I've had some very strange and hard-to-believe experiences. But for those who know me in real life... that's just my life.
I was just this small-town Alabama girl with an organic following who was able to sort of claw my way up and carve out my own path, even if it was just a tiny bit compared to the giants of the true crime world.
Recently, I shared my story in a casual four-part series about how I got into true crime. Though I can come across as a bit gruff at times, it wasn't meant to be a résumé of my career or a chance to brag. It was simply my way of being more transparent after a five-year absence and sharing the experiences that shaped me, why I care about these stories, and the opportunities I had to research cases, write professionally, and help tell some of those stories on television.
Along the way, there were accomplishments, setbacks, and bitter disappointments. I never tried to be a celebrity, but I have always appreciated having my work acknowledged and seen. Working behind the scenes, researching cases, writing professionally, and appearing on television are all part of my story.
Looking back now, I realize that despite the difficulties of working in the true crime business—and despite losing my daughter to crime—I still have a voice, and my work still matters.
So, what's next?
Well, baby, I'm back.
Let's go back in time and revisit some of the unforgettable true crime cases, the movies based on true stories, the crimes that inspired them, and the stories you've probably never heard before.
Why I Got Into True Crime (Parts 1 & 2)
One of the things I wanted to talk about today was how I got into true crime. I thought that was an interesting topic to talk about today, so I could warm up the channel after such a long absence.
So why do people go down the rabbit hole of true crime? Usually, it's because something happened. Maybe something happened to someone close to you. Maybe it was that one case in your community that made you want to become a journalist or a reporter.
Some people tackle the subject of true crime in their crime books. There are crime authors like Anne Rule. Then you have prosecutors and attorneys like Nancy Grace and so many other people who get into it because they want to fight for justice.
For me, it wasn't so much about fighting for justice. It was about remembering the victim, telling his story or her story, and understanding how they became victims.
Some of you have read my pieces about victims over the years, and you've seen my content. At times, I've also explored why people kill, why they become murderers, and the circumstances that led to those events.
But let's go back to what led me here—what led me into true crime storytelling and true crime research.
Funeral Homes and My Childhood Curiosity
When I was thinking about doing this piece, I remembered that me talking about dead people and being interested in them goes all the way back to when I was a little girl.
I used to go to funeral homes.
My grandmother took me to funeral homes, and I would view the people. I know that sounds morbid, ridiculous, and probably even crazy, right?
But it was something I wanted to do.
My grandmother isn't around anymore, so I don't really remember how it all started. I do remember asking her if we could go inside. I kind of remember her looking at me and thinking, "Why? What for?"
But she took me in and satisfied my curious mind, I guess.
We used to go for walks.
Whenever I'd spend the night with my grandmother, we'd go to town. In Birmingham, that's what we called it—going to town.
We'd catch the bus, and sometimes we'd have to walk a block or so to the next bus stop before heading downtown. We'd shop at Parisians, Pizitz, and have breakfast at Woolco... Thinking back, it was actually Woolworth's where they had the old-fashioned diner. We'd have donuts, omelets, or whatever it was we ate. I don't remember.
As I was thinking about this story, I kept trying to remember which funeral home it was.
I still don't know.
But we would walk past it, and I must have asked her,
"Well, what is that?"
She must have said,
"Well, that's where the dead people are."
Then I must have asked,
"Can we go in?"
My grandmother wasn't really the type to do foolish things, so I think she was simply satisfying my curious mind.
Before long, it became a routine.
There were a few times when I saw people lying there, and it made me wonder what had happened to them.
Who were they?
You know, it was the first time I understood that life comes to an end—and sometimes abruptly.
I wanted to know their story.
I wanted to know what had happened to them.
We did that for a number of years, and when I think about how I got into true crime, I would say my interest started then.
By the time I was a teenager, there were a lot of cases in the news, and there was one in particular that caught my attention.
It was about a group of teenagers who had been involved in an accident. Their faces were plastered all over the nightly news. I think there were four or five of them.
I remember thinking they were about my age, and I really felt for them.
But I was also wondering who they were.
What was their backstory?
Why were they out that time of night?
I think we were around the same age, and I was just very curious about it.
