00:00:03
[foreboding music] NARRATOR: In America,
some of the world's most depraved criminals
are locked behind bars.
00:00:12
One of these vile inmates is
serial killer Ramon Escobar. [suspenseful music] CYNTHIA MARTINEZ: He had
this look in his eyes,
00:00:20
it scared you. NARRATOR: Escobar
violently murdered two members of his family. JAMES QUEALLY: Escobar
uses a police baton
00:00:29
and bashes his uncle over the
head repeatedly until he dies. DR. LINA HAJI:
The way that he kills
00:00:35
his aunt is extremely
personal, looking into her eyes as she's taking
her last breath.
00:00:42
NARRATOR: Escobar's lust for
killing moved on to the streets when he murdered
complete strangers.
00:00:48
JAMES QUEALLY: Escobar come
up behind these three men while they're sleeping.
00:00:51
He hits them over the head
with a baseball bat. [ominous music] CAPT. BILLY HAYES: This
is a violent predator
00:00:57
walking around, preying
on innocent people. LEROY EL: He came
and attacked me. You're not expecting the devil
to come around the corner.
00:01:06
JAMES QUEALLY: He's killed
seven people in less than a month. And he's injured or seriously
injured seven others.
00:01:12
NARRATOR: Even
behind bars, Escobar continues to be a threat. HECTOR BRAVO: He
strangled his cellmate
00:01:18
to death with his bare hands. [tense music] PAUL LOPEZ: Escobar, to me,
is someone who enjoys not
00:01:25
just killing but slaughtering. That's who he is. [foreboding music] [audio logo]
00:01:48
[theme music] HECTOR BRAVO: North Kern
State Prison in California is what we call
a reception center.
00:02:02
So when inmates get into the
system, they will go there and they will be
classified to which prison
00:02:07
they would
eventually end up at. NARRATOR: The prison can
house up to 3,000 inmates.
00:02:14
- The inmates are either
coming from the streets or county jail. We have to go
through their police
00:02:19
report, their previous
criminal sentences. We find out who they are. [foreboding music]
00:02:25
NARRATOR: Quickly,
identifying the inmates danger factor is vital. [high-intensity music]
00:02:34
HECTOR BRAVO: They get
assigned a point level. If they do have
an incel murder, meaning that an inmate has
killed another within the cell.
00:02:41
A letter will be
affixed to their file, showing that they cannot
have a cellmate because they
00:02:45
present a danger to them. NARRATOR: In North
Kern, one inmate made their threat level very clear.
00:02:53
A serial killer, Ramon Escobar. [foreboding music] JAMES QUEALLY:
This is a man who
00:03:04
was seemingly prone to violence
with little provocation. If we're just talking
about danger and savagery,
00:03:09
uh, those two
words are probably synonymous with Escobar. [foreboding music] LEROY EL: The prison
system is where you're
00:03:17
supposed to learn your lesson. There is no rehabilitation
for a person like that.
00:03:21
There's just not. There's no hope. He is the embodiment
of the devil. [foreboding music]
00:03:37
JAMES QUEALLY: My name
is James Queally, I'm a Criminal Justice Reporter
for The Los Angeles Times
00:03:41
and I covered
the serial killings involving Ramon Escobar. [ambient music] Ramon Escobar was born
in El Salvador in the 1970s.
00:03:50
He was born and grew up
during the brutal Civil War between the government and left
wing guerrilla groups there.
00:03:56
This led to a lot
of violence in the streets. [ambient music] Escobar's mother was killed
during this conflict,
00:04:06
and I believe
in explosion, he was one of many people fleeing from
that region in that time frame.
00:04:12
[ambient music] PAUL LOPEZ: Escobar was
in his early teen years. At that point, he
illegally migrated
00:04:24
into the United
States, Texas, where he was taken in by his Aunt Dina. [tense music]
00:04:32
DR. LINA HAJI: Escobar had
a tragic early upbringing due to the war and due
to the loss of his mother.
00:04:38
It's an abrupt rupture
in the caretaking that he had. That's got to be
extremely traumatizing,
00:04:46
and it's going to change the
trajectory of a child's life. Luckily, he's taken
in by his aunt.
00:04:53
[tense music] PAUL LOPEZ: Ramon's
Aunt Dina treated him as if he were her
own child, raising
00:05:01
him along her own children
as if they were siblings. [somber music] OSWALDO SALAMANCA: My name
is Oswaldo Salamanca,
00:05:14
I am the son of Dina Escobar. [somber music] And I don't like
to say it like this,
00:05:25
but cousins of Ramon Escobar. [ominous music] NARRATOR: Oswaldo's family had
also fled war torn El Salvador,
00:05:39
making Houston,
Texas their home. [tense music] OSWALDO SALAMANCA: My family
had to restart all over.
