What happened to Dorothy Mae Kilgallen (July 3, 1913 – November 8, 1965)? She was an American journalist. Did she know something about the JFK assassination?

Dorothy Kilgallen was a syndicated columnist and journalist, but was best known as game show panelist on the Sunday evening quiz show What’s My Line? She was found dead in her upper Manhattan townhouse on the morning of November 8, 1965, at the age of 52. The details surrounding her death have led to many questions, including some in the JFK assassination research community.

She and her husband were estranged since she caught him with another woman in their third-floor master bedroom. After that, she slept in the fifth floor bedroom and her husband slept in the fourth floor bedroom. No one slept in the third floor bedroom, and it became her dressing/hair-dressing room, only. Her husband continued seeing other women and Kilgallen went on to have affairs with others as well.

According to 2 books written (by Mark Shaw) about Ms Kilgallen, she was predominantly a gossip columnist (“Voice of Broadway”) who also covered some high profile crime/murder cases. She covered the first Ruby murder trial (he was found guilty in his first trial, and although he was granted a second trial on appeal, Ruby fell ill and then rapidly died of cancer before his second trial ever started). During his first trial Kilgallen interviewed him twice during a lunch breaks in his trial. Even that was more than any other reporter was allowed.

Ms. Kilgallen kept a folder full of notes on the JFK assassination, not just on Jack Ruby. She obtained a lead regarding New Orleans, presumably from Ruby, which she followed up on. After that, she confided in close friends that she was collecting some potentially explosive information about November 22, and felt her life was in danger. It is unclear from where the New Orleans tip came from, whether it was from Ruby or someone else. What is known is that shortly after her return from Louisiana, she was found dead in her home. The details surrounding what happened to her that night were murky and involved a night filming an episode of “What’s My Line?”, then out for drinks with staff and contestants, and a rendezvous with a mysterious man,. She was found the next morning dead from a drug overdose, in the wrong bed. Oddly, when the FBI arrived to search her house, all of her JFK notes and files were missing. Odder still, her colleague, had a copy of all her JFK notes. She, Florence Smith, died two days later of a cerebral hemorrhage.

So, what was strange about the circumstances of her death?

The Sunday night before she died, after her appearance on What’s My Line, she went first to PJ Clark’s then on to the Regency Hotel along with others associated with the show, including one contestant, Katherine W. Stone, who was anxious to meet Kilgallen, who had guessed her occupation. She never got the chance, as Kilgallen was sitting with an intimate, mysterious acquaintance (Pataky?) until they left.
Kilgallen was found to have traces of three different barbiturates in her system: (Seconal <sleeping pill for which she had a prescription> Tuinal <different type of sleeping pill – she had no prescription>) and alcohol (vodka and tonic). Few years after her death a toxicology analysis also found phenobarbital: Three barbiturates in her stomach. Also, a glass found at the scene showed residue of phenobarbital. Although, in the mid 1960s, it was not difficult to get a physician to prescribe barbiturates, it was UNCOMMON to take 3 types at a time, and wash them down with vodka and tonic.
Death certificate listed cause of death as: “Circumstances undetermined”. Yet no police investigation was conducted.
Kilgallen’s townhouse at 45 East 68th Street was a 5-story townhouse in the upper-Manhattan district. Domestic help lived on the first floor. As stated earlier, the master bedroom on the third floor was not used except as a dressing room for Kilgallen. She slept on the fifth floor, and her husband slept on the fourth floor.
At approximately 8:45am her hairdresser arrived to prepare Ms Kilgallen’s hair for an appointment at her son’s school, and he let himself in with his own key. Going up to get things ready in the third floor “dressing room” he discovered the window air conditioner on (this was November, remember) and pointing towards the bedroom. He entered the bedroom and found Dorothy Kilgallen propped upright in bed, dressed, makup still on, false eyelashes still on, hairpiece still on her hair, with an opened book, neatly placed face down beside her. Her reading glasses, absolutely necessary for her to read, were nowhere to be found. Why was she in the wrong bed? Why had she not washed up and properly attired for sleep? Why was she posed as if reading, but she had no reading glasses?
Where were her notes on the JFK assassination? She was working on a book for Random House (Bennett Cerf, co-founder) about the JFK assassination, and all notes, and clippings she kept in a folder in her office were missing by the time the FBI arrived a couple hours after the police were notified of her death. Where were her notes? Did her “new” boyfriend, Ron Pataki, take her notes? Was he simply interested in her, or was he working for the CIA?