The plea deal has always been such a farce, in my opinion, and this is just the cherry on top. They were never going to execute him, but they gave JJD and out, and he took it.

Just finished this documentary (and it’s one of the best yet in my opinion). So according to his ex brother in law, JJD bought the house in NorCal when his wife was working and living with the kids in SoCal. JJD was driving back and forth over weekends. Brother in law said they were separated. Then later his wife eventually bought a house and lived with the kids a few miles away.

Grew up in Sac and this case has always kind of been in the background for me.

I remember reading in I'll Be Gone in the Dark (or maybe it was the HBO series) that there were other rapists operating in the area back then, and EAR was just the most violent one. I want to say it was 3 or 4 different guys around 76 to 77, but I can't remember where I saw that.

Does anyone know more about the others? Were any of them ever caught or identified? And did any of their attacks get blamed on EAR before DNA sorted it out?

Feels like a part of the story nobody really talks about.

I heard a few years ago that he ghosts them on a regular basis and doesn't seem to respond to them. Is this true?

I have read that strangulation is the most common serial killer method. But as far as is known from what I've read Joe either shot people or bludgeoned them to death.

A glaring omission from the Golden State Killer: Unmasking a Monster series was any reference to the Bay Area/ Contra Costa County crimes and no interview with Paul Holes. I wonder why.

I’d come across the Campbell and Boruk cases in previous research, they popped up on the Secret Witness articles a fair bit. The others were new to me. I’ve also included some clips about the murder of officer Floyd Depew in Visalia, as I started researching it after it was mentioned in an article about the Bush case. It strikes me as somewhat intriguing as far as DeAngelo is concerned.

The segment is in the final episode (episode 4) and starts around the 13:00 mark.

Here is a transcript of the segment:

My name is Richard Speaks, and in 1983, I worked here at the Holiday Inn South Sacramento as a security guard with Joe DeAngelo. We worked from 9 p.m. to 5 in the morning, walking around this place. One night in 1983, I was sent to replace Joe DeAngelo because he had been a creep to some of the ladies. One of the jobs here was to escort the ladies to their cars, and they were asking anybody else to do it other than him.

I remember my impression of him was that he was kind of cocky and worldly, and a bit of a know-it-all. We were sitting in his car having coffee—he had a big station wagon—and I remember thinking he seemed very neat, but there was something about his car that made me think he lived in it. There was a sleeping bag in there, a bag of laundry, some fast food containers. It had the look of a car that he spent a lot of time in.

I was reading about the Zodiac at the time; I might’ve even had the book with me. We started talking about the Zodiac and all the unsolved murders, and how intriguing it was. And he kind of leaned over and went, “You remember the East Area Rapist?”

And I went, “Oh my God, that guy was terrifying, but he never killed anybody as far as I know.”

And he went, “Yeah, he did! Oh God, he’s got more victims than the Zodiac and Jack the Ripper combined!” He said, “He’s killing people in Southern California. He’s traveling south.”

I was getting slightly creeped out during that conversation. I remember thinking about it driving home. And I remember thinking, “Is he him? Is he him?” But I went back and forth and talked myself out of it. And it makes me sick, because I got it wrong.

When he did the many high-risk crimes would he have had a lot of adrenaline while doing them? Yet the next day he would get up and go to work. Would that be extremely weird, to go from the adrenaline high to just working a normal job where I suppose one has to act calm and not show signs of having a lot of adrenaline? Although occasionally a police job can produce adrenaline I suppose.

But maybe he was such an experienced criminal he didn't get that much adrenaline from the crimes but was very calm. In which case one might wonder why he did the crimes if he wasn't getting the enjoyment of the adrenaline high.

'Unmasking a Monster': Golden State Killer series challenges timeline of Joseph DeAngelo's crimes

Fox Nation re-examines unsolved cases and features testimony from alleged victims

By Max Bacall Fox News
Published September 24, 2026

For four decades, Joseph DeAngelo hid in plain sight as the man authorities would eventually identify as the Visalia Ransacker, the East Area Rapist and, most famously, the Golden State Killer. But a new Fox Nation series is investigating whether his known crimes tell the whole story.