00:05:47
My mother-- I know she was
a very well-educated woman. She was a registered
nurse in El Salvador.
00:05:51
[somber music] OSWALDO SALAMANCA:
She went to church. She prayed for everybody. My mother was one
of the greatest person that
00:06:01
ever walked this Earth to me. A lot of people knew her. My mom had not one
bad bone in her body.
00:06:08
CYNTHIA MARTINEZ:
My mother-in-law, she was a ball of positivity,
that's all I could say.
00:06:12
You could be having
the worst day, and she found some type or form
to bring that ray of sunshine
00:06:18
into your life. She was just
a wonderful person. [somber music] NARRATOR: Oswaldo was
three years old when
00:06:28
his teenage cousin
Ramon came to live with him and his siblings. [ambient music]
00:06:35
OSWALDO SALAMANCA: I always
shared a room with him. I was young, I remember
growing up side by side
00:06:40
with him like a brother. My mom made sure that we always
treated him like a brother.
00:06:45
My mother loved him and she
loved him as her own son. We're just happy, it
was your regular family.
00:06:52
[foreboding music] NARRATOR: Though as he
became an older teenager, Ramon started
acting up at home.
00:07:05
[tense music] OSWALDO SALAMANCA:
There were times where-- something would set him off.
00:07:09
He always was just a little
bit that much more aggressive. PAUL LOPEZ: In 1988,
Ramon had his first run
00:07:15
in with the law when
he was about 17, and as a result of that, he was
transported back to his country
00:07:20
in El Salvador. [ominous music] OSWALDO SALAMANCA: I don't
remember the case, I was young.
00:07:26
I know it will happened to be
like a domestic altercation with an ex that he had.
00:07:31
So he got deported after that. DR. LINA HAJI: It's
interesting because he came from such
horrific circumstances
00:07:39
to much better circumstances
in the United States, but yet it seems that
wasn't enough for him.
00:07:45
Was it that he was
already predisposed as somebody who was going
to commit a life of crime,
00:07:53
go against authority,
no matter what kind of nurturing
environment he had. PAUL LOPEZ: After Escobar
returned a few years later
00:08:02
to the United States, he
was arrested again and ultimately sentenced
to five years for burglary,
00:08:07
where he served some time
in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. [foreboding music]
00:08:17
NARRATOR: After spending two
years in prison in Texas, Escobar was deported again
back to El Salvador in 1997.
00:08:24
[tense music] But he kept trying
to come back. PAUL LOPEZ: Between
1997 and around 2011,
00:08:34
he was arrested and convicted
six different times of burglary and illegal entry.
00:08:39
[foreboding music] JAMES QUEALLY:
Escobar was deported multiple times by immigrations
and customs enforcement.
00:08:48
Sometimes it was simply
for being an illegal alien. Sometimes it was due
to arrests and convictions
00:08:52
on other crimes,
mostly in Texas. [foreboding music] NARRATOR: When he was forced
to live back in El Salvador,
00:09:00
the family did their best
to support him. [ambient music] OSWALDO SALAMANCA: My mom
always helping him,
00:09:09
and she was always
sending him money. Even me, we would put money
on his books commissary
00:09:13
all the time because,
you know, we're family. [tense music] DR. LINA HAJI: This idea
being constantly reinforced
00:09:20
that you're not
wanted here in the US could have been something
that Escobar internalized,
00:09:27
but he wasn't being accepted
by society because he was engaging in criminal activity.
00:09:31
So you would think that
he would say to himself, this is not working for me. The more I engage
in criminal activity,
00:09:37
the more I get deported
back to a place that I don't want to be. Yet that didn't stop him.
00:09:42
So to me, that further
paints the picture that he really had no
regard for authority,
00:09:48
no regard for the law. NARRATOR: When Escobar
managed to get back to the US illegally, he would stay with
Oswaldo and his Aunt Dina
00:09:56
while they started the appeal
process for him to remain. [ambient music] But his behavior didn't help.
00:10:07
OSWALDO SALAMANCA: He
was always into drinking. Me and my mother, we were
always trying to keep
00:10:11
him away from the party life. [tense music] PAUL LOPEZ: Escobar he
was having an increasing
00:10:18
issue with his illicit drug
use and his alcoholic beverage problem. Drinking too much.
00:10:24
[tense music] NARRATOR: After
another deportation, Escobar illegally re-entered
the US again in 2016
00:10:35
and went straight to the board
of Immigration Appeals. He said he was in fear for his
life back in El Salvador.
00:10:43
[tense music] OSWALDO SALAMANCA:
And this was when all the gangs were still going on.
00:10:48
I remember one time that
he ended up in the hospital because they almost
murdered him.
00:10:54
They hit him with machetes
on his head, on his hands. If you were to see pictures of
him, he has scars everywhere.
