Maurice J. Possley has been a criminal justice reporter for the Chicago Tribune since March 1995. He was deputy metro editor from 1990 to 1994. Possley also worked as a city editor from 1987 to 1990, an investigative reporter and a federal court reporter.

Before joining the Tribune in 1984, Possley was a reporter for the Chicago Sun-Times for seven years.  He also worked for the Rock Island Argus from 1976 to 1977 and for the City News Bureau of Chicago from 1972 to 1976.

Possley received the Tribune’s William H. Jones Award in 1986 and 2003, and the Edward Scott Beck Award in 1995, 1998, 1999 and 2001 for his contributions to the newspaper. He has been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize twice, in 2000 and 2001, for reporting at the Tribune. Possley, along with Steve Mills of the Tribune, has also received the Lovejoy Award for Journalism for reporting that led to pardons for wrongly accused Death Row inmates and to a blanket commutation of death sentences in Illinois.  The award is presented annually to honor courageous contributions to the national journalistic achievement. 

He is co-author of the book “Everybody Pays: Two Men, One Murder and the Price of Truth,” a non-fiction account of Chicago’s most prolific mob hit man and the witness who testified against him. He is also the author of “The Brown’s Chicken Massacre,” a non-fiction account of the murders of seven people in Palatine, Ill., in 1993 and how the case was solved.

Born in Erie, Ill., on Dec. 19, 1949, Possley graduated from Loyola University Chicago with a bachelor of arts in communications.

Possley and his wife, Cathleen Falsani-Possley, live in Oak Park, Ill.