Finally, relief

It was as if a shadow had suddenly vanished.

“It almost changes everything,” Roger Domingo said this week. “After years with floodwaters swirling around your nostrils, to hear the sound of ‘whoosh’ and feel the waters receding is a great relief.”

Police arrested 72-year-old Joseph James DeAngelo on Wednesday, identifying him as the “Golden State Killer.”

Among the crimes he is believed to have committed are the rape and murder of the ex-wife of retired Jay County pastor Domingo.

“I never thought it would happen,” he said.

Word of the arrest came in a phone call Wednesday morning from his daughter.

“Debbi had found out the night before,” he said. “She’s been on speed dial with the detectives for years.”

At first, Domingo thought the call was bad news. “She said, ‘Is Mom with you?’”

Worrying about grandchildren, Roger hurried to get his wife, June, on the phone.

Then Debbi told them, “We wanted you to know they’ve got him.”

And the shadow vanished.

It had hung over the family since July 27, 1981, when Cheri Domingo and Gregory Sanchez became the 10th and 11th victims of a serial killer known then as the “Original Night Stalker.” The killer, who stalked victims and attacked them in their homes, was also known in the press as the “East Bay Rapist” as well as the “Golden State Killer.”

His crime spree spanned more than a decade and included 50 rapes and a dozen murders.

Roger and Cheryl — Cheri to all who knew her — married in 1964. Daughter Debbi was born in 1965, and son David was born in 1966.

But California in the 1960s was not the perfect environment for a happy marriage, and the Domingos’ was troubled. They tried counseling. They tried separation. But in 1978, they divorced.

Cheri’s behavior, by some accounts, had become self-destructive.

Roger, meanwhile, had met June (Barger) Clear, a Portland native whose marriage to her own high school sweetheart had also foundered.

Both Roger and June were teaching in San Diego and found one another. They wed as soon as their divorces were final.

By then, the serial rapes and murders had already made headlines. The crime spree began in 1976 in Sacramento County. It later spread to Stockton, Modesto, Davis and San Jose.

In 1979, the attacks moved to Southern California.

The Domingos, meanwhile, started to build a blended family, with sons James and Jeremy along with David and Debbi. David chose to live with Roger and June. Debbi tended to move back and forth between the two households.

She was, her father said, sometimes “rebellious as a teenager.”

That may have saved her life.

“Had she been home that night, we can only guess,” said Domingo.

On the night of July 27, 1981, while Cheri was house-sitting for a friend in the real estate business, Debbi opted to stay with a friend because of friction with her mother.

Sanchez, a sometimes boyfriend who stopped by about once a month, just happened to be there that night.

Domingo theorizes that the killer had been stalking Cheri because she was alone in the house. The presence of Sanchez merely complicated his plans. Both were dead by morning.

And police, looking for a suspect, first turned to Roger.

“I was interrogated intensely,” he said. “They had all sorts of theories.”

But Domingo, who was teaching summer school in San Diego while June was back in Jay County visiting her parents, was more than 250 miles away from the crime scene.

“I was in San Diego, and fortunately I was at a business meeting that night.”

The investigation was going nowhere. And for years, that’s where it went: Nowhere.

It was never classified as a cold case, however.

“Some of them had never let it go,” Domingo said of police in California.

Just the same, it cast a shadow, particularly over Debbi.

She was 15 at the time of her mother’s death, and the crime had an impact every day. Focusing on school was a struggle. Eventually, she came to live with her grandmother in Jay County, taking courses at Jay County High School in 1983-84 to get the credits she needed to graduate from her high school in California.

As an adult, she refused to let the case go.

“She’s been at the center of keeping the case alive,” said her father. “Debbi was active on the internet, in chat rooms, in forums. She was at the center of those.”

In 2017, Debbi participated in a panel at CrimeCon, a “true crime” convention for amateur sleuths that happened to be meeting in Indianapolis. Her role there helped raise the profile of the case. Numerous TV appearances followed.

“She’s been highly visible,” said her father.

A key breakthrough in the case came in 2011 when DNA evidence was recovered from one of the crime scenes. Then the FBI got involved, and soon after a $50,000 reward was offered.

“That got a whole lot of public attention,” said Domingo. To assist with the investigation, he created a map of California spelling out the precise locations, dates and details of the crimes. “I know that created a lot of leads.”

DeAngelo’s arrest, he said, came as a result of a citizen’s tip.

“Six days ago, they didn’t know this guy’s name,” he said.

“I’m more relieved for Debbi than for myself,” Domingo added of this week’s arrest. “She needed this to happen. … I did not expect this to happen. Debbi has always known that it could.”