Expendable For A Cause.

“The world has been fed many lies about me..”
Richard Ramírez

Now available, the book: The Appeal of the Night Stalker: The Railroading of Richard Ramirez.

Click here for both the ebook and the paperback.

Welcome to our blog.

This analysis examines the life and trial of Richard Ramirez, also known as The Night Stalker. Our research draws upon a wide range of materials, including evidentiary documentation, eyewitness accounts, crime reports, federal court petitions, expert testimony, medical records, psychiatric evaluations, and other relevant sources as deemed appropriate.

For the first time, this case has been thoroughly deconstructed and re-examined. With authorised access to the Los Angeles case files, our team incorporated these findings to present a comprehensive overview of the case.

The Writ of Habeas Corpus

The literal meaning of habeas corpus is “you should have the body”—that is, the judge or court should (and must) have any person who is being detained brought forward so that the legality of that person’s detention can be assessed. In United States law, habeas corpus ad subjiciendum (the full name of what habeas corpus typically refers to) is also called “the Great Writ,” and it is not about a person’s guilt or innocence, but about whether custody of that person is lawful under the U.S. Constitution. Common grounds for relief under habeas corpus—”relief” in this case being a release from custody—include a conviction based on illegally obtained or falsified evidence; a denial of effective assistance of counsel; or a conviction by a jury that was improperly selected and impanelled.

All of those things can be seen within this writ.

The Writ of Habeas Corpus is not a given right, unlike review on direct appeal, it is not automatic.

What happened was a violation of constitutional rights, under the 5th, 6th, 8th and 14th Amendments.

Demonised, sexualised and monetised.

After all, we are all expendable for a cause.

LOOSE ENDS

You, the Jury
Questioning

The word “occult” comes from the Latin “occultus”. Ironically, the trial of an infamous occultist and Satanist is the epitome of the meaning of the word itself: clandestine, secret; hidden.

We’ve written many words; a story needed to be told, and we created this place to enable us to do just that.
Here, in this space, we intended to present the defence omitted at Richard Ramirez’s trial in violation of his constitutional rights. Our investigations have taken us down roads we’d rather not travel along, but as we did so, we realised that there was so much hidden we could search for a lifetime and still not see the end of it. Once we’d started, there was no turning back; we followed wherever it led.

This was never about proving innocence; that was never the intent or purpose. We wanted to begin a dialogue, allowing this information to be freely discussed and for us to verbalise the rarely asked questions. We asked, and we’re still asking.

We can’t tell you, the reader, what to think; you must come to your own conclusions, as we did.

And so

We’ve said what we came here to say; with 114 articles and supporting documents, we’ve said as much as we can at this point.
This blog will stand as a record of that, and although we will still be here, we intend to only update if we find new information, if we suddenly remember something we haven’t previously covered, or to “tidy up” existing articles and examine any new claims (or expose outrageous lies) that come to light. The site will be maintained, and we’ll be around to answer any comments or questions.

What Next?

We will focus on the book being worked on; we’ve also been invited to participate in a podcast. When we have dates for those, we’ll update you.

The defence rests? Somehow, I sincerely doubt that; ultimately, we’re all “expendable for a cause”.

~ J, V and K ~
THE LOS ANGELES CRIMES

To Prove a Lover

This is an addition to the article covering the murder of Tsai-Lian Yu and I would refer you back to that original post for all the details on this case. I am adding a little information we discovered during our visit to the Hall of Records in Los Angeles. Leafing through the first volume, we came across some information from the preliminary hearing that didn’t appear during the trial.
We found it interesting and worth sharing.

A Brief Re-Cap

The killing of Tsai-Lian was the only count commuted to the lesser charge of second-degree murder rather than first-degree; it could not be shown that her killing was done with intent and malice aforethought. This is because of eyewitness testimonies; one described a “lovers’ quarrel”, and the other described a fight between the victim and the perpetrator.

“Gallegos saw the man from the blue car lean into the window of the yellow car and try to pull the woman from her car. Gallegos thought they were having a lovers’ quarrel.” (2008 Petition of Habeas Corpus, page 50)

The above is an embellishment on his original witness statement from Jorge Gallegos Calderon. In the original statement, taken by Monterey Park Officer Dan Romero, Gallegos denied seeing a fight and said he would be unable to identify the suspect.

