JOSEPH JAMES DeANGELO — -THE GOLDEN STATE KILLER
Joseph James DeAngelo has Michelle McNamara, Paul Haynes, Patton Oswalt and Billy Jensen to thank.
Along with the Sacramento police department.
That the EAR-ONS — short for the East Area Rapist-Original Night Stalker — case vigorously stirred their passion, consumed them and became their unyielding obsession would be to understate the obvious.
Somehow, the pursuit of a man who had terrorized California for over a decade beginning in 1976 — with warm-up acts in ’74 and ’75 — by committing at least 12 murders, 50 acts of rape and more than 100 burglaries, had either been lacking or had flown very much under the radar.
As late as 2008 there was little in the way of public awareness.
Not so for Haynes though, who was astonished to find that concrete leads seemed non-existent. His curiosity had been piqued and he became the Eveready-powered dog, forever nipping at the cuff.
Michelle McNamara, the wife of actor/comedian Patton Oswalt, was an American freelance writer and crime blogger. A 1992 graduate of Notre Dame with a bachelor’s degree in English, she then earned an MFA in creative writing from the University of Minnesota.
In 2006 she launched her website True Crime Diaries catalyzed by her long-standing fascination with real-deal crime. The unsolved murder of Kathleen Lombardo which was committed two blocks from where she lived as a child no doubt fueled her burgeoning interest.
McNamara got wind of the Golden State Killer case and began to investigate it, writing pieces about the serial killer for Los Angeles Magazine in 2013 and 2014.
She had developed a long-term friendship with true crime investigative journalist Billy Jensen with whom she sat on an SXSW Interactive panel called, “Citizen Dicks: Solving Murders With Social Media.”
In fact it was McNamara who coined the “Golden State Killer” moniker after authorities were able to link DNA evidence connecting the Original Night Stalker and East Area Rapist.
She signed a book deal with HarperCollins and went to work.
“I’ll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman’s Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer” was posthumously updated and finalized by Haynes and Oswalt and released on February 27, 2018 nearly two years after McNamara’s death.
The book reached #2 on The New York Times Best Seller list (nonfiction) and #1 on the combined print and e-book nonfiction list.
HBO announced that it had purchased the book’s rights and would adapt it as a documentary series to be directed by Liz Garbus.
Filming for the series began on April 24, 2018.
On April 25, 2018 Sacramento police arrested Joseph James DeAngelo as the alleged Golden State Killer.
“He’s the maltreated hero in the story. Staring up at him anguish-eyed is a rotating cast of terrified faces. His distorted belief system operates around a central, vampiric tenet…There’s a scream permanently lodged in my throat now. When my husband, trying not to awaken me, tiptoed into our bedroom one night, I leaped out of bed, grabbed my nightstand lamp, and swung it at his head.”
McNamara had assembled much of the book before her untimely passing; she lived with the Golden State Killer 24/7 as evidenced by her 3,500 computer files on the case. Despite her obsessive-compulsive persistence and honed sleuthing skills she did not identify the killer.
Haynes and Jensen promised Oswalt that they would carry the ball to paydirt. “We will not stop until we get his name.”
His name: Joseph James DeAngelo.
Victor Hayes is able to put a face to that name.
At 21, Hayes rented a duplex close to his family’s home in East Sacramento near the American River Parkway — 23 miles of bicycle and jogging paths propped up on levees — the perfect environment for someone to commit a crime, vacate the scene and elude capture.
It was a Friday night in October of 1977 Hayes, now 62, recalled in excruciatingly vivid detail.
Hayes went to bed before his girlfriend and was awakened by a bright light shining in his eyes. He was looking up at a man holding a flashlight as a police officer might, elbow bent and overhand. In his other hand was a revolver and from behind the dark ski mask came this chilling admonition whispered through clenched teeth:
“Don’t move or I’ll kill you.”
Producing a pair of shoelaces, the intruder instructed Hayes’ seventeen-year-old-girlfriend to tie his hands behind his back as he lay on his stomach and then ordered her to retrieve some cups and plates from the kitchen.
Carefully balancing the objects on the small of Hayes’ back, a makeshift alarm system had been created. Reiterating that he would kill Hayes if he made any noise, the man grabbed the shotgun leaning against the wall, took the young woman to another room and raped her.
Periodically checking on Hayes while continuing to threaten him with his life, the rapist leaned down and whispered in his ear that “[he was] gonna party with Sharon.”
Sharon was Hayes’ 39-year-old mother who lived a few blocks away.
Hayes painfully remembered, “So, right then and there, that told me, ‘Hey, I know who you are. I got dominance over you.’”
Hayes and his girlfriend would become the Golden State Killer’s 24th assault.
Paul Holes, a retired Contra Costa crime lab chief who helped capture DeAngelo acknowledged that this detail was “very interesting,” but not surprising.
