Milwaukee TV broadcaster Colleen Henry and attorney husband Steve Kohn retire from high-profile careers

Colleen Henry is a hard-charging TV broadcaster, an old-school investigative journalist who lands scoops and asks tough questions of cops, criminals and politicians.

Steve Kohn is a flamboyant criminal defense attorney, known for taking high-profile cases and making an impression with a jury.

They married New Year's Day 2005. Her first, his second, built to last.

Separately and together, they made their mark in Milwaukee.

Now, they're retiring. Kohn, 65, voluntarily gave up his law license last week.

On Friday, Henry, 58, wraps up her 25-plus year career on air for WISN-TV (Channel 12).

They've sold their Lake Drive home, shed most of their belongings in an estate sale and with their rescue dog Peggy are headed to Mexico in the fall.

Thirty-seven hours driving time by car from the Midwest to Puerto Vallarta.

It's kind of sudden. But that's life. And there's a story.

Last year, Kohn hadn't been feeling well. Something wasn't right. In November, he finally saw a specialist and underwent a chest X-ray. He had cancer. Just like that, life changed.

After radiation, three minor surgeries and two major surgeries, including the removal of his left lung in mid-March, Kohn is now cancer-free.

An experience like that drives home the point that life is more than legal briefs or chasing stories.

So, here they are.

Embarking on a new chapter.

From Chicago to Milwaukee

Henry is from Chicago's south side, a self-described theater kid who studied Spanish and international relations at Georgetown University and got a graduate degree in journalism from Northwestern University.

She worked an administrative job in the Peace Corps and got her first taste of journalism with Agence France-Presse in Washington, D.C. She worked in TV in Chattanooga, Tenn., and Elkhart, Ind., before coming to Milwaukee.

"I don't do good news, not on purpose," she said. "Every day I show up is the worst day of a person's life. People are just really gracious about sharing their darkest moments and they do it with a lot of grace."

She also holds people to account. Once she demanded answers of a slum landlord at the courthouse.

"He took a huge swing and missed me but got the camera, like, boom," she said. "It was so beautiful. The photographer and I looked at each other, like this, yeah, I'm rolling, it was a beautiful moment."

Love of the law 

Kohn, who grew up in Minnesota, Iowa and Missouri, always wanted to be a lawyer. He was drawn to the profession through the novels of Charles Dickens. In his senior year of high school, he portrayed a prosecutor in Ayn Rand's play, "The Night of January 16th."

"I grew up in a time in the 1960's where there was much civil unrest and lawyers were seen as champions of protecting rights and change," he said.

He won his first two cases in Milwaukee and a judge gave him some advice. "What you've done is a big deal. Don't let it go to your head. Lawyers who believe they are special are the ones who never make it."

He had famous cases, broadcast gavel to gavel on Court TV. At a state trial, he successfully defended Daniel Masarik, one of the off-duty Milwaukee police officers accused of beating Frank Jude Jr. Masarik and two others were later convicted in federal court for the beating.

Kohn also defended Chai Vang, who was found guilty for the 2004 shootings of eight people who were hunting in northern Wisconsin. Six people were killed.

Kohn had his share of wins. He was a go-to attorney for those in legal peril.

He also survived a rocky moment in the 1990s when one of his law partners was convicted in federal court on charges of possessing cocaine with intent to distribute.

"That was probably the darkest days, that whole year from the time he was indicted to the time he was convicted," he said. "It was very difficult."

Quirky couple

Henry and Kohn describe themselves as "a little off beat, quirky." They don't remember exactly when they first met but they do know it involved Henry shoving a microphone in Kohn's face.

Kohn said the professional relationship with Henry grew personal when they met at a social function, after he separated from his first wife.

"We're very social, very casual," she said. On air, she's unafraid to knock on a door and demand some answers, but it's Kohn who calls the cable company or first meets the new neighbors.

"She's too shy," Kohn said. "Once the conversation starts, she is warm and outgoing."

Medical crisis

Last year, Kohn said he began to have some physical problems. He felt weak. Finally, he called a friend and doctor who said he needed to see a specialist.

He underwent a chest X-ray.

Two hours later, the call came in. "We usually don't tell you this over the phone, but ..."

"You know there's trouble," Kohn said. "They found my lower left lung had collapsed. I had a tumor inside my lung that was the size of an orange and it was pushing down on my heart."

"That started a journey," Kohn said. "A series of adventures. Went through the gamut, a lot of tests, lot of scans, a lot of MRIs, a lot of poking and prodding. They finally came up with the diagnosis and the plan."

"I went through radiation for six weeks, then you have to wait about a month and they do surgery. I went through three minor surgeries and two major surgeries. They had to ultimately go into to my chest and turn my heart off, kind of get it out of the way and work on the lung. They had to remove my left lung along with the tumor. They had to take out the margins of the good flesh around the bad flesh.

"And then they kind of sew you back up and you can start convalescing. I was very fortunate. I am sitting here talking to you and most people would not know I have been through that."

He credits the care he received at Froedtert & The Medical College of Wisconsin, and lauds radiation oncologist Elizabeth Gore and surgeon David Johnstone.

Being away from his job gave him time to think long and hard about the future.

"I don't want anyone to feel sorry for me, I don't want anyone to feel badly for me," he said. "I want people to understand that I have been given an opportunity to continue to live life and it was clear to me from this experience that was not going to be in the world of law, where I had been functioning for the past 40 years."

Off to Mexico

So, they began to make plans.

Henry said her bosses at WISN-TV, news director Ben Hart and station manager Jan Wade, couldn't have been nicer, supporting her all the way through her husband's illness.

"I thought work was therapeutic," she said. "It's an overwhelming thing, someone you love might be dead soon. Your whole world is upended."

But the world is now righted, never really the same, but worth grabbing on to.

They leased a place in Puerto Vallarta where they plan to arrive in early October. Before they head to Mexico, they'll visit friends and family in the Midwest.

They're not looking back. And really, they don't know where this journey will ultimately take them.

They just know, it's time.

"Steve is ready to cut loose," Henry said. "I need to go with him."