Chasing the Golden State Killer with Paul Holes | The Town Hall Target

Summary

Small Town Dicks - "Chasing the Golden State Killer with Paul Holes"

Episode: The Town Hall Target (July 31, 2026)

Hosts: Yeardley Smith, Detectives Dan and Dave, Paul Holes

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Episode Overview

This episode delves into a chilling escalation in the Golden State Killer (GSK) case, focusing on how Joseph James DeAngelo, the East Area Rapist (EAR), not only stalked his victims but also actively monitored police investigations and public reactions. The discussion explores attacks involving male victims, the killer’s evolving methods, and his psychological need to exert dominance and fear—even responding to public criticism by targeting outspoken community members. The hosts, led by forensic expert Paul Holes, analyze incident details, investigative challenges, and the dynamics of psychological versus physical sadism.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Offender Watching the Investigation

• Monitoring Media and Public:
  • The EAR adjusted his crimes based on press coverage and public opinion. When the Sacramento Bee published that he had never attacked while a man was present, he soon executed such an attack, almost as if to prove a point.
  • "[He's obviously following the case in the newspaper and he's like, 'Oh, you don't think I can attack with a man present? I'll show you.']" — Paul Holes [00:52]
• Escalation as Challenge Response:
  • The EAR was directly responding to media suggestions about his modus operandi, demonstrating a compulsion to prove investigators and the public wrong.
  • "It's like a challenge to his competency and ability. And he's like, 'I'll show you then.'" — E [06:09]

2. Evolution of Attack Tactics

• First Attack with a Man Present:
  • Detailed discussion about the change in the EAR’s tactics, including pre-prepared bindings, introduction of a firearm, and calculated ways to minimize risk while dominating both male and female victims.
  • "He is not a physical sadist... He is a psychological sadist." — Paul Holes [04:36]
  • He forced the woman in this incident to wear high heels and straddle him, indicating the acting out of a specific fantasy—an anomaly in his otherwise "generic" assaults. [05:02–05:55]

3. Psychological Manipulation and Sadism

• Fear as a Weapon:
  • The EAR would create an atmosphere of terror, moving silently, often staying close to his victims without their knowledge (due to being blindfolded), feeding his need for psychological dominance.
  • "He had been standing there the whole time and she could not sense that." — Paul Holes, recounting a victim’s realization [07:36]
  • Victims often remained immobile for hours after he left, paralyzed by the fear he instilled. [08:00]

4. The Town Hall Incident & Targeted Retaliation

• Vindictive Targeting:
  • At a community town hall, an Italian man criticized husbands for failing to protect their wives. Shortly after, he and his wife became victims, suggesting the killer targeted him for his outspokenness.
  • "If that is an accurate memory by Carol [Daley], then that tells me he chose that couple based on who the man was and was like, 'I'll show you who I am.'" — Paul Holes [10:00]
• Surveillance and Police Involvement:
  • Suggestion DeAngelo may have been present at community meetings, tracking potential targets and leveraging his police access to look up private information.
  • “D’Angelo’s a cop, and he has access to information that regular folks do not have access to…” — E [13:16]

5. Victim Selection: Focus on Men and Power Dynamics

• Men as Targets of Humiliation:
  • Increasing evidence suggests that couples were often selected specifically because of the male partner, especially those who had drawn DeAngelo’s resentment or attention.
  • In one attack, the male victim, a concrete contractor, was repeatedly insulted and later found a piece of twine—a unique calling card—left at his work site, proving ongoing targeting.
  • "He just took a souvenir of the male. Now I don't believe he's…getting sexual gratification... but in essence, he is going, I own you."' — Paul Holes [32:55]

6. Investigative Frustrations and Techniques

• Unreliable Witness Accounts:
  • Use of hypnosis in child witnesses created numerous false leads (tattoos, belt buckles, etc.), illustrating the risks of suggestive questioning with young children.
  • "This is just where this tool of hypnosis oftentimes provides details that you cannot put any faith in at all." — Paul Holes [16:33]
• The Limits of Profiling:
  • Discussion of DeAngelo’s profound insecurity and overcompensation, but as Paul Holes notes, this psychological profile provides poor actionable leads:
  • "There isn't a database where I say, 'Give me a list of all the insecure males that live in this area.'" — Paul Holes [36:45]

7. Signature Behaviors and Souvenirs

• Environmental Replication:
  • Upon entering DeAngelo’s home post-arrest, Holes observed the same crime scene details replicated—targets on the wall, a towel over the computer as he’d done with TVs during attacks.
  • "He is replicating the environment that he experienced during the attacks. He is still fantasizing about those attacks..." — Paul Holes [39:56]
• Unique Physical Clues:
  • In Stockton, a victim noted an overwhelming, unique body odor—possibly tied to "fear sweat" and extreme heat—offering a new theory on scent evidence.
  • Detailed explanation of how canines distinguish between types of sweat and scent, highlighting forensic subtleties. [22:00–23:25]

