Killer Stories with Harvey Guillén - “The Golden State Killer” Pt. 1: Joseph DeAngelo
Episode Date: March 16, 2020His crimes earned him the moniker of the “Visalia Ransacker” and the “East Area Rapist.” But Joseph James DeAngelo would become most notorious for his final nickname, the “Golden State Kille...r.” Between 1974 and 1986, DeAngelo committed untold atrocities, all while leading a seemingly average life as a husband and small town cop. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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Listener discretion is advised.
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offensive.
We advise extreme caution for children under 13.
As night fell on December 10, 1975, Detective Bill McGowan crept between the houses of a small
neighborhood in Bysalia, California.
The quiet unnerved him, and his muscles tensed before he turned each corner.
All of a sudden, something broke the silence behind him.
McGowan spun around to see a masked figure lurking by the side of a home.
Without hesitation, McGowan fired a warning shot in the air.
The prowler stopped, then stepped out of the shadows with his hands up.
Realizing the detective had him cornered, he begged McGowan not to shoot.
To prove he'd surrendered, he started to remove his mask.
The detective pointed a flashlight at him, trying to get a good look at the elusive Vysalia Ransacker.
However, the burglar, a trained cop and war veteran, was no common criminal.
He'd been waiting for McGowan to let his guard down.
As the detective strained to see the man's face in the dark, the ransacker saw his chance.
Without warning, the shaggy-haired figure drew a gun and shot back at McGowan.
The bullet hit the detective's flashlight, sending shards of glass into his eyes.
Then the prowler disappeared into the night.
As he ran, adrenaline pumped through the burglar's body.
The rush was like no other, and his appetite for it only grew.
Soon he would stop being known as the Vysalia ransacker and instead become California's
own Golden State Killer.
Hi, I'm Greg Poulson. This is serial killers, a Pardcast original. Every episode, we dive into the minds and madness of serial killers. Today, we'll uncover the alleged identity of the Golden State Killer. I'm here with my co-host, Vanessa Richardson.
Hi, everyone. You can find episodes of serial killers and all other parcast originals for free on Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
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Today we'll delve into the early life of Joseph James DeAngelo, who's charged with being the Golden State Killer.
will follow his gradual descent from petty theft to serial murder.
It's believed that during his reign of terror in the 1970s and 80s,
DiAngelo murdered at least 12 people and raped 45 women.
On Thursday, we'll cover the height of the Golden State Killer's spree.
We'll also follow the unorthodox investigation that finally revealed that
the Visalia ransacker, the East Area Rapist, the original Nightstalker,
and the Golden State Killer were all the same sadistic man.
Joseph James DiAngelo was born into a decorated military family in Bath, New York.
De Angelo Sr. was a World War II sergeant with several medals to his name.
His brother, also a World War II veteran, received the Purple Heart and was laid to rest in Arlington Cemetery.
Because of DeAngelo's senior's career in the Air Force, the family of six moved often during the
the late 1940s and early 50s.
DeAngelo's nephew, Jesse Ryland, told BuzzFeed news that at some point while DiAngelo Jr. was young,
his father ran into trouble with the police for physically abusing his mother.
Authorities threatened to oust the elder DeAngelo from the Air Force if he continued to beat his wife.
Rylund also suggested that DeAngelo Jr. and his siblings were likely also victims of their
father's physical abuse. Not long afterward, when he was around
around nine or 10 years old, DiAngelo experienced another traumatic event that forever changed him.
It happened while the family was stationed at a German Air Force base.
One day, young DiAngelo and his sister Constance went to an abandoned warehouse on the base to play.
They were approached by two airmen they didn't know.
While DiAngelo watched, the men snatched up seven-year-old Constance and sexually abused her.
The tragedy was made worse when the two children told their parents about the rape.
There were no consequences, and the children were ordered to never speak of it again.
DeAngelo's childhood trauma fits the pattern of many criminals who are often exposed to violent injustice as children.
Vanessa is going to take over on the psychology here and throughout the episode.
Please note, Vanessa is not a licensed psychologist or a psychiatrist, but she has done a lot of research for this show.
