Edward Kirkman, 75; Veteran Reporter for New York Daily News
Edward Kirkman, 75, a former New York Daily News reporter who scooped the competition on the prison release of legendary bank robber Willie Sutton, died of cancer Sunday at his home in Medford on Long Island.
The Brooklyn-born, World War II Navy veteran went to work as a copy boy at the News in 1946 for $23 a week and became one of its top reporters, covering such stories as the sinking of the Italian liner Andrea Doria, the mob slaying of gangster Joseph “Crazy Joey” Gallo and the San Francisco trial of newspaper heiress turned revolutionary Patty Hearst.
When Sutton--who was famous for saying that he robbed banks because “that’s where the money is”--was freed from prison on Christmas Eve in 1969, Kirkman escorted him from Attica to New York on a plane that had been chartered by the News.
He got his exclusive interview while other papers were trying to find Sutton.
Kirkman also once posed as a derelict to write a two-part series exposing conditions in a men’s shelter.
He won numerous awards during a 41-year career before taking early retirement in 1987.
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