美国国家公共电台 NPR Patton Oswalt On His Late Wife's Search For The Golden State Killer

 

SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

Michelle McNamara was a writer engrossed¹ with true crime. She worked on Hollywood pilots and screenplays and created the website truecrimediary.com. She connected the dots of blood and evidence of a series of as many as 50 sexual assaults in Northern California in the 1970s and '80s, followed by at least 10 brutal² murders in Northern California, to the same violent psychopath that she called the Golden State Killer³.

Michelle McNamara was at work on a book she hoped might deliver the killer to justice, or at least comfort the families of those who lost loved ones, when she died suddenly in her sleep in 2016. She was 46. Colleagues who knew Michelle McNamara and her work helped her finish her book, which has now been published - "I'll Be Gone In The Dark: One Woman's Obsessive⁴ Search For The Golden State Killer."

It has an afterword by Patton Oswalt, the comedian⁵ and actor who was married to Michelle McNamara. Patton Oswalt joins us now from the studios of NPR West. Thanks so much for being with us.

PATTON OSWALT: Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.

SIMON: You say your late wife had what you call a true cop's heart and mind. How so?

OSWALT: Well, she had that combination of - how can I put it best? - empathy but then mathematical coldness to look at dates and times and cities and link them up, even though they were all linked by the kind of events and the kind of horror that I think would make a lot of people just look away and not want to delve⁶ any deeper. And she could - you know, she could look at these hard facts, still feel empathy and sadness for the people whose either lives have been taken or the people whose lives have been destroyed from having people that they love taken by this monster, basically.

SIMON: At the same time, your wife Michelle McNamara must have found - what was it? Engaging? Beguiling⁷?

OSWALT: I mean, she definitely loved the puzzle aspect of it - the fact that there is a limited amount of pieces, and you have to try to put a thing - bring a solution. And, you know, that's a very addictive⁸ thing. I think that's another part of the - a cop's personality is that they are - it's a compulsion to want to find the facts and solve these mysteries. Yeah.

And she very much admitted it - that, oh, there was a bit of a thrill to this. There was - there certainly wasn't a thrill in reading about people being killed. But there was a thrill in, oh, I could maybe catch this guy and figure out - you know, not only capture him but then find out who he is and find out his reasons and what made him that way. You know, there's all that - is you're always waiting to figure out what that is.

SIMON: The killer and rapist has a particular cruelty. He would not only rape⁹ women but phoned them years thereafter.

OSWALT: He would phone them. He would also do this thing that was particularly sadistic¹⁰, where after he would rape them, he would then - you know, he'd leave them tied up, and then he would be - he would stay in the room but be very, very quiet, literally¹¹ for hours, making them think that, oh, he's gone now. And the minute they would start to move, he would either shake the bed or cough or, like, just stand there and psychologically torture them for hours afterward¹².

SIMON: How did Michelle - she had to go down a lot of blind alleys¹³, didn't she?

OSWALT: Yes. That was - I think that was the hardest part of any of it. And any homicide cop will tell you - you go down what looks like a promising¹⁴ lead, and it leads to a brick wall. And so you have two things that happen there - you have the frustration¹⁵ of, oh, this led nowhere.

And then you also have the frustration of, the two weeks I spent pursuing this was two more weeks' lead time that I've given this creep. And that really takes a toll¹⁶ after a while, and it makes you sometimes gun-shy, where you'll - and what's even worse is, sometimes, you'll have too many leads to go down, and it's almost like you're on this hellish game show where you're, like, which door do you choose to go down right now, knowing that if you pick the wrong one and spend months on it, there's two months' more head start you've just given this guy?

SIMON: How do you deal with the fact that he's still out there?

OSWALT: I deal with the fact that he's still out there by trying to live in the sunshine and love my daughter and love my new wife and be kind to my friends and be kind to people, knowing that this is a guy that has never had any of that in his life. And, you know, the - unless we capture him, the one thing that you can do to people that are, you know, sitting outside of the edge of the fire is to really kind of revel¹⁷ in being in the light and being in the heat because they don't understand that.

Not to even mock them with it, but if I sit there and brood, and I'm dark, and I become distant to my wife and daughter and to my friends and just to the world in general, and I become this gray cloud, then I've helped extend his hold over life, basically, if you do that. So that - you almost have an obligation to go and try to bring more life to life and balance out the life he's trying to drain from it, I guess.

SIMON: And may I ask - because I know you respect and feel for the losses of so many people...

OSWALT: Yeah.

SIMON: ...Which is what this book by your late wife is about - you and your daughter obviously also suffered a loss - different kind of loss in Michelle's death. May I ask how you're doing?

OSWALT: I mean, right now I'm doing way better than I thought I would. You know, I've remarried to this amazing woman who loves Alice. And Alice is growing up strong, you know, in the aftermath of what she went through. You know, kids are insanely resilient, and, you know, you see them bounce back. And so I'm living right now - I would say that I'm living right now with a lot of hope.

