There are few cases that get solved over 30 years after the crimes have stopped, but luckily
the case of the Visalia Ransacker, also known as the East Area Rapist,
the Original Night Stalker, and most notably The Golden State Killer, is one of those cases. Due to
police persistence and the investigative skills of a true crime author named Michelle McNamara,
the Golden State Killer still had to face the consequences for his disturbing actions
and disregard for human suffering, even after being inactive for over three decades. Today
we’ll be digging into the crimes and downfall of Joseph James De’Angelo, the Golden State Killer.
November 8th, 1945, Joseph James De’Angelo was born to Joseph De’Angelo Sr. and Kathleen
Louise DeGroat. De’Angelo Sr. was a sergeant in the U.S Army, while Kathleen was a waitress.
Given his military background, De’Angelo Sr. was a strict disciplinarian, and according to a
letter written by Joseph’s sister and friend, was also emotionally distant and abusive,
although this has not been supported by any physical evidence or confirmed by Joseph himself.
De’Angelo Sr. and Kathleen eventually divorced and Kathleen eventually remarried and moved to
California, taking her children with her. At some point before the divorce, while the family
was living in Germany where Joseph’s father was stationed, Joseph witnessed his seven year old
sister being raped by two airmen in a warehouse. Witnessing this brutal and horrific act at such a
young and impressionable age had a high chance of messing with his development and leading him down
the path of becoming a serial rapist himself. From 1959-1960 Joseph attended Mills Junior Highschool,
and it was here where one of the most formative events in his life would happen.
According to a note written by Joseph found at a crime scene years later, during the sixth grade
Joseph received a punishment in class for talking during lessons where he had extra
that involved him writing the same sentence over and over again. According to this letter,
“...those awful sentance that my teacher made ... me write, hours and hours Id sit and write
50-100-150 sentance day and night I write those dreadful Paragraphs which embarrased me and
more important it made me ashamed of myself…”. It’s very possible that the shame felt in these
moments are a driving factor of what made Joseph want to inflict pain and shame onto his victims.
Not only this, but within the letter you can see the buddings of Joseph’s complete disregard
for human life and emotion. Joseph states “... My 6th-grade teacher gave me a lot of disappointments
which made me very mad and made me built a state of haterd in my heart, no one ever let me down
that hard before and I never hated anyone as much as I did him…”, and it is not unreasonable that
the hatred that began to grow here only blossomed into a complete contempt for others as he aged.
Eventually Joseph would graduate from Folsom Highschool and attend California State University,
ironically with a degree in Criminal Justice. Shortly after this he joined the Navy and
served for just under 2 years in Vietnam before returning home and becoming a cop.
By May 1970 Joseph was engaged to a woman named Bonnie Jean Colwell, but Bonnie herself actually
broke the marriage off after Joseph became abusive and threatened her with a gun in order to force
him to marry her. This apparently tore at Joseph’s heart and he wouldn’t get over it for years, with
later victims claiming that they heard him say “I hate you Bonnie” as he violated and assaulted
them. Following this relationship he ended up getting married to a woman named Sharon Huddle
and would have three daughters with her before getting divorced after his arrest in 2018. The
start of his marriage to Shannon also marked the start of his first major crime spree, becoming
known as the Visalia ransacker as he committed 120 burglaries and one murder from 1973-1976.
On September 11th, 1975 Joseph broke into the Snelling household with the intent to burglarize
the home as he had been doing over well over a year now, as well as kidnap 16 year old Beth
Snelling. Beth’s father Claude woke up to the sound of commotion and went out his open backdoor
to find Joseph and Beth in the carport. He was thern shot twice by Joseph, stumbling back into
the house to alert his wife. After the shooting Joseph fled the scene, leaving behind a stolen
bicycle. Claude would later die, and despite being up close and personal with Joseph, Beth was unable
to give the police many details of his face due to a black ski-mask he wore. While still active in
the Visalia area, Joseph nearly killed a second man when he was nearly arrested by Detective
William McGowen. The detective was attempting to apprehend Joseph and fired a warning shot, which
caused Joseph to take his mask off and pretend to give up. He then made a break for the backyard
fence before pulling out a revolver and blindly firing in the detective’s direction, thankfully
shattering the man’s flashlight instead of his face. While the police were able to gather some
evidence from the scene, there was little in the way of identifying who the Visalia Ransacker was.
In 1976 Joseph moved to the Sacramento area and joined the Auburn Police Department. While in this
area Joseph’s petty burglaries escalated to rapes, earning him the nickname The East Area Rapist,
or The EAR. Joseph would stalk around middle class neighborhoods, looking for one story homes with
women who were alone and near some sort of open area that would allow him to make a quick escape.
