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Thien Ho & The Golden State Killer · Legally Brunette

0:00
Speaker 1: This podcast episode contains detailed references to rape and sexual assault.
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Speaker 1: If you are someone you know has been affected by
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Speaker 1: sexual assault, confidential support is available at RAIN. That's our
0:12
Speaker 1: ai NN national Sexual Assault hotline. The number is eight
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Speaker 1: hundred sixty five six Hope. Hi, guys, welcome to another
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Speaker 1: episode of Legally Brunette. I will be your host today
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Speaker 1: Emily Simpson with my co host Shane We are going
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Speaker 1: to go into the Golden State Killer. He actually has
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Speaker 1: a few names also, he's been called the original night Stalker,
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Speaker 1: which if you remember, the night Stalker is Richard Ramirez. Correct,
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Speaker 1: but this guy pre dates Richard Ramirez. His name is
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Speaker 1: Joseph James DiAngelo, also known as the Golden State Killer.
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Speaker 1: He is a former police officer who terrorized California from
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Speaker 1: nineteen seventy four to nineteen eighty six, committing a series
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Speaker 1: of more than one hundred burglaries, over fifty rapes, and
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Speaker 1: at least thirteen murders. His crime spree began in Visalia,
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Speaker 1: where he was known as the Visalia Ransacker, breaking into
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Speaker 1: homes and stealing personal items before escalating to violence and murder.
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Speaker 1: He later became known as the East Area Rapist in
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Speaker 1: the Sacramento region, attacking women in their homes, often binding
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Speaker 1: and tormenting couples in carefully planned assaults that left entire
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Speaker 1: neighborhoods paralyzed by fear. By the late nineteen seventies, DiAngelo
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Speaker 1: had moved south and evolved into the original night Stalker,
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Speaker 1: later dubbed the Golden State Killer. He was committing brutal
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Speaker 1: rapes and murders across southern California before abruptly stopping in
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Speaker 1: nineteen eighty six. Let me ask you, you are a
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Speaker 1: native Californian. Do you remember this crime spree? I know
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Speaker 1: you told me before that you remember Richard Ramirez when
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Speaker 1: you were a child.
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Speaker 2: Richard Ramirez. I remember as it was happening, as it
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Speaker 2: was unfolding all the different attacks that he had, and
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Speaker 2: you know, we would be shutting our windows and closing
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Speaker 2: our doors, and you know, as a kid, I didn't
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Speaker 2: pay attention to the timeline of events, but it was
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Speaker 2: just it felt like every night there was something going
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Speaker 2: on with him.
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Speaker 1: Right now, this guy predates the Richard Ramirez crime spreeze.
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Speaker 2: So him I don't remember, but you don't.
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Speaker 1: Remember him, no, you know, for some reason, even though
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Speaker 1: the amount of crimes that he committed across all these
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Speaker 1: multiple counties in California. He doesn't have the notoriety like
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Speaker 1: some of these other serial killers, even though I would
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Speaker 1: say his crimes are as, if not more brutal.
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Speaker 2: Could it be because a lot of his crimes went
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Speaker 2: without a face like they did like Richard Ramirez. You know,
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Speaker 2: it was happening, so obviously it was on the news,
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Speaker 2: and then it started to unfold the investigation, like there
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Speaker 2: was a you know, someone survived I think someone survived
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Speaker 2: a gunshot to the head, which he assumed they were dead,
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Speaker 2: so they were able to give a description. And then
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Speaker 2: there was a sketch artist and went around everywhere, and
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Speaker 2: so it was like, you know, real time trying to
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Speaker 2: catch him. I'm wondering if this Golden State killer, if
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Speaker 2: it was so mysterious and so unknown who this person was,
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Speaker 2: that maybe it just didn't stay in the media.
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Speaker 1: And also because of the time period, this is the
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Speaker 1: seventies and eighties, I don't think there was a lot
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Speaker 1: of collaboration between the stuff between the police departments, and
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Speaker 1: I don't think they were connecting that all of these
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Speaker 1: crimes were committed by the same person. So for more
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Speaker 1: than three decades, his identity remained a mystery as investigators
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Speaker 1: struggled to link the crimes committed across multiple jurisdictions. The
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Speaker 1: breakthrough finally came in twenty eighteen, when detectives used genetic
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Speaker 1: genealogy to trace DNA from old crime scene evidence to
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Speaker 1: DiAngelo through an online ancestry database. At age seventy two,
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Speaker 1: he was arrested at his home in Citrus Heights, California.
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Speaker 1: Because the crimes spanned six counties, prosecutors from each jurisdiction
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Speaker 1: joined forces to bring a single consolidated case Sacramento County.
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Speaker 1: Ten Ho, the Sacramento County Assistant Chief Deputy DA, led
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Speaker 1: this unprecedented multi county prosecution. Now I read, so we're
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Speaker 1: going to interview ten Hoe in a little bit. He
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Speaker 1: was a prosecutor, the lead prosecutor on the Golden State Killer.
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Speaker 1: He's in Sacramento. His book is called The People Versus
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Speaker 1: the Golden State Killer. I actually read the entire book.
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Speaker 1: It was interesting. But you know, one of the things
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Speaker 1: I learned is all the red tape and bureaucracy behind
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Speaker 1: all of this, all these different He committed all these
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Speaker 1: crimes in all these different counties and they had to
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Speaker 1: come together and figure out how they were going to
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Speaker 1: prosecute this guy. And one of the big issues was venue,
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Speaker 1: like what county all the counties wanted, you know, which
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Speaker 1: county could prosecute him, where the venue would be. And
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Speaker 1: also I realized reading his book that all the prosecutors
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Speaker 1: had to agree whether they would seek the death penalty
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Speaker 1: or not, and they all had to be in agreement.
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Speaker 1: So there were a lot of interesting things logistically that
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Speaker 1: I learned from his book.
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Speaker 2: When was the first murder believed to be because he
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Speaker 2: said it properly stopped in Selve seventy.
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Speaker 1: Four is when he started burglarizing, But his crime spreeze evolved,
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Speaker 1: which we'll talk about. It started out as burglary, then
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Speaker 1: I think he then he went to you know, burglarizing couples.
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Speaker 1: Then it was rape, then it was.
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Speaker 2: When did he and his career as a law enforcement.
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Speaker 1: He wasn't a police officer for very long?
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Speaker 2: Okay, he he.
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Speaker 1: Was fired from the police force because he was arrested
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Speaker 1: for stealing and then and then he was he was fired, Yeah,
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Speaker 1: I mean because he was arrested he was a thief.
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Speaker 1: They caught him stealing this is funny. I didn't even
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Speaker 1: know this existed. He was caught stealing dog repellent.
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Speaker 2: Dog I mean, like where you sprayed a dog with
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Speaker 2: their attacking year.
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Speaker 1: I don't know it was dog repellent. I didn't know
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Speaker 1: there was such a thing. Now now you we have
5:50
Speaker 1: three dogs, are you googling dog repellent over there?
5:53
Speaker 2: I google spouse repellent.
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Speaker 1: Rather than pursue the death penalty, Tinhoe and his team
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Speaker 1: reached an agreement ensuring that DiAngelo would plead guilty to
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Speaker 1: thirteen counts of murder and thirteen counts of kidnapping with
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Speaker 1: intent to rob, while also admitting to numerous uncharged rapes
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Speaker 1: and burglaries. This approach spared survivors and families the trauma
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Speaker 1: of a lengthy capital trial, while forcing DiAngelo to publicly
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Speaker 1: accept responsibility for every known crime. During his sentencing in
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Speaker 1: twenty twenty, more than forty survivors and victims relatives confronted
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Speaker 1: him in court, describing decades of pain and fear. You know,
6:29
Speaker 1: they all got to give their impact statements, which I'm
6:31
Speaker 1: sure took hours and hours and hours because there were
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Speaker 1: so many, well, I mean the ones that were able
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Speaker 1: to come. I mean, you're talking about people at advanced
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Speaker 1: ages at this point. I mean's crime spece go back
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Speaker 1: to the seventiescades, and eighties. But they also had to
6:47
Speaker 1: they had to use a different space. They couldn't fit
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Speaker 1: everyone in a traditional court room, so I believe they
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Speaker 1: used a ballroom. That's how.
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Speaker 2: And he was like, how many victims he had? Ye,
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Speaker 2: they had a rent venue for victim was ridiculous.
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Speaker 1: During this proceding, DiAngelo offered a faint apology before being
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Speaker 1: sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
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Speaker 1: He is currently eighty years old.
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Speaker 2: When was the when was he convicted?
