Saturday, September 19, 2020

Saturday, September 12, 2020

I’LL BE GONE IN THE DARK


I’LL BE GONE IN THE DARK - Michelle McNamara launched a podcast entitled ‘True Crime Diary’ in 2006. She published an article, entitled ‘In the Footsteps of a Killer’, in Los Angeles magazine in 2013. A burglar turned rapist turned killer terrorized California communities up and down the state, escaping capture for decades. Victims found they had been spied on from their yards outside their home, once footprints and evidence of entry attempts--successful or otherwise--had been left behind. She had become obsessed by the East Area Rapist, renaming him the Golden State Killer. Those efforts took the form of a book manuscript she worked on. Over the preceding decades the media referred to him as: the Visalia Ransacker, the East Area Rapist, the Night Stalker, and the Original Night Stalker. When DNA evidence confirmed the East Area Rapist and the Original Night Stalker were the same person, ‘EARONS’ came to be used. Along the way, California's DNA database began to fill up with samples from accused and convicted felons. The case came to haunt Michelle, which oftentimes disrupted her sleep, obsessing late into the night writing or researching. Michelle McNamara died unexpectedly in 2016, at the age of 46, survived by her husband Patton Oswalt, a professional comedian. The book had only been partially completed. She had taken a dangerous mix of narcotics, anxiety meds and sleeping pills. She died in her sleep.  Her husband released I'll Be Gone in the Dark posthumously in 2018, nearly 2 years after her death, and 2 months before an arrest would be made in the case. Media pressure intensified as a result of her book, which had become a bestseller. Detectives used commercially available genealogy searches, investigators identified family members directly related to the killer, identifying 25 different family trees from the roots up. They used age, gender, and place of residence, to rule out suspects populating those family trees.  Suspects were eliminated one by one, until a final one remained. DNA samples were secretly collected from Joseph James DeAngelo, which he’d left in publicly accessible locations. Those matched the DNA profile of the Golden State Killer. With absolute certainty, the serial attacker had finally been brought to justice. Joseph James DeAngelo has already admitted responsibility as of this writing. He committed 13 murders, 50 rapes, and over 120 burglaries between 1973 and 1986.  HBO purchased the rights and filmed a series of the same name, which premiered this year. I’ll Be Gone in the Dark, the book's title, references a direct quote by the killer to one of his victims: "You'll be silent forever, and I'll be gone in the dark.”.




Sunday, September 6, 2020

FOLIE A DEUX BY ROSS E LOCKHART

 

FOLIE A DEUX BY ROSS E LOCKHART - Structured in a series of episodes, the story is told from varied points of view, and different eras. Each episode has a distinctly different tone, depending on the character being portrayed. The title references a ‘madness shared by two’, which I presume to mean the conjoined twin sisters, since it tells what happens to them. The story is heavily influenced by HP Lovecraft, I caught onto many of the references. But certainly, HPL devotees will pick up on many more. A pair of sisters, who are conjoined twins, get mixed up in porn, drugs, and a boyfriend, who claims to be a reincarnated Pharaoh. One sister records her account in a diary. An inscription is found in a grimoire. Graffiti marks the walls of an abandoned hospital. A scroll is found in a copse of trees. The sisters' tale survives ten generations, of nightmare monsters mating with human women, and feeding on human young. 'Folie à Deux' by Ross E. Lockhart was first published in Strange Aeons in 2014. Want to read more? Ross has written a number of short stories and edited several anthologies.

Check out his website here: https://www.haresrocklots.com/biblio/