The Online Newspaper of Lakewood High School

Lakewood Times

Lakewood Times

Lakewood Times

    Golden State Killer Found

    Golden State Killer Found

    Between 1976 and 1986, an infamous killer and rapist terrorized Sacramento, California. For over 30 years, the identity and location of this man–one whose crimes included 12 murders and over 50 rapes– remained unknown. Actually, the only facts that were known about this man’s identity was that he was white, male, and about 6 feet tall, which was obviously not much to go on. But on Wednesday, both of these became clear.

    His identity was able to be discovered through DNA from a crime scene of one of his murders. He was arrested outside his house without issue, as the arrest had come to a total surprise to the suspect–Joseph DeAngelo. FBI agents did note that there were guns inside his house–and possibly the same ones that had been used to commit crimes so many years ago.

    DeAngelo had served in the U.S. Navy during the Vietnam war. Later, he became a police officer, but was fired six years after being on the force for shoplifting from a local drugstore. After that, he became a mechanic for a Save Mart, where he worked for 27 years, until he retired just last year.

    None of his bosses or colleagues ever suspected that he was a murderer, or even that he was anyone out of the ordinary at all.

    The capture of such a vile individual was a great accomplishment, although it was not ideal how long this capture took. The brave victims that survived–those who have had to live with the knowledge that their assaulter was alive and uncaught for decades–can all rest (at least a little) easier now.

     

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