Chasing the Golden State Killer with Paul Holes | The Visalia Ransacker

Summary

Podcast Summary

Small Town Dicks: Chasing the Golden State Killer with Paul Holes

Episode Title: The Visalia Ransacker

Date: July 10, 2026

---

Main Theme & Purpose

This inaugural episode of the "Chasing the Golden State Killer" series features legendary forensic investigator Paul Holes as he recounts his more than two-decade-long pursuit of the Golden State Killer (GSK), starting with the early crimes of the "Visalia Ransacker." The discussion explores how the GSK case first came to Paul, the evolution of forensic science, the psychology and behaviors of the offender, and the chilling escalation from fetish burglaries to murder—all in Paul’s own words, providing rare depth and candor.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Paul Holes’ First-Person Account of the GSK Case

• Paul Holes shares that this is "the first time I'm sitting down and telling this case in a podcast or any type of media format in this manner." (01:36)
• His investigation began in 1994, making it his first ever cold case. He remained involved for 24 years (02:59, 04:24).

2. Early Crimes: The Visalia Ransacker

[02:08 – 04:35, 23:31 – 39:01]

• Timeline: The crimes begin between 1974 and 1975 in Visalia, California.
  • More than 100 fetish burglaries occur during this period (02:27, 33:19).
  • Offender targets unoccupied homes, focusing on women’s undergarments and personal items (23:31).
  • Often leaves evidence of having been in the home, such as laying out lingerie or taking a single earring.
• Escalation:
  • After around 85-87 burglaries, the Ransacker attempts to kidnap 16-year-old Beth Snelling. Her father, Professor Claude Snelling, intervenes and is fatally shot (34:27).
  • After shooting an officer (who survives thanks to his flashlight), the Visalia Ransacker series abruptly ends (38:30).

3. The Psychology of Fetish Burglars & Offender Escalation

[25:11 – 31:05]

• Paul Holes explains the evolution of such offenders. Crossing social barriers (trespassing, spying, breaking into homes) often predicts escalation to hands-on crimes, including violence or murder.
• Notable comparison: Urges listeners to consider the increasingly bold steps required, from walking on a neighbor’s lawn to eventually assaulting a resident (26:10).

4. Forensic Breakthroughs & Discovery of the Case

[08:22 – 15:28]

• As a young forensic scientist, Paul stumbles upon the case in a forgotten file cabinet, noticing files labeled "red ear," and recognizes immediately “oh, this guy’s a serious predator” (10:45).
• His agency was uniquely positioned for new DNA analysis, as they were the only one to have retained key evidence (14:29).

5. Advances in DNA Technology and Case Impact

[15:28 – 22:21]

• Paul describes the evolution from blood typing and enzyme testing to RFLP and then PCR-based DNA testing, which revolutionized forensic investigation.
• By the late 1990s, the implementation of STRs and the FBI’s CODIS database became critical tools, enabling identification at a scale previously impossible.
• Detective Dave likens the statistical certainty of DNA matches to “one in quadrillions” (18:32).

6. The Offender’s Dual Life as a Police Officer

[39:01]

• Revealed that Joseph DeAngelo, the GSK, was serving as a full-time law enforcement officer while committing these crimes—he even joined the very anti-burglary task force investigating his own offenses.

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the Case’s Scale:
  Paul Holes: "Between 1974 and 1975, you have over 100 of these burglaries. He is constantly out there breaking into houses. Extraordinarily prolific." (02:27, 33:19)

• On Discarded Evidence:
  Paul Holes: "All the other agencies had destroyed the physical evidence from the East Area Rapist attacks... I was just in that fortunate position to be first in a laboratory, having the forensic background, being assigned to the DNA unit." (14:29)

• On Offender Psychology:
  Paul Holes: “The excitement of breaking into a house is sexually gratifying. The excitement of going through the woman's undergarments is sexually gratifying... this guy is going to start raping. Because that is the evolution of this type of offender.” (25:31, 26:08)

• On Escalation & Social Barriers:
  Paul Holes: “Imagine walking up on your neighbor's lawn and now looking into a bedroom window to look at a woman undressing. That offender has crossed a significant social barrier... the next step is, oh, breaking inside a house.” (26:08)

• On Law Enforcement Irony:
  Paul Holes: "DeAngelo does promote to become a sergeant and he gets assigned, get this, to the Anti Burglary Task force. So he is on the task force that is likely investigating the Visalia Ransacker." (39:01)

• On Perseverance:
  Paul Holes: “In any of these whodunit homicides, you fail until you are right.” (39:30)

• On the Chilling Night:
  Detective Dan: “Dave and I would sit in the hot tub and we listened to the Case file episodes… while we’re listening... we hear a noise from the neighbor’s house… later we find out... we were just burglarized while we were at home.” (06:17)

