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Patton Oswalt honors late wife after Golden State Killer sentencing

Michelle McNamara worked on her book about the Golden State Killer from 2013 until the day she died.
/ Source: TODAY

Patton Oswalt is honoring his late wife, true crime author Michelle McNamara, after the sentencing of the Golden State Killer this week.

The 51-year-old comedian and actor took to Twitter on Friday, sharing two photos of McNamara with a touching tribute to his late wife.

Patton Oswalt and wife Michelle McNamara
Actor Patton Oswalt and wife Michelle McNamara.Gregg DeGuire / FilmMagic

“The insect gets none of my headspace today,” he wrote. “I’m thinking of the victims, and the survivors, and the witnesses and crusaders and investigators. And of course Michelle. Go forward in peace, all of you.”

McNamara died unexpectedly in her sleep on April 21, 2016, at age 46, while she was working on a true crime book about the Golden State Killer. After her passing, Oswalt dedicated himself to finishing the book she had been working on since 2013.

The book, titled “I’ll Be Gone in the Dark," was posthumously published on Feb. 27, 2018, and inspired the eponymous HBO documentary, which features interviews with survivors of the attacks and follows McNamara's investigation.

The comedian collaborated with another researcher and journalist to finish the book about the serial murderer and rapist who was believed to have killed at least 12 people and raped at least 45 people in California in the 1970s and 1980s. Oswalt delivered a copy to her gravesite after it was published, to honor his late wife and commemorate her work.

"She was a very logical person with a lot of compassion,” Oswalt told Entertainment Weekly in 2018. “When she saw someone act with such cruelty, the logic part of her brain would kick in and go, 'Well, that kind of cruelty should be met with justice, and there should be someone to answer for the victims.’ To have all of those threads and have it be open and unresolved for so long really ate away at her sense of order.”

He added, “She took on the pain of the survivors and of (those) that lost family members because of this guy. That’s what drove her."

Joseph DeAngelo, 74, pleaded guilty in June to 13 counts of first-degree murder and 13 rape-related charges after evading authorities for decades. The case was ultimately solved using genetic genealogy and DeAngelo was arrested back in April 2018.

DeAngelo was sentenced on Friday, Aug. 21, to life without the possibility of parole.