liam Kennedy. He and costar Meryl Streep were both
nominated for Academy Awards.
Nicholson’s final role of the 1980’s, the Joker in
Tim Burton’sBatman(1989), would turn out to be
one of his favorites. Given free rein to return to the
energetic, exuberant style he had displayed inThe
Shining, he was credited with carrying the film. At
the same time, the actor’s personal life was proving
equally dramatic. The 1989 revelation that his lover
Rebecca Broussard was expecting their child effec-
tively ended his relationship with Anjelica Huston.
Impact Jack Nicholson played a wide range of film
roles during the 1980’s, from the broodingly intro-
spective to the manically extroverted. Reliably popu-
lar with audiences, he was also named Best Actor of
the Decade in a survey of leading critics conducted
by the magazineAmerican Film.
Further Reading
McGilligan, Patrick.Jack’s Life: A Biography of Jack
Nicholson.New York: W. W. Norton, 1994.
Shepherd, Donald.Jack Nicholson: An Unauthorized
Biography.New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1991.
Grove Koger
See also Academy Awards; Action films; Cher;
Film in the United States; Horror films; King, Ste-
phen; Streep, Meryl;Terms of Endearment; Turner,
Kathleen.
Night Stalker case
The Event Crimes, investigation, and sentencing
of serial killer Richard Ramirez
Date First murder occurred on June 28, 1984;
sentencing took place on November 7, 1989
Place Los Angeles and San Francisco, California
Ramirez’s method, frequency, and manner of crimes made
him one of the most shocking serial killers of the decade.
Richard Ramirez’s crime spree began on June 28,
1984, with the murder of a seventy-nine-year-old
woman in a suburb of Los Angeles. He stabbed her
repeatedly and slashed her throat, almost decapitat-
ing her. Afterward, he sexually assaulted her body.
The police found fingerprints, but computerized
system for matching fingerprints had not been de-
veloped yet. On separate occasions in February,
1985, Ramirez abducted two young girls, ages six
and nine, sexually assaulted them, and freed them.
On March 17, he shot a young woman. She survived,
but he killed her roommate. Later that day, he
pulled another woman from her car and fatally shot
her. The police matched the bullet casings from the
two scenes. These attacks provided authorities with
their first description of Ramirez as a man with long,
curly hair, rotting teeth, and bulging eyes. Media
coverage fueled panic in the community.
A few days later, Ramirez abducted an eight-year-
old girl and raped and killed her. He shot a sixty-
four-year-old man and his wife on March 27, 1985.
He stabbed the wife multiple times postmortem and
carved out her eyes. The police matched the bullet
casings again and suspected the work of a serial
killer. Ramirez also left a footprint at the scene of the
March 27 murders. He had been wearing a brand of
shoe that was new to the United States, and only one
pair had been sold in the area. The police created a
composite sketch based on the store owner’s de-
scription. Ramirez had developed a signature in his
crimes: He quickly dispatched male victims so he
could spend more time brutalizing women.
Ramirez took a six-week break before fatally shoot-
ing a sixty-six-year-old man, who managed to phone
the police before he died, thereby saving his wife.
Two weeks later, Ramirez sodomized a woman while
her twelve-year-old son was locked in a closet. At the
end of May, 1985, Ramirez beat two elderly sisters so
severely with a hammer that he cracked its handle;
one survived. He drew a pentagram on one sister’s
inner thigh and one on the wall. He raped a six-year-
old girl at the end of June and slit the throat of a
woman the following night. July brought five mur-
ders, one attempted rape, one severe beating in
which the victim survived, and two rapes, one of
which was of an eight-year-old boy, who Ramirez
raped in front of his mother.Ramirez Is Dubbed the “Night Stalker” Ramirez
started August, 1985, with a double shooting; both
victims survived. Two nights later, he killed a thirty-
five-year-old man and raped the man’s wife. The me-
dia named him the “Night Stalker.” Los Angeles
County lived in fear of the Night Stalker, and the po-
lice were frantic. Ramirez’s “cooling off” periods
were shortening. There was little doubt he would
strike again, but he eluded Los Angeles authorities
by moving north to San Francisco.
On August 18, Ramirez struck in the Bay Area,710 Night Stalker case The Eighties in America