Original subtitles

[Heavy breathing]

[Recording interference]

[Reporter] This really is the most prolific

unsolved serial murder case in modern history.

He's been called a lot of things by law enforcement.

[male] He's been called the Visalia ransacker.

[Reporter] Accused of more than 120 burglaries.

[Dramatic music]

A suspect known as the East Area Rapist

has attacked at least 39 women.

[Reporter] In 1981 in Southern California,

he became the Golden State Killer.

[Reporter 2] Terrorizing couples would typically tie up the man,

rape the woman, and kill the couple.

[Michael] I have never seen a city so gripped in fear

before that or since that.

It was like he was thumbing his nose at us.

'Catch me, catch me, If you can, you can't. Ha, ha, ha.'

[Anne Marie] The killings mysteriously stopped.

Law enforcement had no evidence for decades.

[Sinister music]

[Male Reporter] This week, after a search of genealogy websites,

they have arrested 72-year-old James Joseph DeAngelo.

He has been taken into custody after 42 years.

Golden State Killer.

[Female reporter] The East Area Rapist.

The Visalia Ransacker.

All three of these names have been the exact same man.

There were upwards of 50 rapes, 12 murders.

We charged him with what we could prove.

But I don't doubt there's more crimes

that Joseph DeAngelo committed.

[Tense music builds]

[Anne Marie] There are still so many unsolved cases.

We know there are more rapes and even murders.

[Marjorie] Donna Richmond was never seen alive again.

People need justice.

We've got a striped ski mask with Bess Snelling.

Wow.

[Marjorie] And we have a striped ski mask with Donna.

Here is the connection.

Why could nobody put those two things together?

[Elizabeth] I was three months shy of 13.

This man took me to a river and raped me violently.

[Son] I believe that my mom was a victim

of the Golden State Killer.

I just prayed to God,

'Let me live. I want to live through this.'

Did DeAngelo stop in 1986 and live peacefully

until his arrest in 2018?

I don't think so.

[Marjorie] Just because he was caught...

it's not over.

[Dark, intriguing music]

[Tense music builds]

[Prosecution] You attacked her, you beat her and you raped her.

You murdered her in the first degree

by bludgeoning her multiple times in her face and her head.

Murder in the first degree.

How do you plead, sir?

Guilty.

[Michael] Officially, DeAngelo was active

from the years 1974 to 1986.

In 2020, he pled guilty to 50 rapes and 13 murders.

There's a possibility and probably a high likelihood

that he committed way more crimes

than we ever will know about.

After raping her,

the defendant fired his handgun into the back of her head.

The bullet entered the back of her head

and lodged in her brain.

It would defy rationality if the number of cases

that he was charged with was the totality of all the crimes

that he committed.

[Judge] Mr. DeAngelo will spend the rest of his natural life

and ultimately, meet his death confined behind the walls

of the state penitentiary.

I think it is so important to continue any investigation

into the Golden State Killer that we can.

We need to keep the focus on looking at all of the crimes

that he may have committed.

Whether they are murders, rapes,

we need to get the word out there.

Because unless he starts talking,

nobody's going to do anything about it.

[Sombre music]

It would be impossible to try to understand

why people commit these crimes

without starting at the beginning.

Their early life, oftentimes,

tells you the majority of the story.

[Ominous music]

[Paige] Joe DeAngelo was born in 1945 to a military family

in Bath, New York, where his mom comes from.

His father is a master sergeant in the United States military.

From 1945 to 1959, this family has moved at least six times,

from New York, Oklahoma, New Jersey, Washington,

West Germany, and then an Air Force base in Rancho Cordova.

So, he's had a very unstable childhood.

And the reality of the relationships,

as I understand it, is very tense,

not a lot of love, a very strict father, and a very cold mother.

[Sorrowful music]

[Bryanna] He did move around a lot.

His parents got divorced when he was in middle school.

The thing I think was the most impactful

is he witnessed his sister being sexually assaulted.

[Children muffled over sinister music]

[Paige] Joe DeAngelo was nine or 10 at the time.

He was out with his older sister while the family was on base

in West Germany.

[Sinister music]

A group of young men accosted her.

[Dark music builds]

Forced Joe to watch while they took turns raping his sister.

[Bryanna] That alone was deeply disturbing to him,

but I think he also saw,

here's somebody that just did what he wanted.

