All language subtitles for Night.Stalker.The.Hunt.For.A.Serial.Killer.S01E03.720p.NF.WEB-DL.DDP5.1.H.264-3cTWeB (1)

Good morning.
High of 88 today, 95 over in the Valley.

We'll be frying eggs on the sidewalk,
if you haven't had breakfast--

DeBarge, at number six
on our official L.A. countdown this week.

So, we got two of our officers
and stuck them in the dental office,

waiting for Richard to come back in.

He's got an impacted tooth
and it's gonna be killing him pretty soon.

And we know, if he come back,
they're going to get him.

And one of the executives
from my department

thought that we were wasting money,

that the guy was probably
not going to come back.

And since the dental office
was a jurisdiction of LAPD,

we get Los Angeles Police Department
to put one of their robbery alarms

inside the office.

So, they put that in there
and we pulled our guys off.

The very first day that we pull
our guys out and put the alarm in,

the doctor called me up
about ten o'clock that night,

says, "Where were you?
Why didn't you come?"

Richard had been in there that day.

The doctor kept hitting the alarm,

and the alarm malfunctioned
or wasn't wired prop-- It didn't go off.

So, we missed him.

I was upset.

How many more people are going to die?

I could, in my mind,
every single day, walk through that house.

I know every inch of it.
I know every stain on the carpet.

I can see it all.

My grandmother was a sports fanatic.

You couldn't really even talk to her

if there was a Dodger game
or a Laker game on.

Those were her teams
and she loved them.

And my grandfather was salt of the earth.

He would keep boxes
of full-sized candy bars.

None of these little pieces of candy.

It was always a full-sized candy bar
when Grandpa decided it was okay.

And I remember that there was
a series of crimes that had happened.

Somebody was breaking into houses.

Some of the stories
were about older people.

I think one was um,
two sisters that had lived together.

June 1st, Monrovia,
83-year-old Mabel Bell is beaten to death.

Her invalid sister survives.

So, I worried about my grandparents,

and I went to their house and I said,
"Grandma, you've got to lock your doors.

There's this creep
that's breaking into people's houses."

My grandmother's response was,
"Hey, we're from the Midwest.

Sorry, I don't want to live like that.

I don't want to live where I lock my doors

and where I have to be worried about
who's going to come in my house.

That's not how I am."

My father was a Seventh-day Adventist,

my mother usually went to church with him.

I met them on Saturday mornings
for coffee.

I started calling the house to tell them
I might be a few minutes late

and I was getting no answer…

and I thought that was very unusual.

And my husband-- I asked him if he would
drive me down and take my daughter.

I didn't want to go alone,
since I hadn't got an answer.

There was something inside me that…

I knew something was wrong.

We stopped in front of the house.

I noticed the pool gate was open,

and they never left the gate
to the pool yard open, ever.

And then I went to the back door
and the door was open.

I went through that room and down
the hallway to where their bedroom was,

and I looked in their bedroom…

My father's head had been
almost totally decapitated.

My mother's face was shot off.

The room was just a bloodbath.

My five-year-old
had heard me screaming,

so she already knew
that something terrible happened.

I sat them down.

We just had to tell them.

We knew it had to be done
before somebody else told them.

- We sat down and told them.
- Was that the hardest part?

Yes, it was,
because they love their grandparents.

Unbelievably, how much
they love their grandparents.

She looked at my sister and I and said,
"Your grandparents are dead.

They've been murdered."

It changed my world instantly.

We got a hold of Glendale PD

and Gil and I
met with the Glendale officers.

It looked like a struggle had ensued.

There were no shoe prints,
but they were both shot with a .22.

That .22 that he used on them,
we connect to one of the earlier cases.

And it's the same gun that was used

in the Dayle Okazaki case.

We get a hold of LAPD the same morning.

We've got another murder.

And we go to
the Khovananth residence in Sun Valley.

He's done two crimes
in the same night.

And as we walk up the driveway
to the front entrance,

on the front porch…

I said, "Gil, look at this."

There is a perfect Avia shoe print

on that porch.

We walk around the back
where the point of entry is,

which is a slider that was--
Got left unlocked.

