Richard Ramirez, born Ricardo Leyva Muñoz Ramirez on February 29, 1960, in El Paso, Texas, was the youngest of five children born to Mexican immigrant parents. He grew up in a working-class household marked by instability and violence. Ramirez dropped out of high school in Grade 9 and began engaging in criminal activity soon afterward. In the late 1970s, he moved to California, where he developed a cocaine addiction and supported himself through burglary and theft. Over time, his criminal behavior escalated into extreme violence, culminating in a series of murders and assaults during 1984–1985. He was convicted in 1989 and later died on death row in 2013 from blood cancer (Britannica, 2025; Piccotti, 2023).