Chief Investigator Jessica Gertler is an award-winning journalist. In 2019, Jessica became an investigative reporter at News Channel 3. If you have a story you want her to investigate, email her at Jessica.gertler@digital-stage.wreg.com.
Jessica has been with News Channel 3 since 2013. She has made it her mission to serve the community and give a voice to the voiceless.
Since joining the WREG Investigators team in 2019, Jessica has been recognized for her work. She received an Emmy nomination for her interview with a confessed serial killer. He agreed to meet with her inside a Florida prison and professed to killing several women. Two victims were from Memphis. Police have now solved two murders since the interview.
Jessica also received an Emmy nomination in 2021 for her in-depth reporting on police excessive force. She exposed several incidents that were buried in internal files and worked to help find possible solutions.
In 2023, she won a regional Edward R. Murrow award and was nominated for an Emmy for exposing how police handled critical evidence. The department waited decades to test several rape kits. The statute of limitations ran out by the time they found out who did it, allowing the attacker to walk out of prison.
When she’s not at work, you will find Jessica volunteering in the community. She’s been a big sister with Big Brothers Big Sisters since 2014. She’s was named 2019’s Big Sister of the Year and 2021’s MENTOR Grizzlies Mentor of the Year.
She sits on the Overton Park Shell Professionals Board and the Shelby County Drug Court Foundation Board.
Jessica is a proud graduate of the University of Tennessee Knoxville where she studied journalism and electronic media. During her college career, she interned at Country Music Television, WVLT-TV in Knoxville, and WTVF-TV in Nashville. She was born in San Francisco, California. Her family moved to Nashville when she was a teenager.
Jessica is a proud mother to her son Walker and rescue dog Rocky.
She loves meeting new people and telling the stories that matter most. Want to say hi or have a story idea? Send her a message through email at Jessica.gertler@digital-stage.wreg.com or Twitter @jgertler_WREG3.
