Hit List: An In-Depth Investigation Into the Mysterious Deaths of Witnesses to the JFK Assassination
Page 11
“Sparky” was the Mob’s nickname for Jack Ruby:
Dorfman said, “Sparky is the last guy you’d expect to do this. He was a nebbish sort of guy.”3
So there may very well be some “fire” somewhere near all that smoke. Here’s how our “Kupcinet expert” explains the theory:
I think Dorfman was unnerved a bit by Irv’s tenaciousness and eagerness. I think possibly Dorfman saw Karyn in Palm Springs that weekend. And maybe an idea sprung to mind about keeping Irv Kupcinet away from Ruby and the Chicago angle of the assassination. To kill Kupcinet would be too obvious. But to kill his daughter, whom every Chicagoan knew, would take away any interest Irv would have about Ruby. He would be in no condition to investigate the Chicago Mob. Possibly, a plan was afoot to commit an outrageous crime in Chicago, sometime after the assassination, to get the heat off the Mob. And Dorfman decided to kill Karyn to shock all of Chicago. Possibly, there’d be talk of nothing else. I myself was shocked when I looked at the microfilmed Chicago Tribune and saw the awful, large black headline (from memory): KUPCINET GIRL DEAD. My stomach knotted.4
Looking at the context of the issue in its totality, the “shock crime” theory makes even more sense:
1. Just prior to his murder, casino owner and well-connected mobster, Jack Zangetty, told friends quite specifically that a man named Jack Ruby would kill Oswald, and then Frank Sinatra’s son would be kidnapped to take attention away (so somebody was obviously concerned with diverting attention before the event even took place).
1 Kathleen Collins, “Deaths of Witnesses,” 20 Oct. 2007, The Education Forum: http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=603&st=105
2 Collins, “Deaths of Witnesses,” 11 Dec. 2005
3 Collins, “Deaths of Witnesses,” 20 Oct. 2007, citing: Irv Kupcinet, Kup: A Man, an Era, a City (Bonus Books: 1988), 176.
4 Collins, “Deaths of Witnesses,” 20 Oct. 2007, emphasis in original.
1. Both of the above events transpired, precisely as Zangetty had “predicted.” Then Zangetty was found murdered.
2. In the excellent book I Heard You Paint Houses, which is basically a death-bed confession by longtime hitman Frank “The Irishman” Sheeran, Sheeran says everybody high up in the Mob (and Sheeran was very close with Russell Bufalino, Jimmy Hoffa, and others) knew that Ruby screwed up on November 22, and that’s why he personally had to take care of Oswald. The Giancana family states the same thing in Double Cross. Sheeran said: “Jack Ruby’s cops were supposed to take care of Oswald, but Ruby bungled it. If he didn’t take care of Oswald, what do you think they would have done to him—put Ruby on a meat hook.” The meat hook reference was something the Chicago Mob had just done, quite infamously, to a loan shark named Action Jackson, who was suspected of talking to the FBI; it was a vicious torture killing—one that everyone in Chicago knew about, certainly Kup and Korshak among them.
3. Kup not only was on a first-name basis with leaders of the Chicago Mob, traveling in same circles socially, but;
4. Kup’s very close friend was Mob lawyer Sidney Korshack, who probably would have had pertinent knowledge about Ruby.
5. Kup refused the Mob’s offer to “investigate” Karyn’s death on behalf of the family, always assuming he knew who did it and that it was not a suicide. He was so adamant about leaving it all alone that friends knew well that it was a subject they were never to breach with him.
6. Kup quite obviously backed off from his typically thorough investigative reporting concerning Ruby’s connections to the Chicago Mob and the silencing of Oswald. (Others, such as Dorothy Kilgallen, found it so obvious and abhorrent that they vowed to keep investigating it to the end.)
7. Many people at least suspected that the Sinatra Jr. kidnapping had been staged in some way. They were much the same as the obvious suspicions of something being “rotten in Denmark” when they had witnessed how easily Ruby assassinated Oswald on live television as the Dallas cops stood by and watched.
