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Every time I report for 48 hours, I'm struck by the large number of people in our audience who essentially play
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detective as they're watching the show. They weigh all of the evidence. They look for clues. They ask all the right
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questions. It's really like they're trying to solve the case. They're essentially citizen sleuths. And that's
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who Michelle McNamera was. She was a wife to comedian Patton Oswalt and a mother to their young daughter. But she
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also was a person who was very interested in true crimes and in trying to solve them. She was mom by day but
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detective at night, a citizen sleuth. And Michelle started a blog where she wrote about true crime called True Crime
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Diary. There was one case, one unsolved case that really fascinated her and consumed a lot of her time. And that was
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a man who committed 50 rapes and 12 murders up and down California in the 70s and 80s. He was originally called
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the East Area Rapist, original Nightstalker, Irons for short. Not exactly a memorable name. And when
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Michelle started writing about him, she thought maybe one of the reasons that he
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didn't get as much attention as perhaps he should was because of this name. So she renamed him. She called him the
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Golden State Killer. She wrote about him on her blog. She wrote an article for a
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magazine. And then she started writing a book. And Michelle would not only, you know, sit in her armchair and
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investigate this crime. She called investigators. She traveled throughout California to walk in the killer's
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footsteps. She talked to victims. She talked to families of victims. And that's really what motivated her was she
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felt the pain of these families and these victims and what they had gone through. And she was determined to shed
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light on this guy. In the middle of writing her book, Michelle passed away in the middle of the night. and she left
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behind not only a husband and a young girl, her daughter, but also this meticulously researched body of work
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that she had yet to finish. And her husband, Patton, was determined to finish it with the help of a couple of
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her friends. He's determined to finish the book. One detective who has worked on this case since almost the very
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beginning told me that it's people like Michelle, it's citizen sleuth, like the people who watch 48 hours who are going
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to solve this case. And so maybe, just maybe, Michelle's book and this episode of 48 Hours will unmask this monster. I
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hope you'll join us.