The Golden State Killer is a serial killer, rapist, and burglar who committed at least 12 murders, more than 50 rapes, and over 100 burglaries in California from 1974 to 1986. He is believed to be responsible for three crime sprees throughout California, each of which spawned a different nickname in the press before it became evident that they were committed by the same person. In the Sacramento area he was known as the East Area Rapist, and was linked by modus operandi (MO) to additional attacks in Contra Costa County, Stockton, and Modesto. He was later known for his southern California crimes as the Original Night Stalker. He is suspected to have begun as a burglar (the Visalia Ransacker) before moving to the Sacramento area, based on a similar MO and circumstantial evidence; however, as of June 2018 no direct link had been revealed.
During the investigation, several suspects have been cleared through DNA evidence, alibi, or other investigative methods. In 2001, DNA testing indicated that the East Area Rapist and the Original Night Stalker were the same person and he was known as the "EAR/ONS". The FBI and local law-enforcement agencies held a news conference on June 15, 2016 to announce a renewed nationwide effort, offering a US$50,000 reward for his capture. To heighten awareness that the then-uncaught killer operated throughout California, crime writer Michelle McNamara called him the "Golden State Killer."
Authorities charged 72-year-old Navy veteran and former police officer Joseph James DeAngelo with eight counts of first-degree murder, based upon DNA evidence, on April 24, 2018. This was the first announcement connecting the Visalia Ransacker crimes to the Golden State Killer. Due to California's statute of limitations on pre-2017 rape cases, DeAngelo cannot be charged with late-1970s rapes.
Video Golden State Killer
Crimes
DNA evidence links the Golden State Killer to eight murders in Goleta, Ventura, Dana Point and Irvine; two other murders in Goleta, lacking DNA evidence, are linked by modus operandi (MO). Investigators suspect the same killer in three other murders: two in Rancho Cordova and one in Visalia. The offender also committed more than 50 known rapes in the California counties of Sacramento, Contra Costa, Stanislaus, San Joaquin, Alameda, Santa Clara and Yolo, in addition to hundreds of incidents of burglaries, peeping, stalking and prowling.
Visalia Ransacker (April 1974-December 1975)
It was long suspected that the training ground of the criminal who would become the Golden State Killer was Visalia, California (although the earlier crimes sprees of the 'Cordova Catburgler' or the 'Exeter Ransacker' are now suspected to be linked as well). From April 1974 to December 1975, the Visalia Ransacker is believed to have been responsible for one murder and around 120 burglaries. Most of the Ransacker's activities involved breaking into houses, rifling through (or vandalizing) the owner's possessions, scattering women's underclothing, stealing coins and low-value or personal items, while often ignoring banknotes and other valuable items in plain sight.
In late April 2018, the Visalia chief of police said that the department was "confident that the Visalia Ransacker has been captured." However, he acknowledged that the prime suspect (DeAngelo) was never a suspect in their investigations, no DNA evidence exists, and no other unsolved murders or rapes in the area were connected. The statute of limitations has expired for the burglaries, and no link between the September 1975 Claude Snelling murder and DeAngelo has been made.
East Area Rapist (June 1976-July 1979)
The Golden State Killer is believed to have moved to the Sacramento area, progressing from burglary to rape in mid-1976. The crimes initially centered on the unincorporated areas of Carmichael, Citrus Heights and Rancho Cordova, east of Sacramento. His initial modus operandi was to stalk middle-class neighborhoods at night in search of women who were alone in one-story homes, usually near a school, creek, trail or other open space that would provide a quick escape. He was seen a number of times, but always successfully fled; on one occasion, he shot and seriously wounded a young pursuer.
Most victims had seen (or heard) a prowler on their property before the attacks, and many had experienced break-ins. Police believed that the offender had a pattern of conducting extensive reconnaissance on several homes in a targeted neighborhood before selecting one for attack. As part of his surveillance, he was known to look in the windows of future victims and prowl in the yards of homes for several nights before attacking. On a few occasions, it is believed that in the run-up to attacks the offender entered the homes of future victims to unlock windows, unload guns and plant ligatures for later use. He frequently called them before the attack, sometimes for months in advance, to learn their daily routines; he would sometimes hang up, pretend to have the wrong number, or (in calls after the attack) threaten to harm the victims again.