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Speaker 1: He well, he took he didn't go to trial. He
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Speaker 1: took a plea deal, and this was twenty twenty, I believe,
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Speaker 1: And then he was he was sentenced in twenty twenty.
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Speaker 2: So eighty six, as far as they know, he abruptly
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Speaker 2: stopped his crime spree.
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Speaker 1: Well, he had children, so some people think that, I
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Speaker 1: mean he was married and had three.
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Speaker 2: Have it at eighty six, he stopped, as far as
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Speaker 2: we know, and then it wasn't until two thousand, Well,
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Speaker 2: it wasn't.
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Speaker 1: Until two thousand and eighteen. I believe that they found
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Speaker 1: they were able.
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Speaker 2: Three years, yeah, thirty two years.
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Speaker 1: The case became a landmark in criminal justice, not only
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Speaker 1: for introducing genetic genealogy as a revolutionary investigative tool. And
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Speaker 1: if you remember when we talked about the Brian Coburger case,
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Speaker 1: that's also how Remember they found the DNA on the sheath,
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Speaker 1: but they ran up through Cotis and they didn't get
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Speaker 1: any hits. So then they used the genealogy websites. I'm
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Speaker 1: not sure exactly which ones, but then they got the
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Speaker 1: I believe they got a hit on his dad. And
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Speaker 1: then remember they went to the parents' house and they
8:17
Speaker 1: were able.
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Speaker 2: To find other relatives in the system and try to
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Speaker 2: draw him. They try to connect to find him, and
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Speaker 2: they did.
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Speaker 1: Okay, we're going to have ten come on in a
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Speaker 1: little bit. We're going to ask him about his book
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Speaker 1: and about the case, and let me just give you
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Speaker 1: a little bit about his background. So ten Hoe was
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Speaker 1: elected District Attorney of Sacramento County in twenty twenty two
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Speaker 1: and officially took office in January of twenty twenty three.
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Speaker 1: Prior to the election, ten served in executive management as
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Speaker 1: a Sacramento County Assistant Chief Deputy DA over the Justice
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Speaker 1: and Community Relations Bureau. Over Ten's twenty five year career
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Speaker 1: as an attorney, he successfully prosecuted sexual assault, gang and
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Speaker 1: homicide cases. He was the supervisor of the Gang and
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Speaker 1: Hate Crime Unit and has personally charged and prosecuted hate crimes.
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Speaker 1: Most notably, he successfully prosecuted the East Area rapist Golden
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Speaker 1: State Killer. He's this is his crime spree was so long.
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Speaker 1: He has multiple monikers.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, and then there's probably investigators and stuff that live
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Speaker 2: out like he outlived.
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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, there were, there were, there were people that
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Speaker 1: were retiring. We're moving on exactly. He committed thirteen murders
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Speaker 1: and over fifty sexual assaults in eleven different jurisdictions throughout California.
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Speaker 1: Michelle McNamara wrote about the case in her book I'll
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Speaker 1: Be Gone in the Dark. The case has also been
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Speaker 1: featured on CNN, HBO twenty twenty, and countless news outlets
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Speaker 1: across the world. Michelle macnamara, I don't know if you
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Speaker 1: know this, but that's Patton Oswalt's wife, and Patton Oswald
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Speaker 1: is the comedian. It's on SNL, right, and I think
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Speaker 1: he not on SNL.
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Speaker 2: It might have been on SNL, but no, he does
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Speaker 2: the voice of the narrating voice for Goldbergs that you
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Speaker 2: like to watch.
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Speaker 1: Oh, that is him.
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Speaker 2: He was on Tun and a Half Men for a
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Speaker 2: little while with Ashton Kutcher. He's done quite a few things.
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Speaker 2: He's mostly stand up comedian, or I should say is
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Speaker 2: Bread and Butter's stand up comedian. The niece fortunate to
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Speaker 2: get a lot of acting gigs.
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Speaker 1: So Patten's wife was a writer and also a true
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Speaker 1: crime just a fixionado. So I think she was very
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Speaker 1: invested in the case. She followed it, she knew its
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Speaker 1: ends and outs, and so she wrote a true crime
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Speaker 1: book covering it, and then he finished it after her.
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Speaker 3: Pretty cool that he did that.
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Speaker 2: He must have known how passionate she was about this project.
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Speaker 1: In November of twenty twenty five, da Ho published his
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Speaker 1: first true crime memoir, The People Versus the Golden State Killer,
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Speaker 1: chronicling his journey from a Vietnamese refugee to the lead
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Speaker 1: prosecutor in this landmark case against serial killer and rapist
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Speaker 1: Joseph DiAngelo. In twenty seventeen, he was presented with both
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Speaker 1: the National Asian Pacificer Islander Prosecutors Association and Sacramento District
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Speaker 1: Attorney's Office Prosecutor of the Year award, So we're gonna
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Speaker 1: pick his brain. We're going to talk to him about
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Speaker 1: the Golden State Killer and his new book, The People
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Speaker 1: Versus the Golden State Killer. Hi, Tenmi, Welcome to the podcast.
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Speaker 1: First of all, I want to let you know that
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Speaker 1: I did my due diligence and I read your entire book.
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Speaker 1: So I loved it. Yeah, it was great. You know,
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Speaker 1: I think my takeaway just in a general sense. I
11:26
Speaker 1: just wanted to ask you about a lot of times
11:28
Speaker 1: I think when people write about true crime, they really
11:31
Speaker 1: focus on the criminal. And I was pleasantly surprised that
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Speaker 1: you spent so much time really humanizing the victims in
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Speaker 1: this case and giving us such a detailed background of
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Speaker 1: who they were, what their life was like, what their
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Speaker 1: relationships were like. So I just wondered, was that something
11:52
Speaker 1: when you were prosecuting it that you were like, I
11:54
Speaker 1: want to write a book, or where did the idea
11:56
Speaker 1: come from for the book?
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Speaker 4: You know, the book.
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Speaker 3: The case has been closed for about five years now,
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Speaker 3: but what I can tell you is that when I
12:04
Speaker 3: look at the true crime genre, right, they're usually focused
12:07
Speaker 3: on the criminal or the crimes.
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Speaker 4: And I wanted to be different.
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Speaker 3: I wanted to focus on number one, the generation of
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Speaker 3: law enforcement officers that never gave up their search for him,
12:17
Speaker 3: but more importantly to the survivors and the victims and
12:20
Speaker 3: amplify their voices. And I made it a very conscious
12:23
Speaker 3: effort to highlight that in the book. And I'm so
12:26
Speaker 3: glad that you saw that and you felt.
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Speaker 1: That I really did. I mean, I would say that
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Speaker 1: was my biggest takeaway was how I felt like, instead
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Speaker 1: of knowing the criminal and kind of trying to understand
12:38
Speaker 1: his psychology, I felt like I knew the victims and
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Speaker 1: I felt like I could see them and see them
12:45
Speaker 1: at home and in their lives. And so I appreciate
12:49
Speaker 1: that you did that. I felt like that was different
12:50
Speaker 1: and that really connected with me. You know, why do
12:54
Speaker 1: you think that the Golden State killer doesn't have the
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Speaker 1: notoriety kind of like your other serial killer, like your
13:00
Speaker 1: Ted Bundy's and things like that. Do you think it's
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Speaker 1: a because the case goes back so far or what's
13:06
Speaker 1: your take on that.
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Speaker 4: I think that's part of it.
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Speaker 3: I mean, he committed his crimes from nineteen seventy four
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Speaker 3: to nineteen eighty six, and then he went dark for
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Speaker 3: three decades, you know, and we kept searching, kept looking
13:20
Speaker 3: for him, and in the meantime, other people filled that space,
13:23
Speaker 3: whether it was Ted Bundy, whether you know BTK Killer,
13:28
Speaker 3: the Grim Sleeper, right, other people filled that hole, that
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Speaker 3: missing part of it. And when we found him, he
13:34
Speaker 3: was seventy two years old. He looked like your drunk
13:37
Speaker 3: grandpa or drunk uncle at the Thanksgiving dinner, wearing cargo shorts,
13:42
Speaker 3: tube socks and a T shirt. Right, And so I
13:44
Speaker 3: think that took away some of the some of the
13:48
Speaker 3: mysticism or you know, behind such a notorious killer that
13:54
Speaker 3: really gripped entire communities for so long.
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Speaker 1: You know, let's go back a little bit because I
14:00
Speaker 1: had this in the book, but I want you to
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Speaker 1: just kind of elaborate on it. I know that there
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Speaker 1: was DNA collected at all the crime scenes, and then
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Speaker 1: a lot of the DNA was lost due to the
14:09
Speaker 1: statute of limitations. It was lost, it was thrown out,
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Speaker 1: it was discarded. How how was he just kind of
14:16
Speaker 1: give me I know it's complex because of the forensics
14:18
Speaker 1: and everything, but can you kind of just give a
14:20
Speaker 1: brief overview of how he was actually caught?
