These are the crimes DeAngelo pleaded guilty to in Golden State Killer case
Joseph James DeAngelo Jr., a former police officer, faces 13 rape-related charges and 13 murder counts stemming from crimes in the 1970s and 1980s across six counties in California.
He is expected to enter a guilty plea during a hearing Monday. Authorities allege the 74-year-old is the elusive Golden State Killer, also known during the crime sprees by nicknames including the East Area Rapist and Visalia Ransacker.
The charges linked to rapes were filed as kidnappings to commit robberies because the statute of limitations for sexual assaults has expired. Here are the charges that have been consolidated into one proceeding in Sacramento; a full timeline of his alleged crimes follows.
Contra Costa County
Four counts of kidnapping to commit robbery using a gun and knife between Oct. 7, 1978, and June 11, 1979, with the victims identified as Jane Does numbers 10-13.
Orange County
Four counts of murder in the Aug. 21, 1980, slaying of Keith Harrington, 24, and rape and slaying of Patrice Harrington, 27, of Dana Point; the Feb. 6, 1981, rape and slaying of Manuela Witthuhn, 28, of Irvine; and the May 5, 1986, rape and slaying of Janelle Cruz, 18, of Irvine.
The Harringtons were newlyweds found bludgeoned to death in their home on Cockleshell Drive in the Niguel Shores gated community in Dana Point. Keith, a med student at UC Irvine, and Patrice, a nurse, were bound at the wrist and ankles by an attacker dubbed the Original Night Stalker.
Witthuhn was sexually assaulted before being bludgeoned to death. Blood at the scene was eventually linked to the Night Stalker.
Cruz is the last known victim in the Golden State Killer’s spree after a five-year crime hiatus. After a friend left Cruz at her home while her family vacationed in Mexico, the attacker raped Cruz before bludgeoning her with a pipe wrench. The next day, a real estate agent who had planned to show the home to potential buyers found the teenager in her bed.
Sacramento County
Two counts of murder in the Feb. 2, 1978, shootings of Kate Maggoire, 20, and Brian Maggoire, 21, in Rancho Cordova. Nine counts of kidnapping to commit robbery using a gun and knife between Sept. 4, 1976, and Oct. 21, 1977, with the victims identified as Jane Does numbers 1-9.
The Maggiores were walking their dog about 9 p.m., in the neighborhood near their apartment on LaVerta Court. During their walk, they encountered a man and ended up in the backyard of a residence in the 10100 block of La Gloria Drive, according to the sheriff’s department.
The encounter turned violent and the couple fled through a blown-down fence into the rear yard of a home in the 10100 block of La Alegria Drive, the street immediately to the north. They were each shot and died of their wounds at a nearby hospital.
Santa Barbara County
Four counts of murder in the Dec. 30, 1979, rape and slaying of Debra Manning, 35, and slaying of Robert Offerman, 44, of Goleta, and in the July 27, 1981, slaying of Gregory Sanchez, 27, and Cheri Domingo, 35, of Goleta.
Manning was a Goleta Valley orthopedic surgeon who was getting a divorce and was dating recently divorced Santa Maria clinical psychologist Offerman. They were found shot to death in a bedroom of his condominium. Neighbors had heard shots, a sheriff’s deputy said at the time, but didn’t report them, thinking they were holiday firecrackers. The crime was discovered by a friend who came to Offerman’s residence to keep a tennis date. This was the East Area Rapist’s first successful attack in Southern California.
DeAngelo allegedly returned to the area two years later and killed Sanchez and Domingo, who were brutally murdered after being tied up. The couple was beaten so badly that detectives were initially unsure of their identities. Sanchez suffered a nonfatal gunshot wound to the cheek before being bludgeoned with a garden tool. Domingo was raped before being killed.
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Tulare County
One count of murder in the Sept. 11, 1975, slaying of college professor Claude Snelling, 45, during an attempted kidnapping of the victim’s daughter from their Visalia home.
Snelling, 45 and a journalism professor at College of the Sequoias, was awakened in the middle of the night by a noise.
He went outside toward his carport, where he saw a man in a ski mask trying to abduct his 16-year-old daughter. Snelling was shot trying to save the girl, and the assailant escaped on a bicycle that had been stolen two nights earlier. It was found a block away from the scene of the slaying.
Visalia police spent years trying to solve the case, and always thought it was tied to the “Visalia Ransacker,” a burglar who would steal odd items or move things around a victim’s home, according to a 2017 Fresno Bee story detailing the mystery.
