True Crime Time for August 24, 2026 | The Night Stalker, Navarre’s Bakery Drug Bust & One Tip That Changed Everything
On today’s episode of True Crime Time, Cyndi takes over the mic and begins with a thank-you to the Lifers—and a reminder of just how much the Real Life Real Crime community means to the people who trust Woody with their stories. After spending Saturday at Guardian Day at Firman Ranch, Cyndi talks about meeting listeners and seeing firsthand how many people approach Woody looking for help, hope, or simply a chance to say thank you.
Cyndi also shares the meaning behind Guardian Day, an annual fundraiser supporting first responders and their families throughout the greater Baton Rouge area. She recounts Cy Daquila’s emotional story of the first responders who entered his burning home in the middle of the night and woke his family, allowing Si, his wife Heather, their twins, and their older children to escape. At Saturday’s event, Si was able to publicly recognize and thank the first responders who helped save his family.
Then it’s time for true crime.
Cyndi starts locally with a story involving a Louisiana institution familiar to generations of Livingston Parish residents: Navarre’s Pastries in Springfield. Known throughout the area for its donuts and especially its famous king cakes, the Navarre family’s bakery history stretches back decades. Cyndi explains how the business grew from Ernie Navarre Jr.’s small donut shop into an operation whose king cakes have been shipped around the country and world, including orders from businesses, celebrities, politicians, and other high-profile customers.
But on August 12, authorities executed a search warrant at Navarre’s Pastries. According to the Livingston Parish Sheriff’s Office, investigators uncovered what Sheriff Jason Ard described as a distribution hub for various narcotics. Authorities reported seizing suspected cocaine, MDMA, Adderall, Vyvanse, Xanax, Valium, anabolic steroids, cash, and 52 firearms, including one reportedly stolen weapon.
Jules Navarre, one of Ernie Navarre’s sons, was arrested and reportedly faces 62 charges, including numerous firearm-related counts and possession-with-intent-to-distribute allegations. Cyndi also explains what remains unknown: publicly available information has not yet revealed what initially led investigators to the bakery or whether the case began with a tip, surveillance, another investigation, or some other source. She stresses that she found nothing indicating other members of the Navarre family were involved and reminds listeners that Jules Navarre is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.
Then Cyndi returns to the crime that happened on this day in 1985 and takes listeners inside the terrifying story of Richard Ramirez—the Night Stalker.
Beginning with Ramirez’s childhood in El Paso, Texas, Cyndi examines the violence, head injuries, drug use, and disturbing influences that surrounded his early years—including his older cousin Mike, a Vietnam veteran who reportedly showed the young Ramirez graphic photographs of violence and told him stories of rape, torture, and killing. At 13, Ramirez then witnessed Mike shoot and kill his wife directly in front of him. Cyndi is careful to make an important distinction: childhood trauma and brain injuries do not turn someone into a serial killer, and none of Ramirez’s experiences excuse the choices and horrific crimes that followed.
By the mid-1980s, California was terrified. Ramirez invaded homes, murdered, sexually assaulted, burglarized, and attacked victims with no easily identifiable pattern. Men, women, young people, elderly people, individuals and couples could all become targets. Even his methods varied, making the Night Stalker particularly difficult for investigators to profile.
Investigators Frank Salerno and Gil Carrillo began conn
[SPEAKER_00]: Hello everybody, and welcome to True Crime Time for Monday, August 24th, 2026, and I am Cindy Overton, and welcome happy Monday.
[SPEAKER_00]: What he would always say or does always say, whether y'all hear it or not, he says it at home, best week ever starts now.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I hope and pray that that's true for all of us and I just want to thank everybody for tuning in every day.
[SPEAKER_00]: We are so blessed to have each and every one of you lifers.
[SPEAKER_00]: We obviously cannot see your faces.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, we don't get a, I look at analytics all the time.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I don't, you know, get a name or a face to see who's actually listening.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I will say that when Woody and I go out in public, especially when we went to rock in the ranch on Saturday,
[SPEAKER_00]: It blows my mind of the people that just recognize Woody and honestly myself, but mostly me because I'm standing next to Woody just in a crowd and the people that stop him and thank him are asking for help and it's, you know,
[SPEAKER_00]: a great, great, great thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: So thank y'all for listening to real-life real crime and true crime time for.
