by Mark Shaw
Without doubt, Kilgallen had gained the respect of attorneys she wrote about in her articles. They admired her professional credibility and astute courtroom savvy. One specific example arose during the Sheppard trial. It involved defense attorney Arthur E. Petersilge’s final argument. Rising to address the jury, he, for all practical purposes, copied Kilgallen’s words in her Journal-American story a few days earlier. She had written, “Five months after the murder of Marilyn Sheppard, the state does not know how she was killed, with what weapon she was killed, or why she was killed. Yet on the basis of this flimsy evidence, the state is asking you to send Sam Sheppard to the electric chair.”
Kilgallen continued to believe in Dr. Sheppard’s innocence. This was despite the prosecution’s insistence that he was “an adulterer, perjurer, and cold-blooded murderer who deserved no mercy for the murder of his pregnant wife.” When the jury returned a guilty verdict, Kilgallen wrote in the book, “Astounding was the word for the verdict in the case of Dr. Sam Sheppard. It may have been a correct verdict—but in my opinion, it was a verdict wrongly arrived at and therefore frightening. I heard the same evidence the jury heard. I saw Dr. Sheppard on the [witness] stand. I listened to the summation on both sides. I could not have convicted him of anything except possibly negligence in locking his back door. So I was aghast at the verdict.”
Kilgallen’s strong words were not enough to save Dr. Sheppard from prison. While he languished, the famed journalist lived with the knowledge that she had evidence that could free him. This was because before the trial, in an exclusive interview with Judge Edward Blythin, she saw firsthand his bias toward Dr. Sheppard.
The chance to inform F. Lee Bailey, Dr. Sheppard’s appellate counsel, what Judge Blythin had told her in confidence, happened when they met in New York City. True to her assuring the judge she would not divulge their conversation, Kilgallen had never mentioned the substance of the conversation until he died.
In the affidavit she provided Bailey, Kilgallen said the judge summoned her to his chambers. He then told her, “I am very glad to see you, Miss Kilgallen. I watch you on television very frequently and enjoy the program. But what brings you to Cleveland?” She replied, “Well, [the case] has all the ingredients of what in the newspaper business we call a good murder. It has a very attractive victim, who was pregnant, and the accused was an important member of the community, a respectable, very attractive man. Then, added to that, you have the fact that it was a mystery as to who did it.”
Judge Blythin, Kilgallen told Bailey, replied, “Mystery? It’s an open and shut case.” “Well, what do you mean, Judge Blythin?” Kilgallen asked. “Well, he’s guilty as hell. There’s no question about it,” the judge proclaimed.
Based on Kilgallen’s disclosure of judicial prejudice and that of a court clerk who heard a similar remark, the United States Supreme Court reversed Dr. Sheppard’s conviction. The opinion read, “We have concluded that [Dr. Sam] Sheppard did not receive a fair trial consistent with the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and, therefore, reverse the judgment.” Most legal observers at the time, as noted, believed that Kilgallen’s reputation as a credible reporter turned the tide in Sheppard’s favor on appeal.
In a subsequent trial, a jury acquitted Dr. Sheppard. Years later, DNA tests confirmed that he had not killed his wife. The case became the basis for The Fugitive television series starring David Jansen as Dr. Richard Kimble. A film of the same name starred Harrison Ford. The death of Marilyn Sheppard remains unsolved.
Most importantly, Kilgallen protected the prejudicial words spoken to her in confidence in the Sheppard case by Judge Blythin. This speaks highly of her integrity. Throughout her career, Kilgallen was a reporter who knew how to keep a secret. This laudable trait had permitted her to stare down FBI agents when they investigated her for disclosing Jack Ruby’s testimony to the Warren Commission before its date of release. Kilgallen may have been a complicated woman with enemies abounding, but she could be trusted, a characteristic she took to the grave.
40 The Journal-American ceased publishing in April 1966, six months after Kilgallen died. Afternoon newspapers experienced difficulty competing for advertising revenue due to early evening newscasts including Walter Cronkite’s.
41 Mrs. Wagner’s comment apparently means Bennett Cerf read whatever Kilgallen had written while she waited for her final What’s My Line? program. This was actually the day before Kilgallen died.