Thanks, Greg.
Professor Ann Wolbert Burgess, a psychiatric nurse who studied the personalities of 36 convicted
serial killers, said that witnessing the rape could have created a vile fantasy that DiAngelo
sought to recreate.
It's likely that DiAngelo's abusive household also added to his disturbed psyche.
A Queen's University study titled The Origins of Sexual Offending suggested that sexual deviance
lies in the offenders' experience of poor-quality childhood relationships with their parents.
DeAngelo's disillusionment with his parents' toxic relationship,
the abuse the children likely endured,
and their failure to protect Constance may have primed him for violence later in life.
DeAngelo's family only got more dysfunctional as he matured.
While he was in his teens, his parents divorced and both remarried soon after.
DiAngelo moved with his mother and stepfather to rural Auburn, California.
Meanwhile, his father moved to Korea, where he started a new family.
There, he sired another set of children, and apparently gave them the exact same names as those he had with Kathleen.
Not only did DeAngelo Sr. leave his kids behind, he flat out replaced them.
Afterward, DeAngelo Jr. was forced to grapple with feelings of abandonment and inadequacy.
DeAngelo's search for power and control led him to the military himself after he graduated from high school in 1964.
He served in the Vietnam War with the Navy on the USS Canberra.
His father was a decorated veteran, so his service would have been an attempt to gain his estranged father's approval.
According to his hometown newspaper, 21-year-old DeAngelo returned home in 1967.
After Vietnam, he enrolled at Sierra College, and then Cal State Sacramento,
where he studied criminal justice.
Dr. Stanton Samanau, an expert in criminal behavior and author of Inside the Criminal Mind,
conducted a study with career criminals and found that many of them aspired to be cops when they were children.
Samanow wrote that it was the excitement and the ability to wield absolute power over other human beings that attracted them,
as well as the prospect of being cited as heroes for doing so.
So.
It's unclear if DiAngelo always wanted to be a police officer, but by the time he was in college,
he had his heart set on law enforcement.
It would offer him a position of authority and control, something he lacked growing up with
a possessive father.
At some point during his studies, DiAngelo met fellow student Bonnie Jean Colwell.
The two hit it off and were engaged in 1972.
Their wedding announcement, printed in the Auburn Journal, detailed that Bonnie
was a lab assistant and DiAngelo was affiliated with the vets club and the president's honor
role. They appeared to be an ideal couple. In reality, they were far from perfect. Bonnie
later recalled DeAngelo's bizarre behavior during sex. According to her, his appetite was insatiable.
He wanted it to go on for hours. When interviewed, Bonnie told police that although she was never
forced to do anything, he was oblivious to her exhaustion and
discomfort during their encounters.
He also had a tendency to break away from her as he was about to climax, then returned minutes
later and continue having sex.
She claimed he would do this several times over the course of a night.
Bonnie admits that DiAngelo was her first sexual experience, and so she had little point
of reference for what normal was.
However, it was an early indicator of his sexual perversions, a study conducted by the University
of New South Wales.
and published in the journal, Aggressive Behavior, found that the aggression displayed by the
participants of this study can be partially explained by men's entitlement to sex. If men think
they're entitled to a sexual relationship with a woman, they're less likely to exhibit self-control,
more likely to endorse traditional gender roles, and more likely to be hostile toward women after
a rejection. Eventually, Giacal's behavior became too much for Bonnie. She broke off
their relationship before the wedding. Less than a year later, she married another man.
The breakup likely caused DeAngelo to feel the familiar pangs of abandonment and insecurity
that plagued him as a teen after his parents' divorce. This major romantic disappointment
seems to have contributed to his negative feelings toward women. For years, he would recall Bonnie
in moments of rage and claim he hated her. Despite, or maybe because of,
Bonnie's swift marriage to another man, DiAngelo also married soon after. He met 20-year-old law student Sharon Huddle at Sacramento State, and by November of 1973, they were wed.
That same year, 28-year-old DiAngelo was hired by the Exeter Police Department, a small city about 50 miles southeast of Fresno.
