Joseph James DeAngelo: The Golden State Killer

On July 12, 1976, Joseph James DeAngelo started his double life. He lived part of his life as a monster portrayed as a hero. He was a police officer in California, but when he wasn’t in uniform he was committing terrible crimes. From 1976 to 1986, a massive amount of murders and rapes happened in California. DeAngelo was accused of these rapes and murders. On April 24, 2018, DeAngelo was arrested because of the evidence they found against him. And on July 12, 2018, he appeared in court for the first time.

He is accused for more than fifty rapes and at least twelve murders. Now that DeAngelo was in custody, a lot of the women he assaulted and raped started to come forward. A woman, named Michelle McNamara, devoted her life to the case of the Golden State Killer. She died before she finished all of her research. Hero's can either be someone who saves lives, or they can be a monster in disguise, ruining people’s lives.

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DeAngelo was a Vietnam veteran and a former police officer. CNN says, “DeAngelo was fired from his law enforcement job in 1979 for shoplifting a can of dog repellent and a hammer from a drugstore.” (Chavez 2) People only looked at him was a simple and quiet husband, father, and grandfather. But little did they know he was breaking into houses, raping, killing people, and terrorizing the town. The Washington Post said, “He was appearing to his neighbors as little more than a slightly eccentric old man with a temper.” (Selk 1) As far as everyone knew, he was their hero.

He fought crime, saved lives, and caught the bad guys. But in reality, he was committing the crimes, he was taking lives, and he was the bad guy that no one could catch.

In spite of this horrible news, there were many heroes in the story. The first hero that made a difference in the story is Michelle McNamara. She devoted her whole life to researching and trying to find the Golden State Killer. Her husband, Patton Oswalt, said, “She was really tired. She had been pretty much awake for about three days. I think she’d gotten, like, two hours sleep because there was a lot of new developments going on with the case.” (The golden state…1)She was a hero because she spent all of her time trying to help out the town. She tried to uncover all of the details about the case. She died by overdose while writing a book about the killer.

Other heros in the story is the victims that came forward. DeAngelo was arrested, and soon after that some of his victims started to come forward and identify him. This is true courage. People speaking up about what happened, after years of being afraid, telling their stories to the world, and helping save their community. One woman spoke up and told the story of what he did to her. She said she was paralyzed by fear, afraid the man would kill them. The police that spent time, investigated, and followed him were heroes. They took the monster, that was terrorizing the town, off the streets.

In the end, DeAngelo was the true monster. He was inflicting true pain on everyone that he encountered. No one ever saw the person he truly was, the monster. There was only one monster, in disguise, in this story, and many heroes coming together to take down the monster. The heroes that came together had more courage than anything. Courage is all it takes to save a community. The heroes are either monsters in disguise or true saving graces.