“In one response to a basic question about what the defendant does during the trial, Mr. Ramirez’s irrationality leaks through: “Sit and watch the whole facade – the stupidness of it. You have lay persons giving legal jargon that they don’t go to school for even and pretend to do scientific stuff.” When I asked to whom he was referring, his response was, “The jury!”. Mr. Ramirez’s ability to assist counsel in the conduct of his own defense is grossly inadequate due to the incapacitating effects of his mental disorder”
Report of Dr Anne Evans, forensic psychologist doc 16-7
As irrational as the statement above sounds, it holds some merit. A jury in a capital case has a defendant’s life in their hands; they must trust that the evidence laid before them by the prosecutors is reliable, and they should also be given counter-evidence by the defence. Juries are generally made up of “lay persons” in that, at least, Ramirez was correct. Evidence presented to them by expert witnesses holds high value, especially expert witnesses for the prosecution.
However, in the Ramirez case, as we have demonstrated throughout this blog, the jury was drip-fed misleading and often false, inaccurate information, whether regarding shoeprints or, in this instance, ballistics evidence.
In 1985, The Association of Firearms and Toolmark Examiners decided to develop a document on the theory of toolmark identification with a range of conclusions that could be reached from comparing toolmark evidence. Toolmarks are the characteristic markings picked up when bullets and casings are expended from guns. The result, produced in 1989, was unanimously accepted and approved by the AFTE. The lengthy summary can be accessed here.
Linking the Crimes – The Findings of Deputy Sheriff Edward Robinson.
We are told that Ramirez owned a vast array of weaponry, which he often changed from crime to crime, sometimes during the same night when a double incident occurred. No guns (nor any other weapons associated with the Night Stalker crimes) were recovered, unless the carelessly lost Jennings is included, but that is another story and you can read it HERE.
The prosecution linked eight incidents (in the LA trial) through ballistics; the version of events produced in court is detailed below, an eventuality decided upon after the third firearms officer, Deputy Sheriff Edward Robinson, examined the distorted bullets and casings fragments removed either from the victims or the crime scene.
- .22 calibre revolver – Okazaki, Yu and Kneiding.
- .22 calibre revolver – Zazzara and Khovananth
- .22 Jennings semi-auto – Doi
- .25 auto – Abowath and Petersen (Pan – trial stayed indefinitely, Carns – uncharged)
Deputy Sheriff Edward Robinson worked in the firearms identification section; he became involved in the case in April 1986, almost a year after firearms officers Robert Christansen and Robert Hawkins examined the evidence. He was the one who gave the prosecution what they wanted, and consequently the only one called to testify; the other two firearms officers either didn’t agree with him or each other.
The Devil’s in the Detail – The Affidavit.
On 1st September 1985, an affidavit detailing crimes and the evidence against Ramirez was produced. The first firearms officer to examine the ballistics evidence, Sgt Robert Christansen, came to a different conclusion regarding ballistics. He received the bullets used in both the Okazaki and Yu incidents for testing on 19th March.
In a report prepared on 28th March 1985, Christansen states that the bullet removed from Dayle Okazaki was a .22 long-range lead bullet and suggested these brands of weapon (he could not be specific) H&R, Ruger, High Standard, Iver Johnson, Garcia and Hawes Revolvers. The bullet removed from Okazaki showed 75% mutilation and was too distorted to positively match it to the bullets from the Yu incident; those had shown 50% and 70% mutilation. He cautiously states that it “may” have been fired from the same weapon.
On 13th August 1985, a second firearms officer, Robert Hawkins, completed his examination of the bullets removed from Maxon and Lela Kneiding, along with some fragmented grains found in a rug. He discovered two .22 calibre gold-washed lead bullets, showing 60% and 75% mutilation. In his opinion, these matched the bullets from the murders of Okazaki and Yu on 17th March. He disagreed with Christanen on the type of weapon involved, stating that it was either a Remington or a Philippines Armscor.
However, in the affidavit, Christansen does not agree that the Kneiding bullets matched Okazaki and Yu; he believed they were from a .25 automatic.
