ABOUT
From Gotti to Gilgo, veteran TV journalist Mary Murphy has chased leads on the most compelling ‘true crime’ stories of the last forty years. She has reported on the plight of the missing, especially in communities of color, and also received tips from viewers that resulted in the solving of cold case murders.
In July 2023, Mary covered the arrest of accused Long Island Serial Killer (LISK), Rex Heuermann, after a dozen years of reporting on the unsolved mystery.
The first victims were discovered in Gilgo Beach in December 2010, but the case has grown to include Sandra Costilla, a 28 year old woman who was sexually tortured, murdered, and found in Southampton, N.Y. in 1993.
Born and raised in Queens, New York, Mary did breaking news and investigative reporting for PIX11 News and CBS2 during an award-winning TV career, receiving 32 Emmy awards for her work.
Mary covered New York City’s crack cocaine epidemic in the 1980’s, watching NYPD takedowns of drug crews in housing projects. She was 'on the scene' after the mob hit on Gambino godfather, Paul Castellano, outside Sparks Steakhouse in December 1986. She later covered the federal trial of Dapper Don, John Gotti, who was convicted of ordering the rub-out of Castellano. Mary witnessed the courtroom testimony of Gotti’s underboss, Sammy “Bull” Gravano, who made a deal with the government to talk in exchange for leniency.
In 1993, Murphy responded to the truck bomb explosion in the World Trade Center, interviewing survivors who had crawled out of the rubble near the parking garage in Tower One. That night, police investigators gave Mary a jumpsuit and allowed her to see the six-story deep crater created by the force of the blast.
Mary then spent two decades reporting on the city’s and nation’s counterterrorism efforts. She covered the 1994 Brooklyn Bridge shooting that killed Orthodox Jewish student, Ari Halberstam, 16-–and wrote about thwarted terror plots in the city’s transit system. When two jets slammed into the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, bringing down the Twin Towers, Mary spent the next year reporting on the aftermath. Mary later crossed the border into Canada, where terror cells were planning new assaults against the United States.
Mary served as weekend anchor at PIX11 News for 14 years, from 1995 to 2009, playing a large role in coverage of the deaths of Princess Diana and John F. Kennedy Junior, among other breaking stories.
In 2009, she began extensive reporting on the opioid crisis, when teenagers were fatally overdosing on heroin, after becoming addicted to painkillers. Mary did four, Emmy-winning specials on opioids, including "Heroin, A to Z," a six-part series that aired in 2014. The Drug Enforcement Administration has honored Mary for her efforts to educate the public about opioids, especially deadly fentanyl.
Mary traveled town to town during Super Storm Sandy in 2012 and covered the election of Pope Francis in Vatican City in 2013. Her crime reporting has taken her to St. Vincent and the Grenadines in the Caribbean, Texas, Georgia and the Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia. Her reporting on the 2018 gang murder of Bronx teen Lesandro “Junior” Guzman-Feliz caused people to write Mary from as far away as Amsterdam, South Africa, and Australia.
In 2020, Mary reported extensively on the “Faces of the Pandemic,” as the COVID-19 crisis emerged in the United States. She helped viewers understand the science of coronavirus and told the personal stories of survivors—and the people who succumbed to the virus.
Mary has been honored with a national award for her reporting by the American Women in Radio and Television. Mary has also made a seamless transition into the world of digital and social media, and her online articles have been widely read.
In May 2024, she received the President's Medal from her alma mater, Queens College, "for her impactful journalism and broadcasting as she covered significant events during her award-winning career."