Serial Killer Richard Ramirez
Crescendo of Terror
Late in the 20th Century, Hell glutted on humanity. Its first
bloodletting of that season of the Devil occurred on the warm
evening of June 28, 1984, when an earth-bound Lucifer found his
way into the small Glassel Park apartment of 79-year-old Jennie
Vincow. Throughout the Los Angeles area a damp humidity had
oppressed the air that day, and when the evening came and the
temperature slightly cooled, Jennie left her window open to invite
what little breeze there might be into her flat. Like a fallen leaf,
decayed and tossed from its source, a fallen angel, dark, angry and
also decaying, blew across the sill of that open window. When the
demon departed through that same window, he left behind Jennie
Vincow, raped, beaten and nearly decapitated.
"Her body was found by her son, who lived above her ground-floor
apartment, just south of...Forest Lawn Park," reports the Los
Angeles Times. "Her throat had been slashed and she had been
stabbed repeatedly."
The police were baffled. But, in the months to come, they were to
encounter a madman whose lust for killing and depravity equaled, if
not surpassed, that of Jack the Ripper or, more contemporary, the
Hillside Strangler. Soon to be named the "Night Stalker" by the
press, this madman bore, according to true crime author Richard L.
Linedecker, "the horror in his soul of a Stephen King or a Clive
Barker fright novel – and more." A Freddy Kruger. For real.
Less than a year later, the monster reappeared. This time, he waited
in the shadows of an upscale condominium outside LA. The date
was March 17, 1985, time 11:30 p.m., when pretty-faced Maria
Hernandez pulled her auto into the security garage, unaware the
monster was watching her from behind a pillar. When she alighted
from her car, the killer stepped from the darkness, gun upraised and,
despite her pleadings, he pressed the trigger. She stumbled. And the
killer, thinking she was dead, stepped over her to enter the side door
of the condo. But, Maria had been lucky – very lucky – for the bullet
had deflected off the car keys she held in her hand, causing a hand
wound, but nothing more.
Inside the building, Maria's roommate was less fortunate. For, when
Maria finally made her way to the safety of her place, breathless, she
discovered that her friend, Dayle Okazaki, had al...
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...nessman
and the housewife - they had bought guns, and loaded them. Or they
had as their weapons shovels, or pickaxes, or kitchen knives, or any
one of dozens of homemade utensils pointing their way to a night
stalker's heart.
Suddenly, the Night Stalker realized that things had changed. He
found their lights burning at night, a silhouette in the window.
Suddenly he found apartment buildings with hired guards pacing the
lobby. Suddenly he found citizens' committees strolling roundabout
and in and out in the alleys, the parks, the streets. Suddenly he found
their windows nailed shut, porch lights left on, back yards illumined
by safety beams. Suddenly he found defiance.
The civic forces, too, were out in droves. Patrol cars were
everywhere, marked and unmarked vehicles. Townsfolk volunteers
had been deputized, as well, to drive in the dark, licensed to throw
their search beams at anything that moved or crept or crawled - and
if it resembled the Night Stalker, to step on it.
The devil, the ghost, the ghoul, the phantom, the stalker. It was time
for him to leave Los Angeles.
He shrugged. After all, no matter. He would go elsewhere. He could
kill anywhere.
Clifford Olson is one of Canada's well known serial killers. He showed no sign of sympathy for the public all throughout his life and would eventually end up killing many innocent people and spending a good portion of his life in jail.
2. Biographical Information: The name of the serial killer that I researched is Donald Harvey. Biographical Information Donald Harvey was born on April 15, 1952. He is still alive and serving life in prison.
Though his killings occurred over thirty years ago Clifford Olson is still knows as one of Canada’s most notorious serial killers. Active through the years 1980-1980 he was responsible for eleven gruesome murders in that short span of time. The shocking nature of his crimes ensured nobody would forget his notorious deeds. To build on that, Olson is loathed because he extorted authorities into paying $100,000 for the locations of his victims’ remains, an agreement that haunted the survivors of Olson’s crimes, and ruined the careers of the officials who buckled under Olson’s outrageous demands. Furthermore, his crime spree led Neighbourhoods that once claimed to be “so safe you could leave your door open” to secure their doors; hitchhikers were seldom found on highways, and telephone poles were covered with posters warning that nearly a dozen adolescents were missing and a killer was on the loose. Had he not been apprehended by the authorities on August 12th, 1981 his spree of brutal slayings may have continued for much longer, as he showed no remorse for his ruthless crimes.
Jeffrey Dahmer was born May 21st, 1960, the first child for Lionel and Joyce Dahmer, after a difficult pregnancy that had Joyce on various prescription drugs.
People move all the time. Whether the relocation is due to personal or professional reasons, most often is it to start a new, and better, life. The community doesn’t usually know that new members are present and they go about their daily lives. In April of 1987, Rochester, NY gained two new members of the community and they were none the wiser until women, mainly prostitutes, began to disappear and then would turn up murdered starting in early 1988. Arthur Shawcross, relocated to Rochester after being paroled and having his criminal record sealed, was given the ability to start a new life, but he returned to his old habits of mutilation and murder by killing 11 women over two years.
