RedHanded - The Golden State Killer - Part 2: I’ll Be Gone In the Dark | #461

Episode Date: July 30, 2026

Michelle Eileen McNamara dedicated her life to closing the net on the man she called “The Golden State Killer’. A man whose prolific spree of violent home invasions, rapes, and murders was so large and covered such a vast geographical area several law enforcement agencies failed to realise it was all one man.Join us in part 2 of our 3 part series on The Golden State Killer, as we discuss how Michelle McNamara gave her life to catching a man she wouldn’t live to see behind bars.--Patreon - Ad-free & Bonus EpisodesYouTube - Full-length Video EpisodesTikTok / Instagram

Hey, did you hear? Watermelon is back at booster juice all summer long. Nice! I love the watermelon explosion. And the watermelon wave! Yep, they even got a new watermelon assaye bowl this year, the one in a melon bowl. And what does that sound like? Like that. Booster juice, Canadian-born, blending since 1999. Hey, did you hear?

Watermelon is back at booster juice all summer long. Nice! I love the watermelon explosion. And wave! Yep. They even got a new watermelon assayee pool this year. The one in a melon bowl. And what does that sound like? Mmm.

Like that. Booster Juice. Canadian born. Blending since 1999. Last week, on Red Handed, we ran through the first few phases of the Golden State Killer's Criminal Development. from low-level burglary and rummaging and then the no-pants dance,

which sounds insensitive, but is actually what Richard Shelby is. He sort of describes him in this childlike way, and kind of similarly, as we were saying last week, about the assumption that certainly there was, they had of rapists in the 70s was this like a bit of an idiot, like someone who's not in control. Sure, sure. And even like, oh, well, he's doing it because he can't talk to a woman

and get her to have sex with him. So that's why he's doing it. Yes. It's juvenile. It's embarrassing. It's diminutive. Yeah. And it's something that Richard Shelby says quite a lot, which is why I've put that in there.

And he does in, you know, the very early days in Exeter, that's how he sort of starts, just walking around with no trousers on. Which again is actually quite common in later sex offenders and serial killers, that kind of voyeuristic behavior, that sort of flashing behavior. It's the shock factor. It's crossing somebody's boundaries without their consent and reveling in their reaction to it. It's that very early-like trigger of, I enjoy this.

And he progressed to rape and then to murder all over the state. We're going to start today back in Sacramento, where in 1977 the people were still powerless, persecuted by the prowler, who was always just around the corner. The whole area was on edge, reports constantly came into the police and the sheriff's department of a man slinking in and out of the darkness. One man heard footsteps outside his house, and he saw the prowler looking through his neighbour's window as they put their son to bed.

He took out his own pistol and cocked it. The sound startled the East Area rapist, and as usual, he hopped away over a fence. This man who, I'm sorry, don't know his name, tried to chase the East Area rapist but just couldn't keep up with him. He called the police, but they yet again could do absolutely nothing to make anyone feel like they were capable of protecting Sacramento. That time the East Area rapist escaped on a bike that he stole from a different house's garage. When that garage was searched, knotted white shoelaces were found lying on the ground. Had he dropped his equipment by accident, or was he relishing in leaving a trail of evidence behind? knowing that investigators were continuously failing to solve it. I'm Hannah.

I'm Saruti. And this is red-handed Golden State Killer episode two. Ugh, and maybe again I'm reading too much into this. And please, everybody don't come after me for adding to the myth-making of this man. But is he leaving these shoes behind? It's almost like a metamorphic state. Is that the right word? Metamorphose.

Is that word? What happens when they go into a cocoon? Yeah, metamorphosis. Yeah, it's like I'm leaving these shoes behind. Shoe laces. Shoe laces behind to become the next version of myself. I thought it was his shoes. Maybe he changed his shoes after.

I don't know this case as well, as is becoming obvious. Quite often, more often than not, when he's about tying up his victims, he uses shoelaces. Okay, yeah, yeah. And quite a lot, because he leaves them tied up, right, these women and these men. So he leaves the shoelaces behind every time. and he drops them. This one is very specific because we know the bike was stolen, but shoelaces are showing up all over the shop.

I see. Never mind. Just hours later, the ear struck for the 37th time, just half a block away. Even knowing that he'd been seen, hadn't stopped him. Years later, Michelle McNamara managed to track the man down who made this report. And when she asked him what the prowler looked like, he immediately replied, schoolboy without missing a beat.

Golden State Killer never stuck around in one place to get caught. He was operational in multiple locations at the same time, hundreds of miles apart. Another one of the reasons no one realized there were multiple counties looking for the same exact man. When you sort of zoom in on Sacramento and that sort of like, it does feel frenzied because it's so frequent. But he's doing, he's hitting all the other ones at the same. time he's driving hundreds of miles through the night. And that is calculated. It doesn't feel

like the same thing, but it is. And that's why he's so successful. Absolutely. And I think it's exactly what we said in the last episode. He's not an opportunist. And he is also, he's almost like a professional rapist and killer. He is like, I take my work very seriously. And I will travel 300 miles if that's what it takes to carry out an attack there. And I think it's also not just, I think, a way to divert law enforcement or to confuse the police. I think it's also the fear factor, right? Because you might think, can I see your map again? I don't know the California geography.

But look, I'm just thinking like, right, if you are up in Sacramento and you hear about a killing that's taken place or a dog getting its stomach sliced open because they think the ear was hiding in the garden and about to murder the woman inside in Galita, I'm thinking, well, at least I'm safe. I'm safe up here. I'm all the way up here in Sacramento or Rancho Cadova. Ha-ha. No one is fucking safe at any point, because even if I have just killed somebody down here, I could be there in hours.

