At first, they called him the East Area Rapist. Then he started killing.
The sexual assaults multiplied. So did the bodies. He evolved into the Original Night Stalker, then the Golden State Killer.
Over the course of a decade, he murdered 12 people and raped 45. He burglarized more than 120 California homes.
Then in 1986, after breeding unstoppable terror for an entire decade, the man with the chilling monikers but no real name vanished altogether.
It’s been 40 years since one of California’s most notorious serial killers and rapists started his decade-long crime spree, and federal authorities have yet to assign the man an identity. They know he was white, with a six-foot-tall, athletic build. His hair was blonde or maybe light brown. He was proficient with guns and may have had military training. He collected his victims’ belongings – wedding rings, jewelry, coins, cuff links.
Sometimes, while his victims were tied up, he’d eat food right from their refrigerators.
On Wednesday, the FBI launched a national, expansive media campaign they hope might finally bring to justice their mystery man, who had fathers sleeping with shotguns, people purchasing watch dogs and locksmiths working overtime. The campaign involves victim and detective testimonials, phone call recordings from the killer, cross-country digital billboards, Twitter and Facebook and lots of money.
At a press conference in Sacramento, the FBI partnered with local law enforcement to announce a $50,000 reward for information that would help authorities track, arrest and convict the man they’ve been investigating since Gerald Ford was president.
If he’s alive, the serial criminal could be as old as 75.
The passage of time, and the hefty award, might inspire someone with information to step forward this time, authorities said.
“It may push somebody over the edge who knows something,” Sgt. Paul Belli, the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department detective assigned to the case, said in an interview on the campaign website. “It could provide us with that one tip we need.”
“This serial offender was probably one of the most prolific, certainly in California and possibly within the United States,” Belli said Wednesday, according to the Associated Press.
Authorities have DNA evidence from multiple crime scenes that, when coupled with calling card details, link the suspect to nearly 200 criminal acts from as far north as Sacramento to south of Los Angeles. The DNA could also confirm, or exclude, potential suspects, according to an FBI press release.
“People who know the subject may not believe him capable of such crimes,” the release says. “He may not have exhibited violent tendencies or have a criminal history.”
He committed his first known rape on June 18, 1976, almost exactly 40 years ago. His victim was a young woman who lived in a Rancho Cordova neighborhood, in the eastern district of Sacramento County. He snuck into her home in the middle of the night, according to law enforcement, and he raped her.
Within a month, he raped again, this time a teenage girl, reported CBS 13.
The rapes and burglaries continued, and police began to learn the offender’s habits. Under the cover of night, he’d pry open doors and windows in the back of his victims’ homes as they slept. He’d find them sleeping, shine a flashlight in their eyes, then tie them up. Many of the women he raped were single and lived alone. Others were part of a couple, the male tied and forced to wait while the intruder raped the women in another room. Sometimes, his victims were mothers home with their children.
He would often place small items, like kitchen dishes, on the backs of the tied up men, positioned so that any movement would cause the items to fall and make a noise. Authorities said he’d tell the men that if he heard any commotion, he’d come back and kill them.
Authorities ask anyone with information to call the FBI’s toll free tipline, 1-800-CALL-FBI. More information can be found at the campaign website.
(c) 2016, The Washington Post ยท Katie Mettler
