Arraignment: Asks judge for a public defender
SACRAMENTO — Joseph James DeAngelo hunched in his wheelchair, his 72-year-old body looking pale and feeble in an orange jumpsuit inside the courtroom.
In a barely audible voice, the man police say was a prolific serial killer and rapist who terrorized California in the 1970s and ’80s, spoke just briefly, his eyes hanging heavily, his wrists handcuffed to his wheelchair.
The brief arraignment on Friday in a courtroom at the Sacramento County Jail gave the public its first look at the person accused in the Golden State Killer case since police revealed the stunning news of
the suspect’s arrest Wednesday. DeAngelo looked confused at times as television and news cameras focused in on him.
“Is Joseph James DeAngelo your true and correct legal name?” asked Sacramento County Superior Court Judge Michael Sweet in the first-floor courtroom tucked inside the city’s downtown jail.
“Yes,” DeAngelo answered in a voice just above a whisper.
DeAngelo’s court-appointed public defender, Diane Howard, at times placed her hand on her client’s shoulder and appeared to try to help him understand what the judge was saying.
Later, after the court proceeding, Howard said DeAngelo is depressed and fragile.
“There has been a media firestorm up in Sacramento, and it seems like he has already been convicted in the press,” Howard said.
DeAngelo, who sat stonefaced in the courtroom, said little else during the minutes-long proceeding other than to confirm that he wanted to be represented by a public defender.
His weakened appearance took some by surprise, particularly since investigators who had tailed DeAngelo prior to his arrest described him as active. Neighbors described him as “high-strung” and always “talking or yelling.”
DeAngelo is on suicide watch at the county jail, but not because he has exhibited any particularly behavior, said Sacramento County sheriff ’s Sgt. Shaun Hampton. Suicide watch indicates an inmate is being held in a private area of the jail where there is medical, psychiatric and other staff on hand.
“In this kind of situation and for a crime of this magnitude we do it for his safety and as a precaution,” Hampton said.
The courtroom was packed with reporters, victims and their families, Sacramento County District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert and people with no other reason to be there than sheer interest.
Several, including Renee Voelker of Sacramento, said they came to see the boogeyman that haunted their communities brought to justice.
Not everyone trying to get into Courtroom 61, on the ground floor of the Sacramento County Jail building in which DeAngelo is being held, made it inside. It was too full.
After a follow-up court date was scheduled for May 14, he was wheeled out. He did not enter a plea to the two murder charges he faces in Sacramento County, which stem from the shooting deaths of a young couple near their Rancho Cordova home in 1978 as they walked their dog.
That couple — Mather Air Force Base Sgt. Brian Maggiore and Katie Maggiore — were shot and killed seemingly at random, detectives said.
Prosecutors in several other counties said they plan to file additional charges attributed to the suspect also called the East Area Rapist and the Original Night Stalker.
The ex-police officer allegedly committed 12 murders and dozens of rapes — some during the time he was a cop — from 1976 to 1986.
But it wasn’t until a DNA profile was produced with evidence nearly 20 years ago that so many of the crimes were connected to one suspect. Prior to the ability to use DNA evidence, only some of the crimes had been linked by the suspect’s unusual method of toying with and torturing his victims and the calling card shoelace bindings he left behind.
The long-sought capture of a suspect in the case came after detectives used DNA evidence found at a murder scene and plugged it into an opensourced genealogy website to identify relatives. Investigators then narrowed the possible suspects based on the presumed age and geography of the suspect they were hunting.
DeAngelo had been a police officer in Placer and Tulare counties at the time some of the crimes were committed.