Chapters
Shownotes Transcript
Hey guys, welcome back to my channel. So today I am going to be finally covering a case that I have been really wanting to cover for a while now. Today I'm going to be telling you about the Golden State Killer case. It is a fascinating case that I'm sure a lot of you have heard of. The crimes go all the way back to the 70s, so this guy has been on the run for a really long time.
It's a super fascinating case. And I really think when you guys hear the story, especially about how they ended up catching him, I think you're going to find it really interesting. All right. So before the Golden State Killer was known as the Golden State Killer, he was actually known as two different criminals in two different areas. First, this guy was known as the Visalia Ransacker.
Starting in April of 1974, there was a series of over 120 burglaries in people's homes in Visalia, California. This went on until December of 1975. And when the Visalia ransacker was entering people's houses, it was reported that he was going in, rifling through belongings, ransacking their stuff, obviously like vandalizing things, going into the women's underwear drawer, scattering the underwear around the room.
And what was so weird about this burglar is that he wouldn't always take the highest valued items in the house. Like sometimes he'd leave some really high priced items in the house, fancy jewelry and stuff. And he was known for taking like low value things. Like for example, a regular pair of earrings, not a diamond or gold or anything. And he would sometimes just take one of them. So it became clear to investigators that whoever was doing this was, uh,
kind of in it for some type of thrill. Like they liked going into people's houses, they would take personal belongings that maybe they could save and kind of show off everywhere they've been or like have it as somewhat of a memento, which a lot of criminals will do this and
The Golden State Killer definitely was one of them. So nothing really violent happened during this time. So at this point, obviously the Golden State Killer really wasn't a killer yet. He was a ransacker. But he was getting a lot of experience breaking and entering into people's homes. But then in 1976, a bunch of rapes actually started happening in Sacramento.
And basically what he would do is stand outside, stake women out, and stalk them. Like he would find specific women and just watch them from afar, learn their routines, and then he would break into their houses and rape them.
It's really, really scary to talk about. Honestly, I can't imagine how petrified you would be waking up to this. Basically, women reported that when they would wake up out of, you know, just a sound sleep, they would see a man just standing there watching them at the end of their bed. And sometimes he wouldn't even be wearing his clothes. He would normally be holding some type of
weapon to scare them. There's cases of him doing this to women who are home alone when their husbands are gone or living alone, or he would just straight up go in there while couples were sleeping, while there was a male at home, which is pretty risky. And the way that he would deal with a couple
is he'd actually show up in the room in the middle of the night, have some type of weapon, scare them and tell them, you know, you need to do everything I say to do or I'm going to kill you. He would then have the women tie up their husbands and be really involved in the process, making sure they were tying it the right way, telling them to tie it tighter and stuff. And then he would have the husbands lay down and then he would put a stack of plates on top of them.
And he would tell them, don't move. If I hear these plates jiggle at all, which you know how easy that would be to make the plates jiggle, it'd be really hard to stay still as it is. But if I hear anything crazy, I'm going to kill your wife or kill you. And then he would take their wife into the room next door where their husbands can hear totally what's going on. And if they can't hear it, they know what's going on. And
and he would rape them. I can't imagine how traumatic this would be for both people going through this. I mean, absolutely terrible to be stripped of your masculinity and watch this happen to your wife while you're just helpless laying there and then also going through the experience of being raped.
when there's nothing your husband can do to help you in your house. And what is so weird about this guy is he was known for lingering in people's houses. Most of the time when you break and enter into someone's house and commit a rape or something like that,
and you leave behind witnesses, you don't wanna touch anything. You wanna get out of there as quick as possible, touch as little as possible, but this guy would make himself at home. Even after or before he would do things to people or he would rape a woman several times in a few hours and he would take breaks and just go hang out in their house, but he would go into people's houses and
make a sandwich. He would, you know, sit outside on their back patio furniture and enjoy the view. He was really into rummaging through people's stuff. Like he would ransack their house and I'm sure he was getting so much DNA all over the house. Back then though, it wasn't too much of a concern for criminals because there was only so much that could be done with DNA back then.
back then. Another thing that all of the victims reported is that this man would actually shine a really bright light in their eyes when they would first wake up to kind of stun them, which that would do it. He would yell at them not to look at his face. If they ever tried to make eye contact with them, he would say, don't look at me, don't look at me. And he also would wear a ski mask. Everyone reported he would wear a ski mask. So this was kind of his thing. And so no one really had a good description of
what his face looked like. But based on what the victims were saying, police believed that he was about six feet tall, had blondish brown hair, and that he was a white guy. He was described as being slender and pretty good shape. And one other thing that all of the victims reported is that this guy, he had a small weenie. So I mean,
There could be some motive behind that, you know, maybe he had some insecurity issues that was causing him to want to attack women. And another really weird thing about this guy is not only would he linger in people's homes, but sometimes he would actually stalk them to the point where he would break and enter into their home without them knowing, like at times where they weren't home, and he would stash supplies that he might need. He'd plan it out for a really long time.
