Ramon Escobar

Ramon Alberto Escobar (born June 5, 1971) is a Salvadoran serial killer who killed seven people during a month-long killing spree between Texas and California in 2018, most of whom were homeless. After pleading guilty, he was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment, committing a suspected eighth murder while in prison in 2023.

His crimes caused debate over several issues, mostly concerning illegal immigration and violence committed against the homeless.

Early life and crimes Escobar was born on June 5, 1971, in El Salvador, where he spent his childhood and youth in poverty as a result of the Football War. In the mid-1980s, Escobar illegally emigrated to the United States, but was arrested in early 1988 and thereafter deported by ICE officers in February of that year. In the early 1990s, he returned to the USA again, settling in the home of some relatives in Houston. From 1992 until his arrest in 2018, Escobar was repeatedly arrested on charges ranging from burglary, assault and criminal trespassing.

From 1995 to 2000, he was incarcerated in a Texas prison for theft before being deported back to El Salvador. The following year, he once again returned but was rearrested in November for a minor offense and illegal entry, for which he was convicted and sentenced to 23 months imprisonment.

In 2012, Escobar made another attempt to enter the U.S., but was caught by border security in Brownsville. While in the county jail, he began to show signs of mental instability, due to which he was interned at a psychiatric hospital in Springfield, Missouri. Two days later, she started searching for her brother, but before the trip, Escobar snuck inside her minivan. During a car stop in a suburb of Houston, he attacked Dina and subsequently strangled her.

Following the murders, Escobar dumped his relatives' bodies in two separate dumpsters, with their skeletal remains being found two months later in a landfill.

Several acquaintances of Rogelio and Dina Escobar contacted the police after their disappearances, as a result of which Ramon was detained for interrogation on August 30. However, as authorities had no evidence to charge him with any crime at the time, he was released. Despite being repeatedly beaten with a baseball bat and sustaining severe head injuries, the victim survived the assault.

During the early morning hours of September 16, Escobar attacked three sleeping homeless men in Downtown Los Angeles with his baseball bat, robbing them afterwards. Two of the men, 24-year-old Branden Ridout and 59-year-old Kelvin Williams, died, while the third victim, 23-year-old Tievon Harmon, survived. In it, the then-unknown assailant was described as a white or Hispanic male in his 30s or 40s, of average build and height and with medium-length black hair. One notable feature was that he apparently had a noticeable gait due to the curvature of his legs.

On September 20, Escobar carried out another attack under the Santa Monica Pier, during which he beat to death 39-year-old Steven Ray Cruze Jr. In the aftermath of the murder, police were unable to locate any witnesses to the crime. However, he slipped into a coma and died on September 30.

In early October, the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office charged Escobar with four counts of murder, five counts of attempted murder and four counts of robbery. Further investigation revealed that he was responsible for many other attacks, with his victims suffering from various degrees of injury. They were the following:

Albert Gene Scott, on September 11. Unlike other victims, he was not homeless Michelle Matice, on the outskirts of MacArthur Park on September 15. Kyla Renard and David Dotson, in Griffith Park on September 9.

On November 8, Escobar was formally charged with the murders and the remaining charges, to which he pleaded not guilty.

In December 2018, Escobar, who was detained at the Los Angeles County Jail, was visited by investigators from the Houston Homicide Unit. During his conversation with them, Escobar confessed to killing his aunt and uncle and described what had transpired. As a result, he was subsequently charged with their murders as well. On October 17 of that year, Escobar was judged to be sane and thus eligible to stand trial.

Trial Due to several delays caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, Escobar's trial was delayed until early 2022. During said trial, he was offered a plea bargain from the attorney's office: in exchange for the state dropping the death penalty, he would plead guilty to all charges and be sentenced to several life terms without parole. Escobar accepted, and on May 6, 2022, his sentence was subsequently handed down.

Escobar claimed that he had committed the murders out of personal animosity and financial hardship. He shared a cell with 53-year-old Juan Villanueva, who was serving a life sentence for aggravated sexual assault of a minor. On February 24, 2023, Villanueva was found unresponsive in his cell, and was pronounced dead a short time later.

In September 2023, court documents revealed that Escobar had left a note in his cell outlining why he had decided to kill his cellmate. According to the note, he strangled Villanueva because of his poor hygiene, refusal to move out and because he "didn't want to take [Escobar] seriously". Escobar also stated that the entire ordeal lasted five minutes.