The Golden State Killer Case

California. 13 murders, 50 assaults, 42 years of investigation.

In 2018, police announced that they had finally arrested the “Golden State Killer,” a man responsible for over 140 burglaries, 50 rapes and at least 13 murders committed in California throughout the 1970s and ’80s. That man turned out to be a former California police officer, Joseph James DeAngelo Jr.

Just two months earlier, the publication of I’ll Be Gone in the Dark by Michelle McNamara had rocked the world of true crime. Published two years after her death, the book charts McNamara’s obsessive search for the prolific criminal who had been known over the years as the East Area Rapist, the Original Night Stalker, and the Visalia Ransacker, among other epithets. McNamara is credited with coining the “Golden State Killer” moniker and heightening public awareness of the—at the time—still unsolved case.

William Thorp dives into the investigation, exploring the dark side of sunny California, the advances in forensic innovation that made solving this case possible, and the story inside the story—one of an amateur sleuth who dedicated the last years of her life to understanding how one of the country’s worst criminals could have spent so many decades undetected.

50 States of Crime: France’s leading true crime journalists investigate America’s most notorious cases, one for every state in the Union, offering up fresh perspectives on famously storied crimes and reflecting, in the process, a dark national legacy that leads from coast to coast.

About the Author: 

William Thorp is a reporter for Vakita, a French digital news media publication focusing on social issues and the environment. Previously, he was a journalist at Society, a news magazine, where, for five years, he covered stories in North America, Europe, and Africa. He started out investigating human interest stories in France before writing articles and long read while on international assignment.