airs Saturdays at 10 p.m. 48 HOURS ET/PT on CBS. 48 Hours correspondents Susan Spencer, Richard Schlesinger, Maureen Maher, Erin Moriarty, Troy Roberts and Peter Van Sant. 48THINGS You Don’T KNOW ABOUT 48 HOURS A lot can happen in 48 n the 1980s, when audiences’ attention spans were being challenged by music videos, big hair and bad fashions, 48 Hours took a groundbreaking Hours ... not to mention concept and made it an instant classic: Take a group of correspondents, 25 years. A tribute camera crews and producers and shoot one important story for 48 hours to one of television’s Istraight. Since then, the broadcast has evolved with its focus now on crime and justice. It’s a favorite with viewers as well as being an award-winning most celebrated television mainstay. In honor of its 25th anniversary, Watch! takes a look at CRAIG BLANKENHORN/CBS CRAIG newsmagazines 48 things you might not know about this television icon. 48 Hours began as a two-hour groundbreaking documentary in There are 11 current staff September 1986 titled 48 Hours An hour after watching members who have been with 1 correspondent MAUREEN on Crack Street. 48 Hours since its beginning. MAHER’s report, “The Boy 19 48 Hours was launched as a Next Door,” about There are six regular on-air 12the 18-year-old mystery regular series in January 1988. correspondents for 48 Hours: 2 surrounding the murder of 20 Maureen Maher, Erin Moriarty, Tricia Pacaccio, a viewer Troy Roberts, Richard Schlesinger, The show gets its name from the came forward with the Susan Spencer and Peter Van Sant, original concept of shooting one identity of the killer, Michael and contributor Tracy Smith. 3 subject straight for 48 hours. Gargiulo. He was revealed to have killed two more There have been 67 guest 48 Hours is the third longest women and attempted correspondents on 48 Hours running primetime show to kill a third. since its debut, including on television. 21 4 After 20 years, Walter Cronkite and Mike Wallace. Gargiulo was 48 Hours has had 15 different time Most unusual 48 Hours story finally indicted for slots over 25 years. title: “Two Wigs, a Gun and a Pacaccio’s murder. 5 22 Murder,” told the story of a wife 48 Hours’ most-watched Maureen Maher who killed her professor husband. The episode, “Get Rich Quick,” aired twist was—did her sister help her cover up the crime? 6 Jan. 26, 1992, and attracted Most hours on a celebrity: 24.82 million viewers. Michael Jackson, five shows. 48 Hours helped solve the 48 Hours has been Saturday’s 13 murder of racing legend Mickey Thompson and his wife, Trudy, No. 1 primetime (nonsports) Most days on the road in one 23 who were killed in 1988. Nineteen years program for the past six seasons. year: Erin Moriarty, 150. 7 later, Thompson’s business partner 48 Hours aired 79 episodes in 14 Michael Goodwin was convicted of one season alone (1998–1999). Prosecutor who has appeared their murder. the most on 48 Hours: Texas 8 48 Hours has helped exonerate lawyer Kelly Siegler, 11 times. 48 Hours has won numerous 15 seven people after they were awards since its premiere, including 24 falsely convicted of crimes. three Peabodys, an Alfred duPont Longest number of years 9 following a story: 20. When 48 Hours correspondent award, 17 news Emmys, five Edward R. Murrow awards and five Overseas Press Correspondent ERIN Troy Roberts asked Club Awards. MORIARTY 25 a prisoner why he 16began reporting on committed murder, he replied, Most number of shows on the brutal murder of “I was bored.” one case: Six separate hours four Austin, Texas, on Marty Tankleff, a teenager teenagers in 1992. 48 Hours producer 10 Paul LaRosa has convicted of murdering his parents. His Two suspects were sentence: two consecutive 25-year-to-life eventually tried, 26 written four terms. An appellate court overturned his convicted and later true crime books and conviction 17 years after he had gone to exonerated because a memoir. prison. Tankleff, 41, is now in law school. of DNA. The case has never While been solved. Erin Moriarty working While working on a story on a story in Palm in Russia, While working on a story about 2748 Hours correspondent Springs, Calif., Hustler magnate Larry Flynt, correspondent TROY ROBERTS was senior coordinating producer 11PETER .VAN SANT received 17 arrested by undercover Suzanne Allen met the publisher, starting a note reading, “You have police in a rural town a 15-year friendship. seconds, perhaps a minute, outside Moscow, thrown before you are in extreme 48 Hours’ youngest killer: into the back of an pain. I suggest that Christopher Pittman, age 12, unmarked car with a gun you leave.” When he 18 who was sentenced to 30 years pointed at him by two saw heavy wiring when the jury rejected his claim that officers who smelled of running from giant an antidepressant made him shoot alcohol, and taken to the batteries to a his grandparents. police station, where he sat steel plate under in a Russian cell for hours. It his feet, he left. was a shakedown for cash. Peter Van Sant Troy Roberts 110 OCTOBER 2012 / WAtcH! 