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92. Nightstalker: The Golden State Serial Killer Joe DeAngelo with Julia Cowley
911 Plays1 month ago
A ransacker stalked a small city in California, breaking into 120 homes in 20 months. Two hundred and twenty miles away, three years later, a man committed 50 home-invasion rapes. Three years after that and 300 miles to the south, a series of at least 11 murders occurred. Former FBI Profiler Julia Cowley, the host of The Consult podcast and lead profiler on the case, joins us to discuss the man who would be linked to the seemingly dissimilar crimes, Joe DeAngelo, who turned out to be the Visalia Ransacker, the East Area Rapist, the Original Nightstalker and a one-man machine of terror now known as the Gold State Killer. Julie talks about how law enforcement was able to connect each of those sets of crimes and identify the former mechanic and police officer, DeAngelo, who is now serving 12 life sentences.
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To check out The Consult podcast episodes on Joe DeAngelo:
Profiling Joe DeAngelo, Part 1:
https://www.truecrimeconsult.com/profiling-joe-deangelo-part-1/
Profiling Joe DeAngelo, Part 2:
https://www.truecrimeconsult.com/profiling-joe-deangelo-part-2/
Profiling Joe DeAngelo, Part 3:
https://www.truecrimeconsult.com/profiling-joe-deangelo-part-3/
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Transcript
Introduction to Julia Cowley and BAU
00:00:00
Speaker
So that's how I got involved he you know he knew I mean this was We don't get a lot of say serial murder cases. I know everyone probably thinks that the BAU works on every serial murder case. We don't. And we don't have a bunch going on at once. Usually there' you know there's always one or two cases being worked on in the unit at a time, but it's really not that frequent as I guess people would think.
00:00:30
Speaker
And so when this one came in, you know my my boss basically asked me, did I want to work on this case? And I said, yep, I'm already familiar with it. I'm very interested in working on it. So that's how I got involved. And it was at the request of the investigating agencies.
Multi-Agency Cooperation in 2011
00:00:49
Speaker
And of course, at the time, they had formed all the different agencies. And there was about, I'm going to say 15 jurisdictions had gotten together to form a working group.
00:01:00
Speaker
And it was the first time, and this is back in 2011, I think, it was the first time all these agencies had gotten together and they decided we're going to share all our files. We're going to let everybody read everything and we're going to like put our heads together and we're going to solve this thing.
00:01:19
Speaker
That's Julia Cowley, a retired FBI profiler and the host of the Consult Podcast. This is the Silver Linings Handbook Podcast. I'm Jason Beuer.
Julia Cowley's Career and Podcasting
00:01:44
Speaker
Julia Cowley is a retired FBI agent and criminal profiler. Julia spent decades in law enforcement investigating violent crime, including being a member of the famed Behavioral Analysis Unit, or BAU, at the FBI. Julia is currently the host of The Consult, a podcast made up of retired FBI profilers who just reached one million downloads two weeks ago.
00:02:10
Speaker
Julia has no problem saying that true crime is what led her toward forensic science and law enforcement. Prior to joining the FBI, Julia was a special agent and forensic scientist with the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation.
00:02:24
Speaker
She has a bachelor's degree in chemistry from the University of Oregon and a master's degree in forensic science from George Washington University.
Focus on the Golden State Killer
00:02:33
Speaker
At the BAU, Julia was the lead profiler on the East Area Rapist and Original Night Stalker cases that were combined into what now is known as the Golden State Killer case. The focus of our conversation today is gonna be on the Golden State Killer and the real life nightmare of Joseph D'Angelo.
00:02:53
Speaker
She also worked on the case of the serial killer, Israel Keys, in the early stages of the Long Island serial killer case. Julia also has had other assignments in the FBI investigating white collar crime, public corruption, civil rights matters, and other topics in the Boston field office.
00:03:12
Speaker
The BAU is a highly competitive part of the FBI's Critical Incident Response Group that conducts analysis of behaviors and provides investigative and other support to law enforcement and prosecutors.
00:03:26
Speaker
Popular to arise by television shows like Mindhunter and Criminal Minds, in books and movies like The Silence of the Lambs, the BAU is well known for its study of serial killers, its classification of offenders connected to certain types of crime scenes, and is a part of high-profile investigations like the investigation of the Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski, the investigation of the killing of John Bonet Ramsey,
00:03:51
Speaker
and the murder of the four students at the University of Idaho two years ago. Today we're gonna talk about the real life nightmare of Joseph D'Angelo, what law enforcement and the public can learn about serial killers and their connected crimes and tackle some of the misconceptions about the people that haunt and hunt us in ways that feel unimaginable.
Escalation of the Golden State Killer's Crimes
00:04:16
Speaker
Before we get started, here's some background on the Golden State Killer case. On March 19, 1974, a sum of $50 in coins was stolen from a piggy bank in a home on West Walnut Avenue in the small central California city of Visalia. Visalia is nestled in the agricultural-rich San Joaquin Valley,
00:04:40
Speaker
The population was less than 30,000 people at the time. It was the beginning of a 12-month reign of burglaries. The small area had more than 120 burglaries at the time.
00:04:52
Speaker
Most of the ransackings involved breaking into houses, rifling through, or vandalizing possessions, scattering women's underclothes, and stealing low-value items while leaving valuables. Instead of money, the burglar was more likely to steal from piggy banks and coin jars, stamps, foreign and historic coins, earrings, cufflinks, or medallions. Often, the ransacker would rearrange or display items around the homes.
00:05:19
Speaker
Eventually, a journalism college professor was murdered and a police detective was shot. Then, as soon as they started, they stopped. On Friday, June 18, 1976, at four in the morning, a woman was raped in her home 220 miles to the north in Rancho Cordova, California.
00:05:41
Speaker
It would begin a string of at least 50 rapes in the Sacramento and Modesto areas. Most of the victims had seen a prowler on their properties before, and many had experienced break-ins. Years later, several of the women would receive wistful or threatening phone calls that they recognized as the voice of being their rapist.
00:06:02
Speaker
It was believed that the attacker sometimes entered the homes in advance to unlock windows, unload guns, and plant ligatures for future use. Victims were often blindfolded and gagged so tightly that the victim's hands were often turned numb afterwards. At times, the rapist separated a couple, often stacking dishes on the man's back and threatening to kill everyone in the house if he heard the dishes rattle.
00:06:31
Speaker
At one point, in 1976, during a rape, he repeatedly said, quote, I hate you, Bonnie, to a woman who is not named Bonnie. Later, in 1978, a couple was murdered on the street that was eventually linked to the same person. The last rape committed by this man in this area, who became to be known as the East Area Rapist, occurred on Thursday, July 5th, 1979, at 3.45 a.m.
00:07:01
Speaker
After three years of terror, they just stopped. On Monday, October 1st, 1979, 300 miles south in Golita, California in Santa Barbara County, someone broke into a home and tied up a couple. After hearing the assailant say, quote, I'll kill him myself, the couple tried to escape and the woman screamed. The intruder fled on a bicycle, a neighbor who is an FBI agent heard the noise and chased the person who abandoned the bicycle and a knife and escaped through neighborhood backyards. On December 30th of that year, a couple was found shot to death in their condominium. The killer ate leftover Christmas turkey from the couple's refrigerator, leaving the remnants in the kitchen before leaving. Eight more murders would follow in a seven year reign of terror.
00:08:09
Speaker
Hey, Julia. Thanks again, as always, for coming on um for this for one of our October episodes. And every October I like to do, um you know, some themed episodes. And last year we talked about Israel Keys, who is a sort of real life nightmare and boogeyman. And, you know, I know the running idea with Israel Keys is Israel Keys is not responsible for every murder that ever happened. um But You know, as i as I look at somebody like who we're going to talk about today, Joe D'Angelo, he seems even more frightening than someone like Israel Keys. And I think that there's probably a lot that we can learn from these types of stories, both about what we should worry about and what we shouldn't worry about.
