Billy Jensen - Chase Darkness with Me: How One True Crime Writer Started Solving Murders

by Karen Kilgariff

Look, I dont want to tell you how to read this book or anything, but if I were you, Id skip to the last chapter and read that first. Now, Id normally never tell anyone to do this. Its illogical and bizarre. How can you grasp the meaning of an ending if you dont know who the main character is or what theyve gone through to get themselves there? How can you care?

But in this book, we have a unique situation because (a) its not a novel, its the story of a real crime journalist and (b) if youre any sort of consumer of true crime, youre already very familiar with the last chapters inciting incident. It involves a case now so infamous that most Americans, even the ones who dont like true crime, know about it. Im just saying, how can it be a spoiler if everybody already knows whats going to happen?

Its strange to think that Ive only known Billy Jensen for about two years. It genuinely feels like twenty. So many huge, life-altering things have happened since we first met at a restaurant on Franklin Avenue. Georgia Hardstark and I were tucked into a corner table eating dinner after a live My Favorite Murder show at Upright Citizens Brigade next door, and, because I was sitting on the side that faced the room, I saw him approaching first. He was an extremely tall and serious-faced man wearing a black trench coat. Was he wearing a trench coat? That may be an embellishment. The point is, I got a bad feeling about him. He started talking to us from five feet away. And not in the usual, sorry-to-bother-you, let-me-introduce myself way we do here in Los Angeles. He spoke like wed already been talking, and he wasnt all that happy about it.

Yeah, I worked on that case you guys just covered. I listened to it today.

Was he accusing us of something? Was he saying it was his case? Or that we shouldnt have done it? Who was this guy? I scanned the room to see if there was any type of security on duty.

Did you hear the sheriff is going to release the original coroners report?

Just an FYI, that isnt literally what he said. I dont remember the real quote, but it was very detailed and specific, and it made me panic. I had no idea what he was talking about. We cover two cases a week on our true-crime podcast, but unlike actual journalists, were much more, shall we say, casual about the details. I assumed we were being confronted by an expert about our lack of expertise. Check, please.

But Georgia did know what he was talking about and jumped right in. And when he landed at our table, I could see his eyes were sparkling with the enthusiasm of someone in a foreign land whod found people who speak his language. It turned out he was not there to confront or correct us. He was excited to talk shop. And luckily, that conversation continues to this day.

Now that Im thinking about it, you should probably read this book exactly the way Billy wrote it, with the ending at the end. He really knows his stuff. Take in his personal chronology. Learn about his background and his influences. Read about those early cold cases that werent shocking, gory, or blond enough to earn mass media coverage and see how they changed him as a young reporter. See how he got fed up and came up with the idea to actually start solving murders himself. Do the legwork and get your facts straight so when you finally land at that magnificent, breathless final chapter, the authors internal fireworks display can be felt as your own.

Although, if I may say this: the end of this book isnt just the electric, live-to-laptop recounting of how a major cold case that hed waded into waist-deep got solved. Its also the work of a seasoned crime reporter who, in the midst of the shock and unreality of such a watershed moment, had the presence of mind to write his own breaking story.

Its a movie plot come to life. After years of difficult, thankless work, a reporter obsessed with justice gets the rare satisfaction of seeing justice finally served. Who doesnt want to read that immediately?

Good crime journalists offer themselves as a bridge between the worst of humanity and those of us who want to know how bad it can actually be. And sometimes, if a crime story has no ending, then a reporter like Billy Jensen will take up the cause and dedicate their life to finding one. Theyll visit old crime scenes, interview bereaved families, and walk dark neighborhoods searching for the truth. They do the rarely recognized service of filling in the blanks around these victims identities, telling us who a person was before they became just another anonymous statistic. Its noble work. And this book is about a life dedicated to that work.

Because how can you grasp the meaning of an ending if you dont know who the main character is or what theyve gone through to get there? How can you care?