安·鲁尔

安·雷·鲁尔 (1931年10月22日 - 2015年7月26日) 是一位美国真实犯罪类作品作家。她曾写过一本关于连环杀手泰德·邦迪事迹的作品，鲁尔曾与泰德·邦迪一起共事，她起初把泰德·邦迪当成是自己的朋友，但后来却发现他是一名杀手。鲁尔 一生共写了30多本真实犯罪类的书。鲁尔的许多著作都以太平洋西北地区和她的第二故乡华盛顿州的谋杀案为主题。

Ann Rae Rule (née Stackhouse; October 22, 1931 – July 26, 2015) was an American author of true crime books and articles. She is best known for The Stranger Beside Me (1980), about the serial killer Ted Bundy, her co-worker and one-time friend, who was later revealed to be a murderer. Rule wrote over 30 true crime books, including Small Sacrifices, about Oregon child murderer Diane Downs. Many of Rule's books center on murder cases that occurred in the Pacific Northwest and her adopted home state of Washington.

Early life and education

Ann Rae Stackhouse was born on October 22, 1931, in Lowell, Michigan. She was one of two children of Sophie Marie (Hansen) and Chester R. Stackhouse. Her mother was a teacher, specializing in developmentally disabled children, and her father was a football and track and field coach. As Rule did during young adulthood, her family members had careers in law enforcement. Rule's grandfather and uncle were sheriffs in Michigan. Another uncle was a medical examiner and a cousin was a prosecutor. Rule spent summers with her grandparents doing volunteer work at the local jail.

She graduated from Coatesville High School in Chester County, Pennsylvania and later earned an associate degree from Highline Community College in Des Moines, Washington. Rule also attended the University of Washington, studying creative writing, criminology and psychology.

Career

Rule's career path included working as a police officer for the Seattle Police Department as well as writing for publications geared toward women. Beginning in 1969, she wrote for True Detective magazine under the pen name "Andy Stack".

While volunteering at a suicide crisis hotline center in Seattle in 1971, Rule met Ted Bundy, a work-study student who was studying psychology at the University of Washington. After Bundy moved to Utah for law school, he was arrested in 1975 for kidnapping a young woman and later identified as a serial murderer with an unknown number of victims dating to at least 1974 if not earlier. During the time they worked together, Rule observed nothing disturbing in Bundy's personality, and saw him as "kind, solicitous, and empathetic".

Her first book, The Stranger Beside Me, is considered one of the most definitive biographies of Bundy. First published in 1980, the year Bundy was convicted of murder, the book was written under her own name rather than the pen name she had previously used. In the book, Rule reveals that Bundy told her the number of women he murdered was much larger than police believed. In 2003, Rule was portrayed by Barbara Hershey in the movie version of the book. The made-for-TV film adaptation also starred Billy Campbell as Bundy.

Rule's next three books, Lust Killer about Jerry Brudos, The Want-Ad Killer about Harvey Carignan, and The I-5 Killer about Randall Woodfield, were released with her pen name but following the success of the book about Bundy, they were re-released under her own name. Rule's 1987 work, Small Sacrifices, tells the story of Diane Downs, an Oregon woman who in May 1983 murdered her daughter and attempted to murder her other two children. The book was filmed for television in 1989, with Farrah Fawcett in an Emmy-nominated and Peabody-cited performance.

The 2024 Lifetime film Danger in the Dorm, starring Bethenny Frankel, is inspired by one of the earliest true crime short stories written by Rule. The narrative is based on a series of real-life attacks that occurred at Oregon State University in the 1970s. While the film's setting was shifted to the 1990s, the actual historical events involved attacks on three female students on campus. Two of the women were assaulted, and the violence culminated in the murder of 18-year-old Nancy Wyckoff.