I'll Be Gone in the Dark

“It’s a tiny minority of criminals, maybe 5 percent, who present the biggest challenge—the ones whose crimes reveal preplanning and unremorseful rage. Manuela’s murder had all the hallmarks of this last type. There were the ligatures, and their removal. The ferocity of her head wounds. The several-month lapse between appearances of the sole with small circles suggested the slithering of someone rigidly watchful whose brutality and schedule only he knew.” 

McNamara notes that aspects of the GSK’s murder of Manuela Witthuhn reveal the GSK to be a particularly rare breed of criminal. While most murders can be traced to an individual personally connected to the victim, the GSK’s brutality and careful planning suggest that he belongs to the smaller group of criminals who murder individuals unknown to them. 

“The truth, of course, was much weirder: I was foregoing a fancy Hollywood party to return not to my sleeping infant but my laptop, to excavate through the night in search of information about a man I’d never met, who’d murdered people I didn’t know.” 

McNamara relates a story of how she and her husband, Patton Oswalt, leave a movie premiere early so that she can read up on breaking news of the arrest of a criminal she had been investigating. The anecdote displays McNamara’s single-minded obsession with investigating unsolved murders. 

“But I felt her expectations, the transference of hope, and I bristled. I both yearned for [McNamara’s mother’s] approval and found her investment in me suffocating. She was both proud of the fact that she had raised a strong-minded daughter and resentful of my sharp opinions.” 

In the “Oak Park” section of I’ll Be Gone in the Dark, McNamara describes her upbringing in the Chicago suburb of Oak Park, with special attention to her relationship with her mother. McNamara describes her relationship to her mother as complicated. While McNamara’s mother supports McNamara’s writerly ambitions, she also imposes harsh expectations of McNamara’s behavior, leading to McNamara rebelling and fighting with her mother. Though McNamara and her mother begin to repair their relationship following McNamara’s wedding, her mother unexpectedly dies before the two can fully reconcile. 

“What gripped me was the specter of that question mark where the killer’s face should be. The hollow gap of his identity seemed violently powerful to me.” 

When McNamara is 14-years-old, one of her neighbors is attacked and murdered while jogging, and the murderer is never caught. THe incident haunts McNamara and leads her to develop an interest in investigating uncaught killers. McNamara describes how she is primarily motivated by the mystery of not being able to know the killer’s identity, and her desire to reveal the killer’s face, thus taking away some of his power.

“A closer look at Sheila’s rapist’s methods reveals a calculating mind at work. He was careful to never remove his gloves. Sheila received hang-up phone calls in the weeks leading up to the attack, as if someone were monitoring her schedule.” 

While most rapes are committed spontaneously, McNamara writes that the GSK was a “smart rapist,” who committed his crimes carefully and coolly (54). The GSK’s methods suggest that the rapes were planned for weeks in advance, with the GSK monitoring his chosen victim to find the perfect time for attack, allowing him to elude capture.

“His psychosexual needs were specific. He bound his victims’ hands behind their backs, often tying and retying several times, sometimes with different material. He ordered them to masturbate him with their bound hands. He never fondled them” 

McNamara notes how the GSK’s rapes are characterized by a set of specific behaviors, unique to the GSK. His bizarre sexual behavior suggests that the GSK’s motivations stem from deep psychological complexes, emanating from complex emotions towards women. 

“The typical rapist does not have such elaborate schemes.” 

This quote is from Carol Daly, a detective investigating the GSK’s rapes in Sacramento from 1976 to 1977. Daly notes that the GSK is unique in his methods of assault, which allows Daly and her fellow detectives to clearly identify which assaults are committed by the GSK. 

“When the male was bound, the EAR placed a cup and saucer on his back. “I hear the cup rattle or bedsprings make any noise, I’ll shoot everybody in the house,” he whispered. To the woman he remarked at one point, “I was in the army and I fucked a lot while I was there.” 

While the GSK first only attacks women who are alone, he begins to target sleeping heterosexual couples, using an elaborate method of balancing plates so as to alert him if the man moves while the GSK rapes the woman. The detectives note that the GSK’s plate-balancing method mirrors tactics used in military training, suggesting that the GSK may be using prior military or police experience so as to commit his crimes. 

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

Roger Harrington, whose son Keith was murdered by the GSK, speaks these words a decade after the crime. Harrington and other family members of the GSK’s victims are haunted by the lack of answers to who the killer is or what his motivations were. 

“Charlene Smith was just the latest unlucky stand-in for the lustful, sneering women— mother, schoolgirl, ex-wife—who formed a disapproving circle around the killer in his daydreams, their cacophony of disdain forcing him, always, to his knees; the act of grabbing the log was arousal alchemized to hate, a vicious punishment meted out by one judge: his corroded brain.” 

In this passage, McNamara speculates on the motivations for the GSK, suggesting that the GSK may be motivated by a lifelong sense of hatred for women. McNamara suspects that the GSK may feel a sense of insecurity and judgement stemming from major female figures throughout his life—from his mother to a possible ex-wife. As revenge for this sense of judgement, the GSK strikes back at innocent women—first through rape, and later through murder. 

“After that, none of his victims ever lived to describe him again,” 

This statement follows McNamara’s description of the GSK’s failed attack on a couple in Southern California, in 1979. Once the GSK tied up his victims, he attempts to psych himself up to kill them, telling himself over and over, “I’ll kill ‘em, I’ll kill ‘em” (126). However, the couple escapes, almost leading to the GSK’s capture. McNamara argues that this event is a turning-point in the GSK’s development as a killer, as it teaches the GSK that leaving his victims alive might place him in danger. 

