Dorthy Kilgallen was a Journalist, game-show panelist, wife, mother. Investigator of the Kennedy assassination, a friend of Frank Sinatra and confidante of Johnnie Ray, Dorothy Kilgallen was as enigmatic as she was versatile. What exactly did she know about Jack Ruby? And how did she die?
Kilgallen was born in Chicago on July 3, 1913. Her father was a newspaperman--she had reported in her blood. Therefore, it didn't take her long to decide on the life of a reporter as at least her first career. She left college--the College of New Rochelle--to work for a Hearst paper, the New York Evening Journal. She ventured out to Hollywood and penned a column out there briefly, then returned to New York, where she began her column "The Voice of Broadway" in Hearst's New York Journal American. This column would be a mainstay in the work of Kilgallen--in it, she would offer many strong opinions, not just about Broadway. In 1959, via her column, Kilgallen ventured that the CIA had partnered with the mafia to assassinate Castro. A few years later, she was one of the members of the press to receive a sneak preview of the Warren Commission Report before its full-length publication. In "The Voice of Broadway," she was critical of many of the report's findings. Dorothy Kilgallen died on November 7, 1965, with the cause was ruled an overdose of barbiturate and alcohol. It didn't take long before the first ripples of innuendo about possible foul play begin to spread, and they would soon become wider concentric circles. Much of the speculation centered around Kilgallen's journalistic investigation of and commentary on the JFK assassination. The conspiracy theory goes that many people associated with Kennedy--or just those who had some information about the assassination--tended to turn up dead before long. Dorothy died not long after writing about the Warren Commission report. Some conspiracy theorists felt that some parties who wanted the president dead would want Dorothy dead for the same reasons. There were some anomalies and discrepancies with the coroner's report and various circumstances surrounding the death. The mystery has never been solved.
Dorothy Kilgallen died on Nov. 8, 1965, several hours after taping an episode of What's My Line? Medical examiner Dr. James Luke established the cause of death as "acute ethanol and barbiturate intoxication," but added, "circumstances undetermined." Though her death was sudden and not associated with any illness, the possibility of murder was firmly ruled out.
The suspicion that Kilgallen may indeed have been murdered has not been at a fevered pitch, hasn't been constant or consistent and hasn't unearthed much new information. But some parties carry in their hearts the belief that Ms. Kilgallen neither committed suicide nor accidentally overdosed.
The conspiracy theories emerged not long after Kilgallen's death. The first known published speculation about a murder came from an article in the Nov.1966 issue of Ramparts by David Welsh and William Turner. The article focused on anyone who'd recently died who was in any way connected with the assassination of John F. Kennedy (Kilgallen's reporting of the event will be discussed below).
That article was reprinted in Feb. 1967 issue of Cosmopolitan. Not much happened until 1975 when Dorothy Kilgallen's son Kerry Kollmar began assisting Lee Israel in that author's biography of Kilgallen. Israel was interested in the cause of death but didn't find or publish any strong evidence. From there, the issue popped up a few times as a tenuous conspiracy theory.
Found By Hairdresser
Much of the existing information concerning the circumstances of Kilgallen's death comes from Marc Sinclaire, Kilgallen's hairdresser, and the man who found her body on the morning of her death.
Sinclaire styled Dorothy's hair on the evening of Nov. 7 for her appearance on What's My Line, finding her to be subdued but not excessively so. He did invite her to join him for a movie afterward, but she declined.
Suspicious Details
Anomalies, out-of-place details, and discrepancies are the life's blood of conspiracy theories. A few of these exist regarding the death of Kilgallen.
She was found in the master bedroom-- Sinclaire made much of the fact that he found Kilgallen in her master bedroom, strange since she usually slept in a different room, on the fifth floor.
She was made up and wearing a robe-- Sinclaire found his client and long-time friend in a strange state. While, like many women, she usually slept in comfortable sleeping attire, she was on this morning wearing a peignoir and robe. Further, she was wearing the false eyelashes she wore in the town, as well as make-up. She was sitting up in bed.
An ominous phone call-- A managing editor of two small movie magazines, Mary Brannum, received a call the morning of Kilgallen's death, saying simply that Dorothy Kilgallen had been murdered--the caller then hung up.
Slightly strange behavior from the medical examiner-- The medical examiner at the scene was Dr. James Luke. Luke was with her for forty-five minutes, though some reports state an hour and fifteen minutes. He added the word "undetermined" to his conclusion that alcohol and barbiturates were the cause. When asked in what form she'd taken the barbiturates, he answered, "we don't want to give that out because...well, just because." What adds to the slight strangeness on the medical front is that the death certificate was not signed by Luke but by Dr. Dominick DiMaio, who would later tell Midwest Today he doesn't believe he signed the certificate and says he was in Brooklyn at the time. Further, Dr. Charles Umberger, toxicology director at the New York City Medical Examiner's office, later said he privately suspected a murder.
Where There's JFK, There's a Conspiracy Theory
Let's remember that Kilgallen was a far cry from being just a gal about town or a game show panelist. She was a big-time journalist. In fact, she was the first reporter to reveal in print Marilyn Monroe's relationship with the president. 48 hours later, Monroe was dead, and Kilgallen wrote a column asking very pointed questions and charging foul play.
But she also covered the JFK assassination. As an experienced crime reporter, Kilgallen had a mind for asking critical questions about investigations. Thus, in print, she asked some tough questions about the actions of Dallas police officers at Dealey Plaza. She accused chief Jesse Curry of lying to reporters about his initial reactions to the shooting.
Some say that information she may have had about the JFK assassination, about which she was very coy, may have posed a threat to those responsible for the president's death. She claimed to have had a meeting with Jack Ruby and wouldn't reveal its content. Further, she criticized the Warren Commission's work, implying she had information and thus a reason to doubt the commission's findings.
Since drugs were involved, the medical investigator's work involved a hiccup or two, and several odd occurrences dotted the circumstances of her death, those pursuing the murder angle have something to chew on, if not much in the way of conclusive proof.
In 1987, the defense team for infamous subway vigilante Bernard Goetz called the witness stand a medical examiner named Dominick Dimaio. A photo from the trial shows Dimaio to be a thin man with a receding hairline, wearing metal-framed glasses. He wears a look of wary concentration.
Twenty-two years earlier, Dr. Dimaio's signature appeared on the death certificate for Dorothy Kilgallen, which would be unremarkable if not for the fact that he insists he did not perform her autopsy. Under the signature is the notation "for Dr. James Luke." When questioned later, Dr. Dimaio says he wasn't working in Manhattan at the time and doesn't understand how his signature came to appear on the certificate.
Dr. Luke did not deny performing the autopsy and spoke openly about it later. His verdict at the time was "acute ethanol and barbiturate intoxication, circumstances undetermined." Kilgallen was determined to have been in fairly good health, with no sign of a heart attack, though she did have "minimal coronary arteriosclerosis."
More detail would come out in 1968, at which time theories that Kilgallen may have been murdered were beginning to circulate. Doctors used remaining tissue samples to ascertain that Kilgallen had in her system three barbiturates: pentobarbital, amobarbital, and secobarbital. The presence of this deadly cocktail made some suspicious--why would she have taken this combination?
Information obtained from Dorothy Kilgallen
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