Victims' daughter feels relief, grief after Golden State Killer suspect's arrest

Jennifer Carole had just graduated high school when her dad and stepmom were murdered inside their Ventura home in March 1980. It took nearly 20 years for authorities to determine the suspect was the “Golden State Killer,” a man suspected in a dozen murders and about 45 rapes across California.

Wednesday morning, with the buzz of her cellphone, Carole received news she had waited decades to hear.

“They got him,” read a text from a friend.

Carole, who lives in the Santa Cruz area and works in Silicon Valley, was elated to hear reports that authorities had arrested a suspect in the murder of her father and stepmother, Lyman and Charlene Smith, who were found bludgeoned to death in their home. DNA evidence have led authorities to believe the Smiths were killed by a man known as the “Golden State Killer” and “East Area Rapist.”

“I’m having a range of emotions,” Carole said. “It’s happiness and horror. I’ve cried today. I’m still shaking.”

Full coverage of the case:

Golden State Killer suspect arrested and charged in 1980 Ventura cold case

Suspect in serial killings lived in tidy California suburb

Golden State Killer: Ex-cop Joseph James DeAngelo arrested as suspect in serial murder-rapes

Lyman Smith was about to be named Ventura County Superior Court judge and Charlene Smith was an interior decorator when in 1980 they were bound together with drapery cords and beaten to death with a log from their fireplace. Their bodies were found by Lyman’s 12-year-old son.

Initially, police didn’t suspect a serial killer. Instead, two years after the murder, they arrested Joseph Alsip Jr., a former business partner who lost big to Lyman in a real estate deal, the Santa Paul Times reported. Alsip was eventually released for lack of evidence, and in the mid-1990s, advanced DNA evidence tied the murders to the Golden State Killer.

Carole said Wednesday she spoke with the district attorney’s office in Ventura County, who confirmed the arrest of Joseph James DeAngelo, 72. At a news conference later that day, authorities announced murder charges have been filed against DeAngelo, of Citrus Heights, in the murders of the Smiths.

“The feelings I have are relief, and also sadness that he’s kind of real now,” Carole said. “It’s a real person. It was easier when it was an unknown monster.”

‘Time for the victims to begin to heal’

Jane Carson-Sandler’s morning in 1976 turned from innocence to terror when a masked man broke into her home and entered the bedroom where she lay snuggled with her 3-year-old son.

He confronted them with a butcher knife and shone a flashlight in her eyes before tying them up.

She said she was paralyzed by fear, afraid the man would kill them. When he untied her ankles, she knew he would rape her.

Before assaulting her, he moved her son from her side, but she doesn’t know where. After it was over, he put her son back in bed next to her.

Carson-Sandler voiced relief after police arrested DeAngelo and identified him on Wednesday as the serial killer who committed a string of killings and rapes in the 1970s and ’80s in California.

Carson-Sandler, now 72, wants to face her attacker in person and ask how long he had been watching her and what he did with her son during the attack.

“I just wonder when he first saw me, how long he had been stalking me,” said Carson-Sandler, who was in the Air Force reserves and studying to be a nurse at the time of the attack.

Carson-Sandler was one of dozens of women raped by a man dubbed the East Area Rapist and the Golden State Killer, who police say killed at least 12 people and raped at least 45 in the 1970s and 1980s.

She was attacked in her home in the Sacramento suburb of Citrus Heights.

She and Bruce Harrington, whose brother and sister-in-law were killed in 1980 in Orange County, said DeAngelo’s arrest will launch a healing process for victims that has been delayed for decades.

“It is time for the victims to begin to heal,” Harrington said at a news conference in Sacramento.

A DNA match led authorities to arrest DeAngelo in connection with four killings in Sacramento and Ventura counties, officials said.

“I feel like I’m in the middle of a dream and I’m going to wake up and it’s not going to be true,” Carson-Sandler said in an interview with The Associated Press. “It’s just so nice to have closure and to know he’s in jail.”

Carson-Sandler, now living near Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, said she didn’t know DeAngelo or recognize his name.

She wrote a book about her experience called “Frozen in Fear.” She has spoken with rapists in prison about how the attack affected her. She tells them to close their eyes and imagine she is their mother or sister or lover while she tells her story.

She says she hopes to make them understand the trauma they have caused so they won’t hurt more people.

Harrington’s brother, 24-year-old Keith Harrington and his wife, 27-year-old Patrice Harrington, were beaten to death in their home, Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas said.

Bruce Harrington applauded law enforcement’s pursuit of justice for them. DeAngelo’s arrest, he said, will “bring closure to the anguish that we all suffered for the last 40-odd years.”

From reports by Mark Gomez of the San Jose Mercury News via Tribune Content Agency and Sophia Bollag of The Associated Press.