On Friday, a judge unsealed parts of the arrest warrant for Joseph DeAngelo - the 72-year-old former police officer who is accused of committing serial rape and murder across California beginning 40 years ago. The heavily redacted document describes how police finally found the Golden State Killer suspect by his DNA — tracking Mr DeAngelo through a genealogy website and rooting through his trash. But the majority of the warrant documents — dozen and dozens of pages — are devoted to retelling those long-ago crimes. It’s a remarkable document, even if much of it is blacked out: a chronicle of a serial predator who travelled invisibly, attacked fearlessly and terrorised many victims with strange noises and bizarre drawings before closing in for the kill. He may have stalked his victims through drainage ditches The Golden State Killer was one of the most prolific predators in US history, sometimes invading different houses on consecutive nights, sometimes returning to the same neighbourhood so often that the people who lived there slept in shifts. He terrorised the suburbs of Sacramento, and, later in his spree, near Los Angeles, hundreds of miles to the south. Again and again, the police affidavit mentions homes that back onto drainage channels, or back onto river levees, suggesting that the killer may have used the terrain to remain invisible — until he was ready for his victims to see him. The Most Notorious Serial Killers Show all 20 1 /20 The Most Notorious Serial Killers The Most Notorious Serial Killers Ian Brady and Myra Hindley Ian Brady and Myra Hindley were found guilty of murder, in the sensational 'Bodies of the Moor' trial. Both were sentenced to life imprisonment. 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PA The Most Notorious Serial Killers John Wayne Gacy John Wayne Gacy sexually assaulted, tortured and murdered at least 33 teenage boys and men between 1972 and 1978. Rex Features The Most Notorious Serial Killers Dennis Rader Dennis Rader, 'the BTK murderer', killed 10 times between 1974 and 1991. His first victims were all from one family. The pattern of systematic torture, lead him to be called the ‘Bind, Tie, Kill (BTK) murderer’. Getty Images The Most Notorious Serial Killers Mary Ann Cotton Mary Ann Cotton was believed to have had as many as 21 victims. She is thought to have used arsenic to poison and kill three of her four husbands, possibly as many as eight of her own children, seven stepchildren, her mother, a lover and an inconvenient friend. She was hung on March 24, 1873, after being found guilty of murdering her stepson. Rex Features To meet him was invariably terrifying One victim woke in the middle of the night to the sound of wind chimes, police wrote. She looked out her bedroom window and saw a man trying to pry off the screen. One woman was lying in bed with her 3-year-old son when she heard the hallway light switch on. Another woke at 2 am to a bright light shining straight into her face. Sometimes, the Golden State Killer came silently, but often he seemed unconcerned with the clatter of his approach. And for too many victims, knowing that he was coming was not enough for them to escape. ✕ Sacramento DA: 'we found the needle in the haystack' after Golden State Killer caught in Sacramento One woman, alerted to a suspicious vehicle in the neighbourhood, “walked through her house, checking the doors”, police wrote. “When she turned around the suspect was standing there with a gun pointed at her.” Another - the same woman who had woken to a man trying to pull off her window screen - woke up her daughters and ran to her phone to call for help. Before she could dial, she heard a curtain rod fall to the floor, then looked up to see a man’s silhouette standing in front of her. When he attacked, he showed no fear Though most of the attacks described in the affidavit are heavily redacted, what’s left reads like a compendium of horror stories. Take the second known attack, at a house near Sacramento on the early morning of July 16, 1976. The man who lived there woke before dawn to go to work. He heard footsteps outside, in the back, by the pool. “He heard another noise a few minutes later, but didn’t investigate”, the affidavit reads. It was still dark outside at 5 am when the man walked into his garage and hit the button to open the door. As the door began to open, he heard footsteps again.<doc-sep>A survivor of a notorious killer was overcome with emotion as she came face to face with the monster who abducted and tortured her decades ago. "I just tried to go somewhere else in my mind," Jennifer Asbenson told a silent courtroom of her abduction at the hands of Andrew Urdiales. "I wanted to die." Jennifer Asbenson was 19 when she was abducted by Urdiales. But 25 years later, she returned to California's Desert Hot Springs to record a video explaining her escape in hopes of encouraging others to never give up. Asbenson was walking to a bus stop near Palm Springs in September 1992 when she was offered a ride by Urdiales. He drove her to a remote desert location where he tied her with rope and her own bra. In the video, she describes the terror she experienced. "I didn't know what he was going to do to me before he killed me and that scared me most of all," she said in the video. She was gagged with her own underwear, which he shoved in her mouth. “He started strangling me so hard I thought, 'This is what it feels like when you are drowning,'" she said in court. What she could not have known was that he was a serial killer. His victims included five women in southern California and three women in Illinois. Asbenson is the