I'll Be Gone in the Dark

Hi, Cliff. My name is Michelle McNamara.

I'm a crime writer in Los Angeles.

I am doing a series on unsolved crimes.

Hi, Kate. This is Michelle McNamara.

-Hey, it's Michelle. Hi, Michelle.

Hi.

I-- I write a lot about unsolved cases.

One that I, um, am very fascinated with is

the East Area Rapist, Original Night Stalker case.

I think it's very solvable.

There's a good likelihood that he is still alive

and he's out there.

I think the narcotic pull for me

is what I think of as the powerful absence

that haunts an unsolved crime.

Murderers lose their power the moment we know them.

We see their unkempt shirts,

the uncertain fear tightening their faces

as they're led into a courtroom.

When I'm puzzling over the details

of an unsolved crime,

I'm like a rat in a maze given a task.

And I mean that in the best possible way.

The world narrows, the search propels.

I felt, in the truest sense of the word, gripped.

I had a murder habit and it was bad.

I would feed it for the rest of my life.

So, what's in Herndon, Virginia?

Herndon, Virginia is where my parents live,

so I was back there for a week,

and while my daughter was visiting her grandparents,

I was in the basement

struggling to get this afterword done

'cause it was hard going.

Um... 'Cause I was also re-reading the book.

And there were those moments when

I would want to just...

like, run upstairs and go tell her something

because it felt like I was listening to her

and then I'm like, "Oh no. She's not..."

-You know. -Mm-hmm.

So it was just-- it was a very--

-Yeah. Well, I can only imagine. For me.

That summer, I hunted the serial killer at night

from my daughter's playroom.

I'd retreat to my makeshift workspace

and boot up my laptop in search of a man I'd never met

who raped and murdered people I didn't know.

In 1977, the Golden State Killer,

as I'd come to call him, hadn't yet graduated to murder.

Long before he was known by the acronym EAR/ONS

and even before he was known as the Original Night Stalker,

they called him the East Area Rapist,

who was attacking women and girls in their bedrooms

throughout Northern California.

This man is considered

to have an extremely violent potential.

There isn't much that you can do

except comply with his demands.

He always wore a mask.

The victims slept untroubled

until the flashlight's blaze forced open their eyes.

Sleepy minds lumbered, then raced.

A figure they couldn't see wielded the light.

But who? And why?

The other thing that's so interesting about this case

that I think about a lot is, you know,

serial killers are, um... Oh dear.

-This is awkward. -(CAMERON CHUCKLES)

Hi. (LAUGHS)

Why are you wearing a skirt as a dress?

Oh, my God.

You are so funny.

So, how did you...

Let's just start at the very beginning.

How did you first become interested in this case?

Like this particular case?

So, this particular one, you know, what's interesting

is that I remember

the great tragedy of this case to me

is that it's not better known.

I mean I can't, you know, like, you know,

I wish Zodiac would get rid of his 15 minutes of fame

so that EAR/ONS could get a little heat,

-you know? Um... Right.

And so I was very shocked.

I think it was just four or five years ago

that I happened to be home one night

and one of the E! shows or something was on,

and I thought, "You've gotta be kidding me. I've never-- what?"

I looked it up.

And Larry Crompton's book kind of got me.

That's been the last, like, year kind of obsession.

Mm-hmm. Right. -Started with that book.

It was a Friday night.

It was probably after 1:00, closer to 2:00.

We were awakened by a voice

and a bright light in our face.

Then there he is... with his ski mask

and the only thing you can see is his silhouette.

Then he said, uh,

"Don't move or I'll kill you."

Welcome to Crime Scene,

a podcast that examines real life crimes.

I'm Michelle McNamara of truecrimediary dot com.

The terror began on June 18th, 1976,

when a masked man raped a young woman home alone

in middle class Rancho Cordova.

Larry Crompton is a retired lieutenant

from the Contra Costa Sheriff's Department.

He worked on the Rapist Task Force in the '70s.

Okay. All of these were suspects

that we-- we worked on and, uh, eliminated.

And, uh...

and some of them really, really did look good.

But, uh...

He recently published a book on the case.

Sudden Terror draws on police reports,

victim interviews, Crompton's notes,

newspaper clippings.

What follows is my conversation with him.

-(LARRY MUMBLING) So, to put together your book,

you mostly went through your files. Was that...

Yeah, I had everything. -Wow.

And I was there.

Now present, Sergeant Larry Crompton,

Sheriff's Office.

We're conducting an interview for...

case file 7917426

that occurred on 6-11-79.

You talked about it in the book so well,

sort of coming in, and that you felt him

and I just wondered, like, what that feeling was like.

It's just--

it's hard to believe this,

but when I walked into the house

I had a feeling.

The hair on the back of my neck

would just feel like it was standing up.

It was just the...

the fear that was in the victims

and, uh, and listening to what they--

what they said. It...

It just had a feeling that this is a madman.

It wasn't anything that we had dealt with before.

He always wore a mask,

always wore gloves,

talked through clenched teeth,

set the houses up prior to the victim's arriving,

unlocked doors and windows,

opened gates.

Okay.

This is our backyard.

This was the window right here.

It's on the far side of the house.

I came out here, I walked down here,

and went this way to the front of the street,

and that's how I got out, right there.

This is the back fence

to get over.

If there was a man in the house,

he would throw shoelaces on the bed

and tell the woman to tie him up.

He would rummage and then he would come back with dishes.

He'd put dishes on the man's back

and tell him, "If I hear these dishes rattle,

I'm gonna kill your wife."

This is our family room...

And that was what he was putting into their minds,

that they were going to die.

And that's what he did over and over and over.

Two-two-seventy-eight.

Twenty-three.

The attack happened on May 14th, uh, 1977.

So this was my first birthday after the attack.

This is mine. That's the room it was in.

There's my kitchen.

Boy, I have not looked at these pictures in a long time.

My job is to catch him, and I didn't do that.

And, uh, I can't let it go.

Were normally the victims so relieved that they were alive

-that they-- Oh, yes. Oh, yes.

Yeah. Definitely.

Yeah. I wondered. I tried to put myself

in that situation, you know, and, uh...

to go into someone's home

is screwing with them mentally too.

Yeah. Ugh, yeah.

-That's scary. Yeah.

You know, I think the story of the victim-- victims,

it has to be told.

I remember Michelle ultimately wanted to serve

helping to get this guy caught.

She looked at it from the hopeful, optimistic,