On April 18th, 2018, police arrested Joseph James James D'Angelo Jr., now known as the Golden State Killer. After four decades and advances in DNA technology, investigators were finally able to identify the serial rapist and killer. The grandfather, who was in the middle of cooking a roast that day, was finally going to be held accountable for his heinous crimes. Former cold case investigator Paul Holes had been waiting for this day to come for 24 years. He was integral in cracking the case and documents his experience tracking down Joseph DAngelo in his new book, Unmasked: My Life Solving America s Cold Cases.
00:01:52.800It was. And that's that's nice and humble of you to say.
00:01:55.740And it was a team effort. I know that's genuine.
00:01:57.800But you were the person who just couldn't pull yourself away from this thing long after other people were like, you know, it seems to have died off.
00:02:06.500Let's move on. Your family like, hey, would love to spend more time with you.
00:02:11.060You couldn't stop. And it's to your credit, because even though when he was finally found,
00:02:16.800he was 72 years old and we think had stopped the crime spree by then, we never would have known.
00:02:23.920There's it's important to know. And it gives us such insights into why and how and how we can attack new cases differently and so on.
00:02:31.640So before we kick it off, I just wanted to give you my own personal thanks and express to the audience how much we should appreciate what you and your colleagues did.
00:02:39.500I appreciate the kind words. Thank you very much.
00:02:42.160Of course. OK, so let's go. So wait, you look like such a young man, but you've been at this for so long.
00:02:48.800You can't be that young. Do you mind if I ask you how old you are?
00:02:54.460Yes, you're a baby. That's very, very young.
00:02:58.300You know, and I don't I don't know if you realize this, but you actually had a role at the end as we were closing in on D'Angelo.
00:03:05.760So wait, I know we covered this case on NBC and we spoke with the genealogist and then it was like then you guys caught him a month later after we did a big show on him.
00:03:17.140And we put back on the show. Yeah, I remember I was on the show with Jane Carson and Debbie Domingo.
00:03:24.140And I moved up my retirement date in order to fly out to New York to appear on the show.
00:03:30.300And I had already sat in front of his house.
00:03:32.180And later on that evening, I told these two victims, I think we're close.
00:21:55.460Because before the phone call, you didn't really have any evidence of that.
00:21:58.460No, and that phone call was, you know, at that time, you had occurred 17 years prior.
00:22:05.000You know, there's there's always a possibility he could have died or, you know, been in custody.
00:22:11.440But in taking a look at the age range, he likely was at the time he was committing these attacks.
00:22:20.380He most certainly was, you know, at an age that he easily could still be alive at the time that I made that statement.
00:22:29.100But also, in assessing this offender and him stopping, you know, 1986 that we know of, but I felt that he actually psychologically stopped in 1981 after the last Santa Barbara attack.
00:22:48.100I thought, no, this this is an offender that has stopped committing these crimes and is living a normal life.
00:22:55.640And just like the guy that I think is most similar to D'Angelo, Dennis Rader, BTK.
00:23:02.320You know, I felt the same thing that he just blended back into his life.
00:23:07.040He was getting older, knew he couldn't commit to these types of attacks anymore.
00:23:11.300Um, and, you know, the fact that after, what was that, 15 years after his last known attack, he reached out and contacted a victim.
00:23:24.260OK, this guy can go quiet for a long period of time.
00:23:28.520And that's where I kind of just put my eggs in that basket, going he's still alive.
00:23:33.820And quite frankly, he's still a threat to the public and we need to find him.
00:23:38.500It's just shocking to think that somebody this committed to this level of depravity could stop, could just turn it off one day.
00:23:47.640Yeah, and that's that's something, you know, the myth out there is that, you know, serial killers, once they start, they don't stop.
00:23:55.300But we've seen as some of these notorious serial killing cases have been solved.
00:24:26.500I thought I could have been hurt, killed or captured, and I didn't want any of that and I was getting older.
00:24:32.300And that's part of why I thought with D'Angelo, you know, in his last Santa Barbara attack in 1981, possibly stopped because he got into a physical fight with six foot three Gregory Sanchez.
00:24:44.580So as these cases have been solved, we're starting to see that there is the possibility that some of these offenders, not necessarily all, but some of them, after committing the most horrific crimes imaginable, have the ability to go ahead and start living a normal life that compartmentalize their past.
00:25:03.960They continue to fantasize about that.
00:25:32.980You know, but we were pretty confident Ken Clark from SAC Homicide, who was also, you know, part of the core East Area Rapist Task Force, a Golden State Killer Task Force.
00:25:44.580He's pretty sure that D'Angelo in 1973 was the Cordova cat burglar, you know, breaking into the houses while people were inside the houses in the very same neighborhood where the East Area Rapist starts up in 1976.
00:25:59.660I'm I know actually from a high school friend that called in after D'Angelo was arrested through my contacts with SAC DA's office.
00:26:10.560This friend said we used to commit burglaries as high schoolers in that very neighborhood.
00:26:15.000So D'Angelo has been committing crimes at least as far back as being a teenager.