“Sgt. Christansen examined the ballistics evidence from the San Francisco case [Pan] and the Mission Viejo case [Carns] and stated that the weapon that had fired the bullet in these cases, had also fired the bullets in the murders on 7-20-85[Kneiding and Khovananth] and assaults on 8-6-85[Petersen]”
Affidavit, document 7-4
Robert Christansen concluded that the weapon used in the Kneiding and Khovananth cases (both 20th July) was a match to the gun used in the Abowath attack and murder, and all were .25 calibre bullets, matching the Carns and Pan incidents.
Robert Hawkins’ report and conclusions were not used in the affidavit, and probably due to this conflict of opinion, neither Hawkins nor Christansen were called to testify on behalf of the prosecution.
Hawkins did agree with Robinson that the bullets in the Okazaki, Yu and Kneiding murders were a match; both men thought the bullets were .22 calibre, fired from the same gun, although Robinson was unable to determine what brand
“In Robinson’s opinion, a positive identification meant that a bullet was fired from a firearm ‘to the exclusion of all other firearms.’”
Habeas Corpus, page 106
To come to this conclusion, surely Robinson would need access to the weapon in question; access he did not have.
“Projectiles in the Okazaki incident the Kneiding incident, and the Yu incident had identical characteristics: six lands and grooves with a right-hand twist, the most common characteristics of .22-caliber firearms. Robinson was unable to determine the manufacturer and exact type of firearm that fired the recovered bullets.”
Habeas Corpus, page 106
Richard’s Habeas lawyers had this to say:
In the Kneiding case, firearms examiner Hawkins found there was 60% mutilation of an expended bullet but identified the bullet as having been fired from the same firearm as the bullets fired in the Yu case. This finding raises questions about the reliability of the testing”.
“Robinson was the last of three law enforcement firearms examiners to evaluate the general rifling characteristics of the ballistics evidence. Yet the two other examiners, who did not reach entirely the same conclusions, were not called to testify at trial. For example, in the report prepared by Robert Christansen on March 28, 1985, he concluded that due to distortions of the .22-caliber bullet in the Okazaki case, no positive comparison can be made to the Yu case.
Habeas Corpus, page 634
The Attempt to Link Zazzara to Okazaki and Yu Fails.
On 29th March 1985, Vincent and Maxine Zazzara were horrifically murdered in their Whittier home. On the 3rd of April, Robert Christansen compared the bullets from this case to the ones from the 17th March killings of Okazaki and Yu. In his report, filed on 12th April, he found the expended bullets too distorted to make a positive match, showing 70%, 85% and 90% mutilation. A bullet found on the floor was determined as too distorted to be of “any comparison value”.
“On 4-3-85, Sgt. Christansen of the Crime Lab, compared the bullets recovered from the victims to the bullets recovered at the Rosemead and Monterey Park murders. He related that due to the amount of distortion to the bullets, he was not able to match or eliminate them as having been fired from the same weapon.”
Affidavit, document 7-4
It’s interesting to note that he was asked to compare these very different crimes; the “hitman-style” killing of Dayle Okazaki in no way resembled the on-street public murder of Tsai-Lian Yu, which, in its turn, didn’t resemble the brutal execution of Vincent and Maxine Zazzara. This supports the hypothesis that in late March, the idea of a “Serial killer” was already in place in the minds of detectives, confirmed by the unfortunate Arturo Robles, who was arrested and interrogated by Detective Carrillo on 10th April. “The word ‘serial killer’ hung in the air”, he recalled.
Petersen, Abowath, the Primer and the .25
Detective Carrillo likes to say, “His inconsistency was his only consistency”, and “His M.O. was no M.O.”, which gives much scope for linking crimes and making discernible patterns that must be shown for joinder of all offences. The physical evidence linking any Night Stalker crimes was relatively weak, so the reliance on the ballistics was paramount. Law enforcement emphasised the lack of modus operandi throughout their investigations, but the State needed to prove that there were links and cross-admissible evidence.
