The Incredible Life & Mysterious Death of Dorothy Kilgallen (with Sara Jordan-Heintz and Larry Jordan)

Speaker 3Today on a special bonus episode of Solving JFK, we're taking a closer look at one of the most intriguing figures connected to the Kennedy assassination story, journalist Dorothy Kilgallon. Kilgallon was one of the earliest television personalities, starring on the show What's My Line. She was also one of the country's most prominent investigative journalists, and she was syndicated in over 200 newspapers and nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. She was also a fixture in major trials of her era, including the Jack Ruby trial in Dallas. Kilgallon had a personal relationship with the John F. Kennedy, known not the kind you're thinking. and she became very interested in understanding what really happened to him. Kilgallon questioned the official story early and publicly. She privately told friends that she was receiving threats and she believed that she was close to breaking open the case. Then, in November of 1965, she died under circumstances that remained disputed and her JFK assassination research notes disappeared.

Speaker 3To help us understand Dorothy's life and the unresolved questions surrounding her death, we're joined today by Sarah Jordan Hines, an award-winning journalist and author of the book, The Incredible Life and Mysterious Death of Dorothy Kilgallon. Sarah's earlier 2007 article was the first to publicly identify the man who became the prime suspect in Kilgallon's death. Her book brings forward new eyewitnesses, forensic clues, and what she describes as the smoking gun, linking a kill-gallon murder suspect to CIA operations. We're also joined by Larry Jordan, a journalist and JFK researcher for 50 years. Larry's the only writer to have developed a long-term candid rapport with Ron Patechky. The man many suspect may have been involved in Kilgallon's death. Through years of conversations, unlike the brief or hostile encounters other researchers had with Patechky. Pataki shared with Larry details about CIA linked training and covert operations that shed new light on Pataki's background.

Speaker 3This is the first time Larry Jordan, who happens to be Sarah's dad, by the way, has stepped forward publicly to discuss that work. We'll explore Dorothy Kilgallon's reporting, the risks that she faced, and the suspects

Speaker 2In Dallas, Texas, three shots were fired at President Kennedy's motorcade in downtown Dallas. The first reports say that President Kennedy has been seriously wounded by this shooting. Welcome to Solving JFK, Sarah and Larry.

Speaker 3Yes, and I, you know, one thing I like to ask people when they first come on because for me the answer is the Billy Joel music video for we didn't start to fire where Jack Ruby is shooting us walled and as a kid, I'm going, what's this? And so I ask everyone what was your sort of entree into the JFK's assassination? I guess Larry will start with you and then Sarah.

Speaker 4Well, thank you for having us. I appreciate that. I'm a baby boomer. So I grew up with JFK. I actually saw him in 1959 when I was seven years old when he came to my hometown of Cedar Rapids. I remember him driving through the city and waving at us in his convertible motorcade. And of course, I remembered the 13 days in October of 1962 during the Cuban missile crisis and how it affected our family life and the lives of so many people. But literally thought the world could come to an end in 24 hours. Even at school, we had drill to the duck and covered drills. And I vividly remember his assassination. I was in sixth grade when that happened. So I grew up having an interest in him. And over the years, it just grew and grew as more revelations came out. You know, the fact that the recruiter film finally made it to TV was a big turning point. And ultimately, when I became a magazine publisher,

Speaker 4I decided it was worthy of doing a story on the Midwest connections to the assassination and that appeared in the first issue of Midwest today back in 1992. All right.

Speaker 3What about you, Sarah?

Speaker 0Well, I certainly grew up interested in the Kennedy assassination largely through my father's interests. So that's where I began and then when I decided to write the article on Dorothy and later write the book, there were so many connections to Kennedy that I wanted to include that in Dorothy story. It was such a big part of what she was investigating and the time of her death and what I think got her killed in the first place. So that's just really aimed up my interest when I got interested in Dorothy come down.

Speaker 3you guys have done some important work on Dorothy Killgallon so let's get into it before we get into the circumstances of Dorothy's death let's let's talk a little bit about who she was as a person I mean I kind of listed some of the highlights but she was a cultural figure of a celebrity I mean is that you know Sarah for people who only knew her from from television What would you say Dorothy Kilgallon was, I mean, how would you compare her to, you know, people today, I mean, because she was really a real big celebrity in a time when there weren't as many celebrities.

Speaker 0Absolutely, so Dorothy was first and foremost a journalist, a reporter with the her syndicate, covering murder trials, hard news, was not a soft sister, her escape in the opportunity to write the hard news right alongside male colleagues, and she was as famous as the people that she wrote about her voice of Broadway column, and fact she would often use a voice of Broadway, which was aimed at entertainment news to share her, Musings and opinions and views on geopolitical issues, particularly her criticisms of the del Castro, just really what was happening on the global scene. So she was very well connected with sources and contacts, you know, a real, what I would call a journalist journalist, and very in the old school way.

Speaker 3And she, I mean, she covered trials that was one of the things that she did, right?

Speaker 0Yeah, that's a very prominent case. You know, it was certainly a media circus when the prominent doctor was accused of murdering his pregnant wife. It was very circumstantial. And Dorothy did not feel that the state had proven beyond a reasonable doubt that he had commended the crime, Sam Shepard. And it wasn't so much she may be believed in his personal innocence as feeling that there was not due process. And I think this is a theme we're going to see on the Kennedy assassination in Jack Ruby about due process, having all the facts, and her view was so important that when Sam Shepard was convicted, the journal American ran a big banner headline that said Dorothy Kilgallon shocked. And of course, we would learn later on that she would be instrumental in receiving a new trial where new evidence, F. Lee Bailey was that attorney and ultimately being acquitted. And this was after Dr. Dorothy's death that the DNA for N6 just weren't there.

Speaker 0But she was that early champion of knowing there was more to that story and that it would take a turn.

Speaker 3So Kilgallon was, you know, somebody who even before the JFK assassination, you know, was willing to go against the grain and kind of challenge.

Speaker 0Absolutely. A official story is a criticized public figure sitting presidents. It did not matter if you were on the radar as needing to be taken to task. Criticized exposed. She was willing to do it.

Speaker 4Absolutely. producer at CBS, a very close personal friend of Dorothy's called our office after Sarah's Midwest, and they already who came out. And I take recorded that conversation. I have a bad habit of doing that. I have a reporter on my desk. And so when somebody important like that calls, I mean, recorded. But he had a quote that I liked. He said Dorothy was a very powerful woman. She had when the government shooting people that were mobsters, she had sources worldwide.

Speaker 3So to that end, and talking about her knowing people, she knew President Kennedy. I mean, they weren't extremely close, but she didn't have some interactions with him, right?

Speaker 0Yes, it was the January before the assassination Dorothy and her youngest child, her son, Carrie, visited the White House. They were under the impression it would be a guided tour, but not guided by JFK, who happened to have some time in a schedule to make an appearance. And he was so gracious and accommodating of Carrie's questions. Give them a few souvenirs on the way out the door. And I can say myself has a mother Wow, you took the time to make my child feel special, you know. And I think there was a real affinity there. Now, certainly going through Dorothy's earlier columns years before this assassination, she wrote very glowingly at Kennedy that, you know, he was always being criticized, stuff thrown at him and just how wonderful he was, what outstanding woman Jackie was. And I think she would have to see the context of the era. Dorothy came from an Irish Catholic family. And I think with Irish Catholic roots myself, I know that it was so revered in homes in the 50s and 60s of Irish Catholic families, one of us has made it, right?

Speaker 0And I think there had to have been some of that touching her as well. That maybe came out in the form of propin.

Speaker 3Turning to the assassination, Dorothy Kilgallon was one of the first major journalists to question the official narrative, right?

Speaker 0Absolutely. Now, before that, she wrote two columns through the her syndicate that talked about her visit to the White House. She wanted to remind people about this is the man that was assassinated, killed, shot down the prime of his life, a very warm and lovely man. The second column dealt with Jackie. She called it Jacqueline, a profile in courage and more. And was just very complimentary of this young woman now widow, making it on her own and she got a lot of wonderful fan mail about even people who didn't read her column regularly, were very touched by her reporting. And then after Ruby shot all as well in live television, the tone of those columns changed dramatically. So most notably, we have the Oswald file must not close. And that was published November 29th in 1963. And it begins with LBJ, then the first sentence, he's been elevated so swiftly to his new post. that it's like he is in an ivory tower, and she's very concerned about, you know, also being, quote, the most important suspect or prisoner, the country's had in custody in the last 100 years.

