HLN’s Nancy Grace leaving her legal show

NEW YORK — Tough-talking former prosecutor Nancy Grace is leaving her prime-time show on the HLN network in October.

The CNN sister station said Grace told her staff Thursday that her show would be ending after 12 years. Grace, 56, said in a statement that she’ll be leaving “with a full heart and endless gratitude.”

She hasn’t announced any specific new plans, and HLN wasn’t saying what would replace her.

Grace, who turned to law after her fiancee was murdered in college, worked in an Atlanta-area district attorney’s office and became a go-to television personality commenting on trials in the post-O.J. Simpson era. Her HLN show focused on missing children and crime victims.

Her popularity boomed when missing children cases such as Caylee Anthony, Natalee Holloway and Elizabeth Smart dominated mainstream news. But fewer of those cases have broken through to wide attention in recent years. In the age demographic that TV executives seek, her audience dropped to a third or quarter what it was in its peak years.

Grace said the show “created an unparalleled platform that gave crime victims a voice and succeeded in helping to find missing people and solve unsolved homicides.”