LOS ANGELES – Linda Deutsch, a special correspondent for The Associated Press who for nearly 50 years wrote glittering first drafts of history from many of the nation’s most significant criminal and civil trials — Charles Manson, O.J. Simpson, Michael Jackson, among others — died Sunday. She was 80.

Deutsch was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2022 and underwent successful treatment, but the cancer returned this summer. She died at her Los Angeles home, surrounded by family and friends, said nurse Narek Petrosian of Olympia Hospice Care.

AP chief United Nations correspondent Edith Lederer was among those with Deutsch at the end. They were friends for more than 50 years and trailblazing female reporters when they joined AP in the late 1960s.

“She was an incomparable friend to hundreds of people who will miss her wit, wisdom, charm, and constant inquisitiveness,” Lederer said.

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But it was always the drama of the courtroom that called her home.

“It’s as old as Shakespeare and as old as Socrates,” she said in a 2007 interview. “It’s an extremely powerful theater that tells us about ourselves and about the people on trial. And I think it’s ever fascinating.”

Funeral arrangements were pending.

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