SACRAMENTO, Calif. _ After four decades of dead ends, Sacramento law enforcement leaders announced Wednesday they arrested the man they believe was the East Area Rapist who killed and terrorized people in the 1970s and 1980s.
Sacramento County District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert and Sheriff Scott Jones said they relied on DNA evidence to arrest Joseph James DeAngelo, 72, who lived for more than three decades on a quiet street in Citrus Heights, northeast of Sacramento.
He was never considered a suspect until six days ago.
"We found the needle in the haystack, and it was right here in Sacramento," Schubert said.
The East Area Rapist, also known as the Golden State Killer, the Original Night Stalker and the Diamond Knot Killer, is believed to have killed at least 12 people, raped at least 45 victims and burglarized hundreds of homes.
Nearly all of the rapes and homicides between 1976 and 1978 occurred in the Sacramento region, followed by rapes in the San Francisco Bay Area and later homicides in Southern California.
Investigators zeroed in on DeAngelo within the past six days, Schubert said. Between then and now, sheriff's detectives conducted surveillance on DeAngelo to determine his habits and how he might react to an arrest, Jones said. Detectives arrested him Tuesday.
They relied on a "discarded DNA sample," Schubert said, adding that she would not provide more DNA specifics at this time.
FBI agents and law enforcement from Sacramento County and Southern California were outside DeAngelo's home Wednesday morning in Citrus Heights near the city border with Roseville. DeAngelo has lived there since 1983, public records show.
He is listed in Sacramento County jail records as being booked early Wednesday morning on two counts of murder from a Ventura County Sheriff's Department warrant.
DeAngelo is being held on suspicion of at least four homicides, according to information provided early in the news conference by Schubert and Ventura County DA Gregory Totten.
Two of those are for the murder of Brian and Katie Maggiore in Rancho Cordova. The couple were the first two people believed to be killed by the East Area Rapist and were shot while walking their dog. Brian was shot in the chest in a neighbor's backyard, while Katie was shot in the head outside their home.
Two additional charges are for homicides in Ventura County. On March 13, 1980, Charlene and Lyman Smith were bludgeoned by a piece of firewood. Charlene, who was soon to become a county judge, was raped before being killed.
"This defendant has been able to live here in a nice suburb in Sacramento," said Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas. "Our team is going to work hard to make sure he never gets out."
Sgt. Shaun Hampton, a Sacramento County Sheriff's Department spokesman, said several more search warrants are expected to be executed over the next few days.
Authorities believe DeAngelo raped 37 people in the Sacramento area and Central Valley and killed two between 1976 and 1978. From there, authorities believe, he moved on to the Bay Area and Southern California.
He is believed to have committed at least nine sexual assaults in Sacramento, six in Rancho Cordova and Citrus Heights, four in Carmichael, three in Davis, two in Orangevale and one in Antelope between June 1976 and July 1978.
Bruce Harrington, whose brother Keith Harrington and sister-in-law Patrice Harrington were allegedly killed in Dana Point in 1980 by the East Area Rapist, appeared at the news conference.
"For the 51 ladies who were brutally raped: Sleep better tonight," Harrington said. "He isn't coming through the window. He is now in jail and he is history."
Then-Citrus Heights resident Jane Carson-Sandler was sexually assaulted at knifepoint by a man believed to be the East Area Rapist in 1976. Carson-Sandler, who now lives in Sun City, S.C., told The Island Packet newspaper Wednesday she had been contacted by two detectives about the suspect's arrest.
The man's arrest picture was not familiar to Carson-Sandler, she said.
"I just found out this morning," she told The Island Packet. "I'm overwhelmed with joy. I've been crying, sobbing."
True crime writer Michelle McNamara's book "I'll Be Gone in the Dark" reached No. 1 on The New York Times' bestseller list last month and drew renewed attention to the case. A documentary on the search for the killer aired at the Delta King Theatre in Old Sacramento earlier this month.
