Ron Pataky - The Possible CIA recruit responsible for the murder of Dorothy Kilgallen?

I’m admittedly a little bit surprised that this conspiracy (and It is a very real conspiracy as far as I'm concerned) hasn't ever really been brought up on ATS much, if at all before. Well, apart from me in my last thread of this nature here, but In this previous thread, I set about discussing what I felt were certain important individuals who's demise were met under very suspicious terms indeed. And in that previous thread I always felt that certain important information could have possibly been accidentally overlooked due to It being a relatively large read thus inadvertently taking the attention away from this important information and material which really does, IMO, need to be discussed.

Therefore, I really did feel the need to restart a new thread on one of the more important cases (IMO) of suspicious deaths concerning the aftermath of the JFK assassination - this thread discussing the death of Dorothy Kilgallen, the well known TV show personality and well known reporter and journalist of the assassination itself (she actually once claimed she would crack the entire case wide open in 5 days time - Kilgallen was found dead mere days after claiming this though, along with her friend, Florence Smith, whom she allegedly told secrets of the case to.) and the possibility of uncovering the man whom may have killed her - Ron Pataky - The potential CIA recruit in charge of getting close to her and then possibly ending her life. As the story goes anyway...

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/229f90af7055.jpg[/atsimg]

Ron Pataky (Left) - Dorothy Kilgallen (Right)

Now, some may be asking first of all why would anyone consider this random individual of being a CIA spy, not to forget being the killer of Kilgallen, well, the first meeting between Kilgallen and Pataky was an unusual one. He is reported to have simply walked up to her and asked her if she was Clare Booth Luce - Strange in itself as they look absolutely nothing alike.

They then began talking and eventually grew closer together. Nothing unusual in that I know but according to John Simkin, Kilgallen, as well as growing closer to Pataky, grew very suspicious of him. Suspecting him to be a CIA recruit - he even took something of a keen interest in her involvement in the JFK assassination. She went onto tell her friends of her suspicions also so that and I quote, "so that if anything happened to her, a future investigator would realize that he was a CIA agent with links to Clare Booth Luce."

Interesting that something did indeed happen to her. Dorothy Kilgallen was found dead on 8th November, 1965, in her New York apartment (Please see the next post for a list of the anomalies surrounding her death which are causes for suspicion.). She was fully dressed and sitting upright in her bed, reports from the police say that she had died from taking a lethal cocktail of alcohol and barbiturates. The notes for the chapter she was writing on the case had disappeared. Her friend, Florence Smith, as I mentioned had died two days later also. The copy of Kilgallen's article were never found in Kilgallens apartment or from Smith whom had been given a copy in fear of it being taken.

Don't forget what Kilgallen had said mere days before at this time also: she claimed she would crack the entire case wide open in 5 days time.

Anyway, Mark Lane, another researcher also believed that Kilgallen had been murdered, not committed suicide as the official story goes. He once said this about the case in fact: "I would bet you a thousand-to-one that the CIA surrounded her (Kilgallen) as soon as she started writing those stories." The only new person who became close to Kilgallen during the last few months was Pataky remember.

Stories referring to the ones Kilgallen started writing about the JFK assassination include Marin Oswald.

In another of her stories, Kilgallen claimed that Marina Oswald knew a great deal about the assassination of John F. Kennedy. If she told the "whole story of her life with President Kennedy's alleged assassin, it would split open the front pages of newspapers all over the world."

(Source)

And a one-on-one interview with Jack Ruby to name a few.

Kilgallen was keen to interview Jack Ruby. She went to see Ruby's lawyer Joe Tonahill and claimed she had a message for his client from a mutual friend. It was only after this message was delivered that Ruby agreed to be interviewed by Kilgallen. Tonahill remembers that the mutual friend was from San Francisco and that he was involved in the music industry. Kennedy researcher, Greg Parker, has suggested that the man was Mike Shore, co-founder of Reprise Records.

