The Golden State Killer | Full Episode | Forensic Files

[Music] [Applause] hello [Applause] i'm gonna kill you [Music] victims lined up in a courtroom to
confront joseph deangelo the so-called golden state killer my safety was shattered as a masked man
the angela yielding a knife told me he would kill me if i didn't do it he demanded
calling him the devil incarnate and a sick monster the golden state killer is the most
prolific serial predator in the nation he attacked across the state from sacramento down to orange county
across 15 different jurisdictions he was the boogeyman he was the man in the bushes that we didn't know who he
was and we didn't know when he was gonna strike again standing up in front of me
was this man with a ski mask on holding a large butcher knife it was sheer terror
my sister was the golden state killer's final victim what's fascinating to me about this case
is rich with so many clues michelle mcnamara had a passion for true crime michelle was hot on the trail the golden
state killer she was writing a book about him and she was a mom and a wife to a comedian patton oswalt
my wife is ten times smarter than me she is thinking and operating on this way elevated level from where i am but she
had a mind for the details of true crime the way that other people have for baseball or
me for films she could recall the details of pretty much every late 20th and 21st century crime it was
just in her head that's why i just don't think this is like pure sexual sadism i think there
was something else she had such good insight and i think it's because other investigators had trusted her they told
her things that weren't in some of the original files she was tenacious about investigating the case she thought she
was getting real close to finding him we found the needle in the haystack d'angelo i want you to look at me
i want you to look at me deangelo and i want you to remember what i have to say in the early morning
of july 17 1976 my life was changed forever i was 15 years old i was 16 years old at the time
my god we were just high school kids he raped me stole my innocence my security threatened my life
threatened the lives of my family i was 13 years old you hid in plain sight but you are now
visible for everyone to despise clothes and poor the devil can keep you company in your
prison cells as he nods away at whatever soul you have left [Applause] [Music] [Music]
oh [Music] oh miss sperman you said you'd call me you bastard patton oswalt is a comedian and actor
known to millions of fans she said i was inconsiderate condescending that that i look like a
lesbian art teacher and a voice known to millions of kids scallops taste check spoons down
good too much salt good yet he would tell you it was his first wife michelle mcnamara who was the true star of the
family something patton sensed as soon as they began dating i've met someone who is so much
so above my punching class in terms of intelligence and and wisdom and empathy i was done for
she took a little bit of convincing but convince her he did in two thousand five it was just like oh
this is amazing patton learned his new bride had some unique interests you know michelle was
always a writer she had published short stories and poetry but she was also always just fascinated with
people and just the messiness of a life michelle was captivated by true crime stories especially cold cases in 2006
she started the blog true crime diary where she profiled both recent and long forgotten crimes
when she started that blog you know she was just off to the races the pair welcomed daughter alice in 2009
but even as motherhood took center stage michelle hunted for cases and clues once everyone was asleep she was on that
laptop there is a breed of men and women that are just wired to pursue these people and
keep going you know when other people would have gone i i gotta go live my life soon michelle's online quest brought her
face to face with one of the worst villains she'd never heard of when you hear zodiac killer
you know what it is you hear jack the ripper you know what it is billy jensen is a true crime journalist
in southern california you hear east area rapist slash original night stalker nobody knows what that is the east area
rapist original night stalker iran's for short not a very memorable name but he's
one of the most prolific criminals california has ever seen she started looking at the devastation that this guy
wrought you're taunting the police you're taunting the population and you you're never caught michelle mcnamara
had found her nemesis paul haynes is a researcher who worked with michelle michelle called herself a citizen sleuth
what does that mean a private citizen who's not in law enforcement and who's not a private
investigator that that is drawn into a crime and does their own investigating based on you know the tools that are
available to them michelle started hitting the message boards of fellow online sleuths hunting for everything
she could learn about iran's over one horrific decade he'd covered a lot of ground starting as a rapist in the
sacramento area in 1976. his immo typically is to break into a house in the middle of
night and confront a sleeping couple by shining a flashlight into the eyes of the female insisting
that she tie up the male then irons moved to southern california where he used the same mo to break in and rape
but now he'd leave no witnesses all told over 50 women were raped and 13 people murdered before the attacker
stopped in 1986 and seemingly vanished and she began working on a feature for los angeles magazine michelle wrote an
