When a serial killer tried to be Sean Penn’s pen pal: “I hope gas descends upon you”
Sean Penn‘s status as Hollywood’s premier bad boy was uncontested in the 1980s. The fiercely talented young actor had a habit of delivering scintillating on-screen performances and violent off-screen outbursts in equal measure, and, in 1987, these indiscretions finally landed him in jail. While serving his time, though, Penn came in contact with genuine evil and was stunned when it sent him a letter seemingly designed to open up a dialogue. Naturally, Penn responded to this potential pen pal as only he could.
Penn’s breakout came with Fast Times at Ridgemont High in 1982, and he followed it with a string of intriguing roles. But it was his marriage in 1985 to another rising star, Madonna, that truly pushed him into the glare of the spotlight. The pairing was irresistible tabloid fodder, and from the beginning, Penn struggled with the attention, often reacting with open hostility to the media circus that followed them.
Between 1985 and ’86, Penn was arrested for decking photographers who got too close to him and his blushing bride, twice, and on a third occasion, he was charged with misdemeanour battery for assaulting a songwriter at a nightclub, whom he accused of trying to kiss Madonna. Then, in April ’87, while on probation for his previous offence, he doled out a knuckle sandwich to an extra on the set of the crime drama Colors. This was the final straw, and he was sentenced to 60 days in jail, with some of that sentence also stemming from a reckless driving charge.
Penn was clearly a volatile, angry young man, overwhelmed by the pressures of fame, and he more or less stayed that way throughout his career. But during a stint in LA County jail, he realised someone far more dangerous was sitting across from him: a brutal serial killer awaiting trial. That man would later be convicted of 13 murders, though it’s widely believed he committed many more, along with numerous rapes, assaults, and burglaries.
“After about a month of seeing each other around, he wanted my autograph,” a queasy Penn told The Hollywood Reporter in 2015. “So, he sent one of the deputies over, [and the] deputy came to my cell and told me, ‘Hey, Richard Ramirez wants your autograph.'” Yes, movie star Sean Penn was in the same jail as the ‘Night Stalker’, a killer who held Los Angeles in the grip of terror for the better part of a year.
“I didn’t trust the deputy, because I’d gotten in some trouble inside there,” Penn admitted, “And just passing a piece of paper is contraband, so you can get extra days for that. I already had extra days, and I didn’t want more. So I said, ‘Bring the sergeant down here, and I’ll talk to him. If he approves it, then I want him to write something first, and I’ll write him something back.'”
This sergeant dutifully approved the communication and returned with a message for Penn written by Ramirez himself. The short letter read, “Hey, Sean, stay tough and hit them again—Richard Ramirez, 666.” As a macabre creative flourish, though, Ramirez had signed it with a pentagram and a crude drawing of Satan.
Now, Penn may have been the angry sort who couldn’t stop getting into scraps, but he was by no means someone who wanted anything to do with a demon like Ramirez. So, he wrote back, “You know, Richard, it’s impossible to be incarcerated and not feel a certain kinship with your fellow inmates. Well, Richard, I’ve done the impossible: I feel absolutely no kinship with you. And I hope gas descends upon you before sanity does, you know? It would be a kinder way out.”
It’s unknown what Ramirez did or said when he received Penn’s unequivocal rejection of any further communication, but Penn kept the letter Ramirez wrote him for many years. However, when his Malibu home burned to the ground in 1993, he lost everything he owned, including the unnerving missive penned as an offer of friendship from a vicious killer.
