5 Writers Who Definitely Killed Someone

Mark “Chopper” Read
Australian gang leader and criminal Mark Read inflicted so much violence on others, including anywhere from four to nineteen murders, and spent so much time in prison (where he behaved just as violently), it’s a wonder he had time for anything else. And yet, he wrote several successful crime novels—and even a children’s book. To the end, he wasn’t particularly penitent; shortly before his death in 2013, he was quoted as saying, “Look, honestly, I haven’t killed that many people, probably about four or seven.”

Anne Perry
Perry (born Juliet Hulme), author of more than 75 novels, including the popular Thomas Pitt and William Monk crime series, helped her childhood friend Pauline Parker murder Parker’s mother in 1954. She and Parker had an unusually intense relationship, and were fully immersed a fictional mythological world they’d created together. They feared being separated, and when Parker’s mother threatened to do just that, they conspired to kill her in a most brutal fashion, luring her away from home on a hike and beating her to death with a brick. Only 15 years old at the time, Perry could not be tried as an adult; she and Parker were imprisoned for just five years. Perry changed her name after her release, and even after launching her writing career, few realized who she was until 1994, when Peter Jackson made a movie based on the murder, Heavenly Creatures. Perry continues to write, and has stated in interviews that she repented while in jail, sought forgiveness from God, and wishes she could leave her past behind her.

James Tiptree, Jr.
Alice Bradley Sheldon wrote under the pen name James Tiptree, Jr. because she believed she had a better chance at publishing and selling her science fiction work with a male name; she successfully fooled her fans for nearly a decade before anyone figured it out. Never a happy person, her depression deepened in her later years. As her husband’s health failed, she became his primary caretaker. As early as 1976, when Sheldon was 60 years old, she spoke of wishing to end her life. In 1987, she finally did so, first murdering her husband and then shooting herself while lying in bed next to him, holding his hand. The suicide note she left behind had been composed years earlier.

William S. Burroughs
One supposes that living with William S. Burroughs brought with it an element of danger no matter who you were, but being his wife probably carried the most risk—a fact proved in 1951, when Burroughs killed his wife Joan Vollmer. The two had been estranged for some time, and were never formally married; their union was common-law. Burroughs shot Vollmer as she balanced a tumbler of water on her head; Burroughs initially claimed they were drunkenly reenacting the legend of William Tell, then later said he was showing his pistol to interested buyers when it went off accidentally. Either way, he never denied killing her, and he was ultimately convicted of manslaughter for the crime.

Michael Peterson
Peterson is hardly a household name; the author of just a handful of published books, he was also a journalist in North Carolina. His novels were based on his experiences in the military in Vietnam, which he was later found to have partially fabricated, claiming medals and injuries that did not actually happen—which isn’t too surprising when you consider he was also convicted of murdering his second wife in 2001, and is suspected of having murdered a family friend in 1987. Peterson’s conviction was later overturned, and many people believe he was wrongfully accused; he settled a civil suit filed against him by his wife’s estate in 2007 without admitting guilt.