00:11:00
They almost killed
him over there. I saw something
different in his eyes. [tense music]
00:11:09
You could tell that
there was something different when he came back. [tense music]
00:11:14
NARRATOR: A judge
granted a stay on Escobar being deported
again, while his case
00:11:19
was being reviewed. [ambient music] In 2018, Escobar went to live
with his uncle Rogelio.
00:11:26
[ambient music] OSWALDO SALAMANCA:
My uncle, Rogelio Escobar, opened his doors to everybody
in his family that needed it.
00:11:36
He was a great man. [tense music] NARRATOR: Despite
having a home, Escobar found it
difficult to get work.
00:11:45
OSWALDO SALAMANCA:
He struggled a lot because every time
he was at a job, he was always fighting with--
with the other employees,
00:11:51
he was very aggressive. He didn't like nobody
telling him what to do. [tense music]
00:11:58
CYNTHIA MARTINEZ: I met Ramon
not on very many occasions. I met him maybe
three or four times.
00:12:02
Ramon wasn't somebody
you wanted to be around. I guess that's the only
way I could put it.
00:12:08
The way of his
being, it scared you. [tense music] NARRATOR: Escobar's anger
turned towards his cousin.
00:12:20
OSWALDO SALAMANCA: He started
building a jealousy over me, having things that he didn't.
00:12:24
He started asking
me to give him stuff that he wouldn't work for. Jealousy enraged him.
00:12:32
PAUL LOPEZ: Uncle Rogelio had
gotten involved and separated both of them before
they could actually get
00:12:37
into a physical altercation. OSWALDO SALAMANCA: He didn't
like that my mom and my uncle
00:12:42
stopped him from fighting. DR. LINA HAJI: Escobar's family
was fed up with his behavior.
00:12:49
It's telling him
either you get better or we cannot be in your life. It wouldn't surprise me
if Escobar went ahead
00:12:55
and twisted that as being. Well, it's your fault my life
turned out the way it is.
00:13:00
It's your fault that
you're rejecting me. This is what we call
blame externalization.
00:13:05
Instead of taking
accountability for his actions, he's now going to point
that outwards, as if it's
00:13:10
everybody else's fault. JAMES QUEALLY: Escobar believed
his uncle had disrespected him
00:13:15
and made a plan to kill
his uncle as a result of this perceived slight. [ambient music]
00:13:23
NARRATOR: Months later,
47-year-old Escobar put his plan into action. [suspenseful music]
00:13:33
JAMES QUEALLY: Escobar
goes to his uncle's room, asks him for a cigarette. Rogelio presumably turns
around to find him a cigarette,
00:13:40
and while he is distracted. [suspenseful music] Escobar uses a police baton and
bashes his uncle over the head
00:13:52
repeatedly until he dies. [somber music] NARRATOR: Escobar then
stuffed his uncle's body
00:14:01
into a large cardboard box. [somber music] PAUL LOPEZ: He transported
it to a warehouse
00:14:09
in southwest Houston,
where he just essentially discarded him in a dumpster. [tense music]
00:14:22
NARRATOR: 48 hours later,
Rogelio's sister Dina started to worry. [tense music]
00:14:29
OSWALDO SALAMANCA: Your uncle
hasn't been home for two days. We thought maybe--
maybe he's just
00:14:32
with somebody
in the neighborhood, but she knew there
was something wrong. [tense music]
00:14:39
CYNTHIA MARTINEZ:
At that moment in time. Oswald was grandma and Oswald's
mother were living with us
00:14:44
in the apartment that we had. Oswald was in the shower,
and she came and she told me,
00:14:48
she said, I have to go
look for my brother. And I said, well, go
tell Oswaldo, bye.
00:14:54
And she said, no, no, no,
mija, I'll be right back. And she left. [tense music]
00:15:04
PAUL LOPEZ: Ramon's Aunt
Dina came to her brother Rogelio's house
to search for him.
00:15:08
Now, when Aunt Dina showed
up, Ramon was there, and he was closely watching
his Aunt Dina's search efforts.
00:15:14
[tense music] Ramon took the opportunity to
enter her van and hide in it, waiting for her to come out
to the van, and when she did,
00:15:26
he launched his attack on Dina. [suspenseful music] He strangled her from
behind, eventually
00:15:35
dragging her to the ground,
continuing to strangle her. He also knelt on her chest,
using his entire body weight,
00:15:43
causing her
to suffocate to death. [ominous music] JAMES QUEALLY: Ramon Escobar
takes his aunt's body
00:15:56
and hides it in a dumpster. He then takes the van
and burns it on a beach near Galveston, Texas.
