August 29, 2023 • 55 mins
It’s official -- after decades of dead ends, tantalizing theories and frustrating leads, justice has finally caught up with The Golden State Killer, also known as The Original Night Stalker. 72 year old Joseph James DeAngelo seemed set to quietly disappear from history, known only as a grandfather with a weird temper problem -- one of the cranky old men so common in neighborhoods across suburban America. But new DNA analysis leveraging the massive, growing databases in both federal and private hands led law enforcement down a trail they'd long thought had grown cold. Tune in to learn more about how justice finally caught up to the Golden State Killer.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Every so often in the course of our show, we
have been able to make certain observations and predictions. Tonight's
classic episode is about one of those observations and predictions.
On the heels of our unfortunately ongoing series examining serial
(00:20):
Killers on the Loose, we looked into the long delayed identification, arrest,
and conviction of a killer known as the Golden State
Killer or the original night Stalker.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Oh yeah, because this guy, James DiAngelo. He's only the
first of a huge group of serial killers and other
criminals who have been caught through the use of this
type of DNA sequencing, you know, going through a family
tree and finding out a relative. We're going to get
into the episode. It's fascinating stuff, So let's jump right in.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. Is riddled
with unexplained events. You can turn back now or learn
this stuff they don't want you to know.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name is Nolan.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
They call me Ben. We are joined with our super
producer Paul Michig controlled Decan. But most importantly, you are you.
You are here, and that makes this stuff they don't
want you to know this episode is going to be
an update on something. It's an update that we hoped
but never truly thought we would ever have the chance
(01:44):
to do. This is very much a what a what
a time to be alive sort of show. You may
recall longtime listeners that a while back, when.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Was it Matt May twenty sixteen.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
May twenty sixteen, we did an episode on what is
known as the original night Stalker or the Golden State Killer,
And in this episode we looked at the current research
and investigation into those at the time unsolved crimes, the
various theories, the various leads that were taken up and
(02:23):
later rejected by law enforcement and armchair investigators on specialized
crime forums on Reddit, all over the internet, and including
some of the authors who made it their life's work
to hunt down this killer. Today, however, we're telling a
very different story. Today. We are making it official. After
(02:45):
decades of dead ends, tantalizing theories, and frustrating leads, justice
may have finally caught up with the Golden State Killer.
Before you listen to this episode, if you would like
a deep dive into the crimes and the past investigation
of the crimes of the Golden State Killer, or East
(03:06):
Area Rapist as they were also known. Do check out
our episode from May twenty sixteen. We'll wait.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
Oh man, that was a good one, wasn't it?
Speaker 3 (03:18):
Kind of a bummer? Really?
Speaker 2 (03:19):
Yeah, but it was a fact filled episode and lots
of lots of avenues to investigate, but.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
We get a happy ending here was what this amounts to, right.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
Of sorts. Yeah, there's definitely a light at the tunnel,
at the end of the tunnel.
Speaker 3 (03:37):
That's a better turner phrase.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
We'll see, we'll see, we'll see. We hope we as
a society make it to the light. Quick background for
everybody who just sat quietly the way the three of
us did in the studio while your fellow listeners were
checking out that episode. From at least nineteen seventy four
to nineteen eighty six, California was plagued by a serial
break in artist, a burglar, later a rapist, and then
(04:02):
finally a murderer who is known by several different names
and was believed to be several different people for a time,
the Visalia Ransacker, the Diamond Not Killer, the Golden State Killer,
the East Area Rapist, and also the original Nightstalker, nowadays
more often referred to as the Golden State Killer.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
I believe yeah, because the Golden State Killer encompasses all
of these different crime sprees.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
And eventually, in the course of their investigation, law enforcement
and independent investigators began to connect the dots and they said,
we believe this is all the work of a single individual.
So not copycatters, not a group operating in concert, although
we do have a bit of a rabbit hole about that,
(04:46):
but a single man, a man who might never be
apprehended until that is on April twenty fifth, twenty eighteen,
when authorities announced the arrest of a suspect named Joseph
James DeAngelo ju a seventy two year old retired police officer.
He was rested on eight counts of first degree murder
(05:08):
based on DNA evidence, and more than forty years since
his criminal career began, the original Knightstalker would finally maybe
be held accountable. This is the accumulation of countless of
hours of police work, contributions, and analysis by thousands and
thousands of people, several of whom are doubtlessly listening to
(05:29):
this podcast today, and in a very real sense, a
lucky break. So what happens. Can we look back over
some of these original crimes. I think we must, Well,
here are the facts that maybe we start with the
Visalia ransacker, and we do have to say we are
only at this point talking about documented crimes. As we've
(05:53):
seen in previous shows, is an unfortunate fact in the
US that many, many, many crimes do not get reported.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
Do you think that, because of what's come to light
that we'll find out about more or do you think
that's unlikely?
Speaker 1 (06:05):
You know, ideally, ideally there wouldn't be more defined, but
realistically there are probably some. It's just a safe thing
to guess. The question then becomes if we're talking about
pre nineteen seventies stuff, right, were the authorities at the
time collecting DNA? Does anything remain? You know, so it's tough,
(06:29):
but who knows. Also, if it turns out we should
say d Angelo has not been convicted yet, but if
it turns out that he is, that he is convicted,
and he already from what we understand, confessed to several things,
he may just go on and start naming more names
and instances because he is, frankly at the end of
(06:50):
his life one way or the other.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
Yep, maz can often happen with these kinds of legacy crimes.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
Yeah, unfortunately, Well, the vizailureansacker was a master burglar and
break in guy, believed to be responsible for more than
one hundred crimes. Again, only the ones that we know of.
The first ransacking that was recorded was on Tuesday, March nineteenth,
nineteen seventy four, and one thing that stood out to
people was that he passed over a lot of high
(07:21):
value items, a lot of electronics, a lot of keepsakes
and stuff, and instead he stole about fifty bucks worth
of coins from a piggybank. That's what he took.
Speaker 3 (07:31):
Clearly something else at work here other than desire for
monetary gain.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
Right, right, Because there are pawnshops everywhere. He could have
taken something and then pawned it and made much more
than fifty dollars.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
Is the keyword here, ransack right because it is about
going through people's private things.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
Yes, just so, he was tearing houses apart, knocking over furniture,
cutting stuff up, going in the c it's throwing out things.
But he would only actually steal a few small items trinkets,
cuff links, keepsakes, keepsakes, and he would also probably the
creepiest thing you would do is he would arrange items
(08:14):
and what appeared to be almost a ritualistic fashion, you know,
like women's underwear. He did steal weapons. He stole six weapons.
He was prolific. He committed multiple break ins in the
same area on the same day, and he also set
a record for that too.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
Yeah, he broke into twelve different homes in a single
day on Saturday, November thirtieth, nineteen seventy four.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
And at this point, other than the strange arrangement of items,
it looks like a really creepy burglar, right until that is.
On September eleventh, nineteen seventy five, a man who is
strongly believed to be the ransacker, broke into the home
of one Claude Snelling at five point thirty two Whitney Lane.
(08:59):
It's now South Whitney Street if you're familiar with the neighborhood.
Claude caught someone trying to kidnap his daughter in their
car port, and this still unnamed person shot Claude twice
and Claude died and the assailant fled. This became the
first known murder linked to what we call the original nightstalker,
(09:20):
and this murder prompted him to leave town.
Speaker 3 (09:25):
So he's escalated already from ransacking to child snatching.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
Mm hmmm, yeah, it seems set. It seems like that
was the course. It's it's pretty safe to say that
if the daughter had been successfully kidnapped, she would have
at the very least been assaulted.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
And then the murder, though, was a byproduct of being caught.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
Yes, the murder was more than likely a moment of
panic too, or perhaps in some sense meant to erase
a witness. It's probably not the primary intent.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
But the story of this man is one of escalations.
I just wanted point that out. And that's interesting that
this particular killing. I wonder if it's like, what kind
of gave him the taste or something like that, and
he's like, maybe I want to add this to my repertoire.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
I have to wonder too, because we find often in
serial murders, like in our previous episodes on Uncaught serial Killers,
we do see this escalation. You know, someone starts with fires,
someone starts with mutilations, right or running by and slashing
(10:30):
someone or choking somebody, and then it builds and builds,
but this killer was at this point still lucid enough
to realize the dangers if they chose to stay in Visalia.
So in mid nineteen seventy six he moves to Sacramento,
(10:52):
and that's where he progresses fully from burglary and murders,
perhaps unintentionally, to sexual assault.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
So around June nineteen seventy six, our person here of
interest moved to Sacramento, and this is when he's really
progressing from burglary into sexual assault. Although you know, he
originally targeted these women who were alone. Usually that's what
his victim would look like. They would be in their homes,
(11:22):
sometimes they would be with their children, and he would
later prefer couples. Somehow it switched from just alone victim
that he could attack to perhaps, like we were saying,
the escalating thrill and whatever he was getting out of
this escalated to where he needed to have a partnered couple,
(11:43):
to where there is a male and female usually.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
And perhaps some of that is tied into his perception
of the unattainable nature of someone already in a relationship.
Perhaps some of it is a power move on his
part to someone else witnessed helpless. It's spooky and disturbing stuff.
(12:07):
His standard procedure smacked of prior training. These may have
been crimes of passion when he got there, but he
did a lot of homework. He did extensive research. He
would typically break in through a window and awaken someone
with a flashlight and a gun so they can't clearly
(12:28):
see him as well, and then bind the victims, blindfold them,
gag them with towels from their own house, and he
would typically force the female victim to tie up her
male companion before he tied the female victim up himself.
And he operated that way for about a year June
to seventy six to May seventy seven, and he had
(12:52):
a three month gap and then he returned in Sacramento
and other counties. He had another three month gap, and
then he was operating in other counties until nineteen seventy nine.
And from what the timeline shows, from June eighteenth, seventy
six to July fifth, nineteen seventy nine, he committed overall
(13:13):
fifty one crimes as the East Area rapist. As the
original Nightstalker, he committed seven known crimes with multiple homicides
that Marx has moved from break inspe to murder, So
stay tuned. After a brief break for our sponsor, we
will return and give you a grim introduction to the
(13:35):
man known as Joseph James D'Angelo junior.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
So there are a lot of great timelines that have
come out so far, a lot of them pretty brief,
but we stumbled upon one on reddit that been found
and we're just going to kind of go over this
and hit some of the high points and low points
in this man's life.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
Yeah, you can. You can find this on the East
Area Rapist Original Knights Stalker subreddit posted by a user
named Sacred Geometry. And I know it might sound maybe
a little cursory for the three of us to be
(14:19):
citing this sort of source, but this person has done
their homework extensively and we found quite a quite a thorough,
robust timeline here that follows from the birth of D'Angelo
to the arrest. He was born November eighth, nineteen forty five,
in Bath, New York.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
Yeah, and just to jump on there with what Ben
was saying, I linked up some of these dates just
as a fact checking exercise, and the Sacramento Bee has
much of the same exact stuff on it, so.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
And shout out to the Sacramento Bee. They've been really
leading the charge on reporting here.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
So he's born nineteen forty five. Then in nineteen sixty
four he wins the Navy. He enlists there and he
goes into naval training that same year in San Diego.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
And this is where he would have, as part of
his training, learned a lot of knots that the average
person would not would either not be aware of or
would not be able to do on command.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
Specifically, like that diamond knot.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
Specifically, like that diamond knot, Matt, is that like a sheepshank?
