WEBVTT - Did a Journalist's Probe into JFK's Assassination Lead to Her Death? 0:00:01.840 --> 0:00:07.720 Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey Brainstuff, Lauren 0:00:07.760 --> 0:00:13.600 Bogelbaum here. Though Dorothy Kilgallen is not a name familiar 0:00:13.680 --> 0:00:16.799 to many people today, there was a time from the 0:00:16.920 --> 0:00:19.880 nineteen forties to the mid sixties when she was one 0:00:19.920 --> 0:00:23.279 of the biggest stars in the media world, a trailblazing 0:00:23.400 --> 0:00:27.360 journalist and TV personality who paved the way for generations 0:00:27.400 --> 0:00:31.880 to follow. As a syndicated columnist in more than two 0:00:32.000 --> 0:00:36.200 hundred newspapers across the United States, Kilgallen covered everything from 0:00:36.320 --> 0:00:41.320 entertainment to politics to crime. When she wasn't following big 0:00:41.360 --> 0:00:44.640 stories like the nineteen fifty four murder trial of doctor 0:00:44.680 --> 0:00:47.919 Sam Shepherd, which was the inspiration for the movie The Fugitive, 0:00:48.479 --> 0:00:51.560 or Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev's visit to the US in 0:00:51.640 --> 0:00:54.880 nineteen fifty nine, she was arousing the ire of Frank 0:00:54.920 --> 0:00:59.200 Sinatra by reporting on his personal life. According to Sinatra 0:00:59.280 --> 0:01:03.000 biographer Sames Kaplan, the singer and actor was so irked 0:01:03.040 --> 0:01:05.120 by what kill Gallen wrote about him that he once 0:01:05.200 --> 0:01:07.880 sent her a tombstone with her name carved on it. 0:01:09.080 --> 0:01:12.479 She also appeared on American's TV screens every week as 0:01:12.480 --> 0:01:16.800 a panelist on the popular quiz program What's My Line. 0:01:17.400 --> 0:01:20.360 But Kilgallen never got a chance to finish what might 0:01:20.400 --> 0:01:24.040 have been her biggest story, her investigation into the assassination 0:01:24.200 --> 0:01:28.000 of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas, including her suspicion 0:01:28.200 --> 0:01:31.920 that alleged assassin Lee Harvey Oswald's subsequent murder while in 0:01:31.959 --> 0:01:34.720 police custody might have been part of a cover up 0:01:34.920 --> 0:01:39.200 of a bigger plot. Instead, on November eighth of nineteen 0:01:39.280 --> 0:01:42.360 sixty five, Kilgallen was found dead in her New York 0:01:42.400 --> 0:01:46.160 City townhouse in what the medical examiner decided was possibly 0:01:46.200 --> 0:01:51.960 an accidental overdose of alcohol and barbituates. Over sixty years later, 0:01:52.320 --> 0:01:56.560 that explanation is being challenged by one Mark Shaw, a 0:01:56.600 --> 0:01:59.800 former criminal defense attorney and legal analyst for CNN and 0:02:00.240 --> 0:02:05.000 media outlets. He's spent years investigating the circumstances of her 0:02:05.040 --> 0:02:08.440 death and believes that kill Gallen was actually murdered to 0:02:08.480 --> 0:02:11.200 prevent her from uncovering the truth about what had happened 0:02:11.240 --> 0:02:15.080 in Dallas. When how Stuff Works spoke with Shaw for 0:02:15.160 --> 0:02:17.880 the article this episode is based on, he said she 0:02:18.040 --> 0:02:23.080 knew it wasn't Oswald alone. Shaw has written extensively about 0:02:23.120 --> 0:02:26.320 kill Gallen, including four books, starting with the best selling 0:02:26.400 --> 0:02:30.919 twenty sixteen biography The Reporter Who Knew Too Much. This 0:02:31.040 --> 0:02:34.520 Cold Case is clearly still sparking interest. His books have 0:02:34.560 --> 0:02:39.440 been optioned for potential documentary films. Today, let's talk about 0:02:39.440 --> 0:02:41.960 who kill Gallen was and what we can make of 0:02:42.000 --> 0:02:47.079 her death today. Born in Chicago in nineteen thirteen, Kill 0:02:47.080 --> 0:02:50.040 Gallen was the daughter of a newspaper and wire service reporter. 