SERIAL KILLER: The Golden State Killer

Summary

Podcast Summary: Serial Killer: The Golden State Killer

Podcast Information:

• Title: Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
• Host/Author: Crime House
• Episode: SERIAL KILLER: The Golden State Killer
• Release Date: April 30, 2025

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Introduction

In the gripping episode titled "Serial Killer: The Golden State Killer," hosts Morgan Abshur and Kayla Moore delve deep into one of California's most notorious criminal cases. Their exploration uncovers the intricate web of crimes committed by the Golden State Killer, tracing his heinous activities from burglaries to murders over more than a decade.

Notable Quote:

Morgan Abshur [02:28]: "Don't go anywhere because we're about to unpack how the Golden State Killer's reign of terror unraveled one unexpected clue at a time."

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Early Crimes: The Visalia Ransacker

The episode begins with the emergence of the Visalia Ransacker in May 1973. Unlike typical burglars, the Ransacker was driven by a psychological compulsion rather than monetary gain. His modus operandi included ransacking homes, stealing personal items like single earrings—which became his signature—and leaving behind chaos by spilling drinks and knocking over furniture.

Key Points:

• Behavior: Entered homes through unlocked doors or pried entry points, often staying for hours and using makeshift warning systems like balancing cups against doors.
• Signature Items: Single earrings, personalized jewelry, and non-essential items like collectibles and weapons.
• Psychological Aspect: The theft appeared to target sentimental value, indicating a deeper psychological motive.

Notable Quote:

Kayla Moore [07:36]: "Like the robbery felt more psychological than monetary."

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Escalation to Violence: Beth Snelling Case

By September 1975, the Visalia Ransacker escalated his crimes to violence. The kidnapping and subsequent murder of Claude Snelling marked a significant turning point, revealing the killer's propensity for brutality. Beth Snelling survived, providing a crucial eyewitness account, though initial investigations struggled to connect the dots due to vague descriptions and the limitations of forensic technology at the time.

Key Points:

• Victim Description: Caucasian male, approximately 5'9", 180 pounds, wearing a dark shirt and ski mask.
• Investigation Challenges: Overly broad descriptions led to a vast pool of suspects, and the use of hypnosis provided unreliable additional details.
• Outcome: The case went cold after eight months of investigation without leading to a suspect.

Notable Quote:

Morgan Abshur [11:18]: "It's at this point that it's very clear that these crimes are escalating."

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The East Area Rapist Emerges

In June 1976, a new wave of crimes began 200 miles north in Rancho Cordova, attributed to the East Area Rapist (EAR). The EAR's methods mirrored those of the Visalia Ransacker, including home invasions, sexual assaults, and the ransacking of bedrooms. This period saw a significant uptick in violent crimes, with the perpetrator targeting both solitary women and couples, often using psychological tactics to instill fear.

Key Points:

• Modus Operandi: Nighttime attacks, use of blindfolds and gags, binding victims, and leveraging household items to control the environment.
• Victim Demographics: Primarily women in their teens and 20s, though victims ranged from 13 to 40 years old.
• Police Response: Multiple composite sketches were released, but the broad descriptions hindered suspect identification.

Notable Quote:

Kayla Moore [20:23]: "It was a challenge to him."

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Linking the Crimes: The Role of DNA Evidence

Advancements in DNA technology became pivotal in connecting the Visalia Ransacker and EAR cases. Detective Paul Holes played a crucial role by re-examining old sexual assault kits with improved DNA profiling techniques. In 1996, DNA evidence linked multiple homicides across California, revealing that the same individual was responsible for both the original Night Stalker and the East Area Rapist crimes.

Key Points:

• DNA Profiling: Introduction of STR (Short Tandem Repeat) profiles in 2001 allowed for clearer genetic matches.
• Cold Case Revival: Michelle McNamara's dedication to the case, highlighted in her book "I'll Be Gone in the Dark," brought renewed attention and resources.
• Breakthrough: In 2018, using SNP (Single Nucleotide Polymorphism) genotyping and genealogical databases, investigators narrowed down the suspect pool to Joseph D'Angelo.

Notable Quote:

Morgan Abshur [36:32]: "So they didn't really know what to do after he left."

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Capture and Confession of Joseph D'Angelo

The culmination of decades-long investigation efforts led to the arrest of Joseph D'Angelo in April 2018. DNA evidence from his car and undiscarded sexual assault kits conclusively linked him to over 100 burglaries, nearly 50 rapes, and 13 murders spanning from 1975 to 1986.

Key Points:

• Background: D'Angelo was a former police officer with intimate knowledge of law enforcement procedures.
• Behavioral Clues: His ability to evade capture, manipulate situations, and the duality of his public persona versus his criminal activities.
• Trial and Sentencing: In June 2020, D'Angelo pled guilty to 13 counts of murder and admitted to dozens of rapes, receiving 26 life sentences without the possibility of parole.

Notable Quote:

Kayla Moore [60:57]: "He did have that moment where he was like, but it could be him."

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Aftermath and Ethical Implications

The resolution of the Golden State Killer case sparked significant debate regarding the use of public genetic databases in criminal investigations. GEDmatch's policy changes in 2019 restricted law enforcement access, raising concerns about privacy and the balance between solving crimes and protecting individual rights.

Key Points:

• Legislative Changes: States like Maryland and Montana enacted laws restricting police access to genetic databases.
• Advocacy Efforts: Victim advocates, such as Bruce Harrington, pushed for expanding DNA databases to include all felons, ensuring broader coverage for future investigations.
• Ongoing Debate: The case highlighted the ethical dilemmas surrounding genetic privacy, consent, and the potential for misuse of genealogical data.

Notable Quote:

Morgan Abshur [66:21]: "Is there anything for you from this case that, you know, just. You can't get over or, you know, maybe a clue we didn't touch on?"

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Conclusion

The "Serial Killer: The Golden State Killer" episode of Clues offers a comprehensive and engaging examination of one of America's most chilling criminal cases. Through meticulous storytelling and forensic analysis, Morgan Abshur and Kayla Moore illuminate the relentless pursuit of justice by both law enforcement and dedicated civilians. The episode not only chronicles the dark history of the Golden State Killer but also underscores the profound impact of technological advancements and community advocacy in solving cold cases.

Final Notable Quote:

Kayla Moore [72:56]: "For over 40 years, he hid behind masks, shadows, and fear. But in the end, his DNA gave him away."

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Connect with Clues:

• Instagram: @CluesPodcast
• YouTube: CluesPod

Recommendation: For a deeper understanding of the case, listeners are encouraged to read Michelle McNamara's "I'll Be Gone in the Dark" and Paul Holes' "Unmasked," which provide extensive insights into the investigation and eventual capture of Joseph D'Angelo.

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This summary captures the essence of the podcast episode, ensuring that the key discussions, insights, and conclusions are conveyed effectively for those who have not listened to the original content.

Transcript

[Kayla Moore]

Foreign.

[Morgan Abshur]

This is Crime House.

[Kayla Moore]

If I tell the cops, he'll kill again. If I don't tell the cops, he'll kill again. And so you're just paralyzed.

[Morgan Abshur]

And shortly after he was the victim.

[Kayla Moore]

And he had this thought of if this actually is the Golden State Killer. And I walk into his house right now as a cop and say, I'm looking for the Golden State Killer. This guy's going to kill me.

[Morgan Abshur]

And so we got him. DNA evidence, LinkedIn. And so we have our Golden State Killer. Hi, guys. Welcome to Clues, where we sneak past the crime scene tape to explore the key evidence behind some of the most gripping true crime cases.

[Kayla Moore]

And these aren't just ordinary cases. They're complex puzzles where forensic science, investigative techniques and sheer grit collide in order to uncover the truth and deliver justice. I'm Kayla Moore and I'll be piecing together the timelines and bringing the history to break down the hard facts of these cases.

[Morgan Abshur]

And I'm your Internet sleuth, Morgan Abshur. I'll be diving into the theories and pulling out the threads that may or may not add up.

[Kayla Moore]

Each week on Clues, we'll explore how even the smallest pieces of evidence, like a microscopic fiber, a partial fingerprint, even a single strand of hair, could lead to groundbreaking discoveries and might even bring long awaited justice. These clues shine a light on stories that have been waiting, sometimes for decades, to finally be heard. So join us as we uncover the breakthroughs, the heartbreak, and the relentless pursuit of answers behind these unforgettable investigations.

