Frank Girardot
Frank Girardot | |
|---|---|
| Born | Francis Conway Girardot, Jr. 1961 (age 62–63) Detroit, Michigan, U.S. |
| Occupation | Author, journalist, victim advocate |
| Genre | non-fiction |
| Subject | True crime |
| Notable awards | Southern California Press Association award for investigative journalism, 1995. Finalist for the 2015 University of Florida Award for Investigative Data Journalism |
| Website | |
| www | |
Frank Girardot (born 1961) is an American author, journalist, victim advocate, and radio host. He is best known for "Name Dropper" [1] his biography of serial imposter Christian Gerhartsreiter. He is communications director for BYD Auto's North American operations[2], CEO of Pegasus Communications, LLC and the former editor and columnist of the San Gabriel Valley News Group.[3]
Career
Girardot got his start in journalism as a copy boy at the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner.[4] Subsequent to the newspaper's closing, he worked for the Ontario Daily Report, the San Gabriel Valley Tribune and the Pasadena Star-News. His 1994 story on the unsolved murder of Geneva Hilliker Ellroy, the mother of novelist James Ellroy, resulted in Ellroy's book My Dark Places.[5]
Girardot has won several writing awards, including the Southern California Press Association's award for Investigative Journalism 1995, the Los Angeles Press Club's First Place Award for sportswriting in 1998, and he was a finalist for the 2015 University of Florida Award for Investigative Data Journalism in 2015.[6] Girardot headed a project for the Los Angeles Newspaper Group titled "Getting Away with Murder." The effort chronicled 11,242 homicides that occurred in Los Angeles County between 2000 and 2010. Relying on data supplied by the Los Angeles County Department of Coroner the project found that less than 50 percent of all homicides that occurred countywide were ever solved.[7]
True crime
Girardot is the author of true crime non-fiction books, including Name Dropper, which was cited by author Walter Kirn in his book Blood Will Out. He is co-author with Burl Barer of A Taste For Murder, Betrayal in Blue with Barer and Ken Eurell and Burned, the biography of serial arsonist John Orr. Burned was CO-written with Orr's daughter Lori Orr Kovach. All, except Name Dropper, are published by Wild Blue Press.
Internet/TV
Girardot has appeared on several true crime shows on various cable networks including Investigation Discovery.[8] He has been a frequent guest on Crime Time with Allison Hope Weiner on LipTV.[9] He has also appeared on Fox News[10][11] and Dateline NBC.[12] His topics of expertise include murder investigation, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, Richard Ramirez, Clark Rockefeller and Los Angeles area true crime.[13]
Radio
In 2015, Girardot co-hosted the Randy Economy Show in Los Angeles on radio station KRLA.[14]
Personal life
Girardot resides in Pasadena, California. He has three children and is a Roman Catholic. He plays guitar in Thunderheart, a band he formed in Temecula, California, with actor Dean Norris.[15]
References
- ^ "Name Dropper: Investigating the Clark Rockefeller Mystery, published March 2014 by Ebookit.com" at Amazon.
- ^ https://www.autoblog.com/2019/04/20/byd-e-seed-gt-ev-shanghai/
- ^ "Editor and columnist" http://www.sgvtribune.com/Staff/65
- ^ "Frank Girardot Announces He is Leaving the Pasadena Star-News",Pasadena News Now, May 30, 2015.
- ^ Mapping Generations of Traumatic Memory in American Narratives", Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
- ^ Jeremiah Patterson, "2015 Online Journalism Awards finalists announced", Online News Association, August 11, 2015.
- ^ "Disturbing New Data on LA County's Unsolved Homicides", Take Two, January 30, 2015.
- ^ "Filmography" https://www.imdb.com/name/nm2365792/
- ^ "Crime Time" http://thelip.tv/episode/call-to-my-rapist-porn-industry-vs-measure-b/ Archived 2016-03-05 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ "Sohus, Rockefeller and the Greta Wire", CBS News, This Morning, August 6, 2008.
- ^ "Rockefeller imposter incapable of murder?", CBS News, March 20, 2013.
- ^ "The Many Faces of Clark Rockefeller", Dateline, NBC, June 14, 2009.
- ^ ""Revisiting the life and crimes of Night Stalker Richard Ramirez"". Archived from the original on 2016-03-05. Retrieved 2016-01-25.
- ^ "Mayor Sam Blog".
- ^ "Remembering Thunderheart".