Speaker 0And questioning, how is this case closed, right? You know, she felt like if this was going to be poorly handled this official story, it would potentially cost Johnson in the 1964 election. And you know, she's saying this is not Flows, this case is not closed, and she wrote, well, text, write a footnote for me, will you? She wanted to know how Ruby even got access to Oswell, calling him a strip cheese, Hongki-tongue owner, while CNN, like the police department, was a health club. So already, she's questioning the security that this was allowed to happen. Um, Oswald will not have a day in court. I think she was very struck by the concern of that and famously wrote, when you pull justices at big rug, when you pull it out from under one man, a lot of others followed fall two. And my favorite part of this column is when she wrote, the American people have just lost of love president. And it's a dark chapter in our history, but we have the right to read every word of it.

Speaker 0It cannot be kept locked in a file in Dallas. So already, I think there's a bit of some prescience Saudi and Morki, his background and she was already seeing what was going to happen, I think.

Speaker 3was there anything in particular that she was focused on in terms of like pieces of evidence or was it just the macro of it all of like hey wait a minute the guy that everyone's saying shot the president who we really don't know about somebody shot him uh this doesn't sound right was it was it kind of like my question is was she more cautious like hey let's slow down before we all you know jump on the

Speaker 0I think this smells funny and I think you also have to see in her columns that she's talking about questioning the velocity of power Brennan being able to have identified Ruby as a shooter saying the TSP was not immediately secured. the weapon changing from a mouser to the carcano. The changes with, she got the police kind of cardacar radio transcripts where Jesse Curry was riding a police of Dallas was riding in the pilot car and described shots coming from the front and then the next day that story is changing. So she's kind of hitting one thing after another, of this as it makes sense. Security is lacks, was just very relentless and playing that all out. And I know you wanted to say that.

Speaker 4Well, I'm just going to point out one column as a background in the new speakers that struck me was your very bold. reference to the seven days in May, which was a current film, and she sent the producers of seven days in May could be forgiven if they thought that life imitated art, and she pointed out that the theme of this movie, the script of this movie, pertain to a coup that originated in Texas. Now, what was she trying to imply other than the involvement of LBJ? I'll just be blunt about it. This woman had bigger balls than any of those fellow journalists. And there were guys like Bob Konsodine. over reproaching reporters over in Europe who are raising questions about the, you know, the loan assassin and downplaying that scoffing that says ridiculous. And that was the norm. Dorothy was the standout reporter who was brazenly going after this. She didn't rely on Mark Lane. She didn't need coaching.

Speaker 4She had a background in this from having covered murder cases So this distance didn't smell right to her. What had happened in the game?

Speaker 0Absolutely. And that column was published December 23, 1963, which is important to note. It was the day after Harry Truman's big baths at random papers across the country. And I talk about that in my book. If you'll indulge me a moment on that line of for people who are familiar, A month to the day after the assassination, so December 22, 1963, former President Harry Truman decides that he wants to go public with his thoughts. This is days before Christmas, the nations in morning, and man from his same political parties in office, this could have been a real what I call sort of an Obama bringing the country together moment, a real moment of hope and optimism. But instead, he uses that platform to decry the abuses of the central intelligence organization, and to become a cloaken-daggerish operation. And that is what he wanted to leave the American people with. He maybe had the opportunity to talk to people privately.

Speaker 0I think you have some of the same security clearances as a former president. There's anyone he wanted to take aside and express concerns to. And he may have done so, but he also wanted the public to know about these concerns. He wanted to make them front and center. And that was very deliberate, I think.

Speaker 4And he had formed the CI basically. Right. That's what he wanted it very from its mission, or straight from its mission. And one thing that Sarah points out in her book is the fence. I'm not sure exactly what entity visited the Truman Library and assets in Missouri and confiscated things, retrieved things. You'll know that. In return, I should be afraid I'm speaking now.

Speaker 3I know that Alan Dullis visited him and asked him to retract it, isn't that right? That's, I don't think that I've heard that pretty much.

Speaker 0I had not heard that, but it would not surprise me, and I loved talking about Alan Dullis any time you want to. You stay with him. He's wonderful. Oh yeah.

Speaker 3I will back check that and pull it out if it's not true. That's true. Is it true that there's a memo from J. Edgar Hoover to the Warren Commission where Hoover

Speaker 0I came across, you know, we know it's true that you visited and I think it was an attempt out in commendation, right?

Speaker 4It was a report from the two agents that went after home and she actually wrote a column about that and said that they would have been more profitably spending their time if they had ignored her, the questions of her about where her source came from. and pursued the other lines of inquiry that they had failed to pursue. So she did feel a little bit intimidating. It was obviously an intimidation attempt. Crescent did not come, you know, immediately. She was doing all these other columns leading.

Speaker 0Yes, we've jumped ahead just this approach. This would pertain to the Ruby transcripts, right? So Dorothy in a three-part series published the excerpts of the 102 page transcripts of Ruby's testimony to Gerald Ford and Chief Justice Earl Warren. And so the excerpts began appearing in syndication August 18th of 64. So that, I believe, is what brought the FBI to her door that, that calls specifically because I'll be J had not even been presented with this yet. This was about, well, about a month. You know, I know it's September 64. I'll be J was formally presented with. the Warren Commission volume. So she had jumped the gun on this about a month and I think that was a very deliberate move of maybe even a bit of a power play on her part of it. I have this.

Speaker 4The transcript not only ran on the front pages in the three parts series of newspapers nationwide, but it ran next to her own commentary analysis. So she was considered to be, you know, absolutely well enough, first on this topic that she was That kind of status was conferred on her like this is an expert in knows. I know that. I just wanted to just how, you know, her acumen is recorded.

Speaker 3So let's let's talk about her covering the Jack Ruby trial. You know, is that that was just I guess something that flowed from her coverage of the case already. The Ruby trial was the thing, but she actually went down to Dallas and she was there for for the trial.

Speaker 0Yes, as were many newspaper reporters, right? It was the biggest place to be the biggest news story at the time. And I think she knew she would be able to perhaps penetrate that line a little bit of getting access to Ruby and his council, his defense team, easier than people from other papers were because she's not just a reporter,

Speaker 4John Jotana Hill, who's one of Ruby's attorneys, said that Jack was a fan, and when she entered the courtroom, she was like the celebrity, the judge asked for her autograph to give you some idea, so there was a whole bunch of world press there and a very hot, hip compact kind of everybody squeezed into the courtroom, and this is the star that enters the room. and all eyes are fixing it under the. So there's no difficulty on her part in securing interviews with Jack Ruby because she was the star attraction. And it's a matter of fact it was even said that Jack would have the show on in the club and he'd yell at patrons to quiet down because he was watching what's my line. So Tana Hill is quoted in a video interview saying that Dorothy was to Jack VIP. So he felt flatter that she showed interest.

Speaker 3Sure. Yeah, and isn't true that Dorothy would go to dinner with with the Tana Hill and Melvin Belly, the lawyer for Ruby, she was pretty close fairly close enough with them, just go to dinner a couple times with them and get inside information.

Speaker 4I remember just because I love oysters, this is an odd memory, but the lead attorney and real fixation on this one particular restaurant. And it had the greatest oyster. So he wanted to take Dorothy there to sample these oysters. So they were in on their photograph, together, the three of them, you know, Northern Belai and Dorothy in Chotano Hill. So she really had the priority. And she was a little resentment there. Plus she was a mere woman. Let's not forget the times. You know, most women in journalism were assigned to have her home features. I know this from my own journal, St. Alka. or recipes and that kind of thing. They were not given a hard news of silence, usually.

Speaker 0But William Ranna first for all of his fault was her biggest champion, and of course, after his passing in the 50s that continued on, you know, with the her syndicate of saying, yeah, send Dorothy to cover coronations. political events and based on big stories.

Speaker 4I'm Sarah really brings to life the color of that trial, the Ruby trial, all the atmospirics. It's fun to read it and there's some eccentric things. There was even despite all the police presence. There was even a scape attempt. It's unbelievable. Somebody had fashioned a fake gun out of a bar of soap and pee. And I mean, it was unbelievable. It's like he's done. even though it was a deadly serious trial that it, you know, impacted the world.

Speaker 3Right. So these, the two conversations that Kilgalan have with Ruby, let's zoom in to those if we can. They were, were they both in the courtroom and they were just sort of up at the, the council's table, like where the defendant was, or where, where were the actual interviews,

Speaker 0What you know, he was not in and behind bars.

Speaker 4Long was in the judges' chamber.

Speaker 0Judges' chamber.

Speaker 4The bigger one.

Speaker 0Yes.

Speaker 4And Jotana Hill is the source, you know, and we don't have to... Who will witness them?

Speaker 0Right.