---

Timestamps for Important Segments

• Intro & Series Purpose: [00:54 – 02:39]
• Paul’s Entry into GSK Case: [02:59, 04:24]
• Origins as Visalia Ransacker: [23:31 – 33:19]
• Crime Escalation & First Murder: [34:27 – 36:19]
• Attempted Officer Shooting & End of Series: [36:18 – 38:42]
• GSK as Cop & Task Force Irony: [39:01]
• Evolution of DNA Forensics: [15:28 – 22:21]
• Psychology of Fetish Burglary & Escalation: [25:11 – 31:05]
• Paul Finding the Files: [10:45 – 14:29]

---

Flow & Tone

The conversation moves smoothly between Paul’s experiences, technical forensic explanations, and the personal perspectives of all hosts. There’s camaraderie and dark humor among the hosts, even as the subject matter remains deeply unsettling. There’s also a tone of awe for the investigative dedication and a palpable chill when discussing offender escalation and proximity.

---

Conclusion

This episode offers a rare, detailed, and personal account from Paul Holes on the earliest days of the Golden State Killer’s criminal behavior, the evolution of forensic science, and the psychological dynamics of serial sexual predators. The episode ends by teasing the growing awareness among investigators that the perpetrator may have insight into law enforcement methods—because he is law enforcement—setting up the next installment where the crimes move north and the East Area Rapist moniker is born.

---

Next episode preview: The focus shifts to the northward crimes, emergence of new monikers, and mounting evidence that the offender understands policing from the inside out.

Transcript

[Progressive Insurance Announcer]

This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever find yourself playing the budgeting game? Well, with the name your price tool from Progressive, you can find options that fit your budget and potentially lower your bills. Try [e-mail] Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates Price and coverage match limited by state law. Not available in all states.

[Pepsi Commercial Narrator]

And we're live from the living room as Doug eyes up the match. Say spread. He's reaching for the buffalo wing. Perfect. Hang on. What's this? Oh, he's. He scored for a can of Pepsi too. Incredible. What a finish. Sensational combination. Look at the delight on his face. There's no doubt about it. It just tastes better. Match days deserve Pepsi. Food deserves Pepsi. Grab a pack of Pepsi. Zero sugar for today's match. It's poetry in motion from the people

[Yeardley Smith]

who bring you small town dicks. This is chasing the Golden State Killer with Paul Holes for the first. Paul is telling the full story of his 24 year pursuit of the Golden State Killer. Not in soundbites, not as part of someone else's documentary, but as he lived it. The case files, the evidence, the mistakes, the breakthroughs, as well as the personal toll of being singularly preoccupied with one investigation for decades.

[Paul Holes]

This is the first time I'm sitting down and telling this case in a podcast or any type of media format in this manner.

[Yeardley Smith]

Before he got the name Golden State Killer or the East Area Rapist, before the original Night Stalker, he had another name, the Visalia Ransacker.

[Paul Holes]

This now goes back to 1983

[Progressive Insurance Announcer (continued)]

and

[Paul Holes]

this is down in Visalia, California.

[Yeardley Smith]

In this first episode, Paul takes us back to where the story begins. A series of break ins in a California town turns a quiet community into one under siege as signs of a brazen offender emerge and his crimes begin to escalate.

[Paul Holes]

Between 1974 and 1975, you have over 100 of these burglaries. He is constantly out there breaking into houses. Extraordinarily prolific.

[Yeardley Smith]

This is more than a story about how a case was solved. It's the story of how Paul begins peeling back the layers of a sprawling cold case and starts assembling the picture of a voracious offender whose appetite for violence is seemingly insatiable.

[Paul Holes]

I first got involved with the ceased area rapist case in 1994. That was my very the very first cold case ever. And today it's known as the Golden State Killer.

[Yeardley Smith]

Episode one, the Visalia Ransacker. I'm Yeardley Smith. I'm going to keep this introduction short because you all are in For a

[Podcast Host]

treat, I have with me Detective Dan.

[Detective Dan]

I'm looking forward to this.

[Podcast Host]

Hello, hello, hello. And I have Detective Dave.

[Detective Dave]

I am here as well and looking forward to this indeed.

[Podcast Host]

And of course, we have the one and only Paul Holes.

[Paul Holes]

Hey.

[ZocDoc Commercial Narrator]

Hey.

[Podcast Host]

So any dedicated true crime fan has heard about the remarkable solving of the Golden State Killer case. And even if you're not a huge true crime fan, you've probably heard of that. And you might also well know that our one and only Paul Holes was a huge part of breaking that case, which went on for 25 years. 20.

[Paul Holes]

I was on it for 24 years.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, that's just a minute. You know, should have tried harder. Just kidding. So I've always really wanted Paul to give us a deep dive on his investigation of this case that went on

[Yeardley Smith]

for over two decades.

