How California’s “Night Stalker” Was Caught—Told by the Man Who Arrested Him

On this episode of Our American Stories, Sergeant Bob Alaniz still carries the weight of the morning he fingerprinted Richard Ramirez, knowing he was holding the hands of one of California’s most notorious serial killers, the “Night Stalker.” Here's Bob to tell the story, alongside firearms historian and regular contributor Ashley Hlebinsky. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:10):
And we continue with our American stories. Sergeant Bob Allenes
was assigned to patrol for the Los Angeles PD in
December of nineteen eighty four when he arrested Richard Ramirez
for stealing a car. Nobody had known at the time
that Ramirez was the Nightstalker. Ultimately, the photo and prince
he took of Ramirez led to his id and arrest. Today,

(00:34):
Bob is the chairman of the Los Angeles Police Museum
and is here to tell the story along with Ashley Lebinski.
Ashley is the former co host of Discovery Channel's Master
of Arms, Take It Away Ashley.

Speaker 2 (00:48):
Between June nineteen eighty four and August nineteen eighty five,
serial killer Richard Ramirez, who's better known infamously as the
night Stalker, prayed on victims in Los Angeles. He was
arrested on August thirty first, nineteen eighty five, after his
identity was initially released by the police and a group
of citizens recognized him. In this case, it's an example

(01:11):
of a large investigation coming down to something as small
as a fingerprint. Dating back to thirty three hundred BCE,
It's believed that fingerprints were used for some level of
identification purposes. In the eighteen eighties, though, a Frenchman named
Alfons Bertolon ventured away from the fingerprint to develop a

(01:35):
system of identifying people based on body measurements as well
as photographing faces, and this is the origin of the mugshot.
In eighteen ninety two, Sir Francis Galton published the first
classification system for fingerprints, and in nineteen oh one Scotland
Yard established its first fingerprint bureau. While the Bertolin system

(01:56):
was helpful for processing inmates, it was not full proof.
In nineteen oh eight, France was the first country to
have formally adopt fingerprinting, and by nineteen eleven fingerprints were
accepted in US courts as a reliable form of identification.
And who would have thought that just over seventy years later,
a fingerprint would be the downfall of one of the

(02:18):
most notorious serial killers in American history. Richard Ramirez was
a murderer, sex offender, and burglar, and began his reign
of terror this summer of nineteen eighty four. In December
of nineteen eighty four, Sergeant Roberto Alidse was on patrol
in West la.

Speaker 3 (02:38):
I was working in West la in the Brentwood area.
It was around twenty three in the morning. A partner
and I we were with the other officers that worked
that area, and on our radio frequency, the other officers contact.
He says, hey, you're still in the area, come on
back and back a sup We see some suspicious vehicle

(02:59):
and they had gone down Ashley. These are very affluent
homes and they observed this car was a seventy four
Ford Pinto and it was pretty much a geloty at
that time. So Richard Marris was driving down the street
and he looked like he was pulling into a driveway.
He would look at it, back up, go to another residence.

(03:21):
So he was casing the homes and we pulled him over.
We ordered him out of the car, gets out. He's
cooperating with us, and he looks a mess. So as
he comes out, my partner handcuffs him. I run up
to the vehicle to clear the vehicle and I look
at the ignition and the ignitions was punched, and so

(03:43):
I yelled to the guys, hey, the cars stone. So
we rested him for the stolen vehicle, put him in
our car, and the other guys in pounded the vehicle.
My partner. I drove him to the station and I
processed him. So I set him down in the booking chair,
and then I put his booking numbers, and I flipped

(04:03):
the numbers and put the data in there and logged
him in, took the photo, and then I went and
got him fingerprinted and put him in jail. The interesting
thing about that is that a few days later the
judge he communicated to the officers that from the reason
how you stopped him is because he's a Hispanic guy

(04:25):
in a flo and white neighborhood. Now all of us
were all Hispanic, so it's like, you know, where do
where does this come from? And so he said, well,
because of this, I'm going to let him go. So
and by the way, when we ran this record, he
did have a previous arrest for grand theft auto, so
this is the second charge, so he had a reason

(04:47):
to keep him.

Speaker 2 (04:49):
But days later, a judge released Ramirez from jail on
the promise to return to his preliminary trial. Unsurprisingly, he
did not return to court, and fa decision led to
Ramirez's ability to continue to rape, torture and murder for
another eight months.

