Jennifer Eckhart, 36, a former associate producer for Fox News and Fox Business, was found dead in her home in Hobe Sound, Florida, on Saturday morning, September 19, 2026. Her mother discovered her and called authorities.
The Martin County Sheriff’s Office confirmed her death and ruled it a suicide, spokesperson Christine Christofek said. TMZ was first to report the news, and People later confirmed the details through the sheriff’s incident report.
Eckhart joined Fox News in 2013 and spent seven years at the network, working as an associate producer for both Fox News and Fox Business before her departure in 2020.
In 2020, Eckhart publicly accused Ed Henry, then a prominent Fox News anchor, of rape. Henry denied the allegation, maintaining that their relationship had been consensual. After receiving Eckhart’s complaint, the network launched an outside investigation and fired Henry in July 2020.
Eckhart subsequently filed suit against both Henry and Fox News. A settlement with Henry was reached in 2025, according to People. Fox News was dismissed as a defendant after a federal court found the network did not know about the misconduct — a decision a federal appeals court upheld in 2025. Henry later went on to anchor at Newsmax.
The case wound through the courts for five years. While Eckhart ultimately reached a settlement with Henry in 2025, her claims against Fox News were dismissed after a federal court found the network had no knowledge of the alleged misconduct. A federal appeals court upheld that ruling in 2025, closing the book on the network’s involvement.
After leaving Fox, Eckhart channeled her experience into advocacy. She launched the podcast “REINVENTED with Jen Eckhart,” which she described as a way to “give a voice to the voiceless.” Speaking to People, she said: “I turned pain into purpose… survivors do not require validation from a courtroom to emerge stronger than what tries to break them.”
If you or someone you know is in crisis, call or text 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline in the US.
What the incident report showed
The Martin County Sheriff’s Office incident report, obtained by People and USA Today, paints a grim picture of the scene. Eckhart was found in the bathtub of her home with “a large laceration to the front of her throat/neck and there was a folding pocketknife next to her right hand,” a responding deputy wrote. She was pronounced dead at 11:57 a.m. on Saturday, September 19. Her mother had gone to the Hobe Sound residence and called authorities shortly before noon after making the discovery.
At a September 21 press conference, Martin County Sheriff John Budensiek said the death had been ruled a suicide by both the sheriff’s office and the Medical Examiner’s Office — and that investigators had taken extraordinary care to be sure. “Looking at the scene and going through the investigation, we spent a lot of time. We investigated it as if it was a homicide. But it is not. It’s a suicide,” Budensiek said. The sheriff added that final toxicology results were still pending at the time of the briefing.
A documented battle with mental illness
Budensiek also revealed that Eckhart’s struggles were known to authorities long before her death. Over the previous year and a half, she had been hospitalized six times under Florida’s Baker Act — the law allowing people in severe mental-health crisis to be involuntarily held for up to 72 hours — across the Martin County and Palm Beach County sheriff’s offices. She had recently spent seven weeks in a mental-health facility and had been out for only one week when she died.
Investigators said she appeared to have stopped taking her prescribed medications after leaving the facility. In a personal ledger, she had written, “I need to kill myself.” Neighbors told authorities they had heard Eckhart having “frantic” conversations outside her home and on the phone in the period before her death. Her former podcast tagline — giving “a voice to the voiceless” — now carries a heavier meaning.
Before Fox: ESPN, PBS and the University of Florida
Long before cable news, Eckhart’s media career started close to home. Born and raised in Miami, she earned a bachelor’s degree in telecommunications-news from the University of Florida in Gainesville, according to the Palm Beach Post. Her early resume included stints at ESPN Radio and a PBS affiliate in Florida — the training ground that eventually took her to New York, where she joined Fox News in 2013 and spent seven years as an associate producer for both Fox News and Fox Business.
The final chapters of the Henry lawsuit
The 2020 lawsuit that defined her public life was filed jointly with Cathy Areu, another frequent Fox guest who leveled her own allegations against Ed Henry and others at the network. Eckhart’s complaint described Henry — roughly twice her age — as having groomed her starting when she was just 24, allegedly promising career advancement in exchange for sex. Fox said at the time it had received no prior sexual-harassment complaints against Henry involving Eckhart, and the network fired him in July 2020 after an outside investigation.
The case’s ending came in two parts: a federal judge dismissed Eckhart’s claims against Fox News in March 2025, ruling the network had no prior knowledge of the misconduct, and she settled her remaining claims against Henry himself in June 2025, shortly before a scheduled trial. Henry has since resurfaced as an anchor at Newsmax.
If you or someone you know is struggling, call or text 988 in the US to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline — free, confidential help is available 24/7.
