James Phelan; Dr. Nicholas Chetta, MD; David Blackburst; Dr. Robert Artwohl, MD;
Clark Wilkins; Jim Hargrove; and Dave Reitzes
From: blackburst@aol.com (Blackburst)
Date: 3/7/99 12:47 AM Eastern Standard Time
Message-id: <19990307004756.02060.00004635@ng29.aol.com>
Dave Reitzes wrote:
>David Blackburst has demonstrated that a
>small amount of Proloid was indeed on the record as having been found among
>Ferrie's effects, suggesting that the alleged murder or suicide was committed
>without even using the whole bottle
>David,
>are you lurking?
>
Garrison told Alcock that there were seven pills left in the bottle.
oo
David
Subject: Re: Garrison and Ferrie Death
From: blackburst@aol.com (Blackburst)
Date: 3/6/99 12:31 AM Eastern Standard Time
Message-id: <19990306003110.10926.00004087@ng93.aol.com>
Garrison's files strongly indicate that he had no idea of the possible significance of the Proloid bottle until it was pointed out to him by Ferrie's doctor on October 3, 1967. It is hard for me to understand why he would have pocketed this particular bottle over 7 months before he knew of it's possible significance. Or why he would have given a chronology of the Proloid story in OTTOTA that is completely contradictory to his own files.
oo
David Blackburst
Subject: Re: Alcock vs. Garrison re: Ferrie
From: blackburst@aol.com (Blackburst)
Date: 2/21/99 2:06 AM Eastern Standard Time
Message-id: <19990221020625.01139.00000813@ng-ce1.aol.com>
Tony Pitman wrote:
>My main problem regarding this is how the Coroner was informed of
>Ferries demise before the police and the DA's office then proceeded to
>charge in there, stomp all over a possible crime scene and remove the
>body.
Not true. You appear to be relying on Garrison's OTTOTA rather than the contemporaneous police reports. This is the chronology:
11:45am Jimmy Johnson arrives at Ferrie's apartment.
11:50 Johnson peeks through door, sees body, breaks in door, determines Ferrie
is dead. Calls NODA office, line busy.
11:55 Johnson calls NOPD. Again phones NODA, leaves message for Lou Ivon.
12:05pm NOPD arrives.
12:10 Ivon arrives, other NODA people arrive shortly.
12:45 Coroner arrives.
1:00 Ferrie pronounced dead.
2:00 Body removed.
3:00 Autopsy begins.
>Apart from [the coroner] contaminating the scene
Not true. He arrived AFTER NOPD and NODA and conducted a normal investigation in their presence.
>he apparently then proceeded with an
>exeedingly perfunctory autopsy
Not true. I have the autopsy report, and it is VERY complete, and I have had this confirmed by professional coroners.
>and destroyed certain organs etc so that
>they could not ever be examined again to see whether what Garrison said
>was in fact the case.
Not true. No organs were destroyed. Garrison was NOT on the scene at all, and the Proloid theory was not developed until many months after the death.
>This to me is as suspicious as hell and I dont understand how anyone can
>possibly justify these actions.
None of the suspicious actions you mention actually occurred. Garrison's book is wrong.
>No one goes to that ammount of trouble, taking that much risk without
>damn good reason.
>Perhaps if he knew he had the Federal Govt behind him he was confident
>that the risk was minimal.
>
This is a good example of building a theory on completely erroneous premises. I don't know why Garrison recounted the events of Ferrie's death so innaccurately, but the NOPD and NODA records prove it to be innaccurate. As I have said, it saddens me to have to say that the information in "A Heritage of Stone" and "On the Trail of the Assassins" cannot be accepted without double-checking the contemporaneous documents.
Say what you will about coroner Nick Chetta and autopsist Ron Welsh, they were honest and sincere professionals.
oo
David Blackburst
Subject: Re: Ferrie's natural death: More evidence
From: dreitzes@aol.com (Dreitzes)
Date: 3/1/99 11:58 PM Eastern Standard Time
Message-id: <19990301235851.05565.00002242@ng40.aol.com>
>Subject: Re: Ferrie's natural death: More evidence
>From: NNXR37A@prodigy.com (Clark Wilkins)
>Date: 3/1/99 12:38 PM Eastern Standard Time
>Message-id: <7bejbb$ekpc$1@newssvr04-int.news.prodigy.com>
>
>I'm not one to claim Ferrie was murdered, but wasn't there a suicide note?
> Or was this just a "rancorous letter to a friend"?
>It seems kind of hard to me for one to die of natural causes and leave a
>suicide note.
>
>Just a thought.
>
>.Clark
Among Ferrie's possessions were discovered two undated, unsigned notes -- one despairing about a failed romance, one a bitter political rant -- which Jim Garrison touted as suicide notes. Problems with Garrison's theory: 1) There is absolutely no indication WHEN Ferrie wrote these notes, 2) Absolutely no one of the many friends and journalists who encountered Ferrie in his few weeks believed him to be suicidal or even particularly despondent; on the contrary, he was mad as hell at Garrison's office for following his every footstep, he was preparing a $500,000 defamation suit against the DA's office, and he'd even begun to study the Warren Commission evidence to try to figure out why in the world Garrison was after him, 3) There was never any doubt in the minds of the coroner and Ferrie's autopsy pathologist that his death was a natural one; Patricia Lambert and David Blackburst have each noted evidence that Ferrie's berry aneurysm was already causing him severe headaches and internal bleeding some weeks before his death, and 4) Can you find a doctor willing to consider Proloid as an effective means of murder OR suicide? The three or four I've heard from all agree that it would take massive doses over a long period of time to cause a fatal overdose [if even then], and it would be an extremely painful process.
