Golden State Killer Joseph DeAngelo Sentenced to Life Without Parole After Telling Victims He Is 'Truly Sorry'
A Sacramento judge gave the 74-year-old former police officer 11 consecutive life terms without parole for 13 murders committed between 1975 and 1986.
Published
For three days the people he had hurt took turns at the microphone. On Friday, August 21, 2020, it was Joseph James DeAngelo's turn. The former police officer known as the Golden State Killer rose from his wheelchair, took off his mask and spoke to the room. "I listened to all your statements, each one of them, and I'm truly sorry for everyone I've hurt," he said. Then Sacramento County Superior Court Judge Michael Bowman sent him to prison for the rest of his life.
DeAngelo, 74, had pleaded guilty in June to 13 murders and 13 rape-related charges committed between 1975 and 1986. Under the plea deal, Bowman sentenced him to 11 consecutive life terms without the possibility of parole, plus 15 life terms with the possibility of parole and eight years for other enhancements. The arithmetic meant only one thing: he would die in prison.
As part of the plea he also publicly admitted dozens more sexual assaults that could no longer be prosecuted because the statute of limitations had run out. Prosecutors called the scale of his violence "simply staggering": 87 victims at 53 crime scenes across 11 California counties.
The days of hearings before the sentence belonged to the survivors and the families of the dead, who described in often heart-rending detail how he had upended their lives. DeAngelo sat through them silent and expressionless in his wheelchair, which prosecutors contended was a prop meant to hide how healthy he still was. Contra Costa County District Attorney Diana Becton thanked the court for imposing the maximum sentence the law allowed. Four decades, she said, was "a long time to wait for justice to be served." And she added: "The victims must be assured that Mr. DeAngelo will never, ever walk this Earth again as a free man."
Prosecutors had first sought his execution. They settled for life because of California's moratorium on executions, the coronavirus pandemic, and the advancing age of DeAngelo, of his victims and of the witnesses they would have needed at trial.
He had escaped capture for four decades. In 2018 investigators built a DNA profile from one of the murder scenes and uploaded it to a public genealogy website, which matched it to a distant relative of DeAngelo. They confirmed the link with DNA collected from his car door and a discarded tissue, and arrested him in 2018.
The sentence here is as reported on August 21, 2020, by the Associated Press, which described 11 consecutive terms of life without parole plus further life terms and enhancements; the Sacramento County District Attorney's announcement of the sentence could not be opened in full. The victims of the 13 murders are not listed because the reports cited here do not name them.
Sources
- Golden State Killer sentenced to life in prison, Associated Press, via CBS News
- Golden State Killer Sentenced To Life In Prison Without Possibility Of Parole, NPR (Laurel Wamsley)