Speaker 3 (15:27):
Was that some kind of like specialized sailing knot?
Speaker 2 (15:30):
Yeah? Yeah, And it was found at several of the
crime scenes.
Speaker 3 (15:34):
Well I knew that, but I just you know, is
it a particularly tricky one?
Speaker 2 (15:39):
Not tricky, just you wouldn't you wouldn't think to make
a knot one that way.
Speaker 3 (15:44):
It's super interesting too, and you you know, it's such
a long timeline of crime and now we have a
person to associate with it. This timeline that we're looking
at has photographs of him throughout his life, which is
really interesting just to visually trace his you know kind
of progression and think about what he was doing at
the time those photos were taken. So he did, in
(16:06):
fact serve in the Vietnam War. And then in August
of nineteen sixty eight, he goes to Sierra College in Rockland, California,
and fascinatingly got an associate degree in police science that
could come in handy.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
Yeah, he also attends later the year. After he graduates
with an associate degree in police science, he goes to
CSU and Sacramento, where he spends a year earning a
bachelor's in criminal justice, and the same year he gets
out of there, in nineteen seventy two, he spends the
(16:44):
next approximate year, sometime during nineteen seventy two and nineteen
seventy three, he completes an internship in the Roseville Patrol.
This is interesting because at the time, if we look
at the context, many police officers and law enforcement professionals
did not have college education or higher education to this degree,
(17:10):
not to mention an internship. So it's somewhat strange that
we'll see this as his career continues. It's somewhat strange
that he goes to smaller police forces. You know, he
could have maybe ritten a ticket to Los Angeles or Chicago,
but for some reason, he stayed in these smaller areas.
(17:31):
The same year wherein we believe he completes his internship,
he joins the Exeter Police Department on their burglary task
force in May of nineteen seventy three. May of nineteen
seventy three is also when experts believe the Visilia Ransacker
crimes began.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
When's that crazy? Yeah, the burglary crimes. Hey, I'm on
a burglary task force?
Speaker 1 (17:56):
In such a trope in fiction, right, like the what
was that movie about the crime scene photographer Nightcrawlers? Who
starts perpetrating crimes? Does he not? Really?
Speaker 2 (18:10):
Kind of? Yes, he does. He that's true, he does.
Speaker 3 (18:14):
That's very true. At first it starts off that he's
he's looking for the big scoops, and then in order
to get them, he kind of starts behaving in a
monstrous way. He escalates, or like Dexter for example, not
sure it's like a good show exactly, but you know
blood expert who is also a serial kill.
Speaker 1 (18:33):
Or would Jude Law from Road to Perdition be an example?
Speaker 2 (18:37):
I oh wow, I don't remember.
Speaker 3 (18:39):
It's been a minute.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
What was he?
Speaker 3 (18:40):
What's his deal?
Speaker 1 (18:41):
I feel like we may be on the verge of
a spoiler alert.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
It's okay.
Speaker 3 (18:46):
If we say it okay, then it's okay.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
All right.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
Just don't don't get Tom Hanks angry at us for
spoiling his movies.
Speaker 3 (18:53):
Road to Perdition spoiler coming in three two one.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
Jude Law's character is a photographer who is also killing
people to get the best photographs of crime scenes. Yep, wow, yeah,
but this and it's a solid film.
Speaker 3 (19:10):
If you haven't seen, Oh, it's coming back to me.
I haven't seen it since it was in the theaters,
but now I'm having flashes of it and it was
quite good.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
One thing to point out here, in nineteen seventy Joseph
was engaged and then he got married in nineteen seventy
three as well. If we're imagining, so he's got his
professional life, then he's also got his personal life that's
going on. So he's engaged, and then three years later
he gets married in the same year that the Facilia ransacker.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
Is right, but he doesn't marry the woman who was
originally engaged to. No, he marries someone different. Correct, And
in seventy five, As we said, Claude Snelling is murdered
during the attempted kidnapping. There's an attempted murder of an
officer McGowan in December of the same year when the
(19:58):
police got close to handing the ransacker. And then this
is when not only does the ransacker disappear from Visalia,
but someone in Sacramento begins committing the East Area rapist crimes.
For DiAngelo's part, he has relocated to the Auburn Police Department.
(20:20):
So again these relocations, at least timing wise, begin to
match up.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
And then in nineteen seventy nine, he gets caught and
he's shop but not for any of these major crimes.
He gets caught shoplifting. It's a hammer and what was
the other thing?
Speaker 1 (20:36):
Oh it was not tape, but yeah, he got shop,
got caught shoplifting small items.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
Yeah, specifically, I know a hammer was one of the
major things.
Speaker 3 (20:46):
Was is the kind of items that you maybe wouldn't
want a record of you having purchased.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
I don't know, it's it definitely seemed a bit strange,
specifically with that hammer. But the police department finds out
because he is actually found guilty of shoplifting, and then
he gets fired from the Auburn Police Department in August
of seventy nine.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
And many people will tell you that there was a
slight pausing crime at that time. That's not entirely true,
because in October of seventy nine, we know that there
was an attack that went wrong on the ear side
on what would be classified as the original Nightstalker crimes,
and tried to break in and assault and murder a couple,
(21:30):
but he botched it. Then, as the original Nightstalker, there
is the murder of Robert Offerman and Deborah Manning in
December of nineteen seventy nine. The next month there's a pause.
March of nineteen eighty Lyman and Charlene Smith are murdered.
In August, Keith and Patrice Harrington are murdered. During this time,
(21:54):
DiAngelo buys a home in a neighborhood called Citrus Heights.
February nineteen eighty one, a woman named Manuela Wittun is.
Speaker 2 (22:02):
Murdered, and then to jump back into his personal life,
his first child is born in September nineteen eighty one,
another huge change in his life. And then you see
that there's a bit of a break, A big gap
here that happens after September nineteen eighty one.
Speaker 1 (22:20):
Right, a five year gap in May of so the
murder before the child was Sherry Domingo and Greg Sanchez
in July nineteen eighty one. Matt, as you said, September
nineteen eighty one, DiAngelo as his first child and.
Speaker 3 (22:37):
In Los Angeles, but he wasn't living there, was he?
Speaker 1 (22:40):
His child was born in Sacramento. And then Matt, as
you said, radio silence for five years, at least as
far as we know. In May nineteen eighty six, another
murder is associated with the original Knightstalker. Thats Janelle Cruz.
Speaker 3 (22:55):
And then that same year in November, he has his
second child in Los Angeles, but did he live there
for an extending the amount of time It seemed like
he was sticking to the smaller areas well.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
We know that the murders, at least the documented ones,
appear to have stopped at that time. Interesting and as
we look, he continues on for a while to have
a relatively normal life, despite what some of us might
assume about killers, and despite how we would assume having
(23:27):
a criminal record for shoplifting would screw up your job prospects.
He seems to have continued.
Speaker 3 (23:34):
He stayed working at the same place until retirement, the
save mart, which was I guess he was like a
loader or something in a distribution center.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
Or he definitely worked at the distribution center, and I'm
assuming after working that many years, he probably moved up
the ladder, but we don't have that information.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
Yeah, from August nineteen eighty nine, he was working at
that distribution center Noel mentioned in Rooseville, California, and he
worked there until what twenty seventeen until last year.
Speaker 3 (24:00):
Yeah, it's retirement.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
Age, so he was settled in and everything seemed to
indicate that this guy would retire and relative obscurity. He
was living with one of his daughters at the time
and her husband, So.
Speaker 3 (24:20):
That would put him today at in the neighborhood of
seventy two years of age.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
And that would put the assuming there's a big assumption
that's probably incorrect, Assuming that all the crimes that occurred
are the crimes we know about, then that would put
him at a murder rate of twelve to thirteen people,
forty five to fifty sexual assaults more easily more than
(24:46):
one hundred and twenty homes broken into.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
Yeah, and that's, of course, if he actually did all
of these crimes.
Speaker 1 (24:51):
And that's a very good point to make. If, of
course he actually did all of these crimes.
Speaker 2 (24:57):
He's being charged for several murders right now as we're
recording this, but it's not all of them.
Speaker 3 (25:03):
Well what's that based on? Guys? What do we actually know?
Speaker 1 (25:06):
Well, answer what might be the most important question in
today's episode. After a word from our sponsors, here's where
it gets crazy. This man d' angelo was associated with
these crimes, not through a bunch of people digging through
(25:30):
microfiche or hunting down old leads alone. No, this man
was apprehended due to a lead they derived from DNA,
a DNA database. So one of the first questions is
how did they find this DNA Because clearly, like in
(25:51):
the nineteen seventies, for instance, they wouldn't have had the
sophistication in terms of technology to investigate this. You can
find a loose leaf notebook or something, but you wouldn't
automatically be able to pull that info off of it.
Speaker 3 (26:05):
Oh totally. And when I first saw this case the story,
I assumed that they had a sample of his DNA
that ended up in one of these databases. But that's
not quite how it went down, is it.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
No, not quite. It turns out that they took crime
scene DNA which they had had from the time of
the crimes, and ran it through various databases where all
of a sudden, ding ding ding, it showed a match
to what would turn out to be one on DiAngelo's
distant relatives, someone who was who had their DNA in
(26:38):
a public database. So let's look at that arrest, though
it isn't until March of this year, as we record
this March twenty eighteen, that he has identified as a
suspect in these in these decade old crimes via a
public database. And what's strange about it happened in twenty
(27:00):
eighteen for a lot of people, is the idea that
WHOA and authorities would hold on to this information for
decades and not do anything. In nineteen eighty six, DNA
was just emerging as a criminal investigative tool, and according
(27:21):
to the experts, D'Angelo, as a former police officer, would
have probably according to them, have known that this thing
was on the way, or there was a possibility at least,
So when they started looking for this. A lot of
the stuff we read about says that they found a
match that was a distant relative. But what does that mean.
Speaker 2 (27:42):
Oh well, it means that they took what they did
have as far as DNA evidence from this killer and
they threw it into one of these databases called GEDMatch
dot com, and they found a fourth cousin of D'Angelo.
Now they have no idea at this point who D'Angelo is.
They just know that this DNA matches this person at
least in some way, and this person had used this
(28:05):
ged match program already and the service. And then they
start looking through this person's family tree, this fourth cousin,
and then they start trying to match up people's backgrounds
from that family tree, and does anybody match up? Do
they live in Vasiliador around this time? Do they live
in Sacramento around this time? And they start picking out
(28:28):
a few people to look at, and they eventually come
upon mister DiAngelo. And it's a really strange process. How
that just happened to work.
