The true-crime docuseries Night Stalker: The Hunt For a Serial Killer aired on Netflix on January 13, 2021, and quickly captured the attention of a broad audience. This show will forever be important because it depicts a time in American history when people had to band together to keep our country safe. The show focuses on Richard Ramirez, also known as “The Night Stalker,” and depicts Detective Gil Carrillo and Investigator Frank Salerno working together to try and catch the man responsible for a series of murders and sexual assaults in 1985. The four-episode series boasts a 4.4-star rating on Netflix and a score of 71 percent on Rotten Tomatoes.
Ramirez was 24 years old at the time of his first known murder, which occurred in April of 1984. His crime spree included murders, attempted murders, rapes, attempted rapes, and assaults. During the time of his attacks, he would torture his victims with knives, hammers, tire irons, thumb cuffs, and pistols. It took a year to catch him, but only 22 days to convict him of his crimes. In 1989, Ramirez was convicted of 13 counts of murder, five attempted murders, 11 sexual assaults, and 14 burglaries. At his trial, he was sentenced to 19 death sentences for these crimes. His response upon sentencing was: “Big deal. Death always went with the territory. See you in Disneyland.”
The docuseries chose to focus on the investigation and the victims instead of the killer’s background. After its release on Netflix, there were some who thought that the director did a horrible job of capturing the actual case. “The filmmakers are total hacks who don’t know how to make something compelling and interesting without resorting to ghoulish parlor tricks,” said an anonymous reviewer. However, these critics ended up being drowned out by a large number of positive comments.
A common theme among a majority of reviewers was praise for how the story was told from the perspective of the investigators. “It was amazing to see things from the point of view of the detectives and their personal feelings, experiences, personal issues, and hiccups in their case along the way,” stated a reviewer. “A fantastic documentary that dives into the mystery of the ‘Night Stalker.’ What made this very interesting to watch was that you are able to see the mindsets of the police while searching for Richard Ramirez,” wrote reviewer Brett P on Rotten Tomatoes.
The series never had a continuation since Richard Ramirez died in 2013 at the age of 53 from lymphoma. But, the docuseries is still important to the public since it describes the horrors committed by “The Night Stalker.”
