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Another Key Witness Conveniently Silenced: David Ferrie
Just as Jim Garrison’s investigation was getting started, his star witness died a “convenient” and very suspicious death. David Ferrie was a strange man; a homosexual during a macho period in history. But he was also an excellent pilot with tons of bravado and that came in handy when you were flying guns into Cuba on covert missions. He was also very well-connected, being both investigator and private pilot for Carlos Marcello, the crime boss of Texas and Louisiana.
And just like in Oliver Stone’s JFK, Ferrie actually predicted his own death. After he was publicly named as an accused conspirator in the JFK assassination by the New Orleans District Attorney’s office, Ferrie exploded at Jim Garrison’s aide, Lou Ivon. These were his exact words:
You know what this news story does to me, don’t you? I’m a dead man. From here on, believe me, I’m a dead man.400
On the same day that Ferrie died, Garrison also lost another key witness: anti-Castro Cuban Eladio del Valle, who was brutally murdered in Miami.401 Just another coincidence, right? Right. His key witnesses were dropping like flies and he knew it:
All I know is that witnesses with vital evidence in the case are bad insurance risks.402
I already documented his connections to Oswald and Guy Banister, so let’s look at some of the inconsistencies surrounding Ferrie’s death.
The Coroner ruled that his death was of natural causes; a brain aneurysm from a cerebral hemorrhage. But they also said they found two suicide notes in his apartment. And they were typed.403
Garrison’s office found that rather strange and suspected poisoning.404 With some dry wit and sarcasm, here’s what the district attorney had to say about yet another amazing coincidence:
I suppose it could just be a weird coincidence that the night Ferrie penned two suicide notes, he died of natural causes.405
Both of those so-called suicide notes were typed, undated, and unsigned.406 The last person to see him alive reported that he had been in good spirits.407 Others reported that his mood was combative, intent on fighting the charges against him.408 Still sound like a suicide?
And get this: Those notes were not really suggestive of suicide. Instead, they were diatribes about things he was angered by; a man who knew he was about to be killed:
They appear, instead, to be two notes written by a man who knew he was leaving this world—they were more the words of a man who was making his final statements; of words that he wanted left behind.
One note to his best friend started out: ‘When you read this I will be quite dead and no answer will be possible.’ It ended with the words: ‘As you sowed, so shall you reap.’ The other letter started out: ‘To leave this life, to me, is a sweet prospect.’ Then it complained about the justice system and ended with: ‘All the state needs is “evidence to support a conviction.” If this is justice, then justice be damned.’ The letters can be accessed in their entirety online.
So they, indeed, do not appear to actually be notes regarding a planned suicide.409
Garrison wasn’t alone. A lot of people thought that Ferrie was murdered, and among the authorities who did was Aaron Kohn, Managing Director of the Metropolitan Crime Commission of New Orleans.410 It was all just a little too convenient.
400 Garrison, On the Trail of the Assassins, 138.
401 Belzer & Wayne, Hit List, 168.
402 Donald W. Miller, Jr., MD., “Pursuing Truth on the Kennedy Assassinations,” August 21, 2012: lewrockwell.com/miller/miller40.1.html
403 Russell, The Man Who Knew Too Much, 182.
404 Ibid.
405 “Jim Garrison’s Playboy Interview,” Playboy Magazine, October 1967, Vol. 14 No. 10: jfklancer.com/Garrison2.html
406 John McAdams’ The Kennedy Assassination Pages, “David Ferrie’s ‘Suicide Notes,’” retrieved 10 May 2013: mcadams.posc.mu.edu/death10.htm
407 Ibid.
408 Ibid.
409 Belzer & Wayne, Hit List, 177, citing McAdams, “David Ferrie’s ‘Suicide Notes.’”
410 John S. Craig, “The Mystery of David Ferrie,” July, 1995, Fair Play Magazine: spot.acorn.net/jfkplace/09/fp.back_issues/05th_issue/ferrie.html