[Morgan Abshur]

And Clues is a part of Crime House. And at Crime House, we really value your support. So please share your thoughts on social media and and remember to rate, review and follow clues so we can help others discover our show. For bonus episodes, early access and ad free listening, join our Crime House plus community on Apple Podcasts. The Golden State Killer terrorized California for over a decade, sneaking into sleeping couples suburban homes and leaving behind crime scenes that made police sick to their stomachs. He was sneaky, he seemed superhuman at times, and his tactics were only described as overkill. He was also known by many names. The East Area Rapist, the original Night Stalker, the Visalia Ransacker. But today, because of some very vital clues, we now know him by his actual name.

[Kayla Moore]

Don't go anywhere because we're about to unpack how the Golden State Killer's reign of terror unraveled one unexpected clue at a time. And how a serial killer who hid in plain sight for so long was finally exposed.

[Morgan Abshur]

I'm excited for today's episode I did not know a lot about this case until 24 hours ago.

[Kayla Moore]

Wow. How do you. But you had heard about it before.

[Morgan Abshur]

I had, like, loosely heard about it, but I had no idea, like, truly the depths of this case. So, yeah, I went. So I deep dived yesterday. Deep dove. I don't know. But you guys, I, like, did not sleep last night. I gave myself nightmares. Like, yeah, this is probably one of the more intense cases we are going to cover.

[Kayla Moore]

I agree. This one is one of the scariest cases I've ever read about. I think the first time I really did a deep dive on it was reading I'll Be Gone in the Dark, which to me is like, on the. The Mount Rushmore of true crime classics. It's like, right up next to In Cold Blood. But it's one of my favorite books. It's written so well, and it really does a good job of, like, getting into the nitty gritty of this case, which this is a huge case to cover. And I think, you know, we're going to really try to break it down for everyone today.

[Morgan Abshur]

Yeah, absolutely. And, I mean, it's a little close to home for us. We're living in California, so a lot of the places we're going to talk about are. Are familiar for both of us. So.

[Kayla Moore]

No, I went to college right around the corner. Cause I was. I went to college in Orange county, and so he was operating in Irvine, and it's just. It's so scary to kind of know the map that he was operating on.

[Morgan Abshur]

It is going to be an intense day today.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah.

[Morgan Abshur]

So before we open up the case file, I do just want to give everyone a bit of a warning. As mentioned, this case really is intense. Talks about sexual assault, murder. So if you feel you can't handle any of those things and the graphic details they could entail, please come back for next week's episode. But otherwise, let's dive into this case. This case is unusual because the Golden State Killer had so many victims. And of course, his impact goes far beyond the people whose lives he directly harmed.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah, definitely. His crimes instilled fear in all who lived in the communities he attacked and traumatized victims family members.

[Morgan Abshur]

The Golden State Killer was known by many different names. The East Area Rapist. The original Night Stalker. The Visalia Ransacker. And today, we're going to break down each of these eras one at a time. And as a reminder, you guys, if you're listening on audio only, be sure to check out our Instagram at Clues podcast so you can see Pictures of some of the things we're going to be talking about throughout this episode.

[Kayla Moore]

All right, let's dive in. So In May of 1973, the town of Visalia began experiencing an onslaught of burglaries in the middle third of the state of California, for those not familiar with the state. So the Visalia Ransacker was known for these strange and messy burglaries that seemed more about the thrill of breaking into the home and looking at people's personal items than wanting to steal things of monetary value. He would take these keepsakes, like family photos and personal belongings from the people, and that's why he got the name Ransacker, because he would open up drawers and ransack through the contents. He. He would also knock over furniture, he would spill drinks, and he would leave this general mess behind, making it very obvious that he had been in the home. So Visalia Ransacker would wait until residents were gone, Then he would break in through an unlocked door window or pry open an entrance, like a sliding glass door. And once he was inside, he would often open up other windows to give himself multiple exit options in case he needed to flee, like if someone came home. He would sometimes stay in strangers homes for hours, eating their food, digging through their things. He really just liked to be in the home for a while. And he would also use objects inside the home for these makeshift warning systems. Like, he would balance cups or cans against doors. So that way someone starts opening the door, and he doesn't hear the door open, he's going to hear the can fall over, and then he could flee through one of the windows he had opened.

[Morgan Abshur]

Very calculated, very well thought out. And we do know the types of items he would steal from these homes and kind of adds to the mystery and confusion with these crimes.

[Kayla Moore]

Definitely. Yeah. So we know that the Visalia Ransacker would clean out a piggy bank, but he would leave large sums of money from the same house, and he wouldn't take a ton of jewelry. He would often take, like, class rings, wedding rings, engraved bracelets, and personalized lockets, Things with personal value, which to me also is like a calculated thing kind of working on the psyche of the person he was stealing from. Oftentimes, he would take just single earrings, and this became one of his calling cards. This was something where police showed up to a burglary, and they saw that only one of the earrings had been taken. They knew it was this Ransacker. He would also steal collectibles like coins, family photos, and he would take weapons, too, Firearms Ammunition, knives, hammers, billy clubs. Very strange objects that he was stealing.

[Morgan Abshur]

I know from one source I saw, he would actually take these blue chip stamps, which were basically like a store coupon. And if you think about, you know, the single earring or some of the other items, a lot of these felt like they were just kind of like those hard items to replace, but not super important. Like he would almost like inconvenience people by taking these items. And again, the psychological aspect of, you know, class rings and more of those sentimental items, too. Family photos.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah. Like the robbery felt more psychological than monetary.

[Morgan Abshur]

Yeah.

[Kayla Moore]

Which the police started taking note of. And in addition to being interested in women's jewelry, he was especially interested in bedrooms and clothes. Sometimes he would put on women's clothing from the house he was ransacking. There was also evidence that he would masturbate at some of these scenes. So it was clear to authorities that there was a sexual component to these crimes. This is really not a standard burglary. It was later discovered that the Visalia Ransacker was also a peeper and prowler, because shoe prints would be found under windows, as if he were watching or stalking certain women when they were home and then breaking in when they were gone, standing outside, looking in the windows, like getting a really good profile of the person that he's about to steal from. And a few other things were also really peculiar about what the Ransacker was doing. So for example, one of the things I read about was he would eat a lot of ice cream while he was in the houses. That was just another one of his signature calling cards. Be a bunch of ice cream taken from one of the cartons. Sometimes the items he took would be found discarded nearby, further proving that he wasn't in it for like, the monetary reasons. And the Visalia Ransocker was believed to have burglarized over 100 homes over the.

[Morgan Abshur]

Course of three years, which is an insane amount of homes in one community. But he didn't just keep burglarizing.

[Kayla Moore]

No, unfortunately, he escalated his crimes because In September of 1975, the Visalia Ransacker did commit homicide. So at some point in autumn of 1975, this ransacker began stalking 16 year old Beth Snelling in Visalia. And on the night of September 11, sometime around 2:00am, he returned to her home and he snuck in. And he was wearing a ski mask when he did. So it's likely that he entered through an open window because at the time the family's AC wasn't working. And so he entered Beth's room, and he climbed on top of her. He covered her mouth with his hand, and he told her that if she screamed, he would stab her. At another point, he told her that he had a gun, and he said that he was going to take her with him. And he started dragging Beth out of the house, getting her onto the backyard patio. But Beth's father, Claude, noticed the commotion, and he went outside to his daughter's rescue. But the perpetrator ended up shooting him in the arm and chest. It turned out he did have a gun on him. And then he kicked Beth in the face and he fled. Beth survived, but unfortunately, her father did die from his injuries as he was being transported to the hospital. Claude snelling was only 45 years old. He was a beloved husband and father of three. He was a professor at his local college. He had lived in Visalia for 17 years. And when this happened, it absolutely shocked the community. The community that already is talking about how there's this, like, very strange burglar hitting all of their homes, and now he was trying to attack a teenage girl, and he killed her father in the meantime. Yeah.

[Morgan Abshur]

It's. It's at this point that it's very clear that these crimes are escalating.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah.

[Morgan Abshur]

And this isn't unusual for criminals to do. And granted, we are not psychologists. I'm not. I'm not a psychiatrist either. But there are many people who've done research on this.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah.

[Morgan Abshur]

And a lot of times, offenders will actually escalate their crimes over time because that psychological need evolves and their tolerance for risk increases.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah. It's like doing drugs. Right. You need more each time.

[Morgan Abshur]

Yeah. And so it's clear that ransacking wasn't doing it, and he progressed to kidnapping, or what appeared to be kidnapping.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah.