There was another Avia shoe print
on the step up into the living room.

The suspect had entered the rear slider,

went into the bedroom, executed the male,

shot him in the head with a .22.

Then he sexually assaulted the wife,

and he sexually assaulted
the young boy as well.

He was there a long time
at this location, two hours, three hours,

and there was quite a bit of jewelry
and other items taken.

This is the case… This showed everything.

We had the Avia shoe print,

we had the .22,

we had the MO
that he was executing the male,

sexually assaulting the female,

and sexually assault
the eight-year-old boy there.

So, we had all of that, all in one case.

The female victim,

she was very traumatized,

but she was very clear
in what she remembered.

Her description, as far as
the composite drawing went,

was very good.

It was very similar to Okazaki/Hernandez.

And that's the one we went public with.

Frank had been through
a serial killer before.

I remember leaving the Hall of Justice
one day asking him if it was wrong

for me to want somebody else to die.

I needed more evidence.
I needed him to screw up.

And the only way he'd make a mistake
was if there were more victims.

I didn't want to see anybody die,

but I needed some more
pieces of the puzzle in order to work it.

We had called for a meeting
of everybody involved,

to get everybody on the same page
to try and solve this case.

In this meeting…

…we get interrupted.

We get notified that a case
had happened that night.

There's another case in Northridge

where two people had been shot.

The home of Chris
and Virginia Petersen.

This man entered the house…

went into the bedroom,

shot Virginia,

the left side of her nostril,

and the bullet lodged
in the back side of her neck

and didn't hit vital organs
as it went through.

She started screaming.

Mr. Petersen started to sit up,
the suspect shot him,

the right side of his head as well,
but it didn't go through.

He shoots a husband and wife.

They're both shot in the head.

Chris Petersen gets out of bed
and chases him out of the house.

The killer, he's got the gun,

and Petersen's got his wounded head,

and he chases
this killer out of the house.

If I'd shot somebody in the head
and they kept coming, I'd run, too.

The suspect used the word "bitch,"
which is a common word,

but that was some of his terminology
that he liked.

It was a new gun.

It was a .25 auto.

At that point,
we hadn't seen that gun being used.

The unusual thing about the shell casings
was that there was a red primer.

Our crime lab, the firearm section,
told us, "That's old ammunition."

They said, "They don't make that anymore,
with that red primer."

So, that became of interest.

Most killers,
they want to know what the cops know.

We knew he was reading the paper,

because in the Doi murder…

Mr. Doi was able to call 911.

And that call was released
to the news media.

From that point on, the phones were either
taken or disabled at the crime scenes.

Cut the phone lines,
no more communication,

which told me, whoever our suspect is,
he's following the news.

The L.A. Times contacts
the Sheriff's Department

and they want to do a story
in regards to my involvement

in the Hillside Strangler case

and now being involved
in the latest series.

I made the flippant remark that--
"This case here, this recent one,

that shows the true colors
of what this killer is all about."

And what I meant was he's a coward.

He shoots two people in bed,
a husband and wife.

Chris Petersen gets up out of bed

and he chases this killer
out of the house.

He is a coward.

That was something
I shouldn't have said, but I was pissed.

I had no idea it was going to be
on the front page of the L.A. Times

with a photograph.

With a whole bunch of personal details
about his life.

He had children at home at the time.

When you're a homicide detective
on the biggest case in the world,

you're maybe working 20 hours a day,
and you can't be everywhere at once.

Very scary thing.

It's the only time in my entire life

that I slept with a gun.

I'll tell you that.

Those who don't have guns
are buying them.

- Will you buy a gun?
- Definitely.

-Do you know how to use a firearm?
-No.

The same man is suspected in
six to eight murders and 25 to 30 attacks.

I'm afraid for everybody.
Elderly, young, everybody.

And the security industry
continues to benefit,

whether it's from guard dog training…

Hi-yah!

or from self-defense classes
at this karate school,

using, of all things, a key chain.

Locks are selling well, too.

I don't understand
why somebody can't identify him.

He has to live somewhere.

Somebody must know.
He's a weird-looking character.

Somebody has to know him.

Journalists wanted to give
this unknown monster a name.

