Jerry Bledsoe, bestselling NC true-crime author, has died. He was 84.

Jerry Bledsoe, a former newspaper reporter who rose to national acclaim as the author of “Bitter Blood” and other true-crime bestsellers, died Wednesday night after a fall at his Asheboro home, his son said. He was 84.

“He had a long, distinguished career as a journalist and stuck up for the underdog in his reporting and as an author,” Erik Bledsoe said Thursday.

Bledsoe was born in 1941 in Danville, Virginia and grew up in Thomasville. He served in the Army for three years before becoming a reporter and feature columnist for The Greensboro Daily News and The Charlotte Observer.

He was a contributing editor at Esquire magazine when he began writing books, according to Penguin Random House, his publisher. “Bitter Blood,” his seventh book, became a No. 1 New York Times bestseller that was made into a CBS miniseries.

Jerry Bledsoe gave voice to people who’d never had one, “the common folk,” said Erik Bledsoe, who lives in Cary

The author lived with Alzheimer’s Disease for years, and a brain bleed caused his fall at the home he shared with his wife, Linda, his son said.

No service is planned, although a gathering of family and close friends may occur in a couple of months, the author’s son said.

This is a developing story and will be updated.