LOS ANGELES — Linda Deutsch, an Associated Press special correspondent who for nearly 50 years wrote brilliant first drafts of the chronicles of many of the nation’s most important criminal and civil trials — Charles Manson, O.J. Simpson, Michael Jackson, etc. — died Sunday. She was 80.
Deutsch was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2022 and was successfully treated, but the cancer returned this summer. He died surrounded by family and friends at his home in Los Angeles, said nurse Narek Petrosyan of Olympia Hospice Care.
Edith Lederer, the AP's chief United Nations correspondent, was among those who eventually sided with Deutsch. They had been friends for more than 50 years and were pioneering female reporters when they joined the AP in the late 1960s.
“She was an incredible friend to hundreds of people who will miss her wit, wisdom, charm and relentless curiosity,” Lederer said.
One of America’s best-known trial reporters since retiring in 2015, Deutsch’s courtroom career began with the trial and sentencing of Sirhan Sirhan, the assassin of Senator Robert F. Kennedy, in 1969. She covered a broad range of criminal defendants — including Manson, Simpson, Jackson, Patty Hearst, Phil Spector, the Menendez brothers, “Night Stalker” Richard Ramirez, “Unabomber” Ted Kaczynski and the police officer accused in the beating of motorist Rodney King.
She was present in a Los Angeles courtroom in 1995 for the conclusion of “The Trial of the Century,” in which NFL Hall of Famer Simpson was acquitted of murdering his ex-wife and her friend. Thirteen years later, Deutsch was in a Las Vegas courtroom when Simpson was convicted of kidnapping and robbery and A prison sentence was awarded.
“When a major trial came up, AP assignment editors didn't have to ask who should get the assignment. No, the question immediately was, 'Is Linda available?'” recalls Louis D. Boccardi, who served as AP's executive editor for a decade and as president and CEO for 18 years. “She mastered the art of celebrity trial coverage and, in the process, became a media celebrity herself.”
For decades, Deutsch covered every appeal and parole hearing of every convicted member of the Manson Family. Other landmark moments include the 1976 conviction of Hearst, the newspaper heiress convicted of bank robbery and other charges; Jackson's 2005 acquittal on child abuse charges; and the 2009 murder conviction of legendary music producer Spector.
“Linda was a fearless reporter who loved being in the thick of the news — and she did indeed cover some of the biggest stories,” said Julie Pace, AP’s executive editor and senior vice president. “She was a true trailblazer whose command of her field and tireless work ethic made her an inspiration to many journalists at AP and in our industry.”
His work, always written with passion, was not limited to celebrity — other cases included fraud, conspiracies, environmental disasters and immigration — and eventually earned him the title of special correspondent, the most prestigious byline for an AP reporter.
Defense attorney Thomas Mesereau, representing Jackson, called Deutsch “the epitome of ethics and professionalism in journalism.”
When Deutsch retired he said of her, “I can't think of anyone who can reach her level.”
Deutsch was just 25 when he reported on Sirhan’s conviction. He then turned to the bizarre case of Charles Manson, a career criminal who had reinvented himself as a hippie guru, offering conversions and psychedelic drugs to a group of disaffected young people.
The Manson Family, as they became known, terrorized Los Angeles on consecutive summer nights in 1969, breaking into homes in two wealthy neighborhoods and killing seven people, including pregnant actress Sharon Tate. Most of the victims were stabbed multiple times, and their blood was used to write “pig” and other words on the walls of the homes.
When Manson and three of his young female followers were tried for murder in 1970, he described the months-long legal proceedings as a “surreal spectacle”, As Deutsch wrote in 2017, after Manson's death.
“People in the courtroom were remembering the LSD scenes, and at one point Charlie jumps over the lawyer's desk to the judge with a pencil in his hand and the girls jump up and down singing the song,” Deutsch said in a 2014 interview.
Deutsch only had one important trial to cover, so the AP initially sent a more experienced reporter from New York to lead coverage of the Manson trial. After a month of overseeing such activities, he returned home disillusioned and left Deutsch in charge.
“I thought, 'Oh, this is really something special,'” Deutsch recalled with a laugh. “I had no idea tests could be like that.”
Still, she thrived and formed close relationships with the reporters who visited every day for nine months.
But an even bigger trial, born of the modern television era, would eclipse Manson's more than two decades later. When Simpson, one of America's most beloved celebrities and sports figures, was accused of fatally stabbing Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman in a fit of rage, news outlets from around the world sent reporters to cover the case.
The judge made Deutsch, then a familiar face in the courthouse, the sole reporter to cover jury selection. She became omnipresent on television, telling viewers around the world what was happening in the courtroom.
When Simpson was acquitted 11 months later, he called to thank her for the fair and objective coverage. After this conversation, he did the first of many exclusive interviews he has given to Simpson over the years.
Not all of his lawsuits involved celebrities. Deutsch spent five months in Alaska covering the trial of Joseph Hazelwood, captain of the Exxon Valdez oil tanker, which in 1989 caused one of America's worst environmental disasters when it spilled 11 million gallons (41 million liters) of crude oil.
She was also involved in the 1973 espionage trial of Daniel Ellsberg, who had leaked top secret Pentagon documents to the New York Times that revealed unflattering details about America's involvement in Vietnam. The Times published a series of articles about the material that helped turn the public against the Vietnam War.
Deutsch covered the trial of “Night Stalker” serial killer Ramirez, with testimony so horrific it brought reporters to tears. But what shook Deutsch most was the 1992 trial of four Los Angeles police officers who were shown on video beating King. Their acquittal sparked riots in Los Angeles that left 55 dead and $1 billion in property damage.
“It almost destroyed my faith in the justice system,” he said in 2014. “I think juries usually make the right decision, but in that case, they didn't. It was the wrong conclusion. It was the wrong verdict and it almost ruined my town.”
Like many others, Deutsch fell in love with Los Angeles when she moved there from somewhere else. Born and raised in New Jersey, she discovered her interest in journalism at age 12, when she founded an international Elvis Presley fan club newsletter in her hometown of Perth Amboy. A lifelong Presley fan, she traveled to his Graceland home in Memphis, Tennessee, in 2002 to cover the 25th anniversary of the musician's death.
As a sophomore at New Jersey’s Monmouth College — now Monmouth University — he landed a part-time job at his hometown newspaper, where he persuaded his editor to allow him to travel to Washington, D.C., in 1963 to cover the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s historic “I Have a Dream” speech.
Moving to Southern California after graduation, she worked for a time at the San Bernardino Sun before joining the AP in 1967. Deutsch initially aspired to be an entertainment reporter and took time off the court beat to cover the Academy Awards for several years.
In 1975, when American involvement in Vietnam ended after the fall of Saigon, he was sent to the Pacific island of Guam to interview displaced persons and help locally employed AP staffers get safely to the United States.
But it was the drama of the courtroom that always called him home.
“It's as old as Shakespeare and Socrates,” he said in a 2007 interview. “It's a very powerful piece of theater that tells us a lot about ourselves and about the people involved in the trial. And I think that's always fascinating.”
Funeral preparations were pending.