Dave Racher, longtime Daily News court reporter, has died at 85

Dave Racher, 85, formerly of Southampton, Bucks County, celebrated and colorful longtime Philadelphia court reporter for the Daily News, died Sunday, March 19, of heart failure at his home in Lake Worth, Fla.

Called the “consummate professional” and “as much a fixture in this town as a scrapple sandwich” by colleagues, Mr. Racher covered the Philadelphia courts for the Daily News from 1960 through his retirement in 2001. He wrote thousands of articles about murder, rape, robbery, arson, corruption, and other cases over his 40-year run and told Philadelphia City Paper in 2001: “I’ve been around longer than any of the judges on the bench.”

He began his career as a copy boy in 1955, right out of high school, and earned a promotion to the police beat a few years later after other Daily News staffers were laid off. “They had to make me a reporter,” Mr. Racher told then-Daily News editor Zach Stalberg in 1995. ”There was hardly anyone left.”

He covered six district attorneys in his four decades, saw the number of courtrooms grow from 35 to 63, and was so omnipresent that prosecutors, judges, defense lawyers, staff, even defendants, knew who he was. He said court personnel would sometimes respectfully delay proceedings if he was running late and alert him when important information was about to be released.

“Getting their names and accomplishments published by Racher was their primary concern,” a former colleague said.

In 1995, when reporters moved out of Room 212 in City Hall to Room 6B in the new Criminal Justice Center, Mayor Ed Rendell, the former district attorney, showed up with a bottle of champagne to celebrate and toast Mr. Racher’s new digs. “To the reporter who first put my name in the paper,” Rendell said.

Mr. Racher knew the court system so well that he could tell the nature of unfamiliar cases simply by seeing which judge and lawyers were present that day. He recorded short news segments about cases for WFIL-AM radio and loved to tell tales of inebriated judges, snoring jurors, and the time an elderly victim pointed at him when asked who had broken into her home.

“He comes from a time, long before computers, when hustle was the go-word in this business,” a former colleague told Stalberg in 1995. Another said: “After covering thousands upon thousands of cases, he still cares ... and he is still filled with outrage for the victims.”

Mr. Racher’s writing was crisp and clever. In 1988, he wrote about a prosecutor’s heroics outside the courtroom. “It was like a scene out of a Clint Eastwood movie,” he said to open the article. “There was the tough assistant district attorney surrounded by menacing hoodlums on a dark city street. He had one of the men by the neck, pointing a pistol at his head. ‘Anybody makes a move, I’ll blow his head off,’ snarled the prosecutor.”

In a 1992 story, he wrote: “Nathan Chatmon found his neighbors irritating. So, he killed three of them. He might find his new neighbors even more irritating. Chatmon, 64, was sentenced yesterday to three consecutive life sentences for murder.”

Mr. Racher had a two-hour round trip to work every day, almost always packed his own lunch, and missed dinner more often than Sonny, his wife of 62 years, would have liked. “He loved his job,” his wife said. “He got up every morning glad to go to work. And when he was there, he went above and beyond.”

Indeed, Mr. Racher was known for his collegiality, generosity, and honesty. His son Steven jokes that he is still disappointed at all the free 76ers tickets his father refused. “He would have been a horrible politician,” his son said.

David Racher was born in Philadelphia on May 10, 1937. He played basketball and was a baseball star at South Philadelphia High School, and led his team to the city baseball championship in 1954. The former Philadelphia Athletics baseball club offered him a tryout, but he wanted a steady job and found it at the Daily News.

“Racher was a towering role model for a generation of copy boys who followed him onto the Daily News reporting staff,” a former colleague said in a tribute.

He met Sonny Barmat at a resort in the Poconos and immediately told his uncle he was going to marry her. They did marry in 1961 and had sons Steven and Michael. They lived in Northeast Philadelphia and Southampton before moving to Florida after he retired.

Mr. Racher served in the Army National Guard and followed the Eagles, Phillies, 76ers, and Villanova basketball closely. He read newspapers, of course, and routinely watched local and national news shows on TV.

He doted on his mutt Peaches, coached youth baseball and basketball teams, and enjoyed the solitude he found in Bucks County. “He was a great dad and an even better person,” said his son Steven.

In a 1995 editorial for the Daily News, Stalberg said: “Scores of competing reporters have tried to beat him at his game. None have. None will.”

In addition to his wife and sons, Mr. Racher is survived by three granddaughters, one great-grandson, and other relatives.

Services were March 22 in Florida.

Donations in his name may be made to the Veterans Multi-Service Center, 213-217 N. Fourth St., Philadelphia, Pa. 19106.