Now she’ll see him sent to rot in prison

Teenager Margaret at time of attack the mum, who has a 21-year-old daughter, says it was her who provided the strength. “I think some women have this experience, and it can ruin the rest of their life, but they identify so much with it that it infiltrates every aspect of their living and you don’t live your life,” she says. “I never let it define me.”

For decades Margaret thought her attacker would never be caught and her obsession with the case waned. She focussed instead on raising her child and the family wine business, and now splits her time between Palm Springs and San Diego.

BDeAngelo in the early 1970s

ut in 2018 police supplied DeAngelo’s DNA to a genealogy website, which led to a relative being discovered. The ID of the serial rapist and killer was narrowed down to six men. And in April 2018, the ex-Navy veteran was charged with eight murders, on DNA evidence.

DeAngelo cannot be charged with his attack on Margaret, due to a statute of limitations on pre-2017 rape

Sketch of killer and shot of him as cop cases, but he is accused of 13 more kidnapping and abduction bids.

Margaret, who has waived her right to anonymity, is adamant she does not want him to be executed.

“It’s too easy,” she says. “I don’t want him to get the death penalty. I want to see him in prison fending for himself because he’s no longer a young man.

“He prides himself in being this top dog and kind of pushing people around you know, authoritarian and his neighbours were petrified of him.

“So if he’s going to try to pull that s*** in prison. It ain’t going to fly.”