Trigger Warning: Rape, Murder, Robbery/Burglary, Physical Abuse

Richard Ramirez was one of five children and his father was a former police officer who worked in Juarez, Mexico. He eventually left Mexico and went to work on a Santa Fe railroad. His father was heavily set on providing for his family, but he did have moments where he would physically abuse his wife and children. Richard suffered from head trauma at age two and five when a piece of furniture fell on his head and then he was hit with a swing at school. From this point forward, he suffered with seizures. (A lot of serial killers suffer some form of head injury). Richard’s home life was very toxic, so he stayed act his cousin Miguel’s most of the time. Miguel was much older and he served in the Vietnam War. Miguel had many issues though. Miguel would inform Richard of the traumatic events he witnessed while at war including rapes he committed.

Miguel eventually began to teach Richard about the skills he learned while at war, including how to kill and capture people (Richard was 10 at this time). On May 4, 1973, Richard was at Miguel’s home and Miguel and his wife got into a very heated argument. This then leaded to the wife being shot in the face. Miguel was arrested, but was found not guilty due to reason of insanity; he spent four years incarcerated in the state mental hospital. After the shooting, Richard stayed with his sister and her husband (Roberto). Roberto is what one would call a “peeping tom”. Roberto would take Richard with him to look into the windows of their neighbors, specifically attractive women in the area.

As a teen, Richard began to intertwine the ideas of his sexual fantasies and violence into one. While in school, he held a job at Holiday Inn and used this to his advantage; he would rob guests while they were not in their rooms. On one particular account, he attempted to rape a woman. Charges were dropped because the victim and, her husband who was out at the time of the attack, refused to testify. Richard then lost his job and he dropped out of high school in 9th grade.

We are now going to fast forward to his age of 22. 

Richard decided to move from Texas to California. He first resided in the Tenderloin District of San Francisco. On April 10, 1984, Richard murders a 9-year old girl in the basement of a hotel in San Fran. This is Richard’s first known killing. The case was unsolved until 2009; a DNA match connected him to this heinous crime. Richard has many victims, over 25 to be exact. He did not have a certain gender or age group he went for. Many victims were elderly, but some were children as well. Richard also leaves San Fran and commits crimes in LA as well. I will not get into detail about each murder so it is not too overwhelming, but next I will discuss how he got the name of The Night Stalker.

The police did not want to inform the media that they connected all of the murders to one person because they did not want to scare Richard away. One day though, the news held a television press conference in which they gave him the name of The Night Stalker. During this conference, they tell viewers to lock up their houses because there is a serial killer on the loose. The press conference did not sit well with many including the Los Angeles detectives because they knew Richard would be aware he was wanted. Richard was indeed watching and he got rid of any evidence the media knew of.

A 13-year old boy names James was brave enough to go outside and take down the license plate, make, and model of Ramirez’s escape car after he tried to break into another house and people realized who he was. Detectives found the stolen car Richard was in on August 28, 1985 and were able to remove a fingerprint from the rearview mirror. Police link the print to Ramirez who had a very long rap sheet of crime already on him. Law enforcement then release a mugshot of Richard to the media. Richard then takes a bus to Tucson, Arizona where his brother lived. He then takes a bus back to Los Angeles where he attempts to reside again. When he arrives here, he sees his face on the cover of every newspaper and begins to escape on foot. While he is on foot he attempts three carjackings in the final one is what got him arrested. He ended up in East LA when a group of guys saw that he was trying to carjack a woman and they attack Richard and hold him down until police come.

During his first court appearance, he carved a pentagram into his hand and he yells “Hail Satan!” On August 3, 1988, The Los Angeles Times report that jail employees overheard Richard planning to shoot the prosecutor. On August 14, one of the jurors was found shot to death in her apartment leading to an interrupted trial. It was later determined that her boyfriend was the one who killed her.

Richard had several fans who would write him letters and visit him while in prison. At his trials, fan girls would scream for him. Many of his fans believed he was innocent, including a juror named Cindy who was in love with him. Richard was convicted of all charged: 13 counts of murder, 5 attempted murder, 11 sexual assaults, and 14 burglaries. During the penalty phase of the trial on November 7, he was sentenced to die in California’s gas chamber but they did not do it anymore so he just sat there. Richard passed away due to poor health while awaiting his execution date. He sat on death row for over 23 years.

