Killers_ The Most Barbaric Murderers of Our Time - Cawthorne, Nigel [78]
Ramirez was found guilty on 63 counts, including 13 murders. He was sentenced to death penalties on 19 counts and over 100 years’ imprisonment. On death row, many women wrote to him, sending provocative pictures, pledging undying love and proposing marriage. When Ramirez accepted divorcée Christine Lee over nude model Kelly Marquez, it made headlines.
Christine, a mother of two, bombarded Ramirez with pin-up pictures of herself and visited him over 150 times. She was undaunted by the fact that her fiancé was a perverted killer, declaring, ‘We really love each other and that’s all that matters. From the moment I saw him in prison, I knew he was special. I couldn’t believe he was the evil monster people were calling him. He’s always been sweet and kind to me.’
But it did not work out. In October 1996, in a simple ceremony in San Quentin, Ramirez married Doreen Lioy, a 41-year-old freelance magazine editor with an IQ of 152.
‘The facts of his case ultimately will confirm that Richard is a wrongly convicted man,’ she said. ‘I believe fervently that his innocence will be proven to the world.’
Nevertheless, Richard Ramirez remains on death row.
Chapter 14
Hungerford
Name: Michael Ryan
Nationality: English
Number of victims: 16 killed
Favoured method of killing: shooting
Final note: shot himself in his school
Reign of terror: 20 August 1987
On 20 August 1987, 33-year-old Susan Godfrey took her two children for a picnic in Savernake Forest, 10 miles from the drowsy village of Hungerford in Berkshire. It was around 12.30 p.m. They had finished eating and Mrs Godfrey was strapping four-year-old Hannah and two-year-old James into the back of the family car when a man dressed in black appeared.
Incongruously for the Berkshire countryside, he was carrying a Chinese-made AK47 – a Kalashnikov assault rifle more usually seen in the hands of Third World guerrillas. He took the car keys from the dashboard of the black Nissan and forced Mrs Godfrey to come with him. Less than a hundred yards from the car he emptied the entire magazine of the Kalashnikov – 15 high-velocity rounds – into her back at point-blank range. The children were later found wandering the forest.
There seems to have been no motive for this savage murder. Mrs Godfrey was not sexually assaulted and there seems to have been no connection between her and her murderer – 27-year-old Michael Ryan – before her death. There is no evidence that Ryan had trailed the family. He had been in the forest, armed, since the mid-morning. The police could only speculate that she had surprised him during target practice. A local boy had heard a burst of semi-automatic fire from the forest at around 10.30 that morning.
But one senseless act of violence was not enough for the lonely and deluded Ryan. He drove his D-registered Vauxhall Astra back down the A4 towards his home in Hungerford.
Hungerford is an ancient market town with a population of less than five thousand. The broad main street is dominated by the Bear Hotel and the redbrick clock-tower that tolls out the hours with a long, flat note. Hungerford was granted a charter by John of Gaunt, whose name is commemorated by a pub in the town and the secondary school Michael Ryan attended. The charter allows the owner of three cottages the freedom of the town. This brings with it grazing and fishing rights – the nearby River Kennet is well stocked with trout and grayling. The owner also has to hold office on ‘Tutty’ (Tithing) Day and act as ale-taster, Constable and Tutty Man, parading through the streets in morning dress, kissing maidens and throwing oranges and pennies to the children.
The summer in Hungerford is quiet and still, though in August the sky is occasionally darkened by smoke from the burning stubble. The redbrick villas of the old town are a symbol of stability in the changing English countryside. The only lurking sense of fear emanates from the dark Victorian mental asylum that stands across the cattle grid on the Common. On the back road from Hungerford to Lambourn there