Almost as soon as he became a cop, DiAngelo began to dabble in crime. It's believed he started as a voice.
year in mid-1973, several residents in the nearby town of Visalia reported seeing a strange
man at their window.
His first confirmed crime was reported in March of 1974 as he began a string of burglaries
and break-ins.
This crime spree earned 29-year-old DeAngelo, the first of his many enigmatic monikers,
the Vysalia Ransacker.
He prowled the local neighborhoods, often staking out homes for hours, but
before breaking in. He developed a pattern to his home invasions.
The Vysalia Ransacker's M.O. was to sneak inside through an open window or unlocked door
and go through the owner's possessions. He vandalized their property, scattered women's underwear,
and stole personal items rather than those of monetary value.
It didn't take long for him to become a prolific thief. Multiple same-day break-ins were common.
On Saturday, November 20, 1974, 12 separate incidents were reported.
Ironically, as the ransacker took hold of Visalia,
DiAngelo was assigned to burglary detail in nearby Exeter.
After 120 reported break-ins,
ransacking of empty homes no longer gave him the thrill that he earned for.
He was ready for something more.
His need for excitement brought him to the Snelling home,
night in September of 1975.
Claude Snelling, a journalism professor, suddenly awoke to a commotion.
DeAngelo had broken into his home and attempted to drag his 16-year-old daughter out of the
house.
Claude rushed in to find him in the act, but DeAngelo panicked.
Perhaps feeling the situation slipped from his control, DeAngelo shot Claude, who staggered back
into his home and later died.
Then DiAngelo kicked Beth in the face and fled before authorities arrived on the scene.
The escalation of the ransacker's crimes forced the Vysalia Police to up their efforts in catching him.
Given his tendency to strike within the same neighborhood,
the police set up an overnight sting operation in December 1975 near the Snelling home.
They stationed a detective on the streets and waited for the ransacker to appear.
That night,
Detective McGowan spotted a masked man prowling between two homes. He knew it must be the man they were searching for.
McGowan rushed over and pulled his gun, attempting to place the masked man under arrest,
but DiAngelo's training as a police officer gave him an advantage. He tricked McGowan into thinking he would
surrender by taking his mask off. No one had ever seen the ransacker's face, so McGowan's curiosity got the best of him.
Rather than keeping his gun trained on the suspect, the detective pulled out a flashlight to get a clearer look at the criminal.
In the blink of an eye, DiAngelo pulled a gun and shot at McGowan.
The bullet missed the detective, but hit his flashlight.
Shards from the broken light temporarily blinded McGowan.
In the commotion, DeAngelo was able to escape.
It was a frighteningly close call, one that DeAngelo made sure would never happen again.
That night marked the end of the Vicelia Ransacker's crime spree, but the worst was yet to come.
We'll explore the rise of the East Area Rapest after this.
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Now back to the story.
30-year-old small-town cop and serial criminal Joseph James DeAngelo
barely evaded capture in December of 1975.
Though he still had his freedom, his face had been seen by a police detective during an attempted burglary.
An official composite drawing soon followed.
McGowan described the prowler as having an athletic build in his early 20s, possibly left-handed and sporting shaggy brown hair.
Joseph James DeAngelo, now 30, grew worried that his colleagues at the police department would recognize him.
He probably decided it was too risky to remain in the area.
He applied for a job with the Auburn Police Department, his previous hometown.
In May, 1976, he got the position and moved to Auburn with his wife, Sharon.
A fellow Auburn PD officer, Nicholas Willick, recalled DiAngelo as just an average person, an average Joe.
However, another former colleague did notice something off about the young cop.
Retired officer Farrell Ward said, I think he had a bachelor's degree, all kinds of
training. He didn't fit in with the other guys. We like to joke and screw around and take the stress
off of what we were doing. He was always serious. While DiAngelo maintained this professional facade by
day, once night fell, he allegedly became the monster dubbed the East Area Rapist. On the night of
June 17, 1976, the East Area Rapist set out to Rancho Cordova, a Sacramento suburb. This time,
his intentions were more sinister than ever before.
It's likely he had stalked his victim, a telephone company employee, in preparation for his attack.
She reported a dark car drove past her house on multiple occasions.