00:26:21.840But my my point in raising the 30 to 40 year old range, which was 76 to 86, is that's you can see it like that's when a man would be probably at his strongest, you know, feeling his most confident.
00:26:34.140You get in your 40s, you know, things start to change a bit and you could see consistent with what you just told me, maybe the confidence level going down.
00:26:42.180Well, and as the East Area Rapist and even as the original Night Stalker, D'Angelo, his crimes were very physical.
00:26:49.300He liked to prowl around the houses and go through backyards and then move through neighborhoods by jumping fences.
00:26:56.960If he was being pursued and there's multiple times during the series in which law enforcement actually gets into, you know, foot pursuits with East Area Rapist, you know, he is running and jumping fences and is very adept at it.
00:27:13.160But, you know, I know, you know, now that I'm, you know, 54, I've gone through from the late 20s into my 30s being very physically capable.
00:27:21.520And as I got older, well, me jumping a fence today is going to be a lot more effort than when I was in my late 20s.
00:27:28.900So that's part of, you know, D'Angelo, you know, self-assessing.
00:27:34.840Can he continue to commit these crimes and and get away with them?
00:27:38.940And as he's getting older, the risk elevates because he's realizing he's no longer as physically capable.
00:27:45.380So because we just we did a show on the Zodiac Killer or who our guest believes is a Zodiac Killer.
00:27:51.800And we did a show on the D.C. snipers, you know, those two guys.
00:27:56.680And in both of those cases, it seemed pretty clear that the person wanted to be caught.
00:28:01.540And the Zodiac wasn't actually caught, but, you know, leaving clues and in the sniper case, you know, leaving clues, the tarot card, the notes and calling.
00:28:12.060Like, it just seemed like it was cat and mousy.
00:28:24.200You know, and I've I've actually looked into Zodiac.
00:28:27.560That, you know, Zodiac cases were in my backyard and I would drive by, you know, I would drive by, you know, the first Zodiac crime scene on my commute into work every day.
00:28:38.960So, you know, I'm very familiar with the Zodiac case.
00:28:42.700Now, Zodiac, you think about, you know, first the styles of attacks, you know, with the exception of Lake Berryessa and Napa.
00:28:52.420You know, he's he's like David Berkowitz out there in New York.
00:28:56.400He's walking up on young couples that are parked inside a car and shooting them.
00:29:01.980This is about as cowardly a type of crime that can be committed.
00:29:06.640But the communication is demonstrating sort of that narcissistic, ego driven attitude, just like BTK.
00:29:15.060BTK was communicating, you know, with law enforcement.
00:29:19.060And that's ultimately what got him caught.
00:29:24.520He probably communicated at times during the course of a series to law enforcement calling and dispatch.
00:29:31.320But he recognized that was too risky to him.
00:29:36.160And so when he is arrested and sitting in that interview room, he is so shocked that he got caught and so dejected.
00:29:46.080He just wanted to live out his life, not seeking notoriety like Zodiac or Raider was.
00:29:54.620Do you think if you hadn't caught him, he would have left a note, you know, and taken credit in that or he would have gone to his grave with a secret?
00:31:15.440And they seem to suffer from a God complex.
00:31:18.180I mean, the elder, you know, in particular, Mohammed, who was driving it, suffer from a God complex and really felt powerful in committing these murders.
00:31:27.500D'Angelo seems to have been driven by something very different.
00:31:34.220You know, it's very complicated in terms of assessing what his motive is true, you know, inner motive.
00:31:40.620Some of these killers, that God complex is very real.
00:31:45.260You know, they control if this person that they're attacking dies and when that person dies.
00:31:52.580And there's numerous examples of such as Samuel Little or even Jesperson, the smiley, happy face killer, where they would strangle these women to the point of unconsciousness and let them come back alive only to do it over and over again.
00:32:07.800And this is what they said, gave them that power.
00:32:11.620D'Angelo, there is a true there's a vindictiveness to him.
00:32:18.900There's also, you know, the sexual assault on these women.
00:32:23.800Many of these women was driven by sex.
00:32:27.320And that's that's it's often a misnomer that it's all about power and control.
00:32:31.940Now, there's a sexual aspect to why these offenders are attacking them.
00:32:37.020They have they have sexualized violence.
00:32:41.060But the vindictiveness is where I think it gets interesting because I truly believe that many of the couples were attacked because D'Angelo had some sort of interaction, prior interaction with the man and decided it was a negative thing and decided I'm going to come back and show you who I am.
00:33:02.520And basically took control over that man, emasculated that man and then took his wife or girlfriend out into the other room and sexually assaulted her.
00:33:58.180So you think about typical when we say a crime is staged, you know, this is where evidence has been changed at a crime scene in order to make, let's say, a homicide look like a suicide.
00:34:10.560So the the offender isn't, you know, draw the attention of the investigation of what D'Angelo was doing was making statements to these victims, knowing that they were going to talk to law enforcement.
00:34:27.320So he was planting seeds. And any time somebody stages a crime, whether it be the physical evidence or the verbal aspect, that is to try to push the investigation away from themselves.
