The Golden State Killer, aka The Original Night Stalker

TW: This article contains mentions of murder and r*pe

Hello everyone!

First of all I would like to apologize for taking so long to give you the first True Crime article, I just had a very busy week with work, and it got quite overwhelming. But I am now here to bring you the first case.

This case has cases that go back to the 70’s, but it was only recently closed.

The “Golden State Killer”, before being known by this pseudonym, was thought to be two different criminals, since he had crimes in two different areas: “Visalia Ransacker” and “East Side R*pist”. It’s estimated that he committed 50+ r*pes in California and 120+ burglaries.

Visalia Ransacker

From April 1974 until December 1975, there were over 120 burglaries in homes, in Visalia, California. The suspect was known to enter people’s houses and rifle through their belongings, ransacking their stuff, vandalizing, do things like go to the women’s underwear drawer and scatter underwear around the house,…

What was so particular about this burglar, is that he would not always take the most valuable items. Sometimes he would leave the high-priced things like jewelry, but take low value things instead (e.g.: he would take cheap earrings and leave the gold, and sometimes just take one of the earrings). With this information investigators figured he was not on it for the money, but for the adrenaline.

However, even though there were so many break-ins, this individual didn’t do anything violent at the time, but he sure did get a lot of experience entering people’s homes. Something he did use later.

East Side R*pist

During 1976 a lot of r*pes started happening in Sacramento. The suspect would stay outside and look for women that he found interesting and start to stalk them. He would learn their routines and enter their homes. He would do this when they weren’t home to stash some supplies, and to linger around. But the worst part is when he would break into their homes and r*pe them.

Modus Operandi (MO)

Women reported that they would wake up in the middle of the night due to a loud sound and would see a man at the end of the bed just staring at them, watching them sleep. Sometimes he wouldn’t even be wearing clothes, and was usually holding a weapon to scare them. He would usually do this when women were alone, either living alone or the husband was gone, but he started to go a step further and show up when the couple is sleeping, which is riskier. When this happened, he would scare them with the weapon, telling them to do whatever he told them to, the woman would have to tie up her husband and have him lay down on the floor. Then, he would stack plates on top of him and tell him “Don’t move. If I head these plates jiggle at all, I’m gonna kill you and your wife”. He would take the woman to the next room, even though the man could still hear everything, and proceed to r*pe her.

This man would always be wearing a ski mask and would flash a really bright light at them when they first woke up, to stun them and even though his face was covered, he would constantly yell at them to not look at him.

However, there was something weird about his way of committing these crimes. He would enter people’s homes to commit these crimes AND leave witnesses, so it would be best if he didn’t touch anything and get out as quick as possible, so that he didn’t leave any DNA. Yet, he was known for lingering in their houses. Sometimes he would be with the woman several times, and take breaks in which he would hang out at their homes, make a sandwich, sit in the back patio enjoying the view and, of course, rummage all their stuff, which left a lot of DNA behind. We can say, however, that at that time leaving DNA was not a big deal for criminals, since the technology was not very advanced and there was little to be done with it.

Reports on the Suspect

Based in what victims said, police believed that this was a white man, about six feet tall (183cm), blondish brown hair, slender and in good physical shape. The victims reported that he had a small... weenie, which sparked theories that maybe that had something to do with his crimes and hate towards woman.

He was very tactical and knew what he was doing and how to not get caught. He was enjoying it so much that he would go to the extent of harassing his victims, like calling them and talk in a creepy way (you can see call recording here).

Sacramento community started to be really scared, so the police started hosting town hall meetings to everyone that was concerned, so they could talk about it. After these meetings started, police actually got a call from a man saying he would strike that night in Watt Avenue. Police went to that area since there were many calls before of just “I’m East Side R*pist” and “I’m gonna r*pe again tonight and you can’t stop me” and saw a man with a ski mask crossing the bridge, but couldn’t reach him before he disappeared.

One thing this man did a lot is that he would change the areas where he would commit crimes so, in 1979, while still known as the East Side R*pist, he started moving to the southern areas of California, gaining the nickname of “Original Night Stalker”.

Escalating to Murders

In 1978 he escalated to murders. His first victims were a couple named Brian and Kate that were walking their dog at night, in their neighborhood when someone came up behind them. It was a man in a ski mask holding a gun that proceeded to chase the couple into a neighbor’s backyard. The suspect was used to men cooperating when he attacked couples in their homes because they were scared. But because they were outdoors, Brian decided to fight back, which, in turn, made the East Side R*pist freak out and shoot them both.