Although he originally targeted women alone in their homes or with children, the offender eventually preferred attacking couples. His MO was to break in through a window or sliding glass door and awaken the sleeping occupants with a flashlight, threatening them with a handgun. Victims were then bound with ligatures (often shoelaces) which he found or brought with him, blindfolded and gagged with towels which he had ripped into strips. The female victim was usually forced to tie up her male companion before she was bound. The bindings were often so tight that the victims' hands were numb for hours after being untied. He then separated the couple, often stacking dishes on the man's back and threatening to kill everyone in the house if he heard them rattle. He moved the woman to the living room and often raped her repeatedly, sometimes for several hours.
The offender sometimes spent hours in the home ransacking closets and drawers, eating food in the kitchen, drinking beer, raping the female again or making additional threats. Victims sometimes thought he had left the house before he "jump[ed] from the darkness." The offender typically stole items, often personal objects and items of little value but occasionally cash and firearms. He then crept away, leaving victims uncertain if he had left. The offender was believed to escape on foot through a series of yards and then use a bicycle to go home or to a car, making extensive use of parks, schoolyards, creek beds and other open spaces which kept him off the street.
The rapist operated in Sacramento County from the first attacks in June 1976 until May 1977. After a three-month gap, he struck in nearby San Joaquin County in September before returning to Sacramento for all but one of the next ten attacks. The rapist attacked five times during the summer of 1978 in Stanislaus and Yolo counties before disappearing again for three months. Attacks then moved primarily to Contra Costa County in October and lasted until July 1979.
Murders
Young Sacramento couple Brian and Katie Maggiore, (the former of which a military policeman at Mather Air Force Base), were walking their dog in the Rancho Cordova area on the night of February 2, 1978, near where five East Area Rapist attacks had occurred. The Maggiores fled after a confrontation in the street, but were chased down and shot dead. Some investigators suspected that they had been murdered by the East Area Rapist because of their proximity to the other attacks' location, and a shoelace was found nearby. The FBI announced on June 15, 2016, that it was confident that the East Area Rapist murdered the Maggiores.
Original Night Stalker (October 1979-May 1986)
Shortly after a rape committed on July 5, the East Area Rapist moved to southern California and first struck in Santa Barbara County in October. The attacks lasted until 1981 (with a lone 1986 attack), and took a darker turn as the rapist began to kill his victims. Only the couple in the first attack survived, alerting neighbors and forcing the intruder to flee; the other victims were murdered by gunshot or bludgeoning. Since the East Area Rapist was not linked to these crimes for decades, he was known as the Night Stalker in the area before being renamed the Original Night Stalker after Richard Ramirez received the former nickname.
1979
On October 1, an intruder broke in and tied up a Goleta couple. Alarmed by hearing him say, "I'll kill 'em" to himself, the man and woman tried to escape when he left the room and the woman screamed. Realizing that the alarm had been raised, the intruder fled on a bicycle. A neighbor (an FBI agent) responded to the noise and pursued the perpetrator, who abandoned the bicycle and a knife and fled on foot through local backyards. The attack was later linked to the Offerman-Manning murders by shoe prints and twine used to bind the victims.
On December 30, 44-year-old Robert Offerman and 35-year-old Debra Alexandra Manning were found shot dead at Offerman's condominium on Avenida Pequena in Goleta. Offerman's bindings were untied, indicating that he had lunged at the attacker. Neighbors heard gunshots but failed to respond, saying that they thought the shots were innocuous. Paw prints of a large dog were found at the scene, leading to speculation that the killer may have brought one with him. The killer also broke into the vacant adjoining residence and stole a bicycle, later found abandoned on a street north of the scene, from a third residence in the complex.
1980
On March 13, 33-year-old Charlene Smith and 43-year-old Lyman Smith (who was about to be appointed as a judge) were found murdered in their Ventura home; Charlene Smith had been raped. A log from a woodpile on the side of the house was used to bludgeon the victims to death. Their wrists and ankles had been bound with drapery cord. An unusual Chinese knot, a diamond knot, was used on Charlene's wrists; the same knot was noted in the Sacramento East Area Rapist attacks, at least one confirmed case of which was publicly known.
