Steve Wilson

[John Simkin]

I have suggested in the past that Steve Wilson might have been one of the men who killed JFK. I have just received this email:

"Is it possible that Steve Wilson is a cover name and that possibly he did not die of a heart attack in 1984, that he was a member of the "Phoenix" program and that in reality his name was Ed Gum, a member of the United States Marine Corps?"

[Tim Carroll]

"Is it possible that Steve Wilson is a cover name and that possibly he did not die of a heart attack in 1984, that he was a member of the "Phoenix" program and that in reality his name was Ed Gum, a member of the United States Marine Corps?"

T.C.

[Ron Ecker]

A question if Wilson was one of the killers: Why did he live till 1984? Why did he return safely from the "Phoenix" program (which I assume refers to the U.S. killing program in Vietnam)?

[John Simkin]

I have received another email about this Steve Wilson story:

Five or six years ago, I had a conversation with a man at a bar I use to frequent. He used to speak of being a sergeant with Force Recon and that he had been a member of the Phoenix program during the Vietnam War. He seemed credible to me. His truck had two or three purple heart emblems on his license plate. In addition, while sitting next to him and having a beer one day after work, he started talking about No Name Key. No one else at the bar but me probably had any notion of what he was referring to.

In an earlier conversation I had been a present at, which I don't specifically recall the details of, he had mentioned that his cover name had been Steve Wilson. At the time of his mentioning this, I didn't make any connection with this name and anything else. But later, when he mentioned No Name Key and training Cuban exiles, I knew about this reference. I asked him if he knew Gerald Patrick Hemming, Billy Bishop, Roy Hargraves (essentially, key figures within the Interpen group), as well as David Sanchez Morales, Micheal Mertz, and Jean Soutree. At this point, Ed Gum closed up, not discussing anything more regarding this topic and his eyes narrowed on me.

A couple of days later, when I was having a beer at this same bar, Ed sidled over to me, and in a low, flat voice told me not to ever attempt to roll him over again. Then he went back to his own drink. That was the extent of that conversation, and I took him at his word. His tone definitely sounded in ernest.

Now, several possibilities could be occuring here:

1. I am making all of this up, which I am not.

2. Ed is an old man embelishing his war stories. People at bars do things like this, though why anyone would want to boast about being a member of the Phoenix program is beyond me; but people at bars say and do odd things (subconscious attempts at salvation, confession?)

3. There is a twin brother of Ed's who just happens to bear a shockingly uncanny resemblance to the photograph of Steve Wilson posted on your website.

After seeing the photograph you display on your own website in a reference book I own, I made a serruptitious study of Ed's face. The general skull shape, set of the eyes, curvature of the nose, shape of the chin, all seemed to perfectly match the photograph of the much younger man shown on your website. But more importantly, I studied Ed's ear shape, the lack of any significant ear lobe. The ear shape appears to correspond almost exactly to the shape of the ear in the photograph. I have no doubt in my mind, the face I was looking at was the same as that of the young man portrayed in the photograph.

A couple of years later, Ed moved back to Florida after his wife had died of cancer and he had sold his business.

[Zach Robertson]

Justin Joseph "Steve" Wilson was a indeed real person and actually died on Aug. 15, 1985 in Dade County.

Purely as a curiousity, here is an image of Ed Gum [second from left], USMC Marine Recon from 2009 in Bokeelia, FL.

Zach

[Thomas Graves]

deleted

Edited May 24, 2012 by Thomas Graves