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The story of the serial killer known as the Golden State Killer , who terrorized California residents in the 1970s and 1980s, has been closed in court on Friday. Former police officer Joseph D'Angelo, 74, has been sentenced to life imprisonment after acknowledging that he murdered 13 people and raped 45 women more than 30 years ago. D'Angelo will not be released from jail until his death and has lost any chance of seeking parole. For decades, his identity was a mystery.
"I am truly sorry," D'Angelo told Judge Michael Browman after the reading of his sentence. Between 1976 and 1986, the ex-policeman entered the houses of strangers, robbed, tied up the women and raped them. His crimes occurred mainly in the cities of Sacramento, San Francisco, and South Los Angeles. The victims were between 13 and 41 years old. In recent weeks, the relatives of the murdered told the judge the stories of suffering around the crimes of the so-called Golden State Assassin. "When a person commits monstrous acts, they need to be locked up so they can never again attack another innocent," Browman said.
The identity of the serial killer was discovered two years ago. The police kept the investigation open for a long time until they managed to reconstruct his genetic profile in 2001. The search remained unknown for another 17 years. In 2018, investigators found one of the former policeman's relatives in a database that reconstructs family trees using DNA. In April of that year, he was arrested: he lived in Sacramento and had a wife, children, and grandchildren.
The sentence for D'Angelo comes after in June he acknowledged responsibility for all the crimes. With this, he managed to avoid the death penalty. Although the serial killer has admitted to having committed 53 attacks, some of the crimes were discarded after having prescribed. "I admit it," he said of all the cases that came before the court. Investigators noted that when questioned, D'Angelo admitted the crimes arguing that an inner demon had pushed him to commit them. "I did not have the strength to expel him," he said. "I force myself".
DeAngelo's arrest in 2018 came just two months after the publication of I'll be gone in the dark , the posthumous book by journalist Michelle McNamara, who investigated the case with full access to evidence. McNamara passed away in 2016 at age 46. McNamara's investigation is the basis for a documentary that HBO released this year.