I remember clipping newspaper articles and keeping them folded in my drawer.
My parents probably thought I was nuts.
They probably thought I was crazy because I always had an interest in things like that. I'm sure it seemed morbid.
But you know what?
You don't really know what your kids are interested in.
Sometimes it isn't anything bad.
Sometimes they're simply curious.
Sometimes that curiosity turns into a career, a hobby, or a lifelong passion.
Looking back now, I realize it's important to find out what your kids are curious about and nurture that curiosity in a healthy way, if possible.
But back to how I got into true crime.
As a teenager, I couldn't stop thinking about that story.
Everybody was talking about it.
What made the story so interesting—and so newsworthy—was that there had been some sort of mix-up involving the identities of the bodies.
There was only one survivor, and she eventually told her story. I think it took her a very long time to recover.
Looking back, I think my interest in true crime was beginning to deepen.
I kept clipping those newspaper articles and saving them for years.
My First Love's Murder
I would have to say the biggest thing that sort of set me down the road of true crime was the murder of my first love, who was murdered in broad daylight. He was living a lifestyle that I would say today was pretty risky.
Now, let me clarify something.
I say he was my first love because he was my first love, and I thought he was gorgeous. He was tall, dark-skinned, had full lips, and stood 6'4". My husband is 6'1", but this guy was 6'4" and had been a basketball player and a football player at one time.
I was madly in love with him. That drove my parents crazy. I mean, they were driven crazy over it because my first love was crazy cool but dangerous, and people really looked at him with fear.
I wasn't allowed to date him. I was not allowed to date anybody. I was a preacher's daughter, and I wasn't allowed to go out. So I had to sneak out of the house to see him.
Yeah, I was one of those kids.
I only had about 30 minutes to an hour to see him. I drove my parents absolutely crazy.
I really did.
Now that I'm a parent myself, I know what they were going through. But I was a kid, and I wanted to express myself. I was used to being in a religious environment and being very sheltered. I wanted to know more. I wanted to know more about life. I wanted to go out.
When I think back, I was never really supposed to have met him. He had been held back from graduating the year before, so when I entered my freshman year, I fell deeply in love with him the first time I saw him sitting on the bleachers. My close friend, who was a popular cheerleader at the time, introduced me to him.
She also died tragically a few short years later.
Back to my first love.
So, yes... his life ended.
And the curious thing about it was that I dreamed someone had shot him years earlier.
And I told him.
This is something I do not talk about. I've told a couple of people who know me in real life, but it's not something I talk about very often. I don't talk about it because it was just one of those things that sounds crazy.
It sounds woo-woo.
It sounds like I'm making it up.
I was about 15 or 16 when I told him, and I remember that day vividly. He was kind of reclined, leaning back, and I told him, "I dreamed someone shot you last night." Then I motioned with my hand what happened.
He was shocked.
I remember him sitting up on his arms and saying, "Don't tell me anything like that."
He said, "Don't tell me that, Shawty." That's what he called me. "Shorty"—but he pronounced it "Shawty," being from Chicago originally.
And I said, "Well, I did. That's what I dreamed. I dreamed it happened right up the street from your house."
And guess what?
It happened.
As I think back, it was about four years later. I was 16 when I told him this, and I was 16 the last time I saw him. He sort of distanced himself from me after that, most likely because it freaked him out.
I really didn't take it seriously at the time.
I'm not claiming to be some psychic person who knows everything. Clearly, I don't.
But I do have intuitive nudges and thoughts, and I have had dreams that did sort of come true.
Now, at 55, I really believe that if he had taken that as a warning, it probably could have saved his life.
When I knew him, he was not yet embarking on the dangerous lifestyle he would later live, years after he had distanced himself from me.
Sometimes I wonder if he remembered what I told him. Did he take it seriously, or did he just think I was some crazy person he needed to distance himself from?
Sometimes I think he believed I was just crazy.
But looking back, I believe it was clearly a warning that could have saved his life.
I consider him my first love. I don't know that he considered me one of his girlfriends. I don't think he did because, like I said, I wasn't allowed to go out with him.
I could only steal away moments with him.
