Yahoo Finance 'Bill & Ted' co-writer Ed Solomon discusses time he was suspect in serial killer case
Bill and Ted co-writer Ed Solomon has revealed he was once a suspect in the hunt for a serial killer.
The 60-year-old screenwriter — who created Bill and Ted with Chris Matheson — shared a Twitter thread in which he told the bizarre story of how he was once the “prime suspect” in the murder spree of the killer known as the Night Stalker.
Richard Ramirez killed at least 14 people in the Los Angeles area during 1984 and 1985 and is the subject of new Netflix true crime series Night Stalker: The Hunt For a Serial Killer.
Read more: Bill and Ted writers reveal character origins
Solomon told his Twitter followers that he was woken up by a call in the summer of 1985, which he took for a prank, asking whether he was the Night Stalker.
He was already a jobbing writer at that stage, having worked on Happy Days spin-off sitcom Laverne & Shirley.
In August 1985 I was awakened by a call saying "Are you the Night Stalker?" I hung up, thinking it was a weird prank. But it kept happening. That's when I learned - from a reporter on the other end - that I was a prime suspect in that grisly RIchard Ramirez murder spree.
— Ed Solomon (@ed_solomon) January 21, 2021
Solomon explained that police visited his home because his car had been found at one of the crime scenes, but they were already fairly sure he wasn’t their man.
Having watched the news the next day, Solomon was able to piece together the fact that the car in question was one he had signed for in order to allow his college roommate to buy it.
The roommate had then sold the car on to someone else, who was eating in a Chinese restaurant when the car was stolen by Ramirez.
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Ramirez was arrested later that month and put on Death Row for his crimes, until he died in 2013 due to blood cancer.
Solomon stressed in a follow-up tweet that his entire “ordeal” only lasted for around five minutes and that he never felt like he was under any serious threat of being held by police.
And there was never a sense - aside from the jarring first call, which I hung up on saying "Who is this?" and then "Ha ha ha whoever this is" - of any real threat to me. Certainly because by the time they'd arrived they'd appeared to have already figured it out.
— Ed Solomon (@ed_solomon) January 21, 2021
Solomon worked in television during the 1980s before teaming up with Chris Matheson to pen the script that would become the 1989 movie Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure.
The duo also wrote the sequel Bogus Journey and the 2020 threequel Bill and Ted Face the Music.
Solomon’s other credits include Men in Black, Charlie’s Angels and the Now You See Me movies.
Read more: Solomon says Men in Black is still yet to turn a profit
He was also one of the writers who worked on the first X-Men movie, but he took his name off the film because he was not the sole writer who would be credited.
“It was stupid on a business level and it was stupid on a creative level. It was just juvenile, but it taught me a lot,” he added.
Watch: Bill and Ted writers talk about creating the characters
