dailyBooks - Ill Be Gone in the Dark--One Womans Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer​​​​​​​ by Michelle McNamara | Conversation Starters

Conversation Starters

for

Michelle McNamaras

Ill Be Gone in the Dark

By dailyBooks

Please Note: This is an unofficial conversation starters guide. If you have not yet read the original work or would like to read it again, get the book here.

Copyright 2017 by dailyBooks.All Rights Reserved.

First Published in the United States of America 2017

Disclaimer / Terms of Use: Product names, logos, brands, and other trademarks featured or referred to within this publication are the property of their respective trademark holders and are not affiliated with dailyBooks. The publisher and author make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of these contents and disclaim all warranties such as warranties of fitness for a particular purpose. This guide is unofficial and unauthorized. It is not authorized, approved, licensed, or endorsed by the original book's author or publisher and any of their licensees or affiliates.

No part of this publication may be reproduced or retransmitted, electronic or mechanical, without the written permission of the publisher.

We hope you enjoy this complementary guide from dailyBooks . We aim to provide quality, thought provoking material to assistin your discovery and discussions on some of todays favorite books.

Tips for Using dailyBooks Conversation Starters:

EVERY GOOD BOOK CONTAINS A WORLD FAR DEEPER THAN the surface of its pages. The characters and their world come alive through the words on the pages, yet the characters and its world still live on. Questions herein are designed to bring us beneath the surface of the page and invite us into the world that lives on. These questions can be used to:

• Foster a deeper understanding of the book
• Promote an atmosphere of discussion for groups
• Assist in the study of the book, either individually or corporately
• Explore unseen realms of the book as never seen before

About Us:

THROUGH YEARS OF EXPERIENCE AND FIELD EXPERTISE, from newspaper featured book clubs to local library chapters, dailyBooks can bring your book discussion to life. Host your book party as we discuss some of todays most widely read books.

Introducing Ill Be Gone in the Dark

I ll Be Gone in the Dark is a compilation of Michelle McNamaras investigative efforts to uncover the mystery of the man she dubbed as the Golden State Killer. Always fascinated with true crime tales, McNamara first heard of the killer as she was perusing the message boards of true crime forums wherein she collaborated with her fellow armchair detectives to uncover the truth behind unsolved crime cases. She discovered the case of the Golden State Killer in 2010 with his 60 victims in the decade spanning 1976 to 1986. There was little knowledge about the man himself at the time because he always wore a ski mask and attacked his victims in the middle of the night, but all these facts seemed only to fuel her fire to uncover the man behind the mask.

The Golden State Killer was not known as such until McNamara came along. In fact, the crimes he would become known for were thought to have been committed by two separate people. During the beginning of his cruel reign in 1976, the Golden State Killer targeted victims in the Northern California area. He would enter the homes of his victims, enter their bedroom, and wake and blind them with the light of a flashlight. He would rape women in the middle of the night, even those who had boyfriends or husbands in the room with them. He would tie their partners up in the another room and would attack the girlfriend or wife. This attacker became known as the East Area Rapist (EAR). EARs vicious attacks suddenly ceased in 1979 when investigators lost track of him.

But his reign had not ended. He had simply fled to Southern California where he became known as the Original Night Stalker (ONS). He continued his crime in the same manner until a couple decided to fight back. He murdered them in cold blood and repeated the same offense to all his victims following that night.

The Golden State Killers methods were meticulous in nature. He would first target a home, usually one that house a couple or a family. After targeting them, he would observe them from afar, taking note of their habits, daily rituals, and especially when they would leave their homes. Once they were gone, he would then break into their homes and study all he could about them. He would take in family photos, make note of any weapons, empty guns of bullets, and take note of the nature in which the family lived. Such a tedious working was surely a part of his gruesome method to ensure his plan of attack would work out as smoothly as possible.

McNamara studied high and low trying to sort out who this man was. She investigated old police reports, interviewed surviving victims, and searched where no other detective went before. All that was known about him was he was a male between the ages of 18 and 30 who had an athletic build that enabled him to jump the fences of his victims. His meticulousness and his disguise of a ski mask to cover his face made him undetectable. But McNamara had advantage in her amateurism. She could interview anyone she wanted, ask any questions she wanted, and search where she needed to without regard to protocol that left police pulling. This gave her an inside scoop that the police she was working with could not find on their own.

With so much evidence and so much obsession, the story of the Golden State Killer that McNamara was trying to piece together tragically ended up taking her life. Her obsession left her with anxiety and insomnia, often causing her to jolt in the middle of the night at the slightest noise. She even once threw a lamp at her husbands head when he came home late from work one night. Such anxiety left her taking a slew of medication that affected an undiagnosed heart condition she had. This mixture of pills and cardiological mayhem ended up taking her life unexpectedly one morning. She left behind a daughter, her husband, and the unsolved mystery of who the Golden State Killer was. But her husband was not going to let her lifes work go to waste. He and her assistant dove headfirst into her slew of notes, to-do lists, and evidences she had gathered in order to make some sort of sense of the path she was following. Her completed chapters and their making sense of her unsolved findings are the ending masterpiece that is Ill Be Gone in the Dark.

Ill Be Gone in the Dark has received nothing but the highest accolades from the likes of Gillian Flynn and Stephen King, among other famous true crime authors. It also gained a spot on the New York Times Bestseller List shortly after it was published.