00:34:41.860So D'Angelo would say certain things like, you know, as an example, you better not tell the cops you saw my van parked outside.
00:34:50.060And he said, man, over and over and over throughout the second half of the East Area Rapist series.
00:34:57.780Guarantee he never drove a van to any of these scenes. He's probably in a motorcycle, driving a motorcycle or another vehicle or, you know, I killed two people down in Bakersfield prior.
00:35:08.280You know, so he's trying to push. I've already killed, you know, down in Bakersfield. I'm going to do that to you.
00:35:14.400But he's also wanting the victim to relay that, you know, he is from the Bakersfield area, which he wasn't.
00:35:21.460And most notably, one prime example is when he's asking this victim where her husband was at that she said Roseville, which is just a city just north of Sacramento.
00:35:31.580He says he asks, where's Roseville? Like he doesn't know the area from out of town.
00:35:37.660Well, D'Angelo was a police intern for Roseville PD. So this shows how this staging was working in his mind to try to throw off the investigation again.
00:35:49.780I mean, absolutely cunning. That's why I asked you what level of smarts did this guy have?
00:35:54.820Because he sounds, I don't want to say brilliant, but he sounds very intelligent.
00:35:59.580It's interesting to hear you say, not really. It's just he studied this particular field.
00:36:05.440He worked in this particular field and he made himself a bit of an expert in how to misdirect.
00:36:12.040No, absolutely. You know, he's not, you know, he's not going to score off the charts on an IQ test, but I'm not saying he's done.
00:36:20.900You know, I would say probably to anybody, he's of average intellect based on just me kind of assessing him as a person.
00:36:27.980But as a criminal, as a predator, he is, he's savvy. And I think you use the term cunning. Absolutely.
00:36:36.740And he was trained. He was a law enforcement officer and he was smart enough to draw upon that training and those tools in order to be a better criminal, a better predator.
00:36:47.540Now, those investigating him did suspect law enforcement ties, right?
00:36:54.240Like there was enough proficiency at the crime scenes that I've heard some of the former investigators say, yes, we did wonder whether he could have a connection to law enforcement or possibly a military background, which he also did have.
00:37:09.400If I'm not mistaken, he was a 27-year-old Navy veteran in 1973. He served in the Navy.
00:37:19.180He served in the Navy back in the 60s. He never, it was during Vietnam War, but he never saw combat. He was on a ship.
00:37:26.640But over the decades, there was always suspects that came up that were law enforcement or military.
00:37:35.220And there was some thought, you know, could he have that type of background?
00:37:41.460I took the position that because of, and this was kind of later during my investigation, once I kind of was like, aha, I know I've got a better read on who this offender is now.
00:37:55.420That the position I took was that the tactics he was employing would be tactics that an intelligent offender would naturally want to do to try to prevent themselves from being caught.
00:38:10.040I could not say, you know, that for sure, anything he did demonstrated specialized military training or law enforcement training.
00:38:20.200It just was, he doesn't want to get caught and he's employing those, those strategies.
00:38:26.280Like he wore gloves at every crime scene, right? That we didn't do very well on the fingerprints.
00:38:31.120He always wore gloves. He would take the gloves off, you know, when he's sexually assaulting the women from time to time.
00:38:40.260But we don't have any latents across any of the cases that have matched back to D'Angelo.
00:38:45.380Of course, every house that you process have latent prints all over.
00:38:49.620So it's kind of tough to say, you know, leading into the identification of D'Angelo, whether you have the offender's print or not.
00:38:56.460But it turns out, no, you know, he never left a print that we were able to tie back to him once he was caught.
00:39:03.360But he's also, you know, back in the back in the 70s, you know, he's wearing a ski mask all the time.
00:39:09.000But even while wearing a ski mask so they couldn't see his face, he's shining a flashlight in the victim's eyes, blinding them.
00:39:15.760And he's telling them, don't look at me or I'll kill you.
00:39:18.680So he's put in multiple, you know, layers to prevent the victims from seeing his face.
00:39:26.400So that's, you know, part of my entire pursuit of him.
00:39:30.860I only knew this this guy as a as a masked man.
00:39:35.380And then finally, once D'Angelo was identified and he's in handcuffs walking into Sacramento homicide, it was like, well, there you go.
00:39:42.620You know, I've unmasked him and that's what he looks like.
00:39:45.460So that's, you know, he for the types of evidence that could identify him and the types of witness statements that could produce a composite for back in the day, he prevented all that from happening.
00:40:01.940What he didn't prevent and didn't know about was, you know, he was leaving his DNA all over the place.
00:40:08.060Oh, yeah. No, we'll get to that. We'll get to the DNA in just a bit.
00:40:11.280But how do we have composite sketches of him then?
00:40:14.380You know, I remember when they arrested him, the D.A. was standing next to three of them, which showed a younger D'Angelo in sketch artist form.
00:40:24.180Yeah, all of those composites that were produced back in the day were produced by neighbors that saw strange men walking in the neighborhood.
00:40:33.680I can't say that any of those composites are actually D'Angelo today.
00:40:39.400Some of them may look close to D'Angelo, but I have no confidence in any of those composites.
