My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - 115 - I’ll Be Gone In The Dark at Skylight Books

Episode Date: April 5, 2018

Karen and Georgia join comedian Patton Oswalt, lead researcher Paul Haynes, and investigative journalist Billy Jensen for a discussion of Michelle McNamara’s book, I’ll Be Gone In The Dark. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Big things are happening, people. Bye. My favorite murder merch, m-e-r-c-h. There we go. I was afraid to slide down today. I knocked the whole table over. Take down a bunch of books. Hi. This is so weird to be sitting this way at the bookstore that I usually am at this way. If my face is in a book, deciding if I want to... You're more sideways? Yeah. What I'm saying is... Here, it's on now. What I'm saying is this is my bookstore and I'm really excited to be talking at it in a microphone. Well, welcome to Skylight Books. Thank you. Georgia, thanks guys.

Welcome, everybody. We are thrilled when Patton asked us to moderate as a very weird word. For this, but to come and kind of co-host this with them. Of course, we were thrilled. I knew Michelle and we both were huge fans of True Crime Diary and the work that she has been doing and did for True Crime and for being an online sleuth and the East Area rapist, ultimately Golden State Killer case. She's put in so much incredible work technically and then to read this book just for me, the level of writing in this book is so incredibly impressive. When I read True Crime, you kind of expect a certain tone. It's mostly factual informational with a little bit of color. Michelle, this book reads to me fine literature

and I'm just so impressed. I'm so proud of her. It's such an exciting thing that this book exists right now. We're very proud to be a part of this. I don't know. It's a thing. I feel like we're holding space for this book and this effort and this body of work that someone really dedicated their whole life to. It's really an honor to be here with you guys tonight to be talking about this book. I don't know. Yeah, right? I think Matt will bring out Patton Oswald and Billy Jensen and Paul Haynes who helped finish the book. Thank you guys. Yeah, this is Billy Jensen. He was a journalist friend of Michelle's and Paul Haynes was Michelle's researcher referred to in the book as the kid. This is the kid. Yeah, there he is. I'm bringing them here because they live here

and a lot of these book tours, I wasn't able to take them with me. My function, as you will see, will be to talk about Michelle and to talk in very subjective quasi-poetic terms about what happened and then go, and Billy and Paul, could you please explain it? They actually have technical facts and updates as to what is actually still going on with the case. We're very, very lucky to have them here tonight, so thank you guys. I really appreciate it. It's very exciting. Should we just get right to the updates? Just tell it. Did they catch him? Well, okay. You were talking when we did the event. We did an earlier event in LA that there was a possible lead. By the way, before I get him started on this, this ends in frustration again, but there was a very

strong possible lead that led from them looking at a fence he vaulted over in which they discovered that the other side of it, I'll let Billy take. Billy and Paul could take this over. Yeah. When you actually visit the crime scenes, you have a different perspective than you would have looking at them from the birds eye view on Google Maps and one of the investigators in Sacramento had visited the scene. I believe the 28th rape. He realized that the offender leaving the scene would have had a steep drop and likely wouldn't have been able to gauge the steepest of it in the dark because the lighting conditions weren't conducive to that. An injury would have likely resulted from the offender's escape from that scene. Incidentally, three days later,

there was an individual who presented himself at the American River Hospital in Carmichael with a broken shoulder. He claimed it was an on-the-job injury and he provided a false name, provided a false social security number from multiple stolen identities. Once it became evident that the hospital staff was suspicious of this individual, he fled. This is a lead that wasn't really followed up on until like three months ago. It was determined that the hospital intake employee had since passed. It's a dead end. Yes. There's a lot of stuff like that of, oh, we're following this thread and then you just hit a wall. Would she really, really recreate in the book the sensation of these cops who,

oh my God, this looks so good. Then you hit this wall and then you have to recover from the disappointment of not only did that not pan out, but by pursuing that, I've given this killer another two, three-month lead yet a further head start because I just followed the wrong lead. Yes. In a twisted way, that's the way we talked about this last time. We talk about these suspects that we have and we all have certain suspects that we like and the suspect list especially that was in Michelle's computer was a thousand people, but there was ones that she liked and that's how you refer to them. Do you like this guy? Does this guy look good? It's almost like you're falling in love with the suspect. When it doesn't pan out, your heart gets broken to a certain

extent and you go into a very dark place and we've all been there with whether it's a lead that doesn't pan out in one of my other investigations and Michelle certainly. I've been, I've had Michelle come and we were going to have drinks and like the first thing she said was, I solved it and then it just didn't work out. Eventually you get jaded. Eventually you get jaded, but she never wants, that would only really last like maybe a day for her, I think. I never really, I wasn't with her every day, but she was always just right back up there and been like, all right, because there's always going to be, especially in this case, there was always another lead to follow. It wasn't like every dead end actually was not a dead end. It just turned around and then led to another path.

I know. I felt so frustrated in the book when it was like explaining someone that looked very, very good for the case and then the DNA wouldn't, the simple little thing and everything else on paper was 100%. That was the person and you start wanting to not believe DNA, which is insane. Right. But it's just, I mean, I can't imagine. Can't we bring back alchemy and reading entrails and watching how birds fly? What's wrong with that? You said, again, that language of finding a suspect that it is the exact same language as an early crush where you're like, hey, I'm liking this guy. He's looking good. He's good. And then when a piece of evidence will come up that exonerates him, they will use phrases like, he blew it. He blew it. I was so into him and he blew it.

