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True Crime Author Michelle McNamara Wrote Letter To The Golden State Killer In 'I'll Be Gone In The Dark'
"This is how it ends for you," wrote Michelle McNamara in her open letter to The Golden State Killer.
At the end of her bestselling true crime book “I’ll Be Gone In The Dark: One Woman’s Search For The Golden State Killer,” author Michelle McNamara wrote an open letter to the California serial killer responsible for at least 12 homicides and almost 50 rapes.
McNamara envisioned the man’s arrest, writing, “One day soon, you’ll hear a car pull up to your curb, an engine cut out. You’ll hear footsteps coming up your front walk. Like they did for Edward Wayne Edwards, twenty-nine years after he killed Timothy Hack and Kelly Drew, in Sullivan, Wisconsin. Like they did for Kenneth Lee Hicks, thirty years after he killed Lori Billingsley, in Aloha, Oregon.”
She continued:
“The doorbell rings.
No side gates are left open. You’re long past leaping over a fence. Take one of your hyper, gulping breaths. Clench your teeth. Inch timidly toward the insistent bell.
This is how it ends for you.
‘You’ll be silent forever, and I’ll be gone in the dark,’ you threatened a victim once.
Open the door. Show us your face.
Walk into the light.”
Today, it seems McNamara’s prediction has come true. Earlier this afternoon, Sacramento police announced the arrest of a Golden State Killer suspect. According to authorities, 72-year-old former police officer Joseph James DeAngelo has been charged with two murders accredited to The Golden State Killer, who is also known as the East Area Rapist and The Original Night Stalker.
The Golden State Killer terrorized California between 1979 and 1986, and he became one of the most notorious unidentified serial killers in the US. According to publisher Harper Collins, McNamara became obsessed with tracking down information about the violent murderer and was determined to finally unmask the man who had destroyed so many lives. The result was an “atmospheric snapshot of a moment in American history and a chilling account of a criminal mastermind and the wreckage he left behind.”
Unfortunately, McNamara passed away before her book was published and was unable to find peace in DeAngelo’s capture. As a tribute to his late wife, actor and comedian Patton Oswalt tweeted, “I think you got him, Michelle,” and credited her for helping crack the decades-old cold case.
[Photo: Getty Images]