By that time, he was dating freely. He was older than me, so he was able to do whatever he wanted. None of his friends, classmates, or schoolmates ever saw me with him or even saw me in the car with him, other than the times they dropped him off at the curb in front of my house when he came to see me in the middle of the night, or the times I'd sneak out of my bedroom window and walk to his house to see if I could find him when he didn't show up.
My lifestyle was not intertwined with his.
I really didn't know much about him. I had met his mother a couple of times and talked to her on the phone, but I didn't really know a lot about him other than the fact that I knew he was probably into things he shouldn't have been.
I would tell him, "Let's run away together."
I was one of those girls who wanted to help fix the guy. I wanted to help him. I'd say, "Let's pack our bags and run away together."
Not so I could be his ride or die or help him with anything illegal.
No, quite the opposite.
I wanted him out of that dangerous lifestyle. I wanted to feed him, hug him, and love him. In my mind and heart, I believed that was enough to make him want to leave street life behind.
That was my way of thinking back then, at 15 and 16.
And yes, sneaking out of the house at night could have ended like a Lifetime movie. My actions put everyone in the house in danger. Looking back, I am remorseful for being that reckless back then.
I did not go to his funeral.
I didn't.
But I did go see him at the Lumzy Funeral Home in Bessemer, Alabama. That was the first time I had seen him in five years.
There he was.
I remember investigating and taking notes. I was asking how they had prepared him. I asked what injuries he had sustained. I was doing my own little investigation, putting the clues together.
They were very patient with me.
I believe I went on the morning of his funeral. I remember getting there as soon as they opened, and no one was there. I think everyone had come to see him the night before, so I'm pretty sure this was the morning of his services.
I had to go to work afterward.
So I decided to sit there for a while.
I just sat there and watched him.
Finally, after about an hour, one of the men came in and said,
"There's nothing you can do for him now.
You should go."
And I did.
I remember walking up to him and placing my hand on his chest.
Then I turned around and walked down the long hallway.
Right before I left, I turned around one last time... I looked back.
If I've been somewhere for a while and I want to remember the moment, I'll look back one last time before I leave.
I wanted that moment seared into my memory.
I know it's dramatic, but if you know me, then you know I really am this dramatic.
After that, we were devastated.
It was horrible.
And that's when I really started my own little investigation.
I looked up his best friend and called him. He remembered exactly who I was. My first love had introduced us once when his best friend visited the high school. We exchanged notes and talked about what had happened.
Then I met one of my first love's girlfriends at the time. I think there was more than one, but the one I talked to was a very nice lady. We talked about him and exchanged stories.
I started writing down details—what happened, when it happened—and eventually I went to court.
I found out who the defendant was, went to the arraignment, and actually got the chance to talk to the man accused of killing him.
Now, this is going to sound weird, and I still don't know how it happened.
I don't even know why he was out.
But it was arraignment day, and when I got there, he was standing in the hallway waiting.
Don't ask me why.
I honestly don't know why he wasn't under arrest.
I walked right up to him.
I asked,
"Why did you do that?
Why did you kill him?"
Like I was an investigator.
Like I was an interrogator.
He killed my first love during a visit to Alabama. I learned that he was from out West, as I recall.
The tall, thin, ruddy-colored guy just looked at me.
I still don't know how I knew it was him because I had never seen him before.
But I knew it was.
He looked at me and said,
"Who are you?
How do you know me?
How do you know who I am?"
It was awkward. I wasn't dressed like a reporter, so it probably freaked him out having this tiny, young woman he'd never seen before confronting him about her first love.
But I was taking all of it in.
I was a reporter.
I just didn't know it yet.
Everything was over by then. To be honest with you, I don't know if there was ever a trial. He may have pleaded guilty. I really don't know.
After that, I went to the medical examiner's office and pulled the file.
That was the first time I had ever done anything like that.
I wanted to read the report.
I wanted to see the autopsy photos.
I wanted to know how it happened.
When it happened.
What position was the body?
I'm doing all of this at 20 years old.
I had absolutely no idea what I was doing.
I just knew I wanted answers.
I kept a folder on the case.
I showed my mom his death folder. She was horrified. She said, "Traciy, at least throw away the photos."
I did throw them away.
In my work, I prefer not to view autopsy photos.
But I remember as plain as day the way he was dressed and lying on the table with gunshot wounds to the body. Back in the early 1990s, I was able to obtain those photographs from the Jefferson County Coroner's Office without a subpoena.
As sorry as I felt that he was gunned down, the decision not to see him again was the best decision, and I knew that—even back then.
Eventually, I got over his death. It took me nearly a year.
Once I learned how to investigate that case, I started keeping files on two other Alabama cases as well.
After filming this episode, I learned that the man who ended my first love's life pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 20 years in prison. I was later told that he may have served about ten years, but I was never able to confirm that with the Alabama Department of Corrections.
Even after all these years, I'm still conflicted about whether I want to publish the real names.
I might decide to publish them someday, when I'm comfortable doing so, simply to document the story as accurately as I can.
To this day, he doesn't know who I am, and quite frankly, I don't want him to know my identity.
Anyway...
That's my story.
That's the moment I stopped simply reading about true crime and started investigating it myself.
This article is the written companion to my YouTube series
My own dangerous experience led me to bring the real stories behind Lifetime TV’s most classic true story movies to the internet.
We watched these movies on NBC, ABC, and CBS as Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday Night Movies of the Week---long before many of them began airing on Lifetime.
Being a rebellious preacher’s daughter meant that I would deliberately disobey many of the things I was taught. But because of that strict upbringing, I still had “some” boundaries that I didn’t dare cross.
I was always standing on the sidelines, on the periphery, just outside the circumstances, while having a deep curiosity about the worlds around me. I wanted to observe these subcultures and marginalized communities.
1994 was that time for me.
A time to explore.
A time to rebel.
A time to think about what I wanted without thinking about the religious community that I had been such a part of.
The following experience taught me yet another steep lesson---and ultimately led me to researching true crime stories and the movies based on them.
This clip is from Part 3: How I Started True Crime.
The Article & Transcript
A Dangerous Encounter Led Me To Find the Basis of Lifetime Movies Based on True Stories (Part 3)
It was 1994, and I was living in a very small apartment. I was skating and dating. A friend invited me out to the skating rink that summer.
They really had to pull me out of the house because, even back then, I was a homebody.
So I said, “Okay, I’ll go.”
And when I got there, I loved it.
I was standing on the sidelines, and I became fascinated with the stars of the skating rink.
Sunday and Tuesday nights were adult skate nights, as I recall.
If you know anything about the Black skating rink scene, it was almost like a nightclub. You had the stars of that club—the skaters everyone had their eye on.
I remember standing on the sidelines in awe. It was very different from the people I had been around, and I liked it.
That was the attraction.
Being a rebellious preacher’s daughter meant that I would deliberately disobey many of the things I was taught. But because of that strict upbringing, I still had some boundaries that I didn’t dare cross.
I was always standing on the sidelines, on the periphery, just outside the circumstances, while having a deep curiosity about the worlds around me.
I wanted to observe these subcultures and marginalized communities.
1994 was that time for me.
A time to explore.
A time to rebel.
A time to think about what I wanted without thinking about the religious community that I had been such a part of.
For almost a month, I studied them.
I studied the best skaters.
There were people there from all walks of life. There were rappers, musicians, artists, and poets.
The exotic dancers would come on Sunday and Tuesday nights to skate when they were not working in the clubs.
At the time, I was fascinated with the exotic dancers. They danced and skated beautifully.
They were sensual, bold, and bodacious. They were unafraid and unapologetic—living out loud and unafraid to be themselves.
That was attractive to me.
But let me be clear: I was observing them. I was fascinated by their confidence, their style, their movement, and their freedom of expression.
It was admiration, not imitation.
I wasn’t trying to become an exotic dancer. I was inspired by what I saw—the confidence, the presence, the way they carried themselves.
I watched them, and I learned from their movements. I incorporated some of that style into my own personality and my own fashion while adding my own flair.
It was all very exciting at the time because I was in my early 20s.
I would go home and practice every night. I had a wooden floor in that apartment, and I would put on my skates and practice skating and dancing.
I remember the first time I got out on the floor, two of the experts watched me.
They studied my movements.
