Kilgallen, Dorothy

Kilgallen, Dorothy

“Dorothy Mae Kilgallen (July 3, 1913 – November 8, 1965) was an American columnist, journalist, and television game show panelist. After spending two semesters at the College of New Rochelle, she started her career shortly before her 18th birthday as a reporter for the Hearst Corporation‘s New York Evening Journal. In 1938, she began her newspaper column “The Voice of Broadway”, which was eventually syndicated to more than 140 papers.[1][2] In 1950, she became a regular panelist on the television game show What’s My Line?, continuing in the role until her death.

Kilgallen’s columns featured mostly show business news and gossip, but also ventured into other topics, such as politics and organized crime. She wrote front-page articles for multiple newspapers on the Sam Sheppard trial[3] and, years later, events related to the John F. Kennedy assassination, such as testimony by Jack Ruby.[4]

Kilgallen was publicly skeptical of the conclusions of the Warren Commission‘s report about the assassination of President Kennedy and Jack Ruby‘s shooting of Lee Oswald, and she wrote several newspaper articles on the subject.[28][29][30] On February 23, 1964, she published an article in the New York Journal-American about a conversation she had with Jack Ruby, when he was at his defense table during a recess in his murder trial.[31]

She also obtained a copy of Ruby’s June 7, 1964, testimony to the Warren Commission, which she published in August 1964 in three installments[32] on the front pages of the New York Journal-American,[33] The Philadelphia Inquirer,[34] the Seattle Post-Intelligencer,[35] and other newspapers.    . . .

Source: Wikipedia

 

DA: ‘No evidence’ reporter investigating JFK assassination was murdered – New York Post – 2017

“The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office says it has “found no evidence” that newspaper reporter and TV star Dorothy Kilgallen was murdered as she dug deep into the JFK assassination.

After announcing last January it would take a new look at Kilgallen’s Nov. 8, 1965, death, a “thorough, eight-month-long investigation” could not conclude that it was a homicide, the DA said in a statement. It thanked her supporters, and promised to review any new evidence that emerges.    . . . 

The office refused to discuss its findings.

Mark Shaw, author of a book on Kilgallen, “The Reporter Who Knew Too Much,” slammed the decision as a “miscarriage of justice” and a “coverup,” citing at least eight witnesses not contacted by the DA.

Kilgallen, 52, was found dead in her Manhattan apartment the morning after she appeared as a regular on the hit TV game show “What’s My Line?”

The city’s then-medical examiner ruled it accidental, caused by a combination of sleeping pills and liquor. Shaw argues she was drugged, possibly by Mafia associates, and that her JFK files were stolen.

“The American public should know what happened to one of its heroes, a reporter with unqualified integrity who sought the truth about the JFK assassination and was killed for doing so,” Shaw said.”