22 Quotes by Michelle McNamara

"A middle-aged white man smiling and cutting a cake decorated with candles in a picture posted on Facebook isn't celebrating his birthday, but holding a knife."

"A forensic match between the cases didn’t exist but a feeling did, a sense that a single mind was at work, someone who didn’t leave many clues or talk or show his face, someone who strolled undetected in the middle-class swarm, an ordinary man with a resting-pulse derangement."

"I don’t care if I’m the one who captures him. I just want bracelets on his wrists and a cell door slamming behind him."

"Every obsession needs a room of its own."

"I need to see his face. He loses his power when we know his face."

"Police reports read like stories told by robots. They’re terse and demarcated, with little space for judgment or emotion."

"When my family goes to sleep, I time travel and reframe stale evidence using twenty-first-century technology"

"He was a compulsive prowler and searcher. We, who hunt him, suffer from the same affliction. He peered through windows. I tap "return," Return. Click Mouse click, mouse click."

"I'm gay-tham for Statham"

"The lack of closure in an unsolved case seems to have a sharpening effect on those left behind; the details remain vivid to them even years later, possibly because they've gone over them looking for answers so many times."