DeAngelo’s physical presentation at the June 29 hearing — appearing elderly and physically diminished — contrasted with jail surveillance footage that was later released publicly, which showed him walking normally and appearing physically capable. The discrepancy between his courtroom presentation and his actual physical condition was noted in reporting. The courtroom presentation was his to choose, within whatever constraints exist, and the observation that it appeared calculated was made by observers but not officially addressed.
The plea was accepted by the court. The formal sentencing was scheduled for August 2020.
## What Investigators Said After
In the months following DeAngelo’s arrest, several of the investigators who had worked on the case gave extended interviews. Their accounts illuminate aspects of the investigation that the formal legal record does not fully capture.
Paul Holes has given the most extensive public account of the investigation from an investigator’s perspective. He has described the specific technical decisions that went into the genealogy database approach — the choice to use GEDmatch rather than the commercial services, the translation of the forensic profile into genealogy-compatible format, the decision to upload rather than continue to wait for a CODIS match that might never come.
He has also described the emotional dimension of working on the case for twenty-four years and retiring just before its resolution. The specific detail of watching DeAngelo’s house on his last day of work has become a frequently cited element of the case’s narrative. Holes has described it as something he needed to do — a personal acknowledgment of where the case had led — while being clear that he could not have made an arrest at that point and did not attempt to do so.