SACRAMENTO, Calif. _ A Sacramento judge Friday ordered arrest and search warrant information in the Golden State Killer case unsealed, but is keeping any information about what was seized from suspect Joseph James DeAngelo under wraps for now, as well as keeping allegations about sexual assaults sealed.
Sacramento Superior Court Judge Michael Sweet issued the order after a brief hearing Friday afternoon, paving the way for the release of some documents _ with redactions _ to be made public later in the day.
The hearings on release of the warrant information stem from a legal effort by The Sacramento Bee and other news organizations asking that the warrants be unsealed.
Arrest and search warrants have been issued seeking seizure of items and information from DeAngelo's home, cellphone and computers, and a separate warrant sought fresh fingerprints, DNA samples and photographs of DeAngelo's body, including his penis.
DeAngelo's public defenders objected unsuccessfully to the serving of that warrant, which authorities apparently sought because victims of the Golden State Killer, also called the East Area Rapist, had described their attacker as not physically well endowed.
The judge agreed that warrant information regarding DeAngelo's alleged murder victims, starting with Brian and Katie Maggiore, who were killed in Rancho Cordova in 1978, can be released.
DeAngelo, 72, faces 12 murder counts in Sacramento, Orange, Santa Barbara counties for his alleged role as a serial killer-rapist who stalked California communities from 1974 through 1986.
But the judge said he was keeping sealed for now any information about what was seized in searches of DeAngelo's home, cellphones and computers. Authorities had hoped they might find distinctive "trophies" that the attacker took from victims over the years such as class rings or china dishes.
The various crime sprees were known by different nicknames _ Visalia Ransacker, Original Night Stalker, East Area Rapist, Golden State Killer _ until authorities determined through DNA samples left at crime scenes that they likely were the work of one suspect.
DeAngelo, a former police officer who had served in the 1970s in departments in Exeter and Auburn, was arrested April 24 at his Citrus Heights home after investigators matched DNA from crime scenes to DNA on items he had discarded while under surveillance, authorities say.
He had come under suspicion after a distant relative submitted DNA to a genealogy website and investigators detected enough similarities in that sample to begin looking at that individual's family tree, leading them eventually to DeAngelo, who had been living in Citrus Heights since the early 1980s and was a retired mechanic.