8. Whether or not it actually was a planned “shock crime” to divert attention away from Jack Ruby’s Mafia connections, the same effect was achieved: Karyn’s death completely took over the headlines and was the primary topic of conversation for a long time to follow.
Then—exactly as predicted—Frank Sinatra’s son was kidnapped, on December 8, 1963, before Karyn’s murder had completely faded from the headlines:
Irv was the most popular man in Chicago, yet the mob may have killed his daughter. His best friend was Sidney Korshack—a mafia lawyer—who was investigated so many times, yet they never found anything that he had done was illegal. If the hit came from Chicago, I’m sure he would know. He met Irv at the airport and later identified the remains of Irv’s daughter.
Then Frank Sinatra Jr. was kidnapped. Who worked harder to get Kennedy in as President than Sinatra? That was another smokescreen, a way to distract the public.1
So, in conclusion, it can be put this way: If it was a shock crime, it certainly worked. Karyn’s death took over the headlines and—especially in Chicago—any focus that would have been placed on Jack Ruby’s Chicago Mob connections quickly evaporated.
If she was killed to hurt Kup, no one could do a better job.2
There’s also no reason that Karyn’s family couldn’t have had a second—and more professional—autopsy done. With their wealth and influence, that could have been easily accomplished. With the obviously totally botched first autopsy, performed by a man who himself had broken the necks of bodies entrusted to his care, and with all the rape and murder accusations swirling around about the case, why was a second, professional autopsy, not performed?
Conclusions Based On Evidentiary Indications
• Necks of other corpses were apparently broken by the mentally disturbed medical examiner, initially making the ruling of murder seem very open to scrutiny.
• Many have noted that Karyn may have committed suicide; she was depressed, there was a note left, and friends reported she had been deeply disturbed and overwhelmed by events. It looked like she may have taken the contents of the empty pill bottle that was found.
• But the fact that she dried off with a towel after taking a shower and then neglected to put on the bathrobe which she had laid out before her shower is an indication of foul play, not suicide. She died very quickly, nude on her couch.
• As far as we know, no one has ever formally apologized to actor Andrew Prine for ruining a large portion of his life with a false accusal of murder; so we will, right here and right now—
1 Kathleen Collins, “Deaths of Witnesses,” 29 July 2011, The Education Forum: http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=603&st=135
2 Kathleen Collins, “Deaths of Witnesses,” 12 May 2007, The Education Forum:
http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=603&st=45
Apologies, Mr. Prine.
• The “mystery call” foretelling of the assassination of President Kennedy was not placed by Karyn.1
• The real story here is that everything links back to Chicago and Jack Ruby. Therefore, one theory exists that—whatever Karyn’s personal problems were—the Chicago Mob ended them and did so as a vehicle with which to attempt to draw attention away from the recent nationally-televised assassination of the President’s killer, hosted by the Chicago Mob’s Jack Ruby. It did indeed serve that purpose, planned or otherwise, at least in Chicago, where the Kupcinets were like a royal family. There is a large amount of circumstantial evidence supporting that thesis.
• Jack Ruby was closely affiliated with the Chicago “Boys,” and was soon to murder Oswald right in the middle of a police station and on national television. The heat on “Chicago” was already tremendous and was expected to increase exponentially very quickly.
Irv Kupcinet knew Ruby and worked closely with Jimmy Colitz, one of Ruby’s oldest and closest Chicago friends.
• As a Chicago celebrity, Irv Kupcinet ran in the same circles as the leaders of the Mob there, was friend
ly with them, and was known to obtain information from them.
• Kup’s very good friend was the elite Mob attorney, Sidney Korshak (topic of the book Supermob: How Sidney Korshak and His Criminal Associates Became America’s Hidden Power Brokers, by Gus Russo).
• Kup, therefore, certainly would have known about Jack Ruby’s affiliations with “The Boys,” and might have been inclined to report precisely that, as he was—when push came to shove—a very solid guy and excellent reporter.
