The suspected "Golden State Killer," accused of murders across California, will be prosecuted in one combined trial in Sacramento, prosecutors announced Tuesday. 
 
 Joseph DeAngelo, a 72-year-old former police officer, was arrested this April, following decades in which California law enforcement officers were stumped by what became known as the "Golden State Killer" case. 
 
 Sacramento Police Department 
 
 An amended complaint filed Tuesday morning in Sacramento alleges crimes including 13 counts of murder, spanning six jurisdictions in the northern, central and southern parts of the state, prosecutors said at Tuesday's news conference. 
 
 The unified prosecutors said they are committed to delivering justice for the victims and their loves ones in the single jurisdiction. 
 
 "We stand united" on "team justice," Sacramento County District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert said Tuesday. 
 
 DeAngelo is in custody in Sacramento County and has not entered a plea. 
 
 He will be arraigned on the amended complaint on Thursday, Schubert said. 
 
 The "Golden State Killer" was believed to have committed a string of murders, rapes and home burglaries throughout California in the 1970s and 1980s, with the last known crime in 1986. 
 
 But no arrest was made for decades. 
 
 Courtesy FBI 
 
 In the early 2000s, investigators obtained the unknown killer's DNA at one crime scene: The murders of Lyman and Charlene Smith, who were bludgeoned to death at their Ventura County home in 1980. 
 
 Investigators then started reviewing rape kits -- which contained DNA samples from victims -- in other jurisdictions, prosecutors said. 
 
 FBI via AP 
 
 This year, investigators plugged the mystery killer's DNA into a genealogy database. 
 
 Based on the pool of people on the genealogy website, investigators were then able to build a family tree of the unknown killer’s relatives, who had submitted their DNA to the database on their own. 
 
 Investigators narrowed the search based on age, location and other characteristics, leading them to DeAngelo. 
 
 Authorities conducted surveillance on DeAngelo and collected his DNA from a tissue left in a trash. Investigators plugged his discarded DNA back into the genealogy database and found a match, linking DeAngelo's DNA to evidence gathered at multiple crime scenes, prosecutors said. ||||| Sacramento investigators tracked down East Area Rapist suspect Joseph James DeAngelo using genealogical websites that contained genetic information from a relative, the Sacramento County District Attorney's Office confirmed Thursday. 
 
 The effort was part of a painstaking process that began by using DNA from one of the crime scenes from years ago and comparing it to genetic profiles available online through various websites that cater to individuals wanting to know more about their family backgrounds by accepting DNA samples, said Chief Deputy District Attorney Steve Grippi. 
 
 Paul Holes, a retired investigator with the Contra Costa County District Attorney's Office, confirmed Friday that he used "open-source" site GEDmatch to help law enforcement make the DNA connection. 
 
 The investigation was conducted over a long period of time as officials in Sacramento County District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert's office and crime lab explored online family trees that appeared to match DNA samples from the East Area Rapist's crimes, Grippi said. They then followed clues to individuals in the family trees to determine whether they were potential suspects. 
 
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 The process finally came to fruition last Thursday, when the investigation focused on the possibility that DeAngelo might be a suspect, a suspicion bolstered by the fact that he had lived in areas where the attacks occurred and was in the right age range, Grippi said. 
 
 Schubert said in an interview at her office that the April 19 determination that DeAngelo might be a suspect set the investigation into high gear. 
 
 Sacramento County Sheriff Scott Jones' investigators set up surveillance on DeAngelo in his quiet Citrus Heights neighborhood and obtained his DNA from something he discarded. 
 
 The crime lab began testing the material and Schubert said she got a call last Friday night from Grippi while she was at a high school fundraiser telling her that the DeAngelo DNA matched that found at decades-old murder scenes in Ventura and Orange counties. 
 
 
 
 
 
 "I was at a dinner at Cristo Rey High School and Steve Grippi called me," she said. "And so I probably used a few words I wouldn't put in a newspaper, but basically said, 'You'd better not be lying to me.'" 
 
 The sample provided "overwhelming evidence that it was him," Schubert said, but she decided they wanted a second sample, which sheriff's officials recovered. 
 
 The results from testing that second sample came in while Schubert was in her office Monday night, she said. 
 
 "The second sample was astronomical evidence that it was him," Schubert said, adding, "There were a whole lot of holy s--- moments." 
 
 Authorities began moving quickly to plan the arrest. 
 
