After DeAngelo has spent several days in custody, investigators still don't appear to have a clear picture of who he is.
They know he was a police officer in the Tulare County community of Exeter from 1973 to 1976 and in Auburn from 1976 to 1979, when he was dismissed after being charged with stealing a hammer and dog repellent from a Citrus Heights drug store, according at an article in the Auburn Journal.. They know he worked as a truck mechanic at a Save Mart distribution center in Roseville from 1989 to 2017.
They also know he is separated from his wife and has three adult daughters, one of whom lived with him at the Citrus Heights house - along with DeAngelo's granddaughter. The other two daughters "are very bright, beautiful and successful," Holes said. One is a doctor and the other is a PhD candidate at a University of California campus. They had no clue about their father's alleged criminal past; in fact, Holes said they didn't even know he was a police officer.
"For all three of these kids, another tragedy is to find out that their dad is the worst serial killer maybe in the nation's history," Holes said.
Other relatives have told The Sacramento Bee there was no reason to think DeAngelo was involved in this horrific crime spree. His sister, Rebecca Thompson,
said Thursday she had "never seen anything to allow myself to think he could do such things."
"As stunned as I am - because I've never seen him display any kind of madness or anything like that - I just can't believe it," Thompson said.
There's still a decade-long gap –from 1979 to 1989 – in which police aren't sure what DeAngelo was doing or where he was living. He has been implicated in 10 murders and four rapes across Southern California between 1979 and 1986. Public records link him to addresses in Long Beach and the Los Angeles County city of Whittier in the 1980s.
"We don't know a lot about him," Holes said. "But between the investigative reporting and the online sleuths, all of that information will be filled in."