Where Is the Night Stalker Richard Ramirez's Wife Now? All About Doreen Lioy, Who Married the Serial Killer in Prison

Mar. 15, 2025

Richard Ramirez and his new bride Doreen Lioy in San Quentin Prison on October 3, 1996 in San Quentin, CA.Photo:AP Photo/Lacy Atkins

AP Photo/Lacy Atkins

Over 10 years afterRichard Ramirez, better known as the Night Stalker, was arrested for his disturbing crimes, he married former magazine editor Doreen Lioy.

Peacock’s docuseriesRichard Ramirez: The Night Stalker Tapes, which premiered on Dec. 10, traces how Ramirez became known as the Night Stalker during a killing spree in California. He murdered at least 14 people after breaking into their homes between April 1984 and August 1985. The string of grisly rapes and murders left the country terrified prior to his 1985 arrest and made him one of the most notorious serial killers in American history.

“I can’t help the way the world looks at him,” Lioy toldKRON 4’s Vicki Liviakis on their wedding day. “They don’t know him like I do.”

Lioy, a former magazine editor who helped discoverJohn Stamos, told theLos Angeles Timesthat even she found it “inexplicable” that she was attracted to Ramirez. Lioy said that her obsession began the moment she laid eyes on his mugshot.

The former editor became completely devoted to the convicted killer and spoke extensively to Liviakis and Philip Carlo about their relationship — these interviews were featured in Peacock’sRichard Ramirez: The Night Stalker Tapes. While many wondered how she could marry Ramirez, Lioy told Carlo, “I believe in his innocence,” and added, “To this day, his innocence or his guilt has never played a part in our relationship.”

Ramirez also talked about Lioy from time to time. He told Carlo, “If you want to get any messages to me, talk to Doreen. I talk to her every day. She has level one security clearance.”

Here’s everything to know about Richard Ramirez’s wife, Doreen Lioy.

She grew up in Burbank, but became estranged from her family after marrying Ramirez

Richard Ramirez and wife Doreen Lioy.NBC News Studios

NBC News Studios

Lioy grew up in Burbank, Calif. with her twin sister Denise Wilcox. Lioy’s journalism career began when she worked at her school newspaper, but she wasn’t very interested in dating at the time.

“It was great. I was on the yearbook and newspaper staff. I didn’t attend things like the prom. I didn’t like the dating experience. I didn’t find anyone I felt strongly enough about. I never had a boyfriend,” Lioy told Carlo.

Her sister, Wilcox, was a member of the Burbank School Board and a long-time coordinator for special programs for the Los Angeles Unified School District when she found out her sister would be marrying Ramirez.

Because of her choice of partner, Lioy became estranged from her family and none of her family members attended her wedding.

Lioy was a magazine editor who helped make John Stamos famous

Doreen Lioy outside the gates of San Quentin Prison, after she married serial killer “Night Stalker” Richard Ramirez on Thursday Oct. 3, 1996 in San Quentin, CA.AP Photo/Lacy Atkins

Before and at the time Lioy began writing to Ramirez, she was a magazine editor forTiger Beat.Inher leadership role, Lioy also helped make John Stamos famous.

She met Stamos when he was around 16 or 17 years old and believed she could help make him a star. Prior to his Emmy-winning breakout role in 1982 as Blackie Parrish onGeneral Hospital, Lioy regularly featured Stamos on the cover ofTiger Beat, helping to elevate his popularity. They also developed a close family connection.

Stamos toldEntertainment Tonightin 2019, “She was sort of like a sister and became best friends with my mother – she was a very lonely woman – [and] spent all the holidays with us.” This made it all the more shocking for Stamos when he learned that Lioy had married Ramirez.

“First of all, to be that lonely that this is the only man on the planet that she can find, I just thought, ‘How horrible.’ This man is the personification of evil – just a monster,” Stamos said. “And here is someone that was part of my family, sort of.”

In the docuseriesRichard Ramirez: The Night Stalker Tapes, Cynthia Horner, who knew Lioy from her days working in the magazine industry, elaborated on how her former colleague’s feelings about Stamos and Ramirez were similar.

