[close] Ann Rule (born October 22, 1935 in Lowell, Michigan) is a popular American true crime writer. 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. She has also met and interviewed—in less intimate circumstances—a number of other serial killers in the course of researching her books.