Sentence to life imprisonment for Joseph DeAngelo, the Golden State killer. DeAngelo, 74, former police officer, state arrested in 2018 after his DNA was found on a genealogy site. The man, who negotiated to avoid the death penalty, admitted 13 murders, plus numerous rapes, burglaries and other crimes. Sacramento County District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert called him a sociopath in action. After remaining silent during this week’s victim testimonies, he reports BbcDeAngelo on Friday addressed those in court, removing his mask and getting out of a wheelchair to speak, just before Judge Michael Bowman read the sentence. I have listened to all the statements. Each of them. And I’m sorry for everyone I’ve hurt, DeAngelo said.
The testimonials
His words did not move the judge who claimed to have pronounced in this case the absolutely maximum penalty that the court can legally sentence: eleven life sentences, without the possibility of parole. The victims of DeAngelo they testified for three days, recounting their terrible experiences. The survivors spoke clearly: the accused does not deserve mercy, the judge insisted as applause broke out in the courtroom. Patricia Murphy, who was not even 30 at the time of DeAngelo’s violence (it was September 1976), described him as a soulless monster in a text read by one of his daughters, Patti Cosper. I hope it rot in prison, the latter declared.
A long trail of crimes
The Golden State killer (all his crimes were committed in California, whose nickname The Golden State, ed.) – also renamed The Original Night Stalker by the media – committed dozens of murders and rapes between 1975 and 1986. The age of its victims ranged from 14 years. Most of his crimes took place around Sacramento, but a few occurred in San Francisco Bay and the far south of the California coast as he moved in with his wife. The man broke into the homes of his victims at night. He often attacked single women when they slept, or couples, tying them up and then raping the women in front of their mates. To frame him it took the DNA left on the crime scenes and cross-checks carried out with genetic information about a member of the serial killer’s family discovered on a website dedicated to genealogy. He was only arrested in 2018, more than three decades after he ended his violence.
The story of the killer
The first rape of the Golden State Killer dates back to June 18, 1976: The victim, Jane, was sleeping with her 3-year-old son while her husband went to work. A masked man entered the bedroom with a butcher’s knife, tied mother and son, bend them, and then raped the woman. From that moment the killer became one of the most wanted men in America.
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