00:16:02
[somber music] The way Ramon killed his aunt
and uncle is absolutely brutal. These are the people that
have taken care of him
00:16:11
for most of his adult life. DR. LINA HAJI: This is
where the evil in Escobar really rears its ugly
head, because the way
00:16:21
that he kills his aunt
is extremely personal. He is face to face with her. He has his knees on her chest,
likely looking into her eyes
00:16:30
as she's taking
her last breath. This is the woman that acted
as a second mother, that
00:16:35
nurtured him and loved him. What that really
tells us is how little respect
Escobar has for life,
00:16:43
even those closest to him. [tense music] OSWALDO SALAMANCA: My uncle is
missing, now my mom's missing,
00:16:55
and Ramon has something
to do with it. [suspenseful music] So me, my sister,
my brother got in a car,
00:17:02
went to my uncle's house. Me and my brother knocked
his door down, grabbed him,
00:17:08
and pulled him outside while
my sister was calling the cops. He was acting very suspicious.
00:17:14
And at that time,
me and my brother were just so mad that
my mom wasn't around.
00:17:18
He could see the anger
in us and he never seen something like that before. Once the cops got there,
he knew not to say nothing.
00:17:27
That's when the cops seen all
the scratches on his neck. And for that reason,
he ended up taking
00:17:33
him in for interrogation. It was heartbreaking. I knew some foul
play had happened.
00:17:39
[suspenseful music] JAMES QUEALLY: Ramon
becomes a person of interest to Texas Law Enforcement
as they open a missing
00:17:47
persons investigation. But after they question
him and can't hold him because there's no
evidence, he gets in his car
00:17:52
and he just starts
driving west. Pretty much until he
hits the Pacific Ocean and ends up in Santa
Monica, California.
00:17:58
[tense music] NARRATOR: Back in Texas,
Dina's family's faint hope she was still alive faded
when her burnt out van
00:18:09
was discovered on a beach
near Galveston. [somber music] OSWALDO SALAMANCA:
We already knew it.
00:18:16
Once you find a van burnt
like that and he's gone, I've never had a feeling as
horrible as that one that day.
00:18:25
My sisters, my brothers
hearts were broken that day. [somber music] [suspenseful music]
00:18:42
NARRATOR: While
Houston Police urgently sought Escobar
for further questioning, he was hiding out
in Santa Monica.
00:18:50
[suspenseful music] HECTOR BRAVO: Santa Monica
is a beautiful place located in Los Angeles County.
00:18:56
It's a Beach City,
you got a pier with amusement parks,
sand, a lot of restaurants,
00:19:03
very tourist area. [ambient music] NARRATOR: But there's another
side of life to the city.
00:19:13
JAMES QUEALLY: Santa Monica
has an issue with homelessness. Much like the rest
of southern California.
00:19:17
It's not as pronounced
as in Los Angeles proper. It is common to find people
sleeping on the beach
00:19:22
out there, specifically
under the Santa Monica Pier. [tense music] NARRATOR: Leroy was
one of those that
00:19:29
were unhoused at the time. He was living in a camp on
the outskirts of Santa Monica.
00:19:34
[tense music] LEROY EL: Living on the streets
is one of the most difficult lifestyle situations to be in.
00:19:45
One of the main things is
being exposed to the elements. You have to worry
about your safety.
00:19:51
Sleeping next to people who
are going to take your things once you drift off to sleep.
00:19:55
Once nighttime hits, it gets
really, really dangerous. Really sketchy, really sketchy.
00:20:00
[tense music] NARRATOR: 11 days after
fleeing to California, Escobar was
sleeping in his car.
00:20:11
He was homeless, but instead of
becoming part of the community, he would prey on them.
00:20:18
[foreboding music] PAUL LOPEZ: In the early
morning hours of September 8, Escobar brutally
attacked a male subject
00:20:37
on a Santa Monica beach. [suspenseful music] JAMES QUEALLY: He attacked
a homeless man with a baseball
00:20:50
bat, robbed him. PAUL LOPEZ: The subject
sustained severe head injuries and was subsequently
transported
00:21:00
to a nearby hospital after
being discovered by police. However, even though
the subject did survive and
00:21:08
eventually was released
from the hospital, he had no recollection
of the attack whatsoever
00:21:14
and could provide no
suspect information at all. [somber music] NARRATOR: Just 48 hours
later, Escobar struck again.
00:21:28
[ominous music] JAMES QUEALLY: The man
was a 51-year-old victim. A man named Juan
Antonio Ramirez.
00:21:37
He is also living in Santa
Monica, also homeless, also sleeping on the beach. Sometime around
dawn, Escobar strikes
00:21:44
the men in and about the head. Juan Ramirez was in a coma
for years after the attack,
00:21:48
but eventually succumbed to his
injuries in January of 2021. [somber music] Escobar, he was robbing people
to get money, to get food,
00:21:58
and the softest
targets he could pick were sleeping homeless people. [somber music]
00:22:04
NARRATOR: These attacks
did not make the news. JAMES QUEALLY:
Unfortunately, violence
00:22:09
against the homeless community
in Southern California is not an uncommon crime. Sadly, if you ask around
here, a lot of the times,
00:22:14
if your average person, even
your average police officer, hears about an attack
on a homeless person,
00:22:19
their first assumption is
that they got into a fight with another homeless person.
