generalspeaking

Pleading Guilty to Inhumanity

"The scope of Joseph DeAngelo's crime spree is simply staggering."
Thien Ho, assistant chief deputy district attorney, Sacramento County

"It [the crime spree] changed this community."
"People referred to him as the bogeyman. It wasn't a matter of if he was coming, it was when, because it happened so much and it went on for so long."
Anne Marie Schubert, district attorney, Sacramento County

"Everything else up to this time had failed."
"For 44 years, law enforcement has been trying to solve this case. No other case has had more resources poured into it in the history of California."
"I was just stunned."
Paul Holes, investigator, Contra Costa County District Attorney Office

"Over the years, we heard of homicides down in Southern California, and we thought it was the East Area Rapist."
"But he would not leave fingerprints, so we could not prove, other than his M.O., [modus operandi]  that he was the same person."
"We did not know anything about DNA."
Larry Crompton, retired detective, Contra Costa County Sheriff's Department

A depiction of the East Area Rapist aka the Original Night Stalker, aka Golden State Killer.

He pleaded guilty to multiple counts of murder, admitting to other crimes at a plea hearing in a California courtroom. He admitted that he was one of America's worst serial predators in reflection of a deal reached with prosecutors and a number of California counties where his serial predations took place. That admission and agreement spared him the death penalty, his crimes earning him life in prison without parole. How precious life is to this senescent 74-year-old; how meaningless it was when he impulsively, savagely, took the lives of other human beings.

He is a navy veteran, a former police officer. And he was found and arrested in 2018, decades following his years of stalking victims, raping, killing, tormenting entire communities with the fear of his ongoing atrocities. He was linked, thanks to modern technology and advanced detective work, to a series of attacks so brutal he became a byword for a monster at loose in the community, whose presence threatened more rapes, more deaths. But he was a careful predator, never leaving trace or track, skilled at what he did.

It took detectives on this cold case four decades and numberless investigative hours to finally agree that the crimes that took place in eleven California jurisdictions was the work of one individual, known as the East Area Rapist, the Original Nightstalker, Visalia Ransacker, and other dread identifiers. He was the Golden State Killer whose exploits kicked off in 1974 with over 100 home burglaries and a killing near Visalia in the Central Valley of California.

He graduated to rapes and murders, leaving women and often their male partners dead, and by 1986 suddenly it all came to a screeching halt. Not the fear, not the terror, but the deadly ravages of the communities. The storm was finally over, perhaps the man's passion for committing unspeakable acts of carnage was simply exhausted. The rampage that targeted Sacramento and the Bay Area from 1975 to 1979 ended. But not really, since he turned up in Southern California until 1986. And this time it was finished.

He was described by investigators as cunning, taking to observing his victims, plotting escape routes, then launching his attacks. Even more puzzlingly despicable, throughout all these heinous acts the man was a police officer in the town of Auburn, California. It all changed, the investigations failing to find clues, evidence of any kind, when Contra Costa county investigator Paul Holes and others made use of a technique originally developed to reunite adoptees with their birth parents.

A DNA profile of the killer was uploaded to a public DNA database scouring tens of thousands of other profiles in a search for matches. And the search finally found what the investigators were hoping for, guiding them ultimately to identifying the man who had ravaged California in a deadly wave of murder. When distant cousins were discovered in the DNA search, the team found a common ancestor, creating family trees from the past to the present. And one of the forking branches held DeAngelo.

The investigators who trailed him, finally took possession of material he discarded containing his DNA, which was tested against the DNA recovered from crime scenes, to produce a match. Which led to his April 2018 arrest. "I've done all those things. I've destroyed all their lives", he said admitting he was the perpetrator of unspeakable crimes. DeAngelo was wearing a face shield when he appeared at the hearing, to protect him from the coronavirus.

Joseph James DeAngelo, charged with being the Golden State Killer, is wheeled into the courtroom in Sacramento, California on Monday. The 74-year-old pleaded guilty to multiple counts of murder and other charges. [Rich Pedroncelli/AP Photo]

