Robert Vito

Robert Vito was a broadcast journalist who spent 17 years with CNN, where he acquired a reputation as a top-notch investigative reporter.

He began his job as a radio reporter in Wisconsin. His first television job was a reporting postion at WISN-TV in Milwaukee, where his investigative stories brought him recognition that led to a job at Detroit station WWJ-TV. There, in 1975, he interviewed former Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa, which proved to be his final interview prior to his disappearance.

In 1982, two years after the launch of CNN, he became the cable news titan's first Detroit bureau chief. Six years later he became bureau chief in Rome. Italy, and the year after that he relocated to the Los Angeles bureau.

In Los Angeles he covered a number of high-profile stories, including the Rodney King beating and subsequent riots, O.J. Simpson criminal trial and the McMartin preschool case.

After Los Angeles, he worked at the Miami bureau, where his stories of note included the trial of attorney F. Lee Bailey and the murder of fashion designer Gianni Versace.

After leaving CNN in 199, he became a jury consultant in Florida and worked on documentaries. When his wife became ill with cancer, he devoted himself to caring for her until her passing in 2012.

Vito died November 13, 2013.