KNBC, our boss,
named him "The Walk-In Killer."

-Walk-In Killer.
-Walk-In Killer.

…so-called Walk-In Killer.

Then there was "The Valley Intruder."

The so-called Valley Intruder
task force continues its search.

Then, one morning in August,
we woke up and…

The Herald Examiner called him
"The Night Stalker."

And that was the branding that stuck.

There's a new development
in the investigation

of the so-called Night Stalker
murders in California.

Californians have come to know him
as the Night Stalker.

The search for California's
Night Stalker continues.

Neighbors sat quietly
staring at the house,

wondering why the couple
was picked out by the Night Stalker

and thanking God it wasn't them.

We were asleep,

and the phone rang
2:00, 3:00 in the morning…

and Gil answered it.

And when he got off the phone
I remember asking, "Where did he hit now?"

And he told me, "Diamond Bar."

The drive to Diamond Bar was
just a matter of five, six minutes away.

It was close.

Diamond Bar.

I said, "Oh, dear Lord."

It's too close to home.

I was too afraid.
How could I protect my kids, myself there?

She says, "You're not going
till me and the kids are gone.

We're not coming home
till this is over."

And I said, "Okay."

And we walked out the door as a family.
He got in his car and we went.

And we left.

She was…

uh…

She was afraid.

She had to get out because I wasn't there.

I'm nothing without my family.

My family is everything.

So, we go to Diamond Bar.

Gil gets there first
because he lived very close.

The point of entry
is at the rear of the house.

The telltale sign,

there's a half-eaten honeydew melon
still on the table.

Okay, he's pretty comfortable again.

And we have a dead husband
with a gun to the temple.

The .25 semi-automatic pistol,

and it's the same .25 caliber ammunition
that we had seen previously at Petersen.

That's with the red primer.

The woman had been sexually assaulted,

and she tells us that he says,

"Don't look at me! Don't look at me!"

She says, "I swear to God, I won't!"

And he says,
"Don't swear to God, swear to Satan."

I remember getting there,
walking through the crime scene…

and getting angry.

So many people had walked
through the crime scene.

Captains, lieutenants,
other people that were involved

that happened to be called.

For a lack of term, looky-loos.

They all wanted to see.
This is all big news now.

The victim was Elyas Abowath,
a 35-year-old computer engineer.

I'm scared. I think everybody is scared.

Police say the murderer entered the house
through an open window or door,

the same way the so-called Walk-In Killer

has gotten into other residences
in the San Gabriel Valley.

I happen to go down
to one of our substations,

and the sergeant was up there

telling these guys everything
he knew about this case.

And telling them how the guy
was really a weakling,

and he's really not that dangerous.

And my buddy stood up and said,

"Gil, can you lend us some insight
as to what's going on,

because it's your case."

I said, "Sure, I'll tell you. First off,
everything he just said is wrong."

I said, "The man's extremely dangerous,
he's done a lot of damage,

don't take chances with him.

This is what we're looking for,
this shoe print…"

I gave them the information.

And when I went back to the office,
I said, "We've gotta do something.

We have media resources.
We have a media section here.

This is what we're looking for.
Make 23 tapes, get them to the stations

so everybody's getting
the same information,

everybody's on the same page,

and you don't have to rely on anybody
making up their own stuff

because they want to blow smoke up
somebody's wazoo."

And so that's what we did.

The suspect, who is described…

as a male Caucasian

or light-skinned Latin…

20 to 35 years of age,

5'10" to 6'2" with a thin build,

having medium-length brown hair
that is wavy or curly.

He also has stained, gapped front teeth

and wears a shoe size of 11 to 12.

Speaking of shoes, the shoes
we are looking for…

My partner, Inspector Carl Klotz,
and I were called out to a crime scene

on Eucalyptus Avenue,

which in San Francisco is out by the zoo,

and what we witnessed was horrific.

Mr. Pan had been shot in the head.

He was dead, still lying
in a pool of blood in his bed.

Mrs. Pan had been raped
and she was also shot in the head,

but she still had a pulse

and she was removed
to San Francisco General Hospital.

The crime scene, it was pretty grotesque.