It was the same. He showed up wearing a MAGA hat. I was into him and he blew it. You know? He said he asked somebody else to the prom and he forgot. Yeah. It was, oh, he was right there. He blew it. So, you know, that kind of, you have to get that emotionally involved. And yeah, I mean, I remember very specifically some very rough mornings for her where she'd be at her laptop crying because I just, this has gone nowhere or very, very bad late nights of a lot of brooding. But like you said, after a couple of days, she would, okay, who's next? She would open the files again and let's go back into him. And it was, I don't know where she got that energy or where she got that fortitude to keep doing that, even though he was getting

chipped away like that. Well, it also seems like in reading it, because I went to college in Sacramento and the way, like you could so tell that she went there and spent time there. Oh, yes, she did. Those descriptions are so fucking laser accurate. The fact that she mentioned Day on the Green, being a teenager in the 70s in Sacramento meant you went to the river, you drank beer at the Levy. What? You fucking went to Day on the Green in Oakland or whatever. Like all these things were, as a, you know, at the time I was seven in California, they were teenagers, but that she, it was so concise. It was so insanely accurate where I think part of it, it seems to me, was the research was her passion. So getting back into it as disappointed as she would get,

that was almost the south is like, but now there's this file to go through. Yeah. And you mentioned, yeah, that the actual physical going to the place and driving around and feeling the air and what it feels like in the summer versus what it feels like in the winter, very early on on True Crime Diary, there was a murder up in Jenner on the beach, which a couple was on the beach. They were making out, a guy walked down and shot them with a rifle. So when you envision this thing, if you're mind him, oh yeah, he walked down to the beach with a rifle, but then she drove up to Jenner and went down to that beach. That beach was extremely rocky, very, very hard to get. She almost like fell and hurt herself getting down there.

She goes, and I was not carrying a heavy hunting rifle. Then she went and checked out what the rifle was he would have used. It's insanely heavy. So it totally changed her perception of what the crime was about. Oh no, this wasn't the guy that randomly wandered down and shot people. This was a outdoorsy plan knew what he was. So I think that really stayed with her of let's always drive, walk, look at the crime scene, talk to the locals, find out from that time. I remember she would drive through Irvine and Galita and she would make iPod mixes of the songs that would have been on the radio in those years. And one time we were coming back from Santa Barbara and she stopped and drove and it was

Dan Fogelberg and The Neat Eagles. And it made all those songs kind of sinister. Yeah, they are. Funkin' Hotel California is the scariest song of all time. Yeah, Dan Fogelberg has some Fogelberg, has some darkness in him that people do not talk about. That was on so much code. Peter of the band is tired. Yeah, he is tired. And you know, it's hard to say. It's hard to say. It's so tired. But yeah, but she would get to that and you realize like, oh, like everything contributed to what ended up happening. You know, the movies that were there, the catchphrases that were in people's heads, she wanted to be totally absorbed in that time.

Well, and I think that work, it's so shows in this book because I think it's like it's easy when you like true crime or you read it or you're kind of this like a participant. For me, it's so easy to sit back and be like, well, that's ridiculous. They didn't test that thing or all that weird judgy shit where when you actually go out and do the things that cops had to do, I mean, she was really actually walking the walk, which is the coolest. You know, we have a tool right now, especially as citizen detectives, if anybody has ever tried to look into their own cases of using Google Maps and using Google Street View and you can walk through. But the one thing that you don't get is depth. And that's what you wouldn't be able

to get that when she was looking at the Jenner case. She wouldn't be able to get that when the with the possible lead of the guy jumping and then hurting the shoulder. You have to be able to do that. And that's so important. When you go see scenes that you've that you've only seen pictures of and you're actually there, everything just really looks really small. Everything's small. Everything's a lot more condensed and closer together. But you really get that sense of depth and it gives you a whole new perspective on what everything is about. Yeah, that's true. We went when we were in Boulder for a show, we went and drove, of course, by the Ramsey house. And it is tiny. You don't realize how close everything is and someone had to have heard something. And

you know, it's just if she were here, she knew every single thing about the Jean Benet Ramsey case. She knew all of the she knew all the online slang BDI Burke did it. She knew the pineapple was part of the slang. And I remember her saying, she said, that ransom note is the citizen cane of ransom notes. No, ransom note is more than a page long like that. That should have put nothing but alarm bells up. People are like, yeah, they just wrote a long ransom note. No one does that. No one page to furthermore. Exactly. Now that the body is five feet away from me, I start to realize I'm sent back to my youth in the Boy Scouts. I remember those days, you know, no one does that. So there was all these, I mean, she there were these books that she would, I mean,

a book that she was really, really, she would read over and over again was Robert Graysmith's zodiac book, because it's a fascinating read, because it's a fascinating case. But it's also it's, it's a version of I'll be gone in the dark where he's not aware of how obsessed he is. Whereas in this book, I think Michelle is very, very aware of she is going to some weird areas here. And she even says that the same drive that makes this guy go and stalk people and murder people is what drives me and these cops to keep pursuing him no matter what. And, and she said the zodiac book by Robert Graysmith is a fascinating book because it's a case study of the writer more than it is of the crime. But the writer doesn't realize he's writing it. He doesn't

realize he's giving you an autobiographical case study of his unhingedness. Yeah. Yeah. So it's really cool. That's the feeling that I had when I first saw that picture of the town hall meeting at the high school. Oh boy. I looked at every fucking man's face in that picture. He's there. He's there. And it's there. The faces are so small. It was it was a time for people, I'm sure you all know, but the people that don't know, they finally had a town hall meeting to get everybody together. At the town hall meeting, there was a man who said, I can't believe this is happening. No man would let somebody come into their house. And then a couple months later, I believe, the, uh, hysteria rapist hit that house and that family came after him and his wife, him and his

