On 25th August 1985, Bill Carns was shot three times in the head and his partner Inez Erickson (sometimes named as Carole Smith in books/media) was raped. The couple lived in Mission Viejo, Orange County, meaning the Night Stalker had moved south. The Carns/Erickson incident never went to trial so this post cannot examine any of the evidence. There was a preliminary hearing, but there is nothing in the press regarding the discussion of serological (semen) or ballistics evidence. The hearing itself was delayed three times. First because the defence team wanted it closed to cameras and reporters, but the judge sided with the news media. Secondly, the Orange County Deputy District Attorney did not want Erickson to be filmed because her therapist thought she was “fragile”. However, reporters described her as composed and speaking in a “clear, strong voice” when she gave her testimony.
The prosecution argument centred around Inez Erickson’s eyewitness identification (Bill Carns was brain injured and remembers nothing about the attack) and alleged utterances by the gunman. Erickson identified Richard Ramirez at the 5th September 1985 line-up based not on his face – which she admitted she never saw – but his walk and voice. And even then, she was unsure, and asked to watch the line-up tapes two years after the attack to remind herself (“Woman Tells About Rape and Shooting,” Miami Herald, 12th September 1987). At the 1987 preliminary hearing, it was decided that Erickson’s identification was sufficient; despite admitting she had seen Ramirez’s mugshot in the newspapers, she had not been influenced to choose him. (“Alleged Night Stalker to Face Trial,” The Tribune, 14th November 1987).
The attacker allegedly forced Erickson to surrender the couple’s valuables, taking her around the house with him. According to some newspapers, she was dragged around the house by her hair. Would a man doing such things have a gait comparable to Ramirez slowly walking onto a line-up stage? It would make him very calm and casual while committing such a violent crime.
Another issue is with his voice. At the line-up, Ramirez was asked to say lines such as, “shut up bitch”, “where’s the money?” “where’s the jewellery?” He did not say the given lines in a demanding manner. For Erickson to recognise her attacker’s voice in Ramirez suggests the gunman was very lacklustre in his supposed angry demands and taunting such as “This [small amount of cash] is all you’re worth” (more on his words later in the post). One newspaper claims Erickson knew it was Ramirez by the way he pronounced jewellery strangely, like “jewerly”. However, in the line-up footage, there is nothing unusual about the way he says it.
For the Habeas Corpus appeal, an expert psychologist for eyewitness identification, Dr Kathy Pezdek, wrote an analysis of all the witnesses’ testimonies. What Pezdek said about Carol Kyle’s identification (regarding the “inflection in his voice”) applies to Inez Erickson.
“Several of the eyewitnesses in this case identified Mr. Ramirez at the live line-up based on his voice. The research on voice identification suggests that voice identification is even less reliable, and fades over time even faster than face identification. For example, when Carol Kyle identified Ramirez at the live line-up she noted down on her witness card “I’m absolutely positive. Even the inflection in his voice is the same.”
Declaration of Dr Kathy Pezdek, Document 16-7
Pezdek cited a psychologist, B.R. Clifford, whose studies demonstrate that memory for unfamiliar voices rapidly declines in accuracy over a short period. After one week, one might remember at 50% accuracy. After two weeks, this becomes 43%. After three weeks, it falls to just 9%. If the voice is unfamiliar and speaks for less than a minute each time, the accuracy of the victim’s memory will only be 50%.* This is what a defence expert witness would have argued should this case have gone to trial.
Erickson became yet another victim to embellish her description on the witness stand. Despite only identifying him by his walk and voice, in court she apparently added that she knew it was Ramirez because of his “thick lips”. None of the other victims described their attacker’s lips. By ‘coincidence’, the words “thick lips” were only used by journalists to describe Ramirez’s mugshot on the day it was released in the papers – these papers spread false information that the victims had reported their attacker’s lips as being “thick.” Could she have been influenced by this? We know victims will change their description under pressure, as seen in the San Francisco Wildgans murder case.
