Criminology - The Original Night Stalker

Episode Date: May 26, 2018

In this episode, we are focusing on the last two murders committed in the EAR/ONS/GSK series. We are joined by family members who provide insight into the victims, the details of the crimes, and the aftermath. The connections between the East Area Rapist crimes and those committed by the Original Night Stalker are finally made. And we talk with detectives Larry Crompton and Paul Holes who provide valuable information. You can help support the show by going to patreon.com/criminology   An Emash Digital Production Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Criminology is a true crime podcast that may contain discussion about violent or disturbing topics. Listener discretion is advised. I'd like to welcome everyone to episode 14 of season two of criminology. More if we never thought we would do 14 episodes, let alone 15, maybe even 16, who knows. But we are covering these later crimes, these later murders in detail. We don't want to gloss over anything. because really, just because Joseph DiAngelo has been arrested, it doesn't mean that we skip ahead, that we skip forward and forget that there were other murder victims

that we haven't talked about yet. We need to tell their stories. In episode 13, we discussed the murders of newlywood's Patty and Keith Harrington, as well as the senseless murder of Manuel O'Hidhum. Sadly, we were not able to have anybody on the podcast to speak for those victims. But in today's episode, we're very fortunate to have advocates for victims of both murder cases we'll be discussing. But before we dive in, we'd like to give a shout out to our new Patreon supporters. All right, Morph, we had Turtle, Turtle, Turtle. You know, I like turtles.

I'm a big Turtle fan myself, too. We had Stephanie Borgard, Sarah Schrader, Reese Potts, Michelle Watson jumped out at our highest level, Mary Richard jumped out to our highest level. did Mark Englehard. He jumped out at our highest level as well. Elena Garcia, Charles Paxford, Lee's Lindgren, Connie McGinnis, Roger Prokick, Jay Riggins, and Lisa Marie Miller. So a lot of new support. We really appreciate that. And we also appreciate the people that have stuck with us month after month. It really means a lot. It helps us out a great deal. Thanks so much for your Patreon support. We really appreciate it. And we hope to keep bringing the material that you really enjoy.

So, Morp, you started to touch on what we covered in episode 13. The 1981 double murders of newlyweds Keith and Patty Harrington in Dana Point and the murder of Manuela Whithewn, also in 1989 in Irvine. These were terrible bludgeoning murders. These murders coupled with the 1980 murders of Lyman and Charlene Smith and Ventura and the 1979 murders of the 1979 murders of doctors, Robert Offerman and Deborah Manning and Galita left many investigators in Southern California in fear that there was a maniac running around crisscrossing Southern California. And many residents of these areas where these crimes happened also took notice as well. Some people thought there was a single predator at large.

He had been known in the Galita area as the Creek Killer in Ventura as the Diamond Knock Killer. And in Orange County, people started calling him a night. And again, we have to make sure that we don't confuse this with Richard Ramirez, the Nightstalker who raped and killed in the mid-1980s. The original Nightstalker that we're talking about never got the same type of coverage that Richard Ramirez did. And maybe that's what allowed him to keep going undetected. Years later, Larry Poole, an Orange County investigator who was an expert on this series of

crimes coined the phrase original nightstocker. Someone asked Poole if this nightstocker was related to the Richard Ramirez nightstocker case. And Poole was very quick to correct them. And he said, no, this was the original night stalker and the name stuck. It had been over a year and a half since the Creek Killer in Galita had taken the lives of Dr. Alpherman and Manning before vanishing into the night. Things had quieted down and people in the quiet community got back to their normal routines. In July of 1981, less than a mile away from the 1979 off-man-man-man-crime crime scene, another brutal murder of a couple would rock the quiet community in Galita. Dateline Galetta, there may be a connection between the murder of a

couple here this week and the 1979 murder of a couple in the same neighborhood, Santa Barbara County Sheriff's deputies said Tuesday. Investigators of the 1979 murder developed a psychological profile of the killer that they say indicated he might strike again. In the latest case, the bodies of Sherry Domingo, 35, and her boyfriend, Greg Sanchez, 28, were found about noon Monday in their front bedroom of a home. Both had been beaten severely on the head, and Sanchez had been shot at least once. Deputies said the woman had been house-sitting at the residence since the death several months ago of a relative who owned the property. Neighbors said they heard loud reports and a scream at about 3 a.m. Monday,

but ignored the sounds, thinking they resulted from someone setting off fireworks. The bodies were discovered about eight hours later by a real estate agent who came to look at the house. About three blocks away on December 30th, 1979, orthopedic surgeon Robert Offerman, and Santa Maria psychologist Deborah Manning, were found shot to death in Offerman's condominium. Deputies revealed few details about the 1979 crime, but officers indicated that a profile developed from evidence indicated that the murder was a psychopath who might kill again.

There were a number of similarities in the murders. They occurred in the same neighborhood. They occurred at about the same time of day, and the victims in both cases were unmarried couples whose bodies were found together in a bedroom. Officers investigating the latest case said Sanchez was an electronics technician who lived in the Santa Barbara area. Mrs. Domingo, a divorcee, was laid off two weeks ago from her job at a computer hardware firm.

The woman had two children, a 15-year-old daughter who was staying with friends the night of the murder, and a 14-year-old son who lives with his father in the San Diego area. That newspaper article that you just heard ran in. the July 29th, 1981, LA Times. An older homeowner at 449 Toltec Way had decided to put her home up for sale in May of 1981 after her husband passed away. She invited a relative to live in the home until it's sold while she herself moved to another part of California. The relative she invited to stay there was 35-year-old Sherry Domingo. Sherry had been living in Montecis California, about 13 miles away in another part of Santa Barbara County with her teenage daughter Debbie.

Sherry welcomed the move. As a divorcee, she had her hands full with her daughter Debbie, who had reached the age where she knew how to push buttons. She knew how to test limits. And on top of everything that she was dealing with, Sherry had just been terminated from her job as a corporate manager. Sherry thought that the move might be sort of a fresh start and might make things easier between her and Debbie. It didn't. In fact, things got even worse.

Sherry would tell people that she just couldn't handle her daughter. They had shouting matches. And in July, Debbie left her home and stayed with friends. Sherry stood strong and chose not to cave into her daughter's teenage rebellion. Instead, she focused on trying to relax. And everybody that knew Sherry described her as extremely attractive. She was a 5'4-120-pound brunette. She loved the beach.

She loved sunbathing. Sherry's ex-husband had remarried. But she had not. But she was looking for a special someone. And Sherry had placed some personal ads in local Santa Barbara County newspapers. Despite apparently being lonely, Sherry did have a man in her life. 27-year-old Gregory Sanchez, who was eight years Sherry's junior, was a strapping athletic man. Standing six foot three and weighing 180 pounds, Sanchez was an opposing figure to most.

But to Sherry, he was kind and attentive. The pair dated on and off since 1975 when they had met at a company they both were in Santa Barbara County. Their relationship had ups and downs, but they seemed to get along. Even strong-willed Debbie approved of Greg and got along with him as well. but Sherry seemed to have some doubts. She felt he was too young. At times, Greg seemed committed to Sherry. He had even proposed to her, but never followed through with it.

At other times, like most single 27-year-old men, he seemed to enjoy his life the way it was, driving a sporty car and dating other women. The pair had lived together for a while in 1980, but broke up in December of that year. Despite the hesitation and doubts on both of their parts, the pair stayed close and they spent a lot of time together. On July 26, 1981, Sherry was home alone at the Toltec Way residence when she apparently missed Greg enough to call and invite him over.

