I'll Be Gone in the Dark (2020–…): Season 1, Episode 5 - Monsters Recede but Never Vanish - full transcript

This treasure trove
of files was going

to be handed to Michelle.

In Visalia,
there was this ransacker

who totally mirrors
the East Area Rapist.

That type of behavior,
I do think,

could have led
to his real fantasy,

which was rape.

It's like he got
to the emotional center

of people's lives.
And just wanted to destroy that.

She was still very much a mom,

and a wife, and a friend.
But it was clear



that she had a real shot
at solving this.

That can really pull you into
some depths

that you can't get out of.

I'll never forget,
I was driving home,

and I remember
Patton calling me.

I think it was
right when it happened.

Because he was just
in a scream slash cry.

"She's dead. She's dead.
She's dead."

And I'm not... I'm like,

"What are...
What are you talking about?"

It's like, "Michelle,
she didn't wake up.

She's not... she's dead."

You know, and I still
wasn't clear what was going on.

And I said, "Patton,
can you tell me what happened?"



You know, "What's going on?
Is she sick?"

Or she... you know, I mean,
it still wasn't processing.

So, you just went
through the morning.

And he said,
"I went into the room."

I put down the coffee.

She was breathing.

After doing work
and emails, came back.

"And she wasn't."

"And then paramedics were there

and said she was gone."

♪ Underneath the purple rain ♪

World-renowned pop artist Prince

found dead in his estate...

I was actually
up in Minneapolis for work,

watching
the Prince story unfold.

The cause
of death is not yet known.

We do know that
the last few weeks of his life

were a bit mysterious.

And Mary Rita called
when I was in the hotel room.

And...

yeah, I just... was stunned.

My sister
Mary Rita called me at work.

And, um...
Yeah, it was horrible.

I mean, she just kept saying,
"It's bad. It's really bad."

But she... it took her a while
to tell me what had happened,

and it was just such a...

out-of-the-blue,
you know, um...

I mean,
you never expected that,

your baby sister
to pass before you

or anyone else in the family.

I can remember thinking

something happened
that involved the case

or, like, that it was foul play
or whatever.

'Cause I could not wrap my head
around the fact

that she could just
die in her sleep.

♪ Well, I stepped
Into an avalanche ♪

♪ It covered up my soul ♪

♪ When I am not this hunchback
That you see ♪

♪ I sleep
Beneath the golden hill ♪

♪ You who wish to conquer pain ♪

♪ You must learn
Learn to serve me well ♪

I can't...

completely trust
my memories from that time.

I remember all of
the McNamaras being there.

Uh, I rem... I remember being
very, very frightened,

and very, very...
Like, pathologically

trying to bring
any kind of normalcy

to any minute of my life.

It's a bit of a blur,
those couple weeks.

I mean, I... I don't... I remember
Alice wanted to go to school,

um, that Monday.

I remember on the weekend
after she died,

there... we had a pool party.

When you have a child involved,

you gotta make sure
she's okay moving forward,

and that she sees that
we're gonna be there for her.

And I remember that at night,

Alice and Michelle
would always talk

about what's your rose
and your thorn for the day.

You know, the good and bad.

And that night she said,
you know,

"I know what my rose is
and what my thorn is."

My rose is that
you all are here.

"My thorn is that my mom's gone."

I just... it was terrify...
I just...

I remember I...

I did that thing
where I, like, closed my eyes

and I tried to will this...

As a nightmare, like...

And then...
And then it just wasn't.

Michelle McNamara,
the wife of popular comedian

and actor Patton Oswalt,

has died at the age of 46.

A spokesman says
she, a crime writer,

died in her sleep
and that her passing

came as a complete surprise
to the family.

Michelle
was such a brilliant woman.

She was such a talented writer.

She was so into everything
that we're all into,

and she made
such great contents.

It's just a...
incomprehensible tragedy.

In the true crime community,
her death was...

It was... It... For a long time,
it was just unbelievable.

