John Melvin Liggett: The Most Interesting Man in the World?

[Lance Payette]

Every now and then, I encounter a conspiracy factoid where the LN efforts to explain it away leave me unsatisfied. Such is the case with John Melvin Liggett, a better candidate than Oswald for The Most Interesting Man in the World.

I was spending time at Dave Perry’s site, https://dperry1943.com/liggett.html, and with the chapter on Liggett in his book, Tales of Deception and Imagination. After reading these, I was unsatisfied that there isn’t something pretty strange and unexplained about the Liggett tale.

Liggett was apparently a highly skilled Dallas-area embalmer. He also had an exceedingly dark side that may have involved torturing, assaulting and setting fire to women. He also apparently had a habit of getting drunk and saying things he later wished he hadn’t revealed, which might explain setting fire to certain women, one of whom definitely had an LBJ connection.

He was under arrest and in custody at the time of his death. Bizarrely, he was shot to death while trying to escape on the sidewalk in front of the TSBD, just a few yards past Royell’s beloved Huge Gates. The officer who shot him sent an email to Perry in 2006 that seems to clarify what Perry says about how quickly he died. The officer added, “What does now strike me as odd now is, like I said, his head was facing the area where President Kennedy died in 1963. He knew I think.” https://dperry1943.com/crawfordonliggett.html.

OK, but what does that have to do with the JFKA? It’s laid out better than I could explain it here in a segment from the 2003 addition to Nigel Turner’s The Men Who Killed Kennedy. Yes, I know, TMWKK is not where we typically look for accurate reporting. Nevertheless, the Liggett segment beginning at the 26:40 mark of the YouTube video below is extremely well-done.

It features Liggett’s ex-wife, Lois, and his stepdaughter, Debra Godwin. I expected crackpots, but they are anything but. Both strike me as about as credible as they could be, and with no obvious agenda. Startling as what they have to say may be, they are quite humble about it and don’t seem to be embellishing in the slightest.

The combination of the actual known facts of Liggett’s life, together with what Lois and Debra had to say, is enough to give me pause. There are a number of old threads about this at the Ed Forum and elsewhere, but nothing I could find satisfactorily explained away the mystery. Right here at this forum, Tom Scully was apparently able to confirm Lois’s story to the extent that the funeral of her aunt, from which Liggett was mysteriously called away, was indeed at 2 PM on the day of the JFKA: https://www.jfkassassinationforum.com/index.php/topic,719.0.html.

Of course, the bare facts as described by Lois have since spiraled into all sorts of conspiracy connections involving LBJ, Billy Sol Estes and others, as well – of course – as the body alteration thing. See https://lbjthemasterofdeceit.com/2020/01/16/john-m-liggett-the-mystery-of-the-murderous-mortician/. On pages 155-157 of his book A Texas Legend,, Estes says Liggett's role was to find a body like JFK’s and make it match specified wound descriptions. On the day of the JFKA, Liggett was picked up in a hearse that contained the substitute body. At Love Field, he got on a plane where instructions were given and he made the body appear to have been shot in the head from the rear. Photographs of both bodies were taken and later mixed and matched for the official story.

Golly! I haven’t attempted to follow through on any of that. I simply say that the actual known facts of Liggett’s life, together with what Lois and Debra had to say, leave me scratching my head.

If you skim any of the old Ed Forum threads, you will see that Jim DiEugenio became quite emotional and weirdly apoplectic in dismissing the Liggett story as “baloney” and “BS.” When challenged to back up what he was saying, he offered nothing but that Liggett’s older brother Malcolm had sued the A&E network for defamation and received a “six-figure settlement.” Well, not exactly.

At the end of the TMWKK segment, Debra identifies Malcolm and his wife, as well as another woman who later became a good friend of Lois, in a photo with Jack Ruby, apparently at the Carousel Club. Malcolm sued A&E (and apparently Turner and a Dallas newspaper reporter) for defamation and invasion of privacy, insisting it was not him in the photo and that Lois’s statements concerning him were false. The parties reached an undisclosed settlement – nothing was ever said about “six figures,” and DiEugenio ignored challenges to back up his claim; A&E simply read Malcolm’s letter on the air.

Nevertheless, a number of people seem satisfied that it is indeed Malcolm in the photo. Malcolm died in 2008 after what sounds like quite a distinguished career: https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/tcpalm/name/malcolm-liggett-obituary?id=49770331. His obituary has no photo, and I couldn't find one using Google. Given his career, one could understand why he would want to distance himself from TMWKK even if that was him in the Ruby photo.

It's too bad, IMO, there wasn’t more CT follow-up on this – with Debra and her siblings, for example. There are so many Debra Godwins that the task is beyond me. Malcolm's wife Suzanne Liggett is still alive, but she's 86. If Lois and Debra were simply telling whoppers, Lois in particular was extremely good at it.

[Lance Payette]

I would add: Dave Perry has the obituary information for Lois’s late husband, Charles F. Godwin. It shows his widow being named Lois and a daughter named Debra. There was a son, Charles F. Godwin, Jr., and daughters Bonnie and Char-Lee. Nothing suspicious here, then. TMWKK does not give Lois’s last name or the town in OK in which she then lived, but I suppose that’s understandable.

Lois died at age 94 as Lois Jacob Vail in Maine. Her obituary describes Godwin as her childhood sweetheart but omits any mention of Liggett. In fact, the obituary says the time after Godwin’s death “was a difficult time for a single mother to raise four kids and work.” As Perry suggests, perhaps the Liggett relationship was a common law one. She married Vail in 1980. Lois seems to have been quite sophisticated and hardly a tale-telling yahoo: https://obituaries.mineralwellsindex.com/obituary/lois-vail-1073994318.

If I were really going to research this – which I’m not – I would start with people who may have been involved in the production of the TMWKK. How did Lois and Debra come to their attention? What were the negotiations for them to become involved? What vetting of any sort was done? Why didn’t the producers contact the prominent and easily located Malcolm Liggett before running with the story? What efforts were made to verify that John Liggett actually was the embalming genius he is described as being?

It all boils down to (1) Lois is telling whoppers for no obvious reason and Debra is playing along (possible – it does happen) or (2) this is a truly weird story.

With that, I go into non-JFKA mode. Since I'm pretty much talking to myself on this forum, I'm moving on, at least for a goodly spell. See you all down the road, perhaps. (Sock puppets, you may now safely emerge from your little sock caves and once again do your sock thing.)

[Tom Graves]

Since I'm pretty much talking to myself on this forum, I'm moving on, at least for a goodly spell. See you all down the road, perhaps.

Adios, Fancy Pants Lance!