Richard Ramirez
Held by a nickname, not by the file.
The record
- Convicted of thirteen murders in 1989; died of natural causes on death row on 7 June 2013.
The packaging
A subeditor's nickname, doing the retention.
The nickname was a headline decision, made in a newsroom, and it is doing all the retention work here. Strip it out and the case sits far lower on this shelf.
The pried window is what the coverage actually sold: the idea that the lock on your own house was the story. Fear is a distribution channel.
Thirteen convictions, and the durable asset is two words a subeditor wrote.
Checked
Richard Ramirez was convicted of thirteen murders in 1989 and died of natural causes on death row on 7 June 2013.
BBC News, 7 June 2013retrieved 2026-08-14
The full argument is filed in the anchor piece, and the index to all ten jackets is here.