No O.C. Prosecution of Ramirez : Night Stalker: With the death sentence already ordered for 13 murders, ‘it’s simply not necessary,’ official says.

Night Stalker Richard Ramirez, sentenced to death in Los Angeles for 13 murders, will not be prosecuted in Orange County on rape and attempted murder charges in a 1985 attack on a Mission Viejo couple, Chief Deputy Dist. Atty. James G. Enright said today.

“We didn’t want to put our victim (the rape victim) through the ordeal of testifying again unless we had to,” Enright said. “Now that Ramirez has received a death sentence, it’s simply not necessary.”

At a preliminary hearing two years ago, the young woman took the witness stand to identify Ramirez as the man who broke into the home she shared with her fiance on Aug. 25, 1985. The two had discussed the terror of the Night Stalker attacks in Los Angeles County just before falling asleep, she said.

The fiance, William Carns, now 33, was shot three times in the head and has been in constant recuperative therapy since then. The assailant told the young woman before raping her that he was the Night Stalker, and made her declare she loved Satan.

A young boy picked up a partial license plate of a suspicious vehicle near the couple’s home that night, which helped lead to Ramirez’s arrest in Los Angeles a few days later.

The Mission Viejo rape victim told a hearing judge in Santa Ana two years ago she could identify Ramirez, now 29, a self-proclaimed devil worshiper from El Paso, Texas, by his walk, and the unique way he said “jewerly” when he robbed the couple. Ramirez had been ordered to repeat the word during a lineup after his arrest.

The young woman, also now 33, has moved to Northern California, where Enright says only her employer knows about the Night Stalker incident.

“I talked to her on Oct. 13 and told her that we would not go forward with our case if the jury death verdict for Ramirez was upheld by the judge in Los Angeles,” Enright said. “She was very, very relieved. She did not want to testify again.”

Enright said that even though Carns will not be a witness--he has no memory of events that night--he, too, is relieved to know that the Orange County case against Ramirez is now over. Enright said the couple are no longer engaged.

“One of the many, many tragedies of this whole thing is that their relationship is no longer the same,” Enright said. “The impact has been incredibly traumatic for both of them.”

Technically, the Orange County charges against Ramirez could be reinstated should he win his automatic appeal of his Los Angeles death sentence. But even if an appeal were successful, Enright said, refiling of the Orange County charges would be unlikely.

“If he won quickly on an appeal, he would just be brought back to Los Angeles for a new trial,” Enright said. “But I suspect that his appeal is going to take about 10 years.”

Ramirez is next scheduled to be tried in San Francisco for a murder there. Enright said his office is attempting to reach authorities there today to let them know that the Orange County bench warrant has been withdrawn.