Speaker 4He's in a video interview saying this, that Ruby took it seriously. They had a serious conversation. It wasn't just a plus of tree.

Speaker 3I want to bring in some points from the other side. So... Fred Litwin, who you may know, has an article where he breaks down the Dorothy Kill Gowlin story, and his primary counterpoint as to why, hey, she didn't have some secret information about Ruby. This is all over the blown. I really got two things. One is that, look, they didn't talk that long. It was a fleeting, very brief conversation as the first point he makes. And the second point is, If Ruby told her something, why didn't she publish it sooner, why wait so long, you know, why not come out with the right away. So what would your answers be to those?

Speaker 0Yeah, absolutely. So I am a working journalist. I'm a newspaper and magazine journalist and I conduct interviews on almost a daily basis. And I certainly know that it does not take a large amount of time to get the information out that you would require to be just a couple of handful of questions. And as nothing to do with the amount of time, it's a quality of the interview. And how willing someone is to be forthcoming, this could be done in a matter of seconds, really. I don't think the exact time to stamp is what matters so much. And I think Dorothy being, such a career journalist knew that whatever he told her had to be with some kind of confidence until she was able to fact check, add sourcing, build a case, and prepare what was going to be in a book. And certainly things were going through her column, those last two years in her life, very very fascinated in the case almost borderline obsessed.

Speaker 0So it wasn't that she was sitting on information, things were coming on her column. I think there was certainly an incentive to wait until perhaps the teas were crossed and the eyes were dotted.

Speaker 4I'm glad you brought this gentleman up because I note that he said that Dorothy could not possibly have obtained anything useful. from Jack Ruby because he was not hard of any conspiracy and he just acted on impulse in shooting, Oswell. So when you have somebody that comes from Thep thesis, I mean, you know, why are you with them? Their minds are closed. They're ignoring a massive amount of information about this case. And it really is kind of misogynistic, frankly. I noticed that the people criticizing Dorothy invariably are men.

Speaker 0It has often been the case, even since my book came out, you know, a little bit of dare I say mansplaining, you know, well, you were a book about Dorothy, I mean, she was just on television, she was on a serious reporter and, you know, I become an indative, that on social media and I just felt like you don't have the facts.

Speaker 4There's another aspect of this that I think is also overlooked and that is, it wasn't necessarily the information that Dorothy had gleaned from Jack. but the fact that she was such a muckbreaker as a journalist that she might have been killed just because they knew she had this zeal to find the truth and she was not going to give up. She also had a receptive audience. I think maybe I'm wrong about this. She had a readership of something like 20 million. And she could file a story as late as 4am. and reach a mass American audience coast to coast. That same day, that's in contrast to Mark Lane who was an author. And I don't want to denigrate authors because we were both authors, you know, but he didn't have that kind of outreach. So why did he survive with Dorothy? Didn't because she was a very potent breath.

Speaker 3Sure. So that's an important point that you're making, which is that, you know, I think a lot of people want to say, oh, Dorothy, you know, if she was killed and it was somehow related to the JFK assassination in any way, it's probably something that Ruby told her, because correct me if I'm wrong. And here's maybe the headline, Ruby didn't give interviews to anybody else, right? Right. Okay. So, so that's what everybody says, but the point you just made is, yeah, maybe Ruby told her something that's that's delicious and what it got her killed. But even if he didn't, the mere fact of who she was, the position that she held in her tenacity that people knew that she was going away and she couldn't be bought off. So that could have been it, too. She was like a pit bull.

Speaker 4What should I think of something? And by the way, as far as why she was holding her sequestering information, she was writing a book. Here's a direct book from Ron DeTagney, he said her book was a big deal right up to the time of her death. It was a book on the Warren Commission report. It wasn't on Jack Kennedy per se. It was on all the players that's the thing. And as we get into this a little more, the things that he told me, affirm that he was providing input feedback. She was soliciting his opinion on things as her reporting and investigation involved. So not only that, but Marlon swing the CBS executive confirm, she was holding this for a book. So there are credible people close to her that knew that she was working on a book. That's the reason she wasn't blowing this all in a newspaper story. It was, you know, it was an entire I mean, she was so a part of it. Right, exactly. But the big stuff she was saving for that book and she was nearing the end of a research.

Speaker 4That's also a firm by people close to her. So she became a very immediate threat at that point.

Speaker 3If we can, let's let's go to her actual death and the circumstances surrounding it. Can you just kind of tell us what happened, the details of it, where was she last seen and how was she found?

Speaker 0Absolutely. So to, I mean, I'm starting to talk about the day of her death, but I think it's also important to kind of lead up to her death, the visits to Dallas, New Orleans, Miami, what her hairdresser, Marx and Claire, headed to company with her to part of it, and then was sent home very, Quickly, right, just saying don't tell anyone you are with me. So I feel like that's worth diving into before the actual day up. because I think it's very clear there was a threat or a concern or something that she triggered kind of her senses of being on alert. After that point, she, I think was pretty fearless and then something had kind of spooked her. I know Pataki had used that term as well. Spooked her from the trip along, particularly to New Orleans.

Speaker 4You might point out that Marx and Claire accompanied, well, Marks and Claire was asked to go to New Orleans, but via separate play, separate hotel. He was to do her hair, but I think she wanted somebody along to just kind of be there, you know, and then before he used to be with her the next day, but she called him abruptly at his hotel room and told him that there was an airline ticket waiting for him, she wanted him to immediately return So something did spook her after she got to New Orleans. The Journal of American was on strike. And so she used that period since they weren't published in the newspaper then to do things. She went to Miami. She was talking about the case, by the way. Larry King used to have a radio show before he had a TV show. He was based in Miami, and she appeared on this radio show. Days before she died. So she was discussing that case. By the way, Larry King also thought she'd been murdered.

Speaker 4but she had been in New Orleans and spooked on that occasion. She'd been back to Dallas after the trial. So I do know that she had some contact or our suspicion is with Jim Garrison. Interestingly enough, Ron Patacki bragged about the fact that he had met Jim Garrison twice. He's an entertainer reporter, Mr. Patacki. Why would he be so keenly interested in, you know?

Speaker 0Yes. Doesn't make sense.

Speaker 4That, but anyway,

Speaker 3So I'm not sure if I answered your question, but so when she, you said she was in New Orleans and she got spooked. Well, you go into that a little bit.

Speaker 0Yeah, I mean, that was Mark's and Claire. Right. You have that then was October.

Speaker 4And we're not, we're not sure exactly why it was, but it was very close to the time she died. So something happened.

Speaker 0In the weeks before.

Speaker 4I beg of her, I don't know what it was. It spooked her.

Speaker 0Yeah, I think it was amazing.

Speaker 4Well, she said that she would, she never met the person she was going to meet, but she would know him by sight. Now, there is speculation that it was Jim Garrison, people say, no, no, no, no. You know, Garrison didn't pick up on the threat of this until later, but actually, that's not true. Garrison immediately, and you know this, I'm sure, within days he was, you know, first of all, a district attorney there in New Orleans. So he knew the current free years and fellows with cello and all the others. And within, I think it was three days. He was already questioning people. But for the official investigation, and if you were going to go to New Orleans as a reporter, who would you go to see? when she thanked the local district attorney would be a good source. So our speculation is that Garrison probably factored into that, she may have seen him. But she was also good friends with Frank Costello, who was a mentor of Archello.

Speaker 4And of course Frank was based in New York. Dorothy is Sarah Lase out of her book. Used to have, what was that name of that little club?

Speaker 0The science club.

Speaker 4The science club. There's nothing to do with science, but it was a little Monday get together for blue Mondays. And she would assemble at the back of P.J. Clarks, so this one area, this one table. It could be Hollywood celebrities, it could be other people. Frank Costello was at the end of those. So he knew Dorothy and even gave her a beautiful, wasn't it, Diamond.

Speaker 0It was a diamond necklace that she converted into earrings. Yeah, maybe that's going to tell.

Speaker 4You know, she milled the diamond necklace and, you know, we were just so ticked off. But that's the respect we gave. That took some, yeah, I don't know. I think we're onto a new lead here. But, but also Marlin's swing when I spoke with him. And he called the office after Sarah's article came out. We had about an hour, a little over in our conversation. Also on tape. Dorothy, and here comes Frank Estella, of course he knew he was. He was so surprised that he stopped to do these tables, but so pleasant and Dorothy thought nothing up. You know, this big mopster is not the kingpin.

Speaker 0Yeah, and she has my glass.

