How A Walkman Inspired McNamara's Golden State Killer Hunt

OAK PARK, IL — "I wanted to see his face. I wanted to know who he was," true crime writer and Oak Park native Michelle McNamara wrote in her work,"Origin Story." She wasn't talking about the Golden State Killer, whom she pursued until her 2016 death and who was arrested late Tuesday. She was talking about the unsolved murder of her neighbor, Kathy Lombardo, who was raped and killed in Oak Park when Michelle was just 14 years old in 1984. Lombardo's killer was never found.

According to McNamara in "Origin Story," the moment that changed the course of her life took hold as curiosity brought her to the Oak Park alley where Lombardo was murdered. While there, McNamara found shattered bits of a yellow Walkman that belonged to Lombardo. Her "first murder evidence."

"Never again would I tune out when the words 'homicide' or 'missing' or 'mystery' came on the news," McNamara wrote about the Lombardo mystery.

"I greedily collected details of true crimes big and small. I spent hours lying on my side in bed poring over true crime books. I had a murder habit, and it was bad. I would feed it for the rest of my life."

McNamara did feed the obsession right up until the very end of her life, spending long nights reading and rereading documents and poring over autopsy photos in an effort to find the elusive murderer and rapist she dubbed as the "Golden State Killer."

When police arrested Joseph James DeAngelo as the Golden State Killer in Citrus Heights, California all eyes turned toward McNamara, whose true crime book about the murderer, "I'll Be Gone in the Dark," was finished by her husband, Patton Oswalt, after her death.

After the news broke, Oswalt tweeted a message to his late wife.

Though police did not credit McNamara and her book with leading to the arrest, many argue that she propelled the case back into the spotlight.

Oswalt had his own take on that.

Just as the pieces of a shattered yellow Walkman lingered in McNamara's memory and altered her life, her work pursuing the Golden State Killer has left its indelible mark.

Click to read Michelle McNamara's "Origin Story" about how Lombardo inspired her life's work.

Below: Michelle McNamara talks about the Golden State Killer.

Image via YouTube