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Nicholas Pistor

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Nicholas J. C. Pistor is a reporter at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and former consultant for CBS’s 48 Hours true-crime series who has broken stories on some of the biggest crimes in the Midwest.

He has appeared on nearly every major television news network, including NBC’s Today Show, CBS, Fox News, MSNBC, and was a guest reporter for CNN’s Nancy Grace.

Pistor began as a stringer for the Post-Dispatch in 2003, after he graduated from college, eventually working through various roles before becoming a reporter.

In 2008, his investigation of financial abuses within the Illinois death penalty system led to criminal investigations and new legislation signed by the governor. A circuit judge declared the report “thoroughly researched and thoroughly painful.”

Pistor garnered national attention in 2009 for his reporting on Christopher Coleman, a bodyguard for televangelist Joyce Meyer who was accused of strangling his wife and two children in order to start a new life with a mistress. His reporting led national broadcasts as he disclosed new details of the murders.

In August 2010, Pistor's investigation revealed that the iconic stainless steel Gateway Arch in St. Louis is corroding. The stories generated national headlines and disclosed that the Arch is suffering from lax maintenance. His reporting brought awareness to the monument's maintenance issues. In 2013, an international landmarks organization named it one of the world's most endangered.

In 2011, his dogged pursuit of court records was displayed in a newspaper investigation that showcased the ugly side of high-stakes divorces. One story revealed how lawyers and private investigators used Heidi Fleiss, the infamous Hollywood madame, to coach and coerce an exotic dancer to make false claims against their client’s high profile ex-husband, mortgage executive Ray Vinson. Leaving Vinson’s reputation in tatters, they walked out of the courthouse with the lion’s share of a $70 million divorce.

Pistor also wrote human interest stories during the St. Louis Cardinals' epic seven game World Series quest in 2011. And in 2012 he reported on Missouri's contentious U.S. Senate battle between Democrat Claire McCaskill and Republican Todd Akin, whose candidacy was ruined when he said women can somehow avoid pregnancy after a "legitimate rape."

Immediately before joining the Post-Dispatch, Pistor graduated from the Jesuit-affiliated Saint Louis University, where he began a decade-long research quest after a priest rekindled his memory of the Saxtown massacre.

The Ax Murders of Saxtown, his first book, will be released on January 14, 2014.

Pistor grew up in Millstadt, Illinois, a few miles from the Saxtown murder scene, where talk of the crime kept him awake as a boy.

He currently lives in downtown St. Louis, Missouri.

St. Louis Magazine, in its annual A-List issue, named Pistor the city's best Twitterer.

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Nicholas Pistor

Nicholas Pistor

Books from Nicholas Pistor

Shooting Lincoln: Mathew Brady, Alexander Gardner, and the Race to Photograph the Story of the Century