Patton Oswalt pays tribute to his wife for naming killer

Patton Oswalt’s late wife, Michelle McNamara, spent much of her career researching the Golden State Killer for her book I’ll Be Gone In The Dark: One Woman’s Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer 

The crime book was released on February 27 and hit No. 1 on the New York Times Best Sellers list in March

McNamara died suddenly in her sleep in April 2016 before the book could be published as a result of an undiagnosed heart condition combined with prescription pills she had been taking. Se was 46

Patton Oswalt, McNamara’s friend and fellow journalist Billy Jensen and researcher Paul Haynes helped finished writing the book

The book was inspired by an article McNamara wrote for Los Angeles magazine called In The Footsteps of a Killer, in which she described her hunt to identify the Golden State Killer, a name she had given to the killer

The case of the Golden State Killer first captured McNamara’s attention in 2011, when DNA testing confirmed that a 1981 double murder in Goleta, California was the work of the unidentified serial killer 

The Golden State Killer is suspected of committing 12 homicides, nearly 50 rapes and 120 burglaries in southern California between 1976 and 1986

The title of McNamara’s book are the chilling words the serial murderer and rapist told one of his victims, a friend revealed 

Another friend said McNamara regularly spokes to survivors or family members of victims as she worked on her book 

During a visit to the Orange County Sheriff’s Office to peruse files, McNamara was entrusted with 40 boxes of files containing  notes, evidence and victims’ belongings. She had gone through a quarter of the boxes by the time she died 

McNamara writes in her book that her obsession with true crime started when she was 14, when her neighbor was murdered during an evening jog. The killer was never found and spawned her interest in unsolved murders 

McNamara says in the book that the case always seemed solvable to her because police had the suspect’s DNA

I’ll Be Gone In The Dark led HBO to develop a docuseries, executive produced by Patton Oswalt, about the Golden State Killer

The book has received a tremendous amount of praise from celebrities and authors including actor Rob Lowe who tweeted: ‘Congratulations @pattonoswalt Michelle did it. And, possibly, also proved Heaven is real. #GoldenStateKiller’



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