8. Aftermath and Continued Torment

• Post-Assault Harassment:
  • Even years after the attacks, DeAngelo would call victims at new workplaces, perpetuating the psychological abuse.
  • "Five years later, she's working at a Denny's in Rancho Cordova, and she receives a phone call from the East Area Rapist at work." — Paul Holes [40:55]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Paul Holes on GSK's challenge mentality:
  "He's obviously following the case in the newspaper and he's like, 'Oh, you don't think I can attack with a man present? I'll show you.'" [00:52]
• On the psychological sadism:
  "He is not a physical sadist... He is a psychological sadist." [04:36]
• On targeting the town hall heckler:
  "He chose that couple based on who the man was and was like, 'I'll show you who I am.'" [10:00]
• On the signature of leaving a souvenir:
  "He just took a souvenir of the male... he is going, 'I own you.'" [32:55]
• Aftermath—replicating the crime scene at home:
  "He is replicating the environment that he experienced during the attacks. He is still fantasizing about those attacks..." [39:56]
• On the futility of broad psychological profiling:
  "There isn't a database where I say, 'Give me a list of all the insecure males that live in this area.'" [36:45]
• On canine scent detection:
  "There are two types of sweat... fear scent. That's what people typically call it. And our dogs are able to differentiate between [them]" — C [22:00]

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Notable Segments & Timestamps

• EAR responding to press by attacking with a man present: [01:46–03:34]
• Explanation of "generic" sexual assaults and psychological vs. physical sadism: [03:34–05:48]
• The town hall incident and targeted retaliation: [07:55–12:28]
• Investigation into unreliable hypnosis "memories": [16:33–18:39]
• Stockton assault with unique odor and forensic scent analysis: [19:03–23:26]
• Attack on a concrete contractor—twine as a post-assault threat: [32:55–35:10]
• Profiling and psychological overcompensation: [35:45–36:45]
• Paul Holes describes entering DeAngelo’s home: [39:56–40:33]
• Epilogue and next episode teaser (ongoing phone terror): [40:51–41:21]

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This episode offers a harrowing inside look at how the Golden State Killer’s crimes were shaped and escalated by both external public factors and his own need for psychological dominance. It also provides rare insight into the investigative challenges—balancing behavioral analysis, unreliable memories, and the deeply unsettling cat-and-mouse game being played between police, public, and predator.

Transcript

[A]

Previously on Chasing the Golden State Killer with Paul Holes. Paul showed us how much the east area rapists crimes were shaped by geography, such as access to backyards, scalable fences, single story homes and neighborhoods he seemed to know intimately. But the investigation is about to enter a new and deeply unsettling phase. The public is aware there's a predator Sacramento area, and the press is now regularly reporting on any updates or the lack thereof. At the same time, communities are gathering to talk about how to protect themselves. And all the while, Paul believes the offender was paying very close attention.

[B]

He's obviously following the case in the newspaper and he's like, oh, you don't think I can attack with a man present? I'll show you.

[A]

In this episode, Paul walks us through one of the most chilling questions in the case. What happens when an offender is not only watching his victims, but watching the investigation itself. The crimes are escalating, the attacks are changing, and the illusion that communities can harden themselves and keep their families safe is fading.

[C]

What I think about is Deangelo walking out, following these people to their car, probably following them home, and him saying, there's a target right there.

[A]

Episode 4 the Town Hall Target.

[B]

In March of 77, Sacramento Bee has an article about the East Air rapist. And in this article it says, quote, the East Air rapist has never attacked while there was a man in the home, although occasionally there have been children, as I've talked about. So what does the hysteria rapist do? Not the next attack, but the attack after that. He attacks with a man present. This is where now he's been challenged. He's obviously following the case in the newspaper and he's like, oh, you don't think I can attack with a man present? I'll show you. So this is insight into this offender's personality, into D'. Angelo. So attack number 16, the last attack in that Cordova Meadows neighborhood, which was on a single girl in that neighborhood. Then he goes to the furthest east of the Sacramento area, this Orangevale area, and he attacks two co workers who are having a relationship. They worked at Kaiser, they're coworkers of each other.

[D]

Not DeAngelo, exactly.

[B]

The two victims worked with each other. I think they were probably having sort of a, if you want to call it an affair that their employer couldn't know about.

[D]

Friends with benefits, maybe.

