Veteran AP, Plain Dealer reporter Mark Gillispie dies at 63

Mark Gillispie, a veteran journalist who wrote about many of Ohio’s biggest stories and characters during a four-decade career primarily with The Associated Press and The Plain Dealer in Cleveland, has died. He was 63.

Gillispie, who was diagnosed with cancer last fall, died Sunday while in hospice care, his children, Sam Gillispie and Martha Hanna Gillispie, said Monday.

After joining the AP in 2014 as a reporter in its Cleveland bureau, he wrote about the police shooting of 12-year-old Tamir Rice, a breakaway Amish group that carried out beard-cutting attacks, and a statehouse bribery investigation involving Akron-based FirstEnergy Corp. He was sent to the scenes of several major breaking stories, including the 2018 massacre at a Pittsburgh synagogue. He was one of the AP's leading reporters on the opioid crisis and its legal aftermath for communities in Ohio and beyond.

Gillispie previously worked at The Plain Dealer for 24 years, writing investigative stories that included reporting on mortgage fraud and questionable overtime practices by Cleveland police. He also covered police, courts and local government, including the corruption case of former U.S. Rep. James Traficant.

He could put up a gruff exterior but just as easily show sensitivity to people dealt bad news. In the newsroom, he enjoyed offering guidance to young reporters.

“Journalism was Mark’s passion — poring over complicated documents, digging deep into stories, sharing sage advice to new reporters. But it was his family he was most passionate about,” said Christina Paciolla, AP's deputy director for text and former Ohio state news editor. “We’d often swap stories of our families, and bond over everything from baseball to living with grief. We will all miss Mark terribly as a colleague but more...