[Paul Holes]

I first got involved with the ceased area rapist case in 1994. That was my very first cold case ever. And today it's known as the Golden State Killer.

[Podcast Host]

Right.

[Paul Holes]

And this is where. Where kind of the story starts in terms of how the case went from being really an unknown case. And there was maybe brief flurries of media attention on it over the decades, but it wasn't until Michelle McNamara wrote an article for Los Angeles Magazine and renamed the Rapist to the Golden State Killer. Now the general public were like, oh, what's that?

[Podcast Host]

Right.

[Paul Holes]

Because the moniker was descriptive as to what this offender was doing. He's attacking all over the Golden State, and he's a serial killer.

[Yeardley Smith]

And so today, my friends, that's what we're gonna do.

[Podcast Host]

So just to give you a tiny bit of background, Joseph DeAngelo was identified as the Golden State Killer. He was arrested for his crimes in April 2018. So it's been seven years. So it fel a good period of time for Paul to have lived it, sort of digested it. Obviously. It's a huge part of his wonderful memoir Unmasked. If you haven't read it, you should immediately or have Paul read it to you as an audiobook. So I don't know. That's a long way of saying, I'm really looking forward to this. Paul gave us a presentation yesterday that he often gives to law enforcement. Is it?

[Paul Holes]

That's correct.

[Podcast Host]

And it's deep, it's detailed, it's extraordinarily knowledgeable. I think you guys are really gonna love it if you can actually love a story about a serial killer. You take my point.

[Detective Dan]

So a little of my history with this case and Dave. So back in the day, before we Met Paul, Dave and I when we were down in LA before my beautiful

[Paul Holes]

wife and I got married.

[Detective Dan]

Dave and I would sit in the hot tub and we listened to the Case file episodes on the East Area Rape Original, Night Stalker.

[Podcast Host]

And Casefile is another really well done podcast.

[Detective Dan]

Yeah, he did a really good job. And so I remember Dave and I listening to those episodes out in the hot tub. I was completely captured by the case. And it just so happened. It was around Thanksgiving, and while Dave and I are sitting in the hot tub, we hear a noise from the neighbor's house.

[Detective Dave]

Clearly, there was a ruckus.

[Detective Dan]

Can you describe the ruckus?

[Detective Dave]

There was a. Like a bang and a.

[Podcast Host]

Hey.

[Detective Dave]

Like someone calling out hey, you know, to get someone's attention. And then I heard a. Like a plop. Like someone landing on the ground from an elevated height. You know, like you jump off the, you know, your single story roof and you hit the grass. That kind of sound.

[Detective Dan]

And then clear running. Like feet hitting the ground running. And later we find out because your neighbor called you and said, hey, we were just burglarized while we were at home.

[Detective Dave]

Home invasion.

[Detective Dan]

Home invasion while we're listening to this case. I mean, the. The irony in that is I get chills through my body thinking about that, because we were mere feet away. We were on the other side of the fence when this home invasion was taking place.

[Detective Dave]

Yeah, that was definitely creepy. And we got to walk the perimeter and check everything, make sure yard lease place was okay.

[Podcast Host]

Thank you for doing that.

[Detective Dan]

Yeah, that was our introduction to this case. And, yeah, I have emotional attachment to this case now. Not quite like Mr. Holes over there.

[Podcast Host]

No, indeed. Now we have this full circle moment. So pH, as I like to call you, tell us how this all began for you.

[Paul Holes]

Okay, well, you know, I think first, what I want to address. This is the first time I'm sitting down and telling this case in a podcast or any type of media format in this manner. Probably the most I've done on this case was for an audible original called Evil Has a Name. And this is where, in part, I was locked in a booth. It was like the size of a phone booth. And I recorded over 20 hours of material. But then I think that project in total was maybe six hours long. So you think about all the material that never went public. Been interviewed on documentaries, but typically they take sound bites. So even the documentaries don't hear what I'm about to present when I'm talking to law enforcement. I crafted this presentation, and in part, it was to convey the gravity, the extent, the magnitude and the scope of this particular case. But it was also to be educational because during the course of my investigation into this case, I had my investigative failures and I learned from those. And then it's also to convey how to assess offenders. When you have an intelligent and sophisticated offender, you have to take into consideration that things may not be the way you think they are. So that's part of what I hope to be able to convey to you guys here and to our listeners from small town dicks. The way this case came to me was I was initially hired as a civilian forensic scientist doing dope analysis, doing alcohol analysis. And I always wanted to be on the other side of the lab and become a deputy sheriff criminalist. And I finally got promoted into that position, went to the police academy. And during this time frame, for my 25th birthday, my parents sent me two books. One was called Sexual Patterns and Motives and the other one was Crime and Human Nature. Imagine giving your 25 year old boy

[Podcast Host]

questions about that as a gift.