Joseph was an intense strategist when it came to his crimes, and would do intense recon as
well as break into the homes of future victims in order to unlock windows and unload any guns that
could be used against him. During his time as The EAR, Joseph eventually got a taste for tormenting
couples. He would force the women to bind their partners before tying them up, then he would place
a stack of dishes on the man’s back and threaten to kill his wife if he heard the dishes break,
and forced the men to listen to their partner get assaulted, sometimes for several hours. After the
deed was done Joseph would sometimes stick around, hiding in the shadows of his victim’s house
and intimidating the victim into staying still for hours until they were sure he had eventually left,
leaving him with plenty of time to make a swift exit from the scene of the crime. He also liked to
steal from his victim’s, most often taking small personal items that had no real monetary value,
although he would occasionally take big ticket items like loose cash and guns.
It was in this area that Joseph would kill again, this time targeting Brian and Katie
Maggiore who were walking their dog when they were chased and gun-downed by Joseph. While the
full intention isn’t known, investigators believed that the two were killed due to their proximity
to other attacks Joseph had committed. Joseph continued to terrorize this area,
committing a total of 50 rapes, before being fired from his job at the police department in 1979
for being caught stealing a hammer and some dog repellant. Despite the fact that the police knew
there was a serial burglar and rapist in the area who would definitely make use of both a
hammer and dog repellent, Joseph’s fellow cops made no connections between him and The Ear.
After getting fired Joseph threatened to kill the chief of police, and a few days later the
police chief was woken up by his daughter telling him there was a man in a mask outside her window.
The police chief went to investigate, and while there wasn’t any man to be found, he did find a
set of fresh footprints right below the window. Following his firing from the Police Department,
Joseph moved to southern California and began terrorizing the area not only with rapes and
burglaries, but this time with much more active murder. Between 1979 and 1986 Joseph
committed 10 murders and at least three rapes, earning himself the title The Night Stalker.
After 1986 Joseph’s crime spree suddenly stopped, for an as of yet completely unknown reason.
1986 coincides with the birth of Joseph’s youngest daughter, so the most popular theory is that
Joseph either decided to focus on his family life, or could no longer find the time to sneak
away from his family to go commit his crimes. Speaking of his family, they were completely in
the dark about Joseph’s double life until the day of his arrest. While many question how his
wife could have been so ignorant, she claims that he told her that he was either away for
work at his trucking job, visiting family, or taking pheasant hunting trips, and she had no
reason to suspect any different. While the police had always continued to investigate the case,
following Joseph’s retirement from crime in 1986 the trail soon went cold, and no solid evidence
could be found that would point back to Joseph, leaving him to lead a new life as a family man.
In his home life Joseph was known for being angry and violent, isolating himself from
the rest of his neighbors and frequently being heard cursing and yelling at his own families
so loudly that the neighbors heard it as if he was in their own homes. In one extreme case
Joseph even called and threatened to kill his neighbors entire family over their dog barking.
Despite his volatile nature, Joseph managed to not have any more major run-ins with the police.
In 2006 a woman named Michelle McNamara, wife of actor Patton Oswald, was intrigued by the unsolved
EAR cases and began to investigate them herself. Her passion and trustworthiness soon landed her
in a trusting relationship with Paul Holes, a Contra Costa County investigator who had been
investigating the Golden State Killer as he was now known for 24 years, which earned her a lot
of cooperation from the local law-enforcement. Michelle began writing a book called I’ll Be
Gone In The Dark, where she penned her journey as she pieced together information from a variety of
counties and jurisdictions that no one had ever attributed to the same killer before.
Tragically, Michelle would suddenly die in 2016, but insisted to her husband that her
final wish was for her work to be continued, and for the GOlden State Killer to finally get
caught. Paul Holes continued to investigate the case and pursued a theory the two had discussed,
namely using DNA left from crime scenes on a genealogy website to try and find the identity
of the killer. Through this he was able to find a first cousin of Joseph’s and eventually made
his way to Joseph's identity. On April of 2018, the police raided Joseph’s homeland arrested him,
and after a trial and several confessions, he was convicted of thirteen counts of first-degree
murder and kidnappings and sentended to multiple life sentences without possibility of parole
on August 21, 2020. While it may have taken several decades for him to get caught,
Joseph James De’Angelo is finally facing punishment for his horrid crimes,
and Michelle McNamara can rest in peace knowing that her life’s goal was finally completed.
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