On this episode of the world famous Sofa King Podcast, we dive into some True Crime, and we talk about the Golden State Killer. He was responsible for well over 100 burglaries, 50 rapes, and at least 13 murders. This guy went by a whole lotta names: The Original Night Stalker, The Visalia Ransacker, and the East Area Rapist. Until 2018 when they finally caught the guy, law enforcement wasn’t even sure these were all different people. Eventually, though, a DNA genealogy website linked them all together and pointed at one man-- Joseph DeAngelo.

He started his sicko career as the Visalia Ransacker, where he stalked people, broke into their houses, took small trinkets of no value, and often made a mess and even ate their food. This escalated as he became the East Area Rapist. Here, he would do the same things, but it would culminate in raping the woman of the house. He often did the crime when the husband or boyfriend was home, and he had them bound in the other room with dishes on their chest. Like you do.

But, DeAngelo eventually grew bored with just the rapes and break ins, and he shifted to murder. He started to bludgeon and knife his victims, only using a gun when it was going south, and someone got out of their bindings. Eventually, there were enough cases that they put together some pretty horrible composite drawings and a disturbing profile of the killer. They said he needed to dominate in the bedroom, even with his wife, and that he had an abnormally small penis.

From the 70s through the 80s, The Golden State Killer ran through different cities in California, killing and raping. The truth about the man eventually came out once he was busted. The horrible fact is that he was a cop for several years, and he even was in charge of a burglary taskforce at one point!

So, what exactly got him busted thirty years after his crime spree? How did a DNA match used in a common DNA website help to bust him? What did the community of true crime civilians do to get this perv busted? Why did he eventually get fired as a cop, and what did he do afterward? What was up with the special knot the Golden State Killer used with his victims? What did he say when he called his rape victims years later, and what’s up with his horrible poem? Listen, laugh, learn…