Mary Murphy (reporter)

Mary Murphy (born in Woodside, Queens) is an investigative reporter at WPIX-TV New York City. She has covered the biggest stories in New York since the mid-1980s, including the September 11th terror attacks on the Twin Towers, Hurricane Sandy, the 2013 election of Pope Francis in Vatican City, and many criminal trials. Her journalism work has been honored with 23 New York Emmy awards, more than 20, first-place Associated Press honors, and an Edward R. Murrow award for writing. One of Murphy's Emmys is a special achievement award for Journalistic Enterprise, which she won in 2015. The American Women in Radio and Television organization has also recognized Murphy for a mini-documentary she co-produced for WPIX TV called "Schindler, the Real Story."

The daughter of an Irish-born bus driver, the late James Murphy, and an Irish-born homemaker, also Mary, Murphy is the oldest of four children. She attended Our Lady of Lourdes school in Queens Village, Delehanty High School in Jamaica, and then Queens College in Flushing. She graduated Magna Cum Laude from the city university system with a double major in English and Public Communications.

As a college senior, Murphy secured an internship at WCBS TV (CBS 2 New York) in 1981. She started in the business answering newsroom phones and changing ribbons on the AP wire service machines. She moved up to researcher and then took her first job at WPIX TV in late 1981, as a production assistant. She moved up the ladder to writer, and then, on camera reporter.

In 1986, WCBS New York hired Mary Murphy as a general assignment reporter. This is where Murphy made her mark as a hard-charging journalist who often handled the lead story of the day on the noon, 5 and 6 pm broadcasts. Murphy covered the crack cocaine epidemic of the mid to late 1980's at Channel 2. Her first big story at WCBS was the Howard Beach racial attack, involving white teens chasing three, black men out of their neighborhood. One of the men, Michael Griffith, ran across the Belt Parkway and was fatally hit by a car. Another man, Cedric Sandiford, was brutally beaten. Three Howard Beach teens were convicted of manslaughter and assault in the case.

Murphy won Emmy awards at Channel 2 for covering the Joel Steinberg and John Gotti trials. The Gotti case was just one of many organized crime stories Murphy has done in her career.

Murphy returned to WPIX in 1993, where she eventually spent 14 years anchoring the weekend news and continued her reporting. She has won 21 of her Emmy awards at PIX 11. On the weekend anchor desk, she covered the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister, Yitzhak Rabin, the Paris car crash that took the life of Princess Diana, and the plane crash that killed John. F. Kennedy Junior, along with his wife and sister-in-law.

Among the stories Murphy has been recognized for: the 1994 terrorism shooting on the Brooklyn Bridge, the 1996 crash of TWA Flight 800 off the coast of Long Island, the September 11th attacks and their aftermath, and the 2005 'Black Sunday' fire, where six Bronx firefighters were forced to jump from the top floor of a burning building--while another fireman died in Brooklyn later that day. Murphy also interviewed one of her childhood friends from Woodside, Louis Pepe, who was stabbed in the eye by two, terrorism suspects, while carrying out his duties as a federal corrections officer.

In 2013, PIX11 launched a segment called Mary Murphy Mystery. Murphy has investigated many Missing Persons cases and unsolved homicides. One of her most rewarding moments came in February 2015, when a woman in Pennsylvania saw one of Murphy's Mystery reports on the web, leading to a reunion with the daughter she had left behind in Brooklyn 38 years before, under difficult circumstances.

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