Crime The Golden State Killer Finally Faces Justice: 26 Life Terms for 50 Rapes and 13 Murders.

It sounds like they think he committed at least some of the crimes while he was a police officer.
He was kicked off the force for stealing a dog tranquiler and rope so yeah.
 
DeAngelo is a former Auburn, California, police officer who was fired in 1979 for shoplifting a can of dog repellent and a hammer from a drugstore, according to Jones. He worked as a police officer in Exeter and Auburn between 1973 and 1979.

He was kicked off the force for stealing a dog tranquiler and rope so yeah.

How did the stolen can of dog repellent and a hammer in the OP becomes dog tranquiler and a rope by the time you posted your response?
 
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How did the stolen can of dog repellant and a hammer in the OP becomes dog tranquiler and a rope by the time you posted your response?
Just what I heard today at work. Sounds like he was dealing with dogs of his victims.
 
Just what I heard today at work.

So basically you just jumped face-first into our discussion to "contribute" stories invented earlier around your office water-cooler and pass them as facts, instead of reading the actual confirmed information from the DA office provided in the OP before posting like normal people? o_O

The discussion on the stolen dog repellent and hammer are right there on Page 2, by the way.
 
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Just how heinous was he? Here's how the East Area Rapist tortured and terrorized victims
By Ryan Sabalow | April 26, 2018

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A deep panic had settled over the Sacramento region in the late 1970s as the East Area Rapist, again and again, stalked neighborhoods, broke into homes and raped women.

But one man said he wasn't worried. At a town-hall meeting hosted by the Sacramento County Sheriff's Office, he stood up and declared husbands could keep their wives safe.

Not long after, the East Area Rapist broke into the man's home and assaulted his wife.

The rapist, detectives say, almost certainly was at the meeting, and had followed the couple home.

The shudder-inducing story, told Wednesday by Carol Daly, one of the original investigators on the case, is just one of several horrifying details that have resurfaced following Tuesday's arrest of Joseph James DeAngelo. Detectives say DeAngelo's DNA linked him to 45 rapes and 12 murders credited to the East Area Rapist in the 1970s and 1980s.

Here are some of the other chilling details about the crimes that have made the East Area Rapist, also known as the Golden State Killer, one of the most notorious serial rapists and murderers in American history.

He would pause during attacks to eat his victims' food.

The East Area Rapist helped himself to food in his victims' refrigerators. During one assault, he paused, went to the kitchen and ate a slice of apple pie, according to Michelle McNamara, the author of a groundbreaking book on the case "I'll Be Gone in the Dark."

He seemed to have mommy issues.

In a piece in Los Angeles Magazine, McNamara described how the rapist seemed obsessed with his mother. The scenario described by victims she interviewed: After tying them up and assaulting them, he would go into another room and sob loudly. One victim remembered hearing him cry out: "Mummy. Mummy. Mummy." He told another that reading about his crimes in the press “scares my mommy.”

He toyed with his victims.

After staking out homes, the East Area Rapist would break in and unlock screens and windows to allow him easy access later. Upon his return, he would wake his victims by shining a flashlight on them. He would wear a ski mask to conceal his identity.

When he targeted couples, he would separate the woman from the man before tying the man up with an intricate knot. He would place bottles of perfume or plates on the man's back, so he could hear if there were any movement.

Whispering through clenched teeth in a high-pitched falsetto voice, he would tell the bound man he was going to kill him and the woman if he heard a sound.

In one case, reported in the Sacramento Bee in the 1970s, he raped a 13-year-old girl while her mother was in the other room. He told the mother he would cut off her daughter's fingers if he heard the china he had placed on her back fall.

In one of his later attacks, the East Area Rapist broke into a house and hid in a closet waiting for the couple to fall asleep. He was smug when he woke them up.

"The husband reached over for a firearm, a revolver he had in the night stand, next to the bed," Wendell Phillips, a former Sacramento County sheriff's deputy told The Bee on Wednesday. "The East Area Rapist was standing there, shining the light on his own hand, showing the guy the bullets he had taken out of it."

