Catherine Pelonero

Catherine Pelonero (born Edna Catherine Pelonero; November 7, 1967 - December 19, 2024) was an American playwright and a New York Times bestselling true crime author.

She was born in Alexandria, Virginia, she was raised in Buffalo, where she would become an award-winning playwright. Her comedy, "Modern Maturity," was produced at Alleyway Theatre and won the 1992 Artvoice Award for Outstanding New Play. She published several short plays, including "Family Names," which won the Off-Off Broadway Short Play Festival.

In 2007, she became a playwright member of the Actors Studio. Some of her plays were developed in the Studio's west coast Playwrights & Directors Unit. Her absurdist comedy, Another Effing Family Drama, premiered at the Hollywood Fringe Festival in 2011 and was chosen for Best of the Fringe.

She was the author of two bestselling true crime books, "Kitty Genovese," the definitive study of the famous 1963 murder, and "Absolute Madness," which told the story of the .22 Caliber Killer, who terrorized Buffalo in the early 1980s. She wrote several subsequent articles about the Kitty Genovese case and her extensive interviews with murderer Winston Moseley.

At Investigation Discovery's CrimeFeed, she became a contributing writer. She also appeared in a number of true crime television programs and films, including A Crime to Remember, Fox Files, The Witness, Murderous Affairs, and It Takes a Killer.