Dennis McDougal, a former staff writer for the Press-Telegram and Press-Enterprise — and a best-selling true crime author — has died. He was 77.

McDougal and his wife, Sharon McDougal, were traveling to Los Angeles from their home near Memphis, Tennessee, on Friday, March 21, when they were involved in a car crash on the westbound 10 Freeway, about 2 miles east of Red Cloud Mine Road in Desert Center.

Neither Cal Fire nor the California Highway Patrol responded to requests for details of the crash.

But, according to the Riverside County Coroner’s office, both were transported to Desert Regional Medical Center, in Palm Springs, after the crash. Dennis McDougal died in the hospital on Saturday, March 22, and Sharon McDougal, 76, died in the same hospital on Monday, March 24.

Dennis McDougal, a Pasadena native, was a well-known journalist and author who devoted much of his career to covering Hollywood, crime and media. He penned 14 books, ranging from deep-dives into infamous true crime cases to stories chronicling the scandalous lives of media industry moguls.

He and his wife — an Oakland native who grew up splitting time between the Bay Area and Southern California — were married for 35 years, their granddaughter, Megan Cole Lyle, said in a Wednesday, March 26, interview. The two met at a football game when they were teenagers, but didn’t marry until years later.

“(They) reconnected decades later, after they’d both been married and divorced, and had children, and from that moment on, they were just literally inseparable,” Cole Lyle said, “to the point that they literally left this world together at the same time.”

Sharon McDougal spent her career as a high-level bank manager. But, Cole Lyle said, her grandmother will be most remembered for her generosity and giving spirit.

“She was a very impressive, very smart woman, and she was always so giving without any expectation,” Cole Lyle said, noting that Sharon often volunteered in prisons, homeless shelters, children’s hospitals and more.

“She didn’t tell anyone about it; she didn’t ask for accolades,” Cole Lyle said. “She did it because she genuinely had the biggest heart for other people, and she just wanted to help people in every single way she could.”

Both Dennis and Sharon McDougal shared that generous spirit, Cole Lyle said — and were beloved by their expansive communities.

“They would open their house to anyone who needed a place to stay. Anyone who needed a family, they were family. They had more friends than anyone I’ve ever met,” Cole Lyle said. “I get jealous, sometimes — I don’t know how my grandparents are more cool and popular than I am. But they had people they considered family in any city in the world. They were that kind of couple.”

Among Cole Lyle’s fondest memories of her grandparents, she said, was dancing with both of them to her grandmother’s favorite song, “I Hope You Dance,” the 2000 hit originally sung by Lee Ann Womack, at her wedding.

That song, she said, will always remind Cole Lyle of her grandmother and grandfather.

“(I let) my grandma go on Monday,” Cole Lyle said, “and told her to go be with papa, and I hope you dance.”

Before Dennis McDougal — who was originally from Pasadena, but grew up in Lynwood — became a full-time author in 1993, he was a staff writer for two newspapers now owned by the Southern California News Group: The Press-Enterprise and the Long Beach Press-Telegram.

McDougal, according to his website, spent about four years at each paper, cutting his journalistic teeth as an investigative reporter.

“Dennis was the consummate investigative reporter — thorough and rigorous in his reporting. He also was an excellent writer,” said Rich Archbold, the Press-Telegram’s public editor and a columnist for the publication, who was also the P-T’s managing editor when McDougal worked there. “The newsroom enjoyed his great sense of humor and wry wit. He was fun to be around.”

In 1983, McDougal became a staff writer for the Los Angeles Times. There, his website says, “McDougal reported on the glamorous and occasionally corrupt aspects of Hollywood as a staff writer for 15 years.”

“McDougal took readers behind the scenes of pop star Michael Jackson’s troubled career, beginning with his ‘Victory’ tour in the early 1980s,” his website says, “exposed the waste and mismanagement of Band Aid, USA for Africa, Farm Aid and other ‘pop charities’ of the 1980s; and followed celebrity courtroom dramas.”

He published his first book “Angel of Darkness,” which chronicles the crimes of infamous Southern California serial killer Randy Kraft, in 1991.

McDougal went on to publish 13 more books throughout his career, covering multiple true crime cases, including Bonny Lee Blakey’s 2001 murder and Cary Stayner’s crimes in Yosemite National Park.

His “Privileged Son: Otis Chandler And The Rise And Fall Of The L.A. Times Dynasty,” released in 2002, documented the Chandler family’s long and controversial history in the region. The award-winning tale was later adapted into a PBS documentary.

McDougal also wrote biographies about Bob Dylan, Jack Nicholson and Lew Wasserman, and penned a fictional novel based on his own service in the U.S. Navy during the Vietnam War, called “The Candlestickmaker.”

McDougal’s most recent book, a biography about Las Vegas casino mogul Steve Wynn called “Citizen Wynn: A Sin City Saga of Power, Lust, and Blind Ambition,” was published last year.

McDougal, throughout his career, also contributed regularly to the New York Times. His work won countless awards, including the George Foster Peabody Award, Fordham University’s Ann M. Sperber Award for the nation’s best media biography, and an Edgar nomination from the Mystery Writers of America for best true crime, his website says.

He also taught journalism and creative writing as an adjunct professor at UCLA, Cal State Fullerton and Cal State Long Beach.

But of all his accomplishments, Cole Lyle said, McDougal proudest of his five children and 15 grandchildren.

“He was most proud of, I think, our education in particular. He was very, very invested in making sure that we were creatively and intellectually curious,” she said, “and I think he passed on that journalistic curiosity and creativity to all of us. He was very proud that so many of us have gone on to write and paint, make films, make music, and just always be learning.”

When Cole Lyle first enrolled in college, and was finding it difficult to adjust to the new academic setting, she relied on her grandfather for advice. Cole Lyle feared she may not be cut out for college, but, she said, her grandfather reassured her by sharing a passage from T.H White’s “The Once and Future King” about the importance of pursuing education.

Cole Lyle printed out the passage her grandfather had shared with her, and had it hanging above her bed throughout her freshman year, she said — serving as a reminder of his faith in her.

“It just made me think of my grandpa every time. We’d often go on these long walks, and I’d say, ‘You’re old — tell me what the meaning of life is,’” she said. “Every time, he’d tell me, ‘I think it’s just to learn and experience as much as you can, before you can’t anymore.’ I think he really did that until the very end.”

Cole Lyle, though, said that the loss of both her grandparents — as well as their impact on all the people they knew and loved — is difficult to put into words.

“I wish that my grandpa was here to give me the words to say that they were everything to me, because he could write,” Cole Lyle said. “I’m going to live the rest of my life trying to make them proud and live up to the people they were.”