[B]

There you go. Something along those lines. And this is where he, from the very beginning, how I explained that when there was a man present, he always had a gun, throws the bindings to the woman to bind up the male, he does this. So he has already thought, how can I attack with a man present but minimize risk to myself? So, you know, he's a tactician. He's thinking ahead. So in this case, one of the things that stood out, and his sexual assaults were typically very generic. And you said, what does that mean?

[A]

Yeah.

[D]

What's a generic sexual assault?

[B]

Right. And, you know, of course, I don't talk about specifics on the sexual assaults on any of the particular victims or some of the things that may potentially traumatize victims by pulling up memory, but when I say generic sexual assault, he's always leaving his upper garments on. Fundamentally, he's just on top of the woman, what we'd call the missionary position. He's just pulled his lower garments down to where he can sexually interact with the victim. You know, there is some force, forced oral cop. There is some sodomy in some cases. He is not one that is physically beating the woman either ahead of time during the sexual assault or after the assault unless they resist. And then in a few cases, he has punched the woman when they start to resist to get them back under control. He is not a physical sadist. He is not inflicting pain on these women from a violent standpoint. That would roll over into how we use the term sadist within the rapist or serial killer categories, like a sexual sadist. Some people will say the sexual assault in and of itself is a sadistic act. Maybe in general parlance, you could say that. But the way that I use that term, that has a very specific connotation of the type of offender. And DeAngelo is not a physical sadist. He's a psychological sadist.

[D]

Okay.

[B]

And in this particular case, the first time that a male's present, after the male is bound and the dishes have been stacked on him, he takes the victim out to the living area. And in this case, he does something he's only done once. And it's this time where he puts high heels on her, makes her straddle him up on the sofa as if he's carrying out some sort of sexual fantasy with her. That really stood out to me as like, okay, so what about her is causing him to interact at that level? I dug into, is there something about her that he knew ahead of time? You know, maybe he went to that pharmacy, saw her, thought, oh, she's beautiful, had fantasies about her, and now he's living out his sexual fantasies in person with her.

[C]

So that article about the east area rapist has never attacked whether there was A man in the home.

[A]

Right.

[C]

It's three weeks later that the east area rapist attacks with a man in the home.

[B]

And he has one attack in between. But you think he's now got three weeks to strategize. How can I carry that out and prove to the world I can attack with a man present?

[E]

It's like a challenge to his competency and ability. And he's like, I'll show you then.

[B]

Sure. You think of his psychology. He's been challenged and he's met the challenge. Getting back to the sexual sadist, he's not a sexual sadist in terms of how he's interacting with his victims, but he is a psychological sadist. And to illustrate that point, there was a case just a few weeks prior to this one in which a woman and her daughter were in a house. It was early morning, husband had just left to go to work. And now there's a masked man inside this house. And he confronts the woman. She actually puts up quite a fight. She almost gets his gun away out of his pocket as he's wrestling with her, but ultimately he's able to subdue her. And then her 7 year old daughter comes into the room. And so now he binds the seven year old daughter up, he sexually assaults the mom. And we talked about cat burglars and how they can move around silently inside the house. Many of these victims, once they're bound, they go. We could never tell where he was at. In this case, mom and daughter are laying next to each other and a lot of time has gone past. And mom asked daughter, are you okay? And daughter's response was, shh, mommy. And immediately he pushes down on the bed right next to mom's head. He had been standing there the whole time and she could not sense that

[D]

he was there because she's blindfolded as well.

[B]

She's blindfolded, she's bound. And you know, he would move away and come back. But this just really illustrates he's loving, inflicting that type of fear.

[D]

Right.

[B]

And there is an MO aspect to this type of strategy that he's employing is that he would never really tell the victims, hey, I'm going now. He would just constantly be moving around and coming back into the room and moving around. And he would frequently go out and, you know, take victims, food, victims, drinks out in the backyard and, and stay out there while he's consuming, come back in, and then he would just disappear. And the victims never knew when he was gone. Some of these victims laid for hours after he had Left because they were so scared. He was still inside the house. So by the time the victims got the courage up to move and get out of their bindings, you could have multiple hours that have passed after he's left. Well, by the time law enforcement is responding, Deangelo was already in bed up in Auburn. So this next case that I'm going to talk about, it's a little bit fuzzy in terms of exactly what led up to this particular attack, in terms of the details by attack number 21, this is where everybody in Sacramento is scared to death of this offender that's going around. And so SAC Sheriff's Office is having to address the community. So they were holding these huge town hall meetings, like high school gymnasiums, completely filled up with people. And one of the Sacramento detectives, Carol Daley, remembers talking to the neighborhood in these town hall meetings, just giving an update. Hey, this is, you know, where we're at. These are the resources we're expending. This is how you can keep yourself safe. And an Italian male stood up and was kind of lambasting the husbands that allowed their wives to become victims of the hysteria rapist. Well, that Italian man and his wife become victims.

