NEW YORK -- The disappointment had passed and Teresa Carpenter had adjusted to life as a runner-up for a Pulitzer Prize.
But in the first such scandal in the 65-year history of the prestigious awards, it was announced that the prize-winning story in the feature category was a fake, and Ms. Carpenter of the Village Voice Wednesday was made the winner after all.
A spokesman for Columbia University, which presents the Pulitzers, said the award to Ms. Carpenter for three stories about murder cases marked the first time that the Voice, a liberal New York weekly owned by Rupert Murdoch, had won a Pulitzer.
The 'first pangs of disappointment had already passed' when she learned she was back in the running for the Pulitzer, Ms. Carpenter, 32, said.
'I'd settled into the routine of telling everyone it was flattering to just be nominated when all this started,' she said.
The jury of journalists who perform the first round of judging picked Ms. Carpenter's three entries as the prize winner.
But the Pulitzer committee overrode their selection, as is its right, and selected Janet Cooke for her 'very interesting' feature story on an 8-year-old heroin addict in the Washington Post.
The Post returned the award after announcing that it learned Miss Cooke faked the story. She immediately resigned, a Post spokesman said.
When the story of the faked Post story became public Wednesday, Ms. Carpenter began 'sitting around my home getting progress reports in a state of high anxiety.'
The stories for which Ms. Carpenter was honored include 'Death of a Playmate,' about a Playboy magazine cover girl who was killed by her husband, and an examination of the relationship between slain ex-Rep. Allard Lowenstein and Dennis Sweeney, the former civil rights worker who shot him.
In a third feature, 'Murder on a Day Pass,' Ms. Carpenter recounted the story of Adam Berwid, a mental patient who was allowed to leave the hospital on a day pass and promptly went home to kill his wife.
Ms. Carpenter, a graduate of Graceland College in Iowa and the University of Missouri's graduate school of journalism, quit her job as a magazine editor two years ago to become a free-lance writer.
Her Pulitzer-winning stories were all written as free-lance pieces for the Voice, which has since hired her as a staff writer.
Her advice to other writers who want to strike out on her own, she said, is: 'don't let little things like starvation and personal deprivation stand in your way.'
The staff of the Voice gathered to celebrate with the traditional champagne and plan a night on the town in Ms. Carpenter's honor.
