Everything we know about JFK's assassination was about to be exposed as a lie. Then the investigator mysteriously died and her proof VANISHED... now the truth is unravelling

'The whole thing smells a bit fishy,' Dorothy Kilgallen wrote in her newspaper column on October 4, 1964.

'It's a mite too simple that a chap kills the President of the United States, escapes from that bother, kills a policeman, eventually is apprehended in a movie theater under circumstances that defy every law of police procedure, and subsequently is murdered under extraordinary circumstances.'

A famed investigative journalist, who was described by the New York Post in 1960 as 'the most powerful female voice in America', Kilgallen had spent the past 11 months digging into President John F Kennedy's assassination and was becoming one of the loudest voices questioning the official line from the FBI and the insistence that Lee Harvey Oswald had acted alone.

She had attended every day of the closed-door Warren Commission hearings into the November 1963 shooting and scooped the government in publishing its own findings.

She was also the only journalist to ever interview nightclub-owner Jack Ruby during his trial for shooting Oswald dead inside the Dallas Police precinct basement just two days after the assassination.

And she was zeroing in on a prolific Mafia boss who she suspected had orchestrated both JFK's murder and the elimination of Oswald.

'I'm going to break the real story and have the biggest scoop of the century,' she is quoted as telling friends.

But a year later - on November 8, 1965, just as she was about to publish the findings of her investigations in an explosive tell-all book - Kilgallen was suddenly found dead inside her Manhattan apartment.

Her loved ones were instantly suspicious.

To her best friend and hairdresser Marc Sinclaire, who found her body, the room looked staged: The 52-year-old mother-of-three was perched upright a bed... in a room she never slept in.

She was still wearing her make-up, fake eyelashes and a hair accessory from the night before, and she was dressed in nothing but a blue bathrobe. The air conditioning was on full blast, despite it being a cold winter day.

An autopsy carried out by Manhattan's Chief Medical Examiner Dr James Luke determined Kilgallen died from 'Acute Ethanol and Barbiturate Intoxication' - a deadly combination of sleeping pills and alcohol.

Her manner of death was quickly ruled as 'circumstances undetermined', meaning either an accident or suicide. And so the case was quietly closed.

All of which meant that, Kilgallen's potentially bombshell investigation into JFK's assassination died with her.

Her huge file of evidence, including notes from the Warren Commission hearings, Ruby's trial, her private interviews with Ruby and the manuscript of the book that would expose it all, was gone.

The dossier, which she guarded with her life and took everywhere with her, had mysteriously vanished the night she died. Five decades on, it has never been found.

For many who have followed Kilgallen's case and her mysterious, sudden death, the intrepid journalist perhaps put it best: 'The whole thing smells a bit fishy.'

Lawyer and author Mark Shaw, who has now investigated Kilgallen's death for 15 years, believes she was murdered to stop her exposing the truth about JFK's assassination.

'She was the only reporter who went against what [FBI director] J. Edgar Hoover was shouting that Oswald acted alone,' Shaw tells the Daily Mail. 'That put her in danger right away. And, as time went by, it became known to her enemies that she was going to write a tell-all book. And of course, they couldn't let her do that.'

The 'they' Shaw refers to is the Mafia mob and their notorious kingpin Carlos Marcello, who Kilgallen believed was behind the JFK hit.

'You can't mess around with those guys. And that's what Dorothy did,' Shaw says.

'She got in the middle of all of that. This mother-of-three who was respected and loved by everybody had got into this rat's nest.'

For years, Shaw has been pushing the Manhattan District Attorney's Office and the NYPD to open an investigation into Kilgallen's death.

New York City Council Member Bob Holden, who has read Shaw's books on JFK and says he is '99 percent sure' Kilgallen was murdered, has joined his calls for an investigation, even making a public appeal to the DA's Office and the NYPD last year.

'The whole thing stinks to high heavens - from the Kennedy assassination to the death of Dorothy Kilgallen,' Holden says.

He tells the Daily Mail that the NYPD and DA's office initially promised they would look into the case - only to quickly fall silent.

Both Holden and Shaw believe the very entities that covered up Kilgallen's murder five decades ago may now be blocking New York authorities from carrying out an investigation today.

'I think they were told in no uncertain terms by somebody in the federal government to back off,' Holden says. 'It's very suspicious.'

It's a 50-year mystery that will soon get the Hollywood treatment in the upcoming movie Assassination starring Jessica Chastain. The case is also under the spotlight again due to the looming release of the JFK files.

At the time of Kilgallen's death, she was one of the most celebrated journalists in America.

Her column for the New York Journal-American reached millions and she had worked on several high-profile stories.

Her reporting on the 1954 murder trial of neurosurgeon Sam Shepard ultimately secured the overturning of his conviction and inspired the 60s TV show 'The Fugitive.'

She was also the first journalist to report on the CIA and Mafia plot to assassinate Cuban dictator Fidel Castro.