He took souvenirs and lingered in homes.

Crime-scene momentos were part of his modus operandi. A Modesto couple said he removed and pocketed their wedding bands and also helped himself to a revolver he found in their home. Others reported that he pilfered photographs. Sometimes he would rummage through houses for hours, and just when his bound victims thought he had left, he suddenly would reappear and start his torments all over again.

He kept in touch with some victims.

The rapist would sometimes telephone victims after the attacks, threatening women with explicit talk about future sexual violence. Police tried to use these calls to catch him, but detectives said he seemed to know which lines they had tapped.

One of his victims later got a call at the restaurant where she worked, leading detectives to believe the East Area Rapist had been in the eatery watching her, Paul Holes, then an investigator with the Contra Costa District Attorney's Office, told Crime Watch Daily.

In the early 1990s, one of the victims told detectives she got a call from him and "could hear kids in the background and a woman," retired Sacramento County sheriff's detective Richard Shelby told the San Francisco Chronicle in 2001.

The last known call to a victim came in 2001 after The Bee published an article about the case, Holes told Crime Watch Daily.

"I believe he saw that article," Holes said. "And he knew ahead of time that victim's phone number and called her."

http://www.sacbee.com/latest-news/article209917839.html
 
Yeah reading up this guy, honestly just let him loose in a room full of his victims and their families. Let them beat him to death . He deserves nothing better. He should be left as a stain on the floor. Nothing more
 
If there's a Serial Killers HoF, Jack the Ripper should be among the first batch of inductees.

(*)

I mean really, how hard was it to get away with murder back then?
 
http://www.sacbee.com/latest-news/article209908769.html?anf=TOP_STORIES

Sacramento County District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert declined to detail how her office obtained the relative's DNA profile or accessed a genealogy database, raising questions about the privacy of personal genetic information on websites.

Paul Holes, a retired investigator with the Contra Costa County District Attorney's Office, confirmed Friday that he used "open-source" site GEDmatch to make the DNA connection.

"I haven't come across this before," said John Roman, a senior fellow at research organization NORC at the University of Chicago. Roman is a forensics expert and studied the use of DNA in criminal investigation in 2005-09 in Orange County and L.A.

"If that’s how the match was obtained, then I would think there would be court battles to come."

Colleen Fitzpatrick and Margaret Press, who run a nonprofit organization called the DNA Doe Project, said one of DeAngelo's relatives may have shared DNA results with one of several public DNA matching websites, where people upload genetic data in search of biological parents or other long-lost relatives after obtaining results from a commercial site.
 
Makes me wonder how legal that is. Someone told me who used ancestry.com that they didn't share the DNA results. Seems like if these databases voluntarily cooperated there'd be no issue with the admissibility of the evidence, but you might be due damages from the private company. If the cops coerced the searches via warrants then isn't that problematic in that they're just kinda searching through everyone's shit without an specific suspect in mind? I don't really know much on this aspect of the law.

Maybe some lawyers will chime in here.

I have no doubt there will be a court battle over the DNA. But if the DNA that they got in his discarded trash (no warrants required) is proven to be a perfect match for his DNA as well as the DNA left at the crime scenes, he doesn't stand a chance here.

It doesn't matter how his name initially popped up on the radar during the investigation (family tree on genealogy sites), it's how they're able to tie him to the crime through legal means afterwards.

Add to the fact that he's not a celebrity who could hire a power attorney to exploit any unforseeable loopholes as well as enormous public/juror antipathy towards this type of heinous crime, dude is toast.

 
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I have no doubt there will be a court battle over the DNA. But if the DNA that they got in his discarded trash (no warrants required) is proven to be a perfect match for his DNA as well as the DNA left at the crime scenes, he doesn't stand a chance here.

It doesn't matter how his name initially popped up on the radar during the investigation (family tree on genealogy sites), it's how they're able to tie him to the crime through legal means afterwards.