wife, and they were victims. So they know for a fact he was at this town hall meeting. What if it was a coincidence? It could have been. It could have been. It could have been. It could have been had you ever been to Sacramento, though. That's what's so crazy. It's all we had to do then was town hall meeting. Yeah. Sacramento is LA with no show business. Just picture that. Just imagine that in your head. No, nothing exciting or glamorous. Okay. But what you're just saying there, that is, if you go to these certain towns, each town has a personality and then it will help you to understand like, wait a minute. I don't think that was a coincidence because of how that, you know, like it changes your view of the crimes. And it's, you know, it's kind of fascinating that way. I mean,

when I was doing my reading at Powell's for this book, they told me, I'm sure they've told you this too, or maybe you'll be told this. Whenever that, when I, when I did readings from my other books, I'm just kind of in the round talking. But when I was doing this book, they had me sitting against a wall because whenever there's readings for true crime books, there are plain closed cops in the audience and they photograph the crowd because, because in the past, whenever Ann Rule has done readings there, they would photograph the crowd way back in the day. And the Green River killer would be at almost. So they, isn't this what we came for tonight? Right there. Yeah. So they, yeah, exactly. But they will photograph the crowd. And I was like, are there guys here tonight? They're

like, well, don't worry about that. But they're, because, but any true crime reading, they photograph the crowd at Powell's because the Pacific Northwest is, you know, Disneyland for serial killers. So they make sure. So when you guys, when your book comes out and you go on tour, take a look at your crowd at Powell's because who knows? It's going to be all these girls with awesome hair and dresses and then some guys, Ford guys with their arms crossed. So yeah, that kind of eeriness is, you know, it, I hate to bring up Joan Didion, but, but there is. You have to. There is, there's that, that thread of darkness in the suburbs and God damn it, it's there. The reason it's a cliche is because it's fucking true. Well, and it's in my experience, it's never been truer

than the suburbs of Sacramento because Sacramento, it just goes on and on and on. You can get in your car and drive it for four hours and still be in Sacramento. It's like a fucking science fiction show on TNT that you don't want to watch. And also when you get out into those Carmichael-y suburbs, those houses, it's, you don't know one house from the next. It's probably slightly different now, but like it just had that, that was part of the feel, right? Is like you're going out away from your job, away from the city to like escape. That's what so, I think that's what's so interesting about this case is like, we all know that there's something in the places that he picked that tell who he is because where I'm from, Irvine randomly, where a couple of the cases or the attacks happen

and murders and it's the same fucking thing. And I think she described it and I almost started crying as like, there's, it's just three shades of beige in this, this city and it totally is and these, these like boring ranch style houses and what, you know, one story and it's just it, you, you, they are these places that are supposed to feel safe and contained and he brought this insane, crazy, scary nightmare to it. Almost on purpose, you know, to scare everyone. I think on purpose. Yeah. Well, what was the, hang on, you're sure? That was, me bringing the nightmare was incidental to me. I just wanted to have something to eat. I just love to stack plates. You, okay, they were just mentioning what do you, that idea that what was there something about these houses or this

landscape that pulled that out of him that made like, has that ever been thought of or obviously I think definitely Paul can speak to, you know, there's two main areas where we really focused on in part three, which is where we think this thing can be solved and that's DNA and particularly familial DNA. We think the answer is there. It's in a database someplace and it's just a couple clicks away, just a matter of whether we can get to it or not. And then there's geographic profiling. And you know, the idea of what this guy was, this guy wasn't, and Michelle believed this as well, is this guy, this wasn't about sex for this guy. You know, this was about power and it was about taking somebody that is in their most comfortable state, their most safest state, which is they

probably moved out of the city and they're in the suburbs and they're in their house and they're in a bed next to their man who's protecting them with a loaded gun in the house. But meanwhile, they don't know that he had snuck in on the gun and did all this other stuff. You can't get more evil and diabolical than that. And I think a lot of that did have to do with the power of it, is that you think you're safe, you're not safe. I'm going to come in here and show you what real terror is like. And a lot of that had to do with the geography, right? Yeah, I think, you know, reading about serial fenders, you as the reader can just assure yourself, well, I've never been in that position. And that would never happen to me. With this case, you know, these people are

targeted in their own homes and their beds at night, you can't avoid being in that situation. I think that's what makes this case so terrifying. And I can't tell you how many, every other tweet is about, I mean, everybody's loving the book, which is amazing. But then every other tweet is, I just had to check the windows, I had to check the doors, I had to check the locks. And I swear, lock sales have definitely gone up, or window sales and things. I was, my wife was reading this and she's like, we are going to go over the alarm system. And we're going to redo the codes, we're going to change it. Like it makes you because these people had these state of the art defenses. But okay, now you just let slip something there that that is also touched on in the book.

And also you guys just on past episodes, you've also caught yourselves doing this, which I find fascinating. When you really get into these cases and really get into these killers, there is a part of you that will unwillingly kind of go, and that was really diabolical and brilliant. And then you got to go, but he's a piece of shit. And Michelle talks about that a lot in the book of these cops, they will start talking about him. And she describes it as, it's the sensation of you find yourself talking way too long about an ex to your new boyfriend and girlfriend. Then you go, but, but fuck him. I don't think, because they look at you like, I think you're still in, you know, so there's that moment of you have to, but to catch him, you have to acknowledge that

that was a very brilliant thing. You know, like, have you ever, like, done that as well? Talking, geez. Not tonight. Well, I think that that to speak to that that part, and you and I actually talked about this, because it was when Michelle had told you this piece. And so it was before show Largo, it was like we're standing backstage and you're like, Oh, I tell you this thing about how he used to go into the house early and then hide stuff. And I'll tell you after and then walked away where I was like, you can't do that. What's happening? But basically the person, the person who would, what kind of person would be able to stake out a house for months and months, revisit it, break into it when the family's not there, hide things, hide weapons or all of those

things where it's levels of again, like you don't want to use the word dedication, you don't want to use respectful words. But at the same time, it's, it's not the average, like somebody that Michelle said, he, this guy wasn't a genius. He just practiced a lot. And he, you know, it's like, you know, Malcolm Gladwell talks about the 10,000 hours of practice to get to an expert. Ladies and gentlemen, Malcolm Gladwell. But that's what this guy does. What he did was he just constantly, he probably went out every night. He didn't do, he didn't attack every night, but he really was doing an early version of parkour jumping around and doing all this stuff. Yeah. Making dogs like know him. Oh, God, man. Come on. Yeah. Giving him treats, calming him down.

