Lise Olsen: On Uncovering Secrets Through Investigating
In this interview, author Lise Olsen discusses her commitment to investigating America’s backlog of unidentified and missing persons with her new nonfiction book, The Scientist and the Serial Killer.
Lise Olsen is an investigative reporter and editor and the award-winning author of Code of Silence and The Scientist and the Serial Killer. Her reports have contributed to the prosecutions of a former congressman and a federal judge, inspired laws and reforms, helped solve cold cases and identify murder victims, and freed wrongfully held prisoners. Her writing has appeared in the Texas Observer, NBC News,the Houston Chronicle, Texas Monthly and elsewhere. She is featured in Netflix’s The Texas Killing Fields, Paramount+’s The Pillowcase Murders, CNN’s The Wrong Man, and the A&E series "The Eleven." She lives near Houston, Texas, where she and her husband raised two boys of their own. Follow her on X (Twitter), Facebook, and Instagram.
In this interview, Lise discusses her commitment to investigating America’s backlog of unidentified and missing persons with her new nonfiction book, The Scientist and the Serial Killer, her hope for readers, and more.
Name: Lise Olsen
Literary agent: Susan Canavan, Waxman Literary Agency
Book title: The Scientist and the Serial Killer: The Search for Houston’s Lost Boys
Publisher: Random House
Release date: April 1, 2025
Genre/category: Nonfiction /True Crime
Previous titles: Code of Silence
Elevator pitch: The Scientist and the Serial Killer is the gripping, upside-down detective story of a modern forensic anthropologist, who, determined to close the cases of the notorious 1970s serial killer Dean Corll, deploys science and sleuthing to identify victims who had become known as the Lost Boys of Houston. It’s an unforgettable narrative of forensic science, missing persons, and unsolved crimes by award-winning investigative journalist Lise Olsen.
What prompted you to write this book?
As a journalist, I have a long-term commitment to investigating America’s troubling backlog of unidentified and missing persons—some 40,000 unresolved cases that allow killers to get away and families to remain without answers. (I got started investigating these cases in Seattle, the hunting grounds for the Green River killer. There, a story of mine led to the identification of a mother and child murder victim whose names had been unknown for decades.) These gripping Texas stories reveal how when these teenage victims’ identities are finally restored, deeper secrets are unlocked about the nature of serial murder and about our society.
How long did it take to go from idea to publication? And did the idea change during the process?
I first spoke to Sharon Derrick about these cases about seven years ago and started working on this book in earnest during the pandemic in 2020. It involved dozens of conversations with her and interviews with more than 100 people who knew the lost boys or knew about these serial murder cases. I made plenty of surprising discoveries along the way.
Were there any surprises or learning moments in the publishing process for this title?
This is a complex story with many characters—I worked closely with my editors to come up with a structure that put the victims first and didn’t give the killers the spotlight.
Were there any surprises in the writing process for this book?
Yes. I was surprised to find that some of the victims’ names had been verified through DNA, but never announced to the public—making Dean Corll’s official death toll 30 murders, rather than the original 27, a number that in the 1970s made international news. Heartbreakingly, one victim was likely misidentified and buried in the wrong boy’s grave and other victims’ remains may still be buried in a boatshed that the killer rented in 1973, which still exists in south Houston.
What do you hope readers will get out of your book?
I hope they will learn about the importance of the work to identify America’s thousands of unknown murder victims, and recognize the value of the lives of these Houston teenagers who were kidnapped, tortured, and killed in the 1970s—at a time when many of missing juveniles were dismissed as runaways. Then, as now, some missing teens were being targeted by sex offenders and human trafficking rings.
If you could share one piece of advice with other writers, what would it be?
Writing about a historic crime/murder case presents challenges in locating old archives and cross-referencing case information with older witnesses’ recollections. But often the stories of victims who were identified years or decades after a crime occurred are never told. These troubling stories deserve to be shared! And sometimes your work can help solve a cold case.
Robert Lee Brewer is Senior Editor of Writer's Digest, which includes managing the content on WritersDigest.com and programming virtual conferences. He's the author of 40 Plot Twist Prompts for Writers: Writing Ideas for Bending Stories in New Directions, The Complete Guide of Poetic Forms: 100+ Poetic Form Definitions and Examples for Poets, Poem-a-Day: 365 Poetry Writing Prompts for a Year of Poeming, and more. Also, he's the editor of Writer's Market, Poet's Market, and Guide to Literary Agents. Follow him on Twitter @robertleebrewer.
