'DEVIL INCARNATE'
THE Golden State Killer has admitted to harming 87 victims at 53 separate crime scenes across 11 California counties - but where is he now?
Here's what we know.
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Who is the 'Golden State Killer' Joseph DeAngelo?
Joseph James DeAngelo has been identified as the so-called Golden State Killer believed to have committed 12 murders and at least 50 rapes across California from 1976 to 1986, authorities said.
The 72-year-old suspect is being held without bail in Sacramento on two murder counts.
"The answer has always been in Sacramento," Sacramento District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert said, .
In 2016, 40 years after his first attack, the FBI offered a $50,000 reward for any information that could lead to his arrest and conviction, as they said they had his DNA and it was a "solvable case".
The FBI described him as a white male, close to 6 feet tall, with blond or light brown hair.
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What crimes did the Golden State Killer commit?
The suspect was also known as the East Area Rapist and the Original Night Stalker.
According to CNN, the first recorded rape was on June 18, 1976, when the victim was dozing in bed with her three-year-old son after her husband left for work.
She was then abruptly awoken.
A masked man stood in the bedroom doorway, holding a large butcher knife and shining a flashlight at her face.
He bound the victim and her son with shoelaces and blindfolded and gagged them with torn sheets.
After moving her son off the bed, he unbound her ankles.
"And then I knew what he was there for," she said.
Her rape sparked the hunt for the man who authorities say went on to commit rapes and killings in California over the next decade.
It's been more than 40 years since his first recorded attacks, which began in and around Sacramento in Northern California.
Before now, no one was ever caught or identified in the case and police only had minor details about his looks, along with a sketch from an almost-victim.
Initially, when the rapes in the Sacramento area of California were being reported, the victims were women alone with their children.
But by 1977, a year after the first reported rape, the attacker moved on to couples in their homes.
In February 1978, it's believed the attacker killed Katie and Brian Maggiore after the couple spotted him while walking their dog as he broke into a home in Rancho Cordova, California. just outside Sacramento.
The Maggiores were the attacker's first known homicides.
While police in Santa Barbara didn't realise it at the time, the attacker - who they had called the Original Night Stalker as he attacked women and couples across southern California from December 1979 to May 1986 - had the same crime pattern as Sacramento's East Area Rapist.
An investigator for the Orange County's District Attorney's office once described the attacker's crimes as "the most horrific" she had to investigate, and they were "very cold, very violent."
Despite the difference between jurisdictions in Sacramento and Southern California, detectives in Sacramento believed the Original Night Stalker and the East Area Rapist were the same person.
In 2001, DNA evidence determined they were one and the same.
, Carol Daly, a retired detective from the Sacramento County Sheriff's Department said: "We thought he would never stop, but then two months after the Maggiore homicides, the East Area Rapist left our jurisdiction. It was like he disappeared in thin air."
At this stage, the serial attacker began terrorising Santa Barbara County, more than 300 miles south of California.
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How was Joseph DeAngelo caught?
DeAngelo, a former police officer, was arrested after police matched discarded DNA evidence from his Sacramento area home with genetic evidence from the crimes, Ventura County District Attorney Greg Totten said.
Several neighbours said they saw DeAngelo working in his garage and in front of his house hours before his arrest.
Cory Harvey, his next-door neighbour, said she heard a commotion and looked out to see three or four law enforcement cars had pulled up, some wearing vests and helmets.
The local sheriff's office said officers had conducted surveillance on the house before apprehending him outside.Has he appeared in court?
DeAngelo made his first court appearance shackled to a wheelchair after being charged with murder on April 27.
Handcuffed to a wheelchair in orange jail scrubs, DeAngelo looked dazed and spoke only to acknowledge he was represented by a public defender - but didn't enter a plea.
He was largely inexpressive during the brief hearing, appearing to squint to see the judge across the courtroom and speaking haltingly in a hoarse voice.
He has been charged with eight counts of murder, and additional charges are expected, authorities said.
Court documents reveal detectives compared the profile to information on a free online genealogical site.
His attorney Diane Howard that DeAngelo is "depressed and fragile", and told reporters that she feels her client has received "unfair press."
"I feel like he's been tried here in the press already.
"We have the law to suggest that he is innocent until he's proven guilty,".
His next court appearance is scheduled for May 14.
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Where is he now?
On Friday, August 21 2020 James DeAngelo will face sentencing for his crimes.
It follows three days of gruelling hearings which saw victims testify against the former cop.
admitted to harming 87 victims at 53 separate crime scenes across 11 California counties in the plea deal that spares him the death penalty.
"He and his knife had complete control over me for the next two hours," read Patti Cosper, speaking on behalf of her mom, Patricia Murphy who was raped by DeAngelo.
"He truly is an evil monster with no soul. He is subhuman."
"Joseph DeAngelo, henceforth called 'the Devil Incarnate', broke into my home, blindfolded me, tied me up, threatened my life with a knife and raped me," Phyllis Henneman said in a statement read by her sister, Karen Veilleux.
"Life as I knew it irrevocably changed that day."
- 2020 - DeAngelo faces three days of hearings in which victims give testimony, with one describing him as the 'devil incarnate'
- 2018 - Joseph James DeAngelo has been identified as the so-called Golden State Killer and arrested
- 2014 - FBI offers a $50,000 reward for any information that could lead to his arrest and conviction, adding it is a "solvable case"
- 2001 - DNA evidence reveals East Area Rapist and Golden State Killer are the same person
- 1976 to 1986 - committed 12 murders and at least 50 rapes across California
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