← The Greatest True Crime Stories Ever Told
The Greatest True Crime Stories Ever Told
True Crime Writing's Gold Standard, Ann Rule... and Her Friend Ted Bundy
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Ann Rule
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To try out your mattress in the comfort of your home, go to leesa.com today and get 20% off all mattresses. That's L-E-S-A.com and use code IHEART for an extra $50 off your purchase. Remember, no matter who you are, there's a Lisa just for you. Diversion Audio A Note this episode contains mature content and descriptions of violence that may be disturbing for some listeners. Please take care in listening. Anne's heart was pounding as she headed into the old Victorian mansion that housed the offices for the Seattle Crisis Clinic. After weeks of training on mock phone calls, now she would sit in on actual calls. Anne's reasons for volunteering with the suicide hotline were deeply personal. Her younger brother had taken his life when he was only 21. He'd been a promising young medical student with a bright future. She knew she couldn't undo what happened to him, but maybe if she could remember her training and say the right thing, she could save someone else from ending their life the same way. Ann climbed the stairs to the wood paneled office at the top of the building. She was greeted by the seasoned volunteer who would be training her for the night. In the next room, a young man was already seated in front of the imposing phone bank. This would be her partner at the hotline. He was handsome and clean shaven with wavy brown hair cut just above the ears. The trainer smiled and gestured towards the man. This is Ted Bundy. He'll be working with you. Welcome to the Greatest True Crime Stories Ever Told. I'm Mary Kay McBrayer. Today's episode we're calling True Crime Writing's Gold Standard Anne Rule and her friend Ted Bundy. It's the story of Anne Rule, an icon who's published more than 30 true crime novels and redefined the genre for an entire generation of Americans. She wrote multiple bestsellers, broke barriers for female crime writers, and unwittingly befriended one of the most notorious serial killers of all time. More after the break. We've all met that guy who instantly creeped us out. Let me give you a hypothetical situation to simulate the experience. Say you're heading to a family holiday event. You pull up 10 or 15 minutes before eating time, like etiquette dictates. I mean, unless the hostess has asked you specifically to come early to help set up, of course. And there's a white utility van already parked outside. It's either taking up two spots, blocking the flow of traffic, or parked in front of the mailbox. So even if you don't know who it is, you already have your first red flag. Well, first two, really, since no one should be driving a white utility van except subcontractors or police undercover as florists. But you do know who it is, and you know he's already been here for a while, because he always shows up early to box someone into a religious conversation while hovering underfoot. And while the hosts are trying to prepare, he didn't bring anything to contribute. Not even a bag of ice or flowers for your mom. Your family found him at church. He goes to a lot of churches. He says he has the whole Bible memorized. He recites deep cuts of scripture that seem unrelated to anything at hand, and he interprets them aloud in front of you, an acquaintance in intuitive leaps you can't track. And those interpretations seem to stop just short of misogyny at the meal. He's a picky eater, asking if anything has touched pork, stuff like that. He scarfs down his food and though the rest of you are only halfway through, he asks if he can have a private conversation with one of the men at the table. And you won't see that relative again until it's time to leave. You feel a little bit bad about how hard you're judging him. Maybe he is just very performative about his beliefs. Maybe he is just a completely socially unaware pity invite. Maybe the reason he's never spoken directly to you despite knowing your family for decades is because he's intimidated, not because he hates women as a group. Maybe every single thing that sent your spidey senses tingling can be explained away as innocuous, but it won't dispel the fact that this guy has bad vibes. It only takes one person, one cousin or plus one to acknowledge one off kilter behavior to vindicate your intuitions. Like for example, after the family prayer, which he added to just as you all said amen, he starts muttering another prayer in another language, loud enough for everyone to hear, but quiet enough where no one can make out the words. And then your stepsister's eyebrows furrow unconsciously. And then you snap out of it. Van parking, bad manners, fundamentalism, creepy prayer, picky eater. That's it. You're giving this guy a wide berth and hiding behind your biggest uncle until Easter's over. My point is, you know it when you meet a creep, you know it without having