Murderer of 13 people and serial rapist pleads guilty after more than 40 years

DeAngelo appeared to be in poor health when he appeared in court – Photo: AP

Gay Hardwick and her husband Bob Hardwick walked hand in hand to face the Golden State Killer in court. They could not recognize the elderly man in a wheelchair as the brutal rapist who terrorized them 42 years ago.

With a hoarse voice and a surly demeanor, Joseph James DeAngelo Jr. – a serial rapist turned serial killer – simply uttered “I admit” in court.

DeAngelo pleaded guilty to 13 murders, dozens of rapes and a string of crimes that were too long to prosecute, as part of a deal to avoid the death penalty.

Gay and Bob Hardwick, a couple who were victims of DeAngelo, appeared in court on June 29 – Photo: AP

In court, DeAngelo’s face was covered with a clear plastic sheet so that his surviving victims and family could see him while everyone wore masks to protect against the coronavirus.

The trial was held in a Sacramento University conference room to accommodate more than 150 observers at a safe distance amid the pandemic.

The 74-year-old former police officer, who once threatened to blow the heads off his victims, appeared to be in poor health and disinterested as his attorney recounted the horrific details of what happened in northern California in the 1970s.

After more than 40 years, Angelo admitted his crime – Photo: Reuters

The day before his arrest in 2018, DeAngelo drove his motorcycle through a major intersection to lose the police. Yet just two days later, DeAngelo appeared in court looking foolish with his mouth half open.

“I was so angry that he acted like he couldn’t even remember. I was so angry,” Jennifer Carole told the Associated Press. Carole’s father, attorney Lyman Smith, was murdered in 1980. Her mother, Charlene Smith, was raped before she was killed.

Carole burst into tears as a prosecutor described her parents’ deaths. Next to her seat was a stack of wet tissues.

About a decade after DeAngelo’s last murder, investigators connected a series of murders in northern California and coined the nickname Golden State Killer for the mysterious killer.

Police used DNA from the crime scene and a distant relative through a genealogy website database to eventually find the killer. Police secretly collected DNA from his car door and a tissue sample to obtain an arrest warrant.

Sketch of suspect responsible for 13 murders, more than 50 rapes and more than 100 robberies – Photo: FBI

DeAngelo was arrested at his home in suburban Sacramento – the same area where he rampaged through the 1970s as the “East Side Rapist.”

DeAngelo did not cooperate with authorities. But he whispered a confession that he had a second personality named Jerry who forced him to commit crimes.

According to Thien Ho, Sacramento County prosecutor, when he was alone in the police interrogation room when he was arrested in April 2018, he muttered to himself: “I caused everything.”

“I didn’t have the strength to push him away. He commanded me. He walked with me. Like he was in my head. I didn’t want to do those things. I did everything. I ruined their lives. So now I have to pay the price,” DeAngelo said during those mumbles.

But prosecutors say DeAngelo faked his second personality. Prosecutor Ho says his day of reckoning has come.

Prosecutors detailed the brutal acts DeAngelo carried out after secretly sneaking into homes and surprising sleeping couples by shining a flashlight in their faces, then threatening to kill everyone in the home, including young children, if they did not comply.

He often ordered the woman to tie her husband or boyfriend face down on the bed with shoelaces, then

raped the woman.

“I admit it,” DeAngelo pleaded guilty after prosecutors read the indictment.

DeAngelo also stole things, sometimes a few bottles of beer, some cash, sometimes a diamond ring. When he was done, he disappeared into the peaceful darkness because he knew his territory well.

He joined the police force in the San Joaquin Valley town of Exeter in 1973, where he committed his first murder.

After three years on the force, DeAngelo returned to the Sacramento area to work for the Auburn Police Department in the Sierra foothills until 1979, when he was arrested for stealing dog bait and a hammer – burglary tools. That arrest led to his dismissal.

Portrait of DeAngelo – Photo: REX

James Alan Fox, a criminologist at Northeastern University in

Boston, Massachusetts, USA,

said that most serial killers do not have a second personality or a voice in their head. That is just how movies often portray it.

According to Alan Fox, serial killers who escape justice for years are often cunning and act calculatedly.

A mentally ill person does not have this ability. But killers often blame the ego urges in their heads.

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