team coverage begins with emily turner in the sacramento suburb of citrus heights with the breakthrough that led to the arrest. emily? >> reporter: this is where he was arrested this is his home. it's an active scene. in the last hour a truck has moved and you could really get a good view of the crime scene. so far we know that they have collected a motorcycle, two cars, one boat. more evidence will lead to more searches likely, and potentially more charges.>> i'm going to kill you. i'm going to kill you. >> reporter: the voice of a man who terrorized california for decades. the east area rapist now known as 72-year-old joseph james deangelo. >> it was more than a professional commitment, it was personal for many of us.>> reporter: the district attorney says he committed 45 rapes and 12 murders. >> it's time for all victims to

kpix 5's emily turner is at golden gate park where the light-up is just beginning. emily, a lot of people out there right now. >> reporter: a lot of people. they are expecting at least 15,000 people, which is how many they had last year. in fact, i'm going to step out of the way so you can see exactly how many people are here now. the gates opened at 9:00. here we are at noon. let me tell you, it was not this packed at noon last year. this is now my fourth year covering this event and i haven't seen crowds this big this early in the day and i have a feeling it has something to do with the fact that recreational marijuana is legal in california. music in the background is blaring. that started at noon. countdown to "420" itself, it will be this afternoon. we'll be here for that. that big cloud of smoke that goes up over hippie hill. this year again it's legal recreational marijuana so they are expecting huge crowds. this is the second year that the city has worked with a sponsor to make sure the event is organized although not sanctioned. we talked to the organizers a

emily turner asked the investigators if they've used ancestry sites. >> i'm not prepared to talk about what technology we have. but this will come out. >> we do not know which sites were used. 23 and me tells me they were not involved in this case. i could tell you it's unlikely that they were involved because they don't have a publicly searchable database. their genetic matching services and opt in for customers only, so they would have to submit a genetic sample. a user could download their dna profile from 23 and me and upload it to a public database there are many gene tree dna sites. there are other public database sites that anyone could search if they created the account to upload their own profile. unlike 23 and me, ancestry has a public surgery -- has a public searchable database. they were matching the profiles to the database. if you submitted your data to ancestry it's possible you could have been searched in this search. >> a lot of questions about what happens with rdna. and the legal ramifications. >>> our reporter continues coverage from joseph james deangelo's home . >

emily turner was there for us. emily? >> reporter: this whole thing today lasted maybe 10 minutes. this case will play out over months and months potentially even years before it comes to its conclusion. today was the first time we saw the accused killer in court and it was the first time his victims were there.>> it's difficult. we are together and we are happy to be together and for her and brian.>> reporter: katie and her husband brian were killed 40 years ago. today joseph james deangelo was charged with these murders. >> we've been riding a roller coaster for three days of ups and downs. your happy one minute, a huge wave of emotion comes over you the next minute. you don't have any idea why. >> reporter: this, the first time we've seen joseph james deangelo since his arrest. he is accused of 12 murders and 45 rapes. blamed on the golden state killer. today's arraignment was for two capital murder charges. he is also charged with two murders in ventura county and four in orange county. people who remembered the gruesome crime spree showed up to see joseph james deangelo in per

emily turner is in sacramento for today's hearing. emily. >> reporter: he will be in court for the first time at 1:30 pm this afternoon, still waiting on details of mother cameras will be allowed inside. but i will be in the courtroom when he makes his first appearance. for this first appearance, he is arranged for two charges of capital murder. sacramento murders of katie and brian, 20 and 21-year-old kupper that's not couple from 1978. those are the murders he is being charged with entering for today. we did talk to his brother-in- law, d'angelo's brother-in-law and he was shocked by what happened.? if you look at joe, i would've never suspected it. we had a family type relationship. so we jokingly hunted -- we joked and we hunted. we went boating. ? he has three adult children and is married but separated. he was born in new york. he went to folsom high school and get his ged 1964. my onto sacramento state where he graduated with a bachelors degree in criminal justice. according to an exit her son, he was a police officer and then l

kpix5's emily turner is there now and tells us they're not going home just yet. emily? >> reporter: no. they don't know when they'll be able to get home. i can show you why. it's the walls of this building right here behind me. they are simply not safe. either they're going on fall down or the firefighters are going to have to push them down. from chopper 5 you can see just how decimated this apartment is from this burn that burned so hot and so fast and is, in fact, still burning right now. once under construction now the subject of a major fire investigation. this charred complex is a health hazard for its neighbors and the reason 200 of them can't go home. they were allowed back in briefly to gather belongings this afternoon. >> got twoing boys, a 2-year- old and -- two little boys, a 2- year-old and a 2-month-old. right now they and my house are at the hilton and it's been really, really difficult. >> reporter: and the fire really, really big. >> it was apparent to our first responders company that this was a very large fire already beyond the capability of one comp