The interview with Ruby lasted eight minutes. No one else was there. Even the guards agreed to wait outside. Officially, Kilgallen never told anyone about what Ruby said to her during this interview. Nor did she publish any information she obtained from the interview. There is a reason for this. Kilgallen was in financial difficulties in 1964. This was partly due to some poor business decisions made by her husband, Richard Kollmar. The couple had also lost the lucrative contract for their radio show Breakfast with Dorothy and Dick. Kilgallen also was facing an expensive libel case concerning an article she wrote about Elaine Shepard. Her financial situation was so bad she fully expected to lose her beloved house in New York City.

Kilgallen was a staff member of Journal American. Any article about the Jack Ruby interview in her newspaper would not have helped her serious financial situation. Therefore she decided to include what she knew about the assassination of John F. Kennedy in Murder One. She fully expected that this book would earn her a fortune. This is why she refused to tell anyone, including Mark Lane, about what Ruby told her in the interview arranged by Tonahill. In October, 1965, told Lane that she had a new important informant in New Orleans.

Kilgallen began to tell friends that she was close to discovering who assassinated Kennedy.

(Source)

....At which point she herself I quote claimed: "In five more days I'm going to bust this case wide open." again, It was mere days after this that she was to die along with her friend Florence smith, whom Kilgallen had given a copy of her report on the assassination to. This report was never found again.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/20e39547903e.jpg[/atsimg]

Lee Israel, yet another Reporter close to Kilgallen also seems to point towards Ron Patakies involvement with the demise of this great researcher. Please read this:

According to Israel she met him in Carrara in June, 1964, during a press junket for journalists working in the film industry. The trip was paid for by Twentieth Century-Fox who used it to publicize three of its films: The Sound of Music, The Agony and the Ecstasy and Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines. Israel claims that the "Out-of-Towner" went up to Kilgallen and asked her if she was Clare Booth Luce. This is in itself an interesting introduction. Kilgallen and Luce did not look like each other. Luce and her husband (Henry Luce) however were to play an important role in the events surrounding the assassination. Luce owned Life Magazine and arranged to buy up the Zapruder Film . Clare Booth Luce had also funded covert operations against Fidel Castro (1961-63).

It has been suggested by John Simkin that Kilgallen suspected that "Out-of-Towner" was a CIA spy. She therefore told her friends this is what he said so that if anything happened to her, a future investigator would realize that he was a CIA agent with links to Clare Booth Luce.

(Source)

In December, 2005, Lee Israel admitted that the "Out-of-Towner" was Ron Pataky and that "he had something to do with it (the murder of Dorothy Kilgallen)".

(Source)

So, ATS, I ask...Was Ron Pataky really responsible for Kilgallen's death? Was he a patsy? Is this all just a coincidence maybe and he was at the wrong place at the wrong time?? Who knows, but It's well known Pataky took a keen interest In Kilgallen around the time she started writing about and researching the assassination of JFK, he reportedly "helped" Kilgallen on certain articles concerning the assassination, and after her death, seemingly disappeared (as I can't seem to find any information on him at this time).

I've always considered this case, and the threads I've wrote about them, discussing them as important, personally. Reason being, I've always felt that a true conspiracy really has occurred here and It's in plain site for all to see thus motivation to discuss it until we can't discuss it no more. So, bearing this In mind, if anyone has anymore information about this case? I, for one, would appreciate you providing it.

Thanks..

As mentioned in my Opening Post, here are some of the anomalies about the death of Kilgallen:

Kilgallen began to tell friends that she was close to discovering who assassinated Kennedy. According to David Welsh of Ramparts Magazine Kilgallen "vowed she would 'crack this case.' And another New York show biz friend said Dorothy told him in the last days of her life: "In five more days I'm going to bust this case wide open." Aware of what had happened to Bill Hunter and Jim Koethe, Kilgallen handed a draft copy of her chapter on the assassination to her friend, Florence Smith.

