Who Killed Dorothy Kilgallen? We Chat with Author Mark Shaw

and the thinker about their lives for once sir hi everyone joining us today is Mark Shaw a former criminal defense attorney who had authored more than 20 books today we'll be discussing his latest book the reporter who knew too much the mysterious death of What's My Line - you saw a media icon Dorothy Kilgallen his book caught the eye of a Manhattan district attorney about this - announced last month that they will be looking into Dorothy's death 51 years later if you have any questions for mark just leave a comment on this video really taking them throughout the test right mark thank you so much for joining us thanks for having me brief overview of the reporters who knew too much well the book is set up as a murder mystery because unfortunately back in 1965 when Dorothy died the determination was made by the authorities that she had died of an accidental overdose of drugs and alcohol but all these years later based on my research forensics fresh evidence primary sources that I've interviewed and all of that I think the book without question proves that she was murdered and so with that as the backdrop and of course I'm enthused that the New York District Attorney's Office is now going to investigate I've been working with the spokesman there and they'll have an assistant DA an investigator I'm working with it will really probe into what happened to Dorothy and hopefully not only find out the truth about what happened to her but get her the justice she was denied in 1965 well many people may remember there was a famous lawyer in San Francisco named Melvin belli and if they don't remember him they'll remember his clients he represented Jack Ruby who killed Lee Harvey Oswald and we'll talk about that in a minute that was probably his most famous client but also the Rolling Stones Muhammad Ali people like that he was pretty much the most famous lawyer in the 20th century and I practiced law in San Francisco in the 1980s and had an office in his building and got to know mr. Bell I in fact at one point he was a very flamboyant man he took me to the major league baseball all-star game in his gold rolls-royce and he was treated like an ox tart at the stadium and all of that so when he died in 1996 I decided to write a biography of him called Melvin belli king of the courtroom and it was during that book that I interviewed a lot of people who knew him lawyers who practice law with Bill I friends family things like that and so I wrote the book and I kind of let it go at that point and then what concerned me with bail I was when he represented Jack Ruby there was some questions about his defense of Ruby and during my course of investigating bail I for that book I learned of his mafia affiliations one of his closest friends and clients was Mickey Cohen who was a Los Angeles gangster so that led me to wonder about whether there could be some mafia ties that Bell I had that might have compromised Jack Ruby's defense when he was on trial for shooting Lee Harvey Oswald who allegedly shot JFK so the next book I wrote was called the poisoned patriarch and it was the how the betrayals of Joseph P Kennedy caused the assassination of JFK and I traced it all the way back to when in 1960 the Kennedys were going to lose the election Jack Kennedy was going to get beaten by Richard Nixon and the Joe Kennedy had been a bootlegger he had affiliations with the mathy he called in some favors from them and had the Mafia help him win Illinois in West Virginia which carried JFK over the top well Joe had made a deal with the devil and that was that if they won the new administration would lead the Mafia alone but right away I had a primary witness in this book who was there when Joe Kennedy basically ordered John F Kennedy to appoint Bobby Kennedy Attorney General and the moment that that happened Bobby Kennedy went after those mafioso the main one was a New Orleans mafia king named Carlos marchello who will figure into Dorothy's death when we get to that so I wrote that book and really that was enough I had spent a lot of time working on the JFK assassination I figured I had given my contribution to all of that but while I was working on the Bell I book I interviewed a doctor that Melvin Bell I knew in San Diego and the guy said you know Bell I knew Dorothy Kilgallen really well and I said well from What's My Line the game show which we can talk about in a minute he said no mark you don't know that about her she was a crack investigative reporter a celebrated journalist Pulitzer prize-nominated journalist all of that but she was at the Jack Ruby trial because she covered that case and bail I knew her very well and he said you know it's interesting at least you may find it interesting that when she died bail I said to me they've killed Dorothy now they'll go after Ruby they've killed Dorothy now they'll go after Ruby and I'm a curious guy a former criminal defense lawyer I couldn't let that go by and that was the comment that was the quote that caused me to write the reporter who knew too much well I can kind of take people on the same journey that I had to finally publish the book what I did is start with looking into Dorothy Kilgallen and and her past and what she was doing back in 1965 well most people in your audience even young people now who watch reruns will remember her from What's My Line that was what people have told me was the first intelligent gameshow and it was on CBS for 15 years on Sunday nights at 10 o'clock with an audience of almost 20 million people Dorothy was a star panelist on that show along with Bennett Cerf who was one of the cofounders of Random House Publishers and and Arlene Francis who was an actress John Charles Daly was the host people came on there with unusual occupations and they guessed