00:40:45.480I did wonder, because as you describe him jumping over the fences and racing around in people's backyards, and I remember you saying once that he liked neighborhoods that had mostly one-story houses.
00:40:58.580He wasn't a big fan of the two-story houses.
00:41:01.240My question was, why didn't the neighbors see him?
00:41:32.240Some victims he's in a neighborhood prowling and runs across them.
00:41:35.820Some victims he may have had an interaction with and decided that they fit his needs.
00:41:41.200But he did choose neighborhoods that had certain characteristics that would minimize the threat of him being seen.
00:41:52.100And that very first neighborhood that he attacks in, in June of 76, in Rancho Cordova, this Cordova Meadows neighborhood, single-story houses, you know, five-foot fences, which are relatively easy to get up and over.
00:42:06.540There was no streetlights in that neighborhood.
00:42:09.880The houses, the windows on the houses and between the houses were situated to where he could easily just walk between these houses.
00:43:17.760I mean, just like what are your thoughts on that, the general safety aspect of that?
00:43:21.640Well, you know, it is it's tough comparing today to the 1970s in terms of, you know, how are these offenders going to be attacking?
00:43:33.040You know, most certainly with with my kids, you know, going to college, avoid, you know, the first floor, you know, where there's a first floor window or the doors right there.
00:43:49.260You know, it's just offenders today have to do different things in order to be able to attack victims.
00:43:57.520It's relatively rare to see a predator consistently breaking into houses over and over again and getting away with it for any period of time just due to technology, surveillance systems.
00:44:12.400And, yeah, you know, so there's so much that really limits the type of series that D'Angelo is doing.
00:44:20.980But predators are now doing different things.
00:44:23.540You know, in the 90s, in my jurisdiction, you know, they really grabbed the serial predator was gravitating towards the sex workers because now these women are voluntarily getting into their cars.
00:44:34.620But then eventually, once the stroll area started to dry up out of fear, then they go online.
00:44:40.560You know, now you have the Craigslist killer or the escort services where they call in and then they have the victim meet them someplace where they have now isolated that victim.
00:44:49.840You know, so that's part of how the predator is evolving based on how technology and security consciousness has changed.
00:45:06.420So he committed several rapes and he, as you point out, he had studied criminal justice.
00:45:12.400He got a criminal justice degree from California State University.
00:45:14.820And it seems to me he was actually he was a cop when he was committing the rapes and even what the first two murders, he was still an active duty police officer.
00:46:13.420It isn't until after all those attacks, when he gets arrested for shoplifting and he's put on administrative leave and then ultimately terminating, does he go down south?
00:46:26.140And every attack after that, he is wanting to kill or does kill his victims.
00:46:31.540So that change from, you know, having authority as a law enforcement officer going down south where that authority has been stripped, you know, now he becomes a serial killer.
00:49:51.660He's going to, you know, spatter their brains all over the wall if they don't do what he says.
00:49:56.140And he tosses bindings to the woman and makes her tie up the man face down in the bed.
00:50:04.180And then he goes and ties the woman up once the man is somewhat secure.
00:50:08.300And then ultimately, you know, he would go out and get dishes and put dishes on the man's back as an alarm system and tell the man if he heard, if D'Angelo heard these rattle, he would kill everything in the house would be a common phrase.
00:50:20.180Or cut off a piece of his wife and bring it back to him or, you know, cut off the fingers of the kids, whatever.
00:50:26.580And then he would take the woman out into the family room and sexually assault her.
00:50:30.800He was challenged by that Sacramento Bee article.
00:50:34.180But the interesting thing is, is that he proves in that very first attack with a man present, he could do it.
00:50:41.000But then two-thirds of the attacks from that point on have men present.
00:50:47.180So this really underscores that that victimology is something that satisfied him.
00:50:55.180He really liked the idea of having that power and control over the man while he is being able to sexually assault that man's wife or girlfriend.
00:51:04.240And so this is where it gets interesting from a psychological standpoint, is he didn't start doing that.
00:51:11.280But think about the risk he was taking to break into a house that has an entire family there, a man present.
00:51:19.860Oftentimes, these men had guns nearby.
00:51:22.380And yet he's willing to take that risk in order to be able to commit to this style of crime.
00:51:29.320So I believe internally, he realized, I get more personally out of attacking with a man present than just sexually assaulting a lone female.
00:51:43.060And the thing with the dishes is bizarre, too.
00:51:45.880I mean, it was his alarm system, as you point out.
00:51:47.800Like, if he heard the rattling, he threatened to escalate it.
00:51:52.020And as far as I understand, all the victims complied with that.
00:51:55.340I mean, they took him very seriously, and they tried not to rattle those dishes.
00:51:59.320But D'Angelo was so commanding and threatening.
00:52:05.340All these males ended up saying, you know, I had no choice.
00:52:10.480You know, my fear was if the male tried to struggle against his bindings and the dishes rattled, that he would harm their wife or girlfriend.
00:52:19.160There were times when the men would get uncomfortable because it is very uncomfortable.