It almost showed him, like, 'Here's a way you can be.'

[Paige] You have to think that an event like that

caused all sorts of bad things inside of DeAngelo's mind.

You see echoes of it in DeAngelo's attacks

in so many ways.

The first crime that Joseph DeAngelo admitted to was 1974,

but there's evidence that suggests

he was committing crimes much earlier than that,

even in his early teens.

The teenage crimes that I could document

occurred when they move into the base housing in Rancho Cordova,

and he hangs out with another kid,

and they're breaking into homes through the garage.

What is he stealing?

He's taking earrings, but single earrings or a cufflink.

He's not stealing stuff that's valuable to a kid.

[Bryanna] So, one thing we're trying to do

is look at those early, early warning signs.

And the thing that is the biggest predictor

of having a problematic future

was exactly what DeAngelo showed in his early burglaries.

Taking things that were very personal in nature.

He wasn't going into the homes because he wanted money,

because he wanted items of value,

because he was looking for drugs.

He wanted to send a message to that victim,

'I got into your house and you need to be worried about me.'

That is terrifying.

And that's the kind of person

that goes on to commit very dark things in the future.

[Paige] He would have been in early high school.

So we're talking 14, 15 years old.

[Bryanna] Joe then gets his GED and ships out.

He's joined the war in Vietnam.

[Paige] He had a brief career in the Navy,

two tours on two boats.

[Bryanna] He's on board the USS Canberra,

working below decks as a mechanic.

When DeAngelo returned from Vietnam with his war stories,

and he's talking about a war injury

and they were being shelled,

he's lost the tip of one of his fingers

and part of his hearing because of some battle

he was involved in.

[Bryanna] He told everybody

it was this tragic incident while he was fighting abroad.

[Paige] But it turns out it was an accident on the ship.

He lost his finger when one of the shell casings

slammed to his finger and cut it off.

[Michael] In August 1968, he was discharged from the Navy

and he started his college education.

He went to study Police Science, of all things.

[Intriguing music]

[Sirens wailing]

His dream at that point

was to join the California Highway Patrol.

And, of course, he's reaching for the very top.

[Bryanna] He knew, 'This is what I want to do,'

and he felt this drive towards that profession,

which I think was very masculine, very tough guy.

I'm sure he just gravitated to that.

[Sirens wail over dark music]

Joe's at Sierra College when h he meets Bonnie,

and he sweeps her off her feet.

[Bonnie] In 1970, I met and became the fiancé

of Joseph DeAngelo.

He and I were both students at Sierra College

in Rockland, California.

I was 18 at the time, and he was 23.

I was engaged to him,

and we were together for a year and a half.

Joe was very animated and outgoing.

He had some extrovert in him.

A lot of his friends thought

he was just the most happy-go-lucky type of person.

I never knew about any of his previous criminal history.

I never knew that he had done burglaries in his teenage years

with people that I met as his friends later.

[Distant dog barking]

We think that serial killers are these people

that you could spot them a mile away, and they're terrifying,

and they look scary, and that's not always the case.

But you have to look for the subtle things.

The fact that there's arrogance,

a lack of empathy, this constant need for them to be in control.

Those are the small things that really tell.

Those are the personality traits that set them apart

from most other people.

[Troubling music builds]

In 1970, Joe graduated from Sierra College

with an associate's degree in Police Science.

After graduation, he transfers along with Bonnie

to California State University at Sacramento,

where he begins a Criminal Justice degree.

[Bonnie] During our first semester together

at California State University,

Joe and I enrolled in an Abnormal Psychology class.

I was doing very well.

I was getting an A in the class.

Joe, on the other hand, was almost failing the class.

So, this is where the big conflict came up

between the two of us.

Joe insisted that I help him to cheat on the next midterm exam.

He really needed that grade.

He needed to pass this class.

For me, as a daughter of two teachers,

the boundary of cheating on an exam

was one that he couldn't make me cross.

He began to get angry.

He tried and tried and tried to pressure me into helping him

the way he had envisioned it.

And I stood my ground and said,

"I will not let you cheat from my paper."

[Suspenseful music]

Joe was aggressive, he was angry.

It was the only thing he wanted to talk about.

The rest of our life went on hold while he was trying

to get me to comply with what he had planned,

and I was having none of it.

