• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

24

Night Stalker

“What are you doing now, Jason?” my father said with exasperation. He was on his way to bed and noticed my light was still on. When he peered into my room, it looked like a strong wind had blown papers all over the place. I was sitting on the floor in the middle of the mess, putting the papers into an orderly sequence.

“Nothing much,” I said, hoping he’d go off to bed. I didn’t want to lose my concentration.

“Looks like homework or something,” he observed.

“Yeah,” I said noncommittally without looking up.

“Well, okay, I’m off to bed.”

“Night, Dad.”

Once I could hear his footsteps padding off, I sighed, both in relief and in disappointment. I really did want to tell him what I was doing, but I also realized it could mean trouble. I was in no mood for another lecture.

What I’d been involved with when my father interrupted was trying to bring some organization to all the correspondence I’d been receiving lately. Although, in re-creating what occurred, I’ve given the impression that my approaches to Gacy, Manson, and Dahmer were sequential, there was actually a good deal of overlap. Even after I spread out all the letters on the floor of my room, ordering them chronologically, I still felt unsure of the time-line. Truthfully, this two-month period in my life from December to February of my freshman year had become very confusing.

About the same time I first wrote Dahmer, I also sent a letter to Richard Ramirez, called the Night Stalker because of his modus operandi in terrorizing Southern California during 1984–85. During his rampage, Ramirez broke into homes indiscriminately, raping women, torturing them, and leaving them for dead. By the time he’d been captured, he’d killed at least fourteen and raped dozens more.

He was far more erratic than most serial killers, who follow some sort of a predictable pattern. In his case, nobody was safe, since he’d randomly select a home, break in, and kill everyone inside. There was almost nothing people could do to prevent themselves from becoming a victim, no matter what their ages. Sometimes Ramirez would snatch young children, rape them, then leave their bodies in random locations throughout the state. In one case, he raped and killed a woman in her mid-eighties. Many of the bodies were found with satanic symbols carved into their flesh. During his trial, Ramirez would smile and wave to cameras, displaying on his hand a satanic pentagram he’d drawn.

As I sat on the floor of my room, reviewing the letters and thinking about whom to write to next, I tried to imagine sleeping in my house, having a wife and family of my own. One night as I lie in bed, a man breaks into the house, shoots me in the chest, and as my life slowly drifts away, he brutally rapes and beats my wife. I can hear the woman I love scream for me to help. I watch as her hands reach out in anguish. As I gasp for breath, I watch him leave my wife, barely alive on the floor, to enter the rooms of my son and daughter . . .

As the fantasy played itself out, it seemed so real that I actually made a point of standing up in my room and looking around to reassure myself that none of this had happened. I’d been reading so much about Ramirez lately that it felt like he was stalking me. I turned on more lights in the room to take away the shadows. I knew another night would pass without my getting much sleep.

Ramirez struck me as very different from any other serial killer I’d yet studied. Rather than lure victims into his own domain, he preferred to enter their worlds and destroy them. Further, he didn’t seem to care much about who his prey was.

I also found it interesting that he became sexually aroused during his killing. Police discovered semen not only inside some of the women he raped but also on their torsos. Apparently, Ramirez became so excited as he slashed someone’s throat that he’d actually have an orgasm.

There were also significant elements of rage in his behavior. He seemed to thrive on other people’s fear—the more, the better. In addition,