One of them—I’ll never forget —looked at me and said, “You can skate.”
Then he asked, “Where did you learn how to skate?”
I said, “I’ve been watching you guys.”
And that was it.
I got involved, and it became one of the most exhilarating and exciting experiences of my life.
But like any group — and I used to teach my daughter this—with any group, there are always going to be problems.
The problems I was having were really with people outside of that group.
I think they were wondering:
“Who is this? Where did she come from? And why is she suddenly with these people — the stars of the rink?”
For a long time, I would run into people, and they would say:
“Aren’t you that girl from the skating rink? Didn’t you used to go skating?”
And I would say:
“Yeah, that was me.”
I enjoyed it until I didn’t.
I had been invited to a barbecue by one of my girlfriends from the rink.
Little did I know, someone I had problems with was there--another jealous girl whose man found me attractive.
Again, I had no interest in him.
The argument started over something very silly. The truth is, I think I had been invited there because the girl wanted to confront me.
The girl in question towered over me and ran toward me with a barbell in her hand.
I didn’t back down.
I stood up to her.
If I remember correctly, my friend’s mother was at the house that day. She heard the commotion and stepped in, breaking up what could have ended up being a fatal encounter.
Yeah.
I will never forget that.
Mind you, I had never seen a Lifetime movie, but my life was starting to feel like one.
And that was the moment I realized this was not only becoming too much for me--it was becoming dangerous.
The next Sunday night, I was getting ready to go to the skating rink.
But that particular night, I didn’t feel it.
I didn’t want to go.
I even had butterflies in my stomach. There was just this overall feeling of dread.
And I thought:
“Okay, I’m supposed to be having fun here. So why do I have butterflies? Why am I stressed out over going somewhere that is supposed to be fun?”
I remember looking in the mirror.
I had on black lipstick and a fake nose ring.
And I said:
“Okay, if you don’t want to go, then why are you going?”
That was the message that came to me.
I didn’t hear it as an actual voice. It was more like an impression--I got the impression of what the message was.
And the message was:
“If you don’t want to go to the skating rink anymore, then don’t go. You don’t have to. Who’s forcing you? You don’t have to go.”
And I remember looking in the mirror and saying to myself:
“I don’t have to.”
I took off my skates.
I took off my Daisy Dukes.
I unlaced my thigh-high black combat boots.
I took the skates off my shoulder and hung them up in the closet for the last time.
I said:
“It’s too much for me.”
I sat down in my big cushy chair--the only chair I had in that apartment at the time--and I turned on the television.
There was a movie on.
The announcer said:
“This movie is based on a true story. All of the names and locations have been changed. Viewer discretion is advised.”
And I said:
“Oh, what is this?”
It had to be the Missy Avila case because I saw a scene of some girls fighting and dragging her to the lake, trying to drown her.
They were jealous because she was pretty. One of the boys liked her.
But I was struck by that scene.
When I saw that movie and saw that it was based on a true story, I wrote it down.
I said:
“Okay, who is it based on?”
Because they had changed the names.
I’m sorry
And that became my routine.
Every Sunday and Tuesday, I was getting my chips and my root beer and watching these movies.
I started compiling them.
I started making folders with the name of the movie, the names in the movie, and then I started looking at what probably were the facts of the case.
I kept building that folder until I had a folder full of movies.
This went on for about two or three weeks.
Finally, my girlfriend called me.
She said:
“Girl, where are you? You haven’t been going skating. We’re missing you. We’re waiting for you.”
And I said:
“I’m not coming. I am done. I am finished with that.”
I am the type of person---I can put up with something for a while---but once I’m finished, I’m finished.
It is over.
Period.
I didn’t go back.
I stopped going just like that.
And I didn’t regret it because I was now trying to find these movies.
I had quietly started a private obsession from that tiny apartment.
What I didn’t realize at the time was that leaving the skating rink was the start of a possible new career path.
By late 1995, I was married and working in the medical billing department at a lab in Birmingham.
I was still trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life.
It wasn’t clicking yet that I wanted to be an investigator, a researcher, or something involving victims and true crime.
I had no idea that all of these little things I was doing---collecting information, researching, finding connections, and putting pieces together---were actually leading me somewhere.