You just... you didn't...
Of course, no one expected it,

but you really don't expect it

when someone is in the midst
of something like that.

Like, she was on this journey,
this very public journey,

and this very important one

that was getting
all this kinda steam behind it.

And then just a sudden loss,

like... like...
Like a shocking stop.

You know, one of the first
things I thought was,

"That... that book
has to get finished."

And I actually,
uh, texted Patton

just to say,
"Whatever I can do."

And Patton answered and was
like, "We're already on it."

When I learned that she died,

it was so painful.

I felt like
I was damaging my body.

And then, I was contacted
by one of Michelle's friends

with respect to the boxes.

"What do we do with them?"

I was like,
"Well, give them to me,"

you know, "I'll take them."

My dining area became
a cold case storage locker

for the better part
of that year.

My commitment was
to ensuring that the many hours

that she'd spent working
on this case

weren't futile.

You know, that we could resume
where she left off.

I wanted to take care
of this person

for her whole life.

And Michelle's book
was always such a dream for her.

So, it almost felt
like it was my last opportunity

to take care
of something for her.

Once Patton had kind of given us

the signal, "Let's do it,"

there was the process of

Jennifer going through
all of her emails and files

and saying, "Okay,
I have 150 manuscript pages."

"But what else is there?"

That's when I started to get
in touch with Paul Haynes

because someone had to go
into her computer.

And then, we brought
Billy Jensen in

because he was a friend,

and he was a true crime writer
himself.

Every month,
Michelle and I would meet

and she would talk to me
about her case

and I would talk about my cases.

I mean,
this was a relationship

that was entirely based
on crime.

So, the only thing I thought
that I could do to help

was to help finish this book.

Paul sends me her entire
hard drive,

and I'm looking and I'm going,
"All right, well,

what do we have
to work with here?"

And I start reading it,
and it's so good.

Every obsession
needs a room of its own.

There were a lot
of pieces of writing,

a lot of notes,
a lot of Word documents

with fragments of things.

"The act
of bludgeoning was arousal..."

Like email correspondences...

"The ratio
of investigating to writing

is out of whack for me..."

And her chapter outlines,

referencing sections that
she never got around to writing.

For instance, a section
about her experience

in Northern Ireland.

"I let him press against me..."

We just, like,
kind of, like, pulling things

from here and there

and... and plugging them in.

And then I see this
one Microsoft Word document,

and I read it, and I was like,

"This is the ending
of the book."

One day soon
you'll hear a car pull up,

you'll hear footsteps
coming up your front walk...

Take one of your hyper
gulping breaths...

When she died...

the emotional blow

was like the loss
of a family member.

There's no question about that.

I... I was hit, and hit hard.

Um...

And then there was the case,

and I just lost
my investigative partner.

I was able to get down,
uh, to Southern California

for Michelle's memorial.

Just like one
of her beloved lighthouses,

Michelle's light will shine on,
and we will remain drawn to it.

And there's a guy
standing in front of me,

and he's got a badge
on his lapel.

And I just say,
"Hey, you law enforcement?"

And he was like, "Yeah,"
and we introduce ourselves.

And it was Greg Stearns
from LAPD robbery-homicide.

He ends up getting up on stage

and gave a very nice speech.

Homicide cops are impatient.

We're egotistical to an extent,

we're very territorial,

and we certainly don't like
to be second-guessed

or have anyone make suggestions.

And so, Michelle
was able to do what...

What very few people could do.

And I have every belief
that through her work

that this will be solved.

Michelle always was
and always will be one of us.

I mean, my world
was spinning around me.

You know, one of
the goofy things that I would do

is I would say, "Okay, Michelle,
you now know who

the Golden State Killer is.

Just kinda channel something
through me.

You know, point me
in the right direction."

Are you familiar
with a company called 23andMe?

- Yeah.
- My husband and I did it.

You turn in your own DNA,
so you swab yourself.

And it... it gives you genetic,
uh, your genetic history

for everything from diseases.