[A]

Unbelievable.

[B]

And so if that is an accurate memory by Carol, then that tells me he chose that couple based on who the man was and was like, I'll show you who I am. Now, Carol's memory, you know, she's waffled a little bit if that was the exact scenario when I was involved in filming a show before I retired and before the case was solved on the Golden State Killer, the producers researching the case determined that the town hall meeting in which this man had stood up was prior to any of the attacks that had men in them. And so it was like, well, okay, so is Carol just not remembering this right, or is she remembering that it was a different town hall meeting, the one that she originally said it was? So much time has passed. You could see, for Carol, that's like, I think this is what happened.

[D]

But is it fair to say that this man, the same man who said, how dare you, you husbands, you boyfriends, who weren't able to protect your women, and then later becomes a victim, that those two people are the same?

[B]

Yes.

[D]

Right. So whether or not it happened at the first town hall meeting or the 10th or whichever, it sounds like this man, this Italian man, was chosen because of the comment he made.

[B]

Yes.

[D]

Right.

[B]

So this is showing that vindictive personality

[D]

and that Deangelo is really following this case closely.

[C]

He's at the town Hall.

[D]

That's right.

[B]

Yeah. You know, and I ended up. I went to the Sacramento Historic Archives and I found a series of town hall pictures that the Sacramento Bee photographer had taken. The son of one of the sacraments ended up getting heavily involved sort of in the online sleuthing aspect of his mom's case. And so we kind of exchanged information. I ended up interviewing his mom a little bit. And then one of the things he wanted was these high resolution scans I had of these photos. So I gave those over to him. And those, of course, have now been distributed. You know, so people are looking at all these men in the audience and zooming in and saying he looks suspicious and blah, blah, blah.

[E]

They're like, it's the guy in with no pants on and a ski mask.

[C]

But there's no indication in any of these photos. You can't definitively say that's d' Angelo right there.

[B]

No, no. There is one of the online personalities that kind of circled a guy and said, this looks like d'. Angelo. I sent this into Sacramento well before d' Angelo was identified. And they failed to follow up on. And I'm really the one that solved the case. I was like, nope, that's not how this work.

[C]

You know, you think about these town halls and this poor Italian gentleman and his wife, what they had to endure. But after that town hall meeting, what I think about is DeAngelo walking out, following these people to their car, probably following them home, and him saying, there's a target right there.

[B]

Sure.

[D]

And they have no idea.

[C]

They are completely oblivious to it.

[B]

Right.

[E]

And the thing is, d' Angelo's a cop, and he has access to information that regular folks do not have access to, like DMV records, license plate info, all those things that he's going to be able to track people down more so than I, as Joe Citizen, can go try to do a Google on you right now. He's going to have better access, I

[B]

would say, back in the 1970s, you know, like today, it is significantly tracked on who is accessing all this protected information. Right. And there's audits that are done and keystrokes are tracked. Yeah. You know, so let's say the stereotypical scenario of patrol guy pulls over an attractive woman, you know, and now he goes and looks her up in the system, and next thing you know, he's knocking on her front door wanting to go out on a date.

[D]

I had a friend who was stalked by a patrol officer and got her home address from the DMV.

[B]

Sure. But back in the 70s I'm sure the ability to track who is accessing information within these law enforcement systems was nowhere near the capabilities of today.

[D]

Sure, because it was on cards and stuff. You didn't have computer keystrokes quite like we have now.

[B]

You know, relative to today. They're primitive, but there were computer systems. But a lot of what we did were on three by five cards too. I mean to your point Yarlie, that is true. So he does 22 attacks up in Sacramento, then he goes down to Stockton and Stockton is an hour drive south of basically downtown Sacramento.

[C]

How far a drive is that from Auburn?

[B]

It's going to be a several hour drive from Auburn for sure. So in this case, this couple lived in a very nice neighborhood called Leakin Village West. It's this lake centric master planned community. The wife and husband are asleep. Wife is awake at the time and there's like a full moon outside and she hears something towards the sliding door. And she literally watches these dare rapists come into her bedroom. She opens up the door, walks in, reaches down, picks up what is basically like a duffel bag and sets it down inside the room. And she hears clinking that sounds like aerosol cans. To this day we don't know what that clinking was. But he sees that she's awake. Flashlight comes out. And then prototypical attack male is forced to lay face down, bound up. She's taken out to be sexually assaulted. During his interactions with the couple inside the room, while he's sort of standing in the front doorway, the daughter who I believe was 7 years old, gets up like I think to go to the bathroom and looks down the hallway and sees this masked man standing there and he sees her and he basically makes the statement to the effect of oh, I'm just playing with your parents. Right. And daughter ultimately goes back to bed. He never does anything to her. Well, she ends up, you know, she's a witness and she saw him. So she was put under hypnosis. And this is where part of the details about the east era rapists came from. The seven year old girl under hypnosis where he had like a bull like tattoo on his arm.

