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Speaker 1: Just a heads up. The epilogue to this episode contains

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Speaker 1: discussion of sexual violence that may be disturbing to some.

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Speaker 1: Please take care while listening. You're listening to American Shadows,

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Speaker 1: a production of iHeartRadio and Grim and Mild from Aaron Mankey.

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Speaker 1: Edward Joseph O'Hare, often called EJ, knew what he wanted

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Speaker 1: in life. In nineteen twelve, the nineteen year old married

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Speaker 1: Selma Laut and they had three children, daughters Patricia and Marylyn,

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Speaker 1: and son Edward Junior, whom they called Butch. Selma's father

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Speaker 1: allowed the family to live in the apartment above the

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Speaker 1: family grocery store. Realizing hard work alone wouldn't give him

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Speaker 1: and his family the best in life, EJ studied to

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Speaker 1: become a lawyer. In nineteen twenty three, he passed the

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Speaker 1: bar and found work at a law firm. Through the years,

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Speaker 1: he worked tirelessly. He eventually bought a new home, complete

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Speaker 1: with a swimming pool and skating rink, in the affluent

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Speaker 1: neighborhood of Holly Hills. But EJ's ambition was insatiable. He

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Speaker 1: wanted only the best for his son. Believing Busch was

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Speaker 1: somewhat lazy, EJ. Enrolled him at the Western Military Academy.

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Speaker 1: Most of EJ's wealth had come from his client, Owen

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Speaker 1: Patrick Smith, the commissioner of the International Greyhound Association. Smith

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Speaker 1: had created a mechanical rabbit that greyhounds chased on the track,

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Speaker 1: and when Smith died, EJ bought the rights from his

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Speaker 1: widow a Sensing an opportunity, EJ took his mechanical rabbit

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Speaker 1: concept to Chicago's most influential resident, Al Capone. It didn't

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Speaker 1: take long for Capone to determine EJ's talent and hire

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Speaker 1: him on as one of his lawyers. With his influence, money,

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Speaker 1: and team of attorneys, it seemed as though Capone was untouchable.

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Speaker 1: The government had tried countless times to find something to

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Speaker 1: stick on Capone, but his lawyers, including EJ, always got

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Speaker 1: him out of it. Capone and EJ made considerable money

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Speaker 1: by operating greyhound tracks in Chicago, Boston, and Miami. Soon,

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Speaker 1: EJ moved his family into a large mansion that filled

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Speaker 1: an entire block. For security, the whole estate was fenced.

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Speaker 1: They even had living help. Though he was directly involved

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Speaker 1: with one of America's most notorious gangsters, EJ tried to

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Speaker 1: teach Butch right from wrong. Despite his own career path,

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Speaker 1: EJ wanted a better way of life for his son.

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Speaker 1: A Butch accompanied his father on many trips, and the

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Speaker 1: two shared their love of planes. When EJ flew, he

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Speaker 1: looked for opportunities to allow his son a few minutes

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Speaker 1: behind the controls. In nineteen twenty seven, EJ divorced Selma

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Speaker 1: and left her and his daughters in Saint Louis, he

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Speaker 1: met Ursula Granada, a sister to a state representative with

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Speaker 1: strong mob ties. For seven years, the will remained engaged

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Speaker 1: devout Catholics. The two couldn't marry since the Church didn't

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Speaker 1: recognize EJ's divorce. By nineteen thirty, EJ worried about the

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Speaker 1: influence his mob ties might have on his son's reputation

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Speaker 1: and his application to the Naval Academy. The only way

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Speaker 1: out was to turn on Capone. EJ worked with the

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Speaker 1: IRS and with a rising talent at the Justice Department,

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Speaker 1: Elliott ness Ness, headed a group that was finally able

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Speaker 1: to get Capone on tax evasion and thousands of violations

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Speaker 1: of the Volstead Act. EJ informed to the government the

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Speaker 1: Campone had fixed the jury. After his conviction, Capone was

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Speaker 1: sentenced to Alcatraz for tax evasion. He was released in

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Speaker 1: nineteen thirty nine. That November, a car sped past Ej

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Speaker 1: and gunned him down, though he never lived to see it.

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Speaker 1: EJ's effort allowed his son to join the Naval Academy

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Speaker 1: and go on to become a World War Two hero.

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Speaker 1: Butch O'Hare single handedly shot down own five Japanese bombers,

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Speaker 1: saving the USS Lexington, for which he received the Medal

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Speaker 1: of Honor. In nineteen forty nine, Chicago changed the name

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Speaker 1: of Orchard Depot Airport to O'Hare International in his honor

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Speaker 1: and elliot Ness, the young agent who helped bring down

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Speaker 1: Capone also rose to fame. But sometimes fame has a

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Speaker 1: dark side. I'm Lauren Vogelbaum. Welcome to American Shadows. We

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Speaker 1: are fascinated with true crime. We have news reports, books,

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Speaker 1: and whole streaming channels devoted to it, and no category

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Speaker 1: of crime seems to capture our attention as much as

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Speaker 1: serial killers. Today, we have advancements in forensics technology and

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Speaker 1: specialized profilers to solve murders. In the nineteen thirties, though

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Speaker 1: law enforcement had to rely on other methods September twenty

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Speaker 1: third of nineteen thirty five was a perfect day for

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Speaker 1: kids to spend on the perhaps quaintly named Jackass Hill,

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Speaker 1: a slope near East forty Night Street in the Kingsbury

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Speaker 1: Run area of Cleveland, Ohio. In the winter, the kids

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Speaker 1: used the sixty foot slope for sledding, but on autumn days,

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Speaker 1: when the temperature hovered at a mild seventy one degrees

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Speaker 1: and the sky was a cloudless blue, kids took to

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Speaker 1: the hill for games. Sixteen year old James Wagner and

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Speaker 1: twelve year old Peter Costora took turns catching and tossing

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Speaker 1: a ball. One of them missed, and the ball rolled

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Speaker 1: down the slope into the bushes at the bottom. The

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Speaker 1: boys chased after. Near By, two other boys watched the

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Speaker 1: ball sailed down the hill with James and Peter in pursuit,

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Speaker 1: and at the same time both sets of boys came

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Speaker 1: across something unexpected. Instead of the ball, Peter and James

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Speaker 1: found a man's decapitated head in the bushes. The other

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Speaker 1: two boys is found a headless body. All four ran

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Speaker 1: back home, neither group realizing the head and body belonged

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Speaker 1: to two different men. Other kids gathered at the top

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Speaker 1: of the hill as police searched the area. After a

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Speaker 1: search of the bushes, police found another head and body,

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Speaker 1: making it a double homicide. Aside from decapitating the men,

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Speaker 1: the killer had drained the bodies of blood and removed

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Speaker 1: their genitals. Afterward, the killer had cleaned and washed the

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Speaker 1: corpses and dumped them in the park where they would

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Speaker 1: be easily found. One, Edward Andresy, was identified as one

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Speaker 1: of the victims. The second remained, a John Doe. Reports

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Speaker 1: estimated that Andressy had been dead for a few days.

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Speaker 1: The John Doe had been dead for over three weeks.

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Speaker 1: For months, the investigation went nowhere. People had no clues,

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Speaker 1: no suspects, no witnesses. A mild September gave way to

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Speaker 1: a bitter and cold January. The sound of a dog

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Speaker 1: barking relentlessly urged one resident to bundle up and head

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Speaker 1: to her neighbor's house to complain. Two baskets sat in

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Speaker 1: a snowbank outside the home. Inside were packages neatly wrapped

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Speaker 1: in newspapers. Assuming they were hams from the size and shape,

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Speaker 1: she knocked on the door to notify the neighbor. Charles

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Speaker 1: Page followed his neighbor outside, he unwrapped the packages. Inside

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Speaker 1: were frozen human body parts. Not long after, police converged

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Speaker 1: on the scene without taking care to preserve it for evidence.

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Speaker 1: Even though they never found her head, police identified the

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Speaker 1: victim as Florence Pollillo, a waitress, barkeep, and occasional sex worker.

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Speaker 1: According to the Corner, Florence died after her throat had

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Speaker 1: been split. While the community worried about the murders in

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Speaker 1: their safety, the police took an unbelievable stance. Since they

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Speaker 1: couldn't find Florence's head, they questioned whether her death had

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Speaker 1: been homicide. Their lack of investigation only fueled residents growing

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Speaker 1: distrust of the police force. During Prohibition, news of crooked

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Speaker 1: cops surfaced frequently. Complaints of incompetency and laziness filled Mayor

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Speaker 1: Harold Burton's office. Dealing with a serial killer on top

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Speaker 1: of extensive corruption overwhelmed Burton. While he dedicated his detectives

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Speaker 1: to the murders, he called the one person he thought

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Speaker 1: could clean up corruption within the force, Elliott Ness. The

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Speaker 1: public loved Ness reporters had dubbed him and his group

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Speaker 1: of agents the untouchables because capone couldn't buy them off.

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Speaker 1: Dark haired and square jawed, Ness was the perfect example

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Speaker 1: of what law enforcement should be. He took the job.

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Speaker 1: Instead of sitting behind a desk, he took to the streets.

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Speaker 1: Daily headlines were marked on his efforts, from taking down

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Speaker 1: crooked politicians and cops, to midnight raids on gambling parlors

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Speaker 1: and busting extortion ring His exploits were legendary. America had

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Speaker 1: a real life superhero. Not only was Ness untouchable, he

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Speaker 1: also seemed unstoppable. Yet someone else in the city also

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Speaker 1: shared those two traits with Ness, the serial killer who

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Speaker 1: the press began calling the Butcher of Kingsbury Run. And

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Speaker 1: while the mayor hadn't hired Ness to work on the case,

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Speaker 1: the two would soon collide. The day was too sunny,

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Speaker 1: too pleasant to sit in a classroom. It was June

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Speaker 1: fifth of nineteen thirty six, and with summer vacation just

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Speaker 1: around the corner, thirteen year old Gomez Ivy and the

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Speaker 1: eleven year old Lewis Chile decided to skip school. At

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Speaker 1: eight thirty that morning, the two friends left home with

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Speaker 1: their fishing poles. The lake erie had a couple of

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Speaker 1: great fishing spots and They might even get in a

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Speaker 1: quick swim before heading home if they had time to

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Speaker 1: avoid being seen. They walked along the railroad tracks for

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Speaker 1: a while and then cut through the east side of

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Speaker 1: Kingsbury Run. The strip of land had once been a

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Speaker 1: boomtown with businesses and refineries owned by the likes of J. D.

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Speaker 1: Rockefeller and William Halsey. Down prosperity turned into poverty during

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Speaker 1: the Depression. Instead of people hustling to and from businesses,

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Speaker 1: they now camped out in doorways and lived in cardboard

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Speaker 1: boxes in the alleys. Despite lost jobs and banks demanding

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Speaker 1: that mortgages be paid in full, President Hoover didn't believe

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Speaker 1: Americans needed the government's help. The unemployment rate reached twenty

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Speaker 1: five percent. Although people attempted to help each other, and

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Speaker 1: most families barely had enough to get by, much less

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Speaker 1: to give aid. People lined up for blocks for soup

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Speaker 1: and bread. Officials chased the houseless out of the surviving cities.

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Speaker 1: The east side of Kingsbury Run haven for those without

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Speaker 1: anywhere to go, often referred to as Hoovervilles, Areas like

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Speaker 1: these had cropped up across the country. The boys passed

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Speaker 1: shanty after shanty and some made from scrap lumber, others

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Speaker 1: from brick and tar. Paper. People lay in covered doorways

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Speaker 1: for warmth. They used newspapers, often referred to as hoover blankets.

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Speaker 1: A man in one doorway busied himself with bidding the

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Speaker 1: worn out soles of his shoes with cardboard. The boys

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Speaker 1: continued through to a barren stretch of property. Along the tracks,

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Speaker 1: a ball of fabric under a willow tree caught their attention. Curious,

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Speaker 1: they decided to take a look. The fabric turned out

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Speaker 1: to be a pair of discarded pants. Lewis suggested they

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Speaker 1: rummage through the pockets in case there was a coin

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Speaker 1: or two. They would likely turn out the pockets and

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Speaker 1: find nothing more than lint, but didn't hurt to check.

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Speaker 1: Gomez shrugged and picked up a nearby stick. He prodded

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Speaker 1: the lump of fabric to be sure a family of

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Speaker 1: rats hadn't taken up residency in their own hoover shack,

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Speaker 1: and while nothing stirred or shot out of a pant leg,

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Speaker 1: the ball of fabric rolled away. More curious than ever,

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Speaker 1: the boys unfurled the fabric. A man's head rolled out

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Speaker 1: on to the patch of dirt and grass, Horrified, the

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Speaker 1: boys grabbed their fishing poles and ran. They took no

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Speaker 1: notice of the men in the doorways or the families

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Speaker 1: peeking out of their lean tubes. Gomez and Lewis didn't

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Speaker 1: stop running until they got back home. The two friends

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Speaker 1: headed straight to Gomez's house. They no longer cared about

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Speaker 1: how much trouble they'd be in for ditching school. Unfortunately,

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Speaker 1: his mother wasn't home. Too afraid to leave the house,

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Speaker 1: the boys huddled together until she arrived hours later. She

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Speaker 1: no sooner walked in the door than boat boys began

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Speaker 1: to blurt out what they'd found. Missus Ivy calmed the

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Speaker 1: boys down and listened to the story again, as calm

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Speaker 1: as she could manage. She'd left the boys long enough

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Speaker 1: to summon a nearby patrolment and relay her son's story.

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Speaker 1: Patrolman Hendrix asked the boys for the exact location, but

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Speaker 1: they were so upset that they couldn't recall the precise spot.

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Speaker 1: Hendrix called for backup. It didn't take officers long to

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Speaker 1: find the head, along with a white shirt, a striped

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Speaker 1: dress shirt, underwear, and a belt. Most of the clothing

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Speaker 1: was torn and bloody, and nearby. They found a pair

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Speaker 1: of Oxford shoes, still neatly tied and socks stuffed inside.

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Speaker 1: Further down the tracks, they found the man's naked body.

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Speaker 1: The newspapers reported the murder the next morning. The coroner

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Speaker 1: determined capitation as the cause of death, and that the

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Speaker 1: victim was alive when his killer started to cut into him.

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Speaker 1: No one knew who the man was, despite six tattoos

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Speaker 1: they thought might help to identify him. A cast was

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Speaker 1: made of his face and sent to the Great Lake's Exposition.

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Speaker 1: Certainly some one there had to recognize him. Sadly, though

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Speaker 1: many passed through the gates, not one person came forward

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Speaker 1: with a single clue. A month later, another man's body

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Speaker 1: and severed head were found in the Big Creek area,

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Speaker 1: a bit further south of Cleveland. Due to the advanced decomposition,

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Speaker 1: the corner determined that this victim had been killed sometime

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Speaker 1: in May. The police had no suspects and few clues.

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Speaker 1: The killer didn't have a preference when it came to gender.

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Speaker 1: They had only one clue. The manner in which the

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Speaker 1: victims were cut suggested a great deal of knowledge about

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Speaker 1: the human body. Mayor Burton was under pressure once again.

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Speaker 1: The detectives assigned to the case began leaning on people

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Speaker 1: living in Hooverville's Those who offered up possible clues were

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Speaker 1: frequently arrested. Soon no one wanted to talk to the police.

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Speaker 1: In June, a boy found human remains ball walked under

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Speaker 1: a bridge. In September, another body was found in Kingsbury Run.

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Speaker 1: Eliot Ness was finally assigned to the case. In September

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Speaker 1: of nineteen thirty six, a Ness had detectives bring in suspects.

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Speaker 1: They ranged from a man living under a bridge who

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Speaker 1: collected women's shoes to a tightrope walker. Ness came up

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Speaker 1: with his own suspect, doctor Francis Sweeney. A Ness had

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Speaker 1: a problem. Though Sweeney was from a prominent family and

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Speaker 1: his cousin was a congressman in Ohio's twelfth district and

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Speaker 1: a political rival of Mayor Burton's, Sweeney had once had

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Speaker 1: addictions to alcohol and barbiturates. According to his ex wife,

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Speaker 1: his violent outbursts had caused her to question his sanity.

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Speaker 1: The papers reported that Sweeney had a reputation for being sadistic,

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Speaker 1: but Ness couldn't find any evidence against him, and Sweeney's

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Speaker 1: family and connections only made the investigation more difficult. Sweeney

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Speaker 1: often mocked the detectives assigned to follow him in frequently

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Speaker 1: managed to ditch them. Once he jumped off a moving

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Speaker 1: street car onto another passing in the opposite direction, leaving

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Speaker 1: the detective behind. The department began receiving strange phone calls

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Speaker 1: and envelopes filled with newspaper clippings about the slayings. They

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Speaker 1: also received a note with a drawing of the morgue's

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Speaker 1: front door, and Ness received a letter with a photo

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Speaker 1: of a tree in an open field. The message read

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Speaker 1: dig here. In February of nineteen thirty seven, a man

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Speaker 1: came across a woman's torso on Lake Erie's Euclid Beach.

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Speaker 1: Her limbs and head were never found. The corner stated

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Speaker 1: that the killer had begun taking his victim apart while

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Speaker 1: she was still alive. In August, Ness and the detectives

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Speaker 1: had had enough without being able to pin anything on Sweeney.

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Speaker 1: Police raided the Hoovervilles, arresting a few dozen men. Then

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Speaker 1: Ness ordered the camps burned to the ground. Ness later

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Speaker 1: said that he destroyed the camps to force the houseless

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Speaker 1: to move elsewhere. He believed the killer mainly targeted those

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Speaker 1: living in Kingsbury run shanties. Regardless, the public criticized his

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Speaker 1: actions and the killer was still on the loose. Ness

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Speaker 1: felt confident that Sweeney was the killer, but without a break,

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Speaker 1: he could only watch the body count continue to rise.

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Speaker 1: He began to drink heavily. Friends recounted the cruel jokes

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Speaker 1: he played on them. His wife divorced him after finding

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Speaker 1: out about several affairs. For a short while in nineteen

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Speaker 1: thirty seven, the murders seemed to stop, but in April

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Speaker 1: of nineteen thirty eight, a construction worker found part of

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Speaker 1: a woman's leg on the Cuyahoga River bank. In July,

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Speaker 1: the head and torso, believed to belong to Rose Wallace,

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Speaker 1: were found under a bridge. A month later, police recovered

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Speaker 1: body parts from a male victim found floating in the

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Speaker 1: Cuyahoga River. In August, scrap collectors found another woman's torso.

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Speaker 1: They found her head, legs, and arms near by. All

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Speaker 1: were wrapped neatly in butcher paper. Police found a second

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Speaker 1: body not far away. Both were in sight of Ness's

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Speaker 1: office window. The killer was taunting them. Ness's reputation lay

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Speaker 1: in ruin. He sat down with Sweeney one last time

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Speaker 1: after failing a polygraph, and Sweeney had himself admitted to

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Speaker 1: a mental institution. He re entered society in nineteen thirty

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Speaker 1: nine for a short period before admitting himself again. He

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Speaker 1: would die in an institution in nineteen sixty four. The

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Speaker 1: Kingsbury Run murders stopped in nineteen thirty nine. That year,

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Speaker 1: a letter arrived at the police department. The killer stated

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Speaker 1: that he had moved out to California, where Pid already

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Speaker 1: killed a woman and buried her long Century Boulevard, but

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Speaker 1: police never found a body. A reporter asked Ness about

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Speaker 1: the murders. Ness, no longer the city's hero, replied that

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Speaker 1: the case, as far as he was concerned, was closed.

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Speaker 1: Closed maybe, but to this day the case has never

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00:19:09,800 --> 00:19:22,160
Speaker 1: been solved. Ness and his career never recovered. He worked

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Speaker 1: as a vice detective for the government on US Bass

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Speaker 1: during World War Two. After the war, he started a

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Speaker 1: couple of businesses, but both failed. He unsuccessfully ran for

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Speaker 1: mayor in nineteen forty seven. His second marriage failed for

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Speaker 1: the same reason his first did. Ness continued drinking and philandering.

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Speaker 1: He died penniless in nineteen fifty seven, at the age

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Speaker 1: of fifty four. Six months after his death, his memoirs

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Speaker 1: were published, spurring the hit TV show The Untouchables. A

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Speaker 1: year later, after the murders stopped, the residence of Kingsbury

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Speaker 1: Run returned to their lives, celebrating the end of the

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Speaker 1: Great Depression. Cleveland and the rest of America soon forgot

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Speaker 1: about the butcher of Kingsbury Run. A police estimated there

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Speaker 1: were twelve victims. However, there's speculation there may have been more.

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Speaker 1: One hot day in July nineteen thirty six, two railway

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Speaker 1: workers in Newcastle, Pennsylvania noticed an open box car. They

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Speaker 1: were positive of the car, which hadn't been in service

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Speaker 1: since nineteen thirty one, had been closed just a few

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Speaker 1: weeks prior. Inside, they discovered a grizzly murder scene. A

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Speaker 1: man's naked body lay on the floor. The amount of

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Speaker 1: blood splatter indicated his heart had been beating when someone

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Speaker 1: decapitated him. Reporters referred to the scene as the Bloody

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Speaker 1: box Car, and as gruesome as it was, investigators revealed

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Speaker 1: another horrific detail. Three newspapers had been found with the body.

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Speaker 1: One of those papers was the Cleveland Plane Dealer, dated

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Speaker 1: July nineteen thirty three to investigators. This meant that the

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Speaker 1: killer had returned to the scene between the time of

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Speaker 1: death and when the workers discovered the open car. Four

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Speaker 1: years later, in May of nineteen forty three, more headless

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Speaker 1: bodies were found on a box car, but the murders

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Speaker 1: in the rural area of Pennsylvania, referred to as the

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Speaker 1: Murder marsh had started much earlier. The body of an

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Speaker 1: unidentified man was found in West Pittsburgh one October sixth

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Speaker 1: of nineteen twenty five. The cause of death had been decapitation,

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Speaker 1: and the coroner estimated had been deceased for about three weeks.

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Speaker 1: Eleven days later, the skeletal remains of another male victim

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Speaker 1: were found not far from the first. He had also

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Speaker 1: been decapitated. A woman's joalous skull was also found. Then,

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Speaker 1: as suddenly as they had started, the murders in Newcastle stopped,

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Speaker 1: and the killings in Kingsbury began. Nests never stopped. Believing

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Speaker 1: that Sweeney was the butcher of Kingsbury, run and Detective

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Speaker 1: Peter Marlowe thought that the killer in Cleveland and the

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Speaker 1: one in Pennsylvania were the same. Not only were the

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Speaker 1: victims killed in the same manner, but they were also

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Speaker 1: people living on society's fringes. Marlowe also noted that the

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Speaker 1: Baltimore and Ohio Railroad connected the two cities and had

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Speaker 1: two scheduled routes per day. Over eighty years later, we're

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Speaker 1: no closer to solving the two cases. It seems the

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Speaker 1: murderer managed to slip into the shadows. There's more to

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Speaker 1: this story. Stick around after this brief sponsor break to

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Speaker 1: hear all about it. The terror began in nineteen seventy four.

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Speaker 1: At first, they were burglaries. Between nineteen seventy four and

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Speaker 1: seventy five, roughly a hundred homes in Visalia, California were robbed.

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Speaker 1: The burglar left behind valuables and took small personal items instead.

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Speaker 1: What made it more unsettling was the thief's signature. He

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Speaker 1: rummaged through drawers and scattered any women's laundry he found

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Speaker 1: around the house, and he often killed any dogs in

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Speaker 1: the house. The press nicknamed him the Vizalea Ransacker. After

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Speaker 1: one murder was suspected of having been the work of

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Speaker 1: the Ransacker. The break in stopped not far away. A

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Speaker 1: rapist began terrorizing the residence of Carmichael Citrus Heights and

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Speaker 1: Rancho Cordova. No one knew at the time it was

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Speaker 1: the work of the same man. Initially, he seemed to

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Speaker 1: stalk women who lived alone, and preferably those who lived

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Speaker 1: in one story houses near open spaces, making it easy

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Speaker 1: for him to escape. In the days leading up to

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Speaker 1: the assault, victims noticed a prowler in the area. Often

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Speaker 1: he would enter the home quietly. He'd unload any guns

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Speaker 1: he found and leave ligatures to use on his victims. Later,

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Speaker 1: the police believed he staked out his victims in advance,

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00:24:05,440 --> 00:24:09,359
Speaker 1: choosing women home alone or with small children. He broke

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Speaker 1: in at night, waking his victims by shining a bright

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Speaker 1: flashlight in their eyes, temporarily blinding them, and then he

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Speaker 1: bound the women and raped them. The press dubbed him

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Speaker 1: the East Side rapist. When an article pointed out that

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00:24:23,160 --> 00:24:25,959
Speaker 1: none of the attacks happened in homes where men were present,

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Speaker 1: the attacker took it as a challenge. He'd broken to

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Speaker 1: homes and bound the men and women. Had leave the

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Speaker 1: men in the living room with a stack of dishes

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Speaker 1: on his back while he assaulted the woman, warning the

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Speaker 1: couple that if he heard plates fall to the floor,

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Speaker 1: he had killed them. Both In nineteen seventy eight, he

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Speaker 1: attacked and shot a couple while they were walking their dog.

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Speaker 1: He also shot and killed the dog. In nineteen seventy nine,

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Speaker 1: the attacker moved south, but this time after binding a

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Speaker 1: couple and raping the woman, he had bludgeon or shoot

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Speaker 1: the couple. Without realizing the same person was emitting the attacks,

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Speaker 1: a new nickname emerged, Original night Stalker. It's estimated the

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Speaker 1: between nineteen seventy six and nineteen eighty six, he raped

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Speaker 1: fifty women and killed twelve people. Often he raped the

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Speaker 1: victim repeatedly while other family members were bound and gagged nearby,

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Speaker 1: and sometimes he killed the whole family, including the dog.

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Speaker 1: Investigators determined that he had planned each attack to the

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Speaker 1: smallest detail. He also never stayed in one area, choosing

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Speaker 1: a territory from Sacramento to Irvine. He took a five

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Speaker 1: year break from nineteen eighty one to nineteen eighty six,

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Speaker 1: and while the attacks stopped, he continued tormenting one of

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Speaker 1: his surviving victims, calling her several times. With no leads

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Speaker 1: and no further attacks, the case went cold. In two

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Speaker 1: thousand and one, DNA evidence linked the East Area rapist

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Speaker 1: to the original night stalker. A law enforcement had new information,

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Speaker 1: but still no suspects and no leads. Then author Michelle

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Speaker 1: McNamara wrote the best selling novel All be Gone in

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Speaker 1: the Dark. She poured over the evidence in reports and

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Speaker 1: named the suspect the Golden State Killer. McNamara's premature death

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Speaker 1: pushed the case back into the news. Using evidence from

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Speaker 1: a rape kit, the FBI was able to link the

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Speaker 1: killer's DNA to a family on an ancestry site. The

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Speaker 1: FBI contacted a relative who helped in breaking the case

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Speaker 1: in twenty seventeen. In twenty eighteen, police arrested seventy two

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Speaker 1: year old James to Angelo. As the tale of the

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00:26:36,560 --> 00:26:40,840
Speaker 1: Golden State Killer emerged, investigators learned through a former girlfriend

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Speaker 1: that D'Angelo had once pointed a gun at her. He

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00:26:44,160 --> 00:26:47,720
Speaker 1: worked as a mechanic, moving from town to town. Neighbors

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Speaker 1: said he had a temper. COVID nineteen delayed the trial,

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00:26:51,680 --> 00:26:55,160
Speaker 1: but on August first of twenty twenty, he pleaded guilty

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Speaker 1: and confessed to twenty six counts of murder, over a

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Speaker 1: hundred break ends, and several dozen rapes and other violent acts.

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Speaker 1: Now in his late seventies, he's serving twenty six consecutive

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Speaker 1: life sentences. American Shadows is hosted by Lauren Vogelbaum. This

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Speaker 1: episode was written by Michelle Muto, researched by Ali Steed,

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00:27:22,320 --> 00:27:25,920
Speaker 1: and produced by Miranda Hawkins and Trevor Young, with executive

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Speaker 1: producers Aaron Mankey, Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick. To learn

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Speaker 1: more about the show, visit grimanmil dot com. From more

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Speaker 1: podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or

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Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts