Mary's Mosaic (76 page)

35
.   In an interview Nina Burleigh conducted with CIA wife Joanne (“Joan”) Bross, Ms. Bross stated that James Angleton bragged on more than one
occasion that he had wiretapped Mary Meyer’s telephone and bugged her bedroom. See Burleigh,
A Very Private Woman
18, pp. 124–125. In addition, during Leo Damore’s above-mentioned telephone call to his attorney, James H. Smith, Esq., on March 31, 1993, Damore said that he had just talked for several hours with “William L. Mitchell,” who confessed to being part of a surveillance team assigned to Mary Meyer around the time of the Warren Report’s release to the public in September 1964.

36
.   Rosenbaum and Nobile, “Curious Aftermath,” p. 29.

37
.   The description of the final seconds of Mary Meyer’s life and what occurred at the scene of her death was outlined in detail in prosecuting attorney Alfred Hantman’s fifteen-page opening statement at the trial of Ray Crump, Jr. in July 1965. See trial transcript, United States of America v. Ray Crump, Jr., Defendant, Criminal Case No. 930-64, United States District Court for the District of Columbia, Washington, D.C., July 20, 1965, Vol. l: pp. 2–17.

38
.   According to the 1965 trial testimony of Dr. Linwood Rayford, the deputy coroner, the second shot was placed over Mary Meyer’s right shoulder blade, “angling from right to left and slightly downward,” where its trajectory would traverse the chest cavity, “perforating the right lung and the aorta …” Trial transcript, pp. 71–72. In 1991, Dr. Rayford told Leo Damore that “whoever assaulted this woman intended to kill her.” Dr. Linwood L. Rayford, interview by Leo Damore, Washington, D.C., February 19, 1991.

Chapter 2.
Murder on the Towpath

1
.    Henry Wiggins Jr., interview by Leo Damore, Washington, D.C., April 2, 1992.

2
.    Trial transcript, United States of America v. Ray Crump, Jr., Defendant, Criminal Case No. 930-64, United States District Court for the District of Columbia, Washington, D.C., July 20. 1965, pp. 132–133, 293.

3
.    Ibid., p. 240–241.

4
.    Ibid., p. 240–241, p. 246.

5
.    Ibid., pp. 133–137; Henry Wiggins Jr., interview by Leo Damore, Washington, D.C., April 2, 1992.

6
.    Trial transcript, pp. 262, p. 264.

7
.    Ibid., p. 218.

8
.    Ibid., p. 240, p. 248.

9
.    Ibid., p. 343; p. 345.

10
.   Ibid., p. 352; Roderick Sylvis, interview by the author, Wake Forest, North Carolina, July 23, 2008.

11
.   Trial transcript, p. 354.

12
.   Ibid., pp. 348–349.

13
.   Wiggins interview.

14
.   Trial transcript, p. 452.

15
.   Rosenbaum, Ron and Phillip Nobile, “The Curious Aftermath of JFK’s Best and Brightest Affair,”
New Times
, July 9, 1976, p. 24.

16
.   Trial transcript, pp. 232–265. Henry Wiggins reiterated his account several times throughout the trial.

17
.   Ibid., p. 359.

18
.   Ibid., p. 361.

19
.   Ibid., p. 381.

20
.   Ibid., p. 370.

21
.   Ibid., p. 407, p. 413. Byers told prosecuting attorney Alfred Hantman that it had been “[a]bout 1:00 o’clock or a little after” when he got the radio request to look for the jacket and cap (407). Under cross-examination by defense attorney Dovey Roundtree, he reiterated that it was “approximately 1:00 o’clock” when he received his instructions to look for the jacket (p. 413).

22
.   Ibid., p. 419.

23
.   Ibid., p. 67.

24
.   Ibid., p. 710.

25
.   Ibid., p. 254.

26
.   Unnamed colleague of Detective Bernard Crooke, interview by Leo Damore, Washington, D.C., October 28, 1990.

27
.   Ibid.

28
.   Rosenbaum and Nobile., “Curious Aftermath,” p. 24.

29
.   Wiggins, interview.

30
.   Ibid.

31
.   Ibid.

32
.   Ibid.

33
.   Ibid.

34
.   Ibid.

35
.   Trial transcript, pp. 455–456.

36
.   Ibid., p. 634.

37
.   George Peter Lamb, interview by Leo Damore, Washington, D.C., December 20, 1990.

38
.   Ibid.

39
.   Ibid.

40
.   Ibid.

41
.   Ibid.

42
.   “Laborer Is Charged in Slaying of Artist; Mrs. Meyer Shot to Death on Towpath,”
Evening Star
, October 13, 1964, p. B-1.

43
.   Ibid.

44
.   Ibid.

45
.   Dr. Linwood L. Rayford, interview by Leo Damore, Washington, D.C., February 19, 1991.

46
.   Ibid.

47
.   Trial transcript, pp. 71–75.

48
.   Ibid., pp. 71–72.

49
.   Ibid., pp. 71–75.

50
.   Rayford, interview.

