I'll Be Gone in the Dark the show bringing sensitivity to true crime TV

almost 5 years in The guardian

HBO’s new docuseries about Michelle McNamara’s hunt for the Golden State Killer eschews gore in favour of a humane approach often missing from the genre
Michelle McNamara stares into the camera, and says solemnly that the story of the Golden State Killer’s victims “has to be told”. It is not just a soundbite. Before her death, at the age of 46, in 2016, McNamara had become fixated on the case, a series of at least 50 rapes and 13 murders committed by a then-unknown assailant who broke into people’s homes in northern California in the 1970s and 80s. The author tirelessly combed through boxes of evidence and tracked down old players, aiming not only to write about the case but to solve it.
Her book, I’ll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman’s Obsessive Search For the Golden State Killer, is the result of that commitment. Often compared to Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood, it was finished posthumously by her husband, the comedian Patton Oswalt, her research partner, Paul Haynes, and the crime writer Billy Jensen. McNamara’s work was crucial to the investigation, and she was responsible for rebranding the man originally known as the East Area Rapist and Original Night Stalker as the Golden State Killer, in an effort to reignite interest. Joseph James DeAngelo pleaded guilty to the murders and admitted dozens of sexual assaults on 29 June this year. Continue reading...

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