His third and fourth victims were on December 1979, when he entered Robert Offerman and Debra Manning’s home through a sliding glass door. He tied them up, r*ped the woman, and killed them both.

In March 13th, 1980, the 5th and 6th murders happened, Charlene and Lyman Smith, in Ventura. He did the same thing as the previous crime, but instead, killed them with a log from the fireplace, beating them up.

In August 19th, 1980 he killed Keith and Patrice Harrington, in Orange County. February 6th, 1981 the victim was Manuela Witthuhn and in May 4th it was Janelle Lisa Cruz, the last know murder of the “Original Night Stalker”.

Evolution of the Case

After the last murder, the case goes cold. Police hadn’t connected that the “Original Night Stalker”, the “East Side R*pist” and the “Vilasia Ransacker” were all the same person. But they did made an interesting discovery.

Police noticed that the knots used to tie the victims were very advanced, so they figured he had to have some involvement with the military and/or police, which earned him the name “Diamond Knot Killer” for a while, since his knots would resemble diamonds.

It wasn’t until 2001, with some advances in DNA technology that police was able to connect the dots that there name were all for the same person.

The Book that Helped it All

Michelle McNamara was extremely obsessed with the case and, wanting to figure out who it was and help the victims, she wrote an article to LA Magazine, in 2013. She was the one that gave him the final name “Golden State Killer” and she later published a book named “I'll Be Gone In The Dark”, in 2018 that helped propel the investigation, giving it more resources.

The FBI decides, in June 15th, 2016 to release a new composite sketch and a 50,000$ reward

With the new DNA technology, detectives uploaded the Golden State Killer’s DNA from a rape kit back from Ventura County to a DNA database (ged match), in the beginning of 2018. The website became very useful since it found 10 to 20 people that were possible matches for being the suspect’s descendants. They then kept narrowing it down until they got only one suspect left: Joseph James DeAngelo.

Detectives tracked him down and watched him for days waiting for him to throw something out, so they could get his DNA, which they eventually got from his door handle and a freshly blown tissue he had just thrown away. The DNA from these was proved to be an exact match to the one found in the crime scenes.

The Aftermath

In April 24th, 2018, Joseph DeAngelo was caught and charged with 8 counts of first degree murders. In May 10th, Santa Barbara District Attorney charged him with 4 more.
Unfortunately there was no DNA to tie him to the Visalia Ransacker case (all the burglaries), even though the police is pretty confident he’s the man. This meant the couldn’t be charged with the burglaries OR the r*pes, since at the time, the statute of limitations had expired.

April 10th, 2019 prosecutors said they were asking for the death penalty, but at July 29th of the same year, they made a deal that if he pled guilty and confessed, they would drop the death penalty charge. Joseph confessed and got sentenced to life without parole. He also said in court “I’ve listened to all your statements. Each one of them [the victim’s] and I’m truly sorry for everyone I have hurt. Thank you, your honor” (see here).

The Culprit

Joseph was born in New York and moved to California when he was young. In 1964 he joined the US navy and served for 2 years during Vietnam. He attended Sierra’s College and graduated with honors with an associate’s degree in Police Science and, in 1971, he attended Sacramento State University and earned his Bachelor’s degree in Criminal Justice.

From May, 1973 to August, 1976, he was a burglary unit police officer. From that time and until July 1979, he was also a police officer in Auburn County California, where his career ended when he got caught stealing a hammer and dog repellent - he didn’t explain, just admitted it and quit.

In 1980 he married a woman named Sharon Hudler and they bought a house at Citrus Heights - where he was later arrested, they had 3 kids and separated by 1991. He worked most of his life since leaving the police at Save Mart supermarkets, as a truck mechanic.

Curiosities

In 2018, HBO bought the rights to Michelle’s book to make a docuseries “I'll Be Gone in the Dark” you can check out!

I’ll leave you a website with a lot of informations about this particular case, such as more detailed mentions of calls to victims/police made by the killer, victims statements, timeline, etc - HERE

Thank you for reading this and hope you liked it, feel free to tell me what you think about it and discuss in the comments! Is this too long? Would you like me to make shorter versions, or is this the right length? Is there anything else about the case you would like to see me touch more on? Feel free to send me your feedback, I will greatly appreciate it!

Best Regards,