Joseph James DeAngelo's words -- "I'm truly sorry" -- was such an unexpected moment that it brought gasps from the victims in the gallery.

Prosecutors called his more than decade-long spate of crimes "simply staggering," encompassing 87 victims at 53 separate crime scenes spanning 11 California counties.

California investigators tracked down the man they suspect is the Golden State Killer by comparing crime scene DNA to information on genealogy websites consumers use to trace their ancestry, a prosecutor said on Thursday.