Every Town - California's Serial Killer King - The Golden State Killer

Episode Date: January 31, 2025

Between 1973 and 1986, a predator stalked neighborhoods in California waiting for the right time to strike. Under cover of darkness he broke into homes, violated families, and left a trail of devastation the likes of which America has never seen. At least 106 victims in total and not a single solid lead for police to follow…at least not for several more decades. 👀 Watch This Episode On Youtube: https://youtu.be/shYy975l64M 👁 Check out our movie AN ANGRY BOY for FREE! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvtlOlODQ8g&t=5238s https://tubitv.com/movies/100029672/an-angry-boy International & Other Ways To Watch: https://www.anangryboy.com/ 💀 MERCH: https://scary-mysteries.teemill.com/ 💀 Free 7 Day Trail on Exclusive Episodes, Podcasts & Perks! https://www.patreon.com/scarymysteries   🎧 Our Other Podcast Scary Mysteries: https://open.spotify.com/show/3ZooEZMoZ421WdsOVJhVkT 👁 X: https://x.com/ScaryMysteries1 👁 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/andrew.fitzg 👁 TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@andrewfitzgerald 👁 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/scarymysteriesofficial 👁 X: https://x.com/ScaryMysteries1 🗣 Business Inquiries, questions and comments hit us up at [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Every town has a dark side. The Golden State Killer is the most prolific serial predator in the nation. He attacked across the state from Sacramento down to Orange County across 15 different jurisdictions. He was the boogeyman. Police say the accused Golden State serial killer was a monster hiding in plain sight. DeAngelo worked as a mechanic for 27 years. A company spokesperson said none of his actions in the workplace

Between 1973 and 1986, a sadistic predator stocked neighborhoods in California, waiting for the right time to strike. Under the cover of darkness, he broke into homes and violated families and left a trail of devastation the likes of which America has never seen. At least 106 victims in total, 13 murders, 50 assaults, and not a single solid lead for police to go on. At least, not for several more decades. Guys, it's Andrew, and thanks so much for tuning in to another episode of Everytown where today we have a real doozy for you. Because the man behind today's crimes wasn't just another serial killer making his way. Not even Jeffrey Dahmer could compare to the horrors this man caused, as the reality is this guy was one of the most prolific and sophisticated criminal masterminds in United States history. A man who was meticulous and managed to evade capture for over three decades while living a seemingly normal life.

And so, let's head on over to the West Coast now and check out all the messed up details around the Golden State Killer. For weeks, sometimes even months, he studied his targets. Back in 1976, the neighborhoods of Sacramento, which were much like many in America, felt safe and was relatively quiet. Except here, something was bubbling up. A night when families were tucked safe inside, in the darkness just outside their doors and windows. A man was watching their every move. And once he found the targets he liked,

he spent days and nights learning their routines. He knew their work schedules and bedtimes when the kids got home from soccer practice. Taking things a step further to ensure there were no hiccups when it was time to really strike, well, he'd break into these houses beforehand, disable the phones, unlock windows, and even plant ligatures for later use. As some victims later recalled finding windows mysteriously unlocked or items moved slightly out of place. But they dismissed these warning signs, never imagining that soon they were becoming face-to-face with true evil. The Golden State killer's attacks followed a very terrifying pattern. In the dead of night, victims would wake up to find a mass figure standing over their bed,

blinding them with a flashlight. He always carried with him a gun, and he'd gain control quickly, getting off on the intense fear he created by whispering threats and speaking through clenched teeth. If you make a sound, I'll kill you. And this predator was named Joseph James D'Angelo Jr. And where he got these compulsions and what turned him into such a monster is a bit of an unhealthy mix of bad nature and nurture meeting in the middle. Born on November 8th of 1945 in Bath, New York, James' early life was marked by trauma and instabilia. As a young kid in West Germany where his family was stationed due to his dad's military service, DiAngelo reportedly witnessed his seven-year-old sister being assaulted by two airmen in a warehouse one day.

In this event, it marked the beginning of his troubled relationship with sex and violence. According to his sister Rebecca, their father physically abused DeAngelo throughout his childhood. The family eventually settled in Sacramento, California, where DeAngelo attended high school and played it on the junior varsity baseball team. But even then, there were warning signs. Later, it would be revealed that during his teenage years, DiAngelo engaged in burglaries, male theft, and animal torture. In 1964, Joseph joined the Navy, perhaps trying to write the ship of his life, so to speak, and he served for 22 months during the Vietnam War. But instead of this structured lifestyle, helping to reform his behavior, it actually ended up doing the opposite.

and what he learned while serving, things like discipline, tactical skills, how to operate undetected, well, all this would just go on to make him a better criminal. After his discharge, he pursued an education that would further help him along in his future endeavors. He earned an associate's degree in police science, followed by a bachelor's degree in criminal justice from Sacramento State. By this point, he was still just an ordinary man trying to live a normal life. Soon he met Bonnie Caldwell, and they had a stable relationship for some time. My first long-term relationship, I didn't have dating experience. It started off very lighthearted.