[SPEAKER_00]: Most importantly, thank y'all for interesting woody with your stories and trusting him to take the time to tell your stories and ask for help.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know that
[SPEAKER_00]: Woody will do all that he can to help all that he can that's his life mission.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you to all you lifeers that we saw on Saturday.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was an amazing event and it's actually we call it rock in the ranch or they call it rock in the ranch.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the annual guardian day at Furman Ranch and it's in slaughter Louisiana and slaughter is itty bitty.
[SPEAKER_00]: But this was the fifth annual event
[SPEAKER_00]: And it had a car show, it had daytime live music, pasta lia, and the evening concert was headlined by Mark Chestnut.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it was a really, really good time.
[SPEAKER_00]: So next year when they're planning the event, hopefully we can do some promotion on it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is why.
[SPEAKER_00]: Guardian Day, I'm just going to read this from their event right over view of what Guardian Day is.
[SPEAKER_00]: It says it's more than just a great time.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a mission.
[SPEAKER_00]: Our annual fundraiser fuels critical support for first responders and their families across the greater Baton Rouge region, including East and West Baton Rouge, East and West Felicia, Livingston, Ascension, Point Gopee and St. Helena Parishes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Your participation helps those facing serious illnesses and
[SPEAKER_00]: And so they do that one Saturday as well after Mark Chestnut sang and his band played, they were packing up and side to Quillow was asked to get on stage and he told a very moving story about when his house.
[SPEAKER_00]: was on fire in the middle of the night in January.
[SPEAKER_00]: And their fire alarms with the system had some about somehow been disconnected or I don't know, I don't want to miss speak, but the alarm wasn't sounding in their home, but it was being alerted to
[SPEAKER_00]: the fire department and 911.
[SPEAKER_00]: So first responders, I got goose bumps saved his whole family.
[SPEAKER_00]: So if they literally walked into their bedroom, sigh and Heather his wife and woke them up and it said, and this isn't a direct quote, but basically, sir, you need to get up your house is on fire.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so Heather looked at Sae and said twins because they have twin boys that were barely a year.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't even know if they were a year old at the time, he grabbed the twins.
[SPEAKER_00]: They were in the room with him.
[SPEAKER_00]: She went and grabbed.
[SPEAKER_00]: their older children, which were much larger than the twins in hindsight.
[SPEAKER_00]: She's like, I should have grabbed the twins and let's go get the others.
[SPEAKER_00]: But she said their room had like this just black smoke and luckily they got out.
[SPEAKER_00]: and they're fine.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they are moving into their back and to their home today.
[SPEAKER_00]: So Si was invited to go on stage and just give praise and he called out each and every one of the first responders that he had contact with and still had their names and thanked them individually.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I know that he was so grateful to have the opportunity to do that in a public space, just because when you go through something like that, you don't know how you're going to think the people that saved your life.
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't know how you're ever going to express your gratitude.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that was, you know,
[SPEAKER_00]: the stage, he was given the stage to be able to do that in front of thousands of people.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I know that he was grateful to be able to do that on top of anything else that he's done that we don't know, but I know, sigh, and I know he's done all that he can and we'll continue to do all he can for the first responders.
[SPEAKER_00]: But let's get down to this day in history.
[SPEAKER_00]: On this day in 1985, Richard Ramirez, who's also known as the night stalker, was spotted outside of a house in Mission Viejo after an attack.
[SPEAKER_00]: Ramirez shot and killed another man and raped his fiance, but left her alive.
[SPEAKER_00]: That woman provided a detailed description of Ramirez that proved to be very helpful.
[SPEAKER_00]: On August 31st of 1985, residents in East LA recognized Ramirez and then apprehended him until he could be arrested by the police.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's pretty cool.
[SPEAKER_00]: Ramirez was tried for his crimes and convicted of 13 counts of murder, five attempted murders, 11 sexual assaults, and 14 burglaries, and Ramirez died from cancer in June of 2013 while in prison.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's what happened in 1985.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's see what's happening in 2000 and 26.
[SPEAKER_00]: But let's talk about some stuff that's going on here locally at
[SPEAKER_00]: Probably one of every year for Woody's birthday.
