling her mom you got to close it up in it and it was a very tough thing on me because we're trying to keep everything secret don't want panic to be spread around a Lee County so who do I tell do I tell just my immediate family well what about my neighbors what about their neighbors what about other relatives and kids and everything else you know I was used my mother-in-law's bait I was advertising where she lived in the paper didn't work I just say that cut my wife's here hi I'm Emily and I produced the totally weird Los Angeles podcast and and we cover a lot of true crime stuff here in the context of Los Angeles but one of the questions that I'm curious about is are there other crimes out there that are quote-unquote unsolved or unprosecuted that you feel were committed by Ramirez we looked at we looked at eight different cases that we didn't prosecute but there was insufficient evidence to say even in my mind did he really do it there's some similarities there's some stuff you know a lot of things that are out there but I also learned in my world you got to be able to prosecute you got to have the evidence you got it if not it remains unsolved don't you know don't waste your time wait until you have something substantial to bite into you hi I'm Terry thank you for all your service to the city of Los Angeles in California and my friend patty and I we were living in the San Gabriel Valley in our 20s and we were really scared and anyway yeah we we slept with our window shut and locked and everybody had their air conditioner on of San Gabriel Valley that I knew but we were really really scared the question I have is how did he pick out his victims he would if a few not so much today but during that time period if you drove around at night people had hot summer night had their shades open sweeter and lights on on the inside so you could see what kind of people live there he was he used to lust literally lust after Asians talk about agency go you know see lusted after Asians and he would see as he's driving by who looks like they've got good booty not this moody but stuff this to steal so he was it was a sexual thing driving him and had to have good stuff go and then he'd go back later that later that night had nothing to do with houses he didn't pick any poverty-stricken areas lower-income areas because he knew that they they probably be awake and drinking and kill him if they got him plus they didn't have the good stuff cuz all the good stuff was hocked and to buy more booze or don't whatever they wanted to buy oh yes you know before the trial or did you ever hear or and if so did you agree with it or do you think it was just part of I didn't hear the first part did you say some of what were there any did did they contemplate an insanity plea it anymore they didn't contemplate but I don't know whose request it was whether it was just the courts or the prosecution site they wanted an evaluate 'add for psychological problems because certainly that would have been a defense but the doctor that went to talk time only lasted about 30 minutes and Richard throw him out Richard did not want anybody to believe that he did this because he was nuts he was of sound mind he wanted he did it because he wanted to do it he was you know it's kind of like Ted Bundy you know as a matter of fact Ted Bundy and him used to correspond with each other if I'd have had any intestinal fortitude at all what I really wanted to do when he asked you to Ted Bundy was said Richard a telegram saying hey see you in hell signed Ted Bundy [Laughter] did that get to your question about the mental health issues or a liquor deal ladies and gentlemen my dear friend Tony Valdez from channel 11 Florence Florence Cooper's courtroom it's the arraignment and he says hail Satan what was your reaction what do you remember about that moment other I've been there you know he said hail Satan he put his hand up he had the pentagram right here we were able to shove that right up the backside because we used that we showed the pentagram in our case on our case on one of the lady's legs and on the wall from the Monrovia case that he had it right there it didn't mean much to me just thought he was showboating from the time we talked to him he had an ego and he told it's very first time sake hey Gil he says I got an ego that'll fill this room you know he he was not ticketed man he wasn't you didn't I said he's he's smarter than the average killer great to see you was the jury seated when he came in and did that no that was just time for arraignment they went in yes ma'am oh sorry I forgot they got to get the mic be okay I wondered did you get any pushback from the families related to the kid cases when you decided to drop them was there any pushback or was it mostly relief no no they were relieved there there was nothing at all 2010 after I retired I was going to meet my wife they're camping locally a Benelli Park and up there it is sure and when I got there she said my god what's wrong I mean I had been crying because I got a phone call from homicide bureau said hey there's a lady would like to talk to you here's her name here's her number and I called her up and it was the six-year-olds mother and she had seen channel 2 which was unheard of at the time channel 2 did a 4 minute and 28 and 28 second segment