Casefile True Crime - Case 53: The East Area Rapist/Original Night Stalker (Part 5)

Episode Date: June 3, 2017

[Part 5 of 5] In 1979, the East Area Rapist’s three-year-long crime spree came to an abrupt halt. Residents of Northern California could finally breathe a sigh of relief. Although the perpetrator hadn’t been captured, the nightmare was finally over...  --- Researched and written by Anna Priestland Download the map of the attacks here Download "The Homework" files here For all credits and sources please visit casefilepodcast.com/case-53-original-night-stalker-part-5

We would like to thank the following people for their help and support in the research of this series. East Area rapist survivor Jane Carson-Sanlon, original night stalker victim family members Michelle Cruz and Debbie Domingo, retired Sacramento County Sheriff's Department detectives Richard Shelby and Carol Daly, retired Contra Costa County Sheriff's Department detective Larry Crompton, Contra Costa County DA cold case investigator Paul Holes and Orange County DA investigator Erica Hutchcraft. This series deals with horrific sexual assault offences and there's a lot of them.

We feel it's a very important story to cover but it won't be suitable for all listeners so please use your discretion. If you decide to keep listening, we will be releasing a map with each episode to help as you go along or for you to refer to afterwards. You'll find a link to the map in the show notes on our website or you should be able to access the link from the show notes in your app. When Part 4 began, it was August 1978, Sergeant Jim Bevins and Lieutenant Ray Root from the Sacramento Task Force held a special meeting with law enforcement agencies in Contra Costa

County. They believed the East Area Rapist was heading south, possibly to Southern California and they felt it would strike in Contra Costa County on the way. They advised Contra Costa law enforcement agencies to form a task force and work together but there was pushback. The general feeling in the room was, not in our county. When Bevins and Root were proven right, a task force was formed headed up by Detective Larry Crompton.

Crompton consulted a criminal psychologist, Dr. Emily, who warned him the East Area Rapist wanted to kill. He just needed justification. During a search after Attack 43, the first attack in Danville, investigators found pages torn from a spiral notebook known as the Homework. The general custer essay, the sixth grade rant and the punishment map, a hand drawn map of a housing development. On July 5, 1979, the East Area Rapist attacked a couple in Danville but they had a plan

in place. The husband stood over the rapist and yelled at him while his wife ran outside and screamed for help. The rapist took a few steps back. He didn't attack and he made no move for a weapon. He didn't say anything. He just stared at the husband through the jagged holes of his mask. The husband made a run for it and the East Area Rapist escaped.

These were on the scene in minutes and tracking dogs picked up his scent, but he slipped through their fingers again. The failed Danville attack rattled the East Area Rapist. He never showed up in Contra Costa County again. By mid-1979, detectives had 12,000 persons of interest. The amount of suspects who had many characteristics of the East Area Rapist was huge. Every second suspect seemed like a sure thing, but one by one they were eliminated. The East Area Rapist wasn't the only violent criminal on the loose either.

According to Detective Larry Crompton, Northern California was a melting pot for disturbing criminals. By October 1979, three months had passed without any sign of the East Area Rapist. Every area that had been hit up to that point was on tenderhooks. The rapist had taken breaks before. Just when they thought he had disappeared, he always reappeared somewhere else. It was only a matter of where and when. It had been over three years and almost 50 attacks since the East Area Rapist started.

Not one law enforcement agency had a solid lead or a clear and complete description of the rapist. He had beaten them time and time again. It was easy to believe in the beginning that many of the nuances, the little phrases, voices and behaviours painted a picture of who he was, but as the years went on it became accepted that many of these details were likely deliberate attempts to throw off survivors and police. The East Area Rapist was someone who likely didn't stand out in everyday life. He could have been anyone.

If he was in fact the same man who had attended open house inspections acting strangely, it seemed to be the only times he consistently stood out as someone creepy and unusual. The attacks after sunrise and after dinner showed his increase in confidence. His bursts of multiple attacks in a short space of time, followed by retreating for a while, was his dig and retreat method of attacking, a circling predator waiting for the right time to strike. He took an interest in the press coverage and attention his crimes generated. He started attacking couples when the press made special mention of the fact he never

attacked when a man was home. One of the men he targeted had stood up and created a scene about the rapist at a town meeting. The attack after this was close by to a dentist's office in South Sacramento. The dentist headed one of the civilian protection groups and had personally contributed to the reward for the rapist's capture. It was the furthest South the East Area Rapist had attacked up to that point. He seemed to respond to people challenging him.

When he used physical violence it always seemed to be after a failed attack when things didn't go his own way. The last attack in Danville had been just that. Not only did his chosen victims get away, the husband challenged him and got the better of him. The East Area Rapist didn't seem to know what to do. It had been three months since that Danville attack. Many agencies breathed a sigh of relief.

But Crompton kept his ears open. The words from Sergeant Bevan's and Lieutenant Root burned in his mind. The East Area Rapist was heading south, to Southern California. Crompton had the sinking feeling things were going to get worse. The words of Dr. Emily never left him. He better catch him. He wants to kill. And he will.

Six hours south of Sacramento and two hours northwest of Los Angeles is the city of Galeta. It sits 15 minutes west of the city of Santa Barbara and is home to the University of California Santa Barbara campus. Very few people from Southern California heard heard of the East Area Rapist. Law enforcement agencies were busy dealing with their own crime in their own jurisdictions and weren't concerned with what crimes were being committed in Northern California. Galeta had its fair share of burglaries and thefts, but violent crimes weren't common. On October 1st, 1979, three months after the last East Area Rapist attack, Santa Barbara

police attended the scene of a burglary and attempted rape. Attack one for this episode. It was 2am. The couple who lived in the house were asleep when the rear glass sliding door was pried open. A foot rested on the base of their bed, tapping up and down. Wake up. Wake up.

A flashlight shone in their eyes. Get on your stomachs. Don't move, motherfucker, or I'll kill you. Don't move or turn your head. I've got to have money. He threw shoelaces down and made the naked woman tie her husband up. Tie it tight or I'll kill you. After the woman tied her husband, the intruder re-tied him.

He then tied the woman up, but only very loosely. He constantly threatened them with the line, I'll kill you, motherfuckers. In fact, every line that came from his mouth used the word kill. After rummaging around the kitchen for the woman's purse, he came back and dragged her from the bed down the hall. He threw her down to the ground and re-tied her ankles. Now I'm going to kill you. I'm going to cut your throat.

He walked away and paced the kitchen, muttering over and over. I'll kill him. I'll kill him. I'll kill him. He then walked off down the hall towards her husband, muttering to himself. The woman got up, naked and still bound with her head covered. She couldn't see, but she knew the direction of the front door. She got to the front door and opened it.

As she did, her ankle bindings loosened enough for her to run. She ran as fast as she could and started screaming, but she still couldn't see, and she came to an abrupt stop when she slammed into the side of the house. A gloved hand grabbed her face, covering her mouth. I told you to be quiet. He dragged her back inside and shoved her to the floor. After hearing his wife's screams, the husband was sure she was being killed. He flung himself off the bed, made it to the bedroom sliding door, and got outside.

The intruder heard the door open. He ran outside and beamed his flashlight into the darkness, trying to find him. The husband was hiding in the bushes. The intruder couldn't find him, so he walked back inside to finish what he was there to do. But the woman was gone. She had run down the hallway towards the bedroom. The husband got up and tried to throw his weight against the fence to break it down so he could

escape, but it wouldn't budge. Hearing the commotion, the next door neighbour turned his light on to see what was going on. The husband screamed for his life. The intruder gave up and ran out the front door. The neighbour was an off-duty FBI agent. He saw the masked intruder running down the driveway, grab a bike, and ride off down the street.

The FBI agent gave chase in his car, but the intruder lost him near some bushes a few streets away. Santa Barbara police attended. The bicycle the intruder escaped on was found in the bushes where the FBI agent lost side of him. The bike belonged to a US parol officer. It was stolen from his house nearby, just after 7pm that night. A black-handled state knife was found where the bike was dumped.