 
 
 
 
 "We wanted to be able to move quickly because it wasn't like he was in custody somewhere," she said, adding that she didn't tell all prosecutors with unsolved crimes around the state in an effort to keep the discovery secret. "Not all the DAs knew at the time that the arrest was made," she said. "I think it's a fair statement that it was closely held. "There were concerns about public safety in terms of if he figured out something was going on." DeAngelo was arrested outside his home Tuesday afternoon and booked into the county jail on two charges of murder in the February 1978 slayings of Katie and Brian Maggiore in Rancho Cordova. 
 
 
 
 He is expected to face charges in 12 homicide cases in Sacramento, Orange, Santa Barbara and Ventura counties stemming from a rape and slaying spree that authorities say stretched from 1974 through May 1986. DeAngelo faces arraignment in Sacramento Superior Court on Friday, but authorities still must determine where he ultimately will stand trial and whether he faces death penalty prosecutions. Some of the murders were committed at a time when the death penalty had been ruled unconstitutional, but others are eligible. Schubert said she wants to meet with prosecutors from the counties where DeAngelo is suspected of murders and plan a joint prosecution similar to that used in the Luis Bracamontes cop-killing trial that ended with a death penalty sentence on Wednesday. Bracamontes killed deputies in Sacramento and Placer counties in 2014, and was jointly prosecuted in Sacramento by Rod Norgaard from Schubert's office and Dave Tellman from the Placer DA's office. "It makes sense to do it in one county," she said, adding that the case could be moved to Southern California because 10 of the 12 murder victims were killed there. "The majority of the murders happened down in Southern California, so I'm comfortable with wherever it's going to be as long as everybody gets to be a participant," she said. Prosecutors also must grapple with whether to file rape charges against DeAngelo because for many cases the statute of limitations has expired. 
 
 
 
 Sacramento prosecutors do not currently plan to file such charges. In Santa Clara County, where the East Area Rapist was linked to two rapes in San Jose in 1978, the district attorney's office said it would not seek to prosecute DeAngelo because the statute of limitations had expired. But other jurisdictions are considering it, including Yolo County, where authorities said Thursday they are investigating three rapes in Davis nearly 40 years ago they suspect were committed by DeAngelo. Yolo County District Attorney Jeff Reisig indicated in a written statement he would seek to prosecute DeAngelo in connection with the Davis attacks, the first prosecutor in the state to announce such plans. Reisig said his office would work with Schubert, the FBI and Davis police “to solve the Davis rapes, vigorously prosecute the rapist and achieve some sense of justice for the victims, family members and the Davis community.” Contra Costa County's district attorney is working with police agencies there to investigate whether DeAngelo committed nine sexual assaults in that county between 1978 and 1979, DA spokesman Scott Alonso said. Alonso said the statute of limitations may present a challenge. He said the office is evaluating cases with the county sheriff and police in Concord, Danville and Walnut Creek, where attacks linked to the East Area Rapist occurred. "I think we're very interested in pursuing justice for the victims in these cases and pursue what we can file under the statute of limitations," Alonso said. "We want to see justice for these terrible crimes." The East Area Rapist is believed to have killed 12 people, raped at least 51 and burglarized hundreds of homes from 1974 through May 1986 along the length of California. News that a suspect had been arrested in the 44-year-old mystery set off a frenzy of calls to the DA's office from news outlets around the world, and left Schubert reaching out to victims and investigators who had spent decades working to solve the case. Schubert, who grew up in Sacramento and was 12 when the attacks began, said her brother recalled their father buying a gun because of the rapes and that her mother slept with a knife under her pillow. The realization that the case might finally have been solved - and that it involved a man who had lived in Sacramento undetected for decades - comes 18 years after Schubert convinced her bosses in the DA's office to let her begin a cold case investigations unit and two years after she formed a statewide task force to focus efforts on the case. "It's just surreal, so many years of people waiting...," she said. "It’s a big deal. It's a moment in time that I don't think anybody's going to forget...Everybody here understands the significance of this case." ||||| The lead came in one week ago, a tantalizing DNA hit that triggered a rush of excitement among Sacramento investigators working to solve the 44-year-old mystery of the East Area Rapist suspected of 12 murders and at least 51 rapes the length of California from 1974 through mid-1986. 
 
 Detectives began focusing on Joseph James DeAngelo, a 72-year-old retiree and former police officer living on a quiet street in Citrus Heights, conducting secret surveillance on him, studying his routines and, finally, collecting two separate samples of DNA from items he had discarded. 
 
