Sunday, February 21, 2010

Who Killed William Colby?

[Editor's Note 5/2/2021: We have published a long overdue update to this Chronicle which provides more details and motive for the murder of William Colby. The American Chronicle: Postscript: Who Murdered William Colby?]

When the inimitable "Marla Singer" of Zero Hedge indignantly told me to take my "goddamn" murder theories regarding William Colby elsewhere I realized that my moment in the bloglight had arrived. So after a bit of time and some research, I took her advice producing the following morality tale for would be CIA directors. You will learn how and why the assassins killed the former CIA director on April 27, 1996. His death may have been mysterious as the newsfakers reported but it was certainly not a boating accident - or any other kind of accident for that matter.

It is not every day that a CIA director is murdered - in fact more presidents have been assassinated than have been CIA directors. But the world of spooks and spies is murky where finding the truth is a labor of love. Such labor did Zalin Grant put into the mystery that he wrote an account of Colby's death in War Tales published by Pythia Press.

Grant is not the first investigator to tread the waters of Cobb Island where Colby vanished. A defunct Agora Press publication reported within weeks of the murder that foul play claimed his life and revealed a clue which Grant leaves dangling. Before we can get to that clue, we need to develop the background.

After a hard day preparing his boat for the upcoming sailing season, Colby returned to his home, called his wife in Texas, and watered his willow tree. While watering the tree his gardener introduced him to his visiting sister. They left, Colby returned the hose to its place in the garage, and prepared dinner. While seemingly mundane these events provide timing clues to his disappearance and death.

Grant did what the professional investigators failed to do - he compiled a timeline of Colby's activities provided by eye witnesses and a helpful cooking inference from his wife to determine that Colby probably sat down to eat around 8:30p - well after dark - when all of a sudden he decided to get up to go canoeing - as you do.

The following day concerned neighbor Alice Stokes called the police. Hours later Kevin Akers unknowingly found Colby's canoe beached full of sand near the junction of Neale Sound and the Wicomico River and towed it back to the marina.

Colby's body was found nine days after his disappearance. After a quick autopsy on May 6, 1996 by David R. Fowler, assistant medical examiner for Maryland John Smialek, Maryland’s chief medical examiner, declared death by heart attack - a declaration having the salutory effect of dispersing the news media.  Unfortunately there was no evidence for such a conclusion. Grant was told different stories about the cause of death depending upon whom he asked and the time of day.

As Grant pulled together other details of the murder he was able to determine that a squad of 3-5 assassins in two groups engineered the murder. One group grabbed Colby whom they demanded to empty all of his pockets and then took by car to the murder location. The other team commandeered his boat and brought it to the location where Akers found it. The location was required because it had the sand needed to secure the boat in place. The place was needed because it was the only location with an accessible road to the water and out of view of potential witnesses.

After the killers murdered Colby, they allowed his body to decompose for 9 days in order to make it impossible to determine the cause of death. So the internal organs rotted while the exterior retained excellent composure. Thus they assumed correctly that the coroners would rule accidental drowning.

When they dumped the body at the crime scene the killers had not counted on the currents which would drift the body to a location other than where the boat was found. This detail would help solidify the case for murder.

As for that clue phone we mentioned earlier? Colby had routed his Cobb Island phone to his Washington home so that all billing would occur there so as to limit visitors from running up long distance calls. Only the Colbys knew the dial out code. Should there be calls on the line after the suspected time of disappearance of 8:30 there would be hard evidence that abductors had come to take him away.

Mrs. Colby refused to cooperate with Grant in providing that evidence - information which Strategic Investor had suggested as early as 1996 as being a key piece of evidence in understanding the cause of Colby's death.

So why was Colby murdered? A CIA director can make a lot of enemies which Colby managed to do in spades. Perhaps his biggest sin was his willingness to honestly answer Congress the questions they put to him. In fact his candor caused Kissinger to instruct President Ford to fire him which he did in November 1975. Twenty years later Colby was scheduled to speak before Congress again and the spooks at Langley wanted to take no chances of more family jewels being cast before swine.

References:
Who Murdered The CIA Chief

17 comments:

Anonymous said...

Was he murdered because he would not go along with the NWO?

Tony Bonn said...

William Colby's murder - in my opinion - had absolutely nothing to do with the NWO - whether of the world or wrestling type.

Anonymous said...

Watch "Conspiracy of Silence" around the 38-39 minute mark and you will another possible motive for his murder.

Mike kenney said...

