24. A Juror’s Macabre Attraction to a Monster
Richard Ramirez was finally undone by a fingerprint that he left on the windshield of a stolen car used in his murder spree. His mug shots from earlier unrelated arrests were widely publicized in California, and he was spotted by Los Angeles citizens on August 31, 1985. After a wild chase that involved multiple failed carjacking attempts, he was captured by members of the public, and beaten half to death before the police arrived. He was eventually charged with thirteen murders, five attempted murders, eleven sexual assaults, and fourteen burglaries.
Despite all the gory details that came out in the trial, one of the jurors, Cindy Haden, fell madly in love with the macabre murderer. On Valentine’s Day, 1989, she gave him a cupcake with “I Love You” iced on the top. She still voted him guilty on all counts, but her passion for him did not wane. After the trial – for which Ramirez was sentenced to nineteen death sentences – Haden got a private detective license just so she could visit the Night Stalker in prison in the company of his lawyers.