As demonstrated on this blog, the victims’ police statements never describe his full lips. All of the composite sketches display thin or normal lips.
During the Orange County preliminary hearing, Ramirez’s lawyers accused a police officer of coaching Inez Erickson. Detective Michael Stephany denied it, but given that other victims were being coached by Los Angeles deputies, it is not a stretch of the imagination to think Stephany might do the same.
After this identification testimony ‘evidence’, no more was mentioned – the case was given the go-ahead to proceed to trial, but only after the Los Angeles trial.
The Gun?
Going solely by the papers as they are all we have, the ballistic links are not mentioned at the preliminary hearing. According to an affidavit from the police on 1st September 1985 (Document 7-4), a firearms expert, Sergeant Robert Christansen, suggested that the bullets used on Bill Carns were .25 calibre, and matched those found at six incidents: Kneiding, Khovananth, Petersen, Abowath, Pan and Carns. This makes no sense: in the end, Kneiding was matched to Okazaki and Yu (.22 revolver), Khovananth to Zazzara (another .22 revolver). Pan was supposedly matched to Petersen and Abowath (.25 automatic), but Pan also never went to trial so we cannot truly know. See this post for a detailed breakdown of the firearms evidence used in the Night Stalker case.
The Petersen/Pan/Abowath connection was based on red primer on the casings. If Carns was matched with those three, it suggests it was a .25 automatic. But because Christansen contradicted another “expert” Hawkins, and also Edward Robinson, the firearms expert eventually used by the prosecution, his opinion is disputed. Therefore, the calibre of the gun at Carns must remain a mystery.
Modus Operandi Breakdown
Inez Erickson claimed that the attacker instructed her to tell the police she had been visited by the Night Stalker, and demanded that she say, “I love Satan” and “You know who I am, don’t you? I’m the Night Stalker. You’ve read about me in the newspapers and heard about me on TV. So, you know if I kill one, I might let the other one live.”
The modus operandi the attacker allegedly referenced only happened in three previous attacks (Doi, Khovananth and Abowath – although with a difference in Doi**). In Petersen and Pan, both the male and female were shot with intent to kill. The rape of the woman and shooting of the man method might suggest it was the same attacker in the Khovananth and Abowath incidents. However, both Somkid Khovananth and Sakina Abowath described a different man in their original police statements: his only common trait was being tall and curly haired – the hair colour and skin tone differed. Lillian Doi also described a different man, of average height.
Whether Erickson was attacked by the same person as Sakina Abowath, we will never know, although Erickson told her neighbour that the attacker wore big heavy boots, just like Abowath said. If it was the same man, it could not have been Richard Ramirez per the rape kit tests from that scene. No semen was mentioned at the Orange County preliminary hearing.
Circumstantial
The rest of the evidence for the Carns/Erickson case is circumstantial. The first is the orange Toyota station wagon ‘spotted near the murder scene.’ As explained in that post, the car was seen more than a mile from the victims’ house and the child witness only saw a man in the dark from the back. A fingerprint purportedly left by Ramirez was found on a similar car found abandoned in Los Angeles but much of what the public has been told about this fingerprint seems to be a myth. See this post.
Eventually it was decided that the Orange County charges would be dropped. Inez Erickson no longer wanted to testify, as Ramirez already received many death sentences. However, it seems as if Orange County never had any intention of holding a second trial if Ramirez was convicted in Los Angeles. Enright said, “If Ramirez is convicted in Los Angeles County, Orange County might decide not to go to the expense of a trial.”
-VenningB-
* Cited in Handbook of Eyewitness Psychology Memory for People Rod C. L. Lindsay, David F. Ross, J. Don Read, Michael P. Toglia)
** It is unclear if Lillian Doi was actually raped. The newspapers said she was, but the charge was dropped.
Expendable For A Cause. 
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