Linda Deutsch, AP journalist who got to know the history of the trials, dies at age 80

Los Angeles
AP
—

Linda Deutsch, an Associated Press special correspondent who for nearly 50 years provided sparkling first drafts of stories on many of the nation’s most important criminal and civil trials — Charles Manson, O.J. Simpson, Michael Jackson and others — died Sunday. She was 80.

Deutsch was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2022 and underwent successful treatment, but the cancer returned this summer. She died at her Los Angeles home, surrounded by family and friends, said nurse Narek Petrosian of Olympia Hospice Care.

AP’s chief U.N. correspondent Edith Lederer was among those with Deutsch at the end. They were friends for more than 50 years and pioneering female reporters when they joined the AP in the late 1960s.

“She was an incomparable friend to hundreds of people who will miss her wit, wisdom, charm and constant inquisitiveness,” Lederer said.

One of America’s most celebrated trial reporters when she retired in 2015, Deutsch began her courtroom career covering the 1969 trial and conviction of Senator Robert F. Kennedy’s assassin, Sirhan Sirhan. She went on to cover the lives of the accused—Manson, Simpson, Jackson, Patty Hearst, Phil Spector, the Menendez brothers, “Night Stalker” Richard Ramirez, “Unabomber” Ted Kaczynski and the police officers accused of beating up Rodney King’s motorist.

She was 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 sentenced to prison.

“When a big trial was coming up, AP editors didn’t have to ask who should get the assignment. No, it was immediately, ‘Is Linda available?’” recalled Louis D. Boccardi, who served as AP’s executive editor for a decade and as its president and CEO for 18 years. “She had mastered the art of covering celebrity trials, and in the process became something of a media celebrity herself.”

For decades, Deutsch has covered every appeal and parole hearing for every convicted Manson family member. Other historic moments have included witnessing the 1976 conviction of Hearst, a newspaper heiress found guilty of bank robbery and other charges; the 2005 acquittal of Jackson on child molestation charges; and the 2009 murder conviction of Spector, the famed music producer.

“Linda was a fearless reporter who loved to tackle the big stories — and did tackle some of the biggest,” said Julie Pace, AP executive editor and senior vice president. “She was a true pioneer whose command of the subject and tireless work ethic made her an inspiration to many journalists at AP and across our industry.”

Her work, always written with verve, was not limited to celebrities — other trials involved fraud, conspiracy, environmental disasters and immigration — and eventually earned her the title of special correspondent, the most prestigious title for an AP reporter.

Attorney Thomas Mesereau, who represented Jackson, called Deutsch “the epitome of ethics and professionalism in journalism.”

“I can’t think of anyone else who is like her,” he said of Deutsch after her retirement.

Deutsch was just 25 when she covered Sirhan’s conviction. She then turned her attention to the bizarre case of Charles Manson, a career criminal who had fashioned himself as a hippie guru by converting and supplying psychedelic drugs to a group of disaffected youth.

The Manson Family, as they came to be known, terrorized Los Angeles on successive summer nights in 1969, breaking into homes in two affluent neighborhoods and killing seven people, including pregnant actress Sharon Tate. Most of the victims were stabbed multiple times, and their blood was used to scrawl “pig” and other words on the walls of their homes.

When Manson and three of his young female followers went on trial for murder in 1970, they turned the months-long court proceedings into a “surreal spectacle,” Deutsch wrote after Manson’s death in 2017.

“People in the courtroom were having LSD flashbacks, and at one point Charlie jumps across the defense table toward the judge with a pencil in his hand, and the girls are jumping up and down and singing,” Deutsch recalled during a 2014 interview.

Having only handled one significant Deutsch trial, the AP initially sent a more experienced reporter from New York to cover Manson’s trial. After a month of witnessing such antics, he returned home in disgust, leaving Deutsch in charge.

“I thought, ‘Wow, this is really something,’” Deutsch recalled with a laugh. “I didn’t know lawsuits could be like this.”

Still, she got drawn in and formed close bonds with the journalists who showed up every day for nine months.

But an even larger trial, born in the era of modern television, dwarfed Manson more than two decades later. When Simpson, one of America’s most beloved sports stars and figures, was accused of fatally stabbing Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman in a fit of rage, media outlets around the world dispatched reporters to cover the case.

The judge made Deutsch, then a familiar face in the courthouse, the sole reporter covering jury selection. She became a ubiquitous presence on television, telling audiences around the world what was happening in the courtroom.

After Simpson was acquitted 11 months later, he called to thank her for what he considered her honest and objective reporting, a conversation that led to what would be the first of a series of exclusive interviews he would give her over the years.

Not all of her trials have involved celebrities. Deutsch spent five months in Alaska covering the trial of Joseph Hazelwood, captain of the Exxon Valdez tanker, which caused one of the worst environmental disasters in the U.S. when it spilled 11 million gallons of crude oil in 1989.

She also attended the 1973 espionage trial of Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the secret Pentagon Papers to The New York Times, which revealed unsavory details about U.S. involvement in Vietnam. The Times published a series of articles with content that helped turn public opinion away from the Vietnam War.

Deutsch covered the trial of Ramirez, the “Night Stalker,” hearing testimony so gruesome it brought tears to reporters’ eyes. But it was the 1992 trial of four Los Angeles police officers who were videotaped beating King that shocked Deutsch the most. Their acquittals sparked the Los Angeles riots that left 55 dead and $1 billion in property damage.

“It almost destroyed my faith in the justice system,” she said in 2014. “I believe juries are usually right, but not in this case. It was a wrong conclusion. It was a wrong verdict, and it almost destroyed my city.”

Like many, Deutsch fell in love with Los Angeles after moving there. Born and raised in New Jersey, she became interested 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 the musician’s Graceland home in Memphis, Tennessee, in 2002 to cover the 25th anniversary of his death.

During her sophomore year at Monmouth College in New Jersey—now Monmouth University—she landed a part-time job at her hometown newspaper and convinced her editor to let her go to Washington, D.C., in 1963 to cover the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s historic “I Have a Dream” speech.

After graduating, she came to Southern California and worked briefly for the San Bernardino Sun before joining the AP in 1967. Initially, Deutsch dreamed of being an entertainment reporter, and for years she took breaks from court to help cover the Academy Awards.

In 1975, after the fall of Saigon ended U.S. involvement in Vietnam, she was sent to the Pacific island of Guam to interview evacuees and help AP employees there get safely to the United States.

But it was always the dramas of the courtroom that were her home.

“It’s as old as Shakespeare and as old as Socrates,” she said in a 2007 interview. “It’s incredibly powerful theater that tells us about ourselves and about the people on trial. And I think that’s always fascinating.”

Deutsch’s survivors include Marvin Sosna, an uncle who influenced her decision to become a journalist; cousins ​​Elaine Deutsch, Lisa Deutsch, and Lana Sternberg; and godson Luke Rattray.

Funeral arrangements were underway.