Man in the Window Talkback Thread

[riverstorum]

“Most certainly if he’s making the statement, ‘I hate you, Bonnie,’ while he’s attacking another female,” Holes said, “he is what we call an anger retaliatory rapist,” funneling his anger at another relationship onto a stranger.

“I do believe that’s what happened here,” Holes said.

This is not a ridiculous statement to make lol. Jesus. Any name he mentions in the commission of a rape is going to be NOTED by a decent investigator. Could the name have been a diversion and therefore 100% meaningless? Yes but it wasnt. She was a real person. Paul wasnt even on the “Bonnie is a clue” train because, as he said numerous times, Bonnie was a common name back then. When she turned out to be a real person who had actually dumped him, then it casts his use of the name while raping someone in a different context. Paul is not saying it was Bonnies fault, for gods sake. And it seems like you guys and St John are trying to make that claim. He is making a distinction of how JJD acts out his anger from JJDs own warped perspective. But the reality is that Bonnie did go out with him, did dump him, and he did go on to use her name in anger while attacking another woman. She can dislike that fact all she wants but the sequence of events are the sequence of events. No one is saying his anger at her was justified but to refuse to acknowledge that he gets angry at people and retaliates is just... preposterous at this point. Especially when he goes on to do exactly that all throughout St Johns own story!

The only other name* Im aware that he used during one of his attacks was Sharon, and we didnt find out about that until way after the fact but we DID find it out from a victims lips, even though it never made it to a report. But most of the things he said did, in fact make it into the record.**

*He (or whoever the prowler was) who was caught by the kid in Visalia used a name to talk to a fake person but I cant remember it at this moment. But again, it did make it to the record.

**If you have read Kat Winters’ books, you know how much this is true and just how lame and repetitive his monologues were. You read one, youve pretty much read them all, honestly.

[cherylh]

That he was mad at somebody does not mean that person's actions made him into a prolific serial rapist and murderer.

He was also mad at dogs.

JJD was going to hate and resent a lot of women. Bonnie was just one of many.  I'd be pretty surprised if she was even the first.

He was already well on his way to a life of violence before he met her. She backed out of the relationship because he was disturbing and controlling. 

He was not just like any other guy. Sure, maybe a lot of guys don't consult the woman before guying a wedding ring. But that was hardly the issue Bonnie had with him.

She had a good feel for what he was. And he verified it after she broke up with him.

Sure, he said her name during a rape. He also said a lot of other things about all kinds of people. Especially about men in the military. Maybe someone in the military made him angry.

Maybe he was just a violent, angry, disordered person who was going to get into conflicts and negative situations with lots of people during his lifetime.

[riverstorum]

That wasnt the claim though. Its about how he chooses to act out his anger and more generally how rapist types are distinguished from each other. Some do not have an anger or retaliation angle to them.

Saying “I hate you (someone elses name)” while in the act of rape is going to ask to be explained. Its unreasonable to expect otherwise and honestly until now I dont think that was ever in question. How many legions of hours and bandwidth were spent on WHO IS BONNIE? WHAT DOES BONNIE MEAN? But suddenly when the case is solved and Bonnie is real, its mean and ridiculous to explain he gets angry at people and takes it out on other women?

[cherylh]

It's far too simplistic to say that he was angry at women or at one particular woman.

He was angry at women, at men, at dogs, at photos in albums, at happy homes, at any number of things. Later in life he was frequently enraged at neighbors.

There's a broad pattern of rage and violence, of hatred and lashing out.

[riverstorum]

Jun 13, 2019 23:27:39 GMT cherylh said:

It's far too simplistic to say that he was angry at women or at one particular woman.

He was angry at women, at men, at dogs, at photos in albums, at happy homes, at any number of things. Later in life he was frequently enraged at neighbors.

There's a broad pattern of rage and violence, of hatred and lashing out.

