Russell also directed the 2014 documentary The Seven Five, so he knows a thing or two about cops and what drives them.

Night Stalker hails from director Tiller Russell, who recently impressed me with his four-part Amazon docuseries The Last Narc. What this series lacks in insight regarding Ramirez's crimes, it makes up for as a story of the dogged detectives who brought him down and ended his killing spree. Though I may have been frustrated that Ramirez's difficult childhood was given short shrift here, it's no doubt for the best that the series focuses on this many victims as well as the two men who speak for them - LA County Sheriff's Department detectives Frank Salerno and Gil Carrillo, who ran the Night Stalker Task Force back in the day and still know the case as well as anyone. As such, there isn't much exploration into who 'Richie' was before he became 'the Night Stalker' who terrorized Los Angeles for a time in the mid-'80s. Ramirez remains a mystery to the audience up until the point that the police learn his identity, a moment that doesn't arrive until the very end of the third episode. While there was some initial disappointment in that discovery, I soon realized that the four-part series is meant to mirror the investigation itself. Night Stalker: The Hunt for a Serial Killer may be Netflix's latest true crime docuseries, but it's hardly the Richard Ramirez series I thought we were getting.

Night stalker netflix