Nancy Grace's Transformation Is A Staggering Sight To See
For over 10 years, Nancy Grace had a thriving career as a prosecutor at the Atlanta-Fulton County, Georgia District Attorney's office. When the then-D.A. was set to make an exit, Grace, who would be out of work, weighed her options. Although politics seemed like a possible career path, Grace decided it wasn't an appropriate choice for moral reasons, which she shared in a 2010 interview with Time. "I knew that I had no stomach for politics," she told the outlet. "I didn't want to run for anything. I think all politicians lie."
Luckily for Grace, she didn't have to look for too long to find her new career path. Her 1996 transition to television was easy as pie. Court TV founder Steven Brill had a proposal to have her on the air, and the pair struck a deal. When the D.A. retired, Grace got on a flight headed for the city that never sleeps. "I packed up two bags of clothes and a curling iron, moved to New York, and started Court TV on Monday," she recalled on "Larry King Live."
Since that fated exit, Grace has gained notoriety as a tough-talking no-nonsense legal commentator who does not mince her words. Going from a small-town girl from Georgia to one of the top voices on television, Grace has had quite the evolution.
Nancy Grace was raised in Macon, Georgia
Nancy Grace's upbringing was cash-strapped, but abundant in joy, as she recounted in a conversation with the New York Post. "I grew up in a very rural area out in the middle of Georgia, on a red dirt road with a well dug by my grandfather," she recollected. "The bookmobile would come out to serve the needy people — i.e., us! I had never heard of violence or racism or poverty. No one had anything, but we were happy." Grace went to Windsor Academy, where she was part of the cheering squad.
Years later, Grace would return to her hometown a hero during the promotion of her book, "The Eleventh Victim," and served as a member of the board of trustees of her alma mater, Mercer University. Grace's spectacular career eventually afforded her an enormous residence in Georgia, featuring camouflaged pathways, a zip-line, and a pipe-like slide that ends at the kids' playroom. "I have so many blessings in life I never dreamed of having," she expressed when the Daily Mail toured her palatial home, which is a far cry from her destitute childhood.
She was a literature fanatic
From a young age, Nancy Grace set her sights on having a career in writing. At school, she had a love affair with literature, reading William Shakespeare religiously and feeling more at home when analyzing "Macbeth" and "Othello." Perhaps foreshadowing her future in law, Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird" also topped her list of favorites. Grace's mother, an ex-accountant, and her father, a former railroad worker, often had discussions with young Grace about her ambitions. By the time she was in high school, it was clear that she would be a writer, so she became an English literature student at Mercer University in Georgia.
"I had a concentration in Shakespearean literature, among other things. I wanted to study at the Globe Theater and write my dissertation on Shakespeare," Grace revealed of her early years at Mercer in a chat with Interview. While it seemed that she was on a fast track toward accomplishing her dreams, one tragic event would lead her in a different direction.
She lost her fiance to gun violence
When she was 19 years old, Nancy Grace was engaged to 23-year-old Keith Griffin. Just when the couple was a few months short of walking down the aisle, Griffin, who doubled as a student and a construction worker, was shot by an ex-coworker. The tragic 1979 incident turned Grace's world upside down, but she found the courage to keep going, albeit with a heavy heart.
"It's like breaking your arm and you never get it set, but you learn to flip a pancake or sweep the floor. Not the way you did before, but in a different way," Grace reflected on "Piers Morgan Tonight." She opened up about how for three decades she couldn't see herself becoming a mother or a wife. In fact, Grace would physically shudder whenever the topic of marriage came up.
Griffin's killer, Tom McCoy, was ultimately convicted of his murder. 25 years later, Grace was at the office going through fan emails when she came across one that revealed the fate of McCoy: He was released. "I didn't even try to look it up," she recalled during an appearance on "The Megyn Kelly Show," adding context that she had never kept tabs on the criminal and that she never knew of his whereabouts from then on. "It wouldn't change anything that happened."
Grace dropped out of school before pursuing law
The catastrophic death of her fiancé, Keith Griffin, took a toll on Nancy Grace and led to a depressive state full of heartbreak and grief. "It was like a dark swirl after his murder," she recollected on "Piers Morgan Tonight." "I couldn't eat, I couldn't drink anything, I lost down to, about 89 pounds, dropped out of school. I was at my parents' home. I couldn't stand to hear the TV, the radio in the car, I couldn't stand to hear a clock tick. It was just too much."
Grace eventually left Georgia behind for Philadelphia, where she stayed with her sister. During that difficult period of her life, she knew her second calling — that of being an English teacher — had bit the dust. But what did still spark her passion was finding justice. "I knew I wanted to work with victims and somehow, uh, put a Band-Aid on," she explained on "Larry King Live." When she returned to Mercer University, she pursued a Juris Doctor degree. Grace then got a master's degree in criminal and constitutional law at New York University, setting her on the path to becoming a prosecutor.