After the murder, the killer…

opened the refrigerator…

ate the food
that was inside the refrigerator…

and then regurgitated
on the kitchen floor…

and then masturbated
on the living room carpet,

and then carved
a satanic symbol on the wall.

We had somebody
that was cold and calculated

and was trying to be as evil
as he possibly could.

We put out an all-points bulletin

and we listed
all the particulars of our crime.

This drew the attention of Glendale PD,
down in Los Angeles.

They suggested that we do
a ballistics check on our slugs

from the victims' bodies

to see if, ballistically, we had a link.

They had a .25 semi-automatic
pistol used, and the kicker was…

"Tell me about the .25 ammunition,
the expended round."

There's a red ring around the primer.

-I go, "Bingo."
-"Bingo."

We had a link.

"We'll be up there today."

Somebody on the assignment desk says,

"Hey, there's been another murder
in San Francisco that's linked to this."

And both she and I look at each other
and say, "Let's go."

We went straight from the newsroom

to Burbank Airport
with the clothes we had on.

Nothing else.

As we're getting on the airplane,
I nudged Gil and I said, "Look at that."

I don't think they were
real happy to see us.

No coincidence here.

Laurel Erickson sees Frank and myself
and-- "Hey, guys."

I believe there was a-- "Oh, hi, Laurel."

We said hello. They wanted to talk.
We said no.

Well, obviously we're in the right place.
Our instincts were right.

You suddenly realize that this…
If it is the same person,

that he's spread like a disease,
an epidemic, you know? He's…

Right. He's 500 miles away
and doing the same thing.

This is a statewide wave of terror.

We go by the house.
I think we took a few shots.

Three, four houses up,
there's this guy washing his car

and I started talking to him.

"Big doings here, huh?"
"Oh, yeah. This is bad stuff."

I said, "What do you do?"
He said, "I'm a police officer."

"Hm."

I said, "Your buddies were here, right?"

He said, "Yeah, they were."

"What'd they tell you?"

"Just like those cases in L.A.
All that shit written all over the walls."

And I did not let my jaw drop,

because nobody had mentioned
anything to us

in the L.A. cases
about writing on the wall.

This is Manson-like,
with writing on the wall.

Suddenly, this becomes a series of crimes
of a whole different dimension.

Once we learned that
there was pentagrams painted on walls,

there may be a demonic,
you know, element to this,

that really got people scared.

All of a sudden, as soon as the notion
of devil worship comes along,

then we're being flooded
in the newsroom of stories from people

who tell us that they found pentagrams
painted on different parks

or bus benches around the city,

or that they had found
evidence of animal sacrifice.

It just keeps getting creepier.

We're inside the house,
they're showing us everything.

It's the second story.

we had to walk up some stairs,
get up there

and…

there's a knock on the door.

And it was Laurel Erickson.

She wants to know if Frank
can come outside to talk to her.

When we got that tip,

we were in the game.

We had a piece of information
nobody else had.

And I said, "Frankie, she wants
to talk to you, buddy, go on out."

There was grim news today

for L.A. task force investigators
Sergeant Frank Salerno

and his partner Gil Carrillo.

We understand there is
writing on the wall in there

that says "Jack the Ripper," and that is
one of the links between here and L.A.

I dunno where
you're getting your information.

Anything from this case
has to come from San Francisco police.

Okay? Thank you.

Frank must be a great poker player.
His face did not show a thing.

He's totally denying it.

As for San Francisco police,

they are trying to do
what L.A officers could not do.

- What's the next step, now?
- Try and catch him, I guess.

We briefed San Francisco Police Department
totally on what we had been doing.

We talked about the Avia shoe print,
the description, just about every case.

We are asking that upon your arrival
you be extra careful while responding…

to and around the residence,

keeping an eye out for footprints

that may have been left behind
by the suspect.

This shoe,
which has a US patent on the sole,

has a very distinct pattern
of which there is no other alike.

It is absolutely essential
that this information

concerning his footwear
remain confidential,

especially with any contacts
with any other subjects and/or the public.

San Francisco now has
more than 60 police officers

assigned to its own special task force.

Night patrols increase tonight,

especially in this neighborhood

where a man was murdered
over the weekend.

