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The accused Golden State Killer will finally be charged for his first murder

He was almost caught three months after the September 1975 murder but managed to escape after shooting at a detective.

The alleged Golden State Killer is expected to be charged Monday for what investigators believe was the very first murder of his long killing spree, CBS News reports.

Joseph DeAngelo is accused of fatally shooting Claude Snelling in Visalia, California, in 1975 when Snelling attempted to save his daughter’s life as DeAngelo broke into their home.

“In my heart, I believe he's the one, and that my father was his first victim,” Snelling's daughter, Elizabeth Hupp, told "CBS This Morning." “That's when I heard my dad yell, and… the man with a ski mask pushed me to the ground, turned, and shot my dad twice as he was coming through the back door,” Hupp, who was 17 at the time, added to CBS News.

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DeAngelo was almost caught three months after Snelling’s murder but managed to escape after shooting at a detective. Then, investigators believe he moved to Sacramento, where he continued to evade capture for more than four decades. In April of this year, at 72 years old, he was charged for the dozens of murders he allegedly committed as California’s most notorious serial rapist and killer, the so-called Golden State Killer.

This is the first time he’s being charged for his first-ever murder, more than 40 years ago. DeAngelo allegedly broke into Hupp’s bedroom in the middle of the night in September 1975, threatened her, and then dragged her out to their carport.

“He's always been my hero,” Hupp said of her dad. “I would not be here today, I'm sure of it, if it hadn't been for him.”

Tulare County district attorney Tim Ward told CBS News that Snelling was likely DeAngelo’s first victim.

“We're filing first-degree murder charges against Mr. DeAngelo, along with an allegation that he used a firearm in the commission of that murder,” Ward told the news outlet.

Since allegedly killing Snelling in 1975, DeAngelo is believed to have committed at least 12 murders, 50 rapes, and 120 burglaries between 1976 and 1986, according to DNA evidence that led to his arrest in April 2018. While he wasn’t linked to Snelling’s murder by DNA, the police are confident that he is responsible for committing about 100 burglaries in Visalia in the mid-1970s, becoming known as the so-called “Visalia Ransacker.”

“We have been able to locate victims and witnesses that were able to identify Mr. DeAngelo as the suspect back in that time,” police chief Jason Salazar told CBS, adding, “Those crimes were ultimately tied to the murder of Claude Snelling by a firearm that was taken from one of the Ransacker burglaries.”

Cover image: Joseph James DeAngelo appears in Sacramento Superior Court, Friday, June 1, 2018, in Sacramento. He is suspected in at least a dozen killings and roughly 50 rapes in the 1970s and '80s. (José Luis Villegas/The Sacramento Bee via AP, Pool)