[Detective Dave]

Maybe they saw signs early on.

[Yeardley Smith]

Oh, man.

[Paul Holes]

At this point, I had read a couple of, I guess you'd call them true crime books on serial killers. One was about David Carpenter, the Trailside Killer on Mount Tamalpais. And that was fascinating because he's literally right across the bay from my jurisdiction. But he was coming over and where he was kind of hanging out and eating. I knew what restaurants they were talking about in the book. And then the other one was a book which I remember the name, it was angel of Darkness. And that was about Randy Kraft, the. He was sort of a tech guy down out of Orange county, and he was attacking and killing men and doing brutal things to these men. So I had expressed an interest in serial predators, but it wasn't until I read that book, Sexual Homicide. And for those that don't know, that is the academic text that the Netflix show Mindhunter is based off of. So in essence, you now have John Douglass, Bob Ressler, Dr. Ann Burgess, doing the study of, you know, captured serial killers, trying to figure out, you know, what makes them tick. And so that's what this book was. And I became fascinated with the serial predator. And so I just started gobbling up all knowledge I possibly could. It became that fascination. And my lab at the time had this amazing library. And so I was just, in that early part of my career, all the technical information, I was reading all these books and at one point I look over and there's this old file cab just tucked away in the corner. Nobody ever went into that file cabinet. I go, what's in there? So I started opening up the drawers and it's just a bunch of junk or cassette tapes or VHS tapes or whatever. And then the bottom drawer was heavy and I open up the bottom drawer and it's a whole bunch of manila folders. And on the tab of the manila folder you could see what would be like laboratory numbers had been written. But right next to all these laboratory numbers was a red ear. And I didn't know what that meant. But I start looking at what's in there and there's case files and forensic reports. As I'm reading case file after case file, I'm going, well, this is a serial rapist. And so I was immediately gravitated towards it. And these were all cases from the 1970s. And I was like, well, I wonder if this is solved. I was fascinated with it. And I could tell immediately because now I had consumed all this information about predators. Oh, this guy is. This guy's a serious predator.

[Ryan Reynolds (Mint Mobile Commercial)]

Hey, it's Ryan Reynolds here for Mint Mobile. Now I was looking for fun ways to tell you that Mint's offer of unlimited Premium Wireless for $15 a month is back. So I thought it would be fun if we made $15 bills, but it turns out that's very illegal. So there goes my big idea for the commercial. Give it a [e-mail] Switch upfront payment

[GSK Commercial Narrator]

of $45 for three months, $90 for six months or $180 for a 12 month plan. Required $15 per month equivalent to taxes and fees. Extra initial plan term only greater than 50 gigabytes. Me slow when network is busy see terms teens share everything that may include the bacteria that can cause meningococcal disease known as meningitis. Even if your teens been vaccinated in the past, they could still be missing meningitis vaccinations. Ask your teen's doctor or visit meningitis.com today. Sponsored by GSK.

[Paul Holes]

So it wasn't until I got onto a plane, I was riding with my boss who was much older, and I mentioned these files and he goes, oh, that's the east area Rapist case. And I was like, is it solved? He goes, no, it's not solved. And he happened to have been on the original Contra Costa county east area Rapist task force.

[Podcast Host]

Oh, wow.

[Paul Holes]

So he was very, very familiar with the case. And from that point on I decided, well, I'm going to see if I can identify who this rapist is using this newfangled DNA Technology. I was fortunate enough that my agency, of all the agencies in Northern California, had kept the evidence from these cases. And we'll talk about how extensive the attacks were in Northern California. But all the other agencies had destroyed the physical evidence from the east area rapist attacks. And this is just where it was thought that these cases were past statute of limitations. Property room technicians are going up. This is a rape case and it's past statute. We're now destroying the sex kits, we're destroying the victim's clothing, we're destroying the bedding that was collected. You know, everything gone. So I was just in that fortunate position to be first in a laboratory, having the forensic background, being assigned to the DNA unit. And it happens that my agency was the one that kept the sex kits from some of the cases.

[Podcast Host]

Incredible. Can I ask you a question? Where was DNA? You reference this new DNA technology. Where was it at this time that you discovered this file cabinet?

[Paul Holes]

Sure. From just a brief DNA history, you know, circa 1987, 1988. That's where Dr. Alec Jeffries developed this RFLP technique. And it was used in the Colin Pitchfork case for the first time.

[Podcast Host]

What's that?

