Oswald in the doorway: the blog of the Oswald Innocence Campaign, by Ralph Cinque

Why was Dorothy Kilgallen killed? And she was definitely murdered. I'm just as certain of that as I am that Marilyn Monroe was murdered, and I am 100% certain that Marilyn Monroe was murdered. 

Dorothy was on the case. She said she was going to break it wide open. She found in the Dallas Police logs that Curry had first given the order to check the overpass to look for the shooter, but he went on to say that from the very beginning he thought the shots came from the Book Depository. So, that was a big find of hers. 

But, it was really nothing. They weren't going to kill her over that. And from the reading I've done, it sounds like she was looking for a Mafia connection, and they weren't going to kill her over that either. That's the safety relief valve, and even the HSCA went for it. It's "safety" because it doesn't implicate the government. The Mafia were criminals already, right? And they are not an institution of the government. So, if you insist on thinking that someone else besides Oswald or instead of Oswald was involved, then they want you to go to the Mafia. They absolutely want you to go there. So, they weren't going to kill her over that either. 

So, why did they kill her? Well, just a few days before she was killed, she interviewed Jack Ruby. It was short; just 8 minutes. But that, I believe, is why they killed her. They were afraid of what Ruby told her. 

So, what did he tell her? We don't know because her notes disappeared when she died. But, there are things we can surmise. 

I suspect she asked him why he killed Oswald. I don't know if he repeated his lawyer's refrain about saving Jackie a trip to Dallas for the trial, but what complete nonsense that is. There isn't even a valid reason to think that Jackie would have been called to testify at a trial of Lee Harvey Oswald. What for? And who would she have testified for? The prosecution or the defense? The presumption is that she would testify for the prosecution, but what could she say that would have any bearing on Oswald's guilt or innocence? Could prosecutors have gotten her to say that it sounded like the shots came from the 6th floor window? Even if they could have, it woudl have been no burden to Oswald's defense because he wasn't in the 6th floor window; he was standing in the doorway. And the Defense would have had no difficulty proving it. Oswald would have testified to it. There was the Altgens photo. Plus, his lawyers could have put some of those TSBD employees who were in the doorway on the stand. Imagine if it was Lovelady. He was a terrible liar. Look what he went through with Jooseph Ball. Even with Ball, Lovelady did not have the ability to state flat-out that he was Doorman. And Ball knew better than to ask him. But, the Defense would have honed in on Lovelady's reticence. And they would have broke him. 

So, there was nothing that Jackie could say that that could hurt Oswald or impugn him. And I don't think the prosecution would have called her.   I really don't. But, when Ruby talked to Kilgallen, I think he would have been on the defensive. And that meant telling her that he had no intention of shooting Oswald or even seeing Oswald, that he wasn't even thinking about Oswald. She probably would have started with asking him who put him up to it, and he would have probably said the rather funny line he used in his narrative: "Nobody knew about it; not even me." 

So, what would she ask him after that? I presume it would be, "Then why did you shoot him?" And Ruby would have said, "I don't know. I don't even remember doing it. I only remember going there and being pounced upon by police, and then being dragged upstairs where they told me I shot Oswald. So, I must have just done it by a sudden impulse that I had no control over."

That's a lot to have gotten, but I think she would have gotten more.  Remember who she was and how good she was at reading people. I think she would have gotten that Ruby was not an aggressive person. I think she would have gotten what Ruby told us himself, which you can listen to today, that the word 'angry' isn't in his vocabulary. Now that's a red flag right there. She would have gotten that he didn't know Oswald and hadn't seen Oswald, and that his thoughts in the two days that passed before the Oswald shooting were on Kennedy and his remorse  about Kennedy and not about hurting Oswald. 

Dorothy Kilgallen was a bright woman. I think she was smarter than Ruby's lawyers.  I think she would have figured out that JACK RUBY WAS NOT CAPABLE OF SHOOTING OSWALD. I think she also would have figured out that JACK RUBY WAS NOT A LIAR, that he was telling the truth. And from there, she may have gone to the space of thinking that somebody used him, perhaps drugged him or hypnotized him or both to get him to shoot Oswald, but not by ordering him or threatening him. I won't go so far as to suggest that she would have done a detailed critical comparison of Ruby and the Shooter and realized that they were different men. But, I think she realized that the story of Ruby shooting Oswald was very fishy, that something was terribly wrong with it, and she needed to get to the bottom of it.  And that is why they killed her.