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Linda Deutsch, AP trial writer who had a front row seat to courtroom history, dies at 80

Linda Deutsch, a special correspondent for The Associated Press who for nearly 50 years wrote glittering first drafts of history, died Sunday. She was 80.

She went on to cover a who’s who of criminal defendants — Manson, Simpson, Jackson, Patty Hearst, Phil Spector, the Menendez Brothers, “Night Stalker” Richard Ramirez, “Unabomber” Ted Kaczynski and the police officers charged in the beating of motorist Rodney King. Her work, always written with verve, was not limited to celebrity — other trials involved fraud, conspiracy, environmental disasters and immigration — and eventually earned her the title of special correspondent, the most prestigious byline for an AP reporter. The Manson Family, as they came to be known, terrorized Los Angeles on successive summer nights in 1969, breaking into homes in two wealthy neighborhoods and killing seven people, including pregnant actress Sharon Tate.

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