Golden State Killer admits to dozens of rapes, murders

Former police officer blamed inner voice for 13-year crime spree

SACRAMENTO, CALIF.— A former police officer who terrorized California as a serial burglar and rapist and went on to kill more than a dozen people while evading capture for decades pleaded guilty Monday to murders attributed to the Golden State Killer.

Joseph James DeAngelo Jr. had remained almost silent in court since his 2018 arrest until he repeatedly uttered the words “guilty” and “I admit” in ahushed and raspy voice as part of a plea agreement that will spare him the death penalty for a life sentence with no chance of parole.

DeAngelo, 74, did not co-operate with authorities, but muttered a confession of sorts after his arrest that cryptically referred to an inner personality named “Jerry” that he said forced him to commit the wave of crimes that began in1973 and appeared to end in 1986.

“I did all that,” DeAngelo said to himself while alone in a police interrogation room after his arrest in April 2018, Sacramento County prosecutor Thien Ho said. “I didn’t have the strength to push him out. He made me. He went with me. It was like in my head, I mean, he’s a part of me. I didn’t want to do those things. I pushed Jerry out and had a happy life. I did all those things. I destroyed all their lives. So now I’ve got to pay the price.”

The day of reckoning had come for DeAngelo, Ho said in large room at Sacramento State University made to look like a state courtroom.

“The scope of Joseph DeAngelo’s crimes is simply staggering,” Ho said. “Each time he escaped, slipping away silently into the night.”