[Morgan Abshur]

And so with this tragic homicide, we do have our first clue. Beth was able to give a statement to the police with the description of her attacker. A Caucasian male, about 5ft 9 inches tall, about 180 pounds, wearing a dark shirt and a ski mask. This description was widely published. But a month later, with no suspects, police had Beth actually undergo hypnosis. Apparently, it only provided a more detailed description of the criminal. Some details they got from hypnosis were that he smelled clean, had a raspy, loud whispering voice. And while there were no good leads from this homicide, it did give police a little bit more of an understanding of who this person could be. Police believed, because he was so familiar with the area, that the criminal must have lived there. Psychiatrists apparently told police that the behavior of the ransacker showed that he would eventually commit rape and be more violent. And I'm not exactly sure when, but authorities were able to match a gun used in the homicide to a gun stolen during one of the burglaries by the ransacker. So they believe that the ransacker had to be the one to commit the murder of Claude Snelling. I mean, there's no other reasonable way that this person would end up with a gun stolen.

[Kayla Moore]

Right? Yeah.

[Morgan Abshur]

So police told the community to call if they had any tips and reportedly received over a dozen calls every single morning about the case, including from residents who had seen suspicious shoe tracks in their yards. They had around 150 suspects. They investigated the case for eight months straight, but eventually it went cold.

[Kayla Moore]

And I just want to say here I'm actually surprised they didn't have more suspects. Cuz if you look at the only clue that they really have that it was a white guy who was 5, 9 and 180 pounds. That is so many people.

[Morgan Abshur]

It's a very broad description.

[Kayla Moore]

They don't have hair color, they have no description of his face. They think that they have a description of his voice. But also I'll note here, that was brought up during hypnosis, which is we don't do that anymore to victims because we know that a lot of the memories that are pulled out during hypnosis are false. It's completely guided by the person doing the hypnosis. And they can have a lot of false memories.

[Morgan Abshur]

Yeah, that one really surprised me.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah. Yeah, they did that to a lot of the victims. It would have them go undergo hypnosis. So two months later, on December 10, 1975, an officer named William Bill McGowan was on a stakeout when he saw a man who matched the Visalia Ransacker suspect's description. But he was going into someone's backyard. So we have a descript. We have like this very vague description, but you. He at least is seeing him go into someone's backyard. Yeah. So Officer McGowan ends up chasing this man and he gets him and he confronts him. He fires two warning shots and he tells the guy to stop. The suspect screamed in a high pitched voice which was believed to be a fake scream. And then he pretends to surrender, pulls off his mask and raises his right hand in the air. But with his left hand he ends up drawing his gun and shooting at Officer McGowan. He only hits Officer McGowan's flashlight, but glass from the flashlight hits Officer McGowan's eye, and he had to stop to deal with this injury, which he later recovered from. But as that's happening, the suspect runs away, and he doesn't really get a good look at this guy.

[Morgan Abshur]

Insane. I mean, talk about aim and left hand and the distraction technique. And to be able to take advantage of the officer pulling out a flashlight, trying to get a better look at him. I mean, it's diabolical.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah.

[Morgan Abshur]

And I know practically all of Isalia was on high alert at this point. Neighborhood was extremely scared. But something specifically led to this stakeout spot being chosen, right?

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah. Yeah. So this stakeout location was actually chosen because there were shoe prints discovered outside of the house. So they called the police, and McGowan was able to stake out at a house nearby. And despite the close encounter that he had with the Visalia Ransacker, it did not lead to any arrest. The only clue was another physical description of the suspect from Officer McGowan.

[Morgan Abshur]

Officer McGowan described the man as white, blonde, no facial hair, 25 to 35 years old, 510 and 180 pounds or more, with a, quote, thick neck. If you're watching on YouTube, you can see these composite drawings of the suspect, or you can check them out on our Instagram again. It's Clues podcast. And something to note here with this, Officer McGowan started to have some suspicions about who this person could be.

[Kayla Moore]

Right.

[Morgan Abshur]

Based on this encounter and how the person acted, how the person wielded their flashlight. So.

[Kayla Moore]

And what did he start thinking?

[Morgan Abshur]

Officer McGowan suspected that this could be.

[Kayla Moore]

A police officer, and he would know. I mean, he's a cop, so he knows how they use their weapons, what they're trained to do.

[Morgan Abshur]

Yeah. According to one source I found after his death, there were handwritten notes from Officer McGowan in the Visalia Ransacker file requesting that he be sent photographs of all policemen entering the police academy from a particular year.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah.

[Morgan Abshur]

So he was. So. He was so close. He was right there. And it just. It didn't line up at the time.

[Kayla Moore]

He had the right idea. So the attempted homicide of Officer McGowan did mark the end of the Visalia Ransacker, but that's only because he was about to move on to something else. In June of 1976, things in Visalia, California, had been quiet for around six months with no sign of the Visalia Ransacker. But 200 miles north, a new reign of terror was about to begin. At 4am on June 18, 1976, a woman in Rancho Cordova ended up becoming the first victim of a criminal who would go on to be known as the East Area Rapist, or Ear. As these attacks continued, there was a clear modus operandi, or MO that began to form. The attacks always occurred at night, when victims were typically sleeping. He would come in and he would blindfold and gag the victims. He would enter a victim's bedroom, stand in the doorway with a gun. Sometimes his pants were off, and he would shine a flashlight into the victim's eyes, which woke them up, but also blinded them so they couldn't really see him. He would usually tie the victims up on their stomachs with their ankles and wrists bound behind their back. And sometimes he bound his victims with shoelaces or other bindings that he would find in victims closets.

[Morgan Abshur]

And I know there were a few similarities between this MO and that of the Visalia Ransacker. So maybe we just go through those too.

[Kayla Moore]

Yes, definitely. Just like the Ransacker, Ear would enter through open windows, sliding glass doors, or he would pick a lock on a back entrance like a backyard or a garage gate, and he would slide in that way. He also often ransacked the victims homes, but it was in a different way from the Visalia Ransacker because Ear was sexually assaulting these victims. So he would tie them up, he would ransack the house. The victims would wait, bound and helpless, while Ear made loud noises in other parts of the house, and then he would return. But he sometimes would spend a long time in the house and would make himself at home there. He would rattle pots and pans like he was cooking. He would eat the victim's food, he would drink their beer. And of course, now we know that that sounds just like the Visalia Ransacker.

[Morgan Abshur]

Yeah, and we talked about this a little bit earlier. Unfortunately, these different precincts weren't talking. So these just on the outside were appearing like two very separate crime sprees.

[Kayla Moore]

Absolutely.

[Morgan Abshur]

And it's obvious at this point things are clearly escalating. We're going from ransacking to now it includes sexual assault. But there's also some other ways that Ear's crimes were escalating, too. Let's get into those.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah. So at first, most of the rape victims were women who were at home alone. But he did also attack women who were home with their children. But following a March 20, 1977 article which said, quote, he has never attacked while there was a man in the home, although occasionally there have been children. After that, Ear began attacking couples. It was like, he was reading the news or watching the news reports, and anything they told him he couldn't do, he was like, watch this.

[Morgan Abshur]

Yeah. He was taking their writings and what they were saying as a taunt. He was. He was going to prove them wrong.

[Kayla Moore]

It was a challenge to him.

[Morgan Abshur]

Absolutely a challenge.

[Kayla Moore]

So he would go into these houses where there were couples, and he would have the woman tie up her male partner first. Then Ear would tie up the woman and he would rape her. Sometimes he would do this thing where he would balance teacups or plates on the male partner's back. So even if the male partner moved just slightly while the woman was being assaulted, Ear would know. He would hear it, which is what the ransacker was doing. Balancing, like, cups and pleats in front of the door.

[Morgan Abshur]

I know. And like, that is such an eerie similarity that if only these different investigators would have been talking more. Yeah, it's right there. But around this time, we get another clue. A physical description of Earth based on a victim's description. He was between 25 and 35 years of age, white, between 5, 8 and 6ft tall, clean shaven. And his hair was either described as dark, neatly cut, or blonde.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah, interesting.

[Morgan Abshur]

That's so different between those two different hairstyles. But, yeah, also likely because he wore a ski mask or a hood. We do have some examples, so be sure to check out the pictures.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah.

[Morgan Abshur]

And he also wore gloves. One of the sources I saw said that he started wearing gloves after police had shared that they were trying to fingerprint on an open channel.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah. So clearly following along, clearly paying attention, embedding, trying to stay one step ahead.

