12 MURDERS + 45 RAPES! MAGA!
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/26/us/joseph-james-deangelo.html
What We Know About Joseph James DeAngelo, the Golden State Killer Suspect
By MATTHEW HAAGAPRIL 26, 2018
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A photo of Joseph James DeAngelo was displayed during a news conference in Sacramento announcing his arrest. Credit Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
From 1976 to 1986, one man struck fear in the hearts of Californians from Sacramento to San Francisco to Los Angeles, killing 12 people, raping at least 45 people and burglarizing more than 120 homes in meticulously planned crimes.
He was known by many names: the Golden State Killer, the East Area Rapist, the Diamond Knot Killer and the Original Night Stalker. But until last week, decades of detective work had not uncovered the name of Joseph James DeAngelo.
A statewide hunt for the suspect finally ended on Tuesday, when the authorities said that they had arrested Mr. DeAngelo, 72, and that he was responsible for the series of murders and rapes. In the end, the decades-long hunt for the infamous figure ended not far from where the case started. Here’s what we know so far about the suspect.
He was a former cop who served in the Navy
The Golden State Killer usually struck at night after carefully planning his attack, even down to the smallest details, ahead of time. He studied his victims’ schedules, broke into their homes and unlocked windows or removed screens in preparation for his return. He turned off porch lights and hid shoelaces and ropes to use later to bind his victims.
In one attack, he hid in a couple’s closet, waited for them to fall asleep and then announced himself, shining a flashlight on them, according to a retired Sacramento County sheriff’s deputy. When the husband reached for a gun next to him in bed, the attacker flashed the light on the bullets he was holding. He had already emptied the gun.
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His patience, reconnaissance and ability to escape manhunts, as well as the intricate knots he used to bind victims, led detectives to believe he had served in the military or in law enforcement. Mr. DeAngelo did both.
Photo
An F.B.I. investigator entered the home of Mr. DeAngelo in Citrus Heights, Calif. Credit Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
He served in the Navy during the Vietnam War, working as a damage control man on the U.S.S. Canberra, according to a June 1967 article in The Auburn Journal in Auburn, Calif., where his parents lived.
From 1973 to 1976, Mr. DeAngelo was an officer with the Exeter Police Department in Exeter, Calif., a small city about 50 miles southeast of Fresno. In 1976, the same year as the first attack, Mr. DeAngelo joined the Auburn Police Department, about 20 miles northeast of Sacramento. But he was fired in 1979, after he was charged with stealing dog repellent and a hammer from a drugstore.
He lived near where many of the attacks took place
When the authorities announced the arrest of Mr. DeAngelo on Tuesday, they said they had long believed the case would end near where it started. He lived with his daughter and granddaughter, according to KTVU-TV in Oakland, in a home in Citrus Heights, a city northeast of Sacramento.
The first 15 attacks occurred in the Sacramento area, including four in Citrus Heights. Not until 1978, after at least 30 attacks, were crimes committed outside that area.
The F.B.I. and local authorities were seen removing items from Mr. DeAngelo’s home on Wednesday. Neighbors said that he was meticulous — he mowed his lawn to exacting detail — and that he was prone to outbursts and yelling curse words. “He liked the F word a lot,” one neighbor told The Associated Press.
He was engaged to one woman and married another
When Mr. DeAngelo was 24, he was engaged to a woman who lived in Auburn, Bonnie Jean Colwell, according to an announcement in The Auburn Journal. They both attended Sierra College, a community college in Northern California. But they did not marry.
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Her brother, James Huddle, told Oxygen.com on Wednesday that the couple raised three daughters but separated at some point. Mr. Huddle said he was stunned by Mr. DeAngelo’s arrest, but said Mr. DeAngelo once brought up the Golden State Killer case in a conversation with him.
He retired from the grocery business last year
For 27 years, Mr. DeAngelo worked at a distribution center for the grocery store Save Mart, the company told The Sacramento Bee, before he retired in 2017. The distribution center is in Roseville, a suburb of Sacramento.