[D]

This is what the girl is saying.

[B]

This is what the seven year old girl is saying under hypnosis. He had this belt buckle that had like dueling pistols on it. He had a certain type of ring, you know, of course he's masked with a T shirt on and he's got a, I think I describe it as like a belt with a scab or a sheath. For a short sword, you know, none of those details about the tattoo or the tattoo definitely is, we can say, no, that is not present, you know, and this is just where this tool of hypnosis oftentimes provides details that you cannot put any faith in at all. With all these old cases I've worked, I've seen hypnosis being used and it's like, well, how much reliance can I put on these details? Because people will pull in other memories and feed it as if it's related to the case and it's not.

[E]

And especially with a child that age, forensic interviewers have the title for a reason. It's because there's extensive training that goes into interviewing especially prepubescent children. Language development, cognitive development, all these things. And so you have to worry about the questions that are being asked. If you're not doing the questioning appropriately, the resulting information is completely unreliable and hard to defend in court. So I think about that aspect is like how do we get to these details? Is I want to know the five questions that led up to that disclosure.

[B]

Sure. And that makes absolute sense. And that goes to Dave's expertise in terms of how you interview a seven year old girl. In this case, I can't tell you how much information like the bull tattoo or these dueling pistols, like the online sleuthing community just really gravitated towards those details and did all sorts of. And I'd be getting tips that bull tattoo is this particular military branch with select individuals that would have it. And it just was completely false information that people gravitated and latched onto.

[E]

Or the belt buckle or the belt buckle.

[B]

It's like, how am I going to use this belt buckle to narrow the suspect pool? I don't care who possibly manufactured it. Give me a list of people who actually have this belt or had the

[E]

belt buckle that live in this area

[B]

that has something that I can link to the right.

[E]

The guy's car had tires on it. Thanks.

[A]

Four of them.

[B]

So some of the interesting details about this case is that while this victim, the female, was being sexually assaulted, she felt a penis inside of her. And then she goes, what the hell? And she goes, there's a penis on top of me, outside of me. And she's going, this man has two. Well, he ended up using a strap on dildo in this case. And I believe the reason is, is that it already come out in Sacramento with some of the victims saying that he was under endowed. And so that got out into the press. And so I believe he's now Going to a different jurisdiction. And with this victim, he's wanting her to relay, well, this guy may be normal. I don't know how big the dildo was. But in essence can't be the Easter era rapist. It's just that his M.O. going against the mail, putting the Alar system on the male, separating the woman, the way he's binding is so distinctive. It's like, well, no, it's the same guy. It's also possible that he had fantasized about possibly assaulting a woman in this manner. You know, and he's. Again, this is sexual experimentation. But just knowing the information about the actual size of his anatomy, I believe that the use of the dildo is more likely, that it's a way that he's just trying to throw things off, that I'm a different guy than the guy that was up in Sacramento and then in this case, all the victims throughout the series. And obviously he is up close and is very closely interacting with these female victims in sexual manner outside of instances where they would say, well, his breath was a little stale. They all were saying when asked, he had good hygiene. But in this case, the victim said that his body odor was so foul, she felt that it was something that was emanating out of his pores.

[D]

Wow.

[B]

So I sat down with this woman in Stockton, I interviewed her, and my go to was always a certain Denny's.

[D]

That's where you were interviewing somebody about the worst day of their life?

[B]

Yes. Meet up there, get some coffee. And there's always a booth in the back where nobody is sitting around so you can talk openly. But I asked her, have you smelled that since? And she goes, no, but if I did, I would immediately recognize it. And to this day, I don't know what it is.

[C]

So I'm looking at the date, and we're in early September.

[D]

Right.

[C]

So if you think about that part of California, I'm guessing it's pretty hot.

[B]

Yes, very, very hot.

[C]

Do you know what time this happened?

[B]

This was at night. However, Stockton is technically Central Valley. And, you know, in September, it can be well up over 100, 110 degrees. And at night it might cool to 99.