0:02:51.320 --> 0:02:53.720 At a young age, she decided to follow in her 0:02:53.720 --> 0:02:58.440 father's footsteps. After she briefly attended the College of New Rochelle, 0:02:58.720 --> 0:03:01.200 her father managed to get her a two week tryout 0:03:01.240 --> 0:03:04.520 at the New York Evening Journal. She quickly became a 0:03:04.520 --> 0:03:07.440 star reporter in her own right, so adept at covering 0:03:07.480 --> 0:03:10.520 court cases that in nineteen thirty five, she was assigned 0:03:10.520 --> 0:03:14.720 to cover the Lindberg baby kidnapping trial. After her bosses 0:03:14.760 --> 0:03:18.160 promoted her from reporter to columnist. Kilgallen made a name 0:03:18.200 --> 0:03:21.280 for herself as one of three New York journalists competing 0:03:21.320 --> 0:03:25.200 in a race around the world. She finished second, making 0:03:25.240 --> 0:03:28.320 the journey in twenty four days, thirteen hours, and fifty 0:03:28.320 --> 0:03:31.360 one minutes, and published a book about her adventure, Girl 0:03:31.400 --> 0:03:33.880 Around the World, which was made into the nineteen thirty 0:03:33.919 --> 0:03:38.960 seven Hollywood film Flyaway Baby. After The Evening Journal merged 0:03:38.960 --> 0:03:41.760 with The New York American in nineteen thirty eight, the 0:03:41.840 --> 0:03:45.960 New Journal American appointed Kilgallen as its Broadway columnist, making 0:03:46.000 --> 0:03:49.920 her the first woman in a hitherto masculine field, as 0:03:49.960 --> 0:03:54.880 her associated pres obituary would eventually note. She married actor 0:03:54.960 --> 0:03:58.680 turned theatrical producer Dick Calmar, and they found time to 0:03:58.760 --> 0:04:03.800 raise three children Togetherlike today's media superstars, kill Gallen worked 0:04:03.840 --> 0:04:07.480 in multiple platforms. She began doing a radio program during 0:04:07.560 --> 0:04:10.440 World War Two, and by the nineteen fifties she was 0:04:10.480 --> 0:04:13.280 a regular panelist on the TV show What's My Line, 0:04:13.600 --> 0:04:17.360 where she guessed the occupations of guests and the identity 0:04:17.440 --> 0:04:22.480 of mystery celebrities. Shaw describes kill Gallen as Barbara Walters 0:04:22.520 --> 0:04:26.720 and Oprah Winfrey rolled into one, a quote nobody's ever 0:04:26.800 --> 0:04:29.760 had a journalistic career like Dorothy had, as well as 0:04:29.760 --> 0:04:34.960 her television career. But fame didn't stop kill Gallen from 0:04:35.000 --> 0:04:39.880 continuing to be a hard driven reporter. After the nineteen 0:04:39.920 --> 0:04:43.000 sixty three assassination of President Kennedy, with whom she had 0:04:43.000 --> 0:04:47.160 become friends, the columnist wasn't satisfied with the official version 0:04:47.200 --> 0:04:51.360 of his assassination and the aftermath. In particular, she was 0:04:51.400 --> 0:04:55.320 suspicious about the killing of accused assassin Oswald by local 0:04:55.400 --> 0:04:58.320 nightclub owner Jack Ruby in the basement of the Dallas 0:04:58.400 --> 0:05:03.599 Police headquarters two days after JFK's murder. Kilgallen wrote in 0:05:03.600 --> 0:05:07.599 a column published a week after JFK's death, Well, I'd 0:05:07.640 --> 0:05:10.800 like to know how in a big, smart town like Dallas, 0:05:11.120 --> 0:05:14.360 a man like Jack Ruby, owner of a strip teas 0:05:14.400 --> 0:05:17.280 honky tonk, can stroll in an out of police