00:52:22.780You know, their hands would hurt from the tight bindings.
00:52:25.940Their ankles would hurt from the bindings.
00:52:31.760And there were several times when the men would shift with this alarm system of dishes on their back, and the dishes would rattle or fall.
00:52:39.280And D'Angelo was immediately in that room with a gun to the back of the man's head.
00:52:44.580And he would cock the hammer and say, do that again, and I'll kill you.
00:52:49.400So these men were helpless at this point.
00:52:54.280They had no control over what was going to happen to them or their wife.
00:52:58.400The only thing that they could control was, I have to stay still.
00:53:02.480And this is part of something I've been very outspoken about is, you know, of course, all these women that were sexually assaulted, you know, extraordinarily traumatized.
00:53:13.200But a lot of people forget about the victimization of the man.
00:53:19.560These men, I interviewed several of the men, and I had several of these men crying, either on the phone or in front of me, face to face.
00:53:35.760You think about just remove the sexual assault and the woman out of the crime and just think about a masked man breaking into a house, tying a man up, putting a gun to the back of his head and pulling the hammer back and saying, I'm going to kill you.
00:53:50.460In many states, that practically can qualify as a life sentence in terms of the type of crime.
00:53:57.280You know, so this is a serious crime in and of itself.
00:54:11.260In fact, one man in Danville, California, who was a very large man relative to D'Angelo, you know, D'Angelo could tell this man was not liking, you know, liking the predicament, wanting to do something.
00:54:25.400And D'Angelo tells him, essentially, you don't like this, do you?
00:54:31.500Well, there's nothing you can do about it.
00:54:34.080You know, so this is where D'Angelo is expressing that he has power and control over that man.
00:54:42.120And then that's what, you know, victimizing these couples gave him, because now he was basically asserting himself as being more of a man than these men who were victims.
00:54:53.600Well, it makes sense from his perspective, because otherwise he would just kill the man.
00:54:58.140I mean, I'm understanding it better listening to you, because one of my questions is, why didn't he just kill the men?
00:55:06.360He didn't want to just end it for them.
00:55:08.180No, and that goes to, you know, this is where the sadistic aspect of him, you know, that getting gratification out of the suffering of others, you know, it's psychological.
00:55:22.100I mean, he wasn't beating these men, you know, he wasn't doing anything that was physically going to hurt them.
00:55:29.220But he was instilling fear, as he was doing with the women.
00:55:35.280So, you know, this is where he is a complex offender from a psychological standpoint.
00:55:41.240And when he goes down south, and he's starting to kill, and it's really when he's bludgeoning the couples to death, the evolution gets to where he is, in essence, he's taking control of the man, but then likely killing that man very early in the attack to minimize that threat.
00:56:01.860And so he changed in terms of what he needed to get out of the crime, the fantasy of the crime, once he is a full-blown killer.
00:56:13.860But now, Abe, so before we get to that, you mentioned he lost his cop job around that time, before he moved down south, and he lost it.
00:56:22.380It's such a weird story that he explained what he did, and like, why would he do this?
00:56:30.140You know, this well-trained criminal who had managed to avoid capture and all these other crimes.
00:57:14.920So, now they are investigating the shoplifting, and during their internal affairs investigation, they go inside D'Angelo's house, which was up in Auburn at the time.
00:57:27.340And the police chief told me, we found all sorts of stolen commercial property, like power tools still in their, you know, boxes.
00:57:37.200Like, he had just taken them out of a store, but had never opened them up or tried to sell them.
00:57:43.240But that was never, you know, part of the case in chief.
00:58:42.380You know, and that is really, you know, you talk about Winona Ryder case, you know, that psychology really is also kind of a foundational psychology for D'Angelo doing that kind of thing, as well as escalating up into committing the burglaries.
00:59:00.100And then he's recognizing he's got fantasies of committing violence against people, which now takes him out, you know, well above the psychology of Winona Ryder.
00:59:28.180Well, this is where when I, you know, we were marching down on genealogy and D'Angelo's name came up.
00:59:35.140And, you know, I was skeptical that this full-time police officer could commit all these crimes across Northern California, like the East Area Rapists did.
00:59:46.320I end up tracking down the police chief that fired D'Angelo, Nick Willick.
00:59:51.780And Nick, you know, was telling me about, you know, Nick was the one that was D'Angelo's sergeant when D'Angelo first, you know, came on board up in Auburn, but also ultimately became the police chief and was chief when D'Angelo shoplifted.
01:00:07.320So Nick is the one that put D'Angelo on administrative leave and started the IA investigation.
01:00:14.820And while D'Angelo is on admin leave, Nick told me the story that during this period of time, which would have been in that July, August 1979 timeframe, he's asleep in his house and his daughter comes into his room and says,
01:00:37.460Dad, there's a man standing outside my window, shining a flashlight into him.
01:00:42.940And Nick goes, Paul, I rabbited out of my bed and went outside and I could see shoe impressions in the dirt all around the perimeter of the back of my house.
01:00:53.980And he goes, I know for sure that was D'Angelo.
01:00:57.400Now, he didn't identify D'Angelo, but he was confident that that was D'Angelo.
