About this item
The bestselling author of Under Cover of the Night recounts Laura Ackerson's disappearance and murder in North Carolina, the discovery of her remains in Texas, and the aftermath ... On July 13, 2011, Laura Jean Ackerson of Kinston, North Carolina, went to pick up her two toddler sons. It would be the last time she was seen alive... Two weeks later, detectives searching for the missing mother made a gruesome discovery on the shores of Oyster Creek near Richmond, Texas - the dismembered body parts of a young woman whom they were able to identify as Laura Ackerson. Laura's ex, Grant Hayes - the father of her two sons - and his wife, Amanda, the mother of his newborn daughter, both pointed the finger at each other as the one guilty of murdering Laura, cutting up her body, and then transporting and disposing of the remains.
About the Author
I am the author of fourteen true crime books published by St. Martin's Press and Berkley Books including the Edgar Award nominated WRITTEN IN BLOOD and the best-selling MOMMY'S LITTLE GIRL. For the work I began with THROUGH THE WINDOW, I received the "Defender of Innocence" award from the Downstate Illinois Innocence Project. My latest true crime is BITTER REMAINS. Additionally, I have written ten mystery novels including five in the Lucinda Pierce series from Severn House. The latest is CHAIN REACTION.I have been featured on 48 Hours, 20/20, The Today Show, Biography, Forensic Files, Deadly Women,Behind Mansion Walls, Deadly Sins, On the Case with Paula Zahn, Justice with Judge Jeanine, MSNBC News, Court TV, Issues with Jane Velez-Mitchell, the Discovery Channel and local TV channels and have been interviewed on dozens of radio stations coast to coast. I am an experienced non-fiction, fiction and commercial writer. I earned more than seventy Addy Awards in the twenty years I wrote for radio, television and print. I worked as an Executive Director at non-profit organizations for more than a dozen years. In that capacity, I served three terms by appointment of the Governor of Texas on the State Advisory Committee and received the 2002 NACG Freedom Fighter Award.I was born in Baltimore, Maryland, lived more than two decades in Virginia, lived in New Braunfels, Texas, for another two and am now back in the shadow of the Blue Ridge mountains in Bedford, Virginia, with my husband and a sheltie named Emmitt Otter.
