Richard Ramirez dropped out of school and moved to Los Angeles, California, in 1978 at the age of 18. At around the same time, Radford University reports, Ramirez began worshiping Satan. Ramirez continued breaking and entering and also began stealing cars. Although he was arrested several times for burglary and theft, he did not spend a significant time in jail for those crimes. On June 28, 1984, Ramirez committed his first known murder. According to Radford University, he snuck into a home owned by 79-year-old Jennie Vincow and killed her while she was sleeping in her bed. He then proceeded to violate her corpse. Vincow’s brutal murder was the beginning of a crime spree, which continued until Ramirez’s August 1985 arrest.
In an interview with A&E True Crime, criminologist Dr. Scott Bonn, author of “Why We Love Serial Killers: The Curious Appeal of the World’s Most Savage Murderers,” said he believes Ramirez was a sociopath, as opposed to a psychopath. Bonn explained that unlike psychopaths, sociopaths are influenced by childhood trauma and the environment in which they are raised. According to Bonn, Ramirez was also a narcissist who loved attention and had no remorse for the crimes he committed.
While incarcerated at California’s San Quentin State Prison, Ramirez was diagnosed with B-cell lymphoma, which is a type of blood cancer. According to A&E, he was eventually transported to Marin General Hospital in Greenbrae, California, where he died on June 7, 2013.