On 8th November, 1965, Kilgallen, was found dead in her New York apartment. She was fully dressed and sitting upright in her bed. The police reported that she had died from taking a cocktail of alcohol and barbiturates. The notes for the chapter she was writing on the case had disappeared. Her friend, Florence Smith, died two days later. The copy of Kilgallen's article were never found.

Some of her friends believed Kilgallen had been murdered. Marc Sinclaire was Kilgallen's personal hairdresser. He often woke Kilgallen in the morning. Kilgallen was usually out to the early hours of the morning and like her husband always slept late. When he found her body he immediately concluded she had been murdered.

(1) Kilgallen was not sleeping in her normal bedroom. Instead she was in the master bedroom, a room she had not occupied for several years.

(2) Kilgallen was wearing false eyelashes. According to Sinclaire she always took her eyelashes off before she went to bed.

(3) She was found sitting up with the book, The Honey Badger, by Robert Ruark, on her lap. Sinclaire claims that she had finished reading the book several weeks earlier (she had discussed the book with Sinclaire at the time).

(4) Kilgallen had poor eyesight and could only read with the aid of glasses. Her glasses were not found in the bedroom where she died.

(5) Kilgallen was found wearing a bolero-type blouse over a nightgown. Sinclaire claimed that this was the kind of thing "she would never wear to go to bed".

Mark Lane also believed that Kilgallen had been murdered. He said that "I would bet you a thousand-to-one that the CIA surrounded her (Kilgallen) as soon as she started writing those stories." The only new person who became close to Kilgallen during the last few months was her new secret lover. In her book, Kilgallen, Lee Israel calls him the "Out-of-Towner".

(Source)

It is weird how there is no information at all on Pataky since this all happened. Suspicious indeed.

I wonder if he was given a new ID to protect him or something like that? I also wonder if Pataky is his real name?

It is also possible (and likely) that he too was murdered for what he knew and took part in.

People do not just disappear into thin air with no trace whatsoever - they just don't.

Thanks RA, it is interesting to see what information can be uncovered when enough digging around is done.

S&F again RA

reply to post by Rising Against


S & F

You have done your homework on this one. Well written and researched.

Now who killed Kennedy?

Originally posted by SLAYER69
reply to post by Rising Against

 

Now who killed Kennedy?

All answers are revealed here.

reply to post by doobydoll


Hey dooby, thanks for your post.

This seems to be the only information I can find on Pataky:

Pataky left his job with the Columbus Citizen-Journal in 1980. He later worked as a artist-photographer. He also worked as a Christian counsellor. In 1993, the investigative reporter, David Herschel, discovered that "Out-of-Towner" was Pataky. In an interview with Herschel, Pataky admitted that he worked on articles about the assassination of John F. Kennedy with Dorothy Kilgallen. Pataky also confessed to meeting Kilgallen several times in the Regency Hotel. However, he denied Lee Israel's claim that he was with her on the night of her death.

In December, 2005, Lee Israel admitted that the "Out-of-Towner" was Ron Pataky and that "he had something to do with it (the murder of Dorothy Kilgallen)".

(Source)

There must be more but I just can't seem to locate it.

Just saw this post on another one of my JFK threads and thought it was more than worthy here also.

(Link to the post)

Here's the external material:

you can find Dorothy Kilgallen's death certificate at the National Archives in Maryland, a popular tourist site. In the section where the doctor makes the classification of natural causes, suicide, homicide, etc., the thing says "undetermined pending further investigation." Strangely, the deputy medical examiner of Brooklyn signed it "for James Luke," the chief medical examiner. Kilgallen died in the borough of Manhattan, and Dr. Luke had no reason not to sign it. He visited the death scene for 45 minutes, according to the Washington Post obituary. That Brooklyn deputy M.E., Dominick Di Maio, is still alive.

