O-Town Reporter Headed Down the Florida Turnpike

WKMG Investigative Reporter Tony Pipitone is leaving Orlando and headed down the road to Miami.

The Orlando Sentinel says that he will become an investigative reporter next month at WTVJ, the NBC-owned station in the Miami-Fort Lauderdale market.

Pipitone, 53, is moving to South Florida primarily for personal reasons, WKMG said.

He will join his wife, Myriam Marquez, who works in South Florida for The Miami Herald. Marquez, a former columnist at the Orlando Sentinel, was named executive editor of the Herald's Spanish-language daily, el Nuevo Herald, in October.

They commuted for eight years between the two communities. "We made it work, but we always hoped to get under one roof sooner," Pipitone said in an interview.

Pipitone has worked at WKMG for 26 years. His reports have become big draws for the CBS affiliate during major ratings periods. As his best report, he cited a 1990 story on a woman convicted of arranging her husband's murder. Pipitone found corroboration that the slain man had been abusing his daughters.