Michelle McNamara's Magnum Opus

In the March 2013 Los Angeles magazine feature “In the Footsteps of a Killer,” Michelle McNamara, the late wife of comedian Patton Oswalt, shared at one point how she first became enamored with amateur sleuthing. [kickout id="1"] Her personal passion would lead to the creation in 2006 of the blog True Crime Stories and, at the time of her death, an in-progress book with Harper Collins expanding upon the Los Angeles magazine investigation of the so-called East Area Rapist/Original Night Stalker (EAR/ONS) killer. The unknown assailant has been linked to dozens of rapes in northern California, ten murders in southern California and a first killing in Santa Barbara between 1974 and 1986. From McNamara's piece: My own obsession with unsolved murders began on the evening of August 1, 1984, when a neighbor of mine in Oak Park, Illinois, where I grew up, was found murdered. We knew Kathleen Lombardo’s family from our parish church. She was out for a jog when she was dragged into an alley. Neighbors reported seeing a man in a yellow tank top and headband watching Kathleen intently as she jogged. He cut her throat. Several days after the killing, without telling anyone, I walked the block and a half north from our house to the spot where Kathleen had been attacked. I was 14, a cheerleader in Tretorn sneakers whose crime experience began and ended with Nancy Drew. On the ground I saw pieces of Kathleen’s shattered Walkman. I picked them up. Kathleen Lombardo’s murderer was never caught. What gripped me that summer before I started high school wasn’t fear or titillation but the specter of that question mark where the killer’s face should be. As McNamara had with her blog and separate lead-up efforts looking into the man she renamed the “Golden State Killer,” her Los Angeles magazine piece generated passionate responses. One reader, who claimed to be a a child of one of the killer's victims, expressed their anger at the case being needlessly revisited. Another reader, astonishingly, sent in a letter typed out on sheets of toilet paper. Through these efforts, McNamara was following in the footsteps of retired detective Larry Crompton, who had stayed on the EAR/ONS case and self-published the 2010 book Sudden Terror. Along with the original Los Angeles magazine article and associated items, another good way to remember McNamara is to listen to a 50-minute podcast she did with Los Angeles magazine editor in chief Mary Melton. It's unclear at press time whether HarperCollins plans on completing and publishing McNamara's manuscript. Screen grab via: lamag.com

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Michelle McNamara's Magnum Opus

At the time of her death, Patton Oswalt's wife was working on a book about the "Golden State Killer."

Richard Horgan

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Richard Horgan