The man arrested for being the Golden State Killer, Joseph James DeAngelo, was an unexpected suspect that authorities didn't have on their radar. They will likely link him to the Visalia ransacking case and may add kidnapping and murder charges.
The location of the crime scene suggests that Richard Ramirez might have gone to the nearby national forest to get rid of the murder weapon and his bloody clothes, while a strange phone record on the day of the murders indicates that he might have traveled somewhere else in that day.
The police could not find enough evidence to arrest any suspect for the murder of Jesse Valencia, but Detective Short got the DNA results from Jesse's body.
Michael Finkel tells the story of a man drowning in debt who saw his bad luck become a saving grace when a murderer used his name as an alias, all narrated on the podcast "Sword and Scale".
This episode of the podcast details the start of the East Area Rapist/Original Night Stalker's reign of terror in California during the 1970s, including his modus operandi and the police's difficulties in tracking and capturing him.