Expendable For A Cause.

This is another aspect of the Night Stalker case that descends into the realms of the absurd. It is well-known that Ramirez had many admirers during the trial and beyond. One was a juror, Cynthia “Cindy” Haden. Haden started as an alternate juror. According to Philip Carlo’s book, on Valentine’s Day 1989, the female jurors brought in sweets for the judge, which hardly seems appropriate, but perhaps California is different… Haden went one better and baked cupcakes, adorned with “I love you” in icing. She asked a bailiff to give one to Richard Ramirez, who obliged. Ramirez ate it and they got on with discussing the horrific Zazzara case. Bon appetite…

Big Carrillo is Watching

Carlo repeatedly mentions how Gil Carrillo, Frank Salerno and prosecutor Philip Halpin heard about the cupcake “incident” and Carrillo began monitoring her, which is raised four times in his book. This could of course be dramatisation of the main ‘characters’ thoughts, as parts of Carlo’s book read like fiction. First, Carrillo was thankful that Haden was not on the actual jury – if she had developed a crush, she could potentially cause a hung jury.

“Gil Carrillo watched Cynthia closely to see if she communicated with Richard in any way. If she did, he’d have her thrown off the jury. The Valentine incident did not sit well with Sheriff’s Homicide.”

Carlo, pg. 290.

A juror is entitled to cause a hung jury if they wish. It is not for detectives in the public gallery to interfere. God forbid someone should sympathise with Richard Ramirez, although their conclusion should come from evidence and not lust. Every time a juror was dismissed, Carlo writes that Carrillo feared Haden would take their place because her stares made them “uneasy.” Eventually, Carrillo’s fears came to fruition, when juror Fernando Sendejas was dismissed after Ramirez freaked out at him knowing a witness – his former public defender Allen Adashek (even though Adashek was testifying for the defence, Ramirez told a psychiatrist that Adashek shared information with the District Attorney, therefore they were colluding against him). Ramirez’s paranoia often caused problems, as we shall see). Cindy Haden took Sendejas’ place and according to Carlo quoted Ramirez as saying of the grinning Haden, “She looks like she won the fucking lottery.”

Ever salacious, Carlo’s book focuses on groupie rivalry and also frequently mentions the disapproval of Ramirez’s future wife, Doreen Lioy. Lioy believed Haden was up to no good and was eventually proved correct. Luckily for Gil Carrillo, his fears were unfounded: Cindy Haden was too weak to stick to her conviction that he had been railroaded, and despite her supposed questioning looks described by Carlo, she voted for Ramirez’s guilt. Later, she claimed to have been invited to the prosecutor’s office, where Philip Halpin and Alan Yochelson thanked her for the verdict. She subsequently discovered she was the only juror who had been personally thanked. It seems unlikely that a busy prosecution team would be monitoring the gazes of a juror throughout a long and arduous trial. Who was watching her and reporting back?

Haden Votes for the Gas Chamber

At the penalty phase, Cindy Haden voted for Ramirez to be executed, while apparently – according to Carlo – crying and mouthing “I’m sorry.” Proving once and for all that irrational people were allowed on this jury, she was one of several who drew childish little pictures on their decision papers. Haden’s was a tombstone, with a heart.

Despite failing to cause a hung jury, Haden claims she suddenly found the courage to confront Ramirez’s attorneys, Daniel Hernandez and Ray Clark after the trial, when she should have raised this in deliberation. First she “laid into” Hernandez for omitting Ramirez’s fixation with Satan, suggesting this was mitigating evidence. Haden believed that Ramirez was “possessed by some demonic force.” While it is true that his mental illnesses should have been used in mitigation, perhaps the defence wished to distance themselves from that aspect because of the pentagrams at the crime scenes. It is unclear why Haden thought that Ramirez’s beliefs would save him from a guilty verdict. And it seems that the jurors themselves also believed in this occult mumbo jumbo, so was Ramirez any different? When Haden asked Clark about the lack of evidence at the penalty phase and how they had “sold him down the river”, he simply blamed Ramirez for being stubborn, when the court had given the attorneys permission to override him. Haden had the temerity to write to Ramirez to apologise for sending him to the gas chamber and he, the “evil serial killer” forgave her.

