I'll Be Gone in the Dark (2020–…): Season 1, Episode 2 - Reign of Terror - full transcript

When I'm puzzling
over the details of an unsolved crime

I'm like a rat in a maze
given a task.

I had a murder habit
and it was bad.

I would feed it
for the rest of my life.

Her ultimate dream
was always to write books.

The case that
I'm most obsessed with is

a serial offender
that raped 50 women

in California
and killed ten people.

She also really wanted a child.

Alice!

Michelle wanted to get
this guy caught.



The story of the victims,
it has to be told.

We were awakened
by a voice.

There he is in his ski mask.

He said,
"Don't move or I'll kill you.

Everyone loves a story
about a killer,

but there was nothing new
to say yet.

Now...

This guy, I think...

I guess what I think people
underestimate is the...

I hate to use this word,
the productivity and the...

he was so... this is
what he did constantly.

And when you do
something over and over again,

you get...
you just get better at it.

And I don't think that that
necessarily meant...



I just don't think
he was an evil genius.

- Right.
- I think if you're out

- every night at 3:00 a.m...
- Right.

...trying to break
into people's houses,

it's a numbers game.
At a certain point,

you're gonna be successful.

Hey, it's Patton.

Just wanted to call
and congratulate you.

That is such awesome news.

You so deserve it.

Hey, Michelle.

I just wanted
to say congratulations.

I'm just thrilled for you.

Hey Michelle, It's Mel.

Call me, I'm looking forward
to talking to you

about the, um, article.

One, one thing that, um, was...

that I was interested in was...

how do you think
the East Area Rapist

chose the victims?
Because that's the other thing

that's so striking to me
about this case,

is that there obviously has to
be a high level of surveillance.

But then there's also

a spontaneity issue because...

So, he had to, like,
pick these people,

but then it's also, like,
the one time

the husband's called away
for two hours.

So it's almost like
he's omnipresent,

and I can't figure that out.

Well, a lot of times
he would go in

and I think
he would pick out a person.

A lot of times
he would go in

and I think he would pick out
a person. But...

So he was going into their house
maybe beforehand

- when they weren't there?
- Yes. Yes.

- Okay.
- Yeah.

The hook for me

was that the case
seemed solvable.

He'd left behind
so many victims

and abundant clues.

The case dragged me
under quickly.

Curiosity turned
to clawing hunger.

There were two more victims
in January.

A quote by an anonymous
sheriff's detective

in the Sacramento Bee

conveyed the brittle weariness
setting in.

"It was exactly the same
as all the rest."

The first draft
of Michelle's piece comes in,

and it is one
of the most difficult,

disturbing, violent collections

of terrible things
that happened to people.

And I was like, "Shit.

This is real."

And then it was like...

an elevator plunging
20,000 stories.

This is the first paragraph

that just gave me nightmares.

"The first attack

in many ways resembled
the 49 that followed.

The 23-year-old victim
woke to a man

in a navy blue T-shirt
and white ski mask

standing in her bedroom doorway.

He wore no pants and was erect.

She thought she was dreaming
until he leaped onto her bed.

'If you make one move or sound,

I'll stick this knife in you,'
he whispered,

pressing the blade
into her right temple."

The unknown offender,

soon dubbed
"the East Area Rapist,"

would go on
to rape and terrorize

Northern California communities
for the next three years.

"His habits were unique
and disturbing.

He clearly did
a great deal of surveillance

of his victims and their homes.

He used shoelaces or torn towels
as ligatures."

"His tenth victim
was playing the piano

when he materialized.

He tied her hands
behind her back

with shoelaces he'd stolen
earlier from her sister's shoes.

He had her masturbate him
with hand lotion,

a habit of his,

while he quizzed her
on her sexual history.

The victim was a virgin.

He raped her anyway.

'Isn't this good?'
he asked.

He held a knife to her throat
until she said yes."

When I was reading the piece,

the number "50" skid past me

the first few times
I read that story

because it was like,
"Twelve murders.

Murders, murders, murders."

And then I stepped back
and I was like, "Fifty rapes."

No one wants to talk about
that part of the story, really.

The devastation that that had
on the community,

on partners, in families,

and then made worse
by the fact that

we just didn't necessarily
have the tools

or the culture
to treat the victims

in the way they probably needed
at that time.

They range in age from 22 to 35,

in color,
from black to brown to white.

Joel, convicted of two rapes.

He also told me
he'd attacked men.

This is Vic.

He raped,
then murdered a woman.

Jim used a gun
to beat his victims.

In the '70s in Sacramento,

there seemed to be a center
for the real wackos.

It really did.

You had all kinds of rapists.