airtime on the retire on my retirement and I mean I was only I was only killed Creole lieutenant they mean you don't get that and it was there and they've talked about this case and I talked about without mentioning any names how that young lady brought tears to my eyes and and she was such a beautiful young lady and however I never wanted to follow up on any of the kids case none of them because it would have broke my heart if I found out that they had psychological problems later on in life I just prayed and hope that they went they grew up flying well it's her mother and she said she had seen the piece the family had seen the piece and they were just so happy because I was like their family member she said you treated my daughter so good you treated her as if she were your own and every time we'd see you on the news after that and a murder scene everybody had run to the run to the TV and see you we followed you and you now know I said we didn't want to follow up because I want to make sure she was okay and I heard from Arcadia that she was growing up to be good she was doing Greek dancing and she says well she's done real good she's married she had twins her and her husband were now both physical therapists down the San Diego area and so we were both crying on a phone it was it was so such an emotional moment and my wife said what's wrong and I told her all about it and there's just a nice day so I didn't follow up on the right heard one of the one out of Northeast of his and I understand she had some problems I heard back she had some problems I was lecturing one day at a college and a young man came up and said you know she's talked about that and she was such a liar and she started using we just stood away from her so I felt bad I the father apparently perjured himself in court yes did anything happened to him because of that no we we you know he perjured himself he was the the guy's dad but ate the bottom line we were victorious and we really didn't care waste the you know perjury is a tough one too he could have said hey I didn't you have to have intent to perjure and he could have just said I made a mistake you know whether worth the time and personally I work murders I don't care about that little stuff we didn't do anything with it did you interview any of his family members or like what did they have to say I didn't we had a couple of investigators go down to Texas to interview to talk to them looking for recovered stolen property I went up to the mother and sister and I introduced myself to them when we were getting ready to get ready to start trial by then and I introduced myself to them I said if you ever have any questions you feel like you want to ask me feel free to ask me I will never ask you one question about your son or your brother I know you love him and that's where you should be but if you have any questions don't hesitate to contact me I also suggest if you want to contact me maybe I ought to speak with their attorneys first with his attorneys you know they may advise you don't do that and I don't want to step on anybody's toes but I'm here if ever you need me Richard told me later on that some locals down on our Paso were given the family a hard time and so I called up my friends in El Paso I said hey keep an eye on him the end then to do with this and Richard has said he to calm down to everything if he could had just figured out a way to lay it on his mother didn't you didn't know how to tell her everything okay time time for just one more I'm sorry we'll take we'll take yours as well I was wondering if you can add any context to how he was finally caught by the people how they recognized him I understand that they beat him well let's let's dispel the myth right now but Phil Carlo does booking on a documentary who didn't feel that was a dear friend of mine he passed away a few years ago from Lou Gehrig's disease but he says these people got him and beat him and they didn't they didn't they didn't know who he was what happened was armed per our informant we knew that he liked to hang around the Greyhound bus people which at that time was at 6:00 in Los Angeles so we put cops all around 6:00 in Los Angeles we put on the we asked LAPD for assistance and we asked them for their sis team which is a special group of people and Richard was a very dangerous and wild man so they set up all around and they had undercover people inside them inside the bus depot and the informant told us hey Richard we'll make you guys you know trust you you guys can look dirty but your teeth aren't rotten you don't stink your ears clean you know so you got to look like a bell curve from that old hillside blue or whatever Hill Street Blues Hill Street Blues yeah I guess you got to look like del key and so Richard what we didn't know we expected him to come walking into the bus depot he came in from Arizona because he had gone to look for his brother in Phoenix come back on a greyhound the Greyhound went in and soon as he got off the bus start walking in the terminal there's too many people around here something's wrong he turned around and walked back out the way the bus came in so he got away went to a liquor store saw his mug on the front page then he got on an RTD bus now whatever they're called to the MTA and all he had to do was make it