Survived Shooting : Arrest Ends Nightmare for Couple Who Lived

The bullet holes they covered with putty. A hard scrubbing took care of the last traces of blood, and also the black powder left by the police fingerprint detail. Fear, however, proved to be a more stubborn remnant, and so Christopher and Virginia Petersen summoned a workman to their Northridge home to install an intricate burglar alarm system.

The worker showed up on Saturday, and there was some irony in that. Earlier in the day, the Petersens had learned that their chief source of terror--a man known to police as the Night Stalker--had been captured. No longer would they have to stay awake nights wondering if he would return to, as Christopher Petersen put it, “finish the job.”

Virginia Petersen, 27, said she had tried to keep her emotions bottled up since the Aug. 6 attack that left both her and her husband wounded. On Saturday, as they sat in their house and watched the television bulletins, all those emotions tumbled out.

‘A Bad Dream’

“I’ve cried more in the last four hours than I have in the last four weeks,” she said. “Up until today . . . it was like a valve that was shut off.

“It makes it real now. The last month has been a bad dream.”

Now they were able to talk about the attack:

The couple had been sleeping in the master bedroom of their single-story home when the gunman pushed a pistol into Virginia Petersen’s face. She sat up in bed screaming, was struck by one shot and fell back. She moved to shield her husband, but the gunman shot him in the neck.

Dazed and not believing they had been shot, Virginia Petersen asked her husband, “Did he hit us with a stun gun?”

“No,” her husband answered, “it’s a starter gun. This is a sick joke.”

At that moment, as their assailant still stood over their bed, they felt a wave of blood oozing from their heads.

Petersen then charged the intruder, dodging two more shots. The gunman fled through the same door he entered.

The couple rushed to their 4-year-old daughter, who had been sleeping in another room and was left unharmed. After telephoning police, they piled into their camper and sped to a hospital.

What they remember most about the attack was the way the assailant lingered.

“He could have finished us off then,” said Petersen, 38. “But he just watched us. They say he likes to watch them suffer.”

The Petersens spent one night in the hospital. He had been hit in the neck and she in the head. Although it was a small-caliber gun, authorities said it was “amazing” they had survived the point-blank attack.

Their case was investigated by the Night Stalker task force, and Virginia Petersen said the picture released by police Friday of 25-year-old suspect Richard Ramirez looked like the man who had attacked them.

It was only last Tuesday that they felt comfortable enough to return to their home. At first there had been talk of moving, but the Petersens decided against it.

“This is our home,” Petersen said Saturday. “We’ve had a lot of good times here. We’re very happy.”

“I wasn’t going to let somebody ruin my life,” Virginia Petersen added. They still carry some tangible reminders of the attack. He has a bullet lodged in his neck, pointing upward; doctors said it would be too risky to attempt to surgically remove it. She has trouble moving her right arm, and it hurts when she chews food.

Their daughter seemed withdrawn after the attack, but she has improved. The parents had been telling the little girl for several days that the Night Stalker was arrested.

“Now that is a reality,” Virginia Petersen said, “and we can tell her the truth.”

Even with the arrest, they expect it will take time for the emotional wounds to heal.

“We’ll never again sleep with an open window,” Virginia Petersen said.

”. . . I still wonder how we were chosen among millions of people. It always happens to somebody else. You pick up the paper and it’s somebody else miles away.”

And what do they wish for their attacker?

“I just want to see justice done,” Virginia Petersen said. “I don’t feel he deserves any better than he gave to us.”