Jerry Bledsoe obit

Jerry Bledsoe, bestselling NC true-crime author, has died. He was 84.

 He was not on the list.

Jerry Bledsoe, a former newspaper reporter who rose to national acclaim as the author of “Bitter Blood” and other true-crime bestsellers, died Wednesday night after a fall at his Asheboro home, his son said. He was 84.

“He had a long, distinguished career as a journalist and stuck up for the underdog in his reporting and as an author,” Erik Bledsoe said Thursday.

Bledsoe was born in 1941 in Danville, Virginia, and grew up in Thomasville. He served in the Army for three years before becoming a reporter and columnist for The Greensboro Daily News and The Charlotte Observer.

He was a contributing editor at Esquire magazine when he began writing books, according to Penguin Random House, his publisher. “Bitter Blood,” his seventh book, became a No. 1 New York Times bestseller that was made into a CBS miniseries.

He authored around 20 books, from crime to humor to compilations of his newspaper columns, and owned Down Home Press, which publishes about 25 authors.

Through his reporting and writing, he gave voice to people who’d never had one, “the common folk,” said Erik Bledsoe, who lives in Cary.

“Renaissance man”

Erik Bledsoe said he was 5 when his dad persuaded his editors to let him travel the lower 48 states interviewing people at random about their lives. It was 1969 or 1970, Erik Bledsoe recalled.

The family set out in a camper, stopping in a town every few hours for Bledsoe to interview people who’d never been written about. He mailed five stories a week to his editors.

Decades later, he traveled U.S. 64, North Carolina’s longest highway, producing over 60 profiles published in the (Greensboro) News & Record in 1984 and compiled in a book, “From Whalebone to Hot House.”

As a reporter, he also exposed wrongdoing, longtime friend and colleague Jim Jenkins told the Observer.

Jenkins recalled how Bledsoe outed a civic group that shut kids’ lemonade stands near a golf tournament the group sponsored. The group felt the stands were hurting its beverage sales.

“That was one of the cornerstones of his career,” Jenkins said. “Sticking up for the little guy.”

“Jerry was the voice of Greensboro when he was there,” said Jenkins, former longtime editorial page editor and columnist at the News & Observer.

Bledsoe “was a renaissance man” who also loved to cook — “crab cakes and complicated dishes” — Jenkins said, adding that Bledsoe was the funniest person he’d ever met.

“He was a character, if ever there was someone who fit that description,” Jenkins said.

Jenkins dressed as Santa Claus at community events and the 6-feet-3-inch, 145-pound Bledsoe as an elf. “So he could have a rum and coke at the stops, something Santa wasn’t allowed,” Jenkins said with a laugh.

He also recalled Bledsoe’s empathy, how he gave a car to a friend who had lost her job and then found her employment.

“He was doing that all the time,” Jenkins said.

Ned Cline competed with Bledsoe when they were young reporters and later became his friend and colleague for more than 40 years at the papers in Greensboro and Charlotte.

“He was always looking out for the needs of other people,” Cline said. “He was just a genuine, all-around good guy.”

The explosion

Cline was managing editor of the Greensboro paper when a Chevrolet Blazer driven by Fritz Klenner exploded on June 3, 1985, during a police chase in Summerfield, north of Greensboro.

Klenner was suspected of killing three people in Winston-Salem and two in Kentucky. Also in the Blazer were Susie Newsom Lynch and her sons John and Jim.

Cline thought of only one reporter to put on the case: Bledsoe, whom he’d hired back to Greensboro from Charlotte.

Bledsoe wrote a newspaper series about the case but told Cline so much remained to be investigated that he needed to devote time solely to finding out more and writing a book about it.

“I’m going to leave,” Cline said Bledsoe told him.

Cline appreciated how valuable Bledsoe and his reporting and writing were to the paper but encouraged him to pursue the book, he said.

“Jerry was an incredibly talented writer, but also an incredibly talented and good reporter,” Cline said. “A big news issue came up, I turned to Jerry.”

The author lived with Alzheimer’s disease for years, and a brain bleed caused his fall at the home he shared with his wife, Linda, his son said.

No service is planned, although a gathering of family and close friends may occur in a couple of months, the author’s son said.