What We Found In Golden State Killer Suspect’s Newly Released Arrest Documents

We've found plenty to pore over in the newly-released documents officials made in their arrest of Golden State Killer suspect Joseph DeAngelo.

The search warrant and arrest warrant can be read in full, minus heavy redactions made by the judge who approved their release to the media, online.

Despite chunks of the documents being blacked out, there are still dozens of pages worth of disturbing details, which describe just how DeAngelo allegedly stalked his victims, and how police caught him.

DeAngelo was arrested in April and charged with murdering 12 people across California in the 1970s and 1980s. He has not yet entered pleas for any of the murders. Police believe that the Golden State Killer suspect is also the man dubbed the East Area Rapist, who raped dozens of women in California — but DeAngelo has not been charged with any of the over 50 rapes investigators suspect him of committing.

Here are some of the most interesting parts of the newly released documents:

He’s also suspected of being the Visalia Ransacker

The documents reveal that police suspect DeAngelo is also the Visalia Ransacker, believed to have been responsible for 120 burglaries, multiple sexual assaults, and the murder of a college professor, during 1974 and 1975. On September 11, 1975 journalism professor Claude Snelling was shot outside his home after he chased after the ransacker, according to the Visalia Times-Delta.

Thousands of incidents led up to the murder of the Maggiores 

Thousands of strange incidents and a whopping 30,000 criminal reports led up to the February 1978 murders of Brian and Katie Maggiore who were shot to death while out walking their dog in the Cordova Meadows area of Sacramento. The released documents reveal that there was a pattern of break-ins and other suspicious activity around the area in the time before the double murder. A young couple’s home was broken into and only the woman’s underwear was stolen. The home was broken into a second time and it appeared that nothing was taken. Another woman found shoe prints in her yard and drawings on her bedroom window written in “bodily fluids.” Another woman received hang-up calls every night for a week up until the night of the murders. Then, the calls stopped.

He may have utilized drainage channels for his crimes

Many of the targeted homes back onto drainage channels and river levees, which means it’s possible that the killer used these waterways as a path to remain unseen.

Police got DeAngelo’s DNA from a tissue, and door handle

Police followed an unsuspecting DeAngelo to a Hobby Lobby, where they swabbed his car door as he shopped inside. The DNA of three different people was found on that door handle. Police wanted to hone in a little more — so later, they swiped a used tissue from DeAngelo’s trash can. That was used to confirm a match to DNA obtained from one of the Golden State Killer crime scenes. It sat in evidence storage for decades, until recently when police uploaded it into the free genealogy site GEDmatch. It matched with the DNA of one of DeAngelo’s relatives.

DeAngelo has been arrested three times

The documents show that DeAngelo was arrested three times, but the information is redacted. It has previously been reported that he was arrested once for shoplifting dog repellent and a hammer in Sacramento while working as an officer for the Auburn Police Department.

[Photo: Getty Images]