Unlike fellow columnist Dorothy Kilgallen, who vowed publicly to get to the truth and uncover the obvious conspiracy in Ruby’s silencing of Oswald—Kup remained virtually silent on the subject, never publicly divulging the secret, but highly pertinent knowledge, of Ruby’s strong linkage to the Chicago Mob.
• In the context above, Kup’s “silence was deafening”, as the old saying goes.
• In conclusion, it bears noting from a standpoint of scientific logic, that simply because the story about Karyn making the mystery phone call is false, does not at all negate the possibility that her death is related to the Jack Ruby/Chicago Mob connection.
Conclusion
Probable Murder
Linkage to the JFK Assassination
Yes, the alleged linkage of the mystery phone call is false. However, Karyn’s death being a “shock crime” to dominate media attention and divert focus from Jack Ruby’s links to the Chicago Mob (as it clearly did in Chicago), remains a very strong possibility.
1 Kathleen Collins, “Was Irv Kupcinet’s Role Obscured As A Consequence of Penn Jones’s Writing?,” 13 Oct. 2010, The Education Forum: http://educationforum.iphost.com/index.php?showtopic=16754
Victim
Grant Stockdale, a wheeler-dealer in the highest echelons of the Democratic Party, former Ambassador to Ireland, and close friend of the recently assassinated President Kennedy.
Cause of Death
Fell, or was pushed, from his office window on the 13th floor of the DuPont Building in midtown Miami.
Official Verdict
Suicide
Actual Circumstances
Victim’s behavior was normal. He came into his office for work on a Monday morning, was very pleasant, conversed amiably, and did not seem suicidal. Police placed the time of
death at 10:17 a.m.210 The only other person in the victim’s office at that precise moment would have been his killer, who, due to circumstances described below, could easily have entered the office.
Inconsistencies
1. No suicide note was found.
2. Stockdale was apparently mixed up with some very serious political shenanigans. He was “a big wheel in the Democratic Party and a person of considerable influence in Washington,” who was also mixed up in the corruption of the Bobby Baker scandal.211 Stockdale was also involved in matters related to another brewing caldron of corruption involving the seven-billion-dollar F-111 contract to Texas’ General Dynamics Corporation, and both scandals had threatened to ruin Lyndon Johnson politically.212
3. The “official line” that Stockdale committed suicide because he was depressed about the murder of his friend, JFK, seems an incredibly weak supposition. As one author notes: “Hardheaded businessmen—and Stockdale was certainly hardheaded, as his record shows—don’t kill themselves because a friend has been murdered, be it the President of the United States.”213
4. Research has established that, on November 26, 1963, Stockdale flew to Washington, D.C. and met with JFK’s brothers, Robert and Edward Kennedy.
On his return, Stockdale told several of his friends that “the world was closing in.”
On December 1, 1963, he talked to his attorney, William Frates, who summarized their conversation as follows:
He started talking. It didn’t make much sense. He said something about “those guys” trying to get him. Then about the assassination. 214
That was the day before he went flying through the window of his 13th floor office.
5. Stockdale’s daughter has stated publicly that her father knew he was being followed, that he had told her mother that some people were out to get him, that she herself had an attempt on her life several days after her father’s funeral, and that she believed the attempt on her life was a way to coerce her mother into remaining silent—which, as she stated, actually worked (see below).
6. For the above reasons, some researchers have speculated that Stockdale figured out that an anti-Castro intelligence operation had been “hijacked” and turned against President Kennedy instead and, for that reason, Stockdale had to be killed.215
7
Grant Stockdale,
close friend of JFK,
December 2, 1963
210 Adele Edison, “E. Grant Stockdale,” 14 June 2004, (“Information taken from newspaper articles in the Miami Herald and Miami News”) The Education Forum: http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=943
211 Joachim Joesten, The Dark Side of Lyndon Baines Johnson (Peter Dawnay: 1968): http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKstockdale.ht
212 John Simkin, “JFK Assassination Forum,” 14 June 2004, Spartacus Educational: http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKstockdale.htm
213 Joesten, The Dark Side of Lyndon Baines Johnson
214 John Simkin, “Grant Stockdale: Biography,” Spartacus Educational: http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKstockdale.htm
Grant Stockdale was a close friend of President Kennedy.1 He was also former Ambassador to Ireland. JFK even visited Grant Stockdale at Stockdale’s home in Coral Gables, Florida.2 Stockdale was also friends with U.S. Senator George Smathers, also of Florida, who was another close friend of President Kennedy’s.
