You're an internet pioneer, having founded Echo NYC in the early '90s (back when Panix was the only game in town!). You have a degree from NYU's interactive technology program but what made you decide to create this online space? Did you have any inkling as to how big--and intrinsic--the internet would become?

My experience starting Echo in 1989 was just further proof that people are perverse. I couldn't convince anyone at the time that the internet would be big someday. Plus, they didn't just think I was wrong, they also thought I was pathetic for believing it would be. But this is the perverse part to me: it wasn't that I was a visionary or anything. Or smart. It was right there. Anyone looking could see it. They refused to look.

What triggered the desire to write The Restless Sleep, and to investigate cold cases in general? You mentioned in a recent interview you had a fascination with the forgotten. What was the catalyst for this?

I'm guessing some incident from my childhood. But if it's sitting in a box in an attic or basement for decades, unopened, I want to open it. Wherever no one goes, or whoever no one thinks about, that's what I want to explore. I'm sure it all comes back to a fear of death. When I learned there were thousands and thousands of unsolved murders in New York, I just had to write about them.

How did you start your research?

By trying to get the police to not hate me. Some of the detectives and commanders were gracious from the start, but there were a lot of biases that I had to get past: I was a girl, and a girly girl, and liberal, and educated (for the record, I'm not very educated, except for the things I'm obsessed about). I also knew nothing whatsoever about law enforcement or crime. The attitude was: who the hell are you? You are NEVER going to get it right. But I have a collection of email from detectives and commanders who say, well what do you know? You freakin' did.

Have the book and the blog generated many responses from people who've lost loved ones?

Yes. Some days I feel I'm in over my head. Who am I, and what do I have to offer people who have had someone they love murdered? I weigh every word so I at least don't add still more pain. In the end, I just hang in there and do my best. That's what the detectives do. But some days, GOD.

How do you feel about shows likeAutopsy, Cold Case Files and Forensic Files? (For the [sad] record, I enjoy them quite a bit.)

Ha! I prefer the shows that aren't real, like CSI. I also really like this new show called Criminal Minds, even though I don't know about the need for profiling. Most murderers are morons, it seems. Or rather, there isn't a lot to figure out. There wasn't a complicated master plan or psyche to figure out. I'm sure there is sometimes, but not enough to give all these people fulltime work.

Did you interview any profilers? Do you think they fill any particular need at all?

I didn't interview any profilers, no. And I do think there's a need. The average murderer is an average (or less than average) person, but there's always the exception. Also, murder isn't the only crime that could use a profiler. White collar crime, which I believe has a devastating effect on society, could probably benefit from the experience of a profiler. Most murderers don't plan their murders; they kill to save face, and so all you have to do is find out who made them feel ashamed, who made them feel small. But a white collar criminal plans their crime, and there's a psychology to deconstruct there.

What was the most compelling cold case you discovered, either during your research for book or afterward?

The four cases in the book were the ones that got to me for one reason or another. The one case I didn't write about in depth that was compelling involved a baby that was murdered by her mother and brother, and then kept in a closet for 20 years. I didn't write about it because there really wasn't a lot of investigative work involved. Once the detective proved that the child existed, he was able to get a warrant to search the place, and there she still was, after all these years, in the closet, wrapped in a bunch of garbage bags. She looked like a tiny mummy when they unwrapped her.

You mentioned that you're working on a book about the paranormal. What is your personal experience with that? Any good ghost stories?

Having researched a 1951 murder case for The Restless Sleep, I've gotten better at finding people. So, I started researching a ghost story that happened in Harlem in 1964. A bunch of school kids reported seeing a ghost. I fully expected that if I ever found any of those kids they would admit, "Oh, we were just having fun. We made it up." I found one of those kids. That is not what she said. I don't know if there are ghosts or not, but I believed she wasn't lying, and so it got ... interesting. It turns out there have been reports of ghosts at the same house going back over two hundred years. But the main ghost was Eliza Jumel, who at the end of her life lived a Miss Havisham-like existence. A table that had been set for a fabulous dinner was left as it was, for over twenty years, the food slowly decaying, the places settings just gathering dust. A visitor at that time described her in a letter: "There she stood on the front doorsteps ... a more fearful looking old woman one seldom sees--her hair and teeth were false--her skin thick, and possessing no shadow of ever having been clear and handsome--her feet were enormous, and stockings, soiled and coarse, were in wrinkles over her shoes--on one foot she wore a gaiter and on the other she wore a carpet slipper ... She wore a small hoop, which in sitting down she could not manage, so that it stood up, displaying her terrible feet." She even described the table. " ... on the left was the table--china, glass, still there, and gold ornaments and pyramids of confections, still standing on this greasy, dusty table, crumbled and moulded. This same table Mrs. Appleton Haven saw twenty years ago. It is unchanged now ..." Like all the best ghost stories, they are as sad as they are scary. Happy people don't come back. Only the people who were miserable have a harder time leaving.

Did you visit Eliza Jumel’s mansion? Did you experience anything out of the ordinary?

I've visited the mansion a number of times, and although I wanted more than anything to see a ghost, I didn't feel a hint of anything paranormal.

What about in your own life--have you had any run-ins with the ghostly world?

I've had a few unexplained experiences in my life, and I've had many people tell me my apartment is haunted, but what I'm hoping for with this next book is convincing evidence that there is life after death.

I'm writing about the former Duke Parapsychology Laboratory. Scientists have always disdained parapsychology, but there was a time, from the 30s to the 60s, when the scientific community thought, well maybe something is going on, even if ectoplasm, mediums and seances are crap. Duke opened a lab to study the various phenomena, and for a few decades, a group of serious scientists and graduate students tried to find if there was anything there. I'm writing a book about what they did and did not find.

Does the ghost of Eliza Jumel still haunt the mansion?

I hope so. Because not only would that be fun, it would mean that death is not the end. I'm skeptical, I must admit, but I've started talking to all these older, retired scientists from Duke, and reading their papers and reports and journals, and while I don't know what's going on with many of these events that they investigated, there's no doubt that most of the time, something happened. People are quick to insist what it isn't, "it isn't ghosts," etc. Okay, fine, I'm with you. But what is it, then?

For instance, a lot of people think they have recorded the voices of the dead using regular tape recorders. They call it EVP (electronic voice phenomena). Skeptics are quick to point out the voices on the tape are not saying what we think they are saying. Again, fine, I'm with you. But please explain why there are voices saying whatever they are saying when there shouldn't have been voices at all.

Stacy Horn is moderating a panel tonight, Wednesday, November 16, at 7:00 pm, about unsolved murder in New York. The panelists include Vito Spano, former Cold Case Squad Commanding Officer, Dr. Robert Shaler, former head of Forensic Biology, Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, New York City, and Mark Dale, former head of the Police Lab. It's $15, $10 for students, and it's going to be held at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, 365 Fifth Avenue (between 34th and 35th). Info can be found here.