On August 19, 24-year-old Keith Eli Harrington and 27-year-old Patrice Briscoe Harrington were found bludgeoned to death in their home on Cockleshell Drive in Dana Point's Niguel Shores gated community. Patrice Harrington had also been raped. Although there was evidence that the Harringtons' wrists and ankles were bound, no ligatures or murder weapon were found at the scene. The Harringtons had been married for three months at the time of their deaths. Patrice was a nurse in Irvine, and Keith was a medical student at UC Irvine. Keith's brother, Bruce, later spent nearly $2 million supporting California Proposition 69 authorizing DNA collection from all California felons and certain other criminals.
1981
On February 6, 28-year-old Manuela Witthuhn was raped and murdered in her Irvine home. Although Witthuhn's body had signs of being tied before she was bludgeoned, no ligatures or murder weapon were found. The victim was married; her husband was hospitalized, and she was alone at the time of the attack. Detectives noted that Witthuhn's television was found in the backyard, possibly the killer's attempt to make the crime appear to be a botched robbery.
On July 27, 35-year-old Cheri Domingo and 27-year-old Gregory Sanchez were the Original Night Stalker's 10th and 11th murder victims. Both were attacked in Domingo's residence on Toltec Way in Goleta (several blocks south Robert Offerman's condominium), where she was living temporarily; it was owned by a deceased relative and up for sale. The offender entered the house through a small bathroom window. Sanchez had not been tied, and was shot and wounded in the cheek before he was bludgeoned to death with a garden tool. Some believe that Sanchez may have realized he was dealing with the man responsible for the Offerman-Manning murders, and tried to tackle the killer rather than be tied up. Again, no neighbors responded to the gunshot. Sanchez's head was covered with clothes pulled from the closet. Domingo was raped and bludgeoned; bruises on her wrists and ankles indicated that she had been tied, although the restraints were missing. A piece of shipping twine was found near the bed, and fibers from an unknown source were scattered over her body. Authorities believed that the attacker may have worked as a painter or in a similar job at the Calle Real Shopping Centre.
1986
On May 4, 18-year-old Janelle Lisa Cruz was found after she was raped and bludgeoned to death in her Irvine home. Her family was on vacation in Mexico at the time of the attack. A pipe wrench, reported missing by Cruz's stepfather, was thought to be the murder weapon.
The southern California murders were not initially thought to be connected by investigators in their respective jurisdictions. A Sacramento detective strongly believed that the East Area Rapist was responsible for the Goleta attacks, but the Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Department attributed them to a local career criminal who was later murdered. Investigating the crimes not committed in Goleta caused local police to follow false leads related to men who were close to the female victims. One person, later cleared, was charged with two murders. The cases were linked almost entirely by DNA testing, many years later.
Maps Golden State Killer
Suspect profile
Known physical characteristics
These physical characteristics are considered factual based on crime-scene evidence and nearly-universal agreement by victims and law enforcement:
- White male
- About 5 ft 10 in (1.78 m) tall
- Slender, athletic build
- Size 9 to 9 1/2 shoe
- Type A blood
- Non-secretor: Sperm does not contain blood-group antigens.
- Physically agile and capable of sprinting, bicycling, and scaling fences
Probable characteristics
These physical characteristics are considered probable; a small percentage of victims described the perpetrator differently:
- 18-25 years old when the rapes began in 1976; authorities believe him to be between 60 and 75 years old in 2018.
- Blond or brown hair
- Blue or light-colored eyes
- Penis size "small" or "smaller than average"
According to the Sacramento County Sheriff's Department, microscopic paint chips were found at three crime scenes (two homicides and a rape). This suggests that the Golden State Killer may have worked in construction, possibly using a paint spray gun. Construction work had been ongoing near the 1979 Goleta murder scene, and a cold-case investigator contacted the developer in 2013 to identify subcontractors working at the site and obtain employment records.
