Orange County detectives helped Golden State Killer author take evidence, attorney claims
The author of the best-selling book that detailed her search for the man she and a nation would call the Golden State Killer was allowed to walk out of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department crime lab in 2016 with boxes and bins of evidence in the then-unsolved case, an Orange County public defender alleged in court filings last week.
The haul – 35 boxes and two bins of evidence from one of the nation’s most notorious serial murder investigations – was “the Mother Lode,” the book details. The operation was pulled off with the help of Orange County sheriff’s investigators.
Now, on the eve of Joseph James DeAngelo’s anticipated guilty plea Monday in Sacramento to his decades-long string of murders and rapes that terrorized California in the 1970s and 1980s, Orange County Assistant Public Defender Scott Sanders is raising new questions about how late true-crime author Michelle McNamara was able to take home the evidentiary treasure trove.
“There is little question McNamara’s book has become a nightmare for members of the (Orange County Sheriff’s Department) and its crime lab, as well as the prosecution team,” Sanders argued in the motion. “There is also little question that Orange County members of the DeAngelo prosecution are hoping with every fiber of their being that DeAngelo pleads guilty (on Monday) ... so that a humiliating trial can be avoided.”
McNamara died in 2016, midway through the writing of her book and two months after loading up dozens of boxes of evidence and stowing them in the home she shared with husband, comedian and actor Patton Oswalt. The operation was detailed in her posthumously released “I’ll Be Gone in the Dark,” in 2018. An HBO documentary series based on the book debuts Sunday.
Sanders’ motion trains the spotlight once again on an Orange County Sheriff’s Department still wrangling with a widespread evidence mishandling scandal involving hundreds of deputies uncovered late last year.
Leaked internal audits revealed that hundreds of sheriff’s deputies held onto evidence while other deputies lied about filing it. Firings, discipline and investigations followed.
Sanders after filing the motion Thursday suggested the 2016 evidence heist may have factored in prosecutors agreeing to a plea deal for the 74-year-old ex-cop.
“It’s curious that they were so adamant about the death penalty, then suddenly, that dropped,” Sanders told The Sacramento Bee.
Sacramento prosecutors and DeAngelo’s defense counsel did not return requests for comment Friday, but have said that a plea deal would avoid a lengthy and costly trial given the scope of the case and the advanced age of a number of DeAngelo’s victims and witnesses.
But Sacramento attorney Mark Reichel said although the evidence breach was “a horrible idea, especially in a murder case,” it will have no effect on a DeAngelo guilty plea Monday.
“It’s a real problem. It absolutely breaks the rules on chain of custody for obvious reasons,” Reichel said Friday. “It shouldn’t have happened, but it will have zero effect in this case. Zero.”
Sanders in the motion seeks crime lab-stored DNA evidence from unsolved murder cases involving rape for his client Lynn Dean Johnson, now 16 years into a life sentence for the 1985 rape and murder of Bridgett Lamon in Anaheim – a case that was solved with DNA evidence.
Sanders argued that prosecutors and investigators fought to block his access to the evidence to aid his client’s fight for a new trial while McNamara had seemingly open access to unsolved case files.
“They didn’t want us to see those reports,” Sanders said.
Orange County sheriff’s spokeswoman Carrie Braun disputed Sanders’ assertions in a statement to the Orange County Register.
“We trust the court will make a determination on the merits of this case, not a sensationalized motion,” Braun said.
This story was originally published June 28, 2020 at 10:38 AM with the headline "Orange County detectives helped Golden State Killer author take evidence, attorney claims."
.JPG)