Chase Darkness with Me

by Billy Jensen

  Ingleside, Texas: For Thanksgiving, please discuss. Do you remember this man? He was born Terry Rasmussen, but also went by other names. He lived in the Casa Del Rey Apartments in the late 70s. He was convicted of one murder and died in prison, but we know he killed many more.

  I posted photos of Rasmussen from when he was younger.

  I also reposted Owl’s Head Park man walking down the street, ashing that cigarette in the sidewalk grate.

  I timed them to start on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving—typically one of the biggest drinking days of the year for young people—and run through Sunday morning.

  At this point, they were all Hail Marys.

  I struck out on all of them. Christmas came, and I tried again. Got a few interesting leads, but nothing solid. January was a wasteland.

  • • •

  Michelle’s book, I’ll Be Gone in the Dark, was released at the end of February 2018. I figured I would try to use my new school method and tossed up a couple of campaigns in the hopes of finding someone who might recognize the man in one of the many sketches of the East Area Rapist/Original Night Stalker. I targeted everyone over sixty years old across the world who had once lived in East Sacramento or Goleta. Another Hail Mary.

  The book debuted at number one on the New York Times bestseller list. Paul Haynes, Patton, and I held a live event at Skylight Books hosted by Karen and Georgia of the My Favorite Murder podcast. It seemed like everyone in the audience, including the devotees of the podcast, who lovingly refer to themselves as Murderinos, had all jumped down the rabbit hole with Michelle to try to see if they could solve the case. Across social media, readers talked about double-checking their alarm systems, jumping at every bump in the night, and warning others that it was a really, really bad idea to start reading the book after dark.

  When Michelle passed away, the world was introduced to the name the “Golden State Killer.” But only now was the world really learning what he was all about. The way he slithered into the houses and tied up the men, placed dishes on their backs, and told them not to make a sound before raping the women. The way he graduated to murder. The way he slithered back out of the houses and into history, at least twelve murders and forty-nine rapes in his wake.

  At the book events, some people asked why there are no more serial killers now like there were in the ’70s. Well, science has caught up, so most sociopaths can’t get to the numbers we saw back then. But they are still out there, many preying on the opioid-addicted sex workers who take every chance imaginable to get their next fix. Maybe some become terrorists. Or CEOs. Or decide killing one person at a time is inconvenient and become the monster that has replaced the stranger offering candy in modern America—the mass shooter.

  Meanwhile, word was getting around police departments that there was a guy who could help them with cases. I started getting more and more requests and turned none of them down. I had the robbery squad asking for a campaign to catch a serial burglar. A coworker had a friend whose daughter had gone missing and was asking for help finding her. One detective was looking for a Chinese rape suspect possibly hanging out in a town outside LA, and I started my first campaign in Mandarin.

  I was up to thirty active investigations. I was running out of money. The TV shows I had been trying to start had not worked for one reason or another but mainly because they were about unsolved crimes and didn’t have any guaranteed endings. I had one kid in college and another getting ready to start in the fall. I didn’t want to stop. But I got an idea. Other than my wife and the detectives I was working with, I hadn’t been telling anyone what I had been doing, solving these crimes. Maybe if I wrote a story, I could not only make a little money, but it would put the word out and maybe I could get some help. I daydreamed that Mark Zuckerberg might see the story and, in a Daddy Warbucks–like gesture, give me a line of Facebook and Instagram ad credit so I could run a thousand campaigns at once. Or more likely, a police department might be willing to pay for the ads and start a pilot program.

  I began writing a feature for Los Angeles magazine about the Halloween Mask Murder in El Monte. While fact-checking the events, I started to wonder why it was taking so long for the case to get to trial. I asked the detective what was up. “Hold off,” he told me. “If you write something that contradicts the facts we presented to the DA, it can hurt the case during trial. The case is a death penalty case and will be severely scrutinized.”

  The death penalty. That shook me.

  I hate the guy who got away with it because he takes life away. Now, I had just learned that what I’m doing—the thing that’s taken over my life—could directly lead to the taking of another life. It should’ve occurred to me, but it never did. The work I do is supposed to be about justice. But not like this. The man in the Halloween mask made a horrific decision and tore many lives apart. When I looked him up, I learned he was an army veteran who had escaped the streets but got sucked back in when he came back. He was a bad guy, one who needed to be locked up for a long, long time. But not this. Not death.

  You want bad guys to be snarling, spitting beasts, showing their fangs dripping with blood or twirling their mustache as they tie the damsel to the tracks. But they’re not.

  It’s hard not to see the world in good and evil colors when all your heroes wear capes or carry lightsabers. Baked within us is the ability to identify the villain within five minutes of watching a Disney movie. But the grainy, fleeting image you chase is every shade of gray.

  There are sick, twisted sociopaths out there, to be sure. But very rarely is there a situation that presents that Manichean dividing line between good and evil. Axis and Allies. Empire and Rebels. It’s all shades of gray. Sometimes they are the heroes in someone else’s movie. They are often desperate or drugged or drunk. Or just dicks. Or just had a bad day. That’s still no excuse for shooting someone in the face, and every single one of them needs to be brought to justice, to serve every waking moment of their lives in prison, hopefully devoting the rest of their time to a cause that can help others. To offer some redemption. Some of the victim’s families want those killers put to death. I can’t imagine the pain the Tate or LaBianca families felt when they turned on the TV and saw Charles Manson giving an interview, or Kimberly Leach’s family when they saw Ted Bundy’s smiling face. I would never stop the families from getting what they wanted. The death penalty is just not something I believe in. And now a suspect I helped catch was facing it.

  In the summer of 2018, when a writer was doing a feature on me for Men’s Journal, the detective wavered on whether it was the social media campaign that brought in the tip or the original press conference. I don’t know why he changed his tune. Right after it happened, he told me, “We got him. Someone saw the Facebook page and called us.” Then he invited me to the press conference. Then at the press conference, he gave credit to me at the podium.

  On top of that, after the success of El Monte, the detective wrote to me, “You’ve been a great help. I’ve already started passing the word around the floor to other investigators.” From there, I started getting emails from detectives to help with a half dozen other cases. I actually set up a campaign for another murder in the very same town of El Monte. Within a week, I had identified the girlfriend of the suspect, then found a photo of him on her Facebook page and got his name. The detective wrote me a letter of recommendation to tell other investigators about the success, as I was attempting to build this system into something more widespread among police departments.

  In the letter, he wrote:

  In February of 2018, I was provided information of a gentleman, Mr. Bill Jensen, who assisted with posting specific information on social media (Facebook) to assist investigations for any detectives. I provided limited information and a photograph of a possible suspect that was being sought in the investigation. I advised Mr. Jensen of the location of the incident, to hopefully target a specific area/neighborhood, so specific i
ndividuals were targeted. The information being posted was to stimulate the possible suspect(s) to reach out and/or to assist in identifying a positive name of the suspect. The information provided through the help of the website, yielded the identification of a suspect and possible gang affiliation. The help that Mr. Jensen provided was useful, and I would use his assistance on future cases if I believe it will help in solving the case.

  That letter was more proof that the system was working—and being readily utilized by the sheriffs. Maybe I should have had the detective write a letter right after the first el Monte solve. But to tell you the truth, I was actually relieved he was wavering on acknowledging my help with the Halloween Mask Murder. I didn’t want this one, even though it was proof that it worked. I didn’t want it on my conscience that it could lead to the death penalty.

  But it was all still out there. Along with the missing-persons cases filled with long-lost romances and love triangles and family members pointing fingers at each other. The 3:00 a.m. Facebook messages from a father who has been thinking about his murdered daughter so much that sleep was not coming. A sleep that is often the only refuge from the thought of his little girl’s dead body lying behind a cornfield.