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Speaker 4: Great question, So for many years.
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Speaker 3: We took the crime scene DNA and uploaded into COTIS,
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Speaker 3: which is the national DNA database that's you know, run
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Speaker 3: by the.
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Speaker 4: FBI, and we never got a hit because COTIS.
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Speaker 3: To get into COTIS, you have to be a defendant
14:38
Speaker 3: who was arrested or convicted of certain crimes.
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Speaker 4: And it really started happening, you know, after.
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Speaker 3: Nineteen eighty six, after nineteen eighty seven, when DNA and
14:46
Speaker 3: forensic DNA came into play. So what we did was
14:49
Speaker 3: we needed some crime scene DNA that we could use
14:52
Speaker 3: in genetic genealogy.
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Speaker 4: Now, I like, I don't know, have you or anybody
14:55
Speaker 4: you know.
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Speaker 3: Ever used twenty three and meters ancestry some of those genealogies,
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Speaker 3: have you?
15:01
Speaker 4: Yeah? You know I have.
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Speaker 1: I've actually, you know, I've done the SPIT tests and
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Speaker 1: I set it in. I believe I used me specifically,
15:07
Speaker 1: I used twenty three in me and then I got
15:08
Speaker 1: the reading back. But I was trying to think, because
15:12
Speaker 1: this seems this is obviously a new, a new way
15:16
Speaker 1: of you know, connecting to criminals. And we talked about
15:20
Speaker 1: it in the Brian Coburger case as well, how they
15:23
Speaker 1: caught him. But I don't know, I mean, maybe I
15:25
Speaker 1: just clicked through at the end, but did I don't
15:28
Speaker 1: know if I specifically agreed to allow my DNA to
15:31
Speaker 1: be used to I don't know where where I know.
15:35
Speaker 1: I know it's a constitutional issue, but it doesn't seem
15:37
Speaker 1: to be out there right now.
15:39
Speaker 4: And I sort of explained it in the books.
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Speaker 3: So really what happened was we took some of the
15:44
Speaker 3: DNA from the crime scene, and it was a whole
15:46
Speaker 3: adventure to get some DNA because one of the other
15:49
Speaker 3: counties wouldn't let us use their crime scene, so we
15:51
Speaker 3: had to go to a second county. And Paul Hoe
15:54
Speaker 3: is my colleague who's a criminalist from Contra cost that
15:57
Speaker 3: came up with the idea. So especially we took the
16:00
Speaker 3: DNA from one of the crime scenes, the Charlene rape
16:04
Speaker 3: kit out of Ventura County. We converted into what we
16:07
Speaker 3: call SNIP profile. That's SNP that stands for single nucleotype polymorphism,
16:13
Speaker 3: and it's a profile that measures a million different areas
16:16
Speaker 3: in your chromosome. We uploaded into one of the genealogy
16:19
Speaker 3: databases and from there what happens is it's compared to
16:23
Speaker 3: all the other profiles in there, and the more areas
16:26
Speaker 3: you have in commo somebody, the more closely related you are.
16:29
Speaker 3: So when we uploaded it, we found out that a
16:32
Speaker 3: distant cousin to the god of State Killer was in
16:35
Speaker 3: the database.
16:36
Speaker 4: And so now we built a family tree.
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Speaker 3: Okay, this distant cousin, did they have any brothers and sisters,
16:41
Speaker 3: who were their parents, who were their uncles and aunties, grandparents,
16:45
Speaker 3: great grandparents. We built all the way up the family
16:47
Speaker 3: tree to the common ass jester back down again. We
16:50
Speaker 3: had over a thousand people on this family tree, and
16:53
Speaker 3: so then we had to go through and fill to them.
16:55
Speaker 3: How many of them are male, how many of them
16:57
Speaker 3: are blue eyes, how many of them were cops or
16:59
Speaker 3: military that lived in Sacramento, in Orange County, in Ventura.
17:04
Speaker 3: And so we came down with three different suspects. And
17:08
Speaker 3: so one of them lived to Sacramento. He was Joseph Diangels.
17:12
Speaker 3: So on the day in question that he put his
17:14
Speaker 3: garbage out to be picked up, we lined up this
17:16
Speaker 3: garbage truck with plastic. We took one of the detectives,
17:19
Speaker 3: dressed him up as a garbage truck guy, drove up there,
17:23
Speaker 3: picked up his garbage, threw it in there, went down
17:25
Speaker 3: the street, went through his trash and we tested eight items.
17:29
Speaker 3: The last item we tested was a piece of tissue,
17:32
Speaker 3: and the DNA on that tissue came back as a
17:35
Speaker 3: positive DNA hit to all the rapes and murders in
17:38
Speaker 3: SoCal and some of the rapes and contra costs up
17:40
Speaker 3: here in Northern California.
17:42
Speaker 4: So that's how we found him.
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Speaker 1: Now, I just have to ask you, how does it
17:46
Speaker 1: feel when you get that back? Like, what is that
17:48
Speaker 1: feeling when that DNA matches?
17:51
Speaker 4: You know, I wasn't yet assigned to the case.
17:53
Speaker 3: And the crazy story behind it was I was in
17:56
Speaker 3: homicide at the time, and you know I heard years
18:00
Speaker 3: earlier about the East Area rapist to go to State killer.
18:03
Speaker 4: He was notorious in our area.
18:05
Speaker 3: And I'd never asked for a case in my life,
18:07
Speaker 3: but I said, you know, if they refine them, I'll
18:08
Speaker 3: make the exceptions. So in the day in question, in
18:11
Speaker 3: April twenty eighteen, I saw the supervisor of the homicide team,
18:14
Speaker 3: my boss, and the number two in the office. They're
18:17
Speaker 3: huddled together, they're whispering, they're talking, they're pointing to something.
18:21
Speaker 3: They're running in and out of the office. And so
18:23
Speaker 3: I said to my secretary, Hey, what's going on? And
18:26
Speaker 3: she said, ah, nothing, So they came into their office,
18:30
Speaker 3: they closed them. Their office is right next door to mine,
18:33
Speaker 3: and Emily, if you know anything about government buildings, they're
18:36
Speaker 3: poorly constructed, poorly built. The walls are very thin. If
18:40
Speaker 3: you know, if you put your ear up to the wall,
18:42
Speaker 3: you can hear what's being said on the other side.
18:44
Speaker 3: So I put my ear up against the wall and
18:47
Speaker 3: I could overhear my supervisor and the number two in
18:50
Speaker 3: the office said, there's a one and sixteen Septelian DNA
18:55
Speaker 3: match to the eaar and as Sacramento, the EA armies
18:59
Speaker 3: won thing and one thing only the East Area rapist.
19:02
Speaker 3: I nearly fell out of my chair. I couldn't contain
19:05
Speaker 3: myself that they finally caught them. So that night I
19:08
Speaker 3: kept looking on my phone, kept looking on you know,
19:11
Speaker 3: the newspaper, and c and ed did they catch him?
19:14
Speaker 3: At four o'clock in the morning, there was a notice
19:17
Speaker 3: of a new development in the case and there was
19:19
Speaker 3: going to be a press conference that morning.
19:21
Speaker 4: I was completely shocked.
19:31
Speaker 1: Now, I know in your book you said that you
19:34
Speaker 1: really wanted that case more than anything that correct, and
19:37
Speaker 1: that you really advocated to be the lead prosecutor. Now
19:40
Speaker 1: I didn't realize that because in your book you talk
19:43
Speaker 1: about all these different prosecutors from all these different jurisdictions
19:46
Speaker 1: where he committed all these crimes. You all kind of
19:49
Speaker 1: had to get together and have all these meetings and
19:50
Speaker 1: be on the same page. What was that like having
19:53
Speaker 1: to deal was that frustrating having to deal with all
19:55
Speaker 1: the different prosecutors in the case.
19:58
Speaker 3: So, you know, the most prosecutors, they try their cases
20:03
Speaker 3: by themselves. You don't have like two people on the
20:05
Speaker 3: team unless it's a big case, and in Mike County
20:08
Speaker 3: it's usually just one person. And here we are, we
20:11
Speaker 3: have prosecutors, like almost ten prosecutors from six different counties,
20:15
Speaker 3: and you know, prosecutors and lawyers.
20:17
Speaker 4: You know, we're a type personality.
