Her statement contained a specific declaration that observers cited widely: “He didn’t win, I’m not a lost girl.” The statement was addressed directly to DeAngelo, who was present in the courtroom. It reflected the perspective of someone who had rebuilt her life — she is now married and runs a support group for sexual assault survivors — while carrying the effects of the attack for more than four decades. The “lost girl” she referenced was the version of herself she had feared losing; the statement was a declaration that she had found another way to exist.
Gay Hardwick, attacked with her husband Bob in Stockton in 1978, framed her statement around the concept of the life sentence that the victims had served — a sentence she characterized as unjust because they had done nothing to deserve it. “A life sentence served by people who did not deserve it.” The forty-two years between the attack and the sentencing hearing were, in her framing, the duration of that undeserved sentence.
Victor Hayes took a different approach. His statement focused on institutional accountability — specifically, his anger at the investigative and prosecutorial apparatus that had failed, over decades, to identify someone with a law enforcement background. His frustration was directed not at DeAngelo personally but at the systems that had allowed someone with specific operational knowledge of police procedures to evade identification. His statement reflected the experience of someone who had spent forty years not with grief, exactly, but with questions — questions about why the investigation had not produced an earlier result, and whether different decisions would have changed the case’s history.