evidence to support it. Call it emotional, call it intuition, call it whatever you want. You know that creepy feeling? It doesn't go away no matter how much you try to rationalize it. But here's the thing, and I cannot overstate this fact. Meeting a creep is exactly the opposite of how women experience their first interaction with Ted Bundy. He showed no warning signs. He was a handsome, normal acting guy who was pretty, charming and easy to work with. That was his whole shtick. It's why he got away with it for so long. And it was a long time after she initially met him that Ann Rule realized Ted Bundy was a full on sociopathic murderer. Some people are drawn to true crime. They pick up a copy of In Cold Blood or Helter Skelter and it sparks up an insatiable curiosity, a need to know why people do the things they do. For me, it's Preventative and definitely anxiety related. I need to know all the most terrible shit so I can avoid it, or at least try to. But Ann Rule wasn't drawn to true crime so much as she was born to it. Ann came from a law enforcement family. One uncle was a medical examiner. Another was a sheriff. Near the small Michigan town where Ann was born, one cousin was a prosecuting attorney and her maternal grandfather was a sheriff. In fact, that grandfather lived in the same building that housed the Stanton County Jail. As a kid, Ann spent her summers there. She helped her grandmother prepare meals for the prisoners and slid trays of food through a narrow slot in the locked pantry door. She even learned to crochet from the sweet woman in the cell upstairs. The same sweet woman was about to go on trial for shooting her husband. Most seven year olds might have been less excited about spending their vacation within the cement walls of a county jail, but Anne was fascinated by it. She wanted to know how these people had ended up in prison. In her words, what made them that way? After high school, Ann earned her bachelor's degree in creative writing with a minor in abnormal psychology. And even though she had a clear talent for writing, what she really wanted to do was police work. Just after college, she joined the Seattle Police Department with aspirations of working in the homicide unit. And then she failed her eye examination. There went that dream. Dropping out of the police force was devastating. In a later interview with KCTS 9, Ann said she was so heartbroken by quitting that she would go blocks out of her way to avoid driving past the public safety building. Still, even though she didn't get to be a detective, she was the youngest woman ever accepted into the Seattle Police Department. After that, remaining with the police force seemed too painful. She quit the department entirely and initially went on to become a social worker. It was only much later, when her husband left his job to go back to school, that Ann started writing. And that was mostly to make ends meet. In 1968, Ann started writing true crime articles for the kind of pulpy magazine that usually sports a sexy, terrified blonde with a lot of cleavage on the front cover. This was not exactly Pulitzer winning stuff. She wrote articles like I went to prison to sleep with my sister's husband and because I wanted babies, Jo screamed at me, you want a stud, not a husband. Of course, the editors at True Detective magazine didn't think the readers would buy that a woman could possibly know anything about crime. So for the first few years that she worked there, Ann wrote under a slew of male pseudonyms. Incidentally, One of these pseudonyms happened to be Chris Hanson. This was years before Dateline, but I guess people have always trusted a man with a WASPy name to expose criminals. She was writing 20,000 words a week with four kids at home, and she didn't even get to do it under her own name. That's dedication or dire necessity because the cost of diapers is entirely too high. Either way, it's admirable and frustrating. In her spare time, Ann was doing everything she could to shore up her credentials as an expert on all things true crime. She was taking classes, attending seminars. She learned everything from how to identify whether a fire was arson to the ins and outs of criminal psychology. But as it turned out, her big break wouldn't come from the hundreds of hours of hard work that she was putting into her career. Not directly. Like most big breaks, if she hadn't been working her ass off for years to ensure a right place, right time scenario, it would have seemed like a coincidence. In 1971, Ann's life was getting messy. I don't mean that as a judgment. I mean, who among us has never been a mess? But like Mindy Kaling said, if you're going to be a mess, you might as well be a hot mess. Ann's career was climbing, but her marriage was hovering on the precipice of divorce. With four kids and not enough income to support them, Ann wasn't sure if she could handle being a single mother. Everybody reacts differently to being in a spot like that. Some people want to bury their head in the sand ostrich style. Some