Thats exactly what anger retaliatory rapist means as Paul has explained probably hundreds of times at this point. They get pi ss ed at work, someone cut them off, whatever etc and they take out their anger on women by raping them. Its not Pauls fault that a tabloid cut it up but his full explanation about it has been out there on multiple platforms since D Day. And! If Bonnie or even St John wanted to clear the air about this, Paul is not hard to find or talk to and every one of the surviving victims seems to adore him and raves about what an advocate he is for them. Its unreasonable to believe that Bonnie of all people would be the exception.

Also I would like it noted for posterity that I, a known cop hater around these parts who has taken much shlt for it, will defend one when he/she has earned it and the facts are being mangled.

[ElfinEars]

Jun 13, 2019 18:45:51 GMT warren said:

You know what's really weird? I'm now looking at my foot thick file on persons of interest before the arrest. How I came to know so much about where they lived, who their family is, what kind of jobs they had, where they went to school, batting averages, etc. and now there is this sad void in my life. And they never knew!

I don't know if I should call them up and invite myself to their Thanksgivings or maybe send them Christmas cards and such. I don't think Dear Abby ever covered this issue.

Sadly I feel like you have more information on your former POI's then we know about JJD!

[ElfinEars]

Jun 13, 2019 17:16:09 GMT tomjones said:

Jun 13, 2019 16:36:15 GMT riverstorum said:

I didnt say you had to go by SATC, but its a common enough experience that men assume women are more into them than they really are and pick out rings or propose without consulting gfs, that real and fictional examples can be found all around a person. ...Or one could just accept that women have experienced it with regularity and dont make it up. But that might be too crazy.

She could’ve rejected the proposal. Where did I say women make it up? I never said that. However, feel free to provide data on this regularity you refer to on the percent of women horrified because their man got a ring without consulting them.

I think given the time and her background she felt she couldn't refuse.

Despite the free love ethos from the 60's carrying over into the 70's, Bonnie was a "good girl" from a "good " family.
She and JJD were having a fairly serious and intense relationship, they had already engaged in sex.

(there was also some sunk cost fallacy in place).

Girls were taught to be submissive and the goal was to get married and have children.
Even if they were in college it was assumed she was just there to get her "MRS degree".

We keep framimg things in 2019 terms and it's just not reasonable.

I mean just look at how the rape victim's were treated during that time period(It's referenced in the article).

It's easy to see why Bonnie felt powerless and trapped in obligation to JJD despite all the red flags (and likely gut feeling something was off)

In fact it's pretty amazing she had the strength to break it off with him,all things considered.

[evangeline]

Jun 13, 2019 23:18:17 GMT cherylh said:

That he was mad at somebody does not mean that person's actions made him into a prolific serial rapist and murderer.

We could be just arguing semantics here, but I think the semantics are important, and I think that is not what Paul Holes is saying, and that's not what I was saying -- that's not what I think anyone here is saying.  It's a subtle distinction, but an important one.  He was a disturbed person to begin with, way before Bonnie entered the picture.  The extent to which he was disturbed, and the root cause(s), we do not know.  We know he was a person predisposed to becoming a serial killer.  No one is saying that Bonnie breaking up with him is what made him that way.  And I wouldn't be surprised at all that he had some more violent or sexually-motivated crimes than we are aware of in his past. However, from the facts we are aware of, it does appear that Bonnie breaking up with him was a significant event in this timeline -- a tipping point or a trigger.  Meaning, I think that if that hadn't happened -- that if he had gone on to marry Bonnie -- he may have continued to exercise the self control that he had demonstrated prior to then and that we saw him demonstrate after the late 80's (for whatever reason, people have different theories, but in any event, we know DNA does not connect him to additional murders after 1986). Something else may have triggered him later in his life. Or maybe not. We'll never know. But, I do think the article's efforts to convince me that it was sheer coincidence that his crimes started shortly after Bonnie broke up with him were not successful and I agree with Paul's opinion. 

