This is the story about a writer who wrote about a killer and so much more.

We're here to tell you about the writer, Michelle McNamara, and the writing that became

the book, All Be Gone in the Dark, one woman's obsessive search for the Golden State

Killer.

We're happy you've joined us for episode two.

Michelle McNamara is the author of the website True Crime Diary, read by thousands of fans of

stellar writing and crime cold cases. On this site, Michelle wrote about hundreds of unsolved crimes, but one man in particular consumed her.

One criminal who was originally thought to be two people, and who was more active than California's

Zodiac killer, committing 50 rapes and 10 murders.

In 2012 and 2013, Michelle was working with L.A. magazine editor Nancy Miller, and they realized they had an unusual problem.

Nancy Miller.

We had a conversation early on about, and I'm going to call him, Iran's.

One of the greatest, I think, weaknesses in why the story had never been told

before was because he was seen as two people, like two identities that merged together in this

really awkward, awkward, hard to figure out, terrible name. And it's kind of like an audacious and, you know, gruesome task, but we knew that

we had to, like, rebrand the serial killer. Some of the most, like, signature killers in history

were a crucial part of their identity was a name that people could remember. And detectives and

reporters have done that throughout history.

As the story moved forward and we were in the beginning trying to do erons and ear and

ONS, the editor-in-chief actually read a draft and she's like, you guys just have to just change

his name, like change his name. There was the stakeout killerout killer the bludgeoner the greenbelt slayer

midnight whisperer west coast ghost the phantom of california the knotmaster which does speak to

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