(Source)

Still looking for more material on this case and I literally just came across a very interesting post from another forum. Here is a snippet of the news source they cited that I thought was fascinating:

Dominick Dunne, the famed author and court reporter, begins his monthly Diary, which is titled “Spilling Secrets” this time, in the April 2006 issue of Vanity Fair with these words: “It amazes me how many people remember the mysterious death in 1965 of Dorothy Kilgallen, the controversial gossip columnist and television personality, which was reported in headlines nationwide as an accidental overdose of sleeping pills and liquor....”

Dunne goes on to recount a telephone call that he received while a guest on the Larry King Live TV show from a woman in Oklahoma who asked if he had any opinion of Kilgallen’s death.

He writes in his Diary that “What I recalled for the woman from Tulsa was a persistent rumor at the time that the sleeping pills in Kilgallen’s stomach had not dissolved, which meant that they were undigested. Liz Smith, another famous gossip columnist, told me recently that the late Arlene Francis, who was also on the panel of What’s My Line? [with Kilgallen], had been with Kilgallen the evening she had died, and she always maintained that Dorothy was not drunk that night. I forgot to tell the woman who called in that no notes or tapes from the Ruby interview [that Kilgallen had with Jack Ruby] have ever been found. Kilgallen told people that she was going to break the case, so Ruby must have told her something that someone important didn’t want her to print. At least that’s my interpretation. She once wrote in her column that if Lee Harvey Oswald’s widow ever told the whole story of her life with Oswald it would “split open the front pages of the newspapers all over the world,” according to Lee Israel in her biography of Kilgallen."

(Source)

reply to post by Rising Against


Well if this wasn't a murder cover-up, then I don't know what is

Amazing thread RA, but it just creeps me out the lengths that TPTB will go to in order to bury the truth. In this case the cover up was pretty ill researched.
To leave her body in a bedroom she hadn't slept in for years is a huge blunder on their part, the false eye lashes not being removed isn't so much of a big deal, but the way she was dressed was weird.

Very interesting read

Do you know the actual presumed time of her death btw ??

x

reply to post by uk today


Sorry, but no, I haven't located her exact time of death or anything like that but please read my above post. She was with a friend in the evening of her death - at which time she wasn't even drinking (weird since I believe she was according to the official story ). Ron Pataky has allegedly denied being with her at all on this day also, although he did frequently visit her at the hotel where she stayed so It's not a stretch of the imagination to suggest he was in fact there.

I just found another snippet from another researcher here (John Simkin) btw as well. I found it interesting and thought I'd share (It's from as recent as '06 as well btw):

Yes I have tried to contact him by email but he has not replied. He knows what I have been saying about him and so far he has not threatened legal action. However, he was able to pressurize Lee Israel not to use his real name in her book "Kilgallen". This is why I believe her answers above on Pataky are so significant.

(Source)

Personally If someone was saying this kind of stuff about me, I'd pursue legal action without a second thought. Unless I desperately didn't want my name out there and connected to this death of Kilgallen of course.

(The above snippet from another forum by John Simkin - the same I cited in my previous post.)

x

Found yet another interesting news article: Who Killed Dorothy Kilgallen?

I believe this is a really lesser known article and hasn't been discussed barely anywhere else before, certainly not on ATS before but it makes for some fascinating reading.

Here is an interesting snippet:

Midwest Today obtained a copy of a note Kilgallen had sent Pataky in which she romantically referred to "our little room on the 19th floor." Another time, she sent him a newspaper clipping showing a picture of her promoting a muscular dystrophy charity with two men. On stationery marked "Dorothy Kollmar," Kilgallen wrote: "Notice that they were the wrong guys to be at the Regency with. Where were you when I wanted you?"

Asked about this, Pataky told Midwest Today, "I had a lot of mail from her that was written in a kind of an intimate fashion. We'd flirt..." She also apparently used him as a sounding board for some of her Kennedy stories. He explains, "She would reach out if she respected you; she might well call you and say, 'I want to read you something. Tell me what you think of it. And make any suggestions.' And she'd read it, and then go from there."