[SPEAKER_00]: He gets a king cake because he was born on February 5th, which is always around in the middle of martyglis season.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so when he was growing up,
[SPEAKER_00]: his birthday cake was a yellow cake with chocolate icing, but as he grew older, we have developed a tradition basically an excuse to get a king cake.
[SPEAKER_00]: So when we lived in Marpa, we always got king cake from Springfield, they're very close together.
[SPEAKER_00]: So if you leave Marapal and you had whatever the direction is because I'm horrible with directions.
[SPEAKER_00]: Going towards Hammond, you pass this little town called Springfield and that's where Navar's bakery is.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, Navar's bakery is in the news.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if Woody was here telling the story, and I'm sure Woody will touch on it, he can tell you a lot more about Navar's and their growth and over time, how they grew and evolved and changed and progressed and all the neat things that they did.
[SPEAKER_00]: I remember stopping there from our earliest date days and before they actually had the new bakery and get donuts, because donuts are one of my favorite things.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you're from Livingston Parish, you know, and you actually probably already heard about this, but I know that you've heard about Navarro's pastries and their famous king
[SPEAKER_00]: Navarz has been a part of the whole area for decades.
[SPEAKER_00]: The family bakery story goes back to Ernie, Navar Junior, who started working in his aunt and uncle's donut shop when he was just a kid.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then he opened up his own small donut shop in 1972, and he was still a teenager when he did that.
[SPEAKER_00]: over time, King Cakes became a huge part of his business, and just a little side note, Ernie did a new story with the Living Stimpares news about their new operation a few years ago, and he said that he's had customers that have ordered 200 King Cakes at one time, because
[SPEAKER_00]: uh, send their customers and their clients, King Cakes all over the world all over the country during King Cakes season.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that makes sense.
[SPEAKER_00]: According to the Livingston Parish News article, Navars King Cakes have been enjoyed by people again all over the country and all over the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: The bakery has provided cakes for celebrities, politicians, and other high profile customers.
[SPEAKER_00]: So when you're in this area and you hear Navars, you think King Cake, until now.
[SPEAKER_00]: So one of Arne Navar's sons worked at the bakery, and his name is Jules Navar, and on August 12th,
[SPEAKER_00]: of this year, living some pair of sheriff's office agents with its narcotics division, assisted the Louisiana State Fire Marshal in obtaining a search warrant for Navar's pastries in Springfield.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when I read, started reading this article, of course, I immediately wanted to know, like, what happened?
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, how did they get, like, what, I want to know the backstory and
[SPEAKER_00]: arrest and all of that we're not going to get the back story yet.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I didn't I don't live in that area anymore.
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't hear any talk about stuff that was going on.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I'm going to tell you basically.
[SPEAKER_00]: what happened in the arrest and what we do know.
[SPEAKER_00]: So what we do know is what I just said, the state fire marshal was involved, the Living Stimperational Products Agency assisted, and we know a judge authorized a search warrant.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I have not been able to find all of the things that I want to know, did this begin with a tip?
[SPEAKER_00]: Was there another like side investigation that led to it?
[SPEAKER_00]: If there was surveillance, what led to being, you know, surveilling it, did they have a CI go in and make a control purchase, like I don't know, I'm just
[SPEAKER_00]: trying not to speculate.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it's hard not to.
[SPEAKER_00]: But when agents executed the search warrant, Sheriff Jason Ard said investigators uncovered what he described as a distribution hub for various narcotics.
[SPEAKER_00]: According to LPSO, agencies approximately 42.8 grams of suspected cocaine.
[SPEAKER_00]: They reported finding approximately 200 dosage units of suspected MDNA, MDMA.
[SPEAKER_00]: They found 394 dosage units of Adderall.
[SPEAKER_00]: four units of Vivance, two units of Alpazalam, also known as Xanex, and Valium, one dose of Valium.
[SPEAKER_00]: Investigators also reported finding six dose of units of Anabolic steroids along with one Vile of Anabolic steroids and one Vile of Nandrolone.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then there were the firearms,
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, I saw this, and I saw the picture, and there's pictures, and I'm like, well, that just looks like our living room on any given day.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, we're in the, truly, there's 52 firearms.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not joking.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, between it could look like our living room.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not even exaggerating.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's not our other gun, like our hunting guns that we use all the time, the case for that.