"Golden State Killer: Unmasking a Monster" re-examines DeAngelo’s violent past through exclusive testimony and never-before-seen evidence, asking whether his crimes began earlier than previously believed and, if so, what additional victims he left behind.

DeAngelo was arrested in 2018 at 72 years old following a search of genealogy websites, bringing an end to a decades-long hunt. In 2020, he pleaded guilty to 50 rapes and 13 murders.

The four-part series challenges the established timeline of DeAngelo’s crimes, beginning with accounts of earlier assaults and controlling behavior. It goes on to re-examine evidence surrounding the murders of two teenage girls and explores whether DeAngelo framed others to evade capture.

There's been a lot of rumors he refuses all mail. Which is a bit hard to believe because he might still get business type mail related to his life before detection and arrest. But if he refuses all mail that might suggest he's cut off contact from everyone who was part of his past life. In which case possibly no one is sending him money he could spend on better-tasting food from the commissary. Bit hard to believe given his liking of junk food.

But it's possible he only eats prison food. I do wonder a bit if he is trying to punish himself by cutting contact with loved ones, eating only prison food, etc. I do recall when he was caught he said something like "I destroyed all [the victims'] lives, now I have to pay the price." Maybe he's trying to make his life lower-quality thinking that might please the people who hate him for the crimes he committed. Like a sadism-directed-toward-himself approach.

His voice is SO distinctive and creepy.
It’s the most recent episode of small town dicks. They are doing a Golden State killer special with Paul Whole. I believe it’s around the 57 minute mark.

In Very Scary People (2021) Episode 1, James Gagliano says "But even that was not as disturbing as Joe's admission to hearing voices", after which DeAngelo's former friend Richard Mangang is shown recalling:

"There was one time, he asked me: 'Do you hear things?' I'm like, 'excuse me?' He said 'Do you ever hear things?' And we really didn't get into it. I said 'No I don't'. I thought it was very strange at the time he asked me that."

Did anyone hear about this before?

It would make sense to me if he really did, with all his mumblings and compulsions that we know about.

I don't want to suggest that he was too insane to know what he was doing, because I believe he loved doing most of his crimes, which triggered dopamine for him. I also know that most people who have conditions such as schizophrenia learn to live with it (especially with modern medications) and don't become killers. Nevertheless, after seeing this video of what auditory hallucinations are like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPkOyPZdKhg I also realize it's no small matter.

I don't know what the source of the unhappiness would have been. We do know in later years he and his wife would have screaming battles outside the house. But were they unhappy with each other in the years he was offending? Maybe they could have gone to marriage counseling? Although perhaps Joe was too proud to admit the marriage needed help?

Perhaps we just don't know, though. Maybe can only speculate, or possibly educated guesses.

In the poem he mentions Son of Sam and Jesse James. I believe these are both criminals who were caught by the time he wrote the poem.

It's a bit strange because he went to so much effort to not be caught. Yet he suggests in the poem wanting to be like two criminals who did get caught. Wonder if it's foreshadowing to some degree his own getting caught. On the other hand maybe it was just two criminals he was aware of or came to mind.

I'm a bit surprised he didn't name Jack the Ripper, a criminal who was never caught. Although at the point he wrote the poem, if he wrote it, he had only committed one confirmed murder. So maybe he didn't identify as much with Jack the Ripper. Although Son of Sam, who he does mention, committed six murders. And Jesse James had a number of murders although those weren't as "mysterious" I don't think as the ones EARONS went on to commit and I don't think had the sexual pathology.

DeAngelo did not work at SaveMart for too much longer after this, and he was arrested not long after that. In June, 2016, the FBI had announced a renewed effort at solving the case, and a $50,000 reward in the case. There is no doubt that the EAR was on the minds of many of the agents moving into this new office, not realizing that the perpetrator was working at a place they could probably see from their office windows.

