The chilling rise of the Golden State Killer (Part 5/6) | Forensic Files

[Music] we would like to thank the following people for their help and support in the
research of this series a stereo rapist survivor John Carson semla original nice
thought of victim family members Michelle Cruz and Debbie Domingo retired Sacramento County Sheriff's Department
detectives Richard Shelby and Carol Daly retired Contra Costa County Sheriff's Department detective Larry Crompton
Contra Costa County DA cold-case investigator Paul hulls and Orange County DA investigator Erika Hodge craft
this series deals with horrific sexual assault offences and there's a lot of them we feel it's a very important story
to cover but it won't be suitable for all listeners so please use your discretion if you decide to keep
listening we will be releasing a map with each episode to help as you go along or for you to refer to afterwards
you'll find a link to the map in the show notes on our web site or you should be able to access the link from the show
notes in your app when part 4 began it was August 1978 sergeant Jim Bevan Center lieutenant ray root from the
Sacramento task force held a special meeting with law enforcement agencies in Contra Costa County they believed that
the east area rapist was heading south possibly to Southern California and they felt it would strike in Contra Costa
County on the way they advised contra Costa law enforcement agencies to form a task
force and work together but there was pushback the general feeling in the room was not in our county
when Bevans and root were proven right a task force was formed headed up by detective Larry Crompton crompton
consulted a criminal psychologist dr. Emily who warned him the east area rapist wanted to kill he just needed
justification during a search after attack 43 the first attack in Danville investigators found pages torn from a
spiral notebook known as the homework the General Custer essay the sixth grade grant into the punishment map a
hand-drawn map of a housing development on July 5th 1979 the east area rapist attacked a couple in Danville but they
had a plan in place the husband stood over the rapist then yelled at him while his wife ran outside and screamed for
help the rapist took a few steps back he didn't attack and he made no move for a
weapon he didn't say anything he just stared at her husband through the jagged holes of
his mask the husband made a run for it into the east area rapist escaped police were on the scene in minutes and
tracking dogs picked up his scent but he slipped through their fingers again the
failed Danville attacked rattled the east area rapist he never showed up in Contra Costa County again by me to 1979
detectives had 12,000 persons of interest the man of suspects who had many characteristics of a stereo rapist
was huge every second suspect seemed like a sure thing but one by one they were eliminated the east area rapist was
in the only violent criminal on the loose either according to detective Larry Compton Northern California was a
melting pot for disturbing criminals by October 1979 three months had passed without any sign of the east area rapist
every area that had been hit up to that point was on tenterhooks the rapist had taken breaks before just when they
thought he had disappeared he always reappeared somewhere else it was only a matter of where and why
it had been over three years and almost 50 attacks since the east area rapist started not one law enforcement agency
had a solid lead or a clear and complete description of the rapist he had beaten
them time and time again it was easy to believe in the beginning that many of the nuances the little phrases voices
and behaviors painted a picture of who he was but as the years went on it became accepted that many of these
details will likely deliberate attempts to throw off survivors and police the east area rapist was someone who likely
didn't stand out in everyday life he could have been anyone if he was in fact the same man who had attended open house
inspections acting strangely it seemed to be the only times he consistently stood out as someone creepy and unusual
the attacks after sunrise and after dinner showed his increasing confidence his bursts of multiple attacks in short
space of time followed by retreating for a while was his dig and retreat method of attacking a circling predator waiting
for the right time to strike he took an interest in the press coverage and attention his crimes generated he
started attacking couples when the press made special mention of the fact he never attacked when a man was home one
of the men he targeted had stood up and created a scene about the rapist at a town meeting the attack after this was
close by to a dentist's office in South Sacramento the dentist headed one of the
civilian protection groups and had personally contributed to the reward for the rapist capture it was the furthest
south the exterior rapist had attacked up to that point he seemed to respond to people challenging him when he used
physical violence it always seemed to be after a failed attack when things didn't
go his own way the last attacking Denville had been just that not only did his chosen
victims get away the husband challenged him and got the better of him the a stereo rapist didn't seem to know what
to do it had been three months since that danville attack many agencies breathed a
sigh of relief the Crompton kept his ears open the words from sergeant Bevins and
lieutenant route burned in his mind the east area rapist was heading south to Southern California
Crompton had the sinking feeling things were going to get worse the words of dr.
Emily never left him he'd better catch him he wants to kill and he will [Music] six hours south of Sacramento in two
hours northwest of Los Angeles is the city of gelida that sits fifteen minutes west of the city of Santa Barbara and is
home to the University of California Santa Barbara campus very few people from Southern California had heard of be
a stereo rapist law-enforcement agencies were busy dealing with their own crime in their own jurisdictions and weren't
concerned with what crimes were being committed in Northern California Goleta had its fair share of burglaries and
theft's but violent crimes weren't common on October 1st 1979 three months after the last east area rapist attack
Santa Barbara police attended the scene of a burglary and attempted rape attack one for this episode it was 2:00 a.m.
the couple who lived in the house were asleep when the rear glass sliding door was pried over a foot rested on the base
of their bed tapping up and down wake up wake up a flashlight shown in their eyes
get on your stomach's don't move [ __ ] or I'll kill you don't move or turn your head I've got to have money
he threw shoelaces down and made the naked woman tie her husband up tie it tight or I'll kill you after the woman
tied her husband the intruder retied him he then tied the woman up but only very loosely he
constantly threatened them with the line I'll kill you [ __ ] in fact every line that came from his mouth used
the word kill after rummaging around the kitchen for the woman's purse he came back and
dragged her from the bed down the hall he threw her down to the ground and retired her ankles now I'm going to kill
you I'm going to cut your throat he walked away and paced the kitchen muttering over and over I'll kill
I'll kill I'll kill him he then walked off down the hall towards her husband muttering to himself the woman got up
naked and stilt beyond with her head covered she couldn't see but she knew the direction of the front door she got
to the front door and opened it as she did her ankle bindings loosened enough for her to run she ran as fast as she
could and started screaming but she still couldn't see and she came to an abrupt stop when she slammed into the
side of the house a gloved hand grabbed a face covering her mouth I told you to be quiet he dragged her back inside and
shoved her to the floor after hearing his wife screams the husband was sure she was being killed he flung himself
off the bed made it to the bedroom sliding door and got outside the intruder heard the door open he ran
outside of being his flashlight into the darkness trying to find him the husband
was hiding in the bushes the intruder couldn't find him so he walked back inside to finish what he was
there to do but the woman was gone she had ran down the hallway towards the bedroom the husband got up and tried to
throw his weight against the fence to break it down so he could escape but a wouldn't budge
hearing the commotion the next-door neighbour turned his light on to see what was going on the husband screamed
for his life the intruder gave up and draining out the front door the neighbor was an
off-duty FBI agent he saw the masked intruder running down the driveway grabbed a black and to ride off down the
street the FBI agent gave chase in his car but the intruder lost him near some bushes a few streets away Santa Barbara
police attended the bicycle the intruder escaped Don was found in the bushes where the FBI agent lost sight of him
the bike belonged to a u.s. parole officer it was stolen from his house nearby just after 7:00 p.m. that night a
black handled state knife was found where the bike was dumped police found evidence the intruder jumped several
fences and they believe he ran across the nearby school grounds in the weeks leading up to attack one the victims had
noticed signs of a prowler they kept finding their side gate open and they were often footprints outside their
windows there were also reports in the neighborhood of cruelty towards dogs just prior to the attack on the couple
only the week before a woman led a man into her house who turned up at her door with an injured German Shepherd he
wanted to borrow her phone so he could call a friend to pick him up the next day the man returned to thank her and
told her his dog had been stabbed requiring 70 stitches the woman found a red rose and a thank-you note left at a
doorstep the following day another resident was out walking his dog Unleashed the dog
ran off into a yard and when it returned it was badly injured and had to be taken
to the vet this man didn't go into the yard to see what had happened to his dog Santa Barbara police reports described a
violent botched robbery with intent to kill they were looking for a white male suspect about 5 foot 10 or 5 foot 11
with dark hair above his collar he was wearing a check shirt and a dark ski mask he had some kind of holster on his
belt on the right side he had stolen just three dollars from the victims had the attack happened in Northern
California news likely would have made its way back to investigators on the Sacramento or Contra Costa task forces
it had been three months since the east area rapist last struck in Northern California six hours away the Santa
Barbara Police weren't aware what was going on there they had no reason to believe this was anything more than a
one-off attack although we wouldn't receive the name until some years later Southern California had just seen the
first attack of the original night stalker just shy of three months after attack one five burglaries were reported
in Goleta four of them with pride sliding glass doors on the night of December 29th 1979 a family returned
home to see a person walk past the window inside their house the intruder renting out the back door and escaped
