Ricardo Munoz Ramirez

Introduction

Ricardo Munoz Ramirez was born in El Paso, Texas on February 29, 1960. He was unfortunately given a very low class home with three brothers, one sister and a mom and dad. Most people called him Richard while he was young and, that name stuck around with him through his life. His father, Julian, was a very busy and stressed man. Julian had so much built-up anger because of this stress which made him abusive, especially towards Ramirez. His mother, Mercedes appeared to be much different than his father. She was a stay at home mom who cared very much for her children. He pursued the life of a criminal because of his family around him, including his father and especially his cousin, Mike. Mike impacted Ramirez in a way nobody else had. Ramirez committed his first murder on June 28, 1984. He was only 24 at the time. He went on to commit thirteen murders total and many more crimes within the span of two years. He was eventually apprehended on August 30, 1985 and was sentenced to jail for life along with 19 death sentences. While in jail, he suffered from liver failure and died in a hospital bed (Blanco 3).

There are two ways that Ramirez could have been introduced into killing: nature and nurture. Nature is more hereditary or things that people are born with. Nurture is the environmental factors and experiences

setting the path he is destined to go down. His dad and his setting around him had a good impact on him. Mike definitely had the greatest impact out of everyone. Mike changed him from a normal boy into somebody who committed crimes to help themselves and to try to get ahead in life. Richard Ramirez was turned nurtured into a serial killer because of the people around him (McLeod 3).

Background
Richard Ramirez was born in El Paso, Texas on February 29, 1960. He was the youngest amongst seven children. His father, Julian Ramirez, was a former policeman who later became a laborer on the Santa Fe Railroad. Julian was a hard working man, so he was prone to have fits of anger. These fits of anger turned into physical abuse, which he often took out on Ramirez. His mother was very much the opposite of his father. Her name was Mercedes and she was a kind-hearted women who worked in a shoe factory while pregnant with Ramirez. She was exposed to many toxins throughout the day from working long hours in the factory. She was also never encouraged to shield herself from these toxins even though she was pregnant (Bk42author 2).
Ramirez unintentionally caused himself to have two severe head injuries while he was young. The first one was when he was two years old. Ramirez tried to climb a dresser to get a radio set because he loved to dance as a baby. The dresser ended up falling on top of him. His forehead got injured and he had to get 30 stitches. The second injury was while he was five years old. Richard was knocked unconscious by a swing on the playground. These injuries caused him to have many epileptic seizures (Bk42author 2).
As Ramirez got in his teen years, he started to take LSD and got into Satanism (“Richard Ramirez Biography” 2).

The first crime he committed was while he was in highschool working at a local Holiday Inn. He would use his pass key to sneak into guests room and rob them. Ramirez finally got fired from there when he snuck into a couple’s room and tried to rape a man’s wife while he was out. Her husband walked in the middle of it and beat Ramirez badly (Bk42author 3). After this, Ramirez got more and more into crimes. He received a probationary sentence for marijuana possession. Later he got arrested for a car theft (“Richard Ramirez Biography”

2).
Richard stopped caring about school and decided to drop out (“Richard Ramirez Biography” 2). After dropping out of high school, he began to form a strong bond with his uncle, Mike Ramirez. Mike was a decorated Vietnam War veteran. They started to grow close by hanging out with one another smoking pot and Mike would tell horrifying stories about his days in war. Mike would often show Richard pictures of the victims he raped and murdered. Some showed severed heads of the women he abused. Richard also saw Mike kill his wife, Jessie. Mike and Jessie got into an argument and Mike shot Jessie in the face with a .38 caliber revolver. Mike was never found guilty because of insanity and was only in prison for 4 years (Bk42author 2).