And you're next. I think it's absolutely for him adding to that extra, jean-se-cois of just constant fear for everyone forever. Six hours and eight minutes away in Santa Barbara. Peter and Marlene Brady arrived at their friend's house. They were supposed to play tennis with Dr. Robert Offerman and Deborah Alexandria Manning. But no one came to the door to greet them. Finding that the door wasn't locked, Peter and Marlene slid the door open and stepped inside.

Immediately Marlene said to husband that they should just turn around and leave. But Peter paused for a moment. He had a horrible feeling that something wasn't right. So he walked further into the house. Soon he saw that the bedroom door was wide open, and on the bed was Deborah, motionless and totally naked. Her wrists were bound with white nylon twine. It took Peter a moment to realise that Robert was in there too. He was at the foot of the bed, tied up as well.

They had both been shot dead. Robert Offerman had been shot three times. Deborah, just once. It is assumed by investigators that Robert had broken free of his restraints and attempted to take out the prowler, the East Area rapists, the ransacker, who now was ready to kill. Dr Robert had no chance of escape. Robert was shot three times,

but Deborah Alexander just once in the back of the head. The ear, or should we now say the Santa Barbara shooter, took the time to take all of Deborah's rings and slot them between the mattress and the bedrock. frame before he made his way into the dark. The couple had only lived in that house for a little while. There was a vacant new build next door, which upon investigation appeared that someone had been squatting in. There had also been sightings of a fence jumper, punching poodles and leaving lengths of twine all over the neighbourhood. But despite the clanging commonalities between the

Galita double homicide and the Ear Sacramento attacks, the Sacramento B ran a story claiming that the Santa Barbara murderers were absolutely not related to the ear. Of course, they were wrong. And after his first successful intentional kill, he was ready to strike again, but his East Area rapist era was behind him. After having averaged two rapes a month for two years, the attack stopped. Up north in Sacramento, finally the people let go a sigh of relief. The investigation into the East Area rapists was shut down and the police stopped down. And the police Department and the Sheriff's Office were thanking their lucky stars that their incompetence was no longer front and centre of every frontal lobe within a hundred-mile radius.

The whole thing had gone on for so long that essentially the whole leadership team of the investigation had been replaced, except for Lieutenant Larry Ripton down in Santa Barbara. He noticed the similarities between the recent break-ins and killings in Galita and the reign of terror that Sacramento had suffered under the East Area rapist. He even called his counterpart in the Sacramento Department to alert them that he was sure their rapist and his murderer were the same man. This was the first time that anyone with official law enforcement clout made this connection officially.

But Sacramento refused to receive the pass. Double homicide in Santa Barbara seemed sloppy, and they were of the opinion that offenders got better over time, not worse. And it was twine, not shoelaces, that was used to bind Robert and Alexander. So Sacramento totally dismissed the connection. But to be honest, even if they hadn't, it wouldn't have made that much of a difference. To catch this killer, science needed to catch up. There was nothing anyone could do to make that happen any faster.

It also didn't help that the Republican presidential convention just so happened to be being held at Ronald Reagan's Galita-based ranch. And additional press was not what the Oval Office were really interested in. So the murders of Dr. Robert Offerman and Deborah Alexander Manning were not connected in any meaningful way to the East Area rapist or the Rancho Cordova, Crowler, or the Vasilia ransacker. And everyone on either side of Route 99 just hoped that it was all over. But of course it wasn't.

Hey, did you hear? Watermelon is back at booster juice all summer long. Nice! I love the watermelon explosion. And the watermelon wave. Yep. They even got a new watermelon assaye bowl this year. The one in a melon bowl. And what does that sound like?

Mmm. Like that. Booster juice. Canadian born. Blending since 1999. Murderish is a true crime podcast that gives listeners an in-depth 3D look at gripping murder cases from beginning to end. You'll get to know the victims and the perpetrators.

Learn how their worlds collided and follow. the investigation all the way through to what went down in the courtroom. Host Jamie Rice brings a unique perspective to the show, including her own personal experience, serving as a jury foreman on a first-degree murder trial. She's also shared a terrifying personal story about the time a stranger followed her home and actually came into her bedroom at night.

Some of the crimes covered on murderish may sound familiar, but many are cases you've probably never heard of. Each episode dives into the details, the people involved and the twists and turns that make these cases so compelling. With more than 200 episodes available, there's plenty to binge right now. So follow Murderish with Jamie Rice in your favorite podcast app and start listening today. And remember, listening to Murderish doesn't make you a murderer. It just means your murder-ish.

Hey, did you hear? Watermelon is back at Booster Juice all summer long. Nice! I love the watermelon explosion. And the watermelon wave. Yep. They even got a new watermelon assaye bowl this year. The one in a melon bowl. And what does that sound like?

Mmm. Like that. Booster juice. Canadian born. Blending since 1999. Just 40 minutes down the road, it happened all over again in Ventura in March 1980. A nameless neighbor happened to look through a window and think that it was strange that a carton of milk was an exact. the same position as it had been the day before.

No one had any use for milk in that house because the occupants Lyman and Charlene Smith had been dead for two days, with their blood sprayed on the walls of their home. Lyman's 12-year-old son from a previous marriage was the one to find them. He came over to mow the lawn and found his father and step-mom

wrapped in a blanket, having been bludgeoned to death with a piece of firewood. Charlene was raped before she was killed, although for years the police denied that fact. even telling Charlene's daughter that no sexual assault had taken place, which was not a mistake, it was a blatant lie. In fact, the vaginal swab taken from Charlene Smith's corpse would be what eventually, decades later, led us right to him.

Because this time we get him. But until that glorious moment, we have a lot more trudging through misery to do. But I absolutely promise you the gotcha is coming. But not before I have to tell you about what happened in Dana Point that August. Roger Harrington popped by his son Keith's house to find a note from friends on their door, saying that they had come around at seven the evening before, but there was no one home, and to call them if plans had changed. Roger tried the front door, but it was locked, which, in and of itself, was unusual.

