Though the notorious Night Stalker killer has been dead for nearly a year, a new report proves that he hasn't lost the power to scare us. A source now says that the serial killed plotted not one, but two escape attempts during his incarceration in the Bay Area's San Quentin prison, including a scheme planned with one of his many groupies.
Richard "Night Stalker" Ramirez spent June 1984 through August 1985 raping and murdering people across Los Angeles and San Francisco. In 1989, Ramirez was tried and convicted of 13 murders, five attempted murders, 11 sexual assaults and 14 burglaries, but authorities believe he may be responsible for many others. He was sentenced to death, and spent his remaining years on San Quentin's death row appealing the sentence, He died at Marin General hospital last June at the age of 53, due to complications of B-cell lymphoma, an illness that was exacerbated by "chronic substance abuse and chronic hepatitis C viral infection."
According to the New York Post, those appeals weren't his only plan on how to duck his sentence. Ramirez was actually caught in the midst of two escape attempts, one in 1993 and another in 1998, both planned so he could, they say, "continue his bloodthirsty California rampage and go down in a blaze of glory."
“From the moment Ramirez came to San Quentin, it was in his mind to escape,” an anonymous source told the Post. “If he went free, he would have killed a lot more people before the cops cut him down. That’s how he wanted it."
According to the source, Ramirez's first attempt to escape went down in 1993, when after a trip to SF court in yet another murder case, it was discovered that Ramirez had a handcuff key, a ballpoint pen, a syringe and, a sticker that read, 'I Luv chocolate' shoved up his ass. (We are not making this up.) The source says that Ramirez planned to fake an illness, then when he was being transported to the hospital, he would use the key to get out of his cuffs and kill his escorts.
“He would have then stolen a car and started to do his thing again,” the source told the Post. Frustratingly, the source did not explain what role the 'I Luv chocolate' sticker would have played in the plan. Ramirez ended up pleading guilty for attempting to escape, and lost 10 days of yard privileges.
Then in 1998, a fan angered by Ramirez' recent marriage to Doreen Ramirez (nee Lioy), was said to have been conspiring to help him escape from the prison. (For her part, Doreen, who once described Ramirez as "really a great person. He's my best friend; he's my buddy," separated from Ramirez in 2011.)
But back in June of 1998, Doreen's rival reportedly wrote “Ya know why women have done such crazy things like helping or masterminding prison escapes ‘cuz they are driven to temporary insanity — insatiable desire made them crazy,” to Ramirez. Prison officials, realizing that the woman had written the letter on the same day that she'd visited Ramirez, cut off her access to the killer. Neither were charged in that case, but the Post's source appears confident that a plan was in the works.
"Being incarcerated went against everything Ramirez was about," the source said. "He hated being cooped up in a cell, but he valued his freedom to roam the streets and kill.”
[NY Post]