Psychological profile
After criminologists matched serological evidence found at the southern California murder scenes, a speculative psychological profile of the Golden State Killer was compiled based on a probabilistic analysis. According to Leslie D'Ambrosia, primary author of the profile, the Golden State Killer probably had the following characteristics:
- An emotional age equivalent to a 26- to 30-year-old at the time the murders began in 1979
- Engaged in paraphilic behavior and brutal sex in his personal life
- Engaged in sex with prostitutes
- Had some knowledge of police investigative methods and evidence-gathering techniques
- Sexually functional, capable of ejaculation with consenting and non-consenting partners
- Dressed well and would not stand out in upscale neighborhoods
- Lived or worked near Ventura, California in 1980
- Good physical condition
- Skilled, experienced cat burglar, and may have begun as such
- Had a criminal record as a teenager which was expunged
- Had some means of income, but did not work in the early-morning hours
- Hated women for actual (or perceived) wrongs
- If married, probably has a submissive spouse who tolerated his sexually-deviant behavior
- Intelligent and articulate
- Probably began as a voyeur in his late teens or early twenties
- Neat and well-organized in his personal life, and drove a well-maintained car
- Peeped in the windows of many people who were not attacked
- Possibly unmarried, and did not enter into long-term relationships
- Self-assured and confident
- Would continue committing violent crimes until incapacitated by prison, death, or other intervention
- Would have been described by those who knew him as arrogant, domineering, manipulative, and a chronic liar
In addition to outlining the Golden State Killer's characteristics, the profile speculates that he might have been incarcerated after Janelle Cruz's murder or killed in the commission of a similar crime; however, the latter is unlikely since he contacted victims as late as 2001. Regardless, the profile recommends that law-enforcement agencies investigate attempted late-1980s hot prowl burglaries which resulted in the death of a lone male offender. It indicates a slight chance that the Golden State Killer committed suicide; he is unlikely to be confined in a mental institution.
According to the profile, teleprinter bulletins were broadcast to law-enforcement agencies throughout the United States after the original homicides. The bulletins requested information on similar home invasions involving sexual assault, murder, bludgeoning, multiple victims, and bondage. As of 2015, no similar crimes have been reported. The profile posits that the Golden State Killer could have continued committing his crimes in another country whose records were not linked.
Correspondence
Letters and other writings
"Excitement's Crave" (December 11, 1977)
In December 1977, letters containing a poem entitled "Excitement's Crave" by an individual claiming to be the East Area Rapist were sent to the editor of the Sacramento Bee, the Sacramento mayor's office, and the KVIE TV station. December 11 is the date that a masked man (probably the Golden State Killer) eluded pursuit by law-enforcement personnel after alerting authorities by telephone that he would strike on Watt Avenue that night. Although the authenticity of the poem has never been proven, his evasion of the police that morning may have inspired him to write it.
Excitement's Crave
Homework pages and punishment map (December 9, 1978)
During the investigation of the 42nd attack in Danville, investigators discovered three notebook leaves near the scene where a suspicious vehicle had reportedly been parked, although whether they originated from the East Area Rapist has not been proven. The first leaf appears to be an essay on General George Armstrong Custer. The second contains a journal-style entry where the author writes about a teacher who made their students write lines, which the author found humiliating:
Mad is the word, the word that reminds me of 6th grade. I hated that year ... I wish I had know what was going to be going on during my 6th grade year, the last and worst year of elementary school. Mad is the word that remains in my head about my dreadful year as a 6th grader. My Madness was one that was caused by disapointments that hurt me very much. Dissapointments from my teacher, such as feild trips that were planed, then canncled. My 6th grade teacher gave me a lot of dissapointments which made me very mad and made me built a state of haterd in my heart, no one ever let me down that hard befor and I never hated anyone as much as I did him. Disapointment wasn't the only reason that made me mad in my sixth grade class, another was getting in trouble at school espeically talking thats what really bugged me was writing sentances, those awful sentance that my teacher made ... me write, hours and hours Id sit and write 50-100-150 sentance day and night I write those dreadful Paragraphs which embarrased me and more inportant it made me ashamed of myself which in turn, deep down in side made me realize that writing sentance wasn't fair it wasn't fair to make me suffer like that, it just wasn't fair to make me sit and wright until my bones aked, until my hand felt every horrid pain it ever had and as I wrote, I got mader and mader until I cried, I cried because I was ashamed I cried because I was discusted, I cried because I was mad, and I cried for myself, kid who kept on having to write those dane sentances. My Angryness from Sixth grade will scar my memory for life and I will be ashamed for my sixth grade year forever
The last is a hand-drawn map of what appears to be a suburban neighborhood, with the word "punishment" scrawled across the reverse side of the paper. Investigators were unable to identify the area depicted in the map, although the artist clearly had knowledge of architectural layout and landscape design. According to Detective Larry Pool, the map is a fantasy location representing the Golden State Killer's desired striking ground.