When you're reading a book, and that's one of the reasons why this book has been as resonated so much is that when you're reading the most famous serial killer in history is Jack the Ripper. When you're reading Jack the Ripper, there is such a detachment not only because it happened a long time ago, but you're like, well, I'm not, I'm not a street walker. It's never going to happen to me. Same thing. Street walker. Yeah. Same thing with the shark cross. Same thing with Joel Rifkin. You read those things. Oh, that's not going to happen to me. I'm not a cock me. Oh, or even son of Sam. It's like, oh, I don't make out with people on lovers lanes. That's okay. But everybody's sleep. Everybody sleeps in their house. Yes. Yeah. That's why

this resonates with everybody. I just remembered the one where it's the teenage girl who hears something outside her window, because they were talking about how pale he was in the, I think it's the earlier Visalia, that guy, the ransacker part. And a girl hears the noise outside her window and then looks down and sees like a moon looking thing and then realizes it's a face looking up at her in the bushes. And then the way Michelle describes it is he skitters away like a lizard or something like that where I was just like, I'm very upset right now. Like this is, it's so, it's a person who has, is basically dedicating his life to be, to being as upsetting and feel and horrifying as possible. Explain that to me. Well, even, yeah, you're right. Even if he's not

killing someone, if he, it's almost like he's designed his life around, even if I'm seen, I want it to be unsettled. And I want to haunt people and, and shake up any feeling of safety or normalcy. I want to be something in someone's field of vision that then they can never look at the world completely the same way again. That's what that is. Because I, it feels like someone going, I cannot make my mark any other way. So I'll do it through horror. I'll just do it through sheer horror. Do you guys have a theory about what his job was? Because I got really convinced about the fact that he was in the military or special forces when there was a special forces guy. It's because in the book it said that. So I was like, me too. This is my theory. But it was

the thing of the patients, the, like how, how somebody could sit inside bushes for six hours and just wait that it's a special training. Do you agree with that? Well, I mean, he was generally described as having had like shoulder length hair. So he wouldn't have been active military at that time. He may have been in the military at some point or a military enthusiast. But during that period, I mean, there's been a lot of speculation about his occupation. And it's like, you know, medical construction, painting, realty, you know, any theories game. But is there anything you like though? No, no, they all cancel each other out for me. Oh, really? Yeah, really? We try to take a look at there's so many, there's so many clues that are out there. And there are some that we

know are definitely his and then we're some that we're not sure of, like say the homework, the general customer homework. So we work. Yeah, so so or the map that the hand drawn map. So we don't know what we don't know if those are his or not. I don't I tend not to focus on those just because you can really go down some, some rabbit holes, which Michelle certainly gone down. I mean, I've looked at so many different maps trying to match up that hand drawn map to different locations and neighborhoods. But we know that there are certain things like the paint flexer or whatever that he left behind. And the idea that he did know a lot about these neighborhoods, I don't think he was military, I would be or more towards somebody who maybe wanted to be

military at some point, security guard ish. Michelle would always say always look to the handyman. Yeah, always look at the handyman. She basically ruined true detective by episode three. And you know, I think that's that's sort of where I'm going is more along those lines, somebody that maybe wanted to be in the military or police, but couldn't quite get it. And aside from the DNA, the paint flex have been really the only forensic evidence that's been of any value. And it's not been linked to any particular industry or company. So ultimately, it's been useless. You know, in terms of like what he's done for a living, like Paul Holes, who's the investigator in Contra Costa, is convinced that he worked in

like landscape, landscape architecture or construction. You said the other investigators feel he would be somebody like, you know, lower class sort of a marginal person. But if that were the case, I think he would have stood out more in the neighborhoods that he prowled. And, you know, he didn't descriptions of suspicious people are just kind of like guys that were there, or like five, nine, you know, dressed in windbreakers, you know, very average looking people. So I don't know, whoever he was, he blended in in these kind of middle upper middle class neighborhoods. And of the sketches, you know, we've gone through the yearbooks of like the rancher yearbooks and everything and everybody had that haircut. You're looking at him going,

that's him, that's him. Except people in the military. Except people in the military. Yeah. So they majors. And that particular like, you know, we get a lot of people sending photos of their fathers or stepdads and say, Hey, this is my stepdad. And this is look at the picture of him here. I bet he was the one or a lot of those are the pictures of them zooming in on pictures from that town hall meeting. Look at that. He was there. A lot of tips with people doing like side by sides. And that's a good way to filter out like the worthless ones, because the sketches are really just I don't know, I don't think even the more reliable composites from this case are a very limited value. I mean, if somebody's interpretation of somebody's description,

well, somebody wearing a mask. And the way they don't compare to each other. That drives me crazy is I always look at what is is the three or four that they usually put up together. And it's like, these are fucking three different dudes like their features that the part of the hair, there's one guy that has like an extremely side part. And then the other guy has full on Sean Cassidy hair. Yeah, it's just you said you you went to to high school in Sacramento or college. Well, I flunked out of college in Sacramento. That's how I like to say it. But were there were was there were there traces of this crime? Do people ever talk about it? Was it still in the air while you're there or there? No, they'd moved just the bad vibes.

