SACRAMENTO — The Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department can take photos, fingerprints and additional DNA samples of accused serial murderer and rapist Joseph James DeAngelo, a…
SACRAMENTO — The Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department can take photos, fingerprints and additional DNA samples of accused serial murderer and rapist Joseph James DeAngelo, a judge ruled Thursday.
DeAngelo, 72, was in a wheelchair and appeared alert in his third court appearance since being arrested last week. He is accused of being the criminal known as the Golden State Killer or East Area Rapist, who terrorized California in the 1970s and ’80s.
Authorities said last week that the one-time police officer in Auburn (Placer County) was arrested after detectives ran DNA collected from a 40-year-old crime scene through a genealogical website. The DNA was a close match for relatives, and authorities eventually were led to DeAngelo’s home in the Sacramento suburb of Citrus Heights, not far from where many of the sexual assaults occurred.
DeAngelo’s public defenders had sought to block authorities from collecting additional DNA from him, taking his picture and collecting fingerprints as he sits in Sacramento County jail. They argued that a search warrant that prosecutors sought for law enforcement had been granted before DeAngelo was arrested and given a public defender, and thus void. Collecting new evidence from him to beef up charges violates DeAngelo’s constitutional right not to incriminate himself, they argued.
Judge Michael Sweet of Sacramento County Superior Court ruled Thursday that collecting biological evidence and photographs does not require DeAngelo to talk to investigators and thus does not violate his rights. Sweet added that similar evidence is taken when a person is charged with a serious felony in California.
Court records show authorities had planned to take photos of DeAngelo’s entire body, including his penis, and collect DNA on Wednesday before his attorney, Diane Howard, objected. Howard declined to comment after Thursday’s hearing.
Prosecutors have not said why photos of DeAngelo’s penis are needed for their investigation. But he is suspected in as many as 45 rapes, and some victims at the time of his crimes described him as having a small penis.
DeAngelo has been charged with two murders in Sacramento County, but is suspected in 10 additional killings throughout the state. He has not entered a plea. Prosecutors in Ventura, Orange and Santa Barbara counties are expected to file additional murder charges for crimes committed there.
DeAngelo is scheduled to return to court May 14.
