By Rylie Friesen-
A new six-part documentary series recounting true-crime author Michelle McNamara’s journey to try to catch the Golden State Killer is being released next month.
HBO’s “I’ll Be Gone in the Dark” series details McNamara’s search to identify the Golden State Killer, according to the Daily Mail. Her tireless amateur detective work resulted in thousands of pages of evidence published in her blog and book.
In 2018, two years after McNamara’s death, police arrested then-72-year-old Joseph James DeAngelo, a retired police officer, who lived in Citrus Heights. DeAngelo has been charged with thirteen counts of murder and is believed to be responsible for at least 50 rapes in the 1970s and 80s.
The upcoming HBO series is directed by Liz Garbus, an Academy Award nominee and Emmy-winning director, who portrays McNamara in her own words through archived recordings and excerpts from her book, according to a summary posted on HBO’s website. The series also includes new interviews with detectives, relatives of DeAngelo and survivors, to present “a picture of a complex and flawed investigation that challenged police for decades.”
For over a decade, the Golden State Killer terrorized neighborhoods, often sneaking into homes and blinding those inside with a flashlight. The Killer usually targeted couples, and would “tie up the man, place dishes on his back and threaten to kill both victims if he heard the plates fall onto the floor while he was raping the female victim,” according to the Daily Mail.
The assailant’s crime sprees were attributed to different names such as and the East Area Rapist, the Original Night Stalker, and the Visalia Ransacker. The last known murder occurred in 1986, and the killer disappeared soon after.
After compiling more than 3,000 pages of evidence, McNamara coined the name Golden State Killer to describe a sole assailant believed to be responsible in all the various crime sprees.
DeAngelo is currently being held in the Sacramento County Main Jail and is ineligible for bail. His next court date is listed for June 29, 2020.
The upcoming HBO series shares the title of McNamara’s book, which was finished and released by her husband in February 2018, after her death. The series is slated to begin airing on June 28.
