Suspect ditches wheelchair for Golden State Killer hearing
SACRAMENTO — The expolice officer charged with a dozen murders across California appeared before a judge Monday, walking into court for the first time after previously appearing in a wheelchair.
Joseph James DeAngelo, 72, is charged with 12 murders in four counties that have been linked to the assailant known variously as the Golden State Killer, the East Area Rapist and the Original Night Stalker. He has not entered pleas to any of the charges.
At Monday’s hearing, Judge Michael Sweet of Sacramento County Superior Court said a motion by several media outlets, including The Chronicle, to release arrest and search warrant records will be taken up May 29. The defense is seeking to keep the records sealed.
“The arrest and search warrant affidavits in this case detail allegations relating to what will inevitably be the biggest trial in California history,” DeAngelo’s attorneys wrote in a motion opposing the media’s attempts.
Authorities must spell out in such records the reasons a judge should grant them the right to search a suspect’s home and arrest a person. The documents DeAngelo’s defense is seeking to keep sealed also include an inventory of what was seized at his house.
DeAngelo’s court-appointed public defender, Diane Howard, also filed a motion Monday to exclude the media from future
pretrial hearings. She said publicity about the case will make it “extremely difficult, if not impossible,” to find an impartial jury or conduct a fair trial.
“Publicizing this matter further at this court appearance will continue to add to that difficulty,” she wrote.
Monday’s hearing was continued until May 29 after Howard said she had not yet received documents detailing the items that authorities seized at DeAngelo’s home in Citrus Heights (Sacramento County) when they arrested him last month.
DeAngelo allegedly committed 12 murders and dozens of rapes from 1976 to 1986, a period that included years when he was a police officer in Placer and Tulare counties. Prosecutors have not decided whether to charge him with any of the rapes as they sort out whether the statute of limitations has run out.
In Sacramento County, DeAngelo is accused of shooting a young couple near their Rancho Cordova home in 1978 as they walked their dog. Detectives said Air Force Sgt. Brian Maggiore and Katie Maggiore were shot and killed seemingly at random.
“After 40 years, we never thought it would be solved,” said Deanne Helton, a family friend of the Maggiores who attended Monday’s hearing. “It’s just been unreal.”
DeAngelo is being held in Sacramento County Main Jail without bail. On Monday, he walked into the small bar-lined cell inside the courtroom where defendants typically are held. He briefly talked through the bars with Howard. At his three previous court appearances, DeAngelo sat in a wheelchair next to the defense table.
Detectives arrested DeAngelo last month after they plugged DNA evidence found at a murder scene into an open-sourced genealogy website to identify relatives. Investigators then narrowed the field of possible suspects using factors such as the presumed age and geography of the serial killer and rapist.
District attorneys in the four counties where murder charges have been filed — Sacramento, Orange, Santa Barbara and Ventura — met last week to discuss where the case will be tried and who will be part of the prosecution team. No decisions were made at the meeting, according to the Sacramento County district attorney’s office.
Melody Gutierrez is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: mgutierrez@ sfchronicle.com. Twitter: @MelodyGutierrez