kpix5's emily turner has the latest tonight. >> it's just gruesome. u.s. law enforcement officials say this was an intentional act. this cell phone video shows police surrounding the driver and his rental van before he was taken into custody. the suspect has been identified as 25-year-old alek minassian. a terrifying afternoon in downtown toronto as a van crashed into people walking along the street. >> he just went on the sidewalk. he just started hitting everybody, man. he hit every single person on the sidewalk. the bus stop, everything got shattered. there was a lady in there that i saw. >> reporter: one man said he followed the vehicle to check on the driver. >> i thought he had a heart attack or something and tried to chase it down and we almost catch up to see it happen. he's going 70, 80 clicks. he's just hitting people one by one going down. oh, man, it was like a nightmare, man. >> reporter: officials say it will be a long investigation. >> the driver is in custody right now and he's being investigated to the events that took place this afternoon

police are now busy clearing out the park and kpix5's emily turner is there for us live. >> reporter: it's a much different scene than just an hour ago. the vast majority of the crowd is gone. there's people cleaning up behind me kind of getting the trash out of the way. i want to really touch on what you were talking about, though, with all those people who were transported. look at this video we shot earlier today taken around 4:00, so before 4/20 actually hit. there was the band playing. there was a huge, massive crowd in front of the stage and there were several people who essentially fell out and people were saying they weren't responsive. some of them weren't breathing and they were transported. we now know that there were a dozen people transported to area hospitals. we do not know the status of those folks and i just spoke to sfpd before going on air and the spokesperson tells me they're looking into the possibility that they were eating some form of edible that might have been laced with something that obviously had this negative effect on these folks. of course, we'll follow

.>> emily turner live, thank you. >>> victims are speaking out. in november 1977 margaret ward became the rapist's 27th and youngest victim sure -- she was just 13 years old.>> if someone tries to infected with her evilness, why would you let that dictate your life or have any influence of you? for me, i just was not going to give him that power. then, now, or ever.>> she also says at the time she was more defined than afraid -- defiant then afraid. >> reporter: i spoke to the woman by the name of jennifer carroll who lives in santa cruz. in 1980 her father and stepmother were murdered in southern california. she says today she felt a tremendous release of energy that has been pent up over these decades. she's been in a state of disbelief. >> reporter: for jennifer carroll, the tsunami of emotions began as a downpour of text messages earlier this morning telling her the capture of the east area rapist was all over the news.>> it has been an interesting day, congratulations, yeah, i guess. congratulations. they found the guy. i wish my grandfather

. >> emily turner reporting live, thank you.>> investigators made at least one theory wrong turn on the long road to an arrest. we continue this coverage. >> as we have reported investigators finally tracked him down through his dna but the match was made not in the high-tech lab but instead it started behind the white picket fence of this modest home in florida. the home of the genealogy research site. a partial hit on the distant relatives through this site lead to joseph james deangelo. of course it's not an exact science we learned investigators misidentified a 73-year-old oregon man is a possible suspect last year using the same genetic profiling methods who say the man exhibited a rare genetic marker also fanned in joseph james deangelo's dna -- found in joseph james deangelo's dna but they are confident they've got the right man. investigators say dna is not the only thing joseph james deangelo had in common with the killer. the name bonnie came up during one of the violent attacks. >> he's making the statement " i hate you bonnie. " we felt there was a woman named bonnie in his

golden gate park, emily turner, kpix5. >>> details on a very unusual crime ring, a group of people smugglingucculents, yeah, plants, busted in northern california. wildlife detectives from several agencies made three separate arrests along the north coast in mendocino and humboldt counties. kpix5's len ramirez on how rare and native plants were pulled up from the soil and then shipped overseas. >> reporter: it was an international smuggling ring trafficking not in guns or drugs, but native california succulent plants called dudlias. >> pretty unusual case for us, a case we have not really seen before in terms of the scale and the type of poaching involved. >> reporter: california department of fish and wildlife busted up the ring in mendocino and humboldt counties where the plants were being ripped out of the ground by the thousands from coastal bluffs and then shipped to china and korea to be sold on the black market for 40 to $50 each. investigators were tipped off when the smugglers tried to send packages overseas by u.s. mail. >> there was a number of cases where just the sheer volume of

team coverage begins with emily turner in the sacramento suburb of citrus heights with the breakthroughrrest. emily? >> reporter: this is where he was arrested this is his home. it's an active scene. in the last hour a truck has moved and you could really get a good view of the crime scene. so far we know that they have collected a motorcycle, two cars, one boat. more evidence will lead to more searches likely, and potentially more charges.>> i'm going to kill you. i'm going to kill you. >> reporter: the voice of a man who terrorized california for decades. the east area rapist now known

emily turner, kpix5. >>> b.a.r.t. trains will run near nonstop in the south bay starting tonight. they'll be testing a 10-mile stretch north from san jose. it's good news for future riders, but maybe not for the neighbors. kpix5's len ramirez is in san jose with the noisy details. len? >> reporter: well, liz, these might be the last few relatively quiet hours that this berryessa neighborhood enjoys because vta and b.a.r.t. officials say trains will run through here tonight and for the foreseeable future. in fact, the only time trains won't run through here now will be only four hours in the wee, small hours of the night. the quiet neighborhoods that border the b.a.r.t. tracks in san jose are about to get a lot more noisy. at almost all hours of the day and night. >> i haven't heard any noise yet, so hopefully it's not that bad, but i'm okay with it. >> reporter: david tran said the good of having b.a.r.t. service near his berryessa home outweighs any inconveniences so far, but the first time since the tracks were laid neighbors will get a taste of what living neck to busy b.a.r.t.