David Richie, a Roseville resident who covered the region for several area newspapers including The Press-Tribune, has died. He was 57.

Richie died Monday due to complications from pancreatitis, his employer, The Sacramento bee, said on its Web site Tuesday.

Richie worked for The Press-Tribune in the late-1980s and 1990s, covering county government.

“He was obviously a gifted writer and reporter,” said Gus Thomson, a longtime Auburn Journal reporter who covered some of the same Placer County stories as Richie in the late-1980s, before The Press-Tribune and Auburn Journal became affiliated.

Richie started at the Bee as a community reporter in 1997, according to the paper. Several months ago, he returned to his roots of sorts, covering crime stories in Roseville. But his beat was a wide one, including El Dorado, Placer and Eastern Sacramento County, the Bee said in an obituary posted online Tuesday.

“Dave was one of those old-time reporters that really knew his sources, really knew his stories,” Dena Erwin, a Placer County Sheriff’s Department spokeswoman who spoke frequently with Richie, told The Press-Tribune on Tuesday. “He didn’t always go for the biggest stories, he went for the deep-reaching stories. He researched things. He always seemed to know what was going on.”

Richie’s stories exemplified good journalism; his feature and news stories were keenly observant, sometimes punctuated by what those who knew him called “a wicked sense of humor.”

In “The Mansion,” a memorable Bee story published in 2007, Richie investigated resident complaints against Folsom homeowner Roy Larrick, whose parties were reportedly out of control.

Richie set the scene thusly:

“At his home this week, Larrick was cleaning a chimichanga from his prized custom crystal chandelier.”

But perhaps the highest journalistic praise was that “he was spot on,” Erwin said. “He always got things right.”

Richie is survived by his wife Mickey Council, according to the Bee. The paper said services were pending.