Jessica Savitch

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American broadcast journalist, reporter and anchor for CBS affiliates, a congressional correspondent. An attractive and ambitious blonde, she began in broadcast while still in high school in 1964. She worked for CBS for three years in Texas and five years in Philadelphia, PA before going national. There were reports that she moved up the ladder with her looks rather than her broadcasting skills and that she mumbled her news delivery, however there was no question that she was gifted in communicating with the TV camera, reaching her audience with impact. She won an award for her one-hour documentary "Lady Law." Savitch's personal life was a running melodrama with one abortion, one miscarriage, anorexia, two failed marriages and a gradual immersion into cocaine and amphetamines. Her first marriage lasted ten months. Her second, to Dr. Donald Payne, ended after five months when she found him hanging by the dog's leash in the couple's Washington DC townhouse. Driving with her fiancé, Martin Fischbein, vice-president of the New York Post, on 23 October 1983, they had a bizarre accident. In the rain Fischbein turned into the canal, mistaking it for the road, and when the car plunged into the swollen canal, they both drowned, New Hope, PA. Link to Wikipedia biography