about eight miles he had a brother that lived at Olympic and Brannock and when the bus stopped at Olympic at Soto some passenger went gave one of these and so they were at a red light he ding-ding-ding-ding he jumped off the bus Richard saw him go to the phone booth and now he's dialing 911 one passing by gentleman from the gas company he sees him he's flagged down and so they follow that bus this guy's on there so he starts following the bus made it down to about Olympic and lorina which is just about a half mile up the road there a mile maybe he gets off the bus and then he starts running and he starts running in a northeasterly direction over fences across the five freeway he ends up on Indiana now he gets on Indiana he tries to Jack one guy for his car didn't work he goes around the block on Hubbard Street and he sees a ladies and I was gonna Jack her she starts screaming her husband who was a good guy grabbed a tire iron or a piece of pipe on her what he grabbed but he grabbed and ran up there hit the guy in head kind of to good licks well the neighbors hear the screaming see their neighbor fighting with this guy so Richard tries running away they get him down they hold him there they don't beat him to death had it been the gang members that caught him there they would have killed him just because he's messing in their territory but they held him and then here comes Andy Ramirez you know the boot cop do look and it's all over with and that that's how he was captured we did give the Burgoyne family we gave him some money because we had money to distribute we gave ten grand some guy named Perez Jesse Perez because he was Richard used to smoke dope with him he told our guys the day Richard's rest he had we had two of our guys and ol Jesse flying down the TJ and they went recovered one of the guns and some jewel and a radio from TJ because Jesse had given his girlfriend this stuff and so they brought it back over here it's all stolen recovered property and one of the guns have been used in murders we gave Jesse ten grand we gave the Burgoyne's some money we're looking for a guy named Alejandro Espinosa who was my my informant and talking to Richard Richard says he's dead I said what you mean he said yeah yo deed I said you find out it's nothing we still hear that goes on on the outside he's dead and I said oh okay so but why don't you give the money to his wife he's got a couple of kids and it's not a bad idea so we went to that program unsolved mysteries and Robert Stack cop mas macho he he gave a did a show on it we tried to give away the money we had bunch of people trying to claim that they were the wife of Alejandro Espinoza but they they have the right answers and the realities are we didn't even know if that was his true name the house name he gave us since I didn't care and he's the guy that finally said yeah that's him you know he's he identified him for us it was good that's how he was actually captured now just just real quick we'll get to that the significance of the Greyhound station you guys also recovered a bunch of oh yeah we went in and we recovered his we called it his kill kit there was lockers there and he had his clothing in there we found some ammunition in there we didn't recover any guns from it but we recovered guns elsewhere yes thank you very much again for everything you did I had it just a quick question I know you he originally was from Texas yes was there anything that you might have suspected that he might have done there or also could you kind of tell us why he ended up picking this sangai the San Gabriel area Southern California area was there sorry I don't know why he specifically came out here other than a Skid Row it was easy to live and he was a thief and the dope user and it's a mecca for trouble so it fit right in his alleys from El Paso we didn't find anything in El Paso that was attributed to him El Paso my good friends over there they solved all their murders they didn't have any unsolved and I'm sure he's good for burglaries over there we did find a case in Phoenix that two elderly people senior citizens survived and there's no doubt in my mind it was him and Richard used to say where's the money where's the jewelry shut up and he said that almost every one of these things and so I told Richard a we talked Phoenix Hayden we know our guide and they I don't know if they had the print or not but the mo everything was the same including the verbage and we called Phoenix said yeah we don't need it we don't want it we don't need a headache so he did nothing about it I told Richard about it he said that wasn't me I said come on rich why do you want to lie to me now Ray Charles could figure this one out and he says okay I said they're not gonna do anything with it you know and it was his but they didn't die so we know we went from there and we had our investigators went back five years previous to what we were working on trying to find out everything all righty sir well thank you all and a big hand for a gilt curio ah thank you thank you all [Applause]

Channel: LA Public Library

Views: 303,417

Keywords: Los Angeles Public Library, Los Angeles, California, Public Libraries, LAPL, Night Stalker, Richard Ramirez

Id: T0mHdte9sIU

Length: 98min 6sec (5886 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 25 2019