What happens to your grief when the person you lost is still alive, and when the whole world knows who they are?

I’ve spoken with so many people about grief after death, divorce, estrangement, and the loss of a life they thought they were living. But I had never sat across from two people with an experience quite like this one. In today’s episode, I’m joined by Melissa Moore, whose father (Keith Jesperson) was arrested in 1995 and became known as the Happy Face Killer, and her writing partner and friend, award-winning editor Michele Matrisciani.

Together they wrote Killer in the Family, a book that goes far beyond true crime to explore what the families of killers actually go through: the shame, the media storm, the fractured memories, and the grief that almost nobody names.

In this conversation, we talk about:
✨ How she lost her dad the day he became “the Happy Face Killer”
✨ How the loss of someone’s identity is its own form of grief
✨ Why Melissa and Michele say the “before and after” is universal for every griever,
✨ What Killer in the Family includes: nine families, nine perspectives
✨ What it’s like to have the media show up on your doorstep with no playbook, no privacy, and strangers writing your story for you
✨ How families can grieve the same loss in completely different ways
✨ The delicate balance of honoring your own grieving process without hurting the victims’ families
✨ How Melissa and Michele both lost a parent during the six years of writing and interviewing
✨ Melissa’s experience meeting the son of one of her father’s victim
✨ The ethics of true crime documentaries and podcasts

Killer in the Family is out now wherever books are sold, and you can connect with Melissa on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/melissag.moore.

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