[SPEAKER_00]: But according to Livingston Parrish Sheriff's Office, one of the guns had previously been reported stolen.
[SPEAKER_00]: Investigators also reported recovering approximately $8,550 in cash, which authority said was
[SPEAKER_00]: Now 43-year-old Joel Savar was arrested and booked into the Livingston Parish Detention Center.
[SPEAKER_00]: According to the Sheriff's Office, he faces 52 separate counts of possessing a firearm and the presence of a controlled dangerous substance.
[SPEAKER_00]: He also faces one count involving possession of a stolen firearm.
[SPEAKER_00]: Multiple possession with intent to distribute charges involving different drug schedules
[SPEAKER_00]: current reporting puts the total amount of charges at 62 and I did go looking for a prior history.
[SPEAKER_00]: With a case like this, it just seems like something potentially would have led up to this.
[SPEAKER_00]: I never heard about jewels and ever heard about him being whatever, and small towns have a lot of gossip, but I never heard anything about him, I don't know, but
[SPEAKER_00]: I found no prior criminal case involving jewels, but I did find a booking and St. Tammy Parrish on August 19th, the listing jewels of our as a fugitive, but that happened at the same time as this Living St. Parrish case, so I don't know.
[SPEAKER_00]: It appears that, and one thing I do want to note is that there's nothing that I found
[SPEAKER_00]: shows any other members of the Naur Navar family being involved and what they found at the bakery.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I just really want to let this know this is a family-owned business.
[SPEAKER_00]: They have worked hard to be who they are and have the reputation that they do.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I want to be very, very clear with this.
[SPEAKER_00]: And obviously, an arrest is not the same as a conviction.
[SPEAKER_00]: So Jules Navarra is presumed innocent and less and until he is proven guilty in a court of law.
[SPEAKER_00]: The investigation is very new.
[SPEAKER_00]: The search happened on August 12th, and the arrest in details only became public a couple days ago.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a lot unanswered right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: But as I tell you this story, I can't get Richard Ramirez in his story out of my head.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm gonna do a quick search and see what I can find about Richard Ramirez because how do you just become a person that does this type of stuff?
[SPEAKER_00]: How do you go from a kid that grew up in El Paso, Texas?
[SPEAKER_00]: to a man who had an entire state terrified to go to sleep at nine, quite honestly.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's start with Richard's full name.
[SPEAKER_00]: Ricardo Leiva Muñoz Ramitas.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was born February 29, 1960, born on the leap year, and the youngest of five children.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when you start looking into his childhood, you can see that it was troubled from the beginning.
[SPEAKER_00]: His father, Julian, reportedly had a violent temper and Richard was exposed to physical violence.
[SPEAKER_00]: Any suffered serious head injuries as a child.
[SPEAKER_00]: When he was around two years old, a dresser reportedly fell on him and caused a head injury
[SPEAKER_00]: Then when he was about five years old, he was knocked unconscious after being struck by a swing.
[SPEAKER_00]: I remember those swings.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm assuming that that big plastic swing set seat.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was like a rubber on with just not a tire rubber, but thick, thick, thick.
[SPEAKER_00]: I remember that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if it would hit
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, not long after that swing struck him, he began having epileptic seizures.
[SPEAKER_00]: And of course, I want to be careful with talking about this childhood trauma and brain injuries in the background of someone who later becomes a serial killer.
[SPEAKER_00]: because millions of people experience terrible childhoods, abuse, head injuries, et cetera, and they don't become a Richard Romeras.
[SPEAKER_00]: So none of what I told you, obviously, excuses what he eventually chose to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I like to go back to the beginning and when you do that, you can't just leave out certain parts.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that part needs to be told.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I haven't told a lot of other parts because I'm trying to condense this.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I don't make it a two-parter because I easily can do that with this man's life.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now one thing that's interesting is one of the most influential people in Richard's life was his older cousin Miguel.
[SPEAKER_00]: And everybody called Miguel Mike.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, Mike was a Vietnam vet and Richard idolized him.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the things Mike reportedly shared with us
[SPEAKER_00]: younger cousin were not good.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're actually kind of scary horrific basically.
[SPEAKER_00]: Mike showed Richard photographs he brought home from Vietnam.