01:01:02.220And when I'm talking to Nick, I'm not letting him know I'm looking at the East Area Rapist or Golden State Killer case.
01:01:07.640And once I heard that, I mean, that was where, you know, basically the hairs on my arm stood up and I was like, yeah, that's exactly what the Golden State Killer would do if he was being terminated by his employers.
01:01:23.560That vindictive aspect. I'll show you who I am.
01:01:28.360That's really when I started to turn about D'Angelo and his potential to be the Golden State Killer.
01:01:36.700It doesn't mean he was, but it was like, wow, that was D'Angelo.
01:01:40.000Because he was on he was on your suspects list. Is that what you're saying? But you didn't you had a lot of people on your suspects list.
01:01:45.380Well, at this point, you know, we were working the genealogy angle and his name came up and I had just eliminated a guy in Colorado or the team had just eliminated a guy in Colorado.
01:01:59.100And that's when I turned to D'Angelo going, well, I might as well look at this this former cop.
01:02:04.620And as I dug in, you know, I try to reach out to Bonnie and researching and I'm visiting all sorts of things where he had.
01:02:12.580But when I talked to that police chief, this is a big phone call. I was just checking a box.
01:02:18.580It's so painful. It's so painful, Paul, because it's like, I'm sure this poor cop is just kicking himself for not looking into it more back then.
01:02:28.580I mean, how could he know? Right. But it's like those missed opportunities.
01:02:33.320Yes. Yeah. No, you know, and that's just that is there is no way he could have at that point in time because D'Angelo shoplifted that he should be considered.
01:02:43.280And and I know there are probably that the chief received some public criticism after D'Angelo was arrested as a Golden State killer.
01:02:49.580And I publicly said, absolutely not. You know, basically, he did what he could do to D'Angelo based on the facts.
01:02:56.460And there's just no connection between the shoplifting and the East Area rapist attacks that that chief could have even put to it.
01:03:05.340I'm talking about the moment that he he saw somebody had come outside of his house and had shined the light in at his daughter, you know, like, again, not in any way blaming the guy, but it's just like, oh, God, what if he had followed up?
01:03:19.120What if he had all these moments in time you'd like to go back to and have another look at?
01:03:25.120Yeah, no, sure. Absolutely. I mean, and that was part, you know, D'Angelo is very good at what he did.
01:03:31.440And that is the primaries why he his series was as long as as it was.
01:03:39.140But there were multiple times within the series where he just flat out got lucky.
01:03:44.400And that was one of those times. Yes. Right.
01:03:47.560So now he goes south in California and he escalates to just murdering.
01:03:53.460And when he started just murdering couples, what did he get rid of the sexual assault altogether?
01:03:59.980No, he still still sexually assaulted the women.
01:04:04.200There's only one attack. Well, two attacks down in Southern California where we don't have his DNA.
01:04:10.720And that's the first attack that went sideways, where basically he's being chased by the off-duty FBI agent in Valida.
01:04:18.100And then the second attack, which also happened in almost that same neighborhood, in which it appears that the male slipped his bindings and got up and rushed him.
01:04:29.100And D'Angelo had to shoot the male, you know, out of, if you want to call it self-defense, and then went over and shot the female in the top of the head while she laid face down on the bed and ran off.
01:04:42.620So because that attack also kind of went sideways on him, he never got to the stage of sexually assaulting.
01:04:50.820But down in Ventura, the next attack, and every attack after that, he is sexually assaulting the women and also killing the women and men in the cases where men are present.
01:05:04.320So that, and that's where it stood, straight through to 1986.
01:05:28.320His, at the time of the last attack, his wife was two months pregnant with their second daughter, I believe.
01:05:35.920And, you know, ultimately, they are back up in, up in Citrus Heights, you know, living in the house where he was arrested back in 2018.
01:05:49.320So it wasn't becoming a father, necessarily, because he was already a dad at the time his wife got pregnant, you know, with their second child, obviously.
01:05:57.020Right, you know, in fact, so the second to last attack in July of 1981 in Santa Barbara, Gregory Sanchez and Sherry Domingo, his wife is, you know, seven months pregnant with their first daughter, you know, and then he commits this attack at five years go by, and we have nothing in those five years.
01:06:15.040And then we have May of 1986 in Irvine, that's when he bludgeons 19-year-old Janelle Cruz to death, and his wife's pregnant again, seven months pregnant with the second daughter.
01:06:30.880Then they have a third daughter, and no idea, you know, from, you know, why is he not doing anything, you know?
01:06:41.720But as we talked earlier, at 1986, he's 41 years old, so now he's getting older as an offender.
01:06:51.820His life circumstances have changed, you know, he's got two daughters moving back up to Sacramento's.
01:06:59.080I think, you know, this is where he is really slipping back, he's slipping into that mindset, I've got to put the serial predator part of me aside,
01:07:07.940and I'm now going to be, you know, a father, a provider, and then ultimately, you know, he's just becoming a truck mechanic and enjoying life.
01:07:38.000His wife was an attorney, and I forget exactly when she actually starts making, you know, money versus going to school.
