So why have no credible witnesses come forward with the evidence necessary to blow open the coverup? For the hard-core conspiracy believers, it's because a "clean-up squad" is going around the country killing off people who might "blow the whistle!"

This theme was first taken up by Penn Jones, Jr., publisher of the Midlothian Mirror, a small-town Texas paper. The most widely cited current list of "mystery deaths" was published by author Jim Marrs (who also released the book Alien Agenda about UFOs). His book Crossfire contains a list of 103 people who have supposedly died "strange" or "convenient" or "mysterious" deaths. As Marrs puts it:

This section has been entitled "Convenient Deaths" because these deaths certainly would have been convenient for anyone not wishing the truth of the JFK assassination to become public.

1. If the purpose of the "clean-up squad" is to eliminate people who have knowledge of a conspiracy, recruiting people into a "clean-up squad" is a counter-productive activity. Each person recruited becomes yet another person who has knowledge of a conspiracy and might "spill the beans."
2. Marrs' list is drawn from a pool of literally thousands of people — a few of whom had a clear connection with the assassination, many of whom had some tangential connection with the assassination, and some of whom had no connection with the assassination at all. For example, Marrs' list includes one woman who was one of Kennedy's mistresses, but had no known connection with the assassination. It includes a man who was mayor of New Orleans (but who had no known connection with the assassination), and it includes the Chief Steward on Air Force One!
3. The list includes people who were merely connected to the Mafia, the CIA, anti-Castro Cubans, or Time-Life, Incorporated. Marrs is assuming that all these groups were connected with the assassination. In other words, he assumes a conspiracy involving all these groups, tabulates deaths, and then announces that the large number of deaths supports the idea of a conspiracy! Circular logic.
4. Most well-known conspiracy witnesses and authors are still alive. For example, of the best-known conspiracy authors who wrote books in the 1960s, Edward J. Epstein and Josiah Thompson are still alive. Mark Lane died in 2016. Sylvia Meagher is dead, but not even Marrs lists her death as "suspicious." Penn Jones died in January 1998 in a nursing home at the age of 83 after a long struggle with Alzheimer's disease. Harold Weisberg likewise died in February of 2002 after a long period of failing health. The most prominent conspiracy authors from the 70s and early 80s like David Lifton, Robert Groden, Henry Hurt, and Anthony Summers are all still alive.
5. The star conspiracy witnesses who are seen in all the videos had long lives. Beverly Oliver is still alive. Malcolm Summers died on October 8, 2004, Ed Hoffman passed away in 2010. Jean Hill passed away on November 7, 2000. All three witnesses died after having decades to give their testimony to anybody who would listen, and not even their conspiracist supporters claim their deaths were sinister.
6. If a conspiracy was going around killing people who knew things that were dangerous to it, it would make sense that all the key witnesses would be killed quickly. But Marrs' list includes people who died as late as 1984. Given that many people associated with the assassination were at the peak of their professional careers at the time of the shooting, it's not surprising that many of them would have died within twenty years.
7. Marrs' list is laced with people who have a larger than average chance of a violent death: law officers, people on the edges of the underworld (strippers), people very much part of the underworld (Mafia figures), and people with a clear history of alcohol or drug abuse, or of mental illness (Rose Cheramie, Lou Staples, George de Mohrenschildt).
8. About half the people on Marrs' list died of natural causes. Marrs assures his readers that of course the CIA can kill people and make the death look "natural" (Crossfire, p. 556-557). This raises the question of why the conspirators allowed any of the deaths to seem violent or suspicious. It was also terribly convenient for supposed conspirators that so many of the people on the list who are claimed to have died of heart attacks (see below) had arteriosclerotic heart disease, making their deaths plausibly natural.
9. In virtually every case, there is no evidence that the person had any information on the assassination not already given in Warren Commission testimony, statements to police and the media, and interviews with private researchers. The logic seems to be that they must have known something, since, after all, they were killed.
10. People who supported the Warren Commission version of events, or whose testimony was used by the Warren Commission to help convict Oswald, are well-represented on the list. Why would a conspiracy want to kill off those people?
11. Many of these objections can be answered by positing on ongoing surveillance of witnesses. Maybe a witness, after many years of concealing the truth, has finally decided to go public and "blow the whistle." Conspirators, learning of this, then proceed to kill the person. What's wrong with this is obvious: it vastly complicates the problem discussed in 1. (above). For every witness who might potentially "spill the beans," a team of conspiracy operatives must keep a close surveillance in order to catch the moment when the person decides to talk, and then promptly kill the witness. This would require an entire army of assassins!