[SPEAKER_00]: Photographs depicting the violence against women.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now he reportedly also told Richard graphic stories about rape, torture, and killing,
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, Mike was also reported to have taught Richard some of the things he learned in the military, like how to move quietly, how to remain unseen.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, I've got goosebumps.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like literally the training of a serial killer.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then, this has all happened before Richard even turned 13 years old.
[SPEAKER_00]: But when he was 13 years old, something happened right in front of him that he would never be able to unsee.
[SPEAKER_00]: Mike got into an argument with his wife, Jesse, and Richard was there, and Richard watched his cousin pull out a gun and shoot Jesse right in the face, killing her.
[SPEAKER_00]: Remember, he had
[SPEAKER_00]: shown him horrible pictures of Vietnam.
[SPEAKER_00]: Before he was 13 years old, his brain is not processing that like an adult.
[SPEAKER_00]: And now, at 13, he sees his idol shooting his wife right in the face.
[SPEAKER_00]: Will Richard was affected by this.
[SPEAKER_00]: No Mike was later found not guilty by reason of insanity, and Richard's life continued to spiral.
[SPEAKER_00]: He started using drugs heavily, particularly marijuana.
[SPEAKER_00]: He became interested in Satanism and he dropped out of high school.
[SPEAKER_00]: He stole, he burglarized homes, and...
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know if you remember me reading this, but there was some 14 burglaries in his convictions, so obviously this becomes important to the story.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because before Richard from Arizona became a serial killer, he became very comfortable entering other people's homes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now eventually he left Texas and he made his way to California and by the early 1980s, Ramirez was living a very transient lifestyle around Los Angeles, using drugs, stealing,
[SPEAKER_00]: One of the earliest martyrs for which Ramirez would eventually be convicted, happened in June of 1984.
[SPEAKER_00]: The victim was Jenny Vincal.
[SPEAKER_00]: She was 79 years old, and she was found murdered inside her Los Angeles area apartment.
[SPEAKER_00]: Her throat had been cut.
[SPEAKER_00]: at the time police had no idea that her murder was connected to the man who would eventually become the night stalker.
[SPEAKER_00]: But Richard Ramirez left fingerprints behind.
[SPEAKER_00]: Something I guess Mike didn't teach him about.
[SPEAKER_00]: Investigators just didn't know who's fingerprints they belong to.
[SPEAKER_00]: On March 17, Ramirez entered a home where Maria Hernandez and Dale Ocasaki lived.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maria encountered him and Ramirez fired at her, but she survived.
[SPEAKER_00]: And her roommate Dale was shot and killed.
[SPEAKER_00]: But Ramirez wasn't finished later that same night,
[SPEAKER_00]: sideline you was pulled from a car and fatally shot and I'm I'm pretty sure I said that name incorrectly and I don't want to be disrespectful and say a name incorrectly but I'm pretty sure I said that wrong.
[SPEAKER_00]: 10 days later on March 27th, Ramirez entered the home of Vincent and Maxine Zazara and both them were murdered.
[SPEAKER_00]: What happened inside that home was extraordinarily
[SPEAKER_00]: I really don't want to go into the graphic detail because we really don't need it to make this, I don't like to just know that Maxine's body was mutilated after her death.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this wasn't simply a burglar who panicked when somebody woke up.
[SPEAKER_00]: There was something very dangerous happening.
[SPEAKER_00]: And here's one of the things that made Ramirez so frightening.
[SPEAKER_00]: Police couldn't find a normal victim pattern.
[SPEAKER_00]: They were all into profiling.
[SPEAKER_00]: They had learned that serial killers pretty much have a type.
[SPEAKER_00]: But Ramirez didn't.
[SPEAKER_00]: His victims could be young.
[SPEAKER_00]: They could be old.
[SPEAKER_00]: They could be men.
[SPEAKER_00]: They could be women.
[SPEAKER_00]: They could live alone.
[SPEAKER_00]: They could be couples sleeping next to each other.
[SPEAKER_00]: He didn't even have a consistency with his method of murder.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes he shot them, sometimes he stabbed them, sometimes he beat them.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the women and girls were sexually assaulted, homes were burglarized.
[SPEAKER_00]: And at some crime scenes, he left pentagrams or references to Satan, but that was some.
