Expendable For A Cause.

“But he literally confessed!”

During the preliminary hearing, Richard Ramirez’s defence team asked Judge Nelson to listen to an hour-long taped police interview from the day he was arrested. Ramirez had repeatedly demanded a lawyer but the police refused and continued questioning him. This violated his Miranda rights. Apparently, Ramirez said some things that could be perceived as incriminating.

Unsurprisingly, Detective Gil Carrillo has subsequently admitted that it was he and Salerno who violated Ramirez’s rights. Carrillo claims that Ramirez suggested what he thought the Night Stalker may have been doing or thinking, which Carrillo interpreted as a third person confession. However, theories about the killer and details of the crimes had been published in the press, and Ramirez, having an interest in true crime, most likely read these.

Although Carrillo admits his interrogation was unconstitutional, he arrogantly claims Judge Nelson was in the wrong and “spoke out of turn.”

“One of the judges said – and that judge is totally wrong – at the preliminary hearing [he] said it was the worst violation he had ever seen after a suspect invoked his constitutional rights – we continued talking to [Ramirez]. Well, what he [Judge Nelson] didn’t realise – he spoke out of turn – was we could not use anything Richard told us in the case-in-chief, nor did we – ‘cause everything he told us initially, we already knew – but we couldn’t use it anyway, unless, if Richard took the stand in his own defence, then we could use it in rebuttal … well, the judge who said it was the worst violation of Miranda… well, this was the worst case of judging I’ve ever seen. He was in violation of –’”

Gil Carrillo on the Matthew Cox podcast.

He does not continue. Carrillo knows he was in the wrong. So he does a bad Al Pacino impression to deflect. “You’re out of order!” from the film …And Justice for All. Ironic, as the next line is “The whole trial’s out of order” – which certainly applied to the trial of Richard Ramirez. Ultimately, Judge Nelson said, ‘You know, and I know there’s no evidence anywhere that he confessed to any of the murders.’

Coercion

Carrillo also used some coercive methods, such as threatening to charge Ramirez with child abduction crimes, emotionally blackmailing him about shaming his mother, and asking him if his father sexually abused his sister. This caused Ramirez to suffer a panic attack. This is the point in Carrillo’s routine where he jokes about levitation to deflect from his questionable interrogation techniques.

If Ramirez really did say incriminating things (Nelson believed he did not), they were not admissible for the following reasons:

1. Third-person suggestions about the crimes are not direct confessions.
2. Ramirez suffered a head injury on the day he was arrested and may have been more prone to strange ramblings, especially if concussed. Traumatic arrests and behaviours symptomatic of trauma invalidate confessions.
3. Coercion and manipulation.
4. Softening him by placing him in a cell previously inhabited by one of the Hillside Stranglers as a way to make him trust them is also a form of coercion. This patronising tactic might suggest they knew Ramirez was cognitively impaired.

More information can be found in Document 7-4: Exhibit 20, Trauma Related Coerced Confessions, Mary Ann Dutton PhD.

If you are new to this blog, some of Ramirez’s psychiatric reports are discussed here. A person with psychosis could be convinced to believe he or she committed the crime while suffering a psychotic episode. That is not to say this happened to Ramirez, but it is a possiblity. He was brain damaged and struggled with cognitive tests, and yet Carrillo portrays him as legally astute; the “smartest murderer he’s ever interviewed (45:18)” and claims he bragged about having “an ego to fill this whole room (05:15)” He was neither intelligent nor egotistical according to his psychiatrists, of which there were eleven. One, Anne Evans said:

“His ego strength measures as very low, suggesting functioning at a less than competent manner. He also has a very low opinion of himself and compares himself unfavorably to others.”

Declaration Of Anne Evans, Ph.D. Document 16-7.

Courtroom swagger was simply an act.

Contradictions

In this podcast, Carrillo himself admits that Ramirez never confessed to being the Night Stalker, yet constantly relates casual conversations with him in which he spilled all. If Ramirez already ‘confessed in the third person’ on tape despite shutting down and asking for a lawyer, when did these other lengthy first-person confessions that a biographer could only dream of take place? Philip Carlo claims Carrillo told him they took place over a week soon after the conviction and conveniently, ‘Ramirez refused to be taped’ (Carlo pg. 406).

Carrillo asks people to believe (and they invariably do) that Ramirez revealed his train of thought during the attacks for example, “Richard said she [Dayle Okazaki] was stupid (40:55)” and revealing where he disposed of weapons (in the San Francisco Bay (1:10:14) and out of a car window* (16:48). He even claims that Ramirez stalked his home, left muddy Stadia prints down his garden path and apparently confessed this to a prison guard. This is not a joke (20:07).