20:19
Speaker 3: And what I can tell you is on the team itself,
20:22
Speaker 3: we got along beautifully. But it was the politics from
20:25
Speaker 3: the elected days above that sometimes made the case challenging.
20:31
Speaker 3: But you know, we divided up the case slow because
20:34
Speaker 3: we had nearly three million pages of police reports.
20:37
Speaker 4: We had tens of thousands of suspects.
20:40
Speaker 3: We had reports after reports, we had pictures, videos, all
20:44
Speaker 3: this stuff. So the more people you had, the more
20:48
Speaker 3: we could more efficiently prosecute the case. But there were
20:51
Speaker 3: political machinations that were happening above where the cases would
20:54
Speaker 3: be tried, who was.
20:55
Speaker 4: Going to try him?
20:56
Speaker 3: And all the drama and the politics that we had
20:58
Speaker 3: to deal with from above. But it was great working
21:01
Speaker 3: with the team itself done.
21:03
Speaker 1: Yeah, So you eventually landed on the case being tried
21:06
Speaker 1: in Sacramento.
21:06
Speaker 3: Correct, Yes, but after some drama that I talked about
21:11
Speaker 3: in the book because at one point the then District
21:15
Speaker 3: Attornity of Orange County, who is not the current one
21:18
Speaker 3: Tony Ricaccus, they actually issued an order or got didn't
21:23
Speaker 3: order issue from a judge and try to take him
21:25
Speaker 3: out of Sacramento and bring him to Orange County to
21:28
Speaker 3: try the case down there, And so we had to
21:31
Speaker 3: get a court order.
21:32
Speaker 4: To stop that from happening.
21:33
Speaker 3: So there were, like I said, a lot of different machinations,
21:36
Speaker 3: but we ultimately decided that we were going to try
21:38
Speaker 3: the case in Sacramento, which frankly was where it belonged.
21:41
Speaker 1: Now, let me ask, was there the only one? Was
21:45
Speaker 1: there only one thing that he did in Orange County?
21:47
Speaker 1: Was that the data point one? Or were there multiple?
21:51
Speaker 1: Was there more than one? That happened in Orange County.
21:54
Speaker 3: Yes, there was more than one, and in fact, most
21:56
Speaker 3: of the murders happened in Orange County.
21:58
Speaker 4: So there was the murder of of MANUELA.
22:01
Speaker 3: Whithewn, there was the murder of Janelle Cruz in nineteen
22:05
Speaker 3: eighty six, that was the last no murder. And also
22:07
Speaker 3: there was the rape murder of the Harringtons down in
22:11
Speaker 3: Dana Point. So there were a total four murders and
22:14
Speaker 3: three rapes down in Orange County. There were four murders
22:20
Speaker 3: in Santa Barbara County, and then there were two in
22:24
Speaker 3: Ventura County. There were two murders in Sacramento, there was
22:27
Speaker 3: one in by Seat. I mean, he's just prolific. You're
22:29
Speaker 3: talking about thirteen known murders, upwards of fifty sexual assaults,
22:33
Speaker 3: one hundred and twenty burglaries, and eleven different counties up
22:36
Speaker 3: and down the state of California.
22:38
Speaker 1: Why do you think that he was able to elude
22:40
Speaker 1: the police for so long?
22:43
Speaker 4: That's a great question. You know, there's a couple of reasons.
22:45
Speaker 3: Number one is, during most of his crime spree, he
22:48
Speaker 3: was a cop, so he had inside knowledge. He knew,
22:52
Speaker 3: for example, how long it would take the police to
22:54
Speaker 3: respond to a scene. He knew where they would set
22:57
Speaker 3: up their blockades, right where the road stops.
23:01
Speaker 4: He knew where the ingress and egress were.
23:04
Speaker 3: He knew all the techniques right, and so he was
23:07
Speaker 3: able to avoid capture for a period of time. The
23:10
Speaker 3: other thing was, back then, everybody was siloed. Sacramento's not
23:14
Speaker 3: talking to Santa Barbara. Santa Barbara's not talking to Orange County.
23:17
Speaker 3: And if you think about it, in this day and age,
23:20
Speaker 3: we have what everybody has a ring camera, everybody has
23:23
Speaker 3: surveillance cameras. Everybody has a cell phone, right, we have DNA,
23:27
Speaker 3: we have everything that's shared online. Now, I don't think
23:29
Speaker 3: you could commit this crime in this day and age.
23:31
Speaker 3: But from nineteen seventy four to nineteen eighty six, he
23:35
Speaker 3: ran a monk across the entire state.
23:39
Speaker 4: And frankly, that's what happened.
23:42
Speaker 3: I mean, it's inside knowledge and just the siloed nature
23:45
Speaker 3: of law enforcement back then.
23:47
Speaker 1: I also, I believe, and I think you talked about
23:51
Speaker 1: it in your book about how he changed his crimes changed.
23:55
Speaker 1: I believe didn't he just start out as burglarizing, that
23:58
Speaker 1: was it. Then it moved on to ra Then I
24:00
Speaker 1: believe he for some reason, targeted couples, and I think
24:05
Speaker 1: there was some psychology there where he wanted the husband
24:08
Speaker 1: and the wife together so he could separate him because
24:10
Speaker 1: that was some type of terror. Then he went on
24:12
Speaker 1: to murder. Is that just his psychology of just having
24:16
Speaker 1: to up the ante each time that he gets bored
24:19
Speaker 1: with what he's doing.
24:21
Speaker 4: You're absolutely right.
24:22
Speaker 3: I mean, this was an evolution of a predator, and really,
24:27
Speaker 3: why did he do what he did and how did
24:30
Speaker 3: he go about doing it? You know, I have a
24:31
Speaker 3: chapter in the book, it's called The Monster Behind the
24:34
Speaker 3: Mask where we really cover his entire life, but on
24:37
Speaker 3: the moment he was born in Bath, New York, all
24:39
Speaker 3: the way to the time he was arrested. But you
24:42
Speaker 3: have to understand he was a creature of both genetics
24:47
Speaker 3: and his own environment. When you looked at it. He
24:51
Speaker 3: was about ten years old or so, he was on
24:54
Speaker 3: a military base because he came from a military family,
24:57
Speaker 3: and he witnessed his little sister, Connie getting raped in
25:00
Speaker 3: front of him by two service members while he was
25:02
Speaker 3: held down, right, so, and then he was beaten by
25:07
Speaker 3: his parents, and then he started abusing animals. I mean,
25:09
Speaker 3: which isn't you know which is typical of serial killers.
25:13
Speaker 3: And when you look at it, a lot of his victims,
25:15
Speaker 3: his rape victims, described him as having a micro penis,
25:19
Speaker 3: extremely small. And so when we arrested him, I went
25:24
Speaker 3: to court and ordered, you know how the judge ordered
25:27
Speaker 3: the execution of his search board to take pictures of
25:29
Speaker 3: his penis, and lo and behold it was indeed a
25:32
Speaker 3: micro penis. So he felt very powerless, basically, emotionally, mentally
25:38
Speaker 3: in his own life. And here he was right evolving
25:42
Speaker 3: as a predator, as a peeping tom, as somebody who
25:44
Speaker 3: went into people's home. And what did he do. He
25:47
Speaker 3: ate their food, he drank their beer. It was as
25:49
Speaker 3: if he took control over their homes. And then when
25:52
Speaker 3: he was sexually assaulting the victims, you know, he had
25:55
Speaker 3: the men get on all fours and put a blanket
25:58
Speaker 3: over them and stack plates on top of them because
26:01
Speaker 3: he was exercising control.
26:02
Speaker 4: It was the god complex.
26:04
Speaker 3: And then after the rape, he would take the wedding band,
26:06
Speaker 3: violating the relationship, and then he would take one earring
26:09
Speaker 3: but leave the other one behind, just like he did
26:12
Speaker 3: in Visalia, because he was playing god. And when he
26:15
Speaker 3: was in southern California, what he was doing then, was
26:18
Speaker 3: he took the bindings with him, the ligatures right the
26:22
Speaker 3: rope with him. And we could tell that was the
26:25
Speaker 3: case because the victims had their hands behind their back
26:28
Speaker 3: and you could see the marks and the wrists and
26:29
Speaker 3: their ankles. Because he was evolving and he was killing
26:32
Speaker 3: all his witnesses, all his victims, right, so he was evolving,
26:36
Speaker 3: but he was playing god over their lives.
26:40
Speaker 2: Was taking one earring to send a message to whoever
26:43
Speaker 2: came to the crime scene that I took what I wanted,
26:46
Speaker 2: Like if they were both missing, then maybe people wouldn't
26:49
Speaker 2: notice it was taken. So did he take one to
26:51
Speaker 2: say I could take one if I want.
