In the late 1990s in Poughkeepsie, New York, the bodies of prostitutes were piling up. Lt. Bill Siegrist knew a serial killer was preying on the women. Determined to stop any further killing, Siegrist followed a trail that led him to Kendall Francois, a middle school monitor with the nickname Stinky, because of his slovenly hygiene. When Francois was finally arrested for his crimes, police found seven bodies in the attic and crawl space of his house, with one woman still missing. A former columnist for the Arts and Leisure Section of the New York Times, Fred Rosen is a veteran true crime and history author of twenty-four published books. A native of Brooklyn, he became a writer at about 1 a.m. one night in 1977 at University of Southern California's film school. Earlier that morning, his editing professor, Ken Robinson, who later edited the film Purple Rain, challenged him. "You're supposed to be a writer," he said after sharply criticizing a script Rosen wrote for the class.