Greg took some directions from Sherry on how to get to her house and he wrote them down on a piece of paper. He climbed into his car and he drove to 449 Toltec Way that evening. He didn't bring anything with him as far as a change of clothes or toiletries. so Greg may not have planned on staying overnight with Sherry. The next day, on July 27, 1981, between 10.30 and 11 a.m., the listing agent for the house, called Sherry to make arrangements with her to show the home. She didn't answer the phone. The agent decided to drive to the home, and using his realtor's key, let himself in the front door,

but found the door was secured by the safety chain. He decided to walk around to the kitchen side of the residence and found the sliding glass door open. He had brought a family with him that was interested in the home, but asked them to wait in the kitchen while he went to see if the home was free to show. The agent called out as he walked towards the back of the residence. The home was quiet and dark. He got to the master bedroom and on the floor saw the body of a nude man. Horrified the realtor race back to the family that was waiting for him in the kitchen and he told them what he'd found. He picked up the phone and dialed 911.

deputies quickly responded to the scene. They found the body of the male lying on the floor, but in addition, they found the nude body of a woman lying face down on the bed. Santa Barbara County Sheriff's detectives were called to the scene, and they quickly identified the two victims as Sherry Domingo and Greg Sanchez. There was no doubt they had a double murder on their hands. They started their investigation inside the home, while outside curious neighbors on the quiet cul-de-sac

were gathering around to see what was going on. One of the people there immediately thought of Sherry's daughter, Debbie, and felt that she needed to make contact with her as soon as possible. She didn't want Debbie to hear the news that her mom was dead from someone else. We wanted listeners to hear from Debbie Domingo herself about the events leading up to the murders and the heartbreaking aftermath of the murders. Here's our interview with Debbie in its entirety. As a kid, I had grown up with my mom and my dad and my brother, who was a year younger than me.

And when I was about 12, my parents divorced. And within a year or so, my dad remarried. And my mom had begun dating Greg Sanchez. And so from the time I was 12 until the time they were killed, which was right before my 16th birthday, My mom was dating Greg most of that time. They would break up every once in a while. But Greg was pretty much a part of the family as far as I was concerned. And also during those years from 12 to 16, I moved back and forth between my mom's house and my dad's house quite a bit.

So I would do maybe a few months or a semester at one parent's house and then move and do a year somewhere and back and forth. So I essentially had two homes. I had home with my mom and I had, you know, school and friends and church and that kind of thing. And the same was at my dad's house in a different city. So for the time that I lived with my mom, we lived in Santa Barbara County in various areas. We lived in several different places in Goleta. And we lived in for a little while. We lived in Montecito, which has been in the news recently, has just been devastated by fires and muds.

So I've been reminiscing a lot about those years of my life. Goleta was where mom and I ended up for her last several months. We moved into a home in Goleta in, I think, about May of 1981. And my mom and Greg were killed in July of that year. So we had only been in that house for about three months. It belonged to a distant relative of my mom's. and she, her husband had passed away, I think in April, her husband passed away, and she wanted to put the house on the market, but she didn't want for it to be vacant. So she asked my mom if we would stay in the house while it was being shown until it sold.

So we did that. We moved in. We had all of our, all of our furniture, all of our clothing, everything. We moved into the house, and we intended to stay there until whenever. was that it sold. They both worked for Burroughs Corporation in Santa Barbara. Greg worked with computers, and I don't know if he was a programmer or an electronics technician or something like that. My mom did clerical work. She did secretarial kinds of stuff for Burroughs, and then she eventually left Burroughs and went to work for a private business. And so she was for several years, kind of an administrative secretary, office manager kind of a position. Right before she died, I think within about two or three weeks before she died, she had gotten

laid off. And I'm not sure if I was even aware that she was not employed because I had been away from home for a couple weeks before she was killed. The teenager, I didn't pay attention to, you know, things like local crime and local news. So I wasn't aware of any prowling, burglary. of course, not any. I had not heard about the previous murder or the attempted attack that we now know are attributed to this same perpetrator. But at the time, I hadn't heard about any of those kinds of happenings in our area.

I felt very, very safe in Goleta, even though I was just a teenager and, of course, young and innocent by today's standards, I was pretty independent. And, you know, my mom worked a lot. I had a 10-speed bike, and I was all over Santa Barbara County on that bike. I rode my bike everywhere. And I never was really concerned for my safety or my mom's. We were always real comfortable in our environment and never really felt like there was anything to be concerned about. You know, my mom and I had always been pretty close. She was very young when she had me, so she and I would be out in public.

And she looked very young and she was attractive. And so I was used to being out with her and, you know, having her draw attention. She, it was so funny, you know, we'd be in a restaurant and she'd order a glass of wine and the server would ask for her idea. And I would just laugh and I'd feel like, this is my mom. I don't know. We hung around together a lot. We shopped together a lot. We would go to the beach.

I don't know. My mom was just really the closest person to me. Of course, you know, I had friends. But mom and I were pretty close. I will say that those last, probably the last year or two, as I got more independence and more feisty, I guess you'd say, I would rebel against, you know, rules like, you know, curfews and, you know, when I could talk on the phone and, you know,

just basic teenager kinds of stuff. And so mom and I would fight quite a bit. And, you know, I look back on it now, and I think, you know, that was just typical teenager stuff. But she and I argued pretty badly. And there were a couple different times where I would just pack up a backpack and just take off for a while. And I'd go stay with a friend. You know, sometimes I'd be gone for a few days or a week or so.

In the first week of July, in 1981, I did that. She and I were screaming at each other and I packed up some clothes in a backpack. And I went and stayed with a girlfriend for a couple of days. And then I wore out my welcome there. So I went and stayed with another girlfriend for a week or two. So I had not been home for, I think, probably about two weeks before my mom was killed. The day before my mom and Greg were killed, of course, I've put the pieces together over the years and going back through notes and stuff. I've been able to figure out that the 26th was a Sunday.

I made a phone call. I was downtown Santa Barbara somewhere, and I had my bicycle. And I remember stopping at a pay phone and calling my mom at home. And she, of course, we had just been every encounter that we had for the prior two weeks, we'd been just screaming at each other. And it was just so ridiculous. But I called her from this payphone, and I'm pretty sure it was something to the effect of, there's a bathing suit I want to come pick up.

When can I come to the house? And she said, you can't. And, of course, I was just infuriated by that. We went back and forth about why I needed to come get my bathing suit. And she said, no, you don't live here anymore. And everything you left, you forfeited. So you're not coming to this house. And she was adamant, and I was adamant.

And we just, we went back and forth on that pay phone. And I finally just screamed at her, why don't you just stay out of my life? And I slammed that phone down. And I hopped on the bike and rode and burn off some steam. And the next day, I was at the home of this girlfriend. that I was staying with. It was a Monday, and it was summertime, so we didn't have anything to do. But I was at her home, and the phone rang, and it was her brother, who I knew.

He and I actually worked together. I had a little part-time job at the movie theater in Santa Barbara. So the brother calls and tells my friend, hey, I've got a message for Debbie. Is she there? And my friend says, yeah, she's right here. Hold on. So I get on the phone, and he says, we got a call at the theater from a friend of your mom. says you need to call her. So I took down the number and I'm thinking, you know, she wants to mend

fences. She wants me to get home so that she can make peace between me and my mom. And I wasn't falling for it. I was I was still kind of fired up from the day before. But I called her and she said, oh, thank God you called Debbie. She says, you need to come home right away. And I said, no, I said, I don't think I do. I'm not coming home. And she, we went back and forth a little bit. And she finally, she said, she just got real quiet with me. And she said, Debbie, you don't understand. Something's happened. And it's important.

You have to come home. And I believed her. I could tell that she was serious and I knew something was wrong. So I had that friend's brother come and pick me up and take me back to the house. And when I got there, I mean, I can still picture the scene in my mind. We lived in a cul-de-sac. We lived the second house in on the house. the left-hand side. And as we pulled up next to the cul-de-sac, I could see the yellow police tape

was stretched across the end of the cul-de-sac, and then it was all around our house. And there were several police cars, and there were a whole bunch of news camera crews, like the five-clock news. There were a couple different crews out on the sidewalk, and they were talking to the neighbors and talking to the police. And it was very surreal. But there was something, when I saw that yellow tape, something just, just hit me. And I thought, you know, this is, this is bad. This is bad. You don't just see yellow tape for, for, you know, somebody broke in and stole something. You see, you see yellow tape when somebody's dead. So I think in my heart at that point, I knew, even though I didn't really have any detail. But within a very short time, the police sat me, my, my mom's friend came right up to me and she, she was a neighbor. That's how she, that's how she was there in the first place. But she came and put her arms around me and kind of scooted me out of the spotlight. And then the police came and talked to me and they said that there were bodies in our house and that they were pretty sure that one of them was my mom.