Men were present in the majority of the attacks and Holes’ theory was that the rapist picked couples based on prior interactions with the man, not the woman.
“Victor was possibly the intended target of the attack,” Holes said. “It’s absolutely in line with what the Golden State Killer would’ve done.”
Further, Holes presented the disturbing and suffocatingly sad possibility that “in many ways the men feel like they’ve failed to protect their loved ones.”
For his part Hayes, who may agree to testify to help describe the “signature traits” of the East Area Rapist, is suing the Auburn Police Department, DeAngelo’s employer during his three year reign of terror.
He believes DeAngelo was on duty during the attack that forever changed his life, haunting him to this day.
“It’s shaped the way I’ve been my whole life,” he forlornly conceded. “It’s made me distrustful of people in authority. I’m quick to be able to notice faults in people.”
Joseph James DeAngelo, a 72-year-old former police officer and grandfather — and a conviction away from officially being one of the country’s most notorious serial killers — evaded capture for four decades.
DNA samples, swabbed from his car door handle and collected from a trash can outside his Citrus Heights, CA. home along with genetics spelled and then sealed his doom.
Holes used DNA recovered from a crime scene to find the alleged killer’s great-great-great grandparents who lived in the early 1800s.
Painstakingly creating 25 family trees containing thousands of relatives up to the present day led to the not-quite-avuncular retiree, quietly living his golden years in the sleepy Sacramento suburbs.
Strange encounters with DeAngelo, who was thought to be residing in a home with his daughter and granddaughter at the time of his arrest, were indelibly etched into the memories of neighbors.
Eddy Verdon remembered meeting DeAngelo after moving to the area. He described him as nosy, eventually finding him on his property about three years ago. When he heard suspicious noises and checked his garage, there was DeAngelo ready to flee on his bicycle.
“I stared him down and he looked at me nervously,” Verdon said. “I never really interacted with him again. Maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea.”
Authorities began revisiting the case in 2016, roughly 40 years after the first known attack. While investigations reached far and wide — even to Australia — DNA evidence effectively wrapped up the expansive long-standing search with a nice, tidy bow.
Echoed Sacramento County District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert, “For over 40 years, countless victims have waited for justice. We found the needle in the haystack and it was right here in Sacramento. The answer was always going to be in the DNA.”
For six days police had DeAngelo under close watch before confronting him and said that he was “very surprised” at the unexpected arrest. Of the more than 50 rape cases all over California in which he is a suspect, the majority have exceeded the statute of limitations.
And while 10 people were killed in California after he was fired from the Auburn police department, the bulk of the rapes were committed while he was still ‘protecting and serving’ the unwitting public.
In the meantime DeAngelo, charged with 12 counts of first degree murder in counties around the state, had a July 12th. court hearing in Sacramento County postponed until September 5th so the defense can review additional discovery material provided by the prosecution.
Attorney Diane Howard, his court-appointed representation has yet to enter a plea on her client’s behalf.
“I’m sorry Mom…Mommy, please help me, I don’t want to do this mommy…Mommy, I don’t want to do this. Someone please help me…”
“Don’t move or I’ll blow your fucking brains out…Bitch, I’ll blow your brains out if you try something like that again…Don’t move or I’ll blow your fuckin’ head off, do you see this gun?…Get on your stomachs. Don’t move motherfucker, or I’ll kill you…I’ll kill ’em. I’ll kill ‘em…”
“I hate you. I hate you. I hate you Bonnie…”
An angry retaliatory rapist, directing it sideways…a singular event making him angry and staying inside, manifesting itself over and over…Crying. Sobbing.
He was slender and in good shape, close to 6 feet tall with blonde or light brown hair but had an unusually tiny penis, police said…
“Merry Christmas, it’s me again…You’re never gonna catch me! It’s the East Area Rapist, you dumb fuckers…I am going to hit tonight. Watt Avenue…”
Lots of moving parts, but one thing appears clear.
So long Joe.
[Editor’s Note: This piece was written by Mr. Kaplan in August 2018.]
ADDENDUM: On Monday June 29, 2020 Joseph James DeAngelo appeared before Superior Court Judge Michael Bowman at the Sacramento State University Union Ballroom, a venue chosen to allow for social distancing, and pleaded guilty to 13 counts of first-degree murder and special cir-cumstances (including murder committed during burglaries and rapes), as well as 13 counts of kidnapping.
DeAngelo agreed to plead guilty to all charges to avoid the death penalty.
He likely will serve 11 consecutive terms of life without parole, with 15 concurrent life sentences and additional time for weapons charges.
He will waive his rights to appeal.
DeAngelo confirmed to Bowman that he understood the plea and confirmed he made the pleas of his own volition.
His sentencing is set for August.
