*some images may need viewing on a desktop for greater clarity*
“You see what you want to see”
Geoff Johns – Doomsday Clock
The Young Report – 1994
In 1994 Richard’s San Francisco defence lawyers, Michael Burt, Daro Inouye and Dorothy Bischoff, referred him for neuropsychological evaluation. The clinical psychologist retained to carry out the tests was Myla H Young, PhD, who saw Richard on three occasions on the 9th, 10th, and 28th December 1994, post his LA convictions. These meetings occurred both at San Francisco County Jail and at San Quentin. She was to describe Richard’s intellectual, neuropsychological, and psychological functioning.
One more in a cluster of doctors, psychiatrists and psychologists who saw, tested, and evaluated him between 1985 and 2008.
What is very noticeable is Richard’s absolute refusal to discuss his childhood and family, displaying a genuine and intense protectiveness, especially where his parents were concerned. Both Myla Young and Elise Taylor draw attention to this in their reports. Because he refused to discuss his early life, Young used his medical history accounts for information. In 1994 Richard was not receiving medication for convulsions, and Young stated that prison medical records showed he had repeated administration of medicine for chronic headaches.
Young was to administer a similar set of tests to those later completed by Dale Watson in 1999, so I will avoid repeating those, however Young was to conduct a test that Watson did not, the Rorschach Test.
Inkblots
The Rorschach Test evaluates emotional functioning and personality or particular mental disorders. It was designed by psychiatrist Herman Rorschach in the early 1900s.
The test is conducted by a practitioner who sits next to a subject and presents them with ten images of symmetrical inkblots, one at a time. The practitioner asks the subject to describe what they see in the blot, such as animals or people. This process may occur repeatedly to explore whether the subject perceives anything new the next time.
The subject’s responses are then recorded and interpreted according to standardised scoring systems. For example, scoring criteria may include how typical the response is, what part of the blot the subject focuses on, or if the person sees movement in the image. The interpretation was initially designed to diagnose schizophrenia but today may aim to elicit insights about the subject’s personality, emotions, cognition, motivations, relationships, or mental health. (Psychology Today)
Young recorded that, in her opinion, the most noticeable aspect of her diagnosis was that Richard suffered from severe depression to the extent that he would struggle with a pervasive sense of sadness, overwhelming anger and “aloneness“. Notice she says “aloneness” rather than “loneliness”. There is a subtle difference.
One can easily understand why. His negative feelings of self-worth contradict the portrayal of the Night Stalker character, so full of confidence, and brashness, with the “couldn’t give a damn” attitude on display in the courtroom. That image, given to him by the media, law enforcement and the public, was just an act. In slipping on the skin of the Night Stalker, Richard hid from the world what was really going on inside him. His transformation is complete; only through these psychological tests (and some of the testimonies of his friends and family) can we get a small glimpse of the real person. He played his part well.
Locked away in physical and mental isolation, his disordered thoughts could not perceive what was real and what was fantasy; he became lost in the inner world of his delusional thinking.
All his coping mechanisms were taken away, and receiving no medication to treat his psychosis, depression, temporal lobe epilepsy or other neuropsychological disorders, compulsions and behaviours began to manifest, the most salient of which was seemingly masturbation.
Hands on the Table
Myla Young observed Richard’s behaviour during her time with him. She noted that “several” occasions throughout her interviews, he attempted to “sexually expose and manipulate himself”. She goes on to say, “Although he required multiple, persistent reminders, he was able to respond to my demands that he place his hands on the table for the period of time needed to complete this assessment. Mr Ramirez’s attempted masturbatory behaviour did not occur during direct administration of test items, but did occur at times of transition between tasks”.
Young’s remarks concerning this inappropriate behaviour echo Elise Taylor’s, as this was also her experience throughout her time with Richard.
“Prior to beginning work on the case, I had been informed that Mr Ramirez had displayed this sort of behaviour with other female defence team members, and, accordingly, I discussed the structure and purpose of our relationship with him when we first met, including the absolute and non-negotiable absence of any physical contact of any kind. Although he seemed to comprehend what I was saying, he displayed an almost compulsive tendency towards an extremely adolescent (and, at times, pre-adolescent) obsession with sex, including repeated discussion of masturbation, his thoughts about genitalia, and his various sexual fantasies”
Report of Elise Taylor, psychotherapist. Doc 20-3
Taylor went on to say that after many months of meetings, Richard finally realised that the nature of their relationship would not change because of his repeated discussions about sex, and initiated that subject less frequently. However, she mentions that if she tried to engage him in conversation about his early years and home life, he would once more focus on his sexualised thoughts about her.
