“There will be undoubtedly more crimes in the sense that the Satanic Bible tells you to take no more shit.“ – Anton LaVey

After he crept into their Diamond Bar home at night fatally shooting her husband in the head as he slept, Richard Ramirez forced his wife, Sakina Abowath to “Swear on Satan” before he raped her.

In San Francisco, Bay Area, he killed an accountant named Peter Pan and raped his wife Barbara, ate everything in the fridge, threw up on the kitchen floor and masturbated on the living room floor — and then scribed an upside-down (inverted) pentagram written with lipstick on the wall and on the leg of a victim – the symbol of Satanists onto the wall.

It wasn’t until Ramirez left these Satanic pentagrams as his calling card that investigators drew the connection to Satanic worship.

In the following years, he would leave more of these pentagrams behind, and would also tell his victims to “swear to Satan” instead of God.

Ramirez not only killed adults in cold blood, but he also didn’t spare the children who he came across, often raping, torturing, and killing them as well.

During the first stages of his Satanic killing spree, several young children were forcibly taken from their beds while they slept, sexually assaulted, and then left for dead like little 9 year old Mei Leung. Yes, he was one of the sickest and most depraved criminals to ever walk the planet.

Soon thereafter, one of the 6-year-old victims who survived would be crucial in identifying Ramirez that lead to his capture.

It was evil crimes like in the name of Satan that would make Richard Ramirez go down in history as one of the most ruthless and notorious serial killers, the so-called Night Stalker. Ramirez was introduced to Satanism through the Satanic Bible and even visited the author and Church of Satan’s founder, Anton LaVey at his infamous Black House in San Francisco. Ramirez was on some sort of anti-Christian pilgrimage from Los Angeles to meet his hero, LaVey.

Richard Ramirez just wanted to “shake the hand of the great Dr. LaVey,” said Lavey’s grandson, Stanton Lavey who was a young child and eyewitness to the event. Because of shady people like Ramirez coming by the Black House House unannounced, Lavey and his wife installed a security fence, video cameras and employed full-time security guards.

Stanton Lavey had written on Ozy.com;

“By 1983, business and life had slowed down quite a bit for my grandfather. And that’s when Richard Ramirez, the so-called Night Stalker, started coming to the Black House on some sort of anti-Christian pilgrimage to meet my grandfather.

The house had become the subject of a lot of vandalism and frequent trespassing, so my grandfather had a high fence with razor wire installed. Wooden slats were slid between the folds of the fence for more privacy — we could see who was outside without being seen ourselves. I was 5 when the 23-year-old Ramirez made his presence known to us,” Stanton said.

“He’d come up to San Francisco from Los Angeles, to “shake the hand of the great Dr. LaVey.” Tony, the house security guard, my grandfather’s driver and my occasional babysitter, confronted Ramirez after he noticed someone standing on the sidewalk and staring at the house.

The stranger told Tony that his name was Richie and he just wanted to meet “Dr. LaVey,” and would take only a minute of his time. Tony told him to scram. Ramirez then started walking in slow circles around the block, pausing whenever he reached our fence.

After this had gone on for a couple of hours, Tony went back outside to get rid of him, bringing a pistol with him in case Ramirez tried anything. But Ramirez was around the corner and halfway down the block by the time Tony reached the gate.

Some hours passed and everyone forgot about him. But then he was back. This time my grandfather went outside, tucking one of his many handguns in the pocket of his long black trench coat. As he approached Ramirez, he asked, “What are you doing out here?”

“I just wanted to meet you, Dr. LaVey,” Ramirez said nervously, and stuck out his hand. My grandfather ignored it, Stanton said.

“Well, now you have, so now you can go, I don’t take unexpected visitors. Next time make an appointment.”

Ramirez said, “Thank you for everything you’re doing for us Satanists,” as my grandfather walked back up the steps, he said.

Stanton concluded, “What my grandfather actually said was that Ramirez seemed like a kook. He would usually add that Satanism doesn’t condone murder of any kind. This was my childhood. I don’t know if it’s more or less amazing that I turned out fine, but I did.”

It was a good thing that Anton Lavey had turned away the kook Richard Ramirez because shortly after that, he would make headlines worldwide after being captured for the brutal sexual assaults and murders of several men, women, and children.

People who he had claimed were killed in the name of Satan.

Writing in his autobiography years later, Anton LaVey had written about how accusations of murder in the name of Satan do not concern him. But, Lavey said, “There will be undoubtedly more crimes in the sense that the Satanic Bibles tells you to “take no more shit.”

You see, even hardcore Satanists and High Priests like Anton LaVey knew that within the ranks of his religion, there were people who were abused, angry, crazy, and some were criminals on the fringe. But, on the other hand, people like Ramirez, who were not only magnetized to his teachings in the Satanic Bible, saw them as the new Bible of their wayward generation in a world of hypocritical Christians and as a testament to their alternative and sometimes evil lifestyle.

True crime author Philip Carlo spoke to Ramirez about the crimes and Satanism in numerous interviews.

