To his family and friends, Joe DeAngelo was a normal man. Imagine their surprise when they discovered that he had come to become one of the deadliest serial killers that California had ever seen. In The Man In The Window, Paige St. John, a Pulitzer Prize winning investigative reporter, traces all his various crimes through the victim’s eyes. Produced by Wondery and the Los Angeles Times, this podcast has some details about the infamous Golden State Killer that have never been revealed before.

The podcast gained popularity among the general public because of the stellar narration and the excellent research carried out by Paige. DeAngelo was responsible for hundreds of violent crimes, and it took local authorities over four decades to figure out that all of them were committed by a single man. Paige has gone to great lengths to uncover several details that were not known before, to give you a different side of the story.

The Man in the Window Podcast

The Creator Behind the Podcast 

Paige St. John is an American journalist who graduated from the Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. She kick-started her career with The Detroit News as an environmental reporter. Before working at the Los Angeles Times, she was an investigative reporter at the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, where she won the Pulitzer Prize in 2011 for her series “Florida’s Insurance Nightmare.” This series had already received several accolades, such as the National Headliner Award, the Scripps Howard Award, and the Investigative Reporters and Editors Award. 

At the Los Angeles Times, Paige is a staff reporter and covers things such as disasters, criminal justice, and investigative stories. 

Themes and Topics Covered 

 The Man in the Window is a short true crime investigative podcast that traces the life and crimes of DeAngelo, the Golden State Killer, right from the beginning of his crimes, to his trial and prosecution. It includes several details that have never been revealed before. However, the focus is not on him; rather, it is on his victims and his family members and friends.

DeAngelo was responsible for at least 13 murders, not to mention the more than 200 cases of sexual assault, burglary, and home invasions that he was never charged with. Paige traces all of his crimes over the course of two decades through his victims, giving voice to their struggles. 

She begins the podcast by talking about a series of brutal animal killings that took place in a small town in California. The residents did not know it yet, but this was the prelude to several decades of violence and terror by one single man. We also get an origin story that seeks to explain how DeAngela developed a hatred towards women. 

Throughout the podcast, we learn how his crimes kept increasing in severity – from a burglar who carried out home invasions and peeping tom to a sexual assaulter, and, finally, a murderer. As his crimes began increasing in number, he came to be known by several nicknames – the Cordova Cat, the East Area Rapist, the Diamond Knot Killer, the Night Stalker, and many more. 

The 9th episode of the podcast takes us back to the past, to DeAngelo’s life before he became the Golden State Killer. This episode was based on new information that was acquired only recently. We get to hear from his friends and family, the people who knew him as an energetic and loving person before he turned into a monster. Finally, the podcast ends with an episode of DeAngelo in the court, trying to manipulate it. We also get behind-the-scenes footage that reveals what actually went down in the interrogation room. 

Even though the podcast is titled after the killer himself, it is really about his victims whose voices and stories remained silenced for far too long. A majority portion of each episode includes interviews with the Golden State Killer’s victims as well as the investigators of his various crimes. Here, we get to know how the victims were often blamed for the sexual assaults and were ostracized after living through the most traumatic moment of their lives. 

Reach of the Man in the Window Podcast 

Paige St. John, the host of the Man in the Window podcast, has 3.8k followers on Twitter. 

The podcast is not available on YouTube, but you can watch the first episode on Wondery’s YouTube channel where it received 24k views.

As of January 2023, the Man in the Window was ranked #235 on Apple Podcasts under the true crime category in the USA, which is impressive, considering that this podcast came out way back in 2019. 

Based on this analysis, we estimated that the Man in the Window podcast received 50k listens each time an episode went out across Apple, Google, YouTube, and Spotify podcast networks.

The Format of the Podcast 

The podcast has 10 episodes, with each episode telling the story of the notorious Golden State Killer in chronological order – right from the beginnings of his crimes in the 1970s and 80s to his prosecution. 

Episode 7 of the Man in the Window podcast features a guest, Laura Beil, a health and science journalist. Here, the two talk about peoples’ reactions to sexual assault, the stigma and victim-blaming that still surrounds it, and why everyone (including the victims, police, and media) struggle to talk about it. 

Reception and Impact 

Despite being a podcast about such a gruesome man, the Man in the Window became quite popular among listeners, receiving a rating of 4.6 out of 5 stars on Apple Podcasts. 

The Golden State Killer was quite infamous for being one of the deadliest killers in the history of time. One of the reasons people were interested in this podcast was due to the excellent investigation and reporting done by Paige St. John in revealing a new side of the entire story.

Not only do we get to listen directly from the victims themselves, we also learn about how it is often the victims of sexual assaults that are blamed and “othered.” 
Paige does a wonderful job of narrating the events while remaining sensitive to the survivors and their struggles. Want to check out the podcast for yourself? You can give it a listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or Google Podcasts.