“Even after many months of my unquestionably consistent negative response to, and dismissal of, this behaviour, it appeared as though he approached every incident with the real belief that I might respond positively. His repeated suggestions that we might have sex in the interview room were presented with a sincerity and intensity that indicated that he actually believed that this was a possibility, despite the constant presence of a guard three feet in front of a large glass window in the front of the room. Whereas one might expect that there would be some extinction of this behaviour after more than a year of repeated attempts and requests on his part, it was as though each time, he was proposing it for the first time, as though he had never mentioned it before”
Report of Elise Taylor. Doc 20-3
It is not news that Ramirez had a habit of exposing himself; this compulsive behaviour seems to have escalated with prolonged incarceration, where he was not given the treatment he needed. Richard no longer had access to the recreational drugs he was self-medicating with outside in the free world, and as his anxiety, depression, headaches, neuropsychological conditions, and insomnia increased, so did his need to find a way to cope.
His female friends and associates who knew him before his arrest do not mention masturbation or exposing himself; their testimonies speak of his calmness, non-violent personality, and quietness. Jail and then prison amplified all his psychological problems, and nobody dealt with them. After all, who cares if a condemned man is physically and mentally ill?
Neither Taylor nor Young ceased their work with him; he was not violent nor aggressive. He was able to comply with their wishes that he stop.
Women – lots of them.
Ramirez received many letters and photographs from women who all found him irresistible. They fed him their sexual fantasies and semi-naked pictures, and he responded; why wouldn’t he? Locked up in a cell for twenty-three hours daily, he didn’t have much else to do. This sudden and unexpected sexualisation of him must have had a profound effect. If we are to believe the Carlo book, the juror Cindy Haden, yes, the one who “fell in love with him”, followed him to San Francisco for the very reason of getting some “alone time”. She was, according to Carlo, so excited to be near him she nearly fainted.
Those women, who queued hours to see him and, in the process, caused security concerns, were instrumental in getting him removed back to San Quentin prison, much to his annoyance. All very heady stuff for someone with his particular set of problems.
Hypersexuality
Richard Ramirez was diagnosed with frontal lobe damage and temporal lobe epilepsy; he had not been treated for either since his early teens, the symptoms of which we have already covered in THIS POST, but here’s a recap:
- Anxiety
- Depression
- Memory impairments
- Vivid hallucinations
- Hyper-religiosity
- Blank stare or “staring into space.”
- Compulsions
- Headaches
- Insomnia
- Paranoia
- Fetishes
All of the above manifested at various stages of his life.
When a person’s frontal lobe is damaged, so is cognitive functioning, which can lead to numerous psychological and emotional problems, including hypersexuality. Our old friend Dietrich Blumer, who examined Richard pre-trial in 1986, wrote a book on the subject, THIS LINK provides an in-depth account of hypersexuality and brain disorder.
Richard’s compulsions, fetishes and preoccupation with sexual matters originate from a brain injury, his behaviour was driven by anxiety and a mental illness he was never given help with. The seizures, and personality changes, including the hyper-religiosity he also engaged in, were part of an ongoing set of neurological and psychological irregularities which every doctor who evaluated him attested to. A collection of mental impairments that have been swept aside because it is not convenient to mention them.
We are left with the mental image of a man so traumatised by the events in his life that his ability to discuss them is reduced to staring at a sequence of inkblots on cards presented to him, unable to confront, understand or rationalise the process that led him there.
“My left hand is a Rorschach blotch all its own, a six-fingered, skin-blood-and-bone ink splatter. People see it and fly their worst fears and secret fetishes at full mast when they think they’re being discreet. They see it as strange, fascinating, ugly, beautiful, disgusting or erotic depending on what’s behind their eyes.”
Craig Clevenger, The Contortionist’s Handbook
~ Jay ~
Expendable For A Cause. 
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