Speaker 3 (28:37):
Well, remember, on the Here's where it gets a crazy episode,
we talked about this whole thing, and there was a
story about this very same process that led them to
like a fault positive. That can happen too, because they
they got a hit, but the guy didn't match the
criteria for the crime they were trying to to solve.
So they looked at like his son or something like that,
(28:59):
and it atched a little more and so they went
with that and then ended up not being true. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:04):
Well, in this case, the investigation is fascinating because they
got this match with the fourth cousin. Then they actually
start looking at this guy and they start staking out
his house.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
For like six or seven days, yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
Exactly, and they're looking at his trash. I mean, they
don't they don't state specifically how they got the DNA samples,
but they do say it was probably from a container
that he had drunken. He had taken a drink out
of right, and they would watch him come in and
out of his house, and they, you know, then they
took that DNA sample and they tested it with the
(29:37):
other DNA that they had from the previous case, and
they went, oh, boy, guess what. Somehow we got the guy.
It's him.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
Yeah, and the match was not something that was contested.
We can't be more clear about this. Yeah, it wasn't.
It wasn't like, oh, oh, this is a pretty good indicator.
Let's see. No, this this, this was something they've been
under investigation in a while for some time. A criminologist
in Contra Costa County way back in two thousand and
(30:08):
one had linked two sets of cases to the same
individual thanks to DNA evidence. They just didn't know who
it was.
Speaker 2 (30:17):
And that was the East Area rapist and the original
night stalker cases.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
Yeah, and to the point that you made know when
they get the DNA, it led them to a number
of people, right, and they had to separate timeline, so
they had to spend this time surveilling this guy and
going through his trash most likely, although they don't say
(30:43):
it that way because I don't think they want that
image of law enforcement to be you know, they want
to be presented as people digging through your trash.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
No, but they will, Yeah, but they will have to.
Speaker 1 (30:56):
Well, and they you know, they're there is a beyond
ninety eight percent likelihood, beyond ninety nine percent likelihood that
they have the right guy. This is the US, so
technically he's innocent until proven guilty.
Speaker 3 (31:11):
Digging through trash is just good police work, my guys.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
I would agree. I would agree, and this is where
the story stands. As the story emerges, we're going to
hear new updates. Well, we can go ahead and call it.
We're inevitably gonna hear I think the conviction of this criminal.
On a side note, the neighbors said the same things
(31:36):
that you would hear about serial killers in works of fiction.
They said he was kind of a recluse. We didn't
think he was a killer or a monster. They did
say he was prone to violent public outbursts. Did you
catch that?
Speaker 2 (31:50):
But somehow you've maintained it and kept it under control
for years and years and years after his children were born,
except for one case right after first daughter.
Speaker 1 (32:01):
Again that is and less more stuff emerges, like we
have pointed out earlier, Unless it comes out that he
is implicated in other stuff, I would be at this point,
I'd be surprised because if there were DNA leavings from
other crimes, they would have also pinged on those databases, right, yeah,
because those databases work together pretty well. And this leads
(32:27):
into the larger implication, which is a big question for
us today. What does this mean for not just the
like the DNA of criminals and these human monsters like
serial killers. But what does this mean for you right now?
Listening your DNA. We talked a little bit about this
with an excellent post in our community page. Like you mentioned, Noel,
(32:51):
here's where it gets crazy. And sometimes the three of
us are usually on the same page about a lot
of things. I mean, and get along famously, but we
might have some differing opinions about DNA testing, like a
number of people, and this is just personally, I've held
off on some DNA testing due to privacy concerns.
Speaker 3 (33:14):
Yeah, that's a good call, and that seems to be
a sentiment shared by many.
Speaker 1 (33:18):
Oh yeah, yeah. And Noel, you had earlier mentioned that
you had experience with DNA testing from our earlier show
Stuff of Life.
Speaker 3 (33:27):
I did, and I kind of just threw myself into
it like a big dummy, thinking this will be cute
and it's free, so why not. Kind of regretting it
a little bit after digging into some of this stuff
a little bit more. Not that I have anything to
hide or that I'm worried about, you know, the government
making a clone army based on my pristine DNA.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
I would do it if I could.
Speaker 3 (33:46):
Oh buddy, that's really sweet.
Speaker 2 (33:48):
But here's the deal, Noel. Yeah, what we found with
this case is that it doesn't even matter if you
have or have not submitted your DNA.
Speaker 3 (33:55):
Oh exactly. That's that's why I said earlier. When I
first read the details this, I'm like, oh, I guess
he did one of those and then they got access
to it somehow. No, it was somewhere way down the line.
You can't control. We haven't even met our fifth cousins.
Ben and I did an episode about lineage in our
other show, Ridiculous History, and the idea of knowing personally
(34:16):
a fifth cousin was sort of.
Speaker 2 (34:17):
Absurd, well at least for us, for our Yeah.
Speaker 3 (34:21):
That's what I meant between between us, Ben, I think
you said you were aware of some fifth cousins, but
you certainly aren't, you know, taking in a movie of
a weekend.
Speaker 1 (34:31):
Yeah, I come from a strange place, but but yeah
it Matt. You make an excellent point that in other cultures,
in place around the world, it's quite common to know
your extended family or even live with them, or you know,
maybe you're all in the same town or the same region.
Not a lot of people here in the US are
that close, and there are these implications that you mentioned.
(34:53):
It's not somebody. It's not always going to be a
case of someone signing up directly. We know that military.
As we mentioned earlier, we'll take DNA samples. Now, if
you are involved in law enforcement on the wrong side,
if you get caught, then your DNA will go into
a system. But the implications are that even if you
(35:18):
say it like let's say Matt may is you as
an example, No, okay, let's say that Paul doesn't it
has never never been to jail, because he's a paragon
of upstanding, young gentlemanness. And let's say he was also
never in the military or something like that. And let's
(35:38):
say he also additionally never signed up for something like
twenty three ae meters or ancestry dot com or anything
like that. If, however, one of Paul's relatives signs up
for this thing, or if one of his relatives joins
the right kind of organization, or if God forbid, they
get in trouble with the law, then they will end
(36:02):
up in the system, which means, by extension, he has
ended up in a system, whether or not he agreed
to be there.
Speaker 2 (36:09):
And in this case would be probably metadata on Paul,
it wouldn't actually have his DNA or anything, right, I mean,
that's how this whole thing would work. It's just you're
in the system now because you are related in some way, right.
Speaker 1 (36:25):
Yeah. And we talked a little bit about how this
data is supposed to be made anonymous. I can't pronounce it.
Can you help me out?
Speaker 3 (36:33):
Anonymized?
Speaker 1 (36:34):
There we go, hold on one. Yes, anonymity, anonymity, my
enemy's anonymity and enmity. And enmity means many things to
me if we're just going to finish the poem. But
the strange thing here is that we you know, we
(36:55):
can't help but think of the comparison to big data
and Facebook or the so called frictionless sharing.
Speaker 3 (37:02):
Right.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
We have friends who have never been on Facebook and
never want to be for various reasons of their own,
but because they know us, or because if you have
friends like this, they know you. Facebook has a shadow
profile on them. And again, for anyone who heard our
Cambridge analytic episode, Facebook doesn't like us to call them
(37:23):
shadow profiles. It sounds spooky, yeah, but literally everybody else
except for Facebook calls them shadow profile.
Speaker 3 (37:30):
I don't know what I think, what their internal nomenclature
is for it.
Speaker 1 (37:33):
I don't know. Maybe they call them like head start profiles,
fun pages, fun pages, party profiles. So right now, there's
no escaping that this stuff has made life massively better
or at the very least provided some sense of closure
(37:54):
for people who are survivors of victims of these horrific atrocities.
But that doesn't mean that we should forget the implications.
At least that's what a lot of critics are saying
about this stuff. Once you give that data way, you
yourself have little to know legal protection regarding what happens
(38:16):
to that information, and you have no control over where
it ultimately ends up. We found an interesting take on
this from the Parallax, which does a pretty solid job
of painting the backgrounds here of the current industry and
where it seems set to go.
Speaker 2 (38:36):
Yeah, there are a lot of possible positives, yes, that
are here in this industry. So it says, quote, the
consumer DNA market is poised to become the ten billion
dollar business by twenty twenty two. Dozens of companies sell
home DNA kits, Some like ancestry dot Com and family
Tree DNA allow you to divine your ethnic background and
(38:57):
connect you with different distant relatives. Others like twenty three
and Me can also identify genes linked to ten diseases,
including Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and Celiacs.
Speaker 3 (39:07):
Mine didn't do any of that stuff.
Speaker 2 (39:09):
See twenty three and me is pretty cool in that regard,
and I mean it's pretty great. You can see ads
for these services. They talk about how millions of people
are already using them. Why don't you join in and
let's find out? Say, well, I mean yeah, because they
gotta get that much. But what they don't tell you
is that unlocking your genetic code could also get you
(39:30):
into trouble, legal trouble. Specifically, you can also prevent you
from getting life insurance if you find something in your
DNA that you didn't know was there before, and now
your insurance company is all like.
Speaker 3 (39:41):
Uh yeah, yeah, man. It's at least if you like
lie on your insurance papers and say you don't smoke,
and then they like ransack your Facebook page and find
a picture of you smoking, Okay, that's all in good fun.
You know, they they gave good chase whatever this is like,
you know.
Speaker 2 (39:58):
Yeah, this is it. Yeah, Well, here's the worst one
for you. What if you, let's say, do twenty three
and me, then you find out, Oh wait, that's not
my dad. That would be.
Speaker 3 (40:11):
Pretty messed up, right, are you my dad? Matt.
Speaker 2 (40:13):
I'm just saying, oh, well, you'll find out one day soon.
Uh so, Uh nope, daddy. No, But like, this is
a genuine thing that I'm assuming has happened. I haven't
seen it reported, but surely like.
Speaker 3 (40:27):
You, you you understand the risk of finding out something
like maybe you don't though. Maybe that's the thing they
think that just pops up as a notification, like your dad.
Speaker 1 (40:38):
Maybe they send like a very lung killer guy to
come in and break the news to you while he
takes your fishing or something.
Speaker 3 (40:44):
That's one of these things too. If we start like
really like we're going down a rabbit hole here, but
getting into the territory of targeted ads, what if you
start getting ads targeted at you because of your DNA information?
Speaker 1 (40:55):
Right, Yeah, that's a great question. I mean, it is
completely it used to be possible. We're about two years
from it being plausible, and it's a spooky escalation.
Speaker 3 (41:07):
Like in the same way that person got an ad
for a baby product right before knowing no the father
I think.
Speaker 1 (41:15):
The household received an ad for in the mail for
expectant mothers, and that's how they found out that their
daughter was pregnant. Target literally knew.
Speaker 3 (41:27):
Before they do it's ray. They called Target.