what their line was what's my line well that was what Dorothy was doing back in 1965 so I looked into that a little bit then I learned that she had this voice of Broadway column in the New York Journal American which was syndicated to 200 newspapers across the country remember back then that's where people got their news there wasn't any Facebook there wasn't any Twitter there wasn't any internet there wasn't even much television so that's where they got their news fact the New York Post called her the most powerful female voice in America but the other side of that besides raising three children and having a radio show every day in New York City this remarkable woman also was a crack investigative reporter and I learned that she had covered high-profile trials like the Lindbergh baby kidnapping case dr. Sam Shepard which became the foundation for the movie the fugitive with Harrison Ford and of course a Jack Ruby trial so I learned those things about her and I was trying to then figure out exactly what was happening when she decided to investigate the the John F Kennedy murder and what I found out was most interesting and that was that it was personal for her you know Bennett Cerf once said that Dorothy Kilgallen Dorothy Kilgallen went after a story nothing stopped her and people are going to learn about Dorothy and such a credible reporter people have written me from around the world as this book has just taken off for the people reading it in the last two months you know the word that you think about what Dorothy was integrity they've said we need more reporters like her today and we certainly do and and so she went after this well people asked well why did she decide to cover the jack Jack Kennedy death and the reason was personal she had a young son named Terry and beloved son and she took him to the White House at one point she knew John F Kennedy from social circles he had been to her home all of that but she took him to the White House and while they were on a tour John Kennedy came into the library he looked down at the little boy he gave him a pt-109 pin for his lapel and he looked at letters that Kerry had brought from his third-grade class and it was very special and so the morning when Kilgallon found out about JFK being killed it just devastated her and it was because she just loved that man so much especially if what he'd done for Kerry and so in one of her columns she wrote the what I remember is a tall man stooping over a young boy looking at letters from his third-grade class classmates that is the man who was killed in Dallas and so right away Kilgallon was on the probe she had the best sources in the country she was the most credible reporter and she went to the Jack Ruby trial I understood and so there and I should mention right now people may want to go and look at the Dorothy Kilgallen story dot-org because that's where all of her columns her articles videotaped interviews I'll talk about in a minute quotes everything about Dorothy is up there and it supplements what's in the book that's the credibility for the book so she went to the Jack Ruby trial and right away people will find out that she ingratiated herself with the defense she didn't look into Heat Lee Harvey Oswald she really felt like that he was too complex a character you have to remember that J Edgar Hoover at the time was shouting Oswald alone Oswald alone this is the man who killed the president well Dorothy didn't buy that and so she focused on Jack Ruby and she ingratiated herself with the defense and yet people will find out that she was the only reporter out of 400 there who was able to interview Ruby and have to think about what a big celebrity she was because every trial she went to the first thing the judge did was ask her to come into his chambers and get an autograph and people are going to see on the website a photograph of her at the dr. Sam Sheppard case for instance and she's surrounded by all of these reporters Dorothy is the story they just had such respect for and admiration for so she interviewed Ruby twice the only reporter to do so and we then try to trace the steps of what happened to her during the last days of her life but we'll get to that in a minute the other thing that she did was that she went ahead and then was able to expose Jack Ruby's testimony before the Warren Commission and people remember that was the organization that was established to look into the JFK assassination she exposed his testimony before it was to be released before the president knighted state Lyndon Johnson even saw it and will talk about a little bit this is when the danger the enemy started to come into her life especially and ultimately led to her death so we can look at that knowledge and so I had had uncovered all of that information but I needed a break I needed something that would permit me to bring new fresh evidence into this and I got it and I think frankly and people will think I'm a little strange at times I think Dorothy led me to this somehow or another this woman I believe you know from the hereafter kind of risen from the dead I decided I should write this book because every time I got to a point where I thought I was done something would new would come along and here's the best example of that I had discovered an article had been written in 2007 in a Midwestern magazine called Midwest today and in that magazine the article was called who killed Dorothy Kilgallen because that magazine focused on celebrities born in the Midwest and Dorothy was born in Chicago before she ended up in New York City so I went to that article and I was amazed here was all these these fresh information from three or four primary witnesses who were around back in 1965 two hairdressers a contestant on what's my line on her last program who's one of the last people to