Richard Threlkeld, CBS And ABC Correspondent, Dies In Car Crash

Richard Threlkeld, a former CBS and ABC correspondent, has died in a crash at the age of 74. He was driving his 2008 Mini Cooper in Amagansett when he collided with a propane tanker and was pronounced dead at Southampton Hospital. The driver of the tanker is under investigation.

Lesley Stahl, his co-anchor on the “CBS Morning News” from 1977 to 1979, said: “Richard Threlkeld had the kind of name and kind of looks that could’ve made him a reporter in the movies, but unlike a reporter in the movies, he could write his own scripts. In fact, he was one of our best writers and reporters, someone CBS sent to troubled spots to cover the big stories of the day.”

Threlkeld helped establish the CBS “Sunday Morning” show and he spent 25 years in total working for CBS. For “Sunday Morning” he was known for being highly prolific as one of his producers, Larry Doyle, reported: “Dick would be listening to a little recorder with all the audio from all the interviews and … transcribing it by hand. He was amazing.”

In the 80s he worked for ABC and his “Status Report” was so highly respected that it won an Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award in 1984. When he returned to CBS he was the Moscow correspondent and this inspired his book “Dispatches From the Former Evil Empire.” Among his career highlights include the assassination of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, the Patty Hearst kidnapping and presidential campaigns including Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton.

Source: Bangor Daily News