Cris Barrish

Reporter

Cris Barrish, a national award-winning investigative reporter, covers stories about Delaware.

Cris worked at Wilmington (Del.) News Journal for 34 years, starting out writing about local sports but ultimately becoming the senior investigative reporter — a position he held for nearly two decades. At the News Journal, he won dozens of national and regional awards for his exposés about corruption, incompetence, and sheer outrageousness in the First State. He won the University of Colorado/Denver Press Club Al Nakkula Award for Police reporting and other honors for his Pulitzer Prize-nominated series of investigative stories on the failed efforts by police, prosecutors, and medical officials to stop a pedophile pediatrician who raped more than 100 young girls he treated.

He was lead author of “Fatal Embrace,” a true-crime book about the murder by prominent attorney Tom Capano of gubernatorial secretary Ann Marie Fahey. He has appeared in several television documentaries and on radio and cable news about cases he covered, including A&E’s “American Justice” and “City Confidential,” the Discovery Network, CNN, NPR, and local and regional news shows.

After retiring from the paper in November 2016, Cris worked for a nonprofit and as a substitute teacher in Delaware public schools, giving him an inside view of the state’s educational system.

When he is not tracking down stories for readers, listeners, and viewers, Cris can be found on the local tennis courts, where he is a scrappy USTA singles player; at the YMCA, where he works out and has served on the Board of Governors; or running on his cherished trails in the wonderful woods of northern Delaware.

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