A dream of ours was to eventually write a book on the Ramirez case. In January, it seemed like fantasy. I (Venning) have written other books, and the process can be exhausting – non-fiction especially fries my brain. At the end of every book I say, “Never again!” but writers always feel that finishing a book leaves a hole in their lives. Seeing as I write for this blog anyway – and I finished another project in February 2023 – there was a hole… I thought I may as well begin our Richard Ramirez book.
It won’t be a simple rehash of all of our blog posts; there will be additional details and theories. The issues and crimes covered on here will be explained more thoroughly, and also chronologically to show a month-by-month timeline leading up to Ramirez’s capture and beyond. This was not easy as it meant carving some of our blog posts into three or four chunks.
It will detail how detectives engineered the image of the Night Stalker and the turning point at which multiple suspects were amalgamated into one. As with the blog, hundreds of newspaper articles have been referenced, police reports analysed and Ramirez’s appeals dissected and reassembled in order of occurence.
First, we want to search for a ‘real’ publisher. The chances are remote, and publishers can take months to review even tiny samples of manuscripts, so we might self-publish in the meantime (we haven’t decided yet). A lot of publishers may be reticent to give us a chance. Our take on the Ramirez case is ‘controversial’ because we are contradicting a long-established story and essentially suggesting those murders are open cases. However, it shouldn’t be controversial. It’s not a conspiracy theory unless one believes Ramirez’s later defence/appellate lawyers are liars. There is no reason to be offended by public legal documents. As such, we don’t have any release date, but a first draft will likely be completed by the end of the year. As of today, the book is around 112,000 words, with several parts still to go.
Stay tuned for more information…
-VenningB-


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