Latest / The Last Known: True Crime, Missing Women & Unsolved Mysteries / The Badge He Hid: Inside the Golden State Killer’s Decades of Fear | The Last Known
Transcript
- He wore a badge to hunt the monsters, but the monster was wearing his face. For decades, California women lived in terror of a shadow that moved with the authority of law enforcement, never knowing the hunter was one of them. Let’s remember her name, though I don’t have it yet, because we are talking about the collective silence of thousands of women who looked over their shoulders for ten years and saw nothing but darkness. Joseph James DeAngelo Jr. was born on November 8, 1945, in Bath, New York. But before he became the figurehead of American fear, known as the Golden State Killer, the Original Night Stalker, the East Area Rapist, and the Visalia Ransacker, he was just a boy carrying a heavy, broken history. His father was a sergeant in the United States Army, and their home was not a sanctuary. It was a place where DeAngelo was regularly beaten by both parents. When he was a child, the family lived in West Germany, stationed there due to his father’s service. It was there, in the cold shadow of a U.S. Air Force base warehouse, that DeAngelo says he was forced to witness the rape of one of his sisters by two airmen. That trauma, festering in the dark, seems to have laid the groundwork for a life that would eventually span from Northern California to Southern California, leaving behind thirteen murders and numerous rapes between 1974 and 1986. The silence here is loud when you trace his steps back to school. Between 1959 and 1960, DeAngelo attended Mills Junior High School in Rancho Cordova, California. Then, starting in 1961, he went to Folsom High School. On paper, he was just another teenager, playing on the school’s junior varsity baseball team. But beneath the surface, the darkness was already taking root. According to prosecutors, during those teenage years, he committed burglaries, stole mail, and tortured and killed animals. These were not isolated incidents; they were rehearsals. He left school without graduating, receiving a GED certificate in 1964, but the path forward seemed clear enough for someone who wanted to serve. He joined the United States Navy in September 1964, serving for twenty-two months during the Vietnam War. He was a damage controlman aboard the cruiser USS Canberra and the destroyer tender USS Piedmont. It was a discipline that would later mirror the order he sought to impose on his victims, even as he violated every oath he would eventually take. After the Navy, DeAngelo returned to education, but this time, he chose a curriculum that would allow him to wear the uniform he admired. Beginning in August 1968, he attended Sierra College in Rocklin, California. He graduated with an associate degree in police science with honors. This wasn’t just academic success; it was strategic preparation. He enrolled at Sacramento State University in 1971, earning a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice. He didn’t stop there. He took postgraduate courses and additional police training at the College of the Sequoias in Visalia. Finally, he completed a thirty-two-week police internship with the Roseville Police Department. By May 1973, Joseph James DeAngelo Jr. was no longer just a former sailor or a student. He was a burglary-unit police officer in Exeter. He had relocated from Citrus Heights to begin his career. What no one knew then, what no one could have guessed, was that the man investigating burglaries was the same man committing them. The irony is almost too sharp to bear. DeAngelo served as an officer in Exeter from May 1973 to August 1976. During this time, a series of highly publicized burglaries began occurring in and around Visalia. He was tasked with assisting in the search for himself, the so-called Visalia Ransacker. Imagine the weight of that moment. He stood alongside other officers, reviewing files, looking at photos, perhaps sharing coffee with colleagues who trusted him. He helped investigate the crimes he was committing. In that period, he committed a minimum of one hundred and twenty burglaries and one murder in the San Joaquin Valley. Then, in August 1976, he moved to Auburn, working there until July 1979. Nick Willick, who would later become Chief of Police, described him as an unremarkable officer. Unremarkable. That word feels like a knife twist now. While he was policing, his crimes escalated. He moved into Sacramento County, where he committed at least fifty-one rapes and two more murders from 1976 to 1979. He was linked to attacks in Stockton, Modesto, and Contra Costa County. He was everywhere and nowhere, a ghost in blue. In 1979, DeAngelo moved south, and the nightmare expanded. From 1979 until 1986, he murdered at least ten people in Santa Barbara, Ventura, and Orange counties. He went dormant only after these final acts. Throughout this decade-long spree, he taunted and threatened both victims and police via obscene phone calls and possibly written communications. He enjoyed the game. He enjoyed the fear. The investigation stretched across decades, spanning from the mid-seventies to the late eighties. Several suspects were cleared through DNA evidence, alibis, or other investigative methods. The system tried, but the technology of the time was blind. It wasn’t until 2001 that DNA testing indicated that the offenders labeled as the 'East Area Rapist' and the 'Original Night Stalker' were the same person. This resulted in the combined acronym EARONS. The case itself became a catalyst for change, serving as a key factor in the establishment of California’s DNA database, which collects DNA from all accused and convicted felons in the state. It has been called second only to Virginia’s in effectiveness in solving cold cases. Yet, for years, the database held names, but not the right one. For a long time, the press struggled to find a moniker that captured the scope of his evil. In the 2010s, crime writer Michelle McNamara coined the name 'Golden State Killer.' It stuck. It gave a shape to the shadow. In 2016, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and local law enforcement agencies held a news conference to announce a renewed nationwide effort. They offered a fifty thousand dollar reward for the Golden State Killer’s capture. The pressure was mounting, but the breakthrough required something new, something that hadn’t existed when DeAngelo first started killing. Forensic genetic genealogy. Investigators identified members of DeAngelo’s family through DNA matches in public genealogy databases like GEDmatch. By analyzing family trees connected to these DNA matches, detectives narrowed the suspect pool to individuals born around 1945. They found him. On April 24, 2018, California authorities charged seventy-two-year-old DeAngelo with eight counts of first-degree murder on the basis of DNA evidence. This was also the first announcement connecting the Visalia Ransacker crimes to DeAngelo. The man who had worn the badge to hide his crimes was finally exposed by the very science he helped inspire. Owing to California's statute of limitations on pre-2017 rape cases, DeAngelo could not be charged with the rapes he had committed in the 1970s. But justice isn’t just an outcome; it’s a presence. In August 2018, he was charged with thirteen related kidnapping and abduction attempts. On June 29, 2020, DeAngelo pleaded guilty to multiple counts of murder and kidnapping. As part of a plea bargain that spared him the death penalty, he also admitted to numerous crimes with which he had not been formally charged, including rapes. On August 21, 2020, DeAngelo was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. Some sources note a December 2020 plea to ten counts of first-degree murder with special circumstances, and a January 2022 sentencing to twenty-four consecutive life terms. Regardless of the specific date, the result is the same: the longest and most prolific criminal manhunts in American history ended with him behind bars. He spent a decade in newsrooms covering cold cases, feeling the weight of unsolved files on my desk, but this file? This file closed. Not because it was easy, but because someone listened. Because the truth, buried under layers of lies and a stolen badge, finally rose to the surface. We’ve talked about the mechanics of the investigation, the tragic timeline, and the eventual arrest. But underneath all the dates and charges, there are lives. Lives interrupted. Lives defined by courage in the face of terror. We honor them by remembering the details accurately and telling their stories with the dignity they deserve. Thank you for listening, for caring, and for staying with us through the difficult parts. This story is drawn from public records and widely reported accounts. Our thoughts are with everyone affected.