 On Tuesday afternoon, in what Sacramento Sheriff Scott Jones called a "perfectly executed arrest," FBI agents and detectives took DeAngelo into custody when he stepped outside his home. 
 
 "He was very surprised," an elated Jones said Wednesday at a news conference outside the Sacramento District Attorney's Crime Lab that helped lead to the arrest. "It looked as though he might have been searching his mind to execute a particular plan he may have had in mind… "He was not given the opportunity. It happened almost instantaneously and he was taken into custody without any incident at all." As Jones, Sacramento District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert and other law enforcement leaders discussed the break in the case Wednesday afternoon, authorities were filing or preparing to file 12 murder charges in Sacramento, Orange, Santa Barbara and Ventura counties. The arrest brought international attention to a case that has generated a recent best-selling book, a documentary and theories that the East Area Rapist, also known as the Golden State Killer, the Visalia Ransacker, the Original Night Stalker and the Diamond Knot Killer, may have escaped to commit similar crimes in Australia. Schubert said Wednesday there was no evidence to support that, but noted that the investigation into DeAngelo is just beginning after decades of dead-end leads. "The answer has always been in Sacramento," Schubert said. "For over 40 years, countless victims have waited for justice." DeAngelo was being held without bail in the Sacramento County Main Jail and is scheduled to make his first court appearance Friday afternoon. He had never before been connected to the case, and had no obvious criminal past that authorities were aware of, other than a shoplifting incident at a Greenback Lane store where he was accused of stealing a hammer and dog repellant. That incident that got him fired in 1979 from his job as an Auburn police officer. But Jones, Schubert and a team of other investigators statewide launched a renewed effort in 2016 to solve the case, and said Wednesday that persistent detective work and DNA evidence led them to DeAngelo. Schubert, Jones and other officials would not disclose why they began looking at DeAngelo six days earlier, saying it was too early to reveal that information. But they were adamant that the clue did not come from a tip. Instead, they said, DNA evidence from one of the old crimes and new technologies led them to begin studying DeAngelo last week. At one point, they collected "discarded DNA" from him, but said the genetic material was not substantial enough, so they returned to find more. Jones said such collections can be made from something as simple as getting a used soda can from someone, but he would not disclose the details of how they obtained it. "This was a true convergence of emerging technology and dogged persistence by detectives," Jones said. By Wednesday, Schubert's office filed the first charges in the case, two counts of murder stemming from the Feb. 2, 1978, slayings of Katie and Brian Maggiore in Rancho Cordova. 
 
 
 
 
 
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 The couple, believed to be the first killed by the East Area Rapist, were shot while walking their dog. Brian was shot in the chest in a neighbor's backyard, while Katie was shot in the head outside their home. 
 
 Those charges were filed alleging special circumstances of multiple murders, a designation that could lead Schubert's office to seek the death penalty. 
 
 The East Area Rapist terrorized portions of Sacramento with sexual assaults from 1976 through 1978. Authorities believe DeAngelo raped 37 people in the Sacramento area and Central Valley. 
 
 He is believed to have committed at least nine sexual assaults in Sacramento, six in Rancho Cordova and Citrus Heights, four in Carmichael, three in Davis, two in Orangevale and one in Antelope between June 1976 and July 1978. From there, authorities suspect he moved on to rapes in the Bay Area and later homicides and rapes in Southern California. 
 
 As the rapist moved from area to area, authorities dubbed him with his various nicknames before concluding that they were looking for the same suspect in each crime. 
 
 It was unclear how DeAngelo, who is believed to have lived in Citrus Heights for three decades and raised a family, may have conducted the crime spree, which stretched from Visalia in 1974 to Southern California in May 1986, without attracting attention. 
 
 But authorities said his police training may have helped. DeAngelo was a police officer in Exeter near Visalia, and then in Auburn from August 1976 until he was fired in September 1979. 
 
 SHARE COPY LINK FBI agents and law enforcement from Sacramento County and Southern California search a home this morning in Citrus Heights 
 
 In addition to the murder counts filed in Sacramento, Orange County prosecutors filed four counts of murder with special circumstances late Wednesday. 
 
 He is accused of killing Keith and Patrice Harrington in their Dana Point home in August 1980; of murdering and raping Manuela Witthuhn in Irvine in February 1981; and of the May 1986 murder and rape of Janelle Cruz in Irvine. 
 
 In their case, Orange County authorities added enhancements to the charges that will allow them to seek life without parole or the death penalty against DeAngelo. Those enhancements include three rape allegations, three robbery allegations and four allegations of lying in wait. 
 
