"Sometimes those you think you know turn out to be more treacherous than you ever imagined." Ann Rule: Mortal Danger and Other True Cases.

As a former Seattle Police Officer and renowned True Crime Author, Ann Rule has focused her career on educating the public about criminal behavior. She has taught women, men and the criminal justice community at large how to ferret out and identify antisocial personalities. She has published more than 30 True Crime books focused on advising others on how seemingly innocent and unassuming people evolve into psychopaths and how they cleverly mask their dysfunctional behaviors. If you are shocked when hearing that the alleged Craigslist killer, Phillip Markoff, could be a clean cut, white, educated man with a bright future... you haven't listened to Ann Rule's rules.

Ann Rule's True Crime books clearly show how psychopaths come in many shapes and forms. The psychopath could be: a family man (Brad Cunningham; Dead By Sunset), female (Diane Downs; Small Sacrifices), middle class with no apparent signs of dysfunction (Randall Woodfield, The I-5 Killer), a doctor (Dr. Debora Green; Bitter Harvest), a lawyer (Thomas J. Capano; And Never Let Her Go), someone with ongoing mental disorders (Jerry Brudos, The Lust Killer), a blue collar factory worker (Gary Ridgway, Green River, Running Red, I.Q. of 82), or an educated, personable, civic-minded volunteer who Ann herself labeled once as her "friend" (Ted Bundy; The Stranger Beside Me).

Is the public supposed to be shocked that the alleged Craigslist Killer is a white, medical student who is engaged to be married? The media has been resolutely selling the Craigslist Killer story by portraying the alleged killer as "ordinary." A deluge of comments to articles and blogs about this news story reflect a widespread notion that normal people don't kill. It seems the media is telling their audiences that psychopaths come wrapped in a package that says "beware," which is highly misleading-ask Ann. The purpose of writing True Crime, especially with highly acclaimed authors such as Ann Rule, is not shock and awe. True Crime is a genre that may be unnerving for some to read but its intent is to educate people and hopefully deter the chance for innocent people to fall prey and become potential victims.