article about iran's in 2013. she had details from bits of information she gleaned online and more explicit details
from investigators on the case the odd acronym iran's was not a name many knew so michelle decided to rebrand him
hoping to give him a higher profile working with our editor at los angeles magazine they said you know what this
golden state killer it shows just the breadth of him having hit northern california southern california
and then sort of right in the middle with that irons became the golden state killer and michelle would become a book
author signing a deal to write about him patton says they sacrificed family time
so michelle could travel extensively by herself to retrace the steps of the killer
it's one thing to read it on a piece of paper but to actually walk it every day and see
businesses and houses that were there that are still there you know changes the writing so i would go out of my way
to try to give that to her so you were really the watson to her homes yeah except watson was way smarter than me i
why if if i was to watch into her homes i was the kind of watson they just went and got like coffee or can you go get me
a turkey burger please fine i'll get a turkey burger and even i would get that order wrong
the obsession of hunting a serial killer took its toll on michelle and i'd go back in the in the back
office and michelle would be there just like in tears because some road she had gone
down had not panned out and then it's like i now have to start back again from zero and she did picking up new
promising leads in her hunt for the golden state killer by april 2016 michelle had been driving herself hard
hoping for a breakthrough on the night of the 20th she was exhausted from it all i just remember
this so clearly saying you know tomorrow just sleep till you wake up the next day around mid-morning patton
checked on michelle she was snoring i remember i was laughing like oh she's snoring
and then i um i brought her i went and got an americano left it on her bedside by early afternoon when michelle still
hadn't gotten up patton went to check on her again she had she was dead and i tried
reviving her and it was just you know and then everything after everything after that to me is it just i remember
it as like screaming and vomiting and emt guys and friends michelle mcnamara had died at the age of 46.
it was it was april 21st the spring's coming it's all good and then literally within the space of three
hours just annihilation like like you're this world that you're seeing in front of you
is just you know cinders it's just all it just cinders i want to talk to her so badly
i miss her so much and i'm just sad all the time when michelle died so suddenly her
husband patton oswalt and seven-year-old daughter alice were devastated so when oswalt won an emmy for writing a variety
special just five months later the moment was bittersweet i'm not trying to say that this is meaningless but it
really does everything seems like the lights have been turned down 50 percent on
everything since she's gone patton was still waiting for the la coroner's office to find the
cause of michelle's death but he'd reached an important decision her book needed to be finished it so consumed her
life and it was so much a part of her i thought she was one of the nicest people
i had ever had the opportunity to meet larry crompton spent decades with the contra costa county sheriff's department
michelle met with him in the hope of tapping into his wealth of knowledge about the monster she was chasing
he would walk through the area just like a normal person so nobody would notice him crompton tells the story of a white
man of average height and slim athletic build in his early 20s who stalked his victims before striking though they
never knew it we'd go in the house when the people weren't there and set that house up and
you would leave a window unlocked or a door unlocked so that he could go in michelle learned the rapist would also
hide tools for his attack one thing that the rapist would do is leave shoelaces or whatever to tie the people up with
when the rapist returned to attack he'd come armed with a knife or gun wearing a
ski mask and gloves he would blindfold the victims and after tying them he would take a
towel and tear it up and use that for a blindfold within a year the rapist crisscrossed northern california
striking at least 22 times a few sketches were released based on brief glimpses by eyewitnesses on the street
as he got away every time that knack for avoiding capture haunted michelle he struck so often he hit so many times
it was so frequent today anne-marie schubert is the district attorney of sacramento county
but back in 1976 she was just a local 12 year old i have very vivid memories of what
what he did to this community each night they patrolled the neighborhoods of sacramento county's east side
you have people who are scared this is a community where they want to lock their
doors paul holes was a cold case investigator with the da's office in larry crompton's old county and now
they're having locksmiths come out to install deadbolts people were going and buying guns
michelle had flown to meet holes as well that first day we spent probably six hours in the car
between you know in the car and getting out and looking at the various scenes that i took her to
to catch him michelle had to understand him for the golden state killer it seemed to be about the notoriety