CARLO: Speaking of spirituality, let’s talk about Satanism. There’s been a lot in the press, Richard, about your devotion to and your affiliation with Satan. Can you tell a bit about what Satan means to you?

RAMIREZ: What Satan means to me…Satan is a stabilizing force in my life. It gives me a reason to be; it gives me…an excuse to rationalize. There is a part of me that believes he really does exist. I have my doubts, but we all do, about many things.

CARLO: When did you first turn away from—as I know you were brought up a—and turn to Satan?

RAMIREZ: From 1970—well, throughout my childhood and up to the time I was eighteen years old, I believed in God. Seventeen, eighteen years old. Then, for two or three years, I became sort of like an—I didn’t believe in anything.

When I reached the age of twenty, twenty-one thereabouts, I met a guy in jail and, uh…he told me about Satan and I picked it up from there. I read books and I studied and I examined who I was and what my feelings were.

Also, my actions. Just like the Hezbollah and different terrorist religious organizations around the—it is a driving force that motivates them to do things and they believe in it whole-heartedly. It had the same effect on my life.

CARLO: In other words, their spirituality was what was the driving force in their life, and Satan became, in a sense, your spirituality and the driving force behind you.

RAMIREZ: Yeah.

CARLO: Richard, do you believe that Satan helps people to be able to do things they wouldn’t normally do? For instance, in Matamoras, Mexico, Adolfo Constanzo killed many people and he was committing human sacrifices to protect the drug cartel down there from the police, and he feverently believed that Satan would protect him and so therefore made human sacrifices. Do you feel that kind of reasoning has any place—

RAMIREZ:— place in Satanism?

CARLO: Yeah.

RAMIREZ: I don’t know the structure of Hell itself, or demons or demonology, but I do know where you tamper with witchcraft, when you tamper with Satanism, be it voodoo—

CARLO: —Santeria—

RAMIREZ: Yeah, any type of sacrifices or contacting the spirits, you’re dealing with things that are very delicate—and dangerous. I myself am no warlock, I’m not a wizard. I’m not one of these types of individuals that knows his witchcraft from A to Z.

But, I have read of instances where people end up getting killed and arrested for tampering with the wrong demons and not using the right types of…uh…the right process of sacrifices and the right types of rituals. You have to know what you’re doing. Everything from ropes to chalices—

CARLO: Everything has to be done right.

RAMIREZ: Exactly. From what I know, certain symbols—like Pentagrams—are supposed to protect you from the demons themselves.

CARLO: Yeah. You were seen in court once with a Pentagram inside your hand and you held it up and showed it to the press and the audience. Why did you do that? Did you feel that it would protect you, or were you just making a statement that you were in alliance with the Devil?

RAMIREZ: Yes, it was a statement that I was in alliance with…the evil that is inherent in human nature.”

Carlo also says that after Ramirez was caught, Anton Lavey’s daughter, Zeena LaVey, had visited him in jail, making him an honorary member of the Church of Satan, and told him they were praying for him.

After Richard Ramirez was apprehended, Lavey’s daughter, Zeena LaVey, went to the jail to visit Richard wearing a long, skin-tight Black dress over her intense hourglass figure and had bright Blood-Red lipstick on her full lips and long fingernails.

She was with her then-boyfriend, a tall man named Nicholas Shreck, who had cut off his left ear as a token of his devotion to Satan. Nicholas also wore all Black and sported an ankle-length Black leather coat.

Zeena told Richard that her Father and the Church sent their blessings and were praying to Satan for him. They were making him an honorary member of the Church. That made Richard’s spirits soar. He held LaVey in high esteem, and Zeena’s visit made him feel the forces of Darkness were being marshaled behind him. (The Night Stalker: The Life and Crimes of Richard Ramirez by Philip Carlo)

DISCLAIMER: You must understand that Richard Ramirez and most other ritualistic murderers had committed these killings independently. Even though he was a Satanist who visited Anton Lavey and had allegedly read the Satanic Bible, I contend that he was not part of “an organized Satanic cult.” Nor do I believe did the Church of Satan order these murders.

I contend that Richard Ramirez was influenced by the writings of Lavey and his daughter, Zeena, who visited him in jail after the murders. It was more of a Church of Satan’s endorsement of his murders for black magic marketing purposes and cultural shock value which the CoS has never been shy to capitalize upon.

SATANIC SYMBOLISM

When the Ramirez murders first started,  legal authorities had called them part of a “Satanic Cult,” and these were “Satanic murders.” At the time, some Police investigators came out into the media and claimed that these brutal killers were taking part in “Satanic and ritualistic killings.” A person who not only kills people but takes it to a whole new cruel and spiritual level by sacrificing innocent victims in an ancient horrid rite.

I would understand this fact much more apparent when I was older and researched the occult to become truly knowledgeable. I found a quote that would always ring true regarding symbols was the famous words by the Chinese philosopher Confucious who once said Signs and Symbols rule the world, not words nor laws.