42 Kilgallen told Variety: “Ever since I was a little bittie girl around the newspaper I have been allowed to use my typewriter and my own head, and any opinions expressed have been entirely mine. When I have to get permission to write about something that interests me, then I will exit quietly from the field of journalism.”
CHAPTER 22
As mentioned, three possibilities exist regarding the cause of Dorothy Kilgallen’s death: the famous reporter, columnist and television star committed suicide, she died accidently by consuming the drugs and alcohol, or she was murdered.
To date, the possibility Kilgallen committed suicide bears little merit. The famed journalist and television star did not appear to be a desperate woman without hope who took her own life.
In fact, Kilgallen had much to live for outside her celebrity media status. In addition to the publication of Murder One,43 her continuing probe of the JFK and Oswald assassinations provided excitement in her life. The longstanding affair with singer Johnnie Ray had blended into more of a friendship than a love interest. Both parties benefited from the change in status. There was no pressure on either of them. In October 1965, a month before she died, Kilgallen flew to Las Vegas on a private plane to see Ray perform. While there, they enjoyed mutual friend Tony Bennett’s songfest at the Riviera Hotel.
Kilgallen was also fast-forwarding a new love affair with Ron Pataky, an Ohio newspaper columnist who visited New York City on a regular basis. Most importantly, on the night before she died, those who saw and spoke with Kilgallen provided a rosy picture of the media star. Among them was What’s My Line? moderator John Charles Daly. After learning of her death, he told reporters: “Dorothy was just full of beans last night. She was in great spirits.”
Daly’s perspective is confirmed in Kilgallen’s final appearance on the What’s My Line? program. (www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gn6jS1UK78) Actress Joey Heatherton was the mystery guest. Kilgallen’s questioning of her and the additional contestants, including a woman who was a football newspaper columnist and one who sold dynamite, was sharp and sassy. Wearing a low-cut dress and appearing as glamorous as ever, Kilgallen laughed at her fellow panelist’s remarks. She sat next to future Odd Couple star Tony Randall.
Throughout the program, Kilgallen smiled and appeared as lively as ever with no slurring of words. At the end of the program as the football writer left the stage, Kilgallen kidded Bennett Cerf. Exhibiting her sarcastic sense of humor, she asked whether he might have used the expression “forward pass” when addressing the attractive writer. Instead, Cerf had asked about the woes of his favorite team, the New York Giants.
During his videotaped interview, hairdresser Marc Sinclaire was asked about Kilgallen’s character, that some people said she was an alcoholic and a drug addict. He answered, “They’d like you to believe that. They’d like you to believe she drank. She did drink. She was tough lady. She was able to go out with gangsters and people like that so she had to be like that. But how could she do the body of work that was done, that everybody professes to, that you can find on tapes and be an alcoholic and a pill pusher? How do you do that and she’s on television three or four times a week? How do you do this without [someone] knowing?” Asked what the What’s My Line? producer’s reaction would have been if they believed she was an alcoholic and drug user, Sinclaire replied, “They would have taken her off the air immediately. They couldn’t have let her on drunk.”
Later in the interview, Sinclaire added, �
�Go look at the tapes a week before she died, she looks beautiful, she’s walking around, looks beautiful. I had dinner with her twice that week. I went out for cocktails with her twice that week…she had a limo driver who knew her. The people in the restaurants knew her. People at the theater knew her. How do you hide this pill and drug habit that they say she had?” Asked if Kilgallen’s face was puffy, her figure “shot,” Sinclaire said, “You can look at the tapes. Was she bloated, was her figure gone? No, she wore a form-fitting dress. She looked beautiful.”
Additional proof Kilgallen was in good form following her final What’s My Line? program exists through the recollection of Dave Spiegal, a NYC-based Western Union office manager. Bob Considine of the Hearst Newspaper Syndicate first quoted him a few days after Kilgallen’s death:
Miss Kilgallen called me at 2:20 in the morning. She sounded great as usual. She said, ‘Good morning, Mr. Spiegel, this is Dorothy Kilgallen. Would you send a messenger over to the house to pick up my column and take it to the Journal-American. I’ll leave it in the regular place, in the door.’ I said, ‘it’s a pleasure’ and sent the messenger. It [the column] was there, as usual.