[Morgan Abshur]

Of everything, and just kind of embedding in the investigation. We also have another composite sketch from May 1977. That sketch of ear was released after his May 17, 1977 attack on a woman in Carmichael.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah. And so we know that he told this victim that he would kill someone if there was any press coverage of the attack. But then he ends up later telling her husband that he would kill if there wasn't any press coverage. And this was also kind of his M.O. like, ear would often tell very contradictory and confusing things to the victim. So they didn't really know what to do after he left. But in any case, officers did decide to publish this sketch.

[Morgan Abshur]

Yeah, and that, to me, again, points to that psychological warfare. He wanted to leave these victims just completely and terrorized. Like what?

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah.

[Morgan Abshur]

What do they do if you're getting conflicting information?

[Kayla Moore]

If I tell the cops, he'll kill again. If I don't tell the cops he'll kill again. And so you're just paralyzed. You don't know what to do.

[Morgan Abshur]

Insane.

[Kayla Moore]

And most of the ear's crimes were in the Sacramento area between 1976 and 1978, but a few others were in Stockton, Modesto and Davis. So he shifted to California's Bay area around October of 1978, beginning with his attack on a couple in Concord. This was followed by attacks on other couples and solo women throughout the Bay area. In total, he raped between 40 and 50 women. His victims ranged from 13 year old girls to women in their 30s, possibly 40s. But most were women in their teens and 20s. And I remember reading too, that his first. The first grouping of rapings that he did was primarily teenagers. Yeah, a lot of them were around 15 years old.

[Morgan Abshur]

I know. I saw an interview with one of the victims and she was talking about her and her mom, you know, discussing this and being scared. And her mom had made a comment that I'm too old and you're too young. But he ended up coming to their house.

[Kayla Moore]

Exactly. He would threaten the men with death or he would say that he would murder their kids or their wives if they moved. And he physically threatened the victims with various weapons like ice picks, guns, knives. So they really couldn't do anything when he was in the home.

[Morgan Abshur]

And the threats didn't stop there. Our next clue in this case is a series of phone calls. These began during this period and are thought to belong to the east area rapist. But they haven't been definitively proven. We're going to actually play you guys a 1977 call for me. You can clearly hear someone saying, I'm going to kill you. Yeah, but we're going to play it. You guys let us know in the comments what, what you think and if you can clearly hear that too.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah, it has that very. What the victims described as. He would speak through gritted teeth often. And I feel like you can hear that in that recording.

[Morgan Abshur]

Yeah. Clearly trying to alter voice.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah.

[Morgan Abshur]

Maybe sound more domineering. But yeah, you're gonna listen, Let us know. Hello? Hello. There's also another list of calls that are attributed to ear. Basically, he called future victims and would sometimes just be silent and then hang up. Other times he would say horrible things like I'm gonna kill your husband. Some victims he would call a whore or sometimes just extremely sexually explicit things. He also called the sheriff's office and said, I'm the east side rapist. So not sure if he was going by that or maybe just Forgot one of his monikers. I did see in one source that one of the victims he called for decades. Yeah, over 20 years.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah. And I had heard that, too, back in the day. You know, we take a lot of things for granted now because we don't have landlines, but people would call landlines to see if people were home all the time, like burglars and stuff. Because if the phone kept ringing, you knew that no one was in the house to pick it up. So it's just. Yeah, it's just really scary. It's something we don't think about at all today. But the. And the idea that, like, you'd pick up the phone and someone would just be breathing on the other end and then they would hang up, like, that also didn't freak people out as much too, because there's a lot of, like, wrong number dialings and. Yeah, so I understand how some people, like the alarm bells weren't going off when they were getting all of these phone calls necessarily.

[Morgan Abshur]

I mean, prank phone calls happen, too. So what's to say it's just not someone pranking you?

[Kayla Moore]

Exactly.

[Morgan Abshur]

But we do get another clue from this time period. In December of 1977, the Sacramento Bee and Sacramento Mayor both got letters from a person claiming to be the East Area Rapist. One had a poem titled Excitement's Crave and included the phrase, quote, sacramento should make an offer to make a movie of my life that will pay for my planned exile.

[Kayla Moore]

And these were these. I don't know if they were actually ever, like, definitely confirmed to be from him. But the making a movie of my life definitely plays into the fact that it was for notoriety or like, he's paying attention to himself in the news. Like he wants to be on the news.

[Morgan Abshur]

Yeah. He was very, very closely following this along.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

[Morgan Abshur]

And one more major clue we got from these crimes. DNA sexual assault kits were taken for a lot of these crimes and involved samples of semen found in the women or on objects nearby. And unfortunately, many were discarded as years went by.

[Kayla Moore]

Well, at the time, too, they didn't know exactly what they were collecting it for.

[Morgan Abshur]

Right.

[Kayla Moore]

Because we didn't have the DNA that we have today.

[Morgan Abshur]

Technology wasn't there yet.

[Kayla Moore]

Right. Exactly. I mean, not saying that they should have discarded the rape kids while he was still at large, but still a.

[Morgan Abshur]

Lot of foresight to keep what they did keep, luckily.

[Kayla Moore]

Yes. Which we obviously will get into later. It's, like, great that they did that.

[Morgan Abshur]

Yeah. And we will really. We're going to extensively talk about DNA. Because as we'll see later in this case, the DNA that did remain from these rapes became crucial to tying all these crimes together.

[Kayla Moore]

Yes. So on February 2, 1978, around 9pm the ear shot and killed a young married couple. Brian and Katie Majori were out walking their dog in Rancho Cordova. This is the neighborhood where Ear made many of his attacks. A few neighbors actually witnessed the majority shooting from their windows or the street. And one witness heard gunshots and a woman screaming and saw a man running away.

[Morgan Abshur]

Yeah. Witnesses described him as white, mid-20s, around 6ft tall, with dark hair, wearing a brown leather coat with a stain on the back, with dark pants and shoes. Another witness said the shooter was wearing a ski mask, which we already know was something the Ear did.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah. But despite those clues, in the weeks after the crime, officers did not link the suspect with the east area rapist. They were actually looking for two different suspects, one matching the description given above and another who carried a pistol in a back pocket. Early 20s, about 5, 10, short mustache. And authorities offered a $2,500 reward for information on the suspect, but once again, nothing came from it.

[Morgan Abshur]

We do have composite sketches of both suspects, and these photos were released in the spring of 1978. I mean, looking at them, they do look like pretty different people, sort of.

[Kayla Moore]

But I feel like with police sketches, a lot of times it's, it's more of like the vibe of the person. Right. Because each sketch artist is going to draw it a little differently. The, the way that the people are described by the witnesses is a little bit different. But I mean, both of them were looking at guys with side swept blonde hair, kind of like a thinner, like longer face, chin, high cheekbones. I think they look like the same person. Just one grew a mustache.

[Morgan Abshur]

It's the mustache for me.

[Kayla Moore]

It's really the mustache. But I mean, how long does it take to grow a mustache? Depending. Yeah, like it could have just been two weeks that he just didn't shave.

[Morgan Abshur]

This is true. And I mean, could have grown quickly or could have just been changing their appearance because it is something that sometimes criminals will do to ensure they don't get caught or recognized.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah.

[Morgan Abshur]

But we do get a final clue here as well. An important piece of evidence from the majority's murders was a shoelace found lying in the grass near where they had been shot. It was tied in a double loop, so it was essentially pre tied in a ligature. And of course, we know that shoelaces were used in the er, rapes to tie victims up.

[Kayla Moore]

But still, the Maggiore murder was not conclusively linked to the East Area rapist until much, much later, but we'll get into that in a bit. But this double homicide In February of 1978 was the East Area Rapist's last known crime in the Sacramento area.

[Morgan Abshur]

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[Kayla Moore]

In October 1979, over 400 miles away from Rancho Cordova, a series of violent attacks began unfolding in the Central coast and Orange county regions of Southern California. Santa Barbara, Goletta, Ventura, Dana Point and Irvine. These crimes were all attributed to what became known as the original Night Stalker. As a side note, because I've gotten in trouble for this on social media before, this is not to be confused with Richard Ramirez, who was later known as the Night Stalker, but if you guys are interested in that case, let us know. Maybe that's another one that we cover for clues. That one might keep me up even more than this one because.

[Morgan Abshur]

Oh, don't do that to me.

[Kayla Moore]

That Night Stalker case is really. I don't know how much of a deep dive you've done into it. It's the most depraved thing I've ever seen in my life. But the MO of the original Night Stalker's crimes, attacking at night, binding victims, raping the women, ransacking the bedroom. And all of this also aligns with Ear's crimes.

[Morgan Abshur]

But again, none of these precincts were talking.

