Cynthia Hunt Bio

Cynthia Hunt has made a name for herself as the reporter with a knack for landing the exclusive stories and asking the tough questions that get people talking over the proverbial water cooler. She made headlines around the world when she won the exclusive interview with Andrea Yates' mother and siblings, a piece that Good Morning America ran as its lead story.

When the FBI was on the hunt for the railroad serial killer, a man so dangerous the organization vaulted him to its Top Ten Most Wanted List, Cynthia traveled to a remote village in Mexico and broke the story that the fugitive had crossed the border to return to his hometown between his killing sprees in the United States. When Cynthia investigated Texas nail salons, her stories prompted the Texas legislature to instigate sweeping new safety regulations.

“She’s always doing the story that you are going to remember,” says KHOU-TV talk-show host Deborah Duncan.

“If it’s a hard news story, Cynthia is the reporter who’ll ask the best question. If it’s a lighter story, she’s the reporter who’ll make people laugh. She has an innate talent and instinct for interviewing and story-telling,” Duncan said.

The Houston Press named Cynthia “Best News Reporter” in 2005. The newspaper’s editorial staff said, “People might forget that behind those down-home good looks lurks an actual reporter.”

“Cynthia is the best performance reporter I have ever worked with,” said KPRC-TV News Director Rick McFarland.

Former KPRC-TV executive producer Holly Nielsen worked hand-in-hand with Cynthia for two years and was always impressed by her ability to connect with viewers.
“Cynthia does what all reporters know makes good TV but few are actually doing. She finds ways to interact with her interviewees; it adds the human quality to her stories and increases the emotional value and the viewer takeaway,” Nielsen said.

“This gal knows how to use her scene. During Hurricane Rita, Cynthia made friends with a good-ole’-boy Texas lawmaker. She ran into his police trailer live on the air to get an update. It was great TV. She asks the questions everyone wants to know,” Nielsen continues.

Versatility is a difficult commodity to find in news journalists. Nielsen notes that a lot of reporters can cover a murder, while others are talented at focusing on feature stories, but, she says, it’s the great reporters who are proficient at both.

“She can change her presentation style on a dime – from hard to soft news. I remember a live shot she did at the circus. She ended her live shot in the trunk of an elephant,” Nielsen said.

Her aggressive interviewing and warm personality have won points with audiences and bosses alike. Though off the Houston airwaves right now, she is still routinely approached by Houstonians who confess that she’s their favorite reporter.

Houston businessman Adam Brownstein always admired Cynthia’s reporting but developed a deeper appreciation for her work after he saw her in person at a press conference. Brownstein happened to be at the Astrodome shelter after Hurricane Katrina when he witnessed a Cynthia Hunt grilling firsthand.

“I was surprised by the tough questions she asked,” Brownstein said. She was trying to get officials to give her solid information on creating a database to help lost families find one another. “While they kept dodging the question, she kept insisting on an answer. In a room filled with reporters from everywhere, she was the only one pressing for accountability,” Brownstein said.

Cynthia has a track record of hard work and tenacity. She made news around the nation when the accused "Railroad Serial Killer" confessed to her. A thorough reporter, Cynthia researched the FBI’s internal profiler methods to learn how to coax someone like Angel Maturino Resendiz to open up to her, a virtual stranger. In his seventh letter to her, he confessed to the eight murders police believed he had committed, as well as several additional murders they had never connected to him. Cynthia's letters with the sociopath were subpoenaed in his capital murder trial and used by the prosecution to disprove his insanity plea.

Shortly after breaking the story about the Resendiz confession, Cynthia’s life changed forever. Her mother called to alert Cynthia that her 23-year-old sister, Angelia, had suffered a major heart attack. Her sister, a petite 95-pound redhead, was in critical condition at a Nashville hospital, and doctors were completely baffled by her mysterious, life-threatening illness.

Cynthia flew home and remained by her sister’s side for four weeks. Doctors stabilized Angelia, operated on her, and ran a battery of tests. A geneticist finally discovered that she suffers from a rare genetic disorder called Ehlers-Danlos Type IV, a rare condition that causes aneurysms. Now Angelia lives with a large aneurysm by her heart, along with three additional aneurysms that her brain doctors discovered subsequently. Surgeons cannot operate to repair the aneurysms because the diagnosis meant that Angelia’s blood vessels were too weak to sustain the trauma of surgery.