Speaker 4So it fills my glass. Yeah. Who also said she was definitely convinced that, well, she just stayed it infetically, that Dorothy was murdered. Period. She may have had help, she may have solicited help from Frank Restel, like who should I see or whatever. But the thing I think that Sarah stresses that's so valuable is that in studying Dorothy's columns, which no other writer has done, by the way, she really perused hundreds of columns. It's amazing how many times in this little seemingly innocuous gossipy in a voice of Broadway Colombe. The Dorothy was interjecting a paragraph for two that were vignettes in this column about what was going on with Castro or Latin America and Florence Pritchard was married to a former ambassador of Cuba and was also Sarah documents all that. That was a good source for Dorothy to note inside information that was a high secret to nature in terms of US intelligence.

Speaker 4And then it was appearing in our columns. So, this is the woman that was formidable. This is not some little wave that was considering on recipes or whatever.

Speaker 3Sure, yeah, no doubt. All right, so in terms of her death, Can we talk about that that you, yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 0So Dorothy died in November a the 1965 and she appeared live on what's my line just the night before the night of November 7th. She was on the panel, what's my line was a game show, the panelists would guess the occupation of the contestant usually was considered a bit unusual or didn't, you know, the profession didn't match the face right and there'd there'd be a mystery celebrity. at the end of the show and the panelists would be blindfolded for that. So she was on that last episode. That's the last time people would have seen her alive at least publicly. But we know from her hairdresser, Marks and Claire, that the lead up to that evening he was doing her hair. talking about what she'd wear. And she wondered what his plans were. I believe he was going to a movie and declined going out with her after the show. It wasn't unusual for people to hang out at PJ Clarke to the agency after the show aired.

Speaker 0And she was a bit reserved, a bit They did two on Saturday and Saturday before her death and then the night off.

Speaker 4She was very upset.

Speaker 0Yeah.

Speaker 4She thought that there was a leak somewhere.

Speaker 0Yeah, a leak.

Speaker 4And St. Clair said, well, the only person who knew in your life is bull. He called him bull, Patat.

Speaker 0Patat.

Speaker 4Yeah. So he kind of fueled her paranoia about him.

Speaker 0Yeah, so that is what we're referring to. Yeah. And if it's of interest, the outfit, she was planning to wear with the hairstyle was changed last minute. So when Marx and Claire watch the show, she was wearing a different outfit than he had. paired the flowers and the hairdo to, you know, noticing, oh, I wouldn't have done that that way. I know, and that dress.

Speaker 4Yeah, there was nobody at that residence to help her get into that complicated outfit or not in an out of it, because it was the maid and Butler's night off. So that, you know, and it entered me was so surprised to see her in a different outfit that didn't match her hair.

Speaker 0And he referred to it as more of what she would wear for kind of a date night, right? So that's where he felt that after he talked with Dorothy and said, you know, I think Pataki needs a closer look that she called Pataki and he was in Columbus, Ohio that time, hopped to playing and then because the show, aired at 10 p.m. Eastern time. He could be a late date by about midnight one in the morning, and that is the unidentified man saying in the Regency Hotel Bar. That was never I'm investigated by the police.

Speaker 3Okay, so just as much a little bit. The hairdresser sees her in different clothes. You're talking about the night shoot on November 7th when she went on the show.

Speaker 0Yeah, and we'll we'll get to the discovery. I don't want to show that on the show like like there was a change of plans. She wasn't going to go home right after the showing or the filming that this was what she was going to wear to do you kind of the cocktails after afterward. meeting up with someone and we know from cast and contestants who were at the Regency that evening that she was seen with a man, you know, kind of sequestered in the back. I'm talking very closely. I mean, they're very serious conversation that they did not feel like they wanted to intrude upon. So that man's never formally been identified.

Speaker 4Marlon Swing typically would go out after the show with her. He would control room, he told me, while the show was being broadcast and telepathically tried to tell her who the mystery guest was, the big celebrity guest, because they would hide the celebrity guest in the control room. And he, who that was, and sometimes they're worked. That was their little inside game. But that particular night he did not go out with her, but she met another friend, Bob Bach, who is part of the production team, and then went first to P.J. Clarks, but it was a very quick drink and she said she had a late date. Well, who would that be? Who should she dating at that time?

Speaker 3Just a little bit. So another fortification of that. So Pataki, you said he came in from Columbus, Ohio, that's which is where I live, and I'm like, hey, tell me with the connection. So it was he from Columbus, was he just working there or what?

Speaker 0Yeah, let's do how her body was discovered in the next morning to do her hair. She had appearances to make and wanted to be ready for them. And he arrives at her five story townhouse and Manhattan has the key to get up the back stairs. And he goes to the room that would have the attached dressing room. So it was not her, it had a bed, but it was not her bedroom, but it was where he knew she would be to do the wardrobe, right? So he found her in that bed, her pajamas on over her clothes, the false eyelashes, the hairpiece, all the makeup still on, which anyone knows you don't want to sleep with that on, it's very uncomfortable. And what I would call a very staged crime scene.

Speaker 3pajamas on over her clothes.

Speaker 0So he said just that that memoir. Yeah, right over the dress. So so either whoever killed her stage the crime scene or she was found somewhere else and they made it look nicer from when the police. And the air conditioning turned up quite high in November in New York City.

Speaker 4Yeah, even Ron Pataki commented on that. You know, trying to make him himself even less guilty looking. It said, yes, he was always cool. That did make a sense. But you might do that to change the time of death.

Speaker 0It threw off some suspicion on.

Speaker 3But there were a lot of bad years.

Speaker 0Yeah.

Speaker 3What a quote. Or is that like a way to send him messages of like, She's trying to be a honey badger, but this is what it gets. I don't know.

Speaker 4I don't know. The hairdressers knew that she had already completed reading. Yeah. She had mentioned it. And it was turned upside down. And not a position that would, you know, be logical on the bad.

Speaker 0Very staged, not the bad.

Speaker 4And her glasses were nowhere around and she needed the glasses to be agreed. So it's very staged. She was propped up in bed and he knew her right away, Mark St. Clair said when he walked in there. It first entered through the back and turned on his. early in irons and so forth and walked in the next room because of a so cold, it was going to turn off the air conditioner and a little bit hold she's there, you didn't expect to see her because her bedroom was on the fifth floor and I think there's some what would you say that third.

Speaker 5That's the third floor. Yeah.

Speaker 4Yeah, so it wasn't even, you know, what is she doing to this bedroom?

Speaker 0Yeah, never slept.

Speaker 4Never slept in that bed. No, so he was shocked.

Speaker 0That she would have ended up in.

Speaker 3Wow. Okay, so let's let's talk about

Speaker 0Absolutely, and I think to the circle back on that, of course, Dorothy died of a drug and alcohol overdose, circumstances end determined that authorities never decided to take the time to determine them. So it's a very odd thing to put on a, I believe, on a district advocate, you know, as an accident wasn't suicide wasn't homicide. undetermined circumstances. And we know later on the 70s when Leah's role it was exploring the story with her book, Kilgallon, that there were three different barbedge what's found in her system. And that wouldn't have been known at the time in 1965 for N6 to just come away. So that is again where

Speaker 3that suspicion came in that we knew about the ones that I think fell not three different you know the you know the ones that are hard to pronounce and I mean I don't know is that another way of saying the the barbituits that were in her system a there's a combination there were several of them and not necessarily the ones that she had access to or yeah one of the

Speaker 4This is really jumping to head a little bit, but when you want to think about anything and criminally about Ron Patacki, you wrote a couple of poems, one of which was about poisoning somebody with a drink. We spoke at their tone. We asked for a subconscious came out, I guess, and that would.

Speaker 0Yeah, absolutely. And so as I briefly brought up Leah's room a moment ago, in her book that came out 1979, just called Kill Down. She referred to Rompatackie as the out of townner. But that's who he was and when we began work on the article in 2006, I was 16 years old as sophomore in high school. So my father being a veteran journalist said, I'm going to jump in on this a little bit, right? And I think there was a bit of naivety on my part being kind of small town eye or a teenager, like there wouldn't be any dangers or harms or threat here. That's just dive right in, right? So we were able to obtain rompotakis on listed phone number, having been given a tip on he's the out of towner. So that's who was interviewed quoted who's referred to in the Israel's book. and my article is the first to actually name them as wrong attack. So, well, you called them?