Speaker 1 (41:29):
Boy no kid man. And now whenever I don't know
about you, I don't want to ruin this for anybody
who still receives those circulars and those you know, those
slightly better quality than straight up newspaper coupon books. Yeah,
when I receive those. Now Ever, since we did that
(41:49):
episode and looked into that stuff, I always get a
little freaked out. And I always try to treat it
like a magic eight ball or some tea leaves for
the believers in prognostication. You know, I always wonder, like,
what what do they know about me that made them
think I need a deck?
Speaker 3 (42:10):
At this point, I just kind of wish they would
deliver my mail directly into the trash. Now saved me
as a trip.
Speaker 1 (42:16):
I use it for art projects.
Speaker 3 (42:18):
It's cool, you're a very enterprising and earth friendly individual.
Speaker 1 (42:22):
Cheap is another way to put it in.
Speaker 3 (42:24):
Yep, that's yep.
Speaker 1 (42:25):
But her thrifty, brave Cleyon Reverend, if you get that right,
in there's a real world example of this stuff happening,
at least the life insurance stuff happening. In twenty sixteen,
a writer named Christina Farr, writing for a fast company,
gave us the story of someone identified as Jennifer Marie,
(42:49):
not the real name to protect their privacy, although the
horse may have already left the barn there at the time.
She was thirty six, gamefully employed, and had no current
medical issues. But on September fifteenth of twenty fifteen, her
application for life insurance was denied. And here's the quote
(43:11):
they used. Unfortunately, after carefully reviewing your application, we regret
that we are unable to provide you with the coverage
because of your positive BRCA one gene. The letter reads.
In the US for background far Rights, about one in
four hundred women have a BRCA one or two gene
and it's associated with an increased risk of breast or
(43:31):
ovarian cancer.
Speaker 2 (43:33):
Wow. So she was denied that because she had done
one of these tests.
Speaker 1 (43:38):
Because the insurance company had access to that genetic information.
So now does that qualify as a as a pre
existing condition? Does you know? Is it something where we
would have to say from the life insurance company. And
you know, of course the US this privatized insurance. From
(43:59):
the life insurance company's perspective, is it a matter of
in the long run, protecting the rest of their customers.
Speaker 2 (44:10):
So they don't go under you mean, right?
Speaker 1 (44:13):
Is that part of it? How do they how do
they address that? How do they process that?
Speaker 2 (44:17):
Stop being private companies selling health insurance? That's how that's
how they fix that.
Speaker 1 (44:22):
A lot of people would make that argument, but there
is there is hope in form of the Genetic Non
Discrimination Act, which we mentioned I think previously as well,
and also known as GINA. It is meant to prohibit
employers and health insurance from using your genetic info against you. However,
it is full of loopholes, and Congress is going to
(44:45):
swiss cheeze it a little bit more. And this goes
back to that question we asked before, and we received
a fantastic comment regarding the the idea of how to
prioritize technological progress and potential gains. Right, if we're risking
(45:08):
ruining the lives and the livelihoods of a few people,
certainly maybe more than we think, is that worth the
potential of saving maybe hundreds of thousands or even millions
of lives down the line. I mean, this becomes a
very deep dilemma very quickly. I don't know, what do
(45:32):
you guys think. We talked about it a little bit
about this earlier.
Speaker 2 (45:35):
I definitely see the side and mentioned this in the
other episode that we were just recorded. Just I do
see this as being a great thing potentially in the
long run, specifically fixing a lot of these genetic disorders,
just by having enough data, because that's one of the
biggest problems is not being able to track DNA over
time and looking at how these specific sequences actually change
(45:57):
a human beings development. I think it could be huge,
and it could be exactly what we need.
Speaker 3 (46:02):
But is it for everybody? Though? Like it is it
going to mean that the wealthy are going to be
prioritized and be able to, you know, extend their lives
and the lives of their offspring by having access to
this because of their wealth.
Speaker 2 (46:15):
Certainly, Yes, that's what will happen until there's some big change.
And here's the here's the other thing. What happens when
let's just say, the wrong group of people ends up
getting in power somehow, and there are all of these
databases that can be found and someone in power wants to,
(46:37):
let's say, get rid of certain types of DNA in
the culture, right, mass eugenics or something. You've got literally
all of the data that you would ever need for that,
if you know, it's compulsory, and everyone eventually one day
signs up for something like this because you kind of
have to.
Speaker 1 (46:54):
And instead of present your papers the way it was
in various world wars, it's spit into this tube and
stand here.
Speaker 3 (47:02):
Yeah, wait, I.
Speaker 1 (47:04):
Mean that's it. That's a terrifying thing. We'd all like
to think it's it's far it's far off right, or
that it's not actually going to happen sort of a
nimby process and not in my backyard. But at this point,
you know, again, if you haven't written into us about this,
we we we want to hear from you. Where do
(47:25):
you fall on this side of the line, And we
want to end today's episode with, first off, a clear
admission again, Joseph James DeAngelo has not been convicted. He
is he is talking from what we understand, and he
is confessing, but that doesn't he hasn't had the core
(47:46):
time yet. Although it's it's pretty much a clear cuta.
Do we know anything about his mental state? Apparently, aside
from the violent outburst, he does appear lucid interesting, which
is which is interesting. And you know right now, given
the time that it's elapsed, if there are other crimes
(48:07):
or murders, he is literally the best chance of finding them.
Speaker 2 (48:11):
Oh yeah, And every day we're finding out new things.
I would follow the Sacramento Bee online if you can,
you have the time to do it, and you're interested
in this case. There are all kinds of new little
stories about maybe he had an accomplice during some of
these crimes, maybe it was a breakup that sent him
on that first raping spring, unsuccessful engagement. Yeah, I mean
there's all there was all kinds of interesting things coming out,
(48:33):
and I just have to say, like we said before,
the Sacramento Bee is the place that I'm finding them
the soonest.
Speaker 1 (48:39):
And we have one other thing here, not a conclusion.
There's not really a conclusion to this story yet and
not a shout out corner, though we will be returning
that segment soon. We have something that when we were
talking about this off air, we were all texting each
other as we were working on this, and Noel, you
(49:00):
pointed out to us another recent development involving DNA and killers.
Speaker 3 (49:05):
And the Sacramento b They I believe, were first on
the scene to report that police in the Laho have
obtained DNA supposedly linked to the Zodiac killer and that
it's being processed in a lab and we could see
results any day now. This was on May the second, And.
Speaker 2 (49:26):
They're probably going to do a lot of the same
things here, or at least potentially doing the same things,
finding that match, linking that up, and then going from there,
familial searches, looking in that trash again, maybe.
Speaker 1 (49:39):
Maybe going through belongates. Yeah, you know, there's not really
a different way to phrase it. But today this ends
our episode. From now our update on the Golden State
Killer aka the Diamond Knot Killer, aka the Original Nightstalker
aka the East Area Rapist, and the Salia Ransacker. We
(50:00):
would like to hear from you. What do you think
will be the results of this What do you think
of a world wherein for the greater good, everyone's DNA
is considered part of this large database. Would do you
think the benefits outweigh the negatives? I mean, in this case,
(50:23):
it seems pretty clear cut that they do.
Speaker 3 (50:25):
I propose that it's very similar to requiring you, this
is going to be controversial, maybe to register your car.
Your car has to be in a database because it
could either allow you to escape from a criminal act
or you could even use it as a weapon. It
is a very powerful thing, and you can't have a
car unless you register it. You can do all those
(50:45):
things with the human body. So yeah, that logic. I mean,
I'm not saying that I necessarily support that, but I
could see law enforcement surely thinking that this is something
that would be very helpful and important to solving crimes,
but at the risk of of what privacy? And uh,
it's my DNA.
Speaker 1 (51:03):
You also have a requirement to have a license to
operate a car, would you have would that lead into
having a license to reproduce? I mean, I'll double down
on controversy here. Uh, there are inevitably some some of
you listening are are going to see the potential parallel
thread between registering a car, registering DNA, registering a firearm.
(51:29):
If we're going to go controversial, right, yeah, I don't
I don't know. I mean, that's a really interesting argument, Noel,
Because you can't have an unregistered car yeah.
Speaker 3 (51:38):
But you're right though, when you start going, you know,
taking that and taking it too, well, what if then
you need a license to reproduce? Or then we start
entering when we start when we start putting our physical
forms into the into the equation and treating them as
though we as though it were a motor vehicle or
a gun or something like that, that really opens up
(51:58):
a lot of a lot of worm It is interesting.
Speaker 2 (52:01):
Bat your bags, I am. It's so weird. I would
have been so against this, like one thousand percent against
all of this, and for some reason, somehow, as I'm
getting older, oh gosh, you guys, I'm kind of like, well,
get everyone a DNA scanned and put it on a
(52:22):
tattoo and then their arms and they're registered. And if
anyone doesn't, no no, we will find you a no
no yes for you, no no, then we get you.
Speaker 1 (52:32):
I love this voice. It sounds like he's either got
loose dentures or he's also eating cottage cheese. I'm not sure.
Speaker 2 (52:39):
The cottage cheese is one of the finest foods you
can eat. I would recommend it early in the morning
and late in the afternoon and also early at night.
Speaker 1 (52:50):
Well, you know what, Matt, I have to say, thank
you so much for giving us a note of levity,
gracing us, Yeah, gracing.
Speaker 3 (52:56):
Us, goodness, gracious, that was saying, I can't smiling at
that old man.
Speaker 1 (53:01):
Man.
Speaker 3 (53:02):
That's what happens too. You get old, you start to
decide you want to give up all your civil liberties,
or at least the young whipper snappers should, right, I
agree with with with those realizations. Also, your voice changes
and you start to sound like a very very old man.
Speaker 2 (53:16):
Yeah, it's mostly the testicular group, I think is what
causes that. I keep trying to get a rise out
of Paul mission control decking, and he's just not even No,
that's not sure him.
Speaker 3 (53:28):
From the angle that I'm seeing him, he had a Yeah,
he's got a smirk. He's got a bit of a
glimmer of a smile.
Speaker 1 (53:34):
All right, And there's always one to thank you for
tuning in. You are the most important part of the show,
and we would like to hear from you.
Speaker 2 (53:44):
Tell us what do you think about DNA collection and
all of this stuff. Do you think they got the
right person? Do you think there's someone else out there?
What else do you think about the East Area rapist.
Have you ever lived in any of those places? How
did these crimes affect you growing up? Just anything you
want to talk about. Is there another serial killer that
you think we need to jump and jump into a
(54:05):
little bit deeper, or maybe information about the Zodiac Killer,
because that may potentially be an episode coming up with
all the things happening right now with that case, talk
to us, let us know.
Speaker 3 (54:16):
You can hit us up on Facebook most of the
social media's We are Conspiracy Stuff on Facebook, we are
Conspiracy Stuff show on Instagram. And if you have a
cool story, a little missive something about growing up in
one of these areas, we would love it if you
left us a voicemail.
Speaker 2 (54:33):
Please we are And that's the end of this classic episode.
If you have any thoughts or questions about this episode,
you can get into contact with us in a number
of different ways. One of the best is to give
us a call. Our number is one eight three three
std WYTK. If you don't want to do that, you
can send us a good old fashioned email.