Sometimes he would, you know, leave or sometimes he would actually just stay in the house and hide until they came home and then attack. And it was very clear to law enforcement that this guy was pretty tactical, that he knew what he was doing and knew how to not get caught.
And he was enjoying this. This was something that brought him some type of thrill. He would even harass his victims after he had already attacked them by calling them and talking so creepy. Okay, I'm just going to play it for you guys. Okay.
Is that not the creepiest thing? Like if I got a phone call like that, I would go to the police right away. And the Sacramento community was so freaked out, especially women in the community. So police started hosting these town hall meetings for everyone who was concerned about what was going on, where they could get together and kind of brainstorm and talk about it. And shortly after they started these town hall meetings, police actually got a call from a man who said, I'm going to strike tonight.
Watt Avenue. So that night police went to the area of Watt Avenue to look for him and they were patrolling around until they saw this guy wearing a ski mask cross over the Watt Avenue bridge, but he was too fast for them. He rode away before they were able to catch him and
And this is around the time that the police started calling him the East Area Rapist. Teenaged girl was raped today in her home in Contra Costa County. And though officials are not saying it was the work of the East Area Rapist, they do say the crime was committed in his style. Betty Ann Bruno has more. Law enforcement officials from every police agency in Contra Costa County tonight are looking for the man who raped a 13-year-old walnut crossbowman.
creek girl early this morning the young victim was attacked in her rancho san miguel home police say she described your attacker as a point mail six feet tall weighing one hundred eighty five pounds was wearing some type of a master hood was wearing shorts and a t-shirt
He apparently was in the residence for approximately 45 minutes. We don't know how he gained entry. She was bound. He raped her. He didn't bother anyone else in the residence and...
The young girl's father and older sister were inside the residence at the time, were unaware of the attack. Johnson said her assailant may be the East Area Rapist who is suspected of committing at least four other rapes in the same area, or he may be an imitator. Police are urging everyone in the Concord, Walnut Creek and San Ramon area to be on the lookout and to report strangers in their neighborhoods who seem to be just hanging around or displaying any other suspicious behavior.
This is Betty Ann Bruno in Walnut Creek for the 10 o'clock news. But then in 1978, he started not only committing rapes, but he started also committing murders. A couple named Brian and Kate were walking their dog in their neighborhood, perfectly normal night and everything, and then someone came up behind them.
It was a man who was wearing a ski mask and holding a gun. He ended up chasing them into a neighbor's backyard. But in the past, when he had attacked couples, the man would normally cooperate because they're scared and they're in their bed, but they were outside. And Brian decided to fight back.
And the East Area Rapist was not prepared for this at all, freaked out and realized that the only way that he was going to get away was if he killed them. So he ended up shooting them both because he knew he couldn't fight back. And these are known as his first murders. So people in the Sacramento area were super freaked out at the time. Everyone was on high alert. They couldn't believe how many people were experiencing this.
And one thing that the Golden State Killer did a lot was change up the area where he was committing his crimes. So in 1979, when he was still known as the East Area Rapist, he started moving down into the Southern areas of California. And this is when he started his period as the original Night Stalker. His third and fourth killings happened on December 30th, 1979.
He entered Robert Offerman and Deborah Manning's house. He got into the house by going through the sliding glass door and the two of them were just sleeping in their bed at the time, you know, completely not suspecting this. That's the last thing you're expecting when you're safe in your bed in your house, you know? And I don't want to get into too many details, but he, you know, tied them up, raped the woman and then killed them both.
March 13th, 1980. So quite a little bit later, the fifth and sixth murders happened. This time the victims were Charlene and Lyman Smith in Ventura. He did the same thing as he did to the people before. However, he actually killed these people with a log from the fireplace. He beat them to death with a log.
So savage. So one thing that the police started to notice with all these crimes is whoever was doing this, the original Night Stalker as they were calling this person at the time, definitely had some type of knowledge when it came to knots. I mean, maybe he was an Eagle Scout or something, or maybe he had some involvement with the military and/or the police. The knots that he was using were really advanced and they looked like someone who had some type of experience.