Both of their cars were outside, so where were Patty and his son Keith? Roger reached for the spare key he knew was hidden in the trellis and let himself in. He walked into the kitchen and made himself a drink. As he did, he noticed that a bag full of shopping was in the sink and a loaf of bread had been left out, but the rest of the house was silent and still, and suddenly Roger was struck with fear.

Fear that was realised when he walked into the guest bedroom. The bed was made, but there was a lump under the covers. two lumps actually when Roger summoned the courage to pull back the covers he found his son and his new wife awkwardly lying on their stomachs in a pool of blood his son was purple both of them had clearly been bound but this time

their killer had taken whatever ligature he had used with him as I alluded to last week some people think that he did this to try and cover his tracks better than he previously had because when you're leaving bodies behind and not people you are leaving more evidence but I think he did it specifically to throw off investigators and ensure that this crime was different enough to not be connected to his litany of others.

And as we will find out next week, the Golden State Killer understood perfectly well how police investigations worked and exactly how to derail them. Both Keith and Patty had been bludgeoned to death with a sprinkler that had been taken from their own garden sometime after 11pm on the night of the murders. And we know that because Patty spoke to her sister on the phone around that time.

The couple were already in bed, and then they were dead. The receipt in the grocery bag left in the sink was printed at 9.48pm. For years, Roger Harrington was convinced that the killer must have personally known Patty and Keith. And that's why they were covered up when he found them. Which, you know, isn't a bad guess we have seen that before, usually when. a killer covers up his victim's face, particularly it's a sign of remorse, a sign of some sort of personal relationship.

So yeah, his guess was that the killer hadn't been able to stomach looking at their familiar faces as he beat them to death. But here, that wasn't the reason. It was much colder than that. The previous killing had proved to be quite messy. So, the original Nightstalker, as he would then become known,

had covered Keith and Patty before he started bludgeoning them. to keep the blood spatter to a minimum. He does a lot of, like, when the earlier days where he's, and actually he does this the whole way through, stealing personal items, things that are engraved, he takes pictures off the wall, sometimes he'll scribble out faces and it feels personal. But he knows that, and that's why he's doing it.

And I wonder if in a way it is personal. Obviously he's racking up these rapes towards the end of his time as the ear. So how much he's able to commit to his diligent stalking and casing of his victims. Because we saw that, you know, he enjoyed knowing things about them, knowing the mother's name, knowing even if he got it wrong, the university that the victim went to and things like that, knowing that the husband is a captain or whatever.

And is it to him, because he stalks them for so long, because he knows the intimate ins and outs of his life, is it almost personal for it because he thinks that he knows them and he's taking them out? Or is it just personal to him because they represent something or somebody or a situation that made him feel emasculated, lacking in dominance, lacking in power and all of those things. So in a way it is personal, even though he isn't personally affiliated with them.

Because you're right. The kills feel personal. The MOs, the signature, the behavior around the kills feel personal. But yeah, again, what makes him for somebody like me who isn't that like? Let's just be honest. We all have different types of cases that we find interesting. Serial killer's not the top of my list. But I have to admit, he is a very, very interesting one.

I was explaining to my friends this weekend to them just laughing at me because I was sort of putting this together and I was just excited. I was like, well, the thing is, serial killers are quite hard because the reason the quote unquote successful ones managed to go on for so long is there's absolutely no connection between their victims or what they're doing. So telling that story in a way that's compelling and doesn't feel very abrupt and staccato, it's really difficult.

And I think it's because for me, we've talked about before, I prefer the more domestic crimes, where it is personal, where there is a deeper motivation than just this person is fucked. Like with him, we can psychoanalyze this as much we want. And of course we will because it's fascinating. He's fucked. He's fucked. He's fucked up person. And sometimes that's all it is. Yes, that is all it is.

Something happens somewhere that happens to a million other people. But for some reason, that person's DNA, that person's psychological. their psyche is so fucked that that wound is so significant, they can then go to the extreme of destroying other people's lives in every way possible. That's it. That's what it is with serial killers, right? And that's why I find the ones where it's like, the spouse does it or the mother does it or the father does it. And then they want to get away with it. And they've never even got so much as a speeding ticket before. Fascinating. But why he is interesting is because that wound is so deep. He internalizes it. He stalks these people. He wants to know as much about them.

scribbling out of faces in photos. It's the unnecessary things. It's the signature with him, the emo with him, that just makes it so, so, like I said, fake, almost characteresque. Like I said, like a Hannibal Lecter, who, if anybody knows anything about killers, he is such an unrealistic portrayal of a killer. You don't get killers like that. And I do not want to, again, add to this guy's like myth, but he is the closest.

that we've probably come across. And I hate to say that because he would love it. Then, back up the way in Irvine on the 7th of February, Drew Withune went round to his brother's house. His brother David was in hospital in nearby Santa Ana with a gastric virus, and his wife, Manuela, was temporarily living alone. Drew wasn't the one who found her. That grim task fell to her mother.

Drew was at the Withhune house because he had agreed to do the cleanup. In the lead up to her murder, Manuela had been keeping a strict routine. She would go to work, and then she would go to the hospital to visit David, and then she would have dinner at her mum's house, and then she would go home, alone. Investigators found a screwdriver on the patio, which had been used to prize open, the patio door. The TV had been dragged out into the garden by the fence, probably to aid the original night stalker in his trademark fence hop, away from the scene of the crime.

A lamp, a stereo speaker, some jewellery, and the tape from the... answering machine were all missing. It assumed that the speaker was what had been used to beat Manuela to death. Her wedding veil was hanging from the back of the bedroom door, and she was so terrified in her last moments of life that she had vomited. Her killer relished in terrorising women as much as humanly possible. When David was asked by investigators if he had noticed anything strange in the previous weeks, he remembered that he had found some footprints in the garden, but he couldn't explain.

