HBO Greenlights Docu-Series About Golden State Killer Case
The story of the Golden State Killer will find its way into the small screen after HBO greenlit a docu-series based on a bestselling true-crime book.
An exclusive report from Deadline revealed that the premiere cable network ordered the production of a new documentary series based on Michelle McNamara's "I'll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman's Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer."
The report also mentioned that the production for the upcoming project is soon underway, and it will be directed by "Nothing Left Unsaid: Gloria Vanderbilt & Anderson Cooper" filmmaker and Emmy Award-winning director Liz Garbus.
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However, the network is still mum about the premiere date of the upcoming documentary film project.
Entertainment Weekly mentioned that McNamara started working on the book from 2013, but she began her research about the crimes that were committed between 1974 up to 1986. She died in her sleep in April 2016.
The book reportedly contains the intimate and exhilarating account of the author's search for the unidentified man who she dubbed as the Golden State Killer. The person who was also referred to as the East Area Rapist, the Original Night Stalker, as well as the Visalia Ransacker, was believed to be the culprit for at least 50 sexual assaults and 10 murders for an entire decade.
McNamara was not able to finish writing the book, but her husband Patton Oswalt helped in completing the book alongside crime writer Paul Haynes and investigative journalist Billy Jensen.
The book was released on Feb. 27, 2018, two years after McNamara's death.
Less than two months after the book's release, the Sacramento Police revealed that they arrested 72-year-old Joseph James DeAngelo Jr. on April 24 as a suspect in the Golden State Killer cold case.
The suspect is a former police officer who worked in the Auburn and Exeter areas in California. He was charged with six counts of first-degree murder.
However, Los Angeles Times revealed that his defense lawyer Diane Howard is trying to block the investigation about the case by stopping the investigators to gather more DNA samples and taking photos of the suspect's body.
"The government seeks to execute a warrant issued before the defendant's arrest and arraignment," Howard said in a court filing Tuesday. "But the government's right to unfettered investigation is substantially curtailed by constitutional concerns which attend the right to a fair trial and a right to counsel," he added.
But the prosecutors argued that additional DNA, photographs and fingerprints were part of the search warrant that was signed by the judge during the time of the arrest, and obtaining them does not mean that he already incriminated himself.
The police arrested DeAngelo after his DNA matched the samples that were secretly gathered by the law enforcement. In addition, the Sacramento County investigators also mentioned during his arrest that aside from the matched DNA samples that were discovered at some of the crime scenes, his known whereabouts during that time also matched the timeline of the notorious serial killer who threatened and killed innocent victims at the East Area in the mid-1970s to mid-1980s.