00:08:56
Speaker
Um, but I wanted to take a second to congratulate you. Um, you know, when you first came on, uh, the podcast in, I think the spring of last year, the consult had been on, uh, a hiatus and, uh, it's returned and quite quickly, I think it was two weeks ago, you guys hit 1 million downloads. So congratulations to you, Bob, to Angela, to, uh, Susan, that is awesome.
00:09:26
Speaker
Thank you. I appreciate that. I can't believe it. I remember when we were at 30 downloads and I couldn't believe it. you were These 30 people. Well, they were all in.
00:09:40
Speaker
like Oregon, yeah where my family is, Oregon and the Seattle area. so i But still, like I just thought, wow, people are listening. so But i yeah, it's it is hard to believe that we hit one million. It's it's a kind of surreal.
00:09:57
Speaker
yeah Yeah, well, and it goes back to what I think you and I talked about. I don't think we talked about an episode, but, you know, I had listened to a bunch of your early episodes before you took a hiatus. And I really believe that um you guys brought a perspective to, um I think, understanding true crime and crime that I couldn't get anywhere else and not just on podcasts, but there's not a TV show. There's not a, um you know,
00:10:26
Speaker
ah Dateline doesn't do it, 48 hours doesn't do it. that There's not another place where you can get that kind of behavioral analysis of crime. And I think it's really just interesting and it's been interesting to watch your your community grow on Facebook and Patreon and see that it's really attracting a lot of smart people who want to think things through. And you know a I just really am glad we have the space and I kind of know we wouldn't have the space if you guys weren't willing to contribute to it, so I appreciate it. Thank you. and It's really just us talking about behavior. It's not scripted. Oftentimes we don't talk beforehand. Some of the cases that we're doing now, as you know, we had never profiled before. Some of them we have. and We get together and we haven't talked much. We may talk a little bit before we start recording, but most of what you hear is
00:11:23
Speaker
our profile unfolding. And so we may think we've exhausted a topic. We'll come back to it. We're like, wait a second. I think we need to go back to this. I forgot to bring that up. And it's, you know, other than maybe taking out tangent center completely unrelated or bathroom breaks, it's it's how a profile or how a consultation truly unfolds at the BAU.
00:11:50
Speaker
Yeah. And I get that feeling that we're one of the cool things about it is we're getting the opportunity to kind of sit inside conversations that we wouldn't normally. be a part of.
Challenges in Linking Crimes
00:12:02
Speaker
And and i yeah, I've really enjoyed that piece of it. And you know when you first came on, one of the things that we talked about was um your work as a profiler in different cases that you had worked on. And one was Joe DiAngelo, who I think after his arrest or well ah later in the
00:12:23
Speaker
the case he became known as the worst yeah it was a tell tail end of the case he became known as the Golden State Killer. and you know One of the things that I thought as I've read more about him and researched for this episode was that it really seems like the Golden State Killer doesn't really capture the breadth of crimes that he did or the amount of terror that he created you know, in those regions of California where he was operating, you know, he, he was in at one point he was in Visalia and he was the Visalia ransacker and committed, you know, 120 burglaries and central, um, California. I know that there was a journalism professor who was killed there. There was a police officer shot. I don't know if those were linked.
00:13:15
Speaker
But it's you know in a 20-month period, 120 burglaries and that kind of stuff in a small Central central Valley town. Then you have you know hundreds of miles away, you have the East area rapist who's responsible for at least 50 rapes in the Sacramento sacramento and Modesto areas.
00:13:36
Speaker
and then and you know That happens for a three-year period between 1976 and 1979. um you know You've got at least 10 people who are murdered ah hundreds of miles away in Santa Barbara, and that occurs ah you know afterwards.
00:13:58
Speaker
And I'm just so curious to start out with how in the world did law enforcement ever connect all of these crimes?
00:14:09
Speaker
DNA. It was 2001. And I'm going to say they weren't all linked by DNA because they didn't have DNA in every case, but they were able to link DNA to a couple of the murders and a few of the sexual assaults, particularly I think in the Contra Costa County area in in Northern California, those rapes. And so then they knew that they were linked And then the rest of them were linked by behavior. And m MO, that was how they were linked. And then of course, you as you mentioned, the vicellular ransackings. I know it doesn't seem like a big deal, just a bunch of ransackings, a bunch of burglaries, but as you mentioned, there was a
00:14:58
Speaker
man who was shot and killed by the offender. And he was shot and killed with a weapon that had been stolen in a previous burglary in Visalia. So he's you know extremely violent, even during the the air at the time of his burglaries, extremely violent and very dangerous. So Well, one of the things that just seems, so or do I have this right, the idea that
00:15:30
Speaker
You know, you have a little bit of DNA evidence in one of the cases, DNA evidence in other cases. Those make the connections between those individual cases. But those cases are sort of already connected independently, or at least the the ones in the different regional areas were already connected based on the way that the the the perpetrator behaved. Yeah. Yeah.
00:15:58
Speaker
Yeah, and now now there were there was a double homicide that was not connected until later because there was they just hadn't tested the DNA. And that was eventually connected when it had not been connected through the behavior. So there was just a case they had no idea that it had been connected until the DNA hit. So that was connected a little bit later and on our timeline. so And then also the vicelluransackings I think some of the detectives thought Visalia could be related to the Sacramento area sexual assaults. That offender was known as the East Area Rapist at the time. And some detectives thought they were connected. I know the Visalia detectives thought they were likely connected. Sacramento didn't think so. There was some jurisdictional friction back in the day.
00:16:53
Speaker
and Right, because it never happens now. Right. Oh, no. yeah beyond and all We're beyond that. Yeah. So one of the things when they requested the assistance of a behavioral analysis unit, one of the things I wanted to do was do a linkage analysis and link. Well, at least make a determination. Did we think the vicellular ransackings were linked to the East Area Rapist incidents and therefore linked to the murders in the Southern California area. So that was one of the things I wanted to do. i And i it's kind of like, I just wanted to settle it. Let's just see, do we think they're linked? What is a linkage analysis?
00:17:39
Speaker
Well, it's looking at the behaviors in the crimes when you don't have like forensic evidence and trying to see if they can if there's similar behavior patterns that you see and that there's enough of it that you can say, yes, this is the same offender or this is likely the same offender in each of these cases.
00:17:57
Speaker
Because for me in thinking about it, I'm just trying to how ah trying to imagine even how the detectives um who thought it was connected even came to that conclusion because I'm thinking on one hand, I've got a person who's like stealing medallions, change out of piggyback or piggy banks.
00:18:17
Speaker
um rearranging things around people's houses, you know taking some things, not necessarily taking valuables,
00:18:29
Speaker
you know ah messing around with women's underwear. And then in a completely different area, although during a different time, ah you have somebody who's breaking into people's houses,
00:18:42
Speaker
who is you know raping people and eventually you know starts doing things like calling and threatening them afterwards. What kind of thread do you think for the initial investigators before the forensic evidence even got them thinking, huh, maybe these things seem alike because at first blush and thinking about the kinds of behaviors it takes to sort of like, I mean, I guess the similarities are you have to be a bit of a prowler to do a burglary or to do a home invasion rape
00:19:14
Speaker
but are are there other things that for them stood out or seemed? I think what stood out to them was just some of the basics that their series of burglaries ended and then the series of sexual assaults began and and these communities are about four hours apart. So I think that was kind of like, well,
00:19:38
Speaker
Our offender stopped and then and then this series starts at another location. I think that was one of the things. I think the the number of burglaries and the number of sexual assaults and the intensity of it was also something that struck them as being similar.
00:20:00
Speaker
And I think that's initially why they thought these could be related. Now, there wasn't a lot of communication between the agencies of sharing of information. So they couldn't look at, he they weren't looking at each other's files to see, well, can we really pin down some specific behaviors that would indicate, yeah, we 100% think or 99% think that these are related. And they just weren't doing that back then.
