She was a former police officer and an American author of true crime books and articles.
She is best-known for The Stranger Beside Me.
It is about the serial killer Ted Bundy with whom she worked and who she considered a friend.
He was later revealed to be a murderer.
Her mother was a teacher, specializing in developmentally disabled children, and her father was a sports coach.
As a child, she was surrounded by relatives in law enforcement: two sheriffs, a prosecuting attorney and a medical examiner
On summer vacations Michigan, she helped her grandmother prepare meals for the prisoners that shared the same building as her grandparents lived.
“I would pass the tray through the slot in the pantry to the prisoners, and they were so nice,” she said in a 2004 interview. “So I would always ask my grandpa, ‘How come they’re locked up?’ I wanted to know why some kids grew up to be criminals and why other people didn’t. That is still the main thrust behind my books: I want to know why these things happen, and so do my readers.”
Later she earned an associate degree from Highline Community College in Des Moines, Washington. She also attended the University of Washington, studying creative writing, criminology, and psychology.
She worked as a law enforcement officer for the Seattle Police Department.
In 1969, she wrote for True Detective magazine under the pen name "Andy Stack".
She met Ted Bundy while volunteering at a suicide crisis hotline center in Seattle in 1971.
Bundy was a work-study student who was studying psychology at the University of Washington.
He moved to Utah for law school.
He was arrested in 1975 for kidnapping a young woman and later identified as a serial murderer with dozens of victims dating to at least 1974 if not earlier.
Rule observed nothing disturbing in Bundy's personality, and saw him as "kind, solicitous, and empathetic".
Her first book, The Stranger Beside Me, was first published in 1980, the year Bundy was convicted of murder.
At first she refused to believe that Bundy was the killer.
“For a long time I was holding out hope that he was innocent, that somehow this all was a terrible mistake,” she said in an interview in 2003. “And it wasn’t just me, it was all the people who worked with him.”
After Bundy escaped from jail and went on a killing spree in Florida, she changed her mind.
48 Hours Mystery in April 2012, covered Rule's successful effort to help a mother prove her daughter's 1998 death was actually a murder.
The book was In the Still of the Night.
She had four children, including author Leslie Rule. Rule's family also included a foster son
She was married to Bill Rule, whom she divorced in 1972.
April 2015 two of her sons, Michael Rule and Andrew Rule, had been charged with crimes related to the theft of money from her.
Both sons had taken "more than $100,000 from her.
Michael Rule, 51, is charged with first-degree theft and forgery.
He is accused of writing checks from Rule's bank account totaling $103,628.
Andrew Rule, 54, also charged with first-degree theft, is accused of convincing his mother to give him $23,327.
She had been in declining health since October 2013 as a result of her broken hip.
She was on oxygen at all times and was suffering from extreme confusion.
She was unable to perform many activities of daily living without assistance.
She went to the emergency room for treatment due to a heart attack.
Rule had been moved to hospice care one day before she died.
She died on July 26, 2015, as a result of congestive heart failure.
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