he had complete control over this community and he thrived off that he thrived off the media attention i'm
really scared in fact he took cues from the press initially he'd only attacked women who
were alone but then the newspaper mentioned that he had never hit a place with a man in the
house he was a challenge to him that was a challenge and that's when he started with the men
immediately the rapist started targeting couples and he adjusted his mo as he went
after waking the pair he'd insist the female tie up the male then he would bind the female and then
reinforce the bindings in the mail he'd lull the couple into thinking he was just there to rob them he would ask the
victims where the money was where the female's purse was he would ask the female to accompany him to show him
where it was as soon as the couple was separated the rapist would set his true and terrifying
plan in motion he would retie the female in the living room of the house he would return to the mail and stack
dishes on the male's back and he would tell the male if you move i'll hear these dishes rattle and i'll kill
everything in the house immobilized and emasculated the man was then forced to lie there listening to
the rape occurring a room away how a man can deal with that knowing that he could be the reason for his family to
die and then in his mind no but i can't do anything i have to shut up i can't save anybody for
him to live with that very very very difficult the rapist toyed with his victims often
breaking off mid-attack and wandering into the kitchen he would go in he would eat food in the house he would take
things where that weren't necessarily worth a lot but they would be worth something to
the individuals when it was over the rapist slipped out silently leaving his victims bound and
blindfolded afraid to move for hours one victim remembers all too well what is he going to murder us is going
to kill us what's he going to do to us find out about michelle's trips with paul holes to the various crime scenes
on facebook at 48 hours [Music] the identity of the golden state killer is a mystery that kept true crime rider
and amateur detective michelle mcnamara up all night you know she was filled with angst for
the survivors for the families michelle had spoken to many survivors women like jane carson sandler
she was the rapist's fifth victim you're always looking over your left shoulder always jane's horrifying ordeal began
shortly before dawn in october 1976. her husband had just left for work leaving jane then a student nurse and
air force reserve captain in their bed my son he was three years old he came and got in bed with me to snuggle and
right after that i heard the garage door closed so i knew my husband was gone and within three minutes i heard someone
running down the hall and they had a flashlight in their hand a man wearing a ski mask and black
leather gloves burst into her room holding a large butcher knife what was going through your head
what's he doing here hopefully he's just going to rob us and leave so i said take our
money take whatever you want and the minute i started to say something he would say in his clenched teeth
shut up or i will kill you he then proceeded to take shoelaces and tie our hands our wrists and our ankles
and then he gagged us and blindfolded us both of us just fear fear when the intruder untied her ankles jane
realized he was going to rape her but jane was focused on something else when i went to lean next to my
three-year-old son he was gone he was gone so when the rape took place i wasn't paying any attention to it because all i
was thinking about is where's my son after the rape the attacker kept going in and out of her bedroom
and at one point i leaned again and my son was back next to me so we put him back
and that was such a relief because i knew he was alive but the rapist wasn't gone jane could hear him in the kitchen
rattling pots and pans and then he would come back in the bedroom and say don't you make a move or i'll come back
in here and kill you finally after what seemed to jain like an eternity there was silence
and i thought we've got to get out of here so hobbled around the backyard to the gate
in the front of the house and then just screamed for a neighbor jane and her son survived but the
carefree life her family had known did not i was afraid is he going to come back
is he still stalking me you know as he lived down the street did you ever think that it would happen
to you never ever my mom always said she's too old i was too young we wouldn't be victims but the rapist would
prove them wrong in november 1977 13 year old margaret wardlow would become one of the rapists
youngest victims i woke up to this flashlight in my face i saw him in a mask i had my hands tied behind my back
the attacker left margaret's room but she soon heard him upstairs in their kitchen margaret knew from newspaper
accounts that the rapist would use plates as an alarm system placing them on the backs of household members that
were not his intended target i knew if he came into my room he was going to rape my mom
and if he went into my mom's room he was going to rape me and he went into my mom's room
the intruder raped margaret but in her youthful defiance she refused to give him what she thought he really wanted
you didn't want to show him you were scared i didn't want to show him i was scared i knew he got off on
scaring people and having the control of fear in fact the rapist would often call his
victims after the attack investigators recorded one of his bone-chilling phone calls
