Chase Darkness With Me by Billy Jensen

Billy Jensen grew up on Long Island, the only son in a family of girls.  His hero was his father who ran a painting company.  He and his father were inseparable, and what his father loved was true crime.  He liked to read crime stories in the paper and talk about them with anyone around.  Billy grew up to be a news reporter, partly due to this early exposure to his father's fascination.

Billy started as a stringer for papers, just happy to get any jobs.  But he soon turned to focusing on crimes and had an early success when a body was found under a house.  He tracked down the former owner and it turned out that man was the murderer; the body his former mistress.  After that, Billy was hooked.  But as newspaper after newspaper went under, he needed another medium to focus his work on.  That medium is the Internet.

Jensen is in the forefront of using the Internet to crowdsource information to solve murders.  He explains how he uses Facebook, for example, to get information, pictures and clues focused specifically on the audience that may have answers.  An early success was the murder of a man in the street by another man in a hoodie that concealed his features.  But Billy was able to uncover valuable information by posting a video of the crime, narrowing down on the man's hairline and distinctive gait.  He gave the information he received to the police and the man was eventually arrested.

The book focuses on several cases that Jensen was involved with.  One was a crime where four barrels were discovered in a forest, a woman and three little girls within.  Despite the best efforts of all, these women are not identified nor their killer found even as years go by.  Another was a case where a woman with a dragon tattoo on her shoulder is a suspect.  The most chilling case is that of a serial killer who Jensen helped identify.  This man's pattern was that he would target a woman with young children, kill the woman then use the child in his search for another woman, his story how lost he was to raise a child alone.  After securing the next woman and child, he would kill the child he had and start the pattern again. 

Fans of true crime will find this an invaluable book.  It talks about the DNA controversy of using familial matches to identify killers.  It gives practical advise to those interested in working on cases from their homes and how to work with the police.  It details Jansen's friendship with Michelle McNamara whose work was pivotal in catching the Golden State Killer who is yet to go on trial.  Readers will enjoy Jensen's retelling of crimes and the men and women who commit them.  This book is recommended for true crime readers.