By Alec Pronk–
A two-hour special aired on a popular cable TV channel last week offering dozens of fresh interviews and more details on the apparent “double-life” of the Golden State Killer suspect, Joseph DeAngelo, who lived in Citrus Heights for nearly three decades.
The show, “Golden State Killer: Main Suspect,” premiered on Aug. 4 on the Oxygen channel, which focuses on true crime programming and is available on most cable and satellite television offerings.
The show’s host, NBC News investigative journalist Stephanie Gosk, traveled to Citrus Heights to interview the neighbors and acquaintances who experienced multiple sides of the man, ranging from fatherly to bizarre and even violent. The special also featured numerous interviews with victims, investigators, and law enforcement officials.
Known as “Joe” by those around him, the program highlighted the peculiar dichotomy of a suspected vicious killer living a quiet, unassuming life in Citrus Heights. While working as a former Save Mart truck mechanic, DeAngelo both befriended coworkers and disturbed other Citrus Heights residents.
His former Save Mart coworkers, Bill Helms and Richard Mangang, were interviewed for the Oxygen show, both of whom said they saw a family man in DeAngelo.
“If he did this, there was two Joe’s,” Helms said. “There was Joseph DeAngelo and Joe DeAngelo. And the Joe that we knew in the shop, none of us think that he could have ever done anything like that.”
Watch the two-hour special online: click here
In the Oxygen special, Mangang said he and DeAngelo connected over their love of fishing, and they fished with each other weekly.
“[He] taught me to be a better man for the family,” Mangang said, noting DeAngelo would offer advice to him on raising kids.
But, other Citrus Heights residents saw a much more volatile, angry side of DeAngelo.
Sanja Gorman spoke to Oxygen and described DeAngelo as an angry neighbor infuriated with her family’s Rottweiler, who on one occasion allegedly left a threatening note.
“We came home from church one weekend and there was a message that said ‘If you don’t shut that dog up I’m going to bring a load of death to your house,’” said Sanja’s son, Grant, in an interview for the show.
Later, the family’s dog suffered medical problems, and the Gorman family suspects DeAngelo may have been to blame.
As other news reports have noted, DeAngelo was also a patron of Charlie’s Café in Citrus Heights, where he was known as a difficult customer with odd food requests.
Charlene Carte, Charlies Café owner, said in a prior interview with Fox 40 that she sarcastically nicknamed DeAngelo “Mr. Happy” because of his grumpy demeanor. Carte also alleged that the suspected Golden State Killer inappropriately touched her a week before his arrest. However, she recalled him as an “average Joe” during the interview.
Regardless of his disposition, Citrus Heights residents and neighbor’s were shocked to learn DeAngelo, a former police officer, was the suspected Golden State Killer.
DeAngelo served as a police officer from August 1976 to September 1979, and The Auburn Journal reported he was fired from the Auburn Police Department after he was caught stealing dog repellent and a hammer from a drug store. After he was fired from the police force, DeAngelo lived in Citrus Heights as early as 1983, where he remained undetected for nearly three decades until DNA evidence led to his arrest earlier this year.
DeAngelo is accused of three separate crime sprees, escalating in severity. In Visalia, he allegedly invaded dozens of homes in the mid-1970s. Beginning in 1976, the break-in crimes became violent rapes, often in front of bound and gagged loved ones, and the criminal became known as the East Area Rapist. Finally, DeAngelo is accused of killing 12 people, when he became known as the Golden State Killer for a spate of slayings in Southern California up until 1986.
The entire Oxygen special can now be watched for free on the channel’s website.
