New book and film project on Dorothy Kilgallen

A new book on the late newspaper columnist Dorothy Kilgallen blasts Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance Jr. for slamming shut a purported re-investigation into 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 she was murdered to quash her dogged pursuit of the truth. To be published on the 55th anniversary of JFK’s death, the book accuses Vance of a cover-up. 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 spokeswoman said in response. The morning after Kilgallen’s last appearance as a panelist on the hit TV game show “What’s My Line?,” her body was found slumped in bed, naked under a blue bathrobe, still wearing the makeup, false eyelashes and floral hair accessory she had donned for the show. Shaw contends Kilgallen was drugged by accomplices of New Orleans Mafia boss Carlos Marcello, who feared her planned book would accuse him of plotting the JFK assassination and the killing of JFK assassin Lee Harvey-Oswald, who was shot to death by nightclub owner Jack Ruby. Kilgallen, a syndicated columnist for the New York Journal-American, covered Ruby’s murder trial and scored a brief interview with him. Aiming to reconstruct why Kilgallen disputed the widely accepted “Oswald alone” theory, Shaw analyzed the 2,000-page transcript of the 1964 Ruby trial. He cites little-known testimony that, as JFK was killed, Ruby sat in a Dallas Morning News advertising office with a direct view of the Texas School Book Depository, where Oswald fired the fatal shot. Source: nypost.com

Producing team John Erick Dowdle and Drew Dowdle are developing a project about investigative reporter Dorothy Kilgallen. The duo have optioned Mark Shaw’s true crime novel “The Reporter Who Knew Too Much: The Mysterious Death of What’s My Line TV Star and Media Icon Dorothy Kilgallen” for an upcoming project. “The Reporter Who Knew Too Much” centers on a legal analyst telling the story of Kilgallen while providing new evidence surrounding her untimely death. Kilgallen was conducting an in-depth investigation probes into the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, but was found dead in her apartment in 1965. The Dowdles will draw from Shaw’s follow-up, “Denial of Justice: Dorothy Kilgallen, Abuse of Power and the Most Compelling JFK Assassination Investigation in History.” “Dorothy Kilgallen remains one of the most influential personalities of her era and decades ahead of her time,” the Dowdle brothers said. “Her insatiable drive to uncover the truth was both fascinating and dangerous. She defended those she felt were victims of injustice. In the process she took on some of the most powerful men in the world, knowing full well her life was in danger.” Source: variety.com