At the time, I was just curious.
I was working at the lab full-time, and then at night I was going to JCPenney, where I did girls’ makeup and worked as the counter manager for Iman Cosmetics.
It was boring and unfulfilling.
I remember passing the time at my day job by filing my nails, doing my hair, and fixing my lipstick.
I was young, and I was still trying to figure out where I belonged.
I remember there was this girl there named Jenny.
Jenny was an avid book reader.
She was an intellectual.
She didn’t really like being there either.
I was the youngest one there. Everyone else was in their 40s, and I was in my 20s.
She was always scolding me about how I needed to take life more seriously and stop worrying so much about my hair and my makeup.
But Jenny also noticed something about me.
She noticed my folders.
I was showing her all of my research.
She said:
“You like true crime.”
And I said:
“What?”
She said:
“True crime.”
And I said:
“What is true crime?”
She said:
“It’s a genre.”
The next day, she came to work with this huge box of true crime books.
There were books by Ann Rule in there.
But the one book that really stood out to me was a book about the Black Dahlia.
Actually, it wasn’t an entire book. It was an anthology---a crime anthology.
I was fascinated with that case.
It was so interesting, and I remember thinking it was such a page-turner.
What I know now is that those books were old Reader’s Digest crime books.
When I got those true crime books, I was fascinated because I had never been exposed to anything like that before.
Growing up, I was mostly exposed to religious books.
My parents took me to the library, of course, when I was little and when I was a teenager, to get books for school or to read literature.
But true crime books were not the kind of books my parents were going to buy for me.
So I didn’t know about them.
Jenny looked at what I was doing and said:
“You need to go to the library.”
Because back then, I was already researching Stevie Nicks.
I had no idea that I was also becoming what people would later call a celebrity blogger or a celebrity writer.
I was just following my interests.
I would go to the library to research Stevie Nicks---where she lived, information about her career, and different things about her life.
I was gathering facts, collecting information, and putting things together.
I was also doing research on Michael Jackson and other celebrities.
Back in the 1990s, we had something similar to what people have today with Facebook groups.
We had AOL groups.
AOL groups were online communities where people connected over shared interests. We talked about celebrities, shared information, and sometimes even connected with people who had personal experiences with them.
So researching and digging for information was already something I enjoyed doing.
The librarian noticed that.
She said:
“What is all of that you have?”
She said:
“Every week I see you, you have these files and folders.”
And I said:
“Well, I told you.”
She said:
“I know about Stevie Nicks…I know you’re looking up Stevie Nicks.”
And I said:
“Yes. But I’m also looking up movies.”
And she said:
“Tell me about it.”
And she was genuinely interested in what I was doing.
I told her:
“I’m looking at these movies, and they’re telling me that they’re based on a true story, but they’re not giving me the name.”
And she said:
“You know what you need to do? I’m going to show you a database.”
She said:
“Do you know about the internet?”
And I said:
“The what?”
She said:
“The internet.”
And I said:
“No. Show me.”
So she put in this AOL disc and showed me the internet.
Back then, it was completely different.
We had to stand up at the counter. We only had about 15 or 20 minutes to use it, so you had to know what you were doing.
And I’m telling you---it was a gold mine.
Because back in the 1990s, not many people had the internet.
They didn’t have their own computers. A lot of people didn’t even know what the internet was.
My family was one of the first ones, I think, to get a computer and have AOL internet.
So when I got access to those databases, it was a whole new world.
Because the newspaper articles being written about these murder cases were not online.
We didn’t know anything about the Kirsten Costas case or the Missy Avila case.
But when I got into those databases, sometimes I would find newspaper articles that had been written about them.
Sometimes there were no articles.
Sometimes all I could find were court records.
But I had already developed this ability to look at a movie and start putting the pieces together.
I was matching the movies to the true stories.
Now, I’m not going to sit here and say I was right about everything.
There were some I got wrong.
But I was right a lot.
I really started developing a talent for locating these cases.
Eventually, people started searching for movies based on true stories because of my site.
My site was one of the first---if not the first---sites specifically dedicated to matching movies with the true stories that inspired them.
People who have followed me since those days know this.