Speaker 1 (54:55):
We are conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2 (55:00):
Enough that they don't want you to know is a
production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the
iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows.
Every so often in the course of our show, we
have been able to make certain observations and predictions. Tonight's
classic episode is about one of those observations and predictions.
On the heels of our unfortunately ongoing series examining serial
(00:20):
Killers on the Loose, we looked into the long delayed identification, arrest,
and conviction of a killer known as the Golden State
Killer or the original night Stalker.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Oh yeah, because this guy, James DiAngelo. He's only the
first of a huge group of serial killers and other
criminals who have been caught through the use of this
type of DNA sequencing, you know, going through a family
tree and finding out a relative. We're going to get
into the episode. It's fascinating stuff, So let's jump right in.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. Is riddled
with unexplained events. You can turn back now or learn
this stuff they don't want you to know.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name is Nolan.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
They call me Ben. We are joined with our super
producer Paul Michig controlled Decan. But most importantly, you are you.
You are here, and that makes this stuff they don't
want you to know this episode is going to be
an update on something. It's an update that we hoped
but never truly thought we would ever have the chance
(01:44):
to do. This is very much a what a what
a time to be alive sort of show. You may
recall longtime listeners that a while back, when.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Was it Matt May twenty sixteen.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
May twenty sixteen, we did an episode on what is
known as the original night Stalker or the Golden State Killer,
And in this episode we looked at the current research
and investigation into those at the time unsolved crimes, the
various theories, the various leads that were taken up and
(02:23):
later rejected by law enforcement and armchair investigators on specialized
crime forums on Reddit, all over the internet, and including
some of the authors who made it their life's work
to hunt down this killer. Today, however, we're telling a
very different story. Today. We are making it official. After
(02:45):
decades of dead ends, tantalizing theories, and frustrating leads, justice
may have finally caught up with the Golden State Killer.
Before you listen to this episode, if you would like
a deep dive into the crimes and the past investigation
of the crimes of the Golden State Killer, or East
(03:06):
Area Rapist as they were also known. Do check out
our episode from May twenty sixteen. We'll wait.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
Oh man, that was a good one, wasn't it?
Speaker 3 (03:18):
Kind of a bummer? Really?
Speaker 2 (03:19):
Yeah, but it was a fact filled episode and lots
of lots of avenues to investigate, but.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
We get a happy ending here was what this amounts to, right.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
Of sorts. Yeah, there's definitely a light at the tunnel,
at the end of the tunnel.
Speaker 3 (03:37):
That's a better turner phrase.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
We'll see, we'll see, we'll see. We hope we as
a society make it to the light. Quick background for
everybody who just sat quietly the way the three of
us did in the studio while your fellow listeners were
checking out that episode. From at least nineteen seventy four
to nineteen eighty six, California was plagued by a serial
break in artist, a burglar, later a rapist, and then
(04:02):
finally a murderer who is known by several different names
and was believed to be several different people for a time,
the Visalia Ransacker, the Diamond Not Killer, the Golden State Killer,
the East Area Rapist, and also the original Nightstalker, nowadays
more often referred to as the Golden State Killer.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
I believe yeah, because the Golden State Killer encompasses all
of these different crime sprees.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
And eventually, in the course of their investigation, law enforcement
and independent investigators began to connect the dots and they said,
we believe this is all the work of a single individual.
So not copycatters, not a group operating in concert, although
we do have a bit of a rabbit hole about that,
(04:46):
but a single man, a man who might never be
apprehended until that is on April twenty fifth, twenty eighteen,
when authorities announced the arrest of a suspect named Joseph
James DeAngelo ju a seventy two year old retired police officer.
He was rested on eight counts of first degree murder
(05:08):
based on DNA evidence, and more than forty years since
his criminal career began, the original Knightstalker would finally maybe
be held accountable. This is the accumulation of countless of
hours of police work, contributions, and analysis by thousands and
thousands of people, several of whom are doubtlessly listening to
(05:29):
this podcast today, and in a very real sense, a
lucky break. So what happens. Can we look back over
some of these original crimes. I think we must, Well,
here are the facts that maybe we start with the
Visalia ransacker, and we do have to say we are
only at this point talking about documented crimes. As we've
(05:53):
seen in previous shows, is an unfortunate fact in the
US that many, many, many crimes do not get reported.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
Do you think that, because of what's come to light
that we'll find out about more or do you think
that's unlikely?
Speaker 1 (06:05):
You know, ideally, ideally there wouldn't be more defined, but
realistically there are probably some. It's just a safe thing
to guess. The question then becomes if we're talking about
pre nineteen seventies stuff, right, were the authorities at the
time collecting DNA? Does anything remain? You know, so it's tough,
(06:29):
but who knows. Also, if it turns out we should
say d Angelo has not been convicted yet, but if
it turns out that he is, that he is convicted,
and he already from what we understand, confessed to several things,
he may just go on and start naming more names
and instances because he is, frankly at the end of
(06:50):
his life one way or the other.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
Yep, maz can often happen with these kinds of legacy crimes.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
Yeah, unfortunately, Well, the vizailureansacker was a master burglar and
break in guy, believed to be responsible for more than
one hundred crimes. Again, only the ones that we know of.
The first ransacking that was recorded was on Tuesday, March nineteenth,
nineteen seventy four, and one thing that stood out to
people was that he passed over a lot of high
(07:21):
value items, a lot of electronics, a lot of keepsakes
and stuff, and instead he stole about fifty bucks worth
of coins from a piggybank. That's what he took.
Speaker 3 (07:31):
Clearly something else at work here other than desire for
monetary gain.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
Right, right, Because there are pawnshops everywhere. He could have
taken something and then pawned it and made much more
than fifty dollars.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
Is the keyword here, ransack right because it is about
going through people's private things.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
Yes, just so, he was tearing houses apart, knocking over furniture,
cutting stuff up, going in the c it's throwing out things.
But he would only actually steal a few small items trinkets,
cuff links, keepsakes, keepsakes, and he would also probably the
creepiest thing you would do is he would arrange items
(08:14):
and what appeared to be almost a ritualistic fashion, you know,
like women's underwear. He did steal weapons. He stole six weapons.
He was prolific. He committed multiple break ins in the
same area on the same day, and he also set
a record for that too.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
Yeah, he broke into twelve different homes in a single
day on Saturday, November thirtieth, nineteen seventy four.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
And at this point, other than the strange arrangement of items,
it looks like a really creepy burglar, right until that is.
On September eleventh, nineteen seventy five, a man who is
strongly believed to be the ransacker, broke into the home
of one Claude Snelling at five point thirty two Whitney Lane.
(08:59):
It's now South Whitney Street if you're familiar with the neighborhood.
Claude caught someone trying to kidnap his daughter in their
car port, and this still unnamed person shot Claude twice
and Claude died and the assailant fled. This became the
first known murder linked to what we call the original nightstalker,
(09:20):
and this murder prompted him to leave town.
Speaker 3 (09:25):
So he's escalated already from ransacking to child snatching.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
Mm hmmm, yeah, it seems set. It seems like that
was the course. It's it's pretty safe to say that
if the daughter had been successfully kidnapped, she would have
at the very least been assaulted.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
And then the murder, though, was a byproduct of being caught.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
Yes, the murder was more than likely a moment of
panic too, or perhaps in some sense meant to erase
a witness. It's probably not the primary intent.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
But the story of this man is one of escalations.
I just wanted point that out. And that's interesting that
this particular killing. I wonder if it's like, what kind
of gave him the taste or something like that, and
he's like, maybe I want to add this to my repertoire.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
I have to wonder too, because we find often in
serial murders, like in our previous episodes on Uncaught serial Killers,
we do see this escalation. You know, someone starts with fires,
someone starts with mutilations, right or running by and slashing
(10:30):
someone or choking somebody, and then it builds and builds,
but this killer was at this point still lucid enough
to realize the dangers if they chose to stay in Visalia.
So in mid nineteen seventy six he moves to Sacramento,
(10:52):
and that's where he progresses fully from burglary and murders,
perhaps unintentionally, to sexual assault.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
So around June nineteen seventy six, our person here of
interest moved to Sacramento, and this is when he's really
progressing from burglary into sexual assault. Although you know, he
originally targeted these women who were alone. Usually that's what
his victim would look like. They would be in their homes,
(11:22):
sometimes they would be with their children, and he would
later prefer couples. Somehow it switched from just alone victim
that he could attack to perhaps, like we were saying,
the escalating thrill and whatever he was getting out of
this escalated to where he needed to have a partnered couple,
(11:43):
to where there is a male and female usually.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
And perhaps some of that is tied into his perception
of the unattainable nature of someone already in a relationship.
Perhaps some of it is a power move on his
part to someone else witnessed helpless. It's spooky and disturbing stuff.
(12:07):
His standard procedure smacked of prior training. These may have
been crimes of passion when he got there, but he
did a lot of homework. He did extensive research. He
would typically break in through a window and awaken someone
with a flashlight and a gun so they can't clearly
(12:28):
see him as well, and then bind the victims, blindfold them,
gag them with towels from their own house, and he
would typically force the female victim to tie up her
male companion before he tied the female victim up himself.
And he operated that way for about a year June
to seventy six to May seventy seven, and he had
(12:52):
a three month gap and then he returned in Sacramento
and other counties. He had another three month gap, and
then he was operating in other counties until nineteen seventy nine.
And from what the timeline shows, from June eighteenth, seventy
six to July fifth, nineteen seventy nine, he committed overall
(13:13):
fifty one crimes as the East Area rapist. As the
original Nightstalker, he committed seven known crimes with multiple homicides
that Marx has moved from break inspe to murder, So
stay tuned. After a brief break for our sponsor, we
will return and give you a grim introduction to the
(13:35):
man known as Joseph James D'Angelo junior.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
So there are a lot of great timelines that have
come out so far, a lot of them pretty brief,
but we stumbled upon one on reddit that been found
and we're just going to kind of go over this
and hit some of the high points and low points
in this man's life.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
Yeah, you can. You can find this on the East
Area Rapist Original Knights Stalker subreddit posted by a user
named Sacred Geometry. And I know it might sound maybe
a little cursory for the three of us to be
(14:19):
citing this sort of source, but this person has done
their homework extensively and we found quite a quite a thorough,
robust timeline here that follows from the birth of D'Angelo
to the arrest. He was born November eighth, nineteen forty five,
in Bath, New York.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
Yeah, and just to jump on there with what Ben
was saying, I linked up some of these dates just
as a fact checking exercise, and the Sacramento Bee has
much of the same exact stuff on it, so.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
And shout out to the Sacramento Bee. They've been really
leading the charge on reporting here.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
So he's born nineteen forty five. Then in nineteen sixty
four he wins the Navy. He enlists there and he
goes into naval training that same year in San Diego.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
And this is where he would have, as part of
his training, learned a lot of knots that the average
person would not would either not be aware of or
would not be able to do on command.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
Specifically, like that diamond knot.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
Specifically, like that diamond knot, Matt, is that like a sheepshank?
