NEWSLETTER – February, 2025

If we don’t hold Public Officials accountable, the Chaos Reigning Down on our Country will Continue. Standing Silent is not Acceptable for Anyone Who Cares about Justice

To that end, on February 7, 2025, this author sent a lengthy letter to New York County District Attorney Alvin Bragg with copies to Alvin Bragg’s Manhattan Office, Ms. Pat Bondi. U. S. Attorney General, Ms. Lettia James, New York State Attorney General, Ms. Danielle R. Sassoon, the U. S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and the First Judicial Department New York Attorney Grievance Committee.

The Letter reads in part:

Mr. Brag:

In the interest of justice based on allegations of impropriety amounting to dereliction of duty, I have filed a complaint with the Department of Justice, the U. S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, the New York State Attorney General, and the New York Attorney Grievance Committee. This complaint stems from you and your office’s continuing refusal to provide media Icon Dorothy Kilgallen with a thorough investigation of her death in 1965 despite knowledge of compelling evidence that she was murdered.
Referencing your disturbing conduct is a New York Post article written by Sue Edelman, wherein your office declined to investigate Dorothy Kilgallen’s death. Queens Councilman Bob Holden, who demanded an investigation by you and the NYPD based on his own belief that Kilgallen was the victim of foul play, is quoted as stating to the Post that he “only got only lip service” when he requested an investigation.

Also included in the article were these quotes from Mr. Holden: 

“I was told there was going to be an investigation, but it turned out there wasn’t. They [DA office] just looked at it on a superficial level and decided it wasn’t worth doing.”

The concerns that many people supporting me and I have, is whether the manner in which you and your staff have handled the request for an investigation of Dorothy’s death by a respected councilman is “The fair administration of justice, without fear or favor?” and whether your declining to investigate Kilgallen’s death lives up to the motto on your website, “One standard of Justice for All?” To the contrary, it seems that your non-action is a deliberate dereliction of duty, one involving allegations of impropriety, since, according to Councilman Holden’s observation, to repeat for emphasis, your office “just looked at it [his request] on a superficial level and decided it wasn’t worth doing.”

Mr. Bragg, of great interest to you and your staff should be the accounts from the infamous forensics expert, Dr. Michael Baden, whose name is on the Kilgallen autopsy

AUTOPSY PERFORMED BY DR. JAMES LUKE, JUNIOR MEDICAL EXAMINER
in the presence of Dr. Sturner and Baden
November 8, 1965

Without question then, he should be the first person you and your staff interview. As I pointed out in my January 22nd letter to you. Among other revelations are his stating:

Regarding the timing of Kilgallen’s death, Dr. Baden admitted, “Yes, it was very convenient for a lot of people.” He agreed that she could likely have been planning to expose those involved in JFK’s assassination in the book she was writing [for Random House.]

During a February 25, 2020, phone interview with this author, Dr. Baden, who assisted Dr. James Luke with Kilgallen’s autopsy, stated that in his opinion, due to Dr. Luke’s admission’s he did not know what the cause of death really was: “What Luke said went beyond the bounds of what he should have told the media.”

Dr. Baden stated that he and Dr. Luke expected that NYPD detectives would follow through, as would be normal in what Baden called “a high-profile, VIP international case,” his “first high-profile case,” with what he dubbed a “full” investigation. He then agreed that the death scene was quite “suspicious” and that he recalled “serious discussions” with Dr. Luke and NYC chief medical examiner Dr. Milton Helpern about Kilgallen’s case.

[Note: no investigation by the NYPD occurred then or during present day.]

Others besides Dr. Baden who were there in 1965 when Dorothy died and thus primary source witnesses must be interviewed include these eyewitnesses to what happened:

Former Dutchess County Sheriff’s Deputy Dennis O’Keeffe:

I knew Detective John Doyle, known as Jack “Popeye” Doyle who, along with Detective Mike Ward, had arrived at Kilgallen’s townhouse on the day she died.
Doyle was a young detective and responded to the death of Dorothy Kilgallen and filled out the death report, a DD-5 (Detective Division – 5) form. He said it contained all of his interview notes.

[Demands by this author that the NYPD discover and then release the DD-5 document in Kilgallen’s case through the Freedom of Information avenue have been stonewalled at every turn for years on end.]

Ms. Eileen Broich – (NYC Medical Examiner’s Office Chemist John Broich’s widow; speaks to John’s work at ME office.

John admitted Mafia presence in the office. They were intimidating. He called one time from the city and was terrified. He was strong-willed. He couldn’t be bought. There was pressure to fudge results. I said, “Why don’t you go to the police?” John said, “They can’t help me.”

John said “We’ve discovered that she was most likely bumped off. That was the terminology.

Mr. Christopher Broich (son of John Broich and currently a private investigator on the East Coast)
My father telling my mother that Dorothy Kilgallen was bumped off, would be accurate in that the language and syntax that he used, that’s how he would describe someone getting killed.

Ms. Jill Kollmar [Kilgallen’s daughter]

“My mother was murdered” to a close friend who may be interviewed. She also told another friend, “My mother was ‘quieted’” [She must be interviewed as well.

Mr. Bragg, something is fishy here since with more than 50 pages of evidence from my latest book [Injustice of the First Degree] pointing to Dorothy, called by the New York Post, “the most powerful voice in America,” being the victim of a homicide included with my January 22nd letter and included here as well that point to the dereliction of duty, is that neither you, your office staff nor the NYPD have apparently even considered the new evidence. The proof is that, based on my checking with the “witnesses” I provided, not one interview of those whose shocking accounts regarding not only the fact that Kilgallen was murdered but denied any investigation at all when she died, has occurred.

Hopefully[ the authorities mentioned above], ones designed to ensure that citizens are provided the justice they deserve even though they may have passed away, will probe your actions and those of the NYPD through my complaint and discover why it appears a cover-up of Dorothy’s death continues to this day.

Mark Shaw
Author/Attorney
www.markshawbooks.com
mshawin@yahoo.com

If you wish to help this cause, please contact:

Alvin Bragg’s Manhattan Office
Ms. Pat Bondi. U. S. Attorney General
Ms. Lettia James, New York State Attorney General
Ms. Danielle R. Sassoon, the U. S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York
First Judicial Department New York Attorney Grievance Committee

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