[SPEAKER_00]: And sometimes he forced victims to swear allegiance to Satan.
[SPEAKER_00]: There was no simple profile, and police could give the public and say, hey, if you're not this kind of person, you're probably safe.
[SPEAKER_00]: Nobody seems safe.
[SPEAKER_00]: and through the spring and summer of 1985, the tax continued.
[SPEAKER_00]: And investigators were beginning to realize that crimes that look different on the surface were connected.
[SPEAKER_00]: The two investigators that become especially important are Frank Solerno and Gil Cateo.
[SPEAKER_00]: Solerno had already worked the Hillside Strangler investigation.
[SPEAKER_00]: and Cateo became convinced that these apparently different homovations and murders were being committed by the same man.
[SPEAKER_00]: There were connections through ballistic and there were survivors that were giving similar descriptions.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then there were the shoes.
[SPEAKER_00]: at multiple crime scenes, investigators found distinctive shoe impressions, and they eventually determined that the killer was wearing a relatively uncommon pair of avia athletic shoes, tennis shoes.
[SPEAKER_00]: That became a very critical piece of evidence, but that didn't give police a name.
[SPEAKER_00]: Think about, eight, 1985, like we didn't have ring doorbells or cameras around our house or cameras that stop lights or all of the technology advances that we have today, we didn't have cell phones beside our bed, 1985.
[SPEAKER_00]: We probably had the very beginning of cordless phones
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, you had to die, could probably press buttons to down on one one, but it wasn't like it is today, we didn't have Facebook, you know, where we could get news out, you know, you had just 30 minute news segment, it's just different.
[SPEAKER_00]: It just made it even more scary back then.
[SPEAKER_00]: But people began to buy guns and bought double triple locks.
[SPEAKER_00]: They put bars on their windows, and they formed neighborhood watches.
[SPEAKER_00]: They did what they could do to protect themselves.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, in the summer in California, people normally slept with their windows open, because it was nice weather, but they didn't do it now.
[SPEAKER_00]: and Richard Ramirez knew people were afraid.
[SPEAKER_00]: He followed the news coverage, and he knew police were hunting him, but he kept going.
[SPEAKER_00]: An August Ramirez traveled north to the San Francisco area.
[SPEAKER_00]: And on August 17th, he entered the home of Peter and Barbara Paine, Peter Paine, interesting.
[SPEAKER_00]: Peter was killed, Barbara was shot and murdered.
[SPEAKER_00]: The night stalker wasn't just a Los Angeles problem anymore.
[SPEAKER_00]: He traveled hundreds of miles, which is what people do when they know the heat is on them, like the person that's sitting in jail and St. Francisville right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: After that attack San Francisco Mayor Diane Feinstein held a press conference, and during that press conference, she revealed details about evidence police were using to connect the crimes, including information about the shoe print.
[SPEAKER_00]: investigators were furious that she mentioned the shoe print because what's you going to do now.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let me all of y'all just thought the answer definitely he's going to change his shoes and they can't track him anymore because they know he's going to change his shoes.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we got rid of them and police had lost
[SPEAKER_00]: But now Richard thinks he's smarter than everybody else, and he starts making mistakes in a week later, he made that mistake.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that mistake brings us back to this day, August 24th, but in 1985.
[SPEAKER_00]: and we go to Mission Viejo, California.
[SPEAKER_00]: And there's a 13-year-old boy named James Romero III, and he was awake.
[SPEAKER_00]: At some point that night, James noticed a suspicious man outside his family's house.
[SPEAKER_00]: And of course, that man was Richard.
[SPEAKER_00]: James woke his parents up.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, Ramirez realized somebody was awake and left, but James paid attention.
[SPEAKER_00]: He noticed, thank goodness, he's 13, but he noticed the vehicle Ramirez was driving, an orange Toyota Station wagon.
[SPEAKER_00]: And more importantly, James remembered the license plate, good for you, James.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the Ramirez family contacted police.
[SPEAKER_00]: Richard Ramirez drove away from that house and he didn't stop.
[SPEAKER_00]: He found another one.
[SPEAKER_00]: And inside that house, he found Bill Carns and his fiance, Ena's Erickson.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, Ramirez entered their home.
[SPEAKER_00]: Bill was asleep.