The Petersen and Abowath incidents were again totally dissimilar. However, law enforcement determined that the crimes had been perpetrated by the same assailant wielding the same weapon: a .25 automatic. It didn’t matter that the surviving victims had described completely different attackers, and eyewitness statements were duly changed to fit in with the image of the snaggle-toothed, maniacal Night Stalker; the ballistics evidence looked compelling as the expended .25s appeared to share the same red-coloured primer, discovered by Edward Robinson.
His report isn’t in the documents included in the 2008 petition, but we have a transcript.
“Robinson compared the bullet recovered from Elyas Abowath and a cartridge casing found at the scene (Prosecution’s Trial Ex. 40-G) with expended .25-caliber cartridge casings and a slug or deformed bullet in the Petersen incident (Prosecution’s Trial Exs. 38-B and 38-C). In Robinson’s opinion, the cartridge casings and bullets in both cases were fired from the same .25-caliber firearm. A .25-caliber weapon was not recovered. Robinson compared .25-caliber ammunition recovered from the Greyhound bag with .25-caliber long-rifle cartridge casings in the Abowath and Petersen incidents. In his opinion, the tool marks on the expended .25-caliber cartridge casings in those incidents were the same as the tool marks on the .25-caliber live ammunition from the Greyhound.”
Habeas Corpus, page 107
*Note: As mentioned, tool marks are generally referred to as characteristic markings imprinted and left on expended bullets during expulsion, not when manufactured. The live ammunition had not been fired, and so using that terminology is slightly misleading.
These red-primed bullets were of an old variety and, as with the Avia sneakers, had to be extremely rare.
After his arrest on 31st August, Ramirez apparently told law enforcement that he had some belongings in a lock-up at the Greyhound bus depot; a bag bearing the name Greg Rodriguez was discovered, and among its contents, a box containing mixed bullets, mostly Remington .32s, but also three .25s, which appeared to share the same red primer as the ones from the Abowath and Petersen crimes. Why Ramirez had his “friend” Greg Rodriguez’s bag wasn’t established.
Los Angeles City and its wider county were home to over eight million people in 1985. Yet in that vast metropolis, it is accepted that out of all those millions of people, only Ramirez had access to red-primed ammunition. It’s a reach, especially as the Petersen and Abowath incidents were at opposite ends of the geographical location given to the Night Stalker crimes, approximately 57 miles, and yet only one man had access to these particular bullets. Rare bullets and rare sneakers.
Lead Analysis – Flawed Science
When a gun is fired, it leaves microscopic markings known as “toolmarks” on the expended slugs and casings. Forensic specialists collect these expelled projectiles either from crime scenes or from the victim; these are then sent to be tested by the firearms department. If they have access to a suspect’s gun, or at least a gun suspected of being used in a crime, they can test-fire the weapon and, from there, analyse the toolmarks created and compare it to the expended bullets from a crime scene. This is how they can conclude that the weapon matches the bullets in question.
No gun or weapon of any kind used in any of the Night Stalker attacks was recovered from Ramirez. The .22 Jennings semi-automatic linked to the Doi Incident and retrieved from the self-confessed “senile” ex-felon, Jesse Perez, was somehow lost. Which hardly mattered, considering that Perez first told the police Ramirez sold him the gun six to nine months before the Doi case happened.
Without these guns, they could not perform a test fire; they had no way of knowing who pulled the trigger. Distorted bullets do tell a story, but they cannot say to the examiner who fired them from a gun.
It was long assumed that bullets from the same box came from the same manufactured batch, and it was on this premise they used bullet analysis to convict. This is what happened to Ramirez; in the absence of a weapon, it was determined that the red-primer bullets, those at the Petersen and Abowath incidents, and those contained in the box obtained from the bag in the locker must have come from the same batch, contain the same chemical components, and been put into the same box at the same time.
We now know that that is not the truth, and the FBI stopped the practice of lead analysis after the research undertaken by the National Academy of Sciences showed how flawed and unsatisfactory comparative lead analysis testing was. For over 40 years, this has led to many wrong convictions.