I asked if the mayor's office
would issue a reward

for information leading
to the arrest and conviction

of the killer of Mr. Pan.

The mayor's office
contacted the chief's office,

wanted to know what this was about.

The chief explained to the mayor
of San Francisco, Dianne Feinstein,

that we had a link to the Night Stalker.

Your attention please
for a brief statement.

Everybody,
please closely study this composite.

He's someone that will
go into a home at night and will kill.

And it's a very serious situation.

There's a $10,000 reward
for any information

which can lead to his arrest
and conviction.

Ballistics on the weapons that--
On the weapon

that killed both Mr. and Mrs. Pan
out on Eucalyptus over the weekend,

are the same ballistics on, I understand,

more than a dozen murders
committed in Southern California.

When we got back to L.A.,

we learned that Mayor Feinstein
had held a press conference,

where she just vomited all really
important information out to the public.

She gave up the fact that we had
connected these cases with a shoe print,

with firearms evidence.

She's talking about the Avia shoe…

about a car and the caliber of gun.

You don't want to release information
only the killer would know.

Now we're burned.

The killer knows we know about

his shoe print being left
at the various crime scenes.

And I went through the roof.

Without a doubt,
Mayor Feinstein made a big mistake.

I guess the chief…

never told the mayor…

not to release this information.

After Feinstein did her thing…

we never did recover those shoes.

It was devastating.

I thought it was over with.

To say we were upset…
I mean, we were pissed.

Absolutely livid.

Went up to the 8th floor,
where our office was,

and I said, "Fuck it, Frank.
Let's get out of here. This is bullshit."

So, we go down
to a local bar in Chinatown.

We had a drink with the captain,
begging him,

"Please, you got to get
Sheriff Sherman Block.

He's gotta do something.

Stop politicians
from getting involved in our case."

He says, "Okay, I'll see you later.
I'm gonna get out of here."

He calls us back
about a half hour later and says,

"Stop drinking, get something to eat,
get back up in the office in 45 minutes."

Are we ready?

Okay.

Good evening.
I want to thank all of you, first of all,

for coming out at this late hour
on such short notice.

Because of the linkage
between the events in our community,

the murders and assaults,
and the one in San Francisco,

we felt it necessary to disseminate

to all law enforcement
in the state of California

some very critical, sensitive information.

It is unfortunate

that some of these agencies
around the state…

have released some
of that information to the media,

and I'm telling you that that information

has significantly jeopardized
the investigation that is underway.

A week ago,
we did not have a great deal to work on,

but as of this moment,
we have one heck of a lot less.

And Sheriff Block,

he wanted us back down in his office,
and he said, "Well, fellas.

What do you think? How did it go?"

And I just told the Sheriff,
I said, "Sheriff Block,

you took two men
that are down-and-out tired…

you put a smile back on their face…

and they're ready
to go to work tomorrow morning."

It was almost 3:00 a.m. Sunday morning.

A 29-year-old woman told deputies

an intruder shot her boyfriend
in the head, then turned on her.

Inside Mission Community Hospital,

29-year-old Bill Carns
fights for his life.

His fiancée, who was also attacked,
is at his bedside.

The intruder grabbed her,

he sexually assaulted her,
and tied her up.

Salerno, the 46-year-old
sheriff sergeant leading the investigation

predicted the killer
would murder again, and he did.

During the conversation, while the suspect
was at the location with the female,

he made certain comments,
one of which was,

"I am the Night Stalker."

So, he was watching the news like we were.

He liked that name.

There was no doubt at that point
that our suspect had now

gone to San Francisco,
left San Francisco,

and come now back down into Orange County.

Fortunately for us,

there was a young man
that lived in the neighborhood…

that was working on a bike,
and he saw the car drive up,

driving slow, looking around,

and he thought it was funny,
then he saw it leave.

The young man, he recalls
a partial plate of that vehicle

and the description of the car.

That gets released to the news media.

And we receive a call
from an individual who says

he had a friend who had a very similar car

stolen recently in Chinatown.

I realized, "Bill's Toyota's orange.
I wonder if there could be a connection."

