Tyler Cunnington joined KOMO News as a General Assignment Reporter in July 2025. Tyler came to the Pacific Northwest from Colorado Springs, where he spent the previous two years as a reporter with KRDO13 News, another ABC affiliate station in the shadow of Pikes Peak - the only other mountain, he says, that holds a candle to Rainier!
While in Colorado Springs, he was able to win state, regional, and national awards for his reporting on several big stories - and he was even featured in an HBO documentary.
While in Southern Colorado, he served as a lead reporter at KRDO, tackling all things crime-related, along with investigative pieces that challenged those in power and local government, while also delving into fun, creative feature stories when the opportunity presented itself.
Most notably, Tyler was tasked with covering several national stories. You may recall seeing reports out of Boulder, Colorado, that a man had thrown Molotov cocktails at a group of people demonstrating on behalf of Israeli hostages overseas. The suspect, who was arrested on federal charges, hailed from Colorado Springs. Tyler was on the ground in Boulder the next day, reporting on how the community was reacting to a terror attack by the local man, which took place in the heart of their city.
However, at the core of Tyler's tenure in the Pikes Peak Region, was a horrific story that his station broke to the rest of the country, in fall 2023, when a husband and wife who owned a funeral home business in Colorado Springs, were caught with 190 bodies decomposing within a building of theirs in a small rural town of Penrose about 45 minutes south. One month later, Tyler broke the news of the couple's arrest after they had fled to Oklahoma. Investigators would allege that the couple was putting ground-up concrete mix into urns, instead of the actual cremains, like they were paid to do.
Tyler was a part of the team coverage that first day of the investigation, and collectively earned aRegional Edward R. Murrow Award for the coverage. That following winter, Tyler was included in a 30-minute special titled "Body of Lies"where he spoke to about a dozen families, and how they grappled with the fact their loved one had been rotting in a building, some for as long as four years, and had been given concrete instead of ashes. Tyler's team won both a Regional and a National Edward R. Murrow Award for the documentary, as well as a Colorado Broadcaster's Association award,and they are nominated for a Heartland Region Emmy award as well.
As a result of his relentless reporting on the tragic story, Tyler was invited to be interviewed on an HBO documentary episode titled "The Curious Cases of: The Funeral Home of Horrors," which aired in March 2025 as the case had swiftly garnered the attention of the “true crime” world throughout 2023 and 2024. Tyler served as an expert to testify to all the details of the grisly case, and his firsthand accounts of covering it all.
Other national stories Tyler covered included the Tesla Cybertruck explosion outside of President-Elect Donald Trump's International hotel along the Las Vegas strip on New Year's Day, 2025. The suspect was discovered to be a military veteran from Colorado Springs. Tyler was a part of the team coverage that day, sharing everything that was known about the suicide bombing.
Another incident that gained national attention included a tourist gold mine in the high country just west of Colorado Springs, which had an elevator malfunction, trapping nearly two dozen people both within the 1,000-foot vertical mine shaft and at the bottom of it. The accident also killed a tour guide on the elevator. Tyler was on the scene all afternoon and was the lead reporter for Team Coverage, which won a Colorado Broadcaster's Association award for Spot News. Tyler also provided about 6 minutes of live reporting for the ABC affiliate station in San Francisco that evening, answering several questions from anchors about the scene around him.
When he's not at work, Tyler loves to run, workout, hike, and go on day trips, in addition to thrifting clothing and checking out vintage shops. Any recommendations are welcome, especially for coffee shops, restaurants, or bars too!
Tyler is originally from Yorktown Heights, a small town a bit north of New York City, where he played lacrosse -- the fastest (and best) sport on two feet (Go Syracuse Orange!) He is the baby of his family, with three older siblings -- including his oldest sister, who is also a Reporter (no it's not a family profession) at NBC in New York City.
He attended Ithaca College in Central New York, where he studied to become a sports journalist; however, the COVID-19 pandemic had other plans, leaving him with a bittersweet end to his college years in 2020 and 2021, before graduating.
As a result of the shrinking sports broadcasting world, Tyler took an opportunity in news instead, at WICZ Fox 40 Newsin Binghamton, NY. It's a small city in the southern tier of New York, near the Pennsylvania border. There, Tyler cut his teeth in TV broadcasting, covering local news during the week and anchoring on the weekends, before eventually covering weekend sports for a little over a year. He said he will always hold those busy football and spring seasons near and dear to his heart. There, Tyler anchored news on the weekends, in addition to doing sports, while even filling in as aweather person for several months, leading him to do the entire broadcasts himself on a handful of occasions!
At WICZ, Tyler was fortunate enough to win the New York StateBroadcaster's Association (NYSBA) award for Best Feature story in 2023, for a story he filmed, wrote and edited himself just months into working at the station, about a local seamstress who was tasked by the U.S Navy to create an 1812 style jacket for the new captain of the U.S.S. Constitution, who was the first female captain in the ships 200+ year history.
Tyler is thrilled to be in Seattle. If you see him out and about, don't hesitate to say hello or reach out to him on social media!
