Post by ophion1031 on Jul 31, 2018 0:12:20 GMT -8
www.nytimes.com/2018/04/25/us/golden-state-killer-serial.html
By Thomas Fuller and Christine Hauser
April 25, 2018
SACRAMENTO — It was a rash of sadistic rapes and murders that spread terror throughout California, long before the term was commonly used. The scores of attacks in the 1970s and 1980s went unsolved for more than three decades. But on Wednesday, law enforcement officials said they had finally arrested the notorious Golden State Killer in a tidy suburb of Sacramento.
Joseph James DeAngelo, 72, who was taken into custody outside his home on Tuesday and charged with six counts of murder, had been living undisturbed a half-hour drive from where the 12-year rampage began. He was described as a former police officer, and his time in uniform partly overlapped with many of the crimes he is accused of committing.
The case was cracked in the past week, Sheriff Scott Jones of Sacramento County said on Wednesday, when investigators identified Mr. DeAngelo and were able to match his DNA with the murders of Lyman and Charlene Smith in Ventura County in 1980.
“We found the needle in the haystack and it was right here in Sacramento,” said Anne Marie Schubert, the Sacramento district attorney, who helped organize a task force two years ago that included investigators from across the state as well as the F.B.I. A DNA database showed links to other murders in Southern California, the authorities said Wednesday.
A series of rapes in an old gold mining area east of Sacramento in 1976 were first linked by the authorities for their geographic proximity, the similar description of the rapist — a white male with blond hair who was just under six feet tall — and the peculiar and cruel rituals that he inflicted on his victims. His victims included women home alone and women at home with their children. The suspect went on to rape women with their husbands present and then murder them both. He is also thought to have burglarized more than 120 homes.
He became an infamous figure, sometimes known as the Golden State Killer and other times as the East Area Rapist and the Original Night Stalker. His planning was meticulous and he seemed to know precise details about his victims’ schedules. They described the gravelly, angry whisper that he used as he tormented them. He wore gloves and a mask and was a predator with quirks: As his victims lay terrified, he would pause for a snack of crackers after raping them. He placed a teacup and saucer on the bodies of some of his victims and threatened them with murder if he heard the ceramic rattle.
With communities panicking — at one point his assaults averaged two victims a month — the authorities hired a range of experts to help them break the case, among them a military special forces officer and a psychic.
Then, when the rapes and murders appeared to end in 1986, the case went cold.
National interest was reignited this year with the publication of an exhaustive investigation into the serial killer’s identity, “I’ll Be Gone in the Dark,” written by Michelle McNamara, a crime writer who died in April 2016. The book, published in February, was completed after her death by a journalist and researcher recruited by her husband, the comedian Patton Oswalt.
By Thomas Fuller and Christine Hauser
April 25, 2018
SACRAMENTO — It was a rash of sadistic rapes and murders that spread terror throughout California, long before the term was commonly used. The scores of attacks in the 1970s and 1980s went unsolved for more than three decades. But on Wednesday, law enforcement officials said they had finally arrested the notorious Golden State Killer in a tidy suburb of Sacramento.
Joseph James DeAngelo, 72, who was taken into custody outside his home on Tuesday and charged with six counts of murder, had been living undisturbed a half-hour drive from where the 12-year rampage began. He was described as a former police officer, and his time in uniform partly overlapped with many of the crimes he is accused of committing.
The case was cracked in the past week, Sheriff Scott Jones of Sacramento County said on Wednesday, when investigators identified Mr. DeAngelo and were able to match his DNA with the murders of Lyman and Charlene Smith in Ventura County in 1980.
“We found the needle in the haystack and it was right here in Sacramento,” said Anne Marie Schubert, the Sacramento district attorney, who helped organize a task force two years ago that included investigators from across the state as well as the F.B.I. A DNA database showed links to other murders in Southern California, the authorities said Wednesday.
A series of rapes in an old gold mining area east of Sacramento in 1976 were first linked by the authorities for their geographic proximity, the similar description of the rapist — a white male with blond hair who was just under six feet tall — and the peculiar and cruel rituals that he inflicted on his victims. His victims included women home alone and women at home with their children. The suspect went on to rape women with their husbands present and then murder them both. He is also thought to have burglarized more than 120 homes.
He became an infamous figure, sometimes known as the Golden State Killer and other times as the East Area Rapist and the Original Night Stalker. His planning was meticulous and he seemed to know precise details about his victims’ schedules. They described the gravelly, angry whisper that he used as he tormented them. He wore gloves and a mask and was a predator with quirks: As his victims lay terrified, he would pause for a snack of crackers after raping them. He placed a teacup and saucer on the bodies of some of his victims and threatened them with murder if he heard the ceramic rattle.
With communities panicking — at one point his assaults averaged two victims a month — the authorities hired a range of experts to help them break the case, among them a military special forces officer and a psychic.
Then, when the rapes and murders appeared to end in 1986, the case went cold.
National interest was reignited this year with the publication of an exhaustive investigation into the serial killer’s identity, “I’ll Be Gone in the Dark,” written by Michelle McNamara, a crime writer who died in April 2016. The book, published in February, was completed after her death by a journalist and researcher recruited by her husband, the comedian Patton Oswalt.