And the plate on that stolen car
matched the partial plate

that the young man down in Orange County
had remembered.

The car the killer may have

was stolen in L.A.'s Chinatown
this weekend.

It is a 1976 Toyota station wagon,

orange in color,
license number 482 RTS.

The car was located 6th and Alexandria
in downtown L.A. in a parking lot.

This is Laurel Erickson
in the Rampart area,

where the stolen car was spotted.

Detectives stake out the area,
hoping the killer will come back.

We sat on it for a little bit,

then decided
he's not coming back to this car.

Orange County crime lab
processed the car

and they were able to pull a latent
fingerprint off the rear-view mirror,

where apparently the suspect
reached up and adjusted it.

We now have a live fingerprint,

but we didn't know who the print
belonged to at that time,

because fingerprints were not automated.

We had to have
a suspect's fingerprint card

and examine the fingerprint card

against the latent print,

but we had to wait until we got a suspect.

Anything suspicious, we want them to call.

What may seem very unimportant
to someone else

could be extremely important to us.

We get a call from a female,

and she said her father

was sort of a street person.

He hung out
down by the Greyhound bus depot,

Skid Row,

and he had befriended
an individual named Rick.

And he thinks Rick
might be the Night Stalker.

So, we sent a team out there right away,
I mean, immediately.

Found the father.

He eventually told them,
"Yeah, Rick, he's from El Paso."

And one of the key things he told us

was Rick had told him about a murder
he committed in Monterey Park,

Asian couple,

and that he used
a .22 semi-automatic pistol.

That information
definitely wasn't out there,

and he also told us that, uh,

he had gotten that pistol from Rick

and that he had taken it to Tijuana
and given it to somebody.

So, two of our detectives
took him to Tijuana.

And they recovered that gun

and they recovered a boom box,
or a big radio, also.

As it turns out,

that radio had been stolen

during the Bell and Lang murder.

Bell and Lang's grandson
bought the radio for them,

and he still had the receipt
with the serial number

and we were able to match it up that way.

He said, "I don't know
his last name. He never told me."

But…

it was obvious
that Rick probably was the killer.

A police informant
by the name of Earl Gregg

surrenders a bracelet

he thinks might be linked
to the Night Stalker case,

and he tells me he got the bracelet
from his wife's mother.

She lived in San Pablo, California.

So, we headed out
that morning to find her.

She told us that she got the bracelet
from her boyfriend,

named Armando Rodriguez.

He got that bracelet
from his friend from El Paso,

who she only knew as Rick.

We couldn't believe what we were hearing.

She told us that Rick
wore a black AC/DC hat,

wore a black Members Only jacket,
had bad teeth.

The more she spoke,

the more we knew…

we were on the track of the Night Stalker.

Armando Rodriguez
lives in El Sobrante, California,

and we're only minutes away.

And as we pull up to the address,

we stood outside the gate.

Next thing I see is Armando

coming out of the house

walking toward me.

And I said,
"Listen, Armando, we need your help.

We need you to help solve

probably one of the biggest
and most important cases

in the history of the state of California.

Your friend, Rick,
is a very brutal killer.

You're going to help us
break the Night Stalker case."

Now his tone changes.

"He's not the Night Stalker.
I'm not helping you at all."

So, I grab him by the shirt
and I physically place him in the car.

I turned and I said, "Look, Armando.
You could do yourself a big favor.

Cooperate with us.

We need the last name of your friend Rick.

Do you understand me?"

"Fuck you!"

I'm looking at him,
and when I talk, I close my fist.

He says, "Oh, you want to fight,
you motherfucker tough guy?"

And his hands come up.

And I struck a short jab.

It wasn't my best punch,
but it definitely wasn't my worst.

He touches his cheek.

"Is that as hard as you can hit?"

I looked at him

and I flashed back on crime scenes.

The Pans,

the vomit,

the masturbation.

And I said, "Pretty boy,

I'm going to split you from the top
of your head to your ass."

And I put my fist
up against the windshield

and I started over the backseat,

hellbent on…

demolishing this guy.

He threw his hands up in a cross

and he fell back in his seat

and he said,

"Richard Ramirez.
Richard Ramirez."