Phone calls
"I'm the East Side Rapist" (March 18, 1977)
On March 18, 1977, the Sacramento County Sheriff's Office received three calls from a man claiming to be the East Area Rapist; none were recorded. The first two calls, received at 4:15 and 4:30 p.m., were identical and ended with the caller laughing and hanging up. The final call came in at 5:00 p.m., with the caller saying: "I'm the East Side Rapist and I have my next victim already stalked and you guys can't catch me."
"Never gonna catch me" (December 2, 1977)
A man claiming to be the rapist called the Sacramento Police, saying: "You're never gonna catch me, East Area Rapist, you dumb fuckers, I'm gonna fuck again tonight. Careful!" The call was recorded and later released. Similarly to the previous call, the East Area Rapist attacked his next victim the same night.
"Merry Christmas" (December 9, 1977)
A previous victim received a phone call during the 1977 Christmas season which she attributed to her attacker. The caller said, "Merry Christmas, it's me again!"
"Watt Avenue" (December 10, 1977)
Shortly before 10:00 p.m. on the night of December 10, 1977, dispatchers from the County of Sacramento's Sheriff's Department and the City of Sacramento's Police Department received identical calls saying: "I am going to hit tonight. Watt Avenue." Both were reportedly recorded, and the caller was identified as the same person who placed the December 2 call. Law-enforcement patrols were increased that night in response, and at 2:30 a.m. sheriff's deputies spotted a masked man bicycling on the Watt Avenue bridge; he eluded them. He was located again at 4:30 a.m. by city police. He discarded the bike, which was determined to have been stolen in Redding, California, and fled on foot.
"Gonna Kill You" (January 2, 1978)
The first known rape victim received a wrong-number call asking for "Ray" on January 2, 1978. The call was recorded, and police suspect that it may be the same caller who made a threatening call to her later that evening. That call was also recorded and identified by the victim as the voice of her assailant. The caller said, "Gonna kill you ... gonna kill you ... gonna kill you ... bitch ... bitch ... bitch ... bitch ... fuckin' whore."
Counseling service (January 6, 1978)
A volunteer for the Contact Counseling Service answered a call from a man claiming to be the East Area Rapist, who said: "I have a problem. I need help because I don't want to do this anymore." After a short conversation the caller said, "I believe you are tracing this call" and hung up.
Later calls
In 2002, a previous victim who was working at a Denny's restaurant received a call at work from the rapist during which he said that he would rape her again. According to Contra Costa County District Attorney Paul Holes, the rapist must have gone to the restaurant and recognized one of his victims working there.
In 1991, a previous victim received a phone call from the perpetrator and spoke with him for one minute. She could hear a woman and children in the background, leading to speculation that he had a family. On April 6, 2001, the day after an article was published in the Sacramento Bee confirming that the Original Night Stalker and the East Area Rapist were the same person, a victim of the rapist received a call from him; he asked, "Remember when we played?" before hanging up.
Investigation
Before officially connecting the Original Night Stalker to the East Area Rapist in 2001, some law-enforcement officials (particularly from the Sacramento County Sheriff's Department) sought to link the Goleta cases as well. The links were primarily due to similarities in modus operandi. One of the already-linked Original Night Stalker double murders occurred in Ventura, 40 miles (64 km) southeast of Goleta, and the remaining murders were committed in Orange County--an additional 90 miles (140 km) southeast. In 2001, several rapes in Contra Costa County believed to have been committed by the East Area Rapist were linked by DNA to the Smith, Harrington, Whithuhn, and Cruz murders. A decade later, DNA evidence indicated that the Domingo-Sanchez murders were committed by the Golden State Killer.
On June 15, 2016, the FBI released further information related to the crimes, including new composite sketches and testimony from victims and local and federal investigators. A press conference was held in Sacramento, where local law-enforcement agencies and the FBI announced a US$50,000 reward for information leading to the conviction of the Golden State Killer. The initiative included a national database to support law enforcement investigating the crimes and handle tips and information.