see her alive and Joe Tana Hill who was Melvin by lies co-counsel with Jack Ruby and I looked at this stuff and I thought oh my god this is great so I called this publisher and I said you know I'd love to talk to these people and he said mark the bad news is they're all dead and I thought oh no and he said well there's some good news there was a woman in in Los Angeles and a colleague who were obsessed with Dorothy Kilgallen death and they interviewed these people and the best part is they videotaped the interviews and that is such a crucial part of my story and people will on the report on the Dorothy Kilgallen story org be able to look at all of these videos because as we can talk about in a minute they're a window into Dorothy Kilgallen world as November 1965 comes along we can trace her steps all the way until the very moment that she died in a bedroom in her townhouse in Manhattan let's let's just trace her steps a little bit then she interviews Jack Ruby at the trial we don't know exactly what Ruby told her we know that the interviews took place because there's confirmation from Joe Tannehill in his a videotaped interview on the Dorothy Kilgallen story or you can see for videotaped interviews with him there we know that happened where did she go after that she didn't go to Washington DC to look in the CIA at the CIA she didn't go to Dallas Texas to look into whether JFK LBJ might have had something to do with it she went to New Orleans and that's where Carlos marchello the main mobster that Bobby Kennedy had gone after the mobster that Kennedy had deported Bobby Kennedy the mobster that Bobby Kennedy had filed conspiracy track a tiering charges against that's where his empire was it stretched from New Orleans all the way to Dallas that's where she went and Mark Sinclair one of the hairdresser's says in his video he went with her to Dallas and all at once she called him from her hotel room and said go back to New York City don't tell anybody you were here and don't ask any more questions and so he did when he got back to when she got back to New York City sheet art started telling people which he shouldn't have she was going to crack the case wide open she knew there was a number of people who had killed JFK not just one and she was going back to New Orleans and all of her information in this thick investigatively file would be written in a book for Random House that she was completing that's what Dorothy Kilgallen was doing as of November 1965 on the 8th of November sorry let's go back one day on the 7th of November which was a Sunday night she was on her just what's my line program but prior to that mark Sinclair her main hairdresser will tell you in the interviews that you can see that he got her ready for that broadcast he found some flowers in the lobby of the townhouse and put him in a hairpiece for he got her makeup eyelashes and hair in good shape she was wearing a flowing dress if anybody remembers what's my line they'll remember she was a real fashion plate 5th Avenue all the way pearls just beautifully dressed an elegant woman so he got all that taken care of and then Kilgallon went to her program as the program started Mark Sinclair noted that she had changed her dress from this elegant one she had on to something she might be wearing if she was going to meet somebody later well we know then is that she was on the broadcast later on people will understand she was supposedly supposedly died of an accidental death having to do with barbiturates and alcohol when there was no evidence that she had any drug problems or alcohol problems at all but on that program you will see and you can watch it on the Internet her last program on What's My Line she was sharp she was funny she looked great she didn't slur her words she actually guessed the occupation of one woman on there named Catherine Stone who will come out who will come into this in just a minute so we know all of that happen we then know from a primary witness that she met a producer from What's My Line at a local tavern and then went to a hotel called the Regency Hotel which was about six blocks from her townhouse there Catherine Stone that contestant I just mentioned saw her in a booth in a corner with what we would call at the time a mystery man they were talking very seriously about things all right that happened there's another witness who saw her there and we have some primary sources that say she was there until about 2:00 o'clock what we don't know is what happened between 2:00 o'clock and the next morning at 9 o'clock in the morning on the 8th when Mark Sinclair describes in the video how he walked in how we went up to the third floor to a dressing room where he thought she might be but she wasn't there getting ready her ready for a meeting that she had at her son's school he walked into an adjoining bedroom and he saw her sitting up in the bed and he noticed right away when he touched her that she was dead but he also noticed she was wearing the hairpiece the eyelashes and the makeup she never wore to bed she was in a bedroom she never slept in in a bed she never slept in she was wearing bed clothes she never wore to bed no reading glasses were around there there was just a staged death scene in his mind that something wrong had happened but he was so shocked with what occurred he called the butler and left that townhouse noticing that there were a couple police in a car right outside the door alright this is where the murder mystery of the book kind of comes in because we're trying to figure out exactly what happened to her and how so what happened next is in an unusual situation Mark Sinclair found her at 9 o'clock in the morning the authorities were never called until 3:00 in the afternoon we don't know what happened during that time the authorities come right away