R Bud Dwyer

Al Neri, award-winning reporter | Philadelphia Daily News | 2011-05-10

Dwyer had been convicted of accepting bribes from a California company to land a lucrative state contract. He was to be sentenced the next day and was sure to get prison time.

As Neri and the other reporters watched in horror, Dwyer produced a pistol, put it in his mouth and killed himself as press and TV cameras recorded the deed.

Al Neri won an award for his report on the suicide, one of numerous honors the South Philly native would receive in 27 years as a newspaperman, mostly covering state politics and government for a number of papers.

He died Saturday of complications of cancer treatment. He was 58. He had been living in the Homestead Center in Harrisburg for the past 15 months.

His death drew comments from numerous sources he had covered in his career, including former Gov. Tom Ridge, who said Al was "so professional and such a good man. He served the public with a sense of history, a work ethic, and he knew everybody.

"I think that of anything he has ever written, the best story that will be chronicled will be the grace and the dignity and the courage and the spirit he demonstrated during the past several years. The best story is the one that he wrote with his life, not with his pen."

Al also received an accolade from imprisoned Vincent Fumo, who, when he was a biology and current-affairs teacher at Bishop Neumann High School, had Al as a student.

In a letter sent from the federal penitentiary at Ashland, Ky., Fumo, the former state senator and power-broker convicted of mail and wire fraud and other charges in 2007, said Al was a fine student, "and a great reporter, smart and able and he knew what he was doing."

Al Neri was born in Philadelphia to Albert Neri Sr. and Mary Neri and grew up in the Packer Park area of South Philadelphia. He graduated from St. Richard's Parochial School and Neumann, later St. John Neumann High and now Neumann-Goretti.

He graduated from the Temple University School of Journalism in 1974. His first reporting job was with the Camden Courier-Post.