Suspects
During the investigation, several people were considered and eliminated as suspects:
- Brett Glasby, from Goleta, was considered a suspect by Santa Barbara County investigators. He was murdered in Mexico in 1982 (before the murder of Janelle Cruz), eliminating him as a suspect.
- Paul "Cornfed" Schneider, a high-ranking member of the Aryan Brotherhood. Schneider was a career criminal, living in Orange County, California, when the murders of the Harringtons, Manuela Witthuhn, and Janelle Cruz were committed. During the late 1990s, while an inmate at Pelican Bay State Prison in Crescent City, California, Schneider provided a DNA sample which cleared him.
- Joe Alsip, a friend and business partner of victim Lyman Smith. Alsip had visited the Smiths' home the day before Lyman and Charlene Smith were murdered, and Alsip's pastor said that he had confessed to him during a family-counseling session. Although the reported confession was considered dubious by the Ventura County District Attorney's Office, Alsip was arraigned for the Smith murders in 1982. After the preliminary hearing the charges against him were dropped, and his innocence was confirmed by DNA testing in 1997.
In November 2002, journalist Colleen Cason wrote a newspaper series about the murders for the Ventura County Star. According to Cason, Detective Larry Pool of the Orange County Sheriff's Department visited California's Death Row at San Quentin in an attempt to locate the Golden State Killer; Pool suspected that the killer had been captured and sentenced to death for another violent crime. However, no genetic samples collected from Death Row inmates matched the DNA of the Golden State Killer.
Joseph James DeAngelo
The Sacramento County Sheriff's Department arrested 72-year-old Joseph James DeAngelo during the afternoon on April 24, 2018, in connection with the crimes. DeAngelo, a former police officer in Auburn and Exeter, California, was charged with eight counts of first-degree murder with special circumstances. On May 10, the Santa Barbara County District Attorney's office charged DeAngelo with four additional counts of first-degree murder for the four killings believed to be committed by the Golden State Killer in that county. Before the arrest, law enforcement uploaded the Golden State Killer's DNA profile from an intact rape kit in Ventura County to the Florida-based personal genomics website GEDmatch. The website identified 10 to 20 distant relatives of the Golden State Killer (sharing the same great-great-great grandparents), from whom a team of five investigators constructed a large family tree. They identified two suspects in the case (one of whom was ruled out by a relative's DNA test), leaving DeAngelo the main suspect. On April 18, a surreptitious DNA sample was collected from the driver's-side door handle of a car DeAngelo was seen driving which was parked in a Hobby Lobby parking lot in Roseville, California. Five days later, another DNA sample was collected from a tissue found in DeAngelo's curbside garbage can. Both samples were consistent with the Orange and Ventura County suspect profiles. About four months elapsed between the first matches on GEDmatch and DeAngelo's arrest.
DeAngelo was born on November 8, 1945 in Bath, New York to Joseph James DeAngelo Sr. and Kathleen Louise DeGroat. He attended ninth grade at Mills Middle School in Rancho Cordova, California. He graduated from Folsom High School in June 1964. DeAngelo joined the U.S. Navy in September that year, and served for 22-months during the Vietnam War as a damage controlman on the cruiser USS Canberra, and received National Defense Service, Vietnam Service and Vietnam Campaign Medals. From August 1968, DeAngelo attended Sierra College, graduating an associate's degree in police science with honors in June 1970. He was engaged to Bonnie Colwell in May 1970; they were classmates at Sierra College, but they never married. Colwell purportedly called off the marriage. Investigators believe this might be connected to the offender reportedly saying, "I hate you, Bonnie!" during at least one of the attacks. In 1971, he attended Sacramento State, where he focused on criminal law and received a bachelor's degree in criminal justice. He then went on do to post-graduate work, before undergoing training (Kings County Public Safety Academy) at the College of the Sequoias in Visalia, and completing a 32-week police internship at Roseville Police Department.
