Expendable For A Cause.

Sex, Satan and Another Cash Grab

Well, that was all rather predictable and disappointing – it was only to be expected. However, as the latest Ramirez documentary, Richard Ramirez – The Night Stalker Tapes, dropped, that familiar feeling of déjà vu crept in. This post will only deal with one small part of it.

Once again, the omnipresent retired Detective-Turned-Actor, Gil Carrillo, was there, with the usual script.  Carrillo loves to talk about Maria Hernandez; his focus is always heavily centred on her and the murder of Dayle Okazaki because from there, his serial killer theory was born.
Below is a clip from the latest Peacock TV documentary; in it, Carrillo is talking about Maria Hernandez and how she described her killer.  Unfortunately, what he is saying isn’t the truth.

“Tell me what he looked like”.
“High cheekbones, narrow jaw, hair was dishevelled. Stained, gapped teeth,” says Carrillo with a flourish.

Maria Hernandez did not describe her attacker and Okazaki’s killer like that.  What Maria actually said is well documented, and Carrillo must know that.  To bolster this blatant untruth, the documentary then flashed up the police artist sketch created by Somkid Khovanath in July 1985, not the one created by Maria in March of that year.

At this point, one must assume that it was a deliberate move to mislead unless the producers of this documentary couldn’t be bothered to search out the Hernandez composite, although it is not hard to find.

He continues:
“As the case went on, there were several artists’ renditions.”   Here, he is correct. See this post for the composite sketches and photofit gallery.  

Somkid Khovananth was the first Night Stalker victim to talk about bad teeth. Previously, only Carol Kyle had made dental observations, although Kyle said the teeth that she saw were “straight and white.”

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What Did Maria Hernandez Say?

Below is taken from the witness statement of Maria Hernandez and can be found in document 20-3 of the 2008 Habeas Petition:

“Upon turning around she instantly observed a light-skinned male, either Mexican or Caucasian, 5’9″ to 6’1”, thin build, dark hair, wearing a black “Members Only” type jacket, white shirt, and black trousers”. (Document 20-3)

And this is the police sketch she helped to create, complete with a moustache. 

And her lineup card, where she mentions the facial hair.

Maria Hernandez never seemed sure of her attacker’s appearance, and she struggled through the in-court identification she gave, admitting that she could not identify him from memory, That’s hardly surprising; four years had elapsed by the time of the trial itself, and she indicated at the preliminary hearing in 1986 that she had only viewed the man who attacked her and murdered her roommate for a mere two seconds.

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Detective Carrillo insists that every Night Stalker victim mentioned decaying teeth; he mentions it every time he’s interviewed, which seems to be all the time.  This is how misinformation passes into folklore and is seen repeated in every discussion about Richard Ramirez.  

Subliminally inserting the Khovananth sketch into a dialogue concerning Maria Hernandez only distracts and confuses. It would be more beneficial to quote what she reported in her witness statement followed by the correct sketch. 
Not doing so insults anyone with enough intelligence to search for the facts themselves.

For information on the Murder of Mei Leung, please see THIS POST.

If you would like to learn more about the whole case then why not treat yourself to our book or read through the many articles on this site.

Note: We do not make posts about the current family allegations, we knew of them (as did everyone else) three years ago. Our point of interest has always been the handling of the trial, the investigations and the appeals.