Advances in DNA – Science is Amazing!
As your author continues her exploration research into the
ancestors who sourced her personal DNA Story, the news is filled with an
incredible story tied directly to the latest advances in DNA
technology. Just this week one of the oldest cold cases in the history
of California was solved – using DNA in a very clever and controversial
manner. To tell this story, a bit of background is essential.
If you are a fan of crime and forensics real life
television, you may well be aware of the hair-raising tale of the Golden
State Killer whose evolution from prowler to home invader to thief to
rapist to serial killer has been documented in a number of shows and
even a few books. The story of this one-man all purpose criminal “gang”
began, as far as is now known, 19 March 1974 in the little town of
Visalia in California. Police were puzzled by the increasing reports of
what almost seemed like teenage pranks – break-ins where the entire home
was ransacked but where very little of value was taken. Always the same
story; a family member arrived home to find almost every room in the
house tumbled and tossed with clothing and silverware, dishes, trash,
and miscellany strewn about haphazardly. Upon close examination, the
homeowner would find that only cheap and rather meaningless items had
been taken: here a plastic ring, there a cheap bauble, somewhere else
souvenir cups, coins from a piggy bank or similar cheap but unique
items. The break-ins escalated, occurring with increasing frequency
until after a couple of years nearly 150 homes had been so vandalized.
The modus operandi was so similar that the press tied the crimes and
tagged the perp as the “Visalia Ransacker.”
Those crimes were not a laughing matter, however, for
the crimes also held the element of a deeply deranged individual, whose
antics held the element of sexual perversion. For, in almost every home,
where the intimate clothing of the occupants were strewn about it was
readily apparent the intruder had left the most noxious proof of his
sexual persuasion – semen covering the bed, the intimate apparel and
sometimes in the most bizarre locations in the home. It was clear to the
seasoned detectives tasked with finding and stopping this man that with
each break-in his behaviour became more and more bizarre. This was a
sick mind in the early stages of erratic and deviant growth, a foretaste
of evil to come.
Before the approximate two-year reign of annoying yet
creepy invasions, on 11 September 1975, Claude Snelling confronted the
invader in his attempt to remove Snelling’s young daughter from their
home. Snelling was shot, staggered back inside and lost his life. The
Visalia Ransacker had taken his first known victim. Soon after this
murder, the reign of the Visalia Ransacker ended. After a final
confrontation by a police officer at one of the homes that had
previously been burgled, in December of 1975, the perp removed his mask
and gloves and pretended to surrender, only to then shoot at the
officer. His shot struck the officer’s powerful maglite, shattering the
lens and blinding the man. The Ransacker made his escape but would
commit no more crimes in Visalia.
The actual range of crimes attributed to the Visalia
Ransacker is subject to question as well, it appearing that some
voyeuristic crimes and petty home break-ins prior to the 1974 date given
above may have been his work as well. It is also believed by some that
two rape-murders of high school girls in the same area were the earliest
murders so far committed by the killer.
Some of the earmarks of this killer’s playbook
connected the crimes: the wearing of gloves, entering the home after
trying numerous entry points, leaving windows open with screens removed
during the execution of the crime, various dishes left by doors to give
warning and permit escape, the wearing of a variety of ski masks, coats,
and caps to obscure recognition. The perpetrator was also intimately
familiar with escape routes, utilizing paths for bicycles or hikers,
ditches, trails and the like.
After the shooting of the police officer, McGowen, the
activity moved north about 200 miles to an area near Sacramento. These
crimes showed an escalation of the sexual nature of the perp. Not
content to merely break into homes in the middle of the night, some
while the occupants slept, now the focus appeared to be on single family
homes where single women were the sole occupants. Many were raped with a
methodology that marked the crimes as having been committed by the same
man. Awakened with a flashlight shining in their eyes, blinding the
victims, the rapist held a knife and rapidly bound his victims, often
using shoelaces or other similar items that appeared to have been
prepared in advance. Officer McGowen, still on the case, attempted to
tie together the rapes and break-ins in the Sacramento area with those
of the Visalia perpetrator. Many elements of the crimes were very
similar. One newspaper reporter dubbed the attacker in these Sacramento
area crimes the East Area Rapist. The crimes committed under this
moniker spanned the time frame of June 1976 through July 1979.
