Monique Patterson is a full-time journalist. She developed an interest in true crime at a young age, twisting the arm of her parents to allow her to stay up past bedtime to watch the five-minute weekly CrimeStoppers segment. This was a most-wanted style program which asked for people to help police catch criminals. As a journalist she developed a passion for giving victims of crime a voice. She is a former newspaper editor and was in that role for The Irrigator in Leeton when school teacher Stephanie Scott was murdered a week before she was set to marry her high school sweetheart. The case never left her thoughts and for this reason she wrote her first book United in Grief. Monique lives in south-west Victoria with her fiance Bill and two sons Cael and Jaxon.