Patton Oswalt Reacts to Arrest of Alleged Golden State Killer: ‘I Think You Got Him, Michelle’

Patton Oswalt was in “full tilt freakout” about the arrest of the alleged Golden State Killer, the serial murderer and subject of the bestseller by Michelle McNamara, a true crime writer and the comedian’s late wife. On Wednesday, April 26, the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department announced that a suspect, Joseph James DeAngelo, 72, had been apprehended in connection with the decades-old cold case that claimed 12 lives in California from the mid-1970s to 1986.

“This is insane,” Oswalt said in a video posted to Instagram Wednesday. “Looks like they’ve caught the East Area Rapist, and if that’s true they’ve caught the Golden State Killer. So, I think you’ve got him Michelle… Full tilt freak out in effect.”

McNamara was the author of New York Times Bestseller “I’ll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman’s Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer,” a chilling investigation of the notorious serial killer. Sadly, McNamara died in 2016 before she was able to complete her book. Oswalt, who was married to the author for 11 years, then collaborated with McNamara’s head researcher Paul Haynes and her friend Billy Jensen to complete the book.

“If they’ve really caught the #GoldenStateKiller I hope I get to visit him,” Oswalt tweeted. “Not to gloat or gawk — to ask him the questions that [Michelle McNamara] wanted answered in her “Letter To An Old Man” at the end of #IllBeGoneInTheDark.”

The letter to which Oswalt refers appears on the final page of “I’ll Be Gone in the Dark,” when McNamara urges the killer to “Step into the light.”