Colby and the CIA had much larger secrets than he ever disclosed to Congress. Sen Church and others already knew about Phoenix,domestic surveillance and assasination apparatus. Colby tried to reign them in by confirming what they had pieces of, but keeping them out of witch hunts by claiming "national security." He was an honorable man balancing a paradox, which is a perfect metaphor for the CIA. When he was fired President Ford told Bob Woodward he needed someone like George HW Bush, because he was a "loyalist." When asked for others, Ford named, "Kissinger, Cheney, and Rumsfeld. Uh huh
What else Might have Colby been ready to divulge in his twilight years? JFK, RFK MLK Area 51 Panama.Iran/contra? Maybe, but the big secret is where the money comes from to avoid oversight. He knew, maybe invented, that answer

Tony Bonn said...

i agree that colby had bigger secrets to keep than those revealed to the church committee but those are reasons enough to splinter the cia into a 1000 pieces as jfk once intended.

i part company with you about the honor of colby and the cia. colby personally oversaw operation phoenix which was one of the most ghastly and hideous crimes against humanity which the cia undertook in that war - a macrocosm of my lai.

regarding colby's loose lips, i suspect that even with his limited hangouts he was just a tad too truthy for the bush crime syndicate who felt that silence was more golden than truth.

jeffrey simpson said...

If Colby was murdered, the most likely culprit, in my opinion, is his much younger second wife, Sally Shelton Colby. She was very smart, had the most to gain, and was fully capable of hiring someone to kill him. And, she would have been well aware that people would attribute it to age, or to his past with the CIA. She also would have been well aware of the incredible naiveté of public opinion in this country, that is, that people think of women as weak and harmless and innocent, when in reality nothing could be further from the truth. If she is innocent, why did she lie at first, then refuse to give up the phone records of the night of the murder to Zalin Grant? Furthermore, if Colby was going to be murdered by 'spooks', I think it would have happened long before 1996, when he was a retired old man.

Tony Bonn said...

I would certainly not eliminate sally as a suspect, as she did not materially assist the investigation into her husband's death, but I don't really see how she benefits. I suspect that she knew who was behind the murder and did not want to suffer the same fate by giving investigators too much ammo.

furthermore the plan was too elaborate to be the work of mercenaries. that the murderers brought the body back for show and tell is strong reason to doubt a gun for hire.

the fact that Colby was scheduled to testify before congress on various spook matters most likely caused the bush crime syndicate significant consternation. there is a long literature of problematic congressional witnesses dying before their appearances, George de moohrenschildt being a classic example.

loose lips sink ships.

Fred from AK said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Unknown said...

OH BOY, Never underestimate a Woman..SHE, Miss sally is the guilty party..She had more connections than you can imagine and this includes some really BIG stuff from the UK..check it out..ITS complicated but Abel Danger.net sheds much light on poor ole Bill C..His ugly BI wife was responsible Probably..$$$$$$..She blew her cover right from the start with the telephone records..She got away with it and that should tell YOU how connected she was or IS...

Tony Bonn said...

cherchez la femme? i don't think so. she may well have been involved, either from avarice or self preservation, but she was not the heavy lifter regardless of how evil she is. she may well have had prior knowledge which prompted her convenient absence.

CLINTON MERCHESON said...

"...COLBY WAS MURDERED BY THOSE INVOLVED WITH THE NUGEN-HAND BANK DEBACLE IN AUSTRALIA. ONE OF THOSE MEN NOW RESIDES IN THE LAS VEGAS AREA, THE FORMER GREEN BERET AND FORMER CIA ASSET, CHARLES HAND, WHO RECEINTLY AVOIDED CAPTURE BY AUSTRALIAN AUTHORITIES WHILE RESIDING WITHIN THE CONTINENTAL UNITED STATES."-

Unknown said...

He knew too much and he was about to reveal all

Frank said...

I can add a comment to this based on my own experience since I had a subscription in 1995/1996 to an Agora (mentioned in the article above) Publication called "The Strategic Investment Newsletter". Colby was much in demand as a consultant on international affairs after his retirement from the CIA and by request from Agora contributed articles to the strategic investment newsletter. In the last article that Colby wrote for The Strategic Investment Newsletter he made a statement that changed my worldview forever and from that time on everything that puzzled me about governments and politics suddenly made sense. Colby wrote that "As far as he was concerned the governments of virtually every nation on the planet are either directly run by organized crime or were severely influenced by it". Colby died mysteriously right after his article was published and in a following newsletter the publisher William Bonner indicated a suspicion that Colby's article cost him his life. Ironic that POTUS at the time was none other than Bill Clinton and could this be yet another unclaimed and uncredited contribution to the Clinton body count?

Tony Bonn said...

Frank - not only that article but there was a brief follow-up in one issue mentioning a cryptic untraceable phone call from his home after Colby was dead and also mentioning his wife.

Anonymous said...

Mrs. Colby stated she talked to her husband by telephone and he told her he was going to have dinner, read a little and then go to bed. She also said he always cleared the table and rinsed out the dishes....The dishes had food still in the dishes on the table...So he didn't finish dinner and then went outside instead of reading.

Unknown said...

Colby's neighbor of that couple could be a possible part of it too. Quite a few acts and descriptions by themselves and the investigative articles aroused some reasonable suspicions. It's impossible for Colby to "live alone" according to his status. Everyone is watching and to be watched, around, in that circle. Yes, might be his 2nd wife (as a "watch dog" for him) as a part too.

Historybuff said...

Colby lived at the end of a little point of land surrounded by water on three sides. A narrow lane lined with a few cottages led to his home. Someone
had to have been aware of all of the comings and goings of unknown people that Sunday evening.