Welcome to Two Bit True Crime! As spooky season is approaching, I wanted to try and relate this edition of the column to a topic surrounding the upcoming festivities of the month. In return, as a series for the next couple of weeks, I wanted to cover a few killers who hid their identities through costumes much like the ones being sold in stores all around the city to celebrate Halloween. I’m sure many of you will be on the search for a costume that fits your vibe for the season, but be on the lookout for some of these costumes as you never know what you will find in them…

Before:

Joseph DeAngelo was born on November 8, 1945 in Bath, New York. Not much is known about his childhood, but he was said to have graduated from Folsom High School in 1964 before joining the navy. From here, it was reported that in 1967, DeAngelo served as a repairman aboard the United States Ship (USS) Canberra during the Vietnam War. When he returned home, he went to a community college and later transferred to Sacramento State where he got his Bachelors of Science in Criminal Justice in 1972. He would remain in California for the rest of his life, but the things he would do as the Golden State Killer while there were unheard of. 

After graduating from Sacramento State, he became a police officer for the city of Exeter where he remained from 1973-1976. In 1976, he took a job with the Auburn Police Department where he was later fired from in 1979 after he was caught shoplifting. Then, he worked as a big rig mechanic for a Save Mart Supermarkets distribution center in Roseville until retirement. Throughout all of this, he had a seemingly normal family and appeared to be just a regular man. Little did anyone know that he was responsible for so much more. 

In 1975, DeAngelo murdered professor Claude Snelling in an attempt to kidnap his daughter who watched the whole thing. He kicked the daughter three times in the face before he fled. However, this was only the start of his violent rampage.

In June of 1976, the first reported rape of the Golden State Killer took place and all throughout the summer, he committed burglaries and rapes in Sacramento County. It was said that he would get into his victims’ houses through windows while they slept and take things like jewelry, cash, and identification. From here, he was known as the East Area Rapist. His crimes would only escalate from here as he went on to rape more than 40 women in Northern California between 1976 and 1979.

While committing crimes, he would often spend an immense amount of time in his victims’ houses and he would take breaks from the assaults to eat or cry. At first, he would only target women and girls, but then he advanced to targeting couples. He would have the woman tie a stack of plates on the man’s back. He would tell his victims that if he heard the plates break he would kill the woman, and then went on to assault her (For an accurate depiction of how this looked, check out “Law & Order: SVU Season 20 Episode 12”). Before he committed his crimes, he would survey houses and neighborhoods. 

In 1979, the rapes in Northern California came to an end, and DeAngelo went on to find victims in Southern California. He continued to rape female victims, but the difference here was that he killed them after, and their male partner if present. Between 1979 and 1986, ten people were murdered at the hands of DeAngelo. However, he wasn’t caught until April of 2018.

After:

For almost 30 years, investigators were unable to track down DeAngelo’s identity and all they had to go off of was a young white male who was about 5 ‘9, wore a size nine shoe, and had military or law enforcement training. Until DNA evidence was uncovered and used.

In late 2017, law enforcement created a genetic profile for the Golden State Killer and uploaded it to a genealogy database. A family link to DeAngelo was revealed and authorities were able to match his DNA to the ones of the crime scenes. On April 24, 2018 the now 72 year old DeAngelo was arrested and charged with 13 counts of murder and 13 more for robbery. In March 2020, DeAngelo offered to plead guilty to all counts for a life sentence rather than the death penalty. In August, he was sentenced to life in prison without parole. 

Although all of his crimes were different in one way or another, the thing that remained the same was that he wore ski masks throughout them all. 

Sources:

Biography.com Editors. “Golden State Killer Biography”. Biography, 21 August 2020, https://www.biography.com/crime/golden-state-killer. Accessed 23 October 2024.

“Golden State Killer Suspect | Here’s what we know about Joseph DeAngelo”. KCRA, 29 June 2020, https://www.kcra.com/article/what-we-know-about-joseph-deangelo/31087918. Accessed 23 October 2024.

Shapiro, Emily. “The ‘Golden State Killer’: Inside the timeline of crimes, ABC News, 30 October 2020, https://abcnews.go.com/US/inside-timeline-crimes-golden-state-killer/story?id=54744307. Accessed 23 October 2024.