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Tamron Hall aired a reunion between a murder victim’s daughter and the Inquirer reporter who covered the case 20 years ago

The story about the meeting between ex-Inquirer reporter Jan Hefler and Sarah Ripoli was told in a Maria Panaritis column last fall.

Sarah Ripoli (left) shows former Philadelphia Inquirer reporter Jan Hefler old photographs in front of her grandmother’s home where she grew up in Mt. Laurel, NJ on Thursday, Oct. 15, 2020. Ripoli was raised at the Mount Laurel home by her grandmother, Ina Berman, and late grandfather, Gerry Berman, after her father killed her mother, Brenda Ripoli-Berman, when she was six years old at their former South Jersey home in 1999. Hefler was the reporter who covered the case extensively. Ripoli recently reached out to Hefler to learn more about the case, since she knew very little about it growing up. Ripoli now lives in Hoboken, NJ, and started the clothing line Angel Energy, where a portion of proceeds are donated to domestic violence awareness.
Sarah Ripoli (left) shows former Philadelphia Inquirer reporter Jan Hefler old photographs in front of her grandmother’s home where she grew up in Mt. Laurel, NJ on Thursday, Oct. 15, 2020. Ripoli was raised at the Mount Laurel home by her grandmother, Ina Berman, and late grandfather, Gerry Berman, after her father killed her mother, Brenda Ripoli-Berman, when she was six years old at their former South Jersey home in 1999. Hefler was the reporter who covered the case extensively. Ripoli recently reached out to Hefler to learn more about the case, since she knew very little about it growing up. Ripoli now lives in Hoboken, NJ, and started the clothing line Angel Energy, where a portion of proceeds are donated to domestic violence awareness.Read moreHEATHER KHALIFA / Staff Photographer
    by Ellen Gray
    Updated 
    Published 

It’s a story you may already have read in Maria Panaritis’ column in The Inquirer last fall: Sarah Ripoli, a young woman whose father murdered her mother in 1999, when she was just 6 years old, tracked down and met with former Inquirer reporter Jan Hefler, who’d covered the case, to fill in some blanks for both of them.

On Thursday, talk-show host Tamron Hall interviewed Ripoli and Hefler about their first meeting, which took place in late 2019.

“I didn’t even know if she would remember me,” Ripoli said of Hefler, who’d written extensively about the murder of her mother, Brenda Ripoli, and the ensuing custody battle, and who brought clips of her stories to their first meeting.

She said she’d told Hefler: “I’m the little girl from the story, and I have the rest of it for you.”

» READ MORE: A child witness to her mom’s murder seeks healing 20 years later from the journalist on the story

Hall, a Temple graduate and a member of the university’s board of trustees, also interviewed Ripoli about the letters of her mother’s that documented the abuse that preceded her killing, which occurred while Sarah was in the house. Sarah’s father, Frank Ripoli Jr., pleaded guilty to aggravated manslaughter in the death of his wife. He was released in 2016.

A letter Brenda Ripoli also left behind said that Frank had told her that if she tried to leave with Sarah “he was going to hunt and kill both of us,” she told Hall, “and her other family members as well.”

The interviews Thursday were billed as part of a special “Facing Family Secrets” episode of the show. Tamron Hall airs at 10 a.m. weekdays on 6ABC.