Speaker 3 (15:27):
Was that some kind of like specialized sailing knot?
Speaker 2 (15:30):
Yeah? Yeah, And it was found at several of the
crime scenes.
Speaker 3 (15:34):
Well I knew that, but I just you know, is
it a particularly tricky one?
Speaker 2 (15:39):
Not tricky, just you wouldn't you wouldn't think to make
a knot one that way.
Speaker 3 (15:44):
It's super interesting too, and you you know, it's such
a long timeline of crime and now we have a
person to associate with it. This timeline that we're looking
at has photographs of him throughout his life, which is
really interesting just to visually trace his you know kind
of progression and think about what he was doing at
the time those photos were taken. So he did, in
(16:06):
fact serve in the Vietnam War. And then in August
of nineteen sixty eight, he goes to Sierra College in Rockland, California,
and fascinatingly got an associate degree in police science that
could come in handy.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
Yeah, he also attends later the year. After he graduates
with an associate degree in police science, he goes to
CSU and Sacramento, where he spends a year earning a
bachelor's in criminal justice, and the same year he gets
out of there, in nineteen seventy two, he spends the
(16:44):
next approximate year, sometime during nineteen seventy two and nineteen
seventy three, he completes an internship in the Roseville Patrol.
This is interesting because at the time, if we look
at the context, many police officers and law enforcement professionals
did not have college education or higher education to this degree,
(17:10):
not to mention an internship. So it's somewhat strange that
we'll see this as his career continues. It's somewhat strange
that he goes to smaller police forces. You know, he
could have maybe ritten a ticket to Los Angeles or Chicago,
but for some reason, he stayed in these smaller areas.
(17:31):
The same year wherein we believe he completes his internship,
he joins the Exeter Police Department on their burglary task
force in May of nineteen seventy three. May of nineteen
seventy three is also when experts believe the Visilia Ransacker
crimes began.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
When's that crazy? Yeah, the burglary crimes. Hey, I'm on
a burglary task force?
Speaker 1 (17:56):
In such a trope in fiction, right, like the what
was that movie about the crime scene photographer Nightcrawlers? Who
starts perpetrating crimes? Does he not? Really?
Speaker 2 (18:10):
Kind of? Yes, he does. He that's true, he does.
Speaker 3 (18:14):
That's very true. At first it starts off that he's
he's looking for the big scoops, and then in order
to get them, he kind of starts behaving in a
monstrous way. He escalates, or like Dexter for example, not
sure it's like a good show exactly, but you know
blood expert who is also a serial kill.
Speaker 1 (18:33):
Or would Jude Law from Road to Perdition be an example?
Speaker 2 (18:37):
I oh wow, I don't remember.
Speaker 3 (18:39):
It's been a minute.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
What was he?
Speaker 3 (18:40):
What's his deal?
Speaker 1 (18:41):
I feel like we may be on the verge of
a spoiler alert.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
It's okay.
Speaker 3 (18:46):
If we say it okay, then it's okay.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
All right.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
Just don't don't get Tom Hanks angry at us for
spoiling his movies.
Speaker 3 (18:53):
Road to Perdition spoiler coming in three two one.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
Jude Law's character is a photographer who is also killing
people to get the best photographs of crime scenes. Yep, wow, yeah,
but this and it's a solid film.
Speaker 3 (19:10):
If you haven't seen, Oh, it's coming back to me.
I haven't seen it since it was in the theaters,
but now I'm having flashes of it and it was
quite good.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
One thing to point out here, in nineteen seventy Joseph
was engaged and then he got married in nineteen seventy
three as well. If we're imagining, so he's got his
professional life, then he's also got his personal life that's
going on. So he's engaged, and then three years later
he gets married in the same year that the Facilia ransacker.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
Is right, but he doesn't marry the woman who was
originally engaged to. No, he marries someone different. Correct, And
in seventy five, As we said, Claude Snelling is murdered
during the attempted kidnapping. There's an attempted murder of an
officer McGowan in December of the same year when the
(19:58):
police got close to handing the ransacker. And then this
is when not only does the ransacker disappear from Visalia,
but someone in Sacramento begins committing the East Area rapist crimes.
For DiAngelo's part, he has relocated to the Auburn Police Department.
(20:20):
So again these relocations, at least timing wise, begin to
match up.
Speaker 2 (20:25):
And then in nineteen seventy nine, he gets caught and
he's shop but not for any of these major crimes.
He gets caught shoplifting. It's a hammer and what was
the other thing?
Speaker 1 (20:36):
Oh it was not tape, but yeah, he got shop,
got caught shoplifting small items.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
Yeah, specifically, I know a hammer was one of the
major things.
Speaker 3 (20:46):
Was is the kind of items that you maybe wouldn't
want a record of you having purchased.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
I don't know, it's it definitely seemed a bit strange,
specifically with that hammer. But the police department finds out
because he is actually found guilty of shoplifting, and then
he gets fired from the Auburn Police Department in August
of seventy nine.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
And many people will tell you that there was a
slight pausing crime at that time. That's not entirely true,
because in October of seventy nine, we know that there
was an attack that went wrong on the ear side
on what would be classified as the original Nightstalker crimes,
and tried to break in and assault and murder a couple,
(21:30):
but he botched it. Then, as the original Nightstalker, there
is the murder of Robert Offerman and Deborah Manning in
December of nineteen seventy nine. The next month there's a pause.
March of nineteen eighty Lyman and Charlene Smith are murdered.
In August, Keith and Patrice Harrington are murdered. During this time,
(21:54):
DiAngelo buys a home in a neighborhood called Citrus Heights.
February nineteen eighty one, a woman named Manuela Wittun is.
Speaker 2 (22:02):
Murdered, and then to jump back into his personal life,
his first child is born in September nineteen eighty one,
another huge change in his life. And then you see
that there's a bit of a break, A big gap
here that happens after September nineteen eighty one.
Speaker 1 (22:20):
Right, a five year gap in May of so the
murder before the child was Sherry Domingo and Greg Sanchez
in July nineteen eighty one. Matt, as you said, September
nineteen eighty one, DiAngelo as his first child and.
Speaker 3 (22:37):
In Los Angeles, but he wasn't living there, was he?
Speaker 1 (22:40):
His child was born in Sacramento. And then Matt, as
you said, radio silence for five years, at least as
far as we know. In May nineteen eighty six, another
murder is associated with the original Knightstalker. Thats Janelle Cruz.
Speaker 3 (22:55):
And then that same year in November, he has his
second child in Los Angeles, but did he live there
for an extending the amount of time It seemed like
he was sticking to the smaller areas well.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
We know that the murders, at least the documented ones,
appear to have stopped at that time. Interesting and as
we look, he continues on for a while to have
a relatively normal life, despite what some of us might
assume about killers, and despite how we would assume having
(23:27):
a criminal record for shoplifting would screw up your job prospects.
He seems to have continued.
Speaker 3 (23:34):
He stayed working at the same place until retirement, the
save mart, which was I guess he was like a
loader or something in a distribution center.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
Or he definitely worked at the distribution center, and I'm
assuming after working that many years, he probably moved up
the ladder, but we don't have that information.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
Yeah, from August nineteen eighty nine, he was working at
that distribution center Noel mentioned in Rooseville, California, and he
worked there until what twenty seventeen until last year.
Speaker 3 (24:00):
Yeah, it's retirement.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
Age, so he was settled in and everything seemed to
indicate that this guy would retire and relative obscurity. He
was living with one of his daughters at the time
and her husband, So.
Speaker 3 (24:20):
That would put him today at in the neighborhood of
seventy two years of age.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
And that would put the assuming there's a big assumption
that's probably incorrect, Assuming that all the crimes that occurred
are the crimes we know about, then that would put
him at a murder rate of twelve to thirteen people,
forty five to fifty sexual assaults more easily more than
(24:46):
one hundred and twenty homes broken into.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
Yeah, and that's, of course, if he actually did all
of these crimes.
Speaker 1 (24:51):
And that's a very good point to make. If, of
course he actually did all of these crimes.
Speaker 2 (24:57):
He's being charged for several murders right now as we're
recording this, but it's not all of them.
Speaker 3 (25:03):
Well what's that based on? Guys? What do we actually know?
Speaker 1 (25:06):
Well, answer what might be the most important question in
today's episode. After a word from our sponsors, here's where
it gets crazy. This man d' angelo was associated with
these crimes, not through a bunch of people digging through
(25:30):
microfiche or hunting down old leads alone. No, this man
was apprehended due to a lead they derived from DNA,
a DNA database. So one of the first questions is
how did they find this DNA Because clearly, like in
(25:51):
the nineteen seventies, for instance, they wouldn't have had the
sophistication in terms of technology to investigate this. You can
find a loose leaf notebook or something, but you wouldn't
automatically be able to pull that info off of it.
Speaker 3 (26:05):
Oh totally. And when I first saw this case the story,
I assumed that they had a sample of his DNA
that ended up in one of these databases. But that's
not quite how it went down, is it.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
No, not quite. It turns out that they took crime
scene DNA which they had had from the time of
the crimes, and ran it through various databases where all
of a sudden, ding ding ding, it showed a match
to what would turn out to be one on DiAngelo's
distant relatives, someone who was who had their DNA in
(26:38):
a public database. So let's look at that arrest, though
it isn't until March of this year, as we record
this March twenty eighteen, that he has identified as a
suspect in these in these decade old crimes via a
public database. And what's strange about it happened in twenty
(27:00):
eighteen for a lot of people, is the idea that
WHOA and authorities would hold on to this information for
decades and not do anything. In nineteen eighty six, DNA
was just emerging as a criminal investigative tool, and according
(27:21):
to the experts, D'Angelo, as a former police officer, would
have probably according to them, have known that this thing
was on the way, or there was a possibility at least,
So when they started looking for this. A lot of
the stuff we read about says that they found a
match that was a distant relative. But what does that mean.
Speaker 2 (27:42):
Oh well, it means that they took what they did
have as far as DNA evidence from this killer and
they threw it into one of these databases called GEDMatch
dot com, and they found a fourth cousin of D'Angelo.
Now they have no idea at this point who D'Angelo is.
They just know that this DNA matches this person at
least in some way, and this person had used this
(28:05):
ged match program already and the service. And then they
start looking through this person's family tree, this fourth cousin,
and then they start trying to match up people's backgrounds
from that family tree, and does anybody match up? Do
they live in Vasiliador around this time? Do they live
in Sacramento around this time? And they start picking out
(28:28):
a few people to look at, and they eventually come
upon mister DiAngelo. And it's a really strange process. How
that just happened to work.
Speaker 3 (28:37):
Well, remember, on the Here's where it gets a crazy episode,
we talked about this whole thing, and there was a
story about this very same process that led them to
like a fault positive. That can happen too, because they
they got a hit, but the guy didn't match the
criteria for the crime they were trying to to solve.
