Father Offers Alibi for Ramirez in 2 Attacks

The father of Night Stalker suspect Richard Ramirez told a jury Thursday that his son was in Texas during two of the attacks for which he is on trial.

With a baleful countenance, Julian Ramirez-Tapia testified that his son had arrived in El Paso on May 23 or 24 of 1985 for a family gathering to celebrate the May 25 first communion of the senior Ramirez’s granddaughter.

Although Richard Ramirez did not actually attend that ceremony, Julian Ramirez-Tapia said through a Spanish interpreter, he saw his son on each of the eight or nine days that he was in El Paso.

Two of the 15 attacks for which Ramirez is charged occurred in that time span.

The witness said that, at the time, he was working in the mornings at Santa Fe Railroad but that he saw his son each afternoon.

Asked by co-defense counsel Ray G. Clark if he had any doubt that his son had been in El Paso, Julian Ramirez-Tapia replied: “No. I’m telling the truth.”

During his brief afternoon testimony, the senior Ramirez, now retired, occasionally cast sorrowful glances at his son, who sat passively at the defense counsel table.

At the request of Deputy Dist. Attys. Phil Halpin and Alan Yochelson, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Michael A. Tynan excused the senior Ramirez until Monday morning, thus granting the co-prosecutors time to prepare for their cross-examination.

As Julian Ramirez-Tapia left the courtroom, walking directly past the defense table, father and son did not acknowledge one another. The senior Ramirez looked at the floor; the serial-murder suspect seemed engrossed in an exhibit.

During Julian Ramirez-Tapia’s testimony, his wife sat alone on a bench in the corridor. “I cannot say anything,” she said.

Surprise Appearance

Halpin admitted that he was surprised by the father’s appearance. The witness’s testimony would provide an alibi for his son in two of the so-called Night Stalker incidents.

One occurred about 4 a.m. on Memorial Day in 1985 in a Burbank house where a single mother was bound, robbed, beaten, raped and sodomized. She was one of six survivors of alleged Night Stalker attacks to identify Ramirez as their assailant.

The woman also identified numerous pieces of jewelry taken by the gun-wielding intruder that were later recovered by police and linked to Ramirez.

The second incident occurred between May 29 and June 1, 1985, in a Monrovia home shared by two elderly sisters. The house was ransacked. One of the sisters, Mable Bell, 83, died several days later as a result of severe head bruises caused by a blunt object, according to previous testimony. She also had a pentagram, a sign associated with devil worship, painted in lipstick on her thigh.

Bell’s sister, Florence Lang, 79, also was savagely beaten and sexually assaulted.

During the prosecution case, which ended April 13, two of the women’s grandchildren identified photos of appliances taken from the Monrovia home that later were traced to Ramirez. On Lang’s bedroom wall, police found another pentagram.

Use of Pentagrams

The pentagrams form part of the complex evidence against Ramirez. After his arrest, police located a car that he used, and it too had a pentagram, on the dashboard. At the end of his arraignment several years ago, Ramirez shouted “Hail Satan!” and flashed a pentagram that had been drawn on his palm. And in jail, he once drew a pentagram on the floor, apparently with his own blood, according to previous testimony.

Also at the Monrovia home, police found a distinctive shoe print, made by an Avia Aerobics model. Although those shoes were never found, prosecutors also have used such prints, found at seven of the 15 crime scenes, to form a web of circumstantial evidence to buttress other physical evidence in the case, which includes an alleged admission by Ramirez that he was the Night Stalker.

Earlier Thursday, an angry Halpin accused Ramirez’s chief lawyer, Daniel V. Hernandez, of deliberately seeking to cause a mistrial by asking vague questions of a sheriff’s homicide detective who co-directed the Night Stalker investigative task force.

Halpin said that, by asking Gilbert Carrillo about other cases the detective had investigated during the Night Stalker crime spree, Hernandez would have elicited from Carrillo testimony about the child kidnaping and molestation charges against Ramirez that were later dropped. Had jurors heard such testimony, a certain mistrial would have resulted, Halpin said outside the jury’s presence.

Judge Tynan seemed to agree, asking Hernandez: “Do you understand the danger?”

Judge Gives Order

Hernandez replied: “My question was interpreted differently by Mr. Halpin.”

The judge concluded, “You don’t understand.”

At Halpin’s request, Tynan then ordered the defense lawyers to seek court authorization before issuing subpoenas to any civilian witnesses, especially the women who survived alleged Night Stalker attacks, most of whom already have testified.

Tynan’s order is rare but not unique, according to experienced prosecutors and defense lawyers. Such an order, as the judge noted, “has never been necessary in my 20 years in the business.”

Hernandez said he has no intention to “pound” any of the prosecution witnesses that he might call during the defense part of the case. Many of the surviving women had clearly been traumatized by their earlier testimony.

Hernandez complained that he felt “hamstrung” by Tynan’s order and said the judge was being “totally unfair” to the defense. To that, the judge said pointedly: “You have your remedy, Mr. Hernandez,” alluding to the defense’s right to raise the issue on appeal in the event of a conviction.

In all, Ramirez, 29, is charged with 13 murders and 30 other felonies during a series of nighttime attacks throughout Los Angeles County, mostly in the spring and summer of 1985.