Trial Ordered for Ramirez in Mission Viejo Stalker Attack

Richard Ramirez, accused of 14 slayings in Los Angeles, was ordered by an Orange County judge Friday to stand trial on charges of rape and attempted murder in a 1985 attack on a Mission Viejo couple.

The question now is whether Ramirez, accused of being the Night Stalker who terrorized the Southland two years ago, will ever really be tried on the Orange County charges. County prosecutors say they will probably not pursue a trial if Ramirez is convicted and sentenced to death in Los Angeles.

But at the hearing in Santa Ana Friday, Ramirez’s attorneys refused to discount the possibility that they will seek an Orange County trial first.

The defense lawyers have been feuding with Judge Michael A. Tynan, who will preside over the Los Angeles case, because they want more time to prepare for that trial. The judge at first had ordered them to trial in October, but relented and set a February date.

But law enforcement officials in the case privately speculate that Ramirez’s lawyers might seek a trial in Orange County first to force the Los Angeles judge to give them more time.

Judge Tynan has said he will not allow an Orange County trial to interfere with the Los Angeles case.

But Arturo Hernandez, one of Ramirez’s attorneys, said Friday that the judge doesn’t have the right to make that decision.

“Mr. Ramirez has the constitutional right to go to trial in Orange County first, if that’s what he chooses to do,” Hernandez said.

Ramirez, 27, is accused of the Aug. 25, 1985, break-in at the Mission Viejo home of William Carns and his fiancee. Carns was shot three times in the head, and his fiancee was raped by a man who declared to her that he was the Night Stalker.

The judge set a Nov. 25 date for Ramirez’s arraignment in Orange County Superior Court. If Ramirez refuses to waive his right to a speedy trial, Orange County judges would have to schedule a trial date for him within 60 days. That would make it impossible for him to be in Los Angeles County for the start of his trial there.

“I think the Los Angeles case will go first, but it’s really not up to me,” said Orange County Chief Deputy Dist. Atty. James G. Enright, who is prosecuting Ramirez.

Enright said he would prefer no Orange County trial, partly to save the taxpayers the expense of a needless trial but also to spare Carns’ fiancee further testimony.

She is expected to be a key witness against Ramirez at his Los Angeles trial.

“If she insisted on her day in court in Orange County, then naturally we would honor her wishes,” Enright said. “But I don’t think that’s going to be the case. We wouldn’t dismiss it without consulting with the sheriff’s office, but I doubt we would want to go to trial.”

Ramirez is also under indictment on a murder charge in San Francisco. If that case ever comes to trial and Ramirez is convicted, Enright said it would be even “less likely” that a trial would be held here.

Carns, who is undergoing physical therapy in Texas, is not expected to be a witness, because he remembers nothing about what happened. His fiancee testified at Ramirez’s preliminary hearing in Orange County that she and Carns had been to a movie that night. On their return, they discussed the Night Stalker murders, she said--the last thing they talked about that night.

A short time later, she was awakened by the sound of gunfire and saw that Carns had been shot. The assailant then raped her and forced her to go from room to room in his search for money and jewelry.