Chasing Richard Ramirez

What follows reads like a corny teenage hybristophile’s fanfiction: Haden who had now apparently filled her room with photos of Ramirez, began travelling up to San Francisco to visit him, sometimes camping out in her car all night to be first in the queue. She even brought her parents to meet him and eventually moved to the city. After being made redundant from her job, Haden trained as a private investigator through a security firm and inveigled her way into his new lawyers’ offices. She claims (in Carlo’s book) that she charmed one of his public defenders (probably Randall Martin) into allowing her to speak to Ramirez in private. The book goes on to detail how, unbeknownst to his lawyer, she touched Ramirez’s thigh with her foot under the table, and when the attorney left the room, took the opportunity to kiss and fondle an affection-starved Ramirez – something she claimed happened often.

Dr Anne Evans’ psychiatric report mentions that Ramirez had also tried for several months to have Haden appointed as a “paralegal,” and blames Ramirez’s delusions, but this ingratiation seems to have been initiated by Haden manipulating him into believing she was the key to his freedom (from the Declaration of Dr Anne Evans, Document 16-7).

Cindy Haden was a negative distraction. Ramirez’s paranoia grew to a degree that he became convinced that Randall Martin – and a private investigator hired by Martin – had both had sex with Haden when they had travelled to meet her in Los Angeles. This led Ramirez to file a Marsden motion to have him fired from the case. Ramirez’s appellate lawyer attempted to convince him to stick with Martin – a highly competent defence attorney. Despite Ramirez’s respect for the appeal lawyer’s judgement, his Cindy-shaped delusions gained the better of him. He abused Randall Martin on his answering machine, in a “bizarre”, “hysterical” and “infantile” manner. Martin felt he could no longer work with Ramirez and ceased to represent him.

Cindy the Talkshow Star

Ramirez believed Haden could assist with his appeals, However, her television appearances had the opposite effect. On the Geraldo Rivera talkshow, the host referred to Ramirez as a “butcher” and said he had a “dreadful side”. Haden could have explained that Ramirez might have been innocent – that if he had been given a fair trial and a competent defence team, he might have been acquitted. Instead, she attempted to justify her attraction to Ramirez by stating “That’s just one side of him” and “everybody has a dreadful side.”

For balance, Judith Arnold, the daughter of Max and Lela Kneiding, spoke on the phone. Haden appeared to roll her eyes. Rivera said, “you sat on that jury; you saw the evidence.” Haden could have said there was no scientific evidence to tie Ramirez to the Kneiding crime scene (which was known in court – a “bloody shirt” tested negative) but instead, she weakly replied, “Yes, I did,” before adding, with wide eyes and a giggle, that she looks “beyond that.” Perhaps she was nervous in the studio, but she came across as vacant, simple and trying to make weak excuses for falling in love with a sick killer. To a victim’s family, this is highly insulting.

Haden repeated unconvincingly that Ramirez did not have a fair trial. A lawyer, Robert Bryan, who assisted Ramirez’s Habeas Corpus lawyers spoke from the audience and challenged her on voting for the death penalty despite her misgivings. When Bryan agreed with her that the jury heard insufficient evidence for reasonable doubt, Geraldo Rivera spoke over him. He might not have done this had Haden made a convincing argument.

When asked by Rivera if she believes Richard Ramirez almost cut Max Kneiding’s head off, she evaded the question and said, “I convicted him.” After much inane giggling to an outraged audience, she went on to portray him as someone with an anger management problem that he has learned to control. She refused to answer whether she would like to see him freed.

Not content with humiliating herself the first time, Haden went on another episode of Geraldo where she was asked why his crimes do not make her hate him. “I don’t hate him… I don’t agree with what he did in any way, shape or form.” This time the Kneidings’ granddaughter Robin Sandoval joined her in the studio. Presumably, the family was chosen because Haden lived close to them in Glendale. Sandoval believes Ramirez was guilty because her grandparents’ belongings were found with Ramirez’s fence, Solano. Haden could have explained that Solano was impeached for lying, (albeit inadequately) that another witness claimed he was beaten into telling the police the property had come from Ramirez and that some jurors felt he was shady. She could have explained that the defence performed poorly and there were unanswered questions, like witnesses who never showed up. However, Haden sat there expressionless; the only evidence of her being something other than a bot sent out to passively destroy Ramirez’s appeals was the occasional blink.

On a further show, she said of his crimes, “he does it because he likes it; he likes doing it. He enjoys it. he’s really opened my eyes to the darker side of the world. She added that should he be freed, he would revert to “exactly what he did before; like you have a job, I have a job; he has a job. His job is killing people. That’s what he was trained to do.”

Perhaps this statement was jealous revenge after Ramirez had proposed to Doreen Lioy. Whatever her purpose, she paints herself as was nothing but an attention-seeking hybristophile who manipulated Ramirez into thinking she could help him on the case, just to gain access to his body.

-VenningB-