This eventually brought us to the point where I realized

that I did not want to spend more time with this man.

I invited him to my parents' home.

In front of them, I broke the engagement

and gave him back his ring, and he left very, very angry.

About two weeks later,

I was asleep in my bedroom on the ground floor

of my parents' farmhouse.

There was tapping on the glass of the window.

[Tapping over dark music]

It was Joe standing outside, and he had a revolver in his hand,

and he was pointing at me through the window.

He told me, "Get dressed,

we're going to Reno tonight, and we're gonna get married."

I was absolutely in a panic.

I had no idea if he would pull the trigger.

'Would you harm me if you've come here to try to marry me?'

And I don't know how I'm going to get out of this situation.

So, I rolled out of the bed and I went and I woke up my father.

He then went outside and he talked to Joe

for what I would estimate it was about two hours

that they talked on the front porch.

[Troubling music]

Eventually, he talked Joe into leaving.

That was never reported to law enforcement.

I have no idea what that conversation was about.

To the day that he died, he never discussed it with me.

My theory is that there was a bargain between the two of them,

that it would not be reported to law enforcement

if Joe never contacted me again.

And he never did.

I wish things had gone differently.

I wish, as a 19-year-old,

I had stepped forward, taken the initiative, talked about it.

[Pensive music]

I wish that my father had picked up the phone,

even after the fact, and reported it.

It may just have put him on another track.

No one will know.

[Music fades]

[Paige] After his breakup with Bonnie,

Joe DeAngelo very quickly moved on

to a woman called Sharon Huddle.

She's a smart, savvy, strong young woman

who's pursuing a Law degree.

Joe met my sister at the college campus.

He seemed to be a good guy, a nice guy,

with the desire to be a police officer

and she wanting to be a lawyer.

I remember Joe talking about how that made him feel

more powerful, more high up the ladder,

because he's gonna have a lawyer for a wife.

Joe was very clever at many things.

To me, I think Joe was prepping himself to be a better criminal

by learning all about criminology.

[Sinister music]

[Michael] In 1972,

there were a series of burglaries in Rancho Cordova.

These were nicknamed the Cordova Cat Burglaries.

These are unsolved crimes.

But there's evidence that shows very clearly

that this was Joseph DeAngelo.

[Rustic music]

Rancho Cordova, in the early 1970s, was a sleepy farm town.

It was a place where houses were not locked,

doors were not locked.

People were welcome in.

You didn't think about crime much,

that crimes that were committed

was often not reported in newspapers.

It was a peaceful place.

[Paige] In Rancho Cordova,

police began to notice a series of cat burglaries

or prowlers essentially breaking into homes,

not stealing much except for mementos,

things like class rings, wedding rings,

throwing underwear around, but prowling in the homes.

[Troubling music]

[Bryanna] Looking at voyeurs or prowlers

and why they commit that act.

Why would you case the residents, spy on them,

looking through their windows, be a peeping Tom?

They do it because, 'I am getting to have a close look

at this person that I'm not supposed to.

They don't want me to, but it's my say.'

'I get to do it because I want to.'

[Distant dog barking over sinister music]

[Richard] The Rancho Cordova Cat Burglar was prowling constantly.

He had his own unique MO for the burglaries.

He'd get into the house, use the unlocked doors and windows,

He would take something large like a TV set or whatever,

put it in front of the door.

You'd have two or three escape routes already set up,

and he'd spend as much as two or three hours

going through a house.

And the guy was seen, but nobody could identify him.

Most burglars want to go in, get something of value,

and leave.

The kind of burglar that goes in

looking for something that's very personal;

that burglar is very dangerous.

They're just testing the waters

for something far more serious to come.

[Intriguing music]

[Bonnie] During the time that we were dating,

Joe introduced me to many things

that I'd never experienced before.

He bought me a .22 rifle

and he and I practiced target shooting at his home.

He liked guns.

He was very proficient

and he would get into restricted property

where he would go poaching for fish and game.

One time,

there was an incident with us riding on his motorcycle.

A German shepherd would chase us on the bike.

One day, when the dog came up to the bike,

Joe turned and kicked it underneath the chin,

and the dog dropped dead.

I think it broke its neck.

[Dark music]

[Anne Marie ] DeAngelo was a very sadistic human being,

and he hated dogs.