there's suspicion suspicion on my part because we know about the whole mafia affiliation with Melvin belli and Jack Ruby and now we know about marchello and everything else well they didn't call the medical examiner from the Manhattan district Manhattan amis office because he died in Manhattan they called the Emmy from the Brooklyn branch and that Brooklyn branch and I had three primary witnesses in the book who talked about the fact that that branch was mafia controlled so you're starting to see a pattern here of those who might have thought they would be exposed in this book Kilgallon was writing all the way through from Bell I to ruby to marchello to the stage death scene to then the emmys office being mafia controlled so the medical examiner comes and he looks at the body he sees an empty bottle of Seconal sleeping pills on a little table beside the bed and right away to it was a combination of barbiturates and whatever all right despite the stage death scene he does no investigation no authorities do any investigation and any releases the autopsy report he says accidental death caused by barbiturates and alcohol circumstances undetermined well that's just a clue that something's wrong there and yet there was no investigation right away what really bothers me was that nobody stood up for Dorothy not her friends not her family not her colleagues at What's My Line not journalists nobody they just decided well she must have taken too many sleeping pills so there was no investigation of any kind they wrapped it up very quickly there was a funeral 10,000 people watched walked by her her coffin when there was the funeral and lickety split the case was closed done history no more Kilgallen disappears for more than 50 years nobody ever finds out anything about her nobody even looks into it until now well you'll find it interesting this is 1965 okay almost 52 years ago people want to know first of all why didn't Mark Sinclair come forward why didn't Charles Simpson the other hairdresser why didn't Katherine stone why didn't Joe Donna Hill all right why didn't the family why didn't journalist well you have to think in their own mind she's telling everybody she's involved in the JFK assassination they're thinking if these powerful forces who she thought killed JFK killed Dorothy I'm not about to come forward I'm scared of that I've heard some some relatives of kill gallons they're scared today in in Sinclair and Simpsons interviews this is 1999 and - a little after 2000 when they are interviewed they're still scared and so nobody did come forward nobody stood up for Dorothy and said something's wrong here we do that too often do you know even today you know we hear something bad about somebody or whatever and we think the worst when we ought to say to ourselves wait a minute I know that person they're not like that all they had to do was say I know Dorothy's not a drug addict I know she's not an alcoholic something's wrong here but nobody came forward to stand up for her and so unfortunately then there was no investigation and therefore she disappeared and in fact as I like to say the killer's won and I think we know who the killers are and one main suspect is still alive today we can talk about but they won because what happened her JFK assassination investigation file disappeared never to be seen again I'm hopeful the DA may find it but we haven't we don't have it all right what else happened Oliver JFK JFK investigation evidence disappeared from view all of the books that have been written all through the years I'm telling you right now there's not even a mention of Dorothy Kilgallen in there nothing so the killer's one you see they were never exposed and they got exactly what they wanted and that was the silence Dorothy Kilgallen which in my opinion there can be no worse example than censorship that's the worst example of censorship when you kill somebody in silence them that way a lot of that was in that 19 2007 you know magazine article because that's you know but I will say this again I think Dorothy helped me with this because I was led to that woman in Los Angeles who had the videos and it took me almost six months to get her to trust me to look at those videos and so I was able to then find her and convince her that I was on the level that I had their credentials writing all these books I was a man of the truth I want to search for the truth and finally cement let me look at some and then I wouldn't hear from her a little bit and I just kind of keep after it with patience and all that and finally I got them all and so that's where I got that information as far as for instance the the there's a lot of people still alive a lot of witnesses are still alive and around from 1965 it's hard to believe but they are I found the son of a chemist in the Brooklyn Medical Examiner's Office who told me that three years after Kilgallon died he and another chemist who had kept some of Dorothy's fluids because he felt like that you know years later maybe the technology would be easier to or would be better to find out exactly what happened to her I don't want to give away the mystery in the book but there wasn't one barb it you would it would bebut you with that was found in Dorothy Kilgallen system but three which points of course with the other forensic evidence to murder so I tracked him down and then I found the wife of that man who said that John this gentleman had said Dorothy was bumped off which is a mafia term of course I then found a couple other toxicologists there was a tutor that was there the day that Kilgallon died and I was able to find him in New York City and interview him personally so as time went by I was able to put together a good stable of what I call primary witnesses not people who say well this person said to this person to that person but