It is unclear where Mr. DeAngelo worked from 1979, when he left the Auburn Police Department, to the early 1990s, when he joined Save Mart. “None of his actions in the workplace would have led us to suspect any connection to crimes being attributed to him,” a Save Mart spokesman told The Sacramento Bee.
DNA connected the cases and led to his arrest
Before 2001, detectives in California knew there had been a string of unsolved murders and rapes in Southern California and a set of attacks in Northern California. But a criminalist in Contra Costa County finally linked the two sets of cases to the same man in 2001, thanks to DNA evidence and new technology.
And it was DNA that led detectives to Mr. DeAngelo last week. The authorities have not said how they first became aware of him. But last week, they surveilled him and surreptitiously collected his DNA from two items he had discarded, law enforcement officials said on Wednesday.
The results came back as a match to the Golden State Killer cases, and he was finally arrested.
http://time.com/5254793/golden-state-killer-caught-suspect-joseph-james-deangelo-police/
Police Say the Golden State Killer Has Been Caught. Who Is Suspect Joseph James DeAngelo?
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By Alix Langone
April 25, 2018
An arrest has finally been made in the decades-long investigation into the Golden State Killer, an alleged rapist and murderer who terrorized communities in at least 10 counties across California in the 70s and 80s.
Joseph James DeAngelo, 72, a former police officer, was arrested Tuesday night and booked on two counts of murder Wednesday in Sacramento County.
DeAngelo is believed to the serial killer and rapist who eluded multiple law enforcement agencies, including the FBI, for decades. Known interchangeably as the East Area Rapist and the Golden State Killer, the suspect was tied to the more than 45 rapes, 12 murders and various burglaries using the most innovative DNA technology available.
A vigorous multi-agency investigation into the alleged crimes was reignited in 2016 after a push by Sacramento District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert, who said at a news conference Wednesday she was motivated to find closure for the East Area Rapist’s victims before the 40th anniversary of his first attack.
“The answer has always been in Sacramento,” she said. “We all knew as part of this team that we were looking for a needle in a haystack, but we knew the needle was there.”
Schubert said it was only in the last six days that evidence began conclusively pointing investigators to DeAngelo. Sacramento Sheriff Scott Jones said after initiating some surveillance, police obtained a discarded DNA sample from DeAngelo and he was apprehended in “a perfectly executed arrest.”
Police believe he is connected to some 175 crimes overall between 1976 and 1986.
Here is everything we know so far about Joseph James DeAngelo, the alleged Golden State Killer:
Who is Joseph James DeAngelo?
DeAngelo had been living in a suburban neighborhood of Sacramento called Citrus Heights. It is unclear whether or not he lived alone, but police confirmed he has adult children and said family members have so far been cooperative in their investigation.
A neighbor, Kevin Tapia, 36, who grew up next door to DeAngelo, told the Associated Press he used to hear DeAngelo cursing to himself in his backyard, and that he was “a weird guy” who kept to himself.
In pictures from a local reporter’s Twitter account, DeAngelo’s Sacramento home on Canyon Oak Rd. can be seen. DeAngelo appeared to be living a regular retiree’s life, with a boat, a motorcycle and a Volvo, as well as one other car on his property.
When was he a police officer?
DeAngelo was a police officer in two different California counties in the 1970s. He first worked for the Exeter, Calif. police department and then for the Auburn, Calif. police department.
He was employed as a police officer during the time that some of the Golden State Killer crimes occurred, though it is not known if he was on duty as a police officer when any of the crimes were committed.
The Auburn police department fired DeAngelo after he was arrested for stealing a hammer and a can of dog repellant from a store.
Jones said police will look into whether a hammer or dog repellant was used in any of the crimes DeAngelo is accused of committing.
He said authorities do not have a clear picture of where DeAngelo went after being fired from Auburn.