“I remember her being very maternal, like a mom figure to all of these celebrities, and she rode for [them] hard. If she liked somebody, she really really liked them,” Horner said. “When Doreen first got interested in Richie Ramirez, I think she saw him the same way she would have seen John Stamos and all these other celebrities that she was helping and nurturing.”

Lioy began writing to Ramirez in 1988 and publicly defended him

Doreen Lioy, wife of the Night Stalker serial killer Richard Ramirez.KRON 4

KRON 4

Before Lioy began writing to Ramirez, she believed he was innocent and began publicly defending him, including in a letter she wrote toThe Daily News. The letter, for which Lioy said she received a great deal of public shame, denounced the people who caught Ramirez being lauded as heroes.

She continued pleading Ramirez’s case in the media before writing to him for the first time in February 1988 and then beginning to meet with him that year.

“I have a very finely tuned sense of right and wrong and fair play. He was just a suspect at that point, and [I felt that] they had no right to treat him that way, and my heart just went out to him. I started taping the news from that Sunday on. He just fascinated me right from the start,” Lioy told Carlo.

When asked how she dealt with hearing the stories of survivors and victims' families, Lioy said, “At the expense of sounding callous, these people went through something; I understand that. I’ve never negated their pain, but that doesn’t mean I can’t support him … There’s nothing I can do for the victims, but I can offer him help.”

Once Ramirez wrote back, their relationship developed quickly. “He wrote back immediately and asked me if I would be his friend. It became very intense right away” Lioy continued. “When I love, it’s deep and it’s intense."

She added, “I would say pretty much my life does revolve around him. I’m watching out for his needs and protecting his interests. Someone like him needs that, and he needs someone he can trust.”

Ramirez proposed to Lioy during a prison visit in 1988

According to theLos Angeles Times, Lioy would visit Ramirez up to four times a week as they began to develop their relationship.

“He was the exact opposite of what I anticipated. Soft-spoken, beautiful boy, when I looked into his eyes, I got the same sensation I did the night I saw his picture. That’s when this titanic of a relationship was launched,” Lioy told Carlo.

Ramirez proposed to her the same year they began meeting. She knew that accepting the proposal would upend her personal life, but to her, it was worth it.

“Because of my love for Richard, I have given up family, home, employment and my friends,” Lioy told theLos Angeles Times. “I always knew this would require a tremendous personal sacrifice. But I have never looked back. I understand others’ disbelief. I understand their confusion. But from that day in July 1988, when he just looked at me and said, ‘I wish to marry you,’ I have known in my heart that this was the right thing to do.”

Lioy married Ramirez in 1996

Eight years after the proposal, then-41-year-old Lioy married then-36-year-old Ramirez in 1996 in a ceremony at San Quentin Prison. The pair were allowed to kiss and hold hands for their nuptials.

“It feels wonderful. I’m so happy,” Lioy told KRON 4 on her wedding day. “I’m so thrilled, very proud and a little relieved that the bulk of the day is over and just hopefully I can enjoy the rest of my day in peace with Richard’s family and think about the importance of what happened today.”

Ramirez was known for his Satanist beliefs, and they even factored into the color of his wedding band. According toTheNew York Times, Lioy bought a gold wedding band for herself and a platinum one for Ramirez because he told her, “Satanists don’t wear gold.”

Lioy told Liviakis that her wedding band was engraved with the words, “To my one and only love, Richard,” and his said, “I love you forever, Doreen.”

Lioy distanced herself from Ramirez after DNA evidence of his first known crime came to light

Despite Lioy initially believing her husband was innocent, multiple sources inThe Night Stalker Tapessaid that she became more unsure of her faith in Ramirez when new evidence came to light in 2009. According to theLos Angeles Timesat the time, DNA evidence linked Ramirez to the 1984 slaying of a 9-year-old girl.

The serial killer died in 2013 of natural causes and Lioy withdrew from the public eye. InThe Night Stalker Tapes, Ramirez’s niece claimed that her uncle and Lioy were going through a divorce at the time of his death and his ashes were sent to her.

Liviakis said the last time she saw Lioy was years later when they accidentally ran into each other. The former news reporter claimed that Lioy was working at a party supply store and seemed to not want to be recognized.

source: people.com