people want to throw a Molotov cocktail into the mix, take 10 tequila shots and just see what happens. Some of us put our nose to the grindstone and crank that shit out, because what would you have me do? Fail. And maybe when you come up for breath, you also reward yourself with snacks and tequila. It takes all kinds. Ann's solution was probably the healthiest. This is some of the best advice I've ever heard. When you feel helpless, do something to help someone else. I'm not sure that Ann Rule ever felt helpless. But her solution was helping others. She started working at the suicide hotline. At the hotline, Ann met a friend whom she could really trust, someone she could tell her problems to without fear of judgment. And you already know that this monster was Ted Bundy. Have you ever had the intrusive thought of, what if my work husband was Ted Bundy? That really happened to her, y'all? At the time, ted was a 25 year old psychology Student at the University of Washington, he'd been assigned to the Crisis Clinic as part of his work study program, and Ann was his partner there. Every Tuesday and Sunday, they would work their assigned shifts in the clinic's cozy attic offices. Ann's shift lasted from 10pm to 2am Though there were plenty of calls, there was also plenty of downtime. Long hours that stretched away through the night with nothing to do but talk. Ann liked Ted. She liked his clean look and gentlemanly effect. She liked the way he walked her to her car after shifts. And we all know and have been told repeatedly by true crime novices that, yes, he's handsome. Like, yeah, newbie, he was classically hot. That was how he'd have got your ass. I mean, not that anyone deserves to get got, of course, but this is 50 years later. There's no excuse for not reflecting now. You can't just learn the he was hot part of the story. Finish the sentence, he was hot. And that's when normal alarm bells don't go off like they should. Your biology is betraying you. I know. I'm preaching to the converted. Everyone listening here knows you have to be especially wary of men who are handsome because they abide by a different set of rules. Or like, no rules at all. Remember when Jon Hamm ordered off the diner's menu in 30 Rock and the waitress just smiled at him? Yeah. What Ann really liked about Ted was was how easy he was to talk to. She told him all about the problems she was having with her husband. Though they'd been planning to get a divorce, Ann's husband had just been diagnosed with a malignant melanoma, and Ann didn't know how she could leave him when he needed her most. Ted empathized with Ann's problems, and in return, she listened to his. He told her he'd never known who his real father was, how he'd lost the love of his life, and how, in spite of one disappointment after another, he'd overcome it all. Listeners, we know that's not true. Ted was born to Eleanor Louise Cowell in 1946. Eleanor, later known as Louise, grew up in a deeply religious family. She was still living with her parents when she found out she was pregnant at the age of 22. Soon afterwards, Louise left home to avoid the wrath of her tyrannical father. She traveled to Burlington, Vermont, and gave birth in a home for unwed mothers there. Eventually, her parents agreed to let her and the baby, that's Ted, back into their home as long as they could pretend that the Baby had been adopted by his grandparents and that Louise was his sister. Ted had always suspected his true parentage. And in 1969, after a series of career disappointments, he traveled back east to confirm it. Some part of them had always known the truth. Still, seeing the word illegitimate stamped in black and white on his birth paperwork at the Burlington City hall sent Ted reeling. Ted had always idealized his grandfather. Though other family members would later describe the man as a sadistic bigot with a volatile temper, Ted refused to see him as anything other than a loving father. Now it turned out the old man had never been his father at all. Ted felt unmoored, unsure of who he really was. I'm not going to pretend that wouldn't have been a difficult adjustment, especially at that point in time. But family does take all forms. So Ted left, back to the west coast, to the person who could make him feel as if he belonged. Her name was Diane Edwards. Ted and Diane had dated for just over a year. She came from a background of wealth and privilege and was everything he aspired to be. Stylish, rich, respected. With her on his arm, Ted knew that people would take him seriously. They would finally see him as a part of the upper class, as someone important, someone who belonged at the highest echelons of society. Unfortunately for Ted, Diane didn't share his vision for their future together. In fact, she'd already intimated as much before he left for Vermont In June of 1968, Diane graduated from the University of Washington. She'd accepted a job in San Francisco and made no plans to bring Ted along with her. When Ted returned from Vermont and surprised her in the