Speaker 4Yeah, I didn't feel comfortable having my 17-year-old or 16-year-old wrong attack. I just had to admit I might have, you know, murderous tendencies. So, I did the interview, we can talk about that a little bit, but there were other things that Sarah was able to get a hold of such as, Lee Israel had never gotten any interviews with the hairdressers who are very close personal friends of Dorothy's, by the way, a very credible people in Charleston, and so she was able to quote extensively from that new forensic evidence, I was able to actually get in contact with John Breish. been part of the New York City Medical Examiner's office, so it was updated on that. So Sarah's book, I should say her article in 2007, was really the Rosetta Stone of this case. And at that point, Dorothy was really a dead and forgotten person. And look at how things across the room, since that article, it's found these books by people who tried to

Speaker 4books that even get more outrageous by the, you know, the day. And but anyway, so Sarah was the one that premiered all these different things. And then ultimately when we saw these other books coming out that were full of mistakes and conjecture and things. She decided she would write her own book.

Speaker 0I'm not sure we've been talking about the time of the COVID pandemic. Yeah, and it was just going to be kind of adding to the article really, and then it turned into a book by 120 years ago. Yeah, but to go back around Bataki, so you just called him up and and I have interviewed over my career.

Speaker 4I've been in this paper and legacy and published And so I've been at this for a very long time. And my approach is to not only research the subject that I'm going to be interviewing, but also not take a confrontation with approach. And I think that distinguishes my style or let's say there's no denigration of your profession, but a lawyer in this case, an author, that's much more adversarial. So he was not going to illicit the kind of information, a confidential,

Speaker 0You know, well, how would you call someone say I know you killed her. I'm going to get you. Yeah, but please talk to me for my book and I do that.

Speaker 4I basically said that we were going to do a profile on Dorothy Gilgallon and he said, Oh, well, I knew her. I said, Well, that's why I'm calling.

Speaker 0And if I can just internet for one second Dorothy was born in Chicago. That was the Midwest connection. Her father Jim Kilgallon was a career journalist with the INS. international news service for about 70 years. So that was Michael that she was born in Chicago when he worked at the paper there.

Speaker 4Yes, and she got what she told what told she wasn't she really started her career too.

Speaker 0And teens, you know, she, she did not go to college. She went to a Rasmus high school. A lot of famous people Barbara Streisand was one I believe who went to that high school. just absolute nepotism getting that first job right in the newspaper business, but her roots were in Chicago, so that's how I pitched the idea of, I want to feature Dorothy, I want to know what happened to it. Let's probe this and start and Rompatackie was a huge part of that puzzle.

Speaker 3wrote real quick before we get into a round of tacky. I just want to just sort of for my listeners and and for my benefit to what we've talked about so far laying out the the circumstantial case against Kentucky and then we'll get into what you guys found additionally so the only circumstantial case is he's the guy who she was dating at the time, right?

Speaker 0We well, of course, according to Ron, it was a platonic relationship that this was just a friendship and People on her inner circle said it was definitely a romantic sexual relationship. He was 29. She was 51.

Speaker 4But there were things that were leaking from her private life that only he knew. Yes.

Speaker 3And do we know for sure that he flew from Columbus to New York that night? Like, where do you get that from?

Speaker 4No, and I don't think she mentioned that in the book.

Speaker 0No, it's certainly a hypothesis of how he could have. You know, he said that he was at his desk the next morning. So the morning of The eights really, you know, he's told multiple, there's multiple versions of that multiple stories that each conflict about how he found out about Dorothy's Yeah, he was her best friend, so wouldn't you think you'd remember And to piggyback off that if he was sitting at his desk the next morning at the paper and found out he had to been the first did not go over the wire until about three o'clock eastern time of her death and also being an entertainment reporter much like a sports writer the guys in the sports department come in about three or four five o'clock in the afternoon and work into the wee hours. So not at the desk at eight the next morning. So that didn't really wash that he was even there.

Speaker 4Also, Sarah, I can't put it myself, but in Sarah's book, she also has proof that he was in New York City like the next day, at least by the next day.

Speaker 1Covering.

Speaker 4Because I think he was covering some of these writing about it. Yeah. So he was definitely on Sunday and matter for the late evening he had an easy way of doing that. I even had a pilot friend now out deceased who said oh yeah I actually flew that route you know from Columbus he could easily have been there if she called him let's say before the show earlier in the evening he said well I'm gonna come there and I'm gonna I'm going to reassure you, that's what precipitated or change of her attire because she's going to meet him later, about the time to slow us over with, he's soon in New York.

Speaker 3The people who saw her at P.J. Clarks with the mystery man, presumably they're all dead and cannot identify. I mean, it was 20 30 years later, you know, 40 years, it would be too late to go try to find those people and say, hey, this mystery man was at this gap attack.

Speaker 0You know, the agency bar by that point.

Speaker 4Right, right. And other members of the cast would routinely go to the agency. Katherine Stone was one of the mystery guests on that podcast and Dorothy had guessed her profession. She was I think a selling dime selling dynamite. Dorothy was so alert that last night that she guessed the profession. And Katherine wanted to say something to her. So Katherine was invited to go along with everybody. in the limos to the after party at the Regency, and she kept a very close watch on Dorothy because she wanted to have an opportunity to go over there and congratulate her, you know, privately. But she noticed she was over in this corner having a very serious conversation with this man. They were sitting very close together.

Speaker 0And I think that's the missed opportunity because of course they could have been a picture of a tacky circulated to the staff. And then after, but he was never officially considered in the bar.

Speaker 4Yeah, that would have been a lot of things.

Speaker 0I said in my book, that would have been a wonderful opportunity to take rural map.

Speaker 4Sarah has a very detailed timeline of what we know irrefutably Dorothy was doing, including calling the Western Union office and pick up her column, which she had already written.

Speaker 0Yeah.

Speaker 4And she was still sober enough, I think it took her.

Speaker 0This, yeah, two, 30, and, and of course, her husband would tell the police she came home about 10. Yeah. The dust certificates Mary flawed.

Speaker 4Dick Colmar had been a radio star. He was also at the ethical person, producer, and Broadway and all that stuff. So her husband was into the entertainment field, but they had a very peculiar relationship. with their separate ways a lot of the time. He had his outside interest. She had hers. One of hers was Johnny Ray the singer, often on for a while, and then run protecting. But anyway, he told a conflicting story that she had come home and retired for the night. We know that's not true because there were witnesses seen her in that the bar.

Speaker 0Rage and see bar. I was in union.

Speaker 4So that was quick.

Speaker 3Okay, sorry to interrupt you that, that helps me understand. So, Pataki, what's the, what would you find out when you went down that road?

Speaker 4Well, the first interview, which was really the substance of one for the purpose of Sarah's article, he answered a lot of questions with conflicting statements and it was very obvious if you paid attention. You didn't even have to really concentrate on arcing his language. You'd say one thing one minute and three minutes later you'd say the complete opposite is very cordial in a very good conversationalist. And after the story came out he called in I tried to call any applauded Sarah's work. I was certain that he would, you know, be upset. He said, I think it was the most professional job anyone could have done. It was Baron Ballus to quote Fox News, because it presentable sides. She presented the evidence or the conjecture of what he had done. And then she allowed him, she gave him voice to refute that imprint. And I think that's what engendered respect on his part. for both of us, and then to my surprise, he started calling me out of the blue, and we shoot the bull, I shoot the breeze about the newspaper industry, or whatever.

Speaker 4And so I had developed that kind of affinity because we're both in the background of newspapers. The other thing I mentioned is that besides that, I'm also a music producer. As of 1999 into this day, I still produced music that involves overdubbing new music on iconic performances by big artists. using world-class musicians. And Ron was very interested in music. As a matter of fact, he was kind of a frustrated composer. He did manage to get some of his work recorded by the likes of Johnny Mathis and Jerry Vale and John Garry. So when we would talk, we would talk not only about common interest like newspapers, but also about music, and he pitched me songs. That's anything single parts of the songs and they're on the tapes, which by the way, Sarah's going to be posting excerpts of seeing some of these tapes were referring to on her website, which is Dorothy Kowgallon.net.

Speaker 0Okay, so yeah, it was just time today.

Speaker 4But anyway, I get a little bit more involved in this because over the years, then when Ron would call, we would shoot the breeze about all kinds of subjects. And then I say, by the way, what about such and such and bring it up in an informal sense, not in a cross-examination kind of thing? And by that point, he was disarmed enough, he would say things. In fact, what amazed me is I had actually mentioned him school of assassins in Panama. And just as an aside that completely freaked out Lee Israel, who had heard that Sarah had put that in her original article, and Sarah had not, and I got this irate phone call from Lee Israel one day saying, why are you quoting me as having said that in a run attend to the school in Panama for a sense? As I said, reread the article, Sarah did not She slammed on the receiver a little while later, she called back and apologized, that she was paranoid about any notion that she would imply that he attended that school.