Add to the fact that he's not a celebrity who could hire a power attorney to exploit any unforseeable loopholes as well as enormous public/juror antipathy towards this type of heinous crime, dude is toast.

It does matter how they got his name through the genealogy sites. If they went in with a warrant and demanded the info that's much different than the site volunteering the information (presuming the cops would have given them the DNA they had from the crime scenes and politely asked the companies to inform them of any close matches). As far as I know anyone can turn over info on someone else (outside a few professions), but there's much stricter rules when it comes to warrants. The DNA from the trash wouldn't appear to be an issue.

I don't see how a warrant would hold up in court. There was no specific person to be checked. Just a massive fishing expedition that utilized the personal information of someone not even suspected of a crime. And really, as an American, that practice is more disgusting than this guy walking free because of it (although not by much). So I'm hoping either the business volunteered the info or that there's something to this thing about the daughter voluntarily uploading it to some public site than anyone could search.

What am I missing here?


EDIT: Looks all good to me.

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/dna-analysis-led-golden-state-220259415.html

The site, known as GEDmatch, is a popular resource for people who have obtained their own DNA through readily available consumer testing services and want to fill in missing portions their family tree conduct further analyses. Compared to a polished service like 23andMe, GEDmatch is an open platform lacking the same privacy and legal restrictions that govern user data on more mainstream platforms.

To home in on their suspect, investigators used an intact DNA sample taken at the time of a 1980 Ventura County murder linked to the serial killer. The team uploaded data from the sample into GEDmatch and were able to identify distant relatives of the suspect — a critical breakthrough that soon led to the arrest of Joseph James DeAngelo, 72.
 
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That's good news. Insane that he's been living a free and full life in California for all of these years.
42 years and he never thought to leave the state? I would've left the country by then or at least moved to the opposite coast.
 
Why former FBI agent thinks 'Golden State Killer' suspect fits serial killer profile
By EMILY SHAPIRO | Apr 27, 2018​

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An increase in violence

Joseph James DeAngelo, a 72-year-old former police officer, was taken into custody this week on suspicion of being the serial killer. He is accused of committing 12 murders, at least 50 rapes and multiple home burglaries in the 1970s and 1980s.

DeAngelo is set to appear in court later today.

The "Golden State Killer" -- whose crimes spanned from 1976 to 1986 -- started his crime spree with home burglaries and sexual assaults, and later escalated the violence to murders and double murders.

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This undated photo released by the FBI shows a home invasion ransacking by an attacker who became known as the "East Area Rapist" at an unknown location in California.

Serial killers "predictably get more violent," Garrett told ABC News. "All of those increases the thrill and increases the risk."

The "Golden State Killer" also broke into homes where there were families -- and committed those sexual assaults with his victims' parents or children present.

That's "an ultimate power play," Garrett said, "and that's what these guys are all about."

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This undated photo released by the FBI shows part of "East Area Rapist" Crime reports at the Sheriff's department evidence room in Sacramento, Calif.


Margaret Wardlow, who at the age of 13 was raped by the "Golden State Killer" in 1977, told ABC affiliate KGTV in San Diego that she had read articles about the suspect, so she recognized what she perceived as his need for power before she was attacked.

So, Wardlow said, during the attack, when the suspect said to her, "Do you want to die? Do you want me to kill your mother?" Wardlow said she responded, "I don’t care."

She said she thinks that response saved her life, KGTV reported.

An attraction to uniform

DeAngelo served in the Navy in the 1960s and then became a police officer.

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An undated photo of alleged serial killer Joseph DeAngelo who served in the Navy in the 1960s.

In 1976, he served as a police officer in Auburn, California, until he was fired in 1979 for allegedly stealing a hammer and a can of dog repellent, The Associated Press reported, citing Auburn Journal articles from the time.

"Serial killers tend to be attracted to uniform -- they tend to be attracted to military and law enforcement," Garrett said. "They don't necessarily go into either one but they are intrigued by it."

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Suspected "Golden State Killer," Joseph James DeAngelo is the police officer on the right in a photo from 1979.