Bay, she made it crystal clear things were over between them, and Diane was done with him. Ted told Ann all of this during their long nights together at the Crisis Clinic hotline. And the thing is, most of it was true. It was also true that he had seemingly overcome that adversity. He'd gotten his life back on track. He was back in school, an honor student with plans to go into politics or law. He was even dating someone new. Ted was good now. He said he was headed in the right direction. And that's the thing about a good liar. Most of what they say is true. It's just that one lie buried deep in a barrel of fact. Ted had shared most of his and Diane's relationship with Ann, but he was far from over it. Six years after the breakup, he sought her out while on a business trip to San Francisco. To Diane, Ted seemed like an entirely different person. He was suave, and confident, assured of his place at the top of the world. This was the change she had been looking for. They started dating again, but this time it was Ted who would be calling the shots. That September, Ted and Diane got engaged. Then, in late December of 1973, he pulled the rug out from under her. The whole thing had been an elaborate ruse. He'd wanted to make Diane fall in love with him so that he could reject her the way that she rejected him. And that is psychotic. Ted had gotten what he wanted, but it wasn't enough. Days after their breakup, the murders began. Foreign this is Ashley Kineti from the Ben and Ashley I Almost Famous podcast. It feels like everyone is talking about GLP1s these days. Those are Ozempic and Semaglutide. And with Future Health you can find out if they're right for you too. Maybe you feel like you've been struggling with your weight for years and no matter how much you diet and exercise, you just don't feel healthy. Just go to try fh.com to find out if weight loss meds are right for you. Try fh.com future health is not a healthcare services provider. Meds are prescribed at provider's discretion. Results may vary. 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Then in March, Donagail Manson, a 19 year old music student at Evergreen State College, disappeared on her way to a jazz concert. In April, Susan Elaine Rancourt, a student at Central Washington State University, vanished after starting a load of laundry. In May, Kathy Parks left her dorm room at Oregon State to meet friends for coffee. She never made it. At this point, it truly seemed like the killer could strike anywhere. No one was safe. The murders were occurring closer together too. There were two in June, less than two weeks apart. One of the women who vanished was 22 year old Brenda Ball. This one struck close to home for Ann Rule, as Ball had been an acquaintance of her daughter's. In spite of the chaos going on in her personal life, Anne had been keenly aware of the disappearances. That summer in 1974, Anne's divorce was being finalized, her husband's cancer had stopped growing, and she was ready to set out on her new life as a single mother. The largest challenge would Be making enough money to support her family. There would be no more time for long night shifts at the crisis clinic. Thankfully, Ann's career as a writer had been going very well. She started reaching out more frequently to detectives in the Seattle and King county homicide units, and before long, she was offered a book deal to write about the developing cases. As Anne looked into the abductions, she began to see the obvious similarities between them. Almost all of the victims were attractive, wealthy young white women with slim builds and long dark hair parted down the middle. Most had been taken from public places, and in many cases, witnesses nearby had reported seeing a handsome young man with his arm or leg in a cast. One witness even remembers the man asking if she could help him carry his briefcase to his car, a tan Volkswagen Beetle. She said she would, but first she had to grab something from inside her sorority house. She dashed inside, but she took longer than she'd intended, and when she came back out, the man had disappeared. Then, in the summer of 1974, the murders seemed to come to a grisly culmination. I probably don't have to tell you that warm, sunny days are few and far between in Washington state, and Sunday, July 14 was one for the books. That day, 40,000 people packed into the grassy tree lined park along the shores of Lake Sammamish State Park. Among them were Denise Nasland and Janice Ott. Janice had only been there a few minutes when a handsome young man with his arm in a sling approached her. A group of sunbathers overheard him introduce himself as Ted. Later that same day, 18 year old Denise was stopped by a young man with his arm in a sling. Neither woman was ever seen alive again. After the abductions at Lake Sammamish, Washington state descended into a full frenzy. Headlines warned of the mysterious Ted who was abducting people in broad daylight. Witnesses provided a rough sketch of the suspect, and now calls were pouring into the