headquarters 0:05:17.279 --> 0:05:19.000 as if it was at a health club at a 0:05:19.040 --> 0:05:21.880 time when a small army of law enforcers is keeping 0:05:21.920 --> 0:05:27.919 a tight security guard on Oswald. Kilgallen began probing the 0:05:27.960 --> 0:05:32.119 Dallas police and FBI investigations and built a growing file 0:05:32.200 --> 0:05:35.400 of information about Oswald and Ruby from her contacts in 0:05:35.480 --> 0:05:37.960 Dallas in an effort to make sure that the public 0:05:38.080 --> 0:05:41.440 got the whole story of what had happened. She grew 0:05:41.480 --> 0:05:44.640 even more suspicious when she learned that San Francisco attorney 0:05:44.839 --> 0:05:49.160 Melvin Belli, primarily a civil litigator, would be representing Ruby. 0:05:50.400 --> 0:05:53.239 Bell I hadn't tried a murder case in years, which 0:05:53.279 --> 0:05:57.880 made him seem an unusual choice, and Belli's clients included 0:05:58.000 --> 0:06:01.760 prominent mobster Mickey Cohen, a connection that would later seem 0:06:01.800 --> 0:06:05.280 troubling to those who suspected the involvement of organized crime. 0:06:05.520 --> 0:06:09.960 In JFK's MURTYR Shaw, who also published a biography of 0:06:10.000 --> 0:06:13.640 Belly in twenty eleven, notes that Belly chose to use 0:06:13.680 --> 0:06:17.760 an unorthodox insanity defense for Ruby, claiming that a rare 0:06:17.800 --> 0:06:21.320 form of epilepsy had rendered the nightclub owner incapable of 0:06:21.360 --> 0:06:24.960 knowing right from wrong when he shot Osbald. It was 0:06:25.000 --> 0:06:28.559 a theory, Shaw notes which I didn't understand, and neither 0:06:28.600 --> 0:06:32.320 did the jury. When Ruby went on trial in Dallas 0:06:32.360 --> 0:06:36.039 in February of nineteen sixty four, kill Gallen was in attendance. 0:06:36.760 --> 0:06:39.359 She had dinner with Belly and asked for an interview 0:06:39.400 --> 0:06:42.799 with his client. The lawyer told her it wasn't possible, 0:06:43.400 --> 0:06:47.440 but kill Gallen persisted and eventually circumvented Belly by going 0:06:47.440 --> 0:06:51.520 through his co counsul Shaw said she landed the interview. 0:06:52.080 --> 0:06:54.640 She was the only reporter out of four hundred there 0:06:54.800 --> 0:07:00.839 who interviewed Jack Ruby. As kill Gallen recounted an exclusive 0:07:00.839 --> 0:07:04.440 for the journal American the defendant had a trembling handshake 0:07:04.760 --> 0:07:08.440 quote like the heartbeat of a bird, and he seemed unnerved, 0:07:08.760 --> 0:07:12.280 like he was at his breaking point. Later in the trial, 0:07:12.400 --> 0:07:15.000 kill Gallen spoke to Ruby a second time, but didn't 0:07:15.000 --> 0:07:18.680 write a column about it, instead keeping the substance secret. 0:07:19.680 --> 0:07:23.320 After Ruby's conviction, kill Gallen continued to dig into the case. 0:07:23.640 --> 0:07:27.560 Convinced that the whole truth hadn't been told. She obtained 0:07:27.560 --> 0:07:30.440 from a source a copy of Ruby's secret testimony to 0:07:30.520 --> 0:07:35.000 the Warren Commission. In her August nineteen sixty four exclusive, 0:07:35.280 --> 0:07:38.560 she revealed that Ruby told Chief Justice Earl Warren that 0:07:38.640 --> 0:07:42.320 he believed JFK's assassination had been the result of a plot, 0:07:42.680 --> 0:07:46.920 and insisted that he hadn't been involved. He also told 0:07:46.960 --> 0:07:50.360 Warren that the official investigation was quote a lost cause. 