He drew a picture of the prints for the police from memory. There were tennis shoes, with small circles on the soles, exactly like the ones that were cast on the night his wife was murdered. David found those mysterious tracks four months before Manuel's murder, so clearly the original night stalker had been watching them for quite some time.

I think he made a mistake. I think he thought David was going to be in the house. He doesn't realize that he's in hospital. Because he does these, he cases them and then he comes back months later, right? So I'm sure he's watching them for, you know, a few days. And then he's like, okay, I've got these two. And then he comes back when he can. And David's not there.

Five months after that, back in Galita, calls were being made to several different homes, threatening the children who picked up the phone with death. And this mystery caller was known by local police as our, a breather, and a growing sense of unease was creeping into the neighbourhood. We'll never know whether Sherry Domingo knew about these unsettling calls. To be honest, she was probably much more occupied with her runaway daughter, Debbie. Debbie was living with her mum Sherry in her aunt's house in Galita for a while, but it was difficult. She followed through with her teenage threat to leave and was living in a teen support centre when she received a call from her aunt, telling her that

she had to come home. She did not explain why. When Debbie arrived at the house, it was covered in crime scene tape, and her mother lay dead inside, along with her on-again, off-again, boyfriend Greg Sanchez. Debbie would only find out that her mother was the victim of a serial killer in the 2000s when she saw a TV show profiling the original Night Stalker. A neighbour said that they had heard a gunshot the night before, and an unemotional voice telling a woman to take it easy. It was clear that Greg Sanchez had made a valiant effort to fight off their attacker,

but it was no good. Their bodies were discovered by a real estate agent showing a family around the house. He let himself in with a key from an external lockbox. The killer had entered the house via a bathroom window. He had removed the screen and hidden it in a tree, reached through the window and unlocked the external bathroom door. Greg was half inside a wardrobe covered in a pile of clothes. A torch was found next to him, and had been shot in the cheek during a struggle.

That wasn't what killed him, though. That was the 25 blunt force blows with an unidentified instrument. Cherry was found face down on the bed, with ligature marks on her wrists. She'd been killed with the same heavy mystery object. Later, Cherry's sister would insist that it was a turf plugger. My understanding of turf plugger is kind of what I assume they use to make holes in a golf course. Oh, okay. Sure.

Can I mean? Yeah. I don't think that's confirmed. I think just one went missing from the house. Okay. And because he takes his murder weapons with him. And it just disappeared. So that's her theory.

So now the Santa Barbara law enforcement agencies had no. choice but to admit they had a serial murderer on their hands. Tips were streaming in from all over the area about dogs barking in the middle of the night, a man lingering in the shadows for a bit too long. But as we've seen before, the descriptions of this man were really conflicting. So the investigations were stumped, far more than they helped. They briefly named their suspect the Creek Killer and desperately tried to build a profile of the man they were looking for by comparing victims.

How was he choosing his target? And they also gave a clairvoyant ago, one called Roger, I believe, but couldn't get anywhere. And then, after Sherry, Domingo and Greg Sanchez, the original night stalker, went quiet again for years. So the pressure dissipated. Orange County got in touch with Santa Barbara and floated the idea that they might be looking for the same, man. But just like before with Sacramento, Santa Barbara were not a fan of this theory. The Galita murders weren't linked to the original Nike Stalker until 1986, which is when he would kill for the final time. Janelle Cruz had a tricky and short life that ended in Irvine

County on Sunday the 4th of May, 1986. Janelle had moved around a lot by the age of 18. She'd been abused by various stepdad's and neglected by her mother. She was raped when she was 15 by her friend's dad. And when confronted with this, he sent soldiers around to Janelle's house to intimidate her into silence. Predictably, Janelle was self-destructively rebellious. Her cocktail of drugs, dramatic weight loss and self-harm landed her in a psychiatric ward for quite a long period. But by 1986, she was on her way back to the straight and narrow,

working in a restaurant. The night she was murdered, she had a friend. over from work while her mum was out. And according to him, there were several moments in the evening, where there were strange noises that sounded like they were coming from just outside the window. But whenever he pointed them out, Janelle just said it was our cats or the garage door in the wind or the washing machine and that it was nothing to worry about.

And then her friend left. Hey, did you hear? Watermelon is back at booster juice all summer long. Nice! I love the watermelon. explosion. And the watermelon wave. Yep. They even got a new watermelon assaye pool this year. The one in a melon bowl. And what does that sound like? Mmm. Like that. Booster juice. Canadian-born blending since 1999. Janelle was discovered by yet another estate agent letting herself in to show

around a prospective buyer. This one didn't call the police straight away. This estate agent comes in, finds a dead teenager, and doesn't call the police. She goes back to her office, tells her boss, and then they decide to call the police. Not they're like, oh, we're really going to struggle to sell fucking 152 Summer Street or whatever? There's a fucking dead girl in there. What do we do? Panic. I need this commission.

Jesus Christ. I would argue that when you discover a teenager who's been bludgeon to death has been covered by a blanket, calling the police would seem the obvious choice. This time he left behind his usual tennis shoe prints and some semen. He took a pipe wrench away with him, and he didn't leave his ligatures behind. Seamen sample wasn't actually that much help, because the original night stalker happened to be a non-secretor, which is 20% of the white population. And they're more likely to develop dental cavities and peptic ulcers. But what being a non-secreter importantly means is,

usually in 80% of white people, from a semen sample or a saliva sample, you can tell someone's blood type. If you're a non-secretor, you can't. But this sample did yield something that would be useful years later. Not only was Janelle's murderer a non-secreter, he had a very, very rare PGM type. Explaining what a PGM type is is well above what my double science GCSI can handle, but what is important is that he has a very specific genetic. marker that wouldn't cause him any particular discomfort or disease, but just really not that many people have it. And I suspect is why he looks so young. It's a mutated gene, essentially.

