Richard Ramirez: Mercedes Ramirez (his mother)

Mercedes Ramirez said she spent years in profound despair as she watched the media portray her son as “Satan.” Her rare writings and statements, preserved in family biographies and local Texas media, describe the boy she knew.

Mercedes described Richard as the gentlest and most sensitive of all her children. She recalled him as a fragile boy who suffered from epilepsy and severe headaches after a swing struck his head during childhood.

To her, he was a child who fled from an abusive father and who could never bring himself to raise a hand against another person. Mercedes maintained that her son was taken advantage of in Los Angeles because he was disoriented and unwell, and that his “defiant” demeanor in court was merely a facade masking a frightened child who did not know how to defend himself.