Richard Ramirez spent half of his life in prison; according to USA Today, executions were on hold for years in California due to "ongoing legal challenges." When he died of natural causes on June 7, 2013, at the age of 53, the coroner's office announced that the cause of death was "complications from B-cell lymphoma, a cancer of the lymphatic system." He'd also suffered from other "significant conditions," including chronic substance abuse prior to his incarceration and hepatitis c, a liver disease which is often spread via needles used to take drugs intravenously. 

As reported by the New York Post via anonymous sources, Ramirez's skin turned green toward the end of his life; one person described him as "look[ing] like a green highlighter pen." Ramirez's experience as a death row inmate is not uncommon; according to a 2015 article by Vocativ, of the 900 people sentenced to death in California since 1978, only 13 have been executed, meaning more people die of natural causes on death row than via execution.

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