2848 Hours . 42 A defense attorney once senior Six minutes into shooting a based his plea for a pardon on a executive 48 Hours story on California 48 Hours broadcast. It worked. producer 34 bank robberies, a bank robber SUSAN led cops and 48 Hours on a freeway ZIRINSKY chase that ended at the Mexico border. was the inspiration for While covering an unrelated Holly Hunter’s story in St. Louis, 48 Hours 43 A corrections official, whose character as a Susan Zirinsky 35 producer Shoshanah Wolfson television news witnessed a detective confront a car prison killed convicts producer in the Oscar-nominated film full of suspects at gunpoint. by electric chair, told Broadcast News. correspondent RICHARD An accused murderer once said SCHLESINGER, on the witness stand, “I’m not “We want to provide 36 stupid. I know that cellphones a smooth delivery The man convicted of can be tracked. I watch 48 Hours.” The of service.” killing motivational speaker cellphone evidence helped convict him. Jeffrey Locker told 48 Hours 29 Richard Schlesinger correspondent Richard Schlesinger, A 48 Hours producer accidentally “I knew it wasn’t murder. I just happened left a bag of tools inside the to be the building he jumped off.” 37 dormitory of a maximum-security jail for sex offenders. 48 Hours staff members A prison official once offered have included children of a During an interview with to keep an inmate in jail a few U.S. senator, a world-famous more days to accommodate 48 Hours correspondent Richard 44 30 Broadway composer, a legendary Schlesinger, an attorney and 48 Hours producer Gail Zimmerman’s 38 broadcaster, a noted presidential friend of a wealthy perpetrator actually schedule. She said no thank you. biographer and the grandson of actress said, on camera, “If you want the hoochie, Angela Lansbury, a CBS icon with her 48 Hours has investigated you gotta buy the Gucci.” 12 cases of murder where the long-running series, Murder, She Wrote. Twenty years after an 18-year-old 31 victim’s body was not found. 48 Hours producer Judy Tygard girl was murdered, correspondent once leaned out of a truck going 48 Hours helped solve a cold Erin Moriarty interviewed Joe 39 60 miles per hour on the L.A. case of a murdered 16-year-old Ture, the man police always believed had 45 freeway to hand her crew videotape. 32 Jane Doe after forensic artist killed her. After the story aired, dozens Gloria Nusse reconstructed her skull of women came forward saying Ture had 48 Hours marriages: Whether from clay. Jane Doe was identified and attacked them, too. Police were finally meeting in the office, on a story her killer was brought to justice. able to convict him of the young girl’s 46 or in the field, there have been murder and later tied him to the murder 16 unions. of a mother and her two children from a nearby town. 48 Hours is watched in 36 countries. Former St. Louis firefighter 47 Nick Koenig was shot three 33The most unusual. gift: After times in a 2009 home invasion. 40 interviewing a killer, correspondent A bullet lodged near his spine was SUSAN SPENCER was leaving left in, too dangerous to remove. the Indiana prison when officials After an interview with 48 Hours, thanked her for coming and gave he called to say he’d been in a car 48After 40 years. with her a Wabash Valley Correctional accident; he was fine but he coughed Facility tote bag. up the bullet. The crew went CBS News and 20 years back to reinterview him and with 48 Hours, correspondent see the bullet. HAROLD DOW was doing what he loved most, Before he became reporting at 48 Hours. famous, Oscar- He left work one night Susan 41 nominated director and died of an asthma Spencer Darren Aronofsky was profiled attack on his way home. on a 48 Hours show called Harold Dow “Making It,” which followed him at the Sundance Film Festival. WAtcH! / OCTOBER 2012 113.