I have timelines taped to my office wall. Newspaper articles from thirty years ago sit beside court filings, police reports, handwritten notes, maps, photographs, interview transcripts, and legal documents. I can spend hours trying to answer a single question, only to discover the answer creates three more.

I’ve learned that one sentence in a forgotten document can change everything.

One phone call can send months of research in a new direction.

One witness can remember a detail no one has talked about in decades.

That’s both the beauty and the frustration of narrative nonfiction.

Unlike fiction, you don’t get to invent the bridge between two facts.

If you don’t know, you simply don’t know.

As a novelist, that’s incredibly uncomfortable.

Every instinct tells me to smooth the edges, fill the gaps, make the scene flow. But this story isn’t mine to shape. It belongs to the people who lived it. My job isn’t to improve history. My job is to understand it.

That has been one of the hardest lessons of my writing career.

I’ve also discovered something I never expected.

The book isn’t just about an unsolved murder anymore.

It’s about people.

It’s about a mother who has lived for decades without answers.

It’s about retired investigators who still remember the case as though it happened yesterday.

It’s about coworkers who have carried secrets, regrets, or unanswered questions for more than thirty years.

It’s about a community that has never completely let go.

And somewhere along the way, it became about me too.

I grew up just a few miles from where these events unfolded. I remember the billboards. I remember the whispers. I remember hearing Su’s name long before I understood who she really was.

Now, decades later, I’ve had the privilege of sitting across from the people who loved her, worked beside her, investigated her murder, and continue to search for answers. Those conversations stay with me long after I close my notebook.

Some are heartbreaking.

Some are hopeful.

Some have left me staring at the ceiling at two in the morning, replaying every word.

Research has become part of my daily life. A text message can arrive over dinner. A retired detective calls with a memory. Someone who has stayed silent for years suddenly decides they’re ready to talk. I never know when the next piece of the puzzle will appear.

That’s exciting.

It’s also emotionally exhausting.

But I wouldn’t trade it.

Because stories like Su’s deserve more than a list of facts. They deserve context. They deserve humanity. They deserve to remind us that before someone became a victim, they were a daughter, a friend, a coworker, a dreamer—a person whose life mattered.

That’s the book I’m trying to write.

Not a true crime book built on sensational headlines.

A story built on truth.

As close to the truth as thirty-four years of searching, questioning, listening, and learning can possibly get.

So if you’ve wondered why this book is taking so long, now you know.

I’m not just writing.

I’m verifying.

Cross-checking.

Interviewing.

Questioning.

Sometimes unlearning what I thought I knew.

And occasionally finding something that changes everything.