Golden State Killer (East Area Rapist/Original Night Stalker)

How was the HBO series? I really liked the book, but I'm curious as to the angle they take with the series. Was going to start it last night, but chose to go with something a little lighter after that pretty dark Perry Mason ep.

it just started. it's good, but it's a bit unfocused. I expect it will tighten up as it goes on.

i had no idea perry mason was on until I saw the trailer last night and it looks fucking amazing though I'm not sure how much it has to do with the perry mason character we know?

I like it so far, but it's early going. Honestly I only know of the character via reruns of the Raymond Burr series from when I was younger, and this is quite a bit different so far. Mason himself is def more of a rumpled private investigator working for a lawyer, not a lawyer himself (though I guess this might be closer to the written origins? idk). It's gripping so far and I love seeing Tatiana Maslany as a weird cult preacher, though it's def very gruesome in bits.

on DeAngelo, one thing I hadn't seen until today was a report from his nephew that DeA
ngelo's sister was raped by two servicemen at the age of 7 while she and DeAngelo were playing in a warehouse. Apparently she told her son this last year before she died of cancer. He said he wonders if this was an instigating event. He hadn't seen Deangelo in many years.

also, that DeAngelo's parents beat the fuck out of their kids, which seems to be the case in almost every serial killer story.

End of story

Golden State Killer Joseph DeAngelo sentenced to life in prison

I watched some of the victim’s statements yesterday, I cant imagine what that must have been like for them. What all of this has been like.

We just started the HBO documentary (I never read the book) and while it is less successful when it comes to the intersection of her life and her quest for the truth, the way it depicts the destructive impact on the victims is by nature uncomfortable but still very ... not sympathetic, that's the wrong word. I don't know the right word right now, but it mostly captures the terror without being exploitative.

Final episode really hits that home re the victims & victims families & what he did to their lives - the show really handled that in a sensitive & impactful way

Spry old feller

https://www.kcra.com/article/sacramento-county-da-releases-videos-of-joseph-deangelo-in-cell/33670432

just tangentially, the doc/show gave me a lot more sympathy for patton... not that michelle dying wasnt an unexpected tragedy but from afar it never sat well w me that he re-tweeted iirc a newsstory about her death

the old Unsolved Mysteries segment is legit terrifying

Yeah, with the negligee model? it was totally gross and in such bad taste.

The small problem I have with the doc (and we have one more episode to go) is the way it kind of elides over her drug use/abuse by making it almost a romanticized part of her obsessive pursuit. Like she needed the pills to keep on her path and get past the nightmares and insomnia to bring truth, justice and closure to the victims. I was shocked to learn there was fentanyl (or iirc multiple opiates) in her system, though, and while Oswalt seems aware of at least some of the other stuff she was taking (I think he at least initially claimed the Xanax was his, but they also reportedly found cocaine and ecstasy and other recreational stuff after she died) it's unclear if he was aware she was into significantly more serious pharmaceuticals than Xanax or whatever, or in significantly high quantities. The doc is really smart by paralleling her death with that of Prince, but of course Prince was taken advantage of (or at least lead astray) by bad medical advice. There's an indication in the doc that McNamara (whose family lives right by me, btw!) wasn't getting *any* of her meds legitimately, which is scary; there's a text they post in passing that iirc has her asking Patton or a family member if they could grab more pills from another family members' cabinet.

Wouldn't really matter except that the doc is as much about her as the case, yet like Prince or Tom Petty the accidental OD seemingly comes out of nowhere; the epic Peter B. Tom Petty doc that nonetheless cut out his years of heroin addiction taught me not to trust authorized docs to necessarily give me the whole truth.

Anyway, truly tragic and sad.