Based on Spiegel’s interview, there was nothing mentioned about slurred words, drunken behavior, or depressive attitude as evidenced by her ability to tell Spiegel the column was available in the “regular place.” This was apparently a metal box of some sort located just outside the front door of Kilgallen’s townhouse hidden in the shadows since there was a small entranceway from the sidewalk to the front door. Today her leaving the column there would be risky. In 1965, doing so was apparently a safe bet.
Further indication of the unlikelihood Kilgallen committed suicide is a lunch date she made with her friend, music producer Dee Anthony, who knew her well enough to have been invited to Kilgallen’s townhouse for Christmas parties—one attended, he recalled, by actress Jayne Mansfield. During an interview in the 1990s with an associate of investigative reporter Kathryn Fauble, he had complimented Kilgallen stating, “She was the kind of friend where I didn’t need to see her every day; I wanted nothing from her and she wanted nothing from me.”
On the Friday before she died, Anthony, who managed famous artists such as the Spencer Davis Group, Traffic, Jethro Tull, Joe Cocker, and Peter Frampton, said Kilgallen had a handwritten note delivered to his Manhattan address. It read, according to Anthony, “You stinker. I haven’t seen you in ages. Let’s have lunch on Monday.”
Certainly, Kilgallen could have changed her mind over the weekend and taken her own life. However, by all accounts, her committing suicide did not fit with the demeanor of the tough, crusty columnist, investigate reporter, television and radio star. In fact, it appears from her own writings that she had no intention to do so. This seems clear based on the Preface she apparently wrote for the 304-page book, Murder One, the one she showed Bennett Cerf on the evening of her final What’s My Line? program.
It was entitled, “Dorothy Kilgallen to the Reader.” After describing how publisher Bennett Cerf44 urged her to write the book, she wrote, “The result was this collection of the six famous murder trials that I covered as a working member of the press (one of my colleagues once called me a ‘newspaperman in a $500 dress’ but don’t you believe it!’).”
Kilgallen then focused on the Sam Sheppard murder case by noting, “at long last it [is] being reviewed by the Supreme Court of the United States.…No one knows how many months will pass before the Court announces its decision. Meanwhile, the show—or in this case the book—must go on.” Below this sentence were the words, “Dorothy Kilgallen, New York City, 1965.”
While Kilgallen’s words indicate the book was on track to be published, the editor added the following caveat: “On December 8, 1965 [obviously a mistake about the correct date of death], Dorothy Kilgallen passed away. Only a little while before, she had discussed with us the possibility of delaying publication of her book until the Supreme Court had disposed of the Sheppard case so that she could bring her account up to date.”
The editor’s comment clearly suggests the mindset of a woman with no inclination to commit suicide. Instead, she anticipated waiting to update the CHAPTER until the Supreme Court announced its decision in the Sheppard case. That could have taken months. In fact, it took until June 1966 for the justices to render their decision.
This evidence by Kilgallen’s own hand, along with the observations of others who knew her best, make death by suicide to be all but impossible. As Kerry Kollmar’s tutor and family companion, Ibne Hassan told this author, “She was very cheerful about life. She was working on her book, very enthusiastically. She was determined to finish it.”
Hairdresser Marc Sinclaire had his own reasons for doubting Kilgallen killed herself. In his videotaped interview, he stated, “Suicide is out of the question. It’s just out of the question. She was Catholic and you know what that means...”45
* * * * *
Dealing with the second of the possible causes of death—Kilgallen accidently causing her own demise due to excessive alcohol and barbiturates—is trickier especially in view of the death scene at Kilgallen’s townhouse.
One eyewitness important to considering what happened is Detective John Doyle. As noted, he was the lead detective from the 19th Precinct. His memories of November 8 were vivid. Why? Because Doyle recalled there had been a $400,000 burglary heist at NYC’s Sherry Netherland hotel and a burglary at the famous Delmonico’s restaurant. These happened during the time Kilgallen died.