Police found evidence the intruder jumped several fences, and they believe he ran across the nearby school grounds. In the weeks leading up to attack 1, the victims had noticed signs of a prowler. They kept finding their side gate opened, and there were often footprints outside their windows. There were also reports in the neighbourhood of cruelty towards dogs just prior to the attack on the couple. Only the week before, a woman let a man into her house who turned up at her door with an

injured German shepherd. He wanted to borrow her phone so he could call a friend to pick him up. The next day the man returned to thank her and told her his dog had been stabbed, requiring 70 stitches. The woman found a red rose and a thank you note left her to doorstep. The following day, another resident was out walking his dog unleashed. The dog ran off into a yard, and when it returned it was badly injured and had to be taken to the vet.

This man didn't go into the yard to see what had happened to his dog. Santa Barbara police reports described a violent botched robbery with intent to kill. They were looking for a white male suspect, about 5'10 or 5'11, with dark hair above his collar. He was wearing a checked shirt and a dark ski mask. He had some kind of holster on his belt on the right side. He had stolen just $3 from the victims. Had the attack happened in Northern California, news likely would have made its way back to

investigators on the Sacramento or Contra Costa task forces. It had been 3 months since the East Area rapist last struck in Northern California, 6 hours away. But Santa Barbara police weren't aware of what was going on there. They had no reason to believe this was anything more than a one off attack. Although we wouldn't receive the name until some years later, Southern California had just seen the first attack of the original Night Stalker. Just shy of 3 months after attack 1, 5 burglaries were reported in Galeta.

Four of them with pried sliding glass doors. On the night of December 29th, 1979, a family returned home to see a person walk past the window inside their house. The intruder ran out the back door and escaped over the back fence. When the family went inside, they found their poodle had been beaten to death. 24 hours later, Santa Barbara Sheriff's detectives responded to a call in Galeta. Attack number 2 Half a mile from the poodle attack and half a mile from where attack 1 had occurred, a

woman stood out the front of a condo, crying that there were two people dead inside. The woman and her husband had arrived at the condo to visit their friends, 44 year old osteopathic surgeon Dr. Robert Offerman and his new girlfriend, 34 year old psychologist Deborah Manning. The two couples were planning on playing tennis together. They'd found the sliding glass door open and when they called out, they got no reply, so they let themselves in. They walked up the hall and saw Deborah Manning in the bedroom.

They thought they were interrupting them, so they quickly turned to exit the house. There's something didn't feel right about what they saw. They turned back towards the bedroom and found that Robert Offerman and Deborah Manning were both dead. When police entered the home, they found the couple had been shot. Robert three times in the back and chest and Deborah a single shot to the back of her head. Deborah was lying alongside the waterbed, naked with her wrists and ankles bound. Robert was on his knees on the floor, holding a length of white nylon cord in his left hand.

Police believed he was able to get free from his bindings. His pose suggested he had just done that when he was shot. There were pry marks on the doors and windows from what looked like a screwdriver and they found tennis shoe impressions. Alongside the shoe prints, police also noticed dog footprints. The dog prints were described as fresh and large. They also found dog hairs. The human shoe prints matched those found the night before, half a mile away, outside the

home where the poodle had been beaten to death. A Christmas turkey carcass wrapped in plastic was discarded outside on the patio. Two rings belonging to Deborah were found hidden between the mattress and the bed frame. One neighbour reported hearing a series of gunshots around 3am. The other neighbouring condo was empty. It showed obvious signs of squatting. A length of rope was found in the bathroom of the empty condo. The canvas of the neighbourhood revealed there had been other break-ins and homes ransacked

earlier that same night. A neighbour to one of the houses that had been broken into told police of a young man and woman he saw ringing the doorbell of the ransacked house. The couple were described in their mid to late 20s, the man around 5ft 6 to 5ft 8 and the woman around 5ft 4. The neighbour didn't recognise them and the homeowner wasn't expecting visitors. They were never identified and no one was ever arrested for the break-in. A few days after attack 2, nylon rope was found on the front lawn of a house just a few doors

down from where attack 1 had occurred three months earlier. The same rope was also found along the trail of a nearby creek. Not long after attack 2, Detective Larry Crompton attended a seminar in Santa Barbara. He got talking to a detective and heard about Robert and Debra's murders, as well as the first attack three months earlier. After hearing about both attacks, Crompton said, that's him, I know it. But according to Crompton, after he spoke to the Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Office, they felt the attacks were unrelated to the hysteria rapist.

They didn't think what had happened up north would ever happen on their turf, and they certainly didn't want the publicity that would come with it. Santa Barbara sheriffs argued there were too many differences between the hysteria rapist and the two Galeta attacks. In late January 1980, the Sacramento B reported that Sergeant Bevan's from the Sacramento Task Force was dispatched to Santa Barbara to go over the police reports of the two Galeta attacks. Maybe the attacks were just coincidence, or maybe the hysteria rapist had changed his

MO and had finally escalated as they feared he would. Bevan's found quite a few similarities to the hysteria rapist in the Galeta attacks, but there were also enough differences. Plus, Santa Barbara police weren't even sure if the two Galeta attacks were connected to each other. A woman who lived nearby the Galeta attacks reported that while she was at work, someone was jumping over her fence and releasing her German shepherd dog. Was the original Night Stalker befriending dogs with dog bones or food, gaining their

trust and taking them out for walks without owners knowing? A dog walker doesn't raise much suspicion. With the strange murders and attacks on dogs that had occurred in the area, it seemed they could be linked. Possibly not all dogs took kindly to the original Night Stalker, and they met with foul play. The next two and a half months were quiet in Galeta, no one reported any similar attacks. On March 13th, 1980, the press in Sacramento reported again about the possible link between

the Galeta attacks and the east area rapist. Later that night, 40 minutes east of Galeta, the original Night Stalker was getting ready to strike again. Attack 3 East of Galeta, on route to Los Angeles, lies Ventura. Tightly hugging the Pacific coast, Ventura is in a different county to Santa Barbara, with a different police department and different press. Charlene and Lyman Smith's immaculate upper-class home sat upon the hill in an up-and-coming

subdivision called Clearpoint. It overlooked the sea and the city of Ventura, and in those days was surrounded by rolling land and vineyards. The powerpile on Corridor ran at an angle to their property, heading towards the nearby highway. Charlene Smith, aged 33, was an interior decorator and also sold jewellery and Tupperware. Her husband, Lyman Smith, aged 43, was a prominent local attorney, who was reportedly under consideration for a position on the Superior Court.

Charlene and Lyman were found lying under their covers as if asleep, but they had also been bound and bludgeoned to death. They had been there at least two days before Lyman's 12-year-old son from his first marriage stopped by to mow the lawn. Bottles of milk and the daily newspapers sat at the front doorstep, and when he walked inside, the alarm clock set for two mornings prior was still going off. He found the bodies of his father and stepmother. When Lyman didn't turn up to his law firm on the Friday two days earlier, his law partners

just assumed he had an assignment elsewhere. The house had been ransacked, but nothing was taken, nor was there any sign of forced entry. Lyman's son had found the front door unlocked, which he said was unusual. There appeared to be no struggle whatsoever. The coroner was initially unable to ascertain if the blindings were placed before or after death. When he checked their adrenal glands, he found them completely normal.

When someone dies under stress, they usually have shrunken adrenal glands, but both Charlene and Lyman's adrenal glands showed a normal size and state. This led to the initial theory that Charlene and Lyman were killed in their sleep. The murderer then tying them up and ransacking the house afterwards to stage the crime scene. Charlene and Lyman had both suffered one blow to the head, hard enough to kill them. The murder weapon was a log of wood taken from the bedroom patio. A piece of wall above the bedhead was cut out and taken to a blood splatter expert to see if he could determine who was hit first.

