5:31 p.m. ET, June 29, 2020
Why today's hearing is so lengthy
From CNN's Eliott C. McLaughlin and Stella Chan
Suspected Golden State Killer Joseph DeAngelo responds to one of the charges against him during his hearing in Sacramento on June 29.
Rich Pedroncelli/AP
A hearing for suspected Golden State Killer Joseph DeAngelo started about three hours ago, and it will resume later this afternoon after a lunch break.
DeAngelo — who was
arrested in April 2018, decades after the California crime spree — has agreed to plead guilty to each individual crime, prosecutors and his defense team said.
That means prosecutors from the counties where DeAngelo committed his crimes are reading the specifics of each offense, laying out horrific details about him binding, robbing, raping, sodomizing, beating and killing various victims. After one double murder in 1979, a prosecutor, DeAngelo snacked on leftover Christmas turkey from a victim's fridge and left the bones behind.
By the time the lengthy hearing concludes later today, he will have pleaded guilty to 13 counts of first-degree murder and special circumstances (including murder committed during burglaries and rapes), as well as 13 counts of kidnapping, the prosecution said.
He will also informally admit to numerous other crimes, it said.