Wife of Golden State Killer suspect breaks her silence

‘My thoughts and prayers are for the victims and their families’

East Area Rapist suspect Joseph James Deangelo stands with attorney Joe Cress, left, during his hearing on May 29 in Sacramento.

SACRAMENTO – The estranged wife of Golden State Killer suspect Joseph Deangelo broke her silence Friday.

In a short statement released by the Sacramento County Sheriff, Sharon Huddle expressed compassion for Deangelo’s alleged victims but was mum about her thoughts on the father of her daughters.

“My thoughts and prayers are for the victims and their families,” Huddle, 65, said.

“The press has relentlessly pursued interviews of me. I will not be giving any interviews for the foreseeable future. I ask the press to please respect my privacy and that of my children,” she said.

Deangelo, 72, was arrested in April after investigators linked him to the Golden State Killer case using DNA taken from the handle of his car door and a tissue fished out of his trashcan, court documents unsealed last week revealed.

He’s been charged with 12 counts of murder in four counties around California.

Authorities believe Deangelo, a former police officer, also is responsible for at least 50 rapes, a 13th murder and more than a hundred break-ins that terrorized California in the 1970s and ’80s.

Police investigating his alleged crimes alternately labeled their suspect the Visalia Ransacker and East Area Rapist before late crime writer Michelle Mcnamara coined the name Golden State Killer.

A wedding announcement in the Sacramento Bee said Deangelo and Huddle tied the knot in 1973, meaning they were married during the height of his alleged spree.

After Deangelo allegedly killed his last known victim, Janelle Cruz, in Irvine, in 1986, he apparently settled into a quiet life as a machinist for a grocery store chain in suburban Sacramento.

He got the job with the Save Mart chain around 1990 and worked at its Roseville distribution center, a company spokeswoman previously told The News. He was known simply as “Joe” and retired last year.

“He was a mechanic. None of his actions in the workplace would have lead us to suspect any connection to crimes being attributed to him. We are working with the Sacramento County District Attorney’s Office on their investigation,” the spokeswoman said.

Public records show Deangelo, spent that era living in a tidy, suburban home in Citrus Heights, just outside Sacramento.

He lived there with one of his adult daughters and a granddaughter in recent years, court records confirmed.