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What happened to the extra patrons at the Texas Theater?


Guest Mark Valenti

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Guest Mark Valenti

According to Hugh Aynesworth (yes I know), Julia Postal claimed to have sold 23 tickets that day for the movie, but there were only 15 or 16 people in the movie theater.

So 7 or 8 people who bought tickets just disappeared?

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Mark, reportedly DPD officers did prepare a list of patrons in the theater that afternoon but as far as I know no sign of that list ever turned up in DPD documents...which means we don't

have a concrete number to deal with....of course it would have been pretty standard practice to make a list of those in the theater so it seems strange for it not to be on record.

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Guest Mark Valenti

Every time someone makes a movie about LHO and they film in the Texas Theater, there's a different number/grouping of patrons, it's kind of funny actually.

That we don't know this kind of important detail is interesting.

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Guest Mark Valenti

WC:

Mr. BALL. Now, did many people go into the theatre from the time you opened at the box office until about 1:15 or so?
Mrs. POSTAL. Some.
Mr. BALL. How many? Can you give me an estimate?
Mrs. POSTAL. I believe 24.
Mr. BALL. Twenty-four?
Mrs. POSTAL. Fourteen or twenty-four. I believe it was 24. Everything was happening so fast.
Mr. BALL. You had sold about that many tickets?
Mrs. POSTAL. That's right.
Mr. BALL. What was the price of admission?
Mrs. POSTAL. We had three. Adults 90 cents, teenager with a card is 50 cents, and a child is 35, and you have a pass ticket.
Mr. BALL. It is cheaper that time of day than other times of day?
Mrs. POSTAL. No, sir; we don't change prices. Used to, but we don't.

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How reliable is Julia Postal in terms of honesty and memory?

I consider her to be possibly the most important witness.

Dear Mr. Tidd,

Going from memory here, but I believe Julia Postal burst into tears when she was asked several years later whether or not she had sold a ticket to Oswald.

The implication being that Oswald hadn't sneaked into the theater after all.

Maybe a more diligent member than I am will chime in on this and provide us with us with the source of that information.

--Tommy :sun

Edited by Thomas Graves
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Talking about the DPD not having the list of patrons, the DPD has virtually no documents.

Where are the police reports from all of the officers in the motorcade and on the street corners in DP written that day or the next?

Where is the police report from CURRY?

The police interviewed witnesses and suspects, where are the police reports of these interviews. We know some witnesses were carted off to the police station on 11/22/1963 yet there is no records of interviews.

The DPD is a shame, whatever reports existed I am sure were not favorable to the WCR and are now gone from existence.

For the most part the only reports available from some of the DPD officers were provided later in 1964, seems July was the month the DPD decided to revise or create reports.

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Robert there are extensive DPD reports available, they are archived in Dallas but over the years they have been distributed in bound booklets and on CD and in other forms by researchers. Several

researchers have written extensively about them and also interviewed and published on the officers themselves. I'm just not clear on why you would think all the first day affidavits and interviews are missing?

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Larry, can you point me to police reports from:

HARGIS

MARTIN

JACKSON

CHANEY

BARNETT

SMITH E.

SMITH J.

MCLAIN

HAYGOOD

HARKNESS

WHITE

CURRY

MURPHY

FOSTER

DENHAM

BROWN

Written immediately after the assassination. Reports written in July are useless as is most of their testimony.

These people were all witness to a crime, in the case of HARGIS, CHANEY, JACKSON and MARTIN, they were within feet of the scenes or the crime, where are their reports detailing what they witnessed and the actions they took?

Where are the reports from BARNETT, E. SMITH and L. SMITH stationed under the SN window, who all reacted by running to the rail yards, where are their reports?

Maybe I have been looking in the wrong locations

Where are the police reports on suspects and witnesses interrogated on 11/22/1963 that we can document going to the police station? They were brought there, interrogated and no one took a note or wrote a report?

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Most definitely all their initial statements were recorded and have been available for ages. You will find the extensive DPD files and their history at:

The Portal of Texas History:

http://texashistory.unt.edu/explore/collections/jfkdp/

The DPD documents that were given to the federal investigation are also available at NARA and you can search there. As I said, they have also been

available in paper and CD but you would have to do some digging to obtain those now as they were privately published. Copies are almost always

available in the book room at the Lancer conferences.

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Robert, I have personally viewed a large number of first day affidavits and statements and have both paper and CD copies, at this point in time I'm not willing to state from memory that I have seen all the names you list. Have you contacted folks in Dallas in your search, the DPD, the city archivist, the library research group, or the Sixth Floor museum? Have you worked at the archives in DC, contacted their staff or used their search tool? Honestly if you wish to believe that none of the officers or other first day witnesses were interviewed in the first days or weeks or gave statements for the record, I'm not going to try and persuade you otherwise and I will leave it at that.

Edited by Larry Hancock
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Larry, they may exist, I do not know where they may be.

Yes I have contacted Sixth Floor Museum, I was pointed to Texas history or City of Dallas achieves.

The names on the list is pretty much every officer in DP with the exception of BAKER.

You may think they exist, you may be surprised to find out they don't.

The Dallas Police department should have had a mountain of paper generated as a result of the assassination, it does not exist.

Larry, are you confusing the Affidavits filed by the sheriff's department. There are at least 55 Affidavits, this not NOT what I am looking for and the only Affidavit by the Police was filed by BAKER.

Edited by Robert Mady
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Robert Mady, I'm with you, the DPD reports are a scandal long overdue for discussion, analysis, and a big story..

Many of the documents that exist have never been properly analyzed.

There are some reports, but slipshod and all over the place. I can't find off-hand the specific ones you are looking for.

CD 81 will give you some 11/63 and 12/63 reports by DPD - not just sheriffs.

Starting at about p. 624 to about 661: https://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=10483&relPageId=624

Another burst of documents starting at p. 491

https://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=10483&relPageId=491

Again at page 451

https://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=10483&relPageId=491

The case report at page 419 is fascinating - a summary of sorts

https://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=10483&relPageId=419

And so on, going backwards,,,,

You can also look at CE 2003, which is derived from CD 81 and may have some differences,

as well as CE 2002 on the failed transfer of Oswald

https://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/getToc.do?docId=1140&relPageId=233&source=controls_D.jsp

I'm really wanting to hear more. Just one example. For Hargis, this Dallas newspaper article was gospel for decades, which would indicate no report was ever created or released.

https://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=16246&relPageId=22

For comparison, here's the aforementioned reports from July 64, CE 1358; CD 1259.

https://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=11654&relPageId=2

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