Lee Daniels, reporter and N.J. town clerk

After they had finished the final story of a long-running investigation published in the Camden Courier-Post, Lee Daniels and Jim Riggio went out to celebrate.

But instead of then going home, the pair went back to the newsroom and promptly fell asleep at their desks, Riggio said from his home in Billings, Mont.

The next morning, a top editor woke them and showed them a photo that had just been taken of them.

"The next time one of you clowns asks for a raise," Riggio recalled him saying, "this is what you'll get - a photo of you sleeping at your desks."

On Monday, Feb. 16, Lee C. Daniels, 78, of Sewell, a prizewinning reporter for the Courier-Post who later was borough clerk in Audubon from 1980 to 1997, died of complications from dementia at the Veterans Memorial Home in Vineland, N.J., son Rick said.

The stories which Riggio and Mr. Daniels celebrated that night won the 1966 police reporting award from the Philadelphia Press Association, Riggio said.

Their work dealt with the murder of developer Frank Adamucci in the lobby of the Rickshaw Inn in Cherry Hill in 1965.

"It turned out to be a screwed-up robbery," Riggio recalled, "but it was a running story for weeks."

A longtime resident of Audubon, Mr. Daniels graduated from Collingswood High School and served as an Air Force police officer from 1954 to 1958, for a time in England, his son said.

Mr. Daniels began taking journalism classes at Rutgers-Camden, but newspaper work intruded and he did not graduate until the late 1960s, his son said.

After working as a general assignment reporter at the Courier-Post, Mr. Daniels held the same job at the Philadelphia Daily News from the late 1960s into the early 1970s, said Jim Nicholson, a now-retired reporter who worked with him at both papers.

"He had a great conversational manner about him," Nicholson said. "He was good dealing with people in stress situations, which made him a good street reporter."

Mr. Daniels was a manager of the successful Camden mayoral campaign of Angelo J. Errichetti, who took office in 1973 but in the early 1980s was among several officials convicted in the Abscam corruption scandal.

Mr. Daniels's son said his father was press secretary for Errichetti but "just before Abscam hit, he was out of there" and into the borough clerk's office in Audubon.

He lived in Sebring, Fla., for much of the 2000s.

Besides his son, Mr. Daniels is survived by wife Maudie, sons Robert, Dirk, and Anthony, daughter Maureen McCabe, 10 grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren. Rick Daniels said he did not have current information about his father's former wife, Shirley.

A visitation was set from 9:30 to 11 a.m. Saturday, Feb. 21, at the First Presbyterian Church, 335 Elm Ave., Woodbury Heights, before an 11 a.m. memorial service, with private interment.

Donations may be sent to www.alz.org/donate.

Condolences may be offered to the family at www.fosterwarnefuneralhome.com.