Golden State Killer: how Patton Oswalt’s true-crime writer wife helped renew focus on case, and why he aims to visit jailed suspect

Michelle McNamara dedicated years of her life to searching for the notorious California killer and rapist. With a suspect now behind bars, her actor husband explains why he hopes to speak with the former police officer

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Late author Michelle McNamara dedicated the last few years of her life to searching for the Golden State Killer. Now her husband Patton Oswalt’s made it his quest to see it through.

Published: 8:33pm, 30 Apr 2018Updated: 8:33pm, 30 Apr 2018

True-crime writer Michelle McNamara didn’t live to see April 25, 2018, the day police arrested a suspect in the decades-old investigation into the Golden State Killer, a serial murder-rape case she obsessed over in her book I’ll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman’s Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer.

But her husband and greatest cheerleader, Emmy-winning actor-comedian Patton Oswalt, who saw her book through to completion and publication in February, did.

Former police officer Joseph James DeAngelo is believed to be the Golden State Killer responsible for a string of rapes and murders. Photo: AFP

Though he was too “neck deep in grief” and dealing with the realities of suddenly becoming a single father to be actively involved, Oswalt says he leaned on her publisher and other collaborators to get the book done.

“I knew that I wouldn’t be able to live and go on with life if this was left undone,” he says.

And as fate would have it, Oswalt, who paid close attention to the arrest news, was scheduled to appear on American TV channel NBC’s Late Night With Seth Meyers on the day of the arrests. Instead of plugging his sitcom, he recounted the momentous day McNamara never got to experience.