Jennifer Carole, who lost her father Lyman Smith and her stepmother Charlene Smith when she was eight years old, spoke about the process of finding meaning within an extended period of loss. She described the “silver linings” of unexpected connections — the bonds formed among people whose lives had been altered by the same crimes, the sense of community created across the decades of the case. Her approach was one of active meaning-making rather than grievance, which she acknowledged might not be the approach that every person affected by the case had been able to reach.
Elizabeth Hupp, whose father Claude Snelling was the first person killed in the sequence attributed to DeAngelo, addressed the court from the perspective of someone who had been present — as a sixteen-year-old — at the moment of the first documented killing, and who was now sixty-one. She spoke about forty-five years of loss — forty-five years in which her father had not been present.
DeAngelo sat in the courtroom through four days of these statements. His expression was described as largely impassive by reporters who covered the hearing.
## The Sentence and His Statement
On August 21, 2020, Judge Michael Bowman of the Sacramento County Superior Court imposed the sentence.
Thirteen consecutive life terms, without the possibility of parole. Plus eight years for the additional kidnapping counts.
The sentence is effectively a guarantee that Joseph DeAngelo will die in prison. He was seventy-four years old at sentencing. The thirteen consecutive life terms without parole mean there is no legal mechanism under California law by which he could be released.