The Region - News from Aug. 21, 1987

An Orange County judge has refused to bar the public and press from the preliminary hearing for Richard Ramirez, who is suspected of being the Night Stalker killer. Ramirez, charged with 14 slayings in Los Angeles County, also is charged with attacking a Mission Viejo couple, William Carns and Inez Erickson, in their home on Aug. 25, 1985. Carns was shot in the head three times and Erickson was raped. Carns continues to undergo treatment in Texas, and attorneys say he remembers nothing about the attack. Erickson, who identified Ramirez in a police lineup as her attacker, is scheduled to be the prosecution’s key witness at the preliminary hearing, which starts Sept. 1. Ramirez’s attorneys argued that publicity would make a fair trial difficult. A Los Angeles Times attorney argued that the paper’s interest was not sensationalism but an “honest public concern over the criminal proceedings.” However, Central Municipal Court Judge B. Tam Nomoto left open the possibility that she might close the courtroom for brief periods at the request of either the defense or the prosecution.