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Sending a Message? RFK Jr.‘s Wife Found Dead by Hanging

COMMENT: Receiv­ing rel­a­tive­ly lit­tle cov­er­age, the assas­si­na­tion of Robert Kennedy is back in the court­room, with Sirhan cor­rob­o­rat­ing the “girl in the pol­ka dot dress” ele­ment (fol­low­ing hyp­no de-pro­gram­ming), sci­en­tif­ic evi­dence of more than one gun, and eye­wit­ness tes­ti­mo­ny of more than one shoot­er.

If this case were allowed to unrav­el to the extent that it might, the his­to­ry of the Unit­ed States and the world itself would crack open like an eggshell. As dis­cussed in AFA #9, evi­den­tiary trib­u­taries lead­ing from the RFK assas­si­na­tion go to the assas­si­na­tion of his broth­er John, the assas­si­na­tion of Mar­tin Luther King and the shoot­ing of George Wal­lace.

Full dis­clo­sure in the RFK case would also uncov­er the intel­li­gence com­mu­ni­ty’s mind con­trol pro­grams.

In that con­text, “Van­field­’s” lat­est con­tri­bu­tion bears fur­ther empha­sis.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.‘s wife was found dead of hang­ing, an alleged sui­cide. One won­ders if a mes­sage was being sent. The late Ms. Kennedy report­ed­ly had wres­tled with psy­cho­log­i­cal prob­lems and sub­stance abuse, which no doubt will keep the main­stream pun­dits sat­is­fied. 

Obvi­ous­ly, we can­not say for sure whether Ms. Kennedy took her own life or was the recip­i­ent of “assist­ed sui­cide.” We would note in this regard that plen­ty of peo­ple strug­gle with sub­stance abuse and psy­cho­log­i­cal dis­or­ders and don’t kill them­selves. 

Rush Lim­baugh got hooked on “Hill­bil­ly Hero­in” (Oxy­con­tin) and sought treat­ment for his addic­tion. He did­n’t hang him­self. (If he had, he’d have need­ed dock rope, plus a block and tack­le. The most telling com­ment I’ve heard on Lim­baugh came from come­di­an Mark Rus­sell who com­pared Rush to the Hin­den­burg, although admit­ting that it was inap­pro­pri­ate to com­pare a flam­ing Nazi gas-bag to a mag­nif­i­cent air­ship.)

“Coro­ner: Robert F. Kennedy Jr.‘s Estranged Wife Mary Died of ‘Ashyx­i­a­tion Due to  Hang­ing’ ” by Dylan Sta­ble­ford [The Look­out]; yahoo.com; 5/17/2012.

EXCERPT: Mary Kennedy, the estranged wife of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., died of “asphyx­i­a­tion due to hang­ing,” accord­ing to the results of an autop­sy per­formed on Thurs­day.

Mary Kennedy was found dead in her Bed­ford, N.Y., home on Wednes­day. The 52-year-old design­er had strug­gled with alco­hol and drug prob­lems.

In 1994, the for­mer Mary Richard­son mar­ried Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an envi­ron­men­tal lawyer and son of the late Sen. Robert F. Kennedy. The cou­ple had four chil­dren togeth­er. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. filed for divorce in May 2010. . . .

Discussion

2 comments for “Sending a Message? RFK Jr.‘s Wife Found Dead by Hanging”

  1. Lewis Katz, the new co-own­er of the Philade­phia Inquir­er, just died along with six oth­er peo­ple when a pri­vate jet explod­ed dur­ing take­off:

    Boston Globe
    Plane trav­eled 2,000 feet from run­way, offi­cial says
    By Dan Adams, Jere­my C. Fox, Todd Feath­ers and Mar­tin Fin­u­cane
    | Globe Cor­re­spon­dents and Globe Staff June 01, 2014

    BEDFORD — The pri­vate jet that crashed on take­off at Hanscom Field Sat­ur­day night, killing sev­en peo­ple, left the run­way and con­tin­ued rolling through the grass, col­lid­ing with an anten­na and burst­ing through a chain-link fence before it came to rest in a gul­ly, where it was con­sumed by fire, a fed­er­al crash inves­ti­ga­tor said today.