[C]

Yeah. Without knowing this neighborhood and the obstacles that D' Angelo had to overcome, I look at that body odor, and there are two types of sweat. Typically you have eccrine sweat, which is really the watery based sweat. What we as canine officers, what our dogs really hone in on is the apocrine sweat. It's stress or excitement kind of based. It comes from glands. There's an odor tied to it. And what that is, that sweat interacts with bacteria on your skin, and it actually creates an odor. And it's like crack cocaine to our dogs. Our dogs really key in on that. And what we encounter is, you know, people call it fear scent. That's what people typically call it. There's a definite odor to it. And our dogs are able to differentiate between eccrine sweat and apocrine sweat. So, you know, they might see just normal jogger who's running, who's really sweating. They're not gonna key in on that guy. They're gonna key in on the source of this apocrine sweat that they're sensing. I'm just guessing that maybe that's what this woman was smelling. Was deangelo on his way there May have encountered something that caused stress? It's very hot, right? And there are a lot of factors that might create what she's smelling there. Even though he's got good hygiene, you

[B]

know, that's one of the best theories or probably the best theory that I've heard about this particular attack. And that odor. I didn't even think about that. So one of the other aspects about this case that's very notable to me is that this neighborhood where this attack occurred, this is not right off the freeway way. It's technically right off of i5, but i5 I ended up researching this was not open. It was under construction at the time. And a lot of people come from Sacramento down to Stockton on I5. At the time, the freeway that was open was 99, and that was all the way across town. So he had to come all the way across town to attack at this location. Why? Versus well, I'm just going to go down to Stockton and jump off a freeway like he does out in the east bay. In many of those cases, it's isolation and distance from the prime arterial road. Now that we know diangelo all the way from Auburn, why is he going out to this neighborhood? What is drawing him out there? During the time that these air rapists is now starting to attack in Stockton, There was all sorts of witnesses that were seeing him on these levees, you know, running around. And law enforcement would respond. Sometimes there was chases that occurred. There was a thought that in this lake that he's possibly kayaking across it or using a boat in order to get across it. A lot of it is like, well, you can't necessarily say, well, it's all him. But there were other residents that had shoe impressions in the backyard. There was one resident in this neighborhood. It was a couple that they had gone on vacation. There was shoe impressions and the mud in their backyard. And I actually interviewed the wife. The husband had died, but they had the old style, really deep shag carpeting. And she said, paul, I freshly raked my carpeting inside the house. There was no impression. There was no shoe prints in that shag carpeting. When we left for vacation and I came home and there was shoe impressions all over the carpeting. So it's like the east area rapist had, you know, kind of prowled around the house, had gotten into the house. Stockton PD actually staged some of their SWAT guys in the master bedroom closet, waiting for the east area rapist to show up and attack this couple.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

So could you imagine being in there with their gun while they're sleeping? Or at least I can't imagine trying

[D]

to be the couple trying to pretend to be asleep. That would just be a sleepless night.

[B]

Again, he is trying. He's thinking ahead. He's looking to how I always say you always have to consider the offender from a risk management vantage point. And in this case, you know, the couple had a pool in the backyard, and out by the pool was one of those old style landline handsets. Well, the rapist just took that handset and threw it up into the trees. And now it's off the hook. And anybody from, like, my early days knows you take one phone, you could have five, you could have 10 phones inside the house. If one is off the hook, you have completely disabled the phone system. And he would do that. In that very first attack up in Sacramento, he actually climbed up on a bird to try to cut the phone line leading in from the utility pole into the house. And it looks like the bird bath broke on him. So he never was able to complete the task. But in other cases, he would go through the house and just rip the phone cords out of the wall or cut the phone cords, you know, so even when the victims got out of their bindings, they can't use their own phone. They would have to go to the neighbors. Either they used the neighbor's phone, or the neighbors were calling the cops from their landlines.

[D]

Right.

[E]

And just the delays.

[B]

Absolutely.

[E]

Delay of not knowing if he's still there and the delay of having to go to a neighbor and he gets away. While we're on it, you had mentioned earlier that you've been to nearly all of these addresses.

[B]

I've been to every single case between the east area rapists and original Night stalker crime scenes, every single one.

[D]

Try harder, Paul.

[A]

Try harder.

[E]

You didn't really try. My question is, you knock on a door of these houses, and I don't know what you did, but I'm wondering if you ever knocked on any doors and said, hey, this is who I am. This is what I'm looking into. I was wondering if I could talk to you. And they have no idea what has happened in their house or how it's tied to you?

[B]

No, I did not do that. So what I would do is I would track the victims down. I would call them, and. And some of the victims still live in the house today that they were attacked in, and other victims never returned to the house they were attacked in. So it's very interesting to see how different people respond. What I found out and to illustrate. And it's actually the second Stockton attack, and this is a couple that has gone public in terms of. Yes, we were attacked by DeAngelo. The female victim worked for Barnett Range Developers. And I'll explain later, but I was really looking at developers in the. To see if one of them could be my attacker. And I really wanted to talk to this victim, thinking that maybe she had interacted with him ahead of time.

[D]

And by developer, you're talking real estate developer?