When the burglaries were occurring in the Cordova area,

he really had no empathy

for the fact that he was willing to kill dogs

in committing crimes.

[Richard] In Rancho Cordova, I responded to a prowler call.

On the sidewalk is a piece of wood about 18 inches long,

soaked in blood and flesh.

And I thought, 'Oh, jeez.'

I went in and checked the house,

and I found a dog had been beaten to death.

A small dog.

All his guts were hanging out.

No idea why he was killing dogs like that.

It's sick, that's all I can tell you.

I don't know what the hell was wrong with him.

[Bryanna] One of the biggest defining traits

for any of these kinds of horrific,

sadistic offenders is lack of empathy.

And it started out with animals,

as it often does with these types of offenders,

and escalated into humans.

[Ominous music]

[Bonnie] When he was arrested,

that old man didn't resemble Joe DeAngelo in any way to me.

This is the photograph that most represents who I remember.

This is the man that I remember very much.

[Courtroom chatter]

It's difficult to carry for me

that I was ever involved with him,

that he is the cause of so much damage to people,

to other women, to the people that he murdered

in the most brutal, brutal ways.

[Dark, dramatic music]

[Tense music builds]

[Paige] So, while the Rancho Cordova crimes are happening,

the Cat Burglar is prowling,

Joe DeAngelo is finishing his policing degree.

That series of crimes ended at about the same period

that Joe DeAngelo graduated from Sac State.

[Graduate chatter over pensive music]

[Intriguing music]

[Michael] In 1973, DeAngelo and his partner, Sharon Huddle,

moved four hours south of Sacramento

to a small town called Exeter.

[Investigative music]

[Paige] DeAngelo and Sharon Huddle get married.

And his life looks like it's coming together very well.

[Bryanna] People struggle so much

with how could somebody both live a normal life

and commit these horrific crimes?

[Sombre music]

But these guys don't view it that way.

It is not some sadistic, horrible, despicable offense.

They view it as just Tuesday.

It's just another day.

[Wanda] Looking back,

I believe Joe was completely 100 percent evil.

But at the time,

His whole family saw a totally different Joe

than what he truly was.

My husband was Brad Thompson, who was Joe DeAngelo's nephew.

They spent an enormous amount of time together.

Brad loved his uncle very, very much.

When Joe was living in Exeter, Brad was 13, 14 years old.

[Rustic music]

Brad and Joe would ride motorcycles

through the orange groves.

They would go fishing in the canals.

They would go hunting rabbits with .22s or larger guns.

Joe would shoot a rabbit with a shotgun

or something stronger than a .22 just to see it blow up.

[Shotgun rumbles over dark music]

Joe was always very polite.

Always said how pretty I was, and very nice man.

[Intriguing music]

[Paige] In 1973, Joseph DeAngelo takes a job

as a rookie police officer in Exeter.

[Bryanna] The fact that DeAngelo had the gall

to be a police officer; that shows a whole other level.

The badge literally represented authority

and gave him this extension of manliness

that he really didn't have on his own.

[Rustic music]

This is Exeter, California.

I worked here for like 35 years on the police department.

This is the old police station.

This is where I used to work with Joseph DeAngelo.

When he arrived, he didn't seem like he was one of the guys,

because we was always laughing and joking,

and he was always a serious guy.

He didn't have no horse sense.

He was an educated idiot.

That's what he was.

So I asked him one time, I said, "Joe, what are you doing here?

You should be with the FBI

instead of this little small town of Exeter."

He told me, he said, "Well, I'm working my way up."

So, hee said, "Eventually I'll get there."

But he didn't make it.

He chose the other way.

[Tense music builds]

[Wanda] While Joe was living in Exeter,

he and Brad would ride motorcycles fast through town.

Joe enjoyed having his fellow officers chasing them

and then getting away from them.

He got a kick out of doing that.

[Motor engines revving, sirens wailing]

Brad told me that Joe enjoyed cat and mouse.

He loved the thrill of getting away with something

that nobody else could get away with.

[Sirens wailing]

Looking back now, there's definitely two sides to Joe.

I mean, there's that normal side that nobody would suspect

could do such things that he did.

And then there's another person

who committed all these heinous acts.

[Paige] officer Joe,

he's very principled, he's very by-the-book and his approach

to policing in Exeter.