01:07:47.180But he may have been living off of her for a period of time.
01:07:51.380Now, I believe that there's enough evidence to suggest that D'Angelo, even as East Area Rapist, was moonlighting as a security guard on construction job sites.
01:08:05.360And now I've had a relative from down south indicate that when D'Angelo is living in Long Beach, seeing, you know, a couple of security guard style shirts, as well as a gun and a holster hanging in D'Angelo's residence.
01:08:22.760So I think he's probably still doing security work, which would make sense psychologically for him, because now he still has sort of that, you know, that power and authority that he had as a full-blown peace officer, but just not quite there.
01:08:37.800I thought he worked at a grocery store.
01:08:39.820And that may be something that I just don't know about.
01:08:42.960And one of the things that I did after this case was solved, I was so burnt, I literally pushed away.
01:08:49.300And I know there's been a lot of investigation into D'Angelo since.
01:08:53.800And there may be some aspects of D'Angelo that I have not been updated on.
01:09:00.140I want to get into how you caught him, because that's probably I don't know if it's the most interesting, but it's one of the most interesting things of the story.
01:09:05.520But before we do that, can I just ask you a couple of psychological issues on him?
01:09:08.800I know in one of the attacks, he the victim survived because this is how we know this.
01:09:14.040He sat at the end of the bed and started crying and talking about his mommy, like mommy.
01:10:01.000And at one point, I almost see him looking like he's about to cry and he's talking to himself.
01:10:06.380And then his neighbors would say that, you know, Joe, crazy Joe would be talking to himself.
01:10:11.880So I think it is possible that, you know, at a certain point in these attacks, some of the statements he's making to himself is what he does.
01:10:22.840And the crime from a psychological standpoint, an interesting aspect about D'Angelo is I'm not sure he would be characterized as a true psychopath.
01:10:41.980I saw enough acts that he did to his living victims over the course of 50 attacks where I'm going, you know what?
01:10:48.480He is he is showing that he is caring about how these victims are feeling.
01:10:53.560And part of it is M.O., if he if they are getting uncomfortable because they're getting cold, you know, because sometimes they complain about being cold.
01:11:01.000You put a blanket on him, a pillow under their head.
01:11:04.160Is this just to keep them appeased so they don't become a problem?
01:11:08.080Or is he actually truly, you know, showing a level of empathy?
01:11:12.800And if that's the case, then I question whether he's a psychopath.
01:11:16.300And then at as time went up, went on during the series, it almost looked like he was struggling with what he was doing.
01:11:25.620It wasn't it was almost like he was compelled to do these attacks, but knew internally, I don't want to I don't want to do this.
01:11:32.900And then after the attack, that's when this emotional release would happen and the crying would happen.
01:11:39.800What what about his wife and his daughters?
01:13:53.480I've said, you know, you know, they really are victims of his, you know, and it's so sad.
01:14:02.140And, you know, what's what's pitiful is that they've received death threats, you know, and it's like they have nothing to do with what D'Angelo did.
01:14:10.280He is solely responsible for these attacks.
01:14:13.200And, you know, now these two two girls are having to figure out how their life is going to to work moving forward.
01:14:58.400You know, and I would say 1991 is probably, you know, whatever happened in 91 that caused them to separate is probably just the tip of the iceberg in terms of D'Angelo and Sharon's relationship.
01:15:10.620Well, did Bonnie shed any light on weird sexual predilections with, you know, anything about that?
01:15:18.760So, you know, outside of his ability to be able to repeatedly have sex in a very short timeframe, that was really the only thing that she brought up that seemed to really stand out to her.
01:15:40.620Which is consistent with what happened during these crimes.
01:15:43.740It wasn't just one rape and he was out of there.
01:15:45.720He repeatedly assaulted the women sexually.
01:15:50.420You know, and sometimes, you know, sometimes these attacks would last over the course of hours, but sometimes he's repeatedly sexually assaulting, you know, to the point of ejaculation within a very short timeframe.
01:16:03.040So there is some consistency from a physical aspect with what Bonnie's recollection of their interactions were like.
01:16:09.560But she does not, she does not remember anything that would indicate that he enjoyed violence, you know, during the course of sex.
01:16:21.740And quite frankly, D'Angelo, when he's sexually assaulting these women, obviously it's an act of violence, but he is not the type of a rapist that is punching these women as he's having sex with them.
01:16:37.620He's only striking them when they fight him back.
01:16:41.940And there are times when it appears that he's enjoying and engaging in more of a consensual type of sexual encounter than an actual rape where he's making the woman put high heel shoes on and having her straddle him while he's up on the sofa.
01:16:57.900Like he's living out a fantasy of being with her versus, you know, these really assertive rapists that are using derogatory terms and striking the women or holding knives against their throats, you know, outside of having to control these, doing things to control the women.
01:17:21.960And I don't know if there are any lessons that we can extrapolate because every crime is different, but I want one.
01:17:27.100You know, I want one for myself and for my loved ones and for all the people out there.
01:17:31.960Is there any lesson from this series of murders on don't comply, you know, run, scream or no?
