The Golden State Killer: Forty Years Free, Two Years Caught

Fifty Rapes, thirteen murders and a hundred burglaries between 1974 and 1986. But the perpetrator will only be known April 24th 2018. His name? Joseph De Angelo.

I had never heard of the Golden State Killer until my best friend mentioned it to me last year, she had listened to an episode of My Favourite Murder and then over coffee discussed the relentless and horrifying crimes of Joseph De Angelo.

I was instantly invested and had to learn everything about the case.

That is when I procured a copy of Michelle McNamara’s book, I’ll Be Gone in the Dark, which has been developed into an HBO Documentary which is currently streaming.

Michelle McNamara was a brilliant author who has the capability to take true crimes which are supposed to have binaries, good and evil etc, and she turns it on its head. She gives everyone involved a sort of humanity, this person, victim or killer had a life, had a past and relationships and thoughts of their own. She was able to walk in the steps of both the survivor, the victim and the killer and to articulate those steps on a blank page. She does it in a human way without the sense of detachment, she submerses herself into their lives and does not tuck it away so she never has to see it again, she let it change her.

Michelle McNamara was not able to see her book published, or the Golden State Killer caught and identified in 2018 as she died in her sleep in 2016. Her husband, Patton Oswalt made sure the book was published. And two months after its publication, Joseph De Angelo was apprehended.

McNamara has been cemented as an underappreciated sleuth who outpaced the police in her search for the killer. Her work evidentially keeping him at the forefront of people’s minds and curiosities. She consolidated the Visalia Ransacker, the East Area Rapist and Original Night Stalker’s unsolved crimes for the public and officials to comb over and explore with fresh eyes. He didn’t even have an official moniker until McNamara gave him one.

The Golden State Killer had different Monikers that changed along with the developments of his crimes, when it came to burglary he was known as the Visalia Ransacker, before moving to the Sacramento area where he became known as the East Area rapist. He later became known as the original night stalker as Richard Ramirez received the "Night Stalker" moniker during his murder spree before DeAngelo's was widely known. He is believed to have taunted and threatened both victims and police in obscene phone calls, and possibly written communications.

Due to his constant changing of monikers, no one actually correlated one man to these identities, rather he was known as three different people until 2001.

One of ONS/EAR/GSK’s more chilling attacks has always stuck with me; the Kitchen Plates.

DeAngelo’s MO was to survey a home for days and weeks at a time before committing to his attack, he knows where everything is and where everyone is going to be. On Dec 2nd 1978, he breaks the glass near the lock of a home and unlocks it. He enters, going into the bedroom and shinning his flashlight on the couple sleeping in bed. The wife, a registered nurse at the time, wakes up and screams, waking her husband.

“Shut up or I’ll Kill” The assailant hisses through his gritted teeth, “Don’t look at me.”

The husband tries to get out of bed and protect his wife, attack the stranger, but he’s hit in the shin with the barrel of the gun twice. The Golden State Killer uses fear and threats of death and power to force the couple to do whatever he wants them to do. In those moments they become his toys, they become malleable. He forces the woman to tie her husband’s hands behind his back using torn strips of towel from the kitchen.

The assailant placed kitchen dishes on the husbands back, porcelain, loud, through his clenched teeth “I’ll kill you if I hear them fall.”

After raping the woman, the assailant leaves the room, and he sobs, pacing back and forth. Then he hears the porcelain echoing on the ground, it does not stop him from running back down the hall to the husband “Just try that again, and I’ll shoot your wife first, then you.” Dishes crashed to the floor twice and they were replaced both times, until he left the house and his victims behind.

The Golden State Killer, despite how brazen and horrifying his crimes is no where near as infamous as Ted Bundy and as The Son of Sam. But he would target houses just yards from each other, he walked away from an attack bottom half naked, he lived in the same area for thirty years after his attacked subsided and he was a police officer during the time.

That was one of the most shocking elements of the case for me, not the fact that the rape cases were not considered as important a crime during the 1970’s, not the fact that partners and husbands were not also thought of as victims but as witnesses, but the fact that DeAngelo was a former police officer.

He studied, attended college and graduated in Criminal Justice, he was a burglary unity police officer, he was promoted to sergeant, and served in Auburn from August 1976 to July 1979. He was fired after he was caught shoplifting a hammer and dog repellent from a hardware store in 1979. He married and had a daughter, and worked as a truck mechanic for a grocery store chain for 27 years.

He evidently had a past that was distinct from his criminal alias. He may have even celebrated occasions like birthdays and Christmases which is mind blowing to me. The idea that this person who is quintessentially evil has a birthday, had an occupation, had a family.

Fast forward 30 years later to 2018, detective Paul Holes and FBI Steve Kramer uploaded the Killer’s DNA profile from a Ventura County Rape Kit to the personal genomics website GEDmatch. The website identified 10 to 20 people who had the same relatives as the Golden State Killer, working with genealogist Barbara Rae-Venter, the small team of investigators used this list to construct a large family tree. From this tree, they established two suspects; one was ruled out by a relative's DNA test, leaving DeAngelo the main suspect.

On April 18, a DNA sample was surreptitiously collected from the door handle of DeAngelo's car, and later another sample was collected from a tissue found in DeAngelo's curbside garbage can. On 24th April 2018, the mask was finally lifted from this offender, with the arrest of Joseph James DeAngelo. DeAngelo was charged with thirteen murders and thirteen kidnapping/robbery cases.

The hearing and court cases were postponed for a number of reasons, the outbreak of the Coronavirus being one of them. But his hearing finally took place on 29th June 2020 in Sacramento.

It took place in a large university ballroom, to allow for victims and families to attend.

Under a plea bargain worked out between prosecutors and DeAngelo's defence attorneys, Joseph James DeAngelo admitted to and/or entered a plea guilty to a multitude of charges. He also admitted to numerous rapes, burglaries and other crimes.

During the hearing, he was forced to say "guilty" to all his crimes and "I admit" to offences for which he had not been charged.

DeAngelo, 74, is expected to be sentenced to life in prison in August at a second court hearing, where people hurt by his crimes will be allowed to read victim impact statements.

Even though the trial process is coming to a close, with DeAngelo being served life in prison by admitting to his crimes to avoid the death penalty, the world is only just beginning to understand the depths of pain and suffering this individual caused. But crimes such as these are often glamourized for thrills, and the actual survivors and victims are forgotten. This is not just a narrative, but it is real life, it was a moment in time for these people, which is something we must remember when we get invested and when we read the books. We could never completely understand the depth of emotion and pain that these people went through, so we must try and listen to their stories whenever we can.