00:20:29
Speaker
And that's where something like the linkage analysis comes in. Well, I, yeah, I, I thought it was important because you had such a division and I can understand why the detectives that thought they were not linked thought that because you had very different offender descriptions in the two different areas. And it was also seemed like quite an escalation to go from these ransacking, these
00:21:01
Speaker
you know these He would enter during the day when people weren't home, he'd ransack their houses, and then he would leave. And then, of course, when he starts a sexual assault, he's breaking in whenp and into occupied homes. And so it seemed like a really quick escalation.
00:21:20
Speaker
And I think some people doubt it. So those were the the two reasons why, so I understand why at first you think they they can't be related. You have a completely different description of the offender and it's a very quick escalation in violence.
00:21:36
Speaker
Well, the one thing that does sort of strike me as similar, just thinking about it as you say it, is, you know, a normal burglary, and not to say that there is really a normal, but I would imagine a normal burglar, like if I were to get into the business of burglary, I would wait to see that the person does not home or probably not home, have some idea of the patterns, pick a location where I can easily you know easily escape. not to Not to teach how to do a burglar here, but there there's certain things that you wouldn't I would think you would normally do to commit a burglar to minimize your risk, increase the likelihood of your success in your hall that the burglar in Visalia was
00:22:22
Speaker
Was not necessarily doing his hanging out for a while it wasn't taking a lot of stuff he's wasting time rearranging ah things in the house taking you know things that might be valuable to people but aren't necessarily valuable in terms of resale and that to me.
00:22:39
Speaker
seems in a weird way a little bit more like an assault,
Behavioral Analysis of the Golden State Killer
00:22:43
Speaker
right? That it's just a violation. It's almost like the person's getting their kicks out of violating people's spaces. And I don't know if that, is that normal for burglars to do things like that? No, it's not. Most burglaries are committed purely for financial reasons. And when you see all this unnecessary behavior and spending extra time at the scene that you don't need to spend increasing your risk for being there, you have to start thinking, okay, is there another motivation here at play? And for all the reasons you've just mentioned,
00:23:21
Speaker
you have to start thinking, okay, there's another reason that this person is spending all this time in in the home. And not just taking what he wants and leaving, he's spending a great deal of time going through their things, messing with their belongings. He's making it clear that he's violated their space.
00:23:44
Speaker
yep Yep, not being subtle about it whatsoever. Not at all. Yeah, and it reminds me of another thing further in the case. There's this one scene in the, I think it's i not seen, there's that um one moment where it's already progressed to the rape. Cindy's in Southern California, I think. um And it's in one of the murders where a couple was found shot dead in their condominium.
00:24:12
Speaker
And he who ah whoever the killer was, who we now know is D'Angelo, it was like December 30th and he ate the leftover Christmas turkey from the refrigerator and i left it outside. And to me, that just felt very like telling about what kind of, yeah it almost feels like performatively callous, I'm a sadistic in a way, but like that sense of violation, like I've walked into your house, I've shot you and now I'm eating your food. right And he would do that in the sexual assaults as well, because he would go in, he would tie up his victims, he'd ransack their home, he'd go into their,
00:24:59
Speaker
refrigerator into their kitchens, eat their food, drink their drinks. He was very loud about it. So if he was drinking something, he'd you he be gulping really loud so that they could hear it. you just If you think about it, just think about you're in your home and you have a guest and the guest just waltzes right in, opens up the refrigerator, starts taking out food and eating it. You just be What I mean it's one thing if it's one thing if it's you know a relative or a kid but just imagine just somebody who doesn't come to your house very often or the first time they've ever been there and they just help themselves it's you'd be it would be weird.
00:25:39
Speaker
It would be very weird. You'd be taken aback. It would be kind of violating in a way. Like that's my refrigerator. But that's what he did. is So he he did do that. And then even in the murders, he did the same thing. It was similar behaviors that you would see not only in the ransackings and then in the sexual assaults, but then in the murders as well.
00:26:05
Speaker
So there were some odd or or not everyday things that that that sort of ran through like a thread through all of the crimes and so. Yes. Yeah. And so very much so. It it was not.
00:26:20
Speaker
I don't want to say it was not difficult because it was a lot of material to review, but he had a very clear pattern. I've never seen an offender with such a clear pattern. I would start reading each incident report and after a while I'd just be like, yep, that's him. This is him. Every time it was the same thing over and over and over again. Sometimes he'd say,
00:26:47
Speaker
He'd use different language or say things in a different way, but his repeated patterns of behavior were very consistent. So so he really was repeating a cycle. I was thinking to myself that in the ransacking, you know, the ransacking incidents they start um in Visalia, I think that's 73 and then for three years to 76. And I'm just trying to think of, you know I went back and I looked, what was the population at the time? It was a little under 30,000. It's really boomed like 120 now, but it's 30,000 people at the time, you know lots of lots of families. So you know not an enormous number of households.
00:27:35
Speaker
do 120 burglaries in such a short period of time um in such a small region. I would imagine that this was something that you know got news coverage that neighbors knew about, that people were on the lookout for. just It seems both brazen for the offender and wild for what it must have been like for the community.
00:28:03
Speaker
Yeah, it was very brazen. It was, as you said, there were so many in such a short period of time and they were contained in certain neighborhoods. So he's very comfortable in certain areas of Visalia. And it appeared just by how close together they were that he was possibly on foot.
00:28:31
Speaker
So you know these are some things you're starting to think about when you're looking at what we would call his, I guess, hunting ground or hunting grounds where he was comfortable. And and that's another thing you see throughout these crimes is all the neighborhoods were very similar. He went into very similar style homes as like three bedroom, one bath or two bath ranch style homes where he knew the layout.
00:28:57
Speaker
He never went into homes that were multi-level. It was always very similar. Kind of like where he would almost be able to know the layout or the layout options when he walked in. There are other things I think I had read. When he moved in 76 in the east area, rapes or rapists started striking there.
00:29:25
Speaker
um that he would that there was a belief that he prowled and scoped out the location, sometimes broken in advance, unlocked windows, unloaded guns, all that stuff left ligatures. and all That sounds like an elaborate process. Sounds like it would take an enormous amount of time and have a ton of risk. I was wondering when I was reading about those things, like I can get the idea of like, okay, I unload your gun before I go in.
00:29:56
Speaker
but dropping off my ligatures, I guess maybe so, um, you know, so I don't have to carry them out in the open and get arrested by them. But I'm also taking that same risk by coming in. I'm taking the risk that somebody finds them in there and knows something weird is going on. Like what, and do you think it was a game on some levels? Like he was playing a game. I think it was his fantasy.
00:30:22
Speaker
it This is all everything he's doing is based on his fantasy and. Well we might think oh that's very risky. What he's doing is he's enjoying that and he's fantasizing about okay when i come back later and. He didn't do this in every instance, but there are some cases where it is believed he went in and, for example, would go into a home during the day when no one's home, unlock a window so he can come in later at night. Or like you said, one person actually did find some ligatures. I think it was under a sofa cushion. And so he was, I mean, first and foremost, a prowler.
00:31:08
Speaker
And enjoyed that and so this is all building up to doing that and and Whether he actually went back to those homes or not. I don't know that it mattered to him. He just loved entering homes and you know Going through their things being in their space violating their it's almost like he's getting his kicks by violating people in whatever else and Yeah, I mean, there's a there's a link between burglary and sex crimes as well. I mean, there's um i mean not not every burglary, but you you do see in some violent sexual offenders who go on to become you know rapists and serial rapists, they have many have a history of burglary or peeping or voyeurism.
