Has the Golden State Killer been arrested? Authorities to announce 'major development' in decades-old case
The Sacramento County Sheriff's Department and FBI will be making an announcement regarding one of the most notorious serial killers in California history on Wednesday, department officials said.
In the 40 years since the Original Night Stalker began his campaign of terror in Sacramento and moved south through Oakland, Santa Barbara and Orange counties, he has remained unidentified. He has also been dubbed the East Area Rapist and the Golden State Killer, and authorities say he is responsible for 12 killings, 45 rapes and more than 120 residential burglaries between 1976 and 1986.
The FBI has created a website dedicated to the case where the public can view police sketches of the attacker and hear from witnesses and victims' families.
The last known crime associated with the Original Night Stalker took place in 1986, but his notoriety lives on. In 2004, California voters passed an initiative, bankrolled by the brother of one of his victims, that mandates collection of DNA samples from people convicted - or even arrested - in felony cases.
By 1978, the man had attacked victims in Oakland, Danville and Walnut Creek. In 1979, he killed two in Goleta, and two years later killed yet another couple in the Santa Barbara County town. Authorities in 2011 pinpointed DNA evidence from the killer in the 1981 slayings of Cheri Domingo, 35, and Gregory Sanchez, 27. And they matched that evidence with DNA from other crime scenes.
Sanchez was shot and bludgeoned. Domingo died of massive head injuries. Some of the grisly details matched those at other crime scenes associated with the Original Night Stalker: Sanchez and Domingo lived in an upscale neighborhood and were killed in bed. Domingo's hands had been tied - as had the hands of victims at other scenes.
Authorities said that the killer would sometimes place cups or plates on his bound victims' backs so he'd have an audible clue if they broke free when he was in another room. At the time of the crimes he was described as being about 5-foot-9 with blond or auburn hair. He appeared to have military or law enforcement training.
Before he became known as the Original Night Stalker - so named to distinguish him from Richard Ramirez, the serial killer dubbed the Night Stalker who terrorized the Los Angeles area in the mid-1980s - the killer was called the East Area Rapist and was tied to no fewer than 52 sexual assaults in Sacramento County and the Bay Area.
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