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DNA brings arrest in sadistic crime spree from '70s and '80s
Former police officer arrested
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In this 2016, file photo, law enforcement drawings of a suspected serial killer believed to have committed at least 12 murders across California in the 1970's and 1980's are displayed at a news conference about the investigation, in Sacramento, Calif. The Sacramento County District Attorney's Office plans to make a 'major announcement" Wednesday in the case of the elusive serial killer. - photo by Associated Press
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — A DNA match led to the arrest of a 72-year-old former police officer in one of the most baffling and sadistic crime sprees of the 1970s and '80s — a string of at least 12 slayings and 45 rapes in California by an attacker dubbed the Golden State Killer, police said Wednesday. Armed with a gun, the masked attacker would break into homes while single women or couples were sleeping. He sometimes tied up the man and piled dishes on his back, then raped the woman while threatening to kill them both if the dishes tumbled.
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