Speaker 1: Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey Brainstuff, Lauren
Speaker 1: Bogelbaum here. Though Dorothy Kilgallen is not a name familiar
Speaker 1: to many people today, there was a time from the
Speaker 1: nineteen forties to the mid sixties when she was one
Speaker 1: of the biggest stars in the media world, a trailblazing
Speaker 1: journalist and TV personality who paved the way for generations
Speaker 1: to follow. As a syndicated columnist in more than two
Speaker 1: hundred newspapers across the United States, Kilgallen covered everything from
Speaker 1: entertainment to politics to crime. When she wasn't following big
Speaker 1: stories like the nineteen fifty four murder trial of doctor
Speaker 1: Sam Shepherd, which was the inspiration for the movie The Fugitive,
Speaker 1: or Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev's visit to the US in
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty nine, she was arousing the ire of Frank
Speaker 1: Sinatra by reporting on his personal life. According to Sinatra
Speaker 1: biographer Sames Kaplan, the singer and actor was so irked
Speaker 1: by what kill Gallen wrote about him that he once
Speaker 1: sent her a tombstone with her name carved on it.
Speaker 1: She also appeared on American's TV screens every week as
Speaker 1: a panelist on the popular quiz program What's My Line.
Speaker 1: But Kilgallen never got a chance to finish what might
Speaker 1: have been her biggest story, her investigation into the assassination
Speaker 1: of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas, including her suspicion
Speaker 1: that alleged assassin Lee Harvey Oswald's subsequent murder while in
Speaker 1: police custody might have been part of a cover up
Speaker 1: of a bigger plot. Instead, on November eighth of nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty five, Kilgallen was found dead in her New York
Speaker 1: City townhouse in what the medical examiner decided was possibly
Speaker 1: an accidental overdose of alcohol and barbituates. Over sixty years later,
Speaker 1: that explanation is being challenged by one Mark Shaw, a
Speaker 1: former criminal defense attorney and legal analyst for CNN and
Speaker 1: media outlets. He's spent years investigating the circumstances of her
Speaker 1: death and believes that kill Gallen was actually murdered to
Speaker 1: prevent her from uncovering the truth about what had happened
Speaker 1: in Dallas. When how Stuff Works spoke with Shaw for
Speaker 1: the article this episode is based on, he said she
Speaker 1: knew it wasn't Oswald alone. Shaw has written extensively about
Speaker 1: kill Gallen, including four books, starting with the best selling
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen biography The Reporter Who Knew Too Much. This
Speaker 1: Cold Case is clearly still sparking interest. His books have
Speaker 1: been optioned for potential documentary films. Today, let's talk about
Speaker 1: who kill Gallen was and what we can make of
Speaker 1: her death today. Born in Chicago in nineteen thirteen, Kill
Speaker 1: Gallen was the daughter of a newspaper and wire service reporter.
Speaker 1: At a young age, she decided to follow in her
Speaker 1: father's footsteps. After she briefly attended the College of New Rochelle,
Speaker 1: her father managed to get her a two week tryout
Speaker 1: at the New York Evening Journal. She quickly became a
Speaker 1: star reporter in her own right, so adept at covering
Speaker 1: court cases that in nineteen thirty five, she was assigned
Speaker 1: to cover the Lindberg baby kidnapping trial. After her bosses
Speaker 1: promoted her from reporter to columnist. Kilgallen made a name
Speaker 1: for herself as one of three New York journalists competing
Speaker 1: in a race around the world. She finished second, making
Speaker 1: the journey in twenty four days, thirteen hours, and fifty
Speaker 1: one minutes, and published a book about her adventure, Girl
Speaker 1: Around the World, which was made into the nineteen thirty
Speaker 1: seven Hollywood film Flyaway Baby. After The Evening Journal merged
Speaker 1: with The New York American in nineteen thirty eight, the
Speaker 1: New Journal American appointed Kilgallen as its Broadway columnist, making
Speaker 1: her the first woman in a hitherto masculine field, as
Speaker 1: her associated pres obituary would eventually note. She married actor
Speaker 1: turned theatrical producer Dick Calmar, and they found time to
Speaker 1: raise three children Togetherlike today's media superstars, kill Gallen worked
Speaker 1: in multiple platforms. She began doing a radio program during
Speaker 1: World War Two, and by the nineteen fifties she was
Speaker 1: a regular panelist on the TV show What's My Line,
Speaker 1: where she guessed the occupations of guests and the identity
Speaker 1: of mystery celebrities. Shaw describes kill Gallen as Barbara Walters
Speaker 1: and Oprah Winfrey rolled into one, a quote nobody's ever
Speaker 1: had a journalistic career like Dorothy had, as well as
Speaker 1: her television career. But fame didn't stop kill Gallen from
Speaker 1: continuing to be a hard driven reporter. After the nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty three assassination of President Kennedy, with whom she had
Speaker 1: become friends, the columnist wasn't satisfied with the official version
Speaker 1: of his assassination and the aftermath. In particular, she was
Speaker 1: suspicious about the killing of accused assassin Oswald by local
Speaker 1: nightclub owner Jack Ruby in the basement of the Dallas
Speaker 1: Police headquarters two days after JFK's murder. Kilgallen wrote in
Speaker 1: a column published a week after JFK's death, Well, I'd
Speaker 1: like to know how in a big, smart town like Dallas,
Speaker 1: a man like Jack Ruby, owner of a strip teas
Speaker 1: honky tonk, can stroll in an out of police headquarters
Speaker 1: as if it was at a health club at a
Speaker 1: time when a small army of law enforcers is keeping
Speaker 1: a tight security guard on Oswald. Kilgallen began probing the
Speaker 1: Dallas police and FBI investigations and built a growing file
Speaker 1: of information about Oswald and Ruby from her contacts in
Speaker 1: Dallas in an effort to make sure that the public
Speaker 1: got the whole story of what had happened. She grew
Speaker 1: even more suspicious when she learned that San Francisco attorney
Speaker 1: Melvin Belli, primarily a civil litigator, would be representing Ruby.
