Jack Olsen passed away on Tuesday, July 16, 2002 at the age of 77.
I found out about this a few days after the fact. I had been e-mailing him around this time and didn't get a reply, but I figured this was because he was involved in promotion for his upcoming book I -- The Creation of a Serial Killer, which he described as his "final work of crime journalism."
When I did get an e-mail from one of his fans telling about his passing, I was skeptical, since Jack had been the object of abuse in some Internet newsgroups -- I figured this was just a hoax.
But it is true.
I had visited Jack only a couple of months ago and he told me that his doctor had given him a clean bill of health -- in fact, the doctor was amazed at how much better the results were for various tests he performed than for other men of Jack's age.
Since I created this web site for Jack a few years back, we communicated regularly by e-mail and I visited him a few times at his home on Bainbridge Island. He always impressed me as a man who wouldn't put up with any B.S., and who often displayed a wicked sense of humour in his terse replies to my messages. He was also generous ... once when I visited him, I stayed at the local motel and when I got up in the morning to leave, found that Jack had paid my bill!
I'm going to miss him.
Mike Quigley