Of course, it is impossible to state with any certainty which of these deaths resulted from natural causes and which did not. . . . The area of convenient deaths leads one into a well of paranoia, yet the long list of deaths cannot be summarily dismissed.

Begging the Question

Of course, if all these groups were involved, that would imply a implausably massive conspiracy. But if only one of the groups, or some small faction of some of the groups was involved, then most of the names don't belong on the list.

Let's Look at Specifics

The death of Lee Bowers seemed "strange" to Oliver Stone, Geraldo Rivera, and Jim Marrs. David Perry is an insurance investigator by profession, and an assassination buff by avocation. See what he concluded when he investigated this issue.

Another "mysterious" death was that of David Ferrie. Did he commit suicide to avoid being prosecuted for Kennedy's murder by DA Garrison? Was he killed by minions of The Conspiracy? In this essay, Dr. Robert Artwohl discusses Jim Garrison's contention that Ferrie died of an overdose of Proloid, a thyroid medication, and Garrison's apparent mishandling of evidence. Ferrie left two supposed "suicide notes," however on close inspection it's not at all clear they are in fact suicide notes. The official autopsy produced a clear finding of natural death.

Eladio del Valle, a Cuban who died on the same night as David Ferrie, is another of those "mystery deaths." Conspiracy books imply that he had all sorts of "links" to the assassination, but there are some other things about him that make his death seem not so mysterious. Click here for documents on del Valle. Conspiracy books never tell you, but the Dade County authorities indicted a man for del Valle's murder. More information can be found on Gordon Winslow's web site.

Dorothy Kilgallen, a reporter and quiz show personality, is always among those on the "mysterious deaths" lists. Supposedly, she was about to "blow the lid" off the conspiracy. In this essay, historian Eric Paddon does not discuss the circumstances of her death (which the medical examiner didn't consider sinister), but rather the question of whether she actually knew anything that might threaten a supposed conspiracy. Had she learned something new about the assassination, or was she just repeating standard conspiracy buff stuff? How might Kilgallen have gotten critical information that would have allowed her to "blow" the conspiracy? According to Gary Wills and Ovid Demaris, (Jack Ruby, page 72):

Conspiratorialists of the wilder variety believe that Dorothy Kilgallen had a private interview [with Jack Ruby], one that caused her death. This tete-a-tete never took place: she leaned over the rail and talked to Jack in the open courtroom during a break in the proceedings. Lawyer Joe Tonahill, who hoped to collaborate with Miss Kilgallen on a book, arranged the brief exchange, and was present at it.

Colonel Daniel Marvin told an explosive story in the most recent installment of The Men Who Killed Kennedy. He claimed to have been asked by a CIA operative to kill a supposed autopsy witness named William B. Pitzer. If true, it's hard evidence of a conspiracy "clean-up squad" killing witnesses. Researchers Robin Palmer and Allan Eaglesham have worked closely with Marvin, and have come to doubt his story. Their "Letter to Dr. J.D. Rose" lays out the details. Eaglesham, who initially believed the death was "suspicious," has now concluded that it wasn't. A diligent and honest researcher, he continued investigating even after reaching that conclusion, and that research solidified his view that the death was indeed a suicide.