That was one of the toughest things for me because, of course, I was, you know, I was inquisitive. And I mean, obviously, I wanted in that house. And I kept saying where, one of the first things I said, I don't know, I find this interesting. As soon as I got out of the car, my mom's friend came up to me. police were there right next to me almost immediately. But one of the first things that I noticed was that Greg's car was parked in front of the house. And that was unusual that my mom and Greg hadn't been seeing each other for a little while. So I was surprised to see Greg's car there. And I blurted out immediately, where's Greg? I want to see Greg. And I look back on it now,

which is so interesting because as soon as I said, where's Greg? The police immediately started questioning me. Greg, who? Who are you talking about? And of course, I was like, his car is right there, Greg Sanchez. Apparently, I was there soon enough that they hadn't even gotten an identification yet. So they didn't know who Greg was. And I don't know. I've always wondered if the killer took wallets and driver's licenses and that kind of thing. Because I don't know, it just seems funny to me that they didn't know who Greg was at that point.

But anyway, as far as questioning goes, in the early stages, they just, you know, the first few minutes, they just told me what had happened. And they said, you know, we don't know for sure that that's your mom. But we're investigating and we'll get back to you. And I'm thinking, you know, the smart elk in me is thinking, well, who else would it be? Of course, it's my mom, you know. But I kind of kept my mouth shut and let them do their thing. And then over the next, I want to save two to three days.

There was lots of questioning back and forth. And they didn't really bombard me, but they did ask, you know, just a whole string of, you know, the basic things of, you know, what were your mom's habits? Where did she like to go? Who was she friends with? Did she have any ex-boyfriends that might have been jealous? Were there movers who moved you into this house? Who did your landscaping?

You know, did any repair work? I mean, they just asked me all kinds of stuff. You know, I tried to be as helpful as I could. But, you know, and now 40 years later, I don't remember 37 years later. I don't remember anything about the specifics on any of that kind of stuff. But they did. They questioned me pretty good for the first couple of days. And, in fact, at one point, they took me to the sheriff's office and they hooked me up with a lie detector.

And they asked me point blank on that lie detector. Do you know who harmed your mother or did you have anything to do with this? I just remember thinking, callie, if they're asking me this, they must have nothing to go on. It's really kind of strange because my first thought, you know, I told you a little while ago, I never felt like, you know, we didn't have crime in our neighborhood. It was unheard of for, you know, something to get, you know, something. somebody to have their homes broken into or I mean I never heard about stolen cars or anything so when I first got there and they said that mom and Greg I'm realizing

that mom and Greg were dead in my mind I'm thinking I wasn't thinking intruder I was thinking okay maybe maybe lovers quarrel maybe somebody was trying to break up with somebody maybe Greg killed her and then killed himself or I mean I was running through all this stuff through my head and And when the police started questioning me, they were asking things like, you know, again, other other guys that she might have dated who, who, you know, could have been upset that Greg was there. Or I remember them asking me, did my mom do drugs? Did my mom have any drugs in the house? And I thought, are you kidding me?

My mom had a glass of wine every night with dinner, but she never did drugs. I mean, I just know that. So I knew that when they were asking me that, they had to have been really, really scrambling trying to come up with something. They had nothing to go on. I mean, it was apparent to me that they really had nothing to go on. I've thought about this, too. I've only heard this theory, you know, just the last year or two maybe, that people have said, you know, they believe that Greg might have fought the attacker back. And that doesn't surprise me at all.

Greg was, I get emotional when I think about Greg because I loved him so much and I always wish that he and my mom had gotten married. And I believe that he, and he told me actually, that he wanted to marry my mom

and she wouldn't marry him. She was several years older and she just kept saying, oh, he's too young for me. And I thought, what difference does age make? You guys are perfect together. But she didn't need my opinion on that, apparently.

But yes, As far as the attack goes, it doesn't surprise me at all that Greg would fight back. And everything that I've learned about this killer, you know, physically, I don't know that he was any, that he would have been any real match for Greg other than the element of surprise. I'm pretty sure that Greg was, you know, size-wise, had an advantage. And I think strength-wise, they were probably, they were probably, they were probably, comparable. So I think just that element of surprise that the Golden State Killer used would have would have been the edge that he had to be able to go ahead and kill Greg. And I just,

I don't know, I play, I play this movie in my head over and over and over again all the time about how that night went down. And it's, it's terrifying to do so. But, but yes, I'm sure, I'm sure that Greg gave it all he had. My mom and Greg were found on Monday. And I think we had a memorial service on maybe, I don't know, Thursday evening, something like that. And by the weekend, I was back in San Diego. So, you know, I got to say goodbye to a few friends and, you know, co-workers from the theater and friends from school and church and that kind of thing. But I did not have to remain in that neighborhood. And that, you know, there are pros and cons to that. One of them is, You know, one of the pros is that, you know, I was not around for, you know, for my mom and Greg's faces to be splashed on the evening news in front of me. I didn't see any of that. So, which was, I think, probably best for me. But at the same time, I was very disconnected from the investigation and the events and the aftermath in the neighborhood. So I would imagine that, that, yeah, everybody got a lot more careful. It was either 2000 or 2001. So we're looking at, at, um,

you know, 19, 20 years after the murders, I had spent those 19 years or so believing that the case was just never going to be solved. I thought it was cold. I thought it was sitting in a box on a shelf somewhere gathering dust and that nobody would ever put pieces together. And honestly, I thought nobody would ever look at it again because I just believe that, you know, if they didn't solve it within that first year, there was just no chance they ever would. So I wrote it off. In my head, it was just a done deal. And in, I want to say 2000, but I could be wrong. 2000 or 2001, I was, I was at home in a different city in Southern California. And detectives had traveled from Santa Barbara to my home and knocked on my door one evening. And, I mean,

I was just shocked. They said, we are actively investigating your mom and Greg's murder. And I just kind of shook my head and I thought, what in the world? This has to be a joke. And they said, no, we're really serious. And we'd like to talk to you some more. Can we meet with you tomorrow? And I said, well, sure, you know. So I set aside some time the next day.

And we sat down and talked and they told me, this was the first that I had heard of any of the other connected crimes. They said that they were looking at other murders in Santa Barbara as well as some other cities in Southern California. And then they were also looking at a series of rapes in Northern California that they thought may be connected by all the same perpetrator. And I remember just shaking my head in disbelief and saying, you've got to be kidding me. I thought they were crazy.

I thought they were, again, kind of grasping at straws. But at the same time, it just gave me so much hope because I thought, oh, my gosh, if my mom and Greg are not forgotten, if they're connected to something else, then maybe there is a chance that we might actually get answers in my lifetime. So it gave me a glimmer of hope. And I still, I was really skeptical, but I was intrigued enough to start paying attention. My journey on this investigation has been, it's been a real gradual process. From the time that the investigators told me in, let's call it 2001, that they believe, believed my mom and Greg's case might be linked to others. I started to, you know, just kind of get

nosy and try and learn what I could about the other cases and what the theories were and, and what the possible connections were. So at that point in my life, I didn't even own a computer. I was, I was not very tech savvy. I didn't own a computer. So I would go to an internet cafe and I would rent time on a computer so that I could get online and see what I could find out. And at that point in time, there were just a couple of resources. There was the A&E discussion board, and there was the Aeron's dot com website. And actually, those probably weren't in existence right there in the beginning. Those were within the first couple of years that I started nosing around. But those were the two basic foundations that helped me learn about the case. And for the longest time, I mean, I did, I logged

onto that website and I made it known that, yes, I'm the daughter of Sherry Domingo. And so I participated in discussions with strangers, basically, for several years, learning what I could. And then over the years, that has just kind of snowballed. And, you know, now we've got, we've got several different pro boards, we've got Reddit, we've got YouTube and Facebook and all these different avenues. I'm trying to think, it must be about almost two years ago, I guess. Michelle Cruz actually prompted me. I've been, you know, again, just kind of participating on the boards. People knew who I was.

