I'll be gone in the dark : one woman's obsessive search for the Golden State Killer
Michelle McNamara (Author), Gillian Flynn (Writer of introduction), Patton Oswalt
For more than ten years, a mysterious and violent predator committed fifty sexual assaults in Northern California before moving south, where he perpetrated ten sadistic murders. Then in 1986 he disappeared, eluding capture by multiple police forces and some of the best detectives in the area. Three decades later, true crime journalist Michelle McNamara was determined to find the violent psychopath she called "the Golden State Killer." Michelle pored over police reports, interviewed victims, and embedded herself in the online communities that were as obsessed with the case as she was. At the time of the crimes, the Golden State Killer was between the ages of eighteen and thirty, Caucasian, and athletic--capable of vaulting tall fences. He always wore a mask. After choosing a victim--he favored suburban couples--he often entered their home when no one was there, studying family pictures, mastering the layout. He attacked while they slept, using a flashlight to awaken and blind them. Though they could not recognize him, his victims recalled his voice: a guttural whisper through clenched teeth, abrupt and threatening. This book--the masterpiece McNamara was writing at the time of her sudden death--offers an atmospheric snapshot of a moment in American history and a chilling account of a criminal mastermind and the wreckage he left behind
eBook, English, 2019
First Harper Perennial edition View all formats and editions
Harper Perennial, New York, 2019
Case studies
1 online resource (xvi, 344 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates) : illustrations (some color)
9780062916310, 0062916319
1088722148
Introduction / by Gillian Flynn
PART ONE: Irvine, 1981 ; Dana Point, 1980 ; Hollywood, 2009 ; Oak Park ; Sacramento, 1976-1977 ; Visalia ; Orange County, 1996 ; Irvine, 1986 ; Ventura, 1980 ; Goleta, 1979 ; Goleta, 1981 ; Orange County, 2000 ; Contra Costa, 1997
PART TWO: Sacramento, 2012 ; East Sacramento, 2012 ; The Cuff-links coda ; Los Angeles, 2012 ; Contra Costa, 2013 ; Fred Ray ; The one ; Los Angeles, 2014 ; Sacramento, 2014 ; Sacramento, 1978
PART THREE / by Paul Haynes and Billy Jensen
Afterword / by Patton Oswalt
Epilogue: Letter to an old man