'Night Stalker' Victim Says 'He Should Have Suffered More'

DIAMOND BAR (CBSLA.com) — Sakina Abowath was married to her husband for 3 years, 2 months and 28 days before he was shot and killed -- in cold blood -- by the "Night Stalker."

Abowath remembers little about the the evening 28 years ago when Richard Ramirez terrorized her, her husband Elyas and her two young boys.

She spoke with KCAL9's Thomas Wait.

Abowath recalls one of her sons calling out, 'Mama, mama. I can't breathe. I can't breathe."

Ramirez didn't end up hurting the boys, but he did murder Elyas -- one of his 13 murder victims.

"I'm still suffering ... still. Every day. He was a good human being. Excellent man. He was so nice. Nobody deserved what [Ramirez] did," says Sakina.

She remembers little about the night of August 8, 1985.

That's when the Night Stalker broke into their Diamond Bar home -- where Sakina was living with her husband and sons aged 3 and 8-weeks.

The first thing Ramirez did was shoot and kill Elyas. "I just hear the pop noise, pop. I get a big punch on my face and I'm on the floor."

Disoriented, Sakina didn't know what was going on. Ramirez then threatened to kill her children if she didn't hand over jewelry and cash.

She remembers, "He pulled my hair and he said look -- he put the dagger on my son's chest -- he said 'If you scream one time I will kill him.'"

Her two sons, now 30 and 28, were not hurt in the attack.

Sakina, ever the loving and protective mom, didn't tell her sons what happened to their father until they were teenagers -- she told them he had died of cancer.

"She's such a good mom she never wanted me to know about any of it. She held it in until I was 15," says one son.

As for how Ramirez died -- of liver failure at the age of 53 -- Sakina says he deserved worse: "He should have suffered the way I have suffered for 28 years. How much my husband suffered. My kids suffered, my husband suffered."

Sakina never remarried.