over the back fence when the family went inside they found that poodle had been beaten to death 24 hours later Santa
Barbara Sheriff's detectives responded to a call in Goleta attack number two half a mile from the poodle attack and
half a mile from where attack 1 had occurred a woman stood out the front of a condo crying that there were two
people dead inside the woman and her husband had arrived at the condo to visit their friends 44 year old
osteopathic surgeon dr. Robert Offerman and his new girlfriend 34 year old psychologist Debra Manning the two
couples were planning on playing tennis together they'd found the sliding glass door open and when they called out they
got no reply so they let themselves in they walked up the hall and saw Debra manning in the bedroom
they thought they were interrupting them so they quickly turned tags at the house
there's something didn't feel right about what they saw they turned back towards the bedroom and found that
Robert Offerman and Deborah Manning were both dead when police entered the home they found the couple had been shot
Robert three times in the back and chest and Deborah a single shot to the back of
her head Deborah was lying alongside the waterbed naked with her wrists and ankles bound Robert was on his knees on
the floor holding a length of white nylon cord left-hand police believed he was able to
get free from his bindings his pose suggests that he had just done that when he was shot
there were pry marks on the doors of windows from what looked like a screwdriver and they found tennis shoe
impressions alongside the shoe prints police also noticed dog footprints the dog prints were described as fresh and
large they also found God cares the human shoe prints matched those found the night before half a mile away
outside the home where the poodle had been beaten to death a Christmas turkey carcass wrapped in plastic was discarded
outside on the patio two rings belonging to Deborah were found hidden between the
mattress and the bed frame one neighbor reported hearing a series of gunshots around 3:00 a.m. the other neighboring
condo was empty it showed obvious signs of squatting a length of rope was found in the bathroom of the empty condo the
canvass of the neighborhood revealed there had been other break-ins and homes ransacked earlier that same night a
neighbor to one of the houses that have been broken into told police of a young man and woman he saw ringing the
doorbell at the ransacked house the couple were described in their mid to late 20s the man around five foot six to
five foot eight and the woman around five foot four the neighbor didn't recognize them and the homeowner wasn't
expecting visitors they were never identified and no one was ever arrested for the break-in a few
days after attack two nylon rope was found on the front lawn of a house just a few doors down from where attack one
had occurred three months earlier the same rope was also found along the trail of a nearby creek
not long after attack - detective Larry Crompton attended a seminar in Santa Barbara
he got talking to a detective and heard about Robert and Debra's murders as well
as the first attack three months earlier after hearing about both attacks Compton
said that's him on Noah but according to Crompton after he spoke to the Santa Barbara County Sheriff's
Office they felt the attacks were unrelated to the east area rapist they didn't think what had happened up north
would ever happen on their turf and they certainly didn't want the publicity that
would come with it Santa Barbara sheriff's argued there were too many differences between the east area rapist
and the to go leader attacks in late January 1980 the Sacramento Bee reported that sergeant Bevins from the Sacramento
Task Force was dispatched to Santa Barbara to go over the police reports of the two Goleta attacks
maybe the attacks were just coincidence or maybe the east area rapist had changed his MO and had finally escalated
as they feared he would Bevin's found quite a few similarities to the east area rapist in the Goleta attacks but
there were also enough differences Plus Santa Barbara police weren't even sure if the two bellator attacks were
connected to each other a woman who lived nearby the Goleta attacks reported that while she was at work someone was
jumping over her fence and releasing her German Shepherd dog was the original night stalker befriending dogs with dog
bones or food gaining their trust and taking them out for walks with our donors knowing a dog walker doesn't
raise much suspicion with the strange murders and attacks on dogs that had occurred in the area it seemed that
could be linked possibly not all dogs took Connolly to the original nightstalker and they met with foul play
the next two and a half months required in Goleta no one reported any similar attacks on March 13th 1980 the press in
Sacramento reported again about the possible link between the Goleta attacks in the east area rapist
later that night forty minutes east of Galena the original night stalker was getting ready to strike again
attack three east of Goleta on route to Los Angeles liza Ventura tightly hugging
the Pacific coast Ventura is in a different County to Santa Barbara with a different Police Department and
different press Charlene and Lyman Smiths immaculate upper-class home set up on the hill in an up-and-coming
subdivision called clear point and overlooked the sea and the city of Ventura and in those days were
surrounded by rolling land and vineyards the Powell of Highland corridor ran at an angle to their property heading
towards the nearby highway Charlene Smith aged 33 was an interior decorator and also sold jewelry and Tupperware her
husband Lyman Smith aged 43 was a prominent local attorney who was reportedly under consideration for a
position on the Superior Court Charlene and Lyman were found lying under their covers as if asleep but they had also
been bound and bludgeoned to death they had been there at least two days before Lyman's twelve-year-old son from his
first marriage stopped by to mow the lawn bottles of milk and the daily newspapers sat at the front doorstep and
when he walked inside the alarm clock set for two mornings prior was still going off he found the bodies of his
father and stepmother [Music] when Lyman didn't turn up to his law firm on the Friday two days earlier his
law partners just assumed he had an assignment elsewhere the house had been ransacked but nothing was taken
nor was there any sign of forced entry Lyman son had found the front door unlocked which he said was unusual there
appeared to be no struggle whatsoever the coroner was initially unable to ascertain the bindings were placed
before or after death when he checked their adrenal glands he found them completely normal when someone dies
under stress they usually have shrunken adrenal glands but both Charlene and Lyman's adrenal glands showed a normal
size and state this led to the initial theory that Charlene and Lyman were killed in their sleep the murderer then
tying them up and ransacking the house afterwards to stage the crime scene Charlene and Lyman had both suffered one
blow to the head hard enough to kill them the murder weapon was a log of wood taken from the bedroom patio a piece of
wall above the bed head was cut out and taken to a blood splatter expert to see if he could determine who was hit first
the 28 inch length of cord was left laid out at the foot of the bed Lyman was in the running for a position
on the Superior Court and was involved in various money-making projects he had many investments and was involved in a
land development company that ran into trouble Charlene was described as vivacious by those who knew her with
some even calling her a femme fatale when police discovered Charlene had become Lyman's second wife after being
his secretary they started to dive deeper into both their backgrounds to see if they could find a connection and
possible motive for their murder there were several lines of inquiry that led to possible motive
including Charlene having an affair with a deputy sheriff the deputy claimed he didn't know she was married when
neighbors reported that Charlene and Lyman were arguing in the lead-up to their deaths police say even briefly
considered they had murdered each other the knots used to tie Charlene and Lyman's wrists with the elaborate
10-step diamond not the same knot that detective Richard Shelby had found in the early days of the East Area rapist
but it's all damn been seen again given that the diamond knot was commonly used in macrame Venturer detectives believed
it was a symbolic gesture used on an interior decorator at her motor site ultimately they determined that the
murderer was known to Charlene and Lymon forensic reports came back to show Charlene had been raped the forensic
report also found it was highly likely they were in fact and beyond prior to their murders the coroner said there was
a chance the adrenal gland report was incorrect given everyone's bodies are different so the new theory was that
they weren't killed in their sleep at all they were tied up prior to their murders Charlene was raped then right
before being murdered they will put back in their beds as if they was sleeping staging the scene detectives looked into
the sheriff's deputy who admitted he was still longing for Charlene after their affair he admitted that on the night of
their murders he had used binoculars to see if he could see their house from the
sheriff's building he admitted to driving by the house the night after the murders before their bodies were found
and that he tried calling her the next morning Lyman's business partner from the failed land development venture was
Joseph Allsop also had lost a lot of money in this failed venture so he was looked at closely he was looked at even
closed up when they found his fingerprint on a glass in the kitchen he was questioned and told detectives that
on the night before Charlene and Lyman's murder he had gone to their place for a
drink the sheriff's deputy was eventually cleared and detectives honed in on Joseph Alsop back in Sacramento
sergeant Bevins heard about the double homicide in Ventura he had continued to look at the two Goleta attacks and he
was now convinced the first attack in Goleta where the victims escaped was the work of the East Area rapist in attack
to the Robert Offerman and Deborah Manning murders in Goleta Bevans felt that had Robert not put up a
fight the killer would have raped Deborah but the struggle and murders was the reason no rape was committed there
was no time as the killer had to flee in attack 3 the use of the diamond not got
the attention of Bevins although it was hard to find too many other hallmarks of
the East Area rapist in the murders of Charlene and lawn and Smith that Domon not nagged at him then there was the
coincidence that the same day the Sacramento Press reported again about possible links to gelida
and the east area rapist this double homicide occurred in Ventura 40 miles east of Toledo a different County and
different jurisdiction Bevin's considered that all three attacks in Southern California were linked but
Santa Barbara and Ventura detectives weren't having a bar of it Ventura detectives were convinced that
Charlene and Wyman knew their murderer they ended up arresting Joseph Allsop when a local minister came forward and
stated that also confessed to him but during pretrial it was found that the minister was not of sound mind and if
