Expendable For A Cause.

What on earth..

It’s something I briefly mentioned in, this post about eyewitness identification, and this one is particularly odd, to say the least.

A 32 year old Arcadia housewife testified at the Municipal Court preliminaries that she had, in fact, seen the accused on 27th June, 1985.

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“He looked strange to me..”

Indeed, very strange, for she testified that she had seen Richard Ramirez about a block away on the night before the discovery of the body of Patty Higgins.

Richard, according to the eyewitness, was outside Bob’s Big Boy restaurant, with a “cat on his neck, carrying a container of ice cream”

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This odd sight doesn’t seem to have unsettled the lady unduly, as she didn’t bother to report it until late August.. and yet this witness “identification” is the only thing that the prosecution had to link Richard to the crime. It being so preposterous that the charge was quietly dropped, as the evidence against him was non-existent and the prosecutors didn’t want this to weaken any other charges, with equally bad evidence.

However, this murder is forever blamed on Ramirez and no further investigation was required. As far as law enforcement were concerned, a cat and a tub of ice cream was all that was needed.

Just one more bizarre moment from the case, nothing see here.

However, I would dearly love to know who’s cat it was..

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*Update* 13th November 2023

In an interesting move away from what was testified to in court and reported in the papers in 1986 and 1987, Detective Carrillo has declared that Elizabeth Roybal came across Richard Ramirez and his cat forty yards from the house of Patti Higgins on the night of her murder, which occurred 27th/28th 1985. The autopsy report could not determine the exact time of her death.

As previously stated, this was not recorded in the preliminary hearing, when she said she saw someone who may have been the suspect about a block away, standing outside Bob’s Big Boy restaurant, and yes, the person she saw did indeed have a cat.

Detective Carrillo did not mention that the suspect was also seen carrying a tub of ice cream, but in a strange turn of events, he seems to be implying that Richard Ramirez took a cat to one of the crime scenes.
“She put him there”, he declares. However, Ms Roybals clearly felt no urgency to report what she had seen, and Mr Giacalone did not seem to blink during this odd exchange.

Detective Carrillo insists that Patti Higgins didn’t have a cat, although apparently, Ramirez did.

Rather like the absent Avia sneakers, no cat or cat hairs were ever established in court, and the prosecution had to drop this charge, conceding that they lacked the “extra piece of evidence” to tie the crime to the others. Please see THIS POST for more information on the joinder of charges and the “spill-over” effect.

The trial court dismissed the charge of homicide against Ms Higgins due to lack of evidence.

The tales attached to the Night Stalker case get more questionable month by month.

~ Jay ~