He later surprised the prosecution, defence and probably himself by suddenly and implausibly identifying Ramirez.
He was not the first (or last) eyewitness to change their story in court.
Joseph Dueñas, the second eyewitness, initially identified Ramirez at the 1986 preliminary hearing but later admitted he could not identify him and recanted his statement.
This is hardly surprising, as both had described a short-ish man of 5ft 7 to 5ft 8 with a possible Asian or Latino appearance. Ramirez was 6ft 1.

A Lovers’ Quarrel?

Engaging in a lovers’ quarrel implies a relationship with the opposite party, although there is no suggestion that Tsai-Lian Yu had any connection to Richard Ramirez, let alone that they were lovers. Yet the possibility must remain that Tsai-Lian knew her killer if we are to believe the testimonies that Yu was holding on to her attacker as he told her, ” Get away from me!”.

Tsai-Lian Yu did have a boyfriend, although nothing about him is known, not his name, height, or ethnicity. Was he also Asian? We don’t know.
Officer Anthony Romero of the Monterey Park Police (there were two Officers named Romero, Dan and Anthony) did the initial investigations before the case was taken over by Gil Carrillo and the task force. Romero testified that Tsai-Lian had wanted to marry her boyfriend, but he did not want to marry her.

Apologies for the bad quality photo – we only had mobiles and had not yet been given permission to take pictures at the time this was taken, some stealth was needed.. Permission was received later.

For clarity I will transcribe below:

“ Officer Anthony Romero testified that this victim, Ms Yu, wanted to marry her boyfriend but he did not want to marry her.” Taken from the recorded transcript from the preliminary hearing, dated 18th March 1986.

This snippet was amongst the pile of case volumes and is something that we have never seen mentioned before.

For whatever reason, the boyfriend doesn’t seem to have been interviewed at all. Perhaps he was out of town, giving him a cast-iron alibi. Nonetheless, one would still expect that a boyfriend would have been questioned, especially as there was the suggestion of conflict between them. No, I am not saying that this unknown boyfriend killed Tsai-Lian, yet it is evident that the court was determined that the defence should not be allowed to raise the subject of Yu’s relationships with men.

Halpin Objects

Richard’s defence suggested an ex-boyfriend might have been her killer, which was totally acceptable, given that they had heard two testimonies describing lovers’ arguments and fights in the street. Halpin objected, saying that Yu’s boyfriends were “irrelevant”, which sounds ludicrous, as his own witnesses were the ones to mention lovers in the first place.
Judge Tynan sustained, and so Richard’s defence team were never allowed to question Yu’s friend, Jean Wang, about the conflict with the boyfriend or anything at all. Her genuine and actual relationships were deemed to be null and void, banished into the ether as the case was brought under the umbrella of Carrillo’s ‘fear fetish’ theory. A theory that falls at the third murder ascribed to the Night Stalker in 1985.

Prosecutor Philip Halpin, 15th August 1989. Photo Credit: Michael Haering. From the Herald Examiner Collection.

Joinders

The Yu incident was a non-capital homicide charge that was elevated to a death penalty one by the prosecution’s usage of joinders, whereby cases with more robust looking evidence were linked to those with weaker.

“In closing argument, the prosecution urged the jury to find Petitioner guilty of first degree murder in the Yu incident based on a theory of deliberate and premeditated killing with malice aforethought. In rebuttal argument, the prosecution stated that Petitioner’s denial of involvement in the Yu shooting abrogated the jury’s need to consider any of the manslaughter instructions. The jury returned a verdict of second-degree murder.” 2008 Petition of Habeas Corpus, page 626

At no stage did the prosecution attempt to prove a link between Tsai-Lian Yu and Richard Ramirez. The conviction rested on the tenuous coupling of a flawed ballistics report and unreliable eyewitnesses, both of whom should have been impeached.