people who could tell me what happened because they were there and that's the other thing that's big about this book you know I wrote that I wrote the poison patriarch about the JFK assassination I wasn't there all of these authors who have written these so-called tell-all books about the JFK assassination they weren't there either but who was there Dorothy Kilgallen that's why her evidence and what she found is the most credible in my opinion ever ever reported about what happened to JFK they were feared and some are still scared understandably so did you ever feel hesitant about researching these books in ray well people have asked me whether in fact my agent made kind of a joke he said the books call the reporter who knew too much I hope you're not the author who knows too much but any journalist any author who's going to tackle like some something like this can't let that get in the way when you're searching for the truth and Dorothy was all about truth as well you can't worry about that if somebody is going to harm you they're going to do that I will say that I've received I don't know hundreds of emails from around the world praising Dorothy upset about no investigation saying mark keep fighting for Dorothy keep being her voice and all of that and I'm determined to do that but if there are people who differ I've had some people who differ with the facts and conclusions I have but I debate them I'm fine with that but so far I haven't had any problems with threats or anything like that it is thank you well I think there were three or four times where I thought maybe I didn't have enough to write a book and that's when Dorothy came in you know she just seemed to you know I felt her spiritual presence in many ways to help me find the truth you know this woman's this woman's reputation was ruined instead of the incredible body of work I will tell you right now nobody today I don't care if it's Oprah Barbara Walters whoever you know today they couldn't touch Dorothy Kilgallen crack investigative reporter claim journalist radio talk show host adventurer author of a book way back when she was just young you talk about overcoming or breaking the glass ceiling we didn't even know what that meant back in 65 and yet Dorothy did that so nobody today can touch her she's one of the most remarkable women in history in my opinion but certainly one of the most remarkable journalists and yes there were times whether I wondered I wonder whether I could really do the job for her whether I could regain the respect for her and it's interesting go to Amazon there's 115 reviews on there and you will see how people just have fallen in love Dorothy in fact it's interesting I was reading one to my wife yesterday were one of the reviewers kind of accused me of having a crush on Dorothy and maybe I do you know because you know like I say I wish we had somebody like Dorothy today and I do want to give some credit to Sue Adelman who is a reporter for the New York Post she's been a champion for Dorothy as I told her you're acting just like Dorothy would because she hasn't been afraid to Prince the truth in New York Post and people can go to the internet and find the two articles she wrote one on December 4th about the book and about Dorothy and then two weeks ago Sunday you know exposed the idea that the District Attorney New York district attorney was going to look into the investigation and people have asked me you know how did that happen how could I get that done well I couldn't have done it without sue Adelman well as I said I wrote the two letters to them and I sent them the book I also sent them the videotapes I've talked about that are on the Dorothy Kilgallen story org and then I think one of the kicker's was the fact that in the book I named a person who is still alive named Ron Pataki who lives in Ohio who knew Kilgallon dur the end of her life there was a romantic relationship there and people can figure out how that happened in the book she confided in him he kind of came along at a convenient time he had a violence in his past and he also had some affiliations with the underworld he came into her life at a convenient time and she shared with him some of her information about the JFK assassination mark Sinclair the hairdresser suspected him of being the person who was leaking her material to the wrong people right before she died and I mentioned before that Sinclair noticed she had on a different dress when she was on What's My Line the last time well it was a dress it was kind of for a date and so then we have the contestant from What's My Line seeing her with a mystery man at the Regency Hotel in the corner I believe that mystery man was Ron Pataki he's denied any involvement I interviewed him three times for the he knew that I was looking into him as a suspect I even sent him the book when it was published so he would know what happened there but there's very much there's quite a bit of incriminating evidence against Ron in the in the book in the interviews that very conflicting gets very upset at times about things calls everybody who would even think he was involved a screwball but the real telling evidence and people are shocked when they read it in the book are two poems that he wrote one is about basically closing the mouth of somebody who's at the typewriter well who does that sound like the other one has a picture of a bartender and then it has three two stanzas talking about how you can poison the drink with what I think that it would vodka a poison a drink vodka tonic whatever it might be that way well what we believe happened to Dorothy and I don't want to give it away again but we believe that she was actually poisoned with barbiturates either at the Regency Hotel bar or at home well as you can see the connection is certainly there to Potocki now