The 28-inch length of cord was left laid out at the foot of the bed. Lyman was in the running for a position on the Superior Court and was involved in various money-making projects. He had many investments and was involved in a land development company that ran into trouble. Charlene was described as vivacious by those who knew her, with some even calling her a femme fatale. When police discovered Charlene had become Lyman's second wife after being his secretary,

they started to dive deeper into both their backgrounds to see if they could find a connection and possible motive for their murder. There were several lines of inquiry that led to possible motive, including Charlene having an affair with a deputy sheriff. The deputy claimed he didn't know she was married. When neighbors reported that Charlene and Lyman were arguing in the lead-up to their deaths, police even briefly considered they had murdered each other. The knots used to tie Charlene and Lyman's wrists were the elaborate 10-step diamond

knot, the same knot that Detective Richard Shelby had found in the early days of the East Area Rapist, but had seldom been seen again. Given that the diamond knot was commonly used in macrame, Ventura detectives believed it was a symbolic gesture used on an interior decorator at her murder site. Ultimately, they determined that the murderer was known to Charlene and Lyman. Forensic reports came back to show Charlene had been raped. The forensic report also found it was highly likely they were in fact bound prior to their murders. The coroner said there was a chance the adrenal gland report was incorrect, given everyone's

bodies are different. So the new theory was that they weren't killed in their sleep at all. They were tied up prior to their murders. Charlene was raped. Then right before being murdered, they were put back in their beds as if they were sleeping, staging the scene. Detectives looked into the sheriff's deputy who admitted he was still longing for Charlene after their affair.

He admitted that on the night of their murders, he had used binoculars to see if he could see their house from the sheriff's building. He admitted to driving by the house the night after the murders, before their bodies were found, and that he tried calling her the next morning. Lyman's business partner from the failed land development venture was Joseph Olsup. Olsup had lost a lot of money in his failed venture, so he was looked at closely. He was looked at even closer when they found his fingerprint on a glass in the kitchen. He was questioned and told detectives that on the night before Charlene and Lyman's

murder, he had gone to their place for a drink. The sheriff's deputy was eventually cleared and detectives honed in on Joseph Olsup. Back in Sacramento, Sergeant Bevan's heard about the double homicide in Ventura. He had continued to look at the two Galeta attacks, and he was now convinced the first attack in Galeta where the victims escaped was the work of the East Area rapist. In attack two, the Robert Offerman and Deborah Manning murders in Galeta. Bevan's felt that had Robert not put up a fight, the killer would have raped Deborah. But the struggle and murders was the reason no rape was committed.

There was no time, as the killer had the fleet. In attack three, the use of the diamond knot got the attention of Bevan's. Although it was hard to find too many other hallmarks of the East Area rapist in the murders of Charlene and Lyman Smith, that diamond knot nagged at him. Then there was the coincidence that the same day the Sacramento press reported again about possible links to Galeta and the East Area rapist, this double homicide occurred in Ventura, 40 miles east of Galeta, a different county and different jurisdiction. Bevan's considered that all three attacks in Southern California were linked, but Santa

Barbara and Ventura detectives weren't having a bar of it. Ventura detectives were convinced that Charlene and Lyman knew their murderer. They ended up arresting Joseph Olsup when a local minister came forward and stated that Olsup confessed to him. But during pre-trial, it was found the minister was not of sound mind, and the DA had been too hasty in laying charges. There was deemed there was not enough evidence to take Olsup to trial, and he was released. The original Night's Thawker had now committed three attacks, two double homicides and a

failed attempt, but no one knew it. Santa Barbara and Ventura didn't believe the murders of Charlene and Lyman were linked to the murders of Robert and Deborah, or to the first failed attack in Galeta. There were no other attacks linked to the original Night's Thawker until five months after the Ventura murders. Dana Point is in Orange County, that sits halfway between Los Angeles and San Diego. Dana Point is about 125 miles southeast of Ventura, down past Los Angeles. Dana Point is a small, harbour city, known for surfing and its coastal lifestyle.

Homes were generally middle-class, but the whole area had a more upscaled air about it. 24-year-old Keith Harrington was a third-year medical student about to begin an internship. He was recently married to Patty Harrington, a registered nurse who was four years older than him. On August 19th, 1980, they were being watched through their bedroom window. Their house was in a small, gated community with a security guard, so it was impossible to drive in and out unnoticed. But it was easy enough to walk into the gated community unnoticed.

After watching through the bedroom window, the original Night's Thawker walked to Keith and Patty's unlocked front door and let himself in to commit attack four. When Keith's father arrived for dinner two nights later, he found Keith and Patty in bed. They were covered over with a blanket. Both had been bludgeoned to death with blows to the back of the head. Orange County Sheriff's Department responded. The forensics team determined that the blanket was pulled over their heads before they were

bludgeoned to death. Bruising on their wrists indicated they were both bound to tiley, but the ligatures were removed after their deaths. Three pieces of twine were found on the bed, but they believed the killer must have taken some with him, as he would have needed more than what was there to tie Keith and Patty. Forensic examination showed that Patty had been raped. No weapon was found, but while canvassing the local area, a motocross glove soaked with blood was located a few blocks away.

The security guard didn't see or hear anything suspicious. No one unknown to him had passed through the gate. When being interviewed for the LA Times, an Orange County deputy said, quote, This was a senseless and apparently unmotivated crime. There would be a degree of comfort if we could say this was a robbery or that they had enemies, but they were warm and compassionate people. There is nothing in their background that can help us. There were no leads.

Family members put up a $25,000 reward for information leading to an arrest, but no arrests came and the case went cold. The Dana Point double homicide of Keith and Patty Harrington was not linked to the murders of Ventura or Galeta. There were similarities between Charlene and Lyman Smith's murders in Ventura. Both couples were in the early stages of marriage and were bludgeoned to death in their beds two hours from each other along the Pacific coast. The couples had been bound, the women raped, there was lack of forced entry and nothing

of value was stolen from either crime scene. But in Ventura, police were still chasing Lyman's business partner, Joseph Alsop. They were close to arresting him at this point, so in their minds, the case was as good as closed. Robert Offerman and Deborah Manning had been shot in the Galeta double homicide, so there was no obvious link. There would be seven months until Southern California was hit by the original Night Stalker again.

Attack 5. 28-year-old Manuela Witteun lived on Columbus in a new suburb of Irvine, Orange County. Irvine had seen huge residential growth in the late 70s, which made it an easy commute to Los Angeles, which was just 40 miles north. Houses were being built everywhere, and the area surrounding Manuela's house was full of either newly built homes or homes still under construction. The house directly behind her was newly built and was still empty. Manuela was born in Germany and had immigrated to California with her parents, who lived

close by to her. She hadn't gotten used to living in America, and felt uneasy about the crime rate in Los Angeles. She worked at a mortgage brokers, and had been married to David Witteun, an American of German descent, for five years. On the night of February 5th, 1981, Manuela's husband David was in hospital with a viral infection. Manuela was at the hospital with him.

She wasn't looking forward to staying in the house alone, but after her hospital visit, she put on a brave face and went home. Her father offered to bring over his German shepherd to stay with her, but she refused. When she got home, she rolled out her sleeping bag and placed it on top of the bed. She felt safer in the sleeping bag, the feeling of being more enclosed gave her comfort. She went to sleep sometime around 11pm. The following day, Manuela's parents received a call from David, who had been unable to contact his wife.

When her mother went to check on her, she found her daughter dead. Police found Manuela had bruises on both her wrists and ankles, indicating she had been tired. However, there was no sign of any ligatures. The killer had taken them with him. She had been bludgeoned to death. No weapon was found. Manuela's back sliding door had been pried open.

The pry marks were matched to a flathead screwdriver found at the scene. Strangely though, the prying was done on the inside of the latch. Paint found on the screwdriver was sent for an in-depth analysis. It was found to be consistent with a particular paint brand, but it didn't really tell them anything else. Even if more information was found from the paint, the screwdriver was likely stolen anyway. Burnt matches were found in both the garage and the house. There were some unusual items stolen.

