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| José Ramirez Gonzalez’s Story: From Fast Food Killer Survivor to Family Man. |
José Ramirez Gonzalez is still living the life he fought so hard to keep. Nearly three decades after surviving the 1997 McDonald’s attack in Nashville, the former fast-food worker is now 59, a construction worker, husband and father living in Nashua, New Hampshire. He has also achieved something that once seemed far removed from that terrifying night: José became a US citizen in 2024, after spending almost 25 years as an undocumented immigrant.
José had only been working at the Nashville McDonald’s for three days when his ordinary night shift turned into a nightmare. He had moved from Mexico to the US in the mid-1990s in search of better opportunities, initially taking blue-collar work in Los Angeles before joining relatives in Nashville, where construction work was expected to provide his longer-term future. While waiting for that job to materialise, the McDonald’s offered something considerably less glamorous but rather useful: a pay cheque.
On March 23, 1997, José was working the overnight shift with Andrea Brown, Robert Sewell and manager Ronald Santiago. The group finished their duties and prepared to close the restaurant. Because José and Robert had finished their work, Ronald told them they could leave while he stayed behind with Andrea to secure the premises and make sure she got safely to her ride.
José had barely stepped outside when he saw a man holding a gun. The stranger ordered him and Robert back inside, leaving little room for debate. José followed the instructions and returned to the restaurant, where the attacker demanded access to the office and the safe before forcing the workers into a back stock room.
What followed remains the part of the story that makes José's survival so extraordinary. In the dark stock room, he could hear Andrea crying and knew his colleagues were beside him. Then came gunfire. José later recalled seeing flashes from the weapon and realised that the attacker was shooting the people around him before turning his attention towards him.
The gun was pointed directly at José's forehead, but when the attacker pulled the trigger, the weapon failed to fire. Whether it had run out of ammunition or malfunctioned became almost irrelevant in that split second. José saw an opportunity and took it, knocking the gun aside and fighting back.
The struggle quickly became another fight for survival. José was stabbed repeatedly, suffering wounds to his sides, neck and back. Eventually, with his strength disappearing, he made the desperate decision to stop moving and pretend to be dead. It was a grim bit of acting, but unlike most auditions, this one came with extremely high stakes and absolutely no room for a second take.
The plan worked. José sensed that the attacker had left the room and waited until he was certain the danger had passed. He then began crawling towards the office because he knew there was a landline there. Getting to it was another ordeal. He was severely injured and struggling even to lift his head, but he kept moving until he reached a bundle of wires and pulled them.
The telephone fell within reach, allowing José to contact emergency services. Responders initially searched the stock room before following the blood trail and discovering him. He was taken to hospital, where doctors found that he had suffered 17 stab wounds, including one that penetrated his chest cavity and injured his lungs.
José required four surgeries involving his lungs, left arm, head and back. He regained consciousness roughly two days later, but he was unable to speak. Detectives nevertheless needed his help because he was the only person from the attack who had survived.
Once he was able to communicate, José provided investigators with details about what had happened. He also worked with a sketch artist to produce a composite image of the attacker, which was distributed widely. Investigators showed him hundreds of mugshots as they searched for a possible match. José reportedly went through around 500 or 600 photographs before finally recognising Paul Reid in a photo lineup in June.
Reid would later become known in the media as the Fast Food Killer because of attacks involving other fast-food restaurants. José's identification gave investigators an important link to the man they believed was responsible, and José later appeared as a witness during Reid's 1999 trial.
Giving evidence cannot have been easy. José was still dealing with the physical consequences of his injuries and the memories of a night that had nearly ended his life. Yet he went ahead and testified, providing his account of what happened inside the restaurant.
In the years since, José has chosen to build his life around what came afterwards rather than allow the attack to define everything that came before or after it. He has continued working in construction, the industry he had originally hoped would provide him with stability after moving to Nashville. He is now based in Nashua, New Hampshire, with his wife and teenage daughter, while continuing to work in the construction industry around the Boston area.
His immigration journey also eventually reached a major milestone. José spent nearly 25 years as an undocumented immigrant before becoming a US citizen in the summer of 2024. After everything that happened to him, that achievement carries a very different meaning from simply ticking another box on a form. It represents the life he managed to build after a night that could easily have taken it away.
There is something particularly striking about José's story because survival here was not simply a matter of making it through the attack. He had to recover physically, face investigators, identify the person responsible, testify in court and then somehow return to the much less dramatic business of living an ordinary life. Construction jobs, family life and citizenship paperwork may sound mundane compared with a notorious criminal case, but perhaps that is precisely the point.
José's story is one of those cases where the most powerful part comes after the headline disappears. The attack itself is horrifying, but what stands out is how José gradually reclaimed the ordinary things that violence tried to take from him: work, family, stability and a future. His decision to keep moving rather than remain trapped in what happened is easier to admire than to imagine actually doing. There is also a strange irony in the fact that his eventual life sounds almost deliberately normal.
He works in construction, lives with his family and deals with the everyday responsibilities that millions of people complain about before remembering that boring can actually be a luxury. Becoming a US citizen in 2024 adds another meaningful chapter to that journey. José did not get to choose what happened that night, but he has spent decades choosing what happened afterwards, and that is arguably the part worth remembering.
Today, José Ramirez Gonzalez remains a survivor, construction worker and family man, living a life far removed from the Nashville restaurant where everything changed in 1997.
His story has resurfaced through A&E's I Survived a Serial Killer: The Fast Food Killer, giving viewers another look at the person behind the case rather than simply the name attached to it. If you have watched the episode, what stood out most about José's story? Share your thoughts — because after nearly 30 years, there is clearly much more to his story than the label attached to that one terrible night.