In the Golden State Killer's path, terror still runs deep

In the 1970s, families moved to Sacramento's expanding suburbs with fresh streets and open space so their children could play and wander at will.

Kids whiled away summer days riding dirt bikes through empty lots and pear orchards and played deep into the night on rowdy cul-de-sacs.

That sense of safety was shattered when a rapist began attacking women and teenage girls in 1976, causing panic throughout the region.

But when the same man came to a quiet beach community in Orange County four years later, bludgeoning a couple to death, few outside the neighborhood even heard about it. On the block where the killing took place, horrified reactions quickly gave way to vague rumors that a drug deal had gone awry - making neighbors feel they wouldn't be targets.

The Golden State Killer's rampage - 12 deaths and at least 46 rapes between 1974 and 1986 - wrought terror in some places, and barely registered in others.

He obliterated suburban tranquility in the Visalia and Sacramento areas. But his rapes and slayings in Southern California seemed unconnected, not the work of one man, but separate killers who likely knew the victims.

In the two weeks since authorities arrested Joseph James DeAngelo Jr., 72, and charged him with eight of the murders, residents in the communities attacked by the Golden State Killer are either reliving a nightmare or realizing how close they escaped one.

Visalia

Authorities say his crimes started in Visalia in 1974.

When Terry Ommen moved there from Los