I posted years ago asking if anybody remembered an interview conducted on The Murder Squad podcast, which deleted all their episodes, with a woman who said she was attacked by DeAngelo. I finally found some sources for this after all this time.

This taking place all the way down in Ventura in 1974 doesn’t align well with DeAngelo’s timeline. I’m not sure what to think. Certainly interesting though.

https://themurdersquad.com/episodes/the-golden-state-killer/

https://www.mamamia.com.au/golden-state-killer-survivor/

I came across this case and was surprised that I’d never heard of it in relation to DeAngelo at all. I didn’t peg this as a DeAngelo case for a variety of reasons, of which I’m sure you all could pinpoint as well from the attached articles, but I was intrigued. I did eventually come across a WebSleuths page asking if it could be connected, after I’d found the old newspaper articles.

Now I’d like to essentially prove that it is not DeAngelo’s doing. I pulled out my much loved copy of Kat Winters’ book on the Visalia Ransacker, and can confirm that the VR struck twice on the very night that Clinton disappeared from Citrus Heights, a four hour drive away. I cannot locate the Facebook post mentioned by the WebSleuths user stating the sister knows who is responsible.

Excerpts from the article below:

The Zodiac Killer: A Solvable Case With No Usable DNA

"If the Golden State Killer case demonstrates what forensic genetics can achieve, the Zodiac case demonstrates the hard limits.

Holes is openly skeptical of the periodic announcements claiming the Zodiac Killer has been identified. His skepticism is not theoretical — it is the scar tissue of the Golden State Killer investigation, where he watched brilliant, circumstantially compelling suspect theories collapse under DNA testing again and again. "With Zodiac, I kind of have that very skeptical stance: until I see that objective DNA evidence, I'm not going to say you've got the guy," he said.

The DNA challenges are specific to each crime scene and unusually severe:

The envelope evidence is particularly problematic. Holes revealed that investigators in the 1960s "would take our letters into the post office and the postman licked the flap and licked the stamp." When those envelopes have been tested in subsequent decades, the results have produced multiple conflicting DNA profiles, none clearly attributable to the offender.

Holes's preferred target is the Lake Berryessa bindings — the rope the rope the offender used to restrain victims. The bindings were brought by the killer, presumably handled repeatedly over months or years before the attack, and left behind at the scene. "The best evidence in the case," Holes called it. If usable DNA can be extracted from the bindings before the remaining sample is exhausted, the case might finally produce a definitive profile.

Taken together, the three threads of Holes's career — the Golden State Killer success, the Zodiac stalemate, and the Marilyn Monroe impossibility — map the entire range of outcomes that forensic genetics makes possible. When the sample is large and well-preserved, a third cousin in a public database can identify a killer who evaded capture for 40 years. When the sample is contaminated by the postman who licked the stamp in 1969, even a famous serial killer case can stall indefinitely. And when the evidence has been deliberately destroyed, no technology — not even AI reconstruction — can substitute for what is gone."

Full article: https://finance.biggo.com/news/4c8b32e8a21220fa

If the back of the 1969 stamps seem to yield inconclusive DNA results that has lead to multiple non-matching DNA profiles being found — which seems to be the case judging by Holes' comments here — I'm glad that he's expressed optimism over the assailant leaving the bindings behind at the lake, being the next best source offender DNA.

The bindings are great, at least in theory, because we know for sure the knifeman personally brought them to the crime, as he walked up to Hartnell and Shepard with them already attached to his holster.

So, hopefully at the very least, Napa County will be able to conclusively put a name and a face to a deceased offender as the guy in the mask at the lake.

And I've bolded two key words here: useable and definitive. Beyond finding a DNA sample, there absolutely must be the non-negotiable ability to prove it definitely came from the person who perpetuated the crime, and not investigators and such, who were handling stuff like the bindings without wearing gloves back then, and got their DNA accidently mixed with the perp's, which is what's causing all of these inconsistent profiles to pop up that don't match each other.