Following the three year period of crimes detailed for
the East Area Rapist, similar crimes began to occur in Southern
California, in and around Orange County. Because of his prevalence for
attacking single women in the middle of the night, binding and raping
them, for this period of his criminal life he was called the Night
Stalker. This was before Richard Ramirez was captured in 1985 and his
series of crimes tied to the Night Stalker name. As a result, the crimes
committed by our one-man gang were re-titled as the work of the
Original Night Stalker.
One other name was tied to the same man: the Diamond
Knot Killer as a result of the use of an unusual Chinese knot known as
the Diamond Knot being used to secure victims both in the East Area
Rapist assaults and in the Southern California assaults. The name by
which he will always be known, however, the Golden State Killer, was
assigned by an author who recognized the broad scope of his crimes and
came up with the truly defining name. That author? Michelle McNamara, a
true crime writer who delved deeply into the crimes attributed to these
various monikers.
As neighborhoods under attack began to experience fear,
neighborhood meetings began where police officials, psychologists, and
local government leaders offered advice and attempted to pass along tips
for prevention. It was apparent the crimes were preceded by a period of
reconnaissance where potential victims were watched, their homes were
entered while they were away, strange phone calls occurred (believed to
be another way in which the perp profiled the activities of the home’s
occupants) with hang-ups and occasional “wrong number” excuses given. At
one of these meetings, a man stood and made a claim that the man
committing these crimes was a coward and would NEVER enter a home where a
man lived to attack his mate. Soon thereafter, this man’s home was the
scene of a terrifying assault. This marked the assimilation of new and
more frightening methods by the killer. The new mode of assault was to
enter a bedroom shared by a couple, shine the flashlight in their eyes
while holding a knife. He then forced the woman to tie up her male
partner and admonished her to “make it tight, make it right, or die.” He
then stacked dishes (usually a cup on a saucer) on the male’s back
while he removed the female to another room, raping her repeatedly.
During the prolonged assaults, he would roam the house, prepare food,
eat, drink beer, ransack the home, befoul personal objects, take
photographs and cheap personal objects, returning often to rape the
female again and again. Many surviving victims reported the demented
chants uttered by their tormentor. He would often pace the floors
muttering, “I’ll kill‘em, I’ll kill’em, I’ll kill’em.” He was quoted by
one survivor as rasping out “I HATE you Bonnie, I HATE you!” When asked
if he had, in fact, said “Mommie” she said it was definitely Bonnie.
Another survivor quoted him as breaking down and crying, “Mommy! Don’t
make me! Momma, please!” or words to that effect. One aspect of his
physical identification remained the same, however. All rape victims
reported he had a very small male sexual organ.
This was the typical assault – until the night when one
of the men managed to escape and bolt outside. While the rapist ran
after him to retrieve him, the female managed to break free and run
outside the front door screaming. As the Original Night Stalker
attempted to force her back inside a neighbor heard the commotion and
came outside, armed. The rapist barely escaped. This would mark the last
time he permitted his victims to live.
After this the rapist-voyeur-burglar-terrorist-sadist
would take twelve lives, five couples would die and two more
individuals. And the violence increased. No longer satisfied with merely
shooting his victims, the killer now sated his blood lust by
bludgeoning his victims to death where their facial features were often
completely obscured.
Interestingly, the end of this killer’s reign occurred
shortly after the first crime was solved utilizing the brand new
scientific breakthrough – DNA technology. The first case to utilize DNA
to convict a killer was in 1986. The Golden State Killer took his last
victim, young Janelle Cruz, an 18 year old restaurant worker, who was
raped and bludgeoned to death in her home while her parents were away.
This killing took place 3 May 1986. The DNA from her case, carefully
preserved by crime scene investigators, would be used to finally and
definitively tie together many cases of rape and murder throughout the
state.
