Louis Corsaletti, 1932-2002: A newsman who always got it right

Louis T. Corsaletti, a 33-year Seattle Times reporter known both for hard-edged investigative reports and down-home dispatches from the Eastside and South King County, died Monday night after an eight-year battle with cancer. He was 69.

Mr. Corsaletti, who retired in 2001, had a passion for Italian food and culture and was a consummate family man whose six grandchildren were among the greatest joys in his life.

"Lou genuinely loved people, and he treated everyone with respect, especially those with the least-fancy jobs," said Times Managing Editor Alex MacLeod. "People he dealt with quickly learned they could trust Lou's word, absolutely.

"His enthusiasm for reporting and telling stories, big and small, never wavered. ... Lou was a reporter's reporter."

Mr. Corsaletti's passion to be first with a story sometimes meant he'd hitch a ride to an emergency on a fire truck. And he learned — and never forgot — the names and phone numbers of dozens of police officers, and made lifelong friends of many of them.

"He was probably the last of the old-time police reporters — a decent human being who represented the very, very best in everything that's ethical in news today," said Redmond police Lt. Jim Taylor, a longtime source and personal friend.

"You could trust the guy, because he was more than just a reporter, he was a friend, and his word was as good as God's. I've known hundreds of reporters over the years, and if you ask me who was the best, I say Lou Corsaletti."

Some of Mr. Corsaletti's biggest scoops came during the payoff scandals that rocked the Seattle Police Department in the 1970s. As a federal grand jury probed the issue in secret, Mr. Corsaletti and reporting partner Dee Norton wrote about developments in the case — often even before the grand jurors knew about them.

"The grand jury had cops sweep their offices for bugs," Norton said. "Because we knew so much about what was going on, they thought we must have planted microphones. We didn't, but we had good sources."

In the paper's Eastside news bureau, Mr. Corsaletti was an elder statesman of journalism, helping a younger generation of reporters learn the trade.

"He would mentor the young people here," said Arlene Bryant, the Times' Eastside Bureau editor. "But he was disdainful of people who stayed in the office and did it all by phone. He knew you had to be out in the coffee shops and meeting people and be where things were happening."

Mr. Corsaletti was born Dec. 19, 1932, and grew up in West Pittston, Pa., the son of Italian-American parents who passed to their son a passion for family roots in the "Old Country."

"He loved his trips to Italy, and he'd spend a lot of time on his family history," said his wife of 39 years, Dianna.

After high school and a brief time in college, he joined the Army and was sent to Korea, where he drove a tank in combat.

Later serving as a driver for a colonel, he was assigned to drive Marilyn Monroe when she went to Korea in February 1954 to entertain the troops. Above his desk at The Times, Mr. Corsaletti proudly hung a black-and-white snapshot of Monroe smiling with her arm around him.

After the war, Mr. Corsaletti attended Blackburn College in Illinois and graduated from San Diego State University. He found work in advertising, was married briefly and had a son. He met Dianna on a business trip to Seattle, and they married in 1963.

That year he took a job as an editor of a small weekly newspaper in the Cincinnati area. In 1966, he returned to the Northwest as the editor of the tiny Auburn Globe News. He moved then to the Tacoma News Tribune, covering communities of South King County. He was hired by The Times in June 1967.

In Seattle, he pounded the police beat through some of the area's worst crimes, including slayings by a serial killer the world would later know as Ted Bundy.

"He was very accurate, and put a lot of emotion into his news stories," said Ann Rule, the Seattle true-crime writer who launched her career with a book about Bundy. "I have a lot of his old articles, and I knew I could count on them to be absolutely accurate."

At home in Auburn, Mr. Corsaletti was famous for the full-course Italian dinners that he and his wife prepared for guests.

He coached his children's ball teams and proudly displayed a collection of vintage radios. But his family always knew that fundamentally, Mr. Corsaletti was a newsman.

"It was just like breathing to him," his wife said. "If he wasn't doing it, he wasn't happy. We were really proud of him. It was our way of life."

In addition to his wife, Mr. Corsaletti is survived by three sons, Ted Turner of San Antonio, Texas; Vincent Corsaletti of Covington; and Steven Corsaletti of Taiwan; a daughter, Tricia Bradley of Auburn, and six grandchildren.

A memorial is scheduled for 1 p.m. Saturday at Messiah Lutheran Church, 805 Fourth St. N.E., Auburn. Donations may be made to a hospice organization of choice.

Ian Ith: 206-464-2109 or iith@seattletimes.com.