Meanwhile, in the nearby college town of Visalia,

a series of home ransackings begin.

There are so many of them that this crime spree

becomes known as the visalia Ransacker.

[Intriguing music]

[John] In the 1970s,

Visalia was a small, warm city where the people got along good.

The population was about 70,000.

It was a farming town.

There was big orange groves everywhere.

The smell in town was very pleasant.

It was a good place to be.

[Dark music]

[Anne Marie] The Visalia Ransacker began his crime spree

around 1974.

And over the course of about maybe 18 months or so,

about 120 residential burglaries occurred.

[John] He hit so much and so often

that you could go into a house

and recognize that it was the same guy.

[Michael] Very much like the Cordova cat burglar,

things were being stolen

that weren't the most valuable thing in a house.

He was very unique and peculiar.

In a lot of houses, he would eat ice cream.

Occasionally, he'd drink a beer.

Another weird thing he did was that he stole blue chip stamps.

But it was an old program that had died out.

And the people that had the blue chip stamps

didn't even know they were gone until we asked them.

Think about that.

Why would anybody do that?

Another peculiar thing that we noticed was

if he found a picture of a young girl,

he would do what we called the three Ts.

He would take it, tear it, or throw it.

He did not like pictures of a young girl for graduation

or a wedding picture.

He hated wedding pictures.

we see something very distinct.

The ransacking was the thing that he enjoyed.

He loved to say, 'I'm in control of your house.

I'm tearing it apart.

This is my place now.'

[Paige] The Visalia detectives,

they begin tracking the ransackings on maps

because they know he's going to come in.

They know roughly where, and they stake out the streets.

And while they're there,

he has moved a couple blocks over and seems to understand

and anticipate where their stakeouts are going to be.

[John] Now that you know who the suspect was,

you can understand how smart he was, how much knowledge he had.

He was a sergeant in Exeter in charge of their burglary unit.

[Pensive music]

Son of a bitch been to my house,

drank my iced tea, ate my baloney sandwiches,

just like any of the other guys, you know?

I'd invite him when I go home for code seven, which is lunch,

and I treated him the same way, you know?

Because he's just one of the guys.

[Intriguing music builds]

As an Exeter police officer,

DeAngelo would have had access to information

about the Visalia police department's efforts

to catch the Visalia ransacker.

He was able to navigate around them, taunt them,

and escalate his ransackings.

[John] He was an avid prowler.

We had numerous calls from people that he was in their yard

or in their backyard, or climbing their fence.

He was out in the dark looking in girls' bedroom windows

all the time.

[Paige] The burglaries increase in number,

and there are 15 or more a night.

And it becomes very obvious

through the progression of these ransackings

that there's a sexual nature to them.

[Sinister music]

[John] In the bedrooms, the men's drawers,

he just rummaged through.

But the women's drawers, he threw everything out.

He took the women's underclothing

and laid them out, like a bra and panties.

He would lay them on the bed in perfect order.

In one burglary that I investigated,

he even laid it in the baby's crib.

So he was really weird.

His M.O. signature was women's underclothing.

It was a sexual claim.

So, we got very concerned.

Very concerned.

[Bryanna] DeAngelo was stealing things that are very personal

because that victim meant something to him.

He didn't want to sell it, he didn't want money or drugs.

He wanted that remembrance of that victim.

And that is terrifying.

[Michael] DeAngelo has since confessed

to being the Visalia Ransacker.

But I believe there is evidence

that indicates he may have been kidnapping

and raping young girls at the same time.

[Dark music]

[Marjorie] Elizabeth Silva is an example

of a person who has come forward,

but she doesn't have any proof or physical evidence.

But that doesn't mean it's not important for us

to listen to what she has to say.

[Sombre music]

[Elizabeth] I'm Elizabeth Silva.

I was born in '61 in Tennessee.

We came to California in 1969.

When it happened, I was three months shy of 13.

[Birds singing over sorrowful music]

You know, it was a really beautiful day.

Band practice finished about three something,

a little bit, because we were running a little late.

And then after, everybody was just like

going off back to class.

I ditched.

I finally got to the park,

and I was sitting there on this big old weeping willow tree.

And it was just beautiful outside.

I was like, 'Wow.'

