Age, Biography, and Wiki
Joseph James DeAngelo was born on November 8, 1945, making him 79 years old as of 2024. He is best known as the Golden State Killer, responsible for a series of brutal murders and rapes across California from the late 1970s to the mid-1980s. DeAngelo's crimes went unsolved for decades until his arrest in 2018, when DNA evidence linked him to the crimes. He pleaded guilty in 2020 to 13 counts of murder and numerous other charges related to his crimes.
| Occupation | Serial Killers |
|---|---|
| Date of Birth | 8 November 1945 |
| Age | 79 Years |
| Birth Place | Bath, New York, U.S. |
| Horoscope | Scorpio |
| Country | U.S |
Height, Weight & Measurements
There is limited publicly available information regarding DeAngelo's physical measurements such as height and weight. However, photos and courtroom appearances show him as a tall and imposing figure during his later years.
| Height | undefined5ft 10in |
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Dating & Relationship Status
Joseph James DeAngelo was married to Sharon Huddle from 1973 until their divorce in 1991. He has three daughters from this marriage. DeAngelo's personal life was marked by the secrecy surrounding his crimes, and his family was reportedly unaware of his illicit activities.
Joseph James DeAngelo Jr. (January 19, 1920 – February 15, 1995), a sergeant in the United States Army. He was of Italian ancestry and had two older sisters, Connie and Rebecca, and a younger brother, John. A relative reported that when DeAngelo was a young child, he witnessed the rape of Connie by two airmen in a U.S. Air Force base warehouse in West Germany, where the family was stationed at the time. Following DeAngelo's conviction, Rebecca stated that he was abused by their father while he was growing up.
In May 1970, DeAngelo became engaged to nursing student Bonnie Jean Colwell, a classmate at Sierra College, but she ended the relationship in 1971 after he became manipulative and abusive, culminating in his demand that she help him cheat on an abnormal psychology test. After the break-up, he attempted to force her to marry him by threatening her with a gun.
The couple separated in 1991. In July 2018, several months after DeAngelo's arrest, Huddle filed for a divorce, which was finalized the following year. DeAngelo committed most of the offenses while he was married and raising a family. Neither his wife nor his children ever suspected he was committing serious crimes. His eldest daughter claimed he was a "perfect father", while his wife believed his excuses for being away from home.
It was long suspected that the training ground of the criminal who became the East Area Rapist was Visalia. Earlier Visalia crimes dating back as early as May 1973 and other sprees like that of the "Cordova Cat Burglar" and the "Exeter Ransacker", as well as Visalia burglaries that took place after the shooting of Detective William McGowen (see below under "Shootings"), are now suspected to be linked also. Over a period of 20 months, DeAngelo is believed to have been responsible for one murder and around 120 burglaries.
On September 11, 1975, DeAngelo broke into the home of Claude Snelling, 45. Snelling, a journalism professor at the College of the Sequoias, had previously chased a prowler discovered under his 16-year-old daughter's bedroom window around 10:00 p.m. on February 5, 1975. On September 11, he was awakened around 2:00 a.m. by strange noises. Upon leaving his bedroom, Snelling ran through the open back door and confronted a ski-masked intruder in his carport attempting to kidnap his daughter, who had been subdued with threats of being stabbed or shot. Snelling was then shot twice, staggered back into the house to his wife, and later died. After the shooting, the assailant punched and kicked the daughter, leaving her on the ground, and fled the scene. A stolen bicycle, linked to the assailant, was found nearby at 615 Redwood Street. After the murder, Beth Snelling, 16, underwent hypnosis in order to gather further details. The Visalia police also committed more resources to apprehending the Ransacker, and a $4,000 reward was posted. Nighttime stakeouts were set up near houses that he had previously prowled, but the ransackings continued.
On December 18, 1976, DeAngelo entered into the home of his tenth victim, 15-year-old Kris Pedretti, who was home alone while her parents were at a Christmas party. At 6:00 pm, as she played the piano, DeAngelo, wearing a ski mask, put a knife to her throat and said to her, "Do what I say or I'll kill you and be gone in the dark," the phrase that would later serve as the title of Michelle McNamara's book on the case. For more than two hours, he raped her three times. According to Pedretti, "He alternated leaving me outside, naked in the winter cold, and bringing me in different rooms where he raped me." He ultimately left her on a couch in front of a fireplace, leaving her blindfolded, bound, and gagged, before leaving. She freed herself and called neighbors for help. Pedretti described the renewed humiliation that she felt when police asked her intimate questions that she was not equipped to answer as a 15-year-old, and again when a rape kit was administered. She referred to these interactions as the second and third victimizations that she endured that evening.
A young Sacramento couple—21-year-old Brian Keith Maggiore, a military policeman at Mather Air Force Base, and his 20-year-old wife Katie Lee Maggiore—were walking their dog in the Rancho Cordova area on the night of February 2, 1978, near where five East Area Rapist attacks had occurred. The Maggiores fled after a confrontation in the street but were chased down and shot to death. Some investigators suspected that they had been murdered by the East Area Rapist because of their proximity to the other attacks' locations, and a shoelace was found nearby. The FBI announced on June 15, 2016, that it was confident that the East Area Rapist had murdered the Maggiores. On June 29, 2020, DeAngelo entered a plea of guilty to these murders.
