2 Ibid.
3 Ibid.
Furthermore, Grant Stockdale’s own daughter, Ann Stockdale, provided us with this amazing information concerning her father’s murder. Get a load of this little gem:
One thing I do know is that Kennedy asked Daddy to go to the Air Force Base south of Miami to see if (against Kennedy’s orders) bombs were being loaded on the planes. Bombs WERE being loaded on the planes!! I believe one of the reasons Daddy was killed was because he knew that the Government was being run by the Military Complex.
The Military Complex didn’t want the American people to realize (and still don’t) that they were calling the shots. Daddy knew he was being followed . . . and he told Mom that THEY were going to get him . . . and THEY did. There was an attempt on my life also several days after Daddy’s funeral. I realize now that this was a scare tactic to silence my mother . . . i.e., if you speak about anything, your kids are DEAD. It worked!!1
Conclusions Based On Evidentiary Indications
The simple facts that the victim was clearly:
• An intimate friend of JFK;
• A man with a reputation as a tough businessman;
• Known to be very well-connected in Washington, privy to high-level information and very capable of “connecting the dots”;
• Was involved in two major scandals that were brewing that had seriously threatened the entire political career of the new President, Lyndon Johnson;
• Left no suicide note or any other indications that he was facing the end;
• Confided to friends and his attorney, on the day before his death, that people were “trying to get him” and that it was linked to the assassination:
Make it advisable to include his death in the category of “Highly Suspicious.”
Conclusion
Probable Murder; directly linked to the JFK assassination
1 “Message from Ann Stockdale received June 16, 2004,” Emphasis in original, in: Adele Edison, “E. Grant Stockdale,” 14 June 2004, The Education Forum: http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=943
Victim
Jim Koethe, Newspaper Reporter
Bill Hunter, Newspaper Reporter
Cause of Death
Koethe: Karate chop to neck
Hunter: Shot by a policeman
Official Verdict
Koethe: Victim surprised a burglar and burglar killed victim.
Hunter: Accidental Shooting
Actual Circumstances
Koethe: One of the things the burglar took was all of Koethe’s notes on the JFK assassination for his planned book.
Hunter: In a bizarre event, a policeman was reportedly playing around at “quick-drawing” his weapon from its holster and, pointing a loaded gun at Hunter, it accidentally went off, killing him.
8–9
Jim Koethe,
September 21, 1964
Bill Hunter,
April 23, 1964
Karyn Kupcinet wasn’t the only JFK witness victim to die of a broken neck. Reporter Jim Koethe was killed by a karate chop to the neck as he was emerging from the shower in his bathroom—the striking similarities to the death of Karyn described in the preceding chapter are quite obvious.
Jim Koethe was a young reporter for the Dallas Times Herald who was actively investigating the assassination of President Kennedy and, reportedly, was in the process of writing a book about it. In an occurrence that continued repeating well beyond the odds of probability, Jim’s notes on the assassination for his planned book were never found.
Robbery appeared to be the motive, although Koethe’s parents believe he was killed for other reasons. Whoever ransacked his apartment, they point out, was careful to remove his notes for a book he was preparing, in collaboration with two other journalists, on the Kennedy assassination.1
Jim was one of the few reporters who gained access to Jack Ruby’s apartment on the night of the same day that Ruby shot Oswald. Another reporter present in Ruby’s apartment that night was Bill Hunter. Both would soon be killed.
Another reporter who was there that night, Bill Hunter, was later to be shot to death in a California police station. His death was ruled to be accidental, the result of a police officer who was just horsing around pointing a loaded gun at him and pulling the trigger.2
Bill Hunter had also been a newspaper reporter. He worked for the Long Beach Independent Press Telegram, and was also covering the assassination story. Bill had come out to Dallas to work the story and met up with Jim Koethe, an old friend with whom he had worked before. It is not known if the two discovered anything noteworthy in Jack Ruby’s Dallas apartment—and the police had already been there earlier that day. But it is, at the very least, a bizarre coincidence that both were reporters, both were working on the assassination story, both were examining the story of Jack Ruby shooting Oswald, both were in Ruby’s apartment on the night of the same day that he murdered Oswald, and both were soon thereafter themselves murdered.
Bill Hunter was accidentally shot by a policeman; right in a California police station. The police officer stated that he had been horsing around, playing “quick-draw” with another officer, when his gun inadvertently went off, killing Hunter. Both officers involved in the incident were sentenced to three years probation.
Here’s how author, Bill Sloan, described the bizarre event:
“At approximately 2:00 a.m., on the morning of April 23, 1964, Hunter was sitting at his desk in the press room of the Long Beach police station and reading a mystery novel entitled Stop This Man, when two detectives—both of whom were later described as ‘friends’ of Hunter—came into the room.“
1 David Welsh, “In the Shadow of Dallas: The Legacy of Penn Jones, Jr.,” Ramparts Magazine, November 1966, pp 39-50: http://www.unz.org/Pub/Ramparts-1966nov-00039
2 Gary Richard Schoener, “A Legacy of Fear,” May, 2000, Fair Play Magazine.
Initially, there was considerable confusion over exactly what happened next. One officer was first quoted as saying he dropped his gun, causing it to discharge as it struck the floor. Later, he changed his story to say that he and the other detective were engaged in ‘horseplay’ with their loaded weapons when the tragedy occurred.