[Kayla Moore]

No, no, they weren't reporting to each other that the same kind of thing was happening in all these different counties. So on October 1, 1979, a couple was attacked in their home in Goletta, but they were able to escape. Actually, the perpetrator gave up and fled on a stolen bicycle. He was nearly caught by a neighbor who happened to Be an off duty FBI agent, but hopped fences and ran through the neighborhood and got away. That's one thing that a lot of people actually report about this person is they were agile. They were a pretty, pretty athletic to be just hopping over fences and running on December. Yeah, I know. On December 30, 1979, Deborah Manning, who was 35, and Robert Offerman, who's 44, were killed inside of their condo in Goletta. They were both found nude and bound and they had died from gunshot wounds. On March 16, 1980, Lyman Smith, 43, and Charlene Smith, 34, were found murdered in their Ventura home. Charlene had been raped and both of them were found nude and bound. They had also been bludgeoned by a wooden log that had been taken from a firewood pile outside. And I remember reading about how at a lot of these places it looked like whoever was doing this had like grabbed something from outside, like maybe didn't come with all of the materials that they were going to need to do what they wanted to do, but they were grabbing firewood from outside or like a lamp from inside. And that's what they were using to bludgeon these people. On August 21, 1980, Keith and Patrice Harrington, who were both in their mid-20s, were killed in their home in Dana Point. That's in Orange County. They had been bludgeoned in the head with an unknown object. And they were actually both found in their bed by Keith's father. They were under a sheet with Patrice in a robe, and Keith was nude. They had markings from bindings on their wrists and Patrice's ankles, but the bindings had been removed. On February 6, 1981, Manuela Watoon, who's 28, was found dead in her bed by her mother. She had been bound, raped and bludgeoned in the head while at home alone in Irvine. She was wearing a robe and was partly covered by a sleeping bag. Again, her bindings had also been removed. And I'd read in I'll Be Gone in the Dark actually that her husband was in the hospital at the time and it was probably the perpetrator's intention to have him there, but he just happened to not be there that night. On July 27, 1981, Sherry Domingo, 35, and her boyfriend Gregory Sanchez, 27, were killed in Galetta in a home where Sherry was house sitting. They were found by real estate agents who came to show the house with clients. Gregory was found nude, face down on the floor of the bedroom with a non fatal gunshot wound and two dozen Blows to the head from an unknown object. His head was covered in clothing that had been taken from the closet. He had no binding marks. Sherry was found nude, face down in the bed, covered by the bedding. She had binding marks on her wrists and ankles, but the bindings, once again, had been removed. She also had died from multiple blunt force head injuries.

[Morgan Abshur]

And I just want to mention here that all of the cases Kaylin just mentioned will provide DNA later to ID the original night stalker. In all of these, the DNA came from semen in the sexual assault kits.

[Kayla Moore]

So no crimes were attributed to the original night stalker from July of 1981 until May 4th of 1986. And that's actually something that a lot of serial killers are known to do, is have a cool down period.

[Morgan Abshur]

Yeah. And I will say I did see in one source that this also could have been because of what happened with Sherry and Greg. It did appear, because Greg was unbound, that he might have lunged and tried to go after him, and that could have really shaken him up. Another close call.

[Kayla Moore]

Absolutely. I know there's all sorts of reasons why they do it. Sometimes it's because they're. They have young children at home and they're raising their families, which is wild. Sometimes it's because they go to jail for something else. Sometimes maybe they got spooked at the crime scene. But a lot of killers are known to have these cooldowns periods. So on May 5, 1986, after this cooldown period, Janelle Cruz, who was 18, was killed at a family's home in Irvine while her mother was on vacation. Her body was also discovered by a realtor. Janelle was found lying face up in bed with a blanket over her head. And she was nude from the waist down. She died from multiple blows to the face and head by an unknown blunt object.

[Morgan Abshur]

And just like all of the other original night stalker cases that were mentioned, there was DNA from semen found at the crime scene that was collected in a sexual assault kit.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah. So dozens of law enforcement professionals were working on solving these crimes for over four decades. And so much of what we're talking about actually comes from Paul Holes, who was a homicide detective and cold case investigator. And he gave a keynote address at the International Symposium on Human Identification, also known as ISHI. And it was a conference in 2019. Paul Holes was an investigator and chief of forensics at Contra Costa county in the Bay Area, and he became interested in DNA testing in the 1990s. So in 1994, he discovered the East Area rapist cold case and he started to get to work on it, and he found that there were three rape kits or sexual assault kits left from ear cases, and he got permission to use them for DNA testing. In 1996, DNA testing from this semen in the sexual assault kits linked the homicides of Lyman and Charlene Smith with three other homicides in Southern California. Keith and Patrice Harrington, Manuela Watoon, and Janelle Cruz. Remember, those happened, like, hundreds of miles away from each other. So they weren't even thinking that those were all related at the time.

[Morgan Abshur]

No. The dots are finally being connected.

[Kayla Moore]

Exactly. In 1997, further DNA testing linked the semen evidence from Charlene Smith to three Contra Costa rapes from 1978 to 1989. Four years go by, DNA testing continues to improve. The technology gets better and better. And Paul holes was still working on the Bay area cases. So In January of 2001, the teams at Paul's Contra Costa lab and Mary Hong's Orange county crime lab tested the DNA samples again. And this time, they were looking for STR profiles. I'm not going to get into, like, the exact breakdown of what STR profiles are, but it's short tandem repeat for DNA, and it's the most common type of DNA profiling today for criminal cases. They knew that the man who committed the sexual assaults in northern California was the same person that was committing these homicides in Orange County. A news article was published on April 4, 2001, announcing that the east area rapist who terrorized Northern California was the same person as the original night Stalker who raped and killed victims in Southern California. And two days after this announcement hit the news, a former victim of the east area rapist received a phone call where an unnamed male voice said, quote, remember when we played terrifying? Because he's reading the news like he's still looking for anything about himself.

[Morgan Abshur]

Yeah.

[Kayla Moore]

And it's probably giving him another rush of stuff. So he wanted to call a victim, which is disgusting.

[Morgan Abshur]

Absolutely. And I do just want to know, you know, when these crimes stopped and when DNA testing started to really be used. And I think that's a part of why these crimes all of a sudden seemingly stopped after almost, what, 13 years. So 1984, Sir Alec Jeffries actually developed the technique of DNA fingerprinting, which allowed for the identification of individuals based on their unique DNA patterns. 1985, Jeffrey's technique was first used in a forensic case to convict a murderer. And then just a year later, in 1986, DNA evidence was first introduced into the United States criminal court system. So when you look at our last victim, Janelle Cruz, 1986. It could have been the whole reason these stopped DNA was really coming about. And.

[Kayla Moore]

And who of everyone of, like, regular civilians who is keeping up with the DNA technology? Who knows? Every time that there's a new advancement used in DNA, it goes back to what we were talking about earlier with Officer McGowan, who thought it was a cop the whole time.

[Morgan Abshur]

Clearly someone who had insider information, someone.

[Kayla Moore]

Who'S paying attention, or it would seem so at this point, the investigator still had no idea who the criminal was, but just that his DNA matched both of the crime sprees.

[Morgan Abshur]

Yeah, and there was a lot of speculation in an article I saw from 2001, quote, the rapist killer's identity is still unknown, but police say it is clear that the same man described in police records as methodical, sexually deviant, and with above average intelligence committed all the crimes. There's actually a quote from Frank Fitzpatrick that says, quote, this guy is about as bad as you can get. And Frank is the director of the Orange County Crime Lab, which did analyze the genetic profile on the serial killings. There's another quote from him. The speculation is that he was either arrested for a different crime, died, or moved out of the state. And then there's another quote I have from this article. Retired Sacramento County Sheriff's Detective Richard Shelby, who investigated the east area rapist cases, said yesterday he thought the suspect was still alive and might even have a family. He called one of the victims. Shelby said it was 1990 or 1991. She talked to him for a minute. She could hear kids in the background and a woman.