[Applause] in 1977 investigators held a series of town hall meetings and in one of those meetings a man stood
up and said that if he ever comes to my house i'll kill him that he would protect his wife protect his family
just months later that man and his wife were attacked the rapist was probably at
that meeting disguised as just another concerned citizen desperate to capture him
investigators literally chased down thousands of leads larry crompton went through the names of
6 000 paroled rapists did you feel like you were constantly going down rabbit holes oh yes there
were names that would come up that really looked good and you would work them and
work them and work them and nothing the rapes in northern california stopped abruptly in 1979 with the attacker
seemingly vanishing from the area but the nightmare was about to begin in southern california
[Music] i definitely think there's something about the housing thing that seems very
interesting and there did seem to be a lot of like new houses around where he hit um and a lot of
houses for sale in july 1981 a realtor walked into a home in santa barbara county and made a
grisly discovery inside were the bodies of sherry domingo and her boyfriend greg sanchez
sherry had been bound and bludgeoned greg sanchez had been shot and beaten i've always had this
this image in my head of what her last moments were like the fear the absolute terror that she had to be
going through debbie domingo sheri's daughter was only 15 at the time to this day she lives with that painful
image and with regrets and the last thing i said to her was why don't you just stay out of my life
and i carried a lot of guilt for a long time because of the last things that i said
to her debbie says their relationship had been turbulent in the weeks before the
murders she and i were fighting just like you wouldn't believe she was doing her best
to be a good mom she had never really dealt with a headstrong teenager and you were a headstrong teenager i was
i was pushing the envelope pretty bad when her mom tried to lay down some house rules debbie decided to run away
she'd been gone for about three weeks when she got a call from a neighbor and she said debbie you need to come home
what were you told at the time about what happened to your mom and greg the best answer i ever got was
someone broke into the house and killed them i resigned myself to never ever knowing
what really happened debbie domingo had no way of knowing that her mother and greg's murders were
the latest in a string of unsolved murders across southern california over the span of a year and a half three
other couples and a woman were killed in their homes all in a strikingly similar
brutal fashion in december 1979 dr robert offerman and his girlfriend deborah manning had been
murdered in goleta in march 1980 lyman and charlene smith had been found dead in ventura
five months later keith and patrice harrington had been killed in dana point and in february 1981 manuela withheld
was found bludgeoned to death in irvine so you had a hunch that the southern california homicides were related to the
east area rapist yes when larry crompton who'd investigated the rapes up north first heard about the
murders he knew almost immediately it was the same suspect i had no proof but we looked at the reports and said it
is the same the victims were treated the same way and tied up the same way crompton had always suspected the rapist
would escalate to murder we knew that he wanted to kill but all he needed was the
justification that came after two couples in a row managed to escape during an attack the assailant would
never let that happen again the next time he murdered and that's what he did after that
even though he was sure that southern california was now under attack by the same suspect crompton couldn't convince
the different jurisdictions that their murders were all connected one of the problems we had back then is
that law enforcement agencies did not work together and very little information went from
one to the other michelle mcnamara believed the suspect used this to his advantage moving from county to county
killing without mercy this was a crazed horrible psychopath he was just obviously
very very angry the killer seemed to take a five-year hiatus after 1981 but in may 1986 he resurfaced again in
irvine at another house that was for sale everybody always wants to know why you
know why janelle michelle cruz's sister 18 year old janelle cruz was the killer's youngest
and last known murder victim i got a phone call and it was one of my girlfriends and she
said your sister was murdered michelle learned that janelle had asked a male friend to keep her company that
night maybe she was scared because she felt like maybe somebody was watching her and
he said that they heard noises they heard noises she said well maybe it's just you know a cat outside
and they just went back to talking and where he ended up having to leave and go home for the night that noise that she
heard that night is probably accurate he probably was in the side yard larry montgomery was the lead investigator on
janelle's case back in 1986. what state was she in she had been bludgeoned badly
on the face she was on her back in a position that looked like it's possible she had been tied up it looked like
she'd been sexually assaulted montgomery's investigation into the murder was intense still it went nowhere
but in 1996 the advent of dna technology provided a break in the cold case they were able to find dna and
