Her family had taken a trip to Mexico, but Janelle Cruz stayed at her Irvine, California, home. Eager to pick up some hours at her part-time job at a pizza parlor, the eighteen-year-old was getting her life in order after years of struggling with depression.
On the evening of May 4, 1986, while Janelle and a friend were watching movies at the Cruz home, they heard several noises outside which sounded like a door or gate closing. When they looked, they saw nothing. Though a little spooked, the young women dismissed the noises. The friend left Janelle’s home at 10:45 p.m.
Around 5:00 p.m. the following day, a real estate agent who had planned to show the Cruz home to potential buyers found Janelle bludgeoned to death in her bed. An autopsy determined she had also been raped.
Authorities believe Janelle Cruz was the final victim of one of America’s most infamous serial killers.
Janelle Cruz
Au unknown man had committed at least twelve murders, more than fifty rapes, and over one-hundred burglaries across California from 1974 through 1981. He was also linked to hundreds of incidents of vandalism, stalking, peeping, and prowling. The crimes were committed in different regions throughout the state before DNA evidence connected them to the same person in 1996.
Several monikers were bestowed on the perpetrator, including the “Golden State Killer.”
Other monikers include:
East Area Rapist
Original Night Stalker
Visalia Ransacker
East Bay Rapist
Diamond Knot Killer
Prior to the 1986 murder of Janelle Cruz, the last homicide linked to the Golden State Killer occurred in 1981. He had seemingly taken a five-year hiatus before returning for one final thrill kill and then apparently calling it quits as no subsequent murders in California were linked to him.
The Golden State Killer remained unidentified for over thirty years after killing Janelle Cruz, his last known victim.
Composites of The Killer
In 2018, investigators compared a DNA sample to genetic profiles from GEDmatch, a public genealogy website where people enter their own DNA profiles or genealogical data. After searching family trees generated through the public profiles, a suspect, seventy-two-year-old Joseph DeAngelo Jr., emerged. He was placed under surveillance and investigators collected a sample of his DNA from discarded trash. It was matched to the DNA retrieved from multiple crime scenes.
On April 25, DeAngelo, a former police officer, was arrested and charged with eight counts of first-degree murder. Authorities announced they believed him to the Golden State Killer.
Joseph DeAngelo, Jr.
On June 29, 2020, DeAngelo pleaded guilty to thirteen murders, including that of Janelle Cruz, and multiple counts of kidnapping. As part of a plea bargain sparing him the death penalty, he also admitted to numerous crimes with which he could not be formally charged because of the statute of limitations; these crime included over fifty rapes and one-hundred-twenty burglaries.
On August 21, DeAngelo was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. He is incarcerated in protective custody at the California State Prison in Corcoran, fifty miles south of Frenso.
The Golden State Killer Is Unmasked
Claude Snelling
DeAngelo also pled guilty to the February 2, 1978, murders of Brian and Katie Maggiore. Married less than two years, the couple, ages twenty-one and twenty, were shot to death while walking their dog in Rancho Cordova, part of metropolitan Sacramento.
Brian was a military policeman at the former Mather Air Force Base, located twelve miles east of Sacramento. The base closed in 1993.
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/7092442/brian-keith-maggiore#
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/7092443/katie_lee_maggiore#
Katie and Brian Maggiore
DeAngelo broke into the Santa Barbara home of Robert Offerman on December 30, 1979. The forty-four-year-old orthopedic surgeon and his thirty-five-year-old girlfriend Debra Manning, a psychologist, were both forcibly bound by twine and then shot to death.
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/6191407/robert-john-offerman#
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/90202491/debra-alexandria-manning#
Robert Offerman and Debra Manning
Three months later, on March 13, 1980, forty-three-year-old Lyman Smith and his thirty-three-year-old wife Charlene were found bludgeoned to death in their Ventura home, sixty-five miles northwest of Los Angeles. The murder weapon was a log taken from a woodpile on the side of the couple’s home. Charlene was also raped.
Lyman was a lawyer; Charlene was a secretary.
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/189208806/lyman-robert-smith#
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/189208998/charlene-smith#
Charlene And Lyman Smith
The next killings occurred on August 19, five months later, in Laguna Niguel, roughly hallway between Los Angeles and San Diego, where newlyweds Keith and Patti Harrington were also bludgeoned to death in their home. No murder or ligature marks were found at the crime scene, but both the couple’s ankles and wrists appeared to have been bound. Patti was raped as well.