Umpteen Trillion to One Odds? The conspiracy literature occasionally still quotes a supposed study done by the London Sunday Times which found that "the odds against these [assassination] witnesses being dead by February 1967, were one hundred thousand trillion to one." The House Select Committee on Assassinations asked the newspaper where they got that number. The paper replied with the following letter. The Editor has passed me your letter of 25th April. Our piece about the odds against the deaths of the Kennedy witnesses was, I regret to say, based on a careless journalistic mistake and should not have been published. This was realized by The Sunday Times' editorial staff after the first edition — the one which goes to the United States and which I believe you have — had gone out, and later editions were amended. There was no question of our actuary having got his answer wrong. It was simply that we asked him the wrong question. He was asked what were the odds against 15 named people out of the population of the United States dying within a short period of time to which he replied — correctly — that they were very high. However, if one asks what are the odds against 15 of those included in the Warren Commission index dying within a given period, the answer is, of course, that they are much lower. Our mistake was to treat the reply to the former question as if it dealt with the latter — hence the fundamental error in our first edition report, for which we apologize. None of the editorial staff involved in this story can remember the name of the actuary we consulted, but in view of what happened you will, I imagine, agree that his identity is hardly material. Yours sincerely, Antony Whitaker, Legal Manager. (4 HSCA 464-65)

George deMohrenschildt was one of Lee Oswald's most interesting friends. His testimony before the Warren Commission said nothing that suggested a conspiracy, but in later years he started to give a much more "interesting" account. DeMohrenschildt's suicide in 1977 has seemed quite "suspicious" to conspiracy buffs. The Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office Death Investigation on deMohrenschildt's passing is extremely detailed. See whether there is any evidence of murder.

John M. Crawford is yet another of those people on the "mystery deaths" lists. Did he really have the "connections" to Wes Frazier and Jack Ruby that conspiracy authors claim? See David Perry's assessment of this case.

What happens when a real investigator (Jacqueline Hess of the House Select Committee) tackles the issue of "mysterious deaths" and enlists the services of people who specialize in working out the probability that any particular person will die in a year, or two, or ten? In other words, enlists the service of actuaries? Hess' testimony before the House Select Committee outlines the results of her investigation.

Note: information in the first four columns is from Marrs, the "Comment" is by the author of this web page. Chris Simondet, in a fine research effort, turned up the death certificates of many of the people on the list. It's interesting, isn't it, that deaths that seem "mysterious" when you know none of the details look rather ordinary when you know more.

* = Marrs considers death "particularly suspicious"