tip line. One of those calls was from Ann Rule. Ann had been wrestling with the idea of calling in a tip about her friend for months. Of course, Ted couldn't possibly be the killer. The kind, thoughtful man she knew had been an upstanding member of society. The last time she'd seen him, he'd just graduated from college. He was practically engaged to his longtime girlfriend and headed for a successful career in law. He'd been on the Crime Prevention Advisory Commission, for God's sakes. It just didn't seem possible. But at the same time, something nagged at her. That picture did look an awful lot like him. And he lived so close to the area where Linda, Georgeanne and Karen had been attacked. Not only that, but for the second time that year, the murders included someone she'd had a personal connection to. Denise Nasland babysat for a close friend of hers. Ann's own daughters were fast approaching the age of many of the victims. If there was even the slimmest chance that Ted Bundy had something to do with these disappearances, then she had to act. Ann called one of her friends on the force and told him that she just wanted to put her mind at ease. Witnesses recounted that the killer was driving a tan VW Bug. Ann didn't even think Ted had a car anymore, and she was hoping the officer could find out. Twenty minutes later, the officer called her back. Ted did have a car, a bronze VW Bug. Thanks to Ann's tip, the picture from Ted's driver's license went into the suspect pool. Unfortunately, at that point, there were 2,400 other suspects who'd been called in by people in the Seattle area. Plus, the trail was going cold anyway. After the two kidnappings at Lake Sammamish, the disappearances had abruptly stopped. Authorities had no idea what exactly caused it. Had the killer died or been arrested for some other crime? Or was he just waiting until the heat died down? Either way, no new disappearances meant no new clues. The most they could do was to sort through their now extensive list of suspects and hope something came of it. For the Seattle PD the chase was over. But for detectives in the state of Utah and Colorado, it was only just beginning. Hi, this is Jenny Garth from I Do Part two. Who do you know on Ozempic or Semaglutide right now? Everyone right? These game changing weight loss meds are everywhere and FutureHealth makes it easy to get started. Find out if weight loss meds are right for you in just 3 minutes at tryfh.com try fh.com Future Health is not a healthcare services provider. Meds are prescribed at providers discretion. Results may vary. Sponsored by Future Health At Amica Insurance we know it's more than a life policy. It's about the promise and the responsibility that comes with being a new parent. Being there day and night and building a plan for tomorrow today for the ones you'll always look out for. Trust Ameca Life Insurance Ameca Empathy is our best policy. The battlefield is set. The stakes are high. The only thing standing between you and victory. Nothing. Ascend to the pinnacle of gaming greatness with Lenovo Legion laptops towers and the new award winning Legion go the world's first officially licensed handheld. Powered by SteamOS, Legion relentlessly pushes gaming technology forward with towers built for raw, untamed power laptops with best in class AI tuning that sharpen your reflexes and the Legion Go, a handheld for serious gaming on the go. Stay ahead with lightning fast responsiveness on a stunning 16 inch PureSight display. Keep your cool with cold front thermal technology engineered for marathon sessions and with all day battery life. The game never stops until you say so. So check out lenovo.com legion Lenovo Lenovo empowering creators everywhere. 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He'd moved to Utah to attend the University of Utah Law School, but he couldn't keep up with his classes. He was drinking more, and his relationship with his new fiance had become cold and distant. As Ted's life spun out of control, the cycle of murders and abductions began again. A lot of people like to paint Ted Bundy as some kind of criminal mastermind, but I don't think he is. He lived in a time when there were no cell phones or CCTV footage, when police departments from different states had to send files via snail mail. Ted wasn't a genius. He was just lucky. In the fall of 1974, his luck would start to run out. On November 8, Ted Bundy attempted to abduct Carol Durant when she was browsing a Walden's bookstore. But unlike many of Ted's other victims, Caril got away. And unlike Karen Sparks, Carol remembered every detail of the attack that would spell the beginning of the end for Ted Bundy. In the fall of 1975, things were going well for Ann Rule. She grinded away for years at True Detective magazine. And now all her hard work was finally paying off. She received her first book contract. After the dozens of articles she'd written about the Washington state killings, she would now be paid to write a book about them. So, something she had wanted for a long