But they're starting to do
ancestry and stuff like that.

And to me, it just seems like,
gosh, is there any way

that you guys could...

Could put it
into a system like that?

'Cause I feel like he's gotta be
related to someone.

Michelle most certainly
was somebody

who was a big proponent of using

the latest, greatest
DNA technology

to solve this case.

She was saying,
"Let's just go ahead

and create an undercover account

to search for his relatives."

She was even offering to pay
to do some of this work.

Now, like,
if a private person had asked

if they could do that,
has that ever happened?

- No.
- Okay.

The big hurdle
from a technical standpoint

is that these genealogy websites
required us to mail in

the Golden State Killer's
saliva or spit,

which we didn't have.

I think
that within the next six months,

the technology is gonna get
even better,

and... and we're gonna be
able to put it together.

Since that time,
a website called GEDmatch

became a powerful tool.

Instead of sending GEDmatch
the Golden State Killer's spit,

we could upload a new type
of digital DNA profile.

But in order
to generate this profile,

I have to first have
an adequate amount

of Golden State Killer DNA.

Unfortunately, the DNA
that I had generated

from the three
Contra Costa County cases

I had completely consumed.

So now it's,
okay, we have to start

reaching out
to the other jurisdictions

to figure out
is there enough DNA remaining

for us to be able to do

this new genealogy type
of DNA test.

I end up getting a call
from the Ventura DA investigator

saying, "You won't believe this.

We've got a ton
of Golden State Killer DNA.

How much do you want?"

I did a great job for 42 years

of trying to be as normal
as possible.

I am your perfect overachiever.

You know, I don't just garden.
I garden.

I don't just have a job,

you know, I'm working
12 hours a day.

I think keeping busy, um...

keeps your focus
on the outside... elements

and... and you don't really
look inward too deep.

I mean, you've got to remember,

the '70s were definitely a time
that you didn't share.

My parents didn't tell
their own family.

So I really slipped
into more of a denial.

And then, in 2018,

a newspaper article came out.

And my husband said,

"Kris, there's something
you might want to see."

I never thought
I would see a picture

of a victim
of the East Area Rapist.

I just felt like it was supposed
to be a secret.

I was so blown away
that I wrote to the editor

and asked if he could please
give her my phone number.

And she called me the next day.
And...

Now, I'm actually
talking to another victim.

And that was... I just...
I don't know how to explain

what that feeling was like.

And then, uh, she introduced me
to Carol Daly.

Carol came over,

and she brought me a copy
of the police report.

My husband took off work,
and my sister,

and my mind
was just going, like,

"How do we make this right?"

And that's when I just said,

"Do you want me
to read this to you?"

And they said, "If you're okay."

And I said,
"You know what? Let's do it.

Let's... let's start fresh.

Let's everybody
know everything."

"So, at approximately 7:15,

the victim placed a pizza
in the oven.

She then went into the front
living room to play her piano.

As she started playing
the piano,

she heard a noise next to her
on her left side,

and she started to turn around.

As she did so, she saw subject
standing next to her

and suspect then put a knife
against her throat.

The suspect told the victim,
'Get moving.

If you say anything or flinch,

I'll push the knife
all the way in

"and I'll be gone
in the dark of the night.'"

Both of my parents
have passed away.

I don't feel
I would be sitting here today

if they were alive

because I think it would be
very disturbing to them.

And then I said,
"Six-foot tall,"

regular build,

"possible small penis."

Um...
"Victim's hymen still intact."

Reading the report to my family,

I think that was
a real moment for me,

um, in kind of owning
my own story and sharing it.

But I could've dealt with that
so much earlier.

I, you know, I wonder...

who would I be now, you know?

You know,
what could've been different?

What would my... what would
my past have entailed?

Alice, hi.

Hi.

I'm so emotional right now,
you wouldn't believe.

Alice.

Painkillers equal joy.

Can you smile?

Can you smile?

"Postpartum depression,"
my husband explained to friends.

But it wasn't new mom blues.

It was old mom blues.

During my wedding,
my mother and I

had our biggest blowout yet.

We never spoke of it.

But she wrote me a long letter

detailing all the things
about me

that made her proud.

We slowly rebuilt
our relationship after that.

"What?"

"Oh, Michelle..."

"Mom died."

I wish now
I'd been kinder to her.

She could be undermining
and cutting in her remarks,

but the older me sees that
as a mark

of a deeply sensitive person.

She endured alcoholic parents
and the death of an infant son.

She was raising six kids
with no help.

Holding my newborn daughter,
I got it.

I got the love that guts you.

Can you do the dance?

The sense of responsibility
that narrows the world

to a pair of needy eyes.

Hi, Tickles!

Ooh!

Writing this now,

I'm struck by two incompatible
truths that pain me.

But I probably wouldn't have
felt the freedom to write it

until she was gone.

Second worst day of my life

was the day
that my wife passed away.

The worst day of my life
was the day after,

when I had to tell our daughter.

My wife passed away
while she was at school.

So, I talked to the school,
and I told them what happened.

And the principal talked to me.

She was amazing and said,

"She can't come home
from school,

and then you tell her,
and then she has to go to bed."

She said,
"Tell her in the sunshine."

So...

I had to look
at this little girl

that was everything to me,
and take everything from her.

I... I... I mean, I... I shut down
for a long time.

I wasn't even...
At first it was about,

"Okay, I gotta get through
the day-to-day,"

get Alice up, you know,

get her to sleep at night
while she's crying,

deal with her nightmares,
deal with my nightmares.

I'm just gonna walk forward
into the dark,

just windmilling my arms around,

just flailing my arms
around everywhere.

Now I'm, you know,

it's six months
and twelve days on.

And, man, uh, grief is...

It... It...
If you don't talk about it,

then grief really gets to

set up and fortify its positions
inside of you

and begin to immobilize you.

But the more you talk,

the more you expose it
to the air and to the light,

then, you know,

grief doesn't get a chance
to organize itself.

And then you can maybe move on
a little easier.

It's a way to make the darkness
feel uncomfortable with itself

for a little bit.

Just over a year ago, um,

I became a widower.

And, uh, I have...
I'm moving along as best I can.

It is, you know,
I'm... I can get up

and I can do my job.
I can be a dad.

But, uh, it's not...

You know, it... it's still...
The wound is there.

It is healing.
It's not shut yet.

And, uh... ooh, by the way,

if one more person
wishes me "strength"

on my "healing journey"...

I'm gonna throw
a balloon full of piss

into every candle store
on the planet because...

It...

It is not a healing journey.

- She died in April.
- April 21st.

And so,
we are almost at the point

where it will no longer be
the first...

- Christmas without her...
- I know. I know.

The first
Mother's Day without her,

the first birthday without her.

Oh, God, that's...

Yes, that's exactly
the conundrum.

That's the conundrum.

Overall, 2017 is awful
because at least in 2016,

I had three months and 21 days
of Michelle being in there.

And now, this is a year
where there's no Michelle.

Like, that's it.

So, when January 1st dawned,

it felt like a cell door
slamming behind me.

Like, you are now
in this awful world

where there... you don't
even have a memory of her

being a part of this year.

You know, I... You can say
you're through with grief

all you want.

But grief will let you know
when it's done.

We didn't know
for months what killed Michelle.

And it was really
eating away at me

because I... I had just seen her
mere days before her death.

And I was replaying
the conversation in my mind

for anything
that may have indicated

that this was imminent.

There was nothing,
there was nothing there.

New details now
in the investigation

into the death
of music icon Prince.

Investigators confirm today

that Prince died of an overdose
of the painkiller fentanyl.

The Drug Enforcement
Administration reports

an alarming spike in
fentanyl-related overdose death.

And then, Star tabloid

got a hold of the actual
medical examiner's report.