discovered that the dna from janelle cruz's case matches the dna in the whitun case five
years earlier and then they started getting hits on other dna in ventura county santa barbara county a
year later investigator paul holt's testing on the northern california rape kits connected the rapes to each other
but the most important forensic discovery came in 2001 when the murders were finally connected to the rapes
officially confirming what larry crompton had long suspected what was it like for you
to get the confirmation that your hunch was right it settled a lot in my mind and i really
had a feeling that yes now they're going to catch them what followed was a concerted effort among all jurisdictions
to bring the violent rapist and killer to justice he could go right up against almost this
house here that erica hutchcraft from the orange county da's sex crimes unit worked on the case for over a decade
i thought when i first looked into the cases that it was like something you would study in a criminology course and
it was horrifying but at the same time you think oh i can make a difference and contribute to the solving of the case
erica became consumed by this case just like michelle i have never been the same since i
started working in these cases it's like an obsession you know so it's it's overwhelming at times but it does
change your life and this case has even changed the law in california since 2009 largely due to
the efforts of bruce harrington the brother of one of the murder victims all adults arrested or charged with a felony
in california must submit a dna sample for inclusion in the state database california maintains the third largest
dna database in the world but investigators got no hits for the golden state killer it seemed he had managed to
even elude technology but in 2018 that would all change i believe that it's time for his reign of terror
to end [Music] [Music] the great tragedy of this case to me is that it's not better known and frankly
it should be solved i mean it just should be in june 2016 two months after michelle
mcnamara's death the fbi marked the 40th anniversary of the golden state killer's
first attack by announcing a renewed investigation today we're going to launch a national campaign to help identify the
east area rapist golden state killer all this attention now is is being um placed on this case
isn't there a piece of you that says it's been 40 yes years oh yes why now right why now but i'm glad now
after four decades police felt the pressure of time running out all the witnesses all the original
investigators everybody's going to start passing away it's now or never they also still believed the killer's
dna profile could be the key to unlocking this mystery there's nothing that you can do to change your dna it is
the greatest tool of identification we've ever had i think they have his dna it's a needle in a haystack with the
needle's in there somewhere and it's our job to find it we're all so dedicated and we work so
much on this case and we um it becomes your life sorry it's okay why do you think it gets to you
um because i care you know i care i don't want to ever stop caring if you stop caring then what good are you as a
detective or a cop or a human being nine months after michelle mcnamara passed away the los angeles county
coroner released the cause of her death a combination of powerful prescription drugs along with an undiagnosed heart
condition once she had passed everything in me was dead except that was the one spark of like life force left in me of a
moving forward life force is finish her book in february 2018 oswald saw all those years of michelle's hard work
finally come to fruition with the release of her book now i'm optimistic i know that it sounds
crazy to be optimistic but i am in your gut do you think he'll be caught in my gut i think he is going to be
caught because of what michelle did and because of what all the cops did before her
i hope then incredibly in april 2018 almost two years to the day after michelle's death
there was stunning news from sacramento police in california believe they've cracked a 44 year old serial murder case
the answer has always been in sacramento district attorney anne marie schubert for over 40 years
countless victims have waited for justice joseph james deangelo 72 a cop in the 1970s was arrested at his
home he'd been fired from the police force in 1979 after he was accused of shoplifting
a hammer and dog repellent divorced his ex-wife is a lawyer he has three adult daughters
he was never on any list that i'm aware of new technology was d'angelo's downfall
the golden state killer's genetic profile had been plugged into the genealogical website
gedmatch.com and it returned a link to genetic materials stored there by one of d'angelo's relatives
we're dealing with distant relatives and we're literally having to follow trees looking and then find
individuals within that pool of people that fit the criteria that we know about the offender roughly his age
geographic locations at certain points and times because we know where the offender is when he's attacking
physical aspects after painstaking work investigators landed on d'angelo as a likely suspect but still needed his dna
to make a positive match they hit pay dirt after collecting a sample of deangelo's dna from something
he discarded in public and at that point we knew we had our man and it turns out their man had been
hiding in plain sight living in citrus heights the same city where jane carson sandler was attacked in the 1970s
i'm so glad it's over i mean it is such a a relief to finally after all this time know that
