Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
DELRAY’S ‘DATELINE’ DETECTIVE
South Florida resident Dennis Murphy looks back on 23 years with NBC’s ‘Dateline’
Living in Delray Beach has provided NBC “Dateline” news correspondent Dennis Murphy great access to some of the biggest national stories to come out of Florida.
He has covered designer Gianni Versace’s shooting, the cases against convicted Ponzi schemer Scott Rothstein and his former right-hand woman Debra Villegas, and the murder trials of Dalia Dippolito and Casey Anthony.
“Florida is a rich harvest of stories that are ‘Dateline’-esque, that have the working ingredients for what we like to talk about, people who should have known better and went ahead and did it any way,” says Murphy, 70. “There is something about Florida that is very rich in the kinds of stories that people like to hear. I’ve enjoyed that we have the time and the resources to tell the stories.”
The news magazine show — which combines mysteries, investigations and breaking news — is the longest-running primetime show on the peacock network, where it averaged 4.6 million total viewers last season, according to NBC.
And Murphy has been with the show since 1994. “I think I am carrying the flag as the longest continuing reporter on the show,” he says, with a laugh.
As “Dateline” kicks off its 26th season at 9 p.m. Friday, we caught up with Murphy, who is most often seen delivering true-crime stories for the show’s Friday night editions.
Longtime South Floridian
Formerly an NBC London bureau correspondent, Murphy made his way to South Florida when he was assigned to work for the network in Miami.
“When I first got to Miami, we had just bought a house in Miami Beach. It was summer of 1983,” he recalls.
He and wife Marilyn eventually moved to Delray Beach, where he works on his “Dateline” stories in his spare bedroom. He connects remotely with producers at NBC in New York City.
“I have been here in Delray for 16 years. It’s so easy to live [here],” he says. “I have way too many guitars and I bang around on them. We sit by the pool. We go to dinner. It all works for me. We have good friends.”
Stories he covers
“We don’t do topics, we do stories,” says Murphy. “It’s one of the psychological aspects of crimes. The audience will see the detective do all the crime gathering.”
If viewers notice a lot of “Dateline” pieces about marriages gone wrong, there is a reason for that.
“It’s not about the murder, it’s about the marriage. That’s our approach to telling these stories,” he says.
Finding the stories
“Most of them are assigned,’’ Murphy says. “We have producers ... They check with the courts and the [network] affiliates … Not too much of it originates from the reporter. It’s a producer-intensive operation.”
Most-watched ‘Dateline’ story
Murphy’s 1998 report, “Cliff Hanger,” was the most-viewed “Dateline” piece, with 21 million viewers, according to NBC. The story, which aired Jan. 5, 1998, was about a woman who pushed her boyfriend off a cliff.
Upcoming report
Murphy’s next story, set to air in early October, sent him to Quincy, Ill.
He says the story fits the typical “Dateline” formula: “About a hometown hero who was a big-time, all-American [football] player who became a prosecutor and was suddenly charged in the murder of his first wife,’’ says Murphy.
Why viewers are drawn to crime stories
“I think there is a fascination with true crime actually,” Murphy says, pointing to last year’s FX series, “American Crime Story: The People v. O.J. Simpson.”
“When I look at the bestseller list, it seems to be 15 of them can be ‘Dateline’ episodes,” he says. “They enjoy looking at these stories. It’s the anatomy of a crime.” “Dateline” airs 9 p.m. Fridays on WTVJ-Ch. 6 in Fort Lauderdale-Miami and WPTV-Ch. 5 in West Palm Beach.