Golden State Killer accused eyes deal
Will plead guilty if he can avoid execution
Golden State Killer accused Joseph Deangelo has offered to plead guilty for the murder of 26 people, if it means he can avoid execution and live out the rest of his life in prison, his defence lawyers say.
Lawyers filed a dismissal motion in the Sacramento County District Attorney’s Office on Monday, citing the lengthy time it takes to resolve criminal trials and the Us$20-million expected trial cost as reasons to take a plea deal.
“It might be best to just resolve it now, the cost, not just in money, but in time and happiness that will be drained out that never comes back,” attorney Mark Reichel was reported by Fox 19 News to have said.
Deangelo’s public defenders Joseph Cress and Alice Michel, who filed the motion, added that the Sacramento County Superior Court had entered not guilty pleas on the defendant’s behalf in January, “over counsel’s objections and against defendant’s desires.”
They also wrote a letter to victims’ families and survivors, dated Feb. 25, saying that criminal trials can take years to resolve and that the process can be stressful for the victims and their families. “This particular case is exceedingly complex due to the number of charged crimes and the diverse locations of the charged crimes,” the lawyers wrote, according to The New York Times. “We would like to reach a resolution of the case that avoids a trial, satisfies all parties and provides a more immediate resolution of the case.”
However, the district attorney’s office told The New York Times on Wednesday that “nothing has changed” and that prosecutors still plan to accomplish what they set out to do since April 2019 — seek the death penalty. In the past, prosecutors have stated that they want Deangelo’s trial to bring an end to “probably the most notorious unsolved serial- rape killing California history.”
Deangelo has been accused of 13 murders and over 50 rapes, carried out in the 1970s and ’ 80s. For over 40 years, the identity of the Golden State Killer had remained notoriously unsolved. But, through genetic genealogy testing, which relies on the DNA of suspects’ cousins to identify crime- scene data, Deangelo was tracked down and arrested in Sacramento, Calif., in April 2018.
This was the first time investigators used genetic genealogy to crack a high- profile case and has impacted the way in which cases across the country are investigated. However, genealogists, legal scholars and privacy advocates are concerned that the police use of these databases is an abuse of user privacy, as most people use these websites to research their family history.