Local News in Brief : No Delay in Stalker Trial

Night Stalker defendant Richard Ramirez lost a bid Thursday to delay his trial on 13 murder charges stemming from a string of random, Satanism-tinged attacks that terrorized Californians in 1985.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Michael Tynan denied a defense motion to delay the trial, which is scheduled for Feb. 1. The judge also turned down a motion to bar the testimony of a 65-year-old Monterey Park woman who survived a sexual assault in one of the Night Stalker attacks.

Tynan earlier this week chided defense attorneys for seeking the delay, noting that he had given them more than a year to prepare the complex case.

Ramirez, 27, is charged in Los Angeles County with 13 murders and 30 other felonies stemming from a series of killings, rapes and burglaries, mostly in the summer of 1985. The attacker generally entered homes through unlocked doors at night and left pentagrams, a symbol associated with devil worship, scrawled at some of the crime scenes and on some of the victims.