Expendable For A Cause.

In The Appeal of the Night Stalker, I wrote a section about Detective Carrillo’s enduring obsession with Richard Ramirez, post-arrest. In it, I discussed his and Sergeant Frank Salerno’s constant presence in the courtroom, even when they were not giving evidence, their handing of photographs to the jury, and Carrillo’s attempts at contact with Ramirez after trial proceedings. Author Philip Carlo also described Carrillo and Salerno being able to stroll right into Ramirez’s cell post-trial for alleged [not tape-recorded] confessions to take place. They also watched a film with him and at some point after the arrest Carrillo admitted to trying to ingratiate himself with the family, offering them the chance to ask him questions about Ramirez’s crimes.

Finally, the pair were supposed to travel by air to San Quentin State Prison with him but ultimately declined, worried that Ramirez would “slip a cuff” and attack leading to them needing to shoot him dead in the plane. Carrillo often boasts that while he missed out on the flight with Ramirez, he had informants to fill him in on important details such as the customary strip and cavity search all prisoners must suffer upon entry. The police deputy reportedly told him the alarmed look on Ramirez’s face was “worth the whole flight.” There are other podcasts where Carrillo claimed he saw Ramirez at a San Francisco hearing, chained up. Carrillo also said he knew everything that was going on in Ramirez’s cell because of the informants. Ladies and Gentlemen, he’s telling the truth on this occasion.

During our trip to the Los Angeles County Hall of Records, we accessed some court documents. One incident was when Ramirez’s attorneys gave him photos of some of the victims in the autopsy room: Dayle Okazaki and Tsai-Lian Yu. Ramirez acted inappropriately with them, stuck them on walls and allegedly showed them to guards as a threat, presumably to protect himself from hostile officials. After reporting it to the courts, prison deputies ran to Gil Carrillo.

Surely once a suspect moves into the prison system and is pending trial, they are no longer under the jurisdiction of the investigating detectives? Who knows? If you know anything about California court procedure, explain it to us in the comments section. This seems like yet another irregularity in the Ramirez case. It’s more inappropriate contact and proves Carrillo has never been able to let go of the man, the case and even some of the victims.

In the following image, the DA’s office is accusing the defence of making phoney claims of prosecutorial interference to prevent them sharing information with their defendant.

He also had photos of Maxine Zazzara.

It was proper that the photos should have been confiscated: it is bizarre that his lawyers handed them to Ramirez in the first place – surely they knew he was mentally ill and might behave inappropriately with them. But then again, this was the Hernandezes. But what business was it of Gil Carrillo to hand them to Halpin, and for Halpin to ask Carrillo to take statements from the deputies who had Ramirez in their custody? The deputies should have taken them straight to Judge Morrow, who presided over the case at this stage. Gil Carrillo was also allowed to be in chambers with both the prosecutor and the defence.

Although the Hall of Records staff removed some “confidential” files before handing them over to us, they left photocopies of the set of offending images inside the file. I did not take photos of them for obvious reasons. The black and white images of the women, the bullet holes in Dayle’s face and in Tsai-Lian’s torso will stay with me for a long time. It was not gory; they looked like they were peacefully sleeping. I don’t think those two women had proper justice. That is both sad and enraging.

See this post about Carrillo’s further potentially inappropriate involvement with a victim and harassment of a suspect.

-VenningB-