0:07:50.640 --> 0:07:55.680 Kill Gallen reported. In nineteen sixty six, Ruby's conviction was 0:07:55.720 --> 0:07:58.480 overturned by an appeals court, which found that the trial 0:07:58.560 --> 0:08:01.920 judge had allowed inadmissible testimony and should have granted a 0:08:02.000 --> 0:08:05.160 change of venue. But Ruby died of cancer before he 0:08:05.160 --> 0:08:10.480 could be retried. Still, Kilgallen was not through investigating. In 0:08:10.520 --> 0:08:13.720 a column in September of nineteen sixty five, she wrote 0:08:13.720 --> 0:08:17.000 that the story of Oswald and the assassination quote isn't 0:08:17.040 --> 0:08:20.280 going to die as long as there's a real reporter alive, 0:08:20.800 --> 0:08:25.680 and there are a lot of them alive. The following month, 0:08:25.760 --> 0:08:28.760 Kilgallen traveled to New Orleans, a hint that she may 0:08:28.760 --> 0:08:32.120 have been investigating the potential organized crime involvement in the 0:08:32.200 --> 0:08:37.480 JFK assassination. Shaw explained she didn't go to Washington, d c. 0:08:37.800 --> 0:08:41.319 To look into the military industrial complex, or stay in 0:08:41.400 --> 0:08:44.240 Dallas and look at Lyndon Johnson, or go to Miami 0:08:44.400 --> 0:08:48.960 looking at these Cuban exiles. Shaw believes that Ruby told 0:08:49.040 --> 0:08:52.280 Kilgallen he was connected to a Louisiana mob boss by 0:08:52.320 --> 0:08:55.960 the name of Carlos Marcello, and that at his behest, 0:08:56.440 --> 0:09:01.440 Ruby had killed Oswald to silence him. Marcello had reasons 0:09:01.440 --> 0:09:04.280 to be angry at the Kennedy administration after he was 0:09:04.320 --> 0:09:08.240 deported to Guatemala in nineteen sixty one and subsequently prosecuted 0:09:08.280 --> 0:09:11.719 in federal court on immigration related charges, though he was 0:09:11.760 --> 0:09:15.400 acquitted on the same day that JFK was killed. A 0:09:15.520 --> 0:09:19.440 US House committee reinvestigating the JFK assassination in nineteen seventy 0:09:19.520 --> 0:09:24.200 nine concluded that Marcello quote had the motive, means, and 0:09:24.400 --> 0:09:28.080 opportunity to have President John F. Kennedy assassinated, though it 0:09:28.160 --> 0:09:33.000 was unable to establish direct evidence of Marcello's complicity, but 0:09:33.440 --> 0:09:36.280 if Kilgallen was on to something, she didn't have the 0:09:36.360 --> 0:09:40.640 time to pursue it further. On November eighth of nineteen 0:09:40.679 --> 0:09:43.880 sixty five, when Kilgallen was only fifty two years old, 0:09:44.280 --> 0:09:46.440 her body was found in her New York City home. 0:09:47.679 --> 0:09:50.480 Newspaper accounts differ about whether it was by a maid 0:09:50.640 --> 0:09:53.960 or her hair dresser, but Shaw says there were plenty 0:09:54.040 --> 0:09:56.640 of details that should have been a tip off that 0:09:56.760 --> 0:10:01.000 something was a miss. Shaw said she was found in 0:10:01.040 --> 0:10:04.000 her townhouse, in a bedroom she never slept in. The 0:10:04.040 --> 0:10:07.280 columnist was also wearing makeup, false eyelashes, and a hair 0:10:07.360 --> 0:10:10.000 piece and a robe instead of the pajamas that she 0:10:10.080 --> 0:10:12.959 normally wore to bed. There was a book upside down 0:10:13.040 --> 0:10:15.439 in her lap that she had already read, and her 0:10:15.440 --> 0:10:19.439 reading glasses weren't around. Obviously, to anybody with a brain, 0:10:19.800 --> 0:10:23.520 that's a staged death scene. But the police came. They 0:10:23.559 --> 0:10:26.160 found an empty bottle of second all sleeping pills, and 0:10:26.360 --> 0:10:31.240 right away, okay, this is another celebrity who overdosed on drugs, 0:10:33.080 --> 0:10:36.479 and other troubling details were evident in the medical examiner's 0:10:36.480 --> 0:10:40.120 report on Kilgallan's