Rader’s final kill was in 1991. After a reprieve of over a decade, Rader began to send taunting letters to local television stations and police. He had been planning another murder and had even started to stalk his intended victim. However, he never got the opportunity to carry this murder out as he slipped up in 2005 when he sent a floppy disk to a local television station which was then traced back to him. Following the arrest of Rader, it was discovered that he had been keeping grisly mementos from his crimes in the family home. Kerri scoured the web for information on her father’s crimes and “tumbled into an abyss of despair and terror.”

In January of 2019, Kerri Rawson’s book titled: “A Serial Killer’s Daughter: My Story of Faith, Love, and Overcoming” was published by Thomas Nelson. The book is a tale of trauma and forgiveness in which Kerri – who acknowledges the pain and suffering her father has caused – admits that she has experienced forgiveness towards her father. In the book, Kerri explains that she has still not “reckoned fully” with who her father actually is. Before his arrest, Kerri had a close relationship with her father. She knew him as a devoted family man, a Boy Scout leader, a public sever and even a church president. She writes that “on days when I’m not wrestling with hard terrible truths, I will tell you: I love my dad – the one I mainly knew,” adding that she views Rader as “95 per cent” her dad and “five per cent” a stranger.

In an earlier interview with The Eagle, Kerri said that she hopes her memoir will help others “grappling with how to forgive the unforgiveable” in a bid to rebuild their lives. The book is an emotional roller coaster from start to finish. In the first half of the book, Kerri describes her family’s seemingly-normal life “pre-BTK” and takes us through several experiences she had with her father while growing up.  This part of the book establishes what a close and loving relationship Kerri had with her father and makes it all the more poignant when she finally discovers the truth about her father’s secret life. Dennis Rader was truly able to compartmentalise his life and Kerri’s memoir is proof of that. Sometimes people tend to forget that the family members of serial killers are victims of them as well. They too are unwitting pawns in their game, thrown into an unexpected world of grief, horror, and trauma. They too have to come to terms with what has happened in an attempt to find some semblance of closure.

I found the book to be well-written and easy to read and follow. The book also contains several pieces of dark humour in the book which I found to be refreshing. As Mark Twain once said:  “The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter.” As I’m not a religious person, I will confess that I personally wasn’t too interested in the Christian ideology aspect of the book. However, I did appreciate that Kerri was able to find peace through her beliefs and remained true to herself throughout the book. I would definitely recommend this book to anybody – not just those interested in true crime. It’s gutsy and honest and overall, a unique and emotional read. Hopefully readers can take away something for themselves from reading this book and apply it to their own lives.

Dennis Rader, who is now 73-years-old, is serving 10 consecutive life terms at a Kansas prison. He will never be a free man again. He will never harm another innocent person. He will never see his children grow old and he will never meet his grandchildren. “I know now he cost himself this life – the one he lost – when he decided to take others’ lives from them,” writes Kerri.

So who was El Chapo?

He was the leader of the Sinaloa Drug Cartel and was widely known to be the most powerful drug lord in Mexico, if not the world. He was also considered to be responsible for the deaths of thousands of people. In fact, the U.S. federal government considered El Chapo to the “the most ruthless, dangerous, and feared man on the planet.”¹

Despite his brutality, some citizens of Mexico saw him more as a populist antihero due to his defiance of a corrupt and ineffective federal government. Mexican actress Kate del Castillo once wrote: “Today I believe more in El Chapo Guzmán than I do in the governments that hide truths from me, even if they are powerful. Mr Chapo, wouldn’t it be cool if you started trafficking with the good? Come on Senor, you would be the hero of the heroes.”²

He became a quasi-mythical figure in Mexico and was the subject of numerous ballads.

Badiraguato, a town of 7,000 in Sinaloa state, is among the poorest municipalities in Mexico.³ Badiraguato, however, with freshly renovated buildings or shiny SUV’s parked on the streets, is a stark difference to the impoverished towns surrounding it. Badiraguto is the heart of drug country and home to the Sinaloa Cartel.

The Sinaloa Cartel was once the wealthiest and most powerful of Mexico’s drug empires. They smuggled cocaine, heroin and marijuana from Colombia through Mexico to the United States and had numerous distribution cells throughout the United States. His network criss-crossed America to supply customers; El Chapo supplied more illegal drugs to the United States than anybody else on Earth.⁴

The success in their drug trafficking can easily be explained. As Hilary Clinton once said, America’s “insatiable demand for illegal drugs” is what drives the clandestine industry.⁵

El Chapo was able to separate himself from other drug lords because of his ability to evade the law for years. He defied the tacit bargain of life in the drug trade: that the careers are glittering but fleeting and always terminate in prison or in the ground. In fact, when Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar was El Chapo’s age, he had already been dead for more than a decade.

El Chapo was once the most wanted man on the globe with a $5 million reward for any information that could lead to his capture. While he may have been captured several times and incarcerated at high-security prisons throughout his drug career, he successfully escaped each time. In 2001, he escaped from Puente Grande prison, allegedly in a laundry cart. “Chapo Guzman has been that mythical narco-ghost,” said David Gaddis, former chief of enforcement operations at the Drug Enforcement Administration. “He became one of those isolated traffickers who seemed to be untouchable.”

He wouldn’t remain untouchable forever, however, and after his 2015 escape, it wouldn’t be long until the FBI was hot on his trail.

In December of 2015, a house in the coastal city of Los Mochis in northern Sinaloa was placed under surveillance after reports of “armed people.” In the early morning hours of the 8^th of January, 2016, the house was raided by marines from the Mexican Navy’s Special Forced. After a shootout where five of El Chapo’s guards were killed, he was finally captured. U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch called the capture “a victory for the citizens of both Mexico and the United States, and a vindication of the rule of law in our countries.”⁶

It was finally over for the Mexican drug lord.

In a 2007 interview, she said that she initially created the blog as a hobby; something to fill her time: “I think what’s interesting about them is there’s more stuff to be unearthed that hasn’t been in the public yet and you can do it.”

She was a mother to Alice and a wife to the comedian and writer, Patton Oswalt. The couple met in 2003 at one of his comedy shows. They went on several dates and bonded over their fascination of true crime.

She was practically a true crime encyclopaedia and could easily retain information about each and every case she researched. There was one case, however, that never left her mind: The Golden State Killer, also commonly known as The Original Night Stalker and The East Area Rapist.

As a matter of fact, it was actually McNamara who coined the nickname “The Golden State Killer,” hoping that a catchier moniker would draw much-needed attention to the case. “One of the uncomfortable truths about tracking and catching serial killers is, marketing matters,” she said. She believed that the nickname “The Original Night Stalker” was easily confused with Richard Ramirez, the sadistic serial killer who terrorized California between 1984 and 1985. The media dubbed Ramirez “The Night Stalker.”

To make matters even more confusing, The Golden State Killer was generally identified on the internet as EAR/ONS. “It’s clumsy. This guy benefited from not having a name people knew,” she said.

The Golden State Killer’s crime spree started in 1976 with a rape in Rancho Cordova, California, and finished 10 years later with a murder in Irvine, Orange County, California. Between 1976 and 1979, the unidentified sadist attacked and raped almost 50 women in California. He would gain access to their home in the dead of the night by prying open a window or a door. Once inside, he’d shine a flashlight into the eyes of the sleeping resident. If a man was present, he would be tied up first and the unidentified man would place plates on his back, telling him that if he moved, the plates would rattle and he would “kill everything in the house.”

The man of the house would be forced to listen to his wife being raped in the room next door.

In 1977, investigators held a series of town hall meetings in regards to the sexual assaults. During one, a man stood up and exclaimed that if the masked rapist ever came to his house, he would kill him to protect his wife. Just several months later, that man and his wife were attacked. The serial–rapist was seemingly at that very meeting – a truly chilling thought.

Seemingly unsatisfied, he switched up his modus operandi and turned to murder. Between 1979 and 1986, he murdered at least twelve men and women and attempted to murder one more. The crimes associated with The Golden State Killer were particularly gruesome. Most victims would be bound with wire or rope and then the woman of the house would be raped. When the killer was finished, he would either shoot or bludgeon his victims to death. In May of 1986, 18-year-old Janelle Cruz became the last victim. She was bludgeoned with such force that her mouth was completely obliterated; she swallowed her own teeth.

The killer would periodically call his surviving-victims on the phone and taunt them. The police would later release several of these bone-chilling phone calls in the hopes that somebody would recognise his voice. In one, he can he heard breathing very heavily down the line before whispering: “I’m gonna kill you,” over and over again.

While law enforcement knows his DNA profile, they still have not been successful in matching it to a suspect.

Michelle McNamara knew that the case needed more recognition if she ever wanted to see it solved. Examining police reports, interviewing victims and family members, and embedding herself into the online community that was as obsessed with the case as she was, Michelle started to write an investigative book on the case titled “I’ll Be Gone in The Dark.” She signed her first book deal with Harper Collins.