Speaker 4Now with me, he first denied it, I'll read you, exactly what he said, and then I'll tell you what he actually said later. He said, I tell you if there was any truth to it, why not? Which by the way, there was no foundation for that. I did go to Guatemala. when in a small military thing, there was a communist uprising in Guatemala. I did go, but nothing to do with the assassins for God's sake or training. And then minutes later, moments later, he talked about all this training he had, and it turns out that the Guatemala trip, which was in 1954, was a paramilitary operation. He was not in the military. Like he told me, it was a paramilitary operation. lodged by Ellen Dulles of the CIA as sir reports, and run by E Howard Hunt and Frank Sturges. So that is the smoking gun that Sarah came forth with and rolled at Stanford University. Yeah, tell them about that. That's what we're interested.

Speaker 0Well, we have photography school transcripts that show. He was kind of an average student by called ambitious spokespanaged and had an interest in foreign service. And he got into a little trouble. It's Stanford. Big idea, you know, kind of juvenile stuff, and that was the summer of the Guatemalan pool. So him backing out of school, you know, definitely coincides with when he would have gone to Guatemalan.

Speaker 4Well, the New York Times had done a story in 1977 about the CIA's recruitment efforts on various campuses, And Stanford had to confess that they had no knowledge of what was really ongoing. They were unwittingly sponsoring a seven different fields of study that a attacking was there to partake up, including one, which was a survey of the ways in which criminals gave drugs to the unsuspecting. So I don't know, maybe I'm just being paranoid here, but I think that has some relevance.

Speaker 3What was, what was Patechis official job? What was he like a reporter?

Speaker 0Entertainment reports at the Columbus citizen journal.

Speaker 4So ultimately, he was not at the time he was written with the CIA. He was not. But it's useful for people to know, you know, when he told me this, I'll admit, it kind of went over my head. It was when Sarah started working on her book that I reviewed these tapes. And I thought, oh my gosh, he was just admitting he was involved with the CIA because when he talks about the Guatemala thing, that was paramilitary. And as I said, it was run by the CIA. and then we started putting two and two together. So he obviously had a connection. But there were other little clues he had run a, he'd done a column in 1965. He was an entertainment reporter by that point. And he'd paned a movie called John Golphar, please call home. And he was upset not about the fact that they were treated football coach and an unflattering way like other reviewers were upset by. He was defending the CIA. He felt that moving mispartrained the CIA.

Speaker 4So I could go through and, you know, Sarah could list all these different little clues and he takes the virus. I'm going to say this hard for the CIA.

Speaker 0Yes. Anything else he's searching for?

Speaker 4Well, I mean, yes. On another conversation, we brought up, well, first of all, no, I didn't even know I think about the Guatemalty. I thought it was very interesting that he brought that up. But anyway, another occasion, he said, in regard to the school of assassins, I always denied what I really was there. So that was, you know, when you got leave in a little more comfortable.

Speaker 3He told you, I always denied it, but I really, I really, really was there.

Speaker 4What I'm going to go, yeah. Absolutely. When I questioned him more about his Guatemalty trip, by the way, and this is a direct quote, he said, Well, I don't get into that story, but I will tell you enough. I always send the military then, and they send detachment of us down there because of this communist uprising, they sent many, not just me, I said, what did you do? And he said, what are we going to tell the counties to lay off you bastards? And so, officially the US had no troops there. I don't know how many people know much about. got them all at that time at the United Fruit Company, who was an American-based company that had bananas and silver, they had vast land moldings there, and the Preston Democratic-elected Preston Arbens wanted to reclaim some of that band, land, only 15% of which was in cultivation. And so he paid the United Fruit Company double what they paid for the land to reclaim just a small portion of it to better the lives of his people, you know, education and being able to sustain themselves economically and so but well, but the United Fruit Company didn't like that and they had a sympathetic ear and Colin Dallas who was an investor.

Speaker 4And John Foster Delas, who was an investor, I think, on the board, and Dwight Eisenhower's personal secretary who had an investment in the company. And our husband was a PR rep for the inedit for a company. So these guys, conned the president, president Eisenhower, into believing that our bans was a communist and needed to be to close. So there began that summer of 54 this big effort a succeed in housing, the, the, our bends, and it was really horrible what they did to that country. Among other things, they were kidnapping people out the street and put in them in veins, mutilating their bodies in some cases and dumping them from helicopters and front of stadium, build audiences at sporting events to terrorize the population. And they even had at one point to Sarah reports in her book loudspeakers with a tape running that made it sound like there were aircraft enemy aircraft, you know, getting ready to bomb and so forth.

Speaker 4and so terrified everybody including the military that it was easy for them to just take over the country. And that precipitated the tragic circumstances of Latin America that even prevailed into the state. So I recently mentioned all this is this fits in with, you know, ask yourself why a run have even gone to the Panama School of Assessance. They didn't teach you how to bake bread there. He was taught skills there. Where was he going to use those skills? And when he came back from this excursion, he didn't intergeneralize him right away, although that was a key interest. He became an ambulance attendant as soon as he discovered. Nobody else has got this information. It's only insurgency. So that's kind of a thing like, you know, we could speculate, you had a change of heart started working with, you know, an ambulance crew? It's very hot. And what about her book, is that?

Speaker 3Yeah, and Pataki's behavior after her death. Like you said there's a few other little things he did that were kind of, um, uh, I don't know, shady for lack of better term. Sus, as the kids might say these days, uh, what can you tell me any, any other things?

Speaker 0So yeah, I mean, for look at writer, putting a lot of the stuff just on website, publicly available. So yes, about poisoning and then, of course, they want about a reporter. I'm going to open the station and tell lies when, you know, zipper tight and yeah, you had to say describe. Yeah, it's very.

Speaker 4Yeah, do you have those handy in the book? Oh, and so actually unbelievable. They are so. autobiographical.

Speaker 0And then. What happened to Dorothy later in life went to the jury. All along school. Yeah.

Speaker 4Yeah.

Speaker 0You kind of found God and you know, we came for you.

Speaker 4But the spiking of a drink was the clearest clue. Yeah. Because the administration of that drug, the the drink that Dorothy liked was such that it would very easily conceal anything that would be added to that beverage.

Speaker 0Yes, I have the the spiking poem. Okay. Did you want me? Okay. It's called vodka roulette, seen as relief possibility. Well, I'm spilling my guts. She is driving me nuts. Please fit just two drinks on the run. Just skip all the noise and make one of them poison and don't even tell me which one. So... The same type one. Yes, I'm still seeing what page that one's on. But yeah, I mean, these look like kind of subliminal.

Speaker 4He also right after Dorothy died in his own column, keep in mind this is in the Columbus newspaper, which was owned by a different newspaper chain. Yes, it's not nationally syndicated.

Speaker 0No, and we didn't realize that first, but as I was going through on the newspaper archives looking for Dorothy's work, I could not find Ron outside of Ohio. And again, coming back to my work as a newspaper reporter where we're all on a shoe string budget. How was he being flown to Hollywood in New York City? You know, he and Dorothy had met the summer before in Europe on the Santa music press junkyard. Where is the budget for this? It's just mind blowing to me.

Speaker 4If his newspaper wanted to cover Hollywood, they would just run the stuff from the whole of the wire.

Speaker 0Yeah.

Speaker 4That came from their own.

Speaker 0Who was?

Speaker 4Why would he be set to, you know,

Speaker 3Yeah, even the main paper in Columbus Columbus dispatch is sort of like the even back then was the biggest one. So it's sort of the be paper, but yet they're flying more or even more a question.

Speaker 4Well, Ron also had spent in circles into this as well. She was quite a profile of his early life and is my gosh, he had Charms and she has pictures in her book of him with all these different stars. Me, if Pharaoh was. He dated Alexis Smith. Yeah, uh... but uh... he any perfect in circles like we were talking one time about uh... the law prints pat law for the county pecendi law for it and i said why in the world was pecendi law for going to the county of a large you know which was a stronghold for the mob the same time uh... her brothers uh... the jfk and the attorney general were prosecuting the mob i mean and he said i know i was all part of Now the friend of his was Joseph Levine. And Joseph Levine, he said, held a big celebration because Ron had written some music for a musical score for one of his films. So this was just a typical for, I hate to say it, but a lowly reporter in a entertainment reporter who was not read outside of his own home territory.

Speaker 3The poem you're talking about, where was that published?

Speaker 0Well, I think he published a lot of it.

Speaker 3Yeah, he did a lot of stuff on his phone.