[Kayla Moore]

Wow. So the DNA was sent to the Department of Justice's databank of felons, but no match was found. And after that, the case basically went cold again. But about 10 years later, a true crime writer named Michelle McNamara became obsessed with the case, and she started blogging about it, and she gradually developed a relationship with the investigators on the case, including Paul Holes. In 2011, DNA from the Sherry Dominguez and Gregory Sanchez murders were linked to the semen evidence from Charlene smith. And in 2013, in an article from the Los Angeles magazine, Michelle McNamara actually gave the guy the name of the Golden State Killer instead of what the police were calling him, which was ear rons E a R O N S East Area Rapists, Original Night Stalker. And it was really Michelle's hard work. You know, she was a civilian sleuth that brought this case into the public consciousness again, just the rebranding. Everything she did was so genius. She was like a truly incredible investigator. And if you have the chance to read her book, I'll be gone in the dark. Absolutely do. It's like I said, one of the most beautiful pieces of writing. But on April 21, 2016, she tragically died from an accidental overdose. On June 15, 2016, the FBI announced a fifty thousand dollar reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the individual known as the east area rapist slash Golden State killer. And at some point in the 2000 and tens, Paul Holes wanted to test the DNA again with new technology. But his samples from the Contra Costi county had all been used up by previous testing. Because you can't DNA test something forever. It gets like slowly destroyed as you do. But he found that there was remaining DNA from the Smith's homicide, and that was just because the people who were working on that case in Ventura had made two sexual assault kits with the semen. And one was actually still stored away completely untouched for decades. And this became the big key to solving this case. In early 2018, genetic genealogist Barbara Ray Venter did another kind of testing on this DNA called SNP genotyping, or single nucleotide polymorphisms. And that is what is used in genealogy databases. So she created an SNP profile of the killer based on the semen sample that was in Charlene Smith's kit. And then she uploaded the STR profile, which is the DNA profile, to a public genealogy website called GEDmatch. And then she used her forensic genealogy skills to begin narrowing down the list of suspects. So using the SMP profile, Barbara and her team built out a detailed family tree and determined which relatives could be suspects based on age description and geographical location. And the whole thing took about four months to do.

[Morgan Abshur]

Yeah. And a little bit more info that we found on this process from an article. The site provides searchers a list of relatives by degree of shared single nucleotide polymorphisms. SNPs, which is what we're going to call them after that.

[Kayla Moore]

Yep.

[Morgan Abshur]

Which offer a genetic fingerprint. The percentage of shared SNPs diminishes by familial distance. So for example, on average, individuals share only 3.1% of their SNPs with a second cousin out of the 650,000 profiles. Then on the GEDmatch website, the search identified 10 to 20 distant relatives of the offender sharing the same great great great grandparents dating back to the 1800s when families oftentimes had a large number of kids. Big family tree split happening from these, a team of five investigators built out more than 25 family trees. Hits came from the third and fourth cousins. The tree that eventually linked the Golden State killer contained approximately 1,000 people.

[Kayla Moore]

And there were 25 of them. So that means these investigators were going through around 25,000 people to find out the identity of this guy.

[Morgan Abshur]

Needle in a haystack.

[Kayla Moore]

I know. Another great book that I'll recommend in this episode is Paul Holz's book. He wrote a book called Unmasked. He talks about solving cold cases and he talks a lot about solving the Golden State Killer case. But he talked about how you have this list of 25, 000 people on all these family trees and you're just going through, okay, this guy was maybe 25 to 35 years old in the 70s. How old would he be today? And you're looking at all of the white guys. You also don't really have height or weight, so you're just looking for the white guys that maybe had blonde hair, six feet, and maybe were that age at the time. So you're getting a huge list of potential suspects. And most of this is a direct quote here, but quote, two main suspects were identified from this particular tree. A man named Joseph D'Angelo and his brother. A DNA sample was surreptitiously collected from the door handle of a car Joseph D'Angelo had been driving. A second sample was also recovered from a tissue taken from his curbside trash bin. Both samples were consistent with the Orange and Ventura county suspect profiles. I'll also mention here that In February of 2018, Michelle McNamara's book on the Golden State Killer, I'll Be Gone in the Dark, was published.

[Morgan Abshur]

And so we got him. DNA evidence linked him. And so we have our Golden State Killer, Joseph D'Angelo. And who is he? Well, Joseph was born on November 8, 1945 in Bath, New York. He was the second of three siblings. Oddly though, I've seen online in some places that there were four siblings. So a little confusing, but his father was a decorated sergeant in the army and the family was moving around a little bit. And at one point they were stationed in Germany. According to one article, D'Angelo's nephew actually claims that when he was about 9 or 10, he watched as two airmen raped his 7 year old sister in an Air Force base warehouse in Germany. Family was pretty hush hush about it. Didn't want to bring it to light. And his father was spending a lot of time away from home. He ended up eventually abandoning his wife and kids to take a job at an air force base in Korea. This is where he remarried and basically started over. I saw in one source he actually renamed his next set of kids the same name as the first one.

[Kayla Moore]

All the kids are just named the same thing.

[Morgan Abshur]

I don't know if that's to just get your kids names right and not mix them up or if you really wanted to start over.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah. Wow.

[Morgan Abshur]

After this, Joseph's mom allegedly spent more time on her new boyfriend and his kids than on Joseph and his siblings. So some sources speculate that Joseph had to really help care for his younger siblings. And he had a really difficult relationship with his mom. There are many heated arguments. In the late 1950s, when Joseph was in middle school, the family settled in the Rancho Cordova area of California. In 1964, at age 19, Joseph left home to join the Navy. He worked as a mechanic and in kitchens and was honorably discharged in 1968. Some speculate that he was trying to gain his father's approval by joining the armed services. And due to the fact his dad was so decorated.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah.

[Morgan Abshur]

After this, he moved back in with his mom in the Sacramento area and enrolled at a nearby community college, Sierra College. He wanted to study criminal justice and join the California Highway Patrol. He lived in various parts of California for his entire adult life. At Sierra College, though, is where he met Bonnie Colwell, an 18 year old classmate. They became engaged. According to a Los Angeles Times article I found, Bonnie recalls going on animal killing adventures with D'Angelo. And there's a lot of speculation that he also killed animals in his younger years as well.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah. Which is pretty typical of serial killers.

[Morgan Abshur]

Yeah. And Bonnie recounts killing doves, frogs, deer, vultures. And there's even one experience she describes where they're riding on his motorcycle and there was a dog that came up barking at them and he kicked it and actually snapped the dog's neck.

[Kayla Moore]

Wow.

[Morgan Abshur]

But what drove Bonnie to break things off was in 1971, Joseph asked her to help him cheat on an exam. Bonnie later said that Joseph was controlling and also weird about sex. He would want to do it repeatedly for hours and always while listening to the doors. And Bonnie does also mention that this was her first relationship. She really didn't have anything else to compare it to.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah.

[Morgan Abshur]

But did start to realize, you know, how bad it was. She also notes that he liked to break rules, Driving motorcycles over the speed and hunting and fishing in off limits areas. Joseph did not take Bonnie calling off their engagement lightly. He actually went a bit off the rails. And Bonnie had the foresight to Kind of know that was coming. So on the night of the breakup, Bonnie called Joseph to come see her at her father's house. She told him they weren't a good fit, gave back the ring, and Joseph was so upset, he actually threw the ring in the bushes and left. But not for long, because a few nights later, Bonnie woke up to tapping on her window and Joseph was there standing outside, pointing a gun in her face. He told her to get dressed and come with him. They were going to get married, and he would not take no for an answer. Bonnie ran out of her bedroom with woke up her dad, and her dad actually spent two hours talking to Joseph while Bonnie hid inside. Something Bonnie's dad said must have stuck with Joseph because he did finally leave and did not come back. But this experience left Bonnie pretty traumatized. She actually dropped out of school for a semester just so she wouldn't have to see Joseph again. This broken engagement would appear to haunt Joseph for the rest of his life. There's accounts from victims where during these attacks, he would call out things like, I hate you, Bonnie. And so clearly deeply affected by this.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah, it also sounds like it started pretty soon after the breakup.

[Morgan Abshur]

Yeah. Looking back at our timeline, which we will have a very clear timeline on socials and on YouTube, so look for those if you really want to see how it's broken down and around. 1971 is when Joseph completed an internship with the Roseville Police Department, about 15 miles north of his hometown in Rancho Cordova, they called it.

[Kayla Moore]

He had police training.

[Morgan Abshur]

Police training he knew. In 1972, Joseph graduated with a criminal justice degree from Sacramento State, which is the school he transferred to after community college. Joseph married Sharon Huddle in November of 1973, and they went on to have three daughters. Something to note too, is that Sharon Huddle is actually a lawyer. Joseph also joined the Exeter Police Department in 1973 in California's Central Valley. And maybe, maybe this is just irony, maybe he put a preference in, but Joseph was actually assigned to the anti burglary unit. So it's speculated by some that he may have been working or getting intel from detectives on some of the crimes he committed.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah, absolutely. That makes sense.