Date	Name	Marrs: Connection with case	Marrs: Cause of death	Comment
11/63	Karyn Kupcinet	TV host's daughter who was overheard telling of JFK's death prior to 11/22/63	Murdered	No corroboration for Penn Jones' implausible "foreknowledge" claim.
12/63	Jack Zangretti	Expressed foreknowledge of Ruby shooting Oswald	Gunshot Victim	Actually "Zangetty." Unsourced claim by Penn Jones with no corroboration. Supposedly, member of Sinatra family was to be kidnapped.
2/64	Eddy Benavides	Lookalike brother to Tippit shooting witness, Domingo Benavides	Gunshot to head	Innocent bystander killed in bar brawl. Death was actually in February, 1965.
2/64	Betty MacDonald*	Former Ruby employee who alibied Warren Reynolds shooting suspect.	Suicide by hanging in Dallas Jail	Was in fact a suicide.
3/64	Bill Chesher	Thought to have information linking Oswald and Ruby	Heart attack	No evidence he could link Ruby and Oswald. HSCA found death nonsinister
3/64	Hank Killam*	Husband of Ruby employee, knew Oswald acquaintance	Throat cut	HSCA found death non-suspicious.
4/64	Bill Hunter*	Reporter who was in Ruby's apartment on 11/24/63	Accidental shooting by policeman	Accidently shot by cop who was engaged in reckless gunplay, and was convicted of involuntary manslaughter.
5/64	Gary Underhill*	CIA agent who claimed Agency was involved	Gunshot in head ruled suicide	Was not a CIA agent. Death was indeed a suicide.
5/64	Hugh Ward*	Private investigator working with Guy Banister and David Ferrie	Plane crash in Mexico	No evidence of connection to case.
5/64	DeLesseps Morrison*	New Orleans	Passenger in Ward's plane	Was mayor of New Orleans. Otherwise, unconnected to case.
8/64	Teresa Norton*	Ruby employee	Fatally shot	Same person as Karen Carlin. Marrs listed her twice, and further she is not known to be dead.
6/64	Guy Banister*	x-FBI agent in New Orleans connected to Ferrie, CIA, Carlos Marcello & Oswald	Heart attack	Police investigation showed no evidence of foul play.
9/64	Jim Koethe*	Reporter who was in Ruby's apartment on 11/24/63	Blow to neck	Judged non-suspicious by HSCA. Police suspected fight with gay lover.
9/64	C.D. Jackson	"Life" magazine senior Vice President who bought Zapruder Film and locked it away	Unknown	No other connection to the case. Actually died of a heart attack.
10/64	Mary Pinchot	JFK "special" friend whose diary was taken by CIA chief James Angleton after her death	Murdered	Killed in mugging. Vastly implausible that her diary had assassination information but likely did contain account of affair with JFK.
1/65	Paul Mandel	"Life" writer who told of JFK turning to rear when shot in throat	Cancer	No other connection to the case -- did indeed die of cancer
3/65	Tom Howard*	Ruby's first lawyer, was in Ruby's apartment on 11/24/63	Heart attack	Had history of heart disease and was heavy drinker. Died of Myocardial infarction, with diabetes a contributing factor. HSCA found death non-sinister.
5/65	Maurice Gatlin*	Pilot for Guy Banister	Fatal fall	No connection with assassination.
8/65	Mona B. Saenz*	Texas Employment clerk who interviewed Oswald	Hit by Dallas bus	Circumstances not suspicious — no evidence of any reason to "silence" her.
?/65	David Goldstein	Dallasite who helped FBI trace Oswald's pistol	Natural causes	No evidence of any connection whatsoever with Ruby, Oswald, or any assassination related person. Died of coronary occlusion.
9/65	Rose Cheramie*	Knew of assassination in advance, told of riding to Dallas with Cubans	Hit/run victim	Prostitute and drug addict, doubtful her supposed statements that Kennedy was going to be killed indicated "foreknowledge."
11/65	Dorothy Kilgallen*	Columnist who had private interview with Ruby, pledged to "break" JFK case	Drug overdose	HSCA investigated her death, found nothing sinister.
11/65	Mrs. Earl Smith*	Close friend to Dorothy Kilgallen, died two days after columnist, may have kept Kilgallen's notes	Cause unknown	A fellow Journal-American columnist, she died after three-month illness. No evidence of any knowledge about the case.
12/65	William Whaley*	Cab driver who reportedly drove Oswald to Oak Cliff (The only Dallas taxi driver to die on duty)	Motor collision	83 year-old man in oncoming car crashed into Whaley on viaduct. Both the man (John Henry Wells) and Whaley were killed. Was Wells a kamikaze recruited by conspirators to take out Whaley?
1966	Judge Joe Brown	Presided over Ruby's trial	Heart attack	Had history of heart attacks. No reason to believe he know anything not revealed in open court, lawyer's briefs, etc.
1966	Karen "Little Lynn" Carlin*	Ruby employee who last talked with Ruby before Oswald shooting	Gunshot victim	Same person as Teresa Norton (see above). No reliable evidence of her death.
