It’s broken on all the US News now. This is going to be a lead news story this evening (assuming Trump doesn’t tweet a spelling error.)
Another excellent backgrounder on this case, Casefile podcast did a five-parter that’s highly recommended (by me!). Long, but riveting.
Thanks for the link. I’ll need something to listen to at work for a few hours still before I can start reading, so…perfect. :)
And another, this one an HLN podcast:
And on iTunes:
Apparently anyone arrested for a felony has their DNA taken according to Prop 69 which was passed on 2004. The law was just upheld on April 2nd of this year as many consider it a violation of search and seizure laws.
Wow, man. This is justice, even if it comes late. That it comes at all is a victory. Can only imagine how Patton Oswalt and the families of his victims must feel.
But damnation, dude was a cop? That’s defcon 5 level nightmare fuel, when the people in power, the protectors, are also the predators.
This fucker callled his victims and cops to taunt them. He may be old but he still has enough life left in him to rot in solitary at Pelican Bay.
I mean, his arrest where he was terminated from the Auburn police is pretty chilling.
Arrested for shoplifting less than $10 worth of crap. But that crap: a hammer and can of dog repellent.
And no challenge to the charges, no desire to keep that going. Just acceptance and no appeal filed and no response given so he’d be summarily fired without any further investigation.
Fox 40 in Sacramento – which broke news of the arrest – says that authorities got a tip that led to the DNA testing of the suspect.
Wow, I just looked at the map, and he attacked two families (in one case, tying up an 8-year-old girl) in the 70s literally three blocks away from where I grew up. Creepy.
It’s weird that it’s a former police officer. It’s not like that profession attracts those prone to violence or anything. Weird.
But really though, I wonder if the blue shield somehow helped this guy at some point in the past. Maybe some former coworkers gave him a pass as a suspicious individual or a minor crime or incident was ignored because of his past work.
Cops give each other a pass all the time on stuff like speeding. But rape and murder? No way.
I guess “Breaking Into People’s Homes, Planting Rope for Later Use and then Murdering Them in Their Own Home” must be one of those advanced level police academy courses.
I didn’t mean a pass on rape or murder. Just meant that maybe he skirted by on lesser offenses that might have put him in the system, then might have led to matching his DNA with the available evidence earlier.
He got fired as a cop in 1979. DNA became a thing for solving crimes in the mid-1980s. The law requiring DNA submissions to a database became law within the last 15 years or so.
Wait, so the killer was a cop?
For a few years in the 1970s, yes.
As an addict of true crime shows, this happens more often than you think. Essentially, cops are people, and fall under somewhat similar numbers for crimes, regardless of their profession.
You also see the strangeness of people who commit these crimes seeking to BE cops, or to help law enforcement in some way, sometimes on their very cases.
California law requires a felony to force DNA testing. I don’t think anyone lets you skate on a felony.
Look how long the Zodiac Killer played with the cops and he was never caught. There are several recent shows and a movie dealing with this guy, and they have come up with names, but they didn’t have any DNA evidence.
It’s an axiom among arson investigators that the most avid arsonists are often fireman. Though of course it’s not that becoming a fireman makes you an arsonist - it’s that if you’re really into fires, well, what better job is there?