Joseph James DeAngelo, Jr. has officially admitted responsibility for 76 crimes committed by the Golden State Killer:
Count 1: Guilty of the murder of Claude Snelling
Count 1 (cont): Admitted to the attempted kidnapping of Beth Snelling
Count 1 (cont): Admitted to the attempted murder of Bill McGowen
Count 2: Guilty of the murder of Katie Maggiore
Count 3: Guilty of the murder of Brian Maggiore
Count 4: Guilty of the murder of Debra Manning
Count 5: Guilty of the murder of Robert Offerman
Count 6: Guilty of the murder of Cheri Domingo
Count 7: Guilty of the murder of Greg Sanchez
Count 8: Guilty of the murder of Charlene Smith
Count 9: Guilty of the murder of Lyman Smith
Count 10: Guilty of the murder of Patrice Harrington
Count 11: Guilty of the murder of Keith Harrington
Count 12: Guilty of the murder of Manuela Witthuhn
Count 13: Guilty of the murder of Janelle Cruz
Count 14: Guilty of the EAR Attack #4 of Jane Doe #1
Count 15: Guilty of the EAR Attack #16 of Jane Doe #2 and John Doe #1
Count 16: Guilty of the EAR Attack #17 of Jane Doe #3 and John Doe #2
Count 17: Guilty of the EAR Attack #18 of Jane Doe #4 and John Doe #3
Count 18: Guilty of the EAR Attack #20 of Jane Doe #5 and John Doe #4
Count 19: Guilty of the EAR Attack #21 of Jane Doe #6 and John Doe #5
Count 20: Guilty of the EAR Attack #22 of Jane Doe #7 and John Doe #6
Count 21: Guilty of the EAR Attack #24 of Jane Doe #8 and John Doe #7
Count 22: Guilty of the EAR Attack #25 of Jane Doe #9 and John Doe #8
Count 23: Guilty of the EAR Attack #37 of Jane Doe #10 and John Doe #9
Count 24: Guilty of the EAR Attack #38 of Jane Doe #11 and John Doe #10
Count 25: Guilty of EAR Attack #39 of Jane Doe #12 and John Doe #11
Count 26: Guilty of the EAR Attack #46 of Jane Doe #13 and John Doe #12
Count 28: Admitted to the EAR Attack #1 of Jane Doe #14
Counts 29 and 30: Admitted to the EAR Attack #2 of Jane Doe #15 and Jane Doe #16
Counts 31, 32, and 33: Admitted to the EAR Attack #2 of Jane Doe #17, Jane Doe #18, and Jane Doe #19
Counts 34 and 35: Admitted to EAR Attack #5 on Jane Doe #20 and John Doe #13
Count 36: Admitted to EAR Attack #6 on Jane Doe #21
Count 37: Admitted to EAR Attack #7 on Jane Doe #22
Count 38: Admitted to EAR Attack #9 on Jane Doe #23
Count 39: Admitted to EAR Attack #10 on Jane Doe #24
Count 40: Admitted to EAR Attack #11 on Jane Doe #25
Count 41: Admitted to EAR Attack #12 on Jane Doe #26
Counts 42 and 43: Admitted to EAR Attack #13 on Jane Doe #27 and Jane Doe #28
Count 44: Admitted to EAR Attack #14 on Jane Doe #29
Count 45: Admitted to EAR Attack #15 on Jane Doe #30
Counts 46 and 47: Admitted to EAR Attack #19 on Jane Doe #31 and John Doe #14
Counts 48 and 49: Admitted to EAR Attack #26 on Jane Doe #32 and John Doe #15
Counts 50 and 51: Admitted to EAR Attack #27 on Jane Doe #33 and Jane Doe #34
Count 52: Admitted to EAR Attack #28 on Jane Doe #35
Counts 53 and 54: Admitted to EAR Attack #29 on Jane Doe #36 and Jane Doe #37
Counts 55 and 56: Admitted to EAR Attack #23 on Jane Doe #38 and John Doe #16
Counts 57 and 58: Admitted to EAR Attack #30 on Jane Doe #39 and John Doe #17
Counts 59 and 60: Admitted to EAR Attack #32 on Jane Doe #40 and John Doe #18
Count 61: Admitted to EAR Attack #33 on Jane Doe #41
Counts 62 and 63: Admitted to EAR Attack #34 on Jane Doe #42 and John Doe #19
Counts 64 and 65: Admitted to EAR Attack #35 on Jane Doe #43 and John Doe #20
Count 66: Admitted to EAR Attack #36 on Jane Doe #44
Count 67: Admitted to EAR Attack #40 on Jane Doe #45
Counts 68 and 69: Admitted to EAR Attack #41 on Jane Doe #46 and John Doe #21
Count 70: Admitted to the EAR Attack #42 of Jane Doe #47
Count 71: Admitted to the EAR Attack #45 of Jane Doe #48
Count 72: Admitted to the EAR Attack #47 of Jane Doe #49
Counts 73 and 74: Admitted to the EAR Attack #44 of Jane Doe #50 and John Doe #22