Doreen Lioy married Richard Ramirez inside San Quentin State Prison in 1996 after writing him about 75 letters, attending his trial and publicly insisting he was innocent. A jury had already convicted the serial killer known as the Night Stalker of 13 murders and 30 other felonies.
A year after the wedding, Lioy told CNN, “He’s kind, he’s funny, he’s charming,” and said, “I just believe in him completely.”
That devotion ended after a 2009 DNA match linked Ramirez to the 1984 rape and murder of 9-year-old Mei “Linda” Leung in San Francisco. Police identified Ramirez as a suspect, but he was never charged or tried in her death.
Later accounts say Lioy cut ties with Ramirez after the DNA finding. Whether they legally divorced remains unclear.
Ramirez died from complications of B-cell lymphoma in 2013 at age 53, and his body went unclaimed.
