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Retired police chief ‘embarrassed’ to learn he worked with Golden State Killer suspect

The law came for Joseph James DeAngelo Jr. after 40 years of hunting

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Former police officers who worked with the man accused of being the Golden State Killer said nothing about their co-worker’s behavior would have led them to believe he was the man who terrorized California for a decade.

In interviews with KTXL, a former Auburn police chief and corporal with the Exeter Police Department said it was hard to believe that their onetime colleague, Joseph James DeAngelo Jr., was suspected of being the serial killer authorities say is responsible for at least 12 slayings, 46 rapes and more than 100 burglaries between 1974 and 1986.

“I feel personally embarrassed,” said Nick Willick, the former chief of the Auburn Police Department, who fired DeAngelo in 1979 after he was caught shoplifting. “It’s a black eye not just on my department but law enforcement.”

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After a decades-long manhunt for a suspect, authorities last week arrested 72-year-old DeAngelo at his Citrus Heights home in Sacramento County. Investigators say DNA from one of the crime scenes matched DeAngelo’s.

Authorities had long believed that the suspect, also known as the Visalia Ransacker and the East Area Rapist, had experience in the military or law enforcement because of the meticulous planning and execution of his crimes and repeated escapes.

DeAngelo was an Exeter police officer in the mid-’70s before he moved to the Auburn Police Department.

Exeter was and remains a small town. East of Visalia near the Sierra Nevada foothills leading into the Sequoia National Forest, the police department there was comprised of only eight or nine officers in the ’70s, said Farrel Ward, who worked in the department for 30 years and worked with DeAngelo from 1973 to 1976.

The officers there considered themselves a family and DeAngelo, who was 27 or 28 at the time he joined the department, stood apart because of his intellect, Ward said.

“He was just over-educated for the small department of Exeter. He just knew anything you wanted to talk about,” said Ward, who is now 75 and still lives in the city. “I think he had a bachelor’s degree, all kinds of trainin’. He didn’t fit in with the other guys. We liked to joke and screw around and take the stress off of what we were doing. He was always serious.”

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Sometimes, during slow periods on a shift, Exeter police officers would radio to each other to meet up in a place where they could shoot the breeze until they had a place to go.

Ward said he’d do that with DeAngelo, but the conversations were mostly one-sided and strained.

“I liked him but he’s not the type of guy that I’d have over for a barbecue. He’s just … stand-offish. Too serious. Seems like he’s always thinking,” Ward said.

DeAngelo had a good rapport with the public and treated them well, Ward said. But DeAngelo never revealed personal details. Ward didn’t even know where DeAngelo came from before arriving in Exeter. He did say that he had to put in his time in the small department so he could move higher in law enforcement. He wanted to go on to “bigger and better things,” Ward recalled. He jokingly suggested that DeAngelo consider the FBI, Ward said.

Authorities said that DeAngelo’s crimes graduated from burglaries to rapes and, eventually, murder. The string of attacks lasted a dozen years, spanned 10 counties and kept entire communities braced in fear.

Ward said that nothing about his interactions with DeAngelo appeared odd or sinister in light of his recent arrest.

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“I couldn’t believe it, I was devastated. At first I thought it was someone with the same name. ‘It can’t be the same guy,’” Ward said. “I worked side by side with that guy. I could’ve been one of his victims, really easily.”

“It’s kind of scary,” he added.

If DeAngelo is the Golden State Killer, East Area Rapist, Original Night Stalker and Visalia Ransacker as authorities claim, then that means he’s the man likely responsible for one case that has stuck out in Ward’s memory over these last 43 years.

In 1975, a masked man woke up local journalism professor Claude Snelling’s teenage daughter in her bedroom and attempted to kidnap her. Snelling interrupted the abduction and was fatally shot by the assailant, who escaped but left Snelling’s daughter behind.

A week later, police had beefed up their presence in the neighborhood expecting that Snelling’s killer would try to strike again. He did and police had him cornered in a resident’s backyard, Ward said.

An officer trained his flashlight on the man, who shot it out, hopped a fence and escaped.

Ward and officers from neighboring departments who had police dogs swarmed the area to find the gunman.

“He just disappeared into thin air. He was good,” Ward said.

In what may be a bit of irony, DeAngelo was fired from the Auburn Police Department in 1979 after he was caught shoplifting dog repellent and a hammer.

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“He violated the trust of the people and it was clear from our investigation he’d committed a theft and there’s no room in law enforcement for someone who steals,” Willick said.

Willick said that at the time, the items DeAngelo stole didn’t seem all that unusual.

“Law enforcement would carry dog repellent too because, like a mailman, officers go to doors and dogs chase after them. So it wasn’t anything that sent up a red flag,” the former police chief said.

DeAngelo made his first court appearance last week in Sacramento County. He’s charged with eight murders in three counties but could face additional charges.

joseph.serna@latimes.com

For breaking California news, follow @JosephSerna on Twitter.


UPDATES:

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2:05 p.m.: This article was updated with additional comments from a former Exeter police officer.

This article was originally published at 8:40 a.m.

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