‘DON’T MOVE OR I’LL KILL YOU’
After four decades of silence, one man finally talks about the event that has haunted him
EAST SACRAMENTO >> He sawed wooden 2x4s to wedge shut the windows and sliding glass door. He tucked a loaded revolver between his mattress and box spring. He leaned a 12-gauge shotgun against the bedroom wall, loaded with #4 buckshot to “pack some oomph.”
It was October 1977. News of a man dubbed the East Area Rapist saturated Victor Hayes’ hardscrabble East Sacramento neighborhood. The masked man already had raped and terrorized a couple dozen people in the region over the past year.
Hayes, like many others, was taking no chances.
But in the early hours of Oct. 1, Hayes and his girlfriend forgot to prop that wooden slat into the track of the sliding glass door. He woke up to a flashlight blinding his face — the calling card of the serial rapist and killer.
Hayes was tied up, a gun pressed to his temple, and his girlfriend was raped. For 41 years, he spoke little of the half hour of terror that would define his life. But now that Joseph DeAngelo, the 72-year-old Citrus Heights man suspected of carrying out the infamous crime spree, has been arrested, Hayes is sharing the story exclusively with this news organization. He is providing one of the few, if any, public accounts told from the perspective of a male victim survivor — including never-before-shared secrets about that horrible night.
“Since this guy got caught, I beat the (expletive) outta my-
‘He … cocks the hammer back and I can hear the nice tightness of the cylinder of the weapon. I’m not scared of this. … This is not intimidating me, but I’m not saying anything.’ — Victor Hayes
self bad cause I shoulda found this guy a long time ago. This guy has been all around me,” Hayes said, taking a deep, long pause. “It’s shaped the way I’ve been my whole life. It’s made me distrustful of people in authority. I’m quick to be able to notice faults in people.”
Investigators have told Hayes that he and his girlfriend were victims of the East Area Rapist’s 24th assault. The serial rapist — also known as the Golden State Killer — would, before he was caught, kill 13 people and rape more than 50 women up and down the state during the 1970s and ’80s. And while they won’t prosecute Hayes’ and his girlfriend’s case because the statute of limitations has lapsed, they hope he can testify during DeAngelo’s trial.
Finally tracked through DNA and arrested on April 24, DeAngelo has been charged with a fraction of the crimes he is believed to have committed, including a dozen sexual assaults in Contra Costa, Alameda and Santa Clara counties. He appeared in Sacramento County Superior Court on Thursday for a brief pretrial hearing and will return in September.
Hayes’ girlfriend and other women suffered physical and mental trauma at the hands of the Golden State Killer. Their loved ones suffered as well. Men were present in about twothirds of the Golden State Killer attacks. Some were murdered, others bound, taunted and terrorized; helpless while their loved ones were raped and assaulted.
“I’ve found that men today generally want to bury their memories of the attacks, while women want to see the guy get caught,” said Paul Holes, a retired Contra Costa crime lab chief who helped capture DeAngelo. “In many ways the men feel like they’ve failed to protect their loved ones.”
Hayes admitted that it’s complicated why he’s suddenly talking after four decades of silence. He said the attack left him embarrassed, emasculated and angry. In a series of interviews, he expressed regret, anger, frustration and an agenda.
“People are making money off of it, and I’m not, and I don’t like it. It leaves a foul taste in my mouth,” he said. “So I’m trying to figure out how I’m going to make money off of this.”
At the same time, Hayes, 62, a self-employed logger who splits his time between Plumas County and Auburn, said sharing his struggles is therapeutic.
Since that night, he has kept a close eye on neighbors, strangers and coworkers looking for short, stocky men who might match the image seared into his mind. He thought he would capture him. He has a hard time forgiving himself for not.
Post traumatic stress
Hayes is uneasy. He has chosen his chiropractor’s office in Carmichael as a meeting place for the interview, but his back is facing the glass door. He asks a reporter to switch places.
“I like being able to see who’s coming in,” he said, tucking his sunglasses atop the curved brim of his worn baseball cap.
For more than two hours last month, speaking with an intense, booming voice and liberally dropping expletives, Hayes, who looks 20 years younger than his age with a shock of blond hair poking out from his hat, recalls the worst night of his life in minute detail. He shares how the encounter has changed him. He even takes a reporter and two photographers to the dusty duplex near Sacramento State University where he became a statistic in one of the state’s most notorious serial cold cases.
At age 21, Hayes rented a duplex a couple of miles away from his family’s home in East Sacramento near the American River Parkway — 23 miles of bike and jogging paths propped up on levees. It was just the type of environment that
allowed the Golden State Killer to escape the scenes of his crimes and elude capture.