Shannan Watts met Chris Watts after a recent divorce, in North Carolina. Chris and Shannan dated for two years and finally got married in 2012. In 2013, the two moved to Colorado for a job opportunity and in December, they had their first child: Bella. In January 2015, Chris began to work for Anadarko Petroleum and he held the position of a field coordinator. In July 2015, the two had their second daughter: Celeste. Shannan worked at a children’s hospital, but eventually quit and began working at a multi-level marketing company named Lavelle. She was very successful at her job and she won a Lexus due to her sales numbers at the job.

Friends and family reported that Chris and Shannan’s relationship was very good and he was a great father to his two girls. Neighbors and friends of the family would declare Chris as introverted, shy and quiet. Shannan ended up being pregnant for the third time in May of 2018. On June 27th, Shannan took her two daughters on a six week “vacation” back to home. Vacation is quoted here because it seemed more like an escape route for Shannan. Neighbors reported they heard constant screaming and fighting at the Watt’s household the night prior. While his family was gone, Chris decided to cheat on his wife. Chris had an affair with a coworker of his by the name of Nicole Kessinger. Shannan noticed a change in her husband’s behavior and attitudes while she was away. Shannan would constantly text and call Chris while she was away with their daughters are she would receive little to no response from him. Police reports show that he was conversing with Nicole while ignoring his wife.

On July 14, Chris told Shannan that he did not want to be together and he did not want the baby. Shanna did not want this so she suggested marriage counseling, but he refused. Chris and Nicole began to be more exclusive amongst each other and started to send nude photos and Chris would research vacation spots for the two. Nicole knows that the two were together because her Google history shows her searching: “Man I’m having an affair with says he will leave his wife”. July 31st is when Chris flies to North Carolina to see his family, but he still engages in this affair with Nicole. Family reports that during the visit Chris was more quiet than usual and very distant. On August 15, Shannan cancels her gender reveal party because she told a friend that essentially her and Chris are no longer compatible. Chris would not show any type of affection towards Shannan and she knew the marriage was over.

Shannan made continuous efforts to keep the marriage together such as purchasing marriage counseling books, constantly talking to Chris, and even hand-writing him a letter about how she felt. She knew she could not raise three kids alone, so she really wanted to save the marriage due to her fear of being a single mother, which is the unfortunate situation of many in today’s times. While Shannan was on a work trip in another state, Chris was in charge of watching the daughters. During this time, he sends her a peculiar photo of what appears to be barbie legs under a blanket. As the story progresses, many say this would be Chris giving a warning, but no one knows the real reason why the image was sent. On August 10, Chris would lie to his neighbor asking if their daughter could watch his daughters so he could attend a football game when in reality he was going out that night with Nicole.

Shannan’s work friend who attended the trip with her (also named Nicole) drops Shannan off home at 1:48 am after arrival. In between this time until the next sequence of events is very unclear. At 5:30 am it was caught on neighbor security cameras that Chris was pulling his work truck up into the garage when its always on the street. Chris then loads things into his car and he makes three trips to the car. At 8:30 am the same day, Chris calls the school of Bella and Celeste and he tells them the children will no longer be attending the school. Shannan’s friend, Nicole, texts Nicole later that morning to check in and she receives no response. This leads Nicole to take her and her son to the Watt’s house, but she gets no response. Nicole then asks Chris about Shannan’s whereabouts but he says she stated she was going on a play date. Nicole does not believe this answer because she knew that Shannan had a doctor’s appointment, so she looks in their garage and sees that their Lexus is still there with both car seats inside. Nicole eventually calls the police after speaking with Chris again and they search the house but cannot find anything extremely out of the ordinary except for the fact that the bedsheets were missing and Shannan’s cellphone was in between the couch.

On August 13, Chris tries to delete any evidence of infidelity on his phone. Nicole (the mistress) reports that she had no idea or connections with the disappearance of the wife or children. Chris states in his interview with the FBI that Shannan could have been having an affair and the two fell out of love with each other. Chris terribly fails a polygraph test and evidence is turned in to detectives from another one of Chris’s coworkers. Coincidentally at the same time, Nicole comes forward to police about her side of the story. Chris continues to deny his involvement with anything, but it is later seen that the bedsheets that were missing from his household were found at his work site. Chris eventually confesses after talking to his father and he states he did this because he saw Shannan strangling the kids on the baby monitor after a discussion about separation. He then strangled Shannan, loaded the bodies into his truck, take them to his workplace, and he dumped the bodies. He buried Shannan in a shallow grave and he put both of his daughter into oil tanks. During his confession, no emotion is shown on Chris’s end.

