Tabloid TV Kills

Although the show (natch) declines any responsibility, a woman whose daughter was recently abducted committed suicide after being cross-examined on Nancy Grace’s screamfest. Weigel reminds us of this excellent TNR story about Grace:

Alas, sometimes her confidence is misplaced. In 2001, Grace was outspoken in her suspicion that California Representative Gary Condit played a role in the disappearance and murder of Chandra Levy. But Condit was never charged, and, although the Levy case remains unsolved, Washington, D.C., police long ago ruled out Condit as a suspect. The next summer, when the kidnapping of twelve-year-old Utah girl Elizabeth Smart was the case du jour, Grace pounced on one of the police’s initial suspects, the Smart family’s handyman, Richard Ricci. Grace all but proclaimed Ricci’s guilt in the kidnapping after Salt Lake City police arrested him for stealing jewelry from the Smart house. Ricci was eventually exonerated of kidnapping Smart–when she was found in March 2003 and a couple was charged in her abduction–but only after he had died in prison of a brain hemorrhage. King later asked Grace if she felt guilty about “all the whacks we took at Mr. Ricci” on his show. “No, I don’t,” she replied. “I’m not going on a guilt trip, and I’m not letting you take the police with me on a guilt trip.”

Wow, assuming people are guilty with little to no evidence isn’t always reliable? Get her show off the air before she kills again.