True Crime Author Ann Rule Dies — Writer Spent A Lifetime In The Minds Of Serial Killers

A woman who spent a lifetime studying and writing about killers, author Ann Rule, died Sunday at 83 after years of declining health. Now, she’s being remembered not just for her prolific career, but her relationship to America’s most famous — and dashing — serial killer.

Rule’s daughter, Leslie, announced on Facebook that her mother had died in a Seattle-area hospital, Seattle PI reported. She’d been in the hospital since July 19, in intensive care with pneumonia.

“My mom died peacefully last night. She had congestive heart failure and many other health issues.”

Ann had been in poor health since late 2013. Before she died, her daughter said she was able to see all five of her children and all five of her grandchildren.

The author of more than 30 books, Rule is credited with revamping the true crime genre, which until she came along was dominated by men, the Associated Press added. Though fascinated by her entire life, Ann’s books focused on the victims, which set them apart from the norm.

“By deciding to focus her books on the victim, Ann Rule reinvented the true crime genre and earned the trust of millions of readers who wanted a new and empathetic perspective on the tragic stories at the heart of her works,” said Carolyn Reidy, Simon & Schuster’s president and CEO, in a statement.

That fascination kept Ann in Washington State’s court rooms up until recently, researching future books. And it began when she was very young.

Born to a school teacher and sports coach in 1931, Ann spent her childhood moving around, following her father’s coaching career. She was always fascinated by killers, and enjoyed looking for hints in the details of their lives to discover what motivated them to kill. The obsession followed her to the University of Washington, where she earned a bachelor’s in creative writing, augmented with minors in psychology, criminology, and penology.

By 21, she was working with the Seattle Police Department and wrote for the magazine True Detective starting in 1969. Eventually, she became an expert in serial killers — taking workshops in subjects from DNA to arson — and was relied upon by the FBI and Justice Department.

But Ann Rule is perhaps most famous for her friendship — both personal and professional — with serial killer Ted Bundy, a man she liked immediately when she met him by chance in 1971 (before she knew he was a murderer) and whose “physical attractiveness helped to make him a mythical character, an antihero who continues to intrigue readers,” she wrote in her most famous book, The Stranger Beside Me, according to The Washington Post.

Ann and Bundy began a friendship when they both volunteered at a suicide crisis hotline one night a week. Rule continued the relationship even as Bundy became the prime suspect in the murders of 30 women starting in 1974. Untold women died at his hand.

Before Rule even knew her friend was responsible, she followed his murders with professional interest and noticed authorities’ description of the suspect matched Ted. She called in the tip, but he wasn’t convicted until 1979; during his arrest, incarceration, escape, and re-arrest, she continued the relationship. Afterward, Rule said she tried to save his life by getting him to confess, and found his death sentence too swift to be just. He died by electric chair in 1989.

Though she concluded her book about him with a touching postscript (“At long last, peace Ted.”) years later, she admitted that “People like Ted can fool you completely.”

“I’d been a cop, had all that psychology — but his mask was perfect. I say that long acquaintance can help you know someone. But you can never be really sure. Scary. I felt sick when Ted was executed — but I would not have stopped it if I could. He was going to get out, and he would have killed again and again and again.”

[Photos Courtesy Twitter]