East Area Rapist/Original Night Stalker Arrested?

[LaurasOtherHalf]

Probably the biggest unsolved murder/serial killer case in USA history and it may be about to be broken;
http://fox40.com/2018/04/24/sources-report-possibl...

Strangely this was announced the day after investigators announced they had been talking to Australian Police about the similarities between the offender's MO and that of their infamous Mr Cruel
https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/australia-m...

If you are unaware of the case have a read up on wiki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_State_Killer

I listened to a podcast on the case and it's the sole reason I updated our home security to what it is!

[Wobbegong]

Wow, I’d never heard of these attacks before. Interesting, although grim, reading.

[LaurasOtherHalf]

The guy's booking sheet, he is apparently (and according to the EAR/ONS/Golden State Killer Redit) a DNA match and rather worryingly a former police officer.



An old clipping of when he was sacked from the police


It is rumoured that he is also matched to the Visalia Ransacker https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visalia_Ransacker

So that makes the Visalia Ransacker, The East Area Rapist, The Original Night-Stalker and The Golden State Killer all one and the same person.

[LaurasOtherHalf]

If anyone is at all interested the news conference is going live in 15 mins during this live stream show on the case;
http://www.newzphobia.com/2013/09/get-latest-views...

[Wobbegong]

Not surprised he is a former policeman. It was mentioned in the investigation that he knew a lot about evidence gathering.

[dmulally]

Amazing. I always figured he had retired and had possibly died of natural causes.

[LaurasOtherHalf]

The EARONS reddit has a few thoughts on it, he did end up having a family and that coincided with his stopping although there two particular unsolved murders in the direct vicinity of where his daughter lived (different MO however).

Some of those reddit sleuths are pretty good at digging this stuff out, thieve found an old engagement announcement from before he was married;


He mentioned the name "Bonnie" in some of the attacks according to survivors although police wondered if it was a ruse to throw them off the scent.

Someone has also posted up unconfirmed details of his arrest (although some details match witness accounts) and how they caught him. The theory goes they sent the EARON's DNA to the ancestry website 23andme and got a hit for a distant relative, which allowed them to look at family members and single him out.

From getting him as a suspect and being put under surveillance they simply needed a discarded coffee cup or similar to confirm he was their man.

Lots more details to come out obviously but you can't help but think there's a great movie in it all.

[dmulally]

I listened to an aussie podcast series on him over the summer and found it all very interesting. There was that one guy who stood up at the town hall meeting and said he would protect his family even if others wouldn't. His house was targeted some months later by the rapist. I wonder if he was at that town hall meeting as a cop. Fascinating.

[Donbot]

dmulally said:

I listened to an aussie podcast series on him over the summer and found it all very interesting. There was that one guy who stood up at the town hall meeting and said he would protect his family even if others wouldn't. His house was targeted some months later by the rapist. I wonder if he was at that town hall meeting as a cop. Fascinating.

http://casefilepodcast.com/podcast-archive/

I found this only recently. Good work on catching him.

Moors murders is also an excellent series.

[andy_s]

I know it's with hindsight and I'm not criticising, but "caught shoplifting a hammer and dog repellent" - you know he's employed as a cop, so he has money, being caught would be fatal to his job, so you'd have to ask 'why take the risk' and why for those particular items?
The immediate assumption would be either he was doing an attention seeking thing like some people do, or he didn't want any record of him buying these items and was prepared to take the risk as these items were going to be used for something untoward that engendered a far bigger risk.
He may have had a plausible story (he was a good planner) but I personally know people who'd look at this sequence and be all over it like a cheap suit.

[tankplanker]

LaurasOtherHalf said:

Someone has also posted up unconfirmed details of his arrest (although some details match witness accounts) and how they caught him. The theory goes they sent the EARON's DNA to the ancestry website 23andme and got a hit for a distant relative, which allowed them to look at family members and single him out.

While I am glad they caught him I find that part troubling.

[Roofless Toothless]

I don't know if it an urban myth or not but there is a current debate about whether these DNA/ancestry testing outfits in the USA routinely forward results to the FBI, and the fact that they do is all in the small print if you care to read it.

I'd love someone to tell me this isn't true.

[LaurasOtherHalf]

Roofless Toothless said:

I don't know if it an urban myth or not but there is a current debate about whether these DNA/ancestry testing outfits in the USA routinely forward results to the FBI, and the fact that they do is all in the small print if you care to read it.

I'd love someone to tell me this isn't true.

It may not be, there is another theory doing the rounds that one of his daughters was caught with cannabis, which in CA carries a mandatory DNA swab being taken.

From what I’ve read there are serious legal obstructions in CA for police to tap into a private DNA database to check against. They would essentially have to obtain a warrant for every profile they checked against which would be unworkable (not to mention the websites DNA check works in a totally different way).

I’m not aware that their small print allows them to share it willingly?

[tim0409]

I was pretty surprised to see this pop up on my twitter news feed yesterday; I was in the US last week and watched an HLN documentary on the case(s), and at the end they mentioned that they thought they would eventually find the suspect through familial DNA; if that link was established through an ancestry site then that is really interesting as I never new they did searches based on DNA, far less share the information.

[LaurasOtherHalf]

http://www.sacbee.com/latest-news/article209913514...

Updated, the DA has confirmed he was caught by crosschecking an old DNA sample against the modern genealogy websites such as 23andme and/or ancestry.com

[tim0409]

Last year’s documentary is on ID tonight at 10.

[fuzzyyo]

LaurasOtherHalf said:

http://www.sacbee.com/latest-news/article209913514...

Updated, the DA has confirmed he was caught by crosschecking an old DNA sample against the modern genealogy websites such as 23andme and/or ancestry.com

Yes I heard someone speaking about this on the radio. They search the websites for partial matches as its very rare to find a perfect comparison. Then they look at the family tree for relatives who may fit the profile of whomever they're searching for. Clever stuff.