[SPEAKER_00]: Ramirez shot him in the head and somehow Bill survived.
[SPEAKER_00]: She survived too, which is critical.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because now police had a living witness and they had the information about the Orange Toyota and then they began looking for that car.
[SPEAKER_00]: And a few days later, they found the car abandoned in Los Angeles.
[SPEAKER_00]: They processed it for evidence.
[SPEAKER_00]: Inside that vehicle was the break they had been waiting for.
[SPEAKER_00]: of fingerprint, they ran the print, and finally the night stalker had a name, Richard Romeras.
[SPEAKER_00]: He had been arrested previously, which meant his fingerprints were already in the system, and police pulled his photograph and there he was, the man they had been chasing for months.
[SPEAKER_00]: On August 30th, authorities released his name and photograph to the public in his face was everywhere.
[SPEAKER_00]: Television, newspapers, police bulletins, millions of Californians who had spent months wondering who was coming through people's windows, finally knew what he looked like.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now remember that time.
[SPEAKER_00]: We had down the streets, all the windows of front of the store, had, you know, especially like television stores.
[SPEAKER_00]: You would, they had all of the TVs and the same channel and you'd walk by and you'd see people's faces.
[SPEAKER_00]: People printed up faces and put them up.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, we did our own grassroots investigations and, you know, our way of having video cameras and not video care, but, you know, keeping someone's face in the public.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the problem was Richard wasn't in Los Angeles because he had fled to Arizona to see his brother.
[SPEAKER_00]: He had no idea he had been identified.
[SPEAKER_00]: So then he returned by Greyhound Bus.
[SPEAKER_00]: On August 31st, he returned back to Los Angeles, not knowing he had been identified and police were watching the bus terminal.
[SPEAKER_00]: And somehow, I don't know how, but Richard walked right past them.
[SPEAKER_00]: But luckily, the police weren't the only people looking for him, everybody knew his face.
[SPEAKER_00]: So Ramirez went into a store and people started staring at him.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he noticed it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then he saw a newspaper whose face is on the front page of the newspaper, his face.
[SPEAKER_00]: and he realized everybody knew who he was.
[SPEAKER_00]: So he ran.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he was literally, I mean, he literally ran.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was running through a neighborhood in East Los Angeles and the people in the neighborhood recognized him.
[SPEAKER_00]: And people started chasing him.
[SPEAKER_00]: He tried to steal vehicles.
[SPEAKER_00]: At one point, he tried to take a woman's car.
[SPEAKER_00]: Her husband saw what was happening
[SPEAKER_00]: other residents joined in and word spread and they were like that's him that's the night stalker and now the man who had spent months hunting people was being hunted by an entire neighborhood that is amazing.
[SPEAKER_00]: residents caught him, they tackled him, they beat him, and they held him until police arrived.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the story goes that when the police actually arrived, Ramirez was relieved to see them, because at that point, the police weren't protecting the neighborhood from Richard Ramirez.
[SPEAKER_00]: They were protecting Richard Ramirez from the neighborhood.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this night stalker's reign of terror was over.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he was 25 years old.
[SPEAKER_00]: All of that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he was only 25 years old.
[SPEAKER_00]: So now, prosecutors had to prove what he had done.
[SPEAKER_00]: In the case, against Richard Romeras was enormous.
[SPEAKER_00]: But luckily there were surviving victims who could identify them and they had evidence, ballistic evidence, fingerprint, shoe impressions, and all of that connected him to multiple crime scenes.
[SPEAKER_00]: And once investigators knew who Ramirez was, they could go back through older, unsolved cases.
[SPEAKER_00]: And remember that 79-year-old woman back in June of 1984,
[SPEAKER_00]: that couldn't be identified, they identified it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so the pieces began coming together.
[SPEAKER_00]: When the trial took years to get underway, Jerry Selection began in 1988 and opening statements began in January of 1989, more than 160 witnesses testified.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, from here as seemed to embrace the attention, he appeared in court with a pentagram drawn on his hand.
[SPEAKER_00]: He shouted references to Satan.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is disgusting, but women began writing to him.
[SPEAKER_00]: Some even attended his trial.
[SPEAKER_00]: He developed admirers,
[SPEAKER_00]: And during jury deliberations, something absolutely bizarre happened.