Her face was on regularly screens nationwide as the star of popular CBS quiz show 'What's My Line?' and she co-hosted the radio show 'Dick and Dorothy.'

Really, she was a celebrity in her own right who mingled in powerful circles and was a fixture of the Manhattan social scene, alongside her actor husband Richard Kollmar.

Within that elite circle was JFK.

To Kilgallen, the president was a friend. He had been to her home for parties and had welcomed her and her son Kerry to the White House.

When he was assassinated, it was 'personal' for Kilgallen and so she headed straight to Dallas, says Shaw.

She attended every day of Ruby's trial and, one day, he asked to speak to her.

She later wrote about the meeting in a February 1964 column: 'Jack Ruby's eyes were as shiny brown-and-white bright as the glass eyes of a doll. He tried to smile but his smile was a failure. When we shook hands, his hand trembled in mine ever so slightly, like the heartbeat of a bird.

'"I'm nervous and worried," he told me. "I feel I'm on the verge of something I don't understand - the breaking point maybe".'

Kilgallen went on to interview Ruby twice more - the only journalist to speak to the killer of the self-proclaimed 'patsy' in the death of the president.

Ruby’s defense claimed insanity at his trial but he was convicted and sentenced to death. His conviction was later overturned on appeal, but Ruby died in January 1967 from a pulmonary embolism while awaiting a new trial. 

What exactly Ruby told Kilgallen about the shootings of JFK and Oswald remains a mystery.

But after those interviews, Kilgallen's investigations took her to New Orleans, the home of mob-boss Marcello.

For decades, there has been speculation that Marcello plotted JFK's murder.

The theory is that the Mafia fixed the election in Chicago to help JFK win in exchange for his administration turning a blind eye to their organized crime. 

But JFK didn't keep his end of the bargain, appointing his brother Robert F Kennedy as attorney general, who swiftly embarked on a mission to take down the mob. Not long after JFK took office, Marcello was deported to Guatemala.

Both Ruby and Oswald allegedly had ties to Marcello and each other - and Kilgallen had connected the dots, Shaw claims.

Kilgallen also attended the Warren Commission hearings, the government-led investigation into JFK's assassination established by President Lyndon B Johnson.

Through his investigations, Shaw found Kilgallen 'had a back channel' to the commission and was receiving inside information from a mystery member.

The commission ultimately concluded that Oswald had acted alone when he killed JFK and that Ruby acted alone when he killed Oswald.

In her columns, Kilgallen questioned those findings and published the transcript of Ruby's commission testimony, prior to the release of the government report.

'Once she did that, she was dead,' Shaw says.

It was a move that put her firmly on FBI Director J Edgar Hoover's radar and for which she came under pressure to reveal her source. Her response was foreboding: 'I'd rather die than reveal the source.'

According to an FBI file obtained by Shaw under the Freedom of Information Act, the bureau had even placed the journalist under surveillance.

In the lead-up to her death, Kilgallen confided in friends that she was receiving death threats and feared for her life, Shaw says.

She was so afraid that she bought a gun and canceled a second trip to New Orleans.

'If the wrong people knew what I know about the JFK assassination, it would cost me my life,' she told her lawyer.

Her loved ones pleaded with her to let the case go - but she refused.

The night before her death, Kilgallen appeared on 'What's My Line?'

Backstage, she shared part of her book manuscript with fellow panelist and Random House publisher Bennett Cerf.

After the show, she went to the Regency Hotel where she was seen drinking with a mystery man.

Shaw says he has learned that man was Ron Pataky - an Ohio newspaper columnist who she was having an affair with and with whom she had shared details of her investigation. 

Later that night, the butler in Kilgallen's building told Shaw he heard a man's voice inside her home.

Then, a few hours later, Kilgallen was found dead.

Shaw contends that Pataky was in high gambling debts to the mob and he poisoned Kilgallen by spiking her vodka tonic with a deadly dose of barbiturates under Marcello's orders.

Shaw confronted Pataky with the allegation in an interview before his death.

He reveals Pataky admitted he had seen Kilgallen's secret dossier.

'But he said he had nothing to do with setting her up for the kill,' Shaw recalls.

'At one point, when I interviewed him, I said: 'Ron, you know, you turned into a born-again Christian and all that. Why don't you soothe your soul here and tell me? You know what happened to Dorothy and you know your involvement.

'And there was a long pause and I thought he was about to tell me… and then he just hung up on me.'

Despite those close to Kilgallen finding it highly suspicious, the medical examiner's ruling killed any chances of a criminal investigation into her death.

Shaw claims that, in 1960s New York, the medical examiner's office was corrupt and was being controlled by the Mafia.

It's a allegation that Dr Michael Baden, the high-profile forensic pathologist and former chief medical examiner of the City of New York, vehemently denies.

'What help would a medical examiner's office be to the Mafia?' he asks.

'To lie about the cause of death?... I worked there for 25 years and I never heard anyone say there was ever any type of influence.'

