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↑ (Courtesy of Western Historical Manuscript Collection) Theo Wilson (1917 - 1997)Theo Wilson’s writing career stretched from her childhood to her death. In 1995, at age 78, Wilson celebrated the completion of her book, “Headline Justice: Inside the country’s most controversial trials.” En route to “The Late, Late Show with Tom Snyder” to talk about it, Wilson suffered a cerebral hemorrhage and died. Wilson did her first reporting in 1928 at age 11, creating her own newspaper, the Midwood News. The handwritten newspaper, yellowed, torn and occasionally grammatically incorrect, is part of her contribution to the collection. Decades later, Theo Wilson was a journalistic mainstay in the 20th-century courtroom. “It’s big news if Theo and Doc show up,” read the headline of the Providence Journal-Bulletin on March 13, 1982, referring to Wilson and another trial reporter. “She covered everything from Sam Sheppard to O.J. Simpson,” said Jenny Lukomski at the Western Historical Manuscript Collection. The trial of Sirhan Sirhan, who was convicted of the 1968 assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, was one of Wilson’s career highlights. “Sirhan squirms as his notebooks are read,” Wilson’s headline read in the New York Daily News. Wilson breathed the charged courtroom air with some of the legends of American jurisprudence: Sam Sheppard, Patricia Hearst, Charles Manson, Jack Ruby and O.J. Simpson. A caption in one newspaper, a copy of which is in the collection, called her “The Tabloid Queen of Murder Trials.” The caption also noted Wilson had an AP wire machine in her apartment. Beyond the courtroom, Wilson’s stories showed a novel journalistic sense. Her 1965 “Diary of a (Beatles) Chambermaid” is her first-hand account of playing maid in the Beatles’ Warwick Hotel room. Wilson pioneered hard-news coverage for female journalists. “Some of us smashed the glass ceiling,” said journalist Tad Bartimus, “Theo Wilson became not just the best female trial reporter in America, but the best trial reporter.” |