That's just Sacramento. Yeah, exactly. That was the asphalt burning off 197 degree weather. No, but I never heard anybody talk about that. But in in reading this book, there's that one part where he the East area rapist was operating. And there was it was at three other rapists that were also operating at the same time. The early bird rapist, the early morning rapist, the woolly rapist. Yeah, the 70s were like a green ground for serial offenders. Yeah. Oh, it was not. I remember one time, Michelle tweeted, Hey, was your name Gary? And did you drive a van in the 70s? You weren't alone. Because he was going through all these files, which is a guy named Gary in a van. Like that's the symbol of 70s should be a guy named Gary

with a van. That's the 70s in California. Yeah. But but you moved to Irvine when so did you have a weird? Wow, you said some things. Well, I think that everyone's and I've seen a lot of tweets of like, is everyone pretty sure they're like weird co work older co worker is the gold state killer? Yes. Okay, because I'm doing that too with like, I've gotten a lot of the face the stepfather Facebook messages. Yeah. I'm like, stepfather was a piece of shit. So I'm pretty sure he was like, dude, I feel bad for you. I doubt he was a multiple murder. Well, here's how I know my dad wasn't it. So we moved to Irvine. The first attack and murder happened in Irvine in 81, which is when we moved there. And then the other one was in 86. And I asked my parents

about it. And my mom was just like, whatever. And so 86 was when my parents divorced. So we were like solo in my mom's house, which is like, and you were cool with that? Because I know we didn't lock the doors at night. But my dad, I asked him, do you remember that? And he's like, yeah, I remember that when 86 when that happened, it was really hard to get a date at the time. Because women were like, wouldn't go home with you. Cool, dad. On top of all the other awful things he did, he made the single scene in Irvine a nightmare. Let's not forget the way he impacted romance. Let's all pour out a little for the fern bars that nothing really happened. Could not wear that members only jacket. Yeah. But yeah, they were and I love that the part of the book where she

talks about how, you know, DNA and familiar ancestral DNA, you know, makes Tom Hanks would be a suspect based on the descriptions. Then she said, the filming schedule of bosom buddies. That alone is what, although we, I remember I'm going to drop a name here, but we had dinner. She and I had dinner with Steve Martin. Yeah. But I, well, just as she was beginning to work in the book, and she was talking about, you know, writing it. And then she, this is before I show it that point, but she said, Oh, by the way, you know, based on ancestral DNA, like Tom Hanks could be a suspect. But of course that shooting schedule of bosom buddies exonerates him. And then Steve went, does it? It would be an amazing reveal. It would be fun. Should we open it up for

questions or do you have guys have any other questions or who did it? Someone just come forward. You know, one of the great things about this, this book being so successful is that somebody that, I mean, I made a decision very early on in my career not to do any salt murders. I only do one salt crimes for 15 years. That's 15 years of writing stories with no endings. Nobody really ever wants to hear those. I mean, eventually they're okay for like a 5,000 word story in a magazine or something. But as far as a book or a TV show now, they want, they want the ending. And for this to, nobody has really been upset with, Hey, there's no ending on this thing. I think everybody really wants to be a part of it. And I think, I think it's going to be solved

within the next five years. Well, and I think maybe part of that also has to do with the progression of the digital age, social media and podcasting. People who love true crime, they want to solve it. So there is a part of it where I mean, I read that book and then I'm just like, if I could just connect by Celia. And you know, it's that feeling where since the answer is out there, that there's the possibility, I think there's an engagement. It's like that. Absolutely. No, we've definitely gone into the, nobody wants to be a spectator anymore in true crime. Everybody wants to be a participant. An ultimate participant would be to solve a murder. Even more than that, the grand slam homerun would be to solve this one. I think though, also like on a level of, I mean,

I have no, I do not, I know I'm not going to solve this one. I'm good. Come on. You don't know? I kind of understand this like, you know, when she's writing about, when she's talking about, you know, late at night writing in her daughter's room and all, you know, the obsession, I think that these asses true crime and obsessives understand just wanting to know more and know more. And when it's an unsolved crime, it's just an infinite amount of information to know and to connect. And it's, it's just fulfilling in this, in your crazy brain, in your anxiety brittle brain that you, you can let together, we can all figure this out and that we can all know. Yeah. And it's just really, but I think that's filling. It's true. Yeah. It is actually true. Before we open it up for

questions, any new, any new developments or updates you can share or want to, if you don't want to, that's cool. But there's a couple of things that had come out since we, we shipped the book. One of them was the, that he had stolen China, a very particular brand of China. And apparently, people used to put China in like these plastic bags. I remember my mom would do that. I remember that. Those zipper things. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You would take them and he actually took all the China. We had not known that before. So they had put that out. That's a new clue. We've done our own thing where one of the techniques that I do, I use social media to help police departments around the country solve stuff. And I saw the, we're looking for people that were of that age,

that were in Sacramento, that aren't there anymore, that are in, on the East Coast or on, you know, we got, we've gotten some people. And a lot of times when you put stuff out there, you know, like, like when you said that people are writing to you saying, my stepdad did it, you have to be, you can't just be, no, you're an idiot. You have to be, you're almost like a counselor. I'd be like, oh, wow, that's really horrible. Well, a lot of times it's up to you because I cannot deal with this. Yeah. And, but, you know, we, we got one woman who said that she had encountered him and, you know, she wasn't, I don't think she was lying. I think she definitely was telling the truth, whether it was him or not is another, is another matter. But that is something

that we took her name. We gave it off to the, I interviewed her and then we gave it off to one of the detectives. That could lead to something because there could be a police report that noticed a car and then they could trace the car or something like that. That was not in any of our, in the Michelle's 3,500 documents. We did not have that woman's name. So that was something that she did do a police report, but it wasn't in any of our stuff. So there's a lot of stuff that could have fallen through the cracks. That's one of them that, you know, fingers crossed could lead to something. And, you know, with an offender like this, the first rape is probably not his first rape. It's probably not his first offense. I mean, these offenders have years of

paraphilic activity like prowling and burglaries. And, you know, the Ransacker series was the obvious candidate, I think is a starting point. But I just don't feel it's the same offender. I think there are too many discrepancies in terms of behavior and physical description. And Ken Clark and Sacramento was identified two burglary series in Rancho Cordova, which is where the series formally began. Burglary series dating back to 1972, that, that feel very much like this offender, more so than the Ransacker series. So, you know, that suggests some origin in that area, which, you know, I think geography for me is one of the big, you know, clues. And together with like the forensics, the genealogy, I think geography is one of like the very few paths to solving the case.