Speaker 1: Bell I hadn't tried a murder case in years, which
Speaker 1: made him seem an unusual choice, and Belli's clients included
Speaker 1: prominent mobster Mickey Cohen, a connection that would later seem
Speaker 1: troubling to those who suspected the involvement of organized crime.
Speaker 1: In JFK's MURTYR Shaw, who also published a biography of
Speaker 1: Belly in twenty eleven, notes that Belly chose to use
Speaker 1: an unorthodox insanity defense for Ruby, claiming that a rare
Speaker 1: form of epilepsy had rendered the nightclub owner incapable of
Speaker 1: knowing right from wrong when he shot Osbald. It was
Speaker 1: a theory, Shaw notes which I didn't understand, and neither
Speaker 1: did the jury. When Ruby went on trial in Dallas
Speaker 1: in February of nineteen sixty four, kill Gallen was in attendance.
Speaker 1: She had dinner with Belly and asked for an interview
Speaker 1: with his client. The lawyer told her it wasn't possible,
Speaker 1: but kill Gallen persisted and eventually circumvented Belly by going
Speaker 1: through his co counsul Shaw said she landed the interview.
Speaker 1: She was the only reporter out of four hundred there
Speaker 1: who interviewed Jack Ruby. As kill Gallen recounted an exclusive
Speaker 1: for the journal American the defendant had a trembling handshake
Speaker 1: quote like the heartbeat of a bird, and he seemed unnerved,
Speaker 1: like he was at his breaking point. Later in the trial,
Speaker 1: kill Gallen spoke to Ruby a second time, but didn't
Speaker 1: write a column about it, instead keeping the substance secret.
Speaker 1: After Ruby's conviction, kill Gallen continued to dig into the case.
Speaker 1: Convinced that the whole truth hadn't been told. She obtained
Speaker 1: from a source a copy of Ruby's secret testimony to
Speaker 1: the Warren Commission. In her August nineteen sixty four exclusive,
Speaker 1: she revealed that Ruby told Chief Justice Earl Warren that
Speaker 1: he believed JFK's assassination had been the result of a plot,
Speaker 1: and insisted that he hadn't been involved. He also told
Speaker 1: Warren that the official investigation was quote a lost cause.
Speaker 1: Kill Gallen reported. In nineteen sixty six, Ruby's conviction was
Speaker 1: overturned by an appeals court, which found that the trial
Speaker 1: judge had allowed inadmissible testimony and should have granted a
Speaker 1: change of venue. But Ruby died of cancer before he
Speaker 1: could be retried. Still, Kilgallen was not through investigating. In
Speaker 1: a column in September of nineteen sixty five, she wrote
Speaker 1: that the story of Oswald and the assassination quote isn't
Speaker 1: going to die as long as there's a real reporter alive,
Speaker 1: and there are a lot of them alive. The following month,
Speaker 1: Kilgallen traveled to New Orleans, a hint that she may
Speaker 1: have been investigating the potential organized crime involvement in the
Speaker 1: JFK assassination. Shaw explained she didn't go to Washington, d c.