A lamp and a crystal display feature, both weighing 9 pounds, ended the tape from the answering machine. These items were never recovered. Outside, investigators found a bedroom television dumped at the back fence. Their theory was that the killer staged the crime scene to look like a robbery. Items in the house of high value were not touched. The autopsy showed the cause of death was blunt force trauma to the back of Manuela's head.

She had also been raped, brutally. She was scratched and appeared to have been gagged, although no gag was found. Neighbours came forward and said they had seen a man running from the direction of Manuela's house early on the morning she was killed. Two days later, the Los Angeles Times reported on the murder, stating Irvine police had assigned an 8-man task force to investigate. Quote, Irvine police said Ms. Wittian's death does not appear to be related to other crimes in

the area in recent months. However, the police patrol in the area has been stepped up. An Irvine police spokesman said the department had received a number of calls, urging increased home security. Believing the killer was someone known to Manuela, Irvine police didn't link the murder to the double homicide of Keith and Patty Harrington in Dana Point, 25 miles away. Irvine police suspected Manuela's husband, David. They looked into his and Manuela's backgrounds extensively, as well as everyone close to

them. Nothing came of it, and the case went cold. The police weren't the only ones who suspected David, family and friends did as well. He did his best to get on with his life, and he eventually remarried. On the 15th of June 1981, the Sacramento Bee printed a retrospective feature on the East Area Rapist. It had been two years since the last confirmed East Area Rapist attack in Danville, and three years since a confirmed attack in Sacramento.

Many residents had come and gone from Sacramento, and there were likely people reading the paper that day that had no idea who the East Area Rapist was. For others, memories were still raw, and they likely would never forget the fear that gripped their city during those years. The article mentioned that some detectives from Sacramento and Contra Costa counties believed the East Area Rapist was responsible for the Galeta murders of Robert Offerman and Debra Manning, but admitted it had divided law enforcement. Sacramento police press spokesman Bill Miller said in the article, quote.

In the end, though, stumped detectives know little more about the East Area Rapist than they did when he first emerged from the drainage ditch in Rancho Cordova. Some believe the rapist is now dead, or at least the way in prison. The official explanation for the East Area Rapist's disappearance is non-existent. There is no way of knowing. Anything you say about him is going to be guesswork, and your guess is as good as mine. So much time has passed, in fact, that the statute of limitations has expired on most of the crimes.

Of the 30 attacks in Sacramento County, which included breaking into 30 homes, raping as many women, assaulting a dozen husbands and some children, only two possible kidnapping charges could be prosecuted if he was caught today. Although there are a total of 11 East Area Rapist cases elsewhere that are still within the three-year statute, Sacramento would only be able to prosecute the two possible kidnapping charges from attacks 8 and 9 when the rapist dragged the females away from the home. When the East Area Rapist disappeared from Northern California, Sergeant Jim Bevance from the Sacramento Sheriff's Task Force became the only officer with an officially

active file on the rapist. Almost six months after Manuela Wittian was murdered in Irvine, the original night stalker struck again. The city of Galeta woke on the morning of July 27, 1981, to the news another couple had been murdered. It had been 18 months since the double murders of Robert Offerman and Deborah Manning, and with no similar murders in the area since, life had gone on. Sherry Domingo, aged 35, and Gregory Sanchez, aged 27, had gone to bed like any other night

on July 26, 1981. Here is Sherry's daughter, Debbie Domingo. Probably most of June and July, Mom and I were arguing just perversously. I was a teenager that didn't like rules. She had some basic guidelines like, come home when you say you're going to come home and don't smoke cigarettes and go running around with boys. Just basic stuff, but I really had to push the envelope. I was challenging her quite a bit that summer.

We just argued, and argued like you wouldn't believe. At one point, we fought one day, and I said, you know what, I have to have it with this. I don't have to live here anymore, and I packed some clothes into a backpack, and I got on my bicycle, and I just took off. I ended up staying with a couple of different girlfriends for a couple of different weeks. I would stay at a girlfriend's house for a couple of days, and then when her parents got tired of me, I'd go find another friend to live with. I had been away from home for probably about three weeks at the time that she was killed.

We had talked on the phone a couple of times, and we'd seen each other a couple of times, but those encounters were always pretty explosive, and we were just screaming at each other all the time. The morning that the bodies were discovered at our house, we happened to have a front door. My mom's best friend actually lived just around the corner from us just a few doors down. The morning that the bodies were discovered, the police showed up, and of course they put yellow tape everywhere, and the news camera crews started showing up.

All the neighbors were out looking around at the house and trying to figure out what was going on. Of course, my mom's best friend, I haven't talked to her about the details, but she obviously put together the pieces that there was something that wasn't right. She started to look for me, and she knew that I had been away from home for a couple of weeks, and she knew where I worked. I had a little part-time job at a movie theater, and so she called the movie theater looking for me.

One of my coworkers ended up calling me and saying, hey, this woman's looking for you. You should give her a call. I procrastinated a little bit because I thought, oh, she's just trying to help mom and I bury the hatchet. She's trying to make peace. But I called her, and she said, Debbie, she said, I'm so glad you called, you need to come home. And I said, no, I ain't coming home.

And she got real serious. I'd never heard that tone of voice with her before, but she got real serious. And she said, Debbie, you don't understand how important this is. You need to come home. And I don't know, something about the tone of her voice just convinced me, maybe there is something that's important. So I agreed to go home, and I had a friend drop me off, and of course, as we pulled up into the neighborhood, and just that scene that I was just describing of police

everywhere and people standing around and looking at this house that was, you know, there's that yellow crime tape everywhere. And you know, I've thought about this a lot. Most people, you watch TV, you watch movies, everybody knows what that yellow tape means. It means that you can't go in until the police are finished processing their evidence and taking their pictures. Everybody knows what that means. For me, over the last 35 years, that image of yellow tape, that just means so much more

to me than what you see on TV. It means that I never got to go back in the house. You know, I tried. The police sat me down. As soon as I arrived, they all just kind of swooped around me and scooted me off to my mom's friend's house and sat me down, and they told me that there were two bodies in our house and that they believed one of them was my mother, and I thought, well, duh, one of them's my mother.

Who else would it be? But kind of the further along they got into that, I kept saying, you know, when can I go in the house? I want to go in the house. And they had to get real empathic with me and say, no, you can't go in. And I thought, you know, well, I just don't have permission. No, they said you can't go in. It's too messy.

You can't see it. And that just hit me like a ton of bricks. And so over the years, of course, there's always this unknown of what did it look like? What were those, what were those last moments like? Those are the questions that haunt me. I don't know if that perpetrator was was in my mom and Greg's bedroom for 10 minutes or three hours. I don't know.

But I always wonder about what what they were thinking and feeling and saying and doing during that time. I just can't imagine. The house was on Toltec Way, Galeta, in a quiet cul-de-sac. On the morning of July 27, 1981, a real estate agent found the bodies of Sherry Domingo and Gregory Sanchez. Sanchez had a bullet wound to his face and multiple blunt force trauma wounds to his head.

It appeared that he had given a very good fight. Sherry was found face down on the bed. She too had been bludgeoned and later covered with some bedding. A crowbar was believed to be missing from the garage, which investigators felt was the murder weapon. They both showed signs of being bound, but no ligatures were found. The killer had taken them with him. The headline in the scene above renews linked Sherry and Gregory's murders with the murders

of Robert Offerman and Deborah Manning 18 months earlier. The headline read, two found slain in Galeta, case similar to one in 79. What no one knew at the time was that it was actually the sixth attack of the original Night Stalker, his fourth double murder, nine murders in total spanning 18 months in Southern California. An officer informed a debut that dog footprints were found at the scene and wanted to know if they owned a dog. They didn't.

A woman came forward telling police that she and her daughter were near Sherry's house around 11pm. They noticed a man standing on the pavement behind Sherry's house. He was a white male in his 20s or early 30s, approximately 5 foot 10, with neatly cut blonde hair. He had a German shepherd dog with him. No arrests were made and the case went cold. Police looked at the connections between the two Galeta double murders.

