"Night Stalker" Murderer Richard Ramirez Linked to the Death of 9-Year-Old Mei Leung

October 28, 2009

It almost goes without saying that anyone who follows true crime cases has heard of Richard Ramirez, also known as the "Night Stalker," one of California's most notorious serial killers.  Ramirez is currently on death row at San Quentin State Prison for a number of murders he committed more than two decades ago, but detectives in various jurisdictions have not given up in their efforts to connect him to additional killings.

Ramirez, readers will recall, caused widespread panic in Southern California that began around 1985 when he went on a rampage of sexual assault and murder.  His modus operandi consisted primarily of entering homes through unlocked windows and doors during early morning hours, strangling some of his victims and slashing the throats of others.  Most of his victims, however, died of gunshot wounds.  He was also known to spray paint pentagrams on the walls in some of his victims' homes.  Because the pentagram is often associated with Satanism, Ramirez was viewed by many as being a Satanist.  Some even went so far as to think of him as a vampire because he always committed his foul deeds during the night like the legendary monsters of yore.

One of the cold cases currently being looked at is that of 9-year-old Mei Leung, who was found dead on April 10, 1984 in the basement of a residential hotel located in the 700 block of O'Farrell Street in San Francisco's Tenderloin district.  According to the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD), Mei lived at the hotel with her family.  Prior to her death, she had been seen in the company of her 8-year-old brother as they walked home from a friend's house.  At the time of Mei's slaying, Ramirez was known to have been staying at two hotels in the same general area, according to SFPD Deputy Chief David Shinn.  Shinn said that investigators were attempting to find any information about Ramirez' whereabouts at the time of the young girl's slaying.

Mei's unsolved murder case was reopened about five years ago, in part because of the recollection of an officer who was familiar with it when she worked as a patrol officer.  Now, Police Inspector Holly Pera has been advocating that the case be looked at closely—again.

"That's part of the reason why the case was relooked at," Pera said recently.  "It's the type of case…that you can't forget."

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Kenneth Douglas Pleads Guilty to Sexually Abusing Two Corpses

October 23, 2009

In the 30 years that I've been researching criminal cases and writing about them I have, almost needless to say, come across some pretty sick and demented individuals.  The case you are about to read about surely has to fall somewhere on my Top 20 list, making it a contender for the grand prize winner as the sickest of the sickest.  It was covered thoroughly by my colleague, David Lohr, on his Criminal Report Daily blog, and I am thankfully merely updating this ghastly case here without having to go into a lot of detail.  Having said that, readers beware—this case is disturbing.

To recap this sordid affair, nearly 27 years ago, in 1982, 19-year-old Karen Range opened her door to salesman David Steffen, who beat her and slashed her throat so severely that he nearly decapitated her.  Because of the presence of semen found inside Range's body, police at the time believed that Steffen had also raped her.  Steffen was originally convicted of Range's rape and murder and was sentenced to death.  Steffen was cleared of Range's rape, however, because of DNA analysis that was completed later on (please see Accused Necrophiliac May Have Violated Other Corpses as well as Convicted Necrophiliac Charged in Two Additional Cases) criminal issues involving Kenneth Douglas.  Douglas, it turned out, had been convicted of drug trafficking in 2008 and had been ordered to provide a DNA sample which was then matched to the semen found inside Range's body.

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Kimberly Cates Machete Slaying Causes Uproar in Small New Hampshire Town

October 22, 2009

All is not baseball and apple pie lately in Mont Vernon, New Hampshire.  The residents of this small, quaint New England town of about 2,000 people are in an uproar over the recent random attack of nurse Kimberly Cates, 42, and her 11-year-old daughter, Jaime, in an unprovoked incident believed to have been carried out sometime prior to 4 a.m. on Sunday, October 4, 2009.

The plan to rob a home at random was purportedly hatched the night before when a group of four teenagers got together at the home of William Marks, 18, one of the alleged planners.  The other three teens included Steven Spader, 17, Christopher Gribble, 19, and Quinn Glover, 17.  One of the teens, Gribble, described by friends and acquaintances as a home-schooled Mormon with aspirations to do missionary work, apparently told friends that he saw himself as a "destroying angel."  He also allegedly told a friend that he hated his father and wanted to kill him, and once told someone that the most difficult of the Ten Commandments to follow was "Thou shalt not kill."

"He comes out and says the hardest commandment to keep is murder," said the friend.  "You just don't want to think that your friend could ever do something like that.  They say things about killing someone and you don't know they are going to do it.  You just brush it off and hope he's going to get help.  Really, we should have been calling the police."

The plan, according to prosecutors, was to kill anyone who was at home at the time of the invasion.  After the plan had been set, Spader allegedly drove the other three teenagers to Cates' neighborhood and the group chose Cates' home because it was on an isolated road.  Cates' husband, David, was out of town on business.

Spader has been accused of cutting Cates’ head, torso, arms and legs with a machete while she was in bed, and Gribble has been accused of stabbing her with a knife.  Spader and Gribble were also accused of attacking Cates' daughter, Jaime, by slicing her throat open.  After allegedly taking valuables from the residence, Spader acted as the getaway driver.  Prosecutors have implied that Spader may have been the group's ringleader.

After the four teenagers left the home, Jaime Cates was able to call 911 for help.  Thankfully, she survived the attack and was being treated at a Boston, Massachusetts hospital.

Later that same Sunday morning, Spader and Gribble walked into a store at the Pheasant Lane Mall, both seen smiling and calm, where they allegedly sold gold necklaces and chains believed stolen during the robbery of Cates' home.  Gribble provided his name and address to the store's clerk, which undoubtedly assisted police in identifying the suspects in the Cates' case so quickly.  All four of the suspects were arrested the next day, and made brief court appearances on Tuesday, October 6.  None of them entered pleas at that time.  Authorities have released very few details about the case, and have sealed the affidavits that support the charges.

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