Chelsia Rose Marcius is a staff reporter at The New York Times who covers criminal justice and breaking news for the Metro desk.
Chelsia has reported on a number of stories for the Times. In January 2022, she was an integral part of the Metro team that covered a Bronx fire that killed 17 people. The team later became a Pulitzer Prize finalist for breaking news.
Since then, Chelsia has written about crime in one Brooklyn precinct, young cops leaving the New York City Police Department and veterans who trickle through a special New York court known only to a few. In April 2023, The Times named one of her pieces, a narrative about a detective’s quest to solve a Bronx cold case, the Great Read of the day. Chelsia later wrote about her reporting process for Times Insider.
Before the Times, Chelsia was a staff reporter at the New York Daily News, where she wrote criminal justice stories about city jails, state prisons and mental health courts. While at the paper, she covered some of the biggest national stories from 2012 to 2021, including the mass shooting in Las Vegas, N.V.; the marathon bombing in Boston; the Ariel Castro kidnappings in Cleveland; the Pulse shooting in Orlando; the Sandy Hook school shooting in Newtown, C.T.; and how the coronavirus swept through jails and prisons across the country.
Chelsia is the author of Wild Escape: The Prison Break from Dannemora and the Manhunt that Captured America. She was a journalism professor at New York University for five years, and has appeared on History, MSNBC, CNN, BBC Radio, WNYC, CBS New York, Inside Edition, among others, to discuss her reporting.
She lives in Manhattan with her boyfriend, Miles, her beloved dogs, Otto and Mo, and her budgie, Miss Olivia.