I was reading in the Ransacker part, because of course, I was like, the Ransacker is the Aceri rapist, is the Golden State Killer. But in the part where they were describing his body, then I started this fantasy of he left Vysalia knowing like the cops were hot on his tail, and then started doing like a biggest loser style. I'm going to change, I am going to change my physical appearance, tan up, you know what I mean, get a little sun, and like start doing parkour style exercises. You know what I mean? Like the idea of that, I was like, well, that's a possibility. You know, yes, maybe he didn't match directly, but what if he did try to change himself? Well, Holtz has argued that they're just two fundamentally different body types,

like one's an endomorph, one's an ectomorph. But also the Ransacker when confronted behaved in a very conspicuous way consistently. The air when confronted just kind of was like, hey, how's it going? And would leave the area when, you know, in the Ransacker was almost like a bizarre in his behavior. The screaming in the end. Don't hurt me. Yeah. How creepy. Looking for a better cooking routine? With meal planning, shopping, and prepping handled, Hello Fresh has you covered. Hello Fresh makes home cooking easy and affordable, so you can stay on track and on budget in the new year. Hello Fresh meals are convenient, seasonal, and delicious. Stay cozy all winter long with classic comfort foods available weekly.

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your podcasts. You can listen ad free on the Amazon Music or Wondery app. Well, let's open it up for questions for a little bit out there. I'll let you guys moderate. Yes. Hi. Hi. What are your thoughts on the accomplice theory? Is there an accomplice theory? You know, there's no evidence across like 55 crimes. There's no actual physical evidence of an accomplice. He would pretend there was, but there's no evidence to substantiate that there was. So I don't feel he had one. Oh, it's like a classic like I've called the cops kind of they're coming, but there's no one really there. Right. He would talk to like, you know, and then he would whisper back. Are you maybe referencing was it the like the janitor at the school that saw the two guys in the matching windbreakers?

Is that what you mean? No. Yeah. And the first attack that victim heard him whispering to someone and in that instance, he keep intimated that he was there with his girlfriend, but I think it was just a charade. There was no evidence that he had anyone with him. He was, he was doing different voices. We know he was doing the clenched teeth voice, you know, killing, you know, and then, but he was also doing other ones too. I think that was just a ruse. He would pretend to be a junkie. He would pretend to be, you know, mentally ill. He would pretend he would adopt like Mexican accents and German accents. And, you know, he's like trying different things out. Now I have to argue because

didn't the ransacker do that when he first stopped him and he did the oaky accent? Uh, well, I don't know that he was, I think it was his kids consistently described as having had that accent, but he did, he did pretend to have an accomplice on numerous occasions. Maybe he was an actor. Yeah. Okay, the paint is from painting his place. Tom Hanks. Oh my God. Oh my God, we're back to Hanks. I say we look at everyone who didn't get SNL when they were there. He had like three characters right there. Yeah, that's right. So. Thanks. Um, I was really struck by the moment when Michelle's voice in the book ends almost like in mid paragraph and that it was, it was very kind of

moving to move on to the next chapter and that you guys picking the story up. Can you talk a bit about the professional relationship you developed for her? I was working with Michelle prior to the book being sold. So we had, we had corresponded since I think 2011. Um, and, you know, we were sort of like investigative partners. I mean, she would share leads with me. I would share leads with her and, uh, I saw her maybe three or four times a month. Um, and I mean, her death was shocking to me. She wasn't ill. It wasn't something was the farthest thing from my line. So it was very difficult for me to process. And, um, um, I think that there was sort of a blueprint in terms of how she wanted the book structured. Um, but it was just everything was just interrupted. She

left uninterrupted work, interrupted research. And so I think it was a challenge to, to sort through that. And also, I mean, you, I mean, that was the first thing I thought of, you know, I knew everybody else would be thinking of, obviously think of Patton and think of Alice. I thought the first thing I thought of this fucking guy won. And then I thought, fuck this guy. And I was like, I'm going to do everything I can, you know, um, no matter what, I'm going to do everything I can to get this out. Cause I'd want somebody to do that for, for, there's two reasons. One, I'd want somebody to do that for me if I would, if I was doing it. And two, I constantly was, was egging her on to finish the book because we had other projects

that we wanted to do. You know, we were doing a podcast, um, called the shadow pulp radio hour, which was like, uh, this thing that, um, you know, we would, we would get one call per, per podcast that was from Frank from Burbank and Frank from Burbank actually was, was Patton from Los Filos. Thank you for that. And then we were, we were, we were, you know, we did, uh, a panel it's out by Southwest called solving murders of social media and we want, and it was just, you know, we had some other projects that we really wanted to do, but she, she just, she stopped everything and said, I want to focus on this. And we would go to lunch once a month and then she would talk about, about the case and I would talk about my cases and everything. But,

you know, it was, it was good to have something to do. You know, we, we had all this stuff there and it was like, all right, well, what do we do with this? And how do we structure it? And the idea that, you know, she didn't write about every crime. She wasn't ever going to write about every crime. I mean, that's a lot sporting on rapes is 12 murders at least, but we weren't going to write in her voice. That couldn't happen because she's such a damn good writer and she's such an intimidating writer too, because I didn't write it all myself while we were working on it. Then when I went back to write every sentence I write, um, I looked, I look at it and when I look at it again, I'm like, damn, that's not good enough. And then I go back and I try to make a good enough just because