Eventually he proposed to her in 1970, but he could only play pretend for so long, and soon the darkness inside him was going to break through the surface. And trying to hide away his demons, DeAngelo became increasingly manipulative and abusive. He was following in his father's footsteps and taking things out on Bonnie. She was smart about it, though. And just a year after the engagement, she broke it off. But when someone like DiAngelo faces adversity like this, well, he doesn't take it so well. And after the breakup, he threatened her by putting a gun to her head trying to force her to marry him.

As you can imagine, that didn't work out. I got out of it, but to be engaged to him ever is a regret I'll always have. This whole situation would stick with him. The inability to control his relationship aided him. Years later, during one of his attacks, victims would hear him sobbing and muttering, I hate you, Bonnie. As such was, the profound impact of this breakup, as if she had just stuck around, well, maybe he could have avoided all this. In the process of moving on, by 1973, DiAngelo had secured what would turn out to be the perfect cover

when he became a police officer in Exeter, California. The following year, a string of burglaries began in the nearby town of Vassalia, with the culprit becoming known as the Vassalia Ransacker. When you think about break-ins in general, of course, the people are going to be taking all the valuables in the house because, well, that's the point of it all. But the ransacker here was different. This guy was entering homes and ignoring valuable items, instead spending hours rifling through personal belongings.

He'd scatter women's underwear across their bedrooms, and what he did take were just some odd souvenirs of sorts. Single earrings, family photos, piggy banks from kids' rooms and stamps. Sometimes he'd just move things around and not take anything at all, as if playing mind games with the homeowners. In other words, he wasn't doing that. this to make money. He was doing it because he enjoyed the thrill of it. Because of that, it wasn't taken seriously by many in law enforcement. It was weird, but no one was getting physically hurt.

The police had no idea that the man they were looking for was one of their own. While all these break-ins were happening, DeAngelo was working as a police officer just 10 miles away, and he attended briefings about the very crimes he was committing, learning exactly how investigators were trying to catch him. He liked this attention, but soon simple break-ins like this weren't enough to satisfy DeAngelo's cravings. On September 11, 1975, journalism professor Claude Snelling woke up at 2 a.m. to strange sounds in his Vassalia home. He could hear some commotion happening downstairs, and when he entered his living room, he found his back door open and running outside to the carport, found a masked man dragging his 16-year-old daughter away.

kidnapping her. Instinct took over, and without thinking, snelling charge forward to protect his child. In the blink of an eye, two shots rang out. The professor staggered back inside the house and died right there in front of his wife. That intruder then kicked and punched the girl, leaving her on the ground bleeding before fleeing, and this was DeAngelo's first known murder. The Vassalia ransacker vanished in December of 1975, right after shooting at a police to take. detective who almost caught him during a stakeout. The detective's flashlight exploded in his hand as the bullet missed his face by mere inches. The burglar escaped into the night, and the break-ins and Vassalia stopped.

Though he hadn't stopped committing his crimes, and he merely moved on to different hunting grounds. By June of 76, a new predator was terrorizing the eastern suburbs of Sacramento, and his methods were more sophisticated and his attacks more brutal. One of his earliest known attacks occurred on June 18th of 76. A young woman living alone awoke to find him in her bedroom standing over her. He bound her hands with shoelaces he brought, gagged her with torn strips of a towel, and subjected her to repeated assault over the course of several hours. Before leaving, he raided her kitchen, eating her leftover chicken and drinking a schlitz beer, leaving the empty can on her backyard lawn like a twisted calling card, a signature behavior that would become his trademark. Within months, his attacks grew bolder. On October 5th that

year, he hit twice in one night. First, he abused a woman in her citrus heights home. Hours later, he attacked another victim in Rancho Cordova. The community was totally gripped with fear. Women bought guns en masse while men set up neighborhood betrays. trolls, but nothing seemed to stop him. As his confidence grew, so did his audacity. Staying one step ahead of everyone, in the summer of 77, he changed up his pattern. This time, instead of targeting single women, he began attacking couples. The newspaper mentioned that he had never hit a place with a man in the house. He read that. That was a challenge to him. That was a challenge, and that's when he started with the

in. He seemed to relish in the psychological torture of it all. In these instances, he would force the women to tie up their male companion, then have the men lay down on the ground in another room. He would retie the female in the living room of the house. He would return to the male and stack dishes on the male's back. And he would tell the male, if you move, I'll hear these dishes rattle, and I'll kill everything in the house. He would then go on to have his way with the women, while the man could only listen. Some victims lay there for hours, frozen in terror, hearing him raid their refrigerator between assaults.