1/66	Earlene Roberts	Oswald's landlady	Heart attack	Provided key testimony showing Oswald movements after shooting Kennedy and before shooting Tippit. Had a history of heart disease, and indeed died of a heart attack.
2/66	Albert Bogard*	Car salesman who said Oswald test drove new car	Suicide	Investigation of local authorities and testimony of relatives makes it clear it was indeed suicide.
6/66	Capt. Frank Martin	Dallas policeman who witnessed Oswald slaying, told Warren Commission "there's a lot to be said but probably be better if I don't say it"	Sudden cancer	Immediately explained what it would be better not to say: that the Dallas police had performed poorly in allowing Oswald to be killed. Died of lung cancer which had spread to the brain.
8/66	Lee Bowers Jr.*	Witnessed men behind picket fence on Grassy Knoll	Motor accident	Investigated by HSCA, and researcher David Perry. No evidence of murder.
9/66	Marilyn "Delila" Walle*	Ruby dancer	Shot by husband after 1 month of marriage	Shot in domestic squabble.
10/66	Lt. William Pitzer*	JFK autopsy photographer who described his duty as "horrifying experience"	Gunshot ruled suicide	Evidence contradicts alleged claim to have photographed autopsy. No evidence of murder.
11/66	Jimmy Levens	Fort Worth nightclub owner who hired Ruby employees	Natural causes	Casual acquaintance of Ruby's. HSCA judged death non-suspicious. Had occlusive coronary arteriosclerosis leading to acute congestive heart failure.
11/66	James Worrell Jr.*	Saw man flee rear of Texas School Book Depository	Motor accident	Told Warren Commission of seeing a shooter in Sniper's Nest. Died in motorcycle accident.
1966	Clarence Oliver	Dist. Atty. Investigator who worked Ruby case	Unknown	Circumstances not suspicious — no evidence of any reason to "silence" him.
12/66	Hank Suydam	Life magazine official in charge of JFK stories	Heart attack	No other connection to the case.
1967	Leonard Pullin	Civilian Navy employee who helped film "Last Two Days" about assassination	One-car crash	Film actually dealt with Texas trip, and had no information about assassination.
1/67	Jack Ruby*	Oswald's slayer	Lung cancer (he told family he was injected with cancer cells)	Inducing cancer by injecting cancer cells is medical nonsense. Ruby's mental condition had badly deteriorated.
2/67	Harold Russell*	Saw escape of Tippit killer	Killed by cop in bar brawl	Actually died of heart failure several hours after bar brawl.
2/67	David Ferrie*	Acquaintance of Oswald, Garrison suspect and employee of Guy Banister	Blow to neck (ruled accidental)	Died of Berry aneurysm, natural causes.
2/67	Eladio Del Valle*	Anti-Castro Cuban associate of David Ferrie being sought by Garrison	Gunshot wound, ax wound to head	Was involved in drug running, various criminal activities. No "axe wound."
3/67	Dr. Mary Sherman*	Ferrie associate working on cancer research	Died in fire (possibly shot)	No evidence of Ferrie association, died in 1964, and was not shot, but rather stabbed. Otherwise, Marrs is correct.
1/68	A. D. Bowie	Asst. Dallas District Attorney prosecuting Ruby	Cancer	Were all the lawyers who prosecuted Ruby briefed on details of conspiracy? Actually died of pneumonia, secondary to metastatic melanoma.
4/68	Hiram Ingram	Dallas Deputy Sheriff, close friend to Roger Craig	Sudden cancer	Died of metastatic bronchial cancer. No reason to believe he had any knowledge dangerous to any conspiracy.
5/68	Dr. Nicholas Chetta	New Orleans coroner who ruled on death of Ferrie	Heart attack	No evidence he knew anything sinister. HSCA found nothing suspicious about death.
8/68	Philip Geraci*	Friend of Perry Russo, told of Oswald/Shaw conversation	Electrocution	Note Marrs' syntax. It was Russo, and not Geraci who told of story of "Oswald/Shaw conversation."
1/69	Henry Delaune*	Brother-in-law to coroner Chetta	Murdered	If Chetta's death wasn't suspicious, how was that of his brother-in-law supposed to be?
1/69	E.R. Walthers*	Dallas Deputy Sheriff who was involved in Depository search, claimed to have found .45-cal. slug	Shot by felon	Made no claim of finding slug, in fact explicitly denied it. Killed trying to arrest violent suspect.
1969	Charles Mentesana	Filmed rifle other than Mannlicher-Carcano being taken from Depository	Heart attack	Film actually shows Dallas Police shotgun, and survives to this day. Had no other knowledge of the assassination.
4/69	Mary Bledsoe	Neighbor to Oswald, also knew David Ferrie	Natural causes	Key witness supporting Warren Commission case. Died at age 72.
4/69	John Crawford*	Close friend to both Ruby and Wesley Frazier, who gave ride to Oswald on 11/22/63	Crash of private plane	No evidence of foul play.