On Sept. 25, 1964, Kilgallen ran an interview with Acquilla Clemons, one of the witnesses to the shooting of Officer Tippit whom the Warren Commission never questioned. Clemons told Kilgallen that she saw two men running from the scene, neither of whom fit Oswald's description.

Dorothy also approached one of Jack Ruby's lawyers, Joe Tonahill. Surprisingly, Ruby (who fatally shot Lee Harvey Oswald, who was suspected of assassinating John Kennedy) agreed to talk with her. Some have speculated that Ruby would not have told her anything important, but Tonahill strongly disagrees. "This interview with her was a very significant point in his classless life," Tonahill asserts. He affirmed that Ruby "cooperated with her in every way that he could, and told her the truth as he understood it. It was just a very agreeable conversation between them. I just can't understand people doubting the sincerity of that interview."

The attorney, who observed the two talking, said that "I don't think there was any doubt about it... Jack was highly impressed with Dorothy Kilgallen... Of all the writers that were down there during the Ruby trial -- about 400 from all over the world -- she probably was the one that, to him, was the most significant."

Kilgallen never published any information she obtained from her private talk with Jack Ruby, but Ron Pataky says that's because she was "saving it for a book." She was under contract to Random House, Bennett Cerf's company, to produce a tome that was supposedly going to be a collection of stories about the famous murder trials she had covered. Instead, says Ron, "It would have been on JFK, the entire assassination. That's what we were really working on. Of course. Who better to write it? When she got into the JFK thing, as we all know, the world went crazy. But given her background, given the people she spoke with, don't you think the obvious thing would be that that would be THE book?"

One of the biggest scoops of Kilgallen's career came when she obtained the 102-page transcript of Ruby's testimony to the Warren Commission. Readers were shocked at the hopelessly inept questioning of Ruby by Chief Justice Warren, and by Warren's failure to follow up on the leads Ruby was feeding him. Attorney Melvin Belli called Dorothy's scoop "the ruin of the Warren Commission." Incidentally, John Daly, moderator of "What's My Line?", was married to Chief Justice Warren's daughter, Virginia.

The FBI sent agents to Dorothy's townhouse to interrogate her and an FBI memo reported that "she stated that she was the only person who knew the identity of the source and that she 'would die' rather than reveal his identity."

Ron Pataky says now that "I helped her write the thing." But he adds, "I was interested in the story only because of Dorothy, because she was on it." On Sept. 30, 1964, Kilgallen wrote in the Journal-American that the FBI "might have been more profitably employed in probing the facts of the case rather than how I got them, which does seem a waste of time to me."

Dorothy's last public reference to the JFK assassination appeared on Sept. 3, 1965 when she challenged the authenticity of the famous Life magazine cover of Lee Harvey Oswald supposedly holding a rifle. She also chastised Marina Oswald for vouching for it. The incriminating photo has since been discredited by analysts who say Oswald's head was pasted on someone else's body.

In October, Dorothy confided to "What's My Line?" make-up man Carmen Gebbia that she was "all excited" about going to New Orleans to meet a source whom she did not know, but would recognize. She said it was "very cloak-and-daggerish" and would yield details about the assassination. Gebbia told Lee Israel that Dorothy "said to me several times, 'If it's the last thing I do, I'm going to break this case.' "

(Source)

Just wondering if anyone has anymore information on this case? I seem to be the only one looking.

There is nowhere to look. Whatever Kilgallen found out from Ruby is lost forever, and whether or not she was murdered will always be a matter of speculation, not resolution.

reply to post by starviego

There is nowhere to look.

I disagree. I think the truth will always be out there somewhere, and that's why we shouldn't ever stop looking.

Originally posted by Rising Against
reply to post by doobydoll

 

Hey dooby, thanks for your post.