01:17:40.580Because it seems like whatever you did with this guy, it was going to end badly.
01:17:46.960Yeah, you know, this is and I've been asked this type of question, like I'll talk at Citizens Academies and the women will say, well, what do I do?
01:19:12.480Once the woman goes limp, he's not getting what he wants.
01:19:17.740So my recommendation is always fight, fight, fight.
01:19:21.460But if that is not working, if this guy is too powerful and he just seems to be amping up the more you fight, just briefly, you know, do the opposite.
01:19:55.100I tell my kids if somebody grabs them and starts, you know, pulling them to a vehicle, you know, and they I don't care if they've got a gun or a knife, you know, you do everything to prevent yourself from getting to that vehicle.
01:20:06.980You know, doesn't mean being shot or stabbed there is going to be so much better than what they're going to do to you.
01:20:15.360Once they get you to the location they want to take.
01:20:23.000His childhood, you know, what do we know, abuse, sexual abuse, torture, like what happened during his childhood?
01:20:31.400You know, I don't have a lot of information on his childhood and I don't think there's a ton of information out there.
01:20:40.740What we do know was when his dad was military stationed over in Germany and D'Angelo and his younger sister, Connie, were walking and two soldiers abduct them.
01:20:56.020And D'Angelo watches these two soldiers rape his sister.
01:21:25.780She, I think, was 19 and he's, you know, in his 20s.
01:21:29.780But she knew, you know, his, uh, his mom.
01:21:33.020And I think at this time it's his, uh, his stepdad and she said, uh, didn't see anything that was really alarming.
01:21:40.360You know, his mom was one of the sweetest persons that she had ever met.
01:21:43.920Uh, and so it wasn't like that prototypical, you know, the, uh, you know, the, uh, overbearing mother and the, you know, drunk, alcoholic, abusive father.
01:21:53.480Bonnie didn't see that at this point in D'Angelo's life.
02:00:32.240He, do you think we'll ever know more?
02:00:35.100He has been contacted, of course, by numerous individuals, outlets, you know, to come in and talk to him.
02:00:48.300And he's refused every single request.
02:00:52.060There is hope that maybe he will talk to select individuals from the investigation under certain circumstances.
02:01:02.540And that's something that we're talking about, and Marie Schubert, myself, as time goes on.
02:01:11.540Um, and, and I hope we get that opportunity because, you know, there is knowledge to be gained by law enforcement and by the community with what he knows about reasons for his attack and how he committed these attacks.
02:01:29.700But I don't know when, when that's going to occur, if it's going to occur and, you know, he's, he's not getting any younger and quite frankly, he's probably the number one target in the nation in the prison system for other inmates.
02:01:43.940So I just hope the prison system does keep him safe, even though that seems contradictory, you know, from considering the horror of the crimes that he, he, he, uh, he committed.
02:01:55.220But I, I, I really do want to have a chance to talk to him, or I hope somebody gets a chance to talk to him eventually.
02:03:02.120Well, my retirement hasn't gone the way I thought it was going to go.
02:03:05.920Um, so, you know, I obviously have gotten very involved on the media side of things, uh, both TV as well as podcasting.
02:03:16.120Um, um, and I'm pursuing those opportunities and, and I really, in many ways, they keep me involved because I focus in on projects where I can help out on the case.
02:03:29.740I can help law enforcement, uh, you know, consult and not just tell a story, you know, and that's, uh, I, that's going to be my goal moving forward is to continue to take on projects where, you know, let's see if we can get other family members answers as to what happened.
02:03:44.420Hmm. I, I don't see you just doing golf and fishing and skiing, but it would be nice given the way you've lived, if you could get a bit more of that into your day.
02:03:56.240I, I, well, I, you know, out here in Colorado, you know, I've, I've taken up mountain biking.
02:04:01.480I've got a Jeep where I can go out into the back country and, and what I call my dandelion brakes, where I just kind of get away.
02:04:08.240Um, but I've been so pulled in so many directions that, you know, those instances of that type of, uh, activity are few and far between.
02:04:17.160Okay. Paul, what a pleasure. Thank you so much for being here and for telling us the story.
02:04:22.800Well, thank you very much for having me.
02:04:25.660And don't forget, I want our audience to go buy your book, support you in your retirement. You've earned it.
02:04:30.740The book is called Unmasked, uh, and it is absolutely riveting. My team read it and I'm in the process of reading it.
02:04:37.440And you will not be sorry that you picked this one up. Thanks again.
02:04:40.240What an incredible journey and a testament to Paul and all the others who worked so tirelessly on this case.
02:04:48.020Thanks to all of you for listening. Uh, we're going to be back with you again soon.
02:04:51.940Just a little vacay for yours truly. And, uh, until then you can find all of our shows at youtube.com slash
02:04:59.160Megan Kelly, or you can download the podcast on Apple, Spotify, Pandora, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts for free.
02:05:06.020I'll continue to read your comments on Apple. So let me know your thoughts. All the best.
02:05:13.420Thanks for listening to the Megan Kelly show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear.