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The Golden State Killer - Part 4: Joseph James DeAngelo | #463

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The Golden State Killer - Part 4: Joseph James DeAngelo | #463

Joseph James DiAngelo, a convicted serial rapist and murderer, pleaded guilty in 2020 to 13 counts of first-degree murder and kidnapping, avoiding a lengthy trial due to the statute of limitations on many rape cases and the overwhelming number of victims who demanded accountability. The plea deal was driven by victims—particularly those like Gay Hardwick, whose 1978 attack was not prosecuted—who felt society had denied them justice. Their testimonies revealed deep psychological trauma, shame, and long-term consequences such as PTSD, alcoholism, and marital strain. Male victims, including Victor Hayes and Bob Hardwick, were often dismissed by law enforcement and society, with few choosing to speak publicly due to stigma and fear of being seen as weak. The hearing exposed systemic failures: male victims were recorded as witnesses, not victims, and police responses were dismissive, with some even laughing at the crime scene. DiAngelo’s family offered emotionally charged letters defending him, portraying him as a devoted father, which many critics viewed as inappropriate and exploitative, especially given the victims’ suffering. The case highlights broader societal issues around gendered trauma, the erasure of male victims, and the lack of justice for crimes that fall outside legal charges. While DiAngelo’s crimes may have ended due to age, physical decline, or hormonal changes, the case remains a stark reminder of how systemic bias and gendered expectations can perpetuate injustice for survivors, especially those who never received a fair trial or public recognition.

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[MUSIC] All right, I'm not taking no for an answer this ends today, I've had it. >> Because I've also started to have- >> Oh, welcome! >> Based on this. >> Yeah. >> Welcome to the jungle, the jungle of terror of fear. >> Yes, because I'm elderly now, so I have to we at least three or four times in the middle of the night. >> You've always been we? >> I know, I know, I'm just, I'm just such a hydrated person. Which, if you're watching the video today, it doesn't look like it looks like I've been at the fucking beach. My hair is outrageous, but it's because it is like 35 degrees in London. And before we left, I was like, I'm going to wash my hair, and then I'm going to blow dry it. And then I was like, oh no, I can't stand within a foot of this blow-drying contraption. So then I had to just leave it, and now my hair is like, sure bitch, whatever. And also, I realized once I got here, I forgot to put teodorant on. So, it's going to get hot and sweaty, doing this episode, the scares. >> Well, most of the scares are done. >> Okay, now it's just the sort of societal pressure of being alive, because it's the main issue. >> Oh, good. >> Well, I'm sure that way, but it's wet. Being done, being finished, and ready for something new was a sentiment echoed by the victims of the Golden State Killer who lived to tell the tale. Especially those whose cases were not selected for charge. A quick recap of where we are up to due to some dubious DNA dabblings. Joseph James, to Angelo, was arrested outside his Sacramento home at the grand old age of 72. And forced by the sheriff's department to leave his roast in the oven. Once in custody, Angelo answered none of the homicides squad's questions. He only asked why he was there. >> He rambled to himself when left alone, about not meaning to do any of it. And then he just wanted to be with his mummy. The only call the Angelo made was to his ex-wife. She was a lawyer, and he wanted her to represent him. Sharon, the former Mrs. DiAngelo, however, refused to come. Joseph DiAngelo was charged with 13 counts, a first degree murder, straight off the bat. But due to the statute of limitations on rape being a shocking three years back in the 70s, the 51 victims of the East Area rapist were told that their day of retribution was never going to come. Eventually, 13 of the rape cases, which is over 50 plus, by the way, depending on who you ask, were selected by the state prosecutors to add to the actual charge list. Because kidnapping for robbery has no statute of limitations, even in the black and white times. But that still left a lot of people feeling like justice had evaded them. None more than Gay Hardwick. I'm Hannah. I'm Sruti, and this is Rethanded. On the 18th of March, back in 1978, Gay and her then-boyfriend Bob were shocked awake by Joseph DiAngelo's trademark torchlight. Bob knew immediately who he was dealing with. He was looking at the East Area rapist. He would been averaging two rapes a month in the Sacramento area that year. In 1978, no one, however, knew his name. But we do. Joseph James DiAngelo held a gun to Bob's head and told him that if he made a single move, he would blow his head off. Then Bob was tied up and forced to listen as DiAngelo raped Gay repeatedly in the next room. She was forced by DiAngelo to say that she wanted to die. Bob and Gay aside from the original police report never told a single soul what had happened to them. They got married shortly after the attack. A lot of couples terrorised by DiAngelo split up, unable to reconcile what they had been through. But not Bob and Gay. They're still together to this very day. They did think about divorce when it all got too hard. Gay had PTSD and then several miscarriages as a result. But Bob explained in the HBO documentary which is also called "I'll be gone in the dark." That what happened to them wasn't going to go away whether they broke up or not. So they made it work. Even when a marriage counsellor told them that they should separate. Bob is a divorce lawyer, so he knows better than most that after a divorce, your problems come with you into your next relationship. Him and Gay breaking up wasn't going to solve either of their issues, so they stayed together. Bob's trauma showed its face in the form of explosive rage. He shot the hubcap of a car of a kid that he saw pissing in the street and punched a teenager outside a local supermarket. You can watch interviews with Bob, him and Gay are very vocal. Well, Gay's vocal, he's supportive of his wife. And I can't imagine him being so enraged by a youth pissing on the street that he gets a gun and tries to shoot him out of the car, but that's what he does. And Gay knew why this was happening. You can't keep something pushed down forever. It will squeeze through the cracks of you eventually. But Gay couldn't tell anyone the reason Bob was acting out. Until one day and the 2000s when the phone rang. It was Paul Holes explaining that he was opening up the hysteria rapist files and reinvestigating the whole horrible saga. And he said that he would love to interview Bob and Gay to add them to his horrific web of genealogy and crime scene puzzles. Bob was initially resistant to any involvement. He didn't actually know everything that had happened to Gay back in 78 until he read the police report I believe in the 2000s. He didn't want to know. Bob just wanted to pretend that it had never happened. Gay felt differently. She'd grown tired of keeping this massive secret. All it was doing was multiplying the shame that she'd been forced to carry by the society around her. When in reality Gay Hardwick was a woman who had done absolutely nothing wrong. So she decided to come forward publicly as a victim of the hysteria rapist. Gay Hardwick is number 31. Sandwaking County where Gay and Bob lived in 78 was one of the Californian counties that didn't file any cases against Joseph to Angelo. And when Gay went down there to ask the district attorney's office why they did not present any cases when Angelo was arrested. They told her that Gay's case lacked legal nexus. Bob being a literal lawyer knew that that was just a legal nonsense term for we have no fucking idea. Combined with that seems like I would actually have to do my job and I don't want to. It was clear to Gay that the Sandwaking DA's office was not going to be any help to her. And it was also clear to Bob that Gay was not going to let this go. Gay rightly felt that her voice was just as important as any other victims. Even though there was no charge connected to her shattering trauma. I understand where Gay is coming from. She is in most documentaries, most interviews, most courtroom press. It's gay who's at the front of the sort of like the victims whose cases didn't make charge. And for her she's just like why does that mean my road ends here when all of these other people are going to get their day and like are going to be able to face him and I'm not allowed. I can't do that because my case didn't make it. Yeah, absolutely. And there's so many things she wanted to know as well, which again she's not going to get the answers to. I mean she might not get the answers anyway but she's definitely not going to get her answers if she isn't included in this legal proceeding that's going to take place against DiAngelo because Gay wanted to know how long he had been watching her, why she was chosen and why DiAngelo picked that day to break into her house and change her and Bob's lives forever. It was Gay Hardwick who led the charging compiling the list of crimes that DiAngelo was not being charged with but that the victims wanted him to confess to in exchange for escaping the death penalty. As we told you last week an actual trial was essentially off the table, DiAngelo just wouldn't live long enough to see one through. So if any justice was to be served it would need to be fast and plea deals are the quickest way to get someone out of jail and into a proper prison. Gay was closely supported by a woman named Phyllis Henneman, victim number one, who was dying of liver cancer by the time death penalty negotiations began. Eventually after months of back and forth between the defence, the prosecution and the victims that Michelle McNamara had christened the sisterhood of shadows an agreement was reached. The death penalty which in California is via lethal injection was taken off the table. In exchange for a guilty plea on all counts and admission of guilt to crimes collated by the victims that couldn't be charged due to the 70 statutes of limitations but Gay doesn't know that when she first goes to the district to turn his office she thinks everyone's going to trial bar her basically. Let's take a brief detail though into how lethal injection works and how humane it really is. I think there is possibly, I think the understanding is that the prison and it just sort of goes to sleep and therefore it's the most humane. Execution, modality. Is that the right word, method? Yeah, execution method out there. It categorically isn't like quite juxtaposingly. It's firing squad. That's how I would want to go out fastest. Anyway, this is how it works. In the most common protocol in the 27 states that still uphold capital punishment for criminals, there are three separate injections. The first is an anaesthetic. The second is a paralytic, and the final one is a heart stopper. And since sodium theopental became impossible to get hold of after you're abandoned, Medizolam is now the anaesthetic of choice. Medizolam is not as effective as sodium theopental in inducing unconsciousness. But because of the paralytic administered next, it's quite hard to know that for sure on death row. It is a known medical fact that even the much smaller doses of Medizolam administered in a clinical setting can be very painful for the patient. It's not a pain relieving drug. It's a sedative that cannot block pain on its own. Therefore, even though courts have ruled that the drug sufficiently shields the inmate from pain and is therefore not unconstitutional, there is actually no guarantee that a prisoner administered. The lethal injection as it currently stands will have a painless death. Hi, I'm Elizabeth Dutton. And I'm Elizabeth Dutton. No, wait, sorry. Zaren, do you want to say your name? No, I'm good, go ahead. We're the hosts of ridiculous crime. People love true crime, right? The mystery, the intrigue, the human frailty? Totally. But what a lot of us don't like is the blood and the guts and the mayhem. Well, wait, wait, wait, wait. Some of us do like the mayhem. OK, but let's be real. There's nothing funny about murder. OK, that's right. Our show gives you stories like the kidnapping of Frank Sinatra, Jr. and the Max Headroom's signal hijacking. Oh, so you mean ridiculous stories like the UK cat shaver and Pablo Escobar's cocaine hippos? Yeah, stories like the dudes who stole Buzzy, the animatronic, whatever he was from Disney World. And the woman whose husband tried to kill her, but came back from the dead and surprised him at her own funeral. Yeah, that does sound good. You can find this podcast, Ridiculous Crime, all over the place. The I Heart Radio app, the Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. I don't know how you live. Ridiculous crime. Joseph DiAngelo escaped this fate when he agreed to plead guilty to 13 counts of first degree murder and 13 counts of kidnapping to commit robbery. Phyllis Hanuman watched his plea from her hospital bed via video link. The plea hearing came on the 19th of June 2020 in the very same college ballroom where Joseph DiAngelo had received his criminal justice degree. Beautifully ironic, isn't it? Naturally, the year brought with it its own complications, but despite social distancing guidelines, 87 people from 11 different Californian counties were admitted to the hearing to watch him attest to his insurmountable guilt. Joseph DiAngelo was a hefty guy when he was arrested. But in the last 18 months, he had shifted so much weight that he looked like skeletal by ballroom time. You must have seen the videos. Oh yeah. He looks like he's on his way out. Yeah. DiAngelo sat totally unrecognizable in a wheelchair, wearing a full face plastic germ shield, as he awaited his fate. He stared off into the distance, unfocused, seemingly not paying any attention at all. As DiAngelo was held in the Sacramento County jail, he refused basically all food and lost about a hundred pounds. There was never a man alive who was trying harder to die. So although I can sympathize with the gut-wrenching dilemma of the victims who wanted their day in court and for DiAngelo to be held truly accountable, I do think I agree that he absolutely wasn't going to make it to trial. He had literally no incentive to stay alive. Especially a trial with that many counts against him. We're talking months and months and months and months, and it's just not going to happen. Yeah. Years. It would have taken years, because there's over a hundred witnesses. It would have taken about five years to get it all together, not-- Oh, yeah, you're right. I mean, the trial would go on for weeks. But all right, before we even get to trial, it's going to take years. Yeah. It's just, it's not going to happen. He's going to die. He has absolutely no interest in sticking around. And I actually think keeping him alive for 18 months is quite impressive, especially during COVID. Yeah, man, like-- I mean, he was in solitary, but I just think 18 months is quite a long time to stay alive if you're not eating at all. Yeah. So maybe they had to force feed him. I don't know. That's absolutely-- I don't know. But yeah, he drops, like, a hundred pounds. Anyway, as everyone sat socially distanced apart, and he's on this, like, little stage, a transcript of his interrogation matterings was read out to the ballroom. And we gave you some of that last week, but here's a quote that sums it all up. I didn't want to do these things. I pushed Jerry out, and I had a happy life. As the prosecution read out the charges and the list of crimes that he couldn't legally be charged with, the victims stood as their names were read, and almost all of them stood on behalf of Phyllis. When the prosecution read a quote from a police report that confirmed the assailant had a tiny penis, Jane Carson Sandler, number 20, stood up grinning and gave the whole room a very gleeful thumbs up. And then when faced with the crimes, he wasn't legally held accountable for. The Angela just sat there in his pretend wheelchair, staring at the mic in front of him. All he says, he just says, I admit, in, like, a thin, reedy voice. He doesn't even focus his eyes. It's like-- apparently, I read that-- someone on his defense team who was obviously now, like, spilled the-- spilled the bean ears, said that she only saw him focus once. And it was the end of one of the three days of the hearing. And some of the press are like lingering behind. And she was like, he completely snapped out of it. And he was like, I can still see them. And that was it. The rest of the time, he's just completely-- no one's home. But there is. Yeah, because this is the thing, like, I obviously followed this in as much as, like, I obviously saw clips of it and things like that. But like, he obviously looks like shit. But how much of this is, like, he's genuinely sick and about to die. And how much of this is just like, he's just disassociated. Or he's just like, fuck you all. I'm not going to take part in this. I'm not going to engage. I'm just waiting to die. Like, how much of it is just like? How much is it that he is at home versus he's checked out? I think that I don't think he is checked out. I also don't think he's on well. I think he's doing the same thing that he was doing sort of in the second half of his career of terror crimes when he starts crying a bit and starts looking like a mask is slipping. I think he's just trying to make himself look a bit better. Like, he knows he's not going in sanity plea at this point because he's pleaded, right? He knows that's not happening. But I think he does it anyway to make himself look less hideous. And I also, I do think you're right. I think there is an element of like, I'm not engaging in this. I'll do what I have to do. But he, yeah, he'll, he does, he does speak later on. And I think what he says is very telling as to like, what he's actually doing. OK, interesting. So yeah, I'll wait to see what he says later on. Because like I said, I really don't know this case that well. But it is interesting up until now what's going on with the early like proceedings of what's going on against him. How different he is to other serial killers. Now, obviously it's very different circumstances. He's caught in his seventies like it's a very different scenario. But like usually we see that if they go to trial like if they if they are caught, then of course they might still plead like not guilty. But they like like the the big bombastic showmanship of it. They love the attention. They love like being center of it. Like even I'm going to testify on my own behalf, et cetera, et cetera, even though you don't have to. Whereas with him, it's just like this. Yeah, I'm just not going to say anything. I'm not going to not going to engage with any of this. Yeah, it's interesting. So anyway, the list that they read out to which DeAngelo said I admit wasn't just a reeling off of offenses. The descriptions were filled with saucer stacking corridor creeping forced masturbation through shoelace bound hands. The girl he raped so forcefully that she swallowed her own teeth. And also the execution style gunshots to the back of some of his victim's heads. I think that is one of the very small, no, not small. It's one of the virtues of these cases that can't be criminally charged, right? That means that when they're read out in court, they don't have to be legally worded. It doesn't have to just be like breaking and entering kidnapping, like dispose of all of a human body. It doesn't have to be those things that can be real, like emotive stories. So this plea hearing took three days and was attended by DeAngelo's rape victims who had to take part in a lottery to actually be in the room. 54 of them told their tales in victim impact statements, not just of the attacks that they had suffered, but how it changed them forever. For the worse, the impact statements are full of shame, shattered self-image, alcoholism, and psych ward stays. And also the haunting words I woke up knowing I would never be a child again. Jane Carson Sandler's turn to say her piece. She gave special thanks to her friend, who stood right beside her, looking Joseph DiAngelo right in the eye. It was Bonnie Ultson. Joseph DiAngelo's former fiance. Bonnie didn't speak, but she did take off her COVID mask, so DiAngelo could look her straight in the face. Jane did all the talking. She told Joseph to Angelo that Bonnie was not to blame for anything, and that even with a gun in her face, she didn't choose him. Bonnie might not have said anything, but she didn't need to. Staring him down was more than enough. How brave is that? Like, especially when the press have been saying the woman who started it all, like the rejection that, like, made a murderer, and she goes down there and she faces him. Now throughout this hearing, not a single male victim was present in the ballroom, even though there were 19 on the list of admissions. Not even the most vocal so far, Victor Hayes. Victor and Bob Hardwick are the only two that we could find that ever spoke openly about what happened to them at the hands of Joseph DiAngelo. Bob Hardwick is very open about the fact that we're not for gay. He never would have come forward. He says this quite like openly. Like, Victor Hayes never goes to therapy. He never dresses it in any sort of traditional trauma-handling way. He just talks about it, says he wants his day, and that's it. And Bob goes to marriage counseling with gay, right? But he says in the HBO documentary, he was like, I'll come and do this for you, but I'm not going on my own to talk to a therapist about this. Yeah, it's tricky. It's a really, I mean, like all of the female victims have spoken about that they felt so much shame off the back of this because of how society had made them feel. And we've obviously spoken at length about the horrific way in which the media treated Bonnie as if she was somehow to blame for what DiAngelo chose to do. But obviously here there's also, again, 19 men who society did a number on that made them feel like they couldn't even go forward to speak to a therapist, let alone come to the hearing and speak publicly about the horrific things that were brought upon them when that man broke into their houses. Yeah, it's just a sad reflection of everything, really, isn't it? In the man in the window podcast series made by the LA Times, Victor Hayes is interviewed extensively and is very emotive. When discussing the charges or lack thereof of the East Area rapist, he mentioned that some people have told him to basically just get over it, saying things like, the man's going to die in prison, why do you care about the specifics of the charges? And Victor Hayes has always wanted his day in court, but he didn't get it. And he didn't even go. I think that's really interesting. Victor has told many press outlets that he wants someone to be held accountable. And I think that's because he's always held himself accountable for what happened to his girlfriend, Ronda, that night. And he just desperately wants to take him off him, I think. So I think Victor Hayes is one of, actually, I'm going to answer my own question. I think he doesn't go to the plea hearing because he wanted a proper trial. And that didn't happen. Victor Hayes was only 21 when Joseph to Angelo broke into his house, tied him up, balanced crockery and assault shaker on his back and then raped his 90-year-old girlfriend in the next room. And I don't particularly like the term man's man, but I don't really know how else to describe Victor Hayes. If you ask him, so who he is, he says, I'm American. I like good looking horses, good looking women, good looking bikes and good looking cars. And he's got this moustache. And like, I just like, I just like him. Like he just seems like a, like a good laugh, you know. After Angelo left Victor's home that night in October 1977, he went outside to check that the East Area rapist had actually left. And he found that his phone line had been cut. So Victor had to go next door to call the police. When the police arrived, they weren't even flashing their car lights. That is how unseriously home invasion rates were taken at the time. After Victor was questioned inside that same police car, he went back inside his house to find crime scene technicians dusting for prints. And they were laughing at him. Victor never told the police about the threat to his mother. He didn't need to add the shame of another woman he couldn't protect in his unsamountable accountability rock sack. Jesus Christ. The police are laughing at Victor because someone broke into the house and raped his girlfriend while he was there. Criminalists, but technically, yeah. Yeah, that's disgusting. It runs so deep. The police report taken that night was riddled with careless falsehoods, like Victor not owning a phone, not knowing the address of his job, which isn't true. And writing down the make of his car wrong. It's all so sloppy, like it's just completely all over the place and even more evidence that this just wasn't taken seriously at all when it came to the women or the men. As we told you in one of the last few episodes, the men who were targeted by Joseph DiAngelo were not even recorded as victims by your enforcement, simply as witnesses. When DiAngelo started to target couples, the men were a whole other kind of victim, but they were not contacted by police past their initial statements. And it's exactly what you said a couple of weeks ago, like he brings out like the most primal fear in both men and women and he does it simultaneously. Exactly. And that's that's what's giving him the biggest, the biggest thrill. No one is safe. That's the feeling that we've you know, picked up on with DiAngelo from the very start is he wants to remove any feeling of safety that anyone might have had even down to like, you know, what we were saying about. It's like why he carries out attacks on opposite ends of the state like back to back overnight because he doesn't want anyone to think that they're safe. And yeah, it all plays into that alpha like apex. I'm the top dog predator as well because, you know, terrifying women is one thing, but also terrifying and victimizing men. Of course, it's adding to his like list of trophies in his mind. But coming back to our victims, when is that cremato county detective attempted to start a support group for male victims? No one showed up. And again, I'm not entirely surprised. At no point during the East Area rapist investigations with a male victims made to feel safe or heard. So why would they trust the sheriff's department with their vulnerability when they felt ridiculed and shamed? Bob Hardwick is a bit less like. Corsely vocal than Victor. He doesn't make his many threats etc. But he does feel the same. In the days after DiAngelo raped Gabe, Bob couldn't stop thinking, if he comes back, I will have to kill him. And Victor Hayes crouched behind his unlocked back door with a pile of loaded firearms in the dark. If DiAngelo had come back, he would have killed him and then he would be absolved. His status as a man would be restored. And let's talk. I know we sort of touched on this the other week. I wonder if the definition of masculinity since the 70s has shifted slightly. In a lot of the literature in reading, the sort of like the masculine man in the 70s, quite a big of that identity is about protecting women. And I'm not sure that that's still true in the same like percentage like percentage of pie chart that makes up masculinity in it's like not purest form. In the strongest way we experience it today, like I don't think that men drive fast cars to impress women. It's for other men. Someone I was talking about the sea of the day, someone sort of made the comparison to let all women dress for other women. And I don't I think maybe that's half true. But I at the end of the day, it's about attracting attracting attention like it's like core. Yeah, I don't know. I think you hear so many takes on this. I really don't know what the answer is. I think like, you know, people are always like, why do women spend so much money getting their nails done and their makeup done and things like that. It's for the girls and the gaze because guys don't really notice. And yeah, I guess like a lot of my guy friends, including my husband, they probably wouldn't notice if I did any of those things. So maybe it is that intersex competition rather than um, overtly for men. I don't know. But yeah, I think I think it's safe to say that masculinity has shifted from the 70s to now. And but in terms of has it changed on a biologically hard wired level, I don't know. I think that's too deeply ingrained. So while it may not be as front of mind for some men, particularly like urban dwellers to think about protecting women to be the top of the list, I still do think it is very, very deeply ingrained in men. And if you know, I've had multiple conversations with my female friends, we're like, no, my husband should protect me. That is like top number one role in his life. I don't know why that conversation came out. But yes, like as a protector, as a provider, as like the man of the house. Yes, I would say, even if people don't admit it, I think it's still deeply ingrained in our lizard brains that that's the fundamental role. I agree with you there, but I think only if you're married or like if you're in a serious relationship, I think what has shifted and is definitely more more present and we all read about it all the time. And yes, it is only like a reasonably small percentage, but the subjugation of women is a lot more vocally expressed rather than the protection of women when we're looking at like the manosphere, for example, like that's like those men aren't saying my masculinity is defined by protecting women. It's by how many people can I sleep with and How can I make money out of them and how can I subjugate them and I don't don't think that in the 70s. - But I don't think that's the majority of men. I think the majority of men probably still feel like protecting a woman is like, and I don't even think it's the marriage thing because there was like a study I was reading about like if a man was drowning or a woman was drowning or the people that was surveyed, the men were like, I would save a woman but I wouldn't necessarily jump in to save a man who was drowning because it's like this thing of like protecting women. And I do still think that's there. Of course the man I swear people exist and that's like a whole other ilk of like sad things that have transpired in the modern world. But I think. - But that's what kind of what I mean though, I think that's what the shift is. In terms of like the definition of masculinity in the strongest form and the form that we see in media the most. I think that is a big shift. - I don't know. I don't think I've thought enough about it. I think those men exist and they exist on the fringes but I would say they are the fringes. I think most people who are going about their lives interacting with men, women, especially romantic interactions. I think most people still probably have quite traditional mindset about what a man's role is rather than like what the media is portraying or like what's being pushed on social media is what I think from my experiences with people. - I think what I am very aware of though is that men categorize women into different sections. That's true. And those women are treated differently in the group chat or just like, I mean, they're treated differently by men for stop, but they are spoken about differently depending on which category you fall into as a woman. And I think that, yes, I think I agree with you that the like traditional mindset is still very sort of ingrained biologically, but I've also heard people I have held in very sour steam speak about women absolutely disgustingly. So I, you know, it's all, oh, and I can't deny that. I think in terms of like women categorizing women, up for sure that happens, but I think that it would be false to say that women don't also categorize men in the same way because we're all looking for like, what is it I'm looking for in a part and I does this person serve that. And again, I'm saying this is maybe the fringes of the way in which women behave because I don't think this is how all of them, but like, you know, the whole like six foot six pack, six figures like that's what I'm looking for, like categorizing men into like, who's like a potential marryable spouse versus like who's just like nothing. Like I think men and women, everyone categorizes people, especially when it comes to romantic endeavors. And yeah, I think it's partly just the human, the human condition, is it not? Yes, but the women do less rapes. Like I think, and I'm not like, I'm really, I'm not saying that flippantly. I think the women who are negatively categorized in general by men are much more likely to be victims of sexual violence than the men who are categorized by women. Of course, I'm not denying that, but I think it's like it's not like that men are doing it and there's a fundamental problem there. Of course, when it happens, it is a man, but it's the specific men that are doing it that are the problem. And yeah, I think that's an important thing to keep in mind as well. It's not everyone is perpetrating at a low level. It's there is a small group, there is a massive problem group that are perpetrating against multiple women that end up being victimized by them. I just don't think it's that small. I don't think it is a small enough group for it to be like, okay, well, no problem then. It's just a small group of them. I think it is, is, I'm not saying it's no problem. I'm saying there's a small group. I mean, we're not going to say, oh, men are rapists were saying within men, and when it is rape committed, it is men. There is a group within them who are committing the crimes. And that's what I mean. Maybe it's not one enough, like how many men are rapists, like how many men are convicted of rape in this country? We're talking about actually sitting on the end of the spectrum where you're committing physical violence against women and damaging them in that way. It's obviously, it's a small group of men that are committing mass numbers of those kind of victims in their trail, not that the majority of men are committing to a low level of offense. I mean, just from the data and the cities, I can't believe that we live in a society where majority of men are the problem, 'cause that's just, that wouldn't make sense, like our society would be something else if that were the case, would it not? I'm not saying majority, but I think it is a larger number than anyone actually wants to admit. And I think that the sort of parameters of what the majority of people understand to be rape is very narrow and not everything gets leads to a conviction that's actually quite rare. In terms of like charges. So I just, I don't think I can say majority. I just, I think there are a lot more people out there acting in a way that they don't believe to be criminal that absolutely is. And I've met them and they talk about it like it's nothing. I guess, you know, it's hard to know. I feel like, yeah, everyone goes off their life experiences and they're encounters. And yeah, again, yeah, I would go nowhere near saying the majority and I suppose I haven't been subject to those kind of conversations if I'm honest. And look, that's not me saying that I don't think there's a problem with sexual assault and violence against women, obviously there is. Sadly, there will always be predatory males and society should be protecting women and children from them. I think that is one of like the most fundamental roles that our government should be playing. And I'm not even a fan of the government being involved in every aspect of our lives, of course not. But if there's one thing I think the government should be doing, it is absolutely safeguarding and protecting women and children from predatory males. So all I'm saying is that yes, absolutely huge issues exist and continue to exist. Including, in my opinion, the pornification of society which is leading absolutely to more young boys objectifying women and girls. And you're seeing that directly in the inquiry sadly and I've talked about this before, of like child on child sexual assault in schools. That is on the rise. But I think ultimately at the end of the day if you come to it, my point is also that the solution to all these problems is to engage boys in men more. And I'm not talking about people like the Golden State killer, like DeAngelo, he was always probably gonna do what he was gonna do. There was no amount of education that we could have done to stop him doing what he did. But for everyone else who exists somewhere less or on that spectrum which is what you've been talking about as well, Hannah, is I think we can't alienate them. Like whether we like it or not, men are 50% of the population of society and therefore we have to engage not alienate. And I know that's not what you're saying, but I think, yeah, it's a tricky conversation. And I think that increasingly there's this sort of like wedge being driven between men and women coming from the Manosphere and coming from people who are commentating like generalizations about men and boys. I don't think it's helpful. But yeah, it's a tricky one, hot take, right? So, the 29 recorded male victims of Joseph DeAngelo, they likely are more, don't see their experiences trauma. They see it as failure. Bob Hardwick, as I said, refused to go to therapy. He doggedly supports gay and does whatever she needs him to, but he will not go to therapy on his own. And here's a quote from him. I went through trauma where I'm sure I'm still probably going through trauma, but I'm not going to let it affect me, but quite obviously it is. And I've seen, I've been thinking a lot about a manipulation still, I can't stop. And I've read a lot of varying things. I've seen a manipulation being described as removing a man from his right to exist. And I'm struggling with that. Because what, I just don't really know what that means. How can you remove someone's right to exist, apart from killing them, obviously? I mean, I don't, I don't know what that quote means. I guess, I don't know. I just think it would be disingenuous for us to say like, or to brush aside a manipulation as like, I think I know that's not what you're saying. You're saying you don't understand why. It's such a big deal to men to feel immasculated. But I think it again comes back to that biological drive, like we are biological creatures that have been hardwired over millions and millions of years to perform certain functions. And for men, that role has been, and if there are men listening who disagree, to be provided, to be a protector, to be someone who is seen to be the larger of the two in a heterosexual relationship, the protector. Like, that is just, it would be laughable to deny. That is not rooted in biology for men. It obviously is. So when that is stripped away from them in cases like this, of course, is going to lead to a destruction of identity or a feeling of destruction of identity that is going to cause a massive, massive black hole in their psyche. Like, it just feels like it makes sense on the most base level to me about why it would be so traumatic to a man to feel like the one thing I was meant to do, I wasn't able to do. And I failed categorically in doing that. Yes, I wonder whether I think maybe I also am struggling this with this because, like, I've never been someone who's like, really wanted children, like, I've just never really thought about it in that way. So perhaps I'm struggling so much to think about the male equivalent because I've never, have never been faced with it. Yeah, I know, the female equivalent. And I've thought about that when we spoke about a masculine before, because you're right. And I didn't want to bring it up because I know it can be triggering to some women, but you're right. Like, for a lot of women who face infertility issues or struggle to get pregnant, the reason it can be such a black hole of identity like such a crushing blow to them. As a woman, again, this narrative you hear and you read on all of the end of forums and all of that is like, the thing I was meant to do, I cannot do, the thing my body was supposed to do, which was to grow our family, to provide my partner and myself with a child, I cannot do. And I feel like a failure, the self-hatred that women who face infertility have around like, my body has failed me, the thing it was meant to do, I can't do and I feel less of a woman because of it and I will never have that experience of carrying a child, breastfeeding, all of those things that speak to your very essence as a woman. Again, not to every woman, of course, but to some women who feel that's very important and they're the only ones that can do it. I think is the best equipment seen. It feels like these are the roles, the yin and yang that men and women play in a heterosexual relationship, protector, provider and fertility goddess and all of that and if those things are missing, then yes, of course, it doesn't affect every man or woman in the same way, but to those, it does, of course, it would feel like just taking a shotgun to who you are. Interesting. Yeah, I think that is probably the closest. It's just there are less murders and rapes because of that and I think that's the. But again, it's because women don't show their anger in that way. And I think, you know, I was thinking about it before, is there no equivalency to a masculine woman? I think, yes, but it feels like it's. if we take away the fertility argument, it's more about like if a woman is not perceived as attractive or desirable or she's aged herself out of like, you know, gone past her like maiden era in which like she's deemed as attractive by men in society, then it's this irrelevancy that women have, whereas men's emasculation is, we see as this like put down in that way, that if women are seen as irrelevant because they're not seen as sexually attractive or just feminine enough or cute enough or pretty enough or beautiful enough or, you know, just the right level of like coquettish flirtishness enough, then she's deemed as irrelevant. And I think the violence shows itself because of the biological differences between men and women, like men will externalize and again, this is speaking in generalization, externalize their rage, whereas women tend to internalize their rage into self-hatred and self-deprecation and low self-esteem, whereas men will come out in anger and violence. And again, that is because of hormones and biological realities that have existed for millions of years. So I think, yes, we can say both sexes can be negatively affected by society, by expectations of society, by who is deemed relevant, who is deemed like a valuable mate and who is deemed like thrown on the scrap people of like, you're a, you know, emasculated man or you're an unattractive, you know, woman, and therefore you're irrelevant. But they're the way in which that rage in that person might manifest itself is just going to be different because of the way our brains work, I think. Yeah, I think I agree, there just isn't a word. No, I guess, yeah, no one would be like defeminization, just if society doesn't deem you as being conventionally attractive or lost worthy or like placing you in some category that makes you a valuable woman, for example, in the same way that men can end up feeling that way. Yeah, I think it just comes down to how, how those feelings manifest in that individual. Well, we'll never find out because I don't have any feelings. So a victor and Bob had attended. They would have heard from the women in Joseph DeAngelo's family. Alongside the victim statements, DeAngelo's family were also allowed to say their peace. His sister wrote the judge a letter saying that she blamed their father, an abusive womanizing career man for sending her brother around the bend. His family also claimed that when they lived in Germany as children, DeAngelo witnessed his sister being raped by two German airmen on a base, and who knows, maybe he did. DeAngelo's niece wrote the victims saying quote, "I can't imagine what you've been through. I don't know that man. I know my uncle Joe, who I love clearly." I don't know her name, right? But I can think of a billion people who this is about before you, Joseph DeAngelo's niece. Like you didn't need to write that actually. Why did that need to be written? Why the fuck did that need to be written? Who cares? Like his daughters, I kind of understand. But like her, I was like, I just don't get it, like write a letter to the judge if you so wish, right? Sure. Like his sister saying, you know, our dad was an abusive piece of shit. He saw some horrible stuff when he was growing up. But again, I'm like, he's already in his 70s. Like what are they going to do to him? They're just going to put him in prison and like give him health care and like try feed him until he dies. What are they going to do? Life without parole. Like boo, who? Like what are they asking for? But like why do they need to come out and say victim impact statements or like not victim impact statements? But like come out and even speak at this hearing? Like address the victims directly, yeah. And for that's where I don't know that man. I don't care who you know. It's the fuck. This is quite literally nothing to do with you. That is the, that is so bizarre why any woman would want to do this and why this was fucking allowed. I'm just baffled, honestly. And the angelos daughters also wrote to the court clerk describing him as a doting father who worked long past retirement to put all three of them through college, making each one of them a better person in the process. Their statements are very long, their letters are very long, but this is the general just. I've saved you. It's like pages and pages and pages of exactly the same thing. So if we just get this paragraph out the way we'll have the whole idea. Perfect. Right. Here we go. Strap in. My dad, Joseph James DeAngelo, has made me and my daughter the happiest in our lives. Which is why today with him gone we are the saddest. My dad was always there for me when I was sad and would always rejoice and give praise when I accomplished anything. My father has made me a better person, a successful person, able to contribute to society and help others in need in the community. My dad taught me how to appreciate life and never take things for granted. I cannot begin to express how much of a loss my daughter and I are experiencing right now without him present in our lives. I don't care about your loss. I really don't. What is, what is the, what do you want from this? Like what are you trying to get in? I don't understand why this is happening like okay look nobody is saying that for the families of fucking serial killers it is not a traumatic thing to go through to have your father outed as a serial rapist and murderer. I cannot think, I cannot think how fucking traumatising that would be, how much of a betrayal that would be, how much of a destruction of like your entire life and every reality you've ever known that would be. I mean talk about identity imagine finding out you've been married to fucking Jodi Angelo and you didn't know. And imagine finding out half your fucking DNA belongs to the fucking Golden State killer. Like I cannot imagine what that means and please go get help. You need to also be included in like victim support, like you need to go get therapy, go do all of that stuff like God bless you know. But fuck why why feel the need to address the victims directly with your fucking bullshit about how much of a loss it is that he's been taken from your life. He's been taken from your life because of choices that he made. This is bonkers. I don't know, I don't know, it's it's it's like an unremantic hybristophilia that this family of women seem to have for him. Hmm. That's an interesting way of putting it. Is it hybristophilia though if you don't know he's a criminal? Yeah. I guess it's like after you found out like what are you still? Oh yeah, it's completely not hybristophilia like that's that's wrong. But I mean like they seem to have such like rose tinted glasses for him and like, oh he may have done all of these things because they don't even seem to be like saying that it's impossible that he did these things. They're like saying he may have done those things but like he was really good to us. Like so I suppose that in in a way that is quite hybristophilia in the sort of the women who are like, oh, but you should see how he is with me. Oh yeah. And again, this comes back to what we were talking about earlier. I think it comes down to like we've spoken about hybristophilia before this feeling of like, oh yeah, like other women are unlike me. So he might hurt them but never me. I'm the special one. I'm the ultimate you know, they're like the goddess in his life. And maybe there's a touch of that there like maybe and again, I really don't want to slander this family. No, I think they're they're just trying to work backwards on there just trying to process it themselves. But you know, this was a bad move. Yeah. Yeah, I think I think we we're fair and saying that right. This is a not a great look. It feels unnecessary. I don't know. I don't know why this happened. Like a therapist, if they were dealing with a therapist with a therapist have told them this was a good idea. I don't know. Maybe. I think a therapist might have said, right, the letter don't send it. Yeah. I think that's very sound advice. Much better advice. Because what they're doing here is sort of essentially it feels like presenting the victims with a like look what I have lost because of you. And that is fucked like that is an inside thought. It's very yeah. Let's all use our inside thoughts and not put them to paper in front of victims but then to paper burn it or post it to the North Pole I've done that before. Anyway, when it comes to sort of family, it is really hard not to draw parallels between Joseph D'Angelo and BTK, who stopped killing once he settled down and had kids. But that's not quite the case with Joseph James D'Angelo. If you refer to your handy timeline, which is still in the source list, it's at the top. You'll see that his first daughter was born in 1981, just after he murdered Sherry D'Amingo and Greg Sanchez. And then he did go silent for years until Janelle Cruz in 1986 and 1981 to 1986 is a fat gap and after Janelle he never killed again. His second daughter was born the November the same year as he killed Janelle and then there was another daughter who was born in 1989. So you could argue, right? He has one baby just after he's done his double homicide. And then he has a big gap, then he kills again and then he has another baby very shortly after that and then he stops and there's another baby a few years later. So maybe you could argue that it was happiness that stopped him from killing, but I think I have to disagree. It's having daughters that definitely changes something in D'Angelo that getting married couldn't because he married lawyer Sharon in 1973. He hadn't even killed Claude Snelling by then. His first sort of accidental kill that hadn't even happened when he married her. So all of his murders and the vast expanse of the rape that D'Angelo carried out happened while he was married. So it's having children that seriously clamps the brakes on him and then he stops completely. It's interesting and again, I don't know. I don't know what his real reason was for this like sleep deprivation, too many demands at home. He can't sneak out enough. It doesn't feel like the kind of things that would stop a man like D'Angelo. But I have read something quite interesting recently about how when a man has a baby, his testosterone falls off a fucking cliff and it can take upwards of a year, maybe more to like come back to recover and the reason that happens is so that the man doesn't accidentally kill his baby or on purpose kill his baby like through, you know, frustration or anything like that basically like mellows them out so that the baby isn't less imminent danger during those first two years. Could that play a role in it? Who knows? I don't know. But again, it is a trend that we tend to see with serial killers who have who have families like BTK, but like what's the real reason? I don't know. I don't know. I don't think we'll ever know. I've got a theory. We'll get there. But I think we can say that he would have started to value females in a way that he hadn't before and he, I do think he believed that women only sort of existed in relation to him and I think that changed when he started having girls. And for people who think that way, like women just don't exist intrinsically only in relation to men. So it's kind of maybe not specifically wondrous that there isn't an equivalent like female version of the word emasculation because you can't really erase what was never there. Like it's, I don't think the discussion of femininity as a concept is as frequently as it is spoken about now is a new thing. Yeah. And BTK's daughter, Carrie, wrote that her father was both good and bad and we'll never know which version of him was really the pretend version and which one was the quote unquote real version. This is the trap I think that many people fall into because it does seem impossible to square these two ideals that all of these people believe the opposite of the same person to be true. We find that hard to get our heads around but that's because we're not Joseph to Angela. Like we shouldn't be able to understand how that works and that's why it feels so baffling and I think that's why people fall into this kind of trap of like well one of them was pretend and one of them wasn't they're the same person. It just he is capable of things that we aren't. And in other similarities between BTK and the Golden State Killer, BTK also had a criminal justice degree and like being in uniform and his daughters also adored him calling him their best friend. BTK also stopped his murderous rampage when he got married and had a family. It took the Angelo a bit longer than that. And there's also a lot of speculation about why the Angelo ended his nine year long serial crime spree. Some people claim that he never stopped at all but thank you probably did. His specific MO is just too uniquely recognizable to go unnoticed and he was so driven by impulse that he wouldn't have been able to rob rape or murder in any other way than the way he had been doing all along because for serial killers like that it's like perfecting something right. You're working towards something. You're working towards the ultimate like murderous enlightenment or like ultimate murderous like gratification, he wouldn't just have randomly chopped and changed his like methodology like for no reason because he wouldn't, he wouldn't have got the same satisfaction out of it. He would have had to keep working in an iterative way on what he was already doing. Yeah. I mean, I think it's just like being an addict like you have to stop all together. You can't just do it a bit. So I don't think that he would have continued in a way that was undetectable or that wouldn't have been wrung in because it would have been so specific. And also if people hadn't been attributing other crimes that he had committed during that time to him or it hadn't been feeding into the legend that he was creating of like ear, ear on golden state killer, whatever he was being called at that particular time. It would have also missed out a huge psychological drive for him, which is the fear that it was putting out into the community of people being scared of him. So what would be the point of laying low and like committing crimes that nobody knew were connected to you? That's the whole point of his crimes. Well, a big part of his crimes. I think that the actual reason, the golden state killer, the hysteria rapist night's stalker, actually called it quits, is a lot less noble than realizing that after he had daughters women weren't so bad, I think he just got too old. By the time he kills Janelle Cruz, he's 41. He can't be hopping over fences in the same way anymore. And like, you know, he does have ears of his life where he's quite slender, but for the most part of his adult life, he's a chunky guy. It's just got harder and harder to slip away, I think. Like I think he just got tired and like his knees probably started hurting. I think it genuinely is that boring. And the sexual drive goes like the, oh, like come on. Yeah. Of course. Like, on people have sex like cool, obviously sexual drive declines with age. In the majority of people. And so whether he was physically capable of like that physicality and the aggression that he needed to do it, like, I don't know. But maybe also the drive just went like the testosterone hits, post every child and then also just like the aging, like, maybe he just, it just wasn't there anymore or any. He was like, whatever. And also driving hundreds of miles, sometimes through the night when you've got three kids, it's just not the same thing. That's going to fuck your back up as well. Exactly. Speaking of slim times in his life, Wilde Angelo was waiting in between his arrest and his preliminary hearing. He was kept in solitary confinement for 18 months, while the prosecution and defense negotiated whether he was going to plea and then what it was going to be. And as we said, he refused almost all food and dropped an astonishing amount of weight. And when he was wheeled out into the hearing, he does look dazed and bleary eyed, like he doesn't really know what was going on. Jennifer Carroll, daughter of Lyman and Charlene Smith, they're the milk carton ones, who Angelo murdered in 1980, delivered a victim impact statement and told the press that when she came face to face with Angelo, she was disturbed by how normal he looked. But she knew that there was a monster in there desperately trying to get away with insanity. Let's have a look at that monster with forensic psychiatrist Dr. Raffles. Raffles the world biggest dog and Raffles the world's biggest psychiatrist Dr. Raffles. And he is, he's a pretty big dog because he has conducted over 5,000 psychiatric assessments over his 20 year career. And he reckons that Angelo is not some unique case, that there are actually some common psychiatric features displayed by serial killers, which include a lack of empathy for their victims, being the most obvious, and also impotence, paranoia, and sexual perversions also featuring very highly and very commonly. So are emotional discharges of an overtly sexual nature. But crucially, none of these things are indicative of insanity. A killer like Angelo, who took such care not to be caught, is not insane. I think this is really important. Like all of those things that you listed off like impotence, paranoia, all of those things can exist in people who aren't serial killers, sometimes often comorbidly in some cases. But I think that's the kind of the wrong way of looking at it. Like serial killers like Angelo are a tiny, tiny, tiny group of people who are just wired differently. So therefore, all of those things existing within their brain is a different thing. Yeah, it's like saying they serial killers eat, and that I must somehow be, like, conducive to do with something. Like, yeah, obviously. And obviously, like, there's, D'Angelo's not insane. That he's not fucking insane, like, whatever. Like, I'm currently writing a case that will be coming out after the trial is over. If you've been listening to us on Under the DuVay, we've spoken about it there. It's obviously the case of Lindsay Clancy. a woman who murdered her three children, Duxbury, Massachusetts, and is currently at the time of recording this on trial and is pleading not guilty by reason of insanity, though that's not what's called in Massachusetts. I know she's pleading not having criminal responsibility. And yes, that is a case in which you can make that argument because of what insanity means in a legal context. It doesn't fit for somebody like DeAngelo. And stay tuned for our probably two-parter on Lindsay Clancy coming very soon. So yes, a serial killer cannot be treated by a psychiatrist. That is not what psychiatry is for. And I think that's where people get confused is that like any sort of understanding of mental disorder, we usually look at it through a psychiatric lens because that's how the majority of the population would deal with something like that. But when it comes to DeAngelo, that's not what it's for. Like you can't use those words to describe someone like him because he's just not in the same category. No. Yes, a psychiatrist might be able to help him with some of the comorbidities that he is experiencing, but it's not going to cure him of wanting to be a serial killer. That is something that can't be done. So yes, there are those people, not Dr. Raffle, who argue that DeAngelo suffers with disassociative identity disorder, formerly known as split personality. DID is defined by the presence of at least two distinct personalities or altars accompanied by severe memory gaps or lost time. DID is only developed by people who experience sustained and severe trauma between the ages of five and 10, with altars usually developing by the age of six. Jenny Haynes is a story that we covered many, many moons ago, but is a really good tool to understand the condition. It's a really complex and controversial diagnosis and Joseph DeAngelo, despite his invention of Jerry, that forced him to rape and kill. Absolutely, he does not have it. I don't believe that for a second. I think what DeAngelo has is a very surface Hollywood level understanding of what DID is, and that's why I think he starts the crime. I think he like watches split or something and is like, "Oh, hang on, maybe I should try that." You know, I think he misunderstands what DID is and therefore attempts to replicate it in a way that sort of cleanses him a bit of some of his sins in the eyes of the people that he wants to see that, like some of his female victims and I believe also when he gets to his plea hearing. But he doesn't have DID for lots of reasons. The most important one being DID doesn't only happen at night, which is what people who argue that's what he has have to agree if that's the argument they're using. A person who actually suffers from DID can't hide it. It's not something that they can choose or something that would make holding down several different police jobs possible. Losing time in the middle of a stakeout or whilst on the prowl just isn't feasible and it wouldn't make covering your tracks very easy. How would one cover up a murder if you can't account for where you were in the first place? And schizophrenia is another diagnosis that is bandied about online when it comes to diagnosing diangelo. But again, that comes down to, I believe, a complete misunderstanding of what schizophrenia actually is. The same goes for psychosis, which again, I think there is a large misunderstanding of in most places you look. I think schizophrenia is often misidentified for DID, I think for lots of reasons. Psychosis, similarly, because of various media influences, there is this kind of understanding, not of understanding, sort of assumption that it is possible for someone who is deep in a psychosis to just go and start killing everyone with a knife in the middle of the night. No, like not in the way that we understand. So if we're going to talk about someone who is in actual psychosis, it can be brought about by loads of things, including substance abuse disorder, depression, like it can happen for a number of reasons. If that person is hearing a voice telling them to kill themselves or someone else, they wouldn't cover their tracks. Due to the cognitive impairments that they are facing, they just wouldn't be able to hide in the way that diangelo very demonstrably does. Absolutely, I think obviously in cases of psychosis that we've seen like covering tracks or something like that can definitely be questionable. I would say people can be in psychosis because it doesn't have to necessarily be like a permanent state. You can slip in and out of psychotic breaks and so people might not necessarily-- Of course, yeah, it's not permanent. Immediately recognized that a person is suffering with psychosis because they might not always be in a psychotic state. And I think this is something that has come up in the Lindsay Clancy case that I'm currently researching and scripting is that people arguing-- and obviously, you know, it's day two of the trial that they were recording this. There's a lot of evidence to get through before I decide exactly what I think about it. But there's a lot of people already like, you know, she can't have been psychotic because she made a plan. She made a plan for what she was going to do. Whether she made a plan or not, again, wait and see. But there's a lot of psychiatrists I've listened to speaking about in my lab. You can be psychotic and still make a plan. The point is that your psychosis is not grounding you or allowing you to conform your thoughts to like what is rational and what is reasonable for like a person, like a reasonable person to be thinking. Like your thoughts are not grounded in logical reality. But it doesn't mean that you wouldn't have been able to make a plan, for example. Not necessarily to cover it up because that's not what she does. Make a plan to like get to do what she wants to do. And then also saying that, well, if she was psychotic, how did nobody realize? But again, they were saying she was having, and she could have absolutely been having psychotic breaks. But people may not have realized because it wasn't necessarily a permanent state in which she was living. So yeah, it's a very, very complicated world, especially when we get into the point of when we're talking about insanity and how that links to the law because insanity is a legal term, you know, despite what the Simpsons would show you, you don't go into a mental asylum and then get stamped, saying or not, saying when you leave. Insanity is not a psychiatric term. It is a legal term, not a medical one. It's a state that relieves a person of criminal responsibility or it can do. And yeah, like I said, a doctor would never use it and for various reasons. This just isn't really that widely understood. And I think the Lindsay Clancy trial is really showing the lack of understanding that not only the public, but seemingly even the justice system seems to have over psychosis, psychiatric conditions like this and severe mental health problems. But yeah, I'm not gonna go off on a tangent about that anymore. But yes, there's a lot to discuss when we get to that case. But Joseph DiAngelo, I think it's safe to say, is not insane. No matter how hard he tried to make it seem that way. His family yet again attempted to explain his sexual perversions by saying that he had witnessed his sister being raped by two German airmen when they lived on an airbase in Europe and she was just seven and maybe that was the thing that started his obsession with rape. And you know, perhaps like our brains are developing all sorts of sexual wires when we're young and they can get crossed depending on what we're exposed to. But it just doesn't absolve him of anything. It doesn't matter just because we can explain why someone's parapheralia developed doesn't mean that they're not responsible for the harm they have caused to other people. And I think it comes down to what we said last week, which is possibly not the like sexiest version of this. But Joseph DiAngelo did all of the unspeakable things he did because he wanted to. That's it. And he stopped because it was no longer complimentary to his lifestyle. He ended his rampage because it had just become a bit inconvenient. On the 21st of August 2020, Joseph DiAngelo was sentenced to 11 consecutive life terms without the possibility of parole for the 13 counts of murder. He was also handed an additional life term for 13 counts of kidnapping and 15 more life terms without parole and eight more years on top of that for weapon enhancements. So we can very safely say that Joseph DiAngelo will die in prison. Is he still alive? Buck. Oh, you bet. No way. I thought he was dead. No, I was also surprised. So yeah, he's still in prison. And he's only ever had this to say. And this is a quote. I've listened to all your statements. And I'm truly sorry to everyone I've hurt. Thank you, Your Honor. Cool. He never confesses to what he did in detail. He never explains why or how he picked his targets. And I think, yeah, much like the killer who refuses to disclose where the victim's bodies are buried, or give any sort of closure to victims, families, or anything like that. Yeah, it's the last piece of control he has left to ex-up, and he's going to do it. Because he knows people like Gay Hardwick are desperate to know why he picked them. And law enforcement are desperate to know how long he's staked out the houses for, and what the correlation was between the victims. He knows people have been obsessing about him for decades. So why would he give it to them? Absolutely. The only thing he continues to control is them not knowing. Yeah. And I think it's-- I can't remember who said it or what the quote was, but the essence was basically like why celebrities and actors shouldn't do too many interviews, because it removes the mystique around them. It gives away too much, too much of a peak behind the veil, now. ultimately makes them kind of like a bit boring and more mortal when they do too much and how they should actually just keep their mouth shut and like not be seen to speak too much in public. And it's kind of what DeAngelo is doing. He's like the myth making the legend around me survives and thrives the less I say. The more I just leave it up to everybody. - All he has left and he stood up to give this non-apology totally unaided in a stark contrast to the theatrics of fragility that he had been partaking in thus far. After the court was adjourned, the ball remorrupted into applause and the prosecution held a press conference. They didn't say much. Instead they showed CCTV footage taken from inside DeAngelo's solitary confinement cell in the Sacramento jail. And the video shows to Angelo who was confined to a wheelchair and a thousand yard stare during the hearing. Looks surprisingly spry. Climbing on the walls, he cleans the floor with a towel. He does this thing where people who've worked in bars will know this one. It's called the penguin. And like you just put a cloth under your foot and you sweep around like a D shape. And he does that in this perfectly smooth motion. He looks perfectly fucking fit. He does not look like the man who is sat on the stage being like I'm clinging to reality. And if you need further convincing, that all of DeAngelo's weight lost his gerry chat, his blank looks and his feeble voice were all a sympathy act. If you need more proof of that, here it is. In the footage, DeAngelo climbs onto his bed and he puts a towel over the harsh fluorescent light of the cell just like he had placed towels or blankets over the TVs in the living rooms of the women he had raped to soften the glare. He was exactly the same man at 74 as he had always been. I think that is a masterstroke by the prosecution. They've got nothing else to prove like it's over. But the lead prosecutor, she's like, I don't need to say anything. I'm just going to show you this. Number one, Phyllis Heneman died of liver cancer the following year. And Gay Hardwick received a written apology from the San Joaquin District Attorney's Office. Investigators Larry Crompton, who we've met a couple of times, like many others has written a book about his involvement in the Hunt for the Golden State Killer and they called that sudden terror. And in his book, he describes one of DeAngelo's rape victims, she's just called Kathy. I'm not even sure that's her real name, but anyway. When he described Kathy in his book, talks about her reliving the ultimate turn on in her police interview. And then he goes on to describe Kathy as unflattering and say that he felt sorry for her husband and her son. And then he also rates Kathy's looks against other victims. Before DeAngelo forced Kathy to perform oral sex on him, Kathy asked for a glass of water and that's in her police statement and Crompton thought that was very entitled to her and he writes that in black and white. And that's what it's all like. The 70s was an absolute boom time for serial rapists. Joseph to Angelo was far from the only one. Sacramento had at least four operational at the same time. And that's why it took over 30 victims of the East Area rapist to get any media attention. In the 70s, not only we know about the statute of limitations we talked about at a hundred times, but rape only carried a one year sentence. That's a conviction. And it didn't count as a violent crime. And only one in 16 rapes reported ended in conviction. 9,522 rapes were reported in California in 1976 alone. Only 537 suspects were charged and less than half of those were found guilty. Most of the ones who were did less than a year in County jail and 1 in 10 were released after trial directly onto probation. News reports described the East Area rapist as gentlemanly and victims were described as unharmed by journalists. A rape crisis center opened in the back of a feminist bookshop. A top detective in the police force told the media that the rape counsellors there were anti-male and there were all lesbians which unsurprisingly made for a quite hostile relationship with law enforcement. Another officer wondered whether Sacramento's rape problem was actually a backlash to the women's liberation movement. The sheriff's office directly blocked funding to the rape crisis center and refused to cooperate with them even when they were ordered by the state of California to do so. According to the San Jose Police Department, even investigating a rape was pointless unless the women knew her attacker. So I don't think I can overstate it like rape was just a part of life that women had to deal with an unsolvable problem that no police department or sheriff's office could even try and pick apart and that is why he was allowed to go on for so long. After mass protests in Sacramento specifically, in 1979 the California penal code changed and it made rape a grave bodily injury and that added a five year consecutive prison enhancement for anyone convicted of it. And these days, rape carries no statute of limitations but that was really hard one. So the Golden State Killer, after years of searching and sleuthing was finally behind bars. But this was very nearly not as watertight a conviction as you may think for two reasons. Firstly, this has given me nice words. Oh, firstly, the DNA problems that we discussed last week. Paul Holes, Barbara Aventa and the FBI knowingly went against the privacy regulations for paid for genealogy sites to track Joseph DeAngelo down. In original reports, the use of private databases was omitted and also the terms and conditions of such websites said that law enforcement could only access the information via a lawful request which roundly did not happen here. And is so skated over in the original FBI reports and the original press, they pretend it's all open source, freely available databases was absolutely fucking isn't. And it also shone a big light on genetic privacy and the self-policing methods of testing companies and law enforcement access. My heritage has since DeAngelo's capture revisited its policies and explicitly states that such investigations are prohibited. Most major genealogical database companies have also done the same thing. It's another classic case of legislation failing to keep up with dirty tricks. But also, why you haven't heard of another case being solved by Ancestry.com. If this had gone to trial, the DNA debacle could have cost them the whole thing. And Gay Hardwick agrees with me. She said, maybe I'm gullible or old-fashioned or whatever, I just see how this could have opened up the case to multiple appeals lasting the rest of our lives. Sherry Domingo's daughter Debbie disagrees, though. She's actually now a prison officer. She encourages people to give their DNA to law enforcement to help solve crimes, saying, laws weren't broken, that's not true. But practices were still bent. Still, investigation by nature, it has always tended to include a bit of deception. The truth is what's important. And sure, OK, this time the truth did set us free. But that's just not how legislation should work. It's really, yeah, terrifying. If it had gone to trial, I think he would have got off. And not just for this reason, there is another one. After Giangelo was arrested and taken into interrogation, he asked for a lawyer. And he was not allowed to call one for hours. That is illegal. Under the law, if a suspect asks for legal representation, you are not allowed to continue to question them. They don't do that. That could have blown this wide open. And the Sacramento Sheriff's Department, and also the two other homicide agencies that are called in to, like, put the moves on him, they get round this by saying that he asked for a lawyer while he's on his own in the room. So he's not directly asking them. It's like drawing his mutterings. But again, if it had gone to trial, that's fucking squeaky. And when his ex-wife Sharon refused to come and legally represent him, a public defender was left waiting on the pavement and refused entry to the station. Which would have caused major issues had this gone to trial. So we just have to thank the baby Jesus that it didn't. Because if it did, this series would be at least two episodes longer. Oh no. It's all what ifs in the reality in which we live. That is full of horrors. One of them is not. Where Joseph DiAngelo is. He is locked up in California State Prison. Somehow clinging to life. Why? That's my question. Well, wow. That's mad. If it had gone to trial, I think it would have been an absolute fucking shit show I think careers would have been ruined. I think nobody would know Paul Holzer's name. The fact is, that's not what happened. There will be no appeals. There will be no new trial. He will die in there. And we can all go back to sleep. The end. I wonder if his family visit him. He refuses to see them. His daughters have tried and he won't. Oh yeah. OK. Hasn't spoken to them since the day he was arrested. In 2018. But you're right. It's weirder that he's still alive. That's for long. What thought? Spite. It has to be. It has to be the longer I live, the longer it will take for my victims to be able to move on. Oh well, there you go. He's sat in his box in California. He sure is. With all his memories. And we can, at least, walk away from this now, walk away from this chapter of our lives, this chapter of Red Handed, after four very intense episodes that has probably given you all nightmares. But we're done now. We're through it. And we have prevailed. And we never have to talk about him again, which obviously we will. And because it's a very self-referencing show. But not today, enough for that. And yeah, thank you, guys. Self-referential semantic labyrinth, I think you may. Exactly. Now, thank you very much for listening. We've got lots more exciting episodes coming up very, very soon, of course, including our Lindsay Clancy episodes, which episode at the moment probably turned into episodes. Stay tuned for that. We will also be doing a two-parter on Courtney Bough-Bolhamu, who was, of course, the woman who cut the baby out of her own daughter's womb and left her to die in the woods. There's a lot of shit to get through. So yeah, we'll see you then for another episode. Goodbye. [BLANK_AUDIO]

Podcast Summary

Key Points:

  1. Joseph James DiAngelo, arrested in 2018 at age 72, pleaded guilty to 13 counts of first-degree murder and 13 counts of kidnapping to commit robbery, avoiding a full trial due to overwhelming evidence and the statute of limitations on many rape cases.
  2. The plea deal was driven by the victims’ demand for accountability, especially those whose cases were not prosecuted—such as Gay Hardwick, whose 1978 attack was never legally charged.
  3. Victims, including Gay Hardwick and Bob Hardwick, shared traumatic impact statements detailing long-term psychological damage, shame, and PTSD, highlighting systemic neglect and societal dismissal of male victims.
  4. Male victims, like Victor Hayes, were often dismissed by police and not taken seriously, with some never speaking publicly due to shame and fear of being seen as weak or failing as men.
  5. The plea hearing featured emotional and dramatic victim testimony, with rare male victims present and full acknowledgment of trauma.
  6. DiAngelo’s family presented letters defending him, claiming he was a doting father and victim of childhood trauma, which many critics viewed as inappropriate and offensive, especially when directly addressing victims.
  7. The case reveals deep societal issues
  8. Some theories suggest DiAngelo’s killing spree ended due to the birth of daughters and a hormonal drop in testosterone, which may have softened his aggression.
  9. Despite the legal resolution, the case underscores ongoing injustice and the lack of justice for victims whose crimes were not prosecuted due to legal loopholes or societal bias.

Summary:

Joseph James DiAngelo, a convicted serial rapist and murderer, pleaded guilty in 2020 to 13 counts of first-degree murder and kidnapping, avoiding a lengthy trial due to the statute of limitations on many rape cases and the overwhelming number of victims who demanded accountability. The plea deal was driven by victims—particularly those like Gay Hardwick, whose 1978 attack was not prosecuted—who felt society had denied them justice. Their testimonies revealed deep psychological trauma, shame, and long-term consequences such as PTSD, alcoholism, and marital strain.

Male victims, including Victor Hayes and Bob Hardwick, were often dismissed by law enforcement and society, with few choosing to speak publicly due to stigma and fear of being seen as weak. The hearing exposed systemic failures: male victims were recorded as witnesses, not victims, and police responses were dismissive, with some even laughing at the crime scene. DiAngelo’s family offered emotionally charged letters defending him, portraying him as a devoted father, which many critics viewed as inappropriate and exploitative, especially given the victims’ suffering.

The case highlights broader societal issues around gendered trauma, the erasure of male victims, and the lack of justice for crimes that fall outside legal charges. While DiAngelo’s crimes may have ended due to age, physical decline, or hormonal changes, the case remains a stark reminder of how systemic bias and gendered expectations can perpetuate injustice for survivors, especially those who never received a fair trial or public recognition.

FAQs

DiAngelo pleaded guilty because a trial was practically impossible due to the overwhelming number of victims and charges. With over a hundred witnesses and decades-old cases, a trial would have taken years and likely never happened. A plea deal allowed for a faster resolution and ensured accountability without the lengthy legal process.

DiAngelo was not charged with crimes like forced masturbation, torture, and rape due to statutes of limitations, especially for rape cases from the 1970s. These crimes were too old to be prosecuted, even though victims wanted justice and accountability for these offenses.

Gay Hardwick came forward as a victim of the East Area rapist and was one of the first to publicly share her trauma. Her testimony helped compile a list of uncharged crimes that the victims wanted DiAngelo to face, ultimately influencing the plea deal that included admission of guilt for these crimes.

Many male victims, like Victor Hayes, felt ashamed and believed societal expectations of masculinity made them feel like failures. They were also discouraged by police and the justice system, which often dismissed their experiences or treated them as mere witnesses, not victims.

Victims' statements highlighted the lasting trauma of the attacks, including PTSD, alcoholism, and broken relationships. These emotional accounts gave weight to the victims’ demand for justice and influenced the prosecution to pursue a plea deal that included accountability for uncharged crimes.

DiAngelo appeared disengaged and unresponsive during the hearing, staring blankly and speaking only in a thin, reedy voice. He reportedly focused on the screen only once, and some believed he was genuinely deteriorating or emotionally detached from the proceedings.

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