An author who has investigated the mysterious death of newspaper columnist and TV star Dorothy Kilgallen has asked a judge to let him exhume her body for DNA evidence.
Mark Shaw, who wrote “The Reporter Who Knew Too Much” and “Denial of Justice,” filed a petition in Westchester Supreme Court last week to disinter Kilgallen’s body from the Gates of Heaven Cemetery in Hawthorne.
Shaw also wants the court to order a DNA sample from retired journalist Ron Pataky, now 84, to “establish his probable complicity in her death.”
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Pataky has admitted he was the last person to see Kilgallen alive, Shaw writes.
A famous forensic expert, Dr. Cyril Wecht, has agreed to oversee the exhumation and DNA collection, Shaw says in his petition.
Dorothy Killgallen, the reporter who died suddenly at age 52 on Nov. 8, 1965, is seen in an undated photo.
Shaw contends, in court papers and his books, that Pataky was helping Kilgallen’s enemies, including Mafia boss Carlos Marcello, who wanted the reporter dead to quash her ongoing investigation into the JFK assassination.
The DNA tests, he said, may show that Kilgallen and Pataky had physical contact before she died suddenly at age 52 on Nov. 8, 1965.
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After appearing as a regular panelist on the TV game show “What’s My Line?” Kilgallen was found dead in her Manhattan apartment, naked under a robe and still wearing make-up. The medical examiner ruled it an accidental mix of booze and sleeping pills. Shaw contends she was drugged.
“A DNA match will confirm that either she touched him or he touched her, perhaps during an embrace, having sex, or just shaking hands when they parted,” Shaw told The Post.
Shaw has served the petition to exhume Kilgallen on her three children and Pataky, any of whom may object.