[B]

Kind of, yes. Somebody that would build neighborhoods. So I thought the best way to approach this couple was to call the husband up. So I called the husband up, and I just said, hey, this is who I am, and I'm looking into the east area rapist case. And there was the longest pause ever. And he tells me, we buried that. And I said, well, sir, I'd really like to talk to your wife, you know, because of her job at the time of the case. And he was like, well, you can submit your questions in writing and mail them to me. And it wasn't email. It was snail mail. And so I did. I put a letter in the mail. I didn't hear from anybody for several months. And then all of a sudden, I get alerted. Paulie got a phone call, and the victim, the female victim, I was like, oh, shit. So, you know, so I scrambled into my office, and I talked to her, and she was like, that's my husband's position. Yes. She goes, I want to catch this guy, you know, So I ended up developing a really good relationship with her. But that was sort of my first observation about, oh, these men are really struggling. And then, of course, I've talked to several other men since, you know, I met with one of the male victims. And he's literally crying in front of me. And then another male victim refused to meet with me in person, and he's crying on the phone. But he is at least providing me some details that I needed as I was pursuing this particular investigative track. And so that's where they're going through this. It's like, oh, you know, there's the trauma. But also, as I talk about this next case coming up, there's also a reason why the male victims had to be focused in on. So this is the 25th case in the east area rapist phase of the series. It's actually in between the two Stockton cases, but it's not in Stockton. It's actually backup in Sacramento. The male victim is a concrete contractor, and he was doing a job in the commercial area, right next to that Cordova Meadows neighborhood where these dairy rapists had that strong connection to. That morning as he's on that job site, his wife, who sort of handled the administrative stuff for his business, showed up at that job site. Later on that evening, they're attacked. Now they live all the way across Sacramento. But I believe it's possible Deangelo observed this couple at that location at that job site.

[D]

How would he have an opportunity to do that?

[B]

I believe he's frequenting that Rancho Cordova

[D]

neighborhood as a cop still.

[B]

No, this is where he would be off duty in his personal life. It could just be, you know, he's visiting friends that he knows in the area. Don't know. But anyways, that concrete contractor and his wife become victims. And nothing unusual about how the attack occurred, but the interactions between the east area and the male victim was very interesting. It's very derogatory towards the male victim, much more so than any of the other male victims in the series. And this contractor was a little heavier set at that time. And as he's laying there bound, you know, the east area rapist would come and just slap him, you know, across the legs and call him fat boy as he's walking past him. But what was significant? You know, we know that these types of offenders take souvenirs because they want to relive the crimes. They pull out the souvenirs, you know, with the sexually motivated crimes or masturbating to the souvenirs. In this case, the Easter rapists stole the man's baseball cap that had the name of the concrete company on the cap itself.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

And I'm like, he just took a souvenir of the mail. Now I don't believe he's going back and is getting sexual gratification because of that baseball cap. But in essence, he is going, I own you. Right.

[D]

It's a reminder of the dominance.

[B]

Absolutely. And so I was like, you know, was this couple chosen based on who the man was? Is this the one instance where I'm like, I need to go talk to this man? So myself and the lieutenant from SAC da's office, we go and we talk to him. And this was a year before the case was solved. And this male victim said, yeah, you know what? I was not happy with the way I was treated, you know, back in the day. And he goes, there was other things that happened after our attack that I never told law enforcement. So he proceeds to tell us that when he went back to work after the attack, he was at a different job site, not the one by Cordova Meadows. And he had this curb forming machine. And it had like a couple of handles as you would go and pour the concrete to form the curb. And across the handles of this machine, a length of twine had been laid. And he goes, that twine was identical to the twine that was used to bind me and my wife up. And I go, I searched the job site. There was no source of that twine. That guy came back and sent me a message, in essence. So here now it's like, is he tracking this guy? This guy is significant to him. And that's where I believe, in this attack, that couple was chosen because of who the man was. I am absolutely convinced that many of the couples in this series were chosen based on who the man was. And I use the example two guys walking down opposite ways in grocery aisle and they just happened to bump shoulders. And, you know, some guys will give each other sort of a hard look, you know, well, if that happens to Deangelo, he's gonna go, oh, you're next. Okay, I'm gonna come after you and I'm gonna show you.

[E]

Cause he loves being vindictive and he loves psychological torment.

[B]

Absolutely.

[E]

Yeah.

[D]

But it also really speaks to the depth of his insecurity. To use your example, Paul, of being bumped in the supermarket. Unless it's obviously deliberate and somebody's trying to mess with you. You're like, oh, I'm stup so sorry. Like, that's the hill you're gonna die on. You're gonna pick a fight with somebody who accidentally bumped into you. Sure. This guy d', Angelo, him having to go after these men because they've somehow made him feel less than says so much about him.

