SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — A former police officer once sworn to protect the public faces multiple consecutive life prison sentences Friday.

He was ultimately unmasked as the mysterious Golden State Killer who eluded his fellow investigators for four decades. Joseph James DeAngelo, now age 74, will die in prison after he pleaded guilty in June to 13 murders and 13 rape-related charges stemming from crimes in the 1970s and 1980s under a plea deal that spares him the death penalty.

He also publicly admitted to dozens more sexual assaults for which the statute of limitations had expired. Prosecutors called his more than decade-long spate of crime "simply staggering," encompassing 87 victims in 11 California counties.