And then all of a sudden, I seen on my peripheral, um, a cop car.

And I'm like, 'Oh, shit.'

Normally, when the police officers took me back to school,

we were laughing about it and everything else.

But this time, I didn't get to go back to school.

And we went in a different direction,

and I knew I was in trouble.

[Police radio chatter]

He was driving, and he was calling me names.

He was saying to me that he was going to rape me.

[Horn honking]

And... I believed it.

He took me to St. John's River.

And went down into this little ravine

and like, the whole time that I had these handcuffs on,

and he was raping me and arguing,

and it was just thinking

I wanted those handcuffs off so bad

because I knew he could probably kill me.

[Water babbling over sinister music]

He told me if I report this to anybody,

that he would kill my whole family.

My whole entire family.

And I believed him.

I... I've believed him for 48 years.

[Sorrowful music]

My life was completely destoyed.

I couldnt even think.

I...

because now I was told not to tell, not to tell,

so I didn't tell.

I didn't tell.

I didn't tell. I wish I would have told.

[Camera snaps over dark, pensive music]

I was watching TV with my little dog,

and the news came on that they caught the Visalia Ransacker.

I seen that they had arrested this man,

and he didn't look like the man that I knew.

And then they showed the picture of him when he was younger.

And right then and there, I knew.

I recognized him straight away.

Straight away, I recognized him straight away,

and I can smell him.

He raped me violently.

This man took me to a river and raped me violently

and left me there to die.

[Dark, sorrowful music]

This changes our understanding that DeAngelo,

step by step, got worse and worse and worse.

He didn't.

He started off up here.

To rape a 12-year-old,

you're already at the top of the criminal list.

You're not working your way up.

[Tense music]

[Paige] As these ransackings are happening in Visalia.

Back in Exeter, Joe is climbing the ranks.

He's promoted to a sergeant's position

and is heading up a task force to investigate crimes

very much like those happening in Visalia.

If there was a break-in,

a burglary, DeAngelo would take the report.

So he would do the investigation.

DeAngelo basically investigated his own crimes.

That's what he did.

[Uncomfortable chuckle]

[Dog barking]

[Bryanna] He now knows what is being collected at crime scenes.

How do we investigate these cases?

What kind of information do the police have access to?

What do they look at? What do they do?

So he's able to learn counter law enforcement measures

to essentially evade law enforcement that much better.

[Michael] On the 11th of September, 1975,

the ransacking took a very sinister turn.

[Pensive, troubling music]

My name's Elizabeth Snelling-Hupp.

I was 16 at the time.

I lived with my mom and dad, two younger brothers.

My parents were very loving.

I just had such a wonderful childhood.

So, September 10, 1975,

I remember our air conditioning had gone out,

and it was still in September in Visalia.

It's still very hot.

So we had windows open, just the screens on the windows,

and went to bed just like any other night.

And then the morning of September 11...

um...

[Struggled, emotional breathing]

I woke up to a man wearing a ski mask

laying on top of me.

It was about 2 a.m.

And all I could hear was this kind of a gruff whisper...

saying that he, that I was coming with him,

he was taking me with him,

and to not make a sound or he would kill me.

[Rustling over suspenseful music]

So everything was sort of fuzzy,

because I couldn't even register what was even happening.

And it was kind of weird,

because he said if I made a sound,

he was going to stab me to death.

But I never saw a knife, but he had a gun to my head.

He had me by the arm with one hand,

and the gun pointed at me as we left my bedroom,

went out through by the kitchen towards the back door.

I was trying very hard not to make any noise.

But I couldn't help it.

I was then, when I fully woke up

and I realized what was happening, I started crying.

And I'm sure that's what my dad heard.

And...

We went out the back door and that's when I heard my dad yell.

He was kind of rounding the corner.

He stopped at the counter

and then he just like let out this roar

and just started charging through the house.

But as he got to the back door,

he pushed me down, he turned and he...

[Two gunshots]

...fired two shots at my dad.

I screamed and DeAngelo turned the gun on me,

pointed it at my head, and I just put my head down.

And I just knew that, I mean, that was it.

I already saw him shoot my dad.

And um, instead,

he started kicking me in the face, in the head.

And then he took off running.

[Dark music]

I got up and found...

...my dad had collapsed at the door.

