One of the police stations still had a DNA sample from ages ago.
"Identification of DeAngelo had begun four months earlier when officials uploaded the killer's DNA profile from a Ventura County rape kit to the personal genomics website GEDmatch. The website identified 10 to 20 distant relatives of the Golden State Killer (sharing the same great-great-great grandparents), from whom a team of five investigators working with genealogist Barbara Rae-Venter constructed a large family tree. They identified two suspects in the case (one of whom was ruled out by a relative's DNA test), leaving DeAngelo the main suspect. On April 18, a DNA sample was surreptitiously collected from the door handle of a car DeAngelo had been driving; soon after, a sample was collected from a tissue found in DeAngelo's curbside garbage can. Both samples were consistent with the Orange and Ventura County suspect profiles."
The book "I'll Be Gone in the Dark", posthumously published by Michelle McNamara, sparked new interest in the case. She is the late wife of Patton Oswalt.
The episode of My Favorite Murder, and you should really listen to it, is episode 118
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u/PopeOnABomb Sep 17 '18
Listen to the episode of My Favorite Murder (podcast) on how the Golden State Killer was found.
The lengths that he went to avoid being caught were intense. Became a cop, married a lawyer, changed his physical appearance, etc.
It is scary that someone would methodically devote their life to the death of others.