Lee Wax was a journalist and a true crime writer, working as the ghost writer for an autobiography of Cynthia Dern, a former eco-terrorist. When Dern was murdered, Lee intended to write the book as a true crime novel instead, under her own name. Dern, along with Susan Mailer and Jared Swanstrom, had tried to set off a bomb on an oil tanker as a protest against the Exxon Valdez oil spill. While they hadn't intended to kill anyone, something went wrong, leaving Mailer dead and the ship's captain, Sam Pike, permanently crippled. Swanstrom was caught and Cynthia escaped.