[Paul Holes]

So that's a case in which I think two girls were killed in a town and they literally did a mass screening. Law enforcement over there got DNA samples or blood samples from all the men that lived in the area. That's in England. We could not do that here. And turns out that none of the men sampled matched the semen from the victims. But at one point, a tip came in that this Colin Pitchfork had convinced another guy to give his sample as his right. And so of course, law enforcement goes to him and then he gets matched using this very first DNA technology. It's great technology. Much better than ABO testing, which we were doing at the time, or the

[Podcast Host]

enzyme testing, which is just about blood

[Paul Holes]

type, ABO blood type. And then of course, you could further discriminate going after various proteins and enzymes, but it still was not very discriminating. So this RFLP was a huge leap forward, where now it's like, yes, this is fairly unique, you know, statistically fairly unique to this particular individual. It's just that it required a ton of DNA in good shape. Most forensic samples, you have a tiny amount that's degraded, it's contaminated. So it had limited utility from that perspective. Then the next step was the implementation of pcr. Pcr? Polymerase chain reaction is basically like a molecular xeroxing machine that, in essence, you start with a small amount of DNA and you can make a whole bunch of it. And once you've made a whole bunch of it, now you can type it and develop a DNA profile. This is groundbreaking. But as time went on, short Tandem repeats or STRs came in and were kind of coupled with this PCR technology and STRS became, now you could actually create a database because they were discriminating enough to where it's, you know, I can now search a database and now we have the FBI's CODIS database as a result and do a search. And it's not like we're going to find a whole bunch of people in that database with the same STR profile. It's going to be one person. If that person matches, then that person is likely the donor. And STRS has only gotten more robust in terms of the number of markers to where in essence today, even though we can't go in court and I testify to what we call identity, it's him and only him. You have to express statistics. But the statistics are in like one in quadrillions, right? And it's like, come on, when you

[Detective Dave]

get a hit like that, you get the lab paperwork back and it says this sequence of DNA would be expected to be seen in 1 and 8, quadrillion. And you're like, well there's only what, 8 or 10 billion people on the planet. So I think we got them, I

[Podcast Host]

think we got them.

[Detective Dave]

What year ish was this that PCR and STR start coming online where it's reliable?

[Paul Holes]

So PCR first started coming into public laboratories back in the early 90s and when I first found these east area rapist files, we were just in the process of getting that PCR based technology, the early iteration of it online. So I think we actually formally went in 1995 and then STRs were starting to come in right there in the mid-90s with some of the more well resourced laboratories. So it was really at the mid to late 90s when we made the full switch to STRs. And that's when the FBI's CODIS, the DNA database started to grow with STR profiles and became an invaluable tool to solving cases.

[Podcast Host]

As you're describing Paul, the evolution of DNA, I get a picture in my head of first you have a roadmap, that's just the highways. Then as the DNA technology develops, now you have some more smaller township arteries. Then as you get to str you start to get like oh, people's driveways, you get dead end roads, you get cul de sacs. So basically the Picture of somebody's biological signature becomes more and more detailed.

[Paul Holes]

That's an interesting way to look at it.

[Podcast Host]

Thank you. I'm here to simplify things for people like me.

[Detective Dave]

Yeah. I've heard prosecutors describe the evolution of DNA technology. Like the first cell phone versus what you hold in your hands now is how far it's traveled.

[Podcast Host]

At the risk of stating the obvious, the east area, you're talking about Sacramento, north of San Francisco. Just for people who don't necessarily live in the U.S. right?

[Paul Holes]

Yes. So he got his moniker out of the Sacramento area. And where his attacks were predominantly occurring in Sacramento were east of downtown Sacramento. Law enforcement generally aren't the ones that come up with the monikers. It's the media.

[Podcast Host]

Sure.

[Paul Holes]

Right. And so the media is now saying, hey, this guy that's attacking in the east area. And then pretty soon, it's, well, the east area rapist up in Sacramento. And, of course, he just kept that moniker as he moved from jurisdiction to jurisdiction up in Northern California.

[Podcast Host]

Okay, and what is the year of

[Paul Holes]

the first recorded attack for the East Area rapist? June of 1976.

[Podcast Host]

Almost 20 years prior to you, Paul, opening up this filing cabinet. 18 years.

[Paul Holes]

That's correct. And everybody assumed because he just disappeared out of Northern California in roughly July of 1979. And, you know, as I ultimately was doing my investigation and even talking to some of his victims, they just said, oh, well, rumor had it that he got killed. He was shot trying to break into a house down in San Jose, or he just moved out of the area. And so this case, after he disappeared from Northern California, literally just went cold. Nobody was working on it. Within maybe a year after 79, they disbanded the task forces, and it literally just went forgotten until I opened up that file cabinet. Now, I will say there were some other individuals in other jurisdictions that also early on, became aware of this case and were doing some work in their jurisdiction. I was just completely unaware of who they were until later.

[Choice Hotels Commercial Narrator]

I wrote a little song to remind you. Choice hotels get you more of the experiences you value.

[Zazzle Commercial Narrator]

Mm.

