Show Notes
For more than ten years, California was terrorised by a phantom. A man who slipped into bedrooms, blinded victims with a flashlight, tied them up, and vanished before police ever arrived. He was a serial burglar, rapist and murderer who operated under multiple names , the Visalia Ransacker, the East Area Rapist, the Original Night Stalker, before the world finally knew him as the Golden State Killer.
In this exclusive two-part True Criminals special, Sky News crime correspondent Martin Brunt and journalist Helen Fospero trace the evolution of one of the most prolific offenders in US criminal history. From more than 100 ransackings to over 50 rapes and at least 13 murders, Joseph James D’Angelo’s decade-long spree left 61 known victims and decades of unanswered questions.
Joining us is retired FBI profiler Julia Cowley, lead behavioural analyst on the Golden State Killer investigation and host of The Consult: Real FBI Profilers. Julia breaks down the ritualistic MO, escalating violence, sexual compulsions, and the psychological signatures that set D’Angelo apart, and ultimately helped identify him through pioneering genetic genealogy.
We revisit the crime scenes, the methods, the fear that paralysed entire neighbourhoods, and the breakthrough that finally unmasked a predator hiding behind a police badge. In Part One, we explore:
The Visalia Ransacker burglaries and early signs of sexual motivation
The escalation to the East Area Rapist attacks
His obsessive rituals: binding, blindfolds, threats, ransacking and “control theatre”
How he manipulated couples and used psychological torture
Why the case remained unsolved for 40 years
Julia Cowley’s firsthand insight into profiling one of America’s most sadistic offenders
A gripping deep dive into the mind and methods of a killer whose crimes haunted California for decades — and the investigators who refused to give up.
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Connect with Martin Brunt
Follow Martin on Twitter at @skymartinbrunt. Discover more about his career and the cases he’s covered by reading his book, No One Got Cracked Over the Head for No Reason: Dispatches from a Crime Reporter, available here: https://amzn.eu/d/g1WisSY.
Connect with Helen Fospero
Follow Helen on Instagram at @helenfospero and check out her podcast, The Convex Conversation, here: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-convex-conversation/id1510209575.
Credits
True Criminals is produced by Audio Bleach Global.
Visit www.audiobleachglobal.com/truecriminals for more information.
Executive Producer: Lee Mann.
Producer: Russell Barnes.
Senior Researcher: Rebecca Stinton
Audio Production: Andrew Chappell.
Music Composition: Chap Mannequin.
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