I remember what stood out in my mind to this very day is what the police called the Satanic symbols Ramioriez used as his calling card written in the victim’s blood on the walls or on the bodies that he left behind. It’s truly the script that many Hollywood horror movies are based upon but this was real life.

Heinous acts of violence done in such a brutal way put these killers on a whole new level of brutality that most people cannot even understand, let alone imagine that any person can be so evil.

This religious fear and serial killers like Richard Ramirez, who openly profess they are Satanists as they ritually sacrifice people in horrific murders is what leads to the “Satanic Panic.” This is why when the words Satan and serial killer are used together, it strikes fear deep into the hearts of most reasonable people and especially devout Christians who are taught to fear and fight Satan.

This is where the true Satanic Panic originated, spreading from here in the early 1980s.

Unfortunately, when referring to the Satanic Panic, some Satanists will instead focus on other alleged crimes, such as the McMartin preschool debacle, where there were never convictions to deflect attention away from the real Satanic crimes.

But please DO NOT believe them.

It has been well documented, like the crimes of Richard Ramirez and many other murderers who have done so in the name of Satan and or under the influence of demonic worship.

Now that I have gone over the facts regarding Richard Ramirezes’ ties to Satanism and Satanic symbolism let’s quickly go over the short history of his murder spree and capture.

Growing up in the early 1980s in Orange County, California, I can clearly remember when my innocent sun-bleached summer of little league baseball, surfing, and fun was suddenly interrupted with news of a Satanic serial killer on the loose.

A cold-blooded murderer who terrorized local communities with a string of home invasion robberies, rapes, and murders.

As some of you know or could imagine, there is nothing that strikes more fear in someone than a killer on the loose near your home who breaks into people’s houses when they sleep to terrorize, rape, torture, and brutally kill them.

The demon’s name was Richard Ramirez, and he would go down in history to be known as the Night Stalker. As you can see from the picture above left shortly after his arrest, his face had morphed into a demonic creature of sorts.

A man portrayed in the media as making some of his victims pray to Satan before he ruthlessly butchered them and would flash the upside-down (inverted) Satanic pentagrams on his hand in court.

The Night Stalker was a name that in itself sends chills down the sweaty neck of any reasonable person on a hot summer’s night.

Ramirez, then 25 at the time of his arrest, hew was initially charged in Los Angeles County with 14 counts of murder, five attempted murders, 19 burglaries, six robberies, seven rapes, five acts of forced oral copulation, seven of sodomy, three lewd acts with children and two kidnappings.

You probably know how vicious his crimes were — but the true-crime series delves deeply into how bloody and gory they really were. He had a pattern — he killed the man in the house, sexually assaulted a woman, and always made sure he could see the fear in his victim’s eyes. For example, in the early days of his crimes, he knocked on the car hood of Maria Hernandez so she would see him before the attack, and he yanked Tsai-Lian “Veronica” Yu out of her car as opposed to shooting her through the window.

In Whittier, he cut out Maxine Zazzara’s eyes and took them with him. Investigators identified him as an “enraged killer” because of how viciously his victims had been killed: in one case, the victim, Patty Higgins, was slashed and stabbed in the throat. Another victim, Florence “Nettie” Lang, 81, was beaten to death with a hammer.

In a docuseries on the Ramirez murders, detective Frank Salerno says, “he got comfortable after killing someone — he would take the time to have a snack. That’s a pretty sick individual.” Indeed, he would help himself with food and drinks in the kitchen after his crime.

When he continued his killing spree in San Francisco, Bay Area police said in the docuseries that he killed an accountant named Peter Pan and raped his wife Barbara, ate everything in the fridge, threw up on the kitchen floor, and masturbated on the living room floor — and then wrote a satanic symbol on the wall.

After Ramirez was caught, he had flaunted his allegiance to Satan like when he flashed an upside-down pentagram on his hand, he proudly proclaimed in the courtroom, “HAIL SATAN.”

In one of his few interviews, speaking from prison to 3TV reporter Mike Wattkiss, Richard Ramirez said he had studied Satanism. But when asked if he was a “devil worshipper,” he said, “No comment”.

When he was questioned if he was evil, Ramirez said;

“We are all evil. Aren’t we not?” He then said, ‘Yes, I am evil. Not 100% but I am evil.”

In another interview from Death Row after his conviction, Ramirez said he believed in a malevolent being and that he has felt its power.

This force that Ramirez speaks of is what many Satanists who understand what they are doing aspire to become one with. A dark force that they feed upon is the “Satanic force” or what Christians call the Devil and is evil.

Author, Marquis H.K. had corresponded with Ramirez for over 10 years before he was put to death to write a book called, “Letters From The Night Stalker: A Decade of Correspondence with Richard Ramirez.” Marquis H.K. had written that Ramirez believed the was the power of Satan himself.

Moe

Moe is the founder of GnosticWarrior.com. He is a father, husband, author, martial arts black belt, and an expert in Gnosticism, the occult, and esotericism.