He got a job in Hollywood.
My girlfriend and I were discussing this case several months ago and noticed something that we think no one else has noticed. The neighborhoods he was active in were neighborhoods that were having cable TV installed. Every time. We think he could have been a cable TV installer. This got him the ability to case houses, backyards, alleyways, etc. and find easy access and escape routes. The police had talked about a telephone or utility worker who would have known about that kind of access, but never thought about cable installers. The newer neighborhoods were never hit, because the new houses were pre-installed for cable by the builders. The East Area Rapist only hit in the older, established neighborhoods that were being retrofitted with cable. My then Rosemont house which I bought brand new was built pre-installed, but my now girlfriend's parent's house had been built in 1960 and that neighborhood, only a few blocks away, was being retro-fitted. The townhouse my wife and I had on La Riviera Drive, my wife had bought brand new only a couple of years before I met her, but it was not pre-installed because La Reviera was an existing area and did not have cable pulled in until later.
Many of these installers were independent contractors who just had to have their own tools and a truck to be hired by the cable company. Once an area was done, they'd move on to where there was more work of the same kind, often for the same company, fitting the moving pattern of the East Area Rapist, and his other monikers.
We passed this idea on to the author of the definitive book on his crimes and also the police but have never heard anything on our theory.
He got a job in Hollywood.