Anna Daniels
I’ll Be Gone in the Dark, Michelle McNamara‘s chilling true crime book about the Golden State Killer, is now the subject of an HBO docu-series. Directed by Liz Garbus, the six-part series covers both the crimes of the killer, which took place in California in the 1970s and ’80s, but also McNamara’s obsessive investigation before her sudden death.
I’ll Be Gone in the Dark Trailer
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTNHJETw0S8?feature=oembed&w=740&h=416]
In the 1970s and ’80s, a figure first known as the East Area Rapist, and then called The Golden State Killer, terrorized California. The crimes remained unsolved, and caught the attention of Michelle McNamara, a true crime blogger, and the wife of comedian Patton Oswalt. McNamara was in the midst of writing a book about the case, but was unable to complete the book before her death in 2016. Here are more details:
McNamara’s blog about unsolved crimes, True Crime Diaries, chronicled her obsession and led to a lengthy article about the case for Los Angeles Magazine, which resulted in her landing a major book deal. Committed to solving the case, the investigative research consumed her, and she became more and more plagued by dark thoughts and a growing sense of angst. The demands of balancing her self-described addiction to her work with her family life pulled McNamara in competing directions and she became increasingly reliant upon prescription drugs to manage her mounting anxieties. After a string of sleepless nights and harrowing nightmares, McNamara tragically died of an accidental overdose in her sleep with her manuscript unfinished.
After McNamara’s death, Oswalt turned to Paul Haynes and Billy Jensen to help finish the book, which they did. The book went on to become a bestseller. Not long after the publication of the book, former police officer Joseph James DeAngelo was arrested as a suspect in the case.
Now McNamara’s investigation is the subject of this new HBO docu-series. I’ll Be Gone in the Dark is described as “a detective story told in McNamara’s own words, through exclusive original recordings and excerpts from her book read by actor Amy Ryan. The series draws from extensive archival footage and police files as well as exclusive new interviews with detectives, survivors and family members of the killer to weave together a picture of a complex and flawed investigation. It is a frightening document of an era when victims were often too ashamed to speak out and sexual crime was minimized in the press and the courtroom. Echoing McNamara’s writing, the series gives voice to the victims, and their experiences speak to the far-reaching, human cost of the decades-old case.”
I read the I’ll Be Gone in the Dark book, and found it genuinely unnerving. The approach here, covering both the crimes and McNamara’s investigation, echoes that of the book, and I’m very curious to see how this all plays out. I’ll Be Gone in the Dark premieres on HBO June 28.
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