The way it was contextualized
made me sick.

But, you know,
I couldn't not look at it.

I ordered
the full autopsy report

in order to try to understand
what happened.

You know, right on the top
of the autopsy,

it says, "From the, uh,
anatomic findings

and pertinent history,
I ascribe to the death

as... A,
effects of multiple drugs."

And then under D
down below, it says,

"Other conditions contributing
but not related

to the immediate cause of death"

is the heart issue,

the cardiovascular disease.

So really that was not
gonna kill her.

That could not have been
a cause of death.

When I was younger,
I had a surgery

and got addicted
to opiate prescription pills.

I had to seek recovery
from that.

So I wish I could've
recognized that happening

because I feel like,
uh, you know,

my own experience
would, uh, make me a good person

to have communicated with her
and maybe tried to help her.

She had Adderall,

opiates, fentanyl,

uh, Xanax.

No doctor prescribed

that amount of pills to her
like this.

Oftentimes, you have
to turn to drugs

that are being sold
under the table,

and you don't know exactly
what's in the drug.

And that's where we're seeing
a lot of the counterfeit drugs

that are cut with fentanyl.

Fentanyl's 100 times
stronger than morphine.

A little tiny bit of fentanyl

would kill the average person
if they just took it.

That's one of the reasons
we're seeing a spike

in prescription drug overdoses.

Many of these individuals
live in a, uh,

a silo of their own

and, um, are able to hide it

until it comes to problems
like this.

I couldn't process it.

If she had gotten more sleep,

would she have been
more cognizant

of what she was doing?
I don't know.

Because, I mean, when she would
share with me, it was like,

"I'm just taking some Adderall
to focus in the morning,

I'm taking
some Vicodin at night to... ".

Like, she said it in such a...

"Eh, don't worry about it,"
you know?

And... and the way
that she said it so casually

and so, like, on top of it,
like, "I'm just doing that,"

I'm, like, "Oh, okay."
Well, you know.

Fuck do I know?

I didn't realize that...

it piles up the way
that it does,

and it... I... I... I just...

I didn't... that's something

that I get
to carry with me forever,

is just not knowing.

I don't know.

Uh... Uh, it's...
It's still inexplicable to me

and I don't really
understand it.

But our family is aware

that there are addiction issues

on both sides
of my parents' family.

My dad,
he was very high functioning,

but he decided to go ahead
and go into rehab,

and he never drank again.

And I don't know
if that was Michelle's issue.

I really have no idea.

It was definitely
an internal struggle.

I mean, she knew if she was
in a dark place or not,

and she did what she had to do
on her own.

It wasn't like
she drew everyone in

and we saw a lot of it,

because we didn't.

I don't remember her

expressing... concern,

but I would, you know,

I think generally in our family,
there is some depression.

I know my mother had...
Was on anti-depressants.

So, I... I... I... in some respect,
it may be a genetic thing.

If you're depressed,

it's always there.

It just comes in and out
of remission.

We talked about it
as early as high school.

I first met Michelle
when we were on the Trapeze,

our high school paper
at Oak Park.

Oh, the biggest feat
known to man,

pick Michelle McNamara up.

When I first met her,
I just thought she was,

you know, one of these, like,
popular girls.

And she right away surprised me.

The wheels of her mind
were constantly rolling.

I often thought
she was a better friend to me

than I was to her.

Like, I... I wished, uh,

I had listened more.

The last time I saw her,

she brought over
a bottle of Scotch

and we just, like,
talked for hours.

I was like, "Man,

she is really
in the thick of things."

And I didn't know
that there were whole, like,

groups of days where she wasn't
even leaving the house.

When you're writing a book,
all you think about

is whatever
you're writing about.

But then she... how to, like,
shut off all that darkness.

I honestly don't know how she
lived the horror of that

day after day after day.

"How often do you think of him?"

What can I say?

The truth is, all the time.

When I climb the stairs
to my bedroom.

When I'm folding laundry.

The truth? Too much.

So this morning, the FBI,
has launched a campaign

to help the working group

generate new tips
from the public.

The FBI is offering a reward
of up to 50,000 dollars

for information
leading to the identification,

arrest, and conviction
of the Golden State Killer.

You could directly attribute

going public
with it at that point

with the public attention
that Michelle was able to bring

to the case.

Because now, there was enough
people across the nation

who would be paying attention.
"Golden State Killer?

I know about that case."

So there was sort of momentum
within Agency's recognizing,

"We need to get this done,"
you know, sooner than later.

And then, in that first quarter
of 2018,

I received
the Golden State Killer's

digital DNA profile.

Things snowballed from there.

I reached out
to this genetic genealogist,

Barbara Rae-Venter.

When I
worked on a forty-year-old cold case,

it was written up
in Forensic Magazine.

And Paul Holes saw that article.

And so he called me,

and he just asked
if I would be willing to work

on one of his cold cases
with him.

And, uh, so I said,

yes, I would be,
you know, pleased to do that.

A DNA profile is nothing
but a series of numbers.

And so it's something
that can be put

into a relational database
and searched

to see if you can
find individuals

that share DNA with each other.

What you're looking for,
then, is three people,

your unknown person
and the other two people,

who are matching
on that same segment of DNA.

And if they do,

then you know they all have
the same ancestry.

We've got over
a thousand matches.

But the biggest match
was, at best,

a third-cousin match.

It's probably more like
a fourth-cousin match.

So you're talking about distant,
distant cousins.

So we were no...
Nowhere in a good zone here.

Our top hits,

well, if they're a third cousin
of the Golden State Killer,

that means their common ancestor

is on the order
of a great-great grandparent,

people who were born
in the 1840s.

So I have to build
their family trees back in time,

identify each of their parents,
their grandparents,

their great-grandparents,
their great-great grandparents,

and see if they intersect.

And if they do, theoretically,

my Golden State Killer
is a descendant

of that common ancestor.

You then start doing

what's called
"reverse tree-building"

because you're now coming
forward in time

trying to find
all of the descendants

of whoever
the common ancestor is.

It took months
of building family trees,

but we eventually identified
all descendants that would fit

within the criteria of the case.

Which individuals had
the physical characteristics,

you know, 5'8 " to 5'10",
160, 180 pounds,

back in the 1970s?

Which individuals have
the geographic connections

that we know that
the Golden State Killer had?

And so we managed
to come up with nine men

who were in California,

who were approximately
the right age.

And then,
there was one individual

who... who's living in Colorado
of all places,

who I got very excited about.

He was somebody that was
in the construction industry.

He had two uncles
living in Cordova Meadows

at the time those attacks
were occurring there.

And when one of those uncles
moves down to Stockton,

now you have
the East Area Rapist

attacking in Stockton.
And that uncle bought a house

from where Gay Hardwick worked.

And I'm just thinking,
"Holy smokes,

what is the coincidence
of something like that?"

You still think
maybe the building

or construction stuff?

I think that's a...
A possibility, yeah.

We ended up asking his sister,

"Are you willing
to give a DNA sample?"

And she absolutely was.

Turns out, this guy living
in Colorado is not the guy.

And I was going, "Oh, my God,
I've got all this stuff

that's adding up
that he's the guy."

And that was this
constant roller-coaster ride

of putting the time and effort,
getting in that obsessive state,

just to be crushed because
the DNA didn't come back

the way that you thought
it was going to be.

And I thought,
"Oh, this is the guy."

And then getting back
in the saddle and doing it

over and over again.

It's just crushing

because I just go,
"What have I just done

for the last two years
of my life?"

There's this analogy
where most people, I guess,

who get lost in the forest die

because they won't
change direction.

I understand that,

because I've now committed
myself

so much to this guy...

That, goddammit, it can't be
that I don't find him.

- Like...
- Right.

He's taken over my life.

I've lived my life
often not taking

excellent care of myself
in many ways.

And I think sometimes
maybe living vicariously

through other situations
or dealing with this case,

that it's helped me avoid
my own traumas.

Michelle knew
about my experiences.

Oh my god.

I never addressed it.
I did not tell my parents.

I did not, um,
file a police report.

And when I was much older,
I actually called his residence

to hear his voice.
I was going to confront him.

And I changed my mind.

But that anger still resides.

And I think that that gave me
the strength and the ambition

to solve this case.

And Michelle, uh,
had that same common ground.

I worked
in Northern Ireland for a year

after college, and I... my boss
basically... same thing happened.

She didn't go into great detail.

And I look at Michelle
as maybe somebody who...

it was easier for her to
be looking at this investigation

than dealing
with whatever her issues were

in her personal life,

but that it may have
overtook her.

And when you're
in fight-or-flight

or freeze-or-fold in trauma,

a very easy way
to escape that feeling

is to self-medicate
and not feel.

It's darkness that covers
everything I see, do, or touch

with moments of light
and happiness.

I try to stay with those moments
as much as possible.

I probably do have
a chemical-based depression.

But I can't spend my life
battling this darkness,

this obsession with lies
and dishonesty

and injustice and ugliness
and cruelty.

It's like everything
is pressing against my back,

forcing me down.

The surprising thing is

I feel like I've known this
for a long time,

since I was a little kid,

that I had this sense of loss,

this heightened attentiveness
to pain and depression.

I'm sorry.

I've always been sorry,

even if I haven't shown it
well enough.

Her death
was a terrible accident.

I think it points toward
how self-medicated

our whole culture has become,

whether it's with food
or with drugs or with drinking

or with any kind of escapism.

There's a lot to escape.

You know what I mean? This is
clearly a psychopath, right,

somebody that just simply does...
Is not connected

and does not care about
other human beings in any way.

No, he doesn't.
He's out there for his own...

And I would say
true crime is probably on the,

uh, lighter end of the spectrum.

As a severe blackout alcoholic,

I know that I've done things I...

That I wish I had
True Crime Podcast to listen to,

to avoid my problems
when I was in my 20s.

I think this one's disturbing
'cause it's like a bit,

it's an entire family that's
dead, you know, for some people.

A lot of people kind of recoil

at the whole trend
of true crime.

At first you... it feels morbid.

You feel like
you're rubbernecking

on someone else's tragedy.

But underneath that,
there is this sense of...

everybody is doing their best,
working overtime,

sitting at their desk
until the middle of the night

trying to find justice

for people who can't do it
for themselves anymore.

I think maybe
it was, like, four to six months

that we were all working
on the book.

Sending it back and forth
and agreeing to cuts.

By the time we got
to publication week,

we knew interest in the book
was building.

It hit on a Tuesday, and...

it debuted at number one
on the New York Times list.

And I have not had
reviews like that

for any book in my career.

I mean, it just went bananas.

It's such an exciting thing

that this book exists right now.

Really,
I'm very excited about it.

I've always wanted
to write a book,

but it always seemed like
one of those unattainable things

that wouldn't actually happen.

So, I want this book
to have an impact.

The level of writing
is so incredibly impressive.

But also, there's something
very alive about this book,

- you know what I mean? Like...
- No, no, I get it, yeah.

I would read a couple of pages
and I would lose my shit

because her voice
was right there.

She was right there.

It was a very, very hard,
difficult process.

And there's also...
It was very bittersweet for me

because I knew that
I wouldn't be able to live

and go on with life

if this was left undone.

But not having the book done

meant that part of her
was still around.

You know, so I'm happy
for her and for her memory,

but it's another form
of saying goodbye.

I'm very aware that when
you engage with true crime,

you are picking around
and becoming a consumer

- of other people's tragedy.
- Yes. Yeah.

And so, I remember
very early on,

finding True Crime Blog
and thinking, like,

"Okay, I've found my person."

Right.

And the fact that Michelle

was willing to get out there and
do the actual detective work,

I sit in amazement of.

So, I'm curious,
can you tell me,

are you all still
looking for him?

- Yeah.
- Oh, absolutely, yeah.

A DNA profile is as concrete

a piece of information
as you can have,

aside from his name.

So, it feels to me
like it's only a matter of time.

Hand up right there, yeah.

I'm a father
of a nine-year-old girl,

and I'm curious
what your daughter's notion

of your late wife's
body of work is.

Yeah. I mean, you know,
I'm... I'm...

- My daughter is also nine.
- Mm-hmm.

So, my condolences. Um...

You know, when she's older,

absolutely I hope she reads
her book.

I also just had...
I found a collection

of different, um, poems,
and short stories,

and, um, essays
that Michelle had written

all through high school
and college,

and I went
to a professional bookbinder,

and I had those all bound up

so that when she gets
to high school and college,

I'm like, "If you want to see
how your mom was at your age,"

I have them so that I can parcel
those out for her.

And I've saved, like,
every photograph

and bit of video of her.

Yeah, I mean,
I have a theory that there's...

a serial killer operating
in the Northwest

who is killing couples.

How did you
become interested in this case?

- Oh, what's going on?
- Alice.

But, you know,
five days after Michelle died,

I remember Alice said,
"When your mom dies,

you're the best memory of her.

Everything you do
is a memory of her."

Hang on,
I wanna find somebody, okay?

So I'm also gonna
always remind her

that she's here right now

because of how you are
and how you're acting.

What are you doing?
Oh my god, you're a nut.

We will talk soon.
I'll call you tomorrow

when I'm in New York,
okay, baby?

Bye-bye.

- Bye.
- Bye.

After the book event that night,

I was ready to just go back
to my room and collapse.

Then I get back up
to my room and I get a text.

After we eliminated
the guy in Colorado,

we only had a handful of males
that were...

We ended up having
to kind of look at.

I was also doing
a lot of stuff with newspapers.

And one of...
One of the news articles

that turned up was the arrest
of a police officer

shoplifting dog repellant
and a hammer in Citrus Heights.

I remember looking at it
and thinking,

"This guy looks awfully good."

And so I immediately sent off
an email to Paul Holes,

saying,
"Has this guy been ruled out?"

And he hadn't.

He was in our hotlist
of six people

that was left at the end.

I immediately
opened my master list.

I didn't have anybody
that met those characteristics.

You know,
I've heard this before,

so I kinda took it
with a grain of salt.

But now, I'm, like,
waiting for updates.

I wanted to look
at this guy closer.

And so I drove
and parked on the curb

opposite from his house
and sat there.

And I started thinking about,
"What do we know about him?"

And I started thinking about
the ex-fiancée

with first name of Bonnie.

He had also purchased a gun

down in a town
right outside of Visalia.

And then in 1985, '86,

he had a daughter born
down in Los Angeles County.

And so his geographic
connections

were looking pretty good.

I'd also run the profile

through another site
called Promethease,

and I determined that the person
that we were looking for

had blue eyes.

And it also said he would be
prematurely bald.

So at that point,
law enforcement then pulls

the California
driver's license records

for the six people on our list.

Only one man has blue eyes,

Joseph Deangelo.

I wake up,
and I see a message.

He's in custody.

So, I'm like, "Oh, shit.
Okay. He's in custody."

I remember wandering
through the room like a zombie,

just like, "Is he caught?"
What just happened?"

It's crazy.

After four decades of searching
for this guy,

it came down to testing
a piece of tissue

from his trashcan outside.

It was a 100% match to
the Golden State Killer's DNA.

- All right, Patton.
- Hmm?

I just texted you.
You heard the news.

- Yes.
- What are you thinking?

I'm thinking
way too much stuff right now.

Um...

I just, you know,
I... I... I would...

I wish you were pointing
that camera

at Michelle right now,
and not me.

I hope they got him.
I hope she got him.