the DA had been too hasty in laying charges it was deemed there was not enough evidence to take also to trial
and he was released the original nightstalker had now committed three attacks two double homicides and a
failed attempt but no one knew it Santa Barbara and Ventura didn't believe the murders of Charlene and Lyman were
linked to the murders of Robert and Deborah or two the first failed attack in Goleta there were no other attacks
linked to the original night stalker until five months after the Ventura murders Dana Point is in Orange County
it sits halfway between Los Angeles and San Diego Dana Point is about 125 miles southeast of Ventura down past Los
Angeles Dana Point is a small Harbor city known for surfing and its coastal lifestyle homes were generally
middle-class but the whole area had a more upscale air about it 24 year old Keith Harrington was the third-year
medical student about to begin an internship he was recently married to Patty Harrington a
registered nurse who was four years older than him on august of nineteen 1980 they were being watched through
their bedroom window their house was in a small gated community with a security guard so it was impossible to drive in
and out unnoticed but it was easy enough to walk into the gated community unnoticed
after watching through the bedroom window the original night stalker walked the Keith and Patti's unlocked front
door and to let himself in to commit attack for when Kate's father arrived for dinner two nights later he found a
Keith and Patty in bed they were covered over with a blanket both had been bludgeoned to death with blows to the
back of the head Orange County Sheriff's Department responded the forensics team
determined that the blanket was pulled over their heads before they were bludgeoned to death
bruising on their wrists indicated they were both bound tightly but the ligatures were removed after their
deaths three pieces of twine were found on the bed but they believe the killer must have taken some with him as he
would have needed more than what was there to tie Keith and Paddy forensic examination showed that paddy had been
raped no weapon was found but while canvassing the local area and motocross gloves soaked with blood was located a
few blocks away the security guard didn't see or hear anything suspicious no one unknown to
him had passed through the gate when being interviewed for the LA Times an Orange County deputy said quote this was
a senseless and apparently unmotivated crime there would be a degree of comfort if we could say this was a robbery or
that they had enemies but they were warm and compassionate people there is nothing in their background that can
help us there were no leads family members put up a $25,000 reward for information leading to an arrest but
no arrests came and the case went cold [Music] the Dana Point double homicide of Keith
and Patty Harrington was not linked to the murders aventure are or Goleta there were similarities between Charlene
and Lyman Smith's murders in Ventura both couples were in the early stages of marriage and were bludgeoned to death in
their beds two hours from each other along the Pacific coast the couples had been bound the women raped there was
lack of forced entry and nothing of value was stolen from either crime scene but in Ventura police were still chasing
Lauren's business partner Joseph Allsop they were close to arresting him at this
point so in their minds the case was as good as closed Robert Offerman and Deborah Manning had
been shot in a gelida double homicide so there was no obvious link it would be seven months until Southern California
was hit by the original Night Stalker again attack five twenty-eight-year-old Manuela Whitman
lived on Columbus in a new suburb of Irvine Orange County Irvine had seen huge residential growth in the late 70s
which made it an easy commute to Los Angeles which was just 40 miles north houses were being built everywhere in
the area surrounding Manuel is house was full of a the newly built homes or homes
still under construction the house directly behind her was newly built and was still empty Manuela was born in
Germany and had emigrated to California with her parents who lived close by to her she hadn't gotten used to living in
America and felt uneasy about the crime rate in Los Angeles she worked at a mortgage brokers and had been married to
David Wynn hoon an American of German descent for five years on the night of February 5th 1981 man wellas husband
David was in hospital with a viral infection Manuela was at the hospital with him she wasn't looking forward to
staying in the house alone but after her hospital visit she put on a brave face and went home her father offered to
bring over his German Shepherd to stay with her but she refused when she got home she rolled out her sleeping bag and
placed it on top of the bed she felt safer in the sleeping bag the feeling of being more enclosed too gave her comfort
she went to sleep sometime around 11:00 p.m. the following day Manuel as parents
received a call from David who had been unable to contact his wife when her mother went to check on her she found
her daughter dead police found Manuela had bruises on both her wrists and ankles indicating she being tied however
there was no sign of any ligatures the killer had taken them with him she had been bludgeoned to death no weapon was
found and well as back sliding door had been pried open the pry marks were matched to
a flat head screwdriver found at the scene strangely though the prying was done on the inside of the latch paint
found on the screwdriver was sent for an in-depth analysis it was found to be consistent with a particular paint brand
but it didn't really tell them anything else even if more information was found from the paint the screwdriver was
likely stolen anyway burnt matches were found in both the garage and the house there were some unusual items stolen a
lamp and a crystal display feature both weighing nine peons ended the tape from the answering machine these items were
never recovered the outside investigators found a bedroom television dumped in the back fence their theory
was that the killer staged the crime scene to look like a robbery items in the house of high-value were not touched
the autopsy showed the cause of death was blunt force trauma to the back of man Weller's head she had also been
raped brutally she was scratched and appeared to have been gagged although no gag was found neighbors came forward and
said they had seen a man running from the direction of Man Weller's house early on the morning she was killed two
days later the Los Angeles Times reported on the murder stating ovine police had assigned an eight-man task
force to investigate quote Ervil and police said Miss weekend's death does not appear to be related to other crimes
in the area in recent months however the police patrol in the area has been stepped up a new evil and police
spokesman said the department had received a number of calls urging increased home security believing the
killer was someone known to Manuela Irvine police didn't link the murder to the double homicide of Keith and Patty
Harrington in Dana Point 25 miles away Irvine police suspected Manuel as husband David they looked into his and
manuela backgrounds extensively as well as everyone close to them nothing came of it in the case went cold the police
weren't the only ones who suspected David family and friends did as well he did his best to get on with his life
and he eventually remarried on the 15th of June 1991 the Sacramento Bee printed a retrospective feature on the east area
rapist it had been two years since the last confirmed East Area rapist attack in Danville and three years since a
confirmed attack in Sacramento many residents have come and gone from Sacramento and there were likely people
reading the paper that day that had no idea who the east area rapist wats for others memories were still raw and they
likely would never forget the fear that gripped their city during those years the article mentioned that some
detectives from Sacramento and Contra Costa counties believed the east area rapist was responsible for the gelida
murders of Robert Offerman and Deborah money but admitted it had divided law-enforcement Sacramento police press
spokesman Bill Miller said in the article quote in the end though stunt detectives know little more about the
east area rapist than they did when he first emerged from the drainage ditch in Rancho Cordova
some believe the rapist is now dead or at least the way in prison the official explanation for the east area rapists
disappearance is non-existent there is no way of knowing anything you say about him is going to be guesswork and your
guess is as good as mine so much time has passed in fact that the statute of limitations has expired on most of the
crimes of the thirty attacks in Sacramento County which included breaking into 30 homes raping as many
women assaulting a dozen husbands and some children only two possible kidnapping charges could be prosecuted
if it was caught today although there are a total of 11 East Area rapist cases elsewhere that is still within the
3-year statute Sacramento would only be able to prosecute the two possible kidnapping charges from at acts 8 and 9
when the rapist dragged the females away from the home [Music] when the east area rapist disappeared
from Northern California sergeant Jim Bevins from the Sacramento Sheriff's Task Force became the only officer with
an officially active file on the rapist almost six months after Manuela Joaquin was murdered in Irvine the original
Night Stalker struck again the city of Goleta woke on the morning of July 27th 1981 to the news another couple had been
murdered it had been 18 months since the double murders of Robert Offerman and Deborah Manning and with no similar
murders in the area since life had gone on cherie Domingo aged 35 and Gregory Sanchez age 27 had gone to bed like any
other night on July 26 1991 here is Cheri's daughter Debbie Domingo probably most of June and July mom and I were
arguing just just for purchase late I was a teenager that that didn't like rules and so you know she had some basic
guidelines like you know come home boy when you say you're gonna come home and and you know don't smoke cigarettes and
go running around with boys and I mean just basic stuff you know but I just had I really had to be on the level so I was
challenging her quite a bit that summer and and so we just argued and argued like you wouldn't believe and at one
point I am we fought one day and I I said you know what I have to have it with this I don't have to live here
anymore and I packed some clothes into a backpack and I got on my bicycle and I just took off and I ended up staying
with a couple of different girlfriends for a couple different weeks I would I would stay at a girlfriend's house for a
couple days and then when her parents got tired of me I'd go find another friend to live with and so I had been
away from home for probably about three weeks at the time that she was killed and we had talked on the phone a couple
of times and we've seen each other a couple of times but those encounters were always pretty pretty explosive and
we just we were just screaming at each other all the time the the morning that that the bodies
were discovered at our house we happen to have a friend mo l my mom's my mom's best friend actually lived just kind of
