All you need to know about Richard Ramirez world's most dreaded killer

Born in El Paso, Texas, Ramirez's childhood is considered an influence on his crimes. His father, Julián, a heavy drinker, was prone to fits of anger that often resulted in physical abuse, causing Ramirez to seek escape by sleeping in a local cemetery. As a 12-year-old, Ramirez was strongly influenced by his older cousin, Miguel ("Mike") Ramirez, a decorated Green Beret combat veteran who showed Richard Ramirez polaroid photos of his gruesome atrocities during the Vietnam War.

The photos included him raping both female Vietcong rebels and Vietnamese women and girls suspected of being loyal to the communist forces in the region, and their subsequent murder by decapitation with a machete afterwards.

Ramirez was born in El Paso, Texas, on February 29, 1960, the youngest of Julián and Mercedes Ramirez's five children.

. He also taught Ramirez some of his military skills that he would go on to use during his year long killing spree. In 1973, after his cousin Mike was incarcerated for murdering his wife during an argument, which the then-13-year-old Richard was in the room to witness, Ramirez moved in with his older sister, Ruth, and her husband, Roberto, an obsessive "peeping Tom" who took Ramirez along on his nocturnal exploits.

Sometime between the 8th and 9th grade when Richard was approximately 14 years old, Ramirez began using LSD, and cultivated a strong interest in Satanism and the occult. By the time Ramirez had left his home in Texas and moved to California at the age of 22, he had begun frequently using cocaine, which would quickly become his preferred recreational drug of choice.

Ramirez would often commit burglaries to support this particular drug addiction, which were later frequently accompanied by murders, attempted murders, rapes, and assaults.