26:54
Speaker 3: So when he was doing that, when he was the
26:55
Speaker 3: Viceilia ransacker, that was absolutely the case. He was taking
26:59
Speaker 3: one earring and leaving the other one so he says,
27:01
Speaker 3: I can take whatever I want. And on top of that,
27:04
Speaker 3: was when you looked at that one earring, what would
27:06
Speaker 3: you think about the missing one? Just like one the
27:10
Speaker 3: woman that had been raped. When you look at your hand,
27:12
Speaker 3: you see the missing wedding band, right or the husband
27:14
Speaker 3: with the missing wedding band. Where you look at that
27:17
Speaker 3: one ear ring, but now the other one so every
27:19
Speaker 3: time you see it, you know, you're reminded of what happened.
27:22
Speaker 3: So it's him continuing to exert control and dominance over
27:26
Speaker 3: his victims, being.
27:28
Speaker 1: God, I do know. I mean he spent a lot
27:31
Speaker 1: of times in these homes. I mean he ate their food,
27:34
Speaker 1: he drank their beer, he hung out, he wandered around,
27:37
Speaker 1: he opened their drawers, he got their clothes out.
27:39
Speaker 2: Would he leave a mess to like, leave everything unattended,
27:42
Speaker 2: so it was like I was here, I was everywhere.
27:45
Speaker 4: Yes, that's all part of the mentality.
27:48
Speaker 3: And the key part was he would sometimes break into
27:51
Speaker 3: these homes days and weeks ahead of time and leave
27:54
Speaker 3: something in a seat cushion or move something and see
27:57
Speaker 3: if they noticed it or not. Right, he would cut
28:00
Speaker 3: out pictures of them from their photo albums, right, all
28:04
Speaker 3: these little things. That was meticulous, but it demonstrated that
28:09
Speaker 3: he it was a message of omnipotence over people when
28:13
Speaker 3: he felt such impotency in his own life and in
28:16
Speaker 3: his own self.
28:18
Speaker 1: Now, I know in the book you talked about how
28:20
Speaker 1: you had thought that you might have found where he
28:23
Speaker 1: was putting all these things that he had stolen. You
28:25
Speaker 1: were hoping to be able to recover them and get
28:27
Speaker 1: them back to the victims, and then it ended up
28:29
Speaker 1: not being the case. I believe you. How did that happen?
28:31
Speaker 1: You dug somewhere, right, They used like some kind of
28:35
Speaker 1: I don't know what I'm saying, like some kind of
28:37
Speaker 1: metal detector type of thing right to look and see
28:39
Speaker 1: where he had buried them.
28:41
Speaker 3: So, you know, one of the things that all the
28:43
Speaker 3: victims asked us, hey, did you find any of the trophies?
28:46
Speaker 4: Did you find my class.
28:48
Speaker 3: Ring, the wedding band, the ear ring, you know, the photograph, right,
28:51
Speaker 3: And we couldn't really say anything in the beginning, but
28:54
Speaker 3: we didn't find anything when we did the search warm
28:56
Speaker 3: but we always felt that he kept the trophies year
29:00
Speaker 3: into the case, and this was not previously publicized until
29:03
Speaker 3: I wrote the book. So the book is filled with
29:06
Speaker 3: a number of you know, details and information that's never
29:08
Speaker 3: been revealed for and this is one of them. About
29:11
Speaker 3: a year into the prosecution, we received word from one
29:15
Speaker 3: of his coworkers that said, hey, he told me the
29:19
Speaker 3: Angelo did that before his house and Citrus Heights was built,
29:22
Speaker 3: before the foundation was laid. What we did was he
29:26
Speaker 3: had dug underneath and put in a secret compartment underneath
29:32
Speaker 3: the foundation. So we wrote a piggyback warrant to get
29:36
Speaker 3: back into the house. And you know, when you have
29:38
Speaker 3: people that are doing utilities and stuff for digging into
29:41
Speaker 3: the ground, they bring somebody in that has ground penetrating
29:45
Speaker 3: radar sonar. So we brought somebody in to do that,
29:48
Speaker 3: and he literally scanned the entire house. He scanned the backyard,
29:52
Speaker 3: every inch of it, right, and we were digging back there,
29:56
Speaker 3: you know. Unfortunately, and I tell the story about, you know,
29:58
Speaker 3: where we dug and how we dug it in the book.
30:01
Speaker 4: We did not find any trophies.
30:02
Speaker 3: But one of the things that we founded there, which
30:04
Speaker 3: was really unique, was one of his daughters. One of
30:09
Speaker 3: the Golden State killer's daughter was a psychology major.
30:14
Speaker 4: And do you know what she was fascinated with studying.
30:18
Speaker 1: I think it was serial killers, wasn't it?
30:20
Speaker 4: It was serial killers. She had books in the house
30:22
Speaker 4: on serial killers and here her dad was a serial killer.
30:27
Speaker 1: Now let me ask you a question. Is that the
30:28
Speaker 1: same daughter that wrote the letter to the court or
30:31
Speaker 1: is that a different daughter?
30:33
Speaker 4: You know, a couple of the daughters ended up writing it,
30:35
Speaker 4: but she was the same one.
30:37
Speaker 1: Oh, okay, letters well, I'll let I'm sure you know
30:41
Speaker 1: much more than I do. But I did read that
30:44
Speaker 1: they submitted letters on behalf of their father talking about
30:46
Speaker 1: what a great daddy was, and you know, he was
30:48
Speaker 1: the stand up guy and things like that, which I
30:52
Speaker 1: don't know how I felt about that. I understand that
30:54
Speaker 1: they're the victims in all of this and that their
30:57
Speaker 1: perception of who their dad is is completely different, but
31:00
Speaker 1: I don't I guess from my perspective, I felt like
31:03
Speaker 1: it was almost disrespectful to the victims to to talk
31:07
Speaker 1: about what a stand up guy he is. But that's
31:09
Speaker 1: that was just my takeaway from it. Did you have
31:11
Speaker 1: any feelings about what they said or you know?
31:14
Speaker 3: Number one, I don't believe that they knew that he
31:18
Speaker 3: was a serial killer or a serial rapist, but the
31:22
Speaker 3: evidence is undisputable, and he even admitted.
31:27
Speaker 4: They were, in my mind, victims as well of him.
31:32
Speaker 3: Now, I would not have written a letter the way
31:34
Speaker 3: they have written a letter, or or I would not
31:37
Speaker 3: have said the things that they said, but you know,
31:39
Speaker 3: that's how they felt in regards to it. I would
31:42
Speaker 3: spend more time recognizing and honoring and being more empathetic
31:47
Speaker 3: towards you know, some of the survivors. But I understand where,
31:51
Speaker 3: you know, from their perspective, and he was a master manipulator.
31:54
Speaker 3: He was able to compartimentalize his life and be a
31:58
Speaker 3: master and he manipulated them. He used them as a
32:01
Speaker 3: mask to mask who he really was. So in a sense,
32:05
Speaker 3: I see them as victims as well.
32:08
Speaker 1: Now, why why did First of all, it blows my
32:11
Speaker 1: mind that his wife was an attorney. I don't know why,
32:13
Speaker 1: but it just just the fact that she's clearly an intelligent,
32:18
Speaker 1: you know, educated woman. But I didn't they separate like
32:21
Speaker 1: back in the nineties or something, and they just never
32:24
Speaker 1: actually got divorced until after he was after he was caught.
32:28
Speaker 1: Is that correct?
32:29
Speaker 3: That is correct? And people ask me, well did she know?
32:33
Speaker 3: And I honestly believe that she did not know. And
32:35
Speaker 3: the reason why is when he was committing his rapist
32:38
Speaker 3: as the East Era rapist and the East Bay rapists,
32:43
Speaker 3: he was, you know, a police officer. She was going
32:47
Speaker 3: to school at night to be a lawyer. They had
32:49
Speaker 3: completely different schedules, They slept in different rooms, they led
32:53
Speaker 3: different lives, and honestly, you know, we interviewed her and
32:56
Speaker 3: she's very self centered.
32:58
Speaker 4: She's very focused on herself.
32:59
Speaker 3: Some people would describe hers as narcissistic, and so she
33:02
Speaker 3: was so focused on herself that she probably didn't realize
33:05
Speaker 3: who she was married to. However, I would note that,
33:09
Speaker 3: you know, after the fact, she didn't start putting the
33:12
Speaker 3: pieces together. She found shoelaces, three tied shoelaces underneath one
33:18
Speaker 3: of the things, and he was known to bring to
33:20
Speaker 3: pre tied shoelaces to help tie up the victims much quicker.
