About The times. (Gainesville, Ga.) 1972-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 22, 2020)
NATION The Times, Gainesville, Georgia | gainesvilletimes.comweekend Edition - August 22-23, 2020 13A California wildfires some of largest in state history NOAH BERGER I Associated Press Pam, who declined to give a last name, examines the remains of her partner’s Vacaville, Calif., home on Friday, Aug. 21. The residence burned as the LNU Lightning Complex fires ripped through the area Tuesday night. BY OLGA R. RODRIGUEZ AND JANIE HAR Associated Press SAN FRANCISCO - Lightning- sparked wildfires in Northern California exploded in size Friday to become some of the largest in state history, forcing thousands to flee and destroying hundreds of homes and other structures as rein forcements began arriving to help weary firefighters. More than 12,000 firefighters aided by helicopters and air tank ers are battling wildfires through out California. Three groups of fires, called complexes, burning north, east and south of San Fran cisco have together scorched 780 square miles, destroyed more than 500 structures and killed five people. More than 140,000 people are under evacuation orders. The number of personnel assigned to the sprawling LNU Complex — a cluster of blazes burning in the heart of wine coun try north of San Francisco — dou bled to more than 1,000 firefighters Friday, Cal Fire Division Chief Ben Nicholls said. “I’m happy to say there are resources all around the fire today. We have engines on all four sides of it working hand-in-hand with the bulldozers to start containing this fire, putting it to bed,” Nicholls aid. Fire crews with help from “copi ous amounts of fixed-wing air craft” were working Friday to stop a large blaze from reaching com munities in the West Dry Creek Valley of Sonoma County, he said. The blazes, coming during a heat wave that has seen tempera tures top 100 degrees, are taxing the state’s firefighting capacity but assistance from throughout the country was beginning to arrive, with 10 states sending fire crews, engines and aircraft to help, Gov. Gavin Newsom said. “We have more people but it’s not enough. We have more air sup port but it’s still not enough and that’s why we need support from our federal partners,” Newsom said. Newsom thanked President Donald Trump’s administration for its help a day after pushing back on Trump’s criticism of the state’s wildfire prevention work, saying that he has a “strong personal rela tionship with the president.” “While he may make statements publicly, the working relationship privately has been a very effective one,” Newsom said. There are 560 fires burning in the state, many small and remote but there are about two dozen major fires, mainly in Northern California. Many blazes were sparked by thousands of lightning strikes earlier in the week. Tens of thousands of homes were threatened by flames that drove through dense and bone-dry trees and brush. Some fires dou bled in size within 24 hours, fire officials said. With firefighting resources tight, homes in remote, hard-to- get-to places burned unattended. CalFire Chief Mark Brunton pleaded with residents to quit bat tling fires on their own, saying that just causes more problems for the professionals. “We had last night three sepa rate rescues that pulled our vital, very few resources away,” he said. An anxious Rachel Stratman, 35, and her husband, Quentin Lareau, 40, waited for word Friday about their home in the Forest Springs community of Boulder Creek, in Santa Cruz County, after evacuat ing earlier this week. She knew one house burned but received conflicting information about the rest of the neighborhood. The couple were in a San Jose hotel with medication she needs after undergoing a transplant sur gery last month. She collected her mother’s ashes and some clothes while her husband closed windows and readied the home before they evacuated Tuesday. The ferocity of the fires was astonishing so early in the fire sea son, which historically has seen the largest and deadliest blazes when dry gusts blow in the fall. But the death toll already had reached at least six since the majority of blazes started less than a week ago. Five deaths involved fires burning in wine country north of San Francisco. The other death was a helicopter pilot who crashed while dropping water on a blaze in Fresno County. Golden State Killer apologizes as he receives sentencing BY DON THOMPSON Associated Press SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Just before receiving multiple consecutive life sen tences, Joseph James DeAngelo, the former California police officer who lived a double life as the murderous sociopath dubbed the Golden State Killer, broke his silence to tell a hushed courtroom filled with victims and their family members that he was “truly sorry” for the crimes. It was such an unexpected moment that it brought gasps from those in the gallery, many of whom sat through an extraordi nary four-day sentencing hearing filled with graphic and heart-wrenching testimony from dozens of victims. It also reinforced that nobody ever seemed to know what DeAngelo would do and who he was, which helps explain how he eluded detection for four decades while committing at least 13 killings and dozens of rapes. The 74-year-old DeAngelo spoke for only a few seconds after rising from a wheelchair that newly released jail video shows he doesn’t need. “I listened to all your statements, each one of them, and I’m truly sorry for everyone I’ve hurt,” he said, putting aside the weak, quavering voice he used to plead guilty and also admit to multiple other sexual assaults for which the statute of limitations had expired. Prosecutors and victims said it was more evidence of a manipulative and vicious criminal who fooled investigators and his own family until he finally admitted victim izing at least 87 people at 53 separate crime scenes spanning 11 California counties. He was finally unmasked in 2018 with a pioneer ing use of DNA tracing. “I think that he is truly diabolical and he is constantly masked, whether it’s a physi cal mask, a disguise in the voice, the role of a decent guy in the community and hav ing people around him who love him,” said Debbi Domingo McMullan, the daughter of murder victim Cheri Domingo. “One hundred percent ‘Jekyll & Hyde,’” added Jane Carson-Sandler, one of DeAnge- lo’s first rape victims. “It’s like he was living two completely different lives.... He prob ably, somehow in his mind, didn’t feel that he was committing these crimes — it was someone else, almost compartmentalized.” DeAngelo’s family members broke their silence in the case, writing in letters read to the judge that the “monster,” “devil,” “beast” and “madman” described by pros ecutors is the polar opposite of the man that one niece saw as a loving father figure and another as her “hero” who took her camping and fishing. Sacramento County Superior Court Judge Michael Bowman was unmoved. He said DeAngelo should die in prison with “no mercy” from his jailers after pleading guilty in June to 13 murders and 13 rape-related charges that spanned much of California between 1975 and 1986. The plea deal spared him the death penalty. “When a person commits monstrous acts, they need to be locked away so they can never harm an innocent person,” the judge said to applause from DeAngelo’s victims. Investigators in the case pioneered a new method of DNA tracing that involves build ing a family tree from publicly accessible genealogy websites to narrow the list of suspects. They linked nearly 40-year-old DNA from crime scenes to a distant relative of DeAn gelo and eventually to a discarded tissue they surreptitiously lifted from DeAngelo’s garbage can in suburban Sacramento. The same technique has since been used to solve 93 murders and rapes across the nation, said Ron Harrington, whose fam ily has been obsessed with solving the 1980 slayings of youngest brother Keith Harrington and his new wife, Patrice Harrington. It led oldest brother Bruce Harrington to champion a ballot measure passed by Cali fornia voters in 2004 that expanded the col lection of DNA samples from prisoners and those arrested for felonies and has since led to more than 81,000 identifications. Bowman told DeAngelo he was moved by the courage and strength of the victims and their family members — “all qualities you clearly lack” — who told how they endured sadistic, hours-long assaults. DeAngelo’s rapes and eventual murders followed the same pattern of binding couples he surprised while they slept and assault ing the woman as the man lay helpless. He would place dishes on the man’s back, warn ing that he would kill them both if the dishes rattled. 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