Whatever the case, a single shot suddenly rang out, striking Hunter where he sat. An autopsy later showed that the .38 caliber bullet plowed straight through Hunter’s heart.
He died instantly, without ever moving or saying a word.”1
Some wondered whether that story might get changed too.
“My boss called me at 2:00 a.m., and told me Bill Hunter had been shot,” Bill Shelton recalls. “He wasn’t satisfied with the story that the cop had dropped his gun, and as it turned out, that wasn’t what happened at all.”
The newspaper charged police with covering up the facts in the case, which Long Beach Police Chief William Mooney vigorously denied.2
But the city editor at the Long Beach newspaper Hunter worked at stated that he was “still not satisfied” with the official verdict. When asked if he thought there was a connection between Hunter’s death and the JFK assassination, he declined to comment, adding the cryptic comment, “But I’d believe anything.”3
One can call it coincidence if one so chooses. But, as we covered mathematically in the Introduction, there comes a point where coincidence occurs so frequently that it actually becomes numerically prohibitive.
The brother of that same City Editor who said “But I’d believe anything,” was one of many Dallas news reporters who had covered the assassination and then left the news profession. Of those many reporters, one who had been asked to resign, characterized it this way:
It looks like a studied effort to remove all the knowledgeable newsmen who covered the assassination.4
So both Hunter and Koethe had been at Jack Ruby’s Dallas apartment the same day that Ruby had shot Oswald. They were there with George Senator, Ruby’s roommate, who blatantly perjured himself in testimony to the Warren Commission, stat
ing that he had no memory of the event. Ruby’s attorney, Tom Howard, was the other person at Ruby’s apartment. In fact, it was Tom Howard who put forward the preposterous story for why
1 Bill Sloan, Breaking the Silence (Taylor Publishing: 1993)
2 Ibid.
3 Welsh, “In the Shadow of Dallas”
4 Ibid.
Ruby had shot Oswald: Because he “couldn’t bear the idea of the President’s widow being subjected to testifying at the trial of Oswald.”1
On November 24, 1963, Bill Hunter and Jim Koethe interviewed George Senator. Also, there was the attorney Tom Howard. Earlier that day, Senator and Howard had both visited Jack Ruby in jail. That evening Senator arranged for Koethe, Hunter and Howard to search Ruby’s apartment.2
It would seem something of importance must have transpired at Jack Ruby’s apartment that evening, because strange events immediately followed:
• George Senator lied about the meeting having ever taken place;
• Koethe was karate-chopped to death and his JFK notes disappeared;
• Hunter was shot because a cop played around and pointed a loaded gun at him, which cops know they’re not supposed to do;
• Tom Howard, the fourth and last person who was at Ruby’s apartment that night, also died, he of a heart attack on March 27, 1965 at the age of 48.
As JFK researcher Tom Scully thoughtfully observed:
Too many who approached Jack Ruby’s role in an inquisitive way. . . . Kupcinet, through his daughter, Karyn, Kilgallen, and the 11/24/63 “guests” of George Senator at Jack Ruby’s apartment, Hunter, Koethe and Howard . . . met a soon and untimely death.3
1 John Simkin, “Tom Howard: Biography,” Spartacus Educational, accessed 18 Nov. 2012: www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKhowardT.htm
2 Ibid.
3 Tom Scully, “Deaths of Witnesses,’ 3 Jan 2009, The Education Forum: http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=603&st=105
Victim
Dorothy Kilgallen, Nationally Syndicated Columnist
Cause of Death
High level of barbiturates, combined with alcohol
Official Verdict
Suicide or Accidental Overdose
Actual Circumstances
Dorothy had told friends that she had obtained information regarding the JFK assassination that would “bust this case wide open,” and had vowed that she would “crack this case.” She was the only reporter who had a private interview with Jack Ruby after he shot Oswald, and after that interview
told friends that she was “about to blow the JFK case sky high.”232 She implied she was saving important information garnered from that interview and from her investigation to include in a book that she was working on, which she felt certain would be a blockbuster, entitled Murder One. She was aware of the untimely and suspicious deaths of reporters Bill Hunter and Jim Koethe, and she gave a backup copy of her JFK chapter to her close friend, the journalist Florence Pritchett Smith.233 The death scene was obviously staged (the details follow) and Dorothy’s book notes disappeared. Florence Pritchett Smith died the next day, and the backup notes which Dorothy had given her friend were never located either.
Inconsistencies
Dramatic, in both number and content, primarily related to crime scene staging (see text below).
10
•
Dorothy Kilgallen,
November 8, 1965
Whoever staged the crime scene at Dorothy Kilgallen’s home made a lot of mistakes. . . .
But we’ll get to that in a moment.