[Choice Hotels Commercial Narrator]

The Cambria Hotel's got it all. A rooftop bar. Have a ball. Cocktails up here. Feel just right. Ms. Cambry, you're amazing. All right, bring a date, your teen, or even your mom. Book direct@Choice Hotels.com. see you on the roof.

[Wayfair Commercial Narrator]

Hey, there. It's Wayfair here, where delivery and setup are as easy as a few taps on your phone. You're relaxing in an old hammock, scrolling Wayfairs app when you spot it. A brand new Patio set. Next thing you know, Wayfair delivers it right to your patio and sets it up. Oh, you need a new grill, too. All right, Wayfair's got you covered. With Wayfair's room of choice delivery and fast expert setup on qualifying orders, life gets a little easier. Visit Wayfair.com or the Wayfair app.

[Choice Hotels Commercial Narrator]

Wayfair.

[ZocDoc Commercial Narrator]

Every style, every home.

[Detective Dave]

The east area rapist didn't start out as the east area Rapist. Can you give us an introduction to Joseph d' Angelo and how this all starts exactly?

[Paul Holes]

And this is where, you know, now we know who the east era rapist was. Now we know his background, and we know all the cases to a point that he's committed. So when I talk to law enforcement, of course, I try to do it in a more chronological order now that we know the extent of his crimes. And as part of what is considered the true Golden State killer series, this now goes back to 1974. And this is down in Visalia, California. And Visalia is Central Valley, south of Fresno, maybe an hour and a half north of Bakersfield, roughly back in 1974. Relatively small town, and there was an offender that ultimately became known as the Visalia Ransacker. And what he was doing is he was going into unoccupied homes, typically during the day, and going after what is typically considered your fetish items. You know, he's going into the women's undergarment drawers. He's laying out the women's undergarments, you know, letting them know, hey, I was here. He would go into their photo albums. In some instances, he took photos of them. I know in one instance, it was a photo of a woman in a bikini. He was stealing, like, single earrings. Kind of odd things. Well, why not take all the jewelry if you're there? You know, financial purposes. Right.

[Detective Dave]

Do you think that's a message? Like, it's a way to tell the victim, I was here. I only took one. That was my choice.

[Paul Holes]

Yeah. He was not going into houses. The Visalia Ransacker was not going into houses. And trying to be stealth, he made it very obvious he had been there.

[Podcast Host]

And interesting, too, though, Paul, that the Visalia Ransacker, as you say, does not seem to be after financial gain. This seems to be a different kind of motive. Is that so?

[Paul Holes]

Well, the primary motive for Visalia Ransacker is definitively sexual. You know, the excitement of breaking into a house is sexually gratifying. The excitement of going through the woman's undergarments is sexually gratifying. In all likelihood, in some of these attacks, possibly a majority of the attacks, he's masturbating inside these houses. But in 1974, law enforcement, particularly a small agency like Visalia, isn't going through with an alternate light source looking for that type of evidence.

[Podcast Host]

No luminol?

[Paul Holes]

Well, luminol wouldn't be used to detect semen, but, you know, most certainly they're not expending that kind of resource.

[Podcast Host]

Is that because it just wouldn't occur to them?

[Paul Holes]

In part. And it's also failure to recognize what a serious threat a fetish burglar actually is. And I even dealt with this with my department, where I had an agency that was having a series of fetish burglaries. And talking to that police chief, he was saying, hey, can we get priority DNA testing done? But then my boss shut me down, and he's going, we have homicides that we have to worry about. I'm going, this guy is going to start raping. Because that is the evolution of this type of offender. And of course, I've talked about barriers to offense in our culture. What are these social barriers that most people are bound by? And I often have used the example, you know, you're walking in the neighborhood, and you walk up on your neighbor's lawn. You get a little nervous because you're afraid the old man's going to come out and yell at you. So most people are going to stay on the sidewalk. But imagine walking up on your neighbor's lawn and now looking into a bedroom window to look at a woman undressing. That offender has crossed a significant social barrier. But then the next step is, oh, breaking inside a house. I mean, that is another massive social barrier, and there's a reason why that is considered a serious crime. But now you're breaking inside a house and performing sex acts inside there. Then you break inside a house, and there's a person present when that barrier is crossed. That is the biggest predictor, that that person is going to go violent on the person who lives inside a house. You know, and that's what d' Angelo did. He literally went through each of these steps.

[Detective Dave]

Most burglars don't want witnesses, so they're breaking in during the day when everyone's at work or on vacation.

[Pepsi Commercial Narrator]

Yes.

[Detective Dave]

And so the significance to law enforcement on an occupied burglary of a dwelling, we all recognize it. Those can go sideways in an instant. And why would you break into someone's house when there's a person present other than to me, my assumption is, you're going in there to hurt or harm a person. It's not about property. You chose to hit an occupied dwelling.

