Evil Has a Name: The Untold Story of the Golden State Killer Investigation
By: Paul Holes, Jim Clemente, Peter McDonnell / Narrated By: Paul Holes, Jim Clemente
Length: 6 hrs and 13 mins
True Crime? BeYONd that, just a truly stellar audio production—had me jumping at sounds!
I admit it, tho’ I’m not proud of it. I went through a True Crime Junkie phase, and I used to pass along gruesome nonfiction books to others with chills and a blessing (PeeWee Gaskins, anyone?). The more terrifying, the more horrific, the better.
And then somewhere along the way, I started reeeeeeally feeling for the victims, and it only became that much more disrespectful of all they suffered, my reading about what happened to them. Then too, somewhere along that ol’ way, I started getting all twitchy and nervous.
But it’s Halloween, and I dunno that there’s any time better to feel all twitchy and nervous…! So I’m taking one for the team here. What I’m saying is: You’re welcome.
From the get-go, Evil Has a Name has a different sound, a different feel to it than does other true crime. I appreciated how it was “hosted'“ (by Jim Clemente), as though there’s someone guiding us down into a dark and gloomy mind-screw of a journey. It’s as though we’re being told that there will be horrors in store in the coming 6+ hours (And near CONstant Content Warnings are part of this), but we’ve got someone who’ll be holding our hand as we hear the journey of a madman going from underwear drawer defiler to rapist to murderer. Then too, almost immediately we’re introduced to investigator Paul Holes, and we come to see that dark as the story will be, there’ll be some heroes in it as well.
Listening to this was like watching a documentary in that it’s mostly interviews with some TV news reporting thrown in. I appreciated how respectful it was of the women who were the victims, and I dunno, but they just came off as just so gosh darned resilient and powerful it was inspiring. Not a single one was Woe Is Me, and after surviving what they went through, they would’ve had every right to be. Nope, if you want a story with heroes, here you go. I thought it was amazing when one woman says she’s lucky she was Victim Number Five because he got crueler as he went along. And she honestly seemed like she felt blessed about that. Amazing!
The story follows the timeline of the perpetrator and how his crimes progressed. Particularly haunting was how he followed his failures with even grander, crueler acts, as though he was trying to recapture his sense of being almighty. It was overwhelmingly sad when he moved to murder, committing the first few as though he’d dared himself to just kill and be done with it. So sorrowful, the one woman interviewed who called herself the world’s worst and most selfish teenager when her mother was found murdered. Her parting words to her mother had been shouted in anger, part of a fight. She sobs as she’s interviewed, the first time she’s cried in a long time. And she’s not the only person getting vulnerable and being open for the first time.
Yes, do heed those Content Warnings because danged near every chapter is horrific and frightening. The man was into causing terror in his victims, would pace around as they waited, never sure if he was gone or if he was coming back for more. And the timeline as followed by this production gives us a sense of how different the world was back in the timeframe, starting in the 1970s when people left doors and windows unlocked, and it goes along through the years when people started not only locking up but buying guns. It captures the fear and hysteria, and it even captures the mindset of the era of horror: One victim was told by her mother, “I’m too old for him, and you’re too young. We’re safe.” Not to be as the girl was just 13-years old at the time and she became his youngest victim at the time.
It also captures how difficult it was for the police and investigators involved, not sharing information between precincts and places in California. How one investigator who heard of neighboring crimes called to say that they should beware, that the victim they had wasn’t the intended one, only to be brushed off, and only to have another, this time younger, girl assaulted as a result of this lack of openness to outside opinions.
And we get to know the added burdens that are heaped onto the victims of rape: How it was usually a male police officer/investigator taking their statements and asking them questions, and then they’d go to the hospital for a thorough physical examination which could only feel like further invasiveness and further insult/molestation.
There are many theories that went on as time went on and crimes continued, many people involved. But naturally Paul Holes is the hero. The production opens with him on his final day at work before retirement, considering knocking on the suspect’s door and building a rapport with him, see if he can wrangle DNA. Then it continues with him, Holes, pretty much working the case 24/7/365 on his own after retirement—it never left him. There’s the slippery slope with people advocating everyone submit their DNA to genealogical sites, and it’s awesome that THAT was what brought Joe to justice, but this isn’t played up as the production dodges all of that then swings around to describe who the man was to his coworkers, to his fishing buddy, to his neighbors (And his neighbors all called him The Freak for his notable lack of composure…).
Mostly this is just a well, well, WELL-done compilation of interviews with a single chapter devoted to Michelle McNamara thrown in out of respect. This is NOT an I’ll Be Gone in the Dark Redux; it’s very much its own story, and is rich where that one fell apart in writing after her death. If you’ve only the one credit to spend, I’d go for Evil Has a Name as it’s heavier on heroes and doesn’t skimp on horror.
Seriously, my cats are NOT stealthy creatures—they make noise galore…
And I was jumping outta my skin as I listened to this, every single danged time one of them made the slightest sound…!
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