33:24
Speaker 3: So I think that she was a victim of him
33:26
Speaker 3: as well. But you know, they separated back in the
33:30
Speaker 3: late eighties early nineties, and but the divorce wasn't finalized
33:34
Speaker 3: until after he was arrested.
33:37
Speaker 1: Did you ever get any sense from her that she
33:39
Speaker 1: was surprised by his arrest or. I don't know. I
33:42
Speaker 1: just couldn't find much information about that was her reaction.
33:46
Speaker 3: I think shocked. Yeah, she was surprised. The kids were
33:50
Speaker 3: all surprised. I think his family, nobody in his inner
33:54
Speaker 3: circle ever imagined that he was in fact the East
33:57
Speaker 3: Air Rapist, the Original Nights, the Vicelia Ransacker, and the
34:01
Speaker 3: Golden State Killer.
34:03
Speaker 4: He was that good of a manipulator.
34:05
Speaker 3: And even then after he was arrested, you know you
34:08
Speaker 3: saw his manipulation in court.
34:10
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, he pretended to be feeble and incoherent and
34:15
Speaker 1: all those things. But I know you in your book
34:17
Speaker 1: you talk about how you had well there was a
34:20
Speaker 1: secret recording of his jail cell, and he would just
34:22
Speaker 1: kind of run around in his jail cell and jump
34:25
Speaker 1: on his bed and jump off his bed, and so
34:27
Speaker 1: he clearly didn't know he was being recorded at that time.
34:32
Speaker 1: What did you take away from writing the book? Was
34:35
Speaker 1: it helpful for you? I can assume as a prosecutor
34:38
Speaker 1: and you're dealing with homicides and rapes and all these
34:40
Speaker 1: terrible things. Did you find that it was therapeutic for you?
34:45
Speaker 1: Was it helpful for you? Did you feel like giving
34:48
Speaker 1: a voice to the victims helped you get through it?
34:52
Speaker 3: You know, as prosecutors, just like first responders and law enforcement.
34:56
Speaker 4: We see so much evil. We see so much darkness,
34:59
Speaker 4: you know.
34:59
Speaker 3: You. When I meet people in my job, it's at
35:03
Speaker 3: the worst moment in their lives. Either they are a
35:05
Speaker 3: victim of a crime and they've had the tapestry of
35:07
Speaker 3: their lives shredded apart, or they're a defendant and they're
35:10
Speaker 3: facing life in prison. I talk about in the book
35:14
Speaker 3: the notion or the idea of sin eaters. Right in
35:16
Speaker 3: England you had sin eaters, people that were hired to
35:19
Speaker 3: attend funerals and then eat a piece of bread representing
35:21
Speaker 3: the sins.
35:22
Speaker 4: Right.
35:22
Speaker 3: And I feel as prosecutors we see the darkest moments
35:26
Speaker 3: of humanity and flashes of humanity, and so it's tough,
35:30
Speaker 3: you know, sometimes, you know, it's not like a switch
35:33
Speaker 3: I can turn on and off. I mean, for years,
35:35
Speaker 3: you know, I don't sleep well. And when I do sleep,
35:38
Speaker 3: I dream about my cases. I dream about my victims
35:41
Speaker 3: and the defendant. But what I learned from this, and
35:44
Speaker 3: I'll tell a little story about it, is the very
35:48
Speaker 3: first rape victim in Sacramento was Phyllis and she was
35:52
Speaker 3: twenty three at the time.
35:53
Speaker 4: She was home alone.
35:54
Speaker 3: I read the police report, I saw the pictures, the
35:57
Speaker 3: description of her.
35:58
Speaker 4: And what happened forward. It's the very first court appearance.
36:02
Speaker 3: I walk into court and this little lady in her
36:05
Speaker 3: early sixties with gray hair, walks up to me. She's
36:08
Speaker 3: barely five feet tall. She has these coke bottled glasses.
36:12
Speaker 3: She reaches her hand out to me. She shakes my
36:14
Speaker 3: hand and says, Hi, I'm victim.
36:16
Speaker 4: Number one.
36:17
Speaker 3: I'm Phyllis, right, and somebody else comes up high. I'm Chris,
36:20
Speaker 3: I'm victim number ten. They were all identifying themselves by
36:23
Speaker 3: their number, the order in which they were assaulted, and
36:25
Speaker 3: I remember Phyllis seeing her and shaking her hand. It
36:29
Speaker 3: was as if I was reaching through time and space.
36:32
Speaker 3: And every time I come to court, Phyllis would be
36:34
Speaker 3: right there in the front row and we sit and
36:35
Speaker 3: we talk and I give her an update on what
36:37
Speaker 3: was going on. Near the end of the case, Phyllis
36:40
Speaker 3: told me that, you know, she wasn't going to be
36:42
Speaker 3: in court next time because she had been diagnosed with cancer.
36:46
Speaker 4: Her mom had die of cancer, and she was going
36:48
Speaker 4: through treatment.
36:49
Speaker 3: And so when it was time for him to admit responsibility,
36:54
Speaker 3: you know, we're in this makeshift court room in the
36:56
Speaker 3: middle of COVID and we give the allocution, which is
37:00
Speaker 3: of the facts as it relates to Phyllis's case. She
37:02
Speaker 3: couldn't be there, so all the other victims stood up
37:05
Speaker 3: for her. And then fast forward when he received a sentence,
37:08
Speaker 3: I look across the courtroom two months later and there
37:11
Speaker 3: was Phyllis. She had this twink on her eye for
37:14
Speaker 3: the first time in forty years, she was able to
37:16
Speaker 3: obtain justice. You know, Phyllis died three months later of cancer.
37:21
Speaker 3: And so when I think of the case, I think
37:22
Speaker 3: of her, I think of her resiliency. I think of
37:25
Speaker 3: the fight that we all gave to give those victims
37:29
Speaker 3: closure in justice after forty years.
37:31
Speaker 4: Yeah.
37:31
Speaker 1: I remember reading that part in your book and I thought,
37:34
Speaker 1: I thought it was really beautiful that she got to
37:36
Speaker 1: see it to the end and that she got some
37:38
Speaker 1: closure from that. You know, that's another question that I
37:43
Speaker 1: have as far as the victims go. And I know
37:46
Speaker 1: they all got to give their victim impact statements, and
37:48
Speaker 1: I do know originally in your book you talk about
37:50
Speaker 1: how all the prosecutors got together and originally you all
37:53
Speaker 1: had to agree to seek the death penalty in this case.
37:56
Speaker 1: And I believe that was the first route that you
37:58
Speaker 1: were going to go. And if anyone deserves death penalty,
38:00
Speaker 1: I mean, you can debate death penalty all day long.
38:02
Speaker 1: I go back and forth myself, but I don't go
38:07
Speaker 1: back and forth on someone like this. I mean this,
38:09
Speaker 1: this man doesn't deserve to live. That's just my personal perspective.
38:13
Speaker 1: But then you end up taking or he ends up having.
38:18
Speaker 1: There's a plea deal, right, so that he gets life
38:20
Speaker 1: in prison. But can you just walk through that a
38:21
Speaker 1: little bit and why you guys decided to do that?
38:23
Speaker 1: And I guess it had to do with the timing
38:25
Speaker 1: and making sure the victims could all be there and
38:27
Speaker 1: give their impact statements and things like that.
38:31
Speaker 3: You know, if anybody deserved the death penalty was him.
38:34
Speaker 3: But we were faced with a couple of different challenges.
38:36
Speaker 3: The first is back in the nineteen seventies rape the
38:39
Speaker 3: statue of limitation for rape in California was three years,
38:42
Speaker 3: which means that from the time that a victim is raped,
38:46
Speaker 3: if we don't find and charge her perpetrated within three years,
38:50
Speaker 3: we can't file charges.
38:51
Speaker 4: It's three years in a day, we can never file charges.
38:54
Speaker 3: And so a lot of the cases in Sacramento and
38:57
Speaker 3: Nordcaw with the sexual assault, we couldn't file those charges,
39:00
Speaker 3: and Phyllis was one of them.
39:01
Speaker 4: Chris was another one.
39:02
Speaker 3: Now, there was some that we found a loophole and
39:04
Speaker 3: we could charge when they moved the victim, and we
39:06
Speaker 3: could charge kidnapping because that was a life offense. But
39:09
Speaker 3: for the vast majority, we couldn't charge them, which meant
39:12
Speaker 3: that they would never get their day in court. They
39:14
Speaker 3: never get to stand up and give an impact statement,
39:16
Speaker 3: to hear them admit to it. That was the first hurdle.