[Paul Holes]

And when you're dealing with the predator, you know, the reason they're going in there when there's. It's an occupied dwelling is there's fantasy. This person is fantasizing about doing things to a person inside that residence, and they may just not take the step initially to actually go hands on. They get off on the fact that there's creepy photos of people asleep and their cameras, you know, like child monitors cameras or whatever, catches somebody who's just standing at the foot of the bed. And the sleeping residents have no idea this guy is inside the house, and he doesn't ever touch them. But think about what he is thinking. Why is he doing that? He loves the fact that he's able to do that and have that kind of authority and dominance over them. But there is a sexual component to the reason he's doing that.

[Detective Dave]

Gross nightmare fuel.

[Podcast Host]

And you're really starting to see this suspect start to evolve. It's terrifying.

[Paul Holes]

Well, and this is where we're at with Visalia Ransackers. He's at the level of evolution where he is going into unoccupied dwellings, and he's doing the fetish aspect, but he's also taking oddities. He would steal piggy banks or break piggy banks and pull out coins. And he was stealing blue chip stamps. And I didn't know what a blue chip stamp was. But in essence, people would get blue chip stamps through some mechanism, and what they would do is they'd save them. And then there were stores that you could go to and trade those blue chip stamps in for items. It's like a form of currency.

[Podcast Host]

Okay.

[Paul Holes]

So, in essence, there was a financial aspect to that. To this day, I don't know if the Visalia ransacker, Joseph d', Angelo, ever took the stamps that he stole and went into a blue chip stamp store.

[Podcast Host]

Sure. But to me, it's a kissing cousin to. I'm just gonna take one earring. I'm gonna disrupt this pair right now. You only have one, and I know it means something to you, and now I have it.

[Paul Holes]

Right. And this is where, instead of being stealth, Vasali Ransacker could have gone in. He could have taken. And we see this a lot with fetish burglaries. Just taken a few items. Undergarments, bras, panties, out of the woman's undergarment drawer, close the drawer, and leave. And of course, that woman probably never even knows that occurred or at some point weeks later, is looking for a particular item of clothing and going, hey, where is it? The ransacker didn't do that. He purposefully displayed that he had been there. And this is part of the psychology of Joseph Diangelo, is he knew that when the victim came home, she was going to be in fear.

[Detective Dave]

And that's the payoff for him.

[Paul Holes]

Yes.

[Carvana Commercial Male]

Evening. Buyer's remorse. Buy a new car. I'll be moving in. Let's get started.

[Carvana Commercial Buyer]

Sorry, I think there's been a mistake. I bought it from Carvana.

[Carvana Commercial Male]

You what?

[Carvana Commercial Buyer]

Yeah. Great price. I even have seven days to love it or return it. So there's no, no, no buyer's remorse. More like buyers rejoice.

[Carvana Commercial Male]

I guess I'll let myself out. Congratulations. I mean it.

[Carvana Commercial Buyer]

Buyers rejoice. Buy your car today on Carvana. Limitations and exclusions may apply.

[Paul Holes]

See our seven day return policy at Carvana.com@sockdoc.

[ZocDoc Commercial Narrator]

We know being a healthy adult is like living in a video game. Every day has side quests, taxes, laundry, birthdays. And just when you're leveling up, you have to book a doctor. The insurance portal crashes. They put you on hold. Your doctor doesn't take your plan. Game over. We see you. So we made booking a doctor easy. Download ZocDoc. Search by specialty, insurance and availability. Book instantly, no cheat codes required. Find a doctor you love with Zocdoc.

[Progressive Insurance Announcer (continued)]

Trying to be a bit more mindful of things you buy for you and your family? Well, when it comes to laundry, choose AllFreeClear. 100% free from dyes and perfumes. AllFreeClear uses only essential ingredients that tackle tough stains and odors. And it's gentle on the skin. It's a powerful clean you can feel good about. So go on, pick up a bottle of all freeclear for your next laundry day.

[Zazzle Commercial Narrator]

The most memorable gifts aren't found. They're made. Zazzle is a custom marketplace where you pick any product, A mug, a car, a tote, a phone case, and make it personal. A photo, a name, an inside joke. The kind of gift that actually fits the person. That's what 30 million customers have been coming back to Zazzle for over 20 years to find. Right now, save 25% on your first [e-mail]. that's zazzle.com. make it zamazing.

[Detective Dan]

And so, just to get a sense of d', Angelo, how prolific was the Visalia ransacker?

[Paul Holes]

Yeah. So this is where in Visalia this wasn't a series that happened where you might get a case every few months between 1974 and 1975, you have over 100 of these burglaries. He is constantly out there breaking into houses. Extraordinarily prolific. For my cold casework, I'm huge into the geographic aspect. And so I use Google Earth in order to map out whatever series. And so with Google Earth, you can put push pins. And so within Visalia, I end up getting an aerial Google Earth photo of Visalia. And I literally map out locations of all these burglaries with these blue pushpins. And basically the entire area of the central part of this Visalia right around the College of the Sequoias, is just densely packed with all of these blue

[Podcast Host]

pushpins, which is terrifying for a neighborhood, for a community. You know, like, it's not a one off or a two off, which is bad enough. This guy just hit everybody.