Speaker 3 (05:07):
So his mo is to break into a house, do
his rituals, kill these people, and then he would take
the stolen vehicle someplace and eat torture. So he did
about two or three more crimes. In addition to that,
he had raped several children, so he had victimized several
more families.

Speaker 2 (05:27):
Fast forward to August nineteen eighty five, Ramirez drove seventy
six miles in a stolen Orange Toyota to Mission Viejo.
In this area, Ramirez was attempting to attack and rob
a man named James Romero Junior, but he was ultimately
exposed at the scene and forced to flee. Romero, however,
was able to get the make, model, and color of

(05:48):
the car, and he also got a partial license plate.
Since Ramirez's plan was thwarted, Ramirez broke into the home
of Bill Carnes and his fiance Inez Ericson. Rami has
shot Carns multiple times, but he did survive those injuries
before turning his sights on Ericson. After brutalizing her, he
left her alive, telling her to let people know that

(06:10):
the Knightstalker was here. And this decision would prove to
be a very bad one for Ramirez, as Ericson then
provided a full description of Ramirez to the police. On
August twenty eighth, Ramirez abandoned the Toyota. Although he attempted
to destroy any evidence of himself, including a fingerprint, police

(06:31):
were able to obtain one single fingerprint from the rear
view mirror.

Speaker 3 (06:35):
When we as it for fingerprints on the rear view mirror,
they got his thumbprint and when they matched that thumb
print came back to my arrest and they were able
to pull up the photo that I took, which if
you watch the latest show on Netflix, they have my
booking photo that I tell along with the sketch. And
I was driving down the street. Actually I was on sense.

(06:56):
I look up and I see this photo that I've
had for years.

Speaker 2 (07:00):
So is pretty interesting and according to some Ramirez's print
was a quote unquote near miracle, as the system used
to identify him had only recently been installed. The system
only contained fingerprints of criminals born after January first, nineteen sixty,
and Ramirez was born that year. About a month later,

(07:22):
on August twenty ninth, law enforcement released Ramirez's monk shot
from Alani's arrest. The police stated to the press, we
know who you are. Now and soon everyone else will.
There will be no place you can hide. And that
statement was quite accurate.

Speaker 3 (07:40):
Today, the search for California's nightstalker continues.

Speaker 2 (07:43):
Ramirez went to Tucson to see a relative, but upon
his return to Tucson on August thirty first, nineteen eighty five,
Ramirez was recognized by citizens. They conducted their own citizens arrest,
restraining and beating Ramirez until the police arrived. On September twenty,
nineteen eighty nine, Ramirez was convicted of forty three charges,

(08:04):
thirteen counts of murder, five attempted murders, eleven sexual assaults,
and fourteen burglaries. He was sentenced to death in California's
gas chamber. To the press, though, Ramirez stated, quote big
deal death always went with the territory. See you in
Disneyland end quote.

Speaker 3 (08:22):
You know, I saw him in court and it's interesting
to see these ladies that were in the back dressed
in black, and they were all his fans and they
want to marry this guy. That's another crazy thing too.
Why are you in the courtroom today?

Speaker 1 (08:35):
Everyone makes him look so bad. You know that I
know that he he's a nice person because I've met.

Speaker 3 (08:41):
Him and I know he's convicted of thirteen murders.

Speaker 1 (08:44):
No, but he's really a nice though.

Speaker 3 (08:50):
How do you respond to people who are gonna thank
you're crazy for this. I'll say that they just thrown
his dad.

Speaker 2 (08:58):
The trial cost one point eight million dollars and was
at the time the most expensive murder trial in the
history of California, only to be surpassed by the OJ
Simpson trial. It's hard to believe that someone who committed
atrocities and was able to elude the police for so
long was undone by the carelessness in leaving a single

(09:19):
fingerprint at the scene of a crime.

Speaker 1 (09:23):
And a terrific job on the production and editing by
our own Greg Hangler. And a special thanks to Ashley
Lebinski as always, she's the former co host of the
Discovery Channel's Master of Arms and she's the co founder
of the University of Wyoming College of Laws Firearms Research Center.
And we also want to thank Sergeant Bob Allenize. And
what a story about that judge accusing Hispanic officers of

(09:45):
practicing discrimination and what that cost many families. In Blood
and Treasure, the story of the knight Stalker and the
man who arrested him here on our American Stories.