Right Juris

Richard Ramirez, known as the Night Stalker has been named as a suspect in a 1984 murder. The rape and murder of 9-year-old Mei ‘Linda’ Leung had remained unsolved until a cold case investigation linked Ramirez’ DNA to the murder. Confirmation of the link was announced today.

Richard Ramirez was arrested, charged, tried and convicted as one of America’s most prolific and horrific serial killers. He terrorized Southern California with a string of grizzly murders throughout 1985. He was dubbed ‘the Night Stalker’ because he killed people as they slept. He was sentenced to death on November 7, 1989 and has been on death row at California’s San Quentin State Prison every since. His case is still working it’s way through appeals.

It has long been suspected that Ramirez was probably responsible for more deaths than he was convicted of committing. He was convicted of 13 counts of murder, 5 attempted murders, 11 sexual assaults, and 14 burglaries. He was charged in 14 murders and a 15th murder of Peter Pan and an attack on his wife Barbara Pan in San Francisco, but was never tried in those cases because of the trial and convictions in Los Angeles. His first known murder was on June 28, 1984 when he raped and murdered 79-year-old Jennie Vincow. He was into Satan worship and would mutilate the bodies of his victims and scrawl pentagrams on their bodies and the walls of their apartments.

Now, Ramirez has been named as a suspect in a murder that pre-dates what was previously thought to be his first murder. The murder of 9-year-old Mei ‘Linda’ Leung has remained unsolved until this week. On April 10, 1984, the little girl had been playing with her brother in her Tenderloin, San Francisco neighborhood. She dropped a dollar bill and went to get it while her brother wandered away. The brother came back to find her dead. She was hanging over a pipe in the basement of her apartment building. She had been sexually assaulted.

Cold case investigators took a DNA swab from Ramirez on Wednesday to confirm previous testing and it was announced today that his DNA does match DNA found at the scene of the Leung murder. He lived just a few blocks away at the time, but there had not been any evidence that linked him to the crime at the time.

Mei had moved to San Francisco with her mother, Yuk Yin Leung, brother and two sisters in 1980. The family has been notified that her murderer has been found. They have declined to make any public statements.

In addition to the Night Stalker being named the suspect in the 1984 murder of Mei ‘Linda’ Leung, he is the prime suspect in other San Francisco murders. However, there is no word as yet as to whether or not he will stand trial for the murder of little Mei or any of the others as he is already on death row.

When Ramirez was sentenced to death, the satan-worshiping murderer is quoted as having said:

Big Deal. Death always went with the territory. I’ll see you in Disneyland.

Richard Ramirez, the Night Stalker - Mugshots