There is a thread about this guy but it never got much attention. I am going to venture to say it was because of the title of the thread; no one knew what ear-ons met. The first thing i thought of were plastic Vulcan ears. If a mod could merge the two threads that would be great.
Anyway, I have always been fascinated by this case. This guy is one of the most prolific serial rapists and killers in US history. He is especially interesting because you can see the evolution of a killer. He started out as "The Ransacker" where he would just break into people's homes and go through their stuff, then he escalated to rape and ultimately he escalated into a full fledged serial killer primarily targeting couples. It is obvious he stalked his victims before he attacked and he often kept up with them over the years by calling his rape victims and threatening them. He typically picked homes in a middle-class neighborhoods close to fields or ravines. It is thought he probably rode a bike to and from his crimes. When acting as the ONS he would bind the man and woman, sometimes forcing the man to bind his own wife and watch while she was raped. He killed his victims in a variety of ways. Some were bludgeoned to death while others were shot.
One of the creepier things this guy did was target a man who stood up during a town hall meeting expressing his doubt that one man could subdue another man and his wife. A few weeks later that very man was targeted, his wife raped, himself murdered. The EAR/ONS was at that town-hall meeting.
The one phone call he made to one of his rape victims was recorded on an answering machine. It is seriously creepy. It is in the link below.
It was not established until 2001 that the East Area Rapists and The Original Night Stalker were the same person. The crimes were linked through DNA. An astute detective assigned to the EAR always had a feeling his guy had moved to a different area and had graduated into a serial killer and he was right.
This is a great website with everything you ever wanted to know about EAR/ONS:
http://www.ear-ons.com/index2.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_Night_Stalker
http://www.websleuths.com/forums/showthread.php?t=85498&highlight=ear-ons (original thread that went dead)
http://www.redding.com/news/2006/sep/30/killer-linked-to-area-investigator-follows-trail/