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Case file s1878 · Hollywood and TV · 1974
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1974
Suicide of Christine Chubbuck: Christine Chubbuck 1974 (HQ)
Suicide of Christine Chubbuck. Unknown author. Public domain, Wikimedia Commons.
Died
15 July 1974
Place
Sarasota, Florida · United States
Field
television presenter (WXLT, Suncoast Digest) · Film and television on the timeline
Legal tradition
US common law (Florida) · Common law
Historical event
The first widely known on-air suicide on American television
Hollywood and TVBodies, bones and burialsMurder and sudden deathPostwarNorth AmericaUnited States

Christine Chubbuck shot herself on live television in 1974, and her station's tape has been held privately since

On 15 July 1974 Christine Chubbuck, a reporter and host at WXLT-TV in Sarasota, spoke on camera about an attempted suicide after a film reel failed. She shot herself during Suncoast Digest. She was taken to Sarasota Memorial Hospital and pronounced dead about fourteen hours later. Her script, found afterward, contained the remarks she made on air. The Sarasota County Sheriff's file is Case 74-15120 and the autopsy is A-74-203. Her body was cremated and the ashes scattered in the Gulf of Mexico. The recording has not been shown publicly since the broadcast. In June 2016 station owner Robert Nelson's widow, Mollie Nelson, said the tape was in the family's possession, that her husband had kept it, that she had given it to a law firm for safekeeping and that she had no plans to release it. The station, now WWSB, said it had no copy. Chubbuck's brother Greg has said he does not know where it is and that it will not be released while he lives. A video posted to YouTube was questioned as a fake and removed. Two 2016 films, Christine and Kate Plays Christine, treated the story. The tape remains unreleased in 2026†.

What the law took from it

Control of a recording of a death can pass to a station owner's widow and then to a law firm, and the family's wishes are not the only ones that decide.

Sources
  1. aol.comPress
  2. adweek.comPress
  3. Wikipedia (English)Encyclopedia

Cite as: celebrity.estate, “Christine Chubbuck shot herself on live television in 1974, and her station's tape has been held privately since,” story s1878, https://www.celebrity.estate/christine-chubbuck-1974, updated 30 October 2026.

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Where this case sits

Hollywood and TVBodies, bones and burialsMurder and sudden deathPostwarNorth AmericaCommon lawUnited States