Bevan still felt there was a link to the East Area rapist, especially when the following year the East Area rapist made himself known again. On October 21st 1982, he called a survivor from a Sacramento attack that occurred five years earlier in 1977. Hi, it's me again. Remember me. I'm going to come over and fuck you again. You're going to suck my cock again.

As the years passed, all of the attacks in Southern California turned into cold cases. With different jurisdictions investigating the different cases, the crimes weren't linked. No one knew there was an original Night Stalker yet. By the time 1986 came, there had been no new crimes or links to the original Night Stalker or to the East Area rapist. All had been quiet. It had been four years, nine months and seven days since the last attack, the murders of Sherry Domingo and Gregory Sanchez.

It had been ten years since the first attack of the East Area rapist in Rancho Cordova. It appeared to be over. Some believed he was in prison, some believed he was dead, some believed he had moved. For those investigators like Richard Shelby, Carol Daly, Jim Bevan's, Ray Root, Larry Crompton and a few others deeply affected by the unsolved crimes, the thought of the East Area rapist rarely left them. Many of them were still constantly checking crime reports up and down the state for any sign of him.

They knew that serial offenders rarely just stopped. There had to be a reason. No amount of legworks, tips, arrests, undercover surveillance or private consultants had gotten them any closer to solving the case. The murders committed by the original Night Stalker showed the hallmarks of the crimes committed by the East Area rapist, some more than others. There was a short canal nearby the Galita attacks. In Ventura, the Powerpile on Corridor was close.

Near Manuel's home in Irvine, there was a large park and a vacant house behind her. But as for the stalking behaviour, the Dign Retreat ammo, parking far away, targeting numerous people in the area with hang-up calls and break-ins, before circling closer towards his chosen victims using vast canals, trails and open spaces. There wasn't a lot of evidence of that. On the evening of Sunday, May 4th, 1986, the original Night Stalker did something different. This time he would utilise the geography of an area, more so than any of his previous attacks in Southern California.

Attack 7 also occurred in Irvine, Orange County, less than two miles from the murder of Manuela Wittion five years earlier. The house targeted for Attack 7 was for sale, it sat one house from the end of a cul-de-sac. A row of trees and a hedge separated the house from a large road. Just over the road was a long and winding canal, a path alongside the canal connected to many other paths and roads, allowing for multiple escape options. The geography mimicked many East Area rapist attacks in Contra Costa and Sacramento counties. On May 4th, 1986, it had been almost five years since the last attack, the murders of

Sherry Domingo and Greg Sanchez. At that evening, a pair of pale eyes were watching the house in Irvine. 18-year-old Janelle Cruz was staying at home on her own while her mother and stepfather were in Mexico. Her younger sister Michelle was away working at Mammoth's ski resort. Janelle was very close with her sister Michelle, Janelle the Extrovert and Michelle the Introvert. Janelle did all the talking for Michelle and stuck up for her every chance she got. Janelle was inside with a male friend.

The original night stalker may have thought they were a couple, but they were just good friends. Janelle never enjoyed staying home on her own, so she had a friend over for company. They were hanging out in her room when she heard some noises outside. Janelle took a look out the window, but there was nothing there. She thought it was just a cat. A little while later, they heard another noise. It sounded like the gate shutting, or possibly the garage door.

This time they both had a look out the window, but saw nothing. Janelle's friend left around 10.45pm. Janelle left the house as well, popping out to get something. Her neighbour heard her return about quarter past 11. The neighbour recognised the sound of Janelle's car, and she heard just one car door shut. At 5pm the following day, the real estate agent selling the house had a planned inspection. She walked inside and found Janelle's body. The crime scene analysis showed Janelle had been hit in the forehead in the kitchen, likely

with a pipe wrench missing from the backyard. Her wrists and ankles were bound, but the ligatures had been removed by the killer. The blow she received in the kitchen incapacitated her enough that the marks from her bindings didn't show a great deal of struggling. She was taken to her bedroom and brutally raped. Marks from the backyard or the park behind was located on the bed. Medium blue coloured lint was found, believed to be from a gag, likely a towel, but the gag wasn't found.

The killer had removed the evidence. It was 1986 and word was out that crime scene forensics had taken a huge jump. DNA evidence could now be taken by forensic investigators from a crime scene and used to match to the offender. Tennis shoe prints were found outside by the house. Janelle's sister, Michelle Cruz, spoke to us. Actually, when I heard about Janelle's death, it was through my girlfriend, who she called me when I was working up at the scheme resort up in Mammoth, and she said, are you sitting

down? And I said, no. And she says, well, you need to be sitting down. And I said, OK, why? What's going on? And she said, your sister was murdered. And I thought that she had said your sister was married. So I said, what?

And she said, your sister was murdered. And I said, murdered. And it was really hard to process. I don't think I even really processed it. I think I kind of went numb. I didn't know how to react. It was just a very, very strange time. I walked around the dorm, the employee dorms, just kind of in a really strange kind of bubble,

just trying to process what she had told me. And it took a couple of days. We were in a snowstorm. So it took a couple of days for the vehicles to the snow to thaw out so we could leave and go back home. So it was a really rough couple of days, just trying to hear what she had said. And my parents, they were in Cancun, Mexico. I believe the police had to call every hotel and track down my mom and my stepfather, Alan,

to see what hotel they were at, let them know what had happened. And my mom, she really was so distraught over it. She lost a lot of her hair from the stress. And just a really rough time. The initial investigation, I remember them taking me into the little office room where they asked me a bunch of questions, who my sister was hanging out with, who our friends were, and probably something to the fact that, did I know anybody who could have killed her? And my answer was no, I don't know who, and I gave them names of our friends.

And that was it. I mean, it wasn't like an interrogation. They just asked me some questions and let me go. And I don't even remember leaving, to be honest. I just don't remember that. I do remember being in the office with them asking me questions. Now, as far as my mom and my stepfather, I don't know what happened. They never told me.

We never talked about it. I didn't ask. They didn't tell me. Yeah, it was just almost like a closed subject for a while, because we were all trying to figure out how to live without Janelle. Janelle Cruz went through many of the rough patches other teenagers go through. She had recently returned to Irvine after spending 10 months in Utah at a center that provides free academic training for teenagers and young adults.

She was getting back into the swing of teenage life in Irvine and was very close to her younger sister, Michelle. Their mother felt really confident things were looking up for Janelle. She had just started a part-time job at a local pizza parlor and they had recently taken a family trip to Palm Springs. On that trip, Janelle bought a white dress that she twirled around the store in, dreaming about her wedding day. There were times that we had our friends over, and we would sit around and write poems, just

write out different poems, and this is one poem that Janelle wrote. She was about 15, 16 years old when she wrote it. I am a bird with a broken wing. My heart is sore, but I still sing. I lie in my nest way high in a tree, wondering, is flying best for me? I am unique in a special way. I am a dreamer and my thought will always stay. I know that someday the time will come when I shall soar and be so happy forevermore.

Janelle secures. A couple of months after Janelle's murder, a man who knew her confessed to killing her. He was a patient in a mental health facility at the time. He was arrested and held in the Orange County Jail for eight months, until it was discovered he had provided a false confession. His attorney said he falsely confessed due to emotional problems. The man still faced charges in connection with an attack on a former girlfriend, which happened the night before Janelle's murder.

