Matt Birkbeck (born Brooklyn, N.Y.) is an American investigative journalist and author.
He is best known for his books A Beautiful Child (2004), which told the tragic story of "Sharon Marshall" and her "father" Franklin Delano Floyd, and the sequel Finding Sharon (2018), which is a memoir about his ten-year effort, along with the FBI and National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, to find Sharon's true identity. Both books were adapted by Netflix for the 2022 documentary Girl in the Picture, for which Birkbeck is executive producer.
He also wrote the critically acclaimed Deconstructing Sammy (2008) about the life of Sammy Davis Jr. and efforts to resolve his debts and his legacy following his death in 1990, The Quiet Don: The Untold Story of Mafia Kingpin Russell Bufalino (2013), about the influential Mafia boss Russell Bufalino, and he also authored A Deadly Secret (2002/2015), about New York real estate scion Robert Durst, who was accused of murdering his wife Kathie Durst and two others.[1] The book was adapted by Lifetime for the 2017 movie The Lost Wife of Robert Durst.
His latest book is The Life We Chose (2023), tells the story of William D'Elia, who was the former head of the Bufalino Crime Family and the so-called son and confidant to former mob boss Russell Bufalino.
Birkbeck has written magazine pieces and features for a variety of publications, covering the aftermath of the 2004 Super Bowl riots for Boston Magazine, the cross-country pursuit of a civil rights worker by white supremacists for the Philadelphia Inquirer, features for The New York Times, the Robert Durst investigation for Reader's Digest, the U.S. Secret Service prosecution of baseball legend Denny McLain and the Mafia forPlayboy, and others.
Career
Birkbeck worked as a newspaper reporter first at the Pocono Record and then at The Morning Call, and also served as a correspondent for People magazine from 1998 to 2004 covering mostly crime and human interest stories including the 1999 death of John F. Kennedy Jr.,and the Robert Durst investigation. His reporting on the Robert Durst case led to the publication of his first book A Deadly Secret, which subsequently served as the guide for law enforcement in their pursuit of Durst. Following Durst's arrest in 2015, police found two copies of A Deadly Secret inside Durst's Houston condo.[2]
At The Morning Call[3][4][5] he covered the federal courts in the Middle District of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia and Allentown and wrote investigative stories.
His lengthy reporting from 2005 to 2010 on Pennsylvania's casino initiative exposed political corruption at the highest levels of state government, including then-Governor Ed Rendell and the state Supreme Court.[6] In 2009 Birkbeck was subpoenaed to testify before a special prosecutor appointed by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to investigate alleged leaks in the prosecution of a businessman with alleged mob ties who was awarded a license to operate a casino.[7]
Birkbeck's reporting on the case served as the basis of his bestselling book The Quiet Don: The Untold Story of Mafia Kingpin Russell Bufalino, which was published in 2013 by Berkley/Penguin.
Birkbeck joined niche business publisher Harrison Scott Publications in Hoboken, N.J. in 2010. HSP was sold to Green Street in 2020.
The Life We Chose: William "Big Billy" D'Elia and the Last Secrets of America's Most Powerful Mafia Family William Morrow/HarperCollins July 2023.
Film adaptations
Girl in the Picture debuted on Netflix on July 6, 2022, and is based on A Beautiful Child and Finding Sharon. It was directed by Skye Borgman, with Birkbeck serving as executive producer.[8] A day after its release, it was Netflix's number one movie in the world, and remained there for several weeks.[9]
Birkbeck received an Investigative Reporters and Editors Award in San Francisco in 2002 for his groundbreaking stories on mortgage fraud in the U.S.[11]
He wrote a multi-part investigative series A Price Too High in 2001 that exposed how home builders, appraisers, mortgage companies and major banks conspired to defraud thousands of homebuyers, mostly minorities from the New York area, and forced them into bankruptcy and foreclosure. His reporting spurred numerous state, local and federal investigations, as well as Congressional hearings. The New York Times followed up his reporting with a lengthy feature in April 2004.[12] Birkbeck and the Pocono Record were sued for libel by a home builder in 2003, and the case went to trial in Monroe County, Pa. in 2010 before a jury, which ruled in favor of Birkbeck and the newspaper.[13]