I just worked on a book when this woman was just so good at two things that I thought I used to be a good combination of, which was a good writer and a good researcher. And she was honestly, I think she was the best one in true crime. And the success of the book is bittersweet in her absence. And once this offender is identified, I mean, that excitement will be kind of tempered by the fact that Michelle never learned his identity. Yeah, it really, it was really terrifying to to when she died, because it, you know, grief feels like terror, it feels like fear. But then also, yeah, knowing that this was a thing that she was so obsessed with and so focused on. And so that on top of the grief was going to be this. So I, you know, I didn't have that determined

moment that you had. I had the just reaching out to everyone I could, her publisher, these guys, and just begging, could somebody help me finish this book. And I decided very early on when I read, because she would have me read early chapters, that I knew immediately, oh, there's no way we can pick up the writing and finish it. So it ends where it ends, because if we had picked it up, you would have seen very clearly, oh, that's where Michelle stopped writing. And that's where these guys see if you can figure out where Clapton stops playing. And this kid with a day of ukulele trainings, but yeah, no, I think I can pick out the exact note. So, you know, and, yeah, so that, that, and there's also is very bittersweet for me, because having the book done is another

thing where it's another part of her that's kind of gone, like in a very sick way, not having the book done and us working on it meant she was still here. And having that done, and then if he is caught, yeah, that'll be very bittersweet, she'll never, but that'll be another part of her gone. And so there's that, you know, there was a lot of push-pull for me. But then finding that the letter to the old man, which is the code at the end of the book, it was almost like, holy shit, this is so perfect that she's actually taught, you know, all this stuff is done, and she's gone, and she's really speaking from another place. It was a way to sort of close an interrupted arc.

It was so ridiculous. Then I saw that it was almost precious. Yeah, we were so happy that we found that. And if you want to mean, Mark Bercollins put out a three-episode podcast about the book. You can download it anywhere you get podcasts, but there are recordings and interviews with her where she's talking about the process of writing the book and investigating the crime. You can hear her voice and how she, you know, would try to puzzle. I mean, she was a very, very unique personality. And so if you want to listen to, if you want to hear her voice for real, it's on those, it's on that three-episode podcast that's out there. But yeah, it is a, you know, there's, again, to quote James Elroy,

there's no such thing as closure. There's just no closure. Well, I remember when you sent me the Oak Park chapter, and I was really scared to read it, because it's that thing of any of one of your friends where they're like, you want to read my script? And you're like, sure. Uh-oh. Because it could, you know what I mean? No, I get it, yeah. You don't want it to be, and anyway, I read it, and I just couldn't stop sobbing when it was over, because it was that amazing thing of someone is gone, but they have left this amazing body of work that actually like, I went into her life. I went into her teenage bedroom, you know, I mean, and with her as the guide, I couldn't stop thinking about what,

you know, like her mom reading that chapter. And everything about that was just so so fucking magnificent that it was just like, thank God. And then I remember texting you and being like, what's going to happen with the book? And I wanted to say, like, do you want me to help you? But I really did not want to say that at all. And you texted back, like, we've got these great guys. And I was like, great, great, great. Perfect. Awesome. Yeah, let me, I don't want to be, yeah. I didn't want to be involved. I knew that I couldn't, because it was hard enough for me just to read the writing. So thank God, you guys stepped up. Putting it together, we would send Patton stuff and we knew Patton needed time. So Patton,

I mean, there were there were a couple months when you especially getting through the summer. Oh, I couldn't do anything over the summer because Alice was out of school and everything. But I also, I couldn't sit down and read it because I would read a couple of pages and I would lose my shit. And because it was because her voice was right there, she was right there. Like, I wanted it. There was I remember one time I was I was visiting my parents this back in Virginia, down in the basement in my dad's office and I'm reading and I wanted to go upstairs. There was a second one. I wanted to go upstairs and tell her that one paragraph was because in my mind, she's just right up there because her voice is right there. And I just taught myself

and then it all hit me all over again. Like, so it just, you know, it was a very, very hard, difficult process. But also it now there's it's like there is this living document. There's something very alive about this book and very, you know, sometimes when you're writing, you get you want to be fancy, you want to put something on and be like, everyone's going to love this great idea. And it actually distances you. She is right fucking there on that page. So it's like, there is a magic to there's a lot of people that talk about writing books all the time. The fact that there is so much, it's such an amazing book and it does exist. Like, it's not the thing she wanted to get done. Right. That's,

that's kind of incredible. Yeah, it's amazing. So it might be just consult good old says on the show. She seems like such a kindred spirit in a true crime on my life. But I have a question about that, that infamous town hall meeting where the guys, you know, real bragging does show up. Right. You would protect his life. Do you know for sure that that famous photo is from that particular? It's not. Okay. And that and that town hall. All the work I did. We stopped telling people even that that's everybody did all that work. That town hall in which that gentleman spoke up actually took place before the hysteria rapist began attacking couples. So he wouldn't have actually said I would protect my wife.