time. Ever since she read Truman Capote's In Cold Blood. I mean, that book is the ultimate true crime book. It made her decide that she wanted to write a book about what was inside the head of a killer. She had no idea how close she already was. That September, Ann received a call from Ted. She hadn't spoken to her old friend in years. She almost forgot about the tip she'd called in to the Seattle Police Department. But as soon as she heard his voice, the memory rushed back. Ted explained Seattle police were subpoenaing his law school records. He had hoped that Ann, with her connections in law enforcement, might be able to tell him why. Ann still felt a tremendous guilt for calling him in. As far as she knew, Ted was telling the truth. He'd been pulled over during a routine traffic stopped, and now police were drumming up bogus charges around possession of so called burglary tools. Ann agreed to make the call. The officer who answered the phone told Ann that this was just a routine matter. That he was one of 1200 people being investigated. Ted believed the lie, but Ann had a bad feeling about it. The police needed real evidence to get a subpoena. If they had that, well, maybe there had been something to her suspicions after all. As usual, Ted's lies to Ann were embedded in a foundation of truth. He had been pulled over at a routine traffic stop and arrested on possession of burglary tools. What he hadn't told her was that those tools had been the same ones used on 10 women attacked in Utah and Colorado. Or that Carol Daroach had already pulled his photo from a stack of mug shots the officers had shown her. The police weren't looking at Ted as one suspect out of many. He was their main suspect. Within a week, he would be charged with aggravated kidnapping and attempted criminal assault. Over the next few weeks, Anne and Ted began to rekindle their friendship through letters. He insisted to her, as he did to everyone, that he was entirely innocent. She wanted to believe it, but it was becoming harder. In spite of her doubts, Anne provided emotional support and sent money for his prison commissary. The problem was, while she couldn't completely believe in his innocence, she couldn't believe in his guilt either. She just didn't know what happened. Maybe he was covering up for some other, less atrocious crime. Or maybe there was some other explanation she didn't understand yet. But whatever Ted had done, Ann still wanted to be there for him. In late November, Ted was freed on bail. He flew home to Seattle, and shortly after his return, he and Ann met up for lunch. The police warned against the encounter, but Ann was insistent. She knew Ted. She trusted him. He would never hurt her. Even though I know she survived this lunch, my heart elevator drops every time I think about it. They met up at a basement level French bistro in the center of downtown Seattle. They sat and shared some Chablis. Even though years had passed, nothing felt changed at all. Ted seemed utterly unperturbed by the charges against him. He was an innocent man. How could they convict him when there was nothing to prove? Looking at him then, at ease in the comfortable dining room in his corduroys and brown sweater, it was so easy to believe him. Ann didn't tell him about her complicated feelings that afternoon. But it wouldn't be long before she had another chance. A few months later, they met up again for drinks at a little pub on the outskirts of the city. By this time, Ted had become thoroughly adept at losing his police tail, and he assured Ann that there was no one watching them. They talked for hours, and as the evening drew on, Ann finally found the courage to voice her concern. She looked him in the eye and told him that she wasn't convinced of his innocence. This woman had nerves of steel. Ted just smiled. He told her it was okay, that there were things he would like to tell her, but he just couldn't. Ann would never know what they were. That was the last time she would ever see him as a free man. Ann and Ted corresponded over the next 10 years. At first, Ann was sympathetic to Ted. A part of her really believed that he might be an innocent man. But bit by bit, his actions chipped away at her doubts about his guilt. There was his escape from the Pitkin County Courthouse in Aspen. After he was found guilty of kidnapping and assaulting Carol Daroach, Ted Bundy jumped out a window and went on the lam for six days. But of course, an innocent man would want to escape an unjust conviction. Even after Ted's flight in Aspen, Ann continued to write him with sympathy and lend him money. She even sent him care packages. Then, in late December of 1977, Ted escaped again. This time, he'd spent six weeks carefully sawing through an electrical plate above his cell, he crawled up into the ceiling and escaped through one of the guards apartments that adjoined the jail. Hours before his escape, Ted he called Ann at the hotel where she was staying in Hollywood. At the time, Anne's career was taking off. She hadn't yet finished her