Expendable For A Cause.

Diamond Bar, Los Angeles County

8^th August 1985

Some time after 2:30am, Sakina Abowath was woken by a loud “pop” of a gun, and was hit very hard on the head and forced onto her stomach. She was handcuffed and beaten about the head. Her assailant stood on the bed and kicked her in the head with what felt like boots. He bound her feet together and stuffed her mouth with clothing. He forced her to swear upon Satan that she would not scream – otherwise he would kill her two sons, aged three, and ten weeks. At some point, Mrs Abowath ended up on the floor, where she was blindfolded.

Later, the killer removed her gag and blindfold and demanded money and valuables. Mrs Abowath guided him to the wardrobe where jewellery was hidden in a briefcase. Mrs Abowath looked at the killer, so he hit her and ordered her not to. However, as he moved to the bathroom to examine the jewellery, she glimpsed his dirty-blonde hair. The killer went in and out of the bedroom multiple times as he ransacked the house, and on one occasion, again asked her to swear upon Satan. On the final time he returned to the master bedroom, he dragged Mrs Abowath into the guest bedroom, beat her and orally raped her. He vaginally raped her then covered her with a bedspread. The killer offered her some respite when he allowed her to comfort her crying baby, but soon dragged her back to the guest bedroom and raped her a second time, as well as unsuccessfully attempting to anally rape her.

When the three-year-old son began to scream, Mrs Abowath told him to climb into bed with her. The killer bound him and stuffed pillows on top of him, restricting his breathing and asked Mrs Abowath for some tape to put over the boy’s mouth. The intruder left the room but returned laughing that he had “hit” her husband Elyas Abowath, before handcuffing Mrs Abowath to the doorknob. He barricaded her inside the room with the bed and cushions from the living room and left by car.

Evidence at the scene:

• A melon, a spoon, and a pack of Salem menthol cigarettes on the table. Melon seeds littered the hallway and front garden (transferred by clumsy police officers).
• A .25 calibre copper cased bullet with red primer in Elyas Abowath’s skull.
• Two pubic or transitional hairs (between chest hair and pubic hair) on the Abowath bed.
• A rape kit swab was taken from Sakina Abowath.
• Shoeprints on the kitchen floor.

The Rape Kit Result Suggested This Was Not Richard Ramirez

No saliva tests from the melon, its seeds or the spoon were presented by the prosecution, so there was no positive result for Ramirez. Ramirez did not smoke ordinary cigarettes – he preferred marijuana. Sakina Abowath did not mention the killer smoking during the attack. The pubic/transitional hair was not from Ramirez whose abdomen was hairless.

A vaginal swab was taken from Mrs Abowath to determine the PGM subtype of the semen. PGM markers are protein enzymes in the membranes of red blood cells. These enzymes are found throughout the entire body and are present in semen and saliva as well as blood, and provide genetic information about bodily fluids deposited at crime scenes. Criminalist Steve Renteria discovered that Richard Ramirez and Elyas Abowath shared the same PGM subtype, but they were different blood groups (Ramirez was Type O). Neither Ramirez nor Elyas Abowath produced the semen on the vaginal swab. Philip Carlo’s book revealed that Steve Renteria discovered that a specific “genetic marker” present in the semen, a “two-plus band” excluded Ramirez (Carlo, page 373).

There were further semen stains on the bed. This time, Renteria used ABO blood typing tests. One stain matched Elyas Abowath’s blood group. The other was Type O, the same as Ramirez. The presence of Type O semen does not make Ramirez the perpetrator – O is the most common blood group. The most important semen sample was on the vaginal swab which was negative as to Richard Ramirez. This begs the question why were there multiple sources of semen in the Abowaths’ bed.

A Load Of Old Ballistics?

As mentioned above, Elyas Abowath was killed by a .25 automatic firearm. The prosecution claimed this connected to the Petersen Incident, as if some distorted bullets would ever be enough to determine the person behind the trigger. It is especially odd, because the Petersen attack is nothing like the Abowath incident – Virginia Petersen was not raped and dragged around the house with the burglar or cuffed; the Petersens were both shot (they survived) and nothing was stolen. These incidents occurred 57 miles apart and the furthest in distance of all the Ramirez crimes (most serial killers have a location pattern) and it stretches credulity to suggest that only one person could be in possession of a .25 automatic in a wide geographical area, where the populating exceeded 8.5 million.

