Tracy Venable was a reporter from Los Angeles. She travelled to Fairvale to write a story about Norman Bates.
At Statler's Cafe, Venable met Sheriff John Hunt. Hunt told her to leave Norman alone and that he didn't want any trouble. Tracy ignored him and spoke with Norman anyway. She suggested to him that some people might tend to blame him for the recent disappearance of Emma Spool. Norman left before giving her much information and asked her not to speak with him again.
Later, Tracy met Duane Duke at a bar and paid him to feed her any useful information about Norman. She did some research in old issues of the Fairvale Inquirer and discovered that Emma Spool had murdered Norman's father and kidnapped him as a child.
While snooping at the Bates House, Tracy found the laid out corpse of Maureen Coyle. She was briefly pursued by Norman but she convinced him that Emma was not his real mother and Norman broke down and destroyed Emma's corpse. He was then arrested.[1]