The Golden Girl of TV News Drowned in a Station Wagon

Jessica Savitch was the first female reporter for KHOU-TV in Houston and paved the way for future female reporters. She worked her way up to hosting nightly news for the then NBC News. She became a local celebrity until her last newscast incident. 

NBC had replaced Savitch with Connie Chung for the evening anchor slot in June 1983. Leaving Jessica’s only segments were on NBC News Digest segments, until October 3, 1983. Savitch was completely incoherent during her broadcast. She was slurring her words, going off script, and ad-libbing her reports live on air. People soon began to speculate that she was using drugs as some colleagues said they have seen evidence of drug use. Linda Ellerbee asked the network management to intervene. A network vice president responded, “we’re afraid to do anything, we’re afraid she’ll kill herself on our time.”

Twenty days after her mishap on air, she had dinner with Martin Fischbein, the vice president of the New York Post. He signed out a 1982 Oldsmobile station wagon from the New York Post’s fleet, and they headed toward Pennsylvania . 1982 was the first year Oldsmobile spun Cutlass off into its own marque. This wagon was officially known as a Cutlass Cruiser, until it morphed into a Ciera a few years later.

They were driving home when Fischbein drove out of the wrong exit from the restaurant and drove up the towpath of the old Pennsylvania Canal on the Pennsylvania side of the Delaware River. The station wagon drove off the edge and dropped 15 feet down into the canal. The mud from the river sealed the doors shut leaving Savitch and Fischbein to drown to death. No drugs were found in either of their systems.