The offending weapon was never recovered from Ramirez, or anyone else connected to him, contrary to what a certain detective claims. However, four .25 bullets were recovered from Ramirez’s bag at the Greyhound Bus Station. Three of these had a similar red primer to the casings at the Petersen and Abowath scenes.

In the opinion of Edward Robinson, the prosecution’s firearms expert, the red primer on three of the bullet casings matched those found in both the Abowath and Petersen attacks and was no longer manufactured – implying it was rare. But it is doubtful that Richard Ramirez should be the only person in Los Angeles who had these old bullets. Ultimately, Edward Robinson failed to demonstrate how the bullet casings proved Ramirez pulled the trigger. Simply saying it does not make it true. Paul Dougherty, the Habeas Corpus firearms expert felt that all ballistics needed retesting and that they seemed too distorted to make accurate judgements.

Stadia Shoeprints?

The infamous size 11 Avia aerobics shoes were last seen on 20^th July at the Khovananth scene. This time, L.A. County Sheriff’s shoe forensics examiner, Gerald Burke, believed the prints at the Abowath scene came from size 12 Stadia aerobics sneakers from the Kinney brand. Ramirez was wearing a pair of Stadias when he was apprehended on 31^st August. However, according to Ramirez’s biographer Philip Carlo, Mrs Abowath testified that her attacker had been stomping about in heavy boots that he had removed to rape her. They had taken him a long time to lace up. She also said it felt like she was kicked with a hard boot sole.

The Stadia impression was only partial and Burke could not determine whether it was from a left or right shoe, so it leaves one wondering how he could know it was a 12. When cross-examined, Burke was less certain and said it could have been size 11. He determined size by putting a sole against a wall and measuring with a ruler. While the Habeas Corpus shoe expert, Lisa DiMeo, was not asked to analyse the Stadia prints, she did criticise Burke’s flawed measuring technique.

As with the Avias, Ramirez could not have been the only man in Los Angeles to wear Stadia sneakers – and besides, the man was blondish, and the semen did not definitively match Ramirez – this charge should have been dropped long before the shoeprints were up for debate.

The Transfiguring Blonde Intruder

Sakina Abowath was another victim who drastically changed the description of the killer after her initial statement. Below is the description taken immediately after the incident: white skin (MW), light brown/dark blonde curls.

 Mrs Abowath spoke to police four times. She reaffirmed to Sergeant John Yarbrough of the Night Stalker Task Force that the intruder had dark blonde to light brown curly hair. But now, she has decided that he had “Latin features” and a yellowish pallor.

Latin features are not expanded upon. Latino people do not all look the same; it is entirely possible for them to have lighter hair, but it is not typically associated with Latinos – so what made Abowath think he was no longer white?

Abowath told Yarbrough the killer had “wide front teeth” and “Sakina could not recall any gaps in his teeth.” Note the language – could Sergeant Yarbrough have been leading the witness because the Khovananth intruder had gaps between his teeth?

Abowath described the attacker as having a “recessed chest”, but again, this does not fit Ramirez’s appearance. Even when underweight, his upper torso was broad. Abowath assisted police with a composite drawing, but it has never been made public, for reasons unknown. The more she spoke to Sergeant Yarbrough, the suspect began to change. She began saying his teeth were crooked and stained and then that he just had brown hair.

Abowath said the intruder did not have an accent – nothing that stood out as different from the average southern Californian, which suggests he was not the “Spanish” accented man who had raped Carol Kyle in May. Richard Ramirez did have a slight Mexican accent as one might expect of a man from a Mexican family who grew up on the Mexican border.

It is unclear whether Sakina Abowath identified Ramirez at the tainted line-up. The Petition and the Los Angeles Times suggested she had. It is somewhat ridiculous that witnesses are asked to identify a defendant in court, when it is obvious who they are. In Ramirez’s case, his face had been all over television and he was often wearing shackles and wearing prison suits (which also inflences a jury to think “guilty”). However, Sakina Abowath was curiously confused when asked to point her husband’s killer out. From the Los Angeles Times, 16/04/1986:

Perhaps she was looking for the blonde man? Abowath denied seeing Ramirez on TV and in papers, citing her Islamic faith as a reason she avoided television during a grieving period. However, she managed to identify stolen property on the same day in the next room.

