Expendable For A Cause.

“Could you talk about some of your childhood trauma?”

– Faye Snyder, to Richard Ramirez in 1990.

“I know enough about psychoanalysis to know what you want of me. Right now, I’m strong. You want me to remember things with you, but the mind is like a jigsaw puzzle: You take one piece out, and the rest will fall apart. And where will you be then? You won’t be here to pick up the pieces.”

– Richard Ramirez, according to author Faye Snyder.

Trauma

After analyzing the various mental health evaluations about Richard, I started thinking about why he likely said and did some of the things he did. Why did he act the way he did at times? The answer I came to is simple: Trauma. Yes, I believe a lot of what Richard said and did was from a place of deep trauma.

Back in the 1980s and 1990s, the mental health community knew that trauma affected people, but they did not realize just how devastating it could be. It was widely accepted that trauma, specifically post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), was only caused by war experiences or sexual assault. Fortunately, we have made progress in the field of psychiatry, and we now know that a multitude of things can cause trauma and that you don’t even necessarily have to experience an event to be traumatized by it. Some people experience trauma from witnessing or hearing about a traumatic event.

In the attempt to save his life, multiple attorneys and healthcare professionals evaluated and examined Richard over decades. I can only imagine how awful it must have been for Richard when lawyers, doctors, and mental health professionals were poking and prodding for information about his childhood and illnesses. Given what we know about his childhood, this likely was very traumatic for him (Family declarations, Habeas Corpus document 20.5).

We know he was very protective of his family and would not discuss them or anything that happened during his childhood. (Declaration of Elise Taylor, document 20.3, Exhibit 99). I think his being protective of his family wasn’t the only reason he didn’t want to talk about his childhood experiences. It was emotionally painful for him to discuss specific incidents or to even think about them.

Avoidance is a common behavior we see in people with trauma. They do not want to talk about those experiences, so they avoid reminders of the event or things that can trigger memories of the trauma. Some cope by suppressing what happened. Some people use drugs to deal with it. When Richard wasn’t in jail, he coped by using drugs. He avoided experiencing the hurt by self-medicating. Yes, it was an unhealthy way of coping. Nonetheless, it was how he coped. It kept the pain at a distance. It kept him numb, in a sense, so that he didn’t experience the negative feelings. 

When Richard went to jail and then prison, he no longer had a way of coping with the emotional pain. He didn’t know how to deal with the pain and trauma he experienced. So, he became paranoid, disconnected, and disassociated, trying to control what little he could. He couldn’t control his convictions. He couldn’t control what happened to him when he was growing up. So he tried to control what little he could, such as who could visit him and who he could call on the phone. (Declaration of Anne Evans, Exhibit 73, document 16.7). This may seem trivial to us, but it was all he had.

On the outside, he was functional, mostly. Yes, he had a drug addiction. But he seemed to have interacted with people in an acceptable way. None of his friends or acquaintances said anything about him acting crazy, going off on angry tirades, or exposing himself. Those that did speak of his attributes described him as quiet, a loner, and not prone to violence.

Effects of Prison on a Trauma Victim

In 1985, they took a young man full of trauma and pain and put him in a jail cell where he likely went through withdrawal from cocaine, and on top of that, he had no way to deal with the turmoil inside of him. He couldn’t numb it anymore. He was angry. But anger is a secondary emotion. There’s always something underneath that anger that the person can’t deal with. Anger is easier to deal with than inner pain and suffering.

The things he masked with drugs couldn’t be masked anymore, and it came out in ways that showed he was experiencing symptoms of mental illness. He had managed to hide those symptoms for years from everyone but the health professionals he interacted with. And even some of the professionals that spent time with him, interviewing him, failed to see the inner turmoil and and pain and would merely go on to write about his psychopathology and never understand what was really going on with Richard Ramirez. Some would blame his alleged crimes on his childhood experiences and his parents, not the system and individuals that railroaded him.

Alone in a jail cell, with no way to escape the pain and trauma, Richard began to experience full-blown psychosis. He developed compulsions and obsessive behaviors as coping mechanisms. Again, unhealthy coping mechanisms, but still a means of coping. Then they locked him away on death row. He had nothing. I can picture him in my mind in that cell all alone, with no way to deal with his emotional pain, no way to deal with emotions that he had suppressed for so long. He couldn’t deal with the fact that he had been sentenced to death. So he disassociated. No one understood what he was going through. No one validated his suffering.

I know his attorneys were trying to save his life, but he couldn’t deal with the fact that he had been sentenced to death. (Declaration of Elise Taylor, document 20.3, Exhibit 99). He couldn’t help them because it was too painful. I can only imagine how much he suffered inside every day. He was cut off from everyone and everything he had ever known.

Ramirez in Popular Culture

Some individuals keep the ever-growing saga of Richard Ramirez alive by not only continuing the serial killer and rapist narrative but also by creating new storylines to keep it interesting, to keep people drawn to their stories, regardless of whether or not there’s a shred of truth to it. And the masses, being enthralled with Richard Ramirez even though he has been labeled as one of the most heinous killers in history, flock to said stories and take it all in as though it were fact, not bothering to do a bit of research for themselves. They are drawn to the serial killer, rapist narrative like moths drawn to a flame.

In 1993, Ramirez appeared on an episode of Inside Edition, which further fueled public fascination with his image. Media segments like these didn’t seek to understand the mental health crisis he was experiencing, but rather to sensationalize his notoriety, often presenting a one-dimensional villain devoid of humanity or psychological context. People attempt to psychoanalyze him from the footage but never seek out his genuine psychiatric evaluations.

Who picked up the pieces of Richard’s broken life, of his broken soul? How many people had the opportunity to change the trajectory of his life but didn’t?

A few words about trauma: everyone experiences trauma differently. What may be perceived as traumatic to me may not be perceived as traumatic to you, and vice versa. So, we should not assume that we all experience trauma in the same way. Trauma-focused therapy is a specialty. Not every psychologist or mental health professional is qualified to engage in this type of therapy. Trauma therapy must be conducted systematically and with an appropriate patient-focused approach. To blurt out, “Tell me about your childhood traumas,” is insensitive and can cause more harm to someone who has experienced trauma. Approaching a trauma victim with anything but genuine concern and empathy is harsh, unwarranted, and does not facilitate healing.

KayCee