    An air­port employ­ee has told inves­ti­ga­tors that the air­craft, which crashed at about 9:40 p.m. Sat­ur­day, nev­er became air­borne, said Luke Schi­a­da, who is head­ing the Nation­al Trans­porta­tion Safe­ty Board probe of the crash.

    “Our infor­ma­tion from a wit­ness is that he did not see the air­craft break ground,” Schi­a­da said. “The air­craft itself is locat­ed about 2,000 feet from the end of the paved sur­face of Run­way 11.”

    Schi­a­da said debris along the path of the plane includ­ed pieces of the plane’s land­ing gear.

    One of those killed in the crash of the pri­vate jet was Lewis Katz, 72, co-own­er of The Philadel­phia Inquir­er, who had trav­eled to the area for a non­prof­it fundrais­er. Media accounts iden­ti­fied two of the oth­er pas­sen­gers as Anne Leeds and Mar­cel­la Dalsey.

    The names of the fourth pas­sen­ger and the three crewmem­bers aboard were not imme­di­ate­ly known. Schi­a­da said the offi­cial release of vic­tims’ names would be up to the Mid­dle­sex dis­trict attorney’s office. That office said it did not antic­i­pate releas­ing any names today.

    Schi­a­da said the plane, a Gulf­stream IV man­u­fac­tured in 2000 that was bound for Atlantic City, N.J., was frag­ment­ed and “most of it is con­sumed by fire.” Some of the pieces like­ly land­ed in the water at the bot­tom of the gul­ly, he said.

    Schi­a­da said the Gulf­stream had flown into Hanscom at around 3:30 p.m. or 3:40 p.m., and its crew had stayed with the plane.

    Schi­a­da empha­sized that the inves­ti­ga­tion was at its “very begin­ning” and it was too ear­ly to draw any con­clu­sions about the cause. He said there was no rea­son to think the crash was any­thing but an acci­dent, though noth­ing had been ruled out.

    He said inves­ti­ga­tors would, among oth­er things, scru­ti­nize the pilots’ expe­ri­ence and the aircraft’s his­to­ry; look for sur­veil­lance video; and inter­view wit­ness­es. He said inves­ti­ga­tors were in the process of search­ing for the flight data recorder and the cock­pit voice recorder for the plane.

    All sev­en bod­ies were found in the plane. Schi­a­da said he was hope­ful all the bod­ies could be removed by the end of the day.

    He said it was his under­stand­ing that there were no unusu­al com­mu­ni­ca­tions between the plane and the tow­er before the crash.

    Inves­ti­ga­tors will devel­op a com­pre­hen­sive report and send it to the safe­ty board in Wash­ing­ton, which will ulti­mate­ly deter­mine a prob­a­ble cause for the crash, Schi­a­da said.

    “The sole pur­pose is to devel­op the facts, con­di­tions, and cir­cum­stances and make rec­om­men­da­tions to pre­vent future acci­dents,” he said.

    “Our thoughts and prayers are with the fam­i­lies and those who per­ished,” said Ed Freni, avi­a­tion direc­tor for Mass­port, which oper­ates the air­port.

    The trag­ic inci­dent rat­tled res­i­dents who live in the leafy com­mu­ni­ty near the air­port.

    Jen­nifer Davies, a 40-year-old res­i­dent of near­by Saran Avenue, said she was sit­ting out­side Sat­ur­day night enjoy­ing her family’s new fire pit when the acci­dent occurred.

    “I heard a plane take off, which is nor­mal and some­thing we hear all the time,” she said. “But then there was a small boom, and I heard the plane accel­er­ate more. The engines real­ly revved up. It just start­ed screech­ing. Then there was a huge, gigan­tic explo­sion and I couldn’t hear the engines any­more.”