Later, at trial, the issue of the blonde haired killer returned. Sakina Abowath blamed the bathroom light for making Ramirez’s black hair appear blondish. The defence failed to impeach her with respect to her faulty and ever-changing eyewitness identification – the Petition criticises them for not attacking her credibility as a witness. However, some of the jurors did pick up on the discrepancies in this case and assisted the Habeas Corpus lawyers. Alternate jurors made declarations for Ramirez’s federal habeas appeal.

“For example, I remember that at least one of the victims described their attacker as having dirty blonde hair and Mr Ramirez’s hair was clearly dark. That distinction was really significant and his lawyers didn’t do anything to adequately address just how significant this descrepancy was.”

_{– Alternate juror, Bonita Smith, Document 20.8.}

Because of the killer’s blonde hair, some alternate jurors assumed the Abowath suspect was a Caucasian. Sophie Dickman and Lillie Doi also described a white man, although they said he had brown hair.

Specifically, I recall that three witnesses testified that they were assaulted by a tall, skinny Caucasian man. Mr Ramirez is not Caucasian and, in my opinion, would not be confused with someone who is Caucasian. Mr Ramirez’s lawyers didn’t seem to notice or didn’t understand the significance of that testimony … the other jurors said they’d heard the same thing … yet, I have no recollection of Mr Ramirez’s lawyers emphasising this discrepancy in an effective manner…”

_{– Alternate juror, James Muldrow, Document 20.8.}

These alternative jurors did not seem to have raised an objection, but perhaps this is because they did not think they were in a position to, being mere reserves.

Courtroom Hysteria

Sakina Abowath became so hysterical that she was carried away to the point she changed her story, and nobody noticed. She claimed Ramirez gratuitously killed her husband despite having given him everything, yet it was the sound of Elyas being murdered that woke her. Surely she knew her husband was dead when he failed to come to her aid. The following is from the Los Angeles Times, 29/03/1989:

Unfortunately, Sakina Abowath’s hysteria stuck in this juror’s mind instead of the fact her description did not match.

The most persuasive evidence of Richard Ramirez’s guilt was (1) the woman who broke down and cried during her testimony and said, “why did you have to kill my husband?” and (2) the shoe expert [Burke]. The man who ‘fenced’ the stolen property was pretty persuasive as well, although he was a little less credible because he seemed shady.”

_{– Alternate juror, Janice McDowell, Document 20.8.}

How Did Ramirez’s Associate Solano Obtain the Abowaths’ Stolen Items?

On 5^th September 1985, Sakina Abowath attended the property line-up held on the same day as the suspect line-up, in an adjacent room. She identified jewellery, including two gold chains, earrings, an engagement ring, a necklace pendant, a television, and a VCR as property taken from her home by the murderer. It is possible that Felipe Solano was under pressure to blame Ramirez for providing him with stolen property – during the trial, Solano’s testimony crumbled as it transpired that he was protecting at least three other burglars. Two of those made police statements naming yet more burglars. Sadly for Ramirez, none of this was thoroughly investigated and none of them testified at trial.

Ramirez’s attorneys were supposed to raise the topic of third-party suspects who were known to both the police and the District Attorney. The Habeas Corpus Petition goes as far as to suggest a suspect: the mysterious Julio – who was blonde, Mexican and six feet tall. Lastly, the defence were supposed to present a witness who saw something strange on the night of the attack: a security guard witnessed a Datsun pickup truck speeding away from the direction of Pinehill Lane (mentioned in Carlo, pg 353). This witness was never called and led to mocking from prosecutor Philip Halpin.

“Mr Hernandez told you that they were going to prove to you that there was a private security guard in the area of the Abowath murder… No nothing, no evidence of that at all.”

_{– Halpin, quoted on page 479 of the Federal Habeas Corpus.}

Satan Was Mentioned and Ramirez Was a Satanist

Sakina Abowath testified that her husband’s killer ordered her to swear upon Satan. This is obviously strong circumstantial evidence that appeared to link Ramirez to the scene. Later, at the Carns/Erickson attack in Mission Viejo similar satanic demands were made – and this gunman also wore heavy combat boots. If this was the same man who invaded the Abowaths, which is highly likely, then this cannot have been Richard Ramirez: surely the semen would not match. Because Erickson was unable to see him properly, we will never know whether the man was blonde.

-VenningB-

(9th Nov 2022)