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“Night Stalker” Richard Ramirez’s Groupies Explain “Handsome” Killer’s Appeal: “Reminds Me of Mick Jagger”
After he was arrested for murdering more than a dozen people, Richard Ramirez drew a horde of female fans vying for the killer's attention. One even married him.
He drew comparisons to rock legend Mick Jagger and had hordes of devoted female fans, but serial killer Richard Ramirez’s sudden fame had deeply sinister roots.
The self-described “loner” was suspected of slaughtering more than a dozen people to satisfy his own dark desires, terrorizing the Los Angeles area for months as the death toll continued to rise until his dramatic arrest in August of 1985, according to Peacock’s docuseries, Richard Ramirez: The Night Stalker Tapes.
In the media frenzy that followed, Ramirez — known as the "Night Stalker" because of his penchant for breaking into his victims’ homes in the middle of the night — gained new-found notoriety, attracting scores of starstruck females who were seemingly willing to overlook the rapes and murders he was accused of, and eventually convicted of.
“The public is fascinated by Ramirez, he has admirers, he’s sort of the vampiric figure who is hypnotizing them," Gary Brucato, an author and clinical and forensic psychologist, explained on the docuseries of Ramirez's celebrity status following his arrest. "People are writing to him and sending him photographs."
Women lined up outside the courthouse hoping to get a glimpse of Ramirez, who had taken to wearing sunglasses for his court appearances, creating a circus-like atmosphere.
Why were women drawn to Richard Ramirez?
"He reminds me of Mick Jagger,” court spectator Mary Curby told news outlets at the time. “This is a very lurid case, it’s got all sorts of elements that are very appealing to the populace. It’s got sex and violence.”
Admirers flocked to the facilities where Ramirez was held behind bars.
“I just wanted to see what he looked like. I think he’s cute,” one woman waiting outside the jail confessed.
Eva O, a musician in the gothic death rock scene who was known as the “Queen of Darkness,” admitted she was drawn to Ramirez because he had a “certain kind of darkness” that she could relate to at the time.
After reading about the newly-arrested serial killer in People magazine, Eva sent Ramirez a total of 31 letters to make a bold first impression.
“I wrote about 31 letters and I thought, ‘Ok, he’ll notice me now, I’ll send all of these at once, bombard him, and then he’ll have to respond,'" Eva said on Richard Ramirez: The Night Stalker Tapes. "And he did, he wrote me 31 letters back."
Musician Eva O writes a song for the "Night Stalker"
After forging a friendship with Ramirez, Eva O wrote him a song called “Night Stalker,” visited him behind bars and encouraged him to embrace his new “rock star” persona.
“He was a very handsome, striking guy. And I was really hung up on this whole rock star thing," Eva said on the docuseries. "Obviously, I was trying to be a rock star. He’s got all of this security around him when he goes to court. He’s in the magazines every day, newspapers every day."
Other women sent Ramirez provocative pictures, featuring themselves wearing lingerie, pearls, or in one woman’s case, a rope wrapped around her neck.
Ramirez himself remarked on the phenomenon during an interview with biographer Philip Carlo, who would go on to write The Night Stalker: The Disturbing Life and Chilling Crimes of Richard Ramirez. Carlo's interviews with Ramirez, some of which have never been heard before now, are featured in the new Peacock docuseries.
“They’re drawn to me for all sorts of reasons," Ramirez told Carlo of the fan frenzy. "To get something out of me, to question me. Maybe they’re intrigued by murder, or murderers. Some are religious. Some are sympathetic. They’ve come to me from different walks of life, these women."
Who was Richard Ramirez’s wife?
There was perhaps no one more devoted to Ramirez than Doreen Lioy, who would go on to marry the serial killer. She once told Carlo she fell in love with Ramirez after seeing his mug shot flashed on TV.
“When I saw this picture, I was just fascinated by the face,” Lioy said. “It left me with a haunting feeling. Something about his eyes, I think. Whatever there was behind his eyes just pulled me in immediately.”
At the time, Lioy was working as a magazine editor at Tiger Beat Star, a celebrity publication for teens that covered Hollywood’s biggest young stars at the time. Once credited with helping boost the career of John Stamos, Lioy used that same passion and determination to help Ramirez, buying him clothes for court, writing to local newspapers to protest his treatment by the public, and becoming one of his closest confidants after they met in June of 1988.
Lioy would later tell San Francisco-based TV anchor Vicky Liviakis on the eve of her wedding to Ramirez that “magic happened” during their first meeting.
“When I met him I knew. I knew he was the right one for me,” Lioy said, adding that she was “very proud” to become the serial killer’s wife.
What attracted women to the "Night Stalker"?
As for why so many women were inextricably drawn to Ramirez, forensic psychologist and author Joni Johnston pointed to multiple factors that could have motivated his devoted groupies.
“When you look at the attraction to Richard Ramirez, the motives can be things ranging from wanting to save this person, or having a traumatic history themselves, to individuals who really do get off on the violence and the blood," Johnston said on Richard Ramirez: The Night Stalker Tapes. "And then of course, we cannot overlook the fame angle because it’s a vicarious way for them to be famous themselves."
Ramirez's trial "really hard" on victims' families
For Colleen Nelson, whose grandmother Joyce Nelson was brutally beaten and killed by Ramirez in July of 1985, and who was 18-years-old at the time of the trial, Ramirez's presence had the exact opposite effect.
Nelson and the families of other victims were appalled by the circus-like atmosphere inside the courthouse when Ramirez went on trial for 13 murder charges and 30 other counts.
“It was really hard to be in that courtroom and to look at him knowing what he had done to my grandma,” she recalled on the Peacock docuseries. “He was very arrogant and he had groupies and he would pull his glasses down and kind of check you out.”
“You could feel the evil in that room,” she continued.
Ramirez may have enjoyed a cult-like following, but it didn’t save him from justice. He was found guilty on all 43 counts against him and was sentenced to death.
Ramirez died behind bars of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma on June 7, 2013. At the time, he was in the midst of going through a divorce from Lioy, who has since dropped from the public eye.
What does Eva O think of her relationship with Richard Ramirez today?
Eva O told Richard Ramirez: The Night Stalker Tapes that when she first connected with Ramirez, she was “angry at the world” and felt he was someone she could relate to — but she no longer views the relationship through the same lens.
“I look back at it and think about it myself and I think... 'Why would you talk to somebody like that? Why would you put somebody like that in your life?'” Eva said in the docuseries. “I was a different person back then. I got really extreme about people that I got obsessed with. It turns twisted you know, at that point, it kinda is a twisted thing and I don’t call that love. It’s a mental illness."
Richard Ramirez: The Night Stalker Tapes is now streaming on Peacock.
