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
Very little is known about Escobar's early life. He 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. While serving his sentence, Escobar was diagnosed with schizophrenia and transferred to the Harris County Psychiatric Center, where he remained for several months. In total, from the period of 1997 to 2011, Escobar was deported from the United States a total of six times.
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. After the treatment was complete, Escobar was extradited to Brownsville and put on trial. In October 2013, he was convicted and sentenced to two years imprisonment.
After serving the sentence, he was deported yet again but returned soon afterward. Upon re-entering, Escobar appealed his immigration case and applied for political asylum, which subsequently granted him permanent residency in January 2017. He then moved into his uncle and aunt's house in Houston, where he found work as a day laborer, but occasionally supplemented his income with petty thefts. In November 2017 and February 2018, he was arrested twice more for trespassing and theft but was not brought to trial and got away with paying a fine. Despite his repeated criminal behavior, Escobar was not known as a violent individual and most of his friends and acquaintances spoke positively of him.
Murders
Texas killings and flight
The murders began on August 26, 2018, when Escobar beat to death his 65-year-old uncle, Rogelio, with a police baton at his house in Houston. After the murder, he did not take measures to cover up the crime, but only disposed of his uncle's corpse. He then left Rogelio's backpack, shoes, and shirt on the porch of the house, which aroused the suspicion of his aunt, 60-year-old Dina. 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. He then stole his aunt's van and traveled to Galveston, where he left it at a beach and set it on fire to cover-up his crimes.
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. Soon after, Escobar fled the state and drove with his 2004 Honda CR-V to California. Over the next few weeks, he lived in various homeless encampments around Los Angeles, blending in with local transients and drifters.
Serial murders
In the early hours of September 8, Escobar attacked another homeless man while he was sleeping on a beach in Santa Monica. Despite being repeatedly beaten with a baseball bat and sustaining severe head injuries, the victim survived the assault. Two days later, Escobar attacked another homeless man, 51-year-old Juan Antonio Ramirez, who also suffered a head injury. However, unlike the previous victim, Ramirez fell into a coma and subsequently died in January 2021.