Joseph James DeAngelo

Joseph James DeAngelo Jr. (born November 8, 1945) is an American serial killer, serial rapist, burglar, peeping tom, former police officer, and former mechanic who committed at least 13 murders, 51 rapes, and 120 burglaries across California between 1974 and 1986.

He is responsible for three known separate crime sprees throughout the state, each of which spawned a different nickname in the press, before it became evident that they were committed by the same person.

Joseph James DeAngelo Jr. was born on November 8, 1945, in Bath, New York, to Kathleen "Kay" Louise DeGroat (June 30, 1923 – August 21, 2010) and Joseph James DeAngelo Sr. (January 19, 1920 – February 15, 1995), a sergeant in the United States Army.

He had two older sisters, Connie and Rebecca, and a younger brother, John.

A relative reported that when DeAngelo was a young child, he witnessed the rape of Connie by two airmen in a warehouse in West Germany, where the family was stationed at the time.

Following DeAngelo's conviction, Rebecca claimed that he was abused by their father while he was growing up.

Between 1959 and 1960, DeAngelo attended Mills Junior High School in Rancho Cordova, California.

Beginning in 1961, he attended Folsom High School, from which he received a GED certificate in 1964.

He played on the school's junior varsity baseball team.

Prosecutors reported that DeAngelo committed burglaries, mail theft, and tortured and killed animals during his teenage years.

DeAngelo joined the United States Navy in September 1964 and served for 22 months during the Vietnam War as a damage controlman on the cruiser USS Canberra (CA-70) and the destroyer tender USS Piedmont (AD-17).

Beginning in August 1968, DeAngelo attended Sierra College in Rocklin, California; he graduated with an associate degree in police science, with honors.

In May 1970, DeAngelo became engaged to nursing student Bonnie Jean Colwell, a classmate at Sierra College, but she ended the relationship in 1971 after he became manipulative and abusive, culminating in his demand that she help him cheat on an abnormal psychology test.

After the break-up, he attempted to force her to marry him by threatening her with a gun.

He attended Sacramento State University in 1971, where he earned a bachelor's degree in criminal justice.

DeAngelo later took post-graduate courses and further police training at the College of the Sequoias in Visalia, then completed a 32-week police internship at the police department in Roseville.

From May 1973 to August 1976, DeAngelo was a burglary unit police officer in Exeter, having relocated from Citrus Heights.

In November 1973, he married Sharon Marie Huddle of Citrus Heights.

The wedding was held at Auburn First Congregational Church.

In the San Joaquin Valley, DeAngelo was known as the Visalia Ransacker from 1974 to 1976, before moving to the Sacramento area, where he became known as the East Area Rapist from 1976 to 1979 and was linked by modus operandi to additional attacks in Stockton, Modesto and Contra Costa County.

He then served in Auburn from August 1976 to July 1979, when he was arrested for shoplifting a hammer and dog repellent; he was sentenced to six months of probation and fired that October.

During the process of being fired, DeAngelo threatened to kill the chief of police and allegedly stalked the chief's house.

DeAngelo committed serial murders in Santa Barbara, Ventura, and Orange counties from 1979 to 1986, and was known as the Night Stalker and later the Original Night Stalker (in order to differentiate him from Richard Ramirez, a later serial killer who also became known as "Night Stalker").

He is believed to have taunted and threatened both victims and police via obscene phone calls and possibly written communications.

During the decades-long investigation, several suspects were cleared through DNA evidence, alibis or other investigative methods.

In 1980, they purchased a house in Citrus Heights, where he was eventually arrested decades later.

Huddle became a divorce attorney in 1982, and they had three daughters: two were born in Sacramento and one was born in Los Angeles.

The couple separated in 1991.

In 2001, after DNA testing indicated that the East Area Rapist and the Original Night Stalker were the same person, the combined acronym EARONS came into use.

The case was a factor in the establishment of California's DNA database, which collects DNA from all accused and convicted felons in California and has been called second only to Virginia's in effectiveness in solving cold cases.

In an attempt to increase awareness, crime writer Michelle McNamara coined the name Golden State Killer in early 2013.

On June 15, 2016, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and local law enforcement agencies held a news conference to announce a renewed nationwide effort, offering a $50,000 reward for the Golden State Killer's capture.

Owing to California's statute of limitations on pre-2017 rape cases, DeAngelo could not be charged with the rapes he had committed in the 1970s; but he was charged in August 2018 with thirteen related kidnapping and abduction attempts.

On April 24, 2018, California authorities charged 72-year-old DeAngelo with eight counts of first-degree murder, based upon DNA evidence; investigators had identified members of DeAngelo's family through forensic genetic genealogy.

This was also the first announcement connecting the Visalia Ransacker crimes to DeAngelo.

In July 2018, several months after DeAngelo's arrest, Huddle filed for a divorce, which was finalized the following year.

DeAngelo committed most of the offenses while he was married and raising a family.

On June 29, 2020, DeAngelo pled guilty to multiple counts of murder and kidnapping.

As part of a plea bargain that spared him the death penalty, DeAngelo also admitted to numerous crimes with which he had not been formally charged, including rapes.

On August 21, 2020, DeAngelo was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.