Almost immediately after its publication, HBO acquired the rights to I’ll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman’s Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer, Michelle McNamara’s book chronicling her quest for the infamous California murderer active during the 1970s and ’80s. Today, Variety is reporting that the network has given an official green light to a docuseries based on the work. McNamara died nearly two years ago, and Gone in the Dark was completed posthumously by her researcher Paul Haynes and colleague Billy Jensen.
The book was published on February 27, and on April 24, police in Sacramento, California, arrested a former officer named Joseph James DeAngelo and charged him with multiple crimes connected to the Golden State Killer, after DNA evidence linked him to several cases. The apprehending authorities held a press conference after the arrest in which they were asked if McNamara’s work contributed to the investigation, and they said it did not. This led to McNamara’s husband, Patton Oswalt, taking to Twitter and dressing down the officers for not recognizing her work, saying:
Oswalt helped pull the book together after McNamara’s death, and he will be producing I’ll Be Gone in the Dark for HBO.