It is shown that the two babies were smothered and not strangled. Nicole has a search history after all of this that is heavily based around Amber Frey who was the mistress of Scott Peterson (murdered his pregnant wife). Chris Watts pleaded guilty on November 6th to several counts of first degree murder. He was found guilty and was sentenced to five life sentences.

Video interview clip is included.

Trigger Warning: Sexual Assault, Death, Child Abuse, and more.

Sylvia Likens was born January 3, 1949. Her parents were lower-class workers who owned and ran a carnival circuit. There were five children that made up the Likens family and they included: Daniel, Diana (fraternal twins), Sylvia, Jenny, and Benny (who were also fraternal twins, Sylvia was the only “individual” child). Sylvia worked many jobs as a teenager to provide for her younger sister, Jenny, who had unfortunately had to wear a leg brace because she suffered as limp due to her contraction polio as a baby. On July 3rd, Sylvia’s mother was arrested for shoplifting, which eventually put stress onto the father of the family. Mr. Likens needed another form of support because he could not work and watch all five of his children alone. Since he needed to work a lot more in order to provide for his family, he wanted to start up his carnival circuit again. Diana was much older, was married, and living her own life, so she could not go on the circuit with her family. The two boys agreed to work at the carnival with their father, which meant Sylvia and Jenny would stay back at home. Since Mr. Likens had his two boys on the job, he was on the search for someone to watch the two girls.

As I continue to document this story, I will discuss the life of another important person in this case. 

Gertrude Van Fossan was born September 19, 1929 in Indiana and she was the third of six children. Not much is known about her childhood, but it is obvious that her actions later on in this story can prove that her childhood was not a good one. She was very close to her father, but did not get along well with her mother. When she was 11, she witnessed her father have a massive heart attack and pass away. At age 16, Gertrude dropped out of high school and married a man by the name of John Baniszewski. John and Gertrude eventually had four children together: Paula, Stephanie, John, and Marie. The two were married for 10 years, and throughout this marriage, John was very abusive towards Gertrude and would beat and assault her in front of her children most of the time. Eventually, Gertrude left him.

Shortly after, Gertrude got married to a man named Edward. This marriage only lasted three months and much wasn’t documented about this marriage. After she left Edward, she went back to John, got remarried, and had two more children with him: Shirley and James. Once they divorced for the second time, Gertrude met another man named Dennis Lee Wright and he was only 22 years old while Gertrude was about 36-37 at the time. Gertrude got pregnant by him, and after she gave birth to the child, Dennis left her. Gertrude then filed a paternity suit, and the court sided with her, but Dennis never paid anything. She was a single mother of 7 at the age of 37 who was about 5’6, 100 pounds, constantly smoked, and relied on child support from her ex-husband, John. As you can see, her life was a pretty tough one, but again it does not excuse her future actions.

I will begin to redirect and connect Sylvia’s and Gertrude’s stories into one.

Sylvia attended the same high school as one of Gertrude’s daughters, Stephanie, and they became close friends. The two planned a sleepover at Gertrude’s and Mr. Likens would pick up Sylvia from their house the next day. When he came to pick up Sylvia he conversed with Gertrude about how he was on the search of a temporary babysitter. Gertrude offered to take in his two daughters for a pay of $20 a week. Mr. Likens agreed, and Sylvia and Jenny stated with the Baniszewski family. To start, Sylvia and Jenny had a good time at their household. They would help out with the chores and attended Sunday school service with the family. As time progressed, the $20 pay that was expected from Sylvia’s dad was not received, and this is where the tables turned.

When the “disciplinary actions” first began, Gertrude beat the Likens sisters with a quarter-inch paddle while saying, “I took care of you two little b*tches for a week for nothing”. On another occasion, the sisters were beaten again with the paddle about 15 times for eating too much at the church’s Sunday dinner. After these two occasions, the rest of the abuse was aimed towards Sylvia, and many believe it is because Jenny was “disabled” since she wore a leg brace. Gertrude’s oldest daughter, Paula, was jealous of Sylvia’s looks so she would bully Sylvia at home. On one instance, Paula accused Sylvia of being pregnant after she overheard her tell her sister she had a boyfriend at school. Paula then kicked Sylvia in her lower region. To continue, Sylvia was beaten for “stealing” candy when in reality, it was purchased.