The Boston Strangler was probably the most notorious criminal that Boston, Massachusetts has ever known. But who was the Boston Strangler? Was he Albert DeSalvo, the person who confessed and went to jail for these crimes? Is he someone that took his secret to the grave and let an innocent man take the blame for his crime? Or is he still walking the streets of Boston, or even the streets of another city?
	"It mattered that education was changing me. It never ceased to matter. My brother and sisters would giggle at our mother’s mispronounced words. They’d correct her gently. My mother laughed girlishly one night, trying not to pronounce sheep as ship. From a distance I listened sullenly. From that distance, pretending not to notice on another occasion, I saw my father looking at the title pages of my library books. That was the scene on my mind when I walked home with a fourth-grade companion and heard him say that his parents read to him every night. (A strange sounding book-Winnie the Pooh.) Immediately, I wanted to know, what is it like?" My companion, however, thought I wanted to know about the plot of the book. Another day, my mother surprised me by asking for a "nice" book to read. "Something not too hard you think I might like." Carefully I chose one, Willa Cather’s My ‘Antonia. But when, several weeks later, I happened to see it next to her bed unread except for the first few pages, I was furious and suddenly wanted to cry. I grabbed up the book and took it back to my room and placed it in its place, alphabetically on my shelf." (p.626-627)
Richard Ramirez also known as "The Night Stalker" was a notorious serial killer who tormented the lives of Los Angeles residents by raping, sodomizing, murdering, and torturing random citizens of the community. Ramirez was addicted to cocaine and was a Satan worshiper. His rain of torture throughout 1985 included over 29 victims. He has already outlived some of the victims that survived his attacks. In 1985 Ramirez was captured by an angry mob of citizens.
From 1987 to 1991, Jeffrey Dahmer reign terror over the gay community. He was a social incompetent, homosexual man. His spent his entire life feeling as an outcast in this giant world and struggled to find his voice and his sense of self. He resorted to dead rodents and mannequins to bring him entertainment and companionship. Eventually, Dahmer thirst for more and when his abuse of alcohol could no longer medicate him he allowed his gruesome fantasies and needs to take control.
Have you ever wondered why some people love art and music, and some love science and math? These individuals love math or art because they get a sense of relaxation and excitement from these activities. Serial killers are the same way they love to kill people and have lots of different motives for why they kill them. A serial killer is a person who kills repeatedly. The one motive that drove Dennis Rader, to kill his victims was to gain power and control over them.
Those are the words of a convicted serial killer who never actually murdered a single person in his life, Charles Manson. Conversely he orchestrated members of the group that became known as the Manson Family to carry the murders out. Manson was born “no name Maddox” on November 12, 1934 in Cincinnati, Ohio. He was born to Kathleen Maddox, an unmarried 16-year-old prostitute who frequently drank. His mother married a laborer named William Manson weeks after his birth and was given the name Charles Milles Manson, taking his stepfathers last name.
The Zodiac Killer is one of the most popular murders. The fact that made him so infamous was that The Zodiac Killer was never identified. The mysterious killer was never caught and jailed for his crimes. The FBI have looked for the killer for decades, but still, even to this day, could not find him. The whole mystery of the killer and the name of the killer has made him popular across the United States. The Zodiac Killer was a mysterious killer, and he had a very unique way of going about the murders.
Ramirez had many characteristics that could be similar to a typical serial killer. There are a great number of traits that can make a serial killer who they are. There are also upbringings that can make a serial killer act a certain way. Experiences and certain events can cause them to become the serial killer they are. Serial killers can also become who they are not just because of their surroundings, but because they want to. Sometimes they want revenge on somebody and then it just continues on because it becomes a habit. Characteristics of a serial killer include: alcohol and substance abuse, psychological abuse during childhood, sexually stressful events in childhood, bed-wetting, growing up lonely and isolated, fantasies, preferring auto-erotic activities, developing voyeurism and fetishism in adulthood, acting out fantasies on animals, and physical injuries (Gerber 2). There are quite obviously more traits that are typical of a regular serial killers, but these ten appear to be the most common amongst them.
She is best known as the famous notorious British serial killer. Her crimes horrified and sickened many British families. I first heard about Beverly Allitt when I was watching TruTV. The show had a feature on Allitt and her crimes, this instantaneously caught my attention. The fact that a nurse would intentionally harm children seemed immensely ironic and riveting to me. In my eyes, a nurse was someone who cared and showed concern for a patient. Not someone who intentionally caused anguish and trauma upon innocent children.
In Green River, Running Red, author Ann Rule describes a killer without remorse, who is the product of both personal and social influences, in effect forcing him to murder women and to continue to do so for over a decade as a fulfillment of his fantasies. When endeavoring to rationalize the causes of such a mind, theories of deviance, when separated into two distinct categories, positivist and constructionism. Positivist theories, such as the general theory of crime, allows for individual's to piece together events in the life of Gary Ridgway, the Green River killer which would undeniably lead him to a twisted sense of reality, combined with sexual fantasies and a tendency to justify perverted acts of murder. Constructionist theories, specifically conflict theory, are able to shed light on the lives and decisions made by the victims, who were all led to such lifestyles through outward sources. In determining the causes and motivations behind both the offender and the victims, theories of deviance leave little to be speculated on when placing blame on either psychological or social factors.