By October 1977, the East Area Rapist had left a devastating trail in nearby towns, but his last Sacramento attack had happened five months earlier. The gap created a long, nerve-wracking break for residents.
“By (then), the entire area of Sacramento was just up in arms,” Holes said. “Everybody was scared.”
People were buying guns, police were holding town hall meetings and vigilante groups roamed the neighborhoods, he said.
It was a Friday night, and Hayes went to bed before his girlfriend, who this news organization is not naming and couldn’t reach. The wooden security slat never made it into the frame of the sliding glass door.
He woke up to a bright light in his eyes. He remembers lying on his mattress and looking up at a man holding a flashlight like a police officer; elbow bent and holding it overhand. In his other hand was a revolver. He wore a dark ski mask, a black leather jacket buttoned up all the way, light khaki pants, and he spoke in a whisper, through clenched teeth.
“Don’t move or I’ll kill you,” Hayes remembered the intruder saying, or something similar.
It was about 1:30 a.m. The man Hayes had long fantasized of heroically killing was three steps into his bedroom.
Bound and helpless
As with nearly all his attacks, the East Area Rapist pulled out a pair of shoelaces, tossed them onto the mattress and ordered Hayes to lie on his stomach while his girlfriend tied his hands behind his back. He double-checked the knot and ordered Hayes’ girlfriend to retrieve some cups and plates from the kitchen.
She balanced the dishes on the small of Hayes’ back, a calling card meant to provide a makeshift alarm system. He told Hayes he would kill him if he moved or made any noise.
As he left the room with Hayes’ girlfriend, he also grabbed the shotgun leaning against the wall. He took her to another room and raped her.
“I got to listen to this. I’m ... 21 years old, that’s my (expletive) girlfriend out there, and I got to listen to this bullshit. And this is really (expletive) pissing me off,” Hayes said.
Periodically, the rapist returned to the bedroom to check on him, putting the handgun to his head.
“He ... cocks the hammer back, and I can hear the nice tightness of the cylinder of the (expletive)
weapon. I’m not scared of this . ... This is not intimidating me, but I’m not saying anything,” Hayes said.
It was on the third trip to the bedroom that Hayes said the intruder told him something that he never told police or anyone else.
“What he said to me was very revealing,” Hayes said, leaning into the table. “In a couple minutes, I’ll tell you what it was.”
The attack — and a break
Little is straightforward with Hayes, including his storytelling. He recounts his trauma like a man who has kept all the details bottled up inside for far too long. He bounces back and forth in time. He promises “blow your mind” moments. He’s charming, bombastic, crude and candid nearly to a fault.
Hayes said it was excruciating to stay still and quiet on that bed four decades ago; helpless and with his girlfriend being assaulted. Around 2 a.m., they finally caught a break.
Drunk friends showed up to his duplex and started banging on his front door, ringing the doorbell over and over, shouting his name, looking for a place to continue the party. Eventually his friends gave up and left, and the house was eerily quiet.
“They drove him off,” Hayes said.
After about five minutes, when Hayes thought it might be safe, he called to his girlfriend asking if the attacker had left. She told him she thought so. Hayes untied himself and pulled out his handgun from under his mattress.
Wary that the attacker might still be inside the house, Hayes tiptoed room to room, his adrenaline pumping. He eventually found his girlfriend bound on the living room floor.
“I got to see this look on her face,” Hayes said, his voice cracking. “Brutal man. Brutal.”
When Hayes reached the front yard, he realized the threat was over. He walked to the middle of the street.
“At the top of my lungs and as loud as I can, and that’s pretty loud, I drop the f-bomb as loud as I can ... drop it,” he said. “I’m hoping that he’s gonna hear me, running off in the distance, and then I discharge my weapon. And I’m hoping to this day if I ever get to talk to him ... I’ve often wondered if he heard that because he wasn’t very far away. It kinda let him know, you ain’t as slick as you think you are.”
Hayes went back inside and untied his girlfriend.
“I comfort her. I tell her, ‘I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry,’” Hayes said. “I probably hold her and we talk and I wipe her
tears away and ask her if she’s OK.”
After a couple minutes, Hayes went to the phone to call police.
“He’s cut the phone line,” he said.
Rapist leaves a calling card
After calling police from a neighbor’s phone, Hayes noticed something strange. Sitting on the leather seat of his powder blue, chromed out Triumph 650 motorcycle — which he kept in his living room — was the lemon meringue pie he bought earlier from the store down the street.
A piece was missing and a fork rested in the tin pan. Like in other attacks, the Golden State Killer had helped himself to food.
