What makes a smart, well-educated mother of four go on a killing spree? That’s the question writer Amy Wallace set out to answer in her story “The Fury,” which appears in the March issue of Wired.

The piece digs into the story of University of Alabama scientist Amy Bishop, who stands accused of shooting six of her colleagues last year.

The tragic event, which left three professors dead, got lots of attention in the press, but Wallace wanted to take advantage of the magazine format to go deeper, to get inside Bishop’s mind.

Wallace never got to interview Bishop, but she did manage to get her hands on three unpublished novels the scientist had written — more than 900 pages in all.

In this episode of the Storyboard podcast, Wallace explains to Wired senior editor Nancy Miller how the novels gave her a glimpse into Bishop’s thoughts. She also delivers a master class on how to convince tricky sources to talk. Listen for the inside scoop on this chilling tale of murder and madness.