Former Police Officer Charged as Golden State Killer
A Dozen Murder Victims Included Four in Goleta in 1979 and 1981
The ’70s and ’80s were a weird time for California. A litany of sadistic killers with creepy monikers like the Zodiac Killer, Hillside Strangler, and Night Stalker made headlines almost daily. The stories that described their methods were even creepier. If the 72-year-old man arrested on April 24 is indeed the East Area Rapist, Golden State Killer, and Diamond Knot Killer, in Santa Barbara, Joseph DeAngelo is known as the Original Night Stalker.
His alleged list of crimes is staggering. Hundreds of burglaries and reports of prowling; at least 45 rapes, some victims as young as 13; a dozen or more murders — the list is growing as jurisdictions review their cold cases. Creepiest was a report in the Sacramento Bee about the East Area Rapist. A man who’d said at a town hall meeting that a rape wouldn’t happen with a husband in the home became a victim, as did his wife. The rapist was at the meeting, said investigator Carol Daly. The assaults escalated from rape of single women to rape of women with children in the home, rape of women forced to tie up husbands, and then murder.
By the time a home invasion occurred on Queen Ann Lane in Goleta on October 1, 1979 — tied up, the couple tried to escape and screamed, scaring their assailant away when a neighbor responded — the killer was known to have shot two people in Sacramento, Katie and Brian Maggiore, in February 1978. According to media reports, the area was in an uproar; 37 women and girls had been raped in the last couple years, and they reported their assailant wore a ski mask and spoke in a growl through clenched teeth. DeAngelo had joined the police department in Auburn, a town about a half-hour drive northeast of Sacramento, in 1976. He was fired in September 1979 when caught shoplifting dog repellent and a hammer from a drug store.