he says those poems were humorous I say anybody with any common sense it looks at him and I believe that's what the DA's investigators did said hey there's something wrong here I hope within the next couple weeks I found another situation yesterday with some incriminating evidence conflicts in this testimony I sent those of the DA's office I'm hoping within the next few weeks they will interview Ron Pataki and we should make sure that people know I'm in constant contact now with the DA's office any information that has passed on to me that people may know about if Melvin Bell I told people one person out here that they've killed Dorothy maybe he told somebody else in San Francisco if there are people that know about that or across the country let me know or they can directly contact the DA's office and many people have done that they can give them any evidence that they know about the DEA will follow up they can also support the investigation saying we believe Dorothy deserves the justice she was denied as well well my hope is that we're going to get close to the truth as to what happened to Dorothy I just have a hunch that like I believe Melvin belli may have you know he was such a loud mouth that he may have talked to other people about the case I just have a hunch that through the years Ron Pataki may have talked to people about this so he lives in Columbus Ohio there's no secret that's in the book he knows that let that information out if there are people in that area of the country who may know Ron or know people who live in the Columbus Ohio area maybe he said something to somebody about this I have a feeling that at some point of the DA if they truly investigate this case which I hope they will and they investigate Ron Pataky but at some point they will either discover that he was directly involved in her death or he knows who was and if he knows who was then that will lead us on the trail to the real perpetrators the people who actually committed the crime and killed Dorothy Kilgallen Laura's educate another look at the case given all they unearthed what do you think the ramifications would be in the current global climate if this event we need to read foundation of the JFK assassination well with the poisoned patriarch when I found out all the new information about the JFK assassination I wrote a letter to the the congressman who was the head of the one of the committee's bigshot committees on investigations and things like that because I thought with the new evidence that I had in that book and evidence that it's in other books credible evidence that they needed to reopen the JFK assassination now with Dorothy Kilgallen death I'm going to I'm going to try that again I'm going to try to see if that can happen of course what what is happening these days with the new administration and all the calamity that goes with that with people on both sides of the fence and everything that's a tough sell but maybe when things settle down a bit I truly believe that there are people in the country who still want to know the was about what happened to JFK assassination the Oswald alone theory I mean Dorothy started writing columns a few days after JFK died and people can read them just slamming that that it made no sense and it doesn't what I'm concerned about is history this is my contribution to history and and your your questionnaire is right we need to get to the bottom of this we need to get the all the evidence out there so people can make up their own minds but especially young people many people today I'm afraid to say have no idea who Lee Harvey Oswald is who Jack Ruby was and I'm afraid some of them don't even know who John Kennedy was well that's wrong and they need to know what happened back there because we need to learn from history so I'm going to hope about all this at some point will culminate in a real thorough examination again of a JFK assassination great question I'm going to give you a little inspiration okay for a guy who's written 20 books I think my English teacher in high school would be amazed I remember she gave me a D it took me almost six years to get through college I was a terrible student at Law School and I never even intended to write books but as a former criminal defense lawyer I was always inquisitive and I finally you know decided that I was going to look into writing a books when I covered the Mike Tyson rape trial and that was my first book and I'm never going to be a great writer I'm never going to be a Hemingway who called Kilgallon by the way the greatest female writer in the world at one point I'm never going to be a great writer but people enjoy reading my books I don't have a large vocabulary that doesn't get in the way I guess I'm what you would call a prolific writer because I've written a lot of books but the common theme especially to answer his question in the last probably five or six has been justice or justice denied although the Tison book was about that because I felt like Mike Tyson didn't get a fair shot at trial I wrote a book about Jonathan Pollard the spy because I didn't feel like the sentence he got was comparable to what had happened the bell I'd book I didn't feel like Jack Ruby got a fair trial so and now with this book you know justice denied again so that's been a common theme I believe and that's that's what's important to me well that would be on a stemming way no question about it you know what's amazing the people will find in the book and if you look at her columns and her articles on the Dorothy Kilgallen story org you will see what a gifted wordsmith she was if I could have written by like Dorothy Kilgallen I'd have 25 bestsellers because the way she projected her words made you feel like you were right in the middle of the trial she talks about Jack Kennedy or Jack Ruby's shimmering