‘It’s jacked up’: Employees worked years with man suspected as East Area Rapist

SACRAMENTO — Jason Calhoon worked with Joseph DeAngelo at a warehouse job in northern Roseville for 27 years. He seemed like “a regular Joe,” except that he never smiled, Calhoon said.

Calhoon could not have imagined that DeAngelo would one day be arrested on suspicion of being the East Area Rapist. Police suspected years ago that the notorious figure attacked Calhoon’s baby sitter in Rancho Cordova, he said.

“I texted my mom yesterday when I heard,” Calhoon said Thursday morning outside the Save Mart distribution center in Roseville where DeAngelo worked since 1989. “I said, ‘They caught him! I am glad he’s caught.’”

A day after DeAngelo was charged in a series of murders tied to a crime spree that spanned more than a decade and terrorized the state, small details are emerging about the life the 72-year-old man lived before FBI agents and Sacramento sheriff ’s detectives arrived at his Citrus Heights home to take him into custody.

DeAngelo worked at the Save Mart warehouse near Blue Oaks Boulevard in north Roseville for 27 years until retiring last year, the company said late Wednesday. Calhoon said he and DeAngelo worked at the warehouse since the day it opened. DeAngelo was a mechanic in the facility’s truck yard.

Another worker at the facility, John Greene, said workers were expressing shock at DeAngelo’s arrest. Greene said he had only seen DeAngelo coming and going from the warehouse and that he seemed normal.

“We just heard; I can’t believe we work with someone who is faced with being a killer,” he said. “It’s jacked up.”