around the corner from us just a few doors down so the morning that the bodies were discovered the police showed
up and of course they put yellow tape everywhere and and you know the news the news camera crews started showing up all
the neighbors were out looking around at the house and trying to figure out what
was going on and of course my mom's best friend you know I haven't talked to her
about the details but she obviously she put together the pieces that that that there was something that wasn't right
and so she started to look for me and she knew that I had been away from home for a couple of weeks and she knew where
I where I worked I had a little part-time job at a movie theater and so she called the movie theater looking for
me and and one of my co-workers ended up calling me and said hey this this woman
was looking for you you should give her a call and I I procrastinated a little bit cuz I thought oh she's just trying
to try to help me you know help mom and I bury the hatchet she you know she's trying to make peace and but I called
her and she said she said Debbie she said I'm so glad you called you need to come home and and I said no I ain't
coming home and she she got real serious I've never heard that tone of voice with
her before but she got real serious and and she said Debbie you don't understand
how important this is you need to come home and I don't know something about the tone of her voice just convinced me
you know maybe there is something that's that's important so so I agreed to go home and I had a friend drop me off
and of course as we you know we pulled up into the neighborhood and you know just that that seemed that I was just
describing of you know police everywhere and and and people standing around and and looking at this house that was you
know there's that yellow crime tape everywhere and you know I thought about a lot you know most people you know you
watch TV you watch movies everybody knows what that yellow tape means it means that you can't go in until the
police are finished processing their evidence and taking their pictures everybody knows what that means
for me over the last 35 years that's that image of yellow tape that just means so much more to me than what
you see on TV it means that I never got to go back in the house you know I tried
the the police stopped me down as soon as I arrived they all just kind of swooped around me and and scooted me off
to to my mom's friends house and sat me down and and and they told me that that there were two bodies in our house and
that they believed one of them was my mother and I thought well duh one of them's my mother who else would it be
you know but kind of the further along they got into that I kept saying you know when when can I go when can I go in
the house I want to I want to go in the house and they they had to get real and paddock with me and say no you can't go
in and I thought you know well you know I just don't have permission no they said you can't go in it's too messy you
can't see it and and that just hit me like a ton of bricks and so really it was of course you know there's always
this unknown of you know what what did it look like what what were those what were those last moments like those are
the questions that haunt me I don't know if that perpetrator was was in my mom Greg's bedroom for 10 minutes or three
hours I don't know but I was wonder about what what they were thinking and feeling and saying and doing during that
time I just can't imagine the house was on toltec Way Goleta in a quiet cul-de-sac on the morning of July 27th
1981 a real estate agent found the bodies of Sheri Domingo and Gregory Sanchez Sanchez had a bullet wound to
his face and multiple blunt-force trauma wounds through his head it appeared that he had given a
very good fight sherry was found facedown on the bed she too had been bludgeoned and later covered with some
bedding a crowbar was believed to be missing from the garage which investigators felt was the murder weapon
they both showed signs of being bound but no ligatures were found the killer had taken them with him the headline in
the Santa Barbara news linked sherry and Gregory's murders with the murders of Robert Offerman and Deborah many 18
months earlier the headline read - found slain in Goleta case similar to one in 79 what no one knew at the time was that
it was actually the sixth attack of the original night stalker his fourth double
murder nine murders in total spending 18 months in Southern California an officer informed to Debbie that dog
footprints were found at the scene and wanted to know if they owned a dog they didn't a woman came forward telling
police that she and her daughter were near Sherry's house around 11:00 p.m. they noticed a man standing on the
pavement behind Sherry's house he was a white male in his 20s or early 30s approximately 5 foot 10 with neatly cut
blonde hair he had a German Shepherd dog with him no arrests were made and the case went cold police looked at the
connections between the two Goleta double murders Bevan still felt there was a link to the east area rapist
especially when the following year the east area rapist made himself known again on October 21st 1982 he called a
survivor from a Sacramento attack that occurred five years earlier in 1977 hi it's me again remember me I'm going to
come over and [ __ ] you again you're going to suck my [ __ ] again as the years passed all of the attacks
in Southern California turned into cold cases with different jurisdictions investigating the different cases the
crimes weren't linked no one knew there was an original Night Stalker yet by the
time 1996 came there had been no new crimes or links to the original Night Stalker or to the east area rapist all
had been quiet it had been four years nine months and seven days since the last attack the murders of sherry
Domingo and Gregory Sanchez it had been 10 years since the first attack of the Asteria rapist in Rancho Cordova it
appeared to be over some believed he was in prison some believed he was dead some
believed he had moved for those investigators like Richard Shelby Carol Daly Jim Bevins ray root
Larry Crompton and a few others deeply affected by the unsolved crimes the thought of the east area rapist rarely
left them many of them were still constantly checking crime reports up and down the state for any sign of him they
knew that serial offenders rarely just stopped there had to be a reason no man of leg works tips arrests undercover
surveillance for private consultants had gotten them any closer to solving the case
the murders committed by the original Nightstalker showed the hallmarks of the crimes committed by the east area rapist
some more than others there was a short canal near by the Goleta attacks in Ventura the Palpa long
corridor was closed near Manuel is home in Irvine there was a large park and a vacant house behind her but as for the
stalking behavior the dig in retreat mo parking far away targeting numerous people in the area with hang-up calls
and break-ins before circling closer towards his chosen victims using fast canals trails and open spaces there
wasn't a lot of evidence of that on the evening of Sunday May 4th 1986 the original Night Stalker did something
different this time he would utilize the geography of an area more so than any of
his previous attacks in Southern California attack 7 also occurred in Irvine Orange County less than 2 miles
from the murder of Manuela wit Yoon five years earlier the house targeted for attack 7 was for sale that's at one
house from the end of a cul-de-sac a row of trees and a hedge separated the house
from a large road just over the road was a long and winding canal a path alongside the canal connected to many
other paths and roads allowing for multiple escape options the geography mimicked many East Area
rapist attacks in Contra Costa and Sacramento counties on May 4th 1986 that had been almost five years since the
last attack the murders of sherry Domingo and Greg Sanchez but that evening a pair of pale eyes were
watching the house in Irvine 18-year old Jenelle Cruz was staying at home on her
own while her mother and stepfather were in Mexico her youngest sister Michelle was away working at Mammoth Ski Resort
Janelle was very close with her sister Michelle Janelle the extrovert and Michelle the introvert Janelle did all
the talking for Michelle and stuck up for her every chance she got Janell was inside with a male friend the
original Nightstalker may have thought they were a couple but they were just good friends
janelle never enjoyed staying home on her own so she had a friend over for company they were hanging out in her
room when she heard some noises the outside janelle took a look out the window but there was nothing there she
thought it was just a cat a little while later they heard another noise it sounded like the gate sunny or possibly
the garage door this time they both had a look out the window but saw nothing Janelle's friend left around 10:45 p.m.
Janelle left the house as well popping out to get something her neighbor heard her return about quarter
past eleven the neighbor recognized the sound of Janelle's car and she heard just one car door shut and fly p.m. the
following day the real-estate agent selling the house had a planned inspection she walked inside and found
Janelle's body the crime scene analysis showed Janelle had been hit in the forehead in the kitchen likely with a
pipe wrench missing from the backyard her wrists and ankles were bound but the ligatures had been removed by the killer
the blow she received in the kitchen incapacitated her enough that the marks from her bindings didn't show a great
deal of struggling she was taken to her bedroom and brutally raped grass from the backyard or the park behind was
located on the bed medium blue colored link was found believed to be from a gag likely a tell but the gag wasn't found
the killer had removed the evidence it was 1986 and word was out the crime scene forensics had taken a huge jump
DNA evidence could now be taken by forensic investigators from a crime scene and used to match to the offender
tennis shoe prints were found outside by the house Janelle's sister Michelle Cruz
spoke to us actually when I heard about Janelle's death it was through my girlfriend who she she called me when I
was working up at the ski resort happened ma'am and she saw you sitting down and I said
so no and she says well you need to be sitting down and I said okay why what's going on and she said your sister was
murdered and I thought that she had said your sister was married so I said what and she said your sister was murdered
and I said murdered and it was really hard to process I don't think I even really processed it I think I kind of
went on I didn't know how to react it was just a very very strange time I walked around the dorm the employee
dorms just kind of in a really strange you know kind of bubble just trying to process what she had told me and it took
a couple of days we were in a snowstorm so it took a couple of days for the vehicles to the snow to thaw out so we
could leave and go back home so it was a really rough couple of days just trying
to hear what she had said and my parents they were in Cancun Mexico I believe the
the police had to call every hotel and track down my mom and my stepfather Alan to us he would hotel they were out let
him know what had happened and my mom she she really was so distraught over it she lost a lot of her hair from the