00:32:00
Speaker
So that you know going into someone's unoccupied home and going through their belongings and looking at things, that's a form of voyeurism. Yep. And the the idea being particularly that part about staying longer than you have to, or I guess that's probably true about all crime. And you tell me from a profiler's perspective, is it would it would it be fair to say that any time you have a crime or you know a major crime or a violent crime,
00:32:30
Speaker
And the offender is repeatedly doing behaviors that are unnecessary to commit the crime, that it's something we should pay attention to. it and i And I only say that because you know thinking about what you're describing,
00:32:46
Speaker
you know The offense that we charge is burglary for breaking in and taking you know whatever. there But in reality, just because that is the definition of the offense, that may have zero to do with why the actual offender is going, if that makes sense. um you know that that That they're breaking into this space like this person, not for financial gain, for sexual gratification or something else or to fulfill a fantasy.
00:33:20
Speaker
um and And that should be because they're doing things that are unnecessary to commit the crime that we're looking at. Maybe that should cause investigators to pause at moments. Is that fair to say? that That would be fair to say. I would say anytime you see unnecessary behavior, that's what you have to focus in on and see if you see that in other types of crimes or similar crimes or crimes you think may be linked.
00:33:47
Speaker
but Absolutely focusing in on okay what's unnecessary here what's the. Ritual behavior that that goes to motive why are they doing this. Is are they.
00:34:01
Speaker
Is it financial? Is it sexual? Is it revenge? is it you That's what you're looking at. what is what is it you know Because sometimes spending unnecessary time at a crime scene doesn't necessarily mean it's sexually motivated. It could be, I have to stage this because if I leave it as it is and the police are going to know that I did it, that's the perception of the offender. So you're just always asking, why are they spending this unnecessary time here? Is this some sort of ritual behavior? Are they staging? are they you know um Was it because there was a reaction of the the victim and the offender and that caused them to stay there longer for some reason? I absolutely focus on the the behavior that's unnecessary to accomplish the crime, even if it's murder. Is there extra behavior that's unnecessary? Are there things about his burglaries in particular that stick out to you that would have, in retrospect, looking back at them, um made you think that this guy could be a rapist or could escalate into being a rapist just thinking about his specific case?
00:35:13
Speaker
Yeah, in the burglaries there were signs that he was masturbating at the seams. Now, at the time, they didn't collect any samples that might have been there. I don't even know if there were any samples, but there were instances of him using lotion.
00:35:34
Speaker
at the crime scenes. there was at one At one scene there were fingerprints in lotion. In another scene he had taken lotion and poured it down poured it on the carpet down the hallway. Or a woman might come home and to her house and say, well, my lotion was in the bathroom, now it's in the bedroom.
00:35:53
Speaker
So there was a steam not in every case and i I don't know if it was just that it went unnoticed and that it was only documented and documented in a few scenes but there are enough scenes where I thought I think he's masturbating or you know that that Again, there's something more to it. Plus as you mentioned he would go into lingerie drawers one case he Deconstructed a bra you know, cut it up. Really? he Yeah. He would move items. He would take and and one earring from a pair as opposed to taking both earrings. All this kind of behavior that it is symbolic in a way and without logic.
00:36:46
Speaker
But to him, it probably has some purpose. But to us, it seemed like, why is he doing this? Well, it's because it's serving his purpose. So those were some things. Definitely the lotion was my first key. Like, why is there lotion down the hallway? Why is a bottle of lotion moved from one room to another? Why are there fingerprints and lotion at this scene? So I started to notice that. And then when you look at the sexual assaults in Sacramento that were attributed to the East Area Rapist, in those cases he used lotion as a lubricant when he sexually assaulted his victims. so yeah that yeah yeah so that I don't know that for a fact when it comes to Visalia, but
00:37:34
Speaker
That was when i read through the reports now the reports for the visalia burglaries were pretty short because i especially at the beginning when. They consider them nuisance crimes nobody was hurt there was just somebody going into the house so there just be maybe a few lines in the report.
00:37:53
Speaker
And every now and then there'd be something like, oh, the you know the the victim noticed that you know items were moved from one room to another. Or victims noticed that ah in one case he poured orange juice on their bed.
00:38:12
Speaker
And so these little things that were scattered throughout the many reports that I went through just started to, like this is just all very illogical, bizarre behavior. And then when you get to the Sacramento area,
00:38:31
Speaker
you see similar types of bizarre behavior and in this case you're hearing it directly from the victims or in my case reading it from their incident reports directly from the victim so you have a really good idea of what he's actually doing when he's in their homes because there are witnesses to this.
00:38:52
Speaker
the One of the things I was going to ask you about that relates to that. you know When you get away from the ransackings and you start to move toward the rapes, were there things that he, in addition to those behaviors that that he either said or did that were similar? Because i you know when I had been researching, I was surprised. Well, one, I was surprised that A rapist would try to take on couples, so that's one thing. and then or Or so many couples. like You would think that the couple that they would go after for a serial rapist would be the exception. you know Didn't know that there were two people there or something like that. And then that he talked so much. That really surprised me.
00:39:41
Speaker
because ah it's just not what I would imagine someone would do. And there's this one quote where um he had said something like that he hated Bonnie, and the woman was not named Bonnie. And I just thought, wow, this guy is talking a lot. Or was like, I hate you, Bonnie, or something like that. Yeah.
Speech Patterns and Profiling
00:40:00
Speaker
and And I think there was confusion over whether he was saying Bonnie or Mommy.
00:40:09
Speaker
And I think everyone decided it was Bonnie because it turned out he had a former girlfriend named Bonnie. However, what I had noticed in that particular case, right before that incident, there had been an article in the newspaper where they had interviewed, I think like a forensic psychiatrist and The guy said something about, well, he's probably has issues with his mother. And then in the next crime, he's saying, you know but you know if you if you don't do what I say, you know my mom mommy's not going to like that. And then there was mu this mumbling, I hate mommy, I hate you, mommy. And
00:40:56
Speaker
I didn't know but then of course I think the victim in that case wasn't sure was he saying Bonnie or mommy I thought it it might be mommy because of the previous news articles because what i one of the things I did do I don't think I've ever talked about this I would take the news articles that were but um Appearing in the paper and to see if he would alter his behavior based on that if he was um paying attention to the news and i think he was so my my thought was well maybe he's saying mommy i don't really know for sure because he's never talked he's never told us was he saying bonnie or mommy but then once he's identified we find out he had this girlfriend
00:41:38
Speaker
Fiance that they had broken up prior to any of this Starting but and her name was Bonnie. So I don't know but he did next he did talk a lot and he had weird phrasing and Unique phrasing things that he would say which I thought were was pretty interesting. I thought that that was one of the suggestions I made everything that he ever said I I think should be released to the public to see if anyone recognizes the way he said things or the words that he used because it was unique and it was very odd, but you're right. He did talk a lot and he mumbled a lot too. I thought that was something that was probably something he did when he was under stress.
00:42:27
Speaker
And because there's in fact, a few of the victims thought there might be more than one offender because it sounded as if he was talking to somebody. But you know, now we know he wasn't.
00:42:42
Speaker
but he was talking to himself. And that was something that a witness in Visalia had reported seeing somebody peeping in a window and he started following the guy and the guy was mumbling. And and I believe that that was one of the the true sightings of the Visalia Ransacker.
00:43:03
Speaker
And he was mumbling he got very upset and I thought that's probably a characteristic that people who know him would recognize in him because I think that's about sometimes yeah, I thought he would be odd I thought that people would know him to be odd and when he got upset or stressed out he'd start mumbling to himself talking to himself I thought that was one of his real characteristics and Yeah, it's kind of interesting because it what it wouldn't be what I would imagine. And then I also think about things like, um you know, there was, and I've seen this replayed, I think, in documentaries and probably on Criminal Minds and an assortment of other places. I may be wrong about Criminal Minds, but I know I've seen it on TV several times. But this idea of invading a home
00:43:54
Speaker
um with couples, and it almost seemed like even though he was sexually assaulting the women, it seemed like in a way whatever he was playing out, both were a part of it. And it's the thing that sticks in my mind, but it's not the only thing, but was this idea of doing things like taking dishes and put them on the the on the man's back and telling them they were he was going to kill everybody in the house if they if the dish is rattled. it It almost seemed like he wanted to find the couples. Is that fair? Yes, I think he specifically targeted couples and I think that the male victims in these cases were part of his fantasy. They were not
00:44:42
Speaker
obstacles or incidental obstacles he had to overcome, they were central to his fantasy of overpowering and controlling and dominating another man. Why else would you do that? Such a high risk behavior. you know Not only are you dealing with you know, two victims, but you have a male victim as well. And um that puts him at a much greater risk. Why would you do that? And I think people think, well, he's so tough and bold and brazen and I didn't see it that way. I thought, I think he's really insecure.
00:45:23
Speaker
It's very funny because I'm getting the exact same feeling because I was thinking as you were saying that I was like, why does somebody need to play out this fantasy of overpowering people, breaking into their houses and messing with their stuff? If like somewhere in your head, it's not about sort of lording over people.
00:45:44
Speaker
and Yeah, and people who are confident tend to not need to lord over people. um So you could say like maybe, I don't know, if courage is the right word that it takes some guts or willingness to take risks or whatever to do it, but it's almost the opposite of somebody who intrinsically is confident, I guess.
00:46:04
Speaker
yeah Yeah, I mean, i I see what the people's point is. Why would he do that? He must be tough. He must be bold and brazen. and but then But then you're like, why why do all this? What is really going on with him? And my thought was completely the opposite, that he was felt ineffective as compared to other men and possibly jealous of them and what they had. And this was a way to take control and show, look, I can come into your home. I can take your belongings. I can ransack your home. I can
00:46:49
Speaker
sexually assault your female companion, there's nothing you can do. And therefore that makes me the the one in control, the powerful one. And you wouldn't do that if you if you were secure. Yeah, if you felt it already, there would be no need to do it, very little value. It's the ultimate overcompensation, in my opinion.
00:47:13
Speaker
Yeah, no, it makes complete sense to me. um but In thinking back you know and thinking about that idea of, to your point about yeah trying to sort of overcompensate, do you think that the escalation from the ransackings to the rapes to the murders, do you think that some of that was really about, because I imagine for for a lot of offenders who who who have some kind of serial killers, who have some kind of fantasy that they're playing out. And this is the way I imagine in my head, and I have no evidence for it, have done no research for this, but that it's a bit like a heroin habit, right? Like the first time you do heroin and it's amazing, you're always tracing the dragon as they say.
00:48:01
Speaker
And you're constantly having to up the ante and up the ante and increase the risk and the amount to try and get that same high or sense of relief or I guess tap into that same pleasure center in the brain. Do you think that the escalation had to do with that or do you think there was a a more practical or well what do you think led to the escalation?
00:48:26
Speaker
Well, I don't think the escalation was practical in nature.
Connection Between Crimes and Personal Crisis
00:48:32
Speaker
what yeah now and Now knowing what we know about him, So right before his first murders, he was arrested. And now I think a lot of the listeners probably know he was a police officer at the time of many of these crimes. He was and a police officer in Exeter, California, which was right next to Visalia. Then he went up to Northern California area.
00:49:02
Speaker
and was a police ah officer with the Auburn Police Department. And he had been arrested for shoplifting. And then he's fired. And in between that, in between that, that incident, there's this This We call it an attempted murder, but I'm I don't know for sure that he went in there with the intent to murder now During that crime the female victim hears him talking and saying to himself. I'm gonna kill him. I'm gonna kill him. I'm gonna kill him and
00:49:39
Speaker
I don't recall that he ever said that in any of the other cases. He would threaten people, if you move or make a sound, I'll kill you. But nobody ever heard him talking to himself the way this female victim heard him talking. So when she- Which I imagine would be more alarming, right? Like the- It's very alarming.
00:50:01
Speaker
And so because of that she's able to get out she gets out the front door she's tied up but she's so she's hopping out the front door she screaming and then her. Male companion the male victim here's that he gets out the back door so you have.
00:50:22
Speaker
the female victim running out the front door, male victim running out the back door. Things just went completely wrong and they're screaming. And so all this is going on all at once. You have the arrest, you have this completely failed attempt. Now, whether he was going to kill him or not,
00:50:41
Speaker
I don't know, but it was the first time he truly failed. And then the next time is when he does kill victim two victims um and he shoots them. And in this case, the male victim got out of his bindings. And it was prior to the female, usually what he would do is he'd go in, he'd tie them up, he'd separate the male and the female victims.
00:51:08
Speaker
And this was prior to that, and the female victim, or the male victim got out of his bindings. So D'Angelo shoots him and then shoots the female victim. So there's no sexual assault. So again, things have gone really wrong. That is also probably, and thinking about it from the perspective of his fantasy, that's probably also a failure too.
00:51:30
Speaker
it's It's a complete failure and it's a complete lack of control, which is what we know he probably needs most in the world is to control things and So you have all these things going on and now I mean I can look back and look at you know What we've learned about him and see these things now at the time we don't we don't have this information but you Certainly can suspect He is trying to get the ultimate control here. And why? Is there something that's gone on in his life? Is it that this was just a natural progression, a natural escalation?
00:52:08
Speaker
but now I see that, yeah, it was a natural escalation, but largely based on what was going on in his personal life and the lack of control he had at the time. Well, and see, that's, so, you know, in the moment as you're working on the profile, and I was gonna ask about how you even became involved in the case, ah but as you're working on the profile, you don't have that information, and I'm so curious about,
00:52:37
Speaker
how you take the information you have to make sort of reasonable deductions about what could be in that empty space that you had. But how did how did you even become involved in the case? Because you know one of the things I think a lot of people assume, well, it depends. You watch criminal minds or not. If you watch criminal minds, you think that the selection process to have the BAU assigned to your case is very complex and lots of different layers. and I think there are other people who believe the BAU works every zero case. How did you get involved? How does the FBI get involved in cases like this? And how does that process work of building a profile?
00:53:19
Speaker
So we got involved in this case as we do most cases at the request of the investigating, investigating agency.
Role of the BAU and Julia Cowley's Involvement
00:53:28
Speaker
So in this particular case, it was the Sacramento County Sheriff's Office that requested our assistance in analyzing the case, coming up with a profile of the unknown offender, investigative suggestions. Now they weren't asking for linkage analysis, but ah as I've already mentioned, I thought that that would be important for understanding this offender. Can we link Visalia? And if we can, I think that gives us even more insight into him. So that's how I got involved. My boss at the time just called me into his office and I had followed this case.
00:54:08
Speaker
Since about 2004, I saw a special on A and&E and it I was on maternity leave with my son. It was in the middle of the day and I'm watching true crime documentaries and you they covered this case and it was, you know, I i think I mentioned it was in 2001 where they linked the sexual assaults and the homicides through DNA Then then A and&E did this special and I thought wow ah That is an incredible case. So I followed it and At the time it was called the the know the offender was known as the East Area Rapist original night stalker And so when my boss called me into his office as he said have you ever heard of the East Area Rapist or East area and I go East Area Rapist. Yes, I'll take it and And that's why you when you said boss, that's why everyone should have to watch true crime.
00:55:00
Speaker
but
00:55:02
Speaker
so So that's how I got involved. he You know, he knew, I mean, this was We don't get a lot of say serial murder cases. I know everyone probably thinks that the BAU works on every serial murder case. We we don't. And we don't have a bunch going on at once. Usually there' you know there's always one or two cases being worked on in the unit at a time, but it's really not that frequent as I guess people would think.
00:55:34
Speaker
And so when this one came in you know my my boss basically asked me did I want to work on this case and I said yep I'm already familiar with it I'm very interested in working on it so.
00:55:48
Speaker
That's how I got involved and it was at the request of the investigating agencies. And of course at the time they had formed all the different agencies and there was about, I'm going to say 15 jurisdictions had gotten together to form a working group. ah wow And it was the first time, and this is back in 2011, I think.
00:56:10
Speaker
It was the first time all these agencies had gotten together and they decided we're going to share all our files. We're going to let everybody read everything and we're going to put our heads together and we're going to solve this thing. We're going to do you know something, maybe somebody from another jurisdiction will notice something in another file. How unusual was that?
00:56:32
Speaker
for that many agencies to get together. i mean because ah One of the things i think that I think about often, that ah um I imagine there's a lot of trouble in solving crimes simply because offenders cross jurisdictions.
00:56:48
Speaker
Um, you know, that that's a great sort of countermeasures to walk over the county line or the city line or the state line. Does that, does that happen often or, or, or is, well, I guess 15 jurisdictions, I guess there may not be offenders that are quite that prolific.
00:57:05
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, it's not the first time I've seen agencies get together and we've had meetings with multiple agencies because an offender has been operating in several different jurisdictions, but this was the largest group that I'd been a part of.
00:57:24
Speaker
I mean, 15 was quite and a number. so um But it's I don't think it's that unusual. I think law enforcement agencies have gotten better about communicating with one another and sharing information and getting together and looking looking over each other's files. I think that it's improved over the years and communication has improved.
00:57:49
Speaker
theme So what what is the process like for you on
Building a Comprehensive Profile
00:57:53
Speaker
this case? Do you start with files in Quantico or how does that how does that work? Yep, I just sat down at my desk and opened up the first case. I went chronologically and just started reading and I spent i I think it's about six months, probably reading through everything and wow really having an understanding of each of each offense. he wrote I wrote reports on almost every offense as well. And when I say reports, I would write out what occurred, you know the victims, where it was located, what occurred, was there anything unusual, was did he use
00:58:37
Speaker
Did he say something? I mean, I just kept track of all of that. And that that took a while. And i I just did it chronologically. And then I you know also reviewed not only the incident reports, but if there were crime scene photos, autopsy reports, descriptions of the offender, if any close, you know, any witnesses described Oh, I saw a man running off or I came face to face with a guy and he ran the other direction or I followed this guy or I saw this guy peeping. I tried to read all of those. um What I didn't spend a lot of time on were all the different um people that were called in, like all the different suspects. There were 7,000.
00:59:29
Speaker
Wow. 7,000 suspects. Wow. At least. I imagine even with a shorter number, let's say it's seven. Paying maybe too much attention to the suspects in the beginning might get in the way of building a profile. Is that fair? That would be fair. I think it's much better to you know I'm pretty good at blocking out information that might bias me. like ah People can tell me their theories or I can hear about the you know different suspects. That is not going to alter when I'm looking at the actual
01:00:08
Speaker
you know crime summaries or incident reports or autopsy reports, i that I can all block out. so But it's not really that helpful to go through all the different suspects that had been called in um be you know because ah so many of them could participate participate potentially fit. So it's like, yeah, that guy, that he could be him. he could be I mean, I might have a thousand people that might match that.
01:00:36
Speaker
right maybe not a thousand, but it it just I just thought that that my my time is better spent analyzing the crime and analyzing the interaction between the offender and the victims and analyzing anything that would give me insight into his behavior. Well, after you got through that six months, what um what impression were you left with?
01:01:02
Speaker
Well, I was left, my initial impressions, that you know they developed. I started with them and then as I continued to go through the reports and the files, it just kind of kept building and getting reinforced. But my initial impressions were that and ransacking. and And I know this sounds obvious, but ransacking was key to him. This is really an important thing that he needs to accomplish in order to gain satisfaction from this crime. And what I noticed, um yeah every every case he ransacked and
01:01:49
Speaker
because we had so many victims who, I should call them survivors, with so many survivors of this offender, we knew that he ransacked. This wasn't something he did after the fact. He did this first before any sexual assault ever occurred in every single case he ransacked. It was a significant amount of ransacking.
01:02:18
Speaker
And then he'd go back to the victim. And if he sexually assaulted a victim more than once, he would ransack the home in between. So that really stuck out to me. That's interesting. Yeah, that's unusual behavior. So like the ransacking is almost like the start button.
01:02:39
Speaker
Yes. Like for the whole process. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's really important, which is something that, you know, took me back to Vissel. Yeah. Okay. That ransacking is clearly very important to that offender as well. So that was one of the things, I think the other thing that I was, I mean, there are several impressions that I had initially and they all kind of, you know, what,
01:03:02
Speaker
From my initial impression to my final analysis, it didn't change a lot. It just maybe was more solidified. But um i you know I again saw a very insecure person. I saw a person who was uncomfortable with having any kind of physical combat with another man. Like he wasn't going to do it if if rather than Fight or physically fight another man. He'd rather just shoot him and which is a very high risk and Increases the risk that he will get caught so I thought this he doesn't want to have a fight with another man and
01:03:40
Speaker
I felt he was very insecure. I thought he would be odd. What were some other impressions I was left with? Oh, another really important thing that he was very tactical. He did some things that led me to like not only was he very accurate with his shooting under a high stress situation and he he would escalate immediately he was very comfortable escalating immediately to deadly force with a firearm i thought he was very comfortable i thought he might even have formalized training very long kind of military to be able to escalate quickly and still be accurate.
01:04:21
Speaker
Yeah, I thought there was some sort of formal training and firearms at some point in his life. The other thing he did that I thought was reminiscent of ah potential training in law enforcement was when he would go into the homes, he would shine a flashlight in the victim's eyes to blind them. That's what police officers do when they come up to a car. They may shine a light in there and it kind of it gives them the advantage. They can see what's in the car and yet the you know the person they've pulled over, I was going to call them the offender, but whoever they've pulled over
01:04:55
Speaker
is at a disadvantage, they can't see as well when they're blinded. so And then um another thing that was interesting that was pointed out to me by a listener, which I was thinking that's a really good observation and I can't believe I didn't think of it myself was when you know he would go into the home, he'd have the female victim bind the male victim, then he would bind the female victim and then he would then buying the male victim again, kind of on top of the bindings that the female victim had played. one And one listener pointed out that's, it and I, again, I'm like, I just didn't, I never even thought of this, but he's absolutely right. And I can't believe I didn't think about it, but that's also a law enforcement tactic. If you're switching handcuffs with somebody or, ah or, you know,
01:05:48
Speaker
Changing handcuffs like you're gonna get your handcuffs off somebody and somebody else is gonna put their handcuffs on You have two sets of cuffs on them good Daisy time. Yep. Yeah and ah But a listener like he he was I think he was a police officer He's like but another this he's like this was very practical in that he did this as well and I'm like, that's that's a really good observation as well, but which again goes back to It's kind of the way an officer would deal with having the horrible situation of having to deal with two suspects, one officer at the same time. yeah Yeah. Yeah. I just didn't, it really didn't occur to me and I wish it had because it would have even reinforced my thought that he had prior law enforcement training of some sort that, but there were other things. I mean, he's very tactical and very good at what he did. And I was a little bit,
01:06:40
Speaker
It comes as gray area. Is he really good at what he does because he does it so much or did he also have some formal training? and i just thought I think there were some things about his actions that indicated to me he had some sort of formalized training. and I actually thought he was a police officer. I wasn't alone in that. There were some of the detectives I think thought he was a police officer sir as well.
01:07:02
Speaker
There were some detectives that thought there's no way a police officer would do these things. So it's a little touchy of a subject. I can understand why. You don't want to think it's one of your own that could be doing this. um So those were some of my initial impressions of him. One of the things that was really interesting to me um about what you just said or was interesting to me, yeah, was you mentioned he didn't want to get into a physical altercation with a man and obviously that tying them up was a part of it. Were there times other than the the shooting of the police officer, the journalism professor, were there times where there were physical
01:07:51
Speaker
fights during the period of the East Area rapes in between Visalia and Sacramento before for those phases? No, not that I'm aware of. Wow. And there's a news article I found. i I didn't find it. Somebody else found it and I saw it posted somewhere. So I shouldn't say I found i found it posted somewhere. um But it was an article that was written about an arrest or some sort of law enforcement action he had participated in. And I guess he caught somebody breaking into a car and he chased the guy and the guy got away. And I thought that's kind of interesting because he was really physically fit. He outran, he outran people when he was chased a few times and and pretty close calls, but really fast, really physically fit. And I kind of wondered, did that guy get away
01:08:50
Speaker
or did he like Or did he let him get away because he didn't want to put his hands on him. so And if you think about it too, being a police officer for some people is about being powerful, being in control. It's not always about justice. It is for most people, but if you have a very insecure type, I could see them wanting to go into law enforcement so they can be in control of people and tell them what to do. And it's a powerful position.
01:09:25
Speaker
Yeah, it's, it's kind of like that thing. Not every boss is a sadist, but you're going to find your sadist as bosses or, that's exactly right yeah all right um, which brings me actually to another thing I was really interested in. You had mentioned earlier that you had looked at the news articles to see if his
Media Influence on the Perpetrator
01:09:43
Speaker
behaviors changed. And you know, I had wondered how much he paid attention to, to the news. And I know he, he had, um, sent a poem to the sacrament of B which had been covering that was that he did not do that. that's It's not true. Okay, that is not true. Yeah, so there was a poem. Do you remember the name of it?
01:10:08
Speaker
I do not. It's like, I forget, but it's a strange poem. and That was something I had asked the detectives about because um that would change a little bit of the profile if he's trying to communicate or taunt police and this idea he's taunting police. but So that poem I did talk with one of the detectives from the Sacramento County Sheriff's Office and they actually identified they had received similar communications and they had identified who had sent those other communications so they believe this was somebody else other than.
01:10:43
Speaker
the East Area Rapist, they actually had identified who had sent that. But that became part of the myth that he had written that poem, but I don't believe that he did. Okay. Are there any other things along those lines? Because I had heard about at one point, they believed he had dropped um kind of very similar to the What which case is it? The lion's hero case, but homework pages for his crimes and, but then a map too of a suburban neighborhood that they couldn't identify. Like there is no neighborhood that existed like that. Yeah. So near one of the crime scenes, they found
01:11:28
Speaker
some, like you said, some homework, with would what appeared to be some homework from a student. And this drawing, it was all on notebook paper, this drawing of what appeared to be a neighborhood, but it was not a neighborhood that anyone recognized as being a real neighborhood.
01:11:49
Speaker
it it was almost like just a rendering of a neighborhood or a future neighborhood or something and that was just it was ah you know something that needed to be looked at to see can we identify who this whose homework this belonged to or who drew this neighborhood or was this part of an assignment of some sort And it was it's never been connected. um I know one of the detectives um we went down that rabbit hole looking, which is, you know, it yeah it had to be done. But it was never connected to him. I don't believe it was connected at all. That that was always my impression. i don't I don't think it has anything to do with it.
01:12:34
Speaker
could be somebody's just sort of imagining the neighborhood that they they wish existed as opposed to what was there. It could be, yes you know, some sort of assignment where you're supposed to draw something. It could have just been for fun. I mean, that it didn't seem like it seemed like, OK, there was some homework and then there was this drawing of this neighborhood. So it wasn't clear was this drawing for some sort of assignment because they were they were two separate things, whatever they were.
01:13:05
Speaker
if they were homework, they're for different classes, but they were found together. So it's just really hard to say, but it's never been tied to the crime, to Joe DiAngelo. It's just never been. and And I think it was just something that needed to be looked at, but I don't think that there's a connection.
01:13:27
Speaker
One I also hear about, and I don't know whether this is true either, was that at different points between the 70s and the early 90s, some of the victims or survivors from the East Area Rapists received phone calls ah from people, and they thought the voices sounded like, including some threatening ones, sounded like the offender.
01:13:54
Speaker
Were they able to get any insight from those? No. um you know it was my So my colleague on this, Bob and I, he worked on this case with me and Bob drew. And our thought was it it probably was him. That was probably something he would do. But we don't have any concrete evidence that it was the victim say it sounded like him the way he talked, disguising his voice, talking through clenched teeth.
01:14:26
Speaker
And it's certainly something we we wouldn't put it past him, but because he's never talked, we can't ask him. You know, we don't have those answers. Did you make these calls? So we don't know for sure. But I don't rule that out. Now, I rule out the poem, not really sure those other documents were related to him because they he he would have been much older than what it appeared those assignments were for. Like they looked like they were probably for maybe a high school student. So he would have been much older. So I don't think those are related phone calls. I'm on the fence about, I don't know for sure. Could be. Yeah. a yeah and If, if he had made those phone calls, what, what, what's the, because something very similar, I just mentioned the long and serial killer case happened in the sense that, you know, with,
01:15:20
Speaker
at least one of his victims. Um, he used her cell phone to call and taunt, um, her family members. You know, part of me thinks in the Long Island case that appears to me to be just sort of, you know, straight sadism, um, torturing them. But I, I'm i'm wondering in listening to the way that you described D'Angelo, could there have been,
01:15:46
Speaker
other reasons, such as like if this is all really about his, I guess sadism is about control, but if this is a you know a period where he can't or he's gotten older and he can't do it, might somebody substitute to to other ways of sort of exerting control over people?
01:16:04
Speaker
Yeah, i I think that could very well be it. i I think it's also an extension. I think he had sadistic tendencies. Now, he when I talk about sadism with him, it's much more mental than it is physical because he didn't inflict gratuitous violence on his victims. He wasn't inflicting pain just to see someone in pain. that He really only got Violent and if he was met with resistance so it was a practical violence it was Practical where he was confronted or he was met with resistance or somebody wasn't compliant but if people complied then He wasn't inflicting you know you know pain on them and but yet you know by tying them up and going through their house and and putting them in that. fear yeah Yeah that's that is sadistic that is kind of based in the same feeling of wanting to.
01:17:12
Speaker
um Cause harm to people and you gain enjoyment from harming people whether it's physical whether it's emotional so I think the phone calls could be an extension of that and it's also so probably somewhat exhilarating to call them and know he's scaring them. They've already been through the worst thing of their life and he knows he's just prolonging it and probably had a sense of satisfaction out of that. that If he did in fact make those calls, that that would be my um my opinion of why he did it.
01:17:57
Speaker
Did you ever get any sense of how he wanted to be perceived? I know this is gonna sound like a weird question, but how he wanted to be perceived by the survivors in the East Area rapes? Because I just think it's, obviously he wanted to frighten them. He wanted them to be scared, but it it doesn't sound like, yeah.
01:18:26
Speaker
I don't know what he was getting out of the interaction. I'm curious what you thought, what he what what he wanted to leave them with in terms of his impression. I think he wanted to leave him with the impression that he had taken the ultimate control of them. That's what I think.
01:18:46
Speaker
I don't think it's much deeper than that. And and of course, you know that that control came in a a lot of different forms and from not only going into their house and taking control of their entire space, but binding them and blindfolding them and taking away in their senses.
01:19:13
Speaker
and separating couples from one another, all these things. um But I think, so you see so many different layers of this control that he's exerting on people. And I think ultimately that is what this was all about. And that's what he wanted to leave them with, is that I have controlled everything. I've taken everything away from you.
01:19:37
Speaker
particularly I'm a powerful enough man that I can take everything away from another man. a So why, and I know you can't fully answer this question, but.
01:19:51
Speaker
I'll ask it and try me. probably nots right It's hard to know it's hard you know it's you know some people think oh you can get into the mind of a serial killer I really can't. I think that's maybe some people can I just try to.
01:20:08
Speaker
It's my best interpretation of their behavior and why would somebody do something so I can't really get into their minds but I'll do my best, Jason. You just don't have to. and all right right don' Don't try and get in their minds. You don't want to. I think you you probably don't want to get in the mind of your average, relatively healthy person.
01:20:28
Speaker
um much less a serial killer. but but but But for me, if it's all about sort of like lording and taking control of each ah ah over other people, and and I get that. I understand how somebody could be motivated that way. I understand how it all connects. But what I guess I don't get is, and and I do get that death is the ultimate control over someone.
