Seven years ago, peace advocate Carmin Ross was brutally murdered in her home northwest of Lawrence.

A jury convicted her ex-husband, Thomas Murray, a Kansas State University English professor, of first-degree murder, and he was sentenced to life in prison.

At the time of the murder, Ross and Murray were arguing over custody of their daughter.

The crime will be featured at 8 p.m. Monday on Investigation Discovery as part of a new series “Hardcover Mysteries.” Eight crime writers were asked to pick a true crime that had particular meaning to them, and Sara Paretsky picked Ross’ story.

“It was such a shocker, and I think it’s just always terrifying when a person, usually a woman, is finally finding the strength to leave a situation like that and then gets killed. It’s just really painful,” said Paretsky, who grew up in Lawrence but now lives in Chicago.

Paretsky followed the investigation and the trial with a passionate interest, based partly on her own advocacy for victims and survivors of domestic violence.

She said she worked at Rainbow House in Chicago, a nonprofit that helps women and children who have suffered domestic violence. She helped put together a curriculum for children in at-risk situations.

“It’s a subject that really matters to me and to see it happening in my hometown — in Chicago there’s so many murders you don’t really sort them out individually — but when one happens in Lawrence, it really stands out,” she said.

Paretsky also was rooting for Angela Wilson, the young assistant district attorney who prosecuted the case. She said Wilson’s struggles and successes during the trial reminded her of her own, both in life and in writing.

“She is 20 years younger than me, but doing a job that historically hadn’t been done by a woman,” she said. “A lot of people thought she was inexperienced and she wouldn’t handle this well in the courtroom, and just watching her step up to that challenge and really make a success of the prosecution, especially when there wasn’t a lot of direct evidence, was phenomenal.”

Paretsky said she never doubted Murray’s guilt.

“To me, it was very clear that he was guilty,” she said. For example, she said, he had looked up on his computer how to commit murder without being caught.

Paretsky said Wilson, Lawrence detectives and Kansas police will recall the horrific case during the hour-long show, and then she helps piece it together.

Paretsky, who is world-renowned for her Warshawski book series about a fictional woman detective, said she had never written specifically about Carmin Ross’s murder until now. And she’s never appeared on TV.

“This is a new thing for me. I was very nervous. I hate watching myself on video,” she said, laughing.