stress and just a really rough time the initial investigation I remember them taking me into the
Google office room or they asked me a bunch of questions you know who my sister was hanging out with who our
friends are and you know probably something to the fact that you know did I know anybody that who could have
killed her and my answer was no I don't know who and they gave them the names of
our friends and and that was it I mean it wasn't like an interrogation they just asked me some questions and let me
go and I I don't even remember leaving to be honest I just don't remember that just I do remember being in that office
with asking me questions now as far as my mom and my stepfather I don't know what
happened they never told me we never talked about it they I didn't ask they didn't tell me yeah I was just almost
like a close subject for a while because we were all trying to figure out how to
live without Janelle Janelle Cruz went through many of the rough patches other teenagers go through she had recently
returned to her boil and after spending ten months in Utah and the center that provides free academic training for
teenagers and young adults she was getting back into the swing of teenager life in Irvine and was very close to her
youngest sister Michelle their mother felt really confident things were looking up for Janelle she had just
started a part-time job at a local pizza parlor and they had recently taken a family trip to Palm Springs on that trip
Janelle bought a white dress so she twirled around the story dreaming about her wedding day
there were times that we had our friends over and we would sit around and write poems just write out different tones and
this is one column that Janelle wrote how she was about 15 16 years old when she read it I am a bird with a broken
wing my heart is sore but I still sing I lie in my nest way high in a tree wondering is flying best for me I am
unique in a special way I am a dreamer and my thought will always stay I know that someday the time will come when I
shall soar him be so happy forevermore to Nelly sakru's a couple of months after Janelle's murder a man who knew
her confessed to killing her he was a patient in a mental health facility at the time he was arrested and held in the
Orange County Jail for eight months until it was discovered he had provided a false confession his attorney said he
falsely confessed you know emotional problems the men still face charges in connection
with an attack on a former girlfriend which happened the night before Journal's murder however results of
blood and semen tests excluded him from being Janelle's killer never again was any attack linked to the east area
rapist or the original night stalker the east area rapist disappeared after that
last phone call he made to a survivor in 1982 the original night stalker disappeared after the murder of Janelle
Cruz in 1986 the year prior to Janelle's murder serial killer Richard Ramirez was
captured he was known as the night stalker his crime spree through Los Angeles and San Francisco occurred from
1984 to 1985 he was given 13 death sentences but he ended up dying from complications of b-cell lymphoma while
awaiting execution the unknown suspect in the Southern California murders we've covered in this episode became known as
the original night stalker as he was the original stalker of the knife having started his crime spree in 1979 in 1986
when DNA evidence started to be used in crime scene investigations the statute of limitations changed the following
article from the Sacramento Bee explains quote the statute of limitations on rape
in California has changed with the introduction of DNA evidence there is a six-year statute of limitations on
non-consensual sexual battery or rape however there's a slippery slope that because there's an additional one-year
discovery rule which means if the attacker is identified by DNA evidence then the attacker can be prosecuted
within a year of discovery of his or her true identity even if it's past the six-year statute of limitations so in
other words if DNA names an attacker for a rape after more than six years the DA
has a year to initiate prosecution for those who believed that the east area rapist had died they would be proven
wrong sometime in 1991 or 1992 the survivor of attack 7 in Carmichael received the call
you know who this is the line then went dead the survivor had no doubt it was the man who attacked her 15 years
earlier detective Larry Poole began working the case in Orange County back in 1986 at the time he was working hard
to link attack for Keith and Patty Harrington's murder him Dana Point with the two attacks in Irvine attack five
the murder of Manuela woohyun and attack seven the murder of Janel Cruz pull the
pin too many suspects and thought he had the right guy and more than once quote when I took this on I was still
relatively fresh if you will I got excited about people like a ski mask rapist in prison who matched the
description in the first year five or six times I've got really excited in the second year four or five columns in 1994
Paul holes had just been promoted he was deputy sheriff criminalist at Contra Costa County he had been working in
forensics for six years at that stage you heard from Paul holes in part for talking about the east area rapist
verbally staging crime scenes and you heard him discuss the punishment map the sixth grade grant and the General Custer
essay also known as the homework papers he talks to us again here I actually started out as a forensic
scientist and so I was working in a lab I then promoted up to what we called the
deputy of chroma so I became a police officer went to the police academy but also was back in the lab doing the old
serology work doing crime scene investigation and where it was right in 1994 when DNA was first starting to come
into the lab and so I ended up stumbling across this drawer in our library that had these folders that were marked with
the red ei R on him I was like what are these and I opened them up and they were
the Case Files for contra Costa County of the attacks that had occurred there but I didn't know anything about you
know this case at all and then I just coincidentally was on a plane ride with my boss former boss shortly thereafter
and I asked him about it and he was on the original task force back in the 70s and so each launched into this story and
so I decided you know what let me see what I can do to solve this this ei R case you know using this new DNA
technology we're trying to get going and so I ended up tracking down DNA evidence
from three of the cases in Contra Costa and they all matched each other and that's when I called Larry Crompton and
I asked them hey you know I've got this DNA did you have any prime suspects you know at this time all we knew were the
rape cases and they were all passed at to the limitation so sort of like we're not even know but we just want to find
who this guy is that was Michael I just want to identify who this guy was he was
so notorious but he's never going to be prosecuted for this and was very prompt and basically saying you know never had
that real strong suspect but we thought he went down to Santa Barbara and possibly killed somebody down there but
when he had contact at Santa Barbara back in the day they really kind of just said nope we got nothing related to your
series up north and shut the door on him so I decided to Oh Santa Barbara and I called Santa
Barbara and I ran it sort of the same thing no you know we don't have anything like this but there's this city
Irvine you know they're doing some DNA now this 1997 so I I call Irvine and I speak with the detective who I'm sure is
long retired now and he said yeah we've got some DNA in our lab has done some work and I called that lab but
unfortunately in 1997 the Orange County Crime Lab was doing a different DNA technology than my lab was so we
couldn't directly compare in 1997 we just had one marker that was the same but it was like having the same [ __ ] type
you know type A or type B it really wasn't very strong and so I told Orange County I'll be back in touch once we get
caught up with you guys because they're a little bit more advanced well it took us four years to get caught up
but now 2001 I had promoted up and I assigned a DNA analyst to work thank that Pfiesteria rapist extracts and he
did and I told them all Orange County and just see yeah I wasn't expecting anything it was a sort of due diligence
and then he ended up walking into my office and it was a match and so at that moment that was Easter and Rufus was now
known to be the same person as the original night stalker it was now official the yeast area
rapist ended the original night stalker we're the same person when the statute of limitations ran out
on many of the East Area rapist crimes evidence and reports were thrown away apart from some files detectives like
Jim Evans kept the only physical DNA evidence they had on the east area rapist was in three Contra Costa County
crimes the rest are linked by Mo those three pieces of DNA well what matched the DNA found at the crimes of the
original Night Stalker okay so Larry Poole was the lead investigator on the original Night
Stalker cases down in Orange County so I called him up I literally just we agreed
I fed him everything I had on the east area rapist and so this is now 2001 and I thought it's just a matter of time he
has 50 cases in Northern California he's going to catch this guy yet oh and I kind of walked away from the case at
that point and you know of course I'm starting to get more and more heavily involved in the actual investigations of
cold cases and it was in 2009 roughly 2009 and I had now promoted up again I was chief of the lab but I was
really trying to work the old cases and I'm looking at file drawer in my office and all the eastern rapists stuff that I
had I was like you know what that is still unsolved and that's when I've been start I
decided I was going to just investigate that series and solved it that I've been
working on it 24/7 and 365 sets initially the Goleta murders of Robert Offerman and Deborah mani and sherry
Domingo and Gregory Sanchez weren't linked to the original Nightstalker murders the Santa Barbara Sheriff's
Department took around 50 pieces of evidence out of storage relating to the double homicide of Sheri Domingo and
Gregory Sanchez they studied bedding hair and seaman's things they were able to create a DNA profile from a stain on
a piece of bedding the DNA was previously too weak for testing but now with advances in technology it was able
to be tested further that result is what linked their murders to the original Night Stalker Debbie Domingo spoke to us
about that I want to say about 2007 or 2008 I was contacted by Santa Barbara County again and I had always tried to
you know just I would call every once in a while and leave them contact information just in case they needed me
so it was contact by by the Sheriff's Department again by this time I had moved halfway across the country and and
they called me and there was there were two detectives one of them called me and
he said he said oh I can't remember exactly how he put it but basically he said the same thing that the other guys
had said in 2000 he said you know we are we want to let you know that we are actively pursuing your mom's case and
you know just getting that kind of a phone call just it just brings both you know there were so many years that I
