None of this was enough to identify him. The Sacramento area had thousands of men consistent with the general description. Without a DNA database adequate to the purpose, without witnesses who could provide usable identification, without forensic tools capable of producing an individual match, the investigation continued accumulating case files and hitting walls.
The Move South and the Original Night Stalker
Beginning in late 1979, the pattern of assaults and killings shifted. The East Area Rapist stopped committing the crimes the Sacramento area had been watching for. A set of murders began in Southern California — in Goleta, near Santa Barbara; in Ventura County; in Orange County; in Dana Point — that would take years to connect to the Northern California rapes.
The victims in those Southern California cases were killed in pairs, in their homes, typically at night, bound and beaten. The cases became known under the label “Original Night Stalker” — a term that requires repeated careful distinction from Richard Ramirez, also called the Night Stalker, who was a different person entirely responsible for a separate series of crimes in the mid-1980s. The Original Night Stalker label refers specifically to the murders that investigators were now attributing to the Golden State Killer, and the overlap of names has caused confusion in reporting that the official case record does not reflect.
The Southern California murder victims included Robert Offerman and Debra Manning, killed in Goleta in December 1979. Charlene and Lyman Smith were killed in Ventura in March 1980. Keith and Patrice Harrington were killed in Dana Point in August 1980. Manuela Witthuhn was killed in Irvine in February 1981. Cheri Domingo and Gregory Sanchez were killed in Goleta in July 1981.