However, results of blood and semen tests excluded him from being Janelle's killer. Never again was any attack linked to the East Area Rapist or the original Night Stalker. The East Area Rapist disappeared after that last phone call he made to a survivor in 1982. The original Night Stalker disappeared after the murder of Janelle Cruz in 1986. The year prior to Janelle's murder, serial killer Richard Ramirez was captured. He was known as the Night Stalker. His crime spree through Los Angeles and San Francisco occurred from 1984 to 1985. He was given 13 death sentences, but he ended up dying from complications of B-cell lymphoma

while awaiting execution. The unknown suspect in the Southern California murders we have covered in this episode became known as the original Night Stalker, as he was the original Stalker of the night, having started his crime spree in 1979. In 1986, when DNA evidence started to be used in crime scene investigations, the Statute of Limitations changed. The following article from the Sacramento Bee explains, Quote,

The Statute of Limitations on Rape in California has changed with the introduction of DNA evidence. There is a six-year Statute of Limitations on non-consensual sexual battery or rape. However, there's a slippery slope there, because there's an additional one-year discovery rule, which means if the attacker is identified by DNA evidence, then the attacker can be prosecuted within a year of discovery of his or her true identity, even if it's past the six-year Statute of Limitations. So in other words, if DNA names an attacker for a rape after more than six years, the DA has a year to initiate prosecution.

For those who believed that the East Area rapists had died, they would be proven wrong. Sometime in 1991 or 1992, the survivor of attack 7 in Carmichael received a call. You know who this is. The line then went dead. The survivor had no doubt it was the man who attacked her 15 years earlier. Steve Larry Poole began working the case in Orange County back in 1986. At the time, he was working hard to link attack 4, Keith and Patty Harrington's murder in Dana Point, with the two attacks in Irvine, attack 5, the murder of Manuela Whitton, and

attack 7, the murder of Janelle Cruz. Poole looked into many suspects and thought he had the right guy more than once. Quote, When I took this on, I was still relatively fresh, if you will. I got excited about people, like a schemar's rapist in prison who matched the description. In the first year, five or six times, I got really excited. In the second year, four or five times. In 1994, Poole Hulls had just been promoted.

He was Deputy Sheriff Criminalist at Contra Costa County. He had been working in forensics for six years at that stage. You heard from Poole Hulls in Part 4, talking about the East Area rapist verbally staging crime scenes, and you heard him discuss the Punishment Map, the Sixth Grade Grant, and the General Custer Essay, also known as the Homework Papers. He talks to us again here. I actually started out as a forensic scientist, and so I was working in a lab. I then promoted up to what we called the Deputy Sheriff Criminalist, so I became a police officer,

went to the police academy, but also was back in the lab doing the old serology work, doing crime scene investigation, and it was right in 1994 when DNA was first starting to come into the lab. And so I ended up stumbling across this drawer in our library that had these folders that were marked with the red EAR on them. I was like, well, what are these? And I opened them up, and they were the case files from Contra Costa County of the attacks that had occurred there, but I didn't know anything about this case at all. And then I just coincidentally was on a plane ride with my boss, former boss, shortly thereafter,

and I asked him about it, and he was on the original task force back in the 70s. So he just launched into this story, and so I decided, you know what? Let me see what I can do to solve this EAR case using this new DNA technology we're trying to get going. And so I ended up tracking down DNA evidence from three of the cases in Contra Costa, and they all matched each other, and that's when I called Larry Crompton. And I asked him, hey, you know, I've got this DNA, did you have any prime suspects? You know, and at this time, all we knew were the rape cases, and they were all past statute of limitation. So it was sort of like, we're not even, we just want to find who this guy is.

That was my goal. I just want to identify who this guy was. He was so notorious, but he's never going to be prosecuted for this. And Larry Crompton basically said, you know, never had that real strong suspect, but we thought he went down to Santa Barbara and possibly killed somebody down there. But when he had contacted Santa Barbara back in the day, they really kind of just said, nope, we got nothing related to your series up north and shut the door on him. So I decided to call Santa Barbara. And I called Santa Barbara, and I ran into sort of the same thing. No, you know, we don't have anything like this, but there's this city, Irvine, you know, they're doing some DNA. Now this is 1997.

So I call Irvine, and I speak with the detective, who I'm sure is long retired now. And he said, yeah, we've got some DNA in our lab has done some work. And I called that lab up, but unfortunately in 1997, the Orange County crime lab was doing a different DNA technology than my lab was. So we couldn't directly compare in 1997. We just had one marker that was the same, but it was like having the same ABO type, you know, type A or type B. It really wasn't very strong. And so I told Orange County, I'll be back in touch once we get caught up with you guys, because they were a little bit more advanced. Well, it took us four years to get caught up. But now 2001, I had promoted up and I assigned a DNA analyst to work

that, uh, hysteria rapist extracts. And he did. And I told him, call Orange County and just see, you know, I wasn't expecting anything. It was just sort of due diligence. And then he ended up walking into my office and it was a match. And so that that moment that was hysteria rapist was now known to be the same person as the original night stalker. It was now official. The hysteria rapist and the original night stalker were the same person. When the statute of limitations ran out on many of the hysteria rapist crimes, evidence and reports were thrown away. Apart from some files, detectives like Jim Bevin's kept, the only physical DNA evidence they had on the hysteria rapist was in three Contra Costa County crimes. The rest are linked by MO. Those

three pieces of DNA were what matched the DNA found at the crimes of the original night stalker. Okay, so Larry Pool was the lead investigator on the original night stalker cases down in Orange County. So I called him up and I literally just, we agreed, I fed him everything I had on the hysteria rapist. And so this is now 2001. And I thought it's just a matter of time. He has 50 cases in Northern California. He's going to catch this guy, you know, and I kind of walked away from the case at that point. And, you know, of course, I'm starting to get more and more heavily involved in actual investigations of cold cases. And it was in 2009. Roughly 2009. And I had now promoted up again. I was chief of the lab. But I was really trying to work the old cases. And

I'm looking at file drawer in my office and all the hysteria rapist stuff that I had. I was like, you know what, that is still unsolved. And that's when I've been started. I decided I was going to just investigate that series and solve it. And I've been working on it 24 7365 cents. Initially, the Galeta murders of Robert Offerman and Deborah Manning and Sherry Domingo and Gregory Sanchez weren't linked to the original night stalker murders. The Santa Barbara Sheriff's Department took around 50 pieces of evidence out of storage relating to the double homicide of Sherry Domingo and Gregory Sanchez. They studied betting, hair and semen stains. They were able to create a DNA profile from a stain on a piece of betting. The DNA was previously too weak for

testing. But now with advances in technology, it was able to be tested further. That result is what linked their murders to the original night stalker. Debbie Domingo spoke to us about that. I want to say about 2007 or 2008, I was contacted by Santa Barbara County again. I had always tried to, you know, just, I would call every once in a while and leave them contact information just in case they needed me. So I was contacted by the Sheriff's Department again. By this time I had moved halfway across the country and they called me and there were two detectives. One of them called me and he said, I can't remember exactly how he put it, but basically he said the same thing that the other guys had said in 2000. He said, you know, we are, we want to let you know

that we are actively pursuing your mom's case. And I don't know, just getting that kind of a phone call, it just brings hope. There were so many years that I would think, okay, maybe I should pick up the phone and call Santa Barbara, but I didn't want to deal with the discouragement of having somebody say, no, we don't have anything new. So I really just didn't call very much. So this guy called me and I want to say 2007 or 2008. And he said a couple of really interesting things. He said he was working with a partner that the two of them were retired from Santa Barbara County and that the department had tapped them to come back in full-time to work specifically on cold cases. And the thing that he said that just made me go, just boggled my mind, he said they

gave us a list of cold cases that we could work on. And they said, pick one, what do you want to start with? And they said immediately, he said they looked at each other and they both went Domingo and Sanchez immediately. And he said, he said they just, there was no question. They felt like it was solvable and they felt like they could do some good. Yeah. So hearing those words from a detective after 25 years, there's no way to explain just how much hope that gave me. And so that guy and I began just this email exchange. We exchanged emails for, I don't know, a year, a year and a half. And he would shoot me questions and I would send back answers. And then I would ask him questions and he would send back answers and just back and forth. And these guys were

working really hard. The interesting thing about the work that they did is that instead of just going to a file box and rereading the initial reports, they actually went to the physical evidence and they pulled the bed clothes from the crime scene, which initially, you know, in 1981, they didn't have the technology to be able to extract DNA samples and those kinds of things. So these guys went back to the original material and they used new technology. They said they found really degraded samples of DNA, but they were able to extract them and they came up with a match. So they called me in 2009. They called me in 2009 or 2011. I can't remember now. I've got years mixed up. I apologize. They called me in 2011 and said they said they had found that match,