would think okay maybe I should pick up the phone and call Santa Barbara but I didn't want to deal with the
discouragement of having somebody say no we don't have anything new you know so I
I really just didn't call very much so this guy called me and I want to say 2007 or 2008 and he said a couple of
really interesting things he said he was working with a partner that the two of them were retired from Santa Barbara
County and that the department had tapped them to come back in full-time to work specifically on cold cases and the
thing that he said that just made me go and just just boggle my mind he said they gave us a list of cold cases that
we could work on and they said pick one when you want to start with and they said immediately he said they looked at
each other and they both went Domingo and Sanchez immediately and he said he said they just there was no question
they felt like it was solvable and they they felt like they could do some good yeah so hearing those words from the
detective after 25 years there's no way to explain just how much hope that gave me and so that guy and I began just this
at this email exchange we we changed emails further I know a year a year and a half and he would
shoot me questions and I would I would send back answers and then I would ask him questions and he would send back
answers and just back and forth and these guys were working really hard the interesting thing about the work that
they did is that instead of just going to a file box and rereading the initial reports they actually went to the
physical evidence and they pulled the bed clothes from the crime scene which initially you know in 1981 they didn't
have the technology to be able to extract DNA samples and and those kinds of things so these guys went back to the
original material and they used new technology they they said they found really degraded samples of DNA but they
were able to extract them and they came up with a match so they they called me in 2009 the community 2009 or 2011 I
can't remember now I've got years mixed up I apologize they called me in 2011 and said they
said they had they had found that match that my mom's case was linked to the rest of the original Night Stalker
crimes which was the the name that had been given to the sky no DNA was available in the double
homicide of Robert Offerman and Deborah Manning their murders have been linked by MO in 2011 while searching for
further evidence the Contra Costa Sheriff's crime lab discovered the homework papers found at the first
danville attack police released these to the public hoping that someone would recognize them possibly the handwriting
or the tone of the sixth-grade rent would spark a memory very pool quo the right person is going to see it then
we're going to get the right call that leads to the suspect these can be found in the show notes as well as our
upcoming magazine on this case while the late-2000s detective Larry Poole had investigated 8,000 suspects by his
killer there was one suspect who was dead that he was so sure of he had the man's body
exhumed only to find that there was no DNA match Larry Poole quote if he's in fact
deceased that does nothing to dissuade me from making a concerted effort to identify him I think about this case
every day and every night I have a composite sketches posted on my bulletin board
I have his DNA profile on my wall there are case binders on my shelf at work and
even next to my bed I want to see this case closed I don't care if I do it or some other agency but I won't rest until
it's solved it's number one on what professional bucket list Larry Poole wasn't the only one who was
certain he had the right suspect only to be proven wrong Michelle Cruz also spoke to us about
this there has been a quite a few different ones Pio person of interest Pio eyes that I have looked into and I
have helped other people with and turns out DNA was not a match so it is an up and down emotional rollercoaster ride
it's really hard because you really feel like somebody could be the killer and then their DNA comes back and it's not
so it's definitely a roller coaster ride full of emotions pull holes also explains absolutely you
know like probably my first suspect I spent two years on I he was somebody who literally disappeared he dropped off the
face of the earth in 2004 he was on the original suspect list from the 1970s he was the railroad worker and Crompton had
even interacted with the guy and then when I started digging into him it was like wow you know this guy really adds
up and terms being in the right locations at the right time and suspicious behaviors and everything else
we need to get this guy's DNA prom was going to find him and it took me two years to find the guy and of course I
just continued to dig on the guy trying to get and I'll figure him out as whether or not he's the guy and he ends
up popping up in Sacramento as a homeless guy using his identity and we got his DNA and he turned out not to be
the east area rapist so that's when I ended up stepping back as I was so sure he was the the offender that I realized
how I looked at the case and one of the things and this is the lesson learned and everybody has done this and they
continue to do this to this day especially be online investigators is if they're following a suspect based
investigation they're identifying somebody how they choose that guy you know it could be because he looks like a
composite because he had a bad personality he beat his wife or fetus girlfriends in Sacramento whatever but
then they make details out of the case that have and the problem with this case is it's so huge we have 56 case files
15,000 pages you can pick and choose details and turn almost anybody into a suspect you can make the case fit and
that's where I decided I had to follow an evidence-based investigation that was after you know doing some research of
where I went wrong and dr. Kim Roz Moe who is a geographic profiler but also is now embedded in the
University of Texas in the school system and as sort of a researcher on on seal offenders etc he has an article on
criminal investigative failures and that's the one thing that he really presses is be evidence-based and so when
I looked at all the evidence in this case of course we got the DNA and we're doing everything we can with the DNA
outside of that the one piece of evidence that I thought was unique enough to limit the population of
potential suspects was this hand-drawn diagram that the offender had dropped back in December of 1978 and so I ended
up focusing in on trying to figure out what is that diagram and trying to ultimately identify who drew it what
type of person would draw it and so that's kind of the investigative path that I've been going down pool halls all
sides back to us about the stolen mementos that is still missing I hope is in and this would be something we would
want to put out there as if you find something that has because he stole multiple driver's licenses from his
victims he took photos of some of these women out of their photo albums you know
if you find a box filled with jewelry items and and collectible coins and driver's license for people you have no
idea who they are if no take it bring it to the attention of law enforcement just
that in and of itself is you know the jewelry I think a lot of the jewelry that he took he took for value purposes
and he didn't necessarily keep some of the he kept but I think there a lot of it was he probably sold at some point
but the driver's license with the victims photographs and names and height and weight and everything else on there
the photographs he took out at the photo albums he absolutely has kept those in June 2016 the Sacramento County
Sheriff's Department issued the following statement the Sacramento County Sheriff's
Department and our allied agencies have continuously been investigating the east
area rapist original Night Stalker series since his beginning in 1976 we want to assure you this investigation
has not ceased and the cases have not been closed in 2011 a working group was created consisting of all involved
agencies from northern and southern California in an effort to better communicate and work together in
identifying this still unknown offender and bring him to justice for so many victims to that end the anniversary date
of the first known assault is approaching the Sacramento County Sheriff's Department along with several
other agencies and with the assistance of the FBI is cleaning a large scale media release on June 15 2016 at that
large scale media release on June 15 to 2016 the FBI released three new composite sketches these three sketches
are the only official ones of the East Area rapist original Nightstalker all previous composites have been renamed
you'll find a link to the current sketches in the show notes they also publicly confirmed 12
homicides confirming the shooting murders of Brian and Katie Maggiore in Rancho Cordova in 1978 were linked again
their murders have been linked on em only not DNA a $50,000 reward was announced for information leading to the
conviction of the east area rapist original nightstalker the new initiative also included a
national database to support law enforcement investigating the crimes and to handle tips and information
the working group mentioned in the Sacramento County Sheriff statement are currently still going and are dedicated
to solving the case it's made up of Northern and Southern Californian detectives retired investigators and
cold-case investigators including Paul holes the FBI has a representative at each meeting the team dedicate their own
time to the investigation following up leads and Damita around once per month they believe that will solve it
Larry Poole continues to follow leads and work with authorities in his spare time
very pullquote you start revisiting things over the years because you're looking for meaning in everything
sometimes you get that meaning sometimes you don't it's one of those cases you want to see solved before you breathe
your last Larry Compton and Richard Shelby have dedicated their lives to solving the case both retired detectives
have written self-published books on their sides of the investigation they are not directly involved with the
current working group but they both keep up the date and are involved in their own way
detective Carol Daly is also retired she spoke to us about her return after almost 40 years to the home of the first
survivor she worked with the survivor is Jane Carson Sandlin who you'll also hear
from later in the episode people that live in the community at that time had never forgotten it out so I went back
out to Jane Carson's house okay because that was the first rate that I worked and I just wanted to see her out and
actually I was there with the film crew from with a Paula Zahn out of New York so I
had gone back to New York for the filming and then they were coming out here because they wanted to film a sort
of different areas and so I met with them at the North Station and we drove over to Jane Carson's house and I have
to tell you it was very very strange looking at her house it just gave me the creeps
it looked like the house had stood still and frozen in time nothing had changed the whole neighborhood around you know
homes were landscaped and it was a nice neighborhood and everybody had updated and done everything nothing had been
touched on that house and as we were standing outside talking with the film crew the gentleman who lived to the