  He writes me asking for answers. Asking for updates. Asking for anything. Asking for just someone to talk to. “Who killed my child?” shouted into the darkness.

  I welcomed the late-night changeover from investigator to grief counselor. At least there was a human on the other end. At least there was something real. Talking to a family member searching for answers was an escape from the false leads, red herrings, and blind alleys that were crowding my thoughts. I had solved or helped solve ten by now, but every time I got another arrest, I saw five more I needed to work. Rape kits with DNA that I was positive could be matched through genealogy databases were piled up across the country. The forty thousand unidentified human remains that were untouched and untested were waiting for us to give names to their owners. I walked to the convenience store down the block and bought a lottery ticket, hoping I could win the $500-million-dollar jackpot and put it all toward a quest to extract their DNA, find their relatives, and give all of them back their names.

  I’m not chasing people. I’m chasing shadows, phantoms that flit in and out of a surveillance video. That’s on a good night. On the other nights, I’m chasing darkness.

  The ginger fugitive in Mexico. The Owl’s Head Park Man. The Girl with the Serpent Tattoo. The Golden State Killer. The Villain with a Thousand Faces. All still out there. Their wicked club gaining thirteen new members every day as the unsolved murders in America grow. So many cases. So many victims’ families asking for help.

  There is a way to solve these murders. I needed money to sequence DNA and run it through databases. I needed money to run a thousand more campaigns on social media, looking for that someone who knows something.

  I need a hundred of me. A thousand of me. I need an army of me.

  Something has to give.

  15.

  The Monster at the End of This Book

  Chicago, 2018

  It’s 2:00 a.m. I’m in bed in a hotel in Chicago. I don’t know if I’m dreaming or not.

  I’m writing this in present tense. Because it’s happening right now. Right. Now.

  Patton is sleeping in a room on a lower floor. I’m debating running down and banging on his door.

  I’m in Chicago because Patton, Paul Haynes, and I just put on an event for Michelle’s book in Naperville, hosted by Gillian Flynn, the author of Gone Girl who also wrote the foreword for the book. It was the first time all four of us were in the same room together. And Michelle’s family was there too. Naperville sits just thirty miles west of Michelle’s hometown of Oak Park, Illinois. It was also the first day of shooting for a documentary HBO is making on I’ll Be Gone in the Dark, so cameras were following us around. The event went well. The crowd loved the book, as usual. During the Q and A section, we got the same question, as usual: “Do you think he will ever be caught?”

  “Yes,” I replied, ramping up to my stock answer. “Because we have his DNA. And he will be caught at some point from a familial DNA match… We’ll ID him within five years.”

  Someone then asked another question we got on every stop: “Do you think he’s still alive?”

  Paul took that one with his stock answer. Based on the life expectancy of baby boomers, which the killer was, there was a good chance he was.

  We talked about how Michelle thought she was one step away from solving the case so many times—and how she was devastated when that step became a hole she fell through.

  “I got him!” she would say. She matched his DNA to someone on a Y-chromosome public database. She found cuff links being sold online that might have been stolen during one of the attacks. In person, she would be beaming. I talked about how I was never there for the letdown, when she found out that she hadn’t got him. That whatever she had uncovered was a red herring. A false clue. A dead end.

  But I just found out. She may have just gotten him. Him. The Golden State Killer.

  Twenty minutes ago, Paul Haynes texted me with a tip from Mike Morford, a blogger who Michelle and I had on the Shadowpulp podcast five years earlier. Back then, we were talking about the Zodiac Killer. Morford had since moved on to the Golden State Killer. And he was plugged in. He said that there was a press conference tomorrow in Sacramento. All very hush-hush.

  Now I’m texting and emailing anyone I can think of who might know what’s going on. I haven’t heard back from Erika Hutchcraft of the Orange County DA’s office or Paul Holes. Holes just retired a few weeks ago. I’m sure he would know what’s going on. I’m sending a message to Debbi Domingo. Debbi’s mother was killed by the Golden State Killer.