Law enforcement and military members lead regimented lives, Garrett explained, and "to a certain extent many of [the serial killers] feel like they're very organized and regimented... to not get caught."

Farrel Ward, who worked with DeAngelo at the Exeter Police Department, told ABC station KFSN in Fresno that he believed DeAngelo's role as a police officer may have helped him evade capture for so long.

"He outsmarted everybody for 40 years," Ward told the station. "So with his education and his experience in law enforcement, he kind of knew what the next step was going to be with the police department. He had to know he had so much time to get in and get out, he would probably know the response time of the police department."

Garrett said the crime spree likely moved from Sacramento County in Northern California down to Orange County in the southern part of the state because "serial killers watch the media. They see what the police are doing and they tend to adjust."

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Inside the timeline of crimes by the "Golden State Killer."

Garrett said that also accounts for why the "Golden State Killer"'s modus operandi changed: for example, sometimes he used a gun, while other times he killed by blunt force trauma.

Hiding in plain sight

DeAngelo lived in Sacramento County -- where the crime spree started -- with his wife and three daughters, one neighbor said.

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Joseph James Deangelo, known as "The Golden State Killer," is seen in this police booking photo, April 25, 2018, after being apprehended.

After his time as a police officer, DeAngelo spent 27 years working for Save Mart Supermarkets at a distribution center in Roseville, near Sacramento, said Victoria Castro, a public affairs manager for Save Mart. He retired last year.

"None of his actions in the workplace would have led us to suspect any connection to crimes being attributed to him," Castro said in a statement. "We are working with the Sacramento County District Attorney's Office on their investigation."

Serial killers "are masters at leading what I call compartmentalized lives," Garrett said.

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Sacramento County Sheriffs deputies leave the Citrus Heights, Calif., home of Joseph James DeAngelo, April 25 2018.

They can commit murders, "go back home, make breakfast for their kids, take them to school, kiss the wife goodbye, go to work, go to bowling, go out socially, and then go back out the next night and do it again," Garrett said.

"Serial killers love to live in plain sight. They can even have conversations with neighbors [about a serial killer in their town], Garrett said. "In their mind, it's another power thing."

"Many of them are disciplined enough to keep their mouths shut," he said. "He fits that profile."

"They don't like sharing what they've done with other people -- they want it all to themselves," Garrett continued. "The reason [the 'Golden State Killer] takes things that are personal, like engraved wedding bands or antique cuff-links that would have personal meaning to the victim, is that he can relive the assault and the murder by looking at those items. That's very textbook and common with serial killers."

evidence-serial-killer6-ap-ml-180427_hpEmbed_4x3_992.jpg

This undated photo released by the FBI shows a sketch and details of a stolen ring the attacker who became known as the "East Area Rapist" took from one of his victims.

While the "Golden State Killer"'s crime spree spans from 1976 to 1986, Garrett said it's likely he committed crimes after 1986.

"It is such an obsession and compulsion to commit these acts because of how they make them feel -- the power, the control, the sex," Garrett said, describing it as a "high" they can't get anywhere else.

Garrett said he thinks it's important for investigators to look at DNA connected to outstanding sexual assault cases throughout California, adding the "Golden State Killer" may have changed his MO after 1986.

"It's reasonable there are other crimes," he said.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/fbi-agent-thinks-golden-state-killer-suspect-fits/story?id=54776471
 
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42 years and he never thought to leave the state? I would've left the country by then or at least moved to the opposite coast.

Run away and go in hiding in the middle of nowhere? That's literally opposite of the thrill that serial killers enjoy the most: carry on their normal life smack right in the town where they commit their crimes and relish how they got away with it.
 
So basically you just jumped face-first into our discussion to "contribute" stories invented earlier around your office water-cooler and pass them as facts, instead of reading the actual confirmed information from the DA office provided in the OP before posting like normal people? o_O

The discussion on the stolen dog repellent and hammer are right there on Page 2, by the way.
Reading it on sherdog is about the same as "hearing it at work."
 