But without the ability to run genetic testing, all of that very specific information, although it sounds very promising, totally useless. Investigators did get a confession this time, though, which still didn't help, because It was a total lie. Mike Martinez told his friends that he was the one who had killed Janelle. Unlike the suspicious estate agent, this friend rang the police. The night before Janelle died, he broke into his girlfriend Jennifer's apartment, blackout drunk, and threatened to kill her.

But she managed to make him leave. As soon as the police caught up with Mike, he denied everything. And in the end, he was dismissed from the investigation. They were no closer to catching their killer. But after Janelle, he never murdered again. He just stopped. Professional detectives and amateur armchair detectives have tried to draw comparisons between the original night stalker murder victims for decades.

And even when we found out who he was, there really didn't seem to be a common thread, which is why the case went ice-cult. And yeah, this is why I do want to temper this idea that I said, like, about him being the closest to Hannibal Lecture or being this sort of like seemingly from the outside serial killing criminal mastermind. And I do wonder like obviously to balance things out how much of that is the case and how much of it is just because he keeps changing what he's doing. And because the police don't know what the fuck is going on.

Large part, it's the police not knowing what is going on and not communicating. But he, yeah, he does know how to beat them. Yes, I think you can't deny with him the conscientiousness. is there. He puts in the fucking effort to do what he needs to do. And he does. He does put in a lot of effort not to get caught and things like that. You know, again, I don't want to make it sound like I think he's some sort of like genius.

I think there's a lot of things working in his favor, right time, right place, where he's doing it, the culture, the lack of resources, etc. But he is also very, very thought through. So law enforcement all over California couldn't figure out who he was or who he was after. The closest anyone has ever come to connecting the victims is that all of the murder victims had either just moved or they were about to or they lived in a complex that was being developed like the empty house that was next to the one of Galita. Empty building sites essentially are perfect for squatting in, waiting in, watching in. And I think it's Sherri Domingo there was an open house and a weird guy showed up to that.

but before the estate agent could sort of talk to him or get him out of the situation, he was gone. And unfortunately, when you're trying to sell your house, you've got to let people in it. That was about the only commonality that people could find. Apart from Michelle McNamara, she once wrote in LA magazine, You may not think you have something in common with your neighbour, but you do. Me? Michelle exchanged over 20,000 messages on forums about the East Area Rapist Original night stalker or as he was now being called by people who'd figured out he's the same guy,

ear-ons. And because she knew it was the same person or suspected, she started to distill theories of who and where he could possibly be. For Michelle, it just seemed impossible that this case couldn't be solved. There was too much evidence, too many clues left behind. But exasperatingly, he always evaded investigation. Michelle asked a detective friend, what, to do when faced with the relentless exasperation. And he told her to keep on clutching at straws. And when she managed to keep

hold of one, to work that straw to dust. And that's exactly what she did. The search for the erons, or, as she would dub him the Golden State killer, totally consumed Michelle McNamara. She poured over

every shred of evidence she could find and spoke to every single victim she came across, who was willing to talk. A big reason that the Golden State Killer is a true crime enthusiast classic is that it went on soul for so long, but it's because of the clues. It doesn't feel like it's a brick wall, but it is. And it's that, like, what you get from Michelle McNamara's, like, obsession is just how?

How is he constantly leaving all of the shit behind and doing exactly the same? thing and we can't get him. And one such clue was a poem that someone claiming to be the East area rapist sent to the Sacramento Bee entitled Excitments Crave, which I am going to give you a dramatic reading of. I'm very excited. I can't wait. It does. Again, it's like, BTK did this, poems.

Oh, I think it was him. I don't think it was a copycat. I think it was 100% him to send this in. As in erons. Yeah, yeah, all right. All those mortals surviving birth, upon facing maturity, take inventory of their worth to prevailing society. Choosing values becomes a task.

One's self must seek satisfaction. The selected route will unmask. Character, when plans take action. Accepting some work to perform at fixed pay but promise for more. Is a recognized social norm? as is decorum seeking law. Achieving while others lifting should be cause for deserving fame.

Leisure tempts excitement seeking. What's right and expected seems tame. Jesse James has been seen by all, and son of Sam has an author. Others now feel temptations call. Sacramento should make an offer. To make a movie of my life that will pay for my planned exile.

Just now I'd like to add the wife of a mafia lord to my file. Your East Area rapist and deserving pest. See you in the press or on TV. It's a lot to my back there. It's just so exactly what someone like him would write. I'm embarrassed for him that he is referring to other serial killers. Yes.

I think it is also just a weird. window into how he really doesn't think anything he does is dumb. Like he thinks everything is genius. Oh, yeah. Oh, my God. If there's anything about this poem is the deep sense of his own self-importance and his own self, you know, asserted genius. Look, it's not the worst thing I've ever read.

It's not the worst thing I've ever read. But it is just oozing with pretentious delusions of grandeur. Like, oh, my God, it's just... A lot. And because we have this, and it, you know, it seems, people have put, like, completely dissected this, like, letter by letter. Of course. Which you can't, for a lot of cases. No.

