How Keith Morrison and 'Dateline' became true crime sex symbols
The correspondents of NBC's "Dateline" got a rock star-worthy welcome when they took to the stage in a packed ballroom at the Hilton New Orleans Riverside Hotel last month, and the attendees of CrimeCon, an annual convention for fans of real-life stories of murder and mayhem, were happy to explain why.
"They are like the Rolling Stones of true crime," said Greta Griffin, a 32-year-old mother of three who traveled from Springfield, Mo., to see Keith Morrison, Josh Mankiewicz and Dennis Murphy at the event. "Everybody just thinks they are cool."
Griffin and her friend, Nikki Soda, 40, of Jupiter, Fla., were wearing custom-made white pullovers that pictured Morrison, 72, standing in front of a mug-shot height chart under the phrase, "Talk Dateline To Me." His rugged, square-jawed face and shock of white hair was also emblazoned on the pop sockets of their iPhone cases.
Many of the CrimeCon fans who lined up for a photograph with Morrison - wearing his signature skinny jeans and Converse slip-ons - asked him to pose with his trademark lean seen on the program.
"Keith is a sex symbol," Murphy said. "I'm just glad I'm in his gravitational flow."
Murphy and Morrison are