What to know about the privacy of your DNA in wake of 'Golden State Killer' suspect's arrest
By Emily Shapiro | Apr 30, 2018,

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A third-party genealogy database was a critical resource for the arrest in a cold case that stumped California law enforcement for decades.

But the use of family members' DNA without their consent to find the "Golden State Killer" has highlighted potential privacy concerns involved with genealogy databases and DNA testing.

Those who participate in DNA testing websites "are doing it for the purposes of genealogy, family history and in some cases finding their biological family," CeCe Moore, an independent genetic genealogist, told ABC News.

For "most it never even occurred to them [that] their DNA might be used to identify a serial killer or any sort of perpetrator," Moore said. "If people didn't know their DNA was being used in that way, they couldn't have consented to it. And if they didn't consent to it is that ethically questionable? These are things that need to be considered."

There are different kinds of genealogy sites available. Companies like AncestryDNA and 23AndMe, which are direct-to-consumer, generally do not allow their DNA samples to be searched by authorities. GEDmatch, however, permits people to upload their DNA information to the site, and the samples are widely available for searches.

According to Moore, customers using commercial DNA companies like 23AndMe have legal teams who "work very hard to protect their customers' privacy. In fact, it's probably their biggest priority. I don't think people need to have a lot of concerns about that."

In the case of the "Golden State Killer," Moore said, "it would have been extremely difficult if not impossible to have gotten the [mystery killer's] DNA into those companies' databases. For example, at AncestryDNA and 23AndMe you have to use a lot of saliva. So only a living person can do that. You can't get it from crime scenes."

But, these companies do allow users to download their raw data, she continued.

"So once your results are processed, there's a file you can download to your computer. Once you do that, the company can no longer be responsible for the privacy of your data," she said.

"Then you have control of your own data, as you should," Moore said. "But you need to think about from there what you are doing with it. Some people upload it to a whole bunch of different sites trying to get more information. But if you are concerned about your genetic privacy then you need to really educate yourself on the privacy policies of those sites that you might use."

She continued, "If you're someone who highly values your privacy then [third-party sites like GEDMatch] may not be something you want to participate in because you can't be guaranteed the same level of protection that you would from a huge corporation."

Moore said the genealogy "community has a lot of trust in GEDmatch," which she said has nearly 1 million users and is often used to resolve family mysteries and adoption cases. However, GEDmatch "couldn't control how someone might use their database because they allow uploads. That's how they function. They're not the ones testing the DNA -- they're accepting raw data files from the commercial companies that test the data. That's their purpose."

It was GEDmatch that helped track down the suspected "Golden State Killer," believed to have committed 12 murders, at least 50 rapes and multiple home burglaries throughout California in the 1970s and 1980s.

In the "Golden State Killer" investigation, law enforcement uploaded the mystery killer's DNA to GEDmatch in an effort to match his information with the other profiles on the site, Moore said.

Based on the pool of people with their information on the genealogy website, investigators were then able to build a family tree of the unknown killer’s relatives, authorities said.

They narrowed the search based on age, location and other characteristics, eventually leading them to 72-year-old Joseph DeAngelo, Sacramento County District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert told ABC News.

Authorities surveilled DeAngelo and collected his discarded DNA. Then they plugged that DNA back into the genealogy database and found a match, linking DeAngelo's DNA to the "Golden State Killer" DNA gathered at multiple crime scenes, Schubert said.

DeAngelo was taken into custody on Tuesday. He has not entered a plea.

GEDmatch said in an April 27 statement, "We understand that the GEDmatch database was used to help identify the Golden State Killer. Although we were not approached by law enforcement or anyone else about this case or about the DNA, it has always been GEDmatch’s policy to inform users that the database could be used for other uses, as set forth in the Site Policy."

"While the database was created for genealogical research, it is important that GEDmatch participants understand the possible uses of their DNA, including identification of relatives that have committed crimes or were victims of crimes," the statement added. "If you are concerned about non-genealogical uses of your DNA, you should not upload your DNA to the database and/or you should remove DNA that has already been uploaded. To delete your registration contact [email protected]."