And I also think maybe this is another reason he graduates from rape to murder and sends things like this, which is very, it's very pretentious, this poem. It's because of, like you said, the narrative around rapists. They're stupid. They're like, you know, just they're fools. They're just like, you know, childlike juvenile fools that can't make it with a woman. So that's why they're doing it. And he's like, fuck you. I'm going to take it up a notch then. I'm going to be a killer. And I'm going to send you this poem where I refer to myself as the hysteria rapist. But say whatever you want about him, it's exasperating. It's fucking eye roll inducing. But it's not written by someone who's stupid. And then there's another chunky bit of evidence. which people call the homework papers. At the height of the East Area rapist reign of terror in Sacramento, during the investigation into the 42nd attack, three sheets of paper torn from a notebook,

were found near a suspicious-looking vehicle, or rather where that suspicious-looking vehicle had been parked, they're discovered after it leaves. The first of these pages is an essay about Colonel Custer, most famous for the total disaster that was the Battle of Little Bighorn. It's quite clearly written by a child, or at the very least someone pretended. to be one. The second page has an entirely different tone to it. Here it is. And I am going to read

all of it because I don't think it can be edited down in any sort of meaningful way. Mad is the word, the word that reminds me of sixth grade. I hated that year. I wish I had known what was going to be going on during my sixth grade year, the last and worst year of elementary school. Mad is the word that remains in my head about my dreadful year as a sixth grader. My madness was one that was caused by disappointments that hurt me very much. Disappointments from my teacher, such as field trips that were planned and then cancelled. My sixth grade teacher gave me a lot of disappointments, which made me feel very mad, and made me built a state of hatred in my heart.

No one ever let me down that hard before. And I never hated anyone as much as I hated him, as much as I did him. Disappointment wasn't the only reason that made me mad in my sixth grade class. Another was getting in trouble at school, especially talking. That's what really bugged me, was writing sentences. Those awful sentences that my teacher made me write. Hours and hours I'd sit and write 50, 100, 150 sentences. Day and night I write those dreadful paragraphs which embarrassed me,

and more important it made me feel ashamed of myself, which in turn deep down inside made me realize that writing sentences wasn't fair. It wasn't fair to make me suffer like that. It just wasn't fair to make me sit and write until my bones ached, until my hand felt every horrid pain it has ever had. And as I wrote, I got madder and madder until I cried. I cried because I was a shame. I cried because I was disgusted.

I cried because I was mad. And I cried for myself. Kid who kept having to write these damn sentences. My angrieness from sixth grade will scar my memory for a life and I will be ashamed for my sixth grade year forever. Interesting. It's the polar opposite in many ways to the poem that I just read that he allegedly sent in.

And again, quite fitting with the shifts in personality that his victims reported, the victims that survived. This one hand you have this very assertive projecting confidence, but obviously not really a dominant character, which I think ties quite well with the poem that I read. And then on the other hand, you have the people that were saying, he was talking about his mother, crying,

squeaky voice, childlike demeanor, which ties much more closely to what you just read. And obviously also for our listeners who can't see, there's a lot of misspellings in this. Like he spells angrieness with a why rather than I, things like that, which again, don't tie at all with the sophistication level of the poem that I just read. they feel like they were written 20 years apart by the same person, if that.

And I think with this, it's also just like, oh my God, the like, why if you ever meet somebody like this, you should run? People who are still complaining about things that happened to them in the fucking sixth grade. Somebody who holds on to the fact that their sixth grade teacher made them fucking right lines and how it's unfair and how they're a victim and how they've been victimized and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, who cannot let go of these grievances. If there is one red flag you are looking for, this is fucking it. And I think it's interesting because, again, it doesn't tie with his self-projection of strength and dominance. Because is there anything more pathetic than somebody who complains endlessly about things that have happened to them in the past? No. Yeah.

And I just think he's doing it on purpose. I just, I think for reasons I will explain next week, the way he acts when he's caught is exactly this. there's a complete dichotomy between two types of people he's pretending to be. And I just don't think he is stupid enough to drop three sheets that are all so different. It's too curated. I don't. Because the thing is, you have to take him at the highest level, right? You can fake being more stupid than you are. It's much more difficult to fake being much more articulate and intelligent than you are.

So if we take the poem as yes, of course, a pretentious like fucking whatever. But that has to be the baseline. That's him putting a hundred percent effort in, I would say. And then what's this? Feels like a manipulation. But to what end? Why give both? Why not just play this?

I think because it makes people think that he's unwell and it's not his fault. He's fucked. He's fucked. but not in a psychotic way. Not in the way that he is trying to portray. It's very interesting though again because it comes back to the point I made last week, which is like this playing himself down,

the vulnerability side of things, it's either with the angle of like, please don't think I'm awful, or it's planning on being caught and it's like some sort of future proofing of like what's going to happen to him if he ever has to face justice. He's not a man who acts like he thinks he's going to get caught.

No, that's true. which is unusual then that he's future-proofing for that. And then the other thing comes back, the other side of it of him trying to do it so people don't think he's a monster, flies in the face of all of the monstrous things he's purposely doing so that people are terrified of him. So it's so unusual. Yeah.

It doesn't really make a lot of sense when you put all of these pieces together. And maybe then it just lends itself towards what we were saying is that people didn't connect a lot of these killings or a lot of these murders and rapes and ransackings for a long time, is this just a way for him to split those profiles so that they think they're looking for multiple people? That's my opinion. Because does he sign that off?

Because he signs off the Poem East Area rapist, but does he sign this off as somebody, or is it just handed in? It's just left very conveniently right next to the one. That is, yeah, it's just with the Colonel Costa essay and then the third sheet of paper that is next. The last sheet of the three was a hand-drawn map

of a suburban neighbourhood on one side, and on the other was scrawled just one word. Punishment. Detective Larry Poole of the Orange County Sheriff's Department, who we will be spending a lot more time with next week, was convinced that this map wasn't a real place, but rather a fantasy map, depicting the killer's perfect hunting ground,

a place filled with creeks, and railway lines running down the back of people's houses, lots of drawn curtains for peeping through and loose locks. We told you about the East Area Rapist phone calls made to the Sacramento Sheriff's Office in March 1977, and those continued throughout the years as well. On the 2nd of December, 1977, the Sacramento Police Department received a call that said, You're never going to catch me, Easteria rapist, you dumb fuckers. I'm going to fuck you again tonight. Be careful.

the recording of this call was released to the public. Yeah, big mistake that, I think. I get it. Are they trying to be like, anybody who recognises voice? I mean, they're just running out of fucking options. They also have to be seen to be doing something, but it's... People already scared. Yes, quite.