The Early Bird Rapist,
who started about '68 or '70,

he did 41, I think it was,

rapes, in the homes.

That never made much
in the way of news.

The Stinky Rapist.

He did many,
many rapes in Berkeley.

And they thought
they knew who he was,

but the DA wouldn't file.

And he moved to Oakland,
where he continued raping

and was never caught.

You had the Car Key Rapist.

He would rape the lady
in the car,

and then he would take off
with the key.

And, you had
the Pillowcase Rapist.

These were
very, very active rapists.

There were about 15
that I come up with,

where they were raping
30, 40, 50 people.

Rape in the '70s was...

a crime like a simple assault.

It was not considered
a big deal.

The sentence for, um...

raping somebody
could be 30 days,

could be 90 days,
you'd get probation.

There was no real,
crime statute

for sexual assault,

and so, um, I think
when these crimes began,

um, you know, you looked at
the way women were treated.

The sex offender today
has a greater number

of available women
to choose from.

There are more working women,
single women living alone,

not with their families
or with men.

Because of the mobility

and the visibility
of today's woman,

she must learn
to understand the rapist.

For today's woman
to understand the rapist,

she's gotta learn
to understand the man.

Of course,
women didn't talk about it

because of the way
they were treated

when they did talk about it,

and oftentimes blamed

for what did they do
that was inappropriate

or what, you know,
what were they wearing?

How were they walking?

You know,
did they do something

that would've brought
that kind of attention

against their will?

The young girl
made one bad move after another.

Her attitude
was much too inviting.

She should never have stopped
to window shop at night.

She parked in a dark section
of the parking lot

and didn't have her keys ready
in her hand.

So, Michelle...

how did you become interested
in true crime?

You know, how old were you
when you first got into it?

I got interested in true crime,
um, because when I was 14,

living outside of Chicago,

a neighbor of mine was murdered.

Um, and it... it was,
it's still unsolved.

Her name was Kathy Lombardo.

I grew up in Oak Park, Illinois,
which is outside Chicago.

It was just a laid-back
residential area

and it really kind of
shocked our town.

And it was... it was
headline news, for sure.

Kathy Lombardo
grew up in this neighborhood.

She felt safe here.

So she could be found just
about every night of the week

walking briskly through
these streets and alleys,

always alone, always wearing
her stereo headphones

with the music
turned up full blast.

Last night, somebody grabbed
the 24-year-old Oak Park woman

in an alley,
probably from behind,

stabbed her in the heart,
and slashed her throat.

Police say she was probably
sexually attacked as well.

She was found just
after 10:00 by two youths,

who called a neighbor
to the scene.

I got there
and went to reach down

to check her carotid pulse,
and her throat was slit open.

She was turning pale fast
and...

couple pumps, you know,

a couple more pumps
from her throat,

and she was dead.

I don't think,
up until that point,

I had been interested
in murder at all.

I was just very gripped
by this story

and very shocked by it
and very, um, obsessed

with kind of the blankness
of this person's face.

That we didn't know
who may be, like,

slinking by us
covered in blood.

I mean, it just seemed
so unbelievable to me

that someone among us
was a cold-blooded killer

who had cut this woman's throat.

Today, police scoured
the alley where the murder took place

and found the blade
of the kitchen knife

they think was used
to kill the young woman.

They're still searching
for the handle,

which was broken off.

What happened to her is wrong.

It could happen to you
or me or anyone.

I remember
walking to the place

where I knew
she had been killed and...

um, finding kinda these
shattered pieces of Walkman

that were still there
and kinda picking them up.

I didn't go as far as
to talk to,

you know, the police
or anything like that,

but I was definitely
very curious

about the different elements
of the crime

and how it had happened
and who this guy could be.

Was he someone we knew?

Everyone moved on,
and I couldn't.

- From, like, '75 to '84...
- Yeah.

...there were
so many serial offenders

operating at the same time.
It blows my mind.

- Yeah, yeah.
- I don't know why that was,

- but there was a ton of that.
- I don't either.

The East Area Rapist
was not the most active.

He was the most violent,
from what we knew.

He would break into the homes
while they were sleeping.

The sex was not... his thing.

The terror that he put in 'em
was the thing.

Now,
one of the big questions

that was asked here last night,

"If we have a gun,
could we shoot him?"

Knowing what I know
about this man,

if I had a gun,
I definitely would shoot him.

And I would not shoot to injure.

I would shoot
to take care of him.

There are two things known
about the rapist

currently terrorizing
Sacramento.

One is he has never been caught
in a home

where there was a man present.

The other is
he's never been in a home

where there has been a big dog.

