The Golden State Killer was a master of his craft, eluding capture for decades. However, he could not have predicted the advances in technology and DNA analysis that would eventually lead to his arrest. He was very deliberate in how he went about his crimes, stalking his victims for days so that he knew their patterns and hiding devices in their own home that he could use. The ability to go into someone else’s house and make them feel more uncomfortable than you is especially powerful, as most people would have no idea how to react.
I think he definitely would have been caught sooner if he did not stop killing when he did because there would have been more crime scenes and evidence for authorities to work with. This would have narrowed down the number of suspects by a significant amount because of his movements and locations, decreasing the amount of work needed to find legitimate suspects. He also stopped killing right around the time DNA analysis was created, so if he kept killing he likely would have felt the full force of new scientific advances. He was also a former police officer so he knew the practices at the time and how law enforcement would go about their investigation.
The public perception of serial killers is something that was very interesting, as they are often widely known cases, relying on the public for help. Even this article was written by someone who is a stay at home mom and has a side hustle as a crime blogger. Even though these people are not official investigators, they play a huge part in solving these cases because they keep searching for new evidence and connecting the dots when others might have given up.
I think the combination of DNA evidence becoming more prevalent as well as the internet and improved communication has led to the decrease of serial killers in the past couple of decades. Obviously DNA evidence is hard to get around if you are a serial killer, it literally points the finger right at you. However, the internet has also played a big part because people are able to easily send pictures of evidence or search police records on an online database. The ability of the public to assist in these cases and communicate across the country has made these cases much less common. (396)
You raise an important point- DeAngelo being a police officer when he started out definitely helped him to elude capture!