He was then a police officer in Exeter (having relocated from Citrus Heights) from May 18, 1973 to August 1976. He married attorney Sharon Marie Huddle on November 19, 1973; they had three daughters, and separated in 1991. By 1976 he had been promoted to sergeant and was in charge of Exeter PD's government-funded "Joint Attack on Burglary" program. He then served in Auburn from August 1976 to July 1979, when he was caught shoplifting a hammer and dog repellent and was sentenced to six months probation in October that year. His employment history for the next decade is unknown. From 1990 until his retirement in 2017, DeAngelo was a truck mechanic at the Roseville distribution center for Save Mart Supermarkets. DeAngelo was living in Citrus Heights with a daughter and granddaughter at the time of his arrest. His brother-in-law, James Huddle, said that DeAngelo casually brought up the East Area Rapist in conversation around the time of the original crimes. Neighbors reported that DeAngelo frequently engaged in loud, profane outbursts.
Significance
The case was a factor in the establishment of California's DNA database, which collects DNA from all accused and convicted felons in California and has been called second only to Virginia's in effectiveness in solving cold cases. After DeAngelo's arrest, made after the suspect's DNA profile was compared to the 650,000 profiles on GEDmatch, concerns were raised (based on California's Online Privacy Protection Act and the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica data scandal) about the ethics of the secondary use of personally identifiable information.
Media
- Sudden Terror, Larry Crompton (2010)
- Hunting a Psychopath: The East Area Rapist/Original Night Stalker Investigation-The Original Investigator Speaks Out, Richard Shelby. Published September 15, 2014
- Case Files of the East Area Rapist/Golden State Killer, Kat Winters, Keith Komos. Published September 19, 2017
- I'll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman's Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer, Michelle McNamara. Published February 2018
- Unmasking a Killer: Five-part March 2018 HLN/CNN documentary
- 48 Hours: The Golden State Killer, CBS News, April 2018
- Murder On His Mind, Anne Penn (2017). ISBN 978-1549884207
See also
- "Night Stalker", a nickname for several criminals
References
Further reading
Literature
- Penn, Anne Murder On His Mind Serial Killer, publisher Amazon 2017 The Case of The Original Night Stalker, Golden State Killer, A Family Member Speaks publisher Amazon 2017 ISBN 9781549884207 Also First Edition published January 2017 ISBN 9781483593906
- McNamara, Michelle (2018). I'll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman's Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer. HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0-06-231978-4.
- Shelby, Richard (2015). Hunting a Psychopath: The East Area Rapist / Original Night Stalker Investigation - The Original Investigator Speaks Out. Booklocker. ISBN 978-1-63263-509-9.
- Winters, Kat; Komos, Keith (2017). Case Files of the East Area Rapist / Golden State Killer. CCW. ISBN 978-0-9994581-0-5.
Periodicals
- "Help Us Catch A Killer". Los Angeles. Archived from the original on March 2, 2013. CS1 maint: BOT: original-url status unknown (link) (includes numerous photos and maps)
- Unmasking A Killer. CNN. A Five-Part Series that profiles California's Most Prolific Uncaught Serial Killer.
Podcasts
- 3 Golden State Killer Podcasts That Go Deep on the Case - Time Magazine
Television
- "The Original Nightstalker". Cold Case Files (Season 2, Episode 22). A&E Television Networks.
- "Golden State Killer: It's Not Over". Golden State Killer: It's Not Over. Investigation Discovery.
External links
- Cold Case - EARONS at coldcase-earons.com
- EAR/ONS magazine - 188-page magazine of related photos and news articles (from Casefile)
- "The Original Nightstalker Map, Part 5a". casefilepodcast.com. Map of the EAR/ONS crimes.
- "East Area Rapist / Original Night Stalker". ear-ons.com.
- East Area Rapist / Original Night Stalker Casebook at earonscasebook.com
- East Area Rapist / Original Night Stalker Composites at earons.wordpress.com
- East Area Rapist and Bedroom Killer Casebook at sites.google.com
- GEDMatch: public genealogy database
- Map of the East Area Rapist / Original Night Stalker / Golden State Killer Crimes
- True Crime Diary at truecrimediary.com
- DeAngelo Hunt's Collection of newspaper clippings about the Golden State Killer at Newspapers.com
- Golden State Killer Timeline - detailed background and evidence of DeAngelo, his family, and the GSK crimes
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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