Dorothy Kilgallen was a very famous news reporter whose “gossip” column was read by millions of people on almost a daily basis. She was so famous, in fact, that she herself had become a Hollywood-type celebrity, appearing as a regular guest on the extremely popular TV show, What’s My Line?
But what made her famous as far as the JFK assassination was a far different matter. It was the fact that she had been trusted with highly confidential information by Jack Ruby, the man who had forever silenced President Kennedy’s assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald.
Dorothy was, in fact, the only reporter allowed an exclusive private interview with Jack Ruby at the Dallas jail, apparently at Ruby’s request. What transpired during that interview is still unknown, due to Dorothy’s quite premature death. However, right after that interview had taken place, Dorothy promised that she would break the JFK case wide open and that her new upcoming book would include information of a startling nature. Her information, apparently in reference to one of her upcoming columns that may have contained an important excerpt from her book, was specific and her exact words to a friend were:
“In five more days I’m going to bust this case wide open.”
That was the scenario immediately prior to her untimely death.
232 Carl Oglesby, The Yankee and Cowboy War: Conspiracies from Dallas to Watergate (Andrews McMeel: 1976).
233 John Simkin, “Dorothy Kilgallen: Biography,” accessed 15 Nov 2012: http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKkilgallen.htm
Overview
Dorothy Kilgallen
One of the most popular newspaper columnists in the country who had been using her column to attack the gaping holes in the “official version” of the JFK assassination and the obvious cover-up taking place, which she urged her readers to question.
• Found dead on the third floor of her posh 5-story Manhattan apartment home, just off Park Avenue.
• The Medical Examiner determined that she died from “acute ethanol and barbiturate intoxication” and also noted “circumstances undetermined.”1
• Linked directly to the JFK assassination by:
• She openly attacked the cover-up and whitewash in her very prominent newspaper column.
• She was the only reporter who was granted a private interview with Jack Ruby after he murdered Oswald. She took many notes but had not yet publicly divulged their contents.
• Dorothy was apparently saving all her info on the JFK assassination for her upcoming book, Murder One, which she was sure would be a blockbuster (it probably would have been) and would blow the lid off the cover-up surrounding the assassination (a version of that book not containing her JFK material was later published posthumously). Therefore, it was known that Dorothy had extensive notes, from her research as well as her private interview with Jack Ruby. In fact, it was known to some of her friends that she typically carried those notes around on her person because that’s how important they were to her. Yet the search of her apartment after her death yielded no notes, no material on JFK for her upcoming book.
• It was rumored that Dorothy’s friend of many years, fellow journalist Flo Pritchett, had a torrid affair with Jack Kennedy, both before and after he became President. Friends reported that their romance lasted many years and was one of only two such affairs of the President that were serious and long-lasting (the other was Mary Meyer). Dorothy reportedly gave a “backup copy” of her notes on the JFK case to Flo Pritchett (who died of leukemia—on November 9, 1965,2 one day after Dorothy’s death)—and the JFK material was not located at her Manhattan apartment either.
1 Cassie Parnau, “Archive/Medical Reports,” The Kilgallen Files, accessed 16 Nov 2012: http://kilgallenfiles.wordpress.com/category/official-reports/medical-reports/
2 “Obituary: Mrs. Earl E.T. Smith,” November 9, 1965, New York Journal American.
First, let’s talk a little bit about the fascinating Dorothy Kilgallen’s life, not death. She became one of the most revered reporters in the country. Her column was read by most people in Hollywood, most people in government, and most people in general.
Her information pipeline was incredible—she seemed to know everything about everybody—and her style was gossipy and bold, which made her column utterly fascinating and required reading for millions of Americans. Probably more than any other reporter at the time, she had her finger right on the pulse of what the public wanted to find out about. She was the
only reporter who broke a story about the hot romantic affair between Marilyn Monroe and a Kennedy. The next day, Marilyn was murdered . . . well, suicide, officially . . . and Dorothy believed she had been set up by the person who tipped her off to the affair by someone who was trying to implicate the Kennedys in Marilyn’s death. From what we know now, those fears were very well-placed.
Furthermore, by 1964, she seemed to be on top of something about the JFK assassination and she kept giving hints about the matter—and in print.
Ruby, himself a TV fan of Dorothy Kilgallen, had taken a liking to her during the trial. According to Israel, he respected her more than any other reporter. She had gained his confidence and had several conversations with him in the courtroom.1
Dorothy took a lot of notes at that meeting and she bragged to friends that she was about to break the case “wide open” and prove a conspiracy. No one ever learned the contents of her notes because she died soon afterwards, under very mysterious circumstances, on November 8, 1965, at the age of fifty-two.
She had a reputation as a steely, high-integrity, incredibly astute reporter who could not be “bought” at any price:
Throughout her career she consistently refused to identify any of her sources whenever a government agency questioned her, and that might have posed a threat to the alleged JFK conspirators.2
Hit List: An In-Depth Investigation Into the Mysterious Deaths of Witnesses to the JFK Assassination Page 12
