Allison Klein grew up in Columbia, MD. The guy she sat next to in high school art class killed a woman at the local convenience store. She went on to study journalism at the University of Florida. Her first week there, a serial killer started murdering young women around town. After graduation, she moved to Paraguay. Within days, the head of the Paraguayan DEA was gunned down in front of his house. She later reolcated to Miami Beach and started working for the Miami Herald. One early morning while she was walking home from the gym, Gianni Versace was shot dead a block from where she was. At that point, she decided she should just go ahead and cover the mayhem. For eight years, she wrote about crime and city life for The Miami Herald and The Baltimore Sun, chronicling bizarre and heart-breaking tales using both short-form and long-form journalism. She has been doing the same for The Washington Post since 2004.