On February 6, 28-year-old Manuela Witthuhn was raped and murdered in her Irvine home. Although Witthuhn's body had signs of being tied before she was bludgeoned, no murder weapon or ligatures were found. At the time of the attack, her husband David was in the hospital due to an illness, leaving her alone. Manuela's murder haunted David thereafter, in part because the killer continued to stalk them and called the house several times after the murder, and also because police and neighbors suspected him as Manuela's killer. This suspicion heightened when David married a sympathetic co-worker named Rhonda not long after the murder. David became an alcoholic, and his second marriage ended after nearly a decade when Rhonda Witthuhn divorced him. Years later he was exonerated by DNA testing. He died in 2008.
On June 15, 2016, the FBI released further information related to the crimes, including new composite sketches and crime details; a $50,000 reward was also announced. The initiative included a national database to support law enforcement's investigating of the crimes and to handle tips and information. Eventually, "through the use of genetic genealogy searching on GEDmatch, investigators identified distant relatives of DeAngelo—including family members directly related to his great-great-great-great grandfather dating back to the 1800s. Based on this information, investigators built about 25 different family trees. The tree that eventually linked to [DeAngelo] alone contained approximately 1,000 people. Over the course of a few months, investigators used other clues like age, sex, and place of residence to rule out suspects populating these trees, eliminating suspects one by one until only DeAngelo remained."
| Parents | |
| Husband | Sharon Marie Huddle (m. 1973-2019) |
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Net Worth and Salary
DeAngelo's net worth is not publicly disclosed in the context of his criminal activities. His financial situation was not complex, as he lived a relatively ordinary life as a police officer and later a mechanic, which concealed his darker criminal life. Any financial information related to his working life would be modest and not reflective of the substantial wealth associated with public figures like business leaders or celebrities.
In the 1980s, DeAngelo was employed as a computer engineer and a cashier. From 1990 until his retirement in 2017, he worked as a truck mechanic at a Save Mart Supermarkets distribution center in Roseville. He was arrested in 1996 for failing to pay for gas, but the charge was dismissed.
According to Sacramento County prosecutor Thien Ho, DeAngelo said the following to himself while alone in a police interrogation room after his arrest in April 2018: "I didn't have the strength to push him out. 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." Detectives ignored DeAngelo's initial requests to speak to an attorney, later citing a legal theory that this potential Miranda violation would be justified, with the understanding that prosecutors could not use the interview against the defendant in court.
Career, Business, and Investments
Before his arrest, DeAngelo worked as a police officer in California from 1973 to 1979. He was fired from the police force for stealing a hammer and dog repellent. After leaving law enforcement, he worked as a mechanic for a grocery store. There is no information about him being involved in significant business ventures or investments.
Some believe that Sanchez may have realized he was dealing with the man responsible for the Offerman–Manning murders and tried to tackle the killer rather than be tied up. Again, no neighbors responded to the gunshot. Sanchez's head was covered with clothes pulled from the closet. Domingo was raped and bludgeoned; bruises on her wrists and ankles indicated that she had been tied, although the restraints were missing. A piece of shipping twine was found near the bed, and fibers from an unknown source were scattered over her body. Authorities believed that the attacker may have worked as a painter or in a similar job at the Calle Real Shopping Centre.
* Joe Alsip, a friend and business partner of the victim Lyman Smith. Alsip's pastor said that Alsip had confessed to him during a family-counseling session. Alsip was arraigned for the Smith murders in 1982, but the charges were later dropped, and his innocence was confirmed by DNA testing in 1997.
Social Network
Given his criminal history and the secrecy surrounding his crimes, DeAngelo did not have a public social network presence. His life was marked by isolation and secrecy to avoid detection.
DeAngelo joined the United States Navy in September 1964 and served for 22 months during the Vietnam War as a damage controlman on the cruiser USS Canberra (CA-70) and the destroyer tender USS Piedmont (AD-17). Beginning in August 1968, DeAngelo attended Sierra College in Rocklin, California; he graduated with an associate degree in police science, with honors. He attended Sacramento State University in 1971, where he earned a bachelor's degree in criminal justice. DeAngelo later took post-graduate courses and further police training at the College of the Sequoias in Visalia, then completed a 32-week police internship at the police department in Roseville.
DeAngelo's initial modus operandi was to stalk middle-class neighborhoods at night in search of women who were alone in one-story homes, usually near a school, creek, trail or other open space that would provide a quick escape. He was seen a number of times but always successfully fled; on one occasion, he shot and seriously wounded a young pursuer.