'77 became a time
where the East Area Rapist

- began attacking couples.
- And why do you think

he did... he started
to do couples?

I really do think it was
because of the news media.

Yeah.

The first 15 rapes
in the Sacramento area

were lone women.

The newspaper printed
that he'd never hit a place

with a man in the house.

And after that...

there was a man in the house.

- So he was aware of that?
- Yeah.

And... and that would go
to the game playing part of it?

Yeah. Yeah.

Absolutely, he was watching
the media with everything.

And as soon as the newspaper
would say, "This didn't happen,"

it would happen.

Everything became
a challenge to him.

I didn't have a lot of exposure

to what was happening, um...

I didn't see the newspaper.

I don't remember hearing it
on the news.

In the weeks
leading up to the attack,

we had... hang-up calls.

I believe three, four a day.

We would have them.

Um...

but it didn't...

it didn't register to me.
I was 15.

Maybe it was a boy
that liked me.

You know, I didn't...

I really didn't have any...

I'll say it this way.

I didn't have
any reason to be fearful

because I lived in a safe world.

Residents of the East Area

are locking themselves
inside their houses

as never before.

Locks have sold so quickly
in the community,

stores have had trouble
keeping up with the demand.

I wasn't scared at the time.

I didn't know about
a lot of it going on.

I wasn't reading the paper.

Um, yes, it was in the news.

The one indication we got was...

my husband and I came home,

and the kids
in the neighborhood

come running up to us
and they said,

"We're playing this game
and I was on somebody's back

and we saw a man
run out of your yard."

We were like, "What?"

So we went, we got deadbolts,
where you put the key in

for the front door
and the garage door.

We put this nail at the top

so you could lock the slider
and it can't go.

And he had cased the place,

he knew to lift the glass up
out of the back window.

It was a Friday night,

it was probably after 1:00,
closer to 2:00.

Door opens, flashlight.

Mumbling.

"I have a gun."

And I'm still thinking...

"Am I dreaming? Am I...
Is this really happening?"

And before I knew it,
he threw some ties at me

and he says,
"Tie your husband up."

And so, he asked him
to flip over onto his stomach

and hogtied him and I did,
and I didn't tie him tight.

And then he tied me
behind my back,

on my stomach,
and my ankles hogtied,

and I remember
turning my jewelry around,

I'm thinkin'
it's gonna be a robbery.

And so, then he re-tied
my husband twice as tight.

And then he leaves the room.

We're kind of whispering
to each other,

we're like, "What's going on?"

He had a ski mask on
the whole time.

He's just walkin' around
the house like he owns it.

I could hear him
open the refrigerator.

He gets a beer,
and he's drinkin' a beer.

He grabbed dishes.

He grabbed plates and bowls

and he put them
on my husband's back.

And he told him
if he heard those bowls moving,

he was gonna cut his ear off.

He put a blindfold over me
and he said, "Follow me."

I'm going down the hallway,

and I remember
staying close to the side,

I'm thinking, "I don't want him
to see my body."

And I went, "My God,
I'm gonna be raped."

He took me
into the family room,

and he tells me
to lay on the floor.

He goes into the guest bedroom
and he got a towel

and he rips it in half
and he puts it over the TV,

but then he puts the TV on
so that there's light coming in,

but not too much.

As he was raping me,
I had a knife to my throat,

pushed up against my neck.

And I just kept saying,
"Please don't hurt me.

Please don't hurt me."

And I didn't hardly move,

I was like, I'm going to stay
as still as possible.

He was in the house for a while.

He drank another beer.

I... I could smell that.

He asked
for where my wallet was.

He was going through,
taking things out.

He came back and he says,
"Take off your jewelry,"

and I couldn't get it
off my hand.

And he says,
"I'll cut your finger off,

I don't care.
I want your jewelry."

And so I said, "Get some lotion
or get some soap."

So he went
and got me some lotion,

and I took off my wedding band
and my engagement ring.

And I remember
being cold on the floor.

Finally, it seemed quiet.

So I got up and I'm still tied,
and I go into the bedroom

and I talk to my husband
and I ask him how he's doing

and he's like, "You've just
got to get help.

I... I can't feel my hands.
They're totally numb.

I have no circulation."

And I'm thinking, "How do I
get out of this house?"

So I go into the kitchen
and I'm trying to get the...

the restraints off me,
and I'm trying to cut 'em

and I'm trying to saw 'em,
and it...

and I... and I'm also thinking,

"God, is he gonna come back
in the house?

Is he really gone
or is he hiding?"

So, all of a sudden,
the family room drapes moved.

A breeze came in.

So I ran over

and I put my shoulder
and I moved the sliding door.

And I went along the concrete
up to the front gate,

I moved the gate.

I'm totally naked
from the waist down.

I... Just my breasts
are being covered.

And I went
to a neighbor's house.

And I ring the doorbell.

They're looking at me
and the husband comes down

and he sees
that I'm, you know, naked,

and he grabs his wife's jacket,
puts it on me,

and I said,
"I've just been raped.

And my husband's tied up."

He got a gun,

he told his wife
to call the police,

"Stay here."

And then I waited
for the police to come.

And they came,
they took me back to the house.

Carol Daly
was a female detective

who I was so grateful
that she was there at that time.

Everybody else was men,

and she was the only woman
in the group.

And that was...
that was a nice feeling.

We have information that he...

She got me to the hospital.

And she said,
"You're okay, honey."

She said,
"I think you're in shock."

So she's kind of, like,
being a mother to me.

She says,
"You take as much time,"

and we talked about it.
Went back home.

Basically, I went in
and I said to my husband,

"Do you wanna...
do you wanna hear...

know what happened?"
He goes, "I know what happened."

And he said, "I don't want
to talk about it."

He said,
"I got rid of your pajamas

and you don't have
to see those anymore."

And I said, "Okay."

I don't think a lot of men knew
how to deal with it,

to be honest.

I don't think... I don't...

I know that he cared
and he felt terrible,

but I don't think he wanted
to relive it either.

He's basically,
"We don't talk about it.

It's gone away."

I think
this kind of crime was just...

very ripe for the '70s

because there's, um...

How many people
did not call the police

who saw something suspicious
is crazy.

And that would not
happen today.

Had you had anybody...

any neighbors mention
anybody weird

around the neighborhood
or anything like that?

- Do you remember?
- No.

We were very aware of it.

But it was in East Sacramento.

So we were sympathetic to...
but not alarmed

because we're not
his side of town.

You know he picked us partly
for the location of the house.

Right by the freeway,

- empty lot behind us.
- Empty field, right.

All of that.

And of course, they asked us
about strange cars...

I mean, so when...
when... Did you have...

did you feel in your heart
when this is happening

this was a stranger?

That this was not someone
that you knew?

- Yeah.
- You did?

You thought,
"This is the East Area Rapist."

- Which makes me... Yeah.
- Yeah.

I knew it was the guy then.

I mean, by that time,
this was attack 22.

My husband and I,
we were in our bedroom.

We were starting
to fool around,

- we hear a scratching.
- Right.

The EAR was a man of few words,

and mostly the same,
as I would come to read,

over time.

He did indeed have a script.

What he said to us
and mostly routinely was,

"I just want money and food,
and then I'll be gone."

My son was three years old.

He woke up as I was being
blindfold-led down the hall.

EAR told him
to get back in his room.

When he took me into
the living room for the assault,

I remember saying to him,

"Why are you doing this?"

And he said, "Shut up."

And I said, "I'm sorry."

This is...

This is how women were
in the '70s and the olden times.

I said, "I'm sorry."
And he said, "Shut up," again.

And that was the longest
conversation I had with him,

except at the end when he
gave me the instructions about

you know, tell the pigs
I have television.

Wow. God.

He didn't want it to be on TV

and if it was on TV,
he'd kill two people,

but then I believe
he told my husband

it had to be on TV.

He was constantly playing
these silly games with people.

He had told the victims
of the attack just before us

that he was going to kill
the next two people,

which would have been us.

Sometime after the attack,
my husband managed

to get our phone
re-connected in the bedroom,

that was on the nightstand,
and he called...

in those days,
you still called the operator.

Of course,
uniformed officers came first.

When I could see again,

when the uniformed officer
took off...

one of the first things I saw
was that on my formal couch,

the EAR had laid out
three or four of my dresses.

And I do mean laid out.

Not vandalized or thrown about.

They were just laying there.

And I remember very vividly
because I was so surprised,

I was not expecting
to see that.

I said to the officer,

"The East Area Rapist
is now the South Area Rapist."

The worst thing is not knowing.

Not knowing when the rapist
will strike again.

Not knowing
if you'll be his next victim.

All you can do is take
every possible precaution

and then hope
that he gets caught

before he gets to you.

I'm sleeping with my husband's
hunting knife under the pillow.

We don't go to sleep
very well at night.

We go around
and lock everything up

as tightly as we can.

As of tonight,
the East Area Rapist

has struck on the average
once every two weeks,

sometimes every two days,
sometimes a week apart,

sometimes three
or four weeks apart.

Everybody in Sacramento
was terrified.

Each night,
they patrol the neighborhoods

of Sacramento County's
east side,

and hundreds of other volunteers
reportedly are doing the same.

They call themselves
the EARS Patrol.

"EARS," short for East Area
Rapist Surveillance.

People complain
that after all this time,

the police should've been able
to catch the East Area Rapist.

I think that the reason

there hasn't been
something done about it

is because
it's a crime against women.

We had officers
off duty on their own time

going out
and working the streets.

It's the first time the so-called
East Area Rapist has struck here

in the Foothill Farms area
of Sacramento.

25.

Local burglar alarm distributors

report a run on alarm systems.

I don't like it.
It's getting too close to home.

We were giving
safety classes for women,

how to protect themselves,
what to look for.

It was about 10:00 last night

when the rapist
kicked in the door.

She becomes the eighth teenager

on the list
of some 33 victims.

The 39th attack
of the East Area Rapist

took place in this very nice
middle-class neighborhood.

There were days
where I didn't go to sleep

until the sun rose.

We had tambourines
on the windows and doors

so we could hear people enter.

Ideally speaking,
the potential victim

is supposed to ward off
her attacker with this device.

It just was an insane time
in Sacramento.

The attacks, two of them,

one last Saturday,
and then again early today,

occurred within a few blocks
of each other

in the Ignacio Valley area
of Concord.

--REPORTER
1: ...happening in Fremont...

...in Modesto... -REPORTER
3: ...her home in Contra Costa County.

The only thing we
really know about the East Area Rapist

is that he's a pro.

He's been at this
for four years now

and still nobody even knows
what he looks like.

Alice?

Alice, will you do
an imitation of Daddy?

I have a nightly ritual
with Alice,

who is a troubled sleeper.

Every night
before falling asleep,

she'll call out for me
to come into her bedroom.

"I don't want to have a dream,"
she says.

I brush her sandy hair back
and put my hand on her forehead,

and look straight
into her big brown eyes.

"You are not going
to have a dream,"

I tell her with crisp,
confident enunciation.

Her body releases its tension,
and she goes to sleep.

We make well-intentioned
promises of protection

we can't always keep.

- "I'll look out for you."
- No!

But then you hear a scream,

and you decide it's
some teenagers playing around.

A young man jumping a fence
is taking a shortcut.

The gunshot at 3:00 a.m.

is a firecracker
or a car backfiring.

You sit up in bed
for a startled moment.

Awaiting you
is the cold hard floor

and a conversation
that may lead nowhere.

You collapse
onto your warm pillow

and turn back to sleep.

Sirens wake you later.

We always joke that...

- we must've both been blind.
- We're still blind.

'Cause we've been together
40 plus years.

It was a blind date.

And then, just...

After that, we were
pretty inseparable?

Yeah.

Yeah.

We purchased,
a house together in Stockton.

That was...
that was the bad house though.

Yeah, I cried
the day we bought that house,

and I think that was
foretelling, actually.

Anyway, we could have
stayed there very happily.

It was in a cute
little neighborhood,

um, the house was big enough
to have a small family,

but as, you know,
things would work out,

we couldn't stay there.

We were awakened by a voice
and a bright light.

That's pretty typical of...
of what happened,

and that's what happened
to us as well.

It was a real sense of...
of evil in the house.

I sensed... every hair
follicle on my being

stand up...

and I understood what it meant
to have your skin crawl.

The more uncomfortable
he could make me feel,

seemed to be the happier he was.

And he said I was beautiful,

bound and blindfolded and...

shaking.

At times, I couldn't tell
if he was crying

or if he was giggling

like someone
who's hysterical might be.

He would get silent

and I would hope,

"Okay, maybe he's gone."

And... then I'd hear him again.

I had no concept of time.

It just seemed like I was in bed
bound for an eternity.

I had no idea if it was
two hours or ten hours.

It went on for a couple hours
of coming and going,

and, you know, coming back

and, you know,
torturing me some more.

Eventually,
after about 40 minutes

of not hearing anything,

he was gone.

And then it was, well,
this, you know,

this is not over yet.

And...

that started phase two...

...of, you know,
what goes on after an attack.

There you are, um...

bound, incapacitated,

in shock.

And now there are four more men
in the room that you don't know.

To have somebody else
sit down next to you

while you're still unclothed

and, you know,
take out a knife and...

have to cut the bindings off

was, um... scary, too.

It was scary, too.

We were very quickly inundated

with,
crime scene investigators

and more police officers

and,
fingerprint technicians.

We were just, um, a piece
of evidence in our own home.

I wasn't allowed to,
use the restroom.

And... I remember getting up
to reach for my robe

and being, you know, stopped...
"What are you doing?" you know,

"Where do you think... where
do you think you're going?"

