Former police officer Joseph DeAngelo was sentenced Friday to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
After 45 years spent hiding in plain sight, 74-year-old former California police officer Joseph James DeAngelo — once called the “Visalia Ransacker,” the “East Area Rapist,” the “Original Night Stalker,” and most commonly called the “Golden State Killer” — has been sentenced to spend the brief remainder of his life in prison.
The few surviving victims of DeAngelo’s monstrous crimes gathered to tell their stories to the court on Tuesday. “Joseph DeAngelo, henceforth called ‘the devil incarnate,’ broke into my home, blindfolded me, tied me up, threatened my life with a knife, and raped me,” Phyllis Henneman said of him in a statement read by her sister, Karen Veilleux. She was 22 in June 1976 when DeAngelo attacked.
In a deal to spare him the death penalty, DeAngelo pleaded guilty to 13 counts of murder and 13 rape-related charges in June, alongside public admission of dozens more rapes for which the statute of limitations had already expired.
Sacramento County Superior Court Judge Michael Bowman said Friday that DeAngelo would “meet his death confined behind the walls of state penitentiary,” but stressed that the limitation of his sentence was not a decision made out of mercy.
“The court is not saying DeAngelo does not deserve to have the death penalty imposed,” Bowman said, but a life sentence seemed to make more sense considering his age and that of his victims. The judge hopes “survivors will find some resolution” when DeAngelo is finally locked away.