But none of this is on Bonnie.  She had every right to break up with him, for any reason, and as we know now, her assessment of him was spot on.  She has zero culpability.  (In contrast, if the reports that he witnessed two men rape his child sister are true, then that is an event that I think might have contributed to making him into a prolific serial rapist and murderer, in combination with other biological and environmental factors.)

[cherylh]

Yes, Evangeline, I think that's correct.

One clarification: My views of Paul Holes' statements on Bonnie, and on JJD's marriage to Sharon Huddle, don't result from this LA Times series. I heard them months ago on podcasts. And they struck me as off then. I thought his statement about Sharon Huddle was particularly baseless. And he made it clear that he was implying that she might be involved somehow in the crimes, even though he admittedly had no evidence to support that statement.

And here I feel the need to repeat that Paul Holes' role in the overall case is worthy of great admiration. He learned about a case in another state where DNA and genealogy research were used to identify a murderer. He made the decision to try the same thing here. It was a brilliant move. It solved the case. It was a huge breakthrough. He deserves more than the acclaim and praise he's gotten so far. Much more. That's my honest opinion.

And that accomplishment far outweighs anything about his comments about Bonnie and Sharon Huddle.

That he was kind and supportive with victims is also a huge positive.

I don't think Holes would say that Bonnie is in any way responsible for JJD's crimes. But, unfortunately, that casual, loose remark did make a lot of people think that. Many of them right on this website where they expressed that view. As one person here said, JJD was left enraged and hating all women because Bonnie decided to "trade up" -- by which the poster meant she dumped JJD because she met a man who made more money. Implying that the only reason a woman would break off an engagement was for financial gain. And that such feminine greed was responsible for the rage that ensued.

That's a repulsive view.

[kg]

Jun 13, 2019 22:50:04 GMT cherylh said:

Paul Holes's work on the DNA angle of the case was astounding. He deserves credit and praise for it. It was a huge win not only for this case, but it also helped publicize the methods used so that scores of other cases can be solved. Holes should be widely celebrated, he should write his book and make a lot of money off it. It'll get optioned quickly for film and/or TV projects. What he did is a really big deal. It's a significant event in the history of criminal investigation.


But his comments about Bonnie and Sharon Huddle weren't supported by the same knowledge and background that he brings to his DNA work.

A scientist should know better.

But scientists are just people. They speak with knowledge and a deep understanding about topics that they've studied. Then they go right ahead and speak with the same conviction about stuff they don't know much about.

Not all scientists do that.

[kg]

Jun 13, 2019 23:09:30 GMT riverstorum said:

“Most certainly if he’s making the statement, ‘I hate you, Bonnie,’ while he’s attacking another female,” Holes said, “he is what we call an anger retaliatory rapist,” funneling his anger at another relationship onto a stranger.

“I do believe that’s what happened here,” Holes said.

This is not a ridiculous statement to make lol. Jesus. Any name he mentions in the commission of a rape is going to be NOTED by a decent investigator. Could the name have been a diversion and therefore 100% meaningless? Yes but it wasnt. She was a real person. Paul wasnt even on the “Bonnie is a clue” train because, as he said numerous times, Bonnie was a common name back then. When she turned out to be a real person who had actually dumped him, then it casts his use of the name while raping someone in a different context. Paul is not saying it was Bonnies fault, for gods sake. And it seems like you guys and St John are trying to make that claim. He is making a distinction of how JJD acts out his anger from JJDs own warped perspective. But the reality is that Bonnie did go out with him, did dump him, and he did go on to use her name in anger while attacking another woman. She can dislike that fact all she wants but the sequence of events are the sequence of events. No one is saying his anger at her was justified but to refuse to acknowledge that he gets angry at people and retaliates is just... preposterous at this point. Especially when he goes on to do exactly that all throughout St Johns own story!

The only other name* Im aware that he used during one of his attacks was Sharon, and we didnt find out about that until way after the fact but we DID find it out from a victims lips, even though it never made it to a report. But most of the things he said did, in fact make it into the record.**

*He (or whoever the prowler was) who was caught by the kid in Visalia used a name to talk to a fake person but I cant remember it at this moment. But again, it did make it to the record.