Assigned to both crimes with his partner, Detective Doyle told author Lee Israel he had testified in court about the cases. He said he was informed of Kilgallen’s death at about 3:00 p.m. on November 8. Doyle was upset since word reached him that the body was discovered two hours earlier (1:00 p.m.).
When Detective Doyle entered the residence, he recalled seeing Dorothy’s father Jim. Also present was motion picture star Joan Crawford and Kilgallen’s husband Richard. Doyle described him as drunk (“In no shape or form. He was completely inebriated. I don’t even think he knew his own name.”). Richard’s conclusion, according to Doyle, was that his wife had fallen asleep while she was reading in a half-sitting position. He also noted the reading light was on.
Regarding his visit to Kilgallen’s townhouse, Detective Doyle said he and his partner were waiting for the medical examiner to appear. He also reported Kilgallen was in bed and that on a nightstand was an empty bottle of Seconal that had contained 50 100-milligram capsules. Doyle and his partner later visited the Hunter Pharmacy on nearby Madison Avenue. This confirms the account provided by Dr. Luke in the ME official documents.
Doyle said while he was at the pharmacy, he viewed Kilgallen’s Seconal prescription history for the previous three or four years. He concluded the amount prescribed made him believe she took an average of two per night. This was true even when she was overseas.
Detective Doyle reported that the empty vial should have been marked as evidence. However, he said, it never made it to the police station or the medical examiner’s office. Doyle did not know what happened to the vial.46
If one considers the death scene as described by eyewitnesses (among them, Dr. Luke and Detective Doyle) along with the physical evidence of discovering the Seconal vial together with the knowledge that Kilgallen had a prescription for that drug, then, as suggested, the accidental cause of death may be viable. However, the presence of Tuinal noted by Dr. Luke, the presence of Seconal, Nembutal and the Tuinal noted by John Broich, and the analysis by Dr. Baden as confirmed by Dr. Hoffman that Kilgallen’s system contained the “equivalent of 15-20 Seconals” throws the proverbial monkey wrench into the equation.
Based on the deadly quantity of barbiturates ingested by Kilgallen, the question to answer is whether she could have accidently swallowed this many pills since deliberately taking them has been shown to be highly unlikely. It also appears quite unlikely Kilgallen accidently overdosed
since while she had the prescription for Seconal, and took, according to Detective Doyle, two per night on average, there was no prescription for either Nembutal or Tuinal and no evidence that she had ever ingested these barbiturates. Giving Kilgallen the benefit of the doubt based on her being one of the most intelligent women of her era, it is logical to presume that only one possibility exists regarding the true cause of her death: someone else was involved with her taking the pills, and by doing so, committed murder.
Curiously, while several people suspected foul play including potentially Dr. Luke, and, for certain, Dr. Umberger, a powerful governmental organization also showed interest in how Kilgallen died. How do we know? Because during the late 1970s, a request from G. Robert Blakey, Chief Counsel and Director of the House Select Committee on Assassinations, was received by the New York medical examiner’s office. This investigatory body was formed to consider new evidence about the JFK and Martin Luther King assassinations collected since the 1960s.
Blakey’s request was forwarded to Dominick J. DiMaio, M.D., chief medical examiner. Dr. DiMaio wrote back to Mr. Blakey on April 13, 1978, “Enclosed you will find the complete file on Ms. Kilgallen who died on November 8, 1965.”
In response to an email request
In response to an email request from this author regarding the HSCA interest in Kilgallen, Robert Blakey wrote, “Our look [into Kilgallen’s death] was not substantial. In any event, we thought it was ‘fishy.’ But we were not able to solve it and do JKK [JFK and Martin Luther King] assassination investigation at the same time.”
Whatever Blakey or the Committee had discovered, and if and how it used the information supplied by DiMaio, is unknown. Blakey confirmed to this author that there is no mention of Kilgallen, or what she discovered through her extensive investigation of the JFK and Oswald assassinations in the Committee’s final report. Any opportunity to include eyewitness accounts from one of the premiere investigative reporters in history, a competent, credible journalist whose compilation of facts about what happened before, during and after the JFK and Oswald assassinations is unmatched, had been lost.