Just before we move on to the next sort of series of phone calls that he makes, I thought of another reason that might explain the homework paper of him talking about how awfully he was treated in sixth grade. I wonder whether it's an attempt by him to expose why he does what he does that isn't because he's got a small dig. Yeah. And that's the best he could come up with. I mean, very, very possibly.

Very possibly. It's just like, come on, May. Writing some lines. I think that's the best he thinks he can do. And I wonder if it's even like, I don't know if in part three we're going to talk much about his sort of childhood. Oh, yeah. Okay, we'll wait for that.

But I wonder if to him revealing something worse, like saying this happened because I was abused or this, that and the other, it's more emasculating. It's more demeaning. Not that I think that, obviously. No, I agree. I absolutely agree. But to him, that would be more like. That's what I mean. I was dominated by, you know, this other man or this family member or somebody.

Somebody did something awful to me and that makes me vulnerable. that's why I'm angry. Someone's like he's picking something so incredibly frivolous to be the reason for why he's doing this. I think it just again further feeds into this lack of vulnerability he is able to talk about and this emasculation that he feels. So I think, in my professional opinion, homework papers, red herring. Anyway, a week after the call that Surrey just told you about the 21st East Area rape victim had a call to her house. A few moments of silence on the other end of the line were followed with the words, Merry Christmas. It's me again. And then the line went dead. The woman told the police that she was certain the caller was the Easter area rapist because she would

never forget his voice. You're absolutely right with what you said last week about him loving this like, you're terrified of me all the time. And he does this quite a few times of ringing victims just out of the blue. Exactly. It's what we said in last week's episode about living trophies. know, you could take a bracelet or a necklace or a ring or something and look at it and relive, relive that kill, which is what a lot of serial killers do, maybe a lock of hair, something like that. But why do that when your trophy is still alive? You can just call them and hear the panic in their voices, the fear in their voices as you

remind them who you are. And then bingo, you get to relive it all over again. The next day, he called the police again, twice. And the recordings of what he said, which was, I'm going to hit tonight, what Avenue, were assessed to be the same voice that had called the authorities claiming to be the East Area racist the last time. And sure enough, a masked man eluded law enforcement as he cycled across the Watt Avenue Bridge that night. He went quiet over Christmas, but was up to his old tricks again in the new year. On the 2nd of January, another victim received a call telling her,

I'm going to kill you, going to kill you, going to kill you, going to kill you, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch, fucking whore. Four days after that, a counselling service received a call from someone claiming to the East area rapists who told them I have a problem, I need help, because I don't want to do this anymore. After a short conversation, the caller said, I believe you are tracing this call and then hung up. Again, I think that is him, because he's just trying to throw them off. Even with multiple recordings of his voice, the authorities just couldn't close in on their killer. And it's these pieces of very tangible evidence, voice recordings, letters, things that people believe he wrote with his own hands.

It's this stuff that Michelle McNamara poured over as her husband and child slept. She combed through any digital crumbs is what she would call them, that authorities may have overlooked. Her blog had thousands of loyal subscribers, all sharing their own theories. Catching the Golden State Killer became Michelle's purpose in life. She amassed 3,500 files relating to the various investigations all over California. And, most controversially, 37 boxes of Kemparkers. case files from the Orange County DA's office.

She wrote several articles for LA magazine that she called In the Footsteps of a Killer. And the LA Times picked up her story too. Michelle's master's stroke was framing her hunt as a very Californian crime and uniting the state behind her and coining the moniker the Golden State Killer. This even led to a book deal, which, making the deadlines for, consumed her more completely than ever before. It's the 37 boxes of case files that she gets from the Orange County DA

that people take issue with. Especially victim's family members. There are a few of them who just said, I actually don't think you had any right to do that. Something that people talk about Michelle doing that they're sort of impressed by is there's a pair of cufflinks that she finds in like a pawn shop.

And she manages to figure out that they were stolen by the Sarah rapist from a victim's house and then he sold them on. And that's like one of her big things where she's like, I'm going to be able to find you at the end of this line and she can't. But she gets her hands on these boxes because Orange County, like this has been ice cold and she offers to digitise them for them. She also buys them for a few hundred dollars.

That's the bit that people feel a bit like why do you have the right to do that? And I understand why. Yeah. No, totally. I also understand Michelle being like, well, they're just sitting there. But it's, you know. It's a tricky thing because it's one of those things that's like, well, did the end justify the means? And like, you know, if we're finally going to get some resourcing behind it and somebody who can put their full effort into it because the police aren't going to do it, then is it better that somebody takes a look at these dusty old files and move something along?

But then it's also setting this precedent of just like civilians being allowed to handle like case files, which like makes me feel very uncomfortable. And it's like, why make the exception here? Who gets to decide when the exception is made? But again, you know, it's similarly, like we're not going to sit here and say that armchair detectives have never helped with anything. Of course they fucking have. Of course they have.

But, yeah, I understand why people felt uncomfortable with that. After the Golden State Killer stopped killing, the California law enforcement agencies that had no idea that they were looking for the same man, left their cases to gather dust. And they might have stayed there, if it weren't for a Contra Costa County criminalist with an eye for investigation called Paul Holes. Hot for Holes, do you remember that?

Oh, I do, yeah. Paul Holes came across the East Area Rapist Files in the 90s. The petrified panic that gripped Sacramento in the late 70s was all news to him, but as soon as he found it, he made his mission to piece something together. He actually meets Larry Pools, and he is just like, and he finds... these files, just knocking around in the Contracality office. And he's either working under Larry Paul or, because he's not a detective, he's not a investigator, he's a criminalist, but he wants to be a detective.

