Joseph Skokan was 15 years old living on a tree-line street in Rancho Cordova when he heard what is now known as the Maggiore murders.
"As I'm going towards the window, I hear curdling screams from a female," Skokan, now 55, recalled about the night a young couple was killed by the East Area Rapist while walking their dog in Rancho Cordova. "And just as I'm about to get to the window I hear what I thought was firecrackers. More like M-80's."
Skokan then ran outside along with a friend and his friend's father, arriving to the murder scene "within seconds."
Right away they saw the 21-year-old male victim, Brian Maggiore.
"He's laying on the ground, blood everywhere, and he's gurgling," Skokan said.
Maggiore's wife, Katie, was on the other side of the house. The friend's father would not let the two boys go over there.
"He comes back out," Skokan remembers, "And says, 'you boys aren't going over there. I'm not letting you see that."
Adrenaline running, Skokan and his friend decided to run through the neighborhood looking for the suspect.
"Now you can understand why a lot of the supposed eyewitnesses said we saw two people running, he had to have an accomplice," Skokan said. "Well I think most of those people probably saw me and my friend."
Skokan made it safely home where they spoke to investigators about what they saw and heard.
It wasn't until years later they learned the suspect was believed to be the East Area Rapist.
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