Masaryk University Faculty of Arts Department of English and American Studies English Language and Literature Kateřina Fryčová Public Image of Richard Ramirez: An American Serial Killer Bachelor’s Diploma Thesis Supervisor: doc. PhDr. Tomáš Pospíšil, Dr. 2013 1 I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography. …………………………………………….. Author’s signature 2 Acknowledgment I would like to thank my supervisor doc. PhDr. Tomáš Pospíšil, Dr. for his valuable advice and comments. I would also like to thank my husband Lukáš for supplying me with his support and care while I was working on this thesis, and for listening to all those theories and ideas I came up with. Last but not least, I want to thank my family, especially my daughter Nela, my Mom and my grandparents for their love and support. 3 Table of Contents 1. INTRODUCTION.........................................................................................................5 2. SERIAL KILLER CELEBRITY CULTURE...............................................................7 2.1. The Role of Mass Media........................................................................................7 2.2. Fictional Serial Killers.........................................................................................11 3. THE EARLY LIFE AND CRIMES OF RICHARD RAMIREZ................................16 3.1. The Ruined Childhood.........................................................................................16 3.2. Becoming The Night Stalker—Terrorizing California........................................18 4. THE TRIAL OF RICHARD RAMIREZ....................................................................21 4.1. Adjournments......................................................................................................21 4.2. Execution.............................................................................................................22 4.3. Ramirez's Groupies..............................................................................................23 5. WRITING TO A KILLER..........................................................................................28 6. KILLERS ON THE INTERNET.................................................................................30 6.1. Crime Library and Murderpedia..........................................................................30 6.2. Fan Sites and Social Networks ..........................................................................32 6.3. Murderabilia Industry..........................................................................................33 7. CONCLUSION...........................................................................................................37 8. WORKS USED AND CITED.....................................................................................39 8. ABSTRACT................................................................................................................43 9. RESUMÉ.....................................................................................................................44 4 1. INTRODUCTION The USA is a country with one of the highest occurrence of serial killers in the world. It is also a country where its serial killers have become iconic figures and fascinating subjects of mass media industry and personal fantasies and desires. The aim of this thesis, choosing the Night Stalker Richard Ramirez as its case study, is to demonstrate the celebrity status of serial killers in the contemporary American society, for they are as celebrities presented. The thesis starts with the serial killer celebrity culture, showing how mass media benefit from the gruesome events happening around the country, giving them much more space than to any other news, and, therefore, making from the perpetrators of such events the most interesting phenomenon that is worth to be aware of. It also demonstrates how public reacts to such news and how media go even further by making fictitious killers from real life killers, particularly in the movies, who are subsequently celebrated as heroes, which leads to a wrong supposition that real killers are of the same kind as the fictitious ones. Next two chapters deal with the life, crimes and the trial of Richard Ramirez in order to raise an awareness of the potential reader about who Ramirez is. The trial chapter already touches the serial killer groupie phenomenon, the term that will be explained later in its subchapter. In view of the fact Ramirez has been on death row for 24 years, it is necessary to explain the reason why he has not been executed yet. The fifth chapter provides information about how easy it is to obtain an address of the killer on the Internet. It also calls attention to various organizations which for money, working on the same base as dating agencies, can find a perfect penfriend match among killers for anyone who wishes to be involved in the correspondence with such person. 5 The last chapter before the conclusion discusses the serial killers on the Internet, the serial killer magazines and encyclopedias as well as individual fan sites and social networks. Special attention is drawn to murderabilia industry which specializes in selling serial killers artifacts. 6 2. SERIAL KILLER CELEBRITY CULTURE The term celebrity once meant a person who was a leader, whose qualities one admired and aspired to. Today it means only someone whose name and face is known for whatever reason. As David Schmid, a cultural studies professor at the University of Buffalo, states in his book, “One now achieves fame not by performing meritorious acts or possessing outstanding qualities, but by being seen” (9). Mass media play a significant role in defining and disseminating fame and the celebrity status because they are the most powerful means of spreading information. They can reach a worldwide audience which is something that was quite unique before their expansion. If any news spread around the world, it was definitely not the one about a crime that occurred in a neighbor village. Yet people have always been interested in criminals, as they were phenomenon not to be seen very often. With the mass media development, what once used to be kept on a local level, has now become a worldwide commotion. 2.1. The Role of Mass Media Representation of criminality has always had an important role in the American mass media. Since the development of “yellow journalism” at the late nineteenth century, sensational news, more than any other news, often held a prominent place in American popular culture. According to David J. Krajicek, an American journalist interested in true crime, the occurrence of sensational news even doubled during the 1980s. Those were the years which have seen the biggest change in how the American mass media represent crime. “Media have done an increasingly poor job of developing a balance between what is interesting and what is important … Newspapers and television news broadcasts [have] lowered their editorial standards in order to compete with tabloid media” (30). This has had a damaging impact upon the reporting of crime. 7 Instead of the objective stories about the crime problems, the mass media audience have been receiving stories about the “sensational trial of the year”, “the most horrific murders of the century”, and therefore, the criminals who commit them. The media commonly overemphasize violent crime. “The selection of crime problems is often limited to the most bizarre or gruesome act a journalist or investigator can uncover … Although murder constitutes a tiny fraction of all crimes committed in the United States, murder and other crimes of violence dominate media reporting of crime” (Schmid 14), which leads to minimization of other crimes. According to Elliot Leyton, a Canadian social-anthropologist, the media further distinguish between a murderer and a multiple murderer, preferring the latter. He claims that “No one ever became famous by beating his wife to death …; but virtually all multiple murderers achieve true and lasting fame. They are the subjects of articles and books, radio and television shows – for the remainder of their lives – and they thus attain an immortality” (16). Most single murderers do not even warrant news coverage, unless there is something unique about them or their victims. Serial killer is a type of a multiple murderer who have killed three or more victims, but each was killed on separate occasions over weeks, months or years, often with an inactive period in between the killings. It should not be confused with mass murderer and spree killer who are both considered to be multiple murderers, but of different kinds. Mass murderer kills four or more people at one location during one continuous period of time, and spree killer kills two or more victims with no inactive period between the killings, but on more than one location. His or her spree is thus considered to be a single event (Montaldo). Serial murder fascinates society more than single murder. According to Julie B. Wiest's, who has received her M.A. on a thesis dealing with serial killers in The New York Times coverage, research: “In the case of single murder, people in society tend to identify and sympathize with the victim and his or her family and demand punishment 8 for the crime, but serial murder shifts the focus and attention from the victims to the killer” (2). One is aware of the victims, but the killer and his or her intentions are what really