“The committee also reviewed testimony from the FBI regarding the identification of the “source” of crime-scene fragments and suspects’ bullets. Because there are several poorly characterized processes in the production of bullet lead and ammunition, as well as ammunition distribution, it is very difficult to define a “source” and interpret it for legal purposes. It is evident to the committee that in the bullet manufacturing process there exists a volume of material that is compositionally indistinguishable, referred to by the committee as a “compositionally indistinguishable volume of lead” or CIVL. That volume could be the melt, sows, or billets, which vary greatly in size, or some subpart of these. One CIVL yields a number of bullets that are analytically indistinguishable. Those bullets may be packed in boxes with bullets from other similar (but distinguishable) volumes or in boxes with bullets from the same compositionally indistinguishable volume of lead”.
(National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2004.)
*Note: CIVL means compositionally indistinguishable volume of lead.
For more information about the flawed science of ballistics, see this link.
The Defence Concedes
Richard Ramirez had the misfortune of being saddled with what is possibly the worst defence team in the history of crime, and that’s not an exaggeration.
The ballistics evidence should have been easy enough to cross-examine with success; after all, the three firearms officers who performed the ballistics tests could not agree on the outcome.
Did they try? Well, they did hire an expert witness of their own, a highly regarded firearms officer, Paul Dougherty. Then forgot to give him the evidence to be tested and failed to communicate with him.
During the cross-examination, Ray Clark failed to challenge Robinson’s testimony regarding the reliability of his testing. Late to the defence team, struggling and unprepared, Clark limited himself to a few generic questions concerning the ballistics tests
The prosecution’s evidence regarding the ballistics was weak at best and had they thought about it, Richard’s defence team could have challenged the evidence presented in court. The ballistics evidence was not conclusive.
Habeas Corpus – Dougherty is Retained
For the purpose of Habeas Corpus, Paul Dougherty was again asked to examine the ballistics evidence, and his preliminary findings are revealing:
“161. During his preliminary evaluation, firearms expert Paul Dougherty found that faulty testing protocol rendered the evidence unreliable. (See Ex. 35, P. Dougherty dec., ¶¶ 4-5.) His opinion regarding validity of the testing results provides support for relief. Had trial counsel investigated and presented evidence challenging the accuracy and reliability of firearms evidence – instead of conceding the evidence – the result would have been more favorable as there would have been a reasonable doubt regarding the prosecution’s evidence.”
Habeas Corpus, page 424
He believed the ballistics evidence was faulty, inaccurate, and unreliable. He thought it should all be retested.
“1299. Competent defense counsel would have challenged the ballistics evidence and the lack of accuracy and unreliability of the prosecution’s findings. The findings were inaccurate. Firearms expert Paul Dougherty has stated that there are internal conflicts in the reports of various law enforcement examiners and the evidence should be retested. (Ex. 35, P. Dougherty dec., ¶ 4.)
Habeas Corpus, page 424
Carrillo
In this video clip, Carrillo seems to infer that they knew the ballistics evidence was faulty but that it didn’t matter because they had the weapons in question. That is genuinely perplexing. They did not have guns, and no weapons were produced in court other than a brief appearance of the vanishing Jennings. If the prosecution had the weapons, did they simply “forget” to produce them?
The stories change month by month, and nothing is said about them by anyone who invites him along for a chat.
Credit: Matthew Cox Podcast
An Afterthought..
Ballistics are often used to convict, but rarely to exonerate. Unless you are a cop working for the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department in 1988/89 who has been arrested for killing prostitutes. Ballistics testing on the gun found in his car linked him to three murders and so Rickey Ross spent some time locked up in LA County Jail in the same section as Richard Ramirez. Later, those ballistics tests were found to be “faulty and unreliable” and he was released.
Quelle surprise – but that is a story for another time.
Additional source: FBI — The Basis for Compositional Bullet Lead Comparisons, Forensic Science Communications, July 2002
~ Jay ~
(Originally published 30th November 2023)
Expendable For A Cause. 
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