Baden had just started working at the Manhattan Medical Examiner's Office when Kilgallen's body was brought in. The chief medical examiner carried out the autopsy and Baden assisted.

Speaking to the Daily Mail 50 years later, he says he still stands by the autopsy and insists Kilgallen's death was definitely not a homicide.

'We found no evidence of trauma or injury,' he says. 'But toxicology found the amount of alcohol and barbiturates was at a level that could cause death.'

Baden says Kilgallen had a prescription for the sleeping pill Seconal and that this, combined with alcohol, caused her death.

He recalls there was not enough information to determine if her death was an accident or suicide. But one thing he says he is certain of - both then and now - is that she was not murdered.

'There was no forced entry, no evidence of a struggle or disarray, no evidence of anyone else being in the apartment,' Baden says, though he acknowledges he did not personally go to the scene.

Baden - who later investigated the deaths of JFK and Martin Luther King Jr as part of the House Select Committee on Assassinations in the 1970s - adds: 'Everything was done at the time. And I don't reflect on it at all.

'There are some cases where I think I should have done something different or where I think the jury or police got it wrong but I don't think that with Kilgallen.'

He adds: 'I don't think it requires further investigation into her cause of death. There certainly wasn't any evidence of homicide.'

Through his years-long investigation, Shaw has gathered credible statements from close to 30 witnesses who insist Kilgallen did not die by an accidental overdose or suicide.

He has also unearthed testing which found residue on a glass next to Kilgallen's bedside - indicating that sleeping pill capsules may have been opened and poured into her drink.

In 2017, following the release of his first book on the case 'The Reporter Who Knew Too Much,' Shaw sent a letter to then-DA Cyrus Vance Jr urging him to open an investigation into Kilgallen's death.

Shaw says the DA's office initially took it seriously and assigned a detective to the case.

Then, a few months later, Shaw says he got a call from the DA's office saying 'we're done.'

It was a similar story with then-NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea, he says.

Since then, it seems to have become a familiar pattern.

City Council Member Bob Holden tells Daily Mail the NYPD's cold case unit vowed to look into her death last year. He also had a productive meeting with Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg's Office's cold case unit.

But, just as quickly as they agreed to look into it, both agencies dropped it. 

'They both said they would look into it and that they were interested and then all of a sudden, something happened,' Holden claims.

He says he learned that neither had even reached out to any of the surviving witnesses. 

And when Holden pressed for a reason, he claims he was simply told too much time had passed.

But, he believes the real reason appears to be that 'larger forces are involved.'

'I suspect there's way more to this,' he says. 'Personally I believe there was a government cover-up back then as it did not make any sense.

'For a detective unit like the NYPD to not even investigate the death of Dorothy Kilgallen means they were probably told not to by higher ups, meaning the federal government.'

And now, he has suspicions that both the NYPD and Bragg's office have been told to back off - continuing the cover-up five decades on.

'All of a sudden this wall was put up - and almost at the same time. It's odd as if they're truly independent then why did they both cut it off at the same time and say they're not going to look into it,' he says. 'It could be a coincidence but it seems like there's too many coincidences.'

'There's always a point where they stop. And I have to believe that they get to a point and they find something,' Shaw says.

He adds: 'There's something there that makes them stop and I think they're scared to death of what they may find.'

'I believe everybody is scared of Dorothy Kilgallen. They were scared of her back in 1965 when she was writing that tell-all book. Cyrus Vance and the NYPD were scared of her in 2017 because they were going to look into her death. Now we fast forward and here's the NYPD and Bragg's office also scared and backing off.'

Despite the reluctance from authorities to reopen the case, Shaw and Holden both vow to keep pushing for an investigation.

In January and February, Shaw sent letters to Bragg's office presenting his evidence and calling for an investigation.

He is yet to get any response.

The Daily Mail has also not received a response from the DA's office when asked about a possible investigation.

An NYPD spokesperson told Daily Mail: 'The NYPD, along with the Manhattan District Attorney's Office, declined to reopen the investigation.' 

Holden is now hoping he can convince recently-appointed NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch, with whom he has a good relationship, 'to nudge the NYPD cold case unit to reopen this.'

'I'm not letting this go.'

For Shaw, the truth lies in Kilgallen's long lost files and book manuscript which he believes were snatched from her home by either an underworld figure or the FBI on the night of her death.

Shaw fears the documents were immediately destroyed but has 'a hunch' they're still out there somewhere.

'I just have a feeling there's somebody out there who knows where this file is and knows where that manuscript is,' he says.

'Dorothy Kilgallen uncovered the truth about what happened to JFK. If you look at her investigation - the fact she was in Dallas, the Warren Commission, her columns, her interviews with Jack Ruby - she was as close as we'll ever get to the truth. There's no question about that.'

He adds: 'She was a very courageous woman, but she got into the hornet's nest of this whole thing. And there's no question she was murdered for it.'