Written by Many people do not realize that our nation’s foremost author of true crime novels lives right in our area, and has had significant contact with King County and even Renton police through the years. (Wikipedia actually says she lives in Renton, but I think she lives closer to Puget Sound than that. Maybe I am mistaken about this.)
Ann Rule got her start as a short story author, writing about police cases in King County. As an author, she experienced the bizarre coincidence of serving as a crisis councilor on the Suicide Hotline with Ted Bundy, while she was writing a story about the unsolved “Ted” killings. Her story “The Stranger Beside Me” launched her national recognition, and also made her a leading expert on the psychology of serial killers.
One of her short stories covers the Gary Grant serial killings in Renton in the 70s. Victims were left in the Honey Creek Ravine (not far from my home), down by the Main Library, and on Benson Hill. Some amazing police work by the Renton police solved this series of killings. They managed to find the murder weapon in a deep woods with the aid of explorer scouts. The weapon was a knife with electricians tape around the handle. When the peeled the tape off the handle, they found initials on it. They then connected the initials to the knife’s original owner, who insisted he had traded the knife to someone else. When the “someone else” was contacted, he explained that he had left the knife in another person’s truck (if I remember the story correctly), and the owner of the truck was contacted. When interviewing this man, the police put it together that the man’s 19-year-old son had committed the four sex-related murders. This story is in her book “Empty Promises,” and is titled “To Kill and Kill Again”.
When I read this story last year, I mentioned it to my council colleague Don Persson, who had been a police officer in Renton at the time this serial killer was captured. Don could recall names and details as if the crime spree happened yesterday. Don said the events happened early in his career, and left some strong memories.
Ann Rule has an interesting website that includes a blog she updates every few days.
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