Law East Area Rapist / Original Night Stalker Apprehended - Crazy if true

http://fox40.com/2018/04/24/sources-report-possible-break-in-east-area-rapist-case/

Supposedly he's a former police officer and much older than expected (born 1947 so in his late twenties at the beginning of the murders).

 

[Duncan Hills Coffee]

There's a recent news report claiming that the East Area Rapist has been cleared of murder charges. Don't be too fooled; this is only a pair of murders that occurred in Simi Valley. Apparently they got the wrong guy 38 years ago, and the guy they think is the Golden State Killer doesn't have anything to do with it either.

Per the New York Post (https://nypost.com/2018/06/14/golden-state-killer-cleared-of-1978-double-murder-cold-case/)

Accused Golden State Killer Joseph DeAngelo was cleared this week of a 1978 cold-case slaying of a woman and her young son.

The double slaying in Simi Valley, Southern California, was reopened recently when authorities discovered that Craig Coley, the man who spent 38 years behind bars for the crime, was innocent.

Investigators suspected that DeAngelo — who is accused of 12 murders and more than 50 rapes — might have also killed 24-year-old Rhonda Wicht and her 4-year-old son, Donald.

The young mother was found by relatives after missing a family gathering in Ventura County. She had been beaten, raped and strangled with a macramé rope, while her son was smothered in his sleep.

The killing matched the East Area Rapist’s disturbing M.O. and occurred within the same time frame as his other suspected crimes.

But DNA taken from the crime scene didn’t match samples from DeAngelo, the Los Angeles Times reported this week.

“They conclusively eliminated him as a suspect,” said Simi Valley Police Chief David Livingstone. “Once we follow and exhaust a lead, we move on.”

Coley, who was the young mother’s ex-boyfriend, was pardoned by Gov. Jerry Brown and released from prison on Thanksgiving Eve last year at 71 years old.

The pardon came after the case was reopened in 2016 when retired detective Mike Bender raised doubts that Coley was guilty.

Detectives located a piece of Wicht’s bedsheet with DNA evidence that was thought to have been destroyed. But the DNA from sperm and epithelial cells on the sheet didn’t match Coley’s.

The California Victim Compensation Board voted unanimously that Coley should receive a $2 million payment — $140 for each of the 13,991 days he was wrongfully incarcerated.

Detectives are now turning to other possibilities to solve the crime.

“We don’t leave any lead unturned,” Livingstone said.


Can I just say I hate how the media is titling the article? Because it makes it look like the guy's walking a free man. It's not just the New York Post either, Fox News titled it that way too.

 

[Male Idiot]

Maybe they can find the Zodiac (or his grave most likely) but don't get your hopes up on Jack the Ripper. DNA decays over time, especially if it was not preserved at all by even rudimentary refrigeration.

 

[Andrew Neiman]

Here's something: someone posted footage of a male prowler dressed as a woman on the neighborhood watch Facebook page for Folsom, California, back in April (i.e., before DeAngelo was apprehended). According to the original post, the prowler can be seen approaching the building at around 3:30 a.m. carrying a bag, ringing the doorbell and then leaving after noticing the surveillance camera. Also according to the post, the resident of the house was a single woman. Folsom is near to Sacramento, where DeAngelo was living at the time.

Of course, there are many things to suggest that this might not be DeAngelo up to his old hijinks – he's not known to have disguised himself as a woman, and invading a house by ringing the doorbell is hardly his MO.

I'll leave it to you to come up with witticisms about the fact that this is a man dressed as a woman.

 

[Andrew Neiman]

Timeline with some updates: