Denial of Justice by Mark Shaw

This book is an investigation into the death of Journalist, Dorothy Kilgallen.  She was a well known New York gossip columnist and investigative reporter who increased her fame by being a panelist on the Television game show "What's My Line" of the 1950's. After the assassination of John F. Kennedy and the trial of Jack Ruby, Lee Harvey Oswald's killer, Kilgallen turns up dead in her East Side NY apartment of what is ruled a accidental death due to a combination of alcohol and sleeping pills.

Author, Mark Shaw brings to light some interesting facts about the timeline of Kilgallen's death that seem obviously connected to her muckraking around the JFK assassination along with her interview of Jack Ruby in prison.  Kilgallen opined against the "lone gunman" theory that was immediately promulgated by FBI head J. Edgar Hoover.  This book can be categorized along with other "conspiracy literature" surrounding the murder the President Kennedy.

Shaw suggests many angles that point to the elimination of Kennedy and Kilgallen.  The Mob, The FBI, Castro and the Cubans/Russians and the CIA, and LBJ.  The Mafia boss in New Orleans, Carlos Marcello was being tried by Bobby Kennedy's Justice department.  Frank Sinatra was infuriated by Kilgallen's columns linking him the to Mob.  Kilgallen stood up the J. Edgar Hoover insinuating bad blood between him and the Kennedys and perhaps the Mafia had compromising information about his private life. The author claims that the real reason for the president being in Dallas was to placate  LBJ and assure him that he would remain on the ticket in the upcoming election.

The most curious facts about her death is that nobody close to her believed she was suicidal nor did she drink to the extent to make such a mistake in mixing sleeping pills with a drink.  Her file of facts that she created and developed about the assassination was stolen.  The book clearly implies that the famed columnist was silenced for his snooping around the death of the president and going against the "lone gunman theory".


The author seemed to weave a yarn that Kilgallen was the target of a Mafia hit.  Shaw argues that the common threat is everyone seems to have Mafia links: Ruby was Mafioso wanna be, Sinatra was linked to Giancana and Marcello, RFK as Attorney General at the time, was going after the Mafia at the time. When the author just recently gained the sympathy of a NY detective to reopen the case, he received notice that the case was abruptly closed!  The author is convinced of a cover-up and that not knowing the truth behind Kilgallen's death is truly a denial of justice. 

The book serves as a curious and 'conspiracy interested' introduction to the JFK assassination.