Philip Carlo was born in Brooklyn, New York on April 18, 1949. He wrote novels and nonfiction accounts of serial killers and hit men including Stolen Flower, The Night Stalker: The Life and Crimes of Richard Ramirez, and The Iceman: Confessions of a Mafia Contract Killer. He also wrote a memoir about his struggle against amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) entitled The Killer Within: In the Company of Monsters. He died from a combination of ALS and cancer on November 8, 2010 at the age of 61.