    Davies said after the large explo­sion, she heard one final, muf­fled “boom,” fol­lowed by a series of loud nois­es as the plane appar­ent­ly plowed into objects on the ground.

    “Every time it would hit some­thing, I would hear anoth­er explo­sion, then red embers and debris and things would fly up into the air. It was absolute­ly hor­rif­ic.” The plane “just kept blow­ing up,” she said.

    Res­i­dent Jeff Pat­ter­son, 43, who also lives near­by, said the flames rose 60 feet in the air. His 14-year-old son, Jared, said the explo­sion rat­tled the house.

    “I heard a big boom, and I thought at the time that some­one was try­ing to break into my house because it shook it,” said Jared Pat­ter­son. “I thought some­one was, like, bang­ing on the door try­ing to get in.”

    Fire­fight­ers arrived quick­ly at the scene and were able to extin­guish the flames in a short time, the Pat­ter­sons said.

    The fire was fuel-dri­ven, a law enforce­ment offi­cial briefed on the crash said. It pro­duced most­ly smoke instead of flames.

    Once the fire was out, inves­ti­ga­tors con­firmed the pas­sen­gers were dead and the scene was frozen so evi­dence would be undis­turbed, the offi­cial said.

    Steve Cass, vice pres­i­dent of com­mu­ni­ca­tions for Gulf­stream Aero­space Corp., said the Gulf­stream IV is a two-engine plane that is cer­ti­fied to hold up to 19 pas­sen­gers but most often is con­fig­ured to hold 12 to 16. The cock­pit con­tains two seats, for a pilot and copi­lot, Cass said. He said the Gulf­stream IV “has a very, very good safe­ty record” and that the man­u­fac­tur­er would coop­er­ate ful­ly with the NTSB inves­ti­ga­tion.

    The plane’s tail num­ber was N121JM. The Gulf­stream IV plane reg­is­tered under that tail num­ber is owned by North Car­oli­na-based SK Trav­el LLC, accord­ing to FAA records.

    A Gulf­stream can hold as much as 4,400 gal­lons of fuel, but would com­mon­ly only fly with the amount of fuel nec­es­sary for the trip, Cass said. The plane did not take on fuel in Bed­ford, Schi­a­da said.

    The flight-track­ing web site, flightaware.com, showed that a Gulf­stream IV with the tail num­ber N121JM left Wilm­ing­ton, Del., at 1:25 p.m. Sat­ur­day and arrived at Atlantic City Inter­na­tion­al Air­port at 1:33 p.m. It left there at 2:56 p.m. and arrived at Hanscom at 3:44 p.m., accord­ing to the site.

    Pri­or to that, the plane was last flown on May 20, when it went from Wilm­ing­ton to Mor­ris­town, N.J., then to Cleve­land and back, accord­ing to the site.

    Katz, a phil­an­thropist and busi­ness­man who once owned the New Jer­sey Nets, had attend­ed a fund-rais­er in Con­cord Sat­ur­day after­noon at the Con­cord home of his­to­ri­an Doris Kearns Good­win and her hus­band, Richard Good­win, who was an advis­er to Demo­c­ra­t­ic pres­i­dents John F. Kennedy and Lyn­don John­son.

    Doris Kearns Good­win and her son, Michael Good­win, issued a state­ment say­ing, “The death of Lewis and his col­leagues is a crush­ing and dev­as­tat­ing loss.”

    NBA Com­mis­sion­er Adam Sil­ver issued a state­ment say­ing Katz was a “vision­ary busi­ness­man” and a “trust­ed friend and val­ued mem­ber of the NBA fam­i­ly.”

    Anne Leeds was a well-known mem­ber of the Long­port, N.J., com­mu­ni­ty and the wife of Long­port Com­mis­sion­er James P. Leeds Sr., the Press of Atlantic City report­ed on its web­site.

