Most Stalker Rewards to Hinge on the Conviction of a Suspect

At least $80,126 in reward money is still up for grabs, and there are a lot of potential claimants.

There is Donna Louise Myers, believed to be the first person to tell police that Richard Ramirez, 25, might be the Night Stalker.

There is James Romero II, 13, the boy who got a partial license number of a car believed used in several of the stalker’s murderous attacks.

There are Carmelo Robles, Frank Moreno and Faustino Pinon, 56, three of the people who gave chase as Ramirez made a desperate--and futile--bid to outrun pursuers last Saturday morning after he spotted his picture on the front page of a newspaper in a Boyle Heights liquor store.

There is Manuel De La Torre, 32, who whacked the suspect over the head with a steel rod from a chain-link fence after Ramirez allegedly tried to steal a car from De La Torre’s wife.

There are Jose Burgion, 55, and his sons Jaime, 21, and Julio, 17, who helped De La Torre subdue the suspect in front of their home in East Los Angeles until Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Deputy Andres Ramirez--no relation--arrived with handcuffs.

And there are at least three people--none of them mentioned above--who already have mailed claims to Los Angeles County, contending that they deserve some of the reward.

“One guy called in and said, ‘I saw the stalker on the freeway. Where do I get my money?’ ” Tom Hibbard, a deputy to Supervisor Pete Schabarum, said Friday.

It will probably be a year or more before decisions are made on how the money will be distributed.

Much of the award money--$20,126 from private donors, $10,000 each from Los Angeles County and the state of California, and $5,000 from the city of Arcadia--will not be distributed until a suspect is convicted.

Ramirez, who is being held without bail in Los Angeles County Central Jail, has been charged with one count of murder and seven other charges stemming from two assaults in Los Angeles County and with one murder in San Francisco.

The trial of Ramirez or some other suspect could be expected to drag on for months before any verdict is reached. Even assuming a conviction, it could be months more before the various individuals and panels responsible for determining the awards reach their decisions.

Youth Hailed as Hero

On the other hand, one award has already been handed out, another expired at 12:01 this morning and two others--$25,000 offered by the city of Los Angeles and $10,000 offered by the city of San Francisco--apparently do not have to await a conviction.

The 13-year-old boy from Mission Viejo who provided local lawmen with part of the license number from a “suspicious” car was hailed as “the hero of Orange County” on Thursday and presented with an off-road three-wheel motorcycle and $4,500 in cash from private donors.

The car, which the boy spotted near the home of one of the stalker’s purported victims, was recovered later in Los Angeles. Police say a fingerprint found in that car helped link Ramirez to the case. Orange County sheriff’s deputies, who made the presentations to the boy, said he will not have to give the motorcycle and money back if Ramirez is not convicted.

The $5,000 award that expired at midnight had been offered--”no questions asked”--by Los Angeles County to anyone who turned in a pistol believed discarded by Ramirez during the final moments of his pursuit.

County Supervisor Pete Schabarum said the award would be made only if ballistics tests showed that the weapon had been used in one of the 15 murders and nearly two dozen other crimes attributed to the stalker.

City Council to Decide

Schabarum said the gun is considered a “key piece” of evidence, and Hibbard said the expiration time was selected in an effort to prompt anyone who found the weapon to turn it in right away. As of Friday night, no gun had been recovered.

Councilman Howard Finn’s motion establishing a $25,000 award for the “arrest and apprehension” of the Night Stalker made no mention of “conviction,” and Assistant City Atty. Todd Goldstein said that because of the motion’s wording, the city is free to act--and may choose to do so--before anyone goes to trial.

Finn’s office said the City Council will select the reward recipients after hearing the recommendations of the city attorney’s office and the Los Angeles Police Department.

In San Francisco, Rotea Gilford, a deputy to Mayor Dianne Feinstein, said the mayor will decide how the city’s $10,000 in reward money is to be divided after listening to the recommendations of her chief of police. As in the city of Los Angeles, the money could be handed out before a conviction, Gilford said.

Neither city has indicated when it might act.

Spokespersons for the government entities that will await a conviction before making an award indicated that different systems will be used to determine who will get how much of the other $45,126 in reward money.

In the case of Los Angeles County, which will select the recipients of both its own $10,000 award from the county general fund and the $20,126 allocated to it by private donors, the members of a panel that will make the initial recommendations have yet to be selected. As planned, the panel will include representatives from the Sheriff’s Department, the county counsel’s office, the chief administrator’s office and the executive office of the Board of Supervisors.

Board Has Final Say

Hibbard, Schabarum’s deputy, said that once the panel has been selected and convenes, it will determine the criteria to select winners. Then, if a suspect is convicted, the panel will make its choices and recommend them to the Board of Supervisors. “The board will have the final say,” Hibbard said.

In the case of the state, applications for the $10,000 reward will not even be accepted until there is a conviction. Once there is a conviction, applications will be judged by Gov. George Deukmejian after consultation with his legal affairs secretary, Vance Raye, and the local law enforcement agencies involved in the applicable cases, according to Kevin Brett of the governor’s press office.

In the case of Arcadia, the City Council will decide how to divide its offer of $5,000 after there has been a conviction.