Larry Paul is a detective and he just like gets chapping and he just goes, who's the ear? And Larry Paul is like, sit down young boy, I'm going to tell you all about it. As a criminalist, Paul holds new that there may be a chance to reprocess old evidence, especially in the light of DNA technology. And in November 2004, Proposition 69 was passed in the state of California. And Proposition 69 is also known as, probably because it's funny, has a different name, which is the DNA fingerprint unsolved crime and innocence protection act. And what it means is that DNA and fingerprints must be collected from all felons,

therefore establishing a criminal database. poor Holes was sure that DNA was the answer and so was Michelle McNamara. The problem was that if the Golden State Killer had never been imprisoned, it wouldn't be on that database. And also this is only just happening. At this stage, because he stopped and he stopped dead, people either think he's dead

or they think he's been in prison for something else and it hasn't been connected. So they're hoping that he's going to show up in this database. Yeah, which makes sense. a good guess. I mean, typically those are the two main reasons why a killer like that would stop, or they've moved away and they start again somewhere else. But he's not in there, you're not on the criminal database, out of your hands, unless it's that very specific era of the 2000s where lots of people started using services like 23 and me and voluntarily spitting

into tubes and sending it off to labs to trace their family tree or find long-lost relatives or accidentally find out your dad isn't your dad, you know? It really was quite a boom time for that sort of stuff. So alternative databases were out there. It was just wildly unethical for law enforcement to be using that DNA data to catch a killer. And Michelle didn't have access to the Golden State killer spit to see if you pinged any relatives in the 23 and Me ecosystem. She was sure that genealogy sites were absolutely the key to catching her killer.

She attracted the 60 home invasion's 50-Refioms 50-Rathing. 13 murders and the 106 burglary victims, and the dog murders, the prowling and peeping, and she had strung them all together over the decades, all over the state, and she was totally convinced a DNA database would be the thing to finally crack this case wide open. And she was right. She would just never live to see the day it did. On the 21st of April 2016, Michelle McNamara died in her sleep.

Her cause of death was determined to be an undiagnosed. heart condition exacerbated by Adderall and Xanax. Michelle had been using these prescription medications to stay awake long enough to meet her writing deadlines and to sleep when she had to. She never got to finish her book when I'll be gone in the dark. But it was published after her death in peace together by Paul Haynes, a citizen detective and Billy Jensen, but, you know, the lesser about him, the better. There is also, I think it's HBO, make the TV series,

I'll be gone in the dark. Yes, I never watched that, actually. It's worth it, and Michelle is very front and centre, and they do this parallel very nicely of the Golden State Killer story and also the true crime obsessive and how those two worlds meet, etc. What I take issue with is her publishers, because they're in this documentary, and I'm sure they have made plenty of money off her book, but they say in an interview, well, if she just told us we would have moved the deadline.

No, you wouldn't. No, you wouldn't. Fuck you. Like, that is just, I don't believe you. I don't believe you. Anyway, that's also another reason why, usually when there is a book on a case, it makes the researching sleeker. But because she never finished it. It's so, like, it's a difficult story to tell anyway, but it's some of the bit she does totally finish, and some of it is put together by Paul Haynes.

Yeah, it's like why the Game of Thrones finale was so shit. Yes. Come on, George. But I would say, you know, it's, Michelle's work is worth reading. She's a good writer. And Michelle left all of her obsession evidence behind. and Paul Holes picked up where she left off, and we will meet him there next week. Before Michelle died, she wrote an article called A Letter to an Old Man,

which was published in The New Yorker, and in the end was the epilogue of I'll be gone in the dark, and we're going to leave you with the end of it. One day soon, you'll hear a car pull up to your curb and an engine cut out. You'll hear footsteps coming up your front walk, like they did for Edward Wayne Edwards. 29 years after he killed Timothy Hack and Kelly Drew in Sullivan, Wisconsin. Like they did for Kenneth Lee Hicks, 30 years after he killed Laurie Billingsley,

Naloja, Oregon. The doorbell rings. No side gates are left open. Your long past leaping over a fence. Take one of your hyper-gulping breaths. Clench your teeth. Inch timidly towards 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 one. open the door, show us your face, walk into the light. That's exactly what happened. But Michelle McNamara is never going to know that. Fucking out. Well, that's it, guys. That is the end of part two.

Next week, Hannah, do you want to give us a little preview insight into what we can expect in the third and final part? Fucking get him. Fucking get him this time. Yeah. And, you know, a lot of, similarly to the 37 boxes of documents, I'm really not convinced Michelle McNamara should have been able to get her hands on the ethics of what happens with DNA next week. Dicey. Interesting. My only understanding is it's, you know, it's along the lines of genealogy-based DNA testing, which, you know, nowadays we've become much more accustomed to.

There's been some big cases like Brian Coburg or etc. But I think, you know, I'm eagerly awaiting the lack of ethics behind it and I can understand probably guess as to why. But I think we have to say how even if it was controversial, how monumental it must have been in that discovery. Because wasn't it one of the first, if not the earliest uses of this to crack a case like that? But when people send in their spit, they are not consenting to being surveilled by law enforcement. Yes, that is the problem. Absolutely. No.

And people didn't know what they were signing up for because nobody reads the terms and conditions. Oh, no, it was in the terms and conditions. They just violated them. Oh, good. That's the problem. Oh, excellent. So it also changed the law. So it was, I would say, an ends justify the means situation this time.

Again, it comes back to, like we said, it's like, it's a dangerous game. Yeah, it's a slippery slope when we start going down the road of the ends justify the means. Because then nothing means anything. And nobody is safe. that's true anyway well that's it guys we will see you next week for the third and final part

of erons the golden state killer whatever you want to call him next week we will have a name for him goodbye oh yeah bye

I can just call him one thing next week that's exciting excellent