26 murders, rape ... life imprisonment for "California serial killer"
More than two years after his arrest, a California state court, Friday, handed down a life sentence to a former state cop who lived a double life during which he became known as the "Golden State Killer."
Joseph James de Angelo, 74, was sentenced to life in prison without pardoning any part of the sentence in a Sacramento courtroom after 4 days of sensational public hearings that saw emotional confrontations between the accused and the victims or their family members.
De Angelo committed a series of murders and rape in the 1970s and 1980s, which were uncovered using genealogical sites on the Internet.
Last June, de Angelo confessed to committing 13 murders and 13 counts of rape, crimes carried out between 1975 and 1986.
The so-called "California Assassin" admitted those crimes as part of an agreement with prosecutors that prevented a possible death sentence. De Angelo has also publicly admitted to dozens of statutory rape crimes, according to Reuters.
Prosecutors say the killer policeman violated 120 homes in 11 counties in the state during his criminal activity.
The "golden killer" figure remained a mystery, and the culprit was not found for his crimes for decades until he was arrested in Sacramento County on April 24, 2018.
Investigators linked De Angelo to all of those crimes using a modern method at the time, which was tracking him using DNA testing and online genealogy sites.