- Her 2018 bestseller book "I'll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman's Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer," raised profile of the serial rapist who, through advanced DNA profiling, was finally arrested in Sacramento on 4/24/2018 after evading capture for over 40 years. Joseph James DeAngelo, also known as the "East Area Rapist" and "the Original Night Stalker," had been linked to an estimated 12 killings and 50 rapes throughout California in the 1970s and 1980s.
- Two years after her death, her non-fiction crime book "I'll Be Gone in the Dark" debuted at No. 1 on the New York Times' Bestseller List (2018). The Introduction and Afterword were respectively contributed by author Gillian Flynn and Patton Oswalt.
- Gave birth to her daughter the day after her 39th birthday.
- Graduated from Notre Dame.
- Graduated from University of Minnesota with an MFA in Fiction Writing.
- Mother, with Patton Oswalt, of daughter Alice Oswalt, born on April 15, 2009.
- Her father Thomas McNamara, argued and lost a case in front of the US Supreme Court in 1971.
- Died exactly one week after her 46th birthday.
- Had a brother and four sisters; Bob McNamara, Kathleen Conroy, Maureen Stratton, Mary Rita Skrine and Margo Chadwick.
- Daughter of Thomas McNamara and Rita McNamara.
- Attended St. Edmunds in Oak Park, IL, for elementary school. In the fourth grade she transferred to William Beye Elementary.
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