I'll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman's Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer

by Michelle McNamara

I love reading true crime, but I’ve always been aware of the fact that, as a reader, I am actively choosing to be a consumer of someone else’s tragedy.

In my case, the monsters recede but never vanish. They are long dead and being born as I write.

“Make one move and you’ll be silent forever and I’ll be gone in the dark.”

“That’s why I keep living: I don’t want to go till I find out.”

The unsolved section of a Property Room is tainted with disappointment. It’s the to-do list that’s never done.

A line jotted down during a police canvass of the area around Malaga Road and El Caprice in Rancho Cordova on September 1, 1976, after the third rape, particularly haunted me. “Several of the neighbors stated they heard the screaming, but did not look outside.”

I am both nowhere and everywhere. You may not think you have something in common with your neighbor, but you do: me. I’m the barely spotted presence, the dark-haired, blond-haired, stocky, slight, seen from the back, glimpsed in half-light thread that will continue to connect you

What is the lasting damage when you believe the warm spot you were just sleeping in will be your grave? Time sands the edges of the injuries, but they never lose their hold.

“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.