house just to the left as we're facing the house came out and wanted to know he said oh I remember that case he said I
remember this fear in the community and he said I was living in an apartment in the North Area and my wife and I were
both so frightened and we had seen this area on TV and we said oh that would be a nice place to live well unbeknown to
them when they bought their house it happened to be next door where Jane Carson had been a victim and this
gentleman had worked probation at the time and he said I remember he said driving down the street I saw a guy
walking had a ski mask on I turned the car around to go back and stop him because probation officers were peace
officers he said I turned around to try to get him identified and he said from the time I saw him and I turned around I
got back to the spot it was like he had disappeared into thin air he said he was nowhere and it was it
just for me people that lived in the community at that time you know young people growing up now of course you know
they only know maybe stories or some of them have never heard of him but you go back to the people that were initially
at the time and they all had remember the Serie rapist they might have forget about you know all of the other crimes
and murders and the things that happened that they've never forgotten about the east area rapist in the community I went
to the department and read some of the cases again just to refresh my mind on on details and things and I tell you it
gave me an eerie feeling that I probably did not have at the time I was investigating them and maybe because I
and I'm not sure why but I'm Kennedy I came home and I check in double check my doors and the windows at night were very
very safety-conscious so yes there is anybody that lived at that time that hadn't felt you know this
same fierce Michelle McNamara was a journalist working for Los Angeles magazine she became involved in the case
while writing a series of articles for the magazine in 2013 she became so interested that she began her own
investigation into who the offender might be she believed that being labeled the east area rapist the original night
stalker was both too confusing and not catchy enough to grab the attention of the public
she called him the Golden State killer to some this is what he is now known as Michelle tracked down some leads which
she was writing about in a book but on April 21st 2016 she died suddenly at the age of 46
it wasn't until early 2017 that her husband patton oswalt learned from the coroner that she had suffered from an
unknown heart condition that caused pakka jizz in her arteries this condition combined with medication
caused the death patton oswalt revealed on the TV show 48 hours that michelle had just come across
a big break what that big break is Nolan knows we will find out when the book is released
Patton and Michele's researchers are currently working to finish it following the 2016 FBI press conference
Michelle Cruz made a public statement at red I am the sister of Janelle Cruz the
last known victim of the east area rapist original Nightstalker I need to say it has been a horrifying 30 years
since Janelle was brutally raped and murdered in our home in 1996 I was 17 and she was 18 years old it is very hard
for me to describe how this has affected my psyche for a person to pass away is a
sad event but to live with the thought and vision of how my sister was raped and beaten to death and the struggle she
put up in order to fight to stay alive is what really haunts me she suffered my poor sister made phone calls to
friends just before she was killed because she was scared to be home alone this one offender has over 40 rape
victims and has brutally murdered 12 people possibly more plus all of the rape victims and surviving family
members deal with the thought of this murder are still walking free after 40 years he is likely between the ages of
56 and 66 now thus there is every reason to believe he is still alive today after
Jenelle's murder our home was sold for a while we were living with friends out of
our suitcases our family unit was gone and it has never come back what I grew up knowing was no more I lost my
identity and for about 20 years lived in complete fear because of my sister's murder
during those years I've slept with the lights on and I'm mostly never home alone however when I am there is always
something propped in front of the doors of windows for protection recently I've installed surveillance cameras all
around my home and window alarms plus some other things in order to feel safe I shouldn't have to live with fear every
day it is a very lonely feeling that I've succumbed to not many people can relate
having a loved one killed by a serial killer who has been freed for 40 years I am tired I'm tired of being afraid
I'm tired of hiding this is why I am finally reaching out something needs to change and not just for me I am talking
for all the victims and family members who are too tired and afraid to speak out we need more people to get involved
we need more people to help research because 40 years of doing things the same way is not working there are so
many people dedicated to researching this case in order to find the east area rapist
Golden State killer we need to let them help let them help piece together the information you have make the documents
available after 40 extremely long years I think it's time to release all the information I was very happy to see the
recent release of information and the publicity drive by the task force of city county and federal agencies of
which the Sacramento PD was apart this is a great start but does not go far enough unfortunately there is no one
outstanding sketch of the East Area rapist of Golden State killer his description as to height weight and
features are all fairly average this generates tips but not solid leads what some officers here today may not know is
that the east area rapist sent in writings to the police the poem called excitement's crave has been released but
not a copy of the original poem or the envelope it came in the envelope and the actual poem would reveal handwriting or
at least typewriter font the east area rapist sent a letter to the Sacramento City Council there are reports other
letters and poems were sent in all of these can and should be released the release of these items will reveal the
word usage phrase usage and unique vocabulary of the East Area rapist they would show something of his views
opinions and thoughts a family member friend or co-worker may recognize these characteristics this is exactly how the
Unabomber was recognized and turned in by his brother I've made a formal request under the
California Public Records Act to obtain the release of these records I also urge
all law enforcement agencies involved in the case to release all information evidence
files and records keeping them secret only protects the killer I urge residents of the City and County
of Sacramento to write an email or letter to their mayor city council county commission and governor stating
your concern about the case and requesting that all documents be released victim and witness names can be
blacked out for privacy the release of these documents might be the difference between this offender finally being
brought to justice or him continuing to elude capture end statement Jayne Carson
Sela who was the survivor from attack number five in Citrus Heights in October 1976 spoke with us she has gone on to
support other survivors of rape including sitting with women in emergency rooms directly following their
attacks and providing support and guidance when discussing her dedication to the support of other survivors she
said one of the things I tell women that I meet with is to share your story report you know your crime to the police
but but share your story with a friend and just be able to you know to get rid of so much of your anger and your grease
and by sharing it just it just helps you I think heal and we you know he we're never going to forget we're always going
to have those scars physical and emotional scars but you know through the grace of God Debbie and
Michelle and and myself were you know we're alive and it very well Debbie and Michelle could have been home too and
been murdered so we aren't truly blessed we are truly blessed when imagining what
it would be like if the a stereo' rapist original night stalker was finally caught
she said one day we're gonna be in that courtroom and he's going to walk in because where they found him he's going
to walk into that courtroom and can you imagine if one of us had known him what that would be like to thank oh my gosh
she was the guy that worked in the grocery store or he was the guy that sat next to me in class at American River
College or you know just that whole thing of oh my or he was my neighbor because you know even though he has not
committed a crime that we know of since nineteen one 1986 that doesn't mean that
he's you know he's not living in a neighborhood he just has stopped raping for murdering
for whatever reason now of course she could be in jail he could be dead but all we want is we want closure we
want this put to bed we want this part of our our life to be to be over with and so we can go on and not wonder you
know if you're going to be around the next corner or do I have to turn lay out my house alarm on again tonight there
are over 60 attacks that are known 60 different occasions where there is a chance that someone a mother a father a
sister a brother a girlfriend a wife a housemate a co-worker or a friend had the opportunity to notice that someone
in their lives was not around or was acting strangely if someone noticed something they either
feared for their lives or they ignored it hoping it wasn't true hoping that the person close to them wasn't the rapist
and murderer forty years later it would still be true was it someone you knew is
that someone you know now if he's still alive he could be as young as late 50s and luckily no older than 70 why did it
end did he move to your town your stay country do you know it now or did he die taking to the grave the secrets of his
identity and the knowledge of whether there were more victims here are some more words from Debbie Domingo because
you know over the years of heads I've had different dreams about this case I've had I've had different dreams about
the night that my mother was killed I've had dreams about I've had dreams about the courtroom and sitting
face-to-face with him and people asked quite frequently people ask what what would you say to him if you were sitting
face-to-face with him what would you ask him or what would you tell him and there's a there's a huge variety of
things that that kind of popped me into my head and back out again but right now
right now in 2017 what I want to say to him is look out your secrets are gonna come out so you need to look out
everything that you've done all of the all of the horrendous things that you've done to people that can't stay secret
forever the truth is going to come out sometime so you need to get ready if you have information regarding
anything you believe may be linked to this case please contact your local law enforcement or contact the Sacramento
County or Contra Costa Sheriff's Department alternatively there is a phone and email
tip one you can find on the FBI website there is a link in the show notes [Music]
you

