TV show host Jerry Springer's 1 tie to Detroit also is a blot on his legacy

Jerry Springer, who died Thursday at 79, was from Cincinnati, became his hometown's mayor and lived out his days — after nearly 30 years of hosting his bawdy, namesake, daytime syndicated TV talk show — at his home in suburban Chicago.

But Springer did have at least one connection to metro Detroit that forever after left a stain on his legacy.

His tie to Detroit was through another famous — and controversial — celebrity, also with political aspirations, attorney Geoffrey Fieger, who defended Ralf Panitz, who was in his 40s and went on Springer’s show with his ex-wife and new wife for an episode titled "Secret Mistresses Confronted."

Panitz was later accused — and convicted in 2002 — of beating and strangling his ex, Nancy Campbell-Panitz.

The murder has been forgotten by many. But for those who remember, it lingered Thursday as a reminder that even as Springer was praised in news reports by his friend Jene Galvin as someone who could connect with anyone "whether that was politics, broadcasting or just joking with people on the street," the talk show host also promoted trashy TV aimed at inciting outrage.

For years after the murder, some questioned whether Springer was at least morally responsible, in part, for the slaying. The Panitz case, like the "The Jenny Jones Show" homicide case before it, also showed the public that outrageous talk shows could have deadly consequences.

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Springer's show started off as a serious political program, but flopped and was reinvented as tabloid for television. It often featured folks in love triangles and topics related to sex — and ran 27 seasons. Springer later acknowledged the show was "terrible" and "stupid," calling it "an hour of escapism" with "no real value."

In a separate civil case, Fieger sued "The Jenny Jones Show" after one of the show’s guests, Jonathan Schmitz of Michigan, shot and killed Scott Amedure, who said on national TV he had a crush on the other man. In 2020, that case became a six-episode docuseries, "Trial by Media," on Netflix.

Initially, a Washington Post report said, there was a belief that Ralf Panitz, who had remarried, might reconcile with his ex, but the shows producers, instead, wanted the Sarasota, Florida, trio with a history of domestic violence "to fight on camera."

The day the episode aired, Campbell-Panitz's body was found beaten to death in her Sarasota home. Fieger argued at trial that Campbell-Panitz died from a heart attack after a fight with someone else, not his client. The prosecution, however, pointed to 18 bloody footprints matching a shoe Panitz owned and his DNA under his ex's fingernails.

After a 10-day trial, and 18 hours of deliberations, the jury found Panitz guilty of second-degree murder.

Contact Frank Witsil: 313-222-5022 or fwitsil@freepress.com.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Jerry Springer defined trashy TV, inciting fights and even a slaying