Matt Birkbeck is the author of A Beautiful Child: A True Story of Hope, Horror, and an Enduring Human Spirit and A Deadly Secret: The Strange Disappearance of Kathie Durst. A reporter for The Morning Call, he served for nearly a decade as a correspondent covering crime and human interest stories for People magazine, and his articles have appeared in The New York Times, Reader's Digest, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and other periodicals. He lives in Pennsylvania.