Whenever a notorious serial killer is discussed, someone eventually asks the same question: “Did they have a head injury?” The answer is surprisingly often yes. But before we jump to conclusions, it’s important to understand what the research actually shows. Head trauma does not create serial killers. Millions of people suffer concussions, traumatic brain injuries, […]

Some killers have claimed they were driven by demons, forces, voices, urges, alter egos, or something beyond themselves. Whether those claims were delusion, manipulation, or excuse-making, they reveal something chilling: evil often tries to separate itself from responsibility. It says, That wasn’t me. That was the thing inside me. That idea sits at the heart

There are moments in life that divide everything into before and after. For me, one came a couple of months after a jury deadlocked in the trial of the man who assaulted me. We were waiting for a retrial, the date constantly being changed at the last minute. It was frustrating, and I’d had enough.

The Darkness in my trilogy is not the kind of monster that we’ve come to know. It is an ancient manipulator disguised as something familiar. In The Darkness, the entity that badgers Edward understands his weaknesses better than Edward understands them himself. It does not howl into the night, scrape at doors, or bang at

It took courage to walk into the county jail that day to face the man who’d raped me. I did not know what to expect; my worst fear was that he would refuse to see me, once again giving him the power. The main reason I was going was to regain my power. Sure, he