The Golden State Killer’s wife of 46 years trusted her husband was telling the truth when he said he was going pheasant hunting. Or going to visit his parents. Or going to work.

She worked graveyard fast food and juvenile hall shifts and had no inkling of the terror he wrought — raping and murdering people up and down the state, Sharon Huddle, now divorced from Joseph DeAngelo, told a judge in a victim impact statement submitted during her ex’s sentencing hearing this week.

Huddle’s one-page letter released Thursday was the first statement she’s given since June 2018 when she issued a brief communication through the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office offering regards to the victims and asking for her privacy. Thursday’s statement was the most extensive insight into the woman who married the serial killer and rapist in 1973, and had three daughters and a granddaughter. The pair had been separated when DeAngelo was arrested in 2018 and their divorce was finalized last year.

Many victims said she must have had some inkling about her husband’s massive crime spree from 1975 and 1986. He pleaded guilty in June to 13 murders and 13 kidnapping for robbery charges, and admitted to raping dozens of women. A judge is expected to sentence him to multiple life sentences without the possibility of parole Friday morning in Sacramento.

“The defendant’s criminal actions have had a devastating and pervasive affect on my life and my family,” the ex-wife wrote. “I will never be the same person. I now live everyday with the knowledge of how he attacked and severely damaged hundreds of innocent people’s lives and murdered 13 innocent people who were loved and have now been missed for 40 years or more.”

Huddle, an attorney, and DeAngelo, who worked for years as an Auburn police officer, had their first daughter in 1981, after the East Area Rapist, another of DeAngelo’s monikers, had already raped dozens of women and girls. But in her letter, Huddle said she knew nothing of these rampages. Throughout the letter, she called him “defendant” not by his name.

“I trusted the defendant when he told me he had to go to work, or was going pheasant hunting, or going to visit his parents hundreds of miles away,” she wrote. “I worked graveyard shifts at Jack in the Box fast food restaurants and at Placer County Juvenile Hall. At times I studied late into the night at my law school. When I was not around I trusted he was doing what he told me he was doing.”

Huddle said she has “post traumatic distress” where she gets frightened by unexpected noises or movements.

“Simple everyday experiences such as a car moving from one lane into another lane behind your car can bring fear to me,” she said.

She described an incident at Trader Joe’s where she was shopping for groceries in the freezer section when someone touched her forearm.

“My heart began to race and my body jolted,” Huddle said. “I was terrified that I was about to be harmed, when in reality someone I knew just wanted to say hello to me. I have lost my ability to trust people.”

She ended her letter by saying, “I wish that nothing I say here will detract from any other person’s impact statement.”

Prosecutors and DeAngelo’s defense team will make final arguments Friday, and the notorious killer will get a chance to speak on his own behalf if he wishes. A judge will then sentence him to prison. His plea deal in June removed the death penalty as an option.