Did Nancy Grace use her dead husband to further her career?

I came across this story via The Countdown with Keith Olbermann. This was reported in the New York Observer:

Every crime-fighting superhero has a creation story. Nancy Grace, the prosecutor turned breakout star at CNN Headline News, has a particularly moving one. As she tells it, in the summer of 1980, she was a 19-year-old college student in small-town Georgia, engaged to Keith Griffin, a star third baseman for the Valdosta State University Blazers. The wedding was a few months away.

Then, one August morning, a stranger—a 24-year-old thug with a history of being on the wrong side of the law—accosted Griffin outside a convenience store. He shot him five times in the head and back, stole $35 from his wallet, and left him dead.

Police soon tracked down the killer, and a new phase of suffering began for Ms. Grace. The suspect brazenly denied any involvement. At trial, Ms. Grace testified, then waited as jury deliberations dragged on for three days. The district attorney asked her if she wanted the death penalty, and in a moment of youthful weakness, she said no. The verdict came back guilty—life in prison—and a string of appeals ensued.

For Nancy Grace, the ordeal she describes felt nothing like justice. And so the Shakespeare-loving teen set out to change the justice system: first as a bulldog prosecutor, then as a Court TV and CNN anchor, crusader for victims’ rights and professional vilifier of the criminal-defense industry.

Her message, delivered with a crackling blend of folksiness and wrath, has made her a hit on two cable networks. Defense attorneys are pigs—morally comparable, she said in a Feb. 20 interview with USA Today, to “guards at Auschwitz.” Her latest show, Nancy Grace, celebrated its first anniversary on CNN’s Headline News Network that week; in one year, its viewership has tripled, to 606,000 a night.

Because of what happened in Georgia, Ms. Grace has said over and over, she knows firsthand how the system favors hardened criminals over victims. It is the foundation of her judicial philosophy, her motivation in life, her casus belli.

And much of it isn’t true.

Read the rest of the article here. Let me go on record as saying i can't stand Nancy Grace. As admirable as it is to have someone fighting for victim's rights i think she's bad for our justice system. What she does is prejudice juries by going on the air and proclaiming anyone and everyone charged with a crime guilty to the millions of viewers that watch her show. If there was a Fox News type show that catered to prosecutors her show would be it. She's like a female Bill O'reilly, very abrasive and someone who will shout down anyone with an opposing viewpoint.