[SPEAKER_00]: One of the jurors, Billis, was murdered.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, you can imagine what everybody initially thought.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're deliberating the fate of the night stalker, and suddenly a juror is dead.
[SPEAKER_00]: But investigators determined that her murder had nothing to do with Ramirez.
[SPEAKER_00]: She was killed by her boyfriend in a unrelated domestic homicide.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then another juror had to replace her and deliberations continued.
[SPEAKER_00]: On September 20th of 1985, the verdict came back.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was found guilty of 43 felonies.
[SPEAKER_00]: 13 murders, five attempted murders, 11 sexual assault offenses, and 14 burglaries.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he was sentenced to death.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he went to Sam Quentin, California never executed him.
[SPEAKER_00]: He remained on death row for more than two decades.
[SPEAKER_00]: As convictions and death sentence were upheld by the California Supreme Court.
[SPEAKER_00]: And on June 7th of 2013, Richard Ramirez died at the age of 53.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he had developed B cell lymphoma.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when he passed, it had been almost 28 years since that neighborhood.
[SPEAKER_00]: And East L.A. had caught him.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know if I love it because my dad taught me these things when I was younger.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know if that 13-year-old little boy James, not a little boy that 13-year-old young man, James was taught by his father to do this, but my dad, and it might have been because of Richard Ramirez, I don't know, and just his line of work being in the board of
[SPEAKER_00]: had to pay attention to license plates, I had a method that I developed because I worked in the mall when I would walk out at night by myself, I'd have the key to my car and between my fingers, we didn't have like, remotes at that time, so you actually had to go put your, okay, there's two separate keys.
[SPEAKER_00]: One that was round for the lock, one that was square for the
[SPEAKER_00]: put my key unlock my door, get in my car immediately, lock my door, you know, but on my way to the car, I would remember I had to look underneath the cars that were, you know, on the way to make sure there was no one hiding under there, under them.
[SPEAKER_00]: If there was a van parked on the driver's side of my car, get in on the other side, like all of the things, I don't know if everybody was being taught the same thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: I only know my experience.
[SPEAKER_00]: But this 13-year-old James is a hero.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because he didn't know what he saw was a serial killer standing outside of his family's house.
[SPEAKER_00]: He didn't know that California was going to remember.
[SPEAKER_00]: What happened that night, 40 years later?
[SPEAKER_00]: He just knew something wasn't right, and he paid attention, and he remembered that orange Toyota, and he remembered that part of the license plate.
[SPEAKER_00]: He woke up his father who called the police, the police found the car, they got the fingerprint, and it just goes on.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, just one little, notice, one little tip, like a goosebumps, one little tip.
[SPEAKER_00]: Three, one, three, R, L, R, C, tip.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is why Woody tells you every single day, tip, tip, tip, tip.
[SPEAKER_00]: That kid had no idea what he saw.
[SPEAKER_00]: He just trusted his gut and followed it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And his parents listened.
[SPEAKER_00]: If it hadn't been for that, there was probably going to be more.
[SPEAKER_00]: So anyway, that is the story behind what happened this day in history.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, I get hooked on these tangents because I say that I'm not a true crime person, you know, I like true crime, but like, if Woody and I weren't doing this, I wouldn't go watch.
[SPEAKER_00]: like all of the true crime TV shows, I might watch like a date line or whatever.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know what I mean?
[SPEAKER_00]: Like I'm not that avid fan like most of our listeners are.
[SPEAKER_00]: It intrigues me, but I'm not called and bet like.
[SPEAKER_00]: to go watch it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when I watch something, it's interesting, you know, I get into it.
[SPEAKER_00]: But y'all know my my place is real life.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, real life or crime.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, it is real life for crime.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, my calling is real housewives.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, and anything on bravo.
[SPEAKER_00]: But thank
[SPEAKER_00]: We look forward to this coming week.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know y'all are tired of hearing this, but we are tired of saying it to be honest.
[SPEAKER_00]: We get excited, we hear things are happening, we know things are coming, and then there's a delay.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we get excited, we jump to Ghana and we tell you, but it's coming, it's coming, it's coming, it's coming.
[SPEAKER_00]: and y'all are going to be so glad that you are here to hear it first on true crime time for or real-life or crime.
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