I would answer questions. I would ask questions and just kind of do what I could from just from that kind of general principle. But Michelle Cruz contacted me. She sent me a private message one day. And she said, you and I should probably compare notes. Maybe there are something in common between our cases and we might be able to do something helpful. And I thought, well, golly, what a great idea. She was the first other survivor that I ever had direct contact with. So she sent me that message, and we started getting to know each other.

And, I mean, I have to say that Michelle has become one of the dearest people in the world to me. But Michelle really prompted me as far as getting more active. She started making videos and putting them on YouTube. And I thought, well, shoot, if Michelle can do it, I could do it. So that's really where my public involvement began, is that Michelle prompted me. And then, of course, you know, we've done all kinds of stuff since then as far as getting more active on the boards and on Facebook and on Twitter and more YouTube videos and that kind of stuff. So I have to thank Michelle Cruz for that.

She's an amazing woman. CrimeCon was such a unique opportunity, you know, to reach. an audience that was really brand new for us because, you know, with as active as we are on our pro boards and on Facebook and on Twitter and on YouTube, those media activities only reach a certain, you know, demographic or whatever, a certain sector of the public. And so CrimeCon was a great opportunity to reach a whole new audience of people who really were dedicated to real life. true crime situations. And it wasn't, you know, it's so funny, I started to tell people I'm going to go to this thing called CrimeCon and they, they would look at me kind of, kind of sideways, thinking, okay, it's going to be like, like Comic Con or like, you know, some kind of Star Trek convention or something. And, you know, and they would ask me like, okay, so people like dress up like serial killer like Freddie Kruger or something. And I thought, no, no, no, no, no, it's different than that. And it was. It was so, it was so professionally done. And it was people who really had a true heart for making a difference in the lives of people

who have been affected by crime. So speaking to those people, there's no way to describe it. It was really exhilarating to meet some of those people. And the after effect has been really neat. I've been able to build some relationships with people that we met there, people who heard us speak. I get messages all the time from people who say, you know, I heard you speak, or I stop by and talk to you at your table at CrimeCon. And they'll check in and say, hey, how can we help? And, you know, we're praying for you. And, I mean, those kinds of things, those kinds of things are just priceless.

You know, this past 18 months has been just a real whirlwind, you know, for me, but for everybody who's taken an interest in this case, the thing that amazes me about it is that people who hear about our case and they think, you know, I've lived in Sacramento and I never knew about this. or I lived in Santa Barbara, and I never heard about this. We still have so much work to do, but it's not hard work. It's just a matter of being a squeaky wheel, because when people hear, they get interested. When people hear about all the damage that this guy did, about the dozens and dozens of rates that he committed,

the brutality of his crimes, the bodies that he left behind. People hear about this, and they are touched and they are moved. And it's not just, oh, I heard about that and that's sad. It's, did you hear about this? And oh, my gosh, how can we help? We've got to find this guy. So I've been really moved to that total strangers get hooked into our case and they want to help. And that has been really evident this past 18 months.

We conducted this interview with Debbie in January of 2018. And to wrap up the interview, we asked her one last question. Do you think 2018 is the year the killer will be identified? And this was a response. Well, I certainly hope so. However, I mean, I thought it was going to be 2017. So I thought it was going to be last year. I was so ready.

And I think so many of us were just poised and ready and waiting for the day that a headline comes out that says we got it. And, you know, am I disappointed that 2017 wasn't the year? A little bit. Do I think 2018 can be the year? Absolutely. I think that it's just a numbers game right now. I think every day that goes by we get closer and closer to an identity. I think technology is on our side.

I think the hardworking detectives are on our side. I just really feel like it could be any day now. None of us knew at the time of the interview that any day now wasn't very far off and that the Golden State Killer would be caught just about 90 days later. We definitely want to have Debbie on again to do a follow-up, and we greatly appreciate her coming on and sharing such a painful story with us. Back at the crime scene, investigators were examining the bodies of Sherry and Gray. Greg had sustained a gunshot to the face that was not fatal. What killed Greg was blunt and forced trauma to the head from a blunt object.

Clothing from the bedroom closet was laid over Greg's face. In examining Sherry's body, investigators' friends. found that she had been completely covered with bedding. Both of her arms were behind her back, as if they had been tied behind her. But there were no ligatures. However, there were marks on her wrists indicating that she had been bound. Ligature marks were also found on her ankles. A coroner would later conclude that the cause of death was a result of massive cerebral injuries

due to blunt force trauma and that death was instantaneous. is. The weapon was likely the same one that killed Greg. Although she had not been raped, there was semen found on Sherry from her killer. As they looked around the bedroom, the detectives found a piece of hemp twine on the right side of the bed that was about 10 inches long. They also found a bloody footprint from a herringbone patterned shoe on a bathrobe. Working their way through the home, investigators found a piece of cake on a plate in the kitchen alongside a partially drank can of soda. Detectives found other clues as they scoured the house, including partially burned matches. That matched similar matches found at other Southern California murder scenes.

There was no obvious point of entry into the home, although a small bathroom window was open. Investigators felt that although the window was too small to fit through, it was not out of the question for someone to have reached in and opened a door that led from the bathroom to the outside of the home. There was evidence that the killer had spent a good amount of time in that bathroom. Police theorized that in the early morning hours of July 27, 1981, the killer had gained entry into the home and may have interrupted Sherry and Greg during a moment of intimacy. They likely were confronted with a gun and the murderer forced them to lie down face first on the bed. Sherry was completely immobilized, but somehow Greg possibly escaped and charged the attacker and was

shot in the face with a 38 caliber bullet. Again, this shot was not fatal, but undoubtedly hurt Greg bad enough to incapacitate him. The killer likely had masturbated on Sherry before or after killing her. When he bludgeoned Sherry, the killer had made sure the betting was completely over her head to minimize blood spatter. At some point, Greg came to and tried to stand up, and he was likely met by the murderer as he was getting to his feet. And this was probably the point where Greg,

was bludgeoned. When his body fell to the floor, it landed partially in the closet. The killer removed some clothing that was hanging in the closet and covered Greg's head with it. Police used luminaw at the crime scene to bring out areas of blood not seen with the human eye. They were able to see a trail leading down the hallway away from the bodies. Outside of the home, police found a tool shit that appeared to have been tampered with. One of the tools that may have been the murder weapon was missing. Police also found wotted up pieces of toilet paper around the exterior of the home and in nearby yards. A large amount of toilet paper was found next to a wooden footbridge on Berkeley Drive, a very short walk away.

Police canvassed the neighborhood questioning residents in an effort to piece together clues. A neighbor who lived next door reported that around 2.15 a.m., he woke up due to his dog barking. He and his wife sat up in bed, but didn't hear anything else. unusual and then they went back to sleep. Another resident woke up around 4 a.m. that morning hearing what they thought was a single gunshot. And the gunshot was followed by what sounded like a woman's voice. But then there was silence. The resident didn't report the incident to police at the time thinking that it was probably teenagers setting off firecrackers. Another neighbor close to the crime scene added that at about 9.45 p.m. the night before on the 20,

they had seen the outline of a man standing on the boundaries of properties close to the crime scene. They could only see him in the shadows, and he seemed to be angling himself behind a large tree. They never did a closer look at him and didn't stop to investigate him. Police next talked to a mother and daughter who had been out jogging in the area of Toltec Way along the trail and wooden footbridge where the large amount of toilet paper was found. The two women recounted for detectives that on the night of the night of the night of the road. of the 26th, around 11 p.m., they saw a man in an area directly to the rear of the crime scene. This man had a German shepherd with him, and what stood out to them was that as they jogged by, the man and the dog didn't flinch. They stood perfectly still. And the women described them

as looking as if they were almost frozen. They immediately got the feeling that this man was out of place and they headed back to their home nearby. They described this man as being in his late 20s or early 30s standing about 5 foot 10 and weighing in around 190 to 200 pounds. They said that he had a husky build and neatly combed blonde hair. Another strange incident happened at a home close to the murder scene. At about 10 p.m. on the night of the 26th, a resident heard their doorbell ring and went to the door to answer it. When they did, there was nobody there. They dismissed it as a prank.

