Some victims want to show how they overcame and healed.
Some still search for answers and reparation.
And others, unable to exact emotional revenge on their attacker, seeks to humiliate him.
The victims of Joseph James DeAngelo Jr., the former police officer whose violent crimes through the 1970s and 1980s terrorized Californians across the state and earned him the moniker Golden State Killer, finally got their say in court Tuesday, the beginning of three days of impact statements before he is sentenced on Friday.
DeAngelo, 74, has admitted to killing 13 people, starting with a Visalia college instructor seeking to thwart the abduction of his daughter in 1975, and ending with the rape and murder of a teenage girl in Orange County in 1986. His plea deal includes 53 attacks on 87 victims in 11 counties, including 50 rapes, but leaves out two sexual attacks and a shooting that also have been blamed on him.
Common themes arose as Tuesday’s hearing began with the first rape DeAngelo has admitted, that of Phyllis Henneman.
With Henneman unable to attend because she is ill with cancer, her statement was read by her sister, Karen Veilleux.
“I went to bed ... not knowing my life would change,” Veilleux read, halting for a moment to choke back sobs.
She described Henneman’s years of anxiety and fear that followed her June 1976 rape.
“When I found out this devil has been captured I felt relieved,” she read, but the arrest revived the feelings of anxiety and dread.
“The roles have now been reversed,” Veilleux concluded. “He deserves to spend the rest of his miserable life in prison. I am not what happened to me. I am what I choose to become.”
Kris Pedretti was 15 when DeAngelo raped her in December 1976.
“He tormented me. And he told me over and over again he would kill me, and I believed him,” she said. “At three different times that night, I thought I was going to die. I sang ‘Jesus Loves Me’ in my head as I waited to die. The next morning, Dec. 19, I woke up knowing I would never be a child again and, although I was truly grateful to be alive, I also felt that I had died.”
Like many others, Pedretti sought to make DeAngelo squirm, invoking images of his own family suffering similarly.
Pedretti said that if she could speak to DeAngelo directly, she would “ask him to imagine his wife, daughters and granddaughter at 15 years old. Then, imagine them being tied, gagged and blindfolded as they were being raped, tormented and fearful for their life by an unknown masked assailant who held the power over their life and death.”
“I would ask him, ‘Do you feel any remorse for what you did to me? For the people whose lives you sadistically cut short, or to the years of pain for your victims and their families? Do you finally feel humiliated?’” she said.
Others glared at him, and hurled insults about his anatomy.
“Did his little penis drive him to be so angry all the time?” said Patti Cosper, delivering the impact statement for her mother, Patricia Murphy, who was 29 when she was attacked and repeatedly raped and sodomized in September 1976.
DeAngelo’s gaze briefly flickered at the insult, the first of several such insults Tuesday. One man, the son of a rape victim, even held up his little finger when talking about DeAngelo’s penis and declaring his mother’s strength in surviving her brutal attack.
But DeAngelo’s countenance, largely hidden by a white cloth mask, did not break. He stared straight ahead, seated in a wheelchair between his public defenders, eyes fixed on the small assemblage of reporters allowed in the room and a point on the wall slightly above them.
“Some people are wired wrong, and DeAngelo is one of them,” Cosper read. “Luck finally ran out for this messed-up human being — at least a poor excuse for one. It is my hope that you punish him to the full extent of the law for the horrific crimes he committed. He admitted that he caused all the suffering and misery to so many victims. ... He truly is an evil monster with no soul.”
Victims again and again told of their pain, and their recovery.
One woman, who identified herself as Peggy, also was 15 when DeAngelo attacked her and her sister at their home in 1976. She was raped repeatedly.
“It hurt to brush my hair because he hit me so many times on the head,” she said. Her hands were left numb for months because he had tied them so tightly.
Peggy said her “safety and security were taken away” that night, and that, even decades later, “I still always look over my shoulder when someone approaches me from behind.”
However, she also talked about finding a way in 2004 to forgive her rapist, “for me, for my peace of mind, so I could move forward.”
