When Shelly Ramirez heard last week that her uncle Richard had died, she felt a huge sense of relief.

“I felt free,” she said. “What he did was sick. I’m sorry about what happened to the families.”

Ramirez, now 31, grew up in the shadow of her father’s brother, an infamous serial killer better known as the “Night Stalker” who brutally raped, killed, and mutilated 13 people in southern California during a two-year spree from 1984 to 1985. She was just 7 years old when he was convicted.