The driver would turn his head away from her when she tried to get a look at his face.
For two weeks, she received various hang-up phone calls, part of the tactic to make sure she was home alone.
On the night of the 17th, DeAngelo apparently parked his car by the nearby train tracks
and snuck through the neighborhood's backyards until he reached the victim's house.
Once there, he cut the phone line before picking the backdoor lock and making his way inside.
In the earliest hours of June 18th, he appeared at the victim's bedroom doorway.
He wore a ski mask, a dark t-shirt, gloves, and nothing else.
The East Area rapist tapped on the doorframe and mockingly called out her name.
The woman woke up to see the visibly aroused intruder at the foot of her bed.
She squirmed as he held a knife to her temple and threatened to kill her if she moved a muscle.
He then tied her hands behind her back and raped her.
After the assault, he tied her ankles together, picked up or slipped from the floor, and disappeared.
The woman was left bare.
bound and terrified.
She stayed still and silent,
fearing her attacker would come back
through her bedroom door
and resume the assault.
After a while, she gave up waiting.
She wasn't sure if the man was still inside,
but she had to call for help.
Despite his attempts,
the phone line had not been completely severed.
The victim was able to call the police,
but her rapist had vanished
long before the authorities arrived.
Dozens of similar attacks soon followed all across the greater Sacramento area.
Authorities dubbed the new threat, the East Area Rapist.
The community fell into a state of terror.
People began sleeping with shotguns by their side.
Shelters saw an uptick in dog adoptions.
Locksmiths couldn't keep up with demand as everyone wanted their locks changed.
But none of their precautions could stop the East Area rapist.
His M.O. remained mostly consistent for the next few months.
He broke into the homes of women he knew either to be home alone or with their young children.
In at least one case, he tied up the children before attacking their mother.
Sometimes he would briefly stop his assaults to ransack the house and then returned to his victim.
Sometimes this would go on for hours.
Some of his victims claimed he repeatedly yelled out,
I hate you, Bonnie, I hate you, during the assault.
He obviously had an ongoing fixation with his ex-fiance, one that likely contributed to an overall hatred of women.
Other victims reported that DiAngelo wept and hyperventilated after raping them.
They said that while he cried, DeAngelo called out to his mother, saying,
I'm sorry, I don't want to do this, mommy.
DeAngelo apparently reverted to a childlike state once he'd committed his violent assaults.
Dr. James Garberino, an expert,
in violence-related issues and child development, worked with violent inmates who had suffered
childhood trauma. He called them untreated, traumatized children. Garberino wrote that they have
unconsciousness about that wounded child and the anger of that child and the fear of that child.
And now, in a big body, they're doing things on behalf of that child without even an awareness of it.
It's possible that in the aftermath of his attacks, DeAngelo felt momentary shame for giving
into his depraved urges, which are likely rooted in the unresolved trauma of witnessing his younger
sister's assault.
After being unable to protect his sister from such vile men, he became one himself.
The thought alone might have been enough to make him weep and beg for his mother's forgiveness.
But whatever feelings of shame or regret he might have felt were not enough to keep him from
acting out his twisted fantasies.
Dr. A. Nicholas Groth, a psychologist who worked with hundreds of convicted rapists and authored
the clinical textbook, Men Who Rape, the Psychology of the Offender, offered some insight
into what drives a serial rapist attacks.
Grohth said that they often build up the attack in their mind and await the assault with a,
quote, mixture of excitement, anxiety, anticipated pleasure, and fear.
Most rapists of this type find little sexual satisfaction in the rape because it never lives up to the fantasy.
That is why he must find another victim.
For three years, the East Area rapist continued to chase the high he got from his crimes.
But like any addict, the thrill proved more elusive as his assaults became routine.
He planned out and executed his break-ins and raped so well that the sense of danger that excited him was eventually gone entirely.
So he began to search for victims further into the East Bay, west of Sacramento.
He hoped the unfamiliar territory would heighten the risk and the euphoria he felt after committing his crimes.
In 1977, his crime spree intensified again.
Praying on single women was no longer enough.
He began to target couples.