7/69	Rev. Clyde Johnson*	Scheduled to testify about Clay Shaw/Oswald connection	Fatally shot	Was shot after end of trial, so unreliable prosecution decided not to use him. HSCA judged death non-sinister.
1970	George McGann*	Underworld figure connected to Ruby friends, wife, Beverly, took film in Dealey Plaza	Murdered	No evidence of connection to Ruby's friends. Beverly's claim to have been in Dealey Plaza has severe credibility problems. Was indeed a hoodlum, died of multiple gunshot wounds.
1/70	Darrell W. Garner	Arrested for shooting Warren Reynolds, released after alibi from Betty MacDonald	Drug overdose	No evidence of any connection to the assassination.
8/70	Bill Decker	Dallas Sheriff who saw bullet hit street in front of JFK	Natural causes	Actually said that he saw a "spray of water come out of the back seat of the President's car." Had arteriosclerosis and emphysema when he died of myocardial failure.
8/70	Abraham Zapruder	Took famous film of JFK assassination	Natural causes	No evidence he had any knowledge dangerous to a conspiracy. In fact died of stomach cancer.
12/70	Salvatore Granello*	Mobster linked to both Hoffa,Trafficante, and Castro assassination plots	Murdered	Unfortunately, no link to Kennedy assassination plot.
1971	James Plumeri*	Mobster tied to mob-CIA assassination plots	Murdered	Mobster getting murdered is not that unusual. Plumeri had no connection with the case.
3/71	Clayton Fowler	Ruby's chief defense attorney	Unknown	Had hypertensive heart disease and arteriosclerosis. Died of "probable acute myocardial infarction."
4/71	Gen. Charles Cabell*	CIA deputy director connected to anti-Castro Cubans	Collapsed and died after physical at Fort Myers	Circumstances not sinister, no connection with assassination.
1972	Hale Boggs*	House Majority Leader, member of Warren Commission who began to publicly express doubts about findings	Disappeared on Alaskan plane flight	Having doubts about findings is not the same as having information "dangerous" to a conspiracy.
5/72	J. Edgar Hoover*	FBI director who pushed "lone assassin" theory in JFK assassination	Heart attack (no autopsy)	Died at age 77. Wasn't he running the coverup? Who killed him?
9/73	Thomas E. Davis*	Gunrunner connected to both Ruby and CIA	Electrocuted trying to steal wire	Supposed "connections" to Ruby dubious; didn't work for the CIA. Was indeed electrocuted.
2/74	J.A. Milteer*	Miami right-winger who predicted JFK's death and capture of scapegoat	Heater explosion	Milteer's crackpot statements are far from a "prediction" of JFK's death.
1974	Dave Yaras*	Close friend to both Hoffa and Jack Ruby	Murdered	Childhood friend of Ruby's, had no contact with him in 1963.
7/74	Earl Warren	Chief Justice who reluctantly chaired Warren Commission	Heart failure	Died at age 82. Insisted to the end that Oswald was the lone assassin.
8/74	Clay Shaw*	Prime suspect in Garrison case, reportedly a CIA contact with Ferrie and E. Howard Hunt	Possible cancer	Garrison's flimsy case against Shaw collapsed in 1969. Shaw died of cancer.
1974	Earle Cabell	Mayor of Dallas on 11/22/63, whose brother, Gen. Charles Cabell was fired from CIA by JFK	Natural causes	Died of severe pulmonary emphysema.
6/75	Sam Giancana*	Chicago Mafia boss slated to tell about CIA-mob death plots to Senate Committee	Murdered	Was to testify about plots against Castro, not assassination. HSCA found no evidence his death was assassination related.
7/75	Clyde Tolson	J. Edgar Hoover's assistant and roommate	Natural causes	Died of heart disease at age 71.
1975	Allen Sweatt	Dallas Deputy Sheriff involved in investigation	Natural causes	One of scores of deputies involved in investigation. Had cirrhosis of the liver and arteriosclerotic heart disease when a myocardial infarction killed him.
12/75	Gen. Earle Wheeler	Contact between JFK and CIA	Unknown	Died of heart failure at age 67 — no connection with case.
1976	Ralph Paul	Ruby's business partner connected with crime figures	Heart attack	Did indeed die of arteriosclerotic cardiovascular disease, leading to congestive heart failure, at age 69.
4/76	James Chaney	Dallas motorcycle officer riding to JFK's right rear who said JFK "struck in the face" with bullet	Heart attack	Died of heart attack, result of arteriosclerosis.
4/76	Dr. Charles Gregory	Governor John Connally's physician	Heart attack	His testimony refuted the idea that there was "too much lead" in Connally to have come from CE 399. Had arteriosclerotic heart disease, resulting in heart attack.
6/76	William Harvey*	CIA coordinator for CIA-mob assassination plans against Castro	Complications from heart surgery	No connection with Kennedy assassination.
