Author: Tell me why, Cy!
DA twist in JFK journo ‘slay’
A new book on the late newspaper columnist Dorothy Kilgallen claims Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance Jr. slammed shut a purported reinvestigation of her mysterious death.
The glamorous reporter and TV personality, 52, was found dead in her Manhattan townhouse on Nov. 8, 1965, amid her own probe of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination two years earlier.
In “Denial of Justice: Dorothy Kilgallen, Abuse of Power, and the Most Compelling JFK Assassination Investigation in History,” author Mark Shaw pursues a theory outlined in his prior book, “The Reporter Who Knew Too Much,” that Kilgallen was murdered to quash her pursuit of the truth.
To be published on Nov. 22, the 55th anniversary of JFK’s death, the book accuses Vance of a coverup.
Shaw claims a “reliable source close to the DA’s office” told him that Vance’s staff found Kilgallen’s missing JFK file and “buried it.”
“We will decline comment,” a Vance rep said.
The morning after Kilgallen’s final appearance as a panelist on the hit TV game show “What’s My Line?” her body was found naked, slumped in bed under a blue bathrobe, still wearing the makeup, false eyelashes and a hair accessory she’d donned for the show.
The city’s then-chief medical examiner ruled her death an accident caused by a combination of booze and sleeping pills.
Shaw contends Kilgallen was drugged by accomplices of New Orleans Mafia boss Carlos Marcello, who feared her book would accuse him of plotting the JFK assassination and the killing of JFK as- sassin Lee Harvey Oswald.
Shaw quotes a friend of Jill Kollmar, Kilgallen’s daughter, who told him that Kollmar once said, “My mother was murdered.”
Reached by The Post, however, Kollmar denied it, saying she and brother Richard suspect no foul play.
“As far as I’m concerned, it’s a lot of hoopla,” she said.
Shaw met with investigator Richard Ramos in the DA’s Cold Case Project. Ramos was enthusiastic and called Kilgallen “a victim,” Shaw writes. But eight months later, Assistant DA Eugene Hurley III told Shaw their “thorough” probe had found no evidence of a homicide.
The DA’s Office never spoke to witnesses Shaw listed, he said, and refused to disclose records. He sent Vance a letter Friday demanding a grand jury reinvestigation of Kilgallen’s death.