This is exactly right.

This story contains adult content and language.

Listener discretion is advised.

Scarpetta had other thoughts in store. She said, you don't even know what you don't know. If a

fictional character could talk, that is what she would say to me.

I'm Kate Winkler Dawson, a nonfiction author and journalism professor in Austin, Texas.

I'm also the co-hosts of the podcast, Buried Bones on Exactly Right.

And throughout my career, research for my many audio and book projects has taken me around the world.

On Wicked Words, I sit down with the people I've met along the way,

amazing writers, journalists, filmmakers, and podcasters who have investigated and reported

on notorious true crime cases. This is about the choices writers make, both good and bad,

and it's a deep dive into the unpublished details behind their stories.

I've interviewed quite a few authors who are inspired by real people or real crimes,

and then they write these fantastic novels.

Patricia Cornwell's iconic character, Dr. K. Scarpetta, has a legion of fans because of how clever she is as a medical

examiner, how she solves the mystery. Cornwell was working with Virginia's first female

M.E. Dr. Marcella Fierro, and she was an invaluable source to a young writer.

I got into Scarpetta's world and into post-mortem in a way that's probably different than a lot of people who sort of fictionalize a true crime story.

Truman Capote being the best example of that, where you don't know, when you read in cold blood, it's very hard to know what's true and what isn't actually true, because it's

that kind of fictionalized real case. So I wasn't looking to do that with those crimes that were

committed in Richmond, what they're called the Southside Strangling Crimes murders that began in

1987. I'd written three books by then, all three are rejected.

...