She was one of the most prolific best-selling authors on the New York Times list. Shanna Hogan died at the age of 37 on August 27 after being the victim of a tragic accident in her swimming pool, her friend Kathleen Mayer revealed to People magazine. It was while swimming with her 14-month-old son Zander that the criminal book author slipped, banging his head before losing consciousness.
It was her husband, Matt Larussa, who found her unconscious in the water when he returned a few hours later, also finding her son on the edge of the pool, wearing a life jacket. While Shanna Hogan did not die instantly after her fall, she remained unconscious and in critical condition until September 1, when she breathed her last. “At a time when human kindness is so desperately needed, we have lost one of the people who gave this to our world,” said Kathleen Mayer.
Prolific author of criminal non-fiction novels
Born in 1982 in Kansas, Shanna Hogan was a journalist but also for several years a bestseller author whose favorite subject was: crimes. It was in 2013, after a first novel released in 2011, that she broke through, with her novel Picture Perfect (Image Perfect), a sort of biography of Jodi Arias, a young woman who in 2013 was convicted of the murder of her boy friend. After two novels released in 2015 and 2017, Shanna Hogan published in 2019 her latest novel, Secrets of a Sailor’s Wife. “Shanna’s writing will live on, the lives she saved will live on and her greatest creation – her baby boy – will live to inspire us all,” her friend Kathleen Mayer concluded in a heartbreaking tribute. Her family has decided to donate her organs, some of which have already been allocated to four people.
Shanna Hogan © Instagram
