Mary Pinchot Meyer

Mary Eno Pinchot Meyer (; October 14, 1920 – October 12, 1964) was an American painter who lived in Washington D.C. She was married to Cord Meyer from 1945 to 1958, and became involved romantically with President John F. Kennedy after her divorce from Meyer. Pinchot Meyer was murdered on the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal towpath in Washington, D.C., on October 12, 1964. A suspect, Ray Crump, Jr., was arrested and charged with her murder, but he was ultimately acquitted. Beginning in 1976, Pinchot Meyer's life, her relationship with Kennedy, and her murder became the subjects of numerous articles and books, including a full-length biography by journalist Nina Burleigh. Early life Pinchot was born in New York City, the elder of two daughters of Amos and Ruth (née Pickering) Pinchot. Amos Pinchot was a wealthy lawyer and a key figure in the Progressive Party who had helped fund the socialist magazine The Masses. Her mother Ruth was Pinchot's second wife and was a journalist who wrote for such magazines as The Nation and The New Republic. Mary was also the niece of Gifford Pinchot, a noted conservationist and two-time Governor of Pennsylvania. Pinchot and her younger sister Antoinette (nicknamed "Toni") were raised at the family's Grey Towers home in Milford, Pennsylvania. As a child, Pinchot met such left-wing intellectuals as Mabel Dodge, Louis Brandeis, Robert M. La Follette, Sr., and Harold L. Ickes. She attended The Brearley School and Vassar College, where she became interested in Communism. She started dating William Attwood in 1935 and, while with him at a dance held at Choate, first met John F. Kennedy. After her graduation from Vassar in 1942, Meyer became a journalist, writing for the United Press and Mademoiselle. As a pacifist and member of the American Labor Party, she came under scrutiny by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.