Speaker 4I love that stuff was written right after and I started to say, in one of his own columns, he wrote a very bitter column, also about the people at New York and so forth. And it could be interpreted as an attack on Dorothy. Right after that, that was immediately about us. That was all very, very strange. Interesting. He had a volatile temper. We didn't, we didn't have to go to that. It had some alcohol was a problem with him fighting fighting in a, it's unbelievable. The scrapes he got into, not just in college. I'm talking about as a adult. And he lost a lot of relationships that way with women who just were fed up. Anna Maria Elbergetti, didn't you?

Speaker 0Yeah, I was the first thing.

Speaker 4I was saying, you know, he did. It's a very classy woman. They got her at home. But there was a reason why was he targeting Dorothy Kilgellan and older woman, not a beauty queen exactly. And yet he said that they were the best of friends. They talked on the phone all the time. She would call him and say, this is your New York Secretary Susie Creme Cheese. She also sent him letters referring to their little, what was the thing about in the room at the Regency Hotel.

Speaker 0So I mean, they had a very, you know, but I think he was the perfect person to recruit. You know, he had a relationship with Johnny Ray, much younger, he's much younger. I think them both being journalists wouldn't have had a lot to connect over. And then he was the perfect recruit to keep going.

Speaker 4He was the gateway into being her sounding board as she was researching the Kennedy file. Even that's the most important thing we've said on this interview that he was hearing regularly daily from her. So he was in a position to know what progress she made on her investigation and it would have been voluminous.

Speaker 0And I feel like even maybe bragging a little bit about his involvement, saying, well, yeah, she'd read this to me, get my view, do I change it, do you like it?

Speaker 4She said, he said, one time she called, I'm having trouble with the lead. And let me, let me read you what I've got. And what do you think of this? So he was helping her right, whatever being a book that she helped her published.

Speaker 3Interesting, yeah, and the parts about him being an entertainment reporter for like the B newspaper and Columbus, and then going all over the place even though he's not syndicated and they could have just ran the syndical right.

Speaker 4And just to amplify that point, I know for a fact from some of my own writing, I've done other books and so forth, that the CIA was recruiting people in the media. This is well known. He continued that tradition, the fontan, you know, Catherine the Great, also was helping the CIA, also the guy that was, you know, the looms and the looms. Life magazine, all that they were had CIA connections. There were reporters whose income was supplemented by the CIA. This came out later. you know the many and so forth all these investigations and of course there were intelligence reforms because of the abuses and James Angleton and so forth. So Senate and a panelist have investigated a lot of this stuff. Yeah, I think it was a big thing in the New York Times.

Speaker 3Claire Booth, Loose, I believe her name was, I recall reading and gaiting Fondes book, gaiting Fondes of the HSA investigator that when he was down in Florida Keys researching some things, Claire Booth, Loose reached out to him and gave him an urgently he needed to pursue and he spent on this time going after it and it was just the sheet she had fabricated it. He learned that she got a hold of him just to try to burn his time. So that was the related point.

Speaker 4Sarah will tell you it's in her book that when Ron Tattaki met Dorothy on this press junk overseas, when he walked up to her, he asked, We found that's great. If you got a square, but if Lucie was a considerably older, we'll see thinking he was flattering the Dorothy by asking that question. You know, it's typical, you know, in any of you like this to really dissect and cover all the details. Oh my god, this book, at least a third of it is JFK JFK and the things that Dorothy was in coverage. Both things had validated her suspicions after she was gone. So it's very detailed. Everything from the two caskets and one revelation that blew my mind. And I've studied JFK for years was the fact that on the day of the assassination, The press was told that there was a secret service agent also killed and has reported on all the big media and the local media, she also looked at the radio and TV broadcast from the Dallas metro area in this country.

Speaker 4They confirmed a secret service agent that would be. been killed. It was in the newspapers that night. And Marilyn Smith actually won a Pulitzer Prize. He was a U.P.I. reporter, first coverage of the Dallas thing. And he reported that a secret service agency was killed. Now, then it just evaporatives never mentioned again. And several rounds of very logical argument that's not unlike some of the things that Doug Ford, I saw your interview with Doug Ford. This genius guy really. And I think Doug is coming around to the way Sarah thinks about it that the switch of the cask it's occurred at the Parkland Hospital, it ever got to the plate and the reason for this cover story about a second. And for the death of a secret service agent would be in case anybody saw the shipping casket being put aboard a plane, they would think anything ever that they'd go on.

Speaker 0Especially a basic one.

Speaker 4Yeah, a secret service agent, but how she explains all that what's all these pieces of that.

Speaker 0Yeah, and Dorothy didn't necessarily report on that, but it was important to kind of show what was happening in real time and it seems revolving. One thing I didn't want you to forget mentioning is one time you just flat out asked, well, Pataki, what And I think what you said is support from the thesis.

Speaker 4Yeah, he was always directing my attention away from the mom. So one author is just convinced. And my child had this girl called, you know, there may have been something to it. But Dorothy had aroused the tip of the jager Hoover and other highly placed people. They had written and flattering things about her that are in happy I'm almost. And I think that, they had a role in it. We all obviously all know, I think you agree with this, that the assassination could not have been carried out without some high level involvement by government. People, I think Yelding J would be involved in that loop. But so, Ron, every time we ever talked about this over the years, you always redirected my attention away from the mob and said, and I thought I had the quote here, but I don't think I printed out what our paraphrase. Well, if she was killed, it was the government that did it.

Speaker 0And there's some what nasty people.

Speaker 4Oh, yes, yes, yes, I'd like to you mention, yeah, he said, you know, we got some very nasty people in the government.

Speaker 3So he wanted to work. Does he did he say that he was there? Did he deny being there that night? Oh, absolutely.

Speaker 4Yeah, yeah, but the stories he told about, you know, The time I, he told various stories to various people about where he wasn't how he found out and we can confirm Sarah's big revelation also is he was definitely in New York City at least by the next day, possibly a very day she was killed because he wrote something that was from that from New York. That paper that they ever said never told me that right.

Speaker 3So that that is pretty strong and it's also like, If he did kill her, what are we talking about here? We're not talking about hitting her over the head with something.

Speaker 0No, it's spicy food.

Speaker 4Mikey in a drink, and she liked, wasn't it, wasn't it? Baka, vodka, and tonic, tonic, it's a little bit bitter. You see, there's some old movies. I mean, there's spike in a drink of the pudding. Somebody's drink that has tonic water in it. That's a little bit of bitter taste. Yeah, sure it takes through the timeline. And a couple of occasions, because I wrote a book called The Real Mail, let me wrote 760 pages, you see, and very interesting actually.

Speaker 0You know, Merlin, Dorothy, I just hope that a little bit.

Speaker 4I should hold it up. There's a big overlap between Dorothy and the... Yeah, I think you recall from my book.

Speaker 0We were originally going to do one book about both women. And then, that over here has salty way when whale overboard on research. So they split into two projects. But, but yes, I think people would even see that there's some parallels in Maryland or these stuff. But Maryland is labeled the suicide.

Speaker 4Right. And what it's kind of interesting is that it was really Dorothy's reporting about Maryland, the triggered on a Friday triggered her Bobby Kennedy visit to her home and that absolutely did happen. I take it all the way through. Sir, we're actually applauded my work. You know who he was. Oh, the Godfather of Therence of Pathology. He praised my work and he reviewed my work for a And so he actually, you know, believed that. But Dorothy was suspicious of the Maryland. And just like in the JFK case, she was unreal empty and she never gave up. And of course, a Maryland died in August of 62. And she just would not let up on their Maryland case. She was pointed at all these things, and, you know, and just brazenly challenging the official story.

Speaker 0So another good opportunity of that. You know, high profile depth of questioning, you know.

Speaker 4So people do, she was not going to let if she was on your tail. Yeah, I can let up.

Speaker 3Um, let there you go. alluded to that you've done, you know, a lot of other research here on the case. So one thing I want to ask you about specifically, you, you once interviewed David Bellon and then the glory to tell about it, that's how the whole story about the whole story about. Go ahead. No, I got David Bellon on the Council for the War and Commission.

Speaker 4Yes.

Speaker 0Biden, Iowa, though. Where were from?

Speaker 4Yes. I decided because of my long-time interest that it would be good in the premier issued, Midwestern and published in 1992, to do a story on the Midwest connections to the JFK case. And there were some, for example, Jack Ruby, Chicago connections and so on. And so I got into this. I realized that David Bellon was right there in Detroit, practicing attorney. I kept seeing him turn up on TV all the time. Sick of seeing him, and I'll, because I knew he was stating things that were not factual. They were not a matter of opinion. They were just blatantly false. I didn't take that tact with him, however, when I asked for an interview. And he agreed to invite me to his office in a high rise into why not take my tape recorder as usual. And I put it democratically in this 11-page think piece that a big extensive article that I ran. And I picked him apart. I let him state what he wanted to state and if I picked him apart in it.