He was just getting into it with the with the cops. And that town hall took place before the the media blackout was lifted. So the the so that that was in, I think, November of 76. And that couple was attacked, I think in May of 77. So it was some months later. So do you guys think it was a coincidence? I Michelle believe it may have been. Yeah, that's such a bummer. That's not I'm sorry, but I'm only going off when she first found out that information told me she thought it was specifically, but she didn't have all the details right. That's the story she told me. And I was like, Oh, my God. So it's a great story. Well, then you're good. Then you get on a magnifying glass and you start looking. And if it comes, you know, you're looking you're looking

for the shooter on the grass, you know, you're listening to pixels. Now, yeah, he's told and you know, like you have this apocryphal version of the story. And it's only when you sort of see the files that you realize that well, that was actually another blind alley. You know, it's what these guys say always check the files. It's one of the one of the catchphrases. That's what I always say, which was the murderer was at that exact picture. And I know he's in there picture for everybody, which was nice. So just so I understand, you guys did the research, but is the writing all Michelle? All Michelle, they wrote a section in the back, the third section. And it says by Billy Jensen and Paul Haynes, where they talk about geographic profiling and DNA. And then

I wrote a very brief afterward by says by me. But the book is all her writing, we didn't add or and there's even like, and you know, this is this is from notes that you know, it's but it's not us our fingerprints are not on any of this stuff. It's her writing, sort of like, you know, when they reconstruct like an old reconstructed old silent movie, and they don't have all the footage and they use stills. It's the same principle. Yeah, so there were parts in there where there was a part that was missing that we would go into her and her we would go into her emails and even her emails were probably were written in a way that are not just like the regular schlab writes an email like you and I do, they're written in a way that were really great. Yeah. You know,

there was like, Oh, we can we can put that over here. And it was very much like that. But, you know, she wasn't writing it linearly. She was very much writing it in these chapters. And it was a matter of how we're going to put the chapters together to make it cohesive. And then, you know, filling in those blanks with what she had, and she certainly had a lot because we had access to her right. Have you sold movie rights? That we're not really talking about that right now. There's a lot of stuff that's up in the air, but I don't really I wrote right now or it's in a stage where I can't really talk about it. So yeah. Yes. I want to ask you where you go back to what you're saying about Zodiac and Zodiac will continue. All right. How did Michelle and how do you two

avoid like turning into Jake, Jill and Holland Zodiac for you giving up your whole life to this and getting pulled into that obsession that happens to so many detectives? You have to do a lot of people with these things. Well, I mean, you know, you approach it because you are a professional. You've been doing this professionally. So you do keep that distance for I mean, I think with Michelle, unfortunately, you know, not to sound morbid, I don't think she successfully avoided being completely pulled in by this in the very end. You know, there was a lot of sleeplessness and insomnia. And, you know, I mean, it didn't it didn't make her she was still very much a mom and a wife and a and a friend. But this, the further she got into this, it was it was clear

that she had a real shot at solving this. And that can be a that can be some fatal bait. You know, that can really pull you into some depths that you can't get yourself back out of. And, you know, with me, it's it's really a numbers game. There's there's 15,000 murders in America, 5,000 go unsolved, which is an insane number when you think about it. So that means there's 215,000 murders that are unsolved since 1980. I can't I can't get obsessed with just one, you know, because I'm constantly working. I'm working 20 or 25 right now. And even that's just such a small drop in the bucket. I was just surrendered to my obsessions. I'm not a very pragmatic person. That's a very graceful way to put that. Well, I want to do one more question.

Yeah, no, there definitely there definitely is. I work a lot and I've written a lot of stories about that about regular people trying to solve solve crimes. The there's a there's a site called web sleuths, which some of you might know that you can go on and people are discussing crimes. You can go on certainly Facebook, a lot of people will will discuss certain crimes on Facebook on Facebook groups. The biggest thing that you have to and also Reddit, the biggest thing you have to do is not name names. If you don't name names, then then you're okay. It's when you start naming names or saying it's the what about this guy syndrome where you go, what about this guy? And then you have a link to a Facebook profile. That's where you get into trouble. So I really do

think and I'm a big component of crowd solving. And I think that that it can work as long as it's it's done the right way. And one of that is just making sure that you don't name names. Read it during the day at a coffee shop. Yeah, read it in the day. Don't read it at night. And I'm not saying that that's not cheap hyperbole. If you're, if that's how you feel, I would and I've had friends who've, who've written me that said I had to stop reading it and I waited till the daytime, especially the audiobook. I've had friends make the mistake of listening to it alone at night. That is a huge mistake. Read it when you're out hiking in the sunshine with friends and dogs around. But yeah, read it in the daytime. To me, that's almost creepier when I listen to it

and, and doing it during the day and hiking and it makes everything surreal. It's the same thing of like listening to what was playing on the radio when you're driving through the day. It's the same like it makes everything feel like a, like a David Lynch movie. But yeah. Yeah. Everything is a David Lynch movie. It is. It kind of is. Well, that's what we're living. We're living in a badly written David Lynch movie right now. We're not even one of the good ones. We're, we're an inland empire. No. Come on. I'm sorry. Let's not get negative. Don't name names. Yeah. Don't name names. I want to say as a fangirl, a longtime fangirl, Michelle, how much you guys finishing this book, all three of you. And I know it's hard because it's, you know, an ending. It's just, it's such a

lovely thing to have. It's on my nightstand. It's in my phone and it's, I'm gonna read it and reread it constantly. And it just, it means a lot that you guys finished it. And I know it's hard, but they finished it. Yeah. Great job, you guys. Amazing. Amazing. I think that's it. Thank you. And thank you, Georgia Heartstock and Karen Kulgarov from My Favorite Murder. I'm telling you, there are, how many murderinos are here tonight? Wow. They are. Wow. Sorry, but, but the entire Portland crowd were murderinos. It was all murderinos. It's crazy. Let's, let's give one more round of applause for our My Favorite Murder Pen filling and Paul for finishing this book. It was a pleasure to have you guys.