00:22:22
Escobar, and the idea that
there was a pattern killer doesn't come into focus
until a little bit later.
00:22:28
NARRATOR: Over
the next few days, Escobar attacked two more
individuals who were homeless.
00:22:33
They were fortunate to survive. [foreboding music] He would then go on to commit
a crime so visible,
00:22:42
it would be
impossible to ignore. JAMES QUEALLY: We're standing
in Downtown Los Angeles.
00:22:47
We're right over there
at the intersection of Flower and Wilshire. Ramon Escobar
attacked three men
00:22:52
while they were sleeping
outside, all of them were homeless. [ominous music] Escobar, come up
behind these three men
00:23:02
while they're sleeping. He hits them over the head and
shoulders with a baseball bat,
00:23:06
one at a time, and then rifles
through their possessions, stealing money,
belongings, whatever
00:23:11
he could get from them. Two of those men later
died from their injuries. NARRATOR: The men
killed while they slept
00:23:18
were 59-year-old Kelvin
Williams and Branden Ridout, who was 24. [somber music] DR. LINA HAJI: It's really
showing how predatory and
00:23:30
kind of a bully Escobar is. Homeless people are not
great targets to rob. They don't have
a lot of possessions.
00:23:36
They don't have a lot of money. So why are you robbing
homeless people is the very first question?
00:23:42
They're so vulnerable, a lot
of them are malnourished. It would have been
so easy for Escobar
00:23:47
to maybe hit them, take
whatever small belongings they have and move about his way.
00:23:52
That's not what he did. So to me, that says that
Escobar's motivation was actually not robbery.
00:23:59
Escobar went after them
because he enjoyed killing, and he knew that he could very
easily kill homeless people
00:24:07
because he had
very easily killed his own family members,
which just tells me he's evil to his core.
00:24:14
[tense music] JAMES QUEALLY:
This was the crime that finally put him on the
radar of local law enforcement,
00:24:24
and made pretty
clear to the public that we had a serial killer
on the loose targeting
00:24:27
homeless men in Los Angeles. [tense music] NARRATOR: An investigation
was launched,
00:24:34
releasing CCTV
of Escobar captured just after his latest attacks. The LAPD hoped
to pinpoint the killer.
00:24:43
[suspenseful music] CAPT. BILLY HAYES: Today,
we're requesting the public's
00:24:48
assistance in identifying
an individual responsible for three
brutal attacks yesterday morning
in central area.
00:24:56
The most distinctive thing
about this individual is that he has bowed legs. This is a violent predator
that's walking around preying
00:25:04
on innocent people. We want to get them
as quickly as possible. [tense music] JAMES QUEALLY: There is this
boogeyman, the specter, just
00:25:14
like lurking in the night. You could go to bed
and never wake up again if this guy chose to rob you.
00:25:19
[tense music] NARRATOR: Escobar's
potential victims were the hardest to warn.
00:25:24
[tense music] LEROY EL: We had no idea
that he was on the loose, or that we had to be
worried about something
00:25:31
like that at all. We don't have the news. We don't have television to see
what's going on in society
00:25:37
or it happened yesterday
or the day before. [suspenseful music] NARRATOR: The publicity didn't
deter serial killer Escobar.
00:25:50
Just three days after
the murders downtown, he strikes again. - Escobar attacks two
more homeless people.
00:25:59
- Leaving them
severely injured. NARRATOR: And again-- - He goes back to a familiar
hunting ground.
00:26:06
He goes back to the beach
at Santa Monica. [ambient music] NARRATOR: 39-year-old,
Stephen Cruze Jr.,
00:26:15
a father of two was sleeping
under the Santa Monica Pier. [foreboding music] PAUL LOPEZ: He
had many jobs, but
00:26:28
one of which he was
commonly engaged in was working on a charter
fishing boat that he would sometimes
sleep under the pier
00:26:36
to avoid having to drive
back to the San Gabriel area. [tense music] JAMES QUEALLY: Escobar
looking to rob.
00:26:46
He attacks Cruze with the bat. Seriously injures
and kills Mr. Cruze. This is a man with children.
00:26:55
This is a man with
a job who apparently was just in the wrong place
at the absolute wrong time.
00:27:01
[somber music] NARRATOR: Committing crimes
at random across LA County, it was proving impossible
for police to track
00:27:12
the serial killer down. When he struck again,
Leroy was his next victim. [suspenseful music]
00:27:23
LEROY EL: He walked up
and it was still daytime and he shook my hand. He had a strong grip.