“[The GSK] might be a forgettable loser in the daytime, but he ruled in the houses he sneaked into, a static mask imposing horror. He sometimes left milk and bread out in the kitchen, the psychopath communicating confident leisure.” 

When the GSK attacks, he does so calmly, taking his time to move through the house and use his victim’s things, as if he is the house’s true owner. McNamara notes that “control” seems to be an important element to the GSK’s crimes, arguing that his obsession with asserting control over his victims might be a means to compensate for a lack of control in his daily life. 

“What I always think about, I told him, are experiments that show that animals in captivity would rather have to search for their food than have it given to them. Seeking is the lever that tips our dopamine gush.” 

McNamara describes how animals in captivity often crave the feeling of hunting for food, drawing a parallel to her own penchant for investigating murders. McNamara suggests that her obsession with capturing criminals may stem from an animalistic feeling of the thrill of the hunt, pushing her to keep searching until she discovers the killer’s identity. 

“What I don’t mention is the uneasy realization I’ve had about how much our frenetic searching mirrors the compulsive behavior—the trampled flowerbeds, scratch marks on window screens, crank calls—of the one we seek.” 

In this passage, McNamara draws a parallel between her and other investigators’ behavior and that of the GSK. McNamara notes that both her and the GSK share obsessive behaviors, albeit for different targets. 

“It was a power play, a signal of ubiquity. I am both nowhere and everywhere. You may not think you have something in common with your neighbor, but you do: me” 

McNamara describes how the GSK often seemed to take pleasure in obliquely linking his crimes to each other. The GSK would sometimes assault a woman within close proximity of a prior victim, or deposit one victim’s valuables in another victim’s house. McNamara interprets such behavior as an attempt to strike fear into the Sacramento community, making residents feel as though the GSK might be watching them and planning to attack them next.

“Several of the neighbors stated they heard the screaming, but did not look outside.” 

When reviewing the police reports, McNamara notices that many of the victim’s neighbors often noticed suspicious behavior before or during an attack, but failed to notify the police. This includes noticing strange men in the neighborhood, or hearing a victim’s screams. McNamara is haunted by the community’s failure to act, wondering why people would choose to ignore clear signs of distress.

“The men are asked what they saw, not what they felt. Many of the male victims had military experience. They had toolsheds. They were doers and protectors who’d been robbed of their ability to do and protect.” 

McNamara notes that while the GSK’s female victims are often treated delicately, the male victims are typically assumed to have no lingering trauma from the assaults. McNamara argues that this may be an incorrect assumption, and that the GSK’s male victims are left emotionally wounded by the crimes, haunted by their inability to live up to society’s gendered expectations that men are meant to protect their family. 

“Nearly a dozen victims reported that he cried. He sobbed, they said. He stumbled and seemed lost. He whimpered in a high-pitched voice like a child. “I’m sorry, Mom,” he wept. “Mommy, please help me. I don’t want to do this, Mommy.” 

Though the GSK projects a tough demeanor during his crimes, many of his victims report that he cries following his rapes. The crying suggests that the GSK feels deep remorse and shame for his actions, supporting McNamara’s hypothesis that the GSK’s behavior stems from deep psychological complexes. 

“It’s probably not a coincidence that the EAR stole clock radios from five homes, even when more valuable items were there for the taking. Time was important to him—controlling it, manipulating it.” 

Amongst the items that the GSK would steal from his victims are clocks, despite the fact that ordinary clocks hold little monetary value. McNamara speculates that the stealing of clocks may have been symbolic, an attempt for the GSK to gain a sense of control over his life and victims. 

“The illusion of being gone was a cruel and effective trick. The victim on whom the trick was played would wait much longer the next time she thought the EAR left; some victims, catatonic with dread, waited hours, waited until birds chirped and weak sunlight flickered at the edges of their blindfolds.”

McNamara describes how one of the GSK’s “tricks” was to silently wait, leading the victim to believe that he had gone. Then, the GSK would make a noise, revealing to the victim that he was still there. This trick allows the GSK further control, as it leads his victims to wait hours before moving and contacting police, as they fear that he still might be in the house with them. 

“‘Well, bludgeoning and stabbing in essence are the same thing. You know, it’s very personal. You’re taking out a lot of violence, a lot of anger, on that person.’” 

Detective Paul Holes speaks these words to McNamara, as he gives her a tour of the GSK’s East Bay crime sites. While the GSK could have used a gun to kill his victims, he instead chose to bludgeon them with household objects, a method which requires far more force violence. Holes describes how the GSK’s chosen method of killing displays a desire to release pent-up rage on his victims. 

“The Golden State Killer haunts their dreams. He’s ruined their marriages. He’s burrowed so deeply inside their heads that they want to, or have to, believe that if they locked eyes with him, they’d know.” 

McNamara describes how the GSK seems to haunt many of the detectives she meets, who recall details of the crimes decades after they had stopped investigating. The inability to know who exactly committed the GSK’s crimes seems to drive these detectives crazy, often leading to troubles in their personal lives as they grow increasingly obsessed by the case. 

“There were mornings when I’d bring her coffee and she’d be at her laptop, weeping, frustrated and worn flat by another lead she’d chased that left her smashed nose-first against a brick wall. But then she’d have a slug of caffeine, wipe her eyes, and hammer away at the keyboard again.” 

These words, written by Patton Oswalt, describe how intensely committed his wife was to tracking down the GSK. McNamara would devote all of her free time to searching for leads on the GSK’s identity. Though the sense of futility could often leave her deeply frustrated, she refused to give up her pursuit.