Killer Summer

Hey! I'd love to hear your thoughts, send me a voice note. Episode 4 traces the internal aftermath of the Night Stalker's capture, exploring how the residue of childhood horror metabolizes into a lifelong relationship with dark stories. Beginning in the autumn after Ramirez’s arrest, the narrative follows a young narrator moving past the immediate terror only to face the daily anxieties of middle...

Hey! I'd love to hear your thoughts, send me a voice note. Episode 4 traces the internal aftermath of the Night Stalker's capture, exploring how the residue of childhood horror metabolizes into a lifelong relationship with dark stories. Beginning in the autumn after Ramirez’s arrest, the narrative follows a young narrator moving past the immediate terror only to face the daily anxieties of middle...

The finale captures the extraordinary morning the Night Stalker's reign ended — not with a SWAT raid, but with East L.A. residents Manuel de la Torre and Faustino Penon chasing down and subduing Richard Ramirez with their bare hands and a lead pipe. Woven from archival broadcast audio of the capture, the crowds outside the police station, and Mayor Tom Bradley's on-camera relief, the episode trace...

As Los Angeles descends into full-blown panic, the killer finally gets the name that will define him: the Night Stalker. Told through the eyes of a ten-year-old and his cul-de-sac friends, this episode follows a ragtag neighborhood watch — flashlights, a notebook, and a porch stakeout that nearly ends in disaster — set against real archival news coverage of detectives Frank Salerno and Gil Carrill...

In the summer of 1985, a nine-year-old boy growing up in Canoga Park in the San Fernando Valley has no idea his idyllic suburban childhood — Cabbage Patch Kids, Dodger games, backyard pools — is about to collide with the murder spree of the Night Stalker. As the Los Angeles Times connects a string of random home-invasion killings across the region, a boy home alone with a babysitter catches a news...