[Paul Holes]

And so, of course, you know, your neighbors are talking, hey, I got hit, I got hit. After about roughly 85 to 87 of these fetish burglaries, there's a case in which a 16 year old girl, Beth Snelling, is asleep in her bed and a man has gloves on, believe he had his mask on, pulls her literally out of her bed and is now trying to drag her outside. Of course she's fighting. And this is the Visalia Ransacker. She's fighting him and screaming. Well, her dad, Professor Claude Snelling, who was a professor at the College of Sequoias, hears his daughter. So he runs out the front door to come to her rescue. And the Ransacker drops Beth, pulls a gun. It was a miracle.38 revolver, shoots and kills Claude Snelling. He then kicks Beth in the head three times, calls her a bitch, and then runs off. So now this is the first known homicide in the series. And what's important is you think about this homicide. This is where a man is charging at DiAngelo. And, and so Deangelo, this is what we would call a defensive type of shooting. Not saying it's self defense under the circumstances, but basically DeAngelo is protecting himself against this man coming at him. And this is going to be a repeated theme as we go through the series. So you have this homicide that the Visalia Ransacker has done, and they were able to determine that the homicide weapon, that revolver, had been stolen by the Visalia Ransacker during one of the earlier fetish burglaries. So he's using a weapon that he stole that is not registered to him.

[GSK Commercial Narrator]

Wow.

[Paul Holes]

So even though now you have this homicide and technically you have an abduction of Beth, or I should say a kidnapping from a crime statute standpoint, he continues to do these fetishbergs. So the Visalia Ransacker is just killed, and yet he's still going back and doing fetishbergs, burglaries. And in this case, because of the prolific nature, of course, Visalia is putting some resources on trying to catch the Visalia Ransacker. So there's a detective, Detective McGowan. He basically is like assessing the series. And he goes, I think the Visalia Ransacker is going to show up in this particular block on a neighborhood. And so McGowan stages in that area. This is actually at night. And sure enough, he sees the ransacker walking up, up on a fence line on a house across the street from where McGowan was at. So McGowan goes and confronts him, and McGowan lights him up with a flashlight. The ransacker looks at him. He doesn't have his ski mask pulled down. It's just resting on the top of his head. And McGowan basically looks him up and down with the flashlight, as you guys probably have done thousands of times working patrol. And the ransacker, with what McGowan described as somewhat of a woman like voice, says, don't shoot, don't shoot. Kind of does this almost like this hysteric type of reaction. And when Ransacker does that, he goes and pulls a gun and shoots Officer McGowan. However, McGowan's flashlight is what caught the bullet. Oh, wow. Possibly saved McGowan's life.

[Detective Dave]

DeAngelo, in this situation, there's this feigned compliance, this feigned, I surrender and you know, I'm not a threat to you. It's why police are trained. Always watch hands. It's pounded into your brain. Watch their hands. And it's interesting that d' Angelo knows I can go to that right now and buy myself some time.

[Detective Dan]

After D' Angelo shoots Officer McGowan and hits Officer McGowan's flashlight, what happens next?

[Paul Holes]

The ransacker hops a fence and disappears. And then after the Officer McGowan shooting, the Visalia Ransacker series just completely stops.

[Yeardley Smith]

Coming up on Chasing the Golden State Killer with Paul Holes. The crimes move north. A new moniker emerges. And the investigation begins to reveal something even more disturbing. This offender may understand how law enforcement works from the inside out.

[Paul Holes]

Deangelo is a full time law enforcement officer. While he is committing the Visalia Ransacker Burglar DeAngelo does promote to become a sergeant and he gets assigned get this to the Anti Burglary Task force. So he is on the task force that is likely investigating the Visalia Ransacker. As I go through, I'll talk about some of my investigative failures, but one of the things that I've said in any of these whodunit homicides, you fail until you are right.

[Yeardley Smith]

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. The 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 Heftel. If you'd like to support the 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.

[Stitch Fix Commercial Narrator]

Stitch Fix Stop shopping. Get styled a plus on the outfit. Ms. Turner, you are about to slay parent teacher conferences.

[Yeardley Smith]

Oh these just the most perfect fitting jeans my stylist sent me.

[Paul Holes]

Oh hello you who didn't set one foot in a mall and still looks amazing.

[Stitch Fix Commercial Narrator]

Just share your size, style and budget and your stylist sends personalized looks right to your door. Stitch Fix get started today@stitch fix.com to my stylist this look is dedicated to you.

[Podcast Host]

Thank you, thank you.