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Golden State Killer suspect Joseph James DeAngelo was a 'nice old grandpa', his neighbours say

Suspect: Former police officer Joseph James DeAngelo, 72: REUTERS
Suspect: Former police officer Joseph James DeAngelo, 72: REUTERS

The Golden State Killer suspect who was arrested on suspicion of a notorious spree of murders and rapes in the US was a "nice old grandpa" with a neatly kept green lawn, neighbours said today.

Joseph James DeAngelo, a 72-year-old former police officer, was arrested by police in Sacramento, California, on Wednesday.

Police blame the so-called Golden State Killer, believed to be one of the worst in US history, for 12 murders, 45 rapes and more than 120 burglaries in the 1970s and 1980s.

Mr DeAngelo was described an odd but decent neighbour who was also a Vietnam veteran and a grandfather.

"You can tell he's a very meticulous person," said neighbour Kevin Tapia.

"His house is always perfectly painted. His grass is always cut. He gets down around all the rocks on his lawn and is cutting to make sure it's just perfect."

Mr DeAngelo's home in Citrus Heights, California
Mr DeAngelo's home in Citrus Heights, California

Another neighbour, Natalia Bedes-Correnti, said Mr DeAngelo appeared to be a "nice old grandpa".

But he also appeared quick to anger, said neighbours.

He swore loudly and often over misplaced car keys and minor landscaping issues.

"He liked the F word a lot," Ms Bedes-Correnti said.

She said one of Mr DeAngelo's adult daughters and a granddaughter lived with him in the neighbourhood where children ride their bikes home from school.

Forensics teams at the scene in Citrus Heights, California
Forensics teams at the scene in Citrus Heights, California

Police say newly unearthed DNA evidence ties the former police officer to a series of crimes committed by a California serial killer in the 1980s.

He was arrested on suspicion of committing four killings in Sacramento and Ventura counties and charged with two counts of murder in the Ventura case after his DNA came back as a match to the Killer, say police.

Investigators towed away two cars, a Volvo and a Toyota along with a fishing boat Mr DeAngelo kept in his three-car garage.

The Golden State Killer has terrorised communities by breaking into homes armed with a gun while single women or couples were sleeping.

He sometimes tied up the man and piled dishes on his back, then raped the woman while threatening to kill them both if the dishes tumbled.

He often took souvenirs, such as coins and jewellery, from his victims, who ranged in age from 13 to 41.

Mr DeAngelo graduated from nearby Folsom High School in 1964 and joined the US Navy and served aboard the cruiser USS Canberra off the coast of North Vietnam.

After returning home he enrolled in a nearby community college and then transferred to California State University where he studied criminal justice.

He became a police officer in the small city of Exeter, where he served from 1973 to 1976, "around the time of the Visalia Ransacker cases," another name affiliated with the same attacker, Sacramento Sheriff Scott Jones said.

"Very often serial killers are very interested in police work, they tend to have an obsession with it and they tend to study it," said Scott Bonn, a criminologist and author of "Why We Love Serial Killers".

Mr DeAngelo was fired from the Auburn Police Department in 1979 after he was arrested for stealing a can of dog repellant and a hammer from a pharmacy, according to Auburn Journal articles from the time.