Other Confession Claims

While Carrillo’s ‘confessions’ were thrown out before the trial, other police officers came forward with their own and these were used by the prosecution. One was his supposed confession upon arrest: “It’s me, man.” He could merely have been telling them that he was the person police were looking for – after all, his face was affixed to the dashboards of police patrol cars. They were also asking him for his name.

Other ‘confessions’ are mentioned in Dr Edward Bronson’s declaration in Document 17-2. None of these officers had recorded proof. They are hearsay, but were published in the newspapers as fact, thus prejudicing Ramirez’s trial because potential jurors read them many times:

“Ramirez boasted that he was a “super-criminal” who killed 20 people in California and enjoyed watching them die. Referring to himself, it is alleged that he said, “no one could catch him until he fucked up, he left one fingerprint behind and that’s how they caught him.”

“Enjoyed killing people.”

“I love to kill people. I love watching people die. I would shoot them in the head and then they would wiggle and squirm all over the place, and then just stop or cut them with a knife and watch the face turn real white.”

“I love all that blood.”

“I told one lady one time to give me all her money. She said no. I cut her and pulled her eyes out.”

“[He] waited outside until it was dark, went upstairs, saw two people lying there, and Boom. Boom. I did them in.”

He “could have killed 10 police officers and the next time “no one” will get away.”

“They come up here and they call me a punk … I tell them there is blood behind the Night Stalker”.

_{– Declaration of Edward Bronson. Document 17-2.}

Some of the above quotes came from Sheriff’s Deputy James Ellis, who also claimed Ramirez said, “I would do someone in and then take a camera and set the timer so I could sit them up next to me and take our pictures together.” No such photos were ever found. If these confessions were true, there are many reasons why he may have made them, such as prison bravado to protect himself from hostile guards, or other inmates. Ramirez also suffered from psychosis and temporal lobe disorder and would often spout nonsense. Due to his cognitive disabilities, he often obstructed his own lawyers from helping him.

“Even Mr. Ramirez’s own attempts to pursue a course of strategy in his defense were thwarted by his mental disabilities. Despite having personally sought out a particular appellate attorney in and around 1991 to represent him, Mr. Ramirez would go directly against his advice to not make certain statements to the media which would hurt his defense. He would also inform the appellate attorney that he was “too busy” to meet with him; then Mr. Ramirez would make telephone calls to that attorney’s office which were so disconnected from reality that they reached the point of sounding delusional. The attorney indicated to me that Mr. Ramirez’s mental problems led the attorney to assess him as having the worst judgment of any of the hundreds of defendants he had dealt with.“

Dr Anne Evans, Document 16-7.

Other confessions came from his wish to expedite his execution. Officer George Thomas claimed he desired the electric chair and wanted to play Russian roulette, while calling himself “the Stalker.” However, Thomas did not record this, so there is no concrete evidence. Thomas also reported that Ramirez was banging his head repeatedly on the table. This is abnormal behaviour indicative of mental illness and trauma and again, nullifies any confessions.

Ramirez strongly objected to his family being brought to court and during the early stages of proceedings, he veered from insisting he was innocent to wanting to plead guilty to end it all. During this period, he never actually made any admissions. Wanting to plead guilty while in a distraught, irrational state of mind and displaying suicidal ideation cannot be considered a confession and would not be admissible in court. No plea bargains were ever made.

Counsel for the defence were supposed to argue Ramirez’s irrational state of mind and the traumatic nature of his arrest but never did so. They failed to present any evidence of his mental health and brain disorders. They should have objected to the prosecution submitting such evidence – firstly for its unreliability and secondly for the lack of recorded proof.

In 1991, in a calmer and more articulate state, Ramirez maintained his innocence, even telling reporter Mike Watkiss that he was railroaded, although due to his impaired judgement, he would continue to obstruct his own defence.

Philip Carlo

On page 406 of his book, Carlo stated that Ramirez denied ever confessing to Carrillo and Salerno. Even Carlo does not present evidence that Ramirez confessed. A transcript of a recorded interview was published at the back of some editions of his book. There is no confession. If Ramirez really confessed to Philip Carlo, why would he deny confessing to Gil Carrillo? It would hardly matter who he confessed to in the past, if he was confessing for the book. Why would Ramirez ask Carlo “you’re not gonna make me look bad are you?” if he fully confessed to murders on tape? Until new, verified evidence comes to light, the confessions must remain hearsay.

See this post for a follow-up.

-VenningB-

*Carrillo also claims they recovered the guns. This is not true. They recovered one – which was also never proven to be the murder weapon.

17th Nov 2023