Jerry Cohen; Award-Winning Journalist

Former Los Angeles Times staff writer Jerry Cohen, lead writer on the newspaper’s Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage of the 1965 Watts riots, was found dead in his South Pasadena home Saturday morning. He was 70.

A family spokesman said Cohen, who retired from The Times in 1987 after a quarter of a century with the paper, apparently committed suicide. He had been despondent over failing health for several years, the spokesman added.

A native of Joplin, Mo., and a 1944 graduate of Antioch College, Cohen previously worked for newspapers in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois and Arizona. He was the last city editor of the now-defunct New Orleans Item.

Cohen was the author of four books, among them “Burn Baby Burn,” written with the late William Murphy, a Times photographer and writer. The critically acclaimed work dealt with the causes of the Watts riots and involved dozens of interviews with police, residents and victims.

Another of his books, which he co-authored, was “The Pied Piper of Tucson,” detailing the sordid life of Charles Howard Schmid Jr., who preyed on teen-age girls.

Stories he covered for The Times included the Tate-La Bianca murder trials, the Chowchilla kidnaping of a bus full of schoolchildren, the Juan Corona mass murder trial and the New Orleans hearings of Clayton Shaw, investigated by Dist. Atty. Jim Garrison in the aftermath of the 1963 John F. Kennedy assassination.

His reporting of the 1978 Squaw Valley tram tragedy resulted in a prize-winning special section in the paper. He also worked in sports, writing a tennis column for The Times while covering the Wimbledon and French Open tennis tournaments. A onetime adjunct professor of journalism at USC, his work was honored by the State Bar Assn., the Greater Los Angeles Press Club and the Associated Press.

He is survived by his wife, Dorothy, daughters Cassy and Jamey, and two grandsons. At the family’s request, there will be no services.