that my mom's case was linked to the rest of the original Night Soccer Crimes, which was the name that had been given to this guy. No DNA was available in the double homicide of Robert Offerman and Deborah Manning. Their murders have been linked by MO. In 2011, while searching for further evidence, the Contra Costa Sheriff's Crime Lab discovered the homework papers found at the first Danville attack. Police released these to the public, hoping that someone would recognize them. Possibly the handwriting or the tone of the sixth grade rant would spark a memory. Larry Pool, quote, the right person is going to see it. Then we're going to get the right call that leads to the suspect. These can be found in the show notes, as well as our upcoming magazine

on this case. By the late 2000s, Detective Larry Pool had investigated 8,000 suspects by his kin. There was one suspect who was dead that he was so sure of, he had the man's body exhumed, only to find there was no DNA match. Larry Pool, quote, if he is in fact deceased, that does nothing to dissuade me from making a concerted effort to identify him. I think about this case every day and every night. I have composite sketches posted on my bulletin board. I have his DNA profile on my wall. There are case binders on my shelf at work and even next to my bed. I want to see this case closed. I don't care if I do it or some other agency, but I won't rest until it's solved. It's number one on my professional bucket list. Larry Pool wasn't the only one who

was certain he had the right suspect, only to be proven wrong. Michelle Cruz also spoke to us about this. There has been quite a few different ones. A person of interest, POIs that I have looked into and I have helped other people with and turns out DNA was not a match. So it is an up and down emotional roller coaster ride. It's really hard because you really feel like somebody could be the killer and then their DNA comes back and it's not. So it's definitely a roller coaster ride, full of emotions. Paul Hulse also explains. Absolutely. Like probably my first suspect, I spent two years on. He was somebody who literally disappeared. He dropped off the face of the earth in 2004. He was on the original suspect list from

the 1970s. He was the railroad worker and Crofton had even interacted with the guy. And then when I started digging into him, I was like, wow, this guy really adds up in terms of being in the right locations at the right time and suspicious behaviors and everything else. We need to get this guy's DNA. The problem was couldn't find him. And it took me two years to find the guy. And of course, I just continued to dig on the guy trying to figure him out as whether or not he's the guy. And he ends up popping up in Sacramento as a homeless guy using his identity. And we got his DNA and he turned out not to be the hysteria rapist. So that's when I ended up stepping back because I was so sure he was the offender that I reevaluated how I looked at the case.

And one of the things, and this is the lesson learned, everybody has done this and they continue to do this to this day, especially the online investigators, is they're following a suspect based investigation. They're identifying somebody, how they choose that guy. You know, it could be because he looks like a composite because he had a bad personality. He beat his wife or he beat his girlfriend. He was in Sacramento, whatever. But then they make details out of the case fit him. And the problem with this case is it's so huge. We have 56 case files, 15,000 pages. You can pick and choose details and turn almost anybody into a suspect. You can make the case fit. And that's where I decided I had to follow an evidence-based

investigation. That was after, you know, doing some research on where I went wrong. And Dr. Kim Rosmo, who's a geographic profiler, but also is now embedded in the University of Texas school system and is sort of a researcher on SEAL offenders, etc. He has an article on criminal investigative failures. And that's the one thing that he really presses is be evidence-based. And so when I looked at all the evidence in this case, of course we got the DNA and we're doing everything we can with the DNA. Outside of that, the one piece of evidence that I thought was unique enough to limit the population of potential suspects was this hand-drawn diagram that the offender had dropped back in December of 1978. And so I ended up focusing in

on trying to figure out what is that diagram and trying to ultimately identify who drew it, what type of person would draw it. And so that's kind of the investigative path that I've been going down. Paul Hall's also spoke to us about the stolen mementos that are still missing. My hope is, and this would be something we'd want to put out there, is if you find something that has, because he stole multiple driver's licenses from his victims, he took photos of some of these women out of their photo albums. You know, if you find a box filled with jewelry items and collectible coins and driver's license for people, you have no idea who they are, you know, take it, bring it to the attention of law enforcement. Just that in and of itself

is, you know, the jewelry, I think a lot of the jewelry that he took, he took for value purposes and he didn't necessarily keep some of it he kept. But I think a lot of it was he probably sold at some point. But the driver's license with the victim's photographs and names and height and everything else on there, the photographs he took out of the photo albums, he absolutely has kept those. In June 2016, the Sacramento County Sheriff's Department issued the following statement. The Sacramento County Sheriff's Department and our allied agencies have continuously been investigating the East Area Rapist original Night Stalker series since his beginning in 1976. We want to assure you this investigation has not ceased and the cases have not been closed.

In 2011, a working group was created consisting of all involved agencies from Northern and Southern California in an effort to better communicate and work together in identifying this still unknown offender and bringing the justice for so many victims. To that end, the anniversary date of the first known assault is approaching. The Sacramento County Sheriff's Department along with several other agencies and with the assistance of the FBI is planning a large-scale media release on June 15, 2016. At that large-scale media release on June 15, 2016, the FBI released three new Composite sketches. These three sketches are the only official ones of the East Area Rapist original Night Stalker. All previous composites have been reneged. You'll find a link to the

current sketches in the show notes. They also publicly confirmed 12 homicides. Confirming the shooting murders of Brian and Katie Majuri in Rancho Cordova in 1978 were linked. Again, their murders have been linked on MO only, not DNA. A $50,000 reward was announced for information leading to the conviction of the East Area Rapist original Night Stalker. The new initiative also included a national database to support law enforcement investigating the crimes and to handle tips and information. The working group mentioned in the Sacramento County Sheriff's Statement are currently still going and are dedicated to solving the case. It's made up of Northern and Southern Californian detectives, retired investigators and cold case investigators,

including Paul Holt. The FBI has a representative at each meeting. The team dedicate their own time to the investigation following up leads and a meter round once per month. They believe they will solve it. Larry Poole continues to follow leads and work with authorities in his spare time. Larry Poole quote, you start revisiting things over the years because you're looking for meaning in everything. Sometimes you get that meaning, sometimes you don't. It's one of those cases you want to see solved before you breathe your last. Larry Crompton and Richard Shelby have dedicated their lives to solving the case. Both retired detectives have written self-published books on their sides of the investigation. They are not directly involved with the current

working group, but they both keep up the date and are involved in their own way. Detective Carol Daley is also retired. She spoke to us about her return after almost 40 years to the home of the first survivor she worked with. The survivor is Jane Carson Sander, who you'll also hear from later in the episode. People that lived in the community at that time have never forgotten about it. So I went back out to Jane Carson's house because that was the first rate that I worked and I just wanted to see her out. And actually I was there with the film crew from On the Case with Paula Zahn out of New York. So I had gone back to New York for the filming and then they were coming out here because they wanted to film some different areas.