39:19
Speaker 3: The second hurdle is in the midst of prosecuting this case.
39:22
Speaker 3: And I'm trying to get this into a courtroom, right.
39:24
Speaker 3: I have a detective in Orange County who's ninety six,
39:28
Speaker 3: half death and half blind. I have another witness who's
39:31
Speaker 3: ninety two. We have to get them in the courtroom.
39:33
Speaker 3: In the midst of getting this case into the courtroom,
39:35
Speaker 3: in March of twenty twenty, we were hit by a
39:38
Speaker 3: pandemic that the war had not seen for one hundred years.
39:41
Speaker 4: Everything shut down.
39:42
Speaker 3: I mean you remember, we couldn't even buy toilet paper,
39:44
Speaker 3: right right, everybody's wearing a mask, and this thing caused
39:47
Speaker 3: social distancing, remember the first time you heard that, right,
39:51
Speaker 3: And so now we had to get into the courtroom.
39:53
Speaker 4: And so we ended up crafting a plea.
39:55
Speaker 3: Deal, where a plea where he would plea and admit
39:59
Speaker 3: to everything, even admit to the cases where we couldn't
40:02
Speaker 3: charge like Phyllis, but then give Phyllis a chance to
40:06
Speaker 3: give an impact statement. And if we didn't do that,
40:09
Speaker 3: Phyllis would have never had her day in court. So
40:12
Speaker 3: we did it for the victims. We did it for
40:14
Speaker 3: all the victims, charge and uncharged.
40:18
Speaker 1: I was worried when I was reading the book. I
40:21
Speaker 1: was worried that the defense attorneys weren't going to agree
40:24
Speaker 1: to that plea deal. And I was surprised as well
40:27
Speaker 1: that he actually said something in court and he did it.
40:30
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess it was a very short sentence.
40:32
Speaker 1: I don't remember exactly what he said, but he did
40:34
Speaker 1: apologize some type of like, I admit to it and
40:36
Speaker 1: I apologize. Were you surprised that he stood up and spoke.
40:40
Speaker 3: No, Because I believe he's the master manipulator who has
40:43
Speaker 3: to always be in control.
40:45
Speaker 4: Right. He has to be in control when he was
40:47
Speaker 4: wearing the mask.
40:48
Speaker 3: He had to be in control when he was committing
40:50
Speaker 3: his crimes, and now is just in his mind a
40:53
Speaker 3: way of seizing control and the narrative. And so I
40:56
Speaker 3: don't give very much credit to anything he said, because
40:59
Speaker 3: he is the master manipulator.
41:01
Speaker 1: I guess I was surprised that he admitted to all
41:05
Speaker 1: the crimes, the crimes that were you know, you were
41:08
Speaker 1: that you could prove with the DNA, but also the
41:09
Speaker 1: uncharged crimes. But I also found it interesting on your
41:14
Speaker 1: part that you had the wherewithal to ask that he
41:18
Speaker 1: wear the clear shield so that his victims could actually
41:21
Speaker 1: look in his face for the first time and actually
41:24
Speaker 1: see him and look him in the eye and give
41:27
Speaker 1: their impact statement and have him have to look at them.
41:29
Speaker 1: And I thought that was very clever that that you
41:32
Speaker 1: thought of. That was that something that was like a
41:34
Speaker 1: last minute type of thing or did was it?
41:36
Speaker 3: You know, as we were getting close to the court
41:38
Speaker 3: here and right, and we're in the middle of COVID,
41:41
Speaker 3: everybody's wearing a mask. Right. You remember the days where
41:44
Speaker 3: you walk into a room, you had to get your
41:45
Speaker 3: temperature measured, you had to, you know, wear a mask.
41:48
Speaker 4: Right.
41:49
Speaker 3: It's been five years since COVID and the world's changed, right,
41:52
Speaker 3: But back then we were right in the middle of it,
41:53
Speaker 3: right in the beginning of it.
41:55
Speaker 4: And so we're coming.
41:56
Speaker 3: To court and I was having a dream and I
42:00
Speaker 3: was waking up with a nightmare that you know, when
42:03
Speaker 3: he committed his crimes, he wore a mask. You know,
42:05
Speaker 3: the badge in the uniform that he wore as a
42:07
Speaker 3: police officer was a bag, was a mask. His family,
42:11
Speaker 3: his kids. They were all masks. His life is a
42:13
Speaker 3: mechanic was a mask. And I didn't want him sitting
42:16
Speaker 3: there in the courtroom on the day that all the
42:19
Speaker 3: victims were supposed to get justice wearing yet another mask, right,
42:23
Speaker 3: and wearing COVID and everybody wears a mask. And so
42:26
Speaker 3: I came up with the idea to go on Amazon
42:28
Speaker 3: and buy the clear face shield.
42:30
Speaker 4: And then I came up with a.
42:31
Speaker 3: Strategy and an idea, and I talk about in the book,
42:34
Speaker 3: you know how to get him to wear that. But
42:36
Speaker 3: if you go back and you look at the video
42:37
Speaker 3: of that court hearing, see him wearing a mask, and
42:40
Speaker 3: now you get to once you read the book, the
42:42
Speaker 3: inside story about how that happened, what.
42:47
Speaker 1: Do you think the takeaway was for the victims to
42:49
Speaker 1: be able to have that final piece of the puzzle
42:52
Speaker 1: that they needed after all those years. I mean, we're
42:54
Speaker 1: spanning forty years for them to be able to stand
42:57
Speaker 1: up and talk and act. And how long did that take?
42:59
Speaker 1: I know, you had to have a makeshift courtroom. It
43:01
Speaker 1: was it wasn't it a ballroom somewhere because it was large,
43:03
Speaker 1: You had a lot of media there. What was that like?
43:07
Speaker 1: What was what was the feeling like, what was the vibe, like,
43:10
Speaker 1: what was the victims like?
43:13
Speaker 3: It was initially electric, right, because we're in the middle
43:16
Speaker 3: of COVID. We had to create a makeshift courtroom where
43:19
Speaker 3: we could fit in two hundred people was six foot
43:21
Speaker 3: of social distancing, right, and so we ended up using
43:25
Speaker 3: a ballroom at the Sacramento State University converting into a
43:29
Speaker 3: makeshift courtroom and separating people. And it was just there
43:34
Speaker 3: was a level of relief for me to get the
43:37
Speaker 3: victims justice, because there's never joy for me in these
43:41
Speaker 3: cases because somebody had the fabric of their lives ripped apart,
43:44
Speaker 3: Somebody lost a loved one that you know, would never
43:47
Speaker 3: get to celebrate another anniversary, see another sunset or sunrise,
43:51
Speaker 3: and so there's never joy.
43:52
Speaker 4: There's only relief, reliefed it the judge didn't.
43:54
Speaker 3: Mess it up, Relief that the jury didn't mess it up,
43:57
Speaker 3: Relief that law enforcement didn't mess it up, relief that
43:59
Speaker 3: I didn't And so it's just a sense of relief
44:02
Speaker 3: for me. But when I think about it, what it
44:06
Speaker 3: did for the victims, which I think was your kind
44:09
Speaker 3: of original question, It gave them a measure of justice
44:11
Speaker 3: and closure.
44:13
Speaker 4: And some of the victims.
44:14
Speaker 3: Afterwards, they were able to turn their tragedy into triumph
44:18
Speaker 3: a Chris who was victim number ten, and Gay who
44:21
Speaker 3: was another victim. They ended up starting a nonprofit called
44:25
Speaker 3: Phyllis's Garden in honor Phyllis, because Phyllis was their friend.
44:29
Speaker 3: They were with Phyllis on her deathbed and she took
44:31
Speaker 3: her last breath, and so they started a nonprofit. And
44:36
Speaker 3: part of the proceeds of my book goes to fund
44:38
Speaker 3: that nonprofit, Phillips's Garden. So I would love to have
44:42
Speaker 3: your viewers and listeners donate to that. I'll be donating
44:45
Speaker 3: to it. And what they do is this Chris, when
44:47
Speaker 3: she was interviewed after she was raping, she was only fifteen,
44:50
Speaker 3: she was interviewed in the same place she was raped.
44:53
Speaker 3: And a lot of victims when they interviewed at the
44:56
Speaker 3: police station, they're interviewed in the interrogation room. What Phyllis's
45:01
Speaker 3: Garden does is it creates these soft interview rooms with
45:05
Speaker 3: like a nice warm rug couches and chairs and paintings
45:09
Speaker 3: and flowers in there, so that when a victim is interviewed,
45:12
Speaker 3: that they're interviewed in a place that has some humanity.
