Richard Ramirez was born in Texas in 1960 and was the youngest child of seven. Richard was your average child but also a loner. He liked to play outside and he loved to play football. For some time in his childhood he was normal until he was introduced to many different disturbing things. There were some things that happened in Richard childhood that I believe contributed to his criminal beginning and the ending. Richard Ramirez was an American serial killer called “The Night Stalker” who raped and killed women, men and children.

Richard’s parents were Mercedes and Julian Ramirez. His father worked a lot on the railroads while his mother stayed home to raise the seven children. Richard’s father was known to be very strict and sometimes abusive to the children. Being the youngest child of seven the abuse pushed Richard away, he did not want to be around his family. Some nights Richard would go to the cemetery and stay the night to prevent having to be around his father.

Richard was known to be a loner at times but there were some traumatic accidents that could have caused it. Richard was diagnosed with epilepsy and made Richard slip into a depression because he could no longer play football. This was so upsetting to him because football became to be an outlet for him. He could let out all of his anger at practice and not get into trouble because he was playing well. Richard made most of the friends that he had through football and once he stopped playing it was like his life stopped too, he lost a lot of friends from not playing.

Richard and his family did like to hunt together but not all the time did Richard hunt with his family. When Richard hunted alone he would wait quietly for the animal and instead of shooting it he would sneak up behind it and stab it repeatedly. This made Richard feel in control and have a lot of power. He liked doing this to animals he loved all the blood that would result from it. While in this class I learned about the MacDonald Triad, this explained some behaviors in the childhood of a serial killer. One of those behaviors were animal cruelty which stabbing animal repeatedly is not exactly just hunting for food.

While still a growing and developing child Richard was exposed to some very disturbing things by his cousin Mike. Mike was a Vietnam war veteran, he seemed to be some what normal but I found out differently as I learned more about him. Being a family member you would think that Mike would have Richards best interest, but he did not.

Mike introduced Richard to drugs, bondage porn, violence and other disturbing things. While Richard started to form a relationship with Mike he began to alienate himself from his family. Richard liked hanging out with Mike more than his family because he got away from his abusive father and he had not rule. At the age of ten years old Richard did whatever he wanted to. When Mike was at the young vulnerable age Mike decided he was going to show him some of the things that happened while he was at war in Vietnam. He showed him pictures of vietnamese women being tortured and raped by American soldiers. Richard also seen Mike doing it to, which Mike is someone he looked up to so he more than likely thought it was cool with no harm done.

When Richard reached the ninth grade he decided he had enough and dropped out of school, this allowed him to spend more time with Mike. After Richard dropped out he started to smoke weed, drink and do pills with his cousin. The more Richard seen the more he became curious about sex drugs and death. The two of them often talked about Satan and why they wanted to worship him. Another reason Richard became curious about death and Satan is because he watch Mike shoot his wife directly in the face killing her. Seeing this at a young age or any age for that matter will do some damage psychologically.