“Gallegos admitted he told the investigating officers that he could not identify the man and that his description was quite different to the defendant’s actual appearance.” Recorded transcript, preliminary hearing, 18th March 1986.

The visit to the Hall of Records and reading the case files corroborated what we had already said. It also raised more questions that should have been answered nearly 40 years ago.

I read a lot and write a bit
~ Jay ~

Our book is now available, click here for information.
IT’S RELEVANT

“The Words “Serial Killer” Hung in the Air”

In the book, there are two small sections on Arturo Robles, a suspect who was featured in the Netflix documentary. Although released, Robles is significant in the timeline of Ramirez’s case and the creation of the Night Stalker. This post will put those events in one place.

Robles had previously been driving around the streets of East L.A. trying to entice women when he was cautioned by police following harassment allegations. Gil Carrillo heard about this and because he was looking for a shooter in the Okazaki case, he thought Arturo Robles might be an interesting lead. He ordered deputies to put him under surveillance. Meanwhile, surviving victim Maria Hernandez identified him from a photo spread.

Robles was arrested in connection with Dayle Okazaki’s murder on 10^th April 1985. He was initially unaware of the reason for his arrest, believing it to be cocaine possession. He was taken to the police station under the pretence that it involved “following minors” which he denied, insisting the females he followed appeared to be adults. When he arrived at the station, Gil Carrillo questioned him over some bars he frequented, one of which happened to be a favourite haunt of Dayle Okazaki. Robles’ house was searched, and some possessions were confiscated. Robles was made to take a polygraph test (the results of which were denied to Ramirez’s defence team). He also gave blood and saliva samples.

Access denied.

Robles was asked to attend a line-up. Significantly, he said he heard police discussing a serial killer: “the words serial killer hung in the air”. This was early April 1985, so before the main killing spree had commenced – when there was a rapid succession of attacks between late June and early July. This shows that Carrillo was already pursuing a serial killer before there was any real reason to, based on his eye-contact theory. To recap, by early April, the only cases under his radar were Okazaki, Yu and Zazzara. The Yu case was dealt with by the Monterey Park Police Department and nothing to do with Carrillo or the LASD, but he was determined to connect the crimes behind the scenes. The Yu case was taken over by the LASD in August 1985.

Ramirez’s biographer, Philip Carlo, calls Arturo Robles “Paul Samuels” in his book. They are definitely the same person, but back then, Robles’ name was not public, so it was changed for legal reasons. Carlo wrote that when “Samuels” did the line-up, the witnesses for the Yu case were called in, but so were the children from the abduction cases. As discussed in the Yu post, and our book, this is ridiculous: Arturo Robles was six feet tall and is Mexican. The Yu witnesses both saw a possible Asian man who was around 5’6”. The children saw a white man who was around 5’9” and fair-haired. So, here is more evidence that Carrillo was attempting to weave a serial killer narrative. Ultimately, nobody identified Robles and he was allowed to go home. In his interview, Robles says that Carrillo joked with him that he was identified as “not the serial killer.” The interview with Arturo Robles can be found here. His recollections are quite amusing.

Robles at the line-up

Robles’ line-up was in early April, but Carrillo’s attempts to connect the crimes predated that. On 3^rd April, he asked the firearms expert to check whether the bullets at the Zazzara scene matched those at the Okazaki scenes. They were distorted beyond comparison (yet miraculously matched to Khovananth much later, if you can suspend your disbelief for long enough) There was no real reason to connect Zazzara. The nature of that crime was very different. But we know Carrillo was fixated on the Avia shoeprint theory, and the shoeprint was dubiously connected to a child abduction.

From the affidavit, Document 7.4.

The hounding of Arturo Robles seems to have continued. The 2006 automatic direct appeal petition says that, from a photo spread, Sophie Dickman also chose the same man Maria Hernandez selected. How strange that two women should both pick Carrillo’s chosen suspect, despite each describing someone different – Dickman’s assailant never matched Hernandez’s on paper. Therefore, it seems more than coincidental. As discussed in this post, Dickman’s attacker was too short and thin to be Arturo Robles.

