“I knew at some point that I was going to do something with it. I just didn't know what it was. It was the story that I needed to tell. I think I was meant to tell it. Not to get too lofty with it, but it felt a little predestined. It meant everything to me to be the person to bring it to life and let people get to know her.”

A Kentucky native and a Police Administration major in college, Bell’s interest in Marion’s grisly death is easily explained. She was never much of a golfer, only taking up the game in her twenties to spend time with her husband. But she has always been a writer, dreaming up stories and concocting narratives since she was a child. While that passion didn’t appear to be a fruitful career opportunity as she grew older, it never stopped Bell from doing what she loved.

“When I was in high school was when Watergate happened,” Bell said. “Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein captivated me in terms of the power of words. I think I always thought in terms of non-fiction, so that's how I ended up gravitating toward magazines. I have a Bachelor's in Police Administration, but then I got another Bachelor's in Communications, and that was really because of the writing.”

Early in her literary career, Bell’s ambitions were focused on magazine work. The author profiled a wide variety of political figures and business executives, also writing about an Indianapolis 500 champion and a Pulitzer Prize winner. She even covered Marion Miley for the now-defunct Women’s Sports and Fitness, a publication that went out of print in 2000. That article was a start, scratching Bell's incessant itch to write about the young phenom. But she still wanted to flesh out Marion’s story further and thought a book chronicling the golf star would be the best way.

Marion Miley However, the timing never felt right as Bell’s life got busier. The idea lay dormant until she felt she could do Marion justice. Bell began piecing together a non-fiction take on Miley’s life, but as she worked her way through the beginnings of the book, she began to feel stuck, unsure of where the story was headed. It took a lot of early mornings and some urging from the late Rhonda Glenn — former manager of communications for the USGA and author of The Illustrated History of Women’s Golf — for Bell to find her footing. Ultimately the aptly described “hybrid” novel blending history, golf, and true crime, The Murder of Marion Miley, was born.

“I tried to write it non-fiction. I had gotten like a hundred pages in and it was the most boring thing that you've ever read,” Bell said. “I finally decided I had to have dialogue. The flexibility of using fiction and dialogue (made it) a lot easier. I don't know if you can say writing a book in three-and-a-half years is easy, but that's what I had to do because I had a full-time job and I was writing from about 4:30 to 6:30 every morning.

For Whom the "Bell" Writes: Author Resurrects Golf Legend's Life, Mysterious Death

This is where Marion Miley was murdered.

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