“I have learned a lot these past 44 years. I am strong, resilient, empathetic and insightful,” she said.
She described becoming an activist, speaking out at political rallies against rape and sexual attacks on women.
“Now, finally, the end of this trauma is here,” she said. “He is a horrible man, and none of us have to worry about him anymore.”
Retired Sacramento County sheriff’s detective Carol Daly stood beside another victim, Kathy Rogers, and read her statement into the record.
The April 1977 assault on Rogers and her male companion was the 16th attack of the East Area Rapist, another one of DeAngelo’s monikers, as well as the first on a couple.
“The nightmare has ended. He is the one alone in the dark,” Daly said on Rogers’ behalf.
“Some people are wired wrong, and DeAngelo is one of them,” Cosper read. “Luck finally ran out for this messed-up human being — at least a poor excuse for one. It is my hope that you punish him to the full extent of the law for the horrific crimes he committed. He admitted that he caused all the suffering and misery to so many victims. ... He truly is an evil monster with no soul.”
At the start of the violence, DeAngelo served as a small-town police officer in Tulare and Placer counties. He became a father, married to a woman who became a prominent women’s rights lawyer. He eventually was fired from policing after being caught shoplifting dog repellent, and he took up a quiet life as a truck mechanic in the Sacramento suburbs.
As part of a plea deal, DeAngelo is to be sentenced to 11 life terms without the possibility of parole, to be served consecutively, plus 15 life terms and eight years.
The extremity of requiring 11 of those life sentences to be served back-to-back, though physically impossible, takes advantage of a 1979 California tough-on-crime law. And it puts DeAngelo in a rare criminal class that includes Mafia bosses and serial murderers, such as the Green River Killer, Gary Ridgway, who is serving 49 life sentences for 49 murders, plus 480 years.
Pete Schutze spoke Tuesday for his mother, Wini, who was raped in October 1976.
“Do you remember me?” asked Schutze, who was 11 at the time. He was tied up and his sister was locked in a room while his mother was raped.
“He did not steal our hopes, dreams or the spirit of our family. ... While we have all suffered for 44 years,” Schutze said, lifting his eyes to DeAngelo, “your suffering, sir, has just begun.”
Before the hearing, Pedretti said the prospect of delivering an impact statement was daunting.
But if she had her way, she said during the hearing, “DeAngelo would only be provided our impact statements as reading material for the rest of his days. DeAngelo must not be allowed to ignore what he’s done for as long as he breathes.”
“The devil can keep you company in your prison cell as he gnaws away at whatever soul you have left, whatever life you have left,” she said, adding, “You are finally getting what you deserved all along. Understand, DeAngelo, there’s not a prayer strong enough to save you.”
She ended by addressing the judge, describing how she has grown and reached out to help other victims of sexual assault find their voices. Pedretti was required by her father to not speak of her attack, even to other family members. She now hosts a Facebook group for victims of sexual assault who have not yet told their story.
DeAngelo’s slack expression in court hearings, and his current use of a wheelchair, have also needled prosecutors, who on Monday asked a judge for permission to play in court jailhouse videos that show that the 74-year-old inmate is both animated and agile. Judge Michael Bowman refused them.
Media presence within the Sacramento County courtroom is limited by COVID-19 physical distancing requirements, but scores of outlets are covering the finale of the 45-year-old case, including film crews from HBO and “20/20,” which is renting hotel rooms for the out-of-town victims in exchange for capturing their stories.
A small number of case detectives also plan to attend.
Among them was Daly. She has been asked by several victims to appear with them in court.
“I don’t know if satisfaction is the right word, but certainly I have been blessed and my life enriched by all the survivors who continue to want me with them,” Daly said. “They are an amazing group of women.”
"impact" - Google News
August 18, 2020 at 08:00PM
https://ift.tt/3aHCIJm
Golden State Killer victims confront him in court - Los Angeles Times
"impact" - Google News
https://ift.tt/2RIFll8
https://ift.tt/3fk35XJ
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "Golden State Killer victims confront him in court - Los Angeles Times"
Post a Comment