00:27:29
When I first seen him, I
had no idea of the beast that was inside of him at all.
00:27:34
He just looked like
a normal homeless guy. And he's kind of muscular, you
know, and I'm a little guy.
00:27:41
I wasn't going to get too close
to him, you know what I mean? [foreboding music]
00:27:46
NARRATOR: As night fell,
Escobar approached Leroy again. LEROY EL: And he wants to lay
right next to where I was at.
00:27:55
And I told him, no, you can't. We don't-- we don't
know who you are.
00:27:58
We don't trust you. The people that were in the
camp that I was at, none of us
00:28:03
knew him. I told him to go at the end
of where we were at and set himself up down there.
00:28:10
He looked at where
I was pointing to and he understood it. And he, [nods] and he
just walked away.
00:28:16
But that, [nods] yeah. That's what I seen,
like OK, he-- he gets it but he's not happy about that.
00:28:24
[ominous music] NARRATOR: Later
that night, Escobar came to Leroy asking him if he
knew where he could get drugs.
00:28:33
LEROY EL: I told
him, I know how I can hook you up with that. So just hold on. Let me put on some shoes.
00:28:38
And I went inside of my tent
to put those shoes on. NARRATOR: While
Leroy crouched down,
00:28:45
Escobar suddenly attacked. [suspenseful music] LEROY EL: All I feel
is like a ton of bricks
00:28:52
fell on the back of my head,
just out of nowhere. I did not even know
he was attacked.
00:28:56
I didn't know what that was. So I'm trying to come
up out of the tent. And when I came out of the
tent, he went for a head blow,
00:29:04
and that's when I got
struck in my head. The next blow, I
caught him like, here.
00:29:09
[ominous music] I have a little
martial arts training, so I tried to hip
toss him, not knowing
00:29:14
that he had already shattered
this-- this elbow here. So when I turned and did
that, I ended up falling.
00:29:21
So that's when he was able to
just keep pounding on my back. [tense music] The right side of my body, just
from the top to the bottom.
00:29:29
[tense music] He would not stop beating on me
until I had just laid still and let him finish, until
he thought I was dead,
00:29:38
and walked away. And then I'm just sitting
there bleeding, and I'm just in my head thinking
like, oh my God, I'm on my way
00:29:44
to heaven. [tense music] NARRATOR: Barely conscious. Leroy managed to alert
help from a passerby.
00:29:57
LEROY EL: Told them
to call the police for me, and at that point,
that's when I faded out.
00:30:03
I drifted off
into another world. [tense music] Till I woke up in the hospital
like, OK, I'm still here.
00:30:15
NARRATOR: Escobar's
savage assault on Leroy with a bolt cutter
left him with multiple broken
00:30:21
bones and lacerations. He also had to undergo
an emergency craniotomy to remove
part of his skull.
00:30:29
LEROY EL: He had hit
me so hard in my head that it made some
of my skull fractures.
00:30:33
Threatened to poke my brain. I look like I had just
come through through hell. NARRATOR: A police detective
visited Leroy at the hospital
00:30:44
and showed him the CCTV footage
from the press conference. LEROY EL: He pulled his
cell phone up and said,
00:30:50
I just want to is this
the man that attacked you. And when I looked at it
and I could see his shape,
00:30:56
I knew that that was the man. And I said, yeah, that's him. I did not know that he had
just come from murdering
00:31:02
someone in Santa Monica. I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe
that I had came
00:31:06
face to face with the devil. [sigh] Pure evil. [tense music] NARRATOR: The identity
of this devil
00:31:21
was still unknown to the police
and he continued to kill. [tense music] PAUL LOPEZ:
On September 24, Escobar
00:31:33
returned to the Santa
Monica area, where he brutally attacked
Jorge Martinez on the beach.
00:31:40
[eerie ocean waves] JAMES QUEALLY: Martinez,
unfortunately, also eventually succumbed to his injuries
following the severe damage
00:31:50
inflicted by Escobar. [ominous music] NARRATOR: With all
the signs pointing to another attack from
the killer they were hunting.
00:31:58
Police scoured
the streets nearby. JAMES QUEALLY:
And they go looking in the immediate vicinity,
and not far from there,
00:32:04
they find Escobar walking
funny, walking bow legged, as was depicted
on the CCTV footage
00:32:09
of the Downtown La attacks,
and they arrest him. And they find the pair
of bolt cutters on his person.
00:32:14
[suspenseful music] NARRATOR: Police
had finally caught the man terrorizing La County.
00:32:21
PAUL LOPEZ: Additionally,
they located Escobar's black Honda
CRV parked nearby
00:32:27
where they located
the murder weapon, the baseball bat that was used
to brutally kill his victims.
