I’ll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman’s Obsessive Search For The Golden State Killer – Michelle McNamara

Writer Michelle McNamara became interested in a serial killer she would dub the Golden State Killer, writing an article for Los Angeles magazine in 2013.  She was working on turning that article into a full fledged book when she died unexpectedly in 2016.  McNamara’s widower, comedian Patton Oswalt, hired crime writer Paul Haynes and investigative journalist Billy Jensen to help finish the book, and I’ll Be Gone In The Dark: One Woman’s Obsessive Search For The Golden State Killer was finally released earlier this year.  In the book, McNamara lays out her case that numerous unsolved cases throughout California, attributed to the Original Night Stalker, the East Area Rapist, and the Diamond Knot Killer, were all the work of the same person.

In an interesting twist, Oswalt, Haynes, and Jensen did an appearance through Anderson’s Bookshop on April 23, which I attended to get an autographed copy of the book.  At the end of the talk, Oswalt seemed confident that the identity of the Golden State Killer would be uncovered one day.  Little did he know that the next day, Sacramento police would announce that they had made an arrest and that 72-year-old Joseph James DeAngelo, a former police officer, had been identified as the Golden State Killer.