He would go in, he would eat food in the house. He would take things that weren't necessarily worth a lot, but they would be worth something to the individuals. One of the most haunting attacks occurred on October 29th of 1977. A married couple in Sacramento woke up to find a family. him standing in their bedroom doorway, light gleaming off of his ski mask. For the next three hours, he terrorized them. He tied them up, salted the wife repeatedly, and once again ate and drank from their fridge. Before leaving, he stood in their living room

sobbing, mumbling, I'm sorry, Mom, over and over. Then he just disappeared into the night. By the end of 1977, he was attacking with frightening frequency. Between September and December and alone, there were six attacks just like this, and everybody was in a panic. Town hall meetings were called. And in one of those meetings, a man stood up and said that if he ever comes to my house, I'll kill him, that he would protect his wife, protect his family. That same man and his wife became victims. By 1978, abusing people no longer satisfied his bloodlust, and the attacks continued to escalate.

Early that year, something changed. On February 2nd, Brian and Katie Majori were walking their dog in Rancho Cordova when they encountered a masked man. And whatever they saw, perhaps his face, perhaps him preparing to break into a house. Whatever it was, it cost them their lives. And the couple ran, but the Golden State killer hunted them down. Brian was shot first, and Katie still screaming for help, was caught and executed. with a single gunshot to the head.

His law enforcement scrambled to catch him. His pleasure in taunting the world around him became even more apparent. In December of 77, he called the Sacramento Police Department, saying, You're never going to catch me, you dumb f***. I'm going to fuck again tonight. Be careful. On high alert, hours later, a masked man on a bicycle was spotted. Officers gave chase, but he vanished into the night once again.

After the Maggiore murders, everything changed. Whether it was the thrill of his first kills or growing pressure from Sacramento law enforcement, Angelo shifted his hunting grounds once again. At 1979, the attacks had spread south to Southern California. The abuses continued, but now they almost always ended in murder. And couples were bludgeoned to death in their beds. Women were assaulted and killed while home alone. On October 1st, 1979, a couple in Goleta near Santa Barbara had a narrow escape.

They awoke to find the masked man in their bedroom. As he was binding them, they heard him muttering to himself. I'll kill him, I'll kill him. And something in his voice made them realize that this wasn't an empty threat. When he left the room momentarily, they took their chance and ran. The woman screamed, alerting neighbors. and FBI agent living nearby gave chase, but the intruder got away, leaving behind only a bike and a knife. And two months later, he returned to Goleta.

And this time, there would be no survivors. On December 30th, he broke into the home of Dr. Robert Offerman and Dr. Deborah Manning. The scene investigators found the next morning was horrific. Both victims had been shot multiple times. Manning had been bound and assaulted. Offerman's bindings were untied. he had apparently tried to fight back. After taking care of them,

the killer then helped himself to leftover Christmas turkey from their fridge. At March of 1980, he struck in Ventura. Lyman and Charlene Smith were found bludgeon to death in their bed. The murder weapon was a fireplace log. But something was different this time. The notch used to bind Charlene were unusual.

They were diamond knots. A sophisticated binding, typically used in sailing and interior design. And this detail would later help link the crimes together. In the summer of 1980 brought another horrific attack. Keith and Patrice Harrington, a young newlywag couple and Dana Point were his next victims. And Keith was a fourth-year med student, Patrice, a pediatric nurse, and they had been married for just three months.

The killer broke in while they slept, bound them, assaulted Patrice, then bludging them both to death with such ferocity, the Patrice's face was unrecognizable. And between murders, GSK didn't just sit around idly. And he particularly liked to make taunting phone calls to previous victims. And sometimes he just breathed heavily into the receiver. One survivor received calls 27 years after her attack, where the man just laughed at her, his voice unmistakable. In February of 81, Manuel O'Toon would be the next to come face to

face with him. Her husband was hospitalized at the time with an illness, leaving her all alone in their Irvine home, and our killer knew this. He broke in and took his sweet time assaulting her before beating her to death with a brass lamp. When investigators arrived, they found the house methodically ransacked. DeAngelo had spent hours there after the killing, going through their belongings, and of course, eating their food. In the middle of that summer, Sherry Domingo and Gregory Sanchez were sleeping in a house that was up for sale in Goleta. The Sanchez heard the intruder, and when he confronted him, he was shot in the face. But he still managed to charge his attacker.

The killer responded with savage brutality, beating Sanchez's head with such force. And investigators found tiny skull fragments all across the room. He then turned his attention to Domingo, finding her before having his way and finishing her off with a severe beating that resulted. her death. I've always had this image in my head of what her last moments were like. And this was the final closing act before the attack stopped suddenly. Maybe Joseph felt the police were getting too close, and so for five years, the nightmare appeared to be over.

