Ann Rule was a popular American true crime writer. Raised in a law enforcement and criminal justice system environment, she grew up wanting to work in law enforcement herself. She was a former Seattle Policewoman and was well educated in psychology and criminology.She came to prominence with her first book, The Stranger Beside Me, about the Ted Bundy murders. At the time she started researching the book, the murders were still unsolved. In the course of time, it became clear that the killer was Bundy, her friend and her colleague as a trained volunteer on the suicide hotline at the Seattle, Washington Crisis Clinic, giving her a unique distinction among true crime writers. Rule won two Anthony Awards from Bouchercon, the mystery fans' organization. She was nominated three times for the Edgar Awards from the Mystery Writers of America. She is highly regarded for creating the true crime genre as it exists today.Ann Rule also wrote under the name Andy Stack . Her daughter is Goodreads author Leslie Rule.
Ann comes from a family loaded with crime fighters. Her grandfather and uncle were Michigan sheriffs. Her cousin was a prosecuting attorney, and another uncle was a medical examiner.
Anns grandmother used to prepare meals for prisoners. One prisoner was a sweet lady who taught Ann to crochet. Ann wondered why this woman could possibly be going on trial for murder. Ann says this is what lead her to the whys of criminal behavior.
Her first book contract was to write about a serial killer known only as Ted. She later found that her very good friend, whose name was Ted Bundy, was in fact the Ted she was contracted to write about.
Obtained her BA from the University of Washington in Creative Writing, with minors in psychology, criminology and penology.
She graduated from Coatesville High School.
She is a certified instructor in many states on subjects such as: Serial Murder, Sadistic Sociopaths, Women Who Kill, and High Profile Offenders.
She is active in support groups for victims of violent crimes and their families, in the Y.W.C.A.s program to help battered and abused women, and in Childhelp and Childhaven, support groups for children.
She is the daughter of Chester R. and Sophie Hansen Stackhouse. Her father was a football/basketball/track coach and her mother was a teacher of the developmentally disabled.
She took courses in crime scene investigation, police administration, crime scene photography and arrest, as well as search and seizure while studying for two years at Highline Community College.
She wrote her first book under the name Andy Stack for fear that a woman writing about crime would not be a success.
Was a Seattle Policewoman until her supervisors found out about her extreme nearsightedness.
Was an intern student of the Oregon State Training School for Girls.
And, like all the others, I have been manipulated to suit Ted’s needs. I don’t feel particularly embarrassed or resentful about that. I was one of many, all of us intelligent, compassionate people who had no real comprehension of what possessed him, what drove him obsessively.
I had long since managed a degree of detachment when dealing with photographs from homicide cases. They no longer upset me as they once did, although I make it a point not to dwell on them. By the time I stood in Shirley Lewis’s office, I had seen thousands of body pictures. I had seen pictures of Kathy Devine and Brenda Baker in Thurston County, but that was months before it was known there was a “Ted. ” Of course, there were no bodies to photograph in the other Washington cases, and I had had no access to Colorado or Utah pictures. Now, I was staring down at huge color photographs of the damage done to girls young enough to be my daughters—at pictures of damage alleged to be the handiwork of a man I thought I knew. That man who only minutes before had smiled the same old grin at me, and shrugged as if to say, “I have no part of this. ” It hit me with a terrible sickening wave. I ran to the ladies’ room and threw up.
In all human endeavors that deal with what is unthinkable, too terrible to be dealt with squarely, we turn to what is familiar and regimented: funerals, wakes, and even wars. Now, in this trial, we had gone beyond our empathy with the pain of the victims and our niggling realization that the defendant was a fragmented personality. He knew the rules, he even knew a great deal about the law, but he did not seem to be cognizant of what was about to happen to him. He seemed to consider himself irrefragable. And what was about to happen to him was vital for the good of society. I could not refute that. It had to be, but it seemed hollow that none of us understood that his ego, our egos and the rituals of the courtroom itself, the jokes and the nervous laughter were veiling the gut reactions that we should all be facing. We were all on “this railroad train running …,Conscience doth make cowards of us all,” but conscience is what gives us our humanity, the factor that separates us from animals. It allows us to love, to feel another’s pain, and to grow. Whatever the drawbacks are to being blessed with a conscience, the rewards are essential to living in a world with other human beings.
Some people hate the smell of hospitals. I hate the smell of jails and prisons, all the same: stale cigarette smoke, Pine-Sol, urine, sweat, and dust.
The most basic bit of advice given to women who have to walk alone at night is, ‘Look alert. Be aware of your surroundings and walk briskly. You will be safer if you know where you are going, and if anyone who observes you senses that. ’ The stalking, predatory animal cuts the weakest from the pack, and then kills at his leisure. .
