One year after the arrest of a suspect in the Golden State Killer case and a year before the guilty plea, investigative reporter Lilia Luciano headed back to where it all began - Exeter - and what she finds is nothing short of shocking. Luciano looks into the murder of Donna Jo Richmond, a 14-year-old girl in 1975. She questions if this could have been the work of the Visalia Ransacker, who then was suspected to be the same person as the Golden State Killer, now confirmed by the guilty plea.
Initially, I was highly skeptical by the attempt to link these two cases, as a younger girl dropped outdoors didn't seem to meet the Golden State Killer's MO. As it turns out, there's plenty of reason to think they may be connected, with investigators citing the Ransacker's habit of dropping one piece of evidence from one crime scene at another crime scene. As it turns out, framing wasn't entirely outside of the Ransacker's MO. The evidence dropped off with the body, Luciano argues, could have led police to the wrong man.
Luciano's further investigations into connections between the Golden State Killer suspect and the investigation into his own crimes is nothing short of horrifying. Luciano even questions a former investigator, an ex-neighbour of the suspect. This is a documentary that asks uncomfortable questions about the thin blue line in one of the most notorious serial killer cases in history.