So the librarian looked at what I was doing and said:
“This is really interesting.”
She said:
“I have an idea for you.”
She told me:
“What you need to do is take your research and start a website.”
She showed me Geocities.
She explained:
“You take all of this information you have and put it on there.”
She showed me how to scan pictures and upload information.
She walked me through everything.
And that is how I started.
But here is the funny thing:
I had no idea people were actually going to see it.
I was just doing this for myself.
I thought I was creating a place to organize my research.
I didn’t realize that other people were going to find it.
Then people started writing me.
Especially after I found the true story behind the Missy Avila movie and pictures of her.
The Missy Avila family had their own website, which was rare back then because not many families had websites.
There may have been others, and I’m not saying I was the only person doing anything online.
But I was one of the first people specifically focusing on movies based on true stories and matching them to the real cases.
I thought:
“Oh my goodness. They can actually see this.”
I must have hit publish.
I had no idea.
I’m glad I didn’t write anything else before realizing that because people were reading it.
At first, I wasn’t writing my own articles.
I had my notes.
I was commenting on the cases.
But if I found a newspaper article about the case, I would post it because I wanted people to understand where the information came from.
Until one day, a major newspaper reporter contacted me.
He said:
“Why do you have my newspaper articles on your website?”
And I said:
“Oh, because I’m showing people the information.”
I said:
“I put your name on the article. I didn’t take credit for it.”
Your name is right there.
But he explained to me:
“That doesn’t matter. That’s my intellectual property.”
That was a huge learning experience for me.
I realized I didn’t understand everything about copyright and publishing.
He explained that I could reference the article, but I couldn’t just repost it.
So I removed the articles.
And that forced me to learn how to do my own research.
I taught myself how to take these cases, go to different sources, and compile my own information.
And as the site grew, something amazing started happening.
People began contacting me.
They would say:
“I’m related to that person.”
or
“I knew that person.”
They would send me information, corrections, and tips.
Sometimes I would put up a note saying:
“I’m looking for the true story behind this movie.”
And someone would write:
“That movie is based on this person.”
And that is how the site grew.
Eventually, I learned how to write my own stories.
And all of this happened before Ivy was born.
I became pregnant in the summer of 1996, and I had Ivy in 1997.
I was so excited when I became a mother.
And sometimes she would go to the library with me while I researched these cases.
When I first started out, I was a blogger.
Today, people call them content creators.
And I had my own specialized lane.
That’s how I started true crime blogging---by researching movies based on true stories and stories inspired by real events.
At the time, I had no idea where this would lead.
I didn’t know that the little folders I was making in my apartment would eventually become a website.
I didn’t know that the things I was doing out of curiosity would become a career path.
Some of those first cases I found and researched were:
A Killer Among Friends---the Missy Avila Case
Death of a Cheerleader---the Bernadette Protti case.
And then there was the story about the murdered marine---A Matter of Justice---the Dusty Brown case.
It was a local Alabama case, and I went there, did some digging around, and I even had the opportunity to speak with the mother of that case.
My work on that case is still online.
Looking back, I realize I was already doing investigative work before I even
understood what that meant.
I was researching.
I was interviewing people.
I was connecting information.
I was documenting stories.
But at the time, I didn’t see myself that way.
I was just following something I was passionate about.
Eventually, I started realizing that this was more than just a hobby.
I was taking movies based on true stories and finding the real people, the real cases, and the real events behind them.
That became my specialty.
We were people sitting at computers, researching, writing, and building communities before social media made it common.
Before Wordpress.
Before YouTube channels dedicated to true crime.
Before podcasts became popular.
Before people were calling themselves true crime creators.
I was there.
It became exhausting.
When you write about real people, real victims, and real cases, there are complicated emotions involved.
You can make enemies.
Sometimes people in the movie industry don’t want you explaining where their inspiration came from.
Sometimes families of victims don’t want the story revisited.
Sometimes people don’t understand your intentions.
I wasn’t trying to expose anyone. I was curious. I wanted to know what happened and why.
My journey started right there in that tiny apartment.
But it would take several more years to truly decide that what I wanted most was to research and write.
To tell stories and make people remember the people who had been forgotten.
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