Defense Faces a Wealth of Evidence in Stalker Case

Three times, Launie Dempster saw Richard Ramirez lurking in the pre-dawn darkness as she delivered newspapers in Monterey Park.

The first time, Ramirez was sitting in a parked car in the 1500 block of Trumbower Avenue as she drove by. But she thought little of it until an hour later when, at the end of her route, she drove down the same block. There she saw paramedics and police at 1586 Trumbower--the site of one of the 13 Night Stalker murders with which Ramirez is now charged.

Within two weeks, she saw him again, parked on San Patricio Drive. He said something to her as she drove by, but her radio obscured his words. By then aware of William Doi’s murder on Trumbower, Dempster bought herself a shotgun.

Six weeks later, driving down East Arlight Street, Dempster saw Ramirez again. Wearing dark clothes, he was walking back to his car, parked at the curb. It was near there, at 340 E. Arlight, that police later found Joyce Nelson savagely beaten and strangled.

Dempster, now a nurse, was one of eight witnesses whose riveting testimony placed Ramirez at the scene of a Night Stalker crime during the prosecution case that ended Thursday in Los Angeles Superior Court.

Since Jan. 30, Los Angeles Deputy Dist. Attys. Phil Halpin and Alan Yochelson have built a massive case against Ramirez. They have used not only eyewitness identifications, but also a complex web of physical and circumstantial evidence and an alleged confession--all stemming from one of the most terrifying crime sprees in Southern California.

All but one of the 15 Night Stalker “incidents,” as the prosecutors call them, occurred in the spring and summer of 1985. And on four occasions, two assaults occurred within hours of one another.

Ramirez’s lawyers are scheduled to begin the defense case on May 1. Ray G. Clark, one of his attorneys, said Ramirez was “nowhere near these incidents” and that “it’s all a case of mistaken identity.” Clark said he intends to call at least one psychologist as an expert witness to discuss the pitfalls of eyewitness identification.

Prosecution Evidence

Clark and his co-counsels, Daniel Hernandez and Arturo Hernandez, face a wealth of prosecution evidence. The eight eyewitness identifications of Ramirez make up only a part of the case against the 29-year-old drifter from El Paso, Tex. During the 31 court days of testimony by 137 witnesses, Halpin and Yochelson also have presented 521 exhibits and evidence that they contend links Ramirez to all 15 incidents.

There are potential weaknesses in the prosecution’s case. Police have Ramirez’s fingerprints at only one Night Stalker crime scene--taken from a window screen at the Glassell Park apartment of Jennie Vincow, who was slashed and stabbed to death in June, 1984.

But prosecutors have pointed out that three other Night Stalker murder victims suffered similarly “distinctive” knife wounds. Jewelry taken from two of these crime scenes was later recovered and linked to Ramirez. And some of these four incidents, in turn, share other similarities with many of the other Night Stalker incidents, including common murder weapons.

Ramirez’s fingerprints also turned up in a Pontiac Grand Prix that was later traced to him. Inside were a pair of cheap handcuffs nearly identical to those found at several crime scenes and a pentagram drawn on the dashboard.

The pentagram--considered a satanic symbol--may be another vital link because Ramirez is a self-proclaimed devil worshiper. At one of the crime scenes, he allegedly left two such pentagrams. In another incident, a surviving victim testified that Ramirez repeatedly ordered her to swear upon Satan as he ransacked her home and sexually assaulted her, after shooting her husband in the head.

Pentagram on Arm

When he was arrested on Aug. 31, 1985, Ramirez also had a pentagram drawn on his arm. Two days later, he is said to have used his own blood to draw a pentagram on the concrete floor of his jail cell. In one court session, he yelled, “Hail Satan!”

Four pistols were used in the Night Stalker killings, three of them more than once. But only one was recovered--the Doi murder weapon. Police later located it in Tijuana through a Los Angeles man who testified that he got the gun from Ramirez.

That gun was not used in the other murders, but one way that prosecutors sought to link the Doi and Nelson killings was through the testimony of Dempster, who placed Ramirez at both scenes. Citing other evidence, prosecutors further sought to connect Nelson’s slaying to many of the other Night Stalker killings.

For instance, at seven of the 15 crime scenes, including at the Nelson and Doi residences, police lifted distinctive shoe prints made by Avia Aerobics, allegedly worn by Ramirez.

Those shoes never turned up, but Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department criminalists concluded that the gun that killed Vincent and Maxine Zazzara in Whittier in March also was used to kill Chainarong Khovananth in Sun Valley in July. At both crime scenes, the Avia shoe prints were found.

Eventually, about 375 pieces of jewelry and other property taken from seven of the incidents were recovered and linked to the defendant.

Ramirez Suitcase

Other key evidence emerged from a suitcase that Ramirez kept at the downtown Greyhound Bus Station. Among its contents--many of which bore Ramirez’s fingerprints--were unused bullets that firearms experts said had once been loaded into a Night Stalker murder weapon.

A key thread throughout the prosecution case has been an emphasis on a Night Stalker modus operandi-- such as the use of gloves, a striking similarity in language that Ramirez allegedly used, the snipping of telephone wires, the restraints used to bind many victims and the use of blunt objects that some of the victims were beaten with.

In about half of the incidents, the assailant apparently gained entry through an unlocked door or window, often after removing a screen.

“There was nothing unexpected,” attorney Clark said last week after Halpin and Yochelson rested their case. But Clark conceded that it would be disingenuous to say that “they didn’t lay a glove on us.”