In May, he spotted a waitress living in Citrus Heights.
He began to call her repeatedly and hang up immediately.
This tactic helped him find out when his potential victims were alone.
But DiAngelo is also believed to have done something he had never dared to do before.
He directly approached his victim before the attack.
One day, he showed up to the waitress's front door in broad daylight,
claiming to be registering pets with the American Pet Association.
It was a recon visit.
part of his carefully devised plan to break in later that night.
He wanted to become familiar with the house and look for easy points of entry.
The young woman immediately knew something was off.
She noticed DeAngelo linger by the garage and fiddle with the lock after she sent him away from her door.
The waitress approached her neighbor and asked if the Pet Association guy had knocked at her door as well.
The neighbor, who had observed DeAngelo from her own yard, replied,
he hadn't stopped at any other home on the street.
This left the waitress with an uneasy feeling.
If this guy was supposed to be going door to door, why did he only stop at hers?
She immediately made a call to the Better Business Bureau.
They confirmed that no organization named the American Pet Association operated in the area.
After this, the woman became fearful.
She woke up several times that night, certain that she heard noises coming from the side of
house. She tried to alert her husband, but he dismissed the sounds as stray cats outside.
But the woman's fears were justified. Coming up, it's believed DiAngelo graduates to double murder.
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37, 31-year-old police officer Joseph James DeAngelo had allegedly been operating as the East Area
rapist for almost a year. He kept his thirst for violence secret from everyone around him,
including his wife, Sharon. But it was getting harder to hide. His urge is intensifying.
The East Area rapist moved away from targeting single women. He started going after young,
middle-class Sacramento area couples. In May 1977, he broke into the
Citrus Heights home of a waitress and her restaurant manager husband. The waitress was the first to notice
the masked figure looming over her bed. The masked man told the woman if she made a noise,
he would kill her. He then threw shoelaces on the bed and ordered the woman to tie her husband's
hands and feet. She tied them loosely, hoping her husband would be able to free himself. To her dismay,
the East Area rapist noticed. Angered, he barked at her to
retie the knot, but tighter.
Once her husband was bound, the man believed to be DiAngelo aggressively pulled the waitress's hands behind her back and tied them together.
With the couple tied up, he searched the room.
He smashed a bottle of pennies with his gun and rummaged through their closet, likely in search of a trophy to take home.
Soon he returned to the room, undid the slip knot from the woman's ankles, and pulled her off the bed.
He dug his gun into her back.
and told her to walk and not look at him.
Again, he threatened to shoot both of them if she didn't do as he told.
They moved into the living room where he threw her onto the floor.
He then disappeared into the kitchen and popped back into the bedroom to reiterate his threats to the husband.
The man told him he was going to take a break and have a beer, then left the room again.
He returned to the waitress and used a ripped towel to blindfold her.
She heard him remove his pants, and she cried even louder.
He threatened to slit her throat if she didn't quiet down.
After raping her, he rolled her over and placed a cup and saucer on her back.
This was part of his M.O.
As a falling cup would alert him to any movement the victim made,
even when he was out of the room.
As he got ready to leave, he noticed the rings on her hand.
Despite her pleas, he pulled them off her fingers,
and left the home for good.
There are many reasons killers take trophies from their victims.
Sometimes it's a mnemonic device to help them relive their crimes.
Peter Bronsky, author of serial killers,
The Method and Madness of Monsters,
says that without these trophies,
some serial killers may not even be sure that they had acted upon their fantasy.
The East Area rapist frequently took one-of-a-kind or personalized items,
like photos, rings, or ID cards.
The types of things that were trivial to anyone but the owner,
none of the items he took were ever recovered.
After the assault of the young waitress,
DiAngelo continued his steady stream of attacks on unsuspecting couples.
Then, on February 2, 1978,
he was staking out a house in the Rancho Cordova neighborhood
when he found himself interrupted.
Brian and Katie Majori were walking the,
their dog as they came across him on the prowl with his mask off.
Putting two and two together about his identity, the couple fled.
De Angelo couldn't afford to let them escape.
He chased the majories to the backyard of a nearby house and shot them both.
