He wore a badge, walked with authority, and watched the police hunt for himself. It is terrifying to realize that the person who felt safest in your neighborhood might have been the one keeping you awake at night.

Let’s look at the record. Not the rumors, not the late-night speculation, but the cold, hard facts of who Joseph James DeAngelo Jr. really was. Born on November 8th, 1945, in Bath, New York, his life began in violence. He was regularly beaten by both parents during his childhood. There are darker shadows in those early years, too. While living in West Germany with his father, who was stationed there as an Army sergeant, DeAngelo says he was forced to witness the rape of one of his sisters by two airmen in a warehouse. These are not details we seek out lightly. They are pieces of a broken puzzle that help us understand how a monster can grow in the soil of trauma. But understanding is not excusing. It is simply the work we do when we refuse to let the truth remain buried.

As a teenager, he didn’t just break rules; he broke laws. Between 1959 and 1960, he attended Mills Junior High School in Rancho Cordova, California. By 1961, he was at Folsom High School, where he played on the junior varsity baseball team. It sounds like any other boy’s story, doesn’t it? But prosecutors would later reveal that during these same teenage years, DeAngelo committed burglaries, stole mail, and tortured and killed animals. He received his GED in 1964. Then, in September 1964, he joined the United States Navy. He served for twenty-two months during the Vietnam War, working as a damage controlman aboard the cruiser USS Canberra and the destroyer tender USS Piedmont. This was a man learning discipline, learning structure, learning how to handle weapons and machinery. And then, he decided to bring that knowledge home. In August 1968, he began attending Sierra College in Rocklin, graduating with honors in police science. He continued at Sacramento State University, earning a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice. He even took postgraduate courses at the College of the Sequoias in Visalia and completed a thirty-two-week police internship with the Roseville Police Department. He was building a resume that screamed trustworthiness. He was preparing to wear the uniform.

His crimes did not start with murder. They started with intrusion. From May 1973 to August 1976, DeAngelo served as a burglary-unit police officer in Exeter, having relocated from Citrus Heights. This is the part that chills me to the bone every time I read it. While serving as a cop, he became known as the Visalia Ransacker. He committed a minimum of one hundred and twenty burglaries and one murder in the San Joaquin Valley. Can you imagine? He was investigating the very crimes he was committing. He was likely looking over evidence tapes, discussing suspect profiles, and walking past the homes he had violated. When he moved to Auburn from August 1976 to July 1979, the pattern escalated. In Northern California, specifically Sacramento County, he committed at least fifty-one rapes and two more murders between 1976 and 1979. He attacked victims in Stockton, Modesto, and Contra Costa County. He was moving through the state, leaving a trail of terror, all while wearing the badge that was supposed to protect them.

After his time in Auburn, DeAngelo went dormant for a brief period before re-emerging in Southern California. From 1979 until 1986, he murdered at least ten people across Santa Barbara, Ventura, and Orange counties. The geographic scope of his violence expanded, but the method remained consistent. He targeted women in their homes, often breaking in through windows. He taunted and threatened both victims and police via obscene phone calls and possibly written communications. He enjoyed the fear. He enjoyed the power. For twelve years, from 1974 to 1986, he operated with impunity. The police were baffled. The public was terrified. There were several suspects cleared through DNA evidence, alibis, or other investigative methods, but the real perpetrator remained invisible. He was right there, watching them fail. He was using his training to evade capture, knowing exactly how investigators thought because he thought like them.

For decades, the case was a ghost story. But in 2001, a significant shift occurred. DNA testing indicated that the offenders labeled as the 'East Area Rapist' and the 'Original Night Stalker' were the same person. This led to the combined acronym EARONS. The case itself became a factor in the establishment of California's DNA database, which collects DNA from all accused and convicted felons in the state. It has been called second only to Virginia's in effectiveness in solving cold cases. Yet, even with this tool, DeAngelo remained free. It wasn't until 2016 that the FBI and local law enforcement held a news conference to announce a renewed nationwide effort, offering a fifty-thousand-dollar reward. Crime writer Michelle McNamara had coined the name 'Golden State Killer' in the 2010s, bringing national attention to the nightmare. But it was forensic genetic genealogy that finally cracked the case. Investigators uploaded crime scene DNA to public databases like GEDmatch. This technique allowed detectives to identify Joseph DeAngelo based on distant familial matches. It was a new frontier in policing, and it led directly to his door.

On April 24th, 2018, California authorities charged seventy-two-year-old DeAngelo with eight counts of first-degree murder. This was also the first announcement connecting the Visalia Ransacker crimes to him. He had been arrested at his home in Citrus Heights following a covert surveillance operation. The man who once hunted in the dark was now exposed in the light. Owing to California's statute of limitations on pre-2017 rape cases, he could not be charged with the rapes he had committed in the 1970s. But in August 2018, he was charged with thirteen related kidnapping and abduction attempts. On June 29th, 2020, DeAngelo pleaded guilty to multiple counts of murder and kidnapping. As part of a plea bargain that spared him the death penalty, he admitted to numerous crimes with which he had not been formally charged, including rapes. On August 21st, 2020, he was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. The silence he tried to enforce for decades was finally broken, not by a shout, but by a whisper of DNA.

We remember them by their names. We remember them by honoring the truth, however difficult it may be to face. This story is drawn from public records and widely reported accounts. Our thoughts are with everyone affected. Thank you for listening. I’m Sally Calhoun, and I’ll see you in the next file.