Former Fox News producer Julianne Rolle died over the weekend — her body found at the bottom of a cliff near her father’s Southern California home.
Rolle, a native of San Pedro, California attended UCLA, before heading to New York where she was a producer for Fox News Channel. She made her way to Europe and eventually the Middle East where she was, for a time, bureau chief in Iraq during the height of the war.
“She’s been through war zones and everything, but nothing like losing her mom,” Rolle’s father Eugene told a local newspaper. Rolle’s mother died two months ago after a long illness. Investigators believe the 39-year-old committed suicide but her father isn’t so sure.
“I think she was (standing on the cliff) because she was very emotional. She went there often for peace, for calming and centering,” he said.
After leaving Fox News a few years ago, Julia, as friends knew her, returned to California and was working for TV Guide Entertainment.
UPDATE: In an unexpected turn, Dan Abrams reveals that he had been in a long-term relationship with Rolle years ago. He writes in a lengthy reflection at Mediaite:
This week I felt what it’s like to be on the other side. I learned of a personal horror not from an emotional, personal phone call or visit but via the impervious and anonymous media. I learned about a heartbreaking event occurring to a loved one through the eyes of someone who did not know or care about her — and felt the helpless frustration of wanting “the media” to say more and less.