2023-04-26 08:17:46
Crimes
A book about the serial killer who revolutionized cold cases
A new collection on major American criminal cases begins with the Golden State Killer, the first assassin identified years later thanks to the DNA revolution.
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Joseph James DeAngelo during his trial in 2021.
AFP
The Golden State Killer is a serial killer who was almost forgotten. Yet he is credited with 13 murders, around 50 rapes and numerous burglaries that terrorized California in the 1970s and 1980s. But the police never got the start of a lead and, his last misdeed that we imputes to him the date of 1986, one could therefore think that he would never be unmasked.
Yet a new DNA research method resulted in 72-year-old Joseph James DeAngelo being identified as the Golden State Killer in 2018. He was sentenced to several life prison terms. He is the first “cold case” (old unresolved cases) which has found an answer thanks to this new technique. Since then, they have been solved almost every week in the United States.
A revolution in surveys
In the scientific police, the use of fingerprints has made it possible to identify many culprits. But to assign fingerprints taken from a crime scene to someone, they must either match those already recorded in police files, or match those of a suspect. Since the 1980s, DNA has made it possible to be infallible in identifications. But the same, that of the culprit had to be already registered by the police, or that he himself was a suspect and that a sample was taken from him.
Joseph James DeAngelo was never suspected. And he knew, each time he felt that something could link him to his crimes, to move to start his misdeeds elsewhere. Because he was a police officer and even investigated his own burglaries before being fired for a story of shoplifting. He obviously stopped his crimes because he felt the arrival of DNA might threaten him. But he didn’t expect anyone to end up knocking on his door.
This happened because the police have, for the first time, compared the DNA of the killer to those that people voluntarily provide on genealogical research sites. This does not necessarily lead to the possessor of this DNA, but to someone in his family. Afterwards, it remains to seek in the entourage who could be the culprit.
One crime per state
The resolution of this case has a lot of noise at the time. And today, a book comes to tell us in detail the whole terrifying journey of this extraordinary killer. 10/18, in collaboration with the magazine “Society” has just launched a new collection, “True Crime”. Each book will return to a major American criminal case, state by state. Normal that the killer whose nickname evokes California is one of the two who opens fire. Written by reporter William Thorpe, “The Case of the Golden State Killer” is devoured like an excellent fiction thriller. But here, everything is real.
This man’s journey is amazing. He started with simple burglaries, before killing animals, then raping single women, then raping some alongside their husbands on whom he had placed plates piled up saying that he would kill them both if only one was falling. Finally, he began to murder, savagely. Even knowing a little about the case, we learn a lot from this reading, in particular the strange sentence that DeAngelo will pronounce in the interrogation room, suggesting that he was inhabited by a double personality.
“The Case of the Golden State Killer,” by William Thorp, Ed. 10/18, 176 pages
A truly unworthy mother?
The collection will not focus on cases of which we know all the secrets. The second book published is interested in Alice Crimmins. In New York, in 1965, the two grandchildren of this mother were found strangled in two different vacant lots. Without any absolute proof of her guilt, it will be her who will be condemned, because she was judged only because she had too many lovers and she did not cry enough. But today, we still don’t know the truth. Similarly, this book written by Anaïs Renevier is devoured. We are delighted with the next one, devoted to “The Unknown of Cleveland”, which will speak of a pensioner without history found dead in his bathroom. Except that his identity was false.
“The Alice Crimmins case”, by Anaïs Renevier, Ed. 10/18, 208 pages
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