SIMON: Patton Oswalt - he's done the afterword to a book by his late wife, Michelle McNamara - "I'll Be Gone In The Dark: One Woman's Obsessive Search For The Golden State Killer." Thanks so much for being with us.

OSWALT: Thank you.

(SOUNDBITE OF LANTERNA'S "VERDANT")

1 engrossed   

adj.全神贯注的

参考例句：

• The student is engrossed in his book.这名学生正在专心致志地看书。
• No one had ever been quite so engrossed in an evening paper.没人会对一份晚报如此全神贯注。

2 brutal   

adj.残忍的，野蛮的，不讲理的

参考例句：

• She has to face the brutal reality.她不得不去面对冷酷的现实。
• They're brutal people behind their civilised veneer.他们表面上温文有礼，骨子里却是野蛮残忍。

3 killer   

n.杀人者，杀人犯，杀手，屠杀者

参考例句：

• Heart attacks have become Britain's No.1 killer disease.心脏病已成为英国的头号致命疾病。
• The bulk of the evidence points to him as her killer.大量证据证明是他杀死她的。

4 obsessive   

adj. 着迷的, 强迫性的, 分神的

参考例句：

• Some people are obsessive about cleanliness.有些人有洁癖。
• He's becoming more and more obsessive about punctuality.他对守时要求越来越过分了。

5 comedian   

n.喜剧演员；滑稽演员

参考例句：

• The comedian tickled the crowd with his jokes.喜剧演员的笑话把人们逗乐了。
• The comedian enjoyed great popularity during the 30's.那位喜剧演员在三十年代非常走红。

6 delve   

v.深入探究，钻研

参考例句：

• We should not delve too deeply into this painful matter.我们不应该过分深究这件痛苦的事。
• We need to delve more deeply into these questions.这些是我们想进一步了解的。

7 beguiling   

adj.欺骗的，诱人的v.欺骗( beguile的现在分词 )；使陶醉；使高兴；消磨（时间等）

参考例句：

• Her beauty was beguiling. 她美得迷人。
• His date was curvaceously beguiling. 他约会是用来欺骗女性的。 来自《简明英汉词典》

8 addictive   

adj.(吸毒等)使成瘾的，成为习惯的

参考例句：

• The problem with video game is that they're addictive.电子游戏机的问题在于它们会使人上瘾。
• Cigarettes are highly addictive.香烟很容易使人上瘾。

9 rape   

n.抢夺，掠夺，强奸；vt.掠夺，抢夺，强奸

参考例句：

• The rape of the countryside had a profound ravage on them.对乡村的掠夺给他们造成严重创伤。
• He was brought to court and charged with rape.他被带到法庭并被指控犯有强奸罪。

10 sadistic   

adj.虐待狂的

参考例句：

• There was a sadistic streak in him.他有虐待狂的倾向。
• The prisoners rioted against mistreatment by sadistic guards.囚犯因不堪忍受狱警施虐而发动了暴乱。

11 literally   

adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实

参考例句：

• He translated the passage literally.他逐字逐句地翻译这段文字。
• Sometimes she would not sit down till she was literally faint.有时候，她不走到真正要昏厥了，决不肯坐下来。

12 afterward   

adv.后来；以后

参考例句：

• Let's go to the theatre first and eat afterward. 让我们先去看戏，然后吃饭。
• Afterward,the boy became a very famous artist.后来，这男孩成为一个很有名的艺术家。

13 alleys   

胡同，小巷( alley的名词复数 )； 小径

参考例句：

• I followed him through a maze of narrow alleys. 我紧随他穿过一条条迂迴曲折的窄巷。
• The children lead me through the maze of alleys to the edge of the city. 孩子们领我穿过迷宫一般的街巷，来到城边。

14 promising   

adj.有希望的，有前途的

参考例句：

• The results of the experiments are very promising.实验的结果充满了希望。
• We're trying to bring along one or two promising young swimmers.我们正设法培养出一两名有前途的年轻游泳选手。

15 frustration   

n.挫折，失败，失效，落空

参考例句：

• He had to fight back tears of frustration.他不得不强忍住失意的泪水。
• He beat his hands on the steering wheel in frustration.他沮丧地用手打了几下方向盘。

16 toll   

n.过路(桥)费；损失，伤亡人数；v.敲(钟)

参考例句：

• The hailstone took a heavy toll of the crops in our village last night.昨晚那场冰雹损坏了我们村的庄稼。
• The war took a heavy toll of human life.这次战争夺去了许多人的生命。

17 revel   

vi.狂欢作乐，陶醉；n.作乐，狂欢

参考例句：

• She seems to revel in annoying her parents.她似乎以惹父母生气为乐。
• The children revel in country life.孩子们特别喜欢乡村生活。