How to Survive a Murder Investigation

A searing account of the personal cold case that plunged journalist, private investigator, and podcast host Catherine Townsend (Hell and Gone and Red Collar) into the world of true crime, exposing the hidden rules that govern murder investigations­—and the ones you must break to get to the truth.

What does it really take to solve a murder . . . and come out alive?

In 2004, Catherine Townsend was working as a journalist in London when college student Rebekah Gould vanished near Townsend’s childhood Ozarks retreat. Rebekah’s body was found a week later, leaving behind a blood-soaked trailer, a devastated family, and rumors that refused to die. To local police, Rebekah was just another “high-risk victim” who dated a lot of men and made a lot of women jealous. As time passed, the investigation stalled.

Thirteen years later, Townsend left her home base in New York for Arkansas, determined to crack the cold case, force the police to finally pay attention, and reckon with the place that had made her. In the process, she discovered that the truth about cold case investigations is a long way from what we see on TV—and that the roles people play in a murder case are rarely as simple as they seem.

As an investigative journalist, Townsend has faced danger from the potential murder suspects she's trying to hunt down—and resistance from police who tell her that “investigations are grownup stuff” and to mind her own business. With How to Survive a Murder Investigation, she calls them all out as she recounts the audacious true story of her relentless search for the truth.