May 10 (UPI) — Santa Barbara County, Calif., prosecutors announced Thursday they charged the suspected Golden State Killer with four more murders.
Joseph James DeAngelo, 72, was charged with killing Cheri Domingo and Greg Sanchez in July 1981, and orthopedic surgeon Robert Offerman and psychologist Alexandria Manning in December 1979, the first of his killings reported in Santa Barbara County.
“Violent cold cases never grow cold for the victims or their loved ones,” Santa Barbara County District Attorney Joyce Dudley said.
Each of the four new first-degree murder charges carries a possible sentence of death or life in prison without parole.
DeAngelo was arrested by Sacramento County sheriff’s officials at his home on April 24, in connection with a number of deaths and rapes linked to a single perpetrator active between 1976 and 1986. He was previously charged with four killings in Orange County, two in Ventura County and two in Sacramento County.
Following the four new charges DeAngelo has been accused in all 12 known Golden State Killer murders.
Investigators said the Golden State Killer found Offerman and Manning in bed before tying them both up and shooting them.
He then carried out multiple killings in Ventura and Orange counties before returning to the Santa Barbara area where he killed Domingo and Sanchez.
Former investigator Paul Holes said Sanchez regained consciousness after being shot in the face and attempted to fight back before the killer ultimately bludgeoned both Domingo and Sanchez to death.
Holes suggested the encounter may have encouraged the killer to rethink his tactics as he committed one more known murder five years later.
