Jamie Scalise never had contact with her father as a child.

When she was 9 years old, her mother told her about her father: Richard Matt, a convicted killer. That’s about all she knew.

When Scalise was 15, she went to the library with her friend and googled everything written about his criminal past.

"That was horrifying to be a 15-year-old, in prime adolescence, learning about these things. And I just kind of tucked it away for years," Scalise said.

Richard Matt sent her a letter for the first time in 2011, when she was 21.

"In this letter, he point-blank asked me to put everything aside that I knew about him and give him a chance," Scalise said.

She admits she was curious and immediately started writing.

They wrote back-and-forth constantly for six months before he asked her to visit.

The two built a respect for one another based on honesty.

"He told me the truth about all of the questions I had answers for, and some of the answers weren't great, but at least I knew the truth," Scalise said.

Scalise features many of their conversations, including copies of some of his letters, in her memoir titled "He's Out."

Matt told her a story about being placed in a hole in the ground in solitary confinement while he was in prison in Mexico.

"Guards and other people would make bets to see how long before he died down there, and he wrote to me, saying that when he was down there, his will to live was me," Scalise said.

When Matt escaped from Clinton Correctional in 2015, she wasn't worried about him coming to her Tonawanda home.

"He actually kind of forewarned me how this would go if he ever escaped, which I brushed off time and time again as just standard prison fantasy," Scalise said.

He told her it would be the first place that police would monitor.

After Matt's death, she needed a year before she could properly process his life, and her role in it.

"For me, it was healthy to start writing, and I turned it into a story," Scalise said.

Ultimately, Scalise says it was good for her mental health to finally open up about this figure who has cast a shadow over her life.

"To know a more human side of this monster of a person, really," Scalise said.