David Von Pein

Perhaps you should concentrate on improving your reasoning skills.

And by improving my "reasoning skills", you mean I should accept the notion that the JFK X-ray is nothing but a lie and a sham. Right, Glenn? Even though I also know what is written on page 41 of HSCA Volume 7?....

"The evidence indicates that the autopsy photographs and X-rays were taken of President Kