Exactly how accurate is the I am the Night series to the true story?

Jay Singletary

The second protagonist alongside Fauna is disgraced reporter Jay Singletary played by Chris Pine, however, Singletary is not based on a real person. According to Jenkins, the character was inspired by a combination of different journalists, and detectives but not a single individual.

While discussing the series with GQ she brought up the creation of Singletary.

"“I went home and told my husband—who I’d tried to get to write it many times before, but he couldn’t totally figure it out,” she tells GQ. “And he said, ‘Wait. There’s something I was always trying to figure out. And I could represent it by combining a bunch of [actual] people into a character that would be great for Chris.’ He started writing, and here we are.”"

There were no shortage of reporters who covered the many scandals brought on by Dr. Hodel in his day, but if I had to guess, I’d say a large inspiration for Jay’s character came from Dr. Hodel’s son, Steve Hodel and the unnamed “Los Angeles Times” reporter that discretely helped him write the book “Black Dahlia Avenger.”