00:32:37
NARRATOR: Following
Escobar's arrest, police held a press
conference confirming
00:32:41
they'd caught the man who had
been menacing the two cities. [suspenseful music]
00:32:49
- Based
on the collaborative work by the Santa Monica
Police department and the Los Angeles
Police Department.
00:32:55
We were able to capture
this suspect. [tense music] The people that live, work,
and visit Santa Monica and
00:33:07
Los Angeles are safer
today because this suspect is in custody. [ambient music] LEROY EL: The next thing you
know they had caught him.
00:33:19
He's a coward
because you have to wait till these people go to sleep
before you do anything.
00:33:26
Like he had me
face to face twice. You shook my hand,
but you waited till I went inside of the tent.
00:33:33
The people that he targeted
was these homeless people who have nothing. They can't even fight.
00:33:38
Taking them from
their families, taking them out of existence. That's-- that's just
nothing but a coward.
00:33:44
Nothing but a coward. NARRATOR: The news reached
Oswaldo's family in Texas. OSWALDO SALAMANCA:
We were in disbelief.
00:33:54
We just couldn't believe
that all this was going on. I never believed that
somebody in our family
00:33:59
would end up becoming something
like that, because we were all raised a lot better than that.
00:34:06
[somber music] NARRATOR: Soon after his
arrest in California. Houston Police questioned
Escobar about the disappearance
00:34:15
of his aunt and uncle. [somber music] He eventually confessed
to their murders and disposing of their bodies
at a landfill site.
00:34:27
OSWALDO SALAMANCA:
The people that raised them, the people that give
them their hand,
00:34:30
they give everything
off their back. And you turn around and
brutally murder these people.
00:34:36
It's horrible. It was horrible
for the whole family. We're just all not the same
anymore without her.
00:34:42
[somber music] CYNTHIA MARTINEZ: In my heart,
there is no repaying something like that that he did.
00:34:48
Taking somebody so innocent,
you know, in the form that he did it just-- there's no justice to that.
00:34:54
[somber music] JAMES QUEALLY:
Escobar ultimately pleaded guilty
to all five murders
00:34:59
he was accused
of in Los Angeles and the murders of his aunt
and uncle in Texas,
00:35:04
as well as multiple counts of
attempted murder and robbery. The only condition he made
in exchange for his plea
00:35:11
was that he would not
face the death penalty. As a result, he was
sentenced to life in prison
00:35:15
without possibility of parole. [somber music] DR. LINA HAJI: I'm not
surprised Escobar made a deal
00:35:24
to avoid the death penalty. Escobar strikes me
as a very cowardly person, as somebody who's not willing
to take accountability
00:35:31
for their actions,
for the fact that he took the lives
of so many people and he's looking
out for himself.
00:35:38
He doesn't want to die. It's all about him. [somber music] OSWALDO SALAMANCA: The judge
asked him if he was
00:35:46
guilty of murdering my mother. He laughed and said,
very guilty. The whole time he
was just giving
00:35:53
me this stare like
wishing it was me and not him in that chair. [somber music] [foreboding music]
00:36:13
NARRATOR: After
conviction, Escobar was transferred
from County Jail to North Kern State Prison,
where he would be temporarily
00:36:21
housed until it was
decided what penitentiary he would be sent to. [theme music]
00:36:29
HECTOR BRAVO:
From my experience working in the California
Department of Corrections,
00:36:33
I have had the experience
of working around serial killers in prison. Usually those individuals,
when they're around authority,
00:36:40
they're very quiet
and very respectful. They almost seem to act
against victims that are prey.
00:36:46
[foreboding music] NARRATOR: Escobar's
cellmate was 53-year-old Juan Villanueva.
00:36:58
He arrived at North
Kern State Prison after being sentenced to life
for aggravated sexual assault
00:37:04
of a child under the age of 14. [tense music] JAMES QUEALLY: Juan
Villanueva finds
00:37:11
himself with
the unfortunate role of Ramon Escobar's cellmate. NARRATOR: It didn't
take long for Escobar
00:37:18
to develop a strong
dislike for Villanueva. [suspenseful music] HECTOR BRAVO: On the morning
of February 24,
00:37:31
at approximately 8:49
AM, inmate Villanueva, who was the cellmate
of Escobar, missed one of his medical
appointments to have
00:37:39
his blood pressure taken. [suspenseful music] The correctional
officer in the unit
00:37:48
did a security
and welfare check. [suspenseful music] The correctional
officer noticed
00:37:55
Villanueva's lifeless
body unresponsive. [ominous music] He then summoned a code
one medical emergency
00:38:04
where the response came. They tried life saving
measures on Villanueva, and then they
ultimately transferred
00:38:09
him to an outside
hospital, where he was pronounced deceased. [foreboding music]
00:38:17
PAUL LOPEZ: Correctional
officers searched the cell, and they located a letter
that had been written
00:38:22
by Escobar, clearly
citing five reasons that he killed Villanueva. [tense music]
00:38:29
NARRATOR: The first
reason Escobar gave was Villanueva
refused to shower or clean the cell properly.
