Detroit Free Press, May 24, 2008:
POISONED CEREAL?!
Rest in peace, Flo Ballard? Not if London's Daily Mail has its way.
Ballard was forced out of the Supremes, and her story was retold by former Free Press reporter Peter Benjaminson in his new book The Lost Supreme: The Life of Dreamgirl Florence Ballard (Lawrence Hill Books, $24.95).
The other day, the Daily Mail wrote about the book and a major exhibitiion at London's Victoria & Albert Museum, "The Story of the Supremes from the Mary Wilson Collection," with gowns once worn by Wilson, Diana Ross and Ballard.
But the Daily Mail story attempts to raise the premise that Ballard, who died in 1976 at age 32 of what the Wayne County medical examiner said was a coronary thrombosis, was murdered, poisoned by some breakfast cereal found in her stomach during the autopsy. And the newspaper suggests that exhuming Ballard's remains might be advisable.
Benjaminson's reaction: "I'm the only person who posesses the tapes on which Flo Ballard told me her life story... When the tapes are relased, I can guarantee that many people will be surprised by what's on them, but nowhere on the tapes or elsewhere did Flo ever hint that she feared that someone was out to hurt her or kill her...
"I'm totally against exhuming Florence Ballard's body on such flimsy evidence. Poor Flo had so little peace during her life. Let the lady rest in peace."