“The nightmare is over. He’s the one forever alone in the dark,” said Carol Daly, one of the original detectives assigned to the case in Sacramento in a statement on behalf of victim Cathy Rogers.
During the course of his crime friend who swept across California, Joseph James DeAngelo became known as the Golden State Killer, the rapist for East Area, the Original Night Stalker and the rapist for Visalia. Last year, DeAngelo pleaded guilty to raping more than 50 women and killing 13 people in the 1970s and 80s. As part of a lawsuit, he has also admitted to crimes for which he has not been charged.
One by one, victims and family members took the stand, describing in unpalatable detail, the horrors caused to them by the former police officer.
One woman, who was just seven years old and asleep when her mother was bound and raped by DeAngelo, described to him that her mother threatened not to make any noise, that it did not wake her.
“He threatened to cut off my ear and bring it to her,” she said. When she woke up, “I could mean evil, then all hell broke loose.”
Comparing him to the fictional cannibalistic serial killer Hannibal Lecter, she said DeAngelo was “evidence monsters were real. I had met the boogeyman.”
Others recounted stupidity in the hands that lasted for months because their wrists were so tightly bound in the attacks.
More than 40 years after the fact, most victims spoke of lifelong scars. Many also show resistance and testify about not allowing their lives by defining these incidents and finding their way to happiness despite the inexhaustible damage that DeAngelo leaves behind.
Anger sown through the statements. “Can he rot in hell,” Karen Veilleux said on behalf of her sister Phyllis. Another woman supported her statement by calling DeAngelo “subhuman” and aggressively pointing her middle finger.
DeAngelo made his plea to avoid the death penalty. One man speaking on behalf of his mother said effort was futile.
“A lot of people might want to carry out the death penalty themselves, but can’t you see? The sentence has already been given. You’ve been robbed of your whole life, yet you’re too stupid to notice,” he said.
A long time to come
Although he avoided the death penalty, DeAngelo will likely serve 11 consecutive life sentences without parole with 15 concurrent life sentences and extra time for gun costs.
Victims in one of the six counties who brought charges against him voted unanimously to accept his guilty plea.
“Today’s plea will never bring back the lovers or restore the sense of security that was shattered, but today, after 40 years of uncertainty, dozens of victims and a nation heard the person responsible for this reign finally admit that he – and only he – is responsible, “said Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer at the time of the lawsuit.
Victims and their families have been waiting decades for justice and to unmask the man who created a pattern of sneaking to first attack women only as with their children and then couples in their homes.
His crimes spanned the 1970s and 1980s. A free genealogy database definitely gave authorities the time they needed to arrest DeAngelo in 2018.
“In this case, justice did not move quickly, it was a long time coming. However, our victims remained firm and courageous in this whole process,” Diana Becton of Contra Costa County District said in a June news release.
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