Cynthia Horner, along with the rest of the world, was stunned to hear that Doreen Lioy had developed a relationship with the “Night Stalker.”
The magazine editor for Tiger Beat married Richard Ramirez in 1996 in a visiting room at San Quentin Prison.
The serial killer, who died in 2013 at age 53 while awaiting execution, is the subject of a new true-crime docuseries on Peacock, “Richard Ramirez: The Night Stalker Tapes.”
The special, available for streaming, is based on 25 hours of audio prison recordings of Ramirez from death row, as well as new sit-downs with relatives and loved ones of the victims.
“People always ask me about Richard Ramirez because they’re still fascinated, even 40 years later,” Horner explained to Fox News Digital. “They’re fascinated and horrified at the same time.”
“I think we can all learn some lessons from this story. Just because someone is incarcerated, and they’re willing to write to you, that doesn’t mean that you need to give your life to them.”
Lioy, whose past televised interviews are featured in the docuseries, didn’t participate. The 69-year-old didn’t immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
Horner was working as an editor for Right On! Magazine in the late ‘70s when she met Lioy. Both women worked at the same publishing company.
“Right On! focused heavily on Michael Jackson,” Horner shared. “And of course, Tiger Beat featured all the teen idols that were on different television shows like ‘The Partridge Family.’ We had a photo studio on the company premises where all the stars came to do their shoots. We were all very friendly with each other at the office. Some of us even hung out at night.”
One day at the office, Horner noticed that many colleagues were visibly upset. She learned that Lioy had become pen pals with Ramirez.
Before Lioy began writing to Ramirez, she believed he was innocent and had publicly defended him, People magazine reported.
According to the outlet, she wrote to Ramirez in February 1988 and met him that year.
“It was not a good look,” said Horner. “We all worked on teen magazines… And so, for her to strike up a relationship with Richard Ramirez of all people was just not a good look for us… She was a superfan.”
“A superfan, in my opinion, is a ride or die chick, somebody who is going to go really hard. She’s someone who will go the extra mile to be the biggest supporter that could exist.
“…Doreen went the extra mile. Not only did she write letters to Richard Ramirez when he was in prison, but she also tried to contact the media because of the fact she felt that he was innocent. She was trying to be like a publicist in a way, trying to change the trajectory of what was going on.”
“The whole world saw him as someone who was committing horrific crimes – murdering people, harming people,” Horner continued. “But that wasn’t the way she saw him. She looked at him as somebody who needed help. She was willing to put her name out there and try to help him whenever she could.”
Ramirez was convicted of 13 murders that terrorized Southern California in 1984 and 1985, as well as charges of rape, sodomy, oral copulation, burglary and attempted murder.
The killing spree reached its peak in the summer of 1985, as the nocturnal killer entered homes through unlocked windows and doors. He murdered men and women with gunshot blasts to the head or knives to the throat, sexually assaulted female victims, and burglarized residences.
There were also signs of devil worship. He drew a pentagram at one crime scene and survivors also described being ordered to “swear to Satan” by the killer.
He was dubbed the “Night Stalker” by the press, while residents were warned to lock their doors and windows.
Ramirez was finally chased down and beaten in 1985 by residents of a blue-collar East Los Angeles neighborhood as he attempted a carjacking. They recognized him after his picture appeared that day in the news media.
The trial of Ramirez took a year, but the entire case — bogged down in pretrial motions and appeals — lasted four years, making it one of the longest criminal cases in U.S. history. He was sentenced to death.
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Inexplicably, Ramirez had a following of young women admirers. His groupies came to the courtroom regularly and sent him love notes.
Horner said Lioy “knew how to push herself to the top of the line.”
“When you are a magazine editor… you know what’s going to work and what won’t work,” Lioy explained. “She knew what she could write in a letter that might attract his attention… And I think he liked the fact that she worked for a magazine company.
“The magazines we published featured some of the most famous people in the world, and this man had a huge ego. I think he was enthralled by the kind of relationship he developed with her.”
“He probably found it amusing at first,” she reflected. “And then he realized how helpful she could be because she was falling in love with him.”
Relatives called Lioy a recluse who lived in a fantasy world. That didn’t stop her from expressing her devotion to Ramirez. Horner claimed that a jealous Lioy would make sure she arrived early in prison to see Ramirez, knowing there were many other women eager to see him.
“I know she was concerned because a lot of these groupies were really gorgeous,” said Horner. “And these were women who would try to visit once or twice a week, sometimes even regularly. So, she made sure that she stayed on his radar.”
A friend of Lioy’s said that Ramirez locked eyes on her because she said she was a virgin, SFGate reported.
According to the Los Angeles Times, Lioy would visit Ramirez four times a week and was often among the first in the visiting line.
“She fell in love with him,” said Horner. “Sometimes when you’re in the working world, you don’t have… relationships because you’re so consumed with your career, especially the kind of career we had… That’s why a lot of people didn’t stay in our industry because, at some point, some people wanted to get married, have kids.”
Ramirez was “a nice, safe boyfriend” for someone like Lioy, said Horner.
“He was somebody she could write to, to confide in,” she said. “He could also confide in her. That’s how it all began.”
Ramirez’s crimes, which were grisly beyond imaging, didn’t stop wide-eyed admirers, including Lioy, from flocking to him.
“I understood how this could happen,” said Horner. “We didn’t have social media… We had televisions, photographs and print media. And when people saw these photos of him, they would go crazy over him because he looked like a rock star. He didn’t seem like somebody who was really in prison. I think a lot of people just honed in on his appearance.
“Now today, some people might not think his look was that great, but that’s how it was back in the ‘80s. If you look at photos of different celebrities from the ‘80s, rock stars and all that, you’ll see that they all had that… bad boy swagger. And people went crazy over that.”
When Ramirez and Lioy said, “I do,” no one from her family attended the event. According to reports, they were not afforded conjugal visits.
Two years after his arrest, San Francisco police said DNA linked Ramirez to the 1984 killing of 9-year-old Mei Leung. She was murdered in the basement of a residential hotel in San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood where she lived with her family.
Ramirez had been staying at nearby hotels.
According to the docuseries, Lioy distanced herself after police made the announcement. Her whereabouts were unknown at the time of Ramirez’s death, and she was not listed as his next of kin.
According to the documentary, Lioy does not want to be recognized.
Horner hasn’t been in touch with Lioy in recent years. But she would like the chance to sit down with her once more.
“It’s been quite a long time,” she said. “But I would like to get in touch because I have some questions… and I’d like to find out what kind of answers I get.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