Stockdale headed the Kennedy campaign in Florida. After JFK won the Democratic nomination for President, Stockdale was the Kennedy campaign finance chairman for eleven Southern states.3
1 The Evening Independent (St. Petersburg, Florida), December 2, 1963, page one, “Grant Stockdale Killed in Miami”: http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=950&dat=19631202&id=VFdQAAAAIBAJ&sjid=7FYDAAAAIBAJ&pg=4173,26000
2 The Tucson Daily Citizen, 3 Dec 1963: http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKstockdale.htm
3 The Evening Independent (St. Petersburg, Florida), December 2, 1963, page one, “Grant Stockdale Killed in Miami”: http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=950&dat=19631202&id=VFdQAAAAIBAJ&sjid=7FYDAAAAIBAJ&pg=4173,26000
President Kennedy socializing with Florida Senator, George Smathers. Stockwell was a close friend of both and also a business partner of Smathers and key political aide for JFK.
215 John Simkin, “JFK Assassination Forum,” 14 June 2004, Spartacus Educational: http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKstockdale.htm
So the man certainly knew his way around, was very well-connected, and had a reputation as a very tough politician and businessman. By most accounts, Grant Stockdale was one tough cookie. It seems highly implausible, therefore, that being depressed over President Kennedy’s death would be sufficient cause for Mr. Stockdale to leap to his death out of his office window without even leaving a note for his wife, five children, mother, and friends.
Researcher Adele Edison investigated the evidence and wrote the following:
At 10:00 a.m., on Monday, December 2, 1963, Grant Stockdale came to his office on the 13th floor of the Alfred I. DuPont Building, 169 Flagler Street in Miami. His secretary, LaVerne Weingartner, who usually opened the office was not there, but at a dentist’s office and would not arrive until 10:30. Stockdale went into a law office across the hall from his and asked Mrs. Mary Ruth Hauser how he could get a key to unlock his office door. She offered to call the building manager to send someone to open it.
Mrs. Hauser stated, “He followed me into my office and stood there while I called down for a key. He stood there very calmly. He didn’t seem at all agitated. . . . Somehow the subject of the President’s death came up. . . . He told me he was in his office when his wife called to tell him the President had been shot. He said he just got dow
n on his knees and prayed.”
Stockdale and Mrs. Hauser were still talking when someone came to unlock his door. She started to follow him across the hall, but just then her office phone started ringing and she returned to answer it. Mrs. Hauser said, “It couldn’t have been five minutes later that there was this terrible thud . . .
I just wonder if I had gone right behind him . . . I don’t know, I guess it wouldn’t have made any difference. The whole world has just gone mad.”1
Now, please read the following, and see if you think it sounds like someone who is about to jump out of a 13th floor window and kill themself a few minutes later:
All of the people who saw and spoke to Stockdale on his way to work said he had been in good spirits, waving and saying hello. He stopped for a shoe shine, spoke to the elevator operator, and exchanged words with the parking garage attendant.2
That just doesn’t sound like a suicidal individual, does it? And in the below quote when it states “Monday,” please bear in mind that Monday is the same day of Mr. Stockdale’s death:
One newspaper report states that Mrs. Stockdale had urged her husband to seek help for his depression after the assassination, but she called the doctor on Monday to inform him that he was so much better.3
1 Adele Edison, “E. Grant Stockdale,” 14 June 2004, (“Information taken from newspaper articles in the Miami Herald and Miami News”) The Education Forum: http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=943