Betty Sowers Alt is not your typical 70-something grandmother. This one’s got murder on her mind.

The 1960 CC graduate, who lives near Pueblo, Colo., with her husband, Bill ’63, is working on her seventh book with Sandra Wells, a former chief investigator with the district attorney’s office in Pueblo.

“I’ll write on anything they’ll pay me for or that will bring in money,” Alt said. “It’s fun, but we like to make money.”

Their titles include: “Mountain Mafia,” “Mountain Murders,” and “When Caregivers Kill.” Alt said the latter “is not a nice book to read. But it’s a necessary book.”

Alt’s other books include “Black Soldiers, White Wars” written with Bill, who was stationed all over the world with the military.

The Alts have one daughter, fondly called “the brat.” When Alt worked at the Pueblo Chieftain, their daughter spent many shifts in the newsroom. “We pulled out a file drawer and plopped the kid in.” She’s now a brigadier general.

But as Alt said, “I come from a gnarly line of women.”

Wherever they lived, Alt worked as a teacher, using her bachelor’s in sociology from CC and master’s in history from Northeast Missouri State University.

CC “taught me to be much more exact and to search for things, so that when I did my master’s, I did a thesis. Most of the people didn’t. But I felt that the teachers at CC would not think that I had a master’s unless I did a thesis.”

The woman who mowed lawns during World War II and sold hot dogs at baseball games during summer breaks still works today, lecturing on sociology at Colorado State University-Pueblo.

“Work is my life; it’s always been my life,” Alt said. “I’m a capitalist at heart.”

Who says crime doesn’t pay?