A former crime beat reporter — including for the East Oregonian — and award-winning author, Karen Spears Zacharias recently released her latest book, “The Murder Gene.”

The former Hermiston woman spent nearly 10 years writing and researching the publication that delves into the August 2012 murder in Pendleton of Amyjane Brandhagen by Lukah Pobzeb Chang. A son of missionaries, Chang deserted the U.S. Marine Corps from his base in California in July 2012, and soon thereafter ended up in Eastern Oregon.

The 19-year-old Pendleton woman’s death went unsolved until a year later when Karen Lange was found nearly beaten to death along the Pendleton River Parkway. Police connected Chang to both crimes through DNA evidence.

Early on when looking at police reports, Zacharias found a statement indicating that Chang’s maternal grandfather, Gene Dale Lincoln, had spent time in prison for murdering a Michigan woman some 40 years prior. That piqued the author’s interest in the case.

“And I thought, ‘well that’s kind of unusual to have a grandson and grandfather in prison’ … I had to go back and look at that question of is there a relationship between what grandfather did and what grandson did,” Zacharias said in a podcast about the book.

While Chang declined Zacharias’ request for an interview, she poured over investigative reports, case files and Chang’s recorded post-arrest interview with police. In addition, she looked into Lincoln’s violent history. She also spoke to several family members and others familiar with the cases.

The similarities between the brutal actions of grandfather and grandson left Zacharias pondering the question: Is there such a thing as a murder gene?

Zacharias said she doesn’t necessarily like writing true crime stories — she also penned “A Silence of Mockingbirds: True Crime Behind Karly’s Law” — because there are victims involved. However, a motivating factor in writing these two books, she said in the podcast, was her personal connection with the victims.

She first met Brandhagen as a toddler when writing a newspaper story about her grandmother. She also attended the same church and Bible study group as the teen’s parents.

“I kind of watched her grow up … the way that community people watch the children of acquaintances grow up,” she said in the podcast.

Zacharias, who is out of the country, anticipates book signing events in August or September in Umatilla County. Published by Koehler Books, the 252-page publication is available via both paperback and hardcover. For more information, visit www.karenzach.com.