[Morgan Abshur]

After moving to Exeter, Joseph began breaking into houses in the small farm town of Visalia, 10 miles away from Exeter. In May of 1973, he committed the first burglary that would be attributed to his nickname, the Visalia Ransacker. And as we know, the Visalia Ransacker did eventually stop 1976, which is at the time that the East Area rapists started their crimes, which does coincide with Joseph being transferred to the Auburn, California Police Department in 1976. But it didn't last very long because Joseph was actually fired from the Auburn Police Department in the summer of 1979. He was actually caught shoplifting. He took a hammer and dog repellent spray.

[Kayla Moore]

Wow. Yeah. Interesting.

[Morgan Abshur]

Quite the items to choose.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah.

[Morgan Abshur]

While researching D'Angelo as a possible suspect from this list, Paul Holes called a retired Auburn Police Department officer who happened to be Joseph's former boss and the person who fired him. He said that after he fired Joseph, a man appeared outside his daughter's window in the middle of the night and shone a flashlight in scaring her and waking her up. The man ran off, but left shoe prints under the window. The officer thought the man was DeAngelo. This behavior made Paul think of the Visalio Ransacker and East Area rapist. So he started to consider Joseph more seriously, which, in hindsight, if those dots would have been connected. Also, I think what's really interesting is when McGowan had that encounter with the Visalia Ransacker, he pulled off his mask. He saw him. It's kind of around the time of the transfer, too. So there's some speculation that D'Angelo was worried he was going to be recognized in the department based on the composite that came out. And there is note that he changed his appearance a little bit, too, when he transferred police departments.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah, yeah. To keep people off his trail.

[Morgan Abshur]

Because of this firing, he did leave law enforcement. So he found work as a mechanic. He moved his family 20 miles south to the Sacramento suburb of Citrus Heights. The geographic region links the murder with the east area rapist and later with Joseph, who was from that neighborhood. By 2018, he was divorced and living with one of his daughters in Citrus Heights. Still in the Sacramento area. Very same area he grew up.

[Kayla Moore]

Wow. And he was placed under surveillance, and DNA samples were surreptitiously gathered from him by investigators. And as a side note, at this point, Paul Holes had just retired from the force, but he remained involved behind the scenes. There's actually a great little story that he gives in the book that he wrote about this, where it was the day he was retiring because he was, like, obsessed with this case. And the day he was retiring, he got the. The tip that it might be D'Angelo. And he looked at his case and he's like, oh, he's a former cop. It's probably not him, but maybe he's related to the guy. So maybe I should go Talk to him and see if he has any relatives that fit this description, because the DNA is so, so similar. And the day he was retiring, he drove up to D'Angelo's house and sat outside across the street from his driveway, and he had this thought of, if this actually is the Golden State Killer. And I walk into his house right now as a cop and say, I'm looking for the Golden State Killer, this guy's gonna kill me. And with that, he drove away.

[Morgan Abshur]

Oh, I just got the chills.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah, it's. It's really spooky. I mean, wow. But he, yeah, he did have that moment where he was like, but it could be him. And he thought he was gonna go in and have a laugh with this retired cop of like, hahaha, of course it's not you, but like, do you know anyone? And then it just clicked for him and so he. He couldn't go in. It's a great book. Definitely read it. Wow. So on April 18, 2018, an officer followed Joseph to a parking lot of a Hobby lobby in Roseville, California, and he swabbed his car door handle. On April 20, the DNA results were finished, and they showed a partial match of 47% to the Charlene Smith semen sample. This is a very strong likelihood, but not 100%. And that's maybe because there were DNA from three individuals on that car door handle. On April 23, officers took samples from Joseph's trash can, which was located in the street in front of the house in Citrus Heights. A piece of tissue that was taken from the trash provided enough DNA to definitively name Joseph D'Angelo as the person who raped Charlene Smith. And that, you know, is just the. The domino that knocks over all the other dominoes, because really it's the Charlene DNA that's connecting all these cases. Joseph was linked to the murder of Brian and Katie Majore not through DNA, though, but through geographic and circumstantial evidence, including things like the shoelace. The murder occurred in the neighborhood that the east area rapist prowled often. And the time of day was consistent with when his attacks occurred. His physical description matched witness accounts, and the ear attacks stopped happening in that area following those murders. On April 24, 2018, Joseph D'Angelo was arrested at his home in Citrus Heights on a quiet afternoon. He did not resist. And once he was in an interrogation room, he admitted to the crimes. He said, I did all those things. I destroyed all their lives. He was connected with over 100 burglaries, around 50 rapes. And 13 murders. He pled guilty in June of 2020 to 13 counts of murder and admitted to dozens of rapes. Though the statute of limitations on sexual assaults meant that he could not be prosecuted for them, he ultimately admitted to 161 crimes involving 48 people.

[Morgan Abshur]

Wow.

[Kayla Moore]

His trial began in August of 2020. Three days were spent on victim statements from those who wished to speak and confront him. In some cases, relatives of victims spoke in court about the trauma he caused their families. There are so many quotes from victims and families in this testimony. And on August 21, 2020, he was given 26 life sentences without the possibility of parole. As of this recording, he is still alive and he remains in prison.

[Morgan Abshur]

Yeah, I. I think everyone should watch some of those statements. There's one woman, and she made it a little T shirt. And it starts off with victim, it moves down to survivor, and then it ends on thriver.

[Kayla Moore]

Thriver.

[Morgan Abshur]

I love that she really wanted to make a point to him, that he didn't ruin her life.

[Kayla Moore]

It wasn't the power.

[Morgan Abshur]

She's thriving. And on top of watching those victim statements, I also think you should watch the video footage that we have of him in his cell.

[Kayla Moore]

Oh, my gosh. Because, yeah, when he. He was rolled in a wheelchair into trial, and he has this, like, I'm a feeble old man.

[Morgan Abshur]

My gloves are coming off with this one right now, guys. I'm sorry. But, yeah, tried to really malinger and look older. More feeble.

[Kayla Moore]

Frail.

[Morgan Abshur]

Frail.

[Kayla Moore]

To be like, you can't have the mental image of me committing these crimes because I'm just a little old man.

[Morgan Abshur]

No.

[Kayla Moore]

And then they cut to the footage of him in his freaking jail cell, and he's doing jumping jacks.

[Morgan Abshur]

Jumping jacks. Climbing on his bed, like, doing a step up. Like, this man didn't use a step stool. He went floor to bed, Climbing from the bed to the desk to cover a light.

[Kayla Moore]

Like. Yeah, I don't know if I could.

[Morgan Abshur]

Do a step up at my. I know my young age of 31. And so to be rolled into court, I mean, it. It was very clear it was intentional.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah. More manipulation on his end.

[Morgan Abshur]

Yes. And during these. These statements by everyone impacted in court, he did not look at them. He was just staring ahead, coward, blank. Just. You know, some of these victims did say, look at me, D'Angelo, I want you to look at me. And he wouldn't look. And he did give a statement, and he did apologize, but it was a sentence not accepted. And there's no way. I mean, an apology does not take any of this pain.

[Kayla Moore]

No.

[Morgan Abshur]

Heartbreak, tragedy away. I mean, it's.

[Kayla Moore]

But I think I, I like the, the shirt that she was wearing that says Thriver, because in a way, it's beautiful to see that some of the victims didn't need the closure of an apology or maybe even knowing who he was. Like they were able to find some closure in their own lives, which I think is really powerful.

[Morgan Abshur]

Yeah. A lot of them have gone on to start survivors groups on Facebook. Yeah, they're very connected. They would do potlucks after these trial dates. So, you know, one of them said, look for the silver lining in it. And it's, it's, you know, us creating this community and it's something to look at.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah.

[Morgan Abshur]

And that leaves us to where we are today, the aftermath of these cases. This case launched a massive, massive debate about the ethics and legality of using public genetic databases to solve crimes. And I mean, we were talking about this before we started. It's a hot topic. And in early 2019, GEDmatch, the database that this case was solved with, changed its terms to not allow law enforcement to do searches. A statement they released said, quote, the company had faced criticism for allowing police to search profiles without users permission and decided that it would rather make sure members understood explicitly how investigators were using the site. So it altered its terms of service to automatically exclude all members from law enforcement searches and left it up to them to opt in. Overnight, the number of profiles available to law enforcement dropped from more than 1 million to zero. Then in 2021, Maryland and Montana passed new laws to restrict police use of genetic databases. Another law was also changed because of victim advocacy. Bruce Harrington, whose brother Keith Harrington and sister in law Patrice Harrington were killed by Joseph D'Angelo, actually advocated for California to expand databases of DNA profiles to include all felons. I actually saw in one source that Bruce donated $2 million of his own money.