So they looked at like his son or something like that,
(28:59):
and it atched a little more and so they went
with that and then ended up not being true. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:04):
Well, in this case, the investigation is fascinating because they
got this match with the fourth cousin. Then they actually
start looking at this guy and they start staking out
his house.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
For like six or seven days, yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
Exactly, and they're looking at his trash. I mean, they
don't they don't state specifically how they got the DNA samples,
but they do say it was probably from a container
that he had drunken. He had taken a drink out
of right, and they would watch him come in and
out of his house, and they, you know, then they
took that DNA sample and they tested it with the
(29:37):
other DNA that they had from the previous case, and
they went, oh, boy, guess what. Somehow we got the guy.
It's him.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
Yeah, and the match was not something that was contested.
We can't be more clear about this. Yeah, it wasn't.
It wasn't like, oh, oh, this is a pretty good indicator.
Let's see. No, this this, this was something they've been
under investigation in a while for some time. A criminologist
in Contra Costa County way back in two thousand and
(30:08):
one had linked two sets of cases to the same
individual thanks to DNA evidence. They just didn't know who
it was.
Speaker 2 (30:17):
And that was the East Area rapist and the original
night stalker cases.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
Yeah, and to the point that you made know when
they get the DNA, it led them to a number
of people, right, and they had to separate timeline, so
they had to spend this time surveilling this guy and
going through his trash most likely, although they don't say
(30:43):
it that way because I don't think they want that
image of law enforcement to be you know, they want
to be presented as people digging through your trash.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
No, but they will, Yeah, but they will have to.
Speaker 1 (30:56):
Well, and they you know, they're there is a beyond
ninety eight percent likelihood, beyond ninety nine percent likelihood that
they have the right guy. This is the US, so
technically he's innocent until proven guilty.
Speaker 3 (31:11):
Digging through trash is just good police work, my guys.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
I would agree. I would agree, and this is where
the story stands. As the story emerges, we're going to
hear new updates. Well, we can go ahead and call it.
We're inevitably gonna hear I think the conviction of this criminal.
On a side note, the neighbors said the same things
(31:36):
that you would hear about serial killers in works of fiction.
They said he was kind of a recluse. We didn't
think he was a killer or a monster. They did
say he was prone to violent public outbursts. Did you
catch that?
Speaker 2 (31:50):
But somehow you've maintained it and kept it under control
for years and years and years after his children were born,
except for one case right after first daughter.
Speaker 1 (32:01):
Again that is and less more stuff emerges, like we
have pointed out earlier, Unless it comes out that he
is implicated in other stuff, I would be at this point,
I'd be surprised because if there were DNA leavings from
other crimes, they would have also pinged on those databases, right, yeah,
because those databases work together pretty well. And this leads
(32:27):
into the larger implication, which is a big question for
us today. What does this mean for not just the
like the DNA of criminals and these human monsters like
serial killers. But what does this mean for you right now?
Listening your DNA. We talked a little bit about this
with an excellent post in our community page. Like you mentioned, Noel,
(32:51):
here's where it gets crazy. And sometimes the three of
us are usually on the same page about a lot
of things. I mean, and get along famously, but we
might have some differing opinions about DNA testing, like a
number of people, and this is just personally, I've held
off on some DNA testing due to privacy concerns.
Speaker 3 (33:14):
Yeah, that's a good call, and that seems to be
a sentiment shared by many.
Speaker 1 (33:18):
Oh yeah, yeah. And Noel, you had earlier mentioned that
you had experience with DNA testing from our earlier show
Stuff of Life.
Speaker 3 (33:27):
I did, and I kind of just threw myself into
it like a big dummy, thinking this will be cute
and it's free, so why not. Kind of regretting it
a little bit after digging into some of this stuff
a little bit more. Not that I have anything to
hide or that I'm worried about, you know, the government
making a clone army based on my pristine DNA.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
I would do it if I could.
Speaker 3 (33:46):
Oh buddy, that's really sweet.
Speaker 2 (33:48):
But here's the deal, Noel. Yeah, what we found with
this case is that it doesn't even matter if you
have or have not submitted your DNA.
Speaker 3 (33:55):
Oh exactly. That's that's why I said earlier. When I
first read the details this, I'm like, oh, I guess
he did one of those and then they got access
to it somehow. No, it was somewhere way down the line.
You can't control. We haven't even met our fifth cousins.
Ben and I did an episode about lineage in our
other show, Ridiculous History, and the idea of knowing personally
(34:16):
a fifth cousin was sort of.
Speaker 2 (34:17):
Absurd, well at least for us, for our Yeah.
Speaker 3 (34:21):
That's what I meant between between us, Ben, I think
you said you were aware of some fifth cousins, but
you certainly aren't, you know, taking in a movie of
a weekend.
Speaker 1 (34:31):
Yeah, I come from a strange place, but but yeah
it Matt. You make an excellent point that in other cultures,
in place around the world, it's quite common to know
your extended family or even live with them, or you know,
maybe you're all in the same town or the same region.
Not a lot of people here in the US are
that close, and there are these implications that you mentioned.
(34:53):
It's not somebody. It's not always going to be a
case of someone signing up directly. We know that military.
As we mentioned earlier, we'll take DNA samples. Now, if
you are involved in law enforcement on the wrong side,
if you get caught, then your DNA will go into
a system. But the implications are that even if you
(35:18):
say it like let's say Matt may is you as
an example, No, okay, let's say that Paul doesn't it
has never never been to jail, because he's a paragon
of upstanding, young gentlemanness. And let's say he was also
never in the military or something like that. And let's
(35:38):
say he also additionally never signed up for something like
twenty three ae meters or ancestry dot com or anything
like that. If, however, one of Paul's relatives signs up
for this thing, or if one of his relatives joins
the right kind of organization, or if God forbid, they
get in trouble with the law, then they will end
(36:02):
up in the system, which means, by extension, he has
ended up in a system, whether or not he agreed
to be there.
Speaker 2 (36:09):
And in this case would be probably metadata on Paul,
it wouldn't actually have his DNA or anything, right, I mean,
that's how this whole thing would work. It's just you're
in the system now because you are related in some way, right.
Speaker 1 (36:25):
Yeah. And we talked a little bit about how this
data is supposed to be made anonymous. I can't pronounce it.
Can you help me out?
Speaker 3 (36:33):
Anonymized?
Speaker 1 (36:34):
There we go, hold on one. Yes, anonymity, anonymity, my
enemy's anonymity and enmity. And enmity means many things to
me if we're just going to finish the poem. But
the strange thing here is that we you know, we
(36:55):
can't help but think of the comparison to big data
and Facebook or the so called frictionless sharing.
Speaker 3 (37:02):
Right.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
We have friends who have never been on Facebook and
never want to be for various reasons of their own,
but because they know us, or because if you have
friends like this, they know you. Facebook has a shadow
profile on them. And again, for anyone who heard our
Cambridge analytic episode, Facebook doesn't like us to call them
(37:23):
shadow profiles. It sounds spooky, yeah, but literally everybody else
except for Facebook calls them shadow profile.
Speaker 3 (37:30):
I don't know what I think, what their internal nomenclature
is for it.
Speaker 1 (37:33):
I don't know. Maybe they call them like head start profiles,
fun pages, fun pages, party profiles. So right now, there's
no escaping that this stuff has made life massively better
or at the very least provided some sense of closure
(37:54):
for people who are survivors of victims of these horrific atrocities.
But that doesn't mean that we should forget the implications.
At least that's what a lot of critics are saying
about this stuff. Once you give that data way, you
yourself have little to know legal protection regarding what happens
(38:16):
to that information, and you have no control over where
it ultimately ends up. We found an interesting take on
this from the Parallax, which does a pretty solid job
of painting the backgrounds here of the current industry and
where it seems set to go.
Speaker 2 (38:36):
Yeah, there are a lot of possible positives, yes, that
are here in this industry. So it says, quote, the
consumer DNA market is poised to become the ten billion
dollar business by twenty twenty two. Dozens of companies sell
home DNA kits, Some like ancestry dot Com and family
Tree DNA allow you to divine your ethnic background and
(38:57):
connect you with different distant relatives. Others like twenty three
and Me can also identify genes linked to ten diseases,
including Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and Celiacs.
Speaker 3 (39:07):
Mine didn't do any of that stuff.
Speaker 2 (39:09):
See twenty three and me is pretty cool in that regard,
and I mean it's pretty great. You can see ads
for these services. They talk about how millions of people
are already using them. Why don't you join in and
let's find out? Say, well, I mean yeah, because they
gotta get that much. But what they don't tell you
is that unlocking your genetic code could also get you
(39:30):
into trouble, legal trouble. Specifically, you can also prevent you
from getting life insurance if you find something in your
DNA that you didn't know was there before, and now
your insurance company is all like.
Speaker 3 (39:41):
Uh yeah, yeah, man. It's at least if you like
lie on your insurance papers and say you don't smoke,
and then they like ransack your Facebook page and find
a picture of you smoking, Okay, that's all in good fun.
You know, they they gave good chase whatever this is like,
you know.
Speaker 2 (39:58):
Yeah, this is it. Yeah, Well, here's the worst one
for you. What if you, let's say, do twenty three
and me, then you find out, Oh wait, that's not
my dad. That would be.
Speaker 3 (40:11):
Pretty messed up, right, are you my dad? Matt.
Speaker 2 (40:13):
I'm just saying, oh, well, you'll find out one day soon.
Uh so, Uh nope, daddy. No, But like, this is
a genuine thing that I'm assuming has happened. I haven't
seen it reported, but surely like.
Speaker 3 (40:27):
You, you you understand the risk of finding out something
like maybe you don't though. Maybe that's the thing they
think that just pops up as a notification, like your dad.
Speaker 1 (40:38):
Maybe they send like a very lung killer guy to
come in and break the news to you while he
takes your fishing or something.
Speaker 3 (40:44):
That's one of these things too. If we start like
really like we're going down a rabbit hole here, but
getting into the territory of targeted ads, what if you
start getting ads targeted at you because of your DNA information?
Speaker 1 (40:55):
Right, Yeah, that's a great question. I mean, it is
completely it used to be possible. We're about two years
from it being plausible, and it's a spooky escalation.
Speaker 3 (41:07):
Like in the same way that person got an ad
for a baby product right before knowing no the father
I think.
Speaker 1 (41:15):
The household received an ad for in the mail for
expectant mothers, and that's how they found out that their
daughter was pregnant. Target literally knew.
Speaker 3 (41:27):
Before they do it's ray. They called Target.
Speaker 1 (41:29):
Boy no kid man. And now whenever I don't know
about you, I don't want to ruin this for anybody
who still receives those circulars and those you know, those
slightly better quality than straight up newspaper coupon books. Yeah,
when I receive those. Now Ever, since we did that
(41:49):
episode and looked into that stuff, I always get a
little freaked out. And I always try to treat it
like a magic eight ball or some tea leaves for
the believers in prognostication. You know, I always wonder, like,
what what do they know about me that made them
think I need a deck?