She always hoped for a Hollywood ending. She anticipated that one day, she could finally identify the elusive killer. Fate had a different plan, however, and Michelle tragically passed away on the 14^th of April, 2016, before she had the chance to complete her book. While wearing herself out desperately attempting to close in on the killer, Michelle accidentally overdosed on a combination of Adderall, Xanax and Fentanyl. One could say that Michelle was The Golden State Killer’s final victim.

Her autopsy concluded that she also suffered from an undiagnosed heart condition which played a part in her death. She was just 46-years-old.

It didn’t take Michelle’s husband long to reach the decision that all of his wife’s hard-work wouldn’t be in vain. The book had consumed her life and it was a very big part of her. He decided that it needed to be finished and her hard work recognised. He knew that he wouldn’t be able to complete the book alone so enlisted the help of her lead researcher, Paul Haynes, as well as her colleague, Billy Jensen. “One of the things I could like more than anything is to be able to bring it across the finish line. Michelle’s work could well be the key to finally identifying the Golden State Killer,” said Jensen.⁷

In a Facebook post about the book, Oswalt said he hopes the book will lead to the apprehension of The Golden State Killer. “I can’t help feeling that somewhere, in her final pages, she left enough clues for someone to finish the job she couldn’t – to put California’s worst serial killer behind bars.”

Michelle had hoped that too. In a letter to the killer that is included at the end of “I’ll Be Gone in the Dark,” she addresses him directly and tells him that his as an innocent man is nearly up:

“This is how it ends for you.

“You’ll be silent forever, and I’ll be gone in the dark,” you threatened a victim once.

Open the door. Show us your face.

Walk into the light.”

Otto Radio now has Michelle McNamara’s revolutionary book, “I’ll Be Gone in The Dark,” with an introduction by Gillian Flynn and an afterword by Patton Oswalt. Not only is the book a haunting insight into one of America’s most notorious unidentified serial killers but it also offers a portrayal of one woman’s obsession and tireless pursuit for truth and for justice.

Can you crack the case? Listen now to find out.

Shannan Gilbert is an escort that goes on a call to Oak Beach. Her driver sat outside while she went in. While inside, something seemingly goes wrong and Shannah is last seen running hysterically down the street in the dead of the night. The search for her eventually leads to the discovery of several bodies along Gilgo Beach.

Lost Girls stands apart from many other true crime books because it gives us an insight into the characteristics and the lives of the women who became victims to the Long Island Serial Killer. Many books focus just on the killer or the investigation without providing much information about those that truly matter – the victims. Kolker truly brings the victims back to life with this book and takes us through every aspect of their life – from the moment they are born to the moment they are killed. We see their hopes and their dreams as well as their struggles. We are taken down the dark path that led them to the sex industry.

Their lives should have mattered more than they did yet society and police failed them due to the stigma attached to sex workers. This book is a real haunting and humanising look into how sex workers can often be treated as second class citizens in America. By going into the deeper details of the lives of these women, the reader can see similarities and the “us” and “them” stigmatisation begins to deteriorate. There is something extremely unfathomable and unnerving about a society that allows human beings to disappear only to be found years later, as skeletonised remains.

Even more unfathomable and unnerving is that the connection between those remains and sex work is used to justify their fates.

Lost Girls: US Amazon / UK Amazon

This book is extremely informative and well-written. It swiftly became one of my favourite true crime books. You can see how much work Sue Russell put into bringing us an accurate story. It genuinely makes you look at Aileen Wuornos in a different light. Due to the erroneous version of Aileen’s motivation as portrayed in the Hollywood blockbuster, Monster, many cannot help but feel sorry for Aileen and in a way, feel as though the men deserved what they got. People tend to forget that these men were innocent. They’re often lumped together as “John’s” purely because Aileen was a sex worker. In fact, her modus operandi was to hitch a ride and claim her car had broken down and then offer sex once inside.

This book details the true motivation behind her crimes as seen at trial: greed. From a young age, Aileen believed she could buy love. She started selling sexual favours as a teenager and with this money, she would attempt to buy love and companionship: something she desperately desired but was always denied during her tragic upbringing.

While there is absolutely no denying that Aileen suffered imaginable abuse during her childhood and these events, combined with her fear of abandonment, led her down a dark path, people need to remember that the men she killed were innocent and have been completely demonised. This book is refreshing in that sense as it gives you a better understanding as to who these men were: they had children, they had wives, they had grandchildren, they had lives and people who loved them.

Lethal Intent explores Aileen’s childhood which was plagued with abuse, heartbreak and drug use from a young age. It  examines the abandonment she felt throughout her life, the crimes of her father and the combination of events that led her down her self-destructive past which ultimately landed her in Florida’s execution chamber.

Lethal Intent: US Amazon / UK Amazon