Justice after 40+ years
‘Golden State Killer’ guilty plea due
The retired cop accused of being the notorious “Golden State Killer” is expected to plead guilty on Monday to a reign of terror that involved more than a dozen murders some 40 years ago.
Joseph James DeAngelo Jr., 74, will likely enter a deal that will spare him the death penalty on charges involving 13 murders and 13 kidnappings across six counties in California.
He’s also expected to cop to at least 62 rapes during his twisted crime spree in the 1970s and 1980s.
The rapes can no longer be prosecuted because of the statute of limitations, but the deal would bring closure to survivors awaiting justice in a case that has gripped California for decades.
“He certainly does deserve to die, in my view, so I am seeing that he is trading the death penalty for death in prison,” survivor Gay Hardwick told The Associated Press. “It will be good to put the thing to rest. I think he will never serve the sentence that we have served — we’ve served the sentence for 42 years.”
DeAngelo, who was an officer in two small-town police departments, managed to elude authorities as he crisscrossed the state.
Some of the earlier crimes involved an armed and masked rapist breaking into sleeping couples’ suburban homes in central and Northern California at night, binding the man and sexually assaulting the woman, authorities have said.
It was only years later that the assaults were linked to a string of murders in Southern California.
The suspect had been known as the East Area Rapist, the Original Night Stalker and the Diamond Knot Killer. He was finally dubbed the Golden State Killer by author Michelle McNamara in the bestselling book “I’ll Be Gone in the Dark.”
It took the pioneering use of new DNA techniques for investigators to finally make a break in the case.
Using decades-old evidence, authorities compiled a family tree on an online DNA database and zeroed in on DeAngelo before arresting him in 2018.
He will appear Monday in a Sacramento State University ballroom that’s been converted into a courtroom to allow for social distancing during the coronavirus pandemic.
“I’ve been on pins and needles because I just don’t like that our lives are tied to him, again,” said Jennifer Carole, the daughter of Lyman Smith, who was slain in 1980 in Ventura County.
Sentencing will likely occur in August and could last several days, as scores of victims are expected to confront DeAngelo.
Some are at odds with prosecutors’ decision to move forward with a deal that would spare him the death penalty.
“It’s a step forward . . . but it’s not what I was hoping for,” Kris Pedretti, one of the rape victims, told the Los Angeles Times.
Carole said, “Death doesn’t solve anything, but him having to sit though a trial or preliminary hearing, that would have helped.”