only woman known to have escaped Urdiales' clutches. In 2017, she took Inside Edition to the desolate location and demonstrated how she was locked in the trunk of his car with her hands bound. After struggling for hours, it was a miracle she was able to free her hands, unlock the trunk and run for her life. "I turned and looked and he was chasing me down the road with a machete," she told Inside Edition last year. Asbenson, an author, posted video to encourage others to never give up, even in their darkest hour. “I escaped from a serial killer who murdered eight women,” she said in a video. Five years after Asbenson's abduction, Urdiales was finally captured. He confessed to murdering the eight women and admitted Asbenson was the one who got away. “She had her hands free at the time and she ran screaming,” he told authorities. Last month, jurors convicted the former Marine of all five "special-circumstance" murders in California. On Wednesday, jurors recommended the 53-year-old killer be given death penalty as punishment for his crimes. After the punishment was handed down, she told Inside Edition it was "one of the best feelings I have ever had in my entire life," adding "I feel relief." On August 31, a California judge will determine whether Urdiales will be sent to death row. RELATED STORIES<doc-sep>A dirty tissue led to the arrest of one of the most-prolific serial killers in U.S. history, according to a newly unsealed search and arrest warrant. After four days of deliberation, a judge unsealed the 100-plus page warrant on Friday for alleged "Golden State Killer" Joseph DeAngelo in connection to at least 57 attacks and 13 murders starting in the mid-1970s. The warrant alleges the possible 13th murder is a professor killed in Tulare County during the time the suspect was known as the "Visalia Ransacker." He has not yet been charged with this murder. DeAngelo was arrested in his driveway in Citrus Heights, California, on April 24 and has been charged with with 12 counts of murder: two in Sacramento County, two in Ventura County, four in Orange County and four in Santa Barbara County. According to the warrant, the initial DNA collected to connect DeAngelo to the murders of Lyman and Charlene Smith in March 1980 was taken off his driver’s side car door handle when he was parked in Hobby Lobby parking lot in Roseville, California, in April 2018. Authorities surveilled DeAngelo driving this vehicle. Additional DNA samples were then taken from DeAngelo’s trash can outside his residence in Citrus Heights on April 23. A piece of tissue was the conclusive DNA factor needed to link him to the these crimes, the warrant shows. The DNA that was derived from the Lyman and Charlene Smith killings case was provided to the task force organized by the Sacramento County District Attorney’s Office, the district attorney's office said. Authorities compared the DNA from the Smith double murder to what’s available on genealogy websites to find a family tree for the suspect, sources said. Officials then worked their way down that family tree until they found the 72-year-old DeAngelo. DeAngelo was a police officer in Exeter, California, from 1973 to 1976, officials said. He then served as a police officer in Auburn, California, in 1979 before being fired for stealing a hammer, according to multiple reports. The unsealed warrant shows police seized additional DNA evidence, computers and devices, firearms and four vehicles belonging to DeAngelo -- a 2014 Toyota Camry, 2016 Suzuki motorcycle, white Toyota Tacoma pickup truck and a 2017 trailer -- from DeAngelo’s home. Authorities strip searched DeAngelo upon apprehension to make sure he didn’t have a concealed weapon and, once in custody, photographed specific body parts. The heavily redacted affidavit provides victims’ chilling accounts of all of DeAngelo's various aliases: the "Visalia Ransacker," the "East Area Rapist" and the "Original Night Stalker." The details of the sexual assaults are redacted, but all victims provide similar accounts: they remember hearing something in their house, at times being tied up and being told not to move. In most all of the cases, victims reported hang ups or lewd calls, prior burglaries or seeing a prowler prior to the sexual assaults, the warrant shows. Victims provided similar descriptions of the suspect: white male, about 6-feet tall, 20 to 30 years old, an athletic build, dark or leather shoes, and wearing a jacket and gloves. He was reported to carry a knife, gun or tool. Some say he was not wearing pants, just white jockey shorts. The documents also provide a detailed list of items stolen from victims, including rings, silver dollars, $2 bills, money clips, cuff links, antiques spoons, IDs, photos, keys, jewelry, china, cameras, a revolver, a ladies robe, leather bags, gambling chips, gold nuggets, bowls, clock radios, knives, prescriptions and a doctor’s bag with syringes. In many of the murder cases, the murder weapon was taken from the scene. The documents also show authorities believe DeAngelo followed the case for years, accessing law enforcement bulletins, media stories and documentaries detailing his alleged crimes. The affidavit is organized by the different phases as he moved throughout the state and his crimes worsened, first as the "Visalia Ransaker," including a possible first murder; the "East Area Rapist," including the murders of Brian and Katie Maggiore; multiple rapes committed in Modesto and Davis, California; a series of rapes in the East Bay; and the final phase, a series of rapes and the 10 murders in Southern California. The warrant shows authorities believe the "Visalia Ransaker" committed approximately 120 burglaries between April 1974 and Decemeber 1975. This was during this time DeAngelo was an Exeter police officer. The killer's crime spree almost lasted less than a year, the papers show. In December 1975, a Visalia police officer confronted the suspected "Visalia Ransacker." The suspect removed his mask and begged the officer not to hurt him. The officer described the suspect's voice as juvenile and effeminate. The suspect shot at the officer, wounding him with debris, before escaping. In the late-1970s, when the suspect was known as the "East Area Rapist," many people chased after the suspect, but he always seemed to get away. On Feb. 16, 1977, a boy and his father chased down a man matching the description of the "East Area Rapist" after hearing noises in their backyard. The boy was shot by the suspect, but he survived. The documents also provide details known about the 10 murders in Southern California. Victims were either shot or killed by multiple blows to the head. As the documents allege, the murders began to grow more gruesome. ABC News' Jonah Lustig contributed to this report.<doc-sep>
Golden State Killer: DNA links ex-officer to California cold cases Published 25 April 2018 image copyright Getty Images image caption The charges were announced at a news conference in Sacramento California police have arrested a former police officer for a notorious spree of murders, rapes and burglaries in the 1970s and 80s. Sacramento police say they arrested suspect Joseph James DeAngelo, 72. The suspect has been living in the Sacramento area and was identified after new efforts to solve the case, investigators say. Police blame the so-called Golden State Killer for 12 murders, 51 rapes and more than 120 burglaries. Mr DeAngelo is being held on suspicion of four counts of murder - the 1978 deaths of Brian and Katie Maggiore in Sacramento and the 1980 killings of Charlene and Lyman Smith in Ventura County. Prosecutors say additional charges are likely to follow. What did police say? Police had been monitoring the suspect and used "discarded DNA" to match him to the crimes, according to Sacramento County Sheriff Scott Jones. media caption Golden State Killer: 'A staggering crime spree' Announcing the arrest, Sacramento District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert said: "The answer has always been in Sacramento." "The magnitude of this case demanded that it be solved," she added. Ventura County District Attorney Greg Totten said that prosecutors intend to seek the death penalty. Two years ago the FBI offered a $50,000 (£36,000) reward to anyone who could help crack the case. Crime spree that terrorised communities By James Cook, BBC News Los Angeles correspondent After four decades of frustration for detectives, it turned out the suspect had been living under their noses all along. "We found the needle in the haystack and it was right here in Sacramento," said district attorney Anne Marie Schubert. Joseph James DeAngelo had apparently been living an ordinary life on a quiet suburban street, a former police officer with grown-up children who was "very surprised" when he was arrested and taken into custody. Details of his alleged crimes are deeply disturbing and collective psychological scars endure. Many police officers and prosecutors involved in the case vividly recall the terror of the crime spree in their communities. "Everyone was afraid," said FBI special agent Marcus Knutson, who was born and raised in Sacramento, as he announced a fresh appeal for information on the case two years ago. "We had people sleeping with shotguns, we had people purchasing dogs. People were concerned, and they had a right to be. This guy was terrorising the community. He did horrible things." What do we know about the accused? According to the Sacramento Bee newspaper, he had been living with his daughter and granddaughter in the city's Citrus Heights neighbourhood. He was fired from the Auburn Police Department in 1979 after he was charged with shoplifting, according to the Auburn Journal. Police say it was "very likely" that he was committing these crimes while employed as a police officer. He had also worked as an officer in Exeter, California from 1973 to 1976, during a time when several crimes were committed there, police say. What reaction has there been? Jane Carson-Sandler, who was the rapist's fifth victim in October 1976, told the Island Packet newspaper that detectives had emailed her on Wednesday to inform her of the arrest. "I just found out this morning," she said. "I'm overwhelmed with joy. I've been crying, sobbing." The case was investigated by author Michelle McNamara for her book I'll Be Gone in the Dark. McNamara died before the book could be published. Her co-author, Billy Jensen, tweeted on Tuesday night to say there would be a "rather large announcement tomorrow". Another contributor to the book, Paul Haynes, said: "Stunned. Excited. No other words right now." Stunned. Excited. No other words right now. — Paul Haynes (@ThePaulOfHaynes) April 25, 2018 The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. View original tweet on Twitter What were the crimes? The Golden State Killer, also known as the East Area Rapist, Original Night Stalker, and the Diamond Knot Killer is believed to have carried out rapes and murders between 1976 and 1986, killing girls and women aged between 12 and 41. Prosecutors say the "reign of terror" began in Sacramento and spread to San Francisco and then on to central and southern California. Links between the cases were established by DNA evidence, police say.