It’s been an unexpected week for unusual revelations — particularly those involving notorious historical figures and their anatomy.
Days after headlines surfaced about Adolf Hitler’s alleged physical condition based on newly examined DNA evidence, another high-profile case is drawing attention for a similarly startling reason.
A new book claims that one of the key clues that helped investigators identify the “Golden State Killer” — the infamous serial predator ultimately unmasked with the help of late true-crime writer Michelle McNamara — was a distinctive physical detail described consistently by his victims.
According to Page Six, which obtained an early look at Sacramento District Attorney Thien Ho’s new book, “The People vs. the Golden State Killer,” detectives were able to link multiple crime sprees to Joseph James DeAngelo Jr. after survivors gave matching descriptions of the perpetrator’s extremely small genitalia.
DeAngelo, who had already been arrested in connection with a series of brutal attacks across California, was also suspected of being the man behind the unsolved “East Area Rapist” cases. However, investigators lacked DNA evidence tying him to those crimes. Ho writes that the physical descriptions offered by victims across different regions became a crucial piece of circumstantial evidence.
“I needed circumstantial evidence corroborating his identity as the EAR,” Ho explains in the book. “I needed to confirm the extreme smallness of his penis.”
Detectives, along with a crime-scene photographer, were assigned to document DeAngelo while he was in custody. Ho recounts that the photographer struggled to capture clear images, prompting one frustrated officer to reportedly exclaim, “There’s nothing there!”
The officers later communicated their findings to Ho, describing the detail as matching precisely what victims had reported decades earlier — a factor that helped strengthen the case against DeAngelo.
“We had the circumstantial evidence we needed to corroborate the testimonies of DeAngelo’s victims,” Ho writes.
In 2020, Joseph James DeAngelo pleaded guilty to 26 felony counts, including numerous attacks attributed to the East Area Rapist. He was sentenced to multiple life terms without the possibility of parole.
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