Robyn Doolittle

Robyn Doolittle (born 13 September 1984) is a Canadian investigative reporter for The Globe and Mail.

At the Toronto Star, she became well known for covering Toronto mayor Rob Ford's political and personal life, which led to her authoring the biography Crazy Town: The Rob Ford Story (2014). At The Globe, her focus has been on sexual assault cases deemed "unfounded" by police in Canada.

Early life and education Doolittle was born in 1984 in Sarnia, Ontario, and grew up in Forest, Ontario, where her mother worked in human resources and her father worked for Eaton's building window displays. As a high school student, Doolittle was actively involved in numerous extracurricular activities and wrote a column for the Sarnia Observer. Ford strongly denied this allegation.

In part because of her role in writing the Garrison Ball story, she was approached by Mohamed Farah and Mohamed Siad, alleged members of the Dixon Bloods, about a video they had showing Rob Ford smoking crack cocaine.

Crazy Town

Based on the notability of the Rob Ford crack video and her personal role in investigating it, Doolittle was offered a book deal by Penguin Books, but was given only three months to write the manuscript. In early February 2014, film producers Daniel Iron and Lance Samuels announced they had purchased the movie rights to Crazy Town. After the video was released by the Toronto Police Services, Doolittle acknowledged that she had recalled some details of the video incorrectly.

On July 8, 2015, online retailer Kobo honoured Doolittle with its first annual non-fiction Kobo Emerging Writer Prize for Crazy Town. In response to Doolittle's 2017 article, 37,272 cases were reviewed by various police departments, and over 400 were reopened including 23 cases in the Canadian Armed Forces.

In September 2018, the man who had raped the first victim that Doolittle interviewed for her investigation was sentenced to jail after having his case reopened. After police surveillance collected a sample of the man's DNA, they were able to match it with the victim's child, which had not been done before because the detective had accepted the man's claim that he was sterile at face value. The victim's lawyer, who is an expert on "unfounded" cases said that it was the first time he had seen such a case result in the criminal being brought to justice.

Personal life Doolittle is a vegetarian. As of 2013, Doolittle lived in a condo in the Parkdale area of Toronto with her two Pomeranians.

Doolittle married her husband, a teacher, in January 2016. They have two daughters.