From the People v. Ramirez S021944

Later, it was revealed in the media that construction workers had been shown photos of a police mugshot as well as composite sketches. It is likely that this was the above photo of Robles from his 10^th April arrest.

If it was not Arturo Robles, it was probably a man called Miguel Angel Paez. Paez was arrested sometime in mid-July 1985. In a defence motion obtained from the court records, it was revealed that Maria Hernandez identified Paez from another photo spread. However, she saw him at another line-up and was unable to positively identify him either. Paez’s alibi was strong and he was released on 19^th July 1985. The suspect Dickman identified was more likely to be Robles, because Carrillo has repeatedly mentioned him.

An article on Miguel Paez

Once the target shifted onto “Richard Mena” (Ramirez’s alias), the narrative changed so the suspect was “six feet tall and thin, with curly hair and stained, gapped teeth”. Robles obviously did not match this, but Ramirez did. The rest is history. Or myth perhaps. Out of all the victims, Maria Hernandez seemed the least certain, sometimes admitting Ramirez did not look like the suspect, yet sometimes she said it was definitely him. On the day she testified at the preliminary hearing, on 11^th March 1986, she was interviewed by Gil Carrillo. Why did a detective need to speak to her on the day she was in court? To make sure she said the right thing? It could be interpreted as intimidating or coercive. The idea that the gunman shot her while wearing a hat was also planted in Hernandez’s head by Carrillo. The defence requested his dictated notes from the meeting as well as information on his surveillance of Arturo Robles (they were hoping to suggest he was the real killer), but whether this was raised again at trial is unknown.

There was something else interesting in the court documents. The defence filed that Maria Hernandez only saw the killer for two seconds. It all happened so fast.

It has previously been written in the petition, and subsequently by ourselves, that Maria Hernandez only saw the killer for eight seconds, because that is how long the light in her garage stayed on. But that was only from Carrillo’s findings. In reality, she must have exited the car, walked quickly around both vehicles and the moment she touched the other door to enter, the killer came in, she looked round, he walked towards her, fired the gun and everything went dark. She next saw him outside in the dark with no streetlights. No wonder she struggled to identify him. It explains why Ramirez and Robles look so different to the composite (we do not know what Miguel Paez looked like). She really struggled with this identification for good reason and the whole process must have been quite intimidating. It is shameful that documentaries and films peddle the lie that she had a clear view of a dishevelled man with rotten teeth. How could she have seen his teeth when he never spoke to her?

^{Carrillo escorting Hernandez into the courtroom, 1986.}

^{With Salerno. They’re always just there.}

Also, a reminder that our book is for sale here. Spread the word (if you feel like it)!

-VenningB-

Disclaimer: we have since seen several people online citing our blog or book as evidence that Robles was the child abductor. We are not. We have never said that, merely that Carrillo has implied he was.
LOOSE ENDS

The Letter

As you know, during our trip to Los Angeles, we gained access to the court files held in the basement at the Hall of Records. There are nine volumes.

On going through the first volume, we came across an original letter written by Richard, in 1986, from LA County Jail to Judge Dion Morrow, who was presiding over the case at that time. It isn’t dated, but in the body of the letter, as you can see, Richard mentions Monday, 8th September (the date of a court hearing, probably) and that “today is Wednesday”, so he wrote that letter on the 3rd September 1986. We could handle it and take photos (they wouldn’t copy it). It is written in ink, not ballpoint or biro.

Original letter from the court files, volume one.

I will transcribe the letter here, as some of you may be viewing it via your mobile phones and unable to read it clearly. The spelling mistake is Richard’s own, I left it in.

Mr Morrow

I am hampered in obtaining a lawyer of my choice due to the fact that I can’t get enough phone time. If you could issue a court order giving me more time on the phone I’d appreciate it. On Monday Sept 8 1986 I will not have proper counsel replacement. Today is Wendsday [sic] and I have failed to locate a certain person helping me in this matter. If I could have an extension of a few days I’d appreciate it.

Richard Ramirez

The envelope has his booking and dorm numbers on the front; he would not attain the famous “E37101” number until 1989 after he was convicted.