However, about five minutes later, they looked outside again and found a bunch of wadded up toilet paper on their front lawn that wasn't there before. One couple reported that they were walking along Berkeley Street close to the crime scene on the night of the 26th when they saw a young man in his 20s who seemed to be following them.

He gained quickly on them as they walked faster at one point coming within 10 feet of them, but they made their way to the other side of the street, and the young man continued walking and disappeared. So this is a large amount of odd activity going on in the area around this cul-de-sac. And this cul-de-sac is less than a mile from the burglaries, the prowlings, and the murders in Goleta that we discussed earlier this season. It's also very close to the area where the man found his dog,

stabbed in a yard on Berkeley in 1979. During the neighborhood questioning, one name came up from residence repeatedly as somebody that might be responsible for the crimes. And it was a name that was familiar to police. Brett Glasby was a 19-year-old man in Galita who had a reputation for being involved in burglaries and drugs. Several people reported that he had a short temper. It was also reported that he had once punched a janitor who worked for Deborah Manning,

who was killed in the 1979 Galita attack. Police wanted to question the youth to see if he knew anything about the crime. In the suburbs of D.C., a woman fails to show up for work and is found brutally murdered. I wonder what's emergency. We just walked in the door, and there's blood in the foyer. For the next two decades, the case remained unsolved

until new technology allowed investigators to do what had once been impossible. A new series from ABC Audio in 2020. and water. Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts. And Glasby was an interesting guy. He came from a good family, but he seemed to have gone down the wrong path, turned away from a military career, opted instead to become a criminal. He once got in trouble for a fight, and his parents felt that he needed a change of scenery. So they decided to send him to Sacramento to stay with someone.

that the family knew who worked in law enforcement. But that didn't help. Glassby returned to Galita and continued down the wrong path. Glassby was questioned by police and denied being involved with any murders. Two different witnesses to some of the events that happened the night before the murder, including the daughter who was jogging with her mom, knew Brett Glasby. And both of these people were positive that he was not the man they saw. Police remained suspicious of Glasby and kept an eye on him. One interesting thing about Glasby was that he lived next to a well-known

real estate professional in Galita, and this real estate man supposedly had a German shepherd with three toes on one paw. And we had talked about the possibility of a three-toed dog print found at the scene of Yawferman Manning murders in 1979. However, it's more likely that the prints of the dog were likely

only partial prints and that it wasn't really missing toes. But that's just the kind of strange rabbit holes that this case presents. In February of 1982, Brett Glasby and his brother Brian traveled to Mexico. While they were there,

they participated in a drug deal that went bad. And both brothers were shot to death. Their father went to Mexico to retrieve their bodies and immediately had them cremated. Years later, based on tips and interesting connections,

some investigators felt that Glasby may have been involved in the murder. But another murder would happen in 1986 and would be attributed to the same killer. At this point in time, Glasby was dead, so it couldn't have been him. But to rule out any crazy theories that Brett Glasby was still alive, investigators years later used other investigative techniques to once and for all rule Glasby out. This left the Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Department with no real suspects in

the case. The normally quiet and peaceful neighborhood of Galita experienced from 1979 to 1981 a series of brutal attacks, burglaries, and murder. But once again, the killer vanished and was never heard from again in Galita. After the latest murders of Domingo and Sanchez, the press too was beginning to notice that Southern California may have a serial predator on their hands. On August 2nd, 1981, the Los Angeles Times, ran a lengthy and detailed article, speculating that all of the 1979 to 1981 murders we have discussed might be the work of one man, titled Nightstocker Theory connecting eight Southland Slayings disputed. In the article, it detailed how similar the crimes were and how investigators

from various jurisdictions theorized that the murders may have been the work of one man. They began to pay attention to all crimes in Southern California bearing similar patterns or MO. But for weeks and then months, no similar crimes were committed. Months turned into years, and the mysterious killers seemed to have vanished. In the killer's wake, other notorious killers grabbed the spotlight and attention from investigators. The scorecard killer and the grim sleeper were roaming Southern California and committing brutal murders. Then in 1985, the night stalker Richard Ramirez was captured after his own sadistic rape and murder spruly. but the original nightstocker alluded capture.

And it seemed as if he might fade into history as yet another uncought serial killer. Then in May of 1986, a murder of an 18-year-old in Irvine, California, once again peaked investigators' interest. Body tentatively identified. A woman whose nude body was found by a realtor in a house listed for sale was tentatively identified Thursday as the 18-year-old daughter of the home's owner, police announced. The bludgeoned body of Janelle Lisa Cruz was found Monday in her mother's home at 13 and Sina in the Northwood area of Irvine, said Irvine Police Lieutenant Mike White. An autopsy showed that she died as a result of blunt trauma to the head. Identification was delayed because the victim's mother, whose name White did not release, was in Mexico at the time of the murder. That article was from the May 9th, 1986 edition of the Los Angeles Times.

18-year-old Janelle Cruz was a beautiful young woman who was working hard towards a bright future for herself. Her parents had divorced and it had been very hard on Janelle. She was very close with her younger sister, Michelle. In March of 1986, just over a month before Janelle was murdered, the Los Angeles Times ran an article about the Job Corps, which offered young people fresh start towards a better future. The article featured Janelle and detailed her accomplishment of completing the Job Corps training in Utah.

Janelle had signed up for Orange Coast College and was working part-time at a local pizza shop in Irvine. It seemed as if she had a plan in place and was ready to work hard as she moved into adulthood. But late on the night of May 4th or in the early morning hours of May 5, 1986, those plans came to a shocking and violent end. We were joined by Janelle's sister Michelle, who told us about her life with Janelle prior to her murder, and she detailed for us the events leading up to the murder and its aftermath. Hi, I'm Michelle Cruz, and my sister Janelle Cruz was the last victim of the Golden State

killer. We were very carefree. We had a lot of friends and a lot of fun. We went to the beach a lot, went to the mall. I always had our friends over. We had a group of people we hung out with. We were all real, real close. Janelle and I pretty much did everything together because we had the same friends. But life in Orange County, it was just a really nice area to be brought up, very manicured. It was a new area. Irvine was being developed, so everything seemed really new and fresh and clean, and you didn't hear about a lot of problems. You know, you just didn't hear a lot of crime or anything like that there. We lived in Irvine for about eight years, and prior to Irvine, we lived in Newport Beach. Prior to Janelle being killed, I had moved to Mammoth Mountain for the winter, so I was gone for three months. So in three months, I did not know what Janelle was doing. The only thing that I knew, knew was that she had met a guy at Luggana Beach, and we had a conversation on Friday about that. It was our last conversation, and she just sounded very happy.

It's like she really liked this guy. And the last thing she said was, I love you, and we hung up the phone. But for the three months that I was gone, I don't know what she was doing. It wasn't until after years later that I found out that she was looking for apartments, and she had signed up for college at Orange Coast College. You know, before that, it was just school and family and holidays, Christmas, and Thanksgiving. Janelle, I guess she was looking for apartments. When she was killed, there was a newspaper out on our kitchen table that they had found after she had been killed,

and there was an apartment that was circled looking, you know, like she was looking for apartments somewhere to go. But I didn't know this until years later. See, I didn't know she was looking for apartments because I was gone. Janelle was, I don't know, maybe 15 or 16 years old, probably 16. And she went to her good friend's house for a little party, a house party that they were having with family over there. And she went over there, and the next day she came home. And I can remember her and my mom sitting on our stairs inside the house talking in there, real quiet. And Janelle just seemed upset.