Almost as a way to just remind everyone that he was still in fact out there, and just as violent as ever. In May of 1986, in Irvine, 18-year-old Janelle Cruz was home alone while her family was on vacation in Mexico. The killer struck one final time, bludgeoning her with such violence that her teeth were found tangled in her hair and inside her lungs. And then, silence. The trail went ice cold for the next 32 years. For decades, investigators were trying, but coming up empty-handed with finding their man. After so much time had passed, they began to wonder if this person was even still alive.

That question would be answered in part in 2001, 24 years after her attack. One survivor picked up the phone to hear a familiar voice asked, Remember when we played? For years, investigators didn't even realize that they were chasing the same man. Different jurisdictions had different names for him. The Vasali Ransacker. the original Nightstalker and the Golden State Killer. The crime seemed too varied, too geographically dispersed.

Traditional methods had failed and multiple suspects were cleared through DNA evidence or alibis. It would take decades before DNA evidence revealed the awful truth, that they were, in fact, all the same person. In 2018, investigators tried something revolutionary. led by Paul Holes, a retired detective who'd spent 24 years hunting the killer, they decided to try genetic genealogy. They took the killer's DNA profile and uploaded it to GED Match, a public genealogy website where people try to connect their family trees together. The results were promising, but in depth.

The DNA match with several distant cousins, people who shared ancestors with the killer that dated back all the way to the 18-Hen. hundreds. A team of five investigators and genealogist Barbara Ray Venter began building massive family trees from there that contained over a thousand people. They worked backward through census records, newspaper clippings, and gravesites, trying to find someone who fit the killer's profile. And finally, they zeroed in on a name, Joseph James DeAngelo. And the pieces started falling into place. DeAngelo had been a police officer during the early years of the crimes, serving an Exeter from 1973 to 1976, and then Auburn from 1976 to 79. He was fired after being caught shoplifting dog repellent and a hammer, items that could have been useful for his crimes. He was the right age. He had military training, explaining his tactical sophistication.

He was physically fit, matching witness descriptions. and most importantly, he lived in the areas where the crimes occurred at the very times that they happened. But they needed current DNA to confirm all this. Investigators began watching DiAngelo closely, following him to a hobby-lobby store where they swabbed his car door handle. Later, they collected a tissue from his garbage. Both samples matched the DNA from the crime scenes. After 44 years, they had their man. On April 24th of 2018, law enforcement surrounded 73-year-old DiAngelo's home in Citrus Heights, California. When they arrested him, the man who at once terrorized entire communities was found living a quiet, suburban life.

He had been married, raised three daughters, and worked as a truck mechanic until retiring. After his arrest, alone in an interrogation room, DeAngelo was raised. recorded talking to himself. The same way many victims have reported seeing him doing that exact same thing at the crime scenes. He spoke of an alter ego named Jerry who had forced him to commit the crime saying, I didn't have the strength to push him out. He made me. He went with me. It was like in my head, I mean, he's part of me. I didn't want to do those things. Pushed Jerry out and had a happy life. I did all those things. I destroyed all those lives. So now, I've got to pay the price.

On June 29th of 2020, Joseph DiAngelo finally faced justice. He pled guilty to 13 counts of murder and 13 counts of kidnapping. He also admitted to dozens of assaults that couldn't be prosecuted due to the statute of limitations. In August of 2020, he was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Before his sentencing, DeAngelo's victims and their families confront, front of them in court. And for three days, they shared their stories of pain, trauma, and resilience. And some have waited over 40 years for this moment. I've listened to all your statements, each one of them. And I'm really sorry to everyone

ever. The Golden State Killer case changed criminal investigation forever. It was the first time genetic genealogy has been used to catch a killer, opening up a new frontier and solving cold cases. Since DiAngelo's arrest, the technique has helped identify over 150 other suspects in cold cases all across the country. And all of this showed us once again a terrifying truth. The monsters don't always look like monsters. For decades, Joseph DiAngelo lived among us, coached his daughter's softball teams, worked alongside colleagues. all while harboring unimaginable secrets.

The secret that he was the Golden State Killer, one of the vilest and cruelest serial killers in our history. He's now behind bars, we'll never see the light of freedom again. So that's it for this week's episode of Everytown. Hope you all enjoyed it. If you want to watch this episode, click the link in the description or visit the Scary Mysteries YouTube channel. For exclusive podcast, plus an entire library of additional episodes,

go to patreon.com slash scary mysteries. Remember to come back next week for another episode full with scary, strange, and mysterious stories because you never know. Maybe your town will be next.