Here we are, September 1986, and already Richard had been abandoned by his counsel. He turned for help to Judge Morrow, perhaps not knowing who else to go to other than the ‘man in charge’.
As frustrating as it is, we don’t know who Richard was trying to locate, but we must assume it was legal representation. Perhaps he had been given a name and a number before the absent Hernandezes departed. Where they were is anyone’s guess, possibly messing up another case in Santa Clara.

Did Judge Morrow grant him more time? I am inclined to think that he did, although I don’t know for sure. Morrow, out of all the judges who presided over the trial, seemed to be the most fair, or perhaps the one who showed the least bias. I am minded to think that Richard was granted an extension to find help as a couple of months after Richard wrote that letter, Prosecutor Halpin moved to get Morrow taken off the case by filing an affidavit of prejudice against him.

Halpin cited Morrow’s workload, and he didn’t want any more delays, hoping to move forward to trial as soon as possible. Judge Morrow disagreed and claimed that all the judges in the court building had equally heavy caseloads.

Judge Shopping

Prosecutor Halpin defeated his own argument, for although attorneys are allowed to file motions to get judges removed, it is usually done early in the proceedings, not once a judge has reviewed all the documents in the case. The prosecutor caused more delays by his actions, and he would have undoubtedly known that the new judge would have a mountain of pretrial documents to read before ruling on any motions.

An outraged Arturo Hernandez (he did at least turn up) was quoted in the Herald Examiner as telling reporters that Halpin was “judge shopping”, in other words, finding a judge who was not quite so fair-minded. After all, Dion Morrow warned Richard in chambers that his attorneys were not doing their job and his rights were being violated.

“It is totally ridiculous that Mr Halpin feels that such an honourable judge as Dion Morrow is prejudiced”.

(Arturo Hernandez, Herald Examiner 13th November 1986 )

As it was, Halpin had his way, and Dion Morrow was duly replaced by Michael Tynan, a man so biased that he even acted as a ‘witness’ during the voir dire proceedings when Daniel Hernandez suggested Halpin was a “bigot.”

So, that’s the position Richard found himself in September 1986, asking for extra phone time and a few more days to find the person he needed to help him.
For once, we have a hitherto unseen letter written by Richard, not sold for profit by either a pen pal or a family member. I will always wonder who he was looking for.

“I read a lot and write a bit”
~ Jay ~
IT’S RELEVANT

The Omnipresent Mr. Carrillo

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-
LOOSE ENDS

Breaking the Silence

City Hall, Los Angeles, close to the Hall of Records.

I’m sorry for the lack of communication over the past few weeks. As some of you know, the three of us have been fully dedicated to this project, which led us to take a trip to Los Angeles earlier this month. We’ve just returned and are excited to share our findings with you.
During that time, we scheduled an appointment at the Hall of Records and gained access to the trial records held in the basement. There are nine volumes, but not all court records are available. In fact, they had forgotten to remove the ones no one is allowed to see, so we had to wait whilst they quickly went through and removed them. We did ask why and were told they contained “sensitive information”, likely to be personal details of witnesses, images, etc. The files are dated from 1986, covering the preliminary hearings through to the verdict. Anything previous will be in the police archives, one imagines.

We spent one afternoon and one whole day in that basement. Were we well received? No, not exactly. We were viewed with much suspicion and strange glances, but we didn’t let that put us off.

We managed to go through most of the nine volumes; however, we ran out of time for all, and we have requested copies for those.
We were given permission to photograph what we wanted, and they also made some hard copies for us, so over the next few days and weeks, we will be putting them all together to share with you what we found. In honesty, it just underlined that which we already knew, but it has provided us with yet more insight into the failings surrounding the trial and some particularly shady behaviour by Halpin and one letter written by Richard which has not been seen before.

Court records, volume one.

We appreciate your patience as we sort everything out into understandable chunks. We were snapping away with our phones and now must organise a jumble of court documents.
We also want to thank those we met with for coffee during our time in LA. Thanks again for welcoming us and for the conversation and support. We were so happy to meet you.

Outside the Hall of Records, Los Angeles.

Our book is available here..

~Jay~, Venning and Kaycee.