Amateur Sleuth Identifies Golden State Killer—and Now He's Behind Bars

Catching A Killer

The daughter of a trial lawyer, Michelle McNamara launched the website TrueCrimeDiary in 2006. McNamara had always been fascinated with true crime after the still-unsolved murder of Kathleen Lombardo, a 24-year-old who was brutally murdered only two blocks from her childhood home.

Origin Story

In a 2012 blog post titled "Origin Story," McNamara describes the day she visited the Lombardo crime scene. McNamara was 14, living just west of Chicago; she picked up a piece of Lombardo's broken yellow Walkman and thought, "Never again would I tune out when the words 'homicide' or 'missing' or 'mystery' came on the news."

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The More You Know

  • During World War 2, a bear named Wotjek joined the Polish army. He carried ammunition and occasionally drank beer.
  • Shakespeare's plays feature the word "love" about 10 times more than the word "hate."
  • There is a fish with transparent bones and white blood.
  • The Nobel Committee declined to award the Nobel Peace Prize in 1948 because "there was no suitable living candidate." This was meant as tribute to Mahatma Gandhi, who was assassinated earlier that year without receiving the Prize.
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Post originally appeared on Upbeat News.