“You get what he was trying to say? He didn’t do that by happenstance. He’s getting his point across. I see your (expletive) ... I recognize your (expletive) ... I’m marking my territory,” said Hayes, who is convinced that the East Area Rapist cased him in the days and weeks before the attack.
Once police showed up, Hayes felt he was treated like trash. A pair of crimescene technicians laughed to themselves while dusting the sink for prints, setting Hayes off.
“That was it for me ... What could possibly be appropriate to be laughing at this time in my house after this just happened?” Hayes said. “A thought goes in my head: ‘This is exactly why these dumb bastards haven’t caught the guy because they’re so damn unprofessional.’”
Later that morning, while his girlfriend was taken to the hospital, Hayes went to her mother’s house.
“Her mom’s eyes are all welling up and crying and I’m apologizing and she’s telling me it’s not my fault and everything will be OK and I’m 21 years old and I just got my ego kicked,” he said, voice cracking at the memory. “And I wanna fight. But who am I gonna lash out at? I got nobody to lash out at. I’m thinking, ‘How am I gonna find this guy?’”
The big reveal: It’s his mom
He’s finally ready to talk about the secret — the moment he has never told anyone for 41 years.
The third time the rapist returned to the bedroom, he leaned down and whispered to Hayes: “I’m gonna party with Sharon.”
Sharon was Hayes’ mother. She was 39 at the time and lived a few blocks away.
“So, right then and there, that told me, ‘Hey, I know who you are. I got dominance over you,’” Hayes said.
Holes called this new detail
“very interesting” but not surprising. Men were present in the majority of the attacks, and Holes theorizes the rapist picked couples based on prior interactions with the man, not the woman.
“Victor was possibly the intended target of that attack,” Holes said. “It’s absolutely in line with what the Golden State Killer would’ve done.”
Despite the threat, Hayes kept it to himself. He was angry at police and didn’t want to scare his mom, but he had another reason.
“I go, ‘Hey, here’s my opening.’ This guy’s going to come around and look for my mom. So, I’m just going to be vigilant and I’m gonna go over there. And I’m thinking to myself, the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office can’t solve the crime. I should’ve already solved it, but I’m asking for a second chance. This is gonna be my second chance,” Hayes said.
So for months, he would visit his mother or drive by her house in the middle of the night, maybe park outside, his handgun with him.
His moment never came.
No justice, no peace
On April 24, 2018, Hayes was with his current girlfriend at her doctor’s appointment. He was sitting in the lobby when news of the Golden State Killer arrest popped up on the flat screen TV.
“I kinda felt like I got kicked in the crotch. I had to go outside,” Hayes said.
He spent 90 minutes just sitting in his car, listening to the news on the radio. Hayes was torn. There was satisfaction that the man who had tormented him and his girlfriend had been caught, but he would quickly learn that due to the statute of limitations they would never get justice.
“The guy already should be hung and dead and put up on a scaffold at Cal Expo, and they should sell hot dogs and T-shirts with ‘I saw the hanging of Joseph DeAngelo’ on them,” Hayes said, standing across the street from his old duplex where the assault happened.
Detectives have said they
might have him testify to help describe the “signature traits” of the East Area Rapist.
But Hayes is interested in more. Top on that list is suing the Auburn Police Department, which he feels was responsible because DeAngelo worked as an officer in that city during the East Area Rapist’s three-year reign of terror in the Sacramento area. He believes DeAngelo was on duty during his attack.
Hayes said he has lost touch with his former girlfriend.
“Our relationship didn’t work out for a couple reasons. Lot of shame, lot of embarrassment, lot of anger,” he said as he abruptly grabs a faded Polaroid of himself from shortly after the attack showing him menacingly pointing his finger at the camera. “Do I look happy?”
Hayes said he has tried to move on, but the event has haunted him, and his family relationships have suffered. His close friend, Patrick Kalasardo, said the men were driving a few years ago when Hayes asked if he could share a private experience and told him the story.
“I was stunned and flabbergasted. I knew of this because of all the publicity at the time, but I didn’t know anyone personally affected. My heart just went out to him and her,” said Kalasardo, an Oakley retiree. “I don’t know how you can go through that and not have it affect you the rest of your life.”
Debbi Domingo — whose 35-year-old mother, Cheri Domingo, and her boyfriend Greg Sanchez, 27, were murdered in 1981 in their Goleta home — feels strongly that the men were in an impossible situation. The killer had the element of surprise on his side, she stressed, and there was “nothing more they could have done.”
“I can only imagine the men in those situations are probably beating themselves up with guilt,” Domingo said. “I hope they are able to let this go.”