Elephants and also described the circumstances of his case. He told Gruen that former chief justice Alex Kozinski of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit “described my (wrongful) conviction as ‘a truly spectacular miscarriage of justice.’” Murdoch's conviction was upheld by the California Court of Appeal despite Kozinski's doubts that he had received a fair trial. Gruen began to correspond with Murdoch and took up the cause of attempting to overturn his conviction, believing Murdoch's prosecution to have depended on a coerced confession by witness Dino Dinardo. She hired attorneys and investigators at her own expense, including former Los Angeles District Attorney's Office prosecutor Robin Sax, eventually spending more than half a million dollars on her fight to free Murdoch. Despite her efforts, Murdoch remains incarcerated, waiting for a response from the Los Angeles County’s Conviction Review Unit. In Gruen's own words, the effort to exonerate Murdoch has left her "absolutely broke", as she borrowed money against her home, and "seriously ill", with her writing work "years past deadline". Fearful of threats to her life, real or imagined, she left her home in spring 2018 and moved repeatedly to avoid being tracked, though she eventually returned to Asheville. Personal life Gruen lives in Asheville, North Carolina with her husband, the youngest of her three sons, and numerous pets, including horses Tia and Fancy. References External links Sara Gruen's Official Site Canadian women novelists 21st-century American novelists American women novelists 1969 births Living people 21st-century Canadian novelists Writers from Vancouver 21st-century Canadian women writers 21st-century American women writers