 "This defendant has been able to live here in a nice suburb in Sacramento," Orange County DA Tony Rackauckas said. "Our team is going to work hard to make sure he never gets out." 
 
 Two additional murder counts were expected in Ventura County in the March 13, 1980, slayings of Charlene and Lyman Smith, who were bludgeoned by a piece of firewood. Charlene was raped before being killed. Lyman was soon to become a county judge. 
 
 DeAngelo also is suspected in four murders in Santa Barbara County. 
 
 Robert Offerman and Debra Manning were killed on Dec. 30, 1979, in Goleta. In July 1981, Cheri Domingo and Gregory Sanchez were killed a few blocks from the Manning and Offerman murders. 
 
 Sanchez suffered a nonfatal gunshot wound to the cheek before being bludgeoned with a garden tool. Domingo was raped before being killed. 
 
 Jones said detectives have been searching DeAngelo's home seeking clues such as firearms or other evidence that might tie him to the case. 
 
 "There is a lot of material in his house, a lot of stuff to go through," Jones said. 
 
 Other search warrants are expected to be issued in coming days, and the sheriff said DeAngelo family members have been contacted. 
 
 "We have interviewed some family members," Jones said. "They are cooperative and, certainly, it's quite a shock to them, as you might expect." 
 
 SHARE COPY LINK Here is a quick look at the timeframe of the East Area Rapist case. Crimes occurred in the Sacramento area and in Southern California. He was also known as the Golden State Killer and Original Night Stalker. 
 
 Bruce Harrington, whose brother and sister-in-law were killed in Dana Point in 1980, appeared at the news conference Wednesday and described his long fight to get the state to compile a DNA database after the slayings. 
 
 "For the 51 ladies who were brutally raped: Sleep better tonight," Harrington said. "He isn’t coming through the window. He is now in jail and he is history." 
 
 
 
 
 
 SHARE COPY LINK Joseph James DeAngelo, 72, was arrested around 2:30 a.m. Wednesday in connection to the East Area Rapist case, officials say. Also known as the Golden State Killer, the serial rapist is responsible for raping at least 45 women and killing 12. 
 
 Then-Citrus Heights resident Jane Carson-Sandler was sexually assaulted at knifepoint by a man believed to be the East Area Rapist in 1976. Carson-Sandler, who now lives in Sun City, S.C., told The Island Packet newspaper Wednesday she had been contacted by two detectives about the suspect's arrest. 
 
 The man's arrest picture was not familiar to Carson-Sandler, she said. 
 
 "I just found out this morning," she told The Island Packet. "I'm overwhelmed with joy. I've been crying, sobbing." 
 
 True crime writer Michelle McNamara's book "I'll Be Gone in the Dark" reached No. 1 on The New York Times' bestseller list last month and drew renewed attention to the case, although officials said Wednesday that the book did not lead to the arrest. 
 
 A documentary on the search for the killer aired at the Delta King Theatre in Old Sacramento earlier this month. 
 
 SHARE COPY LINK Jane Carson-Sandler was brutally raped by a serial killer 41 years ago in her Citrus Heights, Calif., home. Her rapist is known as the East Area Rapist, Original Night Stalker and Golden State Killer. He's still never been caught. 
 
 Sam Stanton: (916) 321-1091, @StantonSam
– Charges are piling up for Joseph James DeAngelo Jr., the suspected Golden State Killer. In addition to 13 counts of murder, DeAngelo will face 13 charges of kidnapping to commit robbery, prosecutors announced Tuesday. The 72-year-old will be tried in Sacramento County, the Los Angeles Times reports. The announcement of the new charges and trial venue were made during a press conference in Orange County. Prosecutors from Contra Costa, Sacramento, Santa Barbara, Tulare, and Ventura counties—all jurisdictions where DeAngelo allegedly committed crimes—were also on hand. DeAngelo, a former police officer, is believed to be responsible for a series of murders, rapes, and burglaries committed decades ago. He was arrested in April. The prosecutors from Northern, Central, and Southern California "stand united" on "team justice," Sacramento DA Anne Marie Schubert said, according to ABC. If convicted, DeAngelo, who is being held in Sacramento and has yet to enter a plea, is eligible for the death penalty, but prosecutors have not decided whether to pursue it, per the LA Times. He will be arraigned on all of the charges on Thursday, reports the New York Times, which notes that it is unusual for charges from so many jurisdictions to be tried at a single trial.