This seems to be the only information I can find on Pataky:

Pataky left his job with the Columbus Citizen-Journal in 1980. He later worked as a artist-photographer. He also worked as a Christian counsellor. In 1993, the investigative reporter, David Herschel, discovered that "Out-of-Towner" was Pataky. In an interview with Herschel, Pataky admitted that he worked on articles about the assassination of John F. Kennedy with Dorothy Kilgallen. Pataky also confessed to meeting Kilgallen several times in the Regency Hotel. However, he denied Lee Israel's claim that he was with her on the night of her death.

In December, 2005, Lee Israel admitted that the "Out-of-Towner" was Ron Pataky and that "he had something to do with it (the murder of Dorothy Kilgallen)".

(Source)

There must be more but I just can't seem to locate it.

Hi RA.
In my last post I wrote that Pataky had disappeared and I assumed this was right after Kilgallen was found dead, I was mistaken. But after searching I found something from a 1993 forum, where a young student journalist attempted to follow this story of Pataky, and this is from the person's post:
Link Here
You need to read the last two paragraphs in the link, I attempted to quote these paragraphs for the benefit of this thread but for some reason it won't quote more than the first few words. Maybe you can manage it better than me RA?

Basically, the poster in the link located him up to 1993, and notes that Pataky is now working as a Christian Cousellor in Columbus.
ETA: I also found that he has an online profile here www.amazon.com...
He is now DR. A. Ron Pataky.

reply to post by doobydoll


Thanks for your post, and please read my above ones also if possible. I managed to find some more information on Pataky - mainly because of the research from John Simkin. It's really interesting stuff.

Btw, are these the paragraphs you was trying to quote?
(If not, let me know and I'll change it for you)

Pataky left his job with the Citizen-Journal in 1980 "by mutual
agreement" with editor Dick Campbell. The paper shut down in late
1985. A year after he departed, the paper ran an article about his
success as an artist-photographer. He sold his prints that were "a
peaceful look at outer space" to government officials around the
country (no names given.) Elderly actors like Lillian Gish and Red
Buttons also bought them with enthusiasm.

Ron Pataky today is a Christian counsellor in Columbus seeing
many clients. He works both for himself and Lighthouse Christian
Counselling. He tells people that he is now (in 1993) getting his
PhD. What they don't know is that he is using a diploma mill in
Newburgh, Indiana called Trinity Theological Seminary. The American
Council on Education knows it is a diploma mill. He also uses the
CompuServe network, which has headquarters in Ohio.

edit on 22-3-2011 by Rising Against because: (no reason given)

reply to post by doobydoll

Basically, the poster in the link located him up to 1993, and notes that Pataky is now working as a Christian Cousellor in Columbus.

Interesting. That means we've manage to map quite a great deal of this persons life so far. My above posts are from 2006 I believe you see, particuarly where John Simkin has been trying to get into contact with Pataky. Please read this post.

We just need to find information on what happened almost right after Kilgallen's death now It seems. In other words the early 70's, late 60's period. There seems to be little to no information of him at this time strangely enough.

nice! wierd too.

i used to watch her on tv.

only here i have heard her involved with jfk.

Originally posted by fooks
only here i have heard her involved with jfk.

Yeah, she was actually quite heavily involved. Maybe more so than any other researcher at the time. She even managed to acquire a one-on-one interview with Jack Ruby but conveniently died before All could be revealed.

She was also involved with UFO's too which may interest you as well as quite a few others here. Here's her wiki page on UFO's where It's discussed briefly.

reply to post by Rising Against


In the 60's and 70's Pataky was writing music, (last paragraph):
www.nebula-series.us...
It doesn't go into much detail I'm afraid.
I tried to quote the paragraph where it says what he was doing in the 60's and 70's but i can't figure out why I can't quote more than a few words - GAAAHHH!!!

He worked as a photographic artist in the late 70's/early 80's and his most famous photographic art was called The Nebula Series.