Gertrude would starve Sylvia, which would lead to hear having to eat out off trashcans. Sylvia was forced-fed a hotdog with several different condiments on it, and when she threw it up, she was a forced to eat the throw up. Stephanie and Paula would falsely accuse and report these accusations to their mother, which would lead to the three of them taking turns attacking Sylvia. During one of these attacks, Paula beat Sylvia so bad to the point that she broke her own wrist. She then got a cast on her arm and proceeded to beat Sylvia with the cast on. The two oldest girls would bring neighborhood kids to their house to beat up or sexually abuse/assault Sylvia; they once even lied to her best friend to get her in on these plans. They would also put cigarettes out on her, insert foreign items into her lower area, and eventually Gertrude even forbid Sylvia from going to school. Gertrude’s daughters, their friends, and boyfriends once held her down and carved the words: “I am a prostitute and I’m proud” into her stomach.

The kids never reported any of this abuse because Gertrude threatened to kill them if anyone was to find out. The Likens family would come back and visit, but they never suspected anything was going on with the two girls. One time, Sylvia and Jenny went to a local park and they saw their older sister, Diana. She offered the two food and they ate it, but some of Gertrude’s children spotted this happening. They then reported it to their mother ands the punishment began once she got home. They choked and beat her, threw her in scolding hot water to “cleanse her of her sins”, and her head would get bashed against the wall if she passed out from the pain. Eventually, Gertrude would put Sylvia in the basement due to her wetting the bed as a result of the constant sexual abuse. While she was held there, she did not feed her, allow her to drink anything, and she was tied up to the banister in the basement so she could not use the bathroom.

As the days to Sylvia’s death came near, Gertrude forced Sylvia to write a letter to her parents saying that she was running away with a group of boys and she was raped and her body was mutilated by these boys. Gertrude’s plan was to give this letter to Sylvia’s parents when they came to visit. When Sylvia heard of this plan on October 25, she tried to escape, but she was caught before she made it off the property. The abuse then continued, and during Sylvia’s last day alive, Gertrude beat her down the steps and hit Sylvia’s head very hard; she then stopped breathing. One of the kids tried to bathe Sylvia to wake her, but then they realized she was dead. Gertrude then instructed Stephanie’s boyfriend to call the police from a local payphone. Once police arrived, Jenny spoke to police and she stated, “Get me out of here and I’ll tell you everything”.

Police arrested Gertrude, three of her kids, two of the boyfriends, and five neighborhood children. The five neighborhood children were released to their parents with the promise that they showed up in court. Gertrude initially denied any involvement to Sylvia’s death. Sylvia’a autopsy showed that she suffered over 150 wounds to her body, she was malnourished, there were burns, cuts, bruises on her body, the top layer of her skin was missing from certain sections of her body, she suffered muscle damage, her finger nails were bent back as well. Her official cause of death was blunt force trauma to her head.

Gertrude, Paula, and John were going to be tried for first-degree murder. Stephanie’s charges were dropped due to insufficient evidence. The two boyfriends were charged with premeditated malice. The trial and decision of the jury lasted 17 days and Gertrude was convicted of first-degree murder. The two boyfriends and John were convicted of manslaughter. Gertrude and Paula were given life sentences, but during a re-trial, Paula’s charges were dropped to voluntary manslaughter and she was sentenced to 21 years but only served 3 while Gertrude’s was eventually changed from 18-life. The two boyfriends were sentenced to 18 months in a juvenile detention center. Gertrude went up for parole in 1985, and was released on parole. After, she changed her name to Nadine Van Fossan. Paula also changed her name after her release, and became a teacher. John changed his name to John Blake and became a minister.

As you can see, Sylvia was not granted justice. The people who put her through these awful things were able to live their lives freely. In my opinion, all of the people involved should have got 40 years to life. I also feel as though people who commit such horrible crimes should not be able to change their names, because it gives them a “clean slate” in a sense. Sylvia Likens deserved a better life, and she also deserved more justice. Majority of the perpetrators died of health issues such as lung cancer or heart attacks at pretty early ages. To conclude, Sylvia’s story was documented in a 2007 movie titled, “An American Crime”.