[Kayla Moore]

Wow.

[Morgan Abshur]

To help lobby for this law, which is pretty impactful. A description of this per a footnote in a article, quote, U.S. database laws are sometimes propelled by victim advocates affected by violent crimes in California. A campaign led by Mr. Bruce Harrington, whose brother was a victim of murder, Resulted in the November 2004amendment of the California Penal Code, Sections 295, 300, to make California one of the first all felon and felon arrestee state databases. These efforts resulted in a rise in the convicted offender population from about 300,000 to more than 1 million DNA profiles in less than three years.

[Kayla Moore]

People still have the ability to opt in to have their genealogy shared with police if that's what they want. I know that something that, like Ashley Flowers with Crime Junkie is a huge advocate for is having more people voluntarily submit their DNA to police. I'm looking at a site right now actually called Genealogy for Justice, where you can share, safely share your DNA with law enforcement. And it's talking about sharing just, like, not necessarily your raw DNA data, but just the ability to place you on a family tree. So there's resources like that that people can look into if that's something they're interested in. But also, it's nice knowing that these places did shut down, taking just regular civilian DNA and sharing it with law enforcement, because personally, I just think that's, like, way overstepping. But I know that there is a need to have this, like, big database so that we can catch people.

[Morgan Abshur]

Absolutely. And we do have codis, which is the Combined DNA Index system.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah.

[Morgan Abshur]

This is a database that's maintained by the FB and allows state and local crime labs to exchange and compare DNA. And I know this has been making leaps and bounds and helping, you know, close these old cold cases and get these victims justice as well.

[Kayla Moore]

Absolutely.

[Morgan Abshur]

Is there anything for you from this case that, you know, just. You can't get over or, you know, maybe a clue we didn't touch on?

[Kayla Moore]

I think for me, it's. You know, when I was rewatching the I'll Be Gone in the Dark docu series, there's a lot of talk about how this type of crime was, like, ripe for the 70s. It was a time where the police precincts were not talking to each other. The technology was at a place where it wasn't catching people as quickly. We didn't have the DNA that we had today. There was a lot of stigma about sexual assaults. They were basically prosecuted, like, regular burglaries. So you would get sometimes 90 days maximum for committing a sexual assault. So people didn't really feel, like, empowered to come forward and share their experience. So you had all of these women that weren't talking to each other. You had neighbors that weren't talking to each other. You had police precincts that weren't talking to each other. And because of that, this person was able to take advantage of all of the. Not loopholes, but just all of the empty space that wasn't being filled by people talking to each other and was just able to operate there and commit all these horrible crimes. So, you know, they say that a crime like this couldn't be committed today, but what's scary is. I don't know, maybe there's a chance that it could be. I don't talk to my neighbors that much.

[Morgan Abshur]

No. I think, you know, we, as communities are. We're not as social. We. We have social media, and that creates this false sense of closeness. But are we really connected? And I think, given, too, all it takes is some Insider information.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah.

[Morgan Abshur]

D'Angelo was a police officer. He knew how to work and prep and work the system, and it is just scary. And something else we. We didn't really get into with this case is there were town hall meetings. Like, they were trying to get the community really hyper vigilant and connected. And there was one town hall meeting, and this is what really messes me up and gave me nightmares. Last night, actually, at the town hall meeting, someone stood up and basically said, like, if he came to my house, I'd protect my wife and I'd do this and I'd do that. And shortly after, he was the victim. So DeAngelo was so invested, he was likely at that meeting. And it's just terrifying, the phone calls for decades after.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah. Someone who knows how to play on the terror of the situation and take advantage of that and really thrives on the terror.

[Morgan Abshur]

Yeah.

[Kayla Moore]

Is also just something that makes this case so scary. Yeah.

[Morgan Abshur]

And I do think, you know, with technology and his insider info, I. I really wonder why the sudden stop.

[Kayla Moore]

I.

[Morgan Abshur]

And I'm curious if it was because of DNA.

[Kayla Moore]

I think you might be right.

[Morgan Abshur]

And he knew what was coming.

[Kayla Moore]

I'm curious if anyone else has thoughts on that.

[Morgan Abshur]

I would love to see some comments from you guys. And anything else, Anything else that you feel like you want us to know or a bit of info. I went down the Reddit rabbit hole a little bit, and there was a post, actually, from one of D'Angelo's old neighbors.

[Kayla Moore]

Oh, wow.

[Morgan Abshur]

They put. They put on this post that they were at their home and now Chicago, watching as this was breaking, and they saw the news helicopter flying over this area in California. And they're like, oh, I used to live in California. And that pool, that's. That's my old pool.

[Kayla Moore]

Oh, my God.

[Morgan Abshur]

And they realized that who they were arresting was their old neighbor.

[Kayla Moore]

Wow.

[Morgan Abshur]

And they were like, he wasn't the nicest neighbor. Like, we would be waiting for the bus, and he would be screaming at us to shut the fuck up.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah.

[Morgan Abshur]

So.

[Kayla Moore]

But you don't think that that person is a serial killer. Like, that's the thing that's scary is the duality.

[Morgan Abshur]

Yeah. There was there's one other call that a neighbor got due to their dog barking. Like, it seems like he just had a hatred for animals. And this neighbor's dog was barking, and he called and left them a message about how, like, you better shut that dog up or I'll bring death upon you. Or something along those lines. Yeah, but again, like, you would never assume, like, yeah, right.

[Kayla Moore]

You're not putting that jump together in your head at all.

[Morgan Abshur]

No. No. So it would seem that he was seemingly a ghost. D'Angelo moved silently through the night, slipping past locked doors and shattering lives in the process. Joseph D'Angelo terrorized the state of California from 1975 to 1986, committing 13 murders, nearly 50 rapes, and over 100 burglaries.

[Kayla Moore]

And his crimes weren't just brutal. They were calculated, methodical, and devastatingly personal, which we've gone over. But what ultimately brought him down wasn't a smoking gun or a dramatic arrest at the scene. It was the tireless work of investigators like Paul Holzer, genealogists, forensic scientists, and everyday people who were determined to seek justice for the victims and their families.

[Morgan Abshur]

Yeah, one of the victims does mention how citizen sleuths like Michelle McNamara and Internet sleuths really helped bring this case to a close. In Michelle McNamara's book, she shared something that Joseph D'Angelo threatened one of his victims with. Quote, you'll be silent forever, and I'll be gone in the dark.

[Kayla Moore]

And for over 40 years, he hid behind masks, shadows, and fear. But in the end, his DNA gave him away. And now he sits behind bars, stripped of power, remembered not as the phantom that he tried to be, but as a man who was finally unmasked by the very voices he tried to silence. Okay, and we just took a quick break because I wanted to find this exact quote from I'll Be Gone in the Dark, Michelle McNamara's book. But I wanted to end on this. So this comes from the epilogue of the book. She writes, one day soon, you'll hear a car pull up to your curb, an engine cut out. You'll hear footsteps coming up your front walk, like they did for Edward Wayne Edwards, 29 years after he killed Timothy Hack and Kelly Drew in Sullivan, Wisconsin, like they did for Kenneth Lee Hicks, 30 years after he killed Lori Billingsley in Aloha, Oregon. The doorbell rings. No side gates are left open. You're long past leaping over a fence. Take one of your hyper gulping breaths, clench your teeth, inch timidly towards the insistent bell. This is how it ends for you. You'll be silent forever. And I'll be gone in the dark. You threatened a victim once. Open the door. Show us your face. Walk into the light. She always knew that he'd get caught. And he did.

[Morgan Abshur]

And he did. I am looking at some of Michelle's posts on Reddit. This is something we may get into over on our socials or maybe do a little bit more of a deep dive on. But it is amazing to see her comments well before they caught him and how she. She knew she was so good. Yeah, and she knew. But that is all we have for this episode of Clues. We hope you enjoyed unraveling this case with us. We're going to open another case file next week, but this conversation isn't over because we want to hear from you guys, your thoughts and any theories you might have come across while going down your own Internet rabbit hole. And all of your feedback, it's what helps make this community so special.

[Kayla Moore]

And at Crime House, we value your support. So share your thoughts on social media and remember to rate, review and follow clues to help others discover the show. And if you're watching on YouTube, don't forget to hit that subscribe button.

[Morgan Abshur]

And if you're hungry for even more content, we've got you covered. Join our Crime House plus community on Apple Podcasts.

[Kayla Moore]

All right, we will be back next week with another episode of Clues.

[Morgan Abshur]

Bye, guys. Bye.