    Mar­cel­la Dalsey was exec­u­tive direc­tor of the Drew A. Katz Foun­da­tion, and pres­i­dent of KATZ Acad­e­my Char­ter School, which she cofound­ed with Lewis Katz in 2012, the Inquir­er report­ed.

    For­mer Penn­syl­va­nia Gov. Ed Ren­dell said Katz had tried on Fri­day to per­suade him to join him on the trip, but he had anoth­er com­mit­ment. Ren­dell told The Asso­ci­at­ed Press that Katz died at ‘‘maybe the high point of his life,” thrilled after win­ning an $88 mil­lion auc­tion for the Inquir­er, the Philadel­phia Dai­ly News, and philly.com.

    ...

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | June 1, 2014, 6:53 pm
  2. The inves­ti­ga­tion into the pri­vate plane crash that killed Lewis Katz and six oth­er peo­ple just end­ed:

    Boston Globe
    Inves­ti­ga­tors have left Hanscom Field crash scene, NTSB says
    By Mar­tin Fin­u­cane
    | Globe Staff June 10, 2014

    Inves­ti­ga­tors prob­ing the pri­vate jet crash that killed sev­en peo­ple at Hanscom Field on May 31 have fin­ished their doc­u­men­ta­tion of the crash scene and left the area, the Nation­al Trans­porta­tion Safe­ty Board said Tues­day.

    A board spokesman said that a pre­lim­i­nary report could be issued by the end of this week, but cau­tioned that it will not out­line poten­tial caus­es of, or fac­tor in, the acci­dent. The report will only dis­cuss “ver­i­fied fac­tu­al infor­ma­tion that has been estab­lished at this very ear­ly stage in an inves­ti­ga­tion that is expect­ed to last at least 12 months,” NTSB spokesman Peter Knud­son said in a state­ment.

    Work doc­u­ment­ing the scene was fin­ished on Sat­ur­day, Knud­son said.

    He said inves­ti­ga­tors have formed groups look­ing into the fol­low­ing areas: sur­vival fac­tors, air­wor­thi­ness, oper­a­tions, air­craft per­for­mance, flight data recorder, and cock­pit voice recorder.

    The NTSB said last week that the Gulf­stream IV jet reached a speed of 190 miles per hour before slow­ing down and hurtling into a gul­ly. The plane’s flight data recorder showed that the brake pres­sures were ris­ing and the thrust reversers were engaged, anoth­er sign the pilots were try­ing to stop. Experts said those two facts sug­gest­ed the pilots were des­per­ate­ly try­ing to stop the plane.

    The NTSB also said the cock­pit voice recorder cap­tured com­ments about “air­craft con­trol” at the moment that the pilot was sup­posed to pull the plane’s nose up and take wing. The NTSB would not say what the com­ments were.

    ...

    And here’s a bit more on the poten­tial sig­nif­i­cance of the Katz’s suc­cess­ful takeover of the Philadel­phia Inquir­er:

    The New York Times
    Lewis Katz, Vic­tor in Fight to Own Philadel­phia Inquir­er, Dies at 72

    By RACHEL ABRAMSJUNE 1, 2014

    Lewis Katz, a co-own­er of The Philadel­phia Inquir­er who had only recent­ly emerged tri­umphant in a bat­tle for con­trol of the news­pa­per, died in a plane crash on Sat­ur­day night in Mass­a­chu­setts. He was 72.

    Inquir­er exec­u­tives announced his death.

    Mr. Katz, a New Jer­sey native who rose to become a suc­cess­ful entre­pre­neur and promi­nent fig­ure in local polit­i­cal cir­cles, and his busi­ness part­ner, the cable mag­nate H. F. Lenfest, had just won a heat­ed auc­tion for The Inquir­er and its affil­i­at­ed prop­er­ties. On Tues­day, the two agreed to pay $88 mil­lion for the paper, the web­site Philly.com and The Philadel­phia Dai­ly News.

