Born: Caitlin Lisane Rother in Montreal, Canada.

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​Immigrated: to the Santa Barbara area of California as a toddler before packing up and moving 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 the University of California, Berkeley; master’s from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University.

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Home: Lives in San Diego, California; also frequents Oceanside, Carlsbad, and Sonoma/Napa.

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Resume: During her 19-year career as a daily newspaper reporter, she worked briefly at States News Service in Washington, DC, then at 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 to work as a full-time freelancer for the Los Angeles Times in Ventura County. Became a staff writer for the Daily News in Los Angeles before returning home to join The San Diego Union-Tribune staff. Also published stories in Cosmopolitan, the Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, Boston Globe, The Daily Beast, and The Huffington Post.

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She practiced to be on TV in 1993 in Ventura County, where she worked at the Los Angeles Times  and Los Angeles Daily News, but didn't actually get on TV until she worked for The San Diego Union-Tribune. Her first national appearance was on Greta Van Susteren's show in 2004. She has since been featured 250 times on TV, radio, and podcasts as a 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, On the Record with Greta Van Susteren, and America at Night. 

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Voted Media Person of the Year by the County of San Diego in 1995: An honor to recognize her series of stories about the mentally ill in county jails and California prisons.

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Switched gears: Left the Union-Tribune and news biz in September 2006 to write books full-time. Now working on her 15th and 16th books, and beyond, in between TV appearances, speeches, and coaching aspiring authors. 

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Coming soon: DOWN TO THE BONE: A Missing Family's Murder and the Elusive Quest For Justice. About the McStay family murders (Citadel, January 2024)

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Latest book: DEATH ON OCEAN BOULEVARD: Inside The Coronado Mansion Case (Citadel, 2021). Now under development for a limited TV series with Untitled Entertainment and Caitlin as executive producers.

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

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Coach and consultant: Caitlin started as an instructor in journalism, interviewing, narrative nonfiction and creative writing at UC Extension and San Diego Writers, Ink, but now does one-on-ones with aspiring authors about writing, researching and promoting books. She also does research and consulting for TV crime shows and documentaries. 

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Harmonic Convergence: Caitlin was classically trained to played piano at age 7. She plays keyboards and sings in Harmonic Convergence, an acoustic band 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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First NYT bestseller: MY LIFE, DELETED (HarperCollins/ HarperOne, 2011), a memoir of Scott Bolzan, co-authored with him and his wife Joan. The compelling story of this former NFL player-turned-aviation entrepreneur'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). Now out of print, this title is available now only in ebook or audio. Caitlin has limited number of  paperbacks for sale.  

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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. It was Caitlin's third published book, and to date is still her only novel.

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

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Title change in paperback: WHERE HOPE BEGINS is now titled 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. Won three awards in the annual Best of the West contest, which judges stories from major metropolitan newspapers in thirteen western states. 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. Also won a Best of Show for magazines in 2014 for a San Diego Reader 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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