**If you have read Kat Winters’ books, you know how much this is true and just how lame and repetitive his monologues were. You read one, youve pretty much read them all, honestly.

It was Benny.

[kg]

Jun 12, 2019 4:27:21 GMT Any of N said:

Once upon a time, there was a thread started by Lepke entitled, "Who is this young man?"  He had been browsing on YouTube about the case and spotted an employee in a gun shop helping customers in an old news clip. Various posters thought it looked amazingly like one of the composites.

The thread was removed years ago, but it contained a poor-quality still-image of this person, which we had to view once the video was removed by YouTube. I bring it up now because the chapter "Trail of Violence" in the article also shows a news clip that contains a young man in a gun shop. He's dressed differently than Lepke's guy, but maybe it's the same person from a different day and a different filming. 

The current video:
www.latimes.com/projects/man-in-the-window-trail-violence-golden-state-killer-serial/static/video/confusion-fear-topper.mp4

Anyway, Lepke's guy became an actual POI for law enforcement (supposedly) which illustrates the power of the composites. And that is another great example to support an assertion made previously -- DeAngelo would surly have been found sooner if only the Verla Street Prowler sketch had been released to the public sooner. As it was, we only found out about it something like a month before DeAngelo was arrested.

Question: Is DeAngelo tan in this photo or does he have Italian olive skin or is it lighting? The VR was reported to have a pale white face like he never saw the sun.

[faser41]

Jun 11, 2019 14:48:19 GMT steelbike said:

Jun 11, 2019 13:44:53 GMT walter said:

They reference it and they also have Bonnie claiming he had a very unique gait.

like McGowen and poster retrosacto described.



Right. I just finished all the reading and this “gait” description ( by Bonnie), stuck in my head in regards to retrosacto, who, I think referenced the “gait” of somebody stalking her in a car in a park, but not actively related to DeAngelo, so I may have missed retrosacto describing the “gait” of DeAngelo, although I am aware she had instances in Sacramento of being stalked by the ear/gsk......

[faser41]

Jun 11, 2019 22:23:14 GMT dementedavenger said:

Jun 11, 2019 19:14:59 GMT aek said:

It's interesting how controlling he was over Bonnie, and how indifferent he was to her wants and wishes. I have said this before, but I believe Sharon was likely very pliable and naive when JJD found her. He almost certainly forced her to go along with whatever he wanted, and tried to make her complicit in his unethical behavior, as he did with Bonnie.

The youth of Bonnie Colwell and Sharon Huddle also means that neither would have first-hand knowledge to compare to DeAngelo's Little Joe. I guarantee you that he heard crap about his member in the locker room of school and the military. If he weren't a serial rapist and killer and all-around creep I'd feel for him on this.

The stuff from Bonnie and Nick Willick is interesting since it's the first real glimpses we've gotten of how DeAngelo was to be around back in the 1970s. Along with the predicable braggadocio and outright bullshitting, it seemed like he was trying too hard to make himself liked by others, which I didn't expect. Of course, as he lacked empathy, he had to fake social skills, and things like getting too close is something a space alien or someone else who really didn't understand human beings would do.


salient points, fwiw I’m just catching up to this most excellent thread, so many pertinent questions still linger among so many of us.

[Deleted]

Jun 14, 2019 11:03:44 GMT faser41 said:

Jun 11, 2019 14:48:19 GMT steelbike said:

like McGowen and poster retrosacto described.



Right. I just finished all the reading and this “gait” description ( by Bonnie), stuck in my head in regards to retrosacto, who, I think referenced the “gait” of somebody stalking her in a car in a park, but not actively related to DeAngelo, so I may have missed retrosacto describing the “gait” of DeAngelo, although I am aware she had instances in Sacramento of being stalked by the ear/gsk......

the poster described it as being like someone who bent at the knees with their back flat against a wall and then walked forward still in that position. It made me think of someone having spent a lot of time riding a bmx bicycle.