[E]

It does.

[B]

You know, Yarla I think that that's sort of an interesting thought. You mentioned the term insecurity. After DeAngelo was caught, the last FBI profiler that profiled the unsolved Golden State Killer called me up, and her and I debriefed. And one of the interesting aspects about her perception versus mine of who d' Angelo was, is she said, well, he's very insecure. And I was like, well, hold on. He dominates his victims. I mean, he's like the ultimate in terms of how he is controlling the victims. And, you know, brazen. Going in with men present with guns present in the house. And this is where I started to recognize, okay, as a behavioral analyst, she's looking at the internal psychology. And then, of course, there's the external manifestation. And with Diangelo, it's likely he's overcompensating because he's so insecure.

[D]

Exactly.

[B]

But this is where now I get a report, let's say, from a behavioral analyst, and I'm told, well, he's going to be an insecure male. How does that help me in my investigation?

[D]

He's going to have toenails.

[B]

I need something that I can use. There isn't a database where I say, give me a list of all the insecure males that live in this area. I need something that can narrow the suspect pool. Now, one of the significant behaviors that the east area rapists would do is he would separate the wolf away from the male. Take her out, lay her down, typically starting face down, bound with her wrist behind her back, her ankles bound. And then he would turn the TV on and the TV, you know, think about TV in the old days, at 3:00am in the morning, there's no shows being aired. It's just that static, right?

[D]

The snow.

[B]

The snow. He would only have the static going, but he would keep the volume to where you couldn't hear the volume. And in many instances, even with the TV on, he's putting a towel, a blanket, an article of clothing over the TV screen to kind of mute the glow. And then he's now proceeding with the sexual assault on the victim. Now, why is he doing this? Well, now he can see the victim. He can see the fear in the victim. There's, you know, the ability to actually see what you're doing, too. But I also think he is doing this because he enjoys looking at the victim while he is sexually assaulting them. And the fear in their face, that's his reward. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. And this is what was stunning to me when I was allowed into his house into Deangelo's house. Deangelo's house. He gets arrested. We announce to the world he's the Golden State Killer. Prior to that announcement, I was out at his house before Sacramento CSI and the FBI's evidence response team were gonna start. So this, in part, they wanted to get my eyes and sort of my feedback as to what I'm seeing, so that could help guide maybe some of their searching, since I knew the case so well. And also it was. They knew how much work the team did in order to try to find Deangelo. And so, in essence, it was like a reward. And when I got to Deangelo's bedroom and I'm standing in the front door and I'm looking around and I'm seeing his bed, I'm seeing a dresser across the room. And he literally had two targets from the firing range that was showing his pretty tight clusters of shots. I don't know what distance he was shooting from, but obviously he's still very proud of his firearms proficiency. To the right, right inside the bedroom was his computer. And the computer monitor had a towel draped over it. Just like what he would do at his crime scenes.

[D]

To the tv.

[B]

To the tv. And I was like, he is replicating the environment that he experienced during the attacks. He is still fantasizing about those attacks and.

[D]

Because by the time Deangelo is arrested and we'll obviously get to this, but there had not been an attack in. In years. Right.

[B]

His last known case was May of 1986.

[D]

Right. And he's arrested in 2018. 2018. So that is haunting that you're putting a. You. I can't.

[E]

Old habits, right?

[B]

Yep.

[A]

Coming up on Chasing the Golden State Killer with Paul Holes. The East Area Rapist continues to terrorize the. Even after the attacks are over. Phone calls, threats, and years of fear reveal another layer of his cruelty.

[B]

Five years later, she's working at a Denny's in Rancho Cordova, and she receives a phone call from the East Area Rapist at work. At work.

[D]

That's so wrong.

[B]

Sacramento Sheriff's office, early on in the series, recognized that the East Area Rapist was calling his victims after the attack. He has kept track of at least her, and I believe he's probably kept track of other victims because there's other victims that receive phone calls from him.

[A]

That's coming up on Chasing the Golden State Killer with Paul Holes. Small Town Dicks presents Chasing the Golden State Killer With Paul holes is an audio 99 production. It's written by Paul Holes and features Detective Dan, Detective Dave and me, Yardley Smith. This series is produced by Jessica Halstead and Monica Scott, executive produced by Ben Cornwell and me, edited by Katie McMurran and Soren Bajan with additional editing by Christina Bracamontes, sound supervision by Logan Heftel, design and social media by Andrew Polk. The theme music is composed by Logan Haftel. If you'd like to support the making of this podcast, please go to smalltowndicks.com superfam and hit that little join button. Also, you can stream all [e-mail] GoldenstakeKiller from all of us at Audio 99 thank you. Thank you for listening.