My mom was really seriously listening to what she was saying. So it was kind of a private conversation they were having. And I didn't know what it was and I didn't want to disturb them. So maybe I went to my room or just kind of went away so they could talk. And it turns out later that Janelle had been either raped or something from her friend's dad. And what she had said to my mom was that she knew what was happening, but she couldn't move or she couldn't move. or she couldn't yell.

She, it was like, like she had been drugged that night. My mom never, you know, got the police involved because she was threatened by this father because he was in the military. And I guess he had come over and with, or some of his guy friends from the military came over and threatened my mom. So mom never took it to the police.

And Janelle didn't want to because she was afraid that, you know, people would hear about it and blame her and she was embarrassed of it. And so she, we tried to move on. She tried to move on with her life. And during that time also, the father, who did that, his wife called my mother and said, don't worry, Janelle won't get pregnant. He was fixed.

So she knew what he had done afterwards. And now, you know, that was it. So we forgot about it for years, but, you know, Janelle was killed a year and a half years later. So, you know, there was always that thought, well, could he have been the one to keep her quiet? You know, we don't know. A few years ago, I had gone to law enforcement, maybe five years ago, six years ago. And they had finally said that they were going to look into him and I guess I got his, maybe his DNA, but they did eliminate him ultimately. At the time, Janelle was killed.

My stepfather and my mother were talking about maybe getting back. together rekindling my stepfather was going to Cancun he invited my mom to go the reason my mom went is because my little brother was going and she didn't want him to go alone with my stepfather so she said let me go so she can keep an eye on him he was five years old at the time so they went to Cancun and when my mom was saying goodbye to Janelle that day it was maybe that morning and I think it was was a Saturday morning. My mom had these red earrings, and they made her feel very uncomfortable.

She said they felt like they were blood spots. So she didn't want to wear them. She had them, and she was going to wear them, and she decided not to, and she just gave him to Janelle. I don't want these. You know, they bother me. And my mom looks back on that now, and it's like, was that something, you know, of a feeling that she was getting, that something was going to happen to Janelle?

You know, we don't know. So she left for Cancun, and Janelle did not want to be there by herself. She tried to get friends to come over. I don't know why she tried to get friends. I don't know if she felt uncomfortable. Maybe she had heard something in prior evening. But she called multiple friends trying to get them to come over, and none of them could. And I know that one of her friends that she was reaching out to, he was at a convention

And so he called her back around midnight, and Janelle didn't answer, which is crazy because I just found that out. And he said, I remember calling her back. It was around midnight that she never answered. And so he didn't think of anything about it. But now it's like you look back, and that was the time that she was probably getting killed or was killed at that time. It's just crazy that he calls right at that time, and she couldn't get to that phone. I don't know if Janelle worked during the day or not, but she had gone. to her work and was hanging out there. I think she may have got something to eat or drink

and was sitting down the table and talking to her other co-workers. And she invited one of our co-workers to come hang out with her for a little bit because she didn't want to be by herself. So he agreed. And then when he got off work, he followed her home. And they were hanging out there for a little bit. And then it came to about 10, 10.30-ish. And he says he had to go because he was using his mom's car. So they both left. She left in her car. He left in his. And then Janelle came back about 15 minutes later and, you know, walked into the house.

And I guess that's when the killer was hiding and got her when she came back in. I don't think he wanted to say he was with Janelle because she was killed that night. So I think he was afraid to say anything because he didn't want to be looked at as a suspect because he didn't do it. But he was the last person with her. So he held information from them is what made them more suspicious. Why did he lie by not telling the truth of, you know, where he was? He was ruled out through DNA. I'm assuming what he told the law enforcement is that they heard the noise.

You know, when they were in the bedroom, they were reading Janelle wrote poetry, and she was reading some of her poetry. And during that time, they had heard a noise. Janelle looked out the window, but she didn't see anything. So she closed the shutters. And then later on, they heard noises in the long. which the laundry room was attached to the garage and the garage has a door leading to the outside and that door in the outside is actually really close to our bedroom window. So if he came in, he came in through the garage and through the laundry room because I heard noises in the laundry room. Well, Janelle disregarded that noise as maybe the dryer and it wasn't too long after that noise that he had left when they both actually left and then Janelle came back. So he The killer could have been in the house, you know, when they left.

She came back home. She went into the house, and from what found she was in the kitchen when he first got her, maybe hit her in the back of the head. She struggled and put up a fight, a really good fight, supposedly. And she ended up in her bedroom, and she had been raped and bludgeoned and killed pretty bad. She had lost all her teeth from, you know, him hitting her. My stepfather had left a pipe wrench in the backyard, and that pipe wrench was missing. So they're assuming that that could have been the weapon used to kill Janelle.

The night before, Janelle had three friends over. I guess it was our guy friends. And again, these are guys we hung out with. We were raised in the area, so we knew these people, and they lived in our area. So they came over and were hanging out with Janelle. And they did hear some noises in the backyard. And Janelle was on the phone at the time talking to her friend. And these guys, you know, ran outside to see what that noise was.

When they ran outside, they did not see anything. So they came back in the house and I guess disregarded it. But it must have been a noise loud enough for them to all run out there and see what it was. When I left for Mammoth, it was not up for sale. So the couple of months that I was gone, they had to be a noise. put it up for sale. And it wasn't, so it couldn't have been up for sale for too long. And that is actually how Janelle was found by a realtor who was showing property and showing the property to a prospective buyer. And they walked into the bedroom. Now, this is what I heard.

I've heard two stories, either showing the property or previewing the property. I'm not exactly sure which one. But they, but the realtor walked into the bedroom and and saw Janelle lying there on the bed. And she called the broker who had our house for sale, who lifted it, and then they ended up calling the police. But that is how she was found through the realtor. From what I know, she did not hear anything or she was not getting any phone calls. My mother did not get any phone calls either.

And remember, my mom at that time was a really pretty young beautician. And so I always wondered, was it Janelle that he was after it or my mother? Because she was really popular in the Irvine area as a hairstylist. Everybody used to go to her. But neither one of them mentioned anything about getting any kind of print calls, hang up phone calls or hearing noises except for the night previous and the night of. I thought, well, maybe my mom told clients, you know, Maybe she was talking about going away to Cancun.

She could have been talking to people through her work. And then Janelle, as well, being that she didn't want to be home alone, could have been talking to some of her friends. But, you know, our friends feel we're safe, you know. So I don't know who she would have told, you know, if it was the wrong person or not. But yeah, I have thought about that. And the other thought I had was maybe the real estate agent, because when you go out of town, you know, they mark that in your,

in the database, you know, saying, you know, the owner won't be there so you can show the property. You know, so maybe somebody in real estate knew. The police, I don't remember when the police reached out to me. I know that when they found out that Janelle had been killed and my mom and my stepfather were in Cancun, they did call all the hotels in Mexico trying to locate my mom. And they finally located her. And my mom and my stepfather took the next flight out, came back home. And I'm sure they were interviewed.

I didn't know when they were interviewed, though, because I was young, and I think that my parents were probably not telling me everything at the time, you know, of the details. But I came back from mammoth as soon as I could. I was snowed in. And so I had to wait until some of the snow melted because it had been one of the worst snowstorms in a very long time. So it took a couple of days for me to even get out of there.

And then when I came home, I ended up staying with a friend. And at some point, they called me into the police department, and they interviewed me. It was a short interview. I don't think there's more than 30 minutes or so. And that was it. That was the only kind of they interviewed me that I remember. They just said that Janelle had been killed and do I know anybody that I think that it could have been. And at the time, I just didn't know.

