The journalists of Dateline have covered a multitude of shocking stories during their time on the show, though some have continued to linger in their minds years after the cases were covered.
While exclusively speaking to Us, Dateline correspondents including Keith Morrison, Andrea Canning, Lester Holt and more broke down the most unsettling cases that stick with them to this day.
“The most recent one is the case involving Lori Vallow and Chad Daybell,” Morrison, 79, says of the couple convicted of multiple crimes, including those connected to the 2019 murders of Vallow’s children, Tylee and J.J. “Some go back 25 years, [like] a case where a man was falsely convicted. We spent years telling the story… but it didn’t do any good. He ended up dying in prison, which is a terrible shame.”
One case that stuck out to Canning, 53, happened in her hometown of Blue Mountain, Ontario. “A beautiful mother, Ashley Milnes, was murdered [in 2023] by her fire captain husband, who staged a car accident at the base of the ski resort my grandfather founded, just a few miles from my childhood home,” she says. “A case had never hit so close to home, literally and figuratively.”
The 2014 murder-for-hire of Dan Markel sticks with Dennis Murphy. Charlie Adelson and Donna Adelson, brother and mother of Markel’s ex, Wendi Adelson, were convicted for their involvement in 2023 and 2025, respectively. “When I think about what turns seemingly normal people into monsters, I remember the twisted currents of those events,” Murphy, 79, says. The entire ordeal “turned out to be eight years of coverage.”
“A friend of mine was killed. I went to Arizona to go to his funeral, and then I ended up doing the story,” Josh Mankiewicz says about the 2018 murder of Dr. Steven Pitt by Dwight Jones. “He was a psychiatrist, and he was killed by someone he had done a court-ordered psychiatric evaluation of years earlier. I had just seen [Steven] 10 days before, and I kept being struck by the fact of, when I met him, he was already in that guy’s sights.”
Holt, 67, tells Us that the “case that immediately comes to mind is one I fear will stay with me for a long time and serves as a reminder that Dateline is not only a true crime–oriented program: our investigation into the 2025 flash flood disaster in Kerr County, Texas.”
While reflecting on the July 2025 tragedy that killed 28 people at Camp Mystic, including 25 kids, Holt, 67, says the show’s “reporting focused on the circumstances that led to the deaths at [the] Christian summer camp built along the Guadalupe River.”
“Speaking to people who have suffered horrible loss is never easy, but there was something about the conversations with parents I found exceptionally impactful,” he says. “Maybe it’s the parent in me who recalls the mixed emotions of sending my children off to adventures and into the care of others. Letting go is tough, and the pain of these moms and dads in retrospect is deeply relatable.”
Blayne Alexander says that her recent episode of Unmasking the Monster “was so different from other cases” he’s covered for Dateline, making the story particularly memorable.
“With murders, we only have family or close friends to speak for the victim. In this case, we were investigating a rape cold case,” Alexander, 49, says. “I interviewed Dana Beatty, the woman who had been attacked. My conversation with Dana will stay with me for the rest of my life. Her strength and determination moved me to my core. And I’ve heard from many viewers who reached out to say how much they were inspired by Dana.”
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