    The deal end­ed a pro­tract­ed and acri­mo­nious pow­er strug­gle for the trou­bled news­pa­per, which had changed hands six times in less than a decade. Mr. Katz and Mr. Lenfest, known as Ger­ry, were already minor­i­ty own­ers. They took over from their part­ners, George E. Nor­cross III, Joseph E. Buck­elew and William P. Han­kowsky.

    Described as a tough nego­tia­tor, Mr. Katz made mil­lions of dol­lars from var­i­ous busi­ness ven­tures, includ­ing park­ing lots and bill­boards.

    ...

    Mr. Katz was on his way home from a fund-rais­er at the home of the his­to­ri­an Doris Kearns Good­win when the pri­vate Gulf­stream IV jet in which he was a pas­sen­ger explod­ed in a fiery crash at a Mass­a­chu­setts air­field late Sat­ur­day night. All sev­en peo­ple on board were killed.

    Only one oth­er pas­sen­ger, Anne Leeds, the wife of a Long­port, N.J., com­mis­sion­er, James Leeds, has been iden­ti­fied so far.

    Mr. Mari­mow said Mr. Katz had a “deep and abid­ing affec­tion” for jour­nal­ism, one inspired by an ear­ly stint work­ing as an aide to the promi­nent Wash­ing­ton colum­nist Drew Pear­son. The two men met when Mr. Pear­son spoke at Tem­ple dur­ing Mr. Katz’s time as a stu­dent, Mr. Mari­mow said.

    With the back­ing of Edward G. Ren­dell, a for­mer Penn­syl­va­nia gov­er­nor, Mr. Katz and a group of promi­nent Democ­rats wrest­ed the paper away from its own­ers in 2012, amid accu­sa­tions that man­age­ment was exert­ing inap­pro­pri­ate influ­ence over edi­to­r­i­al deci­sions.

    “He want­ed the news­pa­per to be owned by local peo­ple who would have an inter­est in the com­mu­ni­ty,” Mr. Lenfest said by phone on Sun­day, refer­ring to Mr. Ren­dell. “He did it for a good pur­pose.”

    But Mr. Katz’s group soon faced sim­i­lar accu­sa­tions of its own, notably when Mr. Nor­cross installed his 25-year-old daugh­ter, Alessan­dra, to run Philly.com even though she did not have expe­ri­ence as a media exec­u­tive. Nan­cy Phillips, Mr. Katz’s com­pan­ion — and a long­time edi­tor and reporter at The Inquir­er — was the paper’s city edi­tor.

    Mr. Katz and Mr. Lenfest won their bid for the paper on Tues­day, end­ing a pro­tract­ed bat­tle among the polit­i­cal­ly con­nect­ed men. The sale had been set to close on June 12 but will be delayed 30 days because of Mr. Katz’s death, Mr. Lenfest said. He con­firmed that Mr. Katz’s son, Drew, would suc­ceed his father on the new company’s board.

    ...

    So Katz was part of a group of local Demo­c­ra­t­ic busi­ness men that bought the Philadel­phia Inquir­er in 2012 “amid accu­sa­tions that man­age­ment was exert­ing inap­pro­pri­ate influ­ence over edi­to­r­i­al deci­sions”. But then, after buy­ing the paper, alle­ga­tions about undo edi­to­r­i­al influ­ence was also being levied at the new own­ers, includ­ing Katz. Then a new fight over con­trol of the paper took place between the new own­ers. Katz and his part­ner win the fight in late May of this year, an then, days lat­er, Katz dies in a plane crash due to an unex­plained mechan­i­cal fail­ure.

    Now, assum­ing there was foul play involved in that crash, the obvi­ous first sus­pects would be enraged busi­ness part­ners Katz had a falling out with. And yet it would also be insane for angry ex-part­ners to do some­thing like that just days after Katz won con­trol of the paper even if they were inclined to do some­thing that extreme at all. So it rais­es the ques­tion: Who could have want­ed Katz out of the way? And could the tim­ing have been intend­ed to send a mes­sage?

    Posted by Pterrafractyl | June 11, 2014, 6:47 pm

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