The second sheet contains a journal-style entry describing a teacher who made students write lines, which the author found humiliating: "'Mad is the word, the word that reminds me of 6th grade. I hated that year ... I wish I had know what was going to be going on during my 6th-grade year, the last and worst year of elementary school. Mad is the word that remains in my head about my dreadful year as a 6th grader. My Madness was one that was caused by disapointments that hurt me very much. Dissapointments from my teacher, such as feild trips that were planed, then canncled. My 6th-grade teacher gave me a lot of dissapointments 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. Disapointment wasn't the only reason that made me mad in my sixth-grade class, another was getting in trouble at school espeically talking thats what really bugged me was writing sentances, 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 inportant it made me ashamed of myself which in turn, deep down in side made me realize that writing sentance wasn't fair it wasn't fair to make me suffer like that, it just wasn't fair to make me sit and wright until my bones aked, until my hand felt every horrid pain it ever had and as I wrote, I got mader and mader until I cried, I cried because I was ashamed I cried because I was discusted, I cried because I was mad, and I cried for myself, kid who kept on having to write those dane sentances. My Angryness from Sixth grade will scar my memory for life and I will be ashamed for my sixth grade year forever'"
Identification of DeAngelo began in December 2017 when officials, led by detective Paul Holes and FBI lawyer Steve Kramer, uploaded the killer's DNA profile from a Ventura County rape kit to the personal genomics website GEDmatch. The website identified 10 to 20 people who had the same great-great-great-grandparents as the Golden State Killer; a team of five investigators working with genealogist Barbara Rae-Venter used this list to construct a large family tree. From this tree, they established two suspects; one was ruled out by a relative's DNA test, leaving DeAngelo the main suspect.
Education
Joseph James DeAngelo attended Folsom High School in California. He later attended the College of the Sequoias and Sacramento State University, although the specifics of his educational achievements are not widely detailed.
It's important to note that the financial and personal details of Joseph James DeAngelo's life are not comparable to those of individuals with successful careers or business ventures. His life was defined by his heinous crimes rather than any notable professional achievements.
On June 15, 2016, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and local law enforcement agencies held a news conference to announce a renewed nationwide effort, offering a $50,000 reward for the Golden State Killer's capture. On April 24, 2018, California authorities charged 72-year-old DeAngelo with eight counts of first-degree murder, based upon DNA evidence; investigators had identified members of DeAngelo's family through forensic genetic genealogy. This was also the first announcement connecting the Visalia Ransacker crimes to DeAngelo.
Between 1959 and 1960, DeAngelo attended Mills Junior High School in Rancho Cordova, California. Beginning in 1961, he attended Folsom High School, from which he received a GED certificate in 1964. He played on the school's junior varsity baseball team. Prosecutors reported that DeAngelo committed burglaries, mail theft, and tortured and killed animals during his teenage years.
In late-April 2018, the Visalia chief of police stated that while there was no DNA linking DeAngelo to the Central Valley cases, his department had other evidence that played a role in the investigation; and he was "confident that the Visalia Ransacker has been captured". Though the statutes of limitations for the burglaries have each expired, DeAngelo was formally charged on August 13, 2018, with the first degree murder of Claude Snelling in 1975. In 2020, DeAngelo pleaded guilty to the Snelling murder.
On August 19, 24-year-old Keith Eli Harrington and 27-year-old Patrice Briscoe Harrington were found bludgeoned to death in their home on Cockleshell Drive in Dana Point's Niguel Shores gated community. Patrice Harrington had also been raped. She was bludgeoned so severely that her face and skull were pulverized. Although there was evidence that the Harringtons' wrists and ankles were bound, no murder weapon or ligatures were found at the scene. The Harringtons had been married for three months at the time of their deaths. Patrice was a pediatric nurse in Irvine, and Keith was a fourth year medical student at UC Irvine. He was on course to graduate early in December 1980. Keith's brother Bruce later spent nearly $2 million supporting California Proposition 69, authorizing DNA collection from all California felons and certain other criminals.
During the investigation in Danville of the 42nd attack, investigators discovered three sheets of notebook paper near where a suspicious vehicle had reportedly been parked. They believe the pages were dropped accidentally, perhaps by falling out of a bag. The first sheet appears to be a homework essay on General George Armstrong Custer.
* Paul "Cornfed" Schneider, a high-ranking member of the Aryan Brotherhood, was living in Orange County when the Harringtons, Manuela Witthuhn, and Janelle Cruz were killed. A DNA test cleared him in the 1990s.
* Gregory Gonzalez, from Garden Grove, attended the same drug rehabilitation class that Janelle Cruz was enrolled in. An informant told police that Gonzalez confessed to killing her and he was arrested, but charges were dropped a year later when a DNA test confirmed his innocence.
On the evening of April 24, 2018, Sacramento County Sheriff's deputies arrested DeAngelo in the side yard of his Sacramento home. He was charged with eight counts of first-degree murder with special circumstances. On May 10, the Santa Barbara County District Attorney's office charged DeAngelo with four additional counts of first-degree murder. DeAngelo made a confession of sorts after his arrest that cryptically referred to an inner personality named "Jerry", who had forced him to commit the crimes.
On March 4, 2020, DeAngelo offered to plead guilty if the death penalty was excluded as a possible sentence, which was not accepted at the time. On June 29, as part of a plea bargain to avoid the death penalty, DeAngelo pleaded guilty to 13 counts of first-degree murder and special circumstances (including murder committed during burglaries and rapes), as well as thirteen counts of kidnapping. On August 21, 2020, DeAngelo received multiple consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole.
