‘Night Stalker’ Is Just Another Gory True-Crime Misfire: TV Review
Daniel D'Addario Chief TV CriticRichard Ramirez’s spree of terror through the Los Angeles and San Francisco Bay Areas in 1984 and 1985 made for a psyche-shredding media fixation: The so-called “Night Stalker’s” rapaciousness — targeting people seemingly at random and with an appetite for violence that set him apart even among the history of psychopaths — provided insatiable fodder for television reports, a side effect that both burnished Ramirez’s legend and increased the effects of his reign of terror.