Criminal Minds Real Cases

By: Miavane Jackson

Richard Ramirez 

“Our Darkest Hour” was the season finale of Criminal Minds’ fifth season. In the episode the BAU was called to Los Angeles to face a serial killer who began pursuing victims during rolling blackouts, making him even more dangerous. Tim Curry portrayed Ramirez perfectly. This episode was based on the LA  American serial killer, serial rapist, kidnapper, child molester, and burglar whose crime spree took place in California between June 1984 and August 1985 and had over 20 victims. Ramirez’s childhood is considered an influence on his crimes. Abused by his father, Ramirez began developing gruesome, macabre interests in his early and mid-teens from his older cousin, Miguel Ramirez, who allegedly also taught him some of the military skills that he would go on to use during his killing spree.Ramirez’s publicized home invasion and murder spree terrorized the residents of the Greater Los Angeles area and later the San Francisco Bay Area over the course of fourteen months. In 1989, Ramirez was convicted of thirteen counts of murder, five attempted murders, eleven sexual assaults, and fourteen burglaries. The judge who upheld Ramirez’s nineteen death sentences but Ramirez never expressed any remorse for his crimes. He died on June 7, 2013, of complications from B-cell lymphoma while awaiting execution on California’s death row.