DeAngelo had a history in the Visalia area, serving as a police officer in Exeter from 1973 until 1976 while the “Ransacker” crimes were being committed in Visalia about 11 miles away.
Ventura County
Two counts of murder in the rape and slaying of Charlene Smith, 33, and slaying of Lyman Smith, 43, of Ventura between March 13 and March 16, 1980.
Lyman Smith, a graduate of San Juan High School in Citrus Heights, was about to be named a Ventura County Superior Court judge when DeAngelo allegedly broke into the couple’s home and tied them up with a drapery cord. The unusual pattern in which the attacker bound their hands earned him the nickname the Diamond Knot Killer.
The killer then raped Charlene before bludgeoning the two of them to death in their bed with a log from the fireplace.
Both Lyman, 43, and Charlene, 33, had had extramarital affairs, and Charlene’s lover was initially considered a suspect in their murders, according to the Santa Paula Times. DNA samples later tied the Smiths’ murders to other killings in Southern California about the same time. Years later, investigators would conclude the Diamond Knot Killer, the Original Night Stalker and the East Area Rapist were one and the same.
The Smiths were found a few days later by Lyman’s 12-year-old son, Gary, who had come over from his mother’s house to mow the lawn, according to an Associated Press story at that time.
Timeline of the crimes
June 18, 1976: Rape in Rancho Cordova. The victim said he jumped on her bed with a ski mask and a knife, then took some money and jewelry before leaving.
July 17, 1976: Rape in Carmichael’s Del Dayo neighborhood.
August 29, 1976: Rape in Rancho Cordova.
September 4, 1976: Rape in Citrus Heights.
October 5, 1976: Rape in Citrus Heights. The victim, Jane Carson-Sandler, later discussed the attack in detail with The Island Packet newspaper in South Carolina.
October 9: 1976: Rape in Carmichael’s Del Dayo neighborhood.
October 18, 1976: Rape in Carmichael’s Del Dayo neighborhood.
October 18, 1976: Rape in Rancho Cordova. Law enforcement publicly announced their hunt for the East Area Rapist at this point, and offered the first reward for information leading to his arrest — $2,500.
November 10, 1976: Rape near Greenback Lane in Citrus Heights.
December 18, 1976: Rape in Carmichael.
January 18, 1977: Rape in College Greens neighborhood in Sacramento. A housewife was raped while her husband was away, and their 1970 Chevy Malibu was stolen.
January 24, 1977: Rape near Madison Avenue and Sunrise Boulevard in Citrus Heights. The 25-year-old woman was bound with a rope and threatened with an icepick.
Feb. 7, 1977: Rape near Crestview Drive and Madison Avenue in Citrus Heights. About a week after this assault, an 18-year-old man was shot in the abdomen while chasing a “prowler” through Ripon Court in east Sacramento. The shooter was suspected to be the East Area Rapist.
March 8, 1977: Rape near Robertson and Whitney avenues in Sacramento. He forced open a sliding glass window and blindfolded and gagged his victim, as he did with many others.
March 18, 1977: Rape in southwest Rancho Cordova. Assaulted a 16-year-old high school student as she returned home to pick up clothes before spending the night with girlfriends.
April 2, 1977: Rape near Madison and Main avenues in Orangevale.
April 15, 1977: Rape near Madison and Manzanita avenues in Sacramento. He assaulted a 19-year-old woman in her home between 2:30 and 4 a.m.
May 3, 1977: Rape in College Greens neighborhood in Sacramento.
May 5, 1977: Rape near Madison and Main avenues in Orangevale. He accosted a woman and her husband at gunpoint outside their home, then raped her while her two children slept before ransacking the house.
May 14, 1977: Rape near Greenback Lane and Birdcage Street in Citrus Heights. He confronted a couple at gunpoint in their driveway before raping the woman from about 4 through 5:15 a.m.
May 17, 1977: Rape in Carmichael’s Del Dayo neighborhood. The East Area Rapist told the woman he would kill someone if there was any press coverage of the assault, but later told her husband he would kill if there wasn’t any press coverage. The first sketch of the suspect was released after this assault.
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May 28, 1977: Rape near Sky Parkway in south Sacramento. He brandished a gun and wore a ski mask, and assaulted a 28-year-old woman while her young child slept next door.