People even called him the Diamond Knot Killer for a little while because a lot of his knots would look kind of like diamonds, so he had tons of different names. But they were starting to think that maybe this person had some background in possibly even police. At first, Los Angeles police thought that the murder of a young woman last March was an isolated act of violence, but since then they've come to believe it was connected to a wide-ranging series of assaults by a killer who's become known as the Night Stalker.
a killer who apparently struck again during the weekend. Police today continue to search for any clues in the near fatal shooting of 29-year-old William Carnes and the rape of his girlfriend. They're apparently the latest victims of the Night Stalker, thought to be responsible now for 34 brutal attacks, 14 of them fatal. These serial killings, once confined to the near Los Angeles area, are now spread over 500 miles from San Francisco to Orange County. This community in jeopardy because it impedes
our ability to go forward fully with the investigation. A total of $35,000 in rewards has been offered, including today a $16 donation from this group of concerned schoolchildren.
Today, the search for California's Night Stalker continues, and many residents sleep with their doors and windows bolted tight, despite 100 degree temperatures. Then in August of 1980, he ended up killing another couple. They were a younger couple named Keith and Patrice Harrington, and this happened in Orange County. Then on February 6, 1981, Manula Withun was also murdered by the original Night Stalker in her home.
On Monday, July 27th of 1981, he killed Sherry Domingo and Gregory Sanchez in their home. And then on Sunday, May 4th, 1986, he killed Janelle Cruz. She had an incredibly sad life. Her death was so tragic. And it was actually the last known murder of...
the original Night Stalker or the Golden State Killer. And after this, the case goes cold. There was no other activity from the Golden State Killer. So at this time, they had not connected that the original Night Stalker, the East Area Rapist, and the Visalia Ransacker were all
the same person and they went for years before they were able to connect the dots. But then finally in 2001, when DNA technology was starting to get a little better, they actually figured out that the East Area Rapist and the original Night Stalker were indeed the same person. So this is when Michelle McNamara comes into play. I mentioned her at the beginning of the video.
Michelle was extremely obsessed with this case, very, very into trying to figure out who this person was and help all of these victims. And she ended up being a huge part in this case. In fact, she was the one who gave him the name Golden State Killer.
In 2013 she wrote a article in LA magazine about it and the article that she wrote actually did so well that she got picked up for a book deal. So she started working on the book and she worked on it for years. She was super super into it. It was a passion project for her and the writing in the book is incredible. She's a really good writer. Just the way that she words things totally paints a picture for you. You know for something that none of us were actually there to witness. She really somehow captures
what it must have been like to be those victims. It's amazing and very well done. And she was actually almost done writing the book when she suddenly passed away on April 21st of 2016. And it was really, really devastating. She was 46 years old at the time. She passed away in her sleep and they ended up finding Adderall, Xanax, and fentanyl in her system. So I think working on this project was, you know, very intense for her.
When Michelle passed away, her husband Patton Oswald, who's a comedian, he's really, really awesome, super nice guy. And he wanted to finish the book. So he ended up working with Paul Haines and Billy Jensen, and they worked together with Patton to finish the end of the book.
So in February of 2018, the book was published and it was on the New York Times bestseller list for 15 consecutive weeks. And I have to say it is in my top three true crime books for sure. And the book itself didn't really come out with anything necessarily groundbreaking for the case. It did, you know, ignite a ton of public interest in the case and helped propel them to have more resources to solve it.
It's a brilliantly written book that is, sometimes it's almost too brilliantly written because it's really scary. Yes. It is scary. I've had friends read it and say, I read a few chapters and then we went over our security measures and our health. We looked at what do we have on the doors and windows? Wait a minute. Listen, I started listening to it when it dropped on Audible last night. Yes. And I have to tell you that,
As I was listening to it, I was thinking, yeah, I do want to check the doors. Yeah, yeah. Because you suddenly realize, you know, you get lax because you're not thinking about this kind of stuff. On June 15th, 2016, the FBI released a new composite sketch and a $50,000 reward. So obviously as time has gone on since, you know, the 70s when this all started, DNA testing has gotten insanely good. So good that it's like a household thing for people. It's in the hands of consumers all
a lot of people have taken tests with ancestry or 23andme you know one of those companies and gotten your dna results and there's actually a public dna database now called jed match so detectives ended up uploading the golden state killers dna from a rape kit back from ventura county a long time ago they still had it on file so they uploaded it to jed match in the beginning of 2018.
and the website actually found 10 to 20 different people who were matches for possible descendants of the Golden State Killer.
In January of this year, Holes uploads the crime scene DNA and starts finding people who may be related to the killer. Now I'm talking, you know, third, fourth, fifth cousins. He's very distantly related, but it gives us a starting point. Holes and other investigators pore over the results, working with a genetic genealogist, using obituaries, grave site locators, census records,
and DNA databases to build a family tree for the killer. Then they look for people believed to be about the same age as the suspect with ties to California. - And they kept narrowing it down, narrowing it down, and they came down to two suspects. And one of them actually ended up being ruled out because they did a DNA test of a close relative and they figured out it was not him. So this left one suspect, Joseph James DeAngelo.
