A former beloved Cronkite professor and New York Times best-selling true crime writer passed away Tuesday morning after a near-drowning incident that put her in a coma.
Shanna Hogan, 37, passed away after sustaining a head injury on August 29 that left her in critical condition. She leaves behind her husband, Matt LaRussa of 20 years, and their 15-month-old son.
The news of her death was announced by LaRussa via Facebook on Tuesday evening that she had passed away earlier that morning.
“She is and always will be my favorite person on the planet,” LaRussa said in his post. “I know she has touched many souls in this world and will be missed. I am very crushed and deviated and cannot believe she is gone.”
Hogan graduated from ASU in 2005 and worked for many news publications and organizations across the Valley like East Valley Tribune and Phoenix New Times.
She was also known for four true crime books she wrote, her first called “Dancing with Death” which was released in 2011. She is most known for her book “Picture Perfect: The Jodi Arias Story” and has also appeared in many documentaries and shows about famous true crime cases like ABC’s 20/20 and Oxygen’s Snapped.
But aside from a successful career in the true crime community, she also leaves behind a legacy of students and alumni that called her professor.
Hogan also was an adjunct professor at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication and to her students, she was more than just any other college professor. Upon news of her death, current and former Cronkite students immediately took to social media, posting about the impact she had on them as a professor, mentor and friend.
Heidi Blakemore, a Cronkite senior studying public relations, said Hogan was the professor that really drew her to pursuing public relations and even inspired her to start her own PR firm after she graduates.
“She was the type of person that would reach out to you when you needed it but when you didn’t realize you needed it,” Blakemore said. “I transferred to the journalism school my sophomore year and she was the one that told me to pursue PR and honestly she believed in me more than I believed in myself.”
Hogan taught an introduction to reporting class at the Cronkite school, one of the first real journalism classes students take to learn about news reporting. Jamie Landers, who is also a Cronkite senior studying broadcast, took Hogan’s class her freshman year and said that Hogan had this uncanny, unparalleled ability to make everything in her class fun.
“She would do these crazy skits in her class and pretend to be all these different characters so we could pretend we were in a press conference,” she said. “She was over the top for everything, including being there for her students.”
Landers and Blakemore recalled when Hogan was teaching them about crime reporting, and in “true Shanna fashion,” Hogan came to class in a striped suit, fedora and pencil moustache and acted as a mob boss in a press release to help her students make the learning as real as possible.
“I’ve never had a professor do something like that and be so lighthearted while teaching you at the same time,” Blakemore said.
Something Hogan’s students loved to emphasize was how impactful she was to young reporters even after their time in her class had ended. Ethan Millman, a Cronkite grad of 2019 who now writes for Rolling Stone, said Hogan was a rare kind of adjunct professor that really cared about her students even as a part-time educator.
“She wanted to give all she could to her students,” he said. “I’d been around journalism enough that I had the basics down and she was the first professor that challenged me to go further than that.”
Millman said Shanna was one of the first college professors who really challenged him as a student, and having a young journalism career even before college, he said she really provided that push he was looking for. Even after his class had ended, Millman still caught up with Hogan and talked about projects he would be working on or ask her for advice about his growing career as a journalist.
“A lot of what she instilled in me stuck around to this day and I owe a lot of my younger career to her,” Millman said. “It all started with Shanna.”
Cronkite graduate student Veronica Galek saved many emails Hogan had sent her, ones that contained advice for how to pursue a story angle or career opportunity but also check-ins on how she was doing. Galek said she remembers when she had received a low grade on a story for an intermediate reporting class that Hogan told her to always stand up for herself and fight for what she thinks is right.
“She always cared. When I felt that I needed more guidance I went to her and asked for advice,” Galek said. “I would see her in the halls and she would always give me a hug and ask me how I was doing.”
Hogan is also remembered through the close friendships she made with fellow colleagues and writers. Katie Mayer, who met Hogan while they worked for the East Valley Tribune, said everything Hogan did was always done with grace.
“She just made everything special,” Mayer said. “Because she was such a kind and warm person, her sources that she interviewed just adored her. She formed connections with people because she was that kind of person. And as a friend, she was just an incredible friend to me.”
The last time Mayer saw Hogan was when Hogan came to her house with her son and brought a projector that made star showers on a ceiling because she knew Mayer’s son loved space. A few days later, Mayer said a package addressed to her son from Hogan arrived, containing the same projector light for him.
“She was just like that,” Mayer said. “She was kind, smart, funny and a really incredible person.”
Mayer started a GoFundMe shortly after the announcement of Hogan’s death, asking for anyone for donations to help out the family during this time and so that Hogan’s husband could focus on taking care of their son.
“Shanna was always there for her family, friends, co-workers and readers with her warm smile and support. Now is our time to step up and be there for her family,” Mayer wrote in the description of the GoFundMe. “We will never forget the mark Shanna left on our lives and on this world.”
Contact the reporter at smedwar7@asu.edu.
Sara Edwards was the executive editor of Downtown Devil. She is a graduate student at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication. Sara has additional bylines in Phoenix New Times, West Valley View, L.A. Downtown News and Boardwalk Times.
Sara is also the co-secretary for the Multicultural Student Journalists Coalition.
