$50,000 Reward in California Serial Killer Cold Case

NBC Bay Area ^ | 6/15 | Don Thompson

[nickcarraway]

Authorities announced a $50,000 reward Wednesday as they renewed their search for an elusive serial killer they say committed at least 12 homicides, 45 rapes and dozens of burglaries across California in the 1970s and 1980s.

The case has grown cold for the killer known by at least four nicknames over the decades.

He was dubbed the East Area Rapist after his start in Northern California. The Original Night Stalker after a series of Southern California slayings. The Diamond Knot Killer for using the elaborate knot to bind two of his victims. And most recently the Golden State Killer.

[nickcarraway]

[circlecity]

Maybe he’s hiding out with the Zodiac killer.

[Squantos]

Shoestring chance of catching that one.....

[smokingfrog]

Doesn’t look like Ted Cruz.

[smokingfrog]

Probably dead or not living in CA now.

[lodi90]

I doubt he stopped. Lot of people died of AIDS in 1980’s. Or he could be in prison on another charge.

[wally_bert]

Get this guy on the case:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-I1QqM29pg

One of my favorite old Brit detective shows.

[Mr Radical]

He's linked through DNA and other evidence to more than 175 crimes between 1976 and 1986, officials said.
Gotta be a reason why up to 1986. (Deceased, jailed, moved location etc.) These types do not simply stop.

[Swordmaker]

I lived in the area of East Sacramento where he got his start as did my girlfriend. She and her girlfriends were terrified of being victims. She lived in Rosemont with her parents at the time and later had her own place in the area. I had a townhouse with my wife on La Riviera Drive, and then in the Rosemont Area on a Court, both areas where he, er, practiced his unique crimes.

My girlfriend and I were discussing this case several months ago and noticed something that we think no one else has noticed. The neighborhoods he was active in were neighborhoods that were having cable TV installed. Every time. We think he could have been a cable TV installer. This got him the ability to case houses, backyards, alleyways, etc. and find easy access and escape routes. The police had talked about a telephone or utility worker who would have known about that kind of access, but never thought about cable installers. The newer neighborhoods were never hit, because the new houses were pre-installed for cable by the builders. The East Area Rapist only hit in the older, established neighborhoods that were being retrofitted with cable. My then Rosemont house which I bought brand new was built pre-installed, but my now girlfriend's parent's house had been built in 1960 and that neighborhood, only a few blocks away, was being retro-fitted. The townhouse my wife and I had on La Riviera Drive, my wife had bought brand new only a couple of years before I met her, but it was not pre-installed because La Reviera was an existing area and did not have cable pulled in until later.

Many of these installers were independent contractors who just had to have their own tools and a truck to be hired by the cable company. Once an area was done, they'd move on to where there was more work of the same kind, often for the same company, fitting the moving pattern of the East Area Rapist, and his other monikers.

We passed this idea on to the author of the definitive book on his crimes and also the police but have never heard anything on our theory.

[Swordmaker]

PS. I am back living in that same area now. . . but the signs are that the criminal has moved away, thank God.

[fella]

Maybe he found Mrs. Right.

[smokingfrog]

He got a job in Hollywood.

[nickcarraway]

He could be dead, moved, or jailed, but I think there is one sexual sadist profile that burns out in middle age, so it is possible he stopped.

[Sybeck1]

Bump caught today

[1Old Pro]

Press conference at noon west coast time I think