01:20:56
Speaker
But okay, so when I listen to this story, what I have a story of, not that it needs to make sense to me, I have a man who is very attracted to, for whatever reason, ransacking. Whether that ransacking involves just ransacking or rapes or murders, that's the key element that runs through. We have this ransacker. What I guess I don't understand is Why would someone escalate to murder when murder is not really what they're there for, if that makes sense? um That they're driven by this sense of power and control that comes in many different forms. Why escalate to murder which carries, particularly when you are a police officer?
01:21:48
Speaker
you know it carries enormous risks. um You know as a police officer that a rape is not investigated like a murder, that burglary is not investigated like a rape or a murder, that a murder gets a whole nother level, um particularly a home invasion, murder of you know doctors in one instance. Why do you think that escalation occurred?
Lessons from Solving Cold Cases
01:22:16
Speaker
Well, I think it was
01:22:19
Speaker
in And it's really hard to know what his mental state was, but I think at the time, you know, as I mentioned, there were some things going ah on in his life and he was kind of spiraling, not only in his regular normal everyday life, you know, being caught for shoplifting, he's going to get fired. And he ultimately did get fired as a police officer. And then the two cases where things just went completely wrong. And I think for whatever reason that had a significant impact on him and
01:22:59
Speaker
He was not going to let any more victims survive. um and i And I don't know why. I don't think he considered the risks at the time. I think he thought he was minimizing those risks with all the steps he would take. with you know this you know He wore a mask and you know over his head. He disguised his voice. He wore gloves. He he blindfolded the victims. He you know tied them up. he
01:23:33
Speaker
not only blindfolded them, but sometimes they'll put things over their head. So um it made it very difficult to identify him. And so I think he just thought I've taken all these steps to minimize, so I'm not going to get caught. And I don't think he thought he was going to get caught. And that the murder itself may have also been something that minimized things, you know, that You know, I would wonder at that moment, like thinking about that transition, did he read something in the news? Did one of his survivors or victims say something that made him think, oh crap, or did, you know, something come out? Because it's, it's just really interesting to me. I would have never thought of it as in some ways the murders themselves you eliminate. I don't think it was necessarily something, oh, somebody said something. I mean, what, what we're dealing with is,
01:24:25
Speaker
in some way someone who's very fragile. brand Very fragile. sense of cares yeah yeah, and you know, so so much so that they turn to rape and murder to cope. That's what we're dealing with. And it, we're, you know, we're trying to make sense of why he's doing these things and they're just not going to make sense. But if you think about he is so insecure that he's turning to these things to cope and
01:24:57
Speaker
He also had a temper i mean there's descriptions of him from. Neighbors who had interactions with him of getting angry and mumbling and he called one neighbor and he's threatened that left a message gonna kill their dog or something like that i mean he just he didn't react normally.
01:25:15
Speaker
to stressful situations where most of us would just be, let's just let it go. And you know his neighbor would say he'd be walking and pacing in the backyard, mumbling about something. and And so we're just not dealing with somebody who handles normal everyday stress or insecurities the same way as other people.
01:25:39
Speaker
Yeah, because that's where I could describe it. Do you think that there are any lessons other than lock my doors at night and make sure all the windows are locked, but um lessons that people can learn or el or law law enforcement also can learn through cases like this because I'm thinking and listening to this. They're like a couple of things that just as an example that comes to mind to me.
01:26:04
Speaker
um i I know I would feel violated if there were a burglar in my house um who broke in. But listening to what you said, like what that burglar does when they break into my house um might be even more disturbing or less disturbing, right? You know, if they take all the computers and walk out, that's completely different than to go through the underwear drawer or um and I mean, are there any things that we or law enforcement can learn? and Also, you know like what is the realistic reality? What's the likelihood of coming across somebody like George D'Angelo? I imagine that's infinitesimally small.
01:26:44
Speaker
you have me you mean You mentioned what to look for in burglaries and things, but one thing I want to point out just as a caution to victims of burglaries, even if someone comes in your house and just takes electronics, um you certainly be cognizant that sometimes they'll come back to the very same house.
01:27:04
Speaker
So just because they were successful they might come by and it it could be to completely financially motivated. So I'm just going to throw that out there. don't think you're same Yeah, I've seen this and this actually happened to a co-worker's neighbor where they were burglarized twice. And they did the second time around, they caught the guys um and they had burglaried their house, not even that you know far in the past. So just as something to keep in mind. um you know I think,
01:27:33
Speaker
One of the most important lessons and this is quite a simple lesson is don't trust composites or you know be be very careful. And i' you know I've just learned this, not just with this case, but be very careful with eyewitness descriptions of people, whether it's a suspect or another person or something they've seen really quickly happen, but just eyewitness identification because we had so many different
01:28:07
Speaker
you know, people who saw this offender and all the descriptions are very different and they, you know, early on, many detectives completely discounted that Visalia could be related because the composites didn't match. So I think this is just another lesson about just don't trust eyewitness. I mean, obviously, you know, you take that information, but take it with a grain of salt.
01:28:34
Speaker
So, and then the other lesson, the the bigger lesson is never give up. and i When I started out my career in law enforcement, I never believed the advances in technology that we see today and cases that some people have given up hope have been solved, not only with DNA, but with deathbed confessions or people that come forward with information. I just did an interview with two detectives on a case and that it's going to be on our show and the case had gone cold and they had very little in the way of forensic evidence and what broke the case was an ex-wife.
01:29:22
Speaker
who turned her husband in for the murder. And of course they get that tip, it takes them another 16 months to investigate and put together a case against this guy, but you never know. And so I would say never give up.
01:29:40
Speaker
I like that that's a good positive note you're like an internal optimist we just had a very long conversation about a serial killer and you found the optimistic note. I think know yeah when you work on these cases you have to.
01:29:58
Speaker
yeah It really is, these are hard cases and they're tragic and horrific and you can't imagine what some of these victims go through. But in my role as a profiler, I've seen such dedication and I mean, detectives who never give up and you know law enforcement often takes a beating, but I will tell you that many of these detectives want, you know, just as much as the victim's families, if these cases become that important to them and the victim's families become that important to them. It's it's been a theme of the year for me in listening to a lot of my guests, whether it's um
01:30:53
Speaker
somebody like Julie Murray, whose sister Maura disappeared, or um a guest earlier I had on this year, Monty Frank, whose daughter, native daughter, was um missing and was murdered, but even people I had a storm chasing photographer on im recently talking about the trauma that's related to it, but like a reoccurring theme for all these really interesting people I've had on this year has been, don't give up hope.
01:31:22
Speaker
Um, that when you get to that point where you give up hope, you know, all is lost because it's the fuel that sort of just keeps us going and bringing good things into the world. So I like that. ye That's how, that's how you get through the day. right I mean, why do this job? If you're just going to give up, there's no point. So you can never give up.
01:31:48
Speaker
yeah My with i thought for the day. I would tend to be pretty optimistic. yeah Same here, same here, same here. But I've seen amazing things. that's why i have opt if if If I've never seen any cases ever get solved, then I wouldn't you know i probably wouldn't be an optimist. But because I've so seen so many, what I thought could be very difficult cases and almost impossible cases and you just get that one phone call and then that's it.
01:32:17
Speaker
and they're off and the next thing you know, there's an arrest made in conviction and and it's just, it's unbelievable. You can't give up. wow All right. Thanks, Julia. Really appreciate it. Thank you, Jason. I appreciate it as well.
01:32:34
Speaker
Thanks for joining us today. If you'd like to join us for more discussions with me and other listeners, we can be found on most social media platforms, including a Lister Run Facebook group called the Silver Linings Fireside Chat. For deeper conversations with our guests and live conversations with other listeners, you can also join us on our Patreon at www.patreon dot.com forward slash the Silver Linings Handbook.
01:33:03
Speaker
I'm Jason Blair and this is the Silver Linings Handbook. We'll see you all again