My mom has suspicions about everybody. She just doesn't know. You know, he could be the one or he could be the one. And then me, you know, there was a realtor that I thought could have been it. But I didn't think about him until about 20 years later. And I thought, you know what, this guy might have been. And so I did a lot of research on him and did his background and all that. And I ended up getting his DNA and through his, through a family member, and that eliminated him.

But I thought that he could have been because I know this guy traveled. an hour to work every day, to work as a realtor when our real estate offices all over. But he traveled a whole hour up and back. And he had different cars and Mercedes and Volkswagen's and weapons and a vehicle as well. I mean, he was on drugs. So I thought, this guy. And he lived up in the Sacramento area and had family up there. So I thought, oh, he could be.

And I thought he could be the one for many years. And that's actually why I went to college. and studied criminal justice was because I wanted to find out how I could get this guy's DNA without ruining the case. And so I went into college and studied criminal justice to learn the ins and out. And ultimately, he was eliminated. Well, in the beginning, I waited and waited and waited for about 20-something years. And then I started getting older and it's like, gosh, nothing's going on.

You know, I'm not hearing anything. Nobody's calling me back. but yet I have this pain that's going on inside of me that it's just so hard to deal with and I'm so depressed and, you know, what can I do? And so I started thinking outside of the box, you know, what can I do? So the first step was going to college for criminal justice. And then the other thing was, is I started getting online.

And back when the A&E boards were, you know, active, a friend reached out to me from junior high school and he said, you know, you should really get up, go on those boards and start talking to people because people would like to, you know, hear information that you have. So I did. I registered and I logged on and that was the other thing I started, and then the Pro Board, then I decided to get a YouTube channel in 2016 now. And just little by little, I'm trying to do more and more going on different TV shows, media, podcast, radio,

social media, anything that I can, just to spread awareness, and hopefully somebody will hear and know something. You know, that's just my goal is just to spread awareness and find out who the killer is. Like Debbie Domingo, Michelle had no way of knowing that her sister's killer would be identified just a few months after we talked with her. And it's going to be amazing, morph,

to follow up with both Michelle and Debbie, to see how they're doing today after the recent news. We heard Michelle pretty much lay out what police think happened to Janelle. She had a friend over the night of her murder, and her and the friend heard some noises, but when they investigated, there was no sign of anybody. When this friend left, Janelle also left for a short time, but returned to her home soon after.

Police think that the killer was in her home waiting for her. She was attacked in the kitchen and fought a losing battle where she wound up being raped and murdered in her bedroom. After police arrived at the home at 13 Encina, following the call from the real estate agent, they examined Janelle's body, which was on her bed. She was partially nude, and a blanket had been placed over her head. They also noted blades of grass on the bed. Janelle had been savagely beaten.

Her teeth had been knocked out, and the coroner would find that she had actually swallowed them. The wounds were so severe to the front of her head that, she was unrecognizable. This was a brutal crime. And Michelle touched on it a bit. Janelle had a lot of friends, and police wound up finding them all and questioning them. And this included her friend who was at her house that night.

He wasn't initially truthful with police because he was afraid that they would accuse him of the murder. So he was initially a suspect, and it wouldn't be until years later that he was clear, by DNA. While investigating the crime scene, police found a radio playing and it was tuned to a channel that Janelle often listened to. They found blood spatter all over Janelle's room on the shutters and at the head of Janelle's bed. There was also blood found in the kitchen, which is why police were sure that the attack had started there or from concluding in Janelle's bedroom. Janelle's stepfather owned a pipe wrench that was missing, and police believed it was likely the murder weapon. Police didn't find any signs of forced entry, but people that knew Janelle,

reported that she often forgot to lock the doors to the home. When police searched outside of the home, they found a piece of patio furniture had been moved to enable the murderer to climb over the rear fence. The most important clue found at the crime scene was the killer seaman, which would later reveal his DNA. That DNA would later be matched to the DNA from the Manuela Whittune murder scene two miles away and the other Orange County murders of Petra. Trice and Keith Harrington and Dana Point. It would also be connected to the 1980 murders of the Smiths in Ventura. There was no doubt about it. There had been a single night stalker moving through areas in Southern California

and killing lone women and couples. In 1986, after the murder of Janelle Cruz, the original nightstocker seemed to vanish. No other crimes with similar in Mo would be attributed to him in Southern California. Like Northern California's East Area Rapist, a prolific serial offender had seemingly slipped away from detectives who were working hard to identify and apprehend him. But back up in Northern California, investigators there had not forgotten the East Area rapist. Some of them were convinced that he had made his way to Southern California and became a full-fledged serial killer. Larry Crompton was convinced that the original Nightstocker was also the East Area rapist and that he had also been responsible. for the Galita murders and attacks as well.

As you don't catch them. And then, and it took many, many years before I got it in my head. It wasn't about me. I never did get it out of my head. I wrote my book. I was to get this investigation going. And I started writing it when I was still. Because at the time, even though I knew about it.

And I knew the murderer was the same. At that time, we hadn't proven it. And nobody would believe. Steve, Sergeant Bevins and I, once we heard about the double homicide that was down there with Robert Offerman and Jim Bevins heard Andy called over with me and I called them and they told me the same thing. Then I was sent to a school down in San Diego and there happened to be a deputy. Those reports, they shut down the task force and I get transferred obviously, boxes. Holes followed up on Larry Crompton's suspicions, and although it wasn't overnight, Paul would go on to link the East Area rapist crimes in Northern California with the original Nightstalker crimes in Southern California by DNA.

And this would earn this predator a new moniker, Irons. We recorded this interview with Paul Holes about two months before he retired. You know, I was initially hired on with the sheriff's office as, believe it or not, a forensic toxicologist, which was a civilian position. So I worked for about three and a half years doing controlled substance analysis and alcohol analysis, but I always had my eyes set on this deputy sheriff criminalist position because I really wanted to do crime scene investigation. That was my passion. And finally, in 1994, I got hired on as a deputy sheriff's criminalist position because I really wanted to do crime scene investigation. That was my passion. And finally, and finally, in 1994, I got hired on as a deputy sheriff. And, sheriff criminalists. So I went through the police academy. We were the last law enforcement agency in the state of California that required the criminals to be sworn police officers. So I went through a full-blown police academy was assigned to the lab and was assigned to crime scene investigation, as well as the serology unit. The serology unit was the old time abo and enzyme typing that we used to do in forensics before DNA. But I just happened to come on board in,

in the crime lab when the very early DNA technology was starting. So I started getting trained in that and I had a passion for serial predators and cold cases. And very shortly after seeing the potential of this early DNA technology, I decided that, well, let's see what I can do with this DNA technology on some of these unsolved cases. And that's how I started working on, uh, various cold cases in Contra Costa County. And in fact, the very first one that I pulled out was the East Area Rapist case. And unbeknownst to me at that time, I had no idea the magnitude of that particular series,

because all I had access to was, you know, a handful of the East Bay reports that were present within the library. What I ended up doing, you know, when I started seeing the potential. for the DNA and I learned about the East Area Rapist case from my former chief of the lab who was on the original Contra Costa County Task Force with Larry Crompton. And he told me all about the East Area Rapist and I said, well, that sounds like a good case to see what we could do to solve it using this DNA technology. But at that point in time, the only thing we knew about that series was it was a series of sexual assaults, which were far past the statute of limitations. And that was in 1994.

