‘He no longer has any control’
In hearing, Golden State Killer hears from survivors of sexual assaults
SACRAMENTO >> The Golden State Killer on Wednesday faced Northern California sexual-assault victims and their families, who defiantly told the former police officer that his lengthy spree of murder, rape and home invasion may have traumatized them but it did not break their spirits.
Joseph James DeAngelo, appearing in a wheelchair and behind a face mask, looked on as survivors from attacks all over Northern California stood, one by one, to face him in court. They called him a coward, recounted the harm he’d done and told him he no longer had power over their lives.
“Here we all are, all strong women — not victims — having our say to the madman. He no longer has any control, over me, or any part of his own life,” said one woman whom DeAngelo
raped in 1978 in an earlymorning attack in Danville. “I will not devote any more words
or thoughts to such worthless scum that could do such despicable things.”
Bay Area News Group is not naming the victims of sexual assault or relatives who appeared in the court.
Wednesday morning’s hearing capped off two days of emotional testimony from dozens of people affected by the statewide crime spree of the Golden State Killer, which includes at least 13 murders, more than 50 rapes and dozens of home burglaries from 1976 to 1986. Today, DeAngelo will hear from loved ones of those he killed, and on Friday he will be formally sentenced to life without the possibility
of parole as part of a plea deal that took the death penalty off the table.
There was an unexpected guest in court Wednesday: Bonnie Ueltzen, DeAngelo’s former fiancee, whose first name he cried out during at least one of the attacks.
Ueltzen appeared alongside one of the survivors, though DeAngelo, 72, remained stoic during her appearance. Authorities have speculated that DeAngelo’s anger over the failed relationship may have been a motive for his violence against women.
Some chose not to attend, instead submitting written statements that were read aloud by victim advocates.
“We were furious that this man ruined our innocence, angry that the memories persist, frustrated that there are triggers that
still remind us of this horror, and tired of living with fear that it would happen again,” said one letter submitted by “the Yolo County couple.” The night they were attacked in 1978, a responding officer told them not to let the incident ruin their lives, they wrote, “so we persevered.”
A woman from Alameda County called for DeAngelo to be executed. A San Joaquin County man described his “fantasy sentence,” that DeAngelo walk a prison mainline and be forced to contend with “the worst” of inmates, who he imagined would subject DeAngelo to the same type of treatment his victims faced.
“It was terrifying for me because I was totally helpless,” the man said, recounting the home invasion and rape of his wife. “I could
do nothing to protect (my wife).” He said the couple briefly split as they dealt with trauma from the attack but reconciled after
six months, determined not to let DeAngelo “decide our lives.”
A Navy veteran who served in Vietnam and as a
police officer in Exeter and Auburn before being fired for shoplifting a hammer and dog repellent, DeAngelo kept his life as a serial killer a secret for decades, until 2018 when a DNA match from an online genealogical website led police to one of his relatives, and eventually to him. It was the first case in a new investigative practice now known as genetic genealogy, which has led to numerous solved cold cases all over the United States.
Authorities, working undercover, trailed DeAngelo to a Hobby Lobby store and got hold of a piece of trash he threw into a garbage bin to obtain his DNA, verifying that he was the same man known as the Golden State Killer, East Area Rapist and Visalia Ransacker, among other aliases.