And it's, like,
I just want to cover up myself.

As time went on,

they didn't have anyone
to take me to the hospital.

I think the protocol was
that they would have

a female officer,
but they didn't have any.

I blocked all that out
years ago.

I don't remember it like her,
but...

my defense mechanisms
are block everything out.

That whole aftermath
goes on and...

you end up in a county hospital

where, again,
you have to meet with strangers

who are going to examine
and probe and, you know,

you just really would like
to be alone.

You'd really like to take charge
of your being again,

but you can't.

And you know
that you really mustn't

if you want the person
to be caught.

Daylight finally came

about the time
I was taken back to the house.

And they were wrapping up there.

Our house was...

- A wreck.
- ...a wreck.

We had just had it
painted that week.

All of the newly
enameled woodwork

was covered with graphite
fingerprinting material.

It looked a lot like
a smoke bomb had gone off.

It was... it was just...

Everything felt
contaminated in that house.

And it never felt the same.

Right as we get up here,
you can look over to the right

and you'll see
the American River.

This was a main thoroughfare at the time.

And I'll take you
to number two.

But this is where
people run and do biking?

This is where...
the bicycle trails and all that,

this green belt would be
where he was going

from one point to one point.

We often thought
he could've had a boat

that he was taking to and from.

What I'm struck by
in Rancho Cordova is

I would think that he had to do
so much surveillance.

- He did a lot.
- But... But it... you...

He fit in, obviously.

Yeah.

I really feel
this area was chosen

because he was
comfortable in here

and he, you know,
knew the area well enough

to get in and out
as quickly as possible.

Right around the corner,
there is river access.

Back in the '70s,
the fog was way heavier

than it is now
and it was so thick

that you couldn't see feet
in front of you.

The way he disappeared
so quickly

with nobody
having the ability to track him.

Fog was a benefit
to his escape as well.

And it's a great place to stalk

because you have access
to all of the backyards

where you could just walk
right up to the fence

and look over it like this

and you can see everything
that's going on in that house.

A lot of these houses didn't
have back fences at the time.

You could be standing out
in these bushes and be watching

everything that's going on
inside of people's homes.

And in the evening, nobody's
gonna notice you out here.

Like, you know, back in the day,

nobody would even think about

somebody being prowling around
behind the scenes.

I feel like he was in this area
for great amounts of time.

And probably knew
all the young females

that resided in each house.

It makes you just...

This is the type of thing
you have to, um...

really, you know,
take care of yourself

- or you'll... It'll consume you.
- Right.

'Cause this is a really
dark place to go.

This can be very dark.

When my husband,
trying not to awaken me,

tiptoed into our bedroom
one night,

I leaped out of bed,

grabbed my nightstand lamp,
and swung it at his head.

Luckily, I missed.

When I saw the lamp overturned

on the bedroom floor
in the morning,

I remember what I'd done
and winced.

Then, I resumed
my Talmudic study

of the East Area Rapist.

She would have very,
very vivid dreams.

So when she would...
When I would wake her up,

she'd be still half
in the dream.

Be like, "God,
please, please."

One time, she ran out
of the back of the house,

trying to get out
of the house, and I'm like,

"You are g... what is...
you're gonna end up...

you're gonna run into the pool
or something like that,

or what are you do..."
You know. It was just this...

But again, a very, very vivid,

very, very present mind,
and that was one of the...

I guess, one of the...
the costs of it. I don't know.

This idea
of the DIY detective,

or these kind of
digital sleuths,

are essentially amateur
obsessives

who congregate online.

And there are anywhere
from tens to hundreds

to thousands of people

who are essentially operating
as this hive mind.

Hey, Paul, it's Michelle.

If you have time, I have
a little research question

that I would love answered,
which is the following...

Michelle met Paul Haynes
on this message board

and he came on to really help
with the research

for the magazine article.

Paul and Michelle
were this perfect kind of team

because she's like the lyrics
and he's the tempo.

He did incredible data mining.

Something that was
really important

to Los Angeles Magazine,
to me as an editor, to Michelle,

and to anyone
who's been tracking this case,

is making sure that you got
your facts straight.

And we relied on Paul a lot.

He would just go laser deep.

And what Michelle could do

was spin these stories
in a really beautiful way.

Just let me in. Jesus.

What's the big deal?

I just have no patience
for stop and go traffic.

Moving to LA was a big move
for me

after having spent
the better part of a decade

in Florida.

But when Michelle invited me
to be her research collaborator,

it was a very
exciting opportunity

to be directly involved
with this case

and have my interest,

which previously
I'd been ashamed of

and felt was impractical
and odd, legitimized.

I moved here in November,

and she invited me to spend
my first Thanksgiving in L.A.

with her and Patton
and their friends and family.

She liked to cook a lot.

She really liked to cook.

She was not a great cook,
but she really tried.

So much, so often.

Um, she was...
she was, like, had the heart,

you know what I mean?
Like, she had the heart.

That Thanksgiving,
I probably did everything.

In fact, I...
I know I did everything.

She just had work to do.

She was finishing the article,

but she just really wanted it
to be good,

so she just went upstairs.

Like, we had that kind of
friendship, like...

I just came in her house
and I knew where everything was

and I made dinner.

I was in a panic.

We were hosting Thanksgiving,
and the second draft

of my 7,000-word story
was due Tuesday.

I'd sent out SOS emails,
brief and frank pleas for help

that I hoped
would be understood.

I wasn't myself, though.

Impatience roiled.

I made a bigger deal
than I needed to

that Patton bought
an undersized turkey.

But we understood that
about each other,

like, "Go have your time."

You need hours and hours
and hours

to get to the deep stuff.

You know, when you need...
when you...

When someone says they need
five hours to write,

they need an hour to write,
but they need the other hours

to get down to those depths
to start the writing.

When I was a kid,

my family bought a summer place
on the shore of Lake Michigan.

The first couple of summers,
I didn't really know

any of the other kids
in the area.

So I spent a lot of time
on the couch,

on the screened-in front porch,

reading Agatha Christie novels.

My interest in writing
began on that porch.

As a writer,
you could lead a reader

through the act of discovery.

I was amazed
that someone had constructed

these intricate mysteries,

that an actual human being,

a woman,
had plotted and twisted

and carefully
maintained curiosity

so that you never knew
who had done it

until the very end.

Yeah, it's...
it's just, there's so many...

When you think of all the lives
this guy ruined,

and not just the victims,
it just goes on and on and on.

It's... it's... it's...
Exponentially, you know.

- Right. Right.
- Yeah.

I've worked
some really bad cases,

and...

this series...

affected me
emotionally and mentally

because there was
no resolution.

Everywhere I went,

it's, "How come you guys
haven't caught that guy?"

There was a lot of...
I wouldn't call it hysteria,

but gun sales went out the roof.

Burglary rates went from 1,400
in a month down to 200.

Sacramento women who have never

fired a gun before...

...are now learning how to shoot
in larger and larger numbers.

Gun sales are way up,

with some of the buyers
not that familiar

with how to use firearms,
and that can be dangerous.

We had one citizen
that actually shot a person

and killed him.

And, um,
when it came time,

for him to go
to superior court,

the judge said,
"Anybody in the community

at that time
would have done the same thing."

And they dropped the charges.

Back in those days...

...it was very, very...

very difficult

to get departments
to work together.

When the East Area Rapist
left our jurisdiction

and went into the city,

then he went to Stockton
and Modesto

and started expanding,

there was sort of a lack
of communication

between the agencies

because "You guys
couldn't catch him, we will."

And that was the attitude.

In two cases in my area,
I was kicked out of the town,

told they didn't need my help,
didn't want my help.

Two weeks later,
they get hit again.

Just because agencies
didn't work together.

I remember there was a day

that I was on the phone

telling my friend
what had happened.

And my dad...

I guess had picked up
the other line and heard me.

And I got in a lot of trouble
for telling anybody.

And, um...

and I... I think at that moment,

that would probably be
the beginning feeling of shame.

I felt shame, I felt like,
"Did I wear something?

How did he pick me out?"

There was this thought

that you were raped
based on your beauty

or your clothing
or your action

and not that something is wrong
with the man

that can't control
these urges.

This was something to do
with him

that had nothing to do

with the woman
who was his victim.

And it was a time where...

somehow, it always came back
to being the woman's fault.

The woman who allows herself

to be seen undressing
or partially clothed

is the woman
who invites trouble.

Here again,
we see lack of awareness,

plus invitational behavior.

You even had cops
saying, you know,

"Well, at least he got
the pretty one of the sisters."

That culture would never know
how to ask the right questions

or say the right things
to a female victim.

The law and procedure
allowed at that time,

the late '70s,

that a rape victim
could be routinely asked

to take a polygraph exam

or to see a psychiatrist.

When people find out
about this violent attack,

it's like, "Well,

how did you get yourself
into that position?"

Or, um,
"Why didn't you somehow

get yourself
out of that position?"

You know, even some
of my best friends would...

like,
"You couldn't do anything?"

You know what I mean?

Just couldn't do anything.

There wasn't anything
to be done.

I couldn't have done anything
if I'd had a gun on the...

on the bed table, you know?
You're just...

You don't mess around
when somebody,

you know, has full control
of the situation.

And there was no mistaking
that he was serious.

Carol and I both have said

he's going to kill somebody.

The guy's getting more
and more brutal as he goes.

More and more violent.

I just had this
very, very strong feeling.

I talked to,
the psychiatrist

at the Vacaville Medical Center

that worked
with the rapists there.

And I gave her some reports,
and she said,

"Okay, come back next week.

I'm gonna talk to my rapists
in here."

The best thing to do
if you're in a rape situation

is submit, submit,
submit until it hurts.

Because it's gonna hurt
a lot less in the long run.

If I'm willing to kill you,

the first move you make,
you're gonna be dead.

The woman that I was with,

she fought back
and she's dead.

I went back the next week
and, she said,

"You had better catch him.

He wants to kill,
and he is going to kill."

And I said,
"Why hasn't he killed?"

And she said, "He hasn't
found the justification."

And I said,
"What's the justification?"

And she said, "I don't know,
but it'll get there."

Of course, we didn't know
at the time

that he'd already killed.

The house right here,

the Maggiores were killed
right outside the fence.

This is where she was shot and
killed and came right out of.

Did you feel at the
time that that was related?

During the time
of the East Area Rapist attack,

I had never heard
about these homicides.

The same owners still reside
in these residences

where this happened.

And then, one of the witnesses
lived right here.

I heard five shots,

and I jumped
and looked out the window.

And I saw a man
run down the sidewalk.

And I saw the boy
across the street.

He came running, running down...
right down the sidewalk.

And he came right up
on the lawn next to the tree.

And then right...
right as he came to the tree,

he looked up and he saw me
standing right here.

And he was pretty surprised,

turned around
as quick as he could.

He just turned around and just
headed straight down there

towards the fire hydrant
around the corner.

The Maggiores
were out walking their dog.

They were seen running

and went through this backyard

where they were attacked.

The fact that they were
chased down and shot,

like, Katie was shot
right in the head,

made me think
that they had seen his face

and they could identify him.

I'm an art student
and I drew out a picture of him

standing next to the tree,
because I saw him, and I saw...

I drew a picture of him
running down.

It's believed
that the composite

that was released
at the time

was very close to, um,
what the attacker looked like.

I didn't work
the Maggiore homicides

because it was completely
different MO.

Okay, this isn't in a home
in a rape case,

but this is a prowler
in a ski mask.

A pre-tied ligature
was also found at the scene,

which was a common knot
that the East Area Rapist used.

There were officers
that said "Yeah,

I think it could've been
the East Area Rapist,"

and others said,
"No, I don't think it was."

That was a huge debate

because we don't know
for sure what happened.

But the idea
that most people believe

is that they encountered EAR

and, they were killed
because of that.

And they were just walking?

Yeah. It was so sad.

They were just married.

Whatever they saw,

they had to die for it.

I really did... think

that they were going to...
to catch him.

And it was, um...

a hard pill to swallow
as the years went by,

that he could've gotten away
with these kinds of things.

I really did think
that they were going to...

to catch him.

I mimicked
the bedtime routine

of a normal person...

but after my husband
and daughter fell asleep,

I hunted the killer
with my laptop,

the 15-inch hatch
of endless possibilities.

You know, he stole very
specific things from people.

Not necessarily
valuable things,

but things that meant something
to his victim.

A lot of them were initialed,
monogrammed, things like that.

And in my interviews
with detectives,

I would say, "Have you ever
tried to follow up

and see if these were on eBay
or anything like that?"

And that just wasn't something
they did.

My thinking was, who's to say
some guy didn't die

and you have to clear out
your weird uncle's storage.

Then, suddenly, you've just
put those on eBay,

and we could find that.

So I just started
to keep a list.

The cufflinks,
a family heirloom,

were an unusual 1950s style

and monogrammed
with the initials "NR."

Michelle had been, you know,
late night, bleary eyed,

looking online,
the latest, like, possible clue,

and she had stumbled
upon a pair of cufflinks.

The same style of cufflinks

as sketched out
in the police file,

with the same initials.

The idea was...

were these the cufflinks

that the Golden State Killer
had stolen,

that then surfaced somewhere
in Oregon?

And if these were
the cufflinks,

then there might be a way
to trace who sold them to whom

and kind of do this, like,
chain of where and how...

where it came from.

I walked down
the hallway to my bedroom.

My husband
was on his side sleeping.

I sat on the edge of the bed
and stared at him

until he opened his eyes.

"I think I found him," I said.