Richard Ramirez: The Night Stalker Tapes – Review | Peacock

RICHARD RAMIREZ: THE NIGHT STALKER TAPES on Peacock is a new two-part true crime documentary. If you’ve watched a few documentaries about him already, there isn’t much new here. But we do have those tapes which are interesting. Read our full Richard Ramirez: The Night Stalker Tapes review here!

RICHARD RAMIREZ: THE NIGHT STALKER TAPES is a new Peacock true-crime documentary in two parts. Each of the two episodes is around one hour long and features exclusive audio interviews with Richard Ramirez by an author writing a book about him.

While the tapes are interesting – mostly because he acknowledges his crimes unlike certain other criminals – it doesn’t play a huge role in this production. Instead, it goes through the classic coverage of his crimes and then his fame (and many “fans”) after he’s caught.

Continue reading our Richard Ramirez: The Night Stalker Tapes review below. Find it on Peacock from December 10, 2025.

Making of a Monster and Dancing with the Devil

The two parts (or episodes, if you will) of the Richard Ramirez: The Night Stalker Tapes documentary each have a distinct focus.

Episode 1 is Making of a Monster. This is where we hear about his childhood and upbringing, then his crimes. During this part, we also hear from his niece, who is just 11 years younger than him, so she grew up knowing him.

While she acknowledges his crimes as being heinous, she also knows a very different side of him, which I can understand why we hear about as well. The same can be said about those who call themselves a friend of Ramirez. Most of them see him as a villain now. Most of them!

Even more important – to me anyway – is hearing from those who worked the case and anyone involved with the victims.

Episode 2 is Dancing with the Devil, which focuses on the strange claim to fame it was for Richard Ramirez to be caught. Suddenly, women were swooning over him and he received fan mail. Especially one woman saw him as the perfect man for her.

So she married him.

We see old interview footage of her explaining that she had been saving herself for that special someone and he was the one. So they were married in San Quentin.

Also, there’s a focus on the element of the Satanic Panic that came into play when Richard Ramirez made a drawing of a pentagram in the palm of his hand. There are many iconic images from the trial. First, he looks like a sinister criminal, then more like a rockstar trying to imitate Mick Jagger.

An important focus on the Night Stalker victims

While I overall felt Richard Ramirez: The Night Stalker Tapes is a lot more of the same, I did appreciate the focus on his victims. These people had lives that were so much more than how he decided to brutally end them.

I especially liked how we often get interviews with relatives who put it all in perspective. They miss their loved ones and talk of them in the context of their own lives.

Not just as victims of Richard Ramirez.

Watch Richard Ramirez: The Night Stalker Tapes on Peacock now!

Richard Ramirez: The Night Stalker Tapes is executive produced by Amy Goodman Kass, Elizabeth Fischer, Alexa Danner, Andy Berg, and Liz Cole. If you’ve watched a few documentaries about him already, this won’t bring much new. The tapes are interesting though.

This documentary comes out in advance of the 40th anniversary of his murderous crime spree. And his equally epic arrest, which happened when a neighborhood banded together and refused to let him go. When you see him sitting in the back of the police vehicle, he is wrapped up in bandages.

Part of the official plot speaks about how his “twisted boyhood and drug addiction enabled a troubled young man to become an infamous serial killer” which is not a description I care for. It makes it sound like his childhood and drugs are the reason.

But not everyone with a bad childhood or some sort of addiction becomes a serial killer. I know it’s just a quick blurb to make people curious, but I had to point it out. Especially as the documentary doesn’t approach the subject with this attitude.

Richard Ramirez: The Night Stalker Tapes is on Peacock on December 10, 2024.