Forty years ago, America was shaken to its core by the erratic on-air behavior and subsequent tragic death of one of its most famous newscasters.
An incoherent NBC News broadcast helmed by Jessica Savitch on October 3 1983 sparked claims the quadruple Emmy-award winner gone on air while high on cocaine.
Just 20 days later, Savitch drowned after a car being driven by a lover, New York Post vice president Martin Fischbein, plunged into a canal and killed them both.
The death appears to have been an accident – although the New York Post later claimed she may have been murdered for probing an Italian banking scandal.
Twice-married Savitch, who was childless and reportedly suffered from a serious drug addiction, was just 36 years old.
The 40-year anniversary of the shocking events has sparked fresh discussion online about Savitch’s troubled life and shocking death.
On October 3, 1983, during an NBC News Digest segment, Savitch was broadcasted speaking incoherently. The anchor slurred her words and deviated during the report – causing many to speculate that she was on cocaine while broadcasting
In 1988, five years after Savitch’s death, a a blistering biography called Almost Golden by Gwenda Blair claimed Savitch was an ‘unstable and pathetic’ sharp-elbowed egomaniac hell-bent on achieving fame.
Another book about Savitch, Golden Girl, alleged the $315,000-a-year newsreader snorted ‘hills’ of cocaine ‘from morning till night’.
Author Alanna Nash wrote: ‘She was so paranoid by that time that sometimes she wouldn’t go in to work.
‘But this was someone who had more than a drug problem. She had a severe personality disorder.
‘Right before she died, she was in dreadful physical shape. Her weight was low, her hair and nails were ragged, she had ulcerated sores from the drugs and her hands were shaking.’
And it’s that alleged drug addiction which triggered Savitch’s most notorious moment, just weeks before her shocking death.
On October 3, 1983, during an NBC News Digest segment, Savitch was broadcasted speaking incoherently and stumbling over her words in a bizarre sing-song voice while discussing then-president Ronald Reagan and handgun laws.
She tragically died on October 23, 1983 after having a meal with a friend who accidentally drove into a canal during a heavy rainstorm
Her speech and cadence appeared normal later the same evening, with some speculating that whatever drug she may have taken had worn off.
Savitch blamed the problems on a teleprompter malfunction. Her agent at the time offered another excuse, claiming Savitch was feeling the effects of pain medication she was on – because she had to go through facial reconstructive surgery following a boating accident.
But rumors of drug abuse persisted, and biographer Gwenda Blair claimed the incident had effectively ended Savitch’s career, just a year after she’d been voted America’s sexiest newsreader.
NBC correspondent Linda Ellerbee said she asked the network to intervene: ‘You have to do something. This woman [Savitch] is in trouble.’
Ellerbee said that a network vice president responded: ‘We’re afraid to do anything. We’re afraid she’ll kill herself on our time.’
The charismatic journalist, 36, was named her the ‘sexiest’ female anchor in the country in 1982 – as well as the fourth most trusted news anchor
She had arrived at NBC News under a cloud, after colleagues at her old station – KYW in Philly – forwarded a recording of her having a huge tantrum over pages of her script being delivered in the wrong order.
But Savitch and her fans never got to discover what the future held for her career, thanks to her sudden death.
The newsreader and Fischbein, 34, who Savitch had been dating for two weeks, had enjoyed dinner at a restaurant called Chez Odette in New Hope, Pennsylvania.
They drove about 600 feet over a dirt-and-gravel area, and past two warning signs, with Fischbein taking a wrong turn and suddenly driving off the road.
The car fell 10 feet into the Delaware Canal and landed upside down.
There were signs that the pair had tried to kick down the doors to escape the sinking vehicle. The back window had been smashed, the horrific wreckage showed.
An autopsy showed that both Miss Savitch and Mr Fishbein died of suffocation due to drowning. No drugs were present in their system – both had only drunk a small glass of wine that evening.
Investigators thought that the driver may have mistaken the towpath for an exit road after they left Chez Odette.
Walter Everett, the New Hope police chief, said at the time: ‘It was raining, the weather was bad. The visibility was very poor.’
A more sinister version of events was offered by New York private investigator William Callahan, who suggested Savitch had been assassinated.
He claimed her probe into the death of Italian banker Robert Calvi had placed her life in danger.
Callahan says Calvi was murdered after costing his Milan-based bank $250 million, and suggested Savitch had attracted the attention of the killer by digging into his life.
The local coroner dismissed the story and said he’d heard no such theory about Savitch’s death.
In the years leading up to her death, the broadcaster had been haunted by personal tragedies.
Savitch in her apartment in North West Washington with her dog Chewy
She had a slew of jobs after finishing college – as a researcher for CBS radio, a reporter at KHOU- TV, and then an anchor for KYW-TV
An autopsy showed that both Miss Savitch and Mr Fishbein died of suffocation due to drowning. No drugs were present in their systems
Miss Savitch was born in 1947 in Wilmington, Delaware, and is said to have had a keen interest in watching the news with her father from as young as seven
Executive producer David Fanning and Jessica Savitch
American broadcast journalist Jessica Savitch of NBC News, as she reports on the ‘Great Debate’ between Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter in Pennsylvania
She got divorced from her first husband Mel Korn after just 11 months of marriage, allegedly after he found out about her drug problem – and then she quickly remarried a gynecologist, Dr Donald Payne.
Five months into their nuptials, she found him hanged in their Washington DC townhouse.
Miss Savitch was born in 1947 in Wilmington, Delaware, and is said to have had a keen interest in watching the news with her father from as young as seven.
Her first job in journalism was while she was still at high school – she was a news reader and DJ under the name ‘honeybee’ at radio station WOND in Pleasantville, New Jersey.
She then moved on to study communications at Ithaca College and graduated in 1968.
In 1977, she bagged a job at NBC as a Congressional correspondent for $500,000 a year. She was at the network until her death six years later
She had a slew of jobs after finishing college – as a researcher for CBS radio, a reporter at KHOU- TV in Houston, and then an anchor for KYW-TV in Philadelphia.
In 1977, she bagged a job at NBC as a Congressional correspondent. She was at the network until her death six years later.
She was praised throughout her broadcast career, including when she had to fill in gaps on air. Her KYW producer Cliff Abromats once said: ‘She [Savitch] was very good on her feet.
‘She could think fast and ask the right questions, and she had the ability so many lack, to actually listen to the answer.
‘Jessica would never miss it when someone said something unexpected.’
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