  “Hi, Debbi, has anyone contacted you?”

  It’s 12:50 a.m. Chicago time.

  Debbi writes back. “Yes, but basic details only. I am in shock.”

  “Who reached out? Was it someone official?”

  “Yes, Anne Marie,” Debbi writes, referring to Anne Marie Schubert, the Sacramento district attorney. “All she told me was that he is in custody and they’ll do the press conference at noon.”

  He is in custody? If he is in custody, that means he’s alive. The Golden State Killer is alive and in a jail cell. This was bigger than just some announcement about new information about the case. Or even identifying the killer but announcing that he had died of cancer in South America a few years ago or something. They actually had someone in custody?

  A DA would never tell a victim’s family member without being sure they had the guy. But I needed another source.

  I’m scrambling. I finally hear back from a producer friend of mine who also worked on the story. She got word from top brass at Sacramento that she should come up tomorrow for a press conference. Confirmation number two.

  He is in custody. The East Area Rapist. The Original Night Stalker. The Golden State Killer. He is alive. And he is caught.

  I send out a cryptic tweet: “If you’ve been following the Golden State Killer case, stay tuned. We will be having a rather large announcement tomorrow. #michellemcnamara #IllBeGoneInTheDark #stepintothelight”

  “Oh my god Billy!!” Karen from My Favorite Murder tweets at me. “What do you think? Is it real?”

  “Put it to you this way,” I tweet back. “We’re all staying in the same hotel tonight in Chicago, and I’m debating waking Patton up.”

  “I just keep getting chills. Congratulations!!” she replies.

  Karen was not the only one telling me congratulations. I guess I understand why. I helped finish Michelle’s book, where she hunted a supposedly uncatchable killer for close to five years. They can’t tell Michelle congratulations. So they are telling me. But I still think I’m dreaming.

  Fifteen minutes ago, I found out he was in custody. Now, I have just learned his name.
Joseph James DeAngelo. My heart just sank a little.

  That doesn’t sound right. The DNA told us we were looking for a Germanic or British name. I remember that three-week period when I was digging up family trees with eighteenth-century British census reports. DeAngelo? That can’t be right.

  I just checked Michelle’s hard drive. Nothing. She had thousands of names of possible suspects. But no DeAngelo.

  Now I’m searching through online newspaper archives. People are sending me articles they are finding from the hidden corners of the web. A marriage notice. A small story about Joseph DeAngelo enlisting in the navy.

  We always thought he might be military. And a sailor.

  But I’m still not sure. I just don’t know.

  I keep digging through the newspaper archives online. And I just found this article from 1979. The headline reads:

  AUBURN POLICEMAN DISMISSED IN SHOPLIFTING ACCUSATION. Joseph DeAngelo, the Auburn policeman… the story begins.

  A cop. We always thought he could be a cop. The way he evaded all the patrols as the East Area Rapist. He had to at least have a police radio. But Auburn? Auburn was thirty miles from East Sacramento. We were sure he would either live, work, or play in East Sacramento.

  The story continued.

  Joseph DeAngelo, the Auburn policeman accused of shoplifting…

  Shoplifting? That’s weird. He was caught shoplifting as a cop? What did he take?

  The story continued.

  Joseph DeAngelo, the Auburn policeman accused of shoplifting a can of dog repellent and a hammer at a Sacramento drug store…

  Ho-ly shit.

  This is it. Dog repellent. A hammer. Things a burglar would carry. Things he wouldn’t want anyone to know he was buying.

  Joseph DeAngelo, the Auburn policeman accused of shoplifting a can of dog repellent and a hammer at a Sacramento drug store last month was fired this week. Auburn City Manager Jack Sausser said DeAngelo failed to answer any of the city investigations and did not request an administrative hearing so was dismissed Monday.