death, including the presidence of too and All, 0:10:40.400 --> 0:10:43.679 a powerful sleeping pill that she hadn't been prescribed by 0:10:43.679 --> 0:10:47.720 her doctor. And then there were the missing files and 0:10:47.800 --> 0:10:50.720 notes from her investigation into Jack Ruby, the Mob, and 0:10:50.760 --> 0:10:55.800 the Kennedy assassination. Her hairdresser, Mark Sainclair later recalled that 0:10:55.880 --> 0:10:59.000 he saw kill Gallen carrying around quote a big packet 0:10:59.000 --> 0:11:02.040 of papers with her that she said pertained to the assassination. 0:11:03.440 --> 0:11:06.600 The file mysteriously went missing after kill Gallan's death and 0:11:06.679 --> 0:11:10.640 has never been found. In addition to halting her investigation, 0:11:11.080 --> 0:11:13.600 the assumption that kill Gallen had died of a drug 0:11:13.640 --> 0:11:17.679 and alcohol overdose destroyed her reputation in some circles and 0:11:17.920 --> 0:11:22.840 made the public more or less forget her. Shaw's biography 0:11:23.000 --> 0:11:26.240 and other work about kill Gallen has helped revive interest 0:11:26.320 --> 0:11:30.200 in this pioneering woman journalist. He wrote three follow ups 0:11:30.240 --> 0:11:33.240 in twenty eighteen, twenty twenty one, and twenty twenty five, 0:11:33.559 --> 0:11:37.880 a titled Denial of Justice, Collateral Damage, and Abuse of Power, 0:11:38.559 --> 0:11:42.079 each connecting more points in kill Gallen's story in JFK's 0:11:42.080 --> 0:11:46.040 assassination to the mysterious deaths of other figures like Robert F. 0:11:46.120 --> 0:11:50.480 Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe, and as more evidence has come 0:11:50.520 --> 0:11:54.680 to life connecting the credible involvement of Marcello. Under J. 0:11:54.920 --> 0:11:59.960 Edgar Hoover's protection, A, Shaw is determined to keep alive 0:12:00.160 --> 0:12:03.040 the memory of quote one of the greatest reporters who 0:12:03.080 --> 0:12:07.960 ever lived. He corresponds with the new admirers of her work, 0:12:08.280 --> 0:12:13.440 including students inspired to study journalism by her example. Shaw's 0:12:13.440 --> 0:12:16.200 books also inspired the New York City Council to co 0:12:16.320 --> 0:12:19.720 name a Manhattan street after her. On November eighth of 0:12:19.760 --> 0:12:22.959 twenty twenty five, on the sixtieth anniversary of her death, 0:12:23.400 --> 0:12:26.400 the corner of Park Avenue and East sixty eighth became 0:12:26.640 --> 0:12:32.160 Dorothy Kilgallen Way, six decades after Killgallan's death, Shaw said 0:12:32.720 --> 0:12:37.600 she's getting that respect back. If you're interested in learning more, 0:12:37.800 --> 0:12:41.640 you can check out Shaw's website, the Dorothy Kilgallenstory dot org. 0:12:42.120 --> 0:12:47.600 Kilgallen is spelled kilga l l e n. It contains 0:12:47.640 --> 0:12:50.959 samples of Killgallen's work, including her columns on the Jack 0:12:51.040 --> 0:12:54.560 Ruby trial. Not a sponsor just a fun resource if 0:12:54.600 --> 0:13:01.640 you're into true crime. Today's episode is based on the 0:13:01.720 --> 0:13:05.880 article did journalist Dorothy Kilgallen's probe of JFK's assassination lead 0:13:05.920 --> 0:13:08.280 to her death? On how stuffworks dot Com? Written by 0:13:08.280 --> 0:13:11.599 Patrick J. Kider. Brain Stuff is production of iHeartRadio in 0:13:11.679 --> 0:13:14.800 partnership with HowStuffWorks dot Com and is produced by Tyler Klang. 0:13:15.480 --> 0:13:19.240 Four more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app Apple 0:13:19.240 --> 0:13:22.079 Podcasts for wherever you listen to your favorite shows.