Ann Rule, leading true-crime author who befriended then-unknown serial killer Ted Bundy, dies at 83
Ann Rule, a leading author of true-crime books who wrote best-seller after best-seller and is credited by her publisher with reinventing the true-crime genre to focus on the underlying human tragedy, has died at age 83.
Perhaps best-known for her long-ago friendship, as a then-obscure writer, with then-unknown serial killer Ted Bundy, Rule shot to fame after she published a true-crime book in 1980, The Stranger Beside Me, that made use of her unique perspective.
It discussed Bundy, by that time notorious as the suspected or convicted slayer of women in multiple western states and Florida, from the standpoint of Rule, who had gotten to know him while working together at night in the isolated setting of a Seattle suicide hotline’s offices. Gradually, Rule came to realize with horror that the attractive, seemingly successful young law student had committed a series of terrible crimes that Rule started researching before she ever met Bundy, as the book explains.
That book sold 2 million copies and was made into a television movie (YouTube has a trailer), but this was just the beginning of Rule’s stunning success as a true-crime author. She went on to publish a total of 33 books, all of which were best-sellers, the Guardian reports.
Rule’s interest in criminals developed during her childhood, when she spent summer vacations visting her grandparents in Stanton, Michigan, where her grandfather was sheriff. Helping her grandmother prepare and bring meals to prisoners at his jail, “She used to wonder why such friendly, normal-appearing, men were locked behind bars, and why the sweet woman in the cell upstairs—who taught Ann to crochet—was about to go on trial for murder,” Rule’s website biography recounts.
As an adult, she worked briefly for the Seattle police department.
Rule has suffered from a number of health problems in recent years and died Sunday at a Seattle-area medical center.
The Associated Press, the Los Angeles Times (sub. req.) and the Washington Post (reg. req.) also have stories.
See also:
ABAJournal.com: “Sons charged with stealing from best-selling true-crime author Ann Rule”