book on Ted Bundy's case, but a film production company had shown interest in one of the magazine articles she'd written. Now she was in Los Angeles to talk to producers about writing her first film script. When Ted called her that night in 1977, he asked for her address in Los Angeles. After his escape, Ann couldn't help wondering what he might have had in mind for her. Her faith in him was beginning to crack and by the time he resurfaced in February, it crumbled entirely. At 6:15am on the morning of her first Hollywood premiere, Ann received a call from a distraught Ted the day before he was arrested in Pensacola, Florida. And now he wanted to get it all out. He wanted to tell Ann the things he hadn't been able to voice to her that night in the tavern. Only now she was thousands of miles away and there were a whole lot of lawyers and policemen standing between them. Whatever Ted had wanted to tell her that night, Ann would never get to hear it. And it really didn't matter anymore. At this point, the truth was too obvious to ignore. Now she saw him for what he was. But people contained multitudes. As impossible as it seems, she could know and accept and understand that her friend was a monster and that he had also been a good friend to her. Ann and Ted continued to correspond almost up until his execution. By the end, he was a manic, bitter husk of his former self. Ann moved on. Her book on Ted Bundy's killings, the Stranger Beside Me, was a sensation. Ann had once felt that the only thing she wanted in the world was a book contract. Now she almost had more work than she could handle. By 1984, Ann completed her next three books. The Lust Killer, the Want Ad killer and the i5 killer. All three did well, but none of them quite reached the bestseller status of the Stranger Beside Me. Ann's career was stagnating. For a moment she must have felt like a one hit wonder. Then she heard about the case of a woman named Diane Downs. Downs was an Oregon woman who had been arrested for shooting her three children in the spring of 1983. She did it because she was having an affair with a married man who didn't want children. There was something about the case that spoke to Ann, that gave her, as she put it, a prickle on the back of my neck. Diane Downs was exactly the type of person she looked for in a good story. Someone attractive, intelligent and charming. The last person you'd ever suspect of such a heinous crime. Ann was fascinated by the case and when you're writing about something you're really interested in, you do your best work. Small sacrifices. Anne's book about Diane Downs was what took her from being a best selling author to a household name. It received rave Reviews and in 1989 it was made into an Emmy nominated TV movie starring Farrah Fawcett. In spite of all her success, Ann still found it hard to move past those dark years of the 1970s. The moment of Ted's execution neared. Ann got more than just a best selling book from that friendship. She also took away lessons about what makes a criminal. Criminals don't have to be obvious creeps lurking in a parking lot. They can be charming, good looking, even respected. After the Stranger Beside Me, those were specifically the types of murderers that Ann looked for and we can still see the impact of her search for those stories today. The Jinx, the Dropout, the Devil in the White City Ann Rule is the one who introduced us to the stories about charming, respected sociopaths. Thank you to Ann Rule for writing the book the Stranger Beside Me, which helped to write this episode. Other sources include the KCTS9 interview series with Ann Rule and several news articles. All of those sources are linked in our show Notes. If you want to learn more, join me next week on the Greatest True Crime Stories Ever Told for a story about a woman who was breaking the glass ceiling in her own special way. In 1975, Sarah Jane Moore did something that only one woman had ever attempted before. She tried to kill a US President. The Greatest True Crime Stories Ever Told is a production of Diversion Audio. I'm Mary Kay McBrayer and I hosted this episode and this episode was written by Zoe Louisa Lewis. Our show is Produced by Emma DeMuth and edited by Antonio Enriquez. Our theme music is by Tyler Cash, Executive produced by Scott Waxman. Foreign hey, Jenice Torres here and I'm Austin Hankwitz. We're the hosts of Mind the Business Small Business Success Stories produced by Ruby Studio and Intuit QuickBooks. Catch up on seasons one and two and join us for a brand new season of the podcast as we talk to small business owners about how they manage and grow their businesses with the help of platforms like Intuit QuickBooks. Listen to mind the business Small business success Stories on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Are you still quoting 30 year old movies? Have you said cool beans in the past 90 days? Do you think Discover isn't widely accepted? If this sounds like you, you're stuck in the past. 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