Clay Shaw and Richard Townley

One of the journalists who figures prominently in the first six months of the period before and after Clay Shaw's arrest was Richard Townley, an investigative reporter for WDSU-TV in New Orleans. I e-mailed with Richard, interviewed him by telephone, and then drove to his residence in Mountain Home, Arkansas during the middle part of 2007. Richard provided quite a lot of useful information, about which I reported in my biography of Clay Shaw, entitled Man of a Million Fragments: The True Story of Clay Shaw.

Richard was alerted to the Garrison investigation before news of it broke on February 17, 1967, and certain information he received from inside of Garrison's office convinced him that it was an invalid investigation from the start. He was eventually indicted by Garrison, and found it necessary to seek employment outside of New Orleans. I give a detailed account of this in my book.

I found Richard credible. He was forthright about things that went on, and he was very candid about his investigative "partner", Walter Sheridan, a former key aide to Robert Kennedy and, at the time of Garrison's investigation, an investigative reporter for NBC News.

Richard passed in early 2009, way too young, after several long-term health issues.