Bought Stolen Goods From Ramirez, Witness Testifies

A Spanish-speaking man testified Wednesday that murder defendant Richard Ramirez, using the name Ricardo Moreno, sold him items allegedly stolen from Night Stalker victims in late 1984.

The unexpected testimony came on a day when Los Angeles Municipal Judge James Nelson, noting that the preliminary hearing for Ramirez might end sooner than expected, also heard testimony about the discovery of a brutally beaten woman handcuffed to a door in the house where her husband lay murdered.

Witness Felipe Solano, who said he met Ramirez in a Greyhound bus station, testified through an interpreter that he led detectives on a virtual treasure hunt of stolen goods after Ramirez was charged with multiple murders in August, 1985.

Bought Several Items

He said he bought jewelry, a television set and a radio from Ramirez, who is accused in Los Angeles County of 14 murders and 54 other felonies in the string of attacks that terrorized widely scattered areas of the state last summer.

The witness’ testimony was halted at one point by Nelson, who warned that Solano could be incriminating himself by admitting a role in the acceptance of goods apparently stolen from Night Stalker victims. Nelson suggested that Solano get a lawyer.

“May I speak freely?” the middle-aged man responded. “My crime is having bought stolen items. I don’t know anything else. Do you think I need a lawyer for that?”

The judge later granted Solano immunity.

Solano told of being approached by Ramirez, who called himself both Ricardo Moreno and David, at a bus depot where Solano was waiting to take a trip to Tijuana. He said Ramirez offered to sell him a car for the trip, but he declined after giving Ramirez his phone number. He said Ramirez later telephoned, came to his house and sold him a TV set for about $200 around November or early December, 1984.

Wore Baseball Cap

The witness also testified that Ramirez wore a baseball cap with the logo of the rock group “AC/DC.” Similar headgear has been linked by investigators to the suspect in the attack.

Earlier Wednesday, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Deputy John Knight told how he rushed to a home in Diamond Bar in the early hours of Aug. 8, 1985, and found a distraught woman handcuffed to a bedroom door.

“She stated her husband was in the other room and needed help,” Knight said.

The deputy said he went to a bedroom where he saw a man lying on the bed with a spot of blood on his left temple.

“He had no pulse, no respiration. It appeared to me the gentleman was quite dead,” Knight said.

Kicked Off Doorknob

Knight said he returned to the woman and when he could not open the handcuffs, kicked the doorknob off the door.

The woman, whose identity remains protected, testified Tuesday about the night of terror in which her husband was slain and she was held captive, raped and beaten. She identified her assailant as Ramirez.

Knight said he found her 3-month-old son still asleep in a basinet in the bedroom, where his father lay dead.

“The infant was asleep, and we did not disturb him,” he said.

Knight said neighbors helped him comfort the woman.

‘Very, Very Upset’

“I was trying to ask her if she could give me any description of what happened and who had done this,” he said. “She was very, very upset, and my main concern at that point was to get her out of the house.”

At a neighbor’s home, he said, she calmed down enough to give him a complete description, which he quoted as a “male, either dark-skinned Caucasian or light-skinned Mexican. She described him as 6-foot-2 to 6-foot-4, very thin . . .

“She kept mentioning his teeth were darkened or discolored, that there was something peculiar about his teeth,” Knight said.

Numerous victims have described an assailant with rotten teeth, and authorities have said Ramirez matches that description.