Joseph James DeAngelo, The Ex-Cop Who Operated As The Golden State Killer For Decades
HBODeAngelo was known by several aliases during his life, and his crimes at first seemed to be committed by several people.
For 40 years, the Golden State Killer’s identity remained unknown. Variously called the Visalia Ransacker, the East Area Rapist, and the Original Night Stalker, Joseph James DeAngelo publicly played the role of a family man and police officer and hid in plain sight.
From May 1973 to October 1979, Joseph DeAngelo worked as a cop in the Central Valley, all while married to a woman named Sharon Marie Huddle. But neither his employment by law enforcement nor his release from duty for misconduct stopped his crimes. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Joseph DeAngelo was responsible for at least 50 rapes and more than a dozen homicides spanning several counties.
He was charged for his crimes after true-crime author Michelle McNamara coined the name “Golden State Killer” and released her book I’ll Be Gone In The Dark, which was subsequently turned into an HBO series of the same name.
By the time California police discovered his identity, the statute of limitations had expired for most of DeAngelo’s crimes. But on June 29, 2020, he pleaded guilty to 26 charges of rape and murder, receiving 11 consecutive life sentences for the crimes he admitted to, plus an additional life sentence and eight years.
Between April 1974 and December 1975, DeAngelo is believed to have been a burglar who ransacked over 100 homes in Visalia, California, just 11 miles away from the town of Exeter, where he worked as a cop. He mostly rifled through his victims’ possessions, scattering women’s underwear throughout the house and taking small souvenirs.
Santiago Mejia/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty ImagesDNA evidence helped to finally put Joseph James DeAngelo behind bars in 2020 when he was 74.
The following year, he earned his name as the East Area Rapist by breaking into homes in and around Sacramento for research and planning, prepping them for his later invasion. He targeted single women and then moved on to couples, invading their homes in the middle of the night and forcing the men to watch as he raped the women.
He would hide and make it seem like he left, only to later reemerge from the shadows and continue.
By 1978, he had committed his first two known homicides, killing Brian and Katie Maggiore after invading their home. When he moved his attacks to Southern California in the 1980s, he became known as the Original Night Stalker. No one believed these crimes had been committed by the same person.
In her book, written before she died in 2016, McNamara suggested that DNA would eventually lead to his capture. She turned out to be correct. In 2018, California investigators found several of his family members through genetic genealogy and homed in on DeAngelo, charging him with numerous rapes and murders dating back decades.
And in 2020, he pleaded guilty to avoid the death penalty and was sentenced to life. Joseph DeAngelo was 74 when he was finally put behind bars. He will die in prison.
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