he's behind bars and that's where he belongs he needs to pay for his crimes he's just destroyed
so many families for margaret wardlow d'angelo's arrest brought joy after a very long wait oh i was just so happy i
haven't been able to wipe the smile off my face i called debbie domingo and she just couldn't believe it she was the
first voice that that told me that they got him you thought you were so smart but you were
wrong you're not getting away with this [Music] in june 2020 deangelo cut a deal
appearing in court to plead guilty to 13 counts of murder and 13 counts of kidnapping with robbery more than the
first degree how do you plead in order to take the death penalty off the table he also admitted to over 160
uncharged crimes a rape of jane doe 11 october 13 1978 including dozens of rapes
you admit or deny sir i admit all right this week his rape victims and the survivors of those he murdered finally
had their day in court [Music] my name is chris pedretti offering statements at d'angelo's
sentencing hearing as the evening began on december 18 1976 i was a normal 15 year old kid
he raped me repeatedly at three different times that night i thought i was going to die
the next morning december 19 i woke up knowing i would never be a child again good morning your honor
my name is peggy i never got over the thoughts that he might return that he may have kept track
of me after 42 years i still sleep with two phones and the keys on the bed when my husband is away
i still don't feel safe inside of a locked house your honor i'm gay hardwick as the court heard from the women
deangelo attacked joe d'angelo attacked us while we were sleeping he kidnapped me from my bed the men
deangelo victimized got their turn as well my name was robert hartwicken this is my beautiful wife gay
tied me up in darth vader i could do nothing and i was a victim because i would have
to live for the rest of my life knowing i was homeless d'angelo sat stone-faced throughout the
statements my name is jane carson-sandler d'angelo i want you to look at me deliberately never glancing in the
direction of his victims i may have been one of your victims d'angelo but you know what
now i'm a survivor thriver and i've had a great life i put my fears aside i finished my nursing degree at cal
state the same year of your attack and then i spent 30 years in the air force achieving the rank of colonel
today i am in the room with the pathetic excuse of a man who will now finally be held accountable for
his actions forty years in the making sherry domingo's daughter debbie finally got to
express her hope for her mother's killer if i had my way he would be shivering blindfolded naked
and exposed every moment from now on i'll settle for caged shackled humiliated michelle cruz's sister janelle was
deangelo's final murder victim from now on while he is withering away in prison i'll be spending my days fishing on the
river enjoying my family and grandchild eating out relaxing in the comfort of my
home for free i will be free of the fear he took me through for so long i am patricia cosper
joe raped my mom when i was seven the daughter of one of deangelo's victims had a special mention in her own
statement for a certain author who was on a mission until the end michelle mcnamara
crime rider didn't give up and law enforcement did not give up i see her as a survivor
because she got him caught her spirit survived after all these weeks voices had finally
fallen silent d'angelo himself found his i've listened all your statements each one of them
and i'm really sorry everyone ever thank you as the book closes on the golden state
killer a new chapter begins for the survivors and now finally the end of this trauma is here today
right now i start my new journey today the devil loses and justice wins today i am not just a broken survivor of
a cold case murder today i am a victor in the battle between good and evil we talk about our physical health she
was just a little spitfire there are 17 impact wounds it's passionate it's premeditated it's cold
must be some madman out there 48 hours next on cbs [Music]

Survivors confront the man known as The Golden State Killer, after his 40-year reign of terror. Correspondent Tracy Smith reports for "48 Hours." Watch more full episodes of "48 Hours" on Pluto TV.

Crime. Social justice. Impact. "48 Hours" investigates the most intriguing crime and justice cases that touch on all areas of the human experience including greed and passion. "48 Hours," which premiered in 1988, has developed a rich history of original reporting and impact journalism that has helped exonerate wrongly convicted people, caused cold cases to be reopened and solved, and along the way changed lives.

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Brief Summary

The episode details the Golden State Killer case, focusing on Michelle McNamara's investigation and the eventual capture of Joseph DeAngelo.

Key points

DNA Technology Breakthrough. In 1996, DNA technology provided a breakthrough in the cold case of Janelle Cruz.
The Golden State Killer Arrested. In April 2018, police arrested Joseph James DeAngelo, believed to be the Golden State Killer.
Survivors Speak Out. Victims and survivors share their stories during DeAngelo's sentencing hearing.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

I believe that it's time for his reign of terror to end.

31:41WatchAug 2, 2022

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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