In a move that will spare him the death penalty, Joseph James DeAngelo Jr. pleaded guilty on Monday to 13 homicides — including four in Santa Barbara County — and dozens of sexual assaults and burglaries committed by a prolific serial killer and rapist who became known as the Golden State Killer.
In a surreal court hearing held in a ballroom at Cal State Sacramento due to space and social-distancing requirements, DeAngelo, 74, admitted to 13 slayings and 13 charges of kidnapping for the purposes of robbery stemming from a terrifying statewide crime spree that stretched from the mid-1970s until 1986.
DeAngelo, who appeared wearing orange jail clothing and a plastic face shield to protect against COVID-19, also confessed to committing 64 other rape and abduction offenses for which the statute of limitations has long since passed.
Prosecutors from eight counties are involved in the case, and have agreed to the plea bargain that took the death penalty off the table for DeAngelo.
The proceedings before Sacramento Superior Court Judge Michael G. Bowman included a gruesome accounting of DeAngelo’s violent and sadistic crimes, beginning with his murder of Claude Snelling in September 1975 in Tulare County.
Snelling was shot to death when he intervened as DeAngelo was attempting to kidnap his teenage daughter.
Among DeAngelo’s victims were two Goleta couples who were brutally slain in their homes.
Dr. Robert Offerman, 44, and Offerman’s girlfriend, Debra Alexandria Manning, 35, were found shot to death in Offerman’s condo on Avenida Pequena on Dec. 30, 1979.
DeAngelo also murdered 35-year-old Cheri Domingo and her longtime boyfriend, Gregory Sanchez, 27, on July 27, 1981, in a residence on Toltec Way. The victims were found in a bedroom — both had been severely beaten, and Sanchez had been shot.
Three months before the Offerman and Manning murders, a couple on nearby Queen Ann Lane were accosted, tied up and terrorized by a man, presumably also DeAngelo, but they managed to flee the home and were not killed. No charged were filed in that case.
Kelly Duncan, chief deputy district attorney for Santa Barbara County, laid out the four homicides in horrifying detail, which included rapes of the two women.
Debbi Domingo, Cheri’s daughter, attended the hearing, and shared her reactions with Noozhawk.
“It wasn’t as grueling as I expected. but it was still really, really hard,” Domingo said. “But I feel good about it…Closure is a life-long process., but today feels like a big step in that process.”
As to the decision to accept DeAngelo’s guilty pleas in exchange for not seeking the death penalty, Domingo said, “I’m fine with that. I find it really satisfying that he is admitting guilt to the things that are unchargable”
DeAngelo, seated in a wheelchair at a table on a stage in front of the ballroom with three attorneys by his side, feebly answered “guilty” when asked by Bowman how he pleaded to the litany of charges.
He also muttered “I admit” each time he was asked about the special-circumstances allegations that the crimes were committed during the course of rapes and burglaries, and that he used a firearm.
Santa Barbara County District Attorney Joyce Dudley, who participated in the hearing, asserted as other prosecutors have that DeAngelo is faking his weak physical condition.
“He’s acting feeble. He’s not feeble…” Dudley said. “This whole thing is an act, according to the people who deal with him day in and out in the jail.
“I think of the families…He’s just manipulating just like he did his whole life.”
The proceedings continued throughout the day, with prosecutors one after another outlining their cases against DeAngelo, and eliciting his guilty pleas and admissions on criminal charge after charge.
Each case was outlined in unflinching detail, with descriptions of the murders, rapes and other criminal acts DeAngelo committed. At times it was difficult to listen to the accounts of what his victims went through.
At one point, some of those in attendance broke into applause after Amy Holliday, Sacramento County deputy district attorney, noted that several of DeAngelo’s victims reported that he had a small penis.
At a press conference after the day-long court hearing, Dudley shared some thoughts about the case.
“Today I saw so many emotions in the eyes of our victims,” she said. “What I mostly saw was sadness and rage, but I also saw some signs of peace, which I hope will be the catalyst to spark the beginning of their healing process.
“I know many of them rightfully believed that today would never come. But today did come, and even though their pain is still raw, and their wait painfully long, most of them are appreciative because they saw justice in their lifetime.”
The Golden State Killer was just one name given to the perpetrator in the lengthy crime spree. He also was known as the East Area Rapist, the Original Nightstalker, the Visalia Ransacker and the Diamond-Knot Killer.
A former police officer, DeAngelo was arrested in April 2018 at his home in Citrus Heights in the Sacramento area.
After decades pursuing the cold-case killings and rapes, investigators used DNA evidence and a genealogy website to zero in on DeAngelo as a suspect.
DeAngelo is expected to return to court the week of Aug. 17 for sentencing to what are expected to be multiple life terms in prison without possibility of parole.
That hearing is estimated to take several days in order to allow victims and their relatives to make victim-impact statements.
— Noozhawk executive editor Tom Bolton can be reached at tbolton@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.