September 6, 1977: Rape near Lincoln Village West in north Stockton. The first attack outside of the Sacramento area, he assaulted a 27-year-old housewife.
October 1, 1977: Rape near Tuolumne and La Riviera drives in Rancho Cordova. The victim was a 17-year-old girl who was visiting her boyfriend at the time.
October 21, 1977: Rape in Antelope. He raped a woman and left her and her husband to be untied by their two small children.
October 29, 1977: Rape near Woodson Avenue in Sacramento.
November 10, 1977: Rape on La Riviera Drive near Watt Avenue in Sacramento. The girl was just 13 years old, his youngest known victim.
December 2, 1977: Attempted rape near Brett and Revelstok drives in Foothill Farms. A man broke into the woman’s home, bound her hands and shined a flashlight in her face. Two teenage boys then reportedly scared him away before she was assaulted.
January 28, 1978: Rape near East Walnut Avenue in Sacramento. He kicked in the door of a house near American River College, tied up two teen girls and sexually assaulted them.
February 2, 1978: Murder of Brian and Katie Maggiore in Rancho Cordova. The first people believed to be killed by the East Area Rapist were shot while walking their dog. Brian was shot in the chest in a neighbor’s backyard, while Katie was shot in the head outside their home.
March 18, 1978: Rape in Stockton.
April 14, 1978: Rape near Seamas and Riverside avenues in south Sacramento.
June 5, 1978: Rape in Modesto. This was the furthest south the East Area Rapist had struck at this point.
June 7, 1978: Rape at UC Davis. He assaulted a 21-year-old student in her apartment.
June 23, 1978: Rape in Modesto.
June 24, 1978: Rape on Rivendell Lane in Davis.
July 6, 1978: Rape in Davis. He raped a 33-year-old mother of two at knifepoint after initially saying he wanted money for gasoline.
October 7, 1978: Rape near Treat Boulevard and Oak Grove Road in Concord. The rapist forced a woman to tie her husband up as he lay face-down on their bed, then stacked dishes on his back, warning him they would both be killed if the dishes crashed. He then raped her for hours and stole china from them before leaving.
October 13, 1978: Rape in Concord. The East Area Rapist bound and gagged the woman’s husband and eight-year-old while he assaulted her.
October 28, 1978: Rape in San Ramon. His first assault in the Bay Area, this marked attack No. 40.
November 4, 1978: Rape in San Jose.
December 2, 1978: Rape in San Jose.
December 9, 1978: Rape in Danville.
April 5, 1979: Rape in Fremont. A 27-year-old woman was assaulted at knifepoint after being forced to stack dishes on her husband’s back, much like the October 7 rape.
June 2, 1979: Rape in Walnut Creek. The victim was, again, just 13 years old.
June 11, 1979: Rape in Danville.
October 1, 1979: Broke in and tied up a Goleta couple. When they heard him repeatedly muttering, “I’ll kill ‘em,” the woman began screaming, alerting neighbors. The East Area Rapist then fled on a bicycle.
December 30, 1979: Murder of Robert Offerman and Debra Manning in Goleta. Both were shot dead, and Offerman’s bindings had been loosened, leading investigators to believe he tried to free himself before being killed. This was the East Area Rapist’s first successful attack in Southern California.
March 13, 1980: Murder of Charlene and Lyman Smith in Ventura. Charlene was raped before being killed. Both had been bludgeoned by a piece of firewood.
August 19, 1980: Murder of Keith and Patrice Harrington in Dana Point. The Harringtons, who had been married for three months, were found bludgeoned to death in their home inside an Orange County gated community. Patrice had also been raped. Keith’s brother Bruce, who led the charge to pass a 2004 proposition expanding California’s DNA logs, spoke at Wednesday’s press conference in Sacramento announcing DeAngelo’s arrest.
February 6, 1981: Murder and rape of Manuela Witthuhn in Irvine. Witthuhn was sexually assaulted before being bludgeoned to death.
July 27, 1981: Murder of Cheri Domingo and Gregory Sanchez in Goleta. Domingo and Sanchez were murdered just a few blocks from Offerman and Manning. Sanchez suffered a nonfatal gunshot wound to the cheek before being bludgeoned with a garden tool. Domingo was raped before being killed.
May 4, 1986: Murder and rape of Janelle Cruz. After a five-year crime hiatus, the East Area Rapist struck again, raping Cruz before bludgeoning her with a pipe wrench while her family vacationed in Mexico.
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