Golden State Killer Suspect Charged With Yet Another Murder

Prosecutors in northern California say they have connected the man accused of being the notorious "Golden State Killer" with yet another cold-case murder of a Visalia father who worked as a professor at the College of the Sequoias in 1975.

Tulare County District Attorney Tim Ward was joined by Visalia Police Chief Jason Salazar in making the announcement Monday morning, that they were charging Joseph DeAngelo, 72, with first-degree murder, more than six decades after Claude Snelling was killed while trying to rescue his daughter from the clutches of her attacker. 

“We’re filing first degree murder charges against Mr. DeAngelo, along with an allegation that he used a firearm in the commission of that murder,” Ward said at a press conference Monday. 

The murder charge is the first official connection between the Golden State Killer and the Visalia Ransacker cases that bore many similarities to later attacks DeAngelo has been accused of. 

The "Visalia Ransacker has been credited with more than 85 burglaries in Tulare County as well as the Sept 11, 1975 death of Snelling. 

DeAngelo was arrested earlier this year in Citrus Heights after authorities using familial DNA managed to connect him with a series of cold-case murders and crimes that spanned California over several decades.

"We found the needle in the haystack, and it was right here in Sacramento,'' Sacramento County District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert said.

DeAngelo has been charged with 12 killings throughout the state between the 1970s and 1980s. Since his arrest back in April, several law enforcement agencies across California have begun connecting the 72-year-old with several cold cases in their jurisdiction including 45 rapes, and more than 100 home invasion burglaries. 

Photo: Getty Images


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