51
.   Although Detective Edwin Coppage testified at the trial that the gloves were removed at the murder scene by Detective Bernie Crooke, Dr. Rayford testified that he remembered the victim had been wearing the gloves at the murder scene. Trial transcript, p. 67, p. 79, p. 81, p. 90, p. 669. Crooke had already left the murder scene with Ray Crump
before Rayford arrived at approximately 2:00
P.M.
Rayford, interview. Rayford specifically remembered that the gloves were removed at the autopsy and given to Crooke after 3:45
P.M
on the day of the murder.

52
.   Dovey Roundtree, interviews by Leo Damore, 1990–1993. During these interviews, Dovey Roundtree shared numerous documents relating to her defense of Ray Crump, including the account given to her by Robert Woolright the morning he came to pick up Crump for work.

53
.   Ibid. In a discussion with Leo Damore regarding the testimony of Elsie Perkins, Dovey Roundtree mentioned that Crump’s jacket had been a Father’s Day present given to him by his wife, Helena, and their children the preceding June. See also the testimony of Elsie Perkins, trial transcript, pp. 485–507.

54
.   Trial transcript, p. 468, pp. 485–507.

55
.   Ibid., p. 486.

56
.   Ibid., pp. 467–505. Also, Dovey Roundtree told Leo Damore during several interviews that no one in Ray Crump’s family, church community, or anyone she interviewed ever recalled Ray Crump with a firearm of any kind. Ray’s brother, Jimmy Crump, had at one time years earlier owned a.22-caliber rifle, but that was the extent of any firearm noted in Crump’s immediate and extended family.

57
.   Trial transcript, pp. 43–47.

58
.   “Woman Shot Dead on Tow Path,”
Evening Star
, Washington, D.C., October 12, 1964, p. A-1.

59
.   Alfred E. Lewis and Richard Corrigan, “Suspect Seized in Canal Slaying; Woman Dies in Robbery on Towpath,”
Washington Post
, October 13, 1964, p. A-1.

60
.   “Laborer Is Charged,” p. A-1.

61
.   Ben A. Franklin, “Woman Painter Shot and Killed on Canal Towpath in Capital,”
New York Times
, October 14, 1964.

62
.   Trial transcript, pp. 438–449.

63
.   Report of the FBI Laboratory, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Washington, D.C., October 16, 1964, addressed to Mr. Robert V. Murray, Chief, Metropolitan Police Department, Washington, D.C., DB 72000, HO.64.2623, pp. 1–4. See Appendix 1.

64
.   “Rape Weighed as Motive in Death of Mrs. Meyer,”
Evening Star
, October 14, 1964, Metro sec., p. B-1.

65
.   “Meyer Slaying—Police Have ‘Mystery’ Witness,”
Washington Daily News
, October 14, 1964.

Chapter 3.
Conspiracy to Conceal

1
.    Leo Damore, interview by the author, Centerbrook, Conn., February 1992. During this interview, Damore revealed many of the details that Kenneth O’Donnell had shared with him about what had taken place between Mary Meyer and President Kennedy during the dedication of the Pinchot Institute for Conservation at Grey Towers on September 24, 1963.

2
.    Nina Burleigh,
A Very Private Woman: The Life and Unsolved Murder of Presidential Mistress Mary Meyer
(New York: Bantam, 1998), pp. 16–25.

3
.    Alfred E. Lewis and Richard Corrigan, “Suspect Seized in Canal Slaying; Woman Dies in Robbery on Towpath,”
Washington Post
, October 13, 1964, p. A-1.

4
.    Susan Fletcher Witzell, “Gardeners and Caretakers of Woods Hole,”
Spritsail: A Journal of the History of Falmouth and Vicinity
(Woods Hole, Mass.: Woods Hole Historical Collection) 19, no. 2 (Summer 2005): p. 31.

5
.    Bishop Paul Moore, interview by Leo Damore, February 5, 1991.

6
.    Ibid.

7
.    “Bishop at Meyer Rites Asks Prayer for Killer,”
Evening Star
, October 15, 1964, p. B2.

8
.    Ibid.

9
.    Moore, interview.

10
.   Joseph J. Trento,
The Secret History of the CIA
(Roseville, Calif.: Prima, 2001), p. 282.

11
.   Moore, interview.

12
.   Bernie Ward and Granville Toogood, “Former Vice President of Washington Post Reveals JFK 2-Year White House Romance,”
National Enquirer
, March 2, 1976, p. 4.

13
.   Ron Rosenbaum and Phillip Nobile, “The Curious Aftermath of JFK’s Best and Brightest Affair,”
New Times
, July 9, 1976, p. 33.

14
.   Ibid., p. 22.

15
.   Burleigh,
A Very Private Woman
, p. 244.

16
.   Ben Bradlee,
A Good Life: Newspapering and Other Adventures
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995), 266.

17
.   Trial transcript, United States of America v. Ray Crump, Jr., Defendant, Criminal Case No. 930-64, United States District Court for the District of Columbia, Washington, D.C., July 20. 1965, p. 43.

18
.   Rosenbaum and Nobile, “Curious Aftermath,” p. 32.

19
.   Bradlee,
Good Life
, 266; Ben Bradlee, interview by the author, Washington, D.C., January 31, 2007.