7/76	John Roselli*	Mobster who testified to Senate Committee and was to appear again	Stabbed and stuffed in metal drum	HSCA found no evidence his murder was related to JFK assassination.
1/77	William Pawley*	Former Brazilian Ambassador connected to Anti-Castro Cubans, crime figures	Gunshot ruled suicide	No connection with assassination
3/77	George DeMohrenschildt*	Close friend to both Oswald and Bouvier family (Jackie Kennedy's parents), CIA contract agent	Gunshot wound ruled suicide	Was not "CIA contract agent." Had history of mental illness and previous suicide attempts. Death thoroughly investigated by the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office.
3/77	Carlos Prio Soccaras*	Former Cuban President, money man for anti-Castro Cubans	Gunshot wound ruled suicide	No connection to case.
3/77	Paul Raigorodsky	Business friend of George DeMohrenschildt and wealthy oilmen	Natural causes	No evidence of any reason to "silence" him. Renal failure and hypertensive cardiovascular disease led to a "cerebral vascular accident" (stroke).
5/77	Lou Staples*	Dallas radio Talk Show host who told friends he would break assassination case	Gunshot to head, ruled suicide	Was living in Oklahoma when he killed himself. Apparently unable to "break the case."
6/77	Louis Nichols	Former No. 3 man in FBI, worked on JFK investigation	Heart attack	No evidence of foul play.
8/77	Alan Belmont	FBI official who testified to Warren Commission	"Long illness"	No evidence of foul play.
8/77	James Cadigan	FBI document expert who testified to Warren Commission	Fall in home	No evidence of any foul play.
8/77	Joseph C. Ayres*	Chief steward on JFK's Air Force One	Shooting accident	Being Chief Steward doubtless allowed him to garner much sinister information.
8/77	Francis G. Powers*	U-2 pilot downed over Russia in 1960	Helicopter crash (He reportedly ran out of fuel)	Speculated Oswald may have given the Soviets information that allowed them to shoot him down. Had no evidence.
9/77	Kenneth O'Donnell	JFK's closest aide	Natural causes	Died of aneurysm and liver complications.
10/77	Donald Kaylor	FBI fingerprint chemist	Heart attack	One of hundreds of FBI employees with marginal connection to assassination.
10/77	J.M. English	Former head of FBI Forensic Sciences Laboratory	Heart attack	No evidence of foul play.
11/77	William Sullivan*	Former No. 3 man in FBI, headed Division 5, counter- espionage and domestic intelligence	Hunting accident	Investigation by New Hampshire authorities showed no indication of foul play.
1978	C.L. "Lummie" Lewis	Dallas Deputy Sheriff who arrested Mafia man Braden in Dealey Plaza	Natural causes	Are we supposed to assume that Braden blurted out details of plot to cop arresting him?
9/78	Garland Slack	Man who said Oswald fired at his target at rifle range	Unknown	Died of heart disease — no connection with the case beyond "Oswald sighting" discussed in Warren Commission Report.
1/79	Billy Lovelady	Depository employee said to be the man in the doorway in AP photograph	Complications from heart attack	Unclear what sinister information he might have revealed.
6/80	Jesse Curry	Dallas Police Chief at time of assassination	Heart attack	Unclear why there would be any need to "silence" him almost 17 years after assassination. Did indeed die of heart attack.
6/80	Dr. John Holbrook	Psychiatrist who testified Ruby was not insane	Heart attack but pills, notes found	Circumstances not suspicious — no evidence of any reason to "silence" him.
1/81	Marguerite Oswald	Mother of accused assassin	Cancer	Always loudly insisted her son was innocent. Unclear what information she had that she had not already revealed. Did indeed die of metastatic ovarian cancer.
10/81	Frank Watts	Chief felony prosecutor for Dallas D.A.	Natural causes	Did conspirators somehow leak all the details of the conspiracy to the District Attorney's staff? In fact suffered from coronary artery disease, and died of a heart attack.
1/82	Peter Gregory	Original translator for Marina Oswald and Secret Service	Natural causes	Died of "cardiovascular accident," leading to cardiac arrest, at age 77.
5/82	Dr. James Weston	Pathologist allowed to see JFK autopsy material for HSCA	Died while jogging, ruled natural causes	Insisted that Kennedy was hit by two shots from behind.
8/82	Will H. Griffin	FBI agent who reportedly said Oswald was "definitely" an FBI informant	Cancer	HSCA investigation found he had said no such thing.
10/82	W. Marvin Gheesling	FBI official who helped supervise JFK investigation	"Long illness"	Circumstances not suspicious — had only minor role in investigation.
3/84	Roy Kellerman	Secret Service agent in charge of JFK limousine	Unknown	Died of heart failure at age 69.

