The recently issued warrant against Joseph DeAngelo, the 72-year-old California man suspected of being the Golden State Killer presents, in unflinching detail, all of the crimes attributed to the man also known as the "East Area Rapist," "The Original Night Stalker," and, possibly, "The Visalia Ransacker." Between 1976 and 1986, DeAngelo is believed to have committed over fifty sexual assaults, twelve homicides, and countless home invasion burglaries. If convicted of also of being the "Visalia Ransacker," then DeAngelo could face additional charges of burglaries, sexual assault, and at least one homicide stretching back to 1974.

The Sacramento County Superior Court released some of the case's search and arrest warrants last week to the public, but large portions still remain redacted. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the warrants raise many interesting, if not disturbing questions about DeAngelo and his crimes. For instance, one warrant, which searched DeAngelo's phones and computers, hints that investigators suspect that DeAngelo may have kept a diary or some kind of journal detailing his crimes. One warrant reads: “Serial killers and rapists often keep journals or diaries of their criminal activity," and it remains possible that DeAngelo may have digitized a formerly paper-based journal.

Another possibility raised in the warrants is the idea that DeAngelo may have kept "trophies" from his victims.

This too is a common trait among serial killers and serial rapists, and Paul Holes, the former Contra Costa County investigator who spent decades investigating the case, believes that DeAngelo may have kept mementos in order to relive his crimes. These items might still be found in a storage locker owned or rented by DeAngelo.

More to find

So far, DeAngelo and his defense team have yet to enter a plea in the case. According to the Washington Post, some of the redacted material in the released warrants appear to discuss what the killer wore during his crimes. Also, upon reviewing the two major warrants released by Sacramento County, the Post found that prior to the murder of Brian and Katie Maggiore, the GSK committed a bizarre series of break-ins in the area of Cordova Meadows, a California subdivision.

Here, the serial rapist stalked houses for days, even going so far as two leave images drawn in "body fluids" on one bedroom wall.

These increasingly strange actions on the part of the East Area Rapist/GSK have lead some investigators to suggest that, by 1978-1979, the criminal was in the process of working up towards murder. However, if he was the Visalia Ransacker (a point disputed by Holes and true crime author Michelle McNamara), then GSK/EAR had already killed journalism professor Claude Snelling. Unlike later crimes though, this killing was down as the attacker tried to escape a botched crime scene.
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