Chase Darkness with Me: How One True-Crime Writer Started Solving Murders

by Billy Jensen, Karen Kilgariff (Foreword by)

Overview

***With an exclusive behind-the-scenes conversation between Billy Jensen and retired detective Paul Holes on the Golden State Killer, their favorite cold cases, and more***

Have you ever wanted to solve a murder? Gather the clues the police overlooked? Put together the pieces? Identify the suspect?

Journalist Billy Jensen spent fifteen years investigating unsolved murders, fighting for the families of victims. Every story he wrote had one thing in common—they didn't have an ending. The killer was still out there.

But after the sudden death of a friend, crime writer and author of I'll Be Gone in the Dark, Michelle McNamara, Billy became fed up. Following a dark night, he came up with a plan. A plan to investigate past the point when the cops had given up. A plan to solve the murders himself.

You'll ride shotgun as Billy identifies the Halloween Mask Murderer, finds a missing girl in the California Redwoods, and investigates the only other murder in New York City on 9/11. You'll hear intimate details of the hunts for two of the most terrifying serial killers in history: his friend Michelle McNamara's pursuit of the Golden State Killer and his own quest to find the murderer of the Allenstown Four. And Billy gives you the tools—and the rules—to help solve murders yourself.

Gripping, complex, unforgettable, Chase Darkness with Me is an examination of the evil forces that walk among us, illustrating a novel way to catch those killers, and a true-crime narrative unlike any you've read before.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781492685869
Publisher:	Sourcebooks
Publication date:	08/13/2019
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	336
Sales rank:	312,368
File size:	3 MB

Table of Contents

Foreword Karen Kilgariff ix

Prologue 3

1 Bam! Fowl Screech! Zap! 9

2 The Body in the Barrel 15

3 The Murder in the Shadows 25

4 Have You Seen This Man? 41

5 A Partner in Crimesolving 55

6 The Absolute Worst Humanity Has to Offer 71

7 The Wrong Side of Broken 79

8 The Man in the Green Hoodie 85

9 The Villain with a Thousand Faces 113

10 Losing Jade and Finding Mariah 143

11 The Halloween Mask Murder 165

12 The Devil in Plain Darkness 187

13 The Girl with the Serpent Tattoo 205

14 The Cantina Scene 223

15 The Monster at the End of This Book 241

Epilogue 265

Addendum So You Want to Help Solve a Murder? 269

In Conversation with Billy Jensen and Paul Holes 301

Reading Group Guide 311

Acknowledgments 315

About the Author 319

Editorial Reviews

07/29/2019

In this engrossing memoir, journalist Jensen takes the reader on his quest to hunt down killers using internet sleuthing and crowdsourcing. He came by his calling early in life: “I didn’t have podcasts and documentaries telling me about the most horrific crimes of the era. I had Dad.” From hearing his father read crime headlines from the paper to becoming a journalist for major magazines and crime shows, Jensen eventually worked with fellow journalist Michelle McNamara, who was investigating the Golden State Killer. After McNamara’s sudden death, at the request of her husband, Jensen helped finish I’ll Be Gone in the Dark, her book about the serial killer, which was published in 2018 and prompted renewed interest in the decades-old case that led to the arrest of Joseph DeAngelo. Jensen details many other cases where he helped find killers for police departments around the country using Facebook, and he writes about his elation the first time his methods solved a case. At the end, Jensen lays out exactly how the reader can join the chase and work to track killers and fugitives as an online citizen detective. For fans of true crime, this is a fascinating story. Author tour. Agent: Marc Gerald, Europa Content. (Aug.)

Publishers Weekly

"An intense, fascinating read for true crime lovers and newbies!" — Patton Oswalt

"True crime is having a moment, and Jensen has helped make that happen... this book will find an easy audience in true crime-readers, "Murderinos" (My Favorite Murder cohost Karen Kilgariff writes the foreword), and anyone fascinated with Michelle McNamara, as well as wannabe detectives, who will be rewarded with Jensen’s guide to self-sleuthing." — Booklist

"In this engrossing memoir, journalist Jensen takes the reader on his quest to hunt down killers using internet sleuthing and crowdsourcing. For fans of true crime, this is a fascinating story" — Publishers Weekly

"Part memoir, part how-to guide, Chase Darkness With Me includes rules for responsible citizen detective work...Jensen has poured nearly all of his free time and energy over the past three years into crowd-sourcing criminal investigations. Some have yielded answers and arrests, like when his social media blitz flushed out a fugitive in the Nashville shooting of Teddy Grasset. Others are still in progress... Even when he accumulated $20,000 in debt from promoting his posts, he’s never given up on a case." — Rolling Stone

"Jensen can’t stop. Though his crime solving work brings in money through a podcast, his book and consulting for media companies, the real payoff is catching a killer, which he describes as "like a drug." At one point, he juggled 30 cases and rang up tens of thousands of dollars in credit-card debt doing his job. But Jensen has now played a part in clearing 10 homicides, and he hopes others will join the cause." — New York Post

"Through his work, Jensen hopes not only to unearth witnesses and crack cases, but to shift the focus from "propping up these killers and fetishizing them." Instead, he wants to inspire a new generation of true crime viewers and readers to become true crime's superheroes." — Bustle

From the Publisher