eyes and when she's talking about dr. Sam Sheppard at that case you feel that you feel the words and that's what Hemingway does for me when I read his material you know you feel like you're right at the bullfight or you're right wherever it may be you know you're out in the boat with the guy you know in in the in that in that story that he had you know the fisherman's story I can't think of the name of right now all the old man in the sea right so you know that's that's what impresses me and I'm hoping I think I'll put a Hemingway book under my pillow maybe that great wordsmith ability will soak through into my brain some way or another thank you Wow that's a tough one I would guess to say I certainly like the Chinatown area and Columbus Circle those are areas that you know I feel like you know the incredible diversity that we have is important to me and you can just walk around San Francisco and see every shape form type whatever it may be of people and that's why I love it so much time's wish that more people in our country especially in the middle could either spend more time on the east coast of the west coast but especially San Francisco because I think they wouldn't be as afraid of the diversity that we have in our country if they were able to you know experience being around some of the most wonderful people in the world people are just people and that's what I love about San Francisco so much because on any given day you're going to see about you know about every kind of person you could ever run into wow I would say that a call goes back to my being probably a criminal defense lawyer and the reputation that I had at that particular point people might say you know mark Shaw you know I would think he's a pretty good dresser well I've never been I had two sports coats when I when I was a criminal defense lawyer I had a tan one a blue one when I had a trial I wear one one day in the next a couple of my friends who maybe might watch this back in Indiana recently reminded me that I asked him to go out to dinner and I took him to Burger King and they were quite amazed that I had a shirt on that had initials on it that weren't mine and I will tell people that one of my favorite places to shop is the thrift shop I actually have a pair of pants on here today that I got at the local thrift shop near me so people might think you know that I'm a fashion plate like Northey Kilgallon but I'm far from it there you go now people start sending me clothes so I don't think you should say that but but anyway I'm very I'm one of the most blessed men in the world and but that's something that's just never made a difference to me yeah I think that is the best I would love I ever like we're floating with some random enters on it you were well I guess so yes what is the best advice you've ever received now to tell the truth I think you know and stand up for people who you know can't defend themselves I've always picked the underdog I don't care whether it's within the courtroom as a public defender or a criminal defense lawyer or I'm always for the underdog in the sports arena I can't stand people being taken advantage of and it's it's tough to walk around San Francisco and see all of the homeless people we just saw someone that bothered me oh just a little while ago that's tough to see and you want to help these people so telling the truth standing up for people who can't defend themselves I mean Dorothy Kilgallen cannot defend herself so I'm her voice better or worse I'm her voice and I and I'm going to keep trying to do that and I think in this day and age especially when we have all of these conflicts where you know we're looking at people and and we're trying to pigeonhole them or we're looking into discrimination or whatever else it may be people need more help today maybe than they ever have especially people are trying to come into this country or stay into the country and stay in the country because they're good people and so I'm going to continue and I hope others will to stand up for those people whenever we can it was just a million hands all for the exam the case and everything and everything John yes the door has been so incredible that's that one of the questions that we always end on is what is one goal you'd like to accomplish during your lesson well I think currently it certainly would be who killed Dorothy Kilgallen you know I just again have such respect for her and I think we can find out I think we can get closer to the truth so that's very important to me obviously my relationship with my wife is the most important thing to me you know in that arena but she knows and she's been a great supporter of this book that that's where I'm headed I'm focused on that people ask me what the next book I'm going to write is I have no idea I don't even think about it right now very much I just want to try to see what I can do to yet Dorothy the justice that I believe she deserves no I just appreciate your you're doing this when I grew up there wasn't anything like this that you could do we would had to have gotten a microphone or I mean a megaphone and shouted things out at people or whatever so appreciate the opportunity to do this and again if people have any information that they think might be helpful about Dorothy Kilgallen or Dorothy Kilgallen death please pass it along to me or the district attorney thank you really appreciate you joining us today and watching our based in San Francisco mark will be speaking at Halawa later tonight at 6:00 p.m. thank you thank you

Channel: Scribd

Views: 576,841

Rating: 4.7760987 out of 5

Keywords: dorothy kilgallen, mark shaw, the reporter who knew too much, what's my line, unsolved mysteries, murder, jfk

Id: nvpkE29X3tM

Length: 45min 16sec (2716 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 03 2017