So the next step was to track down Joseph D'Angelo and get his DNA to confirm that he actually was the Golden State Killer. So they watched him for days waiting for him to throw something out and they ended up being able to swipe his door handle for his DNA from his hand and then they also were able to take a tissue that he had freshly like blown his nose or something and thrown it in his trash can outside of his house.
They grabbed it literally out of his trash, tested it, and guess what? It matched the exact DNA that was at the crime scene. I actually really want to get your opinions on this. Do you guys think that this is ethical? Because there is so much controversy over them pulling his DNA out of GEDmatch and taking out of his trash.
Is this a major invasion of privacy? Should they be allowed to do this? There's been so much debate over this that I'm really curious what you guys think. 'Cause me personally, I think that
You know, you really shouldn't have much privacy when you have committed all of these crimes. So on April 24th 2018 they arrested Joseph D'Angelo and he was charged with eight counts of first-degree murder then on May 10th the Santa Barbara District Attorney's Office actually charged him with four more counts of murder and unfortunately, there was actually no DNA to tie him to the
Visalia Ransacker case all of the burglaries, but police said that they are pretty confident that they have their guy They unfortunately can't charge him with any of the rapes or burglaries because the statute of limitations has expired Which this type of stuff annoys me so fucking much but law enforcement is still definitely coming on him as hard as possible He's been charged with 13 counts of murder and 13 counts of kidnapping
It's estimated that he committed at least 50 rapes in California and over a hundred burglaries. Joseph was arraigned in Sacramento on August 23rd, 2018 and he had been living a
a very normal life. So let's look at his past for a little bit. So Joseph was actually born in New York and moved to California when he was young. In 1964, he joined the US Navy and he actually served for two years during Vietnam. After he got out of the Navy, he went to Sierra College and graduated with an associate's degree in police science.
He was known as a really smart and good student and he actually ended up graduating with honors. In 1971, he attended Sacramento State University and earned his bachelor's degree in criminal justice. From May 1973 to August 1976, he actually was a burglary unit police officer, which is insane. So they were right that he had experience in military and police. He was also a police officer in Auburn County, California from August 1976 to July of 1979.
But his career in law enforcement actually came to an end in 1979 because he got caught stealing a hammer and some dog repellent from his police station. And instead of, you know, trying to prove himself innocent, he just admitted to it and was like, okay, I'll quit.
And that was it. He was done with the police. He probably didn't want them probing into him more and saying, you know, why are you taking these things? Not only was he fired from his job at the time, but he was also sentenced to six months of probation. Around this time in 1980, he actually got married. He married a woman named Sharon Marie Huddle, and they ended up purchasing a house in Citrus Heights, California, where he eventually was arrested.
He and his wife ended up separating in 1991 actually, and he actually worked for most of his life as a truck mechanic at Save Mart Supermarkets Distribution Center. And he ended up retiring in 2017 only to be arrested a year later. And one really interesting thing is his brother-in-law actually said that he would often bring up the East Area Rapist over the years. He would just like bring it up, you know, try to figure out who it was and everything. So he was totally into the fact
that everyone was trying to figure it out and they had a name for him and everything. I mean, he thought he was like the bad, bad, bad, bad man. When they caught him, he was living with his daughter and his granddaughter and he was living a really normal life. Although he did have some sketchy moments with people. He was kind of known as a grumpy old man for sure. He was a regular at this restaurant where they called him Mr. Happy and he totally creeped on one of the waitresses there.
Multiple neighbors said that they witnessed him having like loud outbursts outside, just yelling at nothing. And one neighbor actually received a phone message that said that was from Joseph saying that he would deliver a load of death onto them because of their barking dogs. So he wasn't too neighborly.
So as of now, the Golden State Killer is in jail awaiting his trial. It's going to be a long trial. They are estimating it could last up to even 10 years. So he may not even live to see the end of his trial. Not only that, but it could cost taxpayers $20 million to try him. It's unreal. On April 10th, prosecutors said that they are going to be seeking the death penalty, which was...
pretty much a given. And they are going to allow cameras in the courtrooms during this. So you can actually follow the trial and watch it live if you've always wanted to do that. And in April, 2018, HBO actually purchased rights to the book, the "I'll Be Gone in the Dark" book. And they are going to be making a documentary series out of the whole thing eventually.
That is going to be it for me today, guys. Thank you for joining me for another episode and make sure you follow the show on Spotify and Apple podcasts. It really does help me out. If you want to watch the video version of this show, you can find it on my YouTube channel, which will be linked, or you can just search Kendall Ray. I will be back with another episode soon, but until then stay safe out there.