Speaker 1: To look into the military industrial complex, or stay in
Speaker 1: Dallas and look at Lyndon Johnson, or go to Miami
Speaker 1: looking at these Cuban exiles. Shaw believes that Ruby told
Speaker 1: Kilgallen he was connected to a Louisiana mob boss by
Speaker 1: the name of Carlos Marcello, and that at his behest,
Speaker 1: Ruby had killed Oswald to silence him. Marcello had reasons
Speaker 1: to be angry at the Kennedy administration after he was
Speaker 1: deported to Guatemala in nineteen sixty one and subsequently prosecuted
Speaker 1: in federal court on immigration related charges, though he was
Speaker 1: acquitted on the same day that JFK was killed. A
Speaker 1: US House committee reinvestigating the JFK assassination in nineteen seventy
Speaker 1: nine concluded that Marcello quote had the motive, means, and
Speaker 1: opportunity to have President John F. Kennedy assassinated, though it
Speaker 1: was unable to establish direct evidence of Marcello's complicity, but
Speaker 1: if Kilgallen was on to something, she didn't have the
Speaker 1: time to pursue it further. On November eighth of nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty five, when Kilgallen was only fifty two years old,
Speaker 1: her body was found in her New York City home.
Speaker 1: Newspaper accounts differ about whether it was by a maid
Speaker 1: or her hair dresser, but Shaw says there were plenty
Speaker 1: of details that should have been a tip off that
Speaker 1: something was a miss. Shaw said she was found in
Speaker 1: her townhouse, in a bedroom she never slept in. The
Speaker 1: columnist was also wearing makeup, false eyelashes, and a hair
Speaker 1: piece and a robe instead of the pajamas that she
Speaker 1: normally wore to bed. There was a book upside down
Speaker 1: in her lap that she had already read, and her
Speaker 1: reading glasses weren't around. Obviously, to anybody with a brain,
Speaker 1: that's a staged death scene. But the police came. They
Speaker 1: found an empty bottle of second all sleeping pills, and
Speaker 1: right away, okay, this is another celebrity who overdosed on drugs,
Speaker 1: and other troubling details were evident in the medical examiner's
Speaker 1: report on Kilgallan's death, including the presidence of too and All,
Speaker 1: a powerful sleeping pill that she hadn't been prescribed by
Speaker 1: her doctor. And then there were the missing files and
Speaker 1: notes from her investigation into Jack Ruby, the Mob, and
Speaker 1: the Kennedy assassination. Her hairdresser, Mark Sainclair later recalled that
Speaker 1: he saw kill Gallen carrying around quote a big packet
Speaker 1: of papers with her that she said pertained to the assassination.
Speaker 1: The file mysteriously went missing after kill Gallan's death and
Speaker 1: has never been found. In addition to halting her investigation,
Speaker 1: the assumption that kill Gallen had died of a drug
Speaker 1: and alcohol overdose destroyed her reputation in some circles and
Speaker 1: made the public more or less forget her. Shaw's biography
Speaker 1: and other work about kill Gallen has helped revive interest
Speaker 1: in this pioneering woman journalist. He wrote three follow ups
Speaker 1: in twenty eighteen, twenty twenty one, and twenty twenty five,
Speaker 1: a titled Denial of Justice, Collateral Damage, and Abuse of Power,
Speaker 1: each connecting more points in kill Gallen's story in JFK's
Speaker 1: assassination to the mysterious deaths of other figures like Robert F.
Speaker 1: Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe, and as more evidence has come
Speaker 1: to life connecting the credible involvement of Marcello. Under J.
Speaker 1: Edgar Hoover's protection, A, Shaw is determined to keep alive
Speaker 1: the memory of quote one of the greatest reporters who
Speaker 1: ever lived. He corresponds with the new admirers of her work,
Speaker 1: including students inspired to study journalism by her example. Shaw's
Speaker 1: books also inspired the New York City Council to co
Speaker 1: name a Manhattan street after her. On November eighth of
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five, on the sixtieth anniversary of her death,
Speaker 1: the corner of Park Avenue and East sixty eighth became
Speaker 1: Dorothy Kilgallen Way, six decades after Killgallan's death, Shaw said
Speaker 1: she's getting that respect back. If you're interested in learning more,
Speaker 1: you can check out Shaw's website, the Dorothy Kilgallenstory dot org.
Speaker 1: Kilgallen is spelled kilga l l e n. It contains
Speaker 1: samples of Killgallen's work, including her columns on the Jack
Speaker 1: Ruby trial. Not a sponsor just a fun resource if
Speaker 1: you're into true crime. Today's episode is based on the
Speaker 1: article did journalist Dorothy Kilgallen's probe of JFK's assassination lead
Speaker 1: to her death? On how stuffworks dot Com? Written by
Speaker 1: Patrick J. Kider. Brain Stuff is production of iHeartRadio in
Speaker 1: partnership with HowStuffWorks dot Com and is produced by Tyler Klang.
Speaker 1: Four more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app Apple
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