‘Ten years gone’, Patton Oswalt remembers late wife Michelle McNamara on her death anniversary

Award-winning actor and comedian Patton Oswalt paid tribute to his late wife Michelle McNamara on the 10th anniversary of her death, poignantly marking a decade since her untimely passing at age 46. Oswalt shared a heartfelt message on Instagram, accompanying a photo of the couple with the simple but deeply emotional caption: “Ten years gone. Miss you, baby.”

Who was Michelle McNamara?

Michelle McNamara was a true crime author and journalist beloved in the genre for her meticulous investigative work and passionate storytelling. She founded the crime-focused blog True Crime Diary in 2006, where she chronicled lesser-known criminal cases and invited readers to engage in collaborative sleuthing, long before true crime became a mainstream podcast and documentary genre.


Her most prominent work, I’ll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman’s Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer, was left unfinished at her death and published posthumously in 2018. The book documented McNamara’s deep investigation into the Golden State Killer case, which helped raise public awareness about the case that culminated in the arrest of Joseph James DeAngelo Jr. in 2018.

Circumstances of her death

On April 21, 2016, McNamara was found dead in her sleep at her Los Angeles home. She was 46. According to coroner reports and family statements shared, her death was attributed to a combination of an undiagnosed heart condition and the effects of multiple prescription medications, including Adderall, Xanax, and the powerful opioid fentanyl. The coroner ruled her death accidental.

Subsequent revelations also noted that McNamara had struggled with opioid dependency, something her husband and collaborators acknowledged in later interviews and in the documentary about her life and work.

Patton Oswalt: Grief, family, and tribute

Oswalt first publicly mourned McNamara in 2017 on the first anniversary of her death, sharing candid reflections on grief, love, and life with their daughter, Alice, who was eight at the time. In that message he wrote, “It’s awful, but it’s not fatal,” discussing the shock of discovering her passing and the ways in which he and Alice were navigating life without her.

Their daughter, Alice Rigney, is now in her late teens, and Oswalt remarried actress Meredith Salenger in 2017. Despite finding love again, he has continued to honor McNamara’s memory publicly, especially on the anniversaries of her death and the legacy of her work.

McNamara’s influence on the true crime genre has only grown since her passing. I’ll Be Gone in the Dark became a bestseller and inspired a documentary series of the same name, introducing a new generation to her work and rigorous approach to cold-case investigation.