Yesterday in Sacramento, Joseph James DeAngelo admitted he was the “Golden State Killer.”
The former police officer pleaded guilty to 4 murders and 2 rapes. They’re the first of an expected confessions of 13 murders and nearly 50 rapes, committed across California between 1975 and ’88.
Among the victims he confessed to yesterday: 1962 Staples High School graduate Debra Manning.
Debra Manning
At the hearing, a Santa Barbara County deputy district attorney described how in 1979 DeAngelo broke into a Goleta home shared by Manning and her boyfriend, osteopathic surgeon Dr. Robert Offerman. She recounted in grim detail the crimes that ensued.
Manning’s murder was included in Michelle McNamara’s 2018 best-seller “I’ll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman’s Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer.” A 6-part HBO series based on the book premiered on Sunday.
DeAngelo faces 11 consecutive life sentences for the killings, and 15 concurrent ones for kidnapping.