00:38:36
PAUL LOPEZ: To provide
the exact quote in the letter. He stank like, [bleep]. [tense music]
00:38:41
HECTOR BRAVO: On that list
of motives that Escobar left. Number 5 on the list
said he did not
00:38:46
want to take me
serious, so it was time for him to meet the devil. [somber music]
00:38:53
PAUL LOPEZ: Escobar
explained to prison staff that he killed Villanueva
by using his bare hands
00:39:00
to strangle him to death. [tense music] He stated that it took
approximately five minutes
00:39:08
before the job was done,
and he was able to successfully kill Mr. Villanueva. [suspenseful music]
00:39:21
DR. LINA HAJI: Escobar shows
us that his reasons for murder are just as flimsy
as the last ones.
00:39:27
I was just murdering
because I needed the money. I was just murdering
because I felt disrespected.
00:39:33
He's very selfish,
but yet, at his core, I don't believe that
Escobar actually likes
00:39:38
himself as a human being. And as a result, he's
incapable of liking or loving anybody else.
00:39:44
[ominous music] NARRATOR:
On September 18, 2023, Escobar was charged with first
degree murder of Villanueva.
00:39:56
[suspenseful music] JAMES QUEALLY:
If Escobar is convicted, that would be his eighth
murder conviction.
00:40:02
[tense music] NARRATOR: With as many victims
as the infamous East Bay Slayer, Ramon
Escobar's security
00:40:14
was upgraded accordingly
to protect those incarcerated alongside him. [eerie music]
00:40:25
JAMES QUEALLY:
Escobar is currently being held in a California
State Prison in Sacramento.
00:40:31
HECTOR BRAVO: It is a high
maximum security institution. It's a very dangerous
and very volatile prison.
00:40:37
[suspenseful music] Going forward, Escobar will
never have another cellmate. It is affixed on his
file everywhere he goes,
00:40:48
he should not be housed
with anybody else. [suspenseful music] NARRATOR: Escobar's actions
scarred the lives of many,
00:41:03
not just the ones he took. [somber music] LEROY EL: I'm still feeling
the effects of that attack.
00:41:09
When I stand up from
this position right now, it's going to be
pain in my hip.
00:41:14
It's pain in my knees. [somber music] One more thing is
that, that's actually
00:41:22
what helped me get off of-- off of the--
the substances too. [somber music] If he wouldn't have
tried to kill me,
00:41:35
I wouldn't have been
reunited with my family. I wouldn't be looking
like this today right now.
00:41:40
It was fly. [laughs] NARRATOR: Oswaldo and his
brother and sisters also had to rebuild
their lives after the loss
00:41:54
of their mother, Dina. [somber music] OSWALDO SALAMANCA:
Weren't even able to retrieve her body
from the dump site
00:42:00
where she was thrown at. My uncle too, we weren't able
to salvage his body since it
00:42:07
had already been three months. They were saying
that we probably wouldn't even get bones back.
00:42:12
There's never really going
to be any closure for us. [foreboding music] NARRATOR: Denied the chance
to bury their loved ones.
00:42:25
Oswaldo's family celebrate
their lives instead. OSWALDO SALAMANCA: The impact
my mother and my uncle
00:42:31
had on us. They showed us
how to be family, how to love our children,
how to love each other.
00:42:36
[somber music] Dina Escobar and Rogelio
Escobar, two of the greatest people that walked this world.
00:42:43
[mellow sad music] CYNTHIA MARTINEZ: We really,
really miss her and him. When my mother-in-law
went missing,
00:42:51
unknowingly, I was a month and
a half pregnant with my oldest daughter, and that's
why we decided
00:42:57
to call her after her grandma. [mellow sad music] NARRATOR: But there's
one family
00:43:08
member they choose to forget. OSWALDO SALAMANCA:
Ramon Escobar. This man is evil
in so many ways,
00:43:16
and I know that he is
where he's supposed to be. And God has the last
word with him.
00:43:21
When he decided to hurt
somebody in our family, he is not family,
he is nothing to us.
00:43:27
[somber music] PAUL LOPEZ: Escobar
is not human. In my mind, he's
an empty vessel.
00:43:37
He's violence wrapped
in human skin who does nothing but pray
like a coward on the vulnerable
and the defenseless.
00:43:48
LEROY EL: When I found out who
he was and what he had done, I was even more
thankful for God
00:43:53
that I even made it because he
was really a straight beast, just a monster. [somber music]
00:44:19
[theme music]