Videos show Golden State Killer climbing on furniture in his cell
[ad_1]
Surveillance footage has shown the Golden State Killer, who appeared feeble in a wheelchair during his recent trial, climbing on furniture and walking around his prison cell just months prior to being sentenced.
Prosecutors released the footage of 74-year-old Joseph DeAngelo in his California prison cell soon after his sentencing on Friday to prove that he isn’t the old and confused man he portrayed himself to be during his trial.
DeAngelo is now serving life in prison without the possibility of parole after pleading guilty to at least 13 killings and dozens of rape in the 1970s and 80s in California.
The former police officer, who lived a double life as the murderous sociopath dubbed the Golden State Killer, was finally unmasked and linked to the crimes in 2018 with a pioneering use of DNA tracing.
Sacramento County District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert said the videos, which date back to June this year, offer a glimpse into how the former police officer is the ‘definition of a sociopath’.
Prosecutors released the footage of 74-year-old Joseph DeAngelo in his California prison cell soon after his sentencing on Friday to prove that he isn’t the old and confused man he portrayed himself to be during his trial
In one video from June, he can be seen climbing on a table in his cell to strategically cover lights with some type of material.
Schubert said this behavior was similar to when DeAngelo would cover televisions or lamps with blankets at some crime scenes more than four decades ago.
Another video from July 18 showed DeAngelo wiping down the edges of his cell and others showed him climbing on his bed to rearrange items and exercising.
The footage, which was taken while he was appearing in court, is in contrast to the images shown throughout DeAngelo’s trial when he was wheeled into court each day in a wheelchair seemingly staring into space.
‘When you look back in time four decades, and you now stand in the presence of 2020, you can see that Joseph DeAngelo is no different today than when he was 45 years ago,’ Schubert said.
She said the videos ‘simply demonstrate… his mental acuity, his dexterity, his ability to deceive or attempt to deceive the entire world into believing he is a feeble old man’.
The footage is in contrast to the images shown in court throughout DeAngelo’s trial when he was wheeled into court each day in a wheelchair seemingly staring into space. He is pictured here on August 21 – the day he was sentenced
In one video from June, he can be seen climbing on a table in his cell to strategically cover lights with some type of material. Prosecutors say this behavior was similar to when DeAngelo would cover televisions or lamps with blankets at some crime scenes more than four decades ago
Another video from July 18 showed DeAngelo wiping down the edges of his cell and others showed him climbing on his bed to rearrange items and exercising
‘These are just snippets into the window of the mind of a sociopath. He is, quite simply, the definition of one. He has, and always will be a sociopath in action.’
Prior to be sentenced last week, DeAngelo rose from his wheelchair – which the newly released jail video shows he doesn’t need – and apologized to his surviving victims and relatives of those he murdered.
‘I’ve listened to all your statements. Each one of them. And I’m really sorry to everyone I’ve hurt,’ he said.
It brought gasps from those in the gallery many of whom sat through an extraordinary four-day sentencing hearing filled with graphic and heart-wrenching testimony from dozens of his victims.
Prosecutors and victims said, however, that his statement was more evidence of a manipulative and vicious criminal who fooled investigators and his own family until he finally admitted victimizing at least 87 people at 53 separate crime scenes spanning 11 California counties.
In June, DeAngelo confessed to 13 murders and 13 rape-related charges for crimes carried out between 1975 and 1986 as part of a plea deal with prosecutors sparing him from a potential death sentence.
The footage, which was taken while he was appearing in court, is in contrast to the images shown throughout DeAngelo’s trial when he was wheeled into court each day in a wheelchair seemingly staring into space. He is pictured above on June 29
Prior to be sentenced last week, DeAngelo rose from his wheelchair – which the newly released jail video shows he doesn’t need – and apologized to his surviving victims and relatives of those he murdered
DeAngelo, whom a prosecutor called a bogeyman who haunted California for decades, also publicly admitted to dozens more rapes for which the statute of limitations had expired.
Prosecutors said he invaded 120 homes across 11 counties during his crime spree, initially identified with a series of rapes and murders around the state capital of Sacramento.
DeAngelo’s rapes and eventual murders followed the same pattern of binding couples he surprised while they slept and assaulting the woman as the man lay helpless.
He would place dishes on the man’s back, warning that he would kill them both if the dishes rattled.
The identity of the Golden State Killer remained a mystery, his crimes unsolved, for decades until DeAngelo’s arrest in Sacramento County on April 24, 2018.
Investigators tied DeAngelo to the crimes using a then-novel technique of tracing him through family DNA from commercial genealogy websites.
[ad_2]
Source link