Twenty-eight-year Keith was a medical student at the University of California-Irvine; twenty-four-year-old Patti worked as a nurse.
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/185056599/keith-eli-harrington#
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/185056603/patrice_anne_harrington
Keith And Patti Harrington
De Angelo’s next murder victim was twenty-eight-year-old Manuela Witthuhn, who was raped and beaten to death on February 27, 1981 in Irvine, part of metropolitan Los Angeles. Similar to the Harringtons’ murders, no murder weapon or ligatures were found, but she also appeared to have been tied before being beaten to death.
The home’s television set was found in the backyard. This may have been the killer’s attempt to make the murder look like a robbery gone wrong.
Born in Germany, Manuela had lived in America only briefly. She was a housewife. Her husband David was hospitalized with a viral infection at the time of her murder.
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/90297735/manuela-eleanore-witthuhn#
Manuela Witthuhn
On July 27, five months later, thirty-five-year-old Cheri Domingo and her twenty-seven-year-old boyfriend Gregory Sanchez were beaten to death with a garden tool in Cheri’s Santa Barbara home, only a few blocks from Dr. Offerman’s condominium, where DeAngelo had struck a year-and-half earlier.
Like the most recent female victims, Cheri had been raped and the bruises on her wrists were indicative of her having been tied up. Fibers, the source of which could not be determined, were strewn across her body. A piece of shipping twine was found near the couple’s bed.
Gregory had also been shot in the cheek prior to being bludgeoned to death. Unbound, he apparently had tried to fight the attacker. His head was covered with clothes taken from the closet.
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/197002292/gregory-sanchez#
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/193789150/cheryl-grace-domingo#
Cheri Domingo And Gregory Sanchez
The final murder to which DeAngelo pled guilty was that of Janelle Cruz nearly five years later. The murder weapon is believed to have been a pipe wrench missing from the home.
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/8728007/janelle_lisa-cruz
Janelle Cruz Is The Last Known Victim
Of The Golden State Killer
Joseph DeAngelo, Jr. had served as a burglary unit police officer in Exeter and Auburn, California, from 1973-79. Exeter is fifty miles southeast of Fresno; Auburn is thirty miles northeast of Sacramento. He was fired from the Auburn Police Department in October 1979 after shoplifting a can of dog repellent and a hammer from a drugstore. He was given six months’ probation. Afterwards, he made statements threatening to kill Police Chief Daryl Gates and allegedly stalked his home.
Many profilers believe the firing was the impetus for DeAngelo’s crimes, which began two years later. On several occasions through the ensuing years, he phoned the Sacramento Police Department bragging about his crimes and confidently boasting he would never be caught.
During the time of his crimes, DeAngelo was married with three daughters. He separated from his wife, Sharon, in 1991, five years after committing his last murder. His daughters describe him as a good father; neither they nor their mother ever suspected he was a serial killer.
Joseph DeAngelo As A Police Officer In the 1970s
The term “Night Stalker” is associated with another serial killer, Richard Ramirez, whose killing spree across the Golden State occurred in 1984-85, after all but one of Joseph DeAngelo’s confirmed murders. Coincidentally, both California serial killers were convicted of thirteen murders.
DeEngelo was first dubbed the Night Stalker. He is sometimes now referred to as the “Original Night Stalker,” to differentiate him from Ramirez.
The Night Stalker And The Original Night Stalker
Following its use in identifying the Golden State Killer, other police departments began using GEDMatch in an effort to identify the violent perpetrators of cold cases. The online service has effectively become law enforcement’s de facto DNA database.
Concerns regarding police use of GEDMatch were raised following DeAngelo’s arrest. The ethics of the secondary use of personally identifiable information has been called into question, particularly given California’s Online Privacy Protection Act, and in the wake of the Facebook scandal of a few years ago.
GED Match has since tightened its rules on privacy as users are now required to “opt in” to share their data with law enforcement.
Ethical Questions Raised
SOUCRES:
- CNN
- FBI
- Los Angeles Times
- New York Times
- Sacramento Bee
- Washington Post
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