And so I met with them at the North Station and then we drove over to Jane Carson's house. And I have to tell you, it was very, very strange looking at her house. It just gave me the crease. It looked like the house had stood still and frozen in time. Nothing had changed. The whole neighborhood around, you know, a home for it landscaped and it was a nice neighborhood. And everybody had updated and everything. Nothing had been touched on that house. And as we were standing outside talking with the film crew, the gentlemen who lived to the house just to the left as we're facing the house came out and wanted to know. And he said, oh, I remember that case. He said, I remember the fear in the community. And he said, I was living in an apartment in

the North Area and my wife and I were both so frightened. And we had seen this area on TV and we said, oh, that would be a nice place to live. Well, unbeknown to them when they bought their house, it happened to be next door where Jane Carson had been a victim. And this gentleman had worked probation at the time. And he said, I remember, he said, driving down the street, I saw a guy walking, had a ski mask on. I turned the car around to go back and stop him because probation officers were peace officers. He said, I turned around to try to get him identified. And he said, from the time I saw him and I turned around, I got back to the spot. It was like he had disappeared in the thin air. He said he was nowhere. And it was just for me,

people that lived in the community at that time, young people growing up now, of course, they only know maybe stories or some of them have never heard of him. But you go back to people that were in the community at the time. And they all had remembered the Eceria rapist. They might have forgotten about, you know, all of the other crimes, the murders and the things that happened that they've never forgotten about the Eceria rapist in the community. I went to the department and read some of the cases again just to refresh my mind on details and things. And I tell you, it gave me an eerie feeling that I probably did not have at the time I was investigating him. And maybe because I'm not sure why, but I'm telling you, I came home

and I checked and double checked all my doors and the windows at night were very, very safety conscious. So yeah, there isn't anybody that lived at that time that hadn't felt, you know, the same fear. Michelle McNamara was a journalist working for Los Angeles magazine. She became involved in the case while writing a series of articles for the magazine in 2013. She became so interested that she began her own investigation into who the offender might be. She believed that being labeled the Eceria rapist, the original nice stalker was both too confusing and not catchy enough to grab the attention of the public. She called him the golden state killer. To some, this is what he is now known as. Michelle tracked down some leads

which she was writing about in a book. But on April 21, 2016, she died suddenly at the age of 46. It wasn't until early 2017 that her husband, Patton Oswalt, learned from the coroner that she had suffered from an unknown heart condition that caused blockages in her arteries. This condition, combined with medication, caused her death. Patton Oswalt revealed on the TV show 48 Hours that Michelle had just come across a big break. What that big break is, no one knows. We will find out when the book is released. Patton and Michelle's researchers are currently working to finish it. Following the 2016 FBI press conference, Michelle Cruz made a public statement. It read, I am the sister of Janelle Cruz, the last known victim of the Eceria rapist,

original nice stalker. I need to say it has been a horrifying 30 years since Janelle was brutally raped and murdered in our home in 1986. I was 17 and she was 18 years old. It is very hard for me to describe how this has affected my psyche. For a person to pass away is a sad event. But to live with the thought and vision of how my sister was raped and beaten to death and the struggle she put up in order to fight to stay alive is what really haunts me. She suffered. My poor sister made phone calls to friends just before she was killed because she was scared to be home alone. This one offender has over 40 rape victims and has brutally murdered 12 people, possibly more. Plus, all of the rape victims and surviving family members deal with the

thought of this murder are still walking free after 40 years. He is likely between the ages of 56 and 66 now. Thus, there is every reason to believe he is still alive today. After Janelle's murder, our home was sold. For a while, we were living with friends out of our suitcases. Our family unit was gone and it has never come back. What I grew up knowing was no more. I lost my identity and for about 20 years lived in complete fear because of my sister's murder. During those years, I have slept with the lights on and I am mostly never home alone. However, when I am, there is always something propped in front of the doors and windows for protection. Recently, I have installed surveillance cameras all around my home

and window alarms, plus some other things in order to feel safe. I shouldn't have to live with fear every day. It is a very lonely feeling that I've succumbed to. Not many people can relate to having a loved one killed by a serial killer who has been free for 40 years. I am tired. I am tired of being afraid. I am tired of hiding. This is why I am finally reaching out. Something needs to change and not just for me. I am talking for all the victims and family members who are too tired and afraid to speak out. We need more people to get involved. We need more people to help research because 40 years of doing things the same way is not working. There are so many people dedicated to researching this case in order to find the East Area rapist, Golden State Killer.

We need to let them help. Let them help piece together the information you have. Make the documents available. After 40 extremely long years, I think it's time to release all the information. I was very happy to see the recent release of information and the publicity drive by the task force of City, County and Federal agencies of which the Sacramento PD was a part. This is a great start but does not go far enough. Unfortunately, there is no one outstanding sketch of the East Area rapist, Golden State Killer. His description as to height, weight and features are all fairly average. This generates tips but not solid leads. What some officers here today may not know is that the

East Area rapist sent in writings to the police. A poem called Excitement's Crave has been released but not a copy of the original poem or the envelope it came in. The envelope and the actual poem would reveal handwriting or at least typewriter font. The East Area rapist sent a letter to the Sacramento City Council. There are reports other letters and poems were sent in. All of these can and should be released. The release of these items will reveal the word usage, phrase usage and unique vocabulary of the East Area rapist. They would show something of his views, opinions and thoughts. A family member, friend or co-worker may recognize these characteristics. This is exactly how the unabomber was recognized and turned in by his brother.

I have made a formal request under the California Public Records Act to obtain the release of these records. I also urge all law enforcement agencies involved in the case to release all information, evidence, files and records. Keeping them secret only protects the killer. I urge residents of the city and county of Sacramento to write an email or letter to their mayor, city council, county commission and governor stating your concern about the case and requesting that all documents be released. Victim and witness names can be blacked out for privacy. The release of these documents might be the difference between this offender finally being brought to justice or him continuing to elude capture. End statement.

Jane Carson Sienler who was the survivor from attack number five in Citrus Heights in October 1976 spoke with us. She has gone on to support other survivors of rape including sitting with women in emergency rooms directly following their attacks and providing support and guidance. When discussing her dedication to the support of other survivors she said. Boy, one of the things I tell women that I meet with is to share your story, report, you know, your crime to the police but share your story with a friend and just be able to, you know, to get rid of so much of your anger and your grief and by sharing it just helps you, I think, heal. And we, you know, we're never going to forget we're always going to have those scars,

physical and emotional scars. But, you know, through the grace of God Debbie and Michelle and myself were, you know, we're alive and very well Debbie and Michelle could have been home too and been murdered. So we are truly blessed. We are truly blessed. When imagining what it would be like if the Asterior rapist, Original Knight Stalker was finally caught, she said. One day we're going to be in that courtroom and he's going to walk in because we're, they found him and he's going to walk into that courtroom and can you imagine if one of us had known him what that would be like to think, oh my gosh, he was the guy that worked in the grocery store or he was the guy that sat next to me in class at American River College or, you know, just that

whole thing of, oh my, or he was my neighbor because, you know, even though he is not committed a crime that we know of since 1986, that doesn't mean that he's, you know, he's not living in a neighborhood. He just has stopped raping and murdering for whatever reason. Now, of course, he could be in jail, he could be dead, but all we want is, we want closure, we want this put to bed. We want this part of our life to be, to be over with and so we can go on and not wonder, you know, if he's going to be around the next corner or do I have to turn my house alarm on again tonight. There are over 60 attacks that are known, 60 different occasions where there is a chance that someone, a mother, a father, a sister, a brother, a girlfriend, a wife, a housemate,

a co-worker or a friend had the opportunity to notice that someone in their lives was not around or was acting strangely. If someone noticed something, they either feared for their lives or they ignored it, hoping it wasn't true, hoping that the person close to them wasn't the rapist and murderer. 40 years later, that could still be true. Was it someone you knew? Is it someone you know now? If he's still alive, he could be as young as late 50s and likely no older than 70. Why did it end? Did he move to your town, your state, your country? Do you know it now? Or did he die, taking to the grave the secrets of his identity and the knowledge of whether there were more victims? Here are some more words from Debbie Domingo. Because, you know, over the years,

I've had different dreams about this case. I've had different dreams about the night that my mother was killed. I've had dreams about the courtroom and sitting face to face with him. And people ask quite frequently, people ask, what would you say to him? If you were sitting face to face with him, what would you ask him or what would you tell him? And there's a huge variety of things that kind of pop into my head and back out again. But right now, right now, in 2017, what I want to say to him is, look out. Your secrets are going to come out. So you need to look out. Everything that you've done, all of the horrendous things that you've done to people, that can't stay secret forever. The truth is going to come out sometime. So you need to get ready.

If you have information regarding anything you believe may be linked to this case, please contact your local law enforcement or contact the Sacramento County or Contra Costa Sheriff's Department. Alternatively, there is a phone and email tip-on you can find on the FBI website. There is a link in the show notes.