Old memories emerged while reading about the Golden State Killer’s timetable of murders in the Goleta area.
The April arrest of Joseph James DeAngelo as a suspect in the decades-old reign of terror prompted me to review the stories of his capture and alleged crimes. At first, I didn’t connect the Golden State Killer — also known as the East Area Rapist, the Diamond Knot Killer, the Visalia Ransacker and the Original Night Stalker — to cold cases in Santa Barbara County, although authorities long had.
I was initially fascinated by the DNA sleuthing that put handcuffs on the 72-year-old DeAngelo, who was living with his family in suburban Sacramento when arrested. I continued reading.
When scrolling through more online accounts of the serial killer and rapist’s crimes, I stopped at the pictures of the four Goleta victims — Debra Manning and Robert Offerman, and Cheri Domingo and Greg Sanchez — because I remembered when their murders occurred.
Almost 40 years later, I was again looking at their faces and reminded of the savagery of their deaths.
I was also staring at the dates of those murders: December 1979 and July 1981. I pulled back from the computer screen. A mental scattering of old and loose puzzle pieces started to tumble into place, and a picture materialized as tentacles of goose-bumps crept around my neck and shoulders. Could it be?
Scary family lore finally explained in headlines seems improbable since I am alive to read them. The telephone calls, the footsteps, twisting door knobs, swinging doors, and a phantom’s nightly visits has a name: The Golden State Killer.
Highway 101 snakes along the Central Coast offering easy access to the cities sprawled beside it; Goleta and Santa Maria being two of them. Goleta is 67 miles from Santa Maria, where I lived at the time, in a fairly new subdivision adjacent to Santa Maria Country Club — and its golf course.
Ours was a two-story home. My husband worked long hours and traveled a lot. I was a stay-at-home mom with three young daughters: 12, 9 and 3 years old.
According to authorities, the Golden State Killer’s modus operandi was often stalking and scaring his victims beforehand, sometimes with phone calls to even having keys made to their homes. His agility for climbing into windows and scaling fences widened his pool of victims.
Detectives suspected the killer may have been a police officer — as DeAngelo turned out to be — thus creating the perfect predator with monstrous capabilities.
The phone calls began as an annoyance. I thought them random until a pattern became apparent: Late weekday mornings the phone would ring, and if I answered it, I’d hear sounds of breathing with occasional throat noises. The caller was male; I guessed a truant kid at first. That assumption slowly ceased when strange noises and occurrences started happening around the house.
It felt like an intruder with a house key. And, then there were the phone calls. They had escalated into being creepy. I sensed I was being watched.
Returning home one day from shopping, I entered from the garage through the back door into the family room. I was carrying groceries, my little girl and a large purse as I rounded the corner into the kitchen.
I looked toward a noise to see the dining room doors swinging back and forth; so hard that I knew it was not the Santa Maria wind or my imagination. I dropped everything but my baby girl, turned and ran back outside. I remember running and holding my daughter, but don’t recollect if I called the police.
I probably did, but I would know it was futile. Whoever was in my home had run also. In the opposite direction. The police would have nothing but my stories of what seemed to be a haunted house. What could they do? What could my husband do? What proof did I offer other than knowing a stranger was lurking in my home — at will.
The phone calls continued; doorknobs rattled and twisted; doors squeaked; upstairs floors creaked under careful footsteps. Otherwise normal noises became scary, possibly dangerous. Then, my youngest daughter, 2 or 3 at the time, began talking about “the man” in her room at night.
I think back to how foolish I was not to change locks, insist my husband work in town, or call the police with every alarming phone call or sinister occurrence. It was 1979 or ’80 and I was unaware of home security systems. I convinced myself I could handle whatever the disturbance was in our home. That is, until my baby girl’s ominous apparitions.
I realized I needed a big dog, a big gun and a big cop. I got the latter. One rattled phone call and the posse arrived. A tall, broad-shouldered detective stood on my front porch flanked by police officers. Relief washed over me. I spoke at length with the detective while the officers searched my home. They were thorough but found nothing suspicious.
I felt nauseous seeing them walk back out to their vehicles. The phone rang. I ran outside screaming for the detective to come back because I just knew my tormentor was the caller. The detective answered the phone in a voice deep enough to dig a trench and threatening enough to make Hannibal Lecter a vegetarian. The harassment ended that day.
I don’t know if the prowler was the Golden State Killer or, if he was, why he spared my family. We were easy targets when he was skulking around our upstairs bedrooms at night. Whatever checked his rage and murderous impulses while watching us sleep remains unsaid.
When discussing this with my older daughter, who clearly remembers the prowler, she said I was the reason. I quickly responded saying that the Golden State Killer had a lot of upper body strength, which he used to scale fences and walls like a gorilla. Also, to beat his victims to death. At 5-foot-10 and 150 pounds, I was no match for that kind of frenzied murderer.
But, my attitude implied I could. If unrestrained, I would have fought to the death. Mine.
Supposedly, that long-ago prowler wasn’t the Golden State Killer; that is, according to my oldest daughter. After all, we’ve been enjoying life these past 38 years.
If only that nagging little voice would quit telling me otherwise — you know, the same one that told me years ago I was being watched.
— Former Santa Barbara County resident Mary Alice Altorfer is now retired and living in New Braunfels, Texas. The opinions expressed are her own.