Born Ann Rae Stackhouse on the 22nd October 1931, in Lowell, Michigan USA, she was a writer best known to the world for the books “The Stranger Beside Me” (1980), “Small Sacrifices” (1987), “Bitter Harvest” among many others, all of which celebrated her as a writer in the true crime genre, and also increased her net worth. Her writing career was active from 1969 until her death in July 2015.
Have you ever wondered how rich Ann Rule was, at the time of her death? According to sources it was estimated that Ann Rule`s net worth was as high as $10 million, an amount she owed to her writing talents, as she published 35 books, all of which added to her net worth.
Ann Rule Net Worth $10 Million
Ann was a daughter of Chester R. Stackhouse who worked as a sports coach, and his wife Sophie Marie Hansen, who worked as a teacher focused on children with learning disabilities. During her teens, Ann spent summers at her grandparents, working as a volunteer in county jail, which certainly inspired her to start writing about crime, and serial killers.
Ann went to Coatesville High School in Chester County, Pennsylvania, and after she matriculated enrolled at Highline Community College in Des Montes, earning an associate degree. After that, she enrolled at the University of Washington, where she studied criminology, creative writing and psychology, which further encouraged her to start her writing career.
Before she became a successful writer, Ann worked as law enforcement officer for the Seattle Police Department. Also, she was a volunteer on the suicide crisis hotline based in Seattle, where she met Ted Bundy, who would later turn out to be a notorious serial killer, and the subject of her book “Stranger Beside Me”. Prior to the release of her first book, Ann wrote for True Detective magazine, but used the pseudonym Andy Stack.
After her first book and her initial success, Ann decided to pursue further her writing career, and by the end of the 1980s had released four more books, “The Lust Killer” (1983), “The Want-Ad Killer” (1983), “The I-5 Killer”, which subject is Randall Woodfield, and “Small Sacrifices” (1987), all of which increased further her net worth, as they became as popular as her first book.
In the 1990s, Ann started a series of books called Crime Files, with the first volume released in 1993 “A Rose for Her Grave and Other True Cases”. She published 16 volumes, with the last one being “Fatal Friends, Deadly Neighbors and Other True Cases” in 2012. Apart from that series, in the 1990s, she also published “Bitter Harvest” (1997), and “And Never Let Her Go” (1999).
Ann never stopped writing, and published “Every Breath You Take” (2001), “Green River, Running Red” (2004), “Too Late To say Goodbye” (2007), “In the Still of the Night” (2010), “Practice to Deceive” (2013), and her last creation “Lying in Wait” (2014), eventually almost 40 books in total, all of which added steadily to her net worth.
Regarding her personal life, Ann was married to Bill Rule, but the couple divorced in 1972. Ann had four children, one of whom is Leslie Rule, who is also an author. She passed away in July 2015 following a heart attack, in Burien, Washington State USA.
Ann suffered a heart attack, and died in hospital day after she was sent to hospice care.
