Former police officer linked to spree in 1970s, 1980s
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — ADNA match led to the arrest of a 72-yearold former police officer in one of the most baffling and sadistic crime sprees of the 1970s and ’80s — a string of at least 12 slayings and 45 rapes in California by an attacker dubbed the Golden State Killer, police said Wednesday.
Armed with a gun, the masked attacker would break into homes while single women or couples were sleeping. He sometimes tied up the man and piled dishes on his back, then raped the woman while threatening to kill them both if the dishes tumbled. He often took souvenirs from his victims, who ranged in age from 13 to 41.
The match led to Joseph James Deangelo, who was fired in 1979 from the police department in Auburn, northeast of Sacramento. Despite thousands of tips over the years, his name had not been on authorities’ radar before last week, District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert said.
“We knew we were looking for a needle in a haystack, but we also knew that needle was there,” Schubert said. “We found the needle in the haystack, and it was right here in Sacramento.”
“The answer was always going to be in the DNA,” she said.
Sacramento County Sheriff Scott Jones referred to the genetic material as “discarded DNA,” but authorities refused to give specifics about how it was collected.
Deangelo was arrested on suspicion of committing four killings in Sacramento and Ventura counties, authorities said.
The suspect was fired from the Auburn department in 1979 after he was arrested for stealing a can of dog repellant and a hammer from a drug store, according to Auburn Journal articles from the time.
As the crimes unfolded across the state, authorities called the attacker by different names. He was dubbed the East Area Rapist after his start in Northern California, the Original Night Stalker after a series of Southern California slayings and the Diamond Knot Killer for using an elaborate binding method on two of his victims.
He was most recently called the Golden State Killer.
In 2016, the FBI and California officials renewed their search for the East Area Rapist and announced a $50,000 reward for his arrest and conviction. He was linked to a total of more than 175 crimes between 1976 and 1986.
Authorities decided to publicize the case in advance of the 40th anniversary of his first known assault in Sacramento County.
Deangelo, who was also a police officer in Exeter, in Southern California, from 1973 to 1976, was taken into custody without incident as officers surprised him at his Sacramento-area home, Jones said.