Golden State Killer Victims

Case background and investigation

The Golden State Killer case encompasses a linked series of violent crimes committed across California between 1974 and 1986. Over more than a decade, a single offender was responsible for 13 murders, roughly 50 rapes, and more than 100 burglaries spanning jurisdictions from the Sacramento region to Southern California. For many years the crimes were investigated as if they were the work of separate offenders operating under different names: the Visalia Ransacker, blamed for a wave of burglaries and one killing in Visalia in 1974-1975; the East Area Rapist, who terrorized Sacramento-area neighborhoods with home-invasion sexual assaults from 1976 to 1979; and the Original Night Stalker, tied to a string of murders in Santa Barbara, Ventura, and Orange counties from 1979 to 1986.

The crimes were eventually connected by forensic DNA. In 2001, crime-lab testing established that the East Area Rapist and the Original Night Stalker were the same man, giving rise to the combined law-enforcement designation EARONS. Crime writer Michelle McNamara later popularized the umbrella name 'Golden State Killer' to draw public attention to the still-unsolved series. Despite the DNA linkage, the offender's identity remained unknown for decades, and he had evaded capture even though, as later became known, he had once worked as a police officer.

The investigative breakthrough came in April 2018 through forensic investigative genetic genealogy. According to investigators, a crime-scene DNA profile was uploaded to the public genealogy database GEDmatch, which returned distant relatives who shared common ancestors with the unknown suspect. Working with genealogist Barbara Rae-Venter, a team built extensive family trees from those matches and narrowed the pool to Joseph James DeAngelo, a former police officer then in his 70s living near Sacramento. Investigators said they confirmed the match using DNA surreptitiously collected from items DeAngelo discarded, and he was arrested at his home on April 24, 2018. The case is widely regarded as a watershed moment that established genetic genealogy as a powerful tool for cold-case investigation.

DeAngelo pleaded guilty. On June 29, 2020, he entered guilty pleas to 13 counts of first-degree murder and 13 counts of kidnapping, and, as part of a plea agreement, admitted in open court to dozens of additional uncharged crimes, including numerous rapes, that fell outside the statute of limitations. In exchange, prosecutors withdrew the death penalty. On August 21, 2020, following days of victim and survivor impact statements, DeAngelo was sentenced to multiple consecutive terms of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.

The significance of the case extends well beyond the individual verdict. DeAngelo's identification was the first widely publicized arrest driven by forensic investigative genetic genealogy, and in the years since, the technique has been credited with generating leads in scores of previously unsolved homicides and sexual assaults nationwide, while also prompting debate over genetic privacy and the regulation of consumer DNA databases. As of 2026, DeAngelo remains incarcerated in California, serving his life sentences, and the case continues to be cited as a landmark in the application of DNA and genealogy to cold cases.