But more just out of curiosity than anything else, I decided, well, I'm going to proceed to see what I can do with the East Area Rapist evidence and found three cases in the sheriff's property room, two Danville attacks and one San Ramon attack that still had the sexual assault kits that were collected from the victims back in 1978 to 1979. So I was able to get those sexual assault kits, identified that there was semen present in each of those cases, and then proceeded to do this old DNA technology and generated three different, or three DNA profiles across the three cases,

and all three profiles were the same. So that was like, okay, the original investigators who had linked these cases together, based on M.O. We're right. And at that point, that's when I decided to reach out to Larry Crompton and ask him if he had any primary suspects so I could try to get their DNA to see if one of those primary suspects would be the guy. And when I called Larry up, he told me, no, you know, we looked at a lot of guys and it can't say that there was one that really stood out. But he told me that back in the day, they thought the East Area Rapist had possibly shown up down in Santa

Barbara. But when he had called Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara told him, nope, our case is not related to yours, and he ran into a brick wall. So at that point, and this is now 1996, 1997 time frame, I decided, well, I'm going to call Santa Barbara. So that's what I did. I called Santa Barbara up, and I got pretty much the same message from the investigator I talked to. And he said, no, we've got some cases here, but nothing related to Northern California. However, Irvine has some cases in which they're doing DNA on. You might want to call Irvine PD. So I ended up calling Irvine PD and spoke with an investigator there.

And that investigator said, yeah, we have two cases in which the Orange County Sheriff's Office has linked with DNA. So you might want to call them and see what you can do with the DNA profile. So that's what I did is I called the Orange County Sheriff's Crime Lab, spoke with a DNA analyst there by the name of Mary Hong, who had done a lot of work on the original Nightstocker series. And unfortunately, Orange County Sheriff's Lab and the Contra Costa Sheriff's Lab had different DNA technologies.

And it was because we were at the very beginning stages of DNA coming into forensic. and so things weren't quite standardized. In fact, Orange County was a little bit ahead of Contra Costa County. So Mary's profile for the original Nightstocker series was different. It was a different profile, different technology than the one I had generated for the East Area Rapist. However, we had one marker that was the same and the type at that marker, this DQ Alpha marker, was the same.

So it wasn't an elimination. It was still a possibility. However, it wasn't a very strong association. It was, you know, better than an ABO blood type, but not much better. So I told Mary back then in 1997 that when Contra Costa County had the newer DNA technology on board, I would be calling her back. And it took Contra Costa County four years to get that newer DNA technology on board. I would be calling her back. And it took Contra Costa County four years to get that newer DNA technology on. on board. And at that point in time, I had promoted up. I was now managing the lab. So I assigned a DNA analyst to run the East Area Rapus DNA in the new technology. He did. All three cases out of Contra Costa County still had the same DNA profile with a much more discriminating DNA technology. And then I had him call Mary Hong. And when he did, they literally read the DNA profile to each other over the phone. And it was at that point, which was in March of 2001, when the East Area Rapist was linked to the original Nightstocker cases in Southern California. And we knew at that point that all 50 attacks up in Northern California, plus or minus, were committed by the same

individual who killed 10 people down in Southern California. As I say in this case, you know, I've been involved in this case for 24 years. There's no questioning my person. There might be questioning my competency because I haven't solved it in 24 years, but at least I'm trying. Probably the most significant difference between this series and the Zodiac series is we have the evidence to solve this case. And so when we find the guy, we will know it for sure. And there isn't going to be any hemming and hauling and justified why this guy is a suspect versus somebody else. We will know it. I do believe that we will identify him.

Now, will we identify him while he's still alive? That's really the big question. But ultimately, I do believe that as DNA technology is progressing, as DNA genealogy aspects are expanding, that eventually he will be found. And hopefully he's found while he's still walking and upright. But if he's found and he's six feet under and he has a tombstone, I'm going to be there with a shovel and I'm going to dig them up.

This is getting out, but I'm possibly retiring at the end of March. So I've got 10 weeks to solve this case. You know, it's one of those things where people are afraid to glorify the guy. And it's not a matter of glorifying him. It's a matter of understanding who you're hunting. This case is a huge part of my life. And if it's not close to being solved when I have to make. the decision to retire, it's going to be a, you know, one of those factors. But, you know, for the last

few months, I've, as I've told some people, I'm shaking the trees across the state of California right now and I'm probably pissing a lot of people off. But, you know, it's, it's, we're at a point, you know, for me, the clock is ticking. But it is extremely frustrating, uh, as you know, it's, it's, it's, we're at a point, you know, especially the roller coaster ride of finding somebody thinking you got the right guy, researching him, becoming more and more sure you got the right guy, and then having the DNA just pull that emotional rug out from underneath, and you come crashing down after all that work. And that frustration at times has caused me to push the case away saying,

I'm done, only two weeks later, you know, the itch comes back, and then I'm back reading the case files and reformulating and redirecting and making another effort, putting another effort at it. You know, so, you know, it is frustrating because I think at this point, if he were in a crowd, I could pick him out of that crowd. And that's how I feel. And I have failed to do that yet. So it's how is this guy illusion?

He's, you know, I think he obviously is a more intelligent offender than the average guy out there. I think he's fairly sophisticated. He likes to portray himself as being something like the troll under the bridge, and he's not. So, you know, he did a good job at his self-preservation and protecting his identity. But then he's also had luck on his side. And that, I think, is what's frustrating. And eventually that luck has got to run out, and I think it is going to run out sooner than later. You heard Paul predict that this killer and rapist luck was going to run out sooner rather than later.

And it turned out Paul was right. Just after Paul retired, police arrested Joseph J. DiAngelo as being the East Area Rapist Golden State Killer. And we'll have an all-new interview with Paul Holt's post-Goldn State Killer arrest in the final show of the season. So, Morp, this is a good time to wrap up episode 14. This has been a pretty big episode packed with a lot of info and interviews. If you like the show and haven't done so yet, please take a moment, go out to iTunes, rate and review the show. That helps other people find it.

If you want to find us on social media or on Twitter with the handle Criminology Pod, you can also find us on Facebook by searching Criminology Podcast. If you want to join the discussion about the podcast or the case, you can search us on Facebook under Criminology Podcast Discussion and Fans. If you enjoy the material that we bring you on Criminology and would like to help support the show, all you have to do is go to patreon.com slash criminology. And we have some great stuff that we're going to be rolling out on our Patreon feed, including many of the in-depth interviews that we've done this season in their interpretation.

entirety. And there will likely be some interviews that will hit Patreon that don't make it into this second season of criminology. So before we go, we wanted to share with you a sneak peek of Season 2 of Frozen Truth. This is a podcast hosted by our friend Scott Fuller who did all of the great newsreads this season for criminology. I have a five-year-old grandson. There was a picture taken of him placing a toy that he cherished at the memorial site for Ayla. If my grandson or any other child can do that, then I think as an adult, we need to step up. A mom knows, I don't believe that I will ever see Ayla again. They're looking for the missing toddler, 20-month-old, Aila Reynolds, has not been seen since she was put to bed Friday night.

8 p.m., a baby girl goes to sleep in her own bed. 8.50 a.m., baby Ella is gone. Ayla Reynolds was last seen by her father, Justin D.P.A. 2. Now investigators saying they do not believe she is still alive, and they believe her father knows more than he is letting on. They are not alone in that belief. Honorable PD allowed just as soon as family to stay in the house for an extra 48 hours. in about 48 hours, you could do anything.

Come and face me like a man, Justin, and tell me where my granddaughter is. Look at me, Justin. I'm her papa. I am daily grandmother, and I believe she's a lot. And I am her mother. Yes, then tell us what you did with her. Frozen Truth returns for season two on Sunday, June 24th. Subscribe now wherever you listen to podcasts.

And then we have one more podcast that we think you'll enjoy. This is a podcast hosted by our friend Stephen called Trace Evidence. Hey, podcast listener. This is Stephen, the host of Trace Evidence, a weekly true crime podcast focused on unsolved murders and missing persons. Each week, I dig deep into the evidence, suspects, and theories revolving around the unsolved cases you think you know, Elisa Lamb, Asia Degree, Brandon Lawson, and the ones you've never heard.

Lily Aramburro, Candice Hiltz, Knieka Powell. If you're a true crime fan, haunted by unanswered questions, join me each Monday for a thorough examination of the victims, their stories, and the unknown perpetrators behind them. Trace Evidence is available on Apple Podcasts, Google Play Music, and all your favorite podcatchers. Visit trace-evidence.com for a full list of episodes, transcripts, and to subscribe today.

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