“DNA was first used to aid a criminal investigation
by Professor Jeffreys in 1986. This investigation used DNA
fingerprinting techniques to link semen stain samples, collected from
two rapes/murders that had occurred three years apart in 1983 and1986,
in a small village in Leicestershire, UK.”
SOURCE: History of DNA profiling — University of Leicester
Who actually discovered DNA?
“It's commonly believed that James Watson and Francis Crick
discovered the double helix shape of DNA. But in fact, they based their
work on one of their colleagues at King's College in London - Rosalind Franklin, an x-ray diffraction expert whose images of DNA proteins in the early 1950s revealed a helix shape. “ Feb 15, 2011
SOURCE: The Unsung Hero Who Discovered The Double Helix - io9 - Gizmodo
It would appear from this very fact that the Golden
State Killer was aware of crime and punishment. He was savvy to
investigatory methods and ways in which to obscure his identity – until
this startling new development arose. Stymied at last and fearful of
being arrested for a similar crime lest his DNA be taken and matched?
Perhaps so.
Having such disdain for investigators, taunting them by
leaving clues, writing a poem, calling them to announce pending
assaults, spreading his semen and spit and other bodily fluids around
his hundreds of crime scenes the Golden State Killer was ultimately
tripped up by that very bravado. For one investigator, Contra Costra’s
Paul Holes, having not one single hit for four decades on the typical
DNA profiles used around the nation, decided to try a long shot. Noting
the prevalence for the newly advanced methods of identifying relatives
for long lost family members, he decided to use the full DNA sample that
had been available for decades but which had found no match. It was
submitted to GEDMatch.com, a website used by many genealogical
researchers around the world. On this site, one can submit – anonymously
if desired – a DNA sample and the scientists employed by the website
will painstakingly match that sample to others submitted by the public.
After a short wait, the police were rewarded by news of a close match. A
relative, but not THE man.
Then the genealogical work began. Having the name of
the relative who had not made his sample private, the researchers began
combing through other available sites online and sources of
documentation to find a killer.
They searched for a man whose age would match up to the
now advanced age of that ruthless and vicious young man some forty
years after his final violent killing. They looked for a close relative
whose height and physical characteristics from those sightings nearly
half a century before would be right. They searched for a man whose work
or family connections would place him in the right areas at the times
of those many, many crimes. And after they felt certain they had zeroed
in on the right man, they began police surveillance. They followed Joseph
James DeAngelo, now aged 72, for days waiting for him to discard a
usable item from which they could obtain a full DNA profile. And after
they collected that sample, a rush was put on the testing to ensure he
did not alert to their interest and run.
When the sample came back as a perfect match, they
moved to quickly arrest him as he left his home. One of the team members
on this task force was Paul Holes, the retired investigator with the
Contra Costa police force who had sought the killer for decades. It was
Holes who submitted the DNA to GEDMatch.com. It was Holes who confirmed
the discarded DNA sample matched the long-held DNA from the killer. But
it was not Holes who got the honor of being in on the final capture. On
the day before his retirement, Holes sat outside DeAngelo’s home with
the confirmation of the DNA match in his possession and contemplated
moving in for the arrest. But, he was alone and it was known that the
Golden State Killer was an intuitive and desperate murderer who would
stop at nothing to escape. That decision – NOT to make the arrest –
probably saved Holes’ life. He can now go into retirement knowing his
decision to make the risky move to submit that DNA resulted in the end
of a lifetime of violent crime for the Golden State Killer.
Now we know DeAngelo was a former cop in at least two
towns adjacent to the crimes: Auburn and Exeter. His parents lived in
Auburn. He investigated property crimes as a part of his job. That is,
until another local police department advised his Auburn police chief
that he had been caught – shoplifting a hammer and dog repellent from a
local store. Alas! Foiled by such a lowlife crime. Not the notoriety he
desired, was it?
Next month, it will be back to the traditional
research. The information contained in this article has been compiled
from memory from the many news reports and online stories concerning
this fascinating capture. But your author could not pass up the
opportunity to report on the Breaking NEWS! concerning DNA and its many
uses.
Click on author's byline for bio and list of other works published by Pencil Stubs Online.
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