Born: Caitlin Lisane Rother in Montreal, Canada.

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​Immigrated: Moved as a toddler to Oxnard and Isla Vista while her parents were in doctoral program at UC Santa Barbara before relocating to San Diego. Naturalized as a U.S. citizen to vote in 2004 presidential election.

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Education: Bachelor’s in psychology from UC Berkeley; master’s from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. Attended the prestigious Breadloaf Writers Conference.

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Home: Lives in San Diego, California; part-time in Oceanside, Carlsbad, and Sonoma/Napa.

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News biz: At the start of her 19-year career as a daily newspaper reporter, she worked at States News Service in Washington, DC, then the Berkshire Eagle and the Springfield Union-News in Western Massachusetts, (where author Tom Wolfe also worked, but not at the same time).

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Returned to the West Coast as a full-time freelancer for the Los Angeles Times in Ventura County. Hired by the Daily News in Los Angeles as a staff writer before returning home to join The San Diego Union-Tribune staff. Published stories in the international edition of Cosmopolitan, the Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, Boston Globe, The Daily Beast, and The Huffington Post.

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Rother had been practicing to be on TV since 1993 in Ventura County, while working for the LA Times  and Daily News, but she didn't actually get on TV until 2004. Her first appearance was on Greta Van Susteren's cable news show on FOX in 2004. Since then, Rother has done more than 250 appearances on TV, radio, and podcasts as an author and crime expert, including 20/20, Nancy Grace, Women Who Kill on E!, and Australia's World News. She's also been featured on Investigation Discovery, Netflix, Lifetime, A&E, Reelz, and Oxygen, on shows including Crime Watch Daily, People Magazine Investigates, Beyond the Headlines, Snapped, Murderous Affairs, Deadly Sins, The Real Murders of Orange County, and America at Night. 

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Awards: Many feature- and investigative news writing awards, including San Diego County's Media Person of the Year in 1995 in recognition of her series of stories about the mentally ill in county jails and California prisons. (See below for more details.)

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Member of: Sisters in Crime (national) and International Thriller Writers.

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Switched gears: Left the daily news biz in September 2006 to write books full-time. Now writing her 19th book, and beyond, in between TV appearances, speeches, and coaching aspiring authors. 

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Books coming soon: DOWN TO THE BONE: A Missing Family's Murder and the Elusive Quest For Justice, about the McStay family murders, (Citadel, June 2025). Also, HOOKED, the first in the new "Katrina and Goode" thriller series (Thomas & Mercer/January 2026).

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Latest titles: A significantly updated edition of BODY PARTS, about the recently identified victim of serial killer Wayne Adam Ford (Citadel, 2025); DEATH ON OCEAN BOULEVARD: Inside The Coronado Mansion Case (Citadel, 2021). Was optioned for a limited TV series with Untitled Entertainment and Rother as executive producers; as of 2025, rights are available again.

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Other recent titles: Updated DEAD RECKONING (WildBlue Press), HUNTING CHARLES MANSON (Thomas Nelson) and SECRETS, LIES, AND SHOELACES (Harmonic Convergence Press). 

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Writing coach/consultant: Caitlin taught journalism, interviewing, narrative nonfiction and creative writing for more than 10 years at UC Extension and San Diego Writers, Ink. She now does one-on-one coaching in writing, researching and publishing books. She also works as a research consultant and as a consulting producer for TV crime shows and documentaries. 

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In the Lounge: Caitlin was classically trained to played piano, starting at age 7. She plays keyboards and sings in a jazzy, bluesy trio with Geza Keller and Tom Borg. 

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Most controversial book: LOST GIRLS (Kensington/ Pinnacle, 2012), the revealing, behind-the-scenes story of the rape and murder of San Diego teens Chelsea King and Amber Dubois by sexual predator John Gardner.

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New York Times bestseller: MY LIFE, DELETED (HarperOne, 2011), a memoir of former NFL player Scott Bolzan, co-authored with him and his wife Joan, about Scott's recovery after falling down, hitting his head, and losing all 46 years of his long-term memory.

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First book published: POISONED LOVE, the authoritative account of the Kristin Rossum murder case (Kensington/ Pinnacle, 2005; updated 2011).  

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First book written: NAKED ADDICTION, a mystery about sex, drugs and murder at the beach in La Jolla, took 17 years to get published, first by Dorchester in 2007, then updated and re-issued by WildBlue Press in 2014. This was Caitlin's third published book, and her only published novel--so far. This is the prequel to HOOKED (T&M, 2026). 

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Also reissued: BODY PARTS, DEAD RECKONING, and POISONED LOVE. 

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Title change in paperback: WHERE HOPE BEGINS was retitled DEADLY DEVOTION (Simon & Schuster, 2011, co-authored with Alysia Sofios), the inspiring true story of how Sofios, a TV reporter in Fresno, risked her career to help female survivors of the Marcus Wesson family recover from a cult life of abuse, incest, polygamy and the murder of their nine children, some in diapers.

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Honors: Nominated in 1998 by the Union-Tribune for a Pulitzer Prize for a story about a depressed teenager who died after lighting himself on fire behind a WalMart. Rother also won three awards in the annual Best of the West contest, which judges stories from major metropolitan newspapers in thirteen western states. She also won five awards for a narrative that tracked the progress of all five recipients from a 12-year-old organ donor, including a Best Feature award from the Associated Press News Executives Council and a Best News-Feature award from the Los Angeles Press Club. In 2014, Rother won her first Best of Show for magazines for a San Diego Reader cover story about the sea lion population explosion at the La Jolla Cove. LOST GIRLS and POISONED LOVE were both San Diego Book Award finalists, in 2011 and 2012.

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