Case 53: The East Area Rapist/Original Night Stalker (Part 5)

[Part 5 of 6]

When Part 4 began, it was August 1978. Sergeant Jim Bevins and Lieutenant Ray Root from the Sacramento Task Force held a special meeting with law enforcement agencies in Contra Costa County…

Download the map of the attacks here (https://casefilepodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Case-53-The-Original-Nightstalker-map-part-5a.jpg)

Download "The Homework" files here (https://casefilepodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/The_Homework_2.pdf)

CREDITS

Narration – Anonymous Host Research and writing – Anna Priestland Production, scoring – Mike Migas Additional scoring – Andrew Joslyn

SOCIAL LINKS

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RESOURCES

For all credits and sources please visit https://www.casefilepodcast.com/case-53-original-night-stalker-part-5

Brief Summary

The episode covers the East Area Rapist and Original Night Stalker, detailing attacks, investigations, and survivor stories from 1976 to 1986.

Key points

The Danville Attack. A couple successfully defends themselves against the east area rapist.
The Goleta Attacks. A violent burglary leads to the first attack in Southern California.
The Murders of Lyman and Charlene Smith. A couple found dead in their home raises alarm about a possible serial killer.
The Murder of Keith and Patty Harrington. A young couple is brutally murdered in their home, leaving detectives baffled.
Debbie Domingo's Heartbreaking Return. Debbie Domingo learns of her mother's murder and the chaos that ensues.
The Murders of Sheri Domingo and Gregory Sanchez. In 1981, the bodies of Sheri Domingo and Gregory Sanchez were discovered, linked to a series of murders.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

He wants to kill and he will.

Psychologist's chilling prediction about the rapist.

6:09WatchNov 19, 2018

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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