The worst thing that can be said about this documentary is that it is mistitled, because although the sicko who became known as the East Area Rapist claimed over fifty victims, he went on to even greater depravity as a serial killer: the Golden State Killer.
This episode of "On The Case..." was screened in June 2017; less than a year later, former police officer Joseph James DeAngelo was arrested.
The crime spree of the East Side Rapist began a decade before DNA profiling was unleased on the world, but the voluminous forensic evidence he left behind will unquestionably close the case. Although it would of course be improper to comment on DeAngelo prior to the end of his trial, it was long suspected the East Area Rapist was a police officer, not only because of his supreme arrogance but because of other aspects of his modus operandi.
And arrogance is the word, there surely cannot have been a sadistic criminal like him in history, the nearest is probably Antoni Imiela. The so-called M25 Rapist who died in prison this year phoned the mother of one of his victims after raping the girl and gloated to her. The East Area Rapist went much further than that, as we hear here from one of his victims.
This documentary is unfinished business. Look out for another in the series and many more after the DeAngelo trial.
