74-Year-Old ​‘Golden State Killer’ Joseph DeAngelo Pleads Guilty to 13 Murders and Rapes, Gets 11 Life Sentences

Joseph James DeAngelo Jr. (pic­tured), the ​“Golden State Killer,” whom pros­e­cu­tors had one year ear­li­er held out as a ​“poster child for the death penal­ty,” has plead­ed guilty to 13 counts each of mur­der and rape in exchange for mul­ti­ple life sentences.

At a June 29, 2020 hear­ing, the 74-year-old for­mer police offi­cer admit­ted to a total of 161 crimes involv­ing 48 vic­tims, includ­ing dozens of rapes that could not be charged because the statute of lim­i­ta­tions on pros­e­cut­ing them had long ago expired. The hear­ing was con­duct­ed in a Sacramento State University ball­room con­vert­ed into a makeshift court­room to per­mit social dis­tanc­ing of the 150 peo­ple who attend­ed the proceedings.

Prosecutors from the six California coun­ties affect­ed by DeAngelo’s crime spree — who one year ear­li­er had used DeAngelo’s case to deride Governor Gavin Newsom’s deci­sion to declare a mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions in California —unan­i­mous­ly agreed to aban­don the death penal­ty in the case in favor of a plea deal under which DeAngelo will receive 11 life sen­tences. A for­mal sen­tenc­ing hear­ing is sched­uled for August 17.

On April 10, 2019, pros­e­cu­tors from the six coun­ties announced they would seek the death penal­ty against DeAngelo, whom DNA test­ing had linked to 13 mur­ders and at least 50 rapes in the 1970s and 1980s. They con­vened a press con­fer­ence the next day to attack the death penal­ty mora­to­ri­um, with Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer declar­ing that ​“Governor Newsom took a knife and stabbed all the vic­tims and all the vic­tims’ fam­i­lies in the heart.” Ron Harrington — whose broth­er was mur­dered and sis­ter-in-law was raped and mur­dered — called the accused Golden State Killer ​“the worst of the worst of the worst ever. He is the poster child for the death penalty.” 

The age of the crimes was a major fac­tor in the pros­e­cu­tors’ deci­sion to accept a plea deal and avoid the lengthy legal process of a death-penal­ty case. Many of the sur­viv­ing wit­ness­es were elder­ly and at increased risk from the COVID-19 virus if they par­tic­i­pat­ed in court pro­ceed­ings. Death-penal­ty crit­ics had argued that a cap­i­tal pros­e­cu­tion of DeAngelo would be a waste of court time and tax­pay­er mon­ey because he would cer­tain­ly die long before California’s decades-delayed cap­i­tal appeals process would be com­plet­ed. In addi­tion, inves­ti­ga­tors from the scan­dal-plagued Orange County sheriff’s office had report­ed­ly smug­gled 37 box­es and two bins of statewide evi­dence in the case out of the sheriff’s office in 2016, giv­ing them to a true-crime author and cre­at­ing poten­tial chain-of-cus­tody issues for the evi­dence if the case went to trial. 

At the hear­ing and in state­ments to the media after­wards, the pros­e­cu­tors stressed the impor­tance of jus­tice and clo­sure for vic­tims and their fam­i­lies, some who had wait­ed as long as 45 years. ​“The fam­i­ly mem­bers of mur­der vic­tims have wait­ed decades for jus­tice,” Sacramento County Deputy District Attorney Amy Holliday said. ​“The time for jus­tice stands in front of us now.” 

“This has been a very long jour­ney for jus­tice,” Sacramento County DA Anne Marie Schubert said, shar­ing the sto­ry of one mur­der victim’s sis­ter who said DeAngelo’s arrest brought her a sense of safe­ty she had lacked for decades. ​“After 32 years, she could final­ly unlock her bed­room door.” Schubert, who had co-authored an op-ed in April 2019 call­ing the death penal­ty mora­to­ri­um ​“a slap in the face to crime vic­tims and their fam­i­lies,” said “[t]he most com­pelling rea­son [to accept the plea agree­ment] was to pro­vide final­i­ty for all the vic­tims and their fam­i­lies.” Quoting Ventura County District Attorney Gregory Totten, Schubert said the plea deal means “‘Mr. DeAngelo will die in prison as a con­vict, not an accused.’”

Spitzer reit­er­at­ed his belief that DeAngelo was the ​“poster child” for the death penal­ty, but said he agreed to the plea deal because ​“all the fam­i­ly mem­bers of the four Orange County mur­der vic­tims … agreed this was the best thing.” Spitzer said that DeAngelo ​“nev­er would have admit­ted to the crimes” with­out the plea agree­ment and called the admis­sions ​“sig­nif­i­cant.”

DeAngelo had evad­ed arrest for more than three decades, but inves­ti­ga­tors used new foren­sic tech­niques to iden­ti­fy him in 2018. Using DNA from crime scenes, they found a dis­tant rel­a­tive in the DNA data­base of a geneal­o­gy web­site, then traced the fam­i­ly tree to DeAngelo. They con­firmed his iden­ti­ty with DNA sam­ples from his car door and a discarded tissue. 

While he was alone in a police inter­ro­ga­tion room, DeAngelo was record­ed con­fess­ing to the crimes. ​“I did all that,” he said. He con­tin­ued speak­ing, appar­ent­ly blam­ing the crimes on an alter­nate per­son­al­i­ty or inner demon. ​“I didn’t have the strength to push him out,” he said. ​“He made me. He went with me. It was like in my head, I mean, he’s a part of me. I didn’t want to do those things. I pushed Jerry out and had a hap­py life. I did all those things. I destroyed all their lives. So now I’ve got to pay the price.”