Posted on 06/18/2022 2:10:39 PM PDT by nickcarraway
When you play in a world-conquering, gazillion-selling band of Metallica's stature, you're bound to attract a few oddball fans over the course of your career. Still, the metal titans' most unexpected devotee is quite a doozy: Richard Ramirez, the '80s serial killer known as the Night Stalker.
Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammett said Ramirez — the serial killer, rapist and burglar who embarked on a Los Angeles crime spree from 1984-85 and was sentenced to death in 1989 — was incensed when he heard the band performing at San Quentin State Prison in 2003, where they filmed their "St. Anger" music video, and wasn't allowed to see them.
"When we played San Quentin Prison [in 2003], he was on death row and could hear us," Hammett recently told NME. "The guards who were responsible for watching him said Richard Ramirez was pissed off and pacing his cell because he wasn't allowed to see us. He gave the guards his subscription copy of a magazine with us on the cover and on the mail-tag it said: 'Richard Ramirez, San Quentin Prison.' So that’s my little token from Richard Ramirez. Not to glorify the guy — he did some horrible crimes."
Watch Metallica's 'St. Anger,' Filmed at San Quentin State Prison
Metallica - St. Anger (Official Music Video) Subscribe to Ultimate Classic Rock on
Hammett, a Bay Area mainstay who played in the thrash band Exodus before joining Metallica, also considered whether he and Ramirez ran in the same scene in the '80s. "He hung out in Richmond, California, and I wonder sometimes if me and the guys from Exodus were at the same parties as him back in the day," the guitarist mused.
Ramirez died in 2013 at age 53 due to complications from B-cell lymphoma while on death row. Metallica have since released two more studio albums, 2008's Death Magnetic and 2016's Hardwired... to Self-Destruct, and Hammett released his debut solo EP, Portals, in April.
“Sleep with one eye open......” Just sayin’.... 😂🎸🔊
“Sleep with one eye open......” Just sayin’.... 😂🎸🔊
DOH! In case you missed the first one. 😃☝
But he was determined to have killed a Chinese girl in San Francisco. The murder happened more than a year before Ramirez was arrested, and not connected to him for more than 20 years.
From Wikipedia:
On April 10, 1984, Ramirez murdered Mei Leung, a 9-year-old Chinese-American girl, in the basement of his apartment building in the Tenderloin district of San Francisco. Leung was with her 8-year-old brother and reportedly looking for a lost one-dollar bill when Ramirez approached the girl and told her to follow him into the basement to find it. Once they were in the basement, Ramirez beat, strangled and raped Leung before stabbing her to death with a switchblade, hanging her partially nude body from a pipe by her blouse.The killing was not linked to Ramirez until 2009, when his DNA was matched to a sample obtained at the crime scene.
He lived nomadically between L.A. and the SF area.
Yes. He’s known to have killed two other people in San Francisco. I wonder how many victims are not known.
They played tunes from St Anger. He didn’t miss much.
They played St Anger. He didn’t miss much.
Good one.
If l die before l wake.
Good to see you are still out there. I stayed away for about a year after the steal. Just needed to get away from it
Awww. Should of thought of that before he went on a killing spree.
His victims can’t watch it either.
He was probably cheesed off because Metallica was using garbage cans for drums on that album.
LOL! And still jammin’. Mon.
If you’re sentenced to death in Commiefornia, you will most likely die of natural causes or old age. I think in the past 30 years only one death sentence execution was carried out.
Serial killers are nothing if not selfish.
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