Speaker 3 (42:10):
At this point, I just kind of wish they would
deliver my mail directly into the trash. Now saved me
as a trip.
Speaker 1 (42:16):
I use it for art projects.
Speaker 3 (42:18):
It's cool, you're a very enterprising and earth friendly individual.
Speaker 1 (42:22):
Cheap is another way to put it in.
Speaker 3 (42:24):
Yep, that's yep.
Speaker 1 (42:25):
But her thrifty, brave Cleyon Reverend, if you get that right,
in there's a real world example of this stuff happening,
at least the life insurance stuff happening. In twenty sixteen,
a writer named Christina Farr, writing for a fast company,
gave us the story of someone identified as Jennifer Marie,
(42:49):
not the real name to protect their privacy, although the
horse may have already left the barn there at the time.
She was thirty six, gamefully employed, and had no current
medical issues. But on September fifteenth of twenty fifteen, her
application for life insurance was denied. And here's the quote
(43:11):
they used. Unfortunately, after carefully reviewing your application, we regret
that we are unable to provide you with the coverage
because of your positive BRCA one gene. The letter reads.
In the US for background far Rights, about one in
four hundred women have a BRCA one or two gene
and it's associated with an increased risk of breast or
(43:31):
ovarian cancer.
Speaker 2 (43:33):
Wow. So she was denied that because she had done
one of these tests.
Speaker 1 (43:38):
Because the insurance company had access to that genetic information.
So now does that qualify as a as a pre
existing condition? Does you know? Is it something where we
would have to say from the life insurance company. And
you know, of course the US this privatized insurance. From
(43:59):
the life insurance company's perspective, is it a matter of
in the long run, protecting the rest of their customers.
Speaker 2 (44:10):
So they don't go under you mean, right?
Speaker 1 (44:13):
Is that part of it? How do they how do
they address that? How do they process that?
Speaker 2 (44:17):
Stop being private companies selling health insurance? That's how that's
how they fix that.
Speaker 1 (44:22):
A lot of people would make that argument, but there
is there is hope in form of the Genetic Non
Discrimination Act, which we mentioned I think previously as well,
and also known as GINA. It is meant to prohibit
employers and health insurance from using your genetic info against you. However,
it is full of loopholes, and Congress is going to
(44:45):
swiss cheeze it a little bit more. And this goes
back to that question we asked before, and we received
a fantastic comment regarding the the idea of how to
prioritize technological progress and potential gains. Right, if we're risking
(45:08):
ruining the lives and the livelihoods of a few people,
certainly maybe more than we think, is that worth the
potential of saving maybe hundreds of thousands or even millions
of lives down the line. I mean, this becomes a
very deep dilemma very quickly. I don't know, what do
(45:32):
you guys think. We talked about it a little bit
about this earlier.
Speaker 2 (45:35):
I definitely see the side and mentioned this in the
other episode that we were just recorded. Just I do
see this as being a great thing potentially in the
long run, specifically fixing a lot of these genetic disorders,
just by having enough data, because that's one of the
biggest problems is not being able to track DNA over
time and looking at how these specific sequences actually change
(45:57):
a human beings development. I think it could be huge,
and it could be exactly what we need.
Speaker 3 (46:02):
But is it for everybody? Though? Like it is it
going to mean that the wealthy are going to be
prioritized and be able to, you know, extend their lives
and the lives of their offspring by having access to
this because of their wealth.
Speaker 2 (46:15):
Certainly, Yes, that's what will happen until there's some big change.
And here's the here's the other thing. What happens when
let's just say, the wrong group of people ends up
getting in power somehow, and there are all of these
databases that can be found and someone in power wants to,
(46:37):
let's say, get rid of certain types of DNA in
the culture, right, mass eugenics or something. You've got literally
all of the data that you would ever need for that,
if you know, it's compulsory, and everyone eventually one day
signs up for something like this because you kind of
have to.
Speaker 1 (46:54):
And instead of present your papers the way it was
in various world wars, it's spit into this tube and
stand here.
Speaker 3 (47:02):
Yeah, wait, I.
Speaker 1 (47:04):
Mean that's it. That's a terrifying thing. We'd all like
to think it's it's far it's far off right, or
that it's not actually going to happen sort of a
nimby process and not in my backyard. But at this point,
you know, again, if you haven't written into us about this,
we we we want to hear from you. Where do
(47:25):
you fall on this side of the line, And we
want to end today's episode with, first off, a clear
admission again, Joseph James DeAngelo has not been convicted. He
is he is talking from what we understand, and he
is confessing, but that doesn't he hasn't had the core
(47:46):
time yet. Although it's it's pretty much a clear cuta.
Do we know anything about his mental state? Apparently, aside
from the violent outburst, he does appear lucid interesting, which
is which is interesting. And you know right now, given
the time that it's elapsed, if there are other crimes
(48:07):
or murders, he is literally the best chance of finding them.
Speaker 2 (48:11):
Oh yeah, And every day we're finding out new things.
I would follow the Sacramento Bee online if you can,
you have the time to do it, and you're interested
in this case. There are all kinds of new little
stories about maybe he had an accomplice during some of
these crimes, maybe it was a breakup that sent him
on that first raping spring, unsuccessful engagement. Yeah, I mean
there's all there was all kinds of interesting things coming out,
(48:33):
and I just have to say, like we said before,
the Sacramento Bee is the place that I'm finding them
the soonest.
Speaker 1 (48:39):
And we have one other thing here, not a conclusion.
There's not really a conclusion to this story yet and
not a shout out corner, though we will be returning
that segment soon. We have something that when we were
talking about this off air, we were all texting each
other as we were working on this, and Noel, you
(49:00):
pointed out to us another recent development involving DNA and killers.
Speaker 3 (49:05):
And the Sacramento b They I believe, were first on
the scene to report that police in the Laho have
obtained DNA supposedly linked to the Zodiac killer and that
it's being processed in a lab and we could see
results any day now. This was on May the second, And.
Speaker 2 (49:26):
They're probably going to do a lot of the same
things here, or at least potentially doing the same things,
finding that match, linking that up, and then going from there,
familial searches, looking in that trash again, maybe.
Speaker 1 (49:39):
Maybe going through belongates. Yeah, you know, there's not really
a different way to phrase it. But today this ends
our episode. From now our update on the Golden State
Killer aka the Diamond Knot Killer, aka the Original Nightstalker
aka the East Area Rapist, and the Salia Ransacker. We
(50:00):
would like to hear from you. What do you think
will be the results of this What do you think
of a world wherein for the greater good, everyone's DNA
is considered part of this large database. Would do you
think the benefits outweigh the negatives? I mean, in this case,
(50:23):
it seems pretty clear cut that they do.
Speaker 3 (50:25):
I propose that it's very similar to requiring you, this
is going to be controversial, maybe to register your car.
Your car has to be in a database because it
could either allow you to escape from a criminal act
or you could even use it as a weapon. It
is a very powerful thing, and you can't have a
car unless you register it. You can do all those
(50:45):
things with the human body. So yeah, that logic. I mean,
I'm not saying that I necessarily support that, but I
could see law enforcement surely thinking that this is something
that would be very helpful and important to solving crimes,
but at the risk of of what privacy? And uh,
it's my DNA.
Speaker 1 (51:03):
You also have a requirement to have a license to
operate a car, would you have would that lead into
having a license to reproduce? I mean, I'll double down
on controversy here. Uh, there are inevitably some some of
you listening are are going to see the potential parallel
thread between registering a car, registering DNA, registering a firearm.
(51:29):
If we're going to go controversial, right, yeah, I don't
I don't know. I mean, that's a really interesting argument, Noel,
Because you can't have an unregistered car yeah.
Speaker 3 (51:38):
But you're right though, when you start going, you know,
taking that and taking it too, well, what if then
you need a license to reproduce? Or then we start
entering when we start when we start putting our physical
forms into the into the equation and treating them as
though we as though it were a motor vehicle or
a gun or something like that, that really opens up
(51:58):
a lot of a lot of worm It is interesting.
Speaker 2 (52:01):
Bat your bags, I am. It's so weird. I would
have been so against this, like one thousand percent against
all of this, and for some reason, somehow, as I'm
getting older, oh gosh, you guys, I'm kind of like, well,
get everyone a DNA scanned and put it on a
(52:22):
tattoo and then their arms and they're registered. And if
anyone doesn't, no no, we will find you a no
no yes for you, no no, then we get you.
Speaker 1 (52:32):
I love this voice. It sounds like he's either got
loose dentures or he's also eating cottage cheese. I'm not sure.
Speaker 2 (52:39):
The cottage cheese is one of the finest foods you
can eat. I would recommend it early in the morning
and late in the afternoon and also early at night.
Speaker 1 (52:50):
Well, you know what, Matt, I have to say, thank
you so much for giving us a note of levity,
gracing us, Yeah, gracing.
Speaker 3 (52:56):
Us, goodness, gracious, that was saying, I can't smiling at
that old man.
Speaker 1 (53:01):
Man.
Speaker 3 (53:02):
That's what happens too. You get old, you start to
decide you want to give up all your civil liberties,
or at least the young whipper snappers should, right, I
agree with with with those realizations. Also, your voice changes
and you start to sound like a very very old man.
Speaker 2 (53:16):
Yeah, it's mostly the testicular group, I think is what
causes that. I keep trying to get a rise out
of Paul mission control decking, and he's just not even No,
that's not sure him.
Speaker 3 (53:28):
From the angle that I'm seeing him, he had a Yeah,
he's got a smirk. He's got a bit of a
glimmer of a smile.
Speaker 1 (53:34):
All right, And there's always one to thank you for
tuning in. You are the most important part of the show,
and we would like to hear from you.
Speaker 2 (53:44):
Tell us what do you think about DNA collection and
all of this stuff. Do you think they got the
right person? Do you think there's someone else out there?
What else do you think about the East Area rapist.
Have you ever lived in any of those places? How
did these crimes affect you growing up? Just anything you
want to talk about. Is there another serial killer that
you think we need to jump and jump into a
(54:05):
little bit deeper, or maybe information about the Zodiac Killer,
because that may potentially be an episode coming up with
all the things happening right now with that case, talk
to us, let us know.
Speaker 3 (54:16):
You can hit us up on Facebook most of the
social media's We are Conspiracy Stuff on Facebook, we are
Conspiracy Stuff show on Instagram. And if you have a
cool story, a little missive something about growing up in
one of these areas, we would love it if you
left us a voicemail.
Speaker 2 (54:33):
Please we are And that's the end of this classic episode.
If you have any thoughts or questions about this episode,
you can get into contact with us in a number
of different ways. One of the best is to give
us a call. Our number is one eight three three
std WYTK. If you don't want to do that, you
can send us a good old fashioned email.
Speaker 1 (54:55):
We are conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2 (55:00):
Enough that they don't want you to know is a
production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the
iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows.
Stuff They Don't Want You To Know News
Hosts And Creators
Matt Frederick
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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