He then made his escape through the channels and back alleys of suburban Sacramento.
The couple later died from their wounds at the hospital.
After the majority killings, Northern California communities were gripped by fear.
The prowlers seemed uncatchable.
Between 1974 and February 1978, DiAngelo had allegedly committed countless ransackings,
27 rapes, and three murders.
The unknown assailant was a constant fixture in the news.
To make matters worse, authorities even had reason to believe that the East Area rapist followed
the media coverage and took pleasure in the panic he caused.
Carol Daly, one of the original investigators on the case, recalled one of many community meetings
held at the peak of the East Area rapists' crime sprees. During this meeting, a local man berated
the police's inability to catch the serial rapist and criticized the victim's husbands for not
fighting back. Shortly after, DeAngelo allegedly broke into the man's home and sexually assaulted
his wife.
There were other deliberate choices in his attacks.
For instance, it seems that certain dates or life events were triggers for his vicious crimes.
He assaulted a woman on the night of his wedding anniversary at least two years in a row.
Perhaps his anniversary brought up feelings of resentment, as it seemed as marriage was not a happy
one.
Neighbors recall constant screaming matches between the DeAngelo's.
One of his former colleagues mentioned the couple had separate bedrooms.
Soon enough, another major event triggered an increase in DeAngelo's violence.
After four years on the job, he was fired from the Auburn Police Department.
On July 2, 1979, the 33-year-old was caught stealing a hammer and dog repellent from a Sacramento drugstore called Pay and Save.
Although he claimed he didn't intend to steal the items, a court hearing found him guilty of misdemeanor shoplifting,
imposed a $100 fine and sentenced him to six months probation.
Auburn PD's Chief Nicholas Willick, who had previously been a patrolman with DeAngelo,
was now in charge of the small department.
He recalled DeAngelo never being particularly good at his job,
always doing the bare minimum and resisting orders.
When Willick heard about the drugstore incident,
he immediately fired Officer DeAngelo.
Being fired by the man who he likely resists,
for rising above him must have enraged DiAngelo.
Sometime after the firing, Chief Willick's daughter spotted a man at their window.
When Willick went out to check, there were signs of a possible prowler, footprints left in the dirt.
But after that night, it never happened again.
Willick didn't suspect DeAngelo of being the prowler until decades later.
It's possible that DeAngelo stalked his former boss's home with the intention of getting retributed.
for his firing. After all, stalking was his usual first step to an eventual attack.
However, the risk of attacking a trained cop and someone with a personal connection to him
might have discouraged N'Angelo from going through with it. A study titled Violence and Hostility
at Work, conducted by Robert Folger and Robert A. Barron for the American Psychological Association,
suggests that the perceived injustice in a disgruntled employee's firing plays a
major role in workplace violence.
DiAngelo's belief that his boss harbored ill-will towards him must have made his firing feel
personal and therefore unjust.
Unable to unleash his embarrassment and anger on the man who fired him, he channeled it into
his other crimes.
The end of the 1970s marked a turn for the East Area rapist.
After the 1978 murders of the Majorie couple, he must have felt Sacramento authorities
closing in on him, he began conducting his attacks further and further away from home.
As his reach expanded, so did his violence. By late 1979, DeAngelo presumably decided that he would
no longer leave any victims alive. Thanks again for tuning in to serial killers. We'll be back
Thursday with part two of Joseph James DeAngelo. We'll cover DeAngelo's rise as the Golden State
killer and the unusual investigation that cracked the decades-long cold case wide open.
For more information on Joseph James DeAngelo, amongst the many sources we used, we found
The Creep Among Us, the Golden State Killer after the arrest by Anne Penn, extremely helpful
to our research.
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We'll see you next time.
Have a killer week.
Serial Killers was created by Max Cutler and is a Parcast Studios original.
Producers include Max and Ron Cutler, sound designed by Russell Nash, with production assistance by Ron Shapiro, Carly Madden, Freddie Beckley, and Joel Stein.
This episode of serial killers was written by Edlin Ortiz, with writing assistance by Abigail Cannon and stars Greg Paulson and Vanessa Richardson.
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