45:16
Speaker 3: To it, and so that's Phyllis's Garden. I'm a big
45:18
Speaker 3: supporter of them as well. You can help them out
45:21
Speaker 3: online and we'll be donating to it.
45:24
Speaker 1: Okay, that's awesome. I love that. We'll definitely post a
45:26
Speaker 1: link to that, so we'll make sure that we get
45:27
Speaker 1: that from you so I can post it as well.
45:30
Speaker 1: And you know, I think another thing that I took
45:32
Speaker 1: away was I bet that there were so many friendships
45:37
Speaker 1: formed between these victims who all got to come together
45:40
Speaker 1: after all these years. They're all meeting each other, they're
45:43
Speaker 1: telling their stories and just like you were talking about
45:45
Speaker 1: Phyllis's Garden and how they were with her when she
45:47
Speaker 1: was on her deathbed and how they support her nonprofit,
45:50
Speaker 1: I bet they've formed some really forever friendships between all
45:54
Speaker 1: of them that they can really rely on each other.
45:56
Speaker 1: And I think if anything positive you can take away
45:59
Speaker 1: from that is that they have each other and so
46:02
Speaker 1: and also I was going to ask you, do you
46:03
Speaker 1: still have Brian and Katy's photo in your office?
46:07
Speaker 4: I do. I still so.
46:08
Speaker 3: Brian and Katie Magguary were murdered in Sacramento, and I
46:13
Speaker 3: kept a photo of them in my office during the
46:16
Speaker 3: case and I still do. And a lot of the
46:19
Speaker 3: victims in the survivors state. They're part of a survivor group,
46:22
Speaker 3: survivors helping survivors, you know, and there's gonna be a
46:25
Speaker 3: number of them at the book signing Wednesday in Sacramento.
46:30
Speaker 3: They keep in touch, They wially help each other, you know,
46:32
Speaker 3: and so they keep in touch and it's incredibly powerful.
46:37
Speaker 3: And honestly, I still keep in touch with them, and
46:40
Speaker 3: some of the detectives on the case, and even some
46:42
Speaker 3: of the other prosecutors.
46:43
Speaker 4: You know, there's some in Southern California.
46:45
Speaker 3: So unfortunately, you know, I'm not gonna be able to
46:48
Speaker 3: connect with some of the other prosecutors when I'm down
46:51
Speaker 3: in Southern California this Friday, but I'm gonna be down
46:53
Speaker 3: for a book signing in LA this Friday.
46:56
Speaker 1: Well that's great. Well, thank you so much for coming
46:58
Speaker 1: on legally Brunette and discussing your new book. I loved it.
47:00
Speaker 1: I enjoyed it. It was it was an easy read
47:03
Speaker 1: because I think you did such a great job of
47:06
Speaker 1: just making us all just kind of get engrossed into
47:08
Speaker 1: the victims and their and their you know, their lives
47:11
Speaker 1: and who they were, and so I really appreciate that
47:13
Speaker 1: about the book. And again, thank you so much for
47:15
Speaker 1: joining us today. Ten, we really appreciate the conversation.
47:18
Speaker 3: Well, EMILYI thank you so much for having me on
47:20
Speaker 3: your show. I love the conversation. So you know, I'm
47:22
Speaker 3: going to be down in LA at the Downtown LA
47:26
Speaker 3: this Friday, the fourteenth of November, three pm, so please
47:29
Speaker 3: come join us.
47:30
Speaker 4: I'll be there with the LA District Attorney side chat.
47:33
Speaker 3: That location is the It's going to be the Downtown LA,
47:37
Speaker 3: the main Library, Downtown LA. So I'll be down there
47:40
Speaker 3: and we'll send you the address on that and then
47:43
Speaker 3: you can find the book on Tinhoe dot org. You'll
47:45
Speaker 3: connect you to a place where you can buy the
47:47
Speaker 3: book from a local bookstore. So that's Tinhoe th h
47:50
Speaker 3: I E n h O dot org. But thank you
47:52
Speaker 3: so much. Love being on your show, and I love
47:54
Speaker 3: the name of your your podcast as well.
47:56
Speaker 1: Thanks so much, Ten, We appreciate it nice chatting with
47:59
Speaker 1: you. You have a great day.
48:00
Speaker 4: Thank you all right, take care r bye bye bye bye.
48:02
Speaker 1: So when Ten made reference to they did they got
48:05
Speaker 1: a search warrant to take photos of the Golden State
48:08
Speaker 1: killers Penis while he was in jail. And that is
48:11
Speaker 1: because his victims repeatedly in interviews talked about how he
48:16
Speaker 1: had an extremely small penis. This was an ongoing theme
48:21
Speaker 1: with all of his victims, like so small that it
48:24
Speaker 1: was like that was something they said, like his penis
48:29
Speaker 1: was so small. So then when I'm reading the book,
48:32
Speaker 1: he actually says that the photographer when he went in,
48:35
Speaker 1: because you know, they bring him into the room, they
48:36
Speaker 1: take his clothes off, the photographer said something to the
48:39
Speaker 1: effect of I can't find it, Like he couldn't even
48:41
Speaker 1: find it to take photos of it. I'm not joking.
48:43
Speaker 2: I need a bigger lens.
48:44
Speaker 5: Yes, yes, Then he describes his penis and the book
48:49
Speaker 5: as being like with girth wise is no bigger than
48:53
Speaker 5: a dime, and link like the like the length of
48:57
Speaker 5: a pinky.
48:58
Speaker 2: Wow, well then that basically it would be a pinky.
49:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, like can you imagine? No, can you imagine shape?
49:07
Speaker 2: I choose not to imagine.
49:11
Speaker 1: So anyway, I mean, I'm no wonder this guy had
49:15
Speaker 1: like a.
49:15
Speaker 2: God conxcuse anything.
49:18
Speaker 1: No, it doesn't. I'm sure he's not the only one
49:20
Speaker 1: that has an exceptionally small penis that he doesn't go
49:22
Speaker 1: out and rape women. But I'm just saying I think
49:25
Speaker 1: that contributed to his need to control and to and
49:31
Speaker 1: to terrorize. And it's a it's a very it's the insecurity. Yeah,
49:36
Speaker 1: I don't, and he's a psychopath.
49:37
Speaker 2: I don't have that insecurity.
49:38
Speaker 1: I know you don't. You're fine, You're very well. Inoub
49:40
Speaker 1: chainge something. We'll just leave that at that. No crimes here,
49:43
Speaker 1: no crimes there. Okay, A big, huge thank you to
49:46
Speaker 1: ten Hoe for being on the show today again. The
49:49
Speaker 1: book he wrote is called The People Versus the Golden
49:51
Speaker 1: State Killer, and I love that he said that a
49:53
Speaker 1: portion of the proceeds we're going to go to Phyllis's Garden,
49:56
Speaker 1: which you know, honestly, I when I was reading the
49:58
Speaker 1: book and I was I was thinking about how they
50:01
Speaker 1: interrogated these rape victims. I mean it was I can
50:05
Speaker 1: you imagine going through an ordeal like that and then
50:07
Speaker 1: just or not interrogate. They don't interrogate the victims. I'm
50:10
Speaker 1: I feel like the victims as to what happened, But
50:13
Speaker 1: can you imagine being questioned it never happened.
50:16
Speaker 2: I never thought about that in the space and kind
50:19
Speaker 2: of a cold space, in the space.
50:20
Speaker 1: Where it happened, where you literally have like a blanket
50:24
Speaker 1: over you and you're just being questioned in a cold
50:27
Speaker 1: space where it happened with police. So I love the
50:30
Speaker 1: idea of this Phyllis's Garden where it's like you take
50:32
Speaker 1: the victims and you move them to a low one
50:35
Speaker 1: in a safe space, a safe space where you have therapists.
50:38
Speaker 2: And well and they feel I think you feel valued
50:40
Speaker 2: because you're in a nice designated area instead of just
50:44
Speaker 2: you know, a cubby right somewhere.
50:48
Speaker 1: Did something wrong because you're being you know, questioned or
50:51
Speaker 1: interrogated in a space that feels cold and and you know,
50:55
Speaker 1: lonely and like you don't have an advocate. So anyway,
50:57
Speaker 1: I think that's great. Again, his book is called The
50:59
Speaker 1: People of This is the Golden State Killer. Thank you
51:01
Speaker 1: guys so much for listening. I hope you enjoyed the interview,
51:04
Speaker 1: and as always, please DM me with any questions or
51:06
Speaker 1: comments or cases that you would like us to discuss.
51:09
Speaker 1: Thanks so much, thank you,