In this week’s deep-dive, we’re taking you into a case that haunted California for decades and still sends a chill through anyone who reads the details. For more than ten years, a masked predator moved through neighborhoods like a ghost — breaking into homes, stalking families, and leaving devastation behind. The numbers alone are staggering: over a hundred burglaries, at least fifty sexual assaults, and thirteen confirmed murders. He slipped between counties and police departments, stayed a step ahead of massive task forces, and then — somehow — disappeared. Not into the shadows, but into ordinary suburban life, where he lived free for more than forty years.

This is the full story of Joseph James DeAngelo — the man the world would come to know as the Golden State Killer. We start back in 1974 in Visalia, a small agricultural city where a strange series of burglaries had detectives completely rattled. The person behind them wasn’t grabbing TVs or cash. He was spending hours inside people’s homes, taking small, personal things — a single earring, coins, women’s underwear — and rearranging objects in ways that felt deliberate and unsettling. It wasn’t just theft. It was a message: I was here. I know you. I can get to you.

From there, we follow the escalation as the Visalia Ransacker’s crimes tip into attempted abduction and then murder. We walk through the December 1975 killing of Claude Snelling, a journalism professor who died protecting his teenage daughter from being taken.

And we cover the terrifying near-capture just two days later, when Detective William McGowen fought the prowler face-to-face and survived only because the suspect’s gun misfired at point-blank range.Then the nightmare shifts north. In 1976, Sacramento is hit by a new kind of terror.

The East Area Rapist begins attacking women in their homes with a level of planning and cruelty that left investigators stunned. We break down how his assaults evolved, including the moment he began targeting couples — tying up husbands and boyfriends, stacking dishes on their backs, and forcing them to listen helplessly while he raped their partners. We look at the psychological warfare he used to control entire communities: threatening phone calls, stalking routines, and the methodical surveillance he did before striking again.

As the years pass, his crimes migrate south — and turn deadly. Starting in 1979, the man now known as the Original Night Stalker begins murdering couples in their homes across Santa Barbara, Ventura, and Orange counties. We go crime scene by crime scene, showing how the evidence slowly — and finally — revealed that Visalia, Sacramento, and Southern California were all connected to the same offender.

We also dig into the long, frustrating decades of investigation: the dead ends, the jurisdictional chaos, and the breakthroughs that came only when DNA technology caught up to the case. And of course, we cover the seismic moment in 2018 when genetic genealogy identified the suspect, leading detectives straight to DeAngelo’s quiet home in Citrus Heights — the same kind of suburb he once terrorized.

The twist that still hits like a gut punch? During the height of his crime spree, DeAngelo was a police officer, using his training and insider knowledge to stay invisible.We close with the plea and sentencing — a historic reckoning where fifty-three victims and family members stood up in court to face the man who had stolen so much from them. Their impact statements are heartbreaking, powerful, and a reminder that this story isn’t just about the monster — it’s about the people who survived him. This episode is the result of hundreds of hours of research across court records, investigative files, victim testimony, and years of reporting. 

Our goal was to tell this story with care, accuracy, and respect — honoring the victims and the investigators who refused to let the case die. The Golden State Killer investigation didn’t just end with an arrest. It changed law enforcement forever. Genetic genealogy opened a door to solving cold cases that once seemed impossible, and we talk about both the promise of that tool and the ethical questions that come with it.

And we take a moment to recognize Michelle McNamara, whose relentless work on I’ll Be Gone in the Dark helped reignite national attention and kept pressure on the investigation. She died in 2016, two years before DeAngelo was caught, but her voice and determination are woven into the story of how this case was finally solved. If you think you know this case, stick with us — because when you lay every chapter out in full, the scale and horror of what happened, and the way it was finally unraveled, is almost impossible to comprehend.