Speaker 4I will just before I forget to tell you, I do want to tell you that after the tape recorder was shut off and he was eskering me to the elevator, I have expected the elevator doors to open that it would be no elevator. I'd be plunging to maybe not. But that didn't happen, but he said to me something that's very significant. He said, someday, I'm going to tell the world who I think put Oswald up to it. And he died without ever telling anybody that I know. Now he's wondering, did he mean Ruth Pee, you know, I mean, who did he mean? I don't know. But even he thought somebody else had motivated Oswald to take that action. I always found that interesting because when that implied there was a good sparse, right, somebody motivated it, but anyway, what happened to us, we're getting ready to go to press with this story. This is in the days before the internet. So there's no way anybody could hack an email or gain access to my computer unless they were physically present in my home.

Speaker 4And of course, I didn't spend 24-7 in my home. I might be going to the But the magazine went to press with this story. It was all materials were taken to the printer, laid it night on a Friday night. And the magazine went on press post midnight. It was a very long night. My wife, Julie, was with me. They had high security there. Anyway, I mean, you couldn't get from one point to another at this printing plant. And when I got home, very blurry eye checked the mail and here was a letter postmarked the day before David Billin, which he berated me took issue with some of my assertions in my story and quoted me from my article and the first question that naturally occurred to me was, how the hell did he get this article? I don't even know what I wrote, I didn't show that with anybody, nobody knew that article. The only thing I could do is that somehow somebody gained access to my home and made a copy of it or printed out.

Speaker 4I probably might have left it on the computer. There's no way for him to get that hard. Now, I'm not sure if I want to tell the rest of the story.

Speaker 0Please do. I really do.

Speaker 4But listen, I may need some pro bono legal advice from you as a lawyer. I still don't know what to do.

Speaker 0Well, I'm sure that you're being at death thing.

Speaker 4Yeah, I can say that I didn't have a lot of confidence in my long-term survival after the interview this guy.

Speaker 5Yeah.

Speaker 4I guess I can tell the story, and I'm not really accusing him. I'm just telling the circumstances, okay? So I'm not accusing David Bellino, I think, but I just found the circumstances on. Sometimes, not long after the article appeared in the magazine, which he was embarrassed, basically, in public print, there was an item in the Des Moines paper about a Larry Jordan who was struck and killed by a hit and run driver near my home near my home. My mother happened to be visiting and she noticed this article called it to my attention. She had worked at the post-oppers and it said this Larry Jordan was a member of the, was a postal carrier and the public, the police were appealing to the public for any witnesses that could have seen this happen. I could have found that, you know, mildly interesting. Then a few months later my wife and I attended a political fundraiser at a And among the attendees was David Bellon.

Speaker 4She had met, met through her brother, who was a highly placed lobbyist in Iowa. So she went up my wife went up to David Bellon. His back was to me. She introduced herself, said hello to her to him. And she said, by the way, Mr. Bellon, I think you know my husband Larry. And he turned around and looked at me. And I've never seen anybody look so shy. open, he turned pale as a ghost. It's like he'd seen a ghost and he lently shook my hand, turned around and walked on. And I had the distinct impression that the wrong man was killed. And I felt a little bit worse. Maybe the reason why is because at that time, my sister-law was And add a camera, maybe that protected me family associations.

Speaker 0Yeah.

Speaker 4Now that's just my paranoid delusions, I grant you, but I did find a little bit odd because this guy was very belligerent about his belief or his desire to perpetuate the method to loan a assassin. I also got a call on time, we'll go into it today from Ireland's specter out of the blue, call me, I found that a little bit odd. You know, why does Arnold Spectre called me? I was actually on another line. I said Senator May I ask you to please call me back in 15 minutes And he did we had a conversation and then I met him one time he came up to me I had a public place when I was with a singer, friend of mine. So there were a bunch of little weird things that were going on there. But the David Bellon thing, how he got a woman, that I stand by, absolutely stand by. He wrote a letter that he could not have written, unless he perused my article, which was not yet publicly available in print.

Speaker 3That reminds me of John Newman, he guys don't John Newman, the author, military intelligence guy. He shared with me the story of how his his cell phone was taken from him during a conference. And then some guy came up and whispered to him like they just want to know what you know they're going to bring it back to you. and then he later found that it got up into the same hotel where the conference was like to the 10th floor and then came back down and they gave it to him. So anyway yeah that's kind of scary.

Speaker 4I luckily have not had anything strange but the reaction of the physical reaction of that I mean, his eyes just bugged out. I will never forget his face. When he bugged at me, his jaw drops open, and he was literally in Julie, noticed it too, by the way. You know, wow. I think he felt like he was a wrong personless here.

Speaker 3Yeah, let's just wrap up back to Dorothy Kilgallon, so it sounds like you guys think to probably run Patakis the most likely nothing certain of course, but but it sounds like that's probably the most likely scenario and then there's this CIA link with Bataki going back to Guatemala, a PBS, you know, which is the same, the same covert operation led by E Howard Hunt and David Atley Phillips. It's all the same people who are down out of J.M. Wave.

Speaker 4I compliment you for knowing the name. I didn't mention the

Speaker 3Well, thank you, sir. Well, then thank you for all of your work on the case. I'm a rookie ultimately. I'm putting a lot of time in it to it now. I'll put it in about 25 hours a week on it these days, but you know, I get a lot of time to catch up on some of the folks that've been doing this that are whole lives for sure. So I guess, Sarah, you're both of your books are available on Amazon and I take it. Is there a preferred place for people to buy them?

Speaker 0And then Amazon paperback ebook is also an audible and then page turn books dot this you can see kind of our whole catalog of that's also written on Jim Reigns the country singer. That's where it all began for your books the Maryland.

Speaker 4You get a lot of great pop people. Yeah, it's amazing how many people. She's really quite the celebrity want to. autographed with their name and sometimes they dictate the dedication of my very best friend, Joe.

Speaker 0Yes, I just want to always make sure whatever I'm committing myself to is not illegal, but yes, basically.

Speaker 4I will show you one more thing. I figured that there are a lot of people that don't want to wield a 760 page book. And Marilyn, although it's very comprehensive, very, very, it's a lot of things about her death that I dug deep in a way that I promised you to know other authors to that I actually concentrated on just the final days of furlie, the final in Europe or life, and it has a lot of the same things about our death, but I was able to cruise, for example, Bobby Kennedy's desk diaries, and I looked at a lot of press coverage that nobody else has paid attention to because millions of newspaper pages have been digitized in recent years, and so you can go back and search. I searched By the way, Sarah used that same methodology in digging up a lot of things that had previously never been available, but then now they're at our fingertips. So a lot of that was all combined on both of these works.

Speaker 3Yeah. Great. Well, hey, it's a pleasure to have you guys on today. Certainly, I learned a lot. And, you know, I guess the takeaway is, our takeaway is don't sell Dorothy's shirt.

Speaker 4Don't sell it. Sure, and there's almost a professional and her contribution to history was significant. And clearly.

Speaker 3Yeah, I mean, if you had to come, I mean, is there anybody today who's even close to a Dorothy Kilgallon type figure? I mean, first of all, it would be impossible today because everything's so fragmented and the TV was such a huge deal. Her newspaper syndication was such a huge deal and she was authentically pursuing objective truth as opposed to some corporate, you know, goal. Right exactly.

Speaker 0Yeah. I mean, you always think of like a Barbara Walters type, but, you know, Dorothy was also kind of a fashion icon. She was at fashion show style. The radio show has been breakfast with Dorothy and Dick's, they had millions of followers on that, what's my line, the her syndicate, not just column, but byline news articles. You know, a column can be a little more first person conversational and news article is, you know, the hard news.

Speaker 4You know, when she went to New Orleans, Dallas, Miami, that's the nexus of the whole anti-castro Cuban effort. So that's why she picked those cities. that remember she was on that Larry King radio show just days before she died out of Miami.

Speaker 3You guys definitely check out Larry and Sarah's books and you know if you want more on Dorothy Kilgallon, it sounds like there's a ton there and I personally and I'm looking forward into to revisiting it and diving into it more. I got your book. around the time when he came out and uh but uh i want to go back and reread the whole thing again so uh very very cool Larry off check out yours. Well you worked on it. Thank you. Marilyn Monroe, that's a great. JFK, solving JFK listeners, viewers, we will be back next week with a recap and rebuttals episode on the mafia with Lou Ferante and then we'll be back the following week with a recap and rebuttals episode on Jack Ruby, which obviously this whole conversation tied into. So yeah, thanks a lot guys, I appreciate having you on Fox soon.