Dave Reitzes
Subject: Re: Ferrie's natural death: More evidence
From: blackburst@aol.com (Blackburst)
Date: 3/2/99 12:08 AM Eastern Standard Time
Message-id: <19990302000839.15314.00002201@ng-fv1.aol.com>
Clark Wilkins wrote:
>I'm not one to claim Ferrie was murdered, but wasn't there a suicide note?
>It seems kind of hard to me for one to die of natural causes and leave a
>suicide note.
There were two letters found among Ferrie's effects that were typed on his typewriter. The shorter note to Al Beauboeuf begins: "When you receive this I will be quite dead" and goes on to lament that Al spurned Ferrie's love.
The longer note begins: "To leave this life is, for me, a sweet prospect. I find nothing in it that is desirable, and on the other hand everything that is loathsome" and then goes on a rant about youth and crime, and the unfairness of the justice system. Invoking his own legal difficulties, Ferrie ends: "If this is justice, then justice be damned".
Neither note reads like the classic suicide note, and it cannot be determined when they were written. It is well to recall that Ferrie had been quite ill for about a year before his death. He had experienced a non-fatal aneurysm and had long suffered severe headaches. In early 1966, he began telling people he thought he had encephalitis and was dying, and he began putting his affairs in order, drawing up a new will and listing people to be contacted after his death. In this context, the notes can be interpreted in a more benign way.
The characterization of these notes as "suicide notes" is subjective and open to discussion. At some point, I will post these notes in their entirety.
oo
David
Subject: Re: Ferrie's natural death: More evidence
From: blackburst@aol.com (Blackburst)
Date: 3/3/99 12:40 AM Eastern Standard Time
Message-id: <19990303004023.15111.00002543@ng115.aol.com>
Do you not consider it possible that a man who had a ruptured aneurysm, severe headaches, and a strong belief that he was fatally ill might not write such notes (which I presume you've read in their entirety)? I can't exclude the possibility.
oo
David
Subject: Re: HOW DAVID FERRIE DIED
From: hargrove@enteract.com (Jim Hargrove)
Date: 3/6/99 4:54 PM Eastern Standard Time
Message-id: <36e1a36f.1273011@news.enteract.com>
[...]
Despite the two typed suicide notes and the fact that a sheet was pulled over Ferrie's naked body, coroner Chetta ruled death by natural causes. Chetta died three months later, but his successor, Dr. Frank Minyard, some years ago distributed photographs from Ferrie's autopsy. Photos of the inside of Ferrie's mouth revealed recent wounds.
The bottle of Proloid pills was empty. Also missing entirely was a bottle of 100 thyroid pills Ferrie purchased the day before he died. In a 1/31/92 interview with Jim DiEugenio, Dr. Minyard considered this a possible scenario for the murder of Ferrie: The thyroid pills were mixed with the Proloid and forced down Ferrie's mouth with a tube, which caused the mouth wounds.
--Jim Hargrove
Subject: Re: HOW DAVID FERRIE DIED
From: blackburst@aol.com (Blackburst)
Date: 3/7/99 12:18 AM Eastern Standard Time
Message-id: <19990307001835.02060.00004632@ng29.aol.com>
[...]
From Autopsy Protocol W67-2-255
"There is a small area of dryness of the inner aspect of the upper lip on the right side. This area measures 3/4 in. in length and is somewhat reddish brown in color. There is a less well defined area on the lower lip immediately inferior to the lesion on the upper lip. Both areas show no deep hemmorhages or swellings...There are no venipuncture marks at any point in the extremities or the body....
[...]
oo
David Blackburst
Subject: Re: HOW DAVID FERRIE DIED
From: blackburst@aol.com (Blackburst)
Date: 3/7/99 12:44 AM Eastern Standard Time
Message-id: <19990307004416.02060.00004634@ng29.aol.com>
Jim Hargrove wrote:
>Despite the two typed suicide notes
The farewell notes have not been established to be suicide notes. They are consistent with the farewell notes of a dying man.
>and the fact that a sheet was pulled
>over Ferrie's naked body
Photographs taken by the coroner of Ferrie's body at the scene of his death do not show a sheet pulled over Ferrie's body. They show Ferrie in a traditional sleeping position with a sheet covering his naked body up to the stomach. This is not inconsistent with dying in his sleep.
>Photos of the
>inside of Ferrie's mouth revealed recent wounds.
The "areas of dryness" or "lesions" inside Ferrie's lips were not described as "wounds" and were not dated as time.
>The bottle of Proloid pills was empty
According to a memo from Garrison to Alcock, "a bottle of Proloid (with only seven tablets found in it) was found in David Ferrie's apartment."
>In a 1/31/92
>interview with Jim DiEugenio, Dr. Minyard considered this a possible
>scenario for the murder of Ferrie: The thyroid pills were mixed with the
>Proloid and forced down Ferrie's mouth with a tube, which caused the mouth
>wounds.
>
Minyard never examined the body. Dr. Ronald A. Welsh did.
Four mistakes in one post.
oo
David Blackburst
Subject: Re: HOW DAVID FERRIE DIED
From: blackburst@aol.com (Blackburst)
Date: 3/7/99 12:31 AM Eastern Standard Time
Message-id: <19990307003113.02060.00004633@ng29.aol.com>
[...]
"Classification of Death: Natural"
Certificate of Death 670001526:
"Classified by Coroner as a natural death"
1976 Certified copy of Coroner's record, Frank Minyard M.D., Coroner, Louis
Ivon, Administrator:
"Describe how injury occurred...Natural"
These are the real records.
oo
David Blackburst
More . . .
Back to David Blackburst Archive menu
Back to Dave Reitzes newsgroup menu