When the House Select Committee on Assassinations wished to study the "mysterious deaths" associated with the assassination, they asked the Congressional Research Service — a division of the Library of Congress — to investigate a list of such deaths from published sources. The resulting CRS report is merely preliminary, but it shows the appalling number of factual errors in the conspiracy books pushing the notion, and the utterly non-mysterious nature of most of the deaths. Click on the name below to see the relevant section of the CRS report.

Introduction to Report Edward/Eddie Benavides Albert Guy Bogard Hale Boggs Lee Bowers, Jr. Bill Chesher Nicholas J. Chetta, M.D. David Goldstein Thomas Hale (Tom) Howard William (Bill) Hunter Clyde Johnson Dorothy Kilgallen

Thomas Henry (Hank) Killam Jim Koethe Levens (first name unknown) Nancy Jane Mooney (also known as Betty McDonald) Teresa Norton Earlene Roberts Harold Russell Marilyn April Walle, a.k.a. Marilyn Moon, Marilyn Magyar, Delilah William W. Whaley James R. Worrell

Believing it All What happens when you believe essentially all the claims about mysterious deaths, not only in Marrs' book but on the Internet? You come up with a morass of mutually contradictory theories. Thus Richard Belzer's book Hit List parades before the reader an incoherent collection of conspiracy speculations that implicates almost everybody, as Marilyn Elias explains in her review of the book. Further detracting from the credibility of the volume is Belzer's association with crackpot conspiracy talk show host Alex Jones, and his proclamation that the U.S. is a "fascist state" run by "sociopaths" — both assertions on Belzer's part that Elias documents.

Roger Craig

Rose Cherami

Let's Just Think About This, OK?

Excerpted from "The Case of the Grassy Knoll: The Romance of Conspiracy" by John Kaplan; printed in The Historian As Detective, Winks, editor; originally published as "The Assassins" in Stanford Law Review (May 1967).

[Regarding the "mysterious" deaths of "witnesses" to the assassination], even the most cursory examination of the stories shows how essentially foolish they are. A good many of the deaths hardly seem mysterious in that they were caused by auto accidents, heart attacks, and other phenomena that afflict our entire population. Moreover, before we could tell whether the number of these deaths is in any way unusual, we would have to know the number of equally "mysterious" deaths that occurred to people completely unconnected with the WR. But even apart from any statistical refutation, the theory that a set of conspirators is now devoted to wiping out a host of unimportant witnesses is almost too silly to be put forth. There is not the slightest indication that any of the "victims" have had anything to tell that they had not already told, and indeed the deaths seem concentrated among those who bore only the most peripheral relation to the assassination. When one stops to consider that almost each one of the "mysterious" deaths requires the recruitment of at least one and often several new conspirators, it would seem that, like the pyramid club, the conspiracy would be getting bigger and bigger rather than smaller. One would think that in light of what had happened to those who knew too much it would get very difficult to recruit new members into the conspiracy. Most important, however, it is hard to say why the supposed killers are taking whatever chances these murders entail when it is so obvious that, whoever the conspirators are, they have already gotten off scot-free.