“These aneurysms are like ticking time bombs. The Vanderbilt doctors were incredibly dedicated and caring, but we understood then and now that there is nothing more they can do,” reveals Cynthia. “Angelia was sent home with the grim expectation that she might not live much longer.”

A few months later, DNA tests revealed Cynthia’s mother had the same genetic disorder, which resulted in the discovery of a small aneurysm by her mother’s brain. Today, Cynthia’s sister and mother are still alive and doctors use the word “miracle” to describe their survival. Cynthia, who tested negative for the disorder, never lets a day pass without calling her family. “I have felt enormous pain over the fact that the two most important women were diagnosed with a terminal illness. It has really made me understand the pain of some of the people I interview on a much deeper level,” Cynthia said.

“My mother and sister are my heroes. They are the most optimistic, happy people you could ever know because they spend their time being thankful for life and all the little things instead of focusing on their illness or the medical fact that an aneurysm could rupture and they could die any day. They are more alive than most healthy people I know,” Cynthia said.

Cynthia’s family has always been exceptionally close. She, her sister, and their younger brother were raised on a dairy farm near the small town of Eva in Alabama, an environment where hard work was valued.

“When you see your parents getting up at 3 A.M. seven days a week to go milk the cows, you kind of laugh at people in the news business who think we work too hard,” Cynthia said.

Cynthia’s parents were strict disciplinarians, especially with regard to Cynthia, the eldest kid. Cynthia’s dad, an ex-Marine, would pepper her with questions from the news. The family’s 520-square-foot home was filled with constant political discussions.

“I could intelligently discuss the U.S. policy in the Mideast at the age of ten because my father drilled into me the importance of understanding world events,” Cynthia said.

At the University of Alabama, Cynthia immediately started working as a reporter. She landed a job as the news director for WTXT-FM, a radio station in Tuscaloosa. Her alarm rang at 3:30 am every morning so she could get to the station to deliver the news. She squeezed in a full course load between the morning and afternoon newscasts. From there, the 20-year-old accepted a job as the weekend overnight news brief anchor at a Huntsville, Alabama, television station.

During her senior year, Cynthia was elected as their homecoming queen by the students at the University of Alabama. A passionate football fan, Cynthia watched the Alabama Crimson Tide beat Miami in the Sugar Bowl to clinch the national championship. Cynthia graduated from the university with Phi Beta Kappa honors and landed a job with WAFF-TV in Huntsville, Alabama, as a reporter.
The general manager at the station dubbed Cynthia his “bulldog,” thanks to her tenacity. Her resourcefulness and creativity led to an exclusive interview with fugitive and two-time prison escapee Donald Bryant. Not only did she interview him while he was on the run, but she also got the exclusive jail-cell interview after his capture.

Executives at ABC’s KTRK Channel 13 in Houston recognized her ability and hired her to become the youngest television news reporter working in Houston at that time. There Cynthia became the reporter who would break a number of headline-grabbing national stories. She was the only reporter in the nation to locate and interview basketball star Charles Barkley during one of his highly publicized spats with the NBA. Cynthia used her FBI contacts to break the story of an astronaut imposter who gained access to two secure NASA installations and a military area. She invoked the Freedom of Information Act to get official NASA video of the imposter inside Mission Control. For four years, Cynthia anchored KTRK's number-one rated Sunday Extra show, where Cynthia’s self-deprecating personality and energy made this lifestyle show a viewer favorite.

In 2006, Cynthia released her first documentary short entitled “Shelter from the Storm.” The documentary chronicles the widely respected shelter operation in Houston, Texas in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, and addresses the importance of disaster preparedness on the local governmental level.

Cynthia took a sabbatical from a full-time journalist position in 2007 so she could build an Arbonne business. That business allowed Cynthia to retire her mom from the auto plant job that doctors said had endangered her mom’s life because of her mom’s brain aneurysm. Arbonne allows Cynthia to own a successful Arbonne business and continue her passion for journalism. Cynthia has hosted a Houston radio talk show, been a commentator or an Emmy nominated TV talk show, and regularly blogs on the popular crime blog women-in-crime which was recommended in June of this year by the Wall Street Journal for its extensive essays on crime and the court system from a woman’s perspective.

Cynthia lives in Houston, Texas, with her beloved Chihuahua Maxwell, who she says gets more fan mail than she ever did after his earlier appearances on this website. She promises when the website is rebuilt this fall… Maxwell will do a new video for his many fans.