It was awful just seeing him lay there just, you know,

he was just bleeding to death

and my mom was trying to cover it and stop the bleeding.

And we found out later that he died on the way to the hospital.

[Intense sorrowful music]

[Michael] People always focus on the murder of Claude Snelling.

But in truth, DeAngelo wasn't there to kill him.

He was there to kidnap his 16-year-old daughter.

[Dramatic sinister music]

[Anne Marie] Joseph DeAngelo wanted to rape Beth Snelling,

and that was his goal.

So he had elevated himself from being a burglar

to now trying to sexually assault somebody,

and he was picking a teenage girl.

I mean, that was a very, if you think about

what happened in the Claude and Beth Snelling incident,

very high risk.

He's willing to go into a home of a teenage girl

with her father present.

It tells you that his compulsion for sexual gratification

was so dominant that he was willing to go into a home

that was really high risk.

[Melancholy music]

[Beth] My dad absolutely saved my life that night.

I would not be here were it not for him.

And I feel my dad was my hero.

I just will always love him and miss him.

But I never, never ever thought my dad's killer would be caught.

[Dramatic, sinister stinger]

[Courtroom bustle and chatter]

[Judge] This is the time we schedule to hear from victims

and the victim's family involving crimes

and uncharged acts committed by Mr. DeAngelo.

Is there any member of the victim's family

that wish to be heard as to the charge

of murder in the first degree of Claude Snelling,

as well as kidnapping and intent to commit rape

of Elizabeth Snelling?

-Good morning, Your Honor. -Good morning, ma'am.

I get in the courtroom and I start to have a panic attack.

Seeing DeAngelo with his attorneys, it just hit me

and I just wanted to run.

I didn't, I didn't want to do it.

And then I... I thought, no.

I was determined to do it to honor my dad.

[Sniffs back tears]

For many years, I felt guilt for what happened that night.

I felt that maybe there was something I could have done

or said to warn my dad to stay there and never come out.

My dad was such a gentle soul and loving, kind-hearted man

who loved his family more than anything.

My dad died saving my life that night, and he is my hero.

What sickens and angers me the most

is that DeAngelo was able to live a normal life

with his family for all those years

while my family and I could not be with my dad.

I am so thankful that

he will at least spend the rest of his miserable life in prison.

Thank you.

[Judge] Thank you, ma'am.

[Sombre music]

[Bryanna] Confronting your offender

can be different to different people.

I think for each victim,

they should have the right to say and choose

what they want to do, but for that to happen,

you have to be able to get justice for them

and close the case.

I was looking for justice.

I was looking for somebody to hear me.

If I could say anything to Joe DeAngelo,

I would say, 'Why did he pick me?'

'Why did he choose to come and pick me out of that park?'

[Sombre music]

Joseph DeAngelo was preying on young girls,

some of them as young as 12 years old, still children.

And this was about the age his sister was

when he witnessed her being sexually assaulted.

And I think there's probably some symmetry in that.

That was the first case that he ever saw of a sexual assault

and that had such an impact on him.

And now that's what he's doing to other young girls

his sister's age.

The timeline that we have on Joe DeAngelo

as the Visalia Ransacker started in '74 and '75.

[Sinister music]

Elizabeth Silva was a victim in early '74.

To me, that proves that we need to look more closely

at his entire timeline

because there are unsolved crimes that happened

right at that time.

There were rapes and there were murders.

Those need to be looked at.

They need to be solved.

It's one of the great tragedies that he's not speaking

is that I think that there is so much more he could tell people

that would give answers to some of these cases.

[Tense music]

[John] The pressure of trying to catch the Ransacker

was enormous.

[Marjorie] I was going through old newspapers,

and this young girl's name was there,

[Marjorie] same age group as Beth Snelling.

[Richard] I do believe he killed her.

[Wanda] Your uncle is sitting in his patrol car

watching the girls playing tennis.

Sick bastard.

Another young girl went missing.

Oh, my gosh, here's another blonde girl.

It seemed to be his preference.

He gained sexual satisfaction from inflicting harm.

There was fear in the community.

It was a playground for someone like Joe DeAngelo.

Deep inside, he knows that he's this evil monster.

At night, the werewolf would come out in him.

Then he'd come back as a police officer.

And if we had caught him,

there would be no Golden State Killer.

[Sombre, sinister music]