District Attorney Greg Totten of Ventura County -- where the unknown killer's DNA was first retrieved from a 1980 double murder -- said genealogy databases are a powerful tool for solving case homicides. He challenges the notion that these sites can violate users' privacy.

"People use this database to search their family tree, to search for relatives. It is a public database," Totten told ABC News. "And the bottom line here is we have brought a serial killer, serial rapist and a dangerous predator to justice as a result of that."

He added, "For the crime victims, the horror of the crime, the sense of loss, just the harm that is done by the crime, it can be lifelong. So perhaps the most gratifying aspect of this case was we could finally begin the healing process and the closure process for the countless victims that this individual had preyed upon."

After 30-year-old New York resident Karina Vetrano was strangled to death while on a jog in 2016, her grieving father poured his energy into advocating for familial DNA testing in the state. Before an arrest was made, Phil Vetrano hoped to use the DNA recovered from the crime scene to identify a possible suspect in his daughter's killing.

Police did not use familial DNA testing to make their case against the man arrested in Karina Vetrano’s case, but Phil Vetrano didn't stop advocating for its use in New York state, paving the way for its approval in 2017.

But familial DNA testing has drawn criticism from some attorneys and civil liberties advocates, who say that it unfairly involves law-abiding people in cases because of their family members.

Jay Stanley, a senior policy analyst with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), is concerned about how DNA searches could impact innocent people.

"Everybody is glad to see a case like this solved," he said of the "Golden State Killer" arrest. "But we have to be mindful of the precedents that are set, and how innocent people could be affected down the line."

Stanley said the "Golden State Killer" case raises civil liberties issues including "the uploading of the suspect’s DNA to the genealogy web site, the sequencing of so-called ‘abandoned DNA’ without a warrant, and the use of ‘familial DNA’ searches."

"By uploading the suspect’s DNA to the genealogy site, the police in this case have set a precedent for making a crime suspect’s DNA public. Where will this lead? Not all suspects are guilty," Stanely said. "'Abandoned' DNA should not be sequenced by the government without a warrant. Otherwise, all of us are susceptible to having our DNA sequenced at any time, because we all leave DNA behind everywhere we go."

"At a minimum, familial DNA searches need to be subject to stringent checks and balances and transparency requirements," he said. "More than one person has submitted their DNA to a database only to have a family member wrongly targeted as a top suspect in a murder investigation because of a partial DNA match."

A spokesperson for direct-to-consumer DNA testing company AncestryDNA said it "advocates for its members’ privacy and will not share any information with law enforcement unless compelled to by valid legal process."

The company said it didn't receive any valid legal requests for genetic information in the last three years.

A spokesperson for 23andMe, another direct-to-consumer DNA testing company, said it "has never given customer information to law enforcement officials, and we do not share information with employers or insurance companies, ever, under any circumstance."

"Unlike GEDMatch, 23andMe is a private platform, it's not possible to take information from external databases and cross reference with information from ours," the spokesperson said. "Further, we do not share customer data with any public databases, or with entities that may increase the risk of law enforcement access."

"Our research with academic and industry collaborators is conducted only with qualified researchers to better understand and treat disease. This research involves de-identified, summarized data from customers who consent to participate in research," the company said. "No individual or personally identifiable information (name, email, address, etc.) is shared. Research consent is completely optional and requires a signed informed consent document, separate from our terms of service. Our research collaborations are governed by strict privacy protocols. All of our research partners are required to meet the same rigorous privacy and security standards we hold ourselves to, including robust technical and organizational controls."

http://abcnews.go.com/US/privacy-dna-wake-golden-state-killer-suspects-arrest/story?id=54777919
 
I would say it's a lot harder nowadays to become a serial killer due to all the surveillance and personal surveillance that people hold in their hands all day.

What a amazing capture though in regards to the circumstances.
He stopped when he realized there were new ways to be caught

It's nuts, Patton Oswald was promoting his dead wives book that was recently finished, about this very topic, a few weeks ago, and it was still a mystery
 
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