Sac State ballroom to host Golden State Killer suspect’s guilty plea

SACRAMENTO — Prosecutors have selected a large ballroom at California State University, Sacramento as the site for Monday’s expected guilty plea by Golden State Killer suspect Joseph James DeAngelo, an unusual move made necessary by the fact that more than 150 victims, their relatives and media members are expected.

The hearing, which is scheduled to begin at 9:30 a.m. and be subject to extraordinary security measures, will be held in the University

Union’s ballroom, a 150-by-97-foot room on the Sacramento State campus that can hold as many as 2,000 people when set up for receptions.

Because of coronavirus concerns and the need for physical distance between people attending the hearing, court officials and prosecutors had been searching for a space large enough to allow such a large group to sit safely for hours.

Previous hearings over the past two years have been held in cramped courtrooms on the first floor of the Main Jail building downtown, and none of Sacramento Superior

Court’s courtrooms were deemed large enough to accommodate Monday’s session.

The hearing at Sacramento State is expected to be one of the last steps in a decades-old murder, rape and burglary spree that began in the early 1970s and remained a mystery until his arrest outside his Citrus Heights home in April 2018.

DeAngelo is expected to plead guilty to 13 murder and 13 kidnap for robbery counts, as well as admit responsibility for 62 other rapes and crimes that prosecutors say were committed in 11 California counties from 1974 through 1986.