Grace never lost a case as a prosecutor
Since she began working in the District Attorney's office in Georgia in 1987, Nancy Grace brought numerous cases to trial. After her third year in the office, Grace focused on cases dealing with homicide, repeated sexual violations to adults and minors, and arson. The strategy she swore by was sentimentalism. "A large part of my job is making an emotional connection with the jury," Grace shared with Atlanta Magazine back in 1996. "The technical evidence may prove guilt, but a lot of that stuff goes over the jury's head."
Impressively, she never lost a case during her decade-long D.A.'s office career and never liked to enter plea bargain agreements, as she recounted on "Larry King Live." "I get the file, I'd open the case. It would be a drug case, two hits of cocaine. I'd go, 'Hmm, but he had a gun,'" Grace explained. "Now, how do I know the next time he's not going to shoot the cop? Then whose fault is that going to be? Mine." Although Grace left her past as a prosecutor behind, the case of Scott Peterson — who was taken off death row in October 2022 after receiving capital punishment for the murders of Laci Peterson and his unborn child in 2004 – was one she would have taken to trial, as she shared during her 2010 interview with Time.
She began her television career alongside Johnnie Cochran
When Nancy Grace was recruited to become a Court TV personality, she was not the star analyst she has since become. Fresh out of the D.A.'s office, she was paired up with Johnnie Cochran, who rose to prominence as one of O.J. Simpson's lawyers in his 1995 trial for the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman. Coincidentally, Grace had given legal commentary on Simpson's case. As such, it was a bone of contention when she and Cochran began working together.
"I knew Johnnie Cochran well because he had all the fame, he had all the charm. I was just the nobody prosecutor from Atlanta, Georgia, that they tagged onto the famous Johnnie Cochran," she noted on "Larry King Live." "I had a hard time at the beginning, because every time I looked at him, I [imagined] Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman, lying with their heads chopped off in the front yard."
Over time, she eventually became convinced of Simpson's innocence and managed to strike a friendship with Cochran that extended to his family. While the pair was friendly toward each other off-air, the same could not be said for their on-screen relationship. "On air? We fought like a cat and a dog. A wet cat and dog," Grace recalled. "Off the air, we got along great."
Grace became a one-woman show
In 1999, Johnnie Cochran left his and Nancy Grace's television show to work at a personal injury law firm. On her own, Grace went on to host "Trial Heat," which she had begun working on two years prior. "Court TV had me go straight, basically, into the courtroom and it's — it's a fantastic thing. I do what I love all day ... We cover trials live. We interview the people, the players in the cases. We analyze the law," Grace said in her conversation with "Larry King Live." She added that the public was most likely captivated by trials because of their ability to uncover the dark side of humanity — one which is often left untold.
With her fiery passion for the law, Grace exited "Trial Heat" in 2003 and kept hosting Court TV's "Closing Arguments," which she had also started two years before, but she left "Closing Arguments" in 2007. Her long on-air resume also includes helming the radio show, "Rapid Fire With Nancy Grace," on KNEW-AM in the mid-2000s.
Nancy Grace wrote several books
Nancy Grace's writing dreams weren't forever given up, after all. In 2005, Grace published her first book, "Objection!: How High-Priced Defense Attorneys, Celebrity Defendants, and a 24/7 Media Have Hijacked Our Criminal Justice System." Speaking on the unethical side of defense law during the promotion of her book at the time, Grace told The Washington Post, "I'm on a search for the truth ... I don't really want to have any part of getting guilty people off."
In 2009, she released the fictional novel, "The Eleventh Victim," a story whose plot was inspired by the events of her own life. The book would go on to become a made-for-TV movie, starring Jennie Garth as the lead character, Hailey Dean. On her show, Grace revealed that she had written the book in between numerous significant life changes. "This was cathartic when I wrote it since at the time that I began working on it, I still had prosecution running through my blood," she said. "The book that I started is very different from the book that I ended up with."
Grace's next book, "Death on the D-List," yet another Hailey Dean narrative, was released in 2010. It was followed by 2016's "Murder in the Courthouse" and "Don't Be a Victim: Fighting Back Against America's Crime Wave," which Grace published in 2020.
She was wrong about the Elizabeth Smart case
Nancy Grace may have a great conviction that has helped put the bad guys away, but she hasn't always been right. In June 2002, 14-year-old Elizabeth Smart was kidnapped from her Salt Lake City residence in the wee hours of the morning. A manhunt for the missing teenager was launched thereafter, but it bore no fruit. That year, Richard Ricci, who was a suspect in the Smart case, died while in police custody. All along, Grace had expressed her belief in Ricci's guilt.
As it was uncovered when Smart was found when she was spotted in public with her kidnapper in 2003, the girl had been abducted by Brian David Mitchell and his wife, Wanda Barzee. Speaking to the Daily Beast in 2020 about the Smart case, Grace said she had a change of heart about Ricci: "Once I listened to his [Ricci's] wife speak out on his behalf and give her story, I was very clear that I believed her ... That, however, is rarely reported."
In 2006, Grace welcomed Smart onto her show, CNN's "Nancy Grace," to discuss a bill she was supporting about the national sex offender registry, but the host first bombarded the victim with questions about what her life was like while she was abducted. "I'm not here to give an interview on that. I'm here to help push this bill through," Smart remarked in response, later adding when Grace continued the uncomfortable questioning, "To be frankly honest, I really don't appreciate you bringing all this up."
She was sued by the Duckett family
Nancy Grace began her self-titled prime-time HLN legal analysis show in 2005. The following year, she spoke to Melinda Duckett, the 21-year-old mother of 2-year-old Trenton Duckett, who went missing. Grace was brutal in her interview with Melinda and hammered her desk while interrogating the young mother. "Where were you? Why aren't you telling us where you were that day?" the stern analyst asked (via ABC News).
Tragically, Melinda died just a day later, and her cause of death was a self-imposed gunshot. According to Grace, Melinda's fate was a result of wrongdoing. "If anything, I would suggest that guilt made her commit suicide," she said during a "Good Morning America" appearance (via ABC News). "To suggest that a 15 or 20-minute interview can cause someone to commit suicide is focusing on the wrong thing."
Subsequently, Grace was sued by the Duckett family, alleging that the host's interview was largely responsible for the suicide. In 2010, the two parties reached an agreement, and part of the settlement was for Grace to create a $200,000 trust fund to help find the missing boy. As of 2024, Trenton has sadly remained missing.
If you or anyone you know is having suicidal thoughts, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255).
Her 2007 wedding was unplanned
Even though Nancy Grace's career was going well, she was still crippled by the death of Keith Griffin, as she revealed on "Steve Harvey." That changed when Griffin appeared to her in a dream. Per her narration, the duo got together at a restaurant in Penn Station. At the brief 3 a.m. supernatural meeting, Griffin permitted her to carry on.
She woke up afterward and waited until the clock struck 7 a.m. to give an ultimatum to David Linch, her investment banker boyfriend who was in Atlanta. Their relationship, she disclosed, had been challenged by distance on many occasions. "I said, 'Listen ... you gon' either move to New York and we're gonna get married and start a family or we're breaking up,'" Grace recounted, and he ultimately agreed.
In April 2007, Grace and Linch, whom she had known from way back at Mercer University, tied the knot in a low-key family affair. "I'm finally not keeping it a secret anymore," she said in an interview with the New York Post. Not only was the wedding hush-hush, it was impromptu. Her family had been informed of the upcoming nuptials only two days before their big day.
She and David Linch welcomed twins
After her wedding, Nancy Grace had some big news for her fans: she and her husband, David Linch, were looking forward to bringing new additions to the family. "It feels like they're cooking hot tamales in my stomach," Grace said in a conversation with In Touch (via People), as her pregnancy came with hunger pangs and the desire for her mother's home-style fried chicken.
Toward the end of that year, she welcomed two bundles of joy: twins Lucy Elizabeth, who weighed 2 pounds and 15 ounces, and John David, whose weight was just over 5 pounds. "The babies are doing fine. Our little girl is doing just as well as her brother despite her weight — and mom is doing great," Linch reassured to People after the delivery.
While Grace is a household name for the nature of her job, her children have grown up not fully grasping the depth of her career. "They know I'm on TV. They don't know anything about violence at all," Grace disclosed in a 2014 interview on "Bethenny." "They've seen my badge that I had when I was a prosecutor District Attorney and they play with it, but they don't really get it."
She hung up her HLN boots in 2016
After more than 10 years of working on the HLN network, Nancy Grace eventually left her show in 2016. "This fall, I'll be leaving HLN, my longtime TV home, with a full heart and endless gratitude," a statement by Grace read, per CNN. "The network has been my extended family for nearly a dozen years, and I am proud of the amazing work we've produced together." Grace further highlighted the impact her show had on society: victims found a space where they could be heard, a lot of people who disappeared were traced, and many cold cases found their way to the public.
Her quest for justice didn't die with "Nancy Grace," of course. Three years later, she was back with the Oxygen TV series "Injustice with Nancy Grace," whose first episode aired in July 2019. The true crime show has run for two seasons and came to an end in December 2020. That year, Grace's health also took a hit when she was among celebrities who were diagnosed with COVID-19.
Grace co-hosts CrimeFeed
Decades after she began her television career, Nancy Grace is still a master at her craft. Launching in 2023, she is one of the hosts of "CrimeFeed," an Investigation Discovery and Max series that covers true crime stories countrywide as they happen. Speaking to "The Rhodes Show," Grace said her motivation to co-host the show — alongside detective and "Big Brother" winner Derrick Levasseur and actor Mara S. Meyer – is the same one she has had throughout: giving a voice to the voiceless as she pursues justice. She also serves as the host of the Crime Online podcast, "Crime Stories with Nancy Grace."
Although Grace's long years in the field of crime reporting warrant the honor of a legacy, she is detached from the grandiosity of it all. In her chat with the Daily Beast, Grace said, "I have no concern about a legacy ... I have a lot of cases to tackle, and many injustices I hope to address, before I can consider a legacy."