I’ll Be Gone In The Dark

[Herlock Sholmes]

Everyone’s probably seen this but I just finished watching this brilliant HBO series and I’m now 170 pages in on the book. I’d recommend both to anyone that hasn’t come across either. So sad that Michelle McNamara passed away before DeAngelo was arrested. Her search for him obviously took its toll.

[Philzilla]

I think it was mostly the fentanyl. I was an interesting series.

[Abby Normal]

Everyone’s probably seen this but I just finished watching this brilliant HBO series and I’m now 170 pages in on the book. I’d recommend both to anyone that hasn’t come across either. So sad that Michelle McNamara passed away before DeAngelo was arrested. Her search for him obviously took its toll.

yes it is. but at least she put the correct and final moniker on him. i literally just finished reading her book and the next day it was all over the news they caught him. crazy

[etenguy]

Everyone’s probably seen this but I just finished watching this brilliant HBO series and I’m now 170 pages in on the book. I’d recommend both to anyone that hasn’t come across either. So sad that Michelle McNamara passed away before DeAngelo was arrested. Her search for him obviously took its toll.

Thanks Herlock - I'll look to see if I can find it. Always interested in good documentaries.

[Herlock Sholmes]

yes it is. but at least she put the correct and final moniker on him. i literally just finished reading her book and the next day it was all over the news they caught him. crazy

I’ll finish the book within the next hour Abby. It’s amazing that the crimes weren’t more widely known unless they just passed me by?

[Herlock Sholmes]

Thanks Herlock - I'll look to see if I can find it. Always interested in good documentaries.

No problem Eten. The books worth getting too.

[Herlock Sholmes]

I think it was mostly the fentanyl. I was an interesting series.

And no one knew she was using those drugs. Tragic.

[jmenges]

My book review from the April 2018 issue of Ripperologist Magazine.


I’ll be Gone in the Dark: One Woman’s Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer
Michelle McNamara
Harper, 2018
Hardcover, paperback & ebook
352pp; illus

Before the arrest last April of Joseph James DeAngelo for the crimes attributed to the ‘Golden State Killer’ (also and formerly known as the ‘Original Night Stalker’ and the ‘East Area Rapist’), I had read two books on the case- Case Files of the East Area Rapist / Golden State Killer by Kat Winters and Keith Komos and Hunting a Psychopath by Richard Shelby. Case Files, written by the founders of a website dedicated to the case, does exactly what is described on the cover, chronicling in minute and increasingly violent detail each and every incident of prank phone calls, prowling, burglary, rape and murder believed to have been committed by the then unknown serial killer for over a decade across the state of California. A grim read, indeed. Hunting a Psychopath was self-published by the retired Sacramento County Sheriff’s detective who had been investigating the case since 1976 and was one of the first to link a series of rapes in the East county cities of Citrus Heights, Rancho Cordova and Carmichael to the same perpetrator, thereafter dubbed the ‘East Area Rapist’. I had yet to get around to reading Michelle McNamara’s book on the man she was the first to call the Golden State Killer when, suddenly and with much media attention, he was captured. It was over.

So to now go back and read a book about an unsolved series of crimes published two months prior to those crimes being solved is an unusual experience to say the least. The mysterious serial killer McNamara chronicles that commits the most heinous of crimes and then vanishes into the night is a mystery no longer. The sick and terrifying individualcan now be seen as a rather pathetic bald old man, staring helplessly out as us from his mug shot, and, a few days later, pushed into his arraignment in a wheelchair looking bewildered and confused.

Michelle McNamara was a true crime writer who published articles about the Golden State Killer and other unsolved murders in both magazines and via her website blog‘TrueCrimeDiary’. She was nearly finished writing I’ll be Gone in the Dark when she died suddenly in her sleep in 2016 at the age of 42. Her widowed husband, Patton Oswalt, enlisted the help of her friend and fellow crime writer Paul Haynes to help complete the project and bring it to publication.

The book is written in the first person and is as much about Michelle McNamara’s own journey to catch the killer as it is about the crimes themselves. She travels to many locations where the rapes and murders were committed meeting with investigators, crime technicians and web sleuths, each time picking their brains as to how the killer operated, why, and who he might be. She takes the reader back to California of the 1970s where a population boom led to a massive growth in new suburban developments where many of the neighborhoods, still partially under construction, became the hunting ground for the murderer. And we’re with her in more recent years as she tries to balance her family life along with Hollywood society (her husband is a famous actor and comedian) all the while, almost in secret, being fixated on the crimes of the Golden State Killer.

After DeAngelo’s arrest, many cited this book asreinvigorating the case and even went so far as to say that Michelle McNamara should receive some credit for solving it. But reading the book gives you the clear sense that during her investigation in the last decade of her life the momentum was going their way and many of the investigators she interviewed believed it was only a matter of time. Gary Ridgway, the Green River Killer, had been arrested and convicted in 2001 not by dogged police work but rather in spite of bad police work. It was, as he himself said, technology that captured him. The same is true for the Golden State Killer. McNamara shows us repeatedly that in the last years of the investigation the primary focus was on matching the killer’s DNA with hundreds upon hundreds of suspects until they hit on a match. When they finally did, sadly, she was no longer alive to see the day.

There will be many more books to come about the crimes of Joseph James DeAngelo but each and every one will undoubtedly be judged against I’ll Be Gone In The Dark, and Michelle McNamara has set the bar exceedingly high. I thoroughly recommend it.

JM

[Herlock Sholmes]

Thanks for posting that Jon. I don’t recall reading it at the time so it might have been just before I started getting Ripperologist again since the old hard copy days.

[Pcdunn]

Everyone’s probably seen this but I just finished watching this brilliant HBO series and I’m now 170 pages in on the book. I’d recommend both to anyone that hasn’t come across either. So sad that Michelle McNamara passed away before DeAngelo was arrested. Her search for him obviously took its toll.

I have not read the book, but I binged the documentary early one morning after a terrible bout of insomina. The cable channel was running it for free. I was blown away by its quality, and the intensity of Michelle's devotion as an amateur sleuth.

It was also a bit unnerving to realize I was living in California during the Golden State Killer's reign, though not in the exact same regions.

[Herlock Sholmes]

I have not read the book, but I binged the documentary early one morning after a terrible bout of insomina. The cable channel was running it for free. I was blown away by its quality, and the intensity of Michelle's devotion as an amateur sleuth.

It was also a bit unnerving to realize I was living in California during the Golden State Killer's reign, though not in the exact same regions.

Hi Pat,

I hope you’re well? It’s been a while.

[Abby Normal]

as i mentioned before-i had just finished her book, and the next day they announced they nailed deangelo-how freaken crazy is that?!? the series of documentaries are also excellent-some of the best ive seen on SKs. Mcnamara was amazing and she definitely helped keep the case going, none the least giving him his final and appropriate moniker of the Golden State killer. this guy was one of the most prolific serial offenders of all time-garnishing THREE seperate nicknames as his crime spree escalated:
hundreds of burglaries/ hot prowl breakins (Visalia ransacker), 50 rapes (east area rapist) and the murders (original nightstalker).
IMHO she helped catch this monster.

Also-whats so wierd about deAngelo is that not only was he was acop investigating his own crimes at the time, but that he upped his antics seemingly specifically targeting couples (men). it very rare for this type of serial killer (rape/torture) to also target men, or even to attack women who are with men.they are usually total cowards when it comes to this sort of thing. and for the life of me once he was caught and they released photos of what he looked like then, eventhough he did look like some of the composite drawing, I just had such a hard time putting that face with those crimes!! its the first and only time ive seen what a proven serial killer looks like, and not thought-yup he looks like a serial killer. talk about someone apearing normal, but having such an evil double life!

[Pcdunn]

Hi Pat,

I hope you’re well? It’s been a while.

It has been awhile, indeed! Real life hit me hard in 2019 and 2020 with personal losses. But I am well enough and vaccinated from the "plague." Good to see you and so many other familiar names still around and posting here. Stay safe everyone and keep investigating!

[Herlock Sholmes]

It has been awhile, indeed! Real life hit me hard in 2019 and 2020 with personal losses. But I am well enough and vaccinated from the "plague." Good to see you and so many other familiar names still around and posting here. Stay safe everyone and keep investigating!

Thanks Pat. Im sorry to hear that you’ve had such a tough time time but I hope things are looking better now?

All the best.