Paul Holes was in a grocery store when he saw the news alert on his phone. He had been retired for less than a month. He later described the moment, saying he had to leave his groceries and sit in his car to process what he was reading.
Michelle McNamara’s husband, Patton Oswalt, was informed of the arrest before it was publicly announced. He had been consulted as part of the planning process, given his late wife’s deep involvement with the case. He posted on social media after the announcement was made public, writing that McNamara had been convinced the Golden State Killer was still alive and could be found, at a time when many investigators had privately wondered whether he had died years ago. She had been right.
## The Charges and the Legal Buildup
After the initial two murder counts filed in April 2018, the charges against DeAngelo expanded as the prosecutorial coordination among six counties proceeded.
Santa Barbara County added charges covering the Goleta murders. The Ventura County District Attorney filed charges in the county where the Snelling murder occurred and where rape kit evidence had been preserved for decades. Contra Costa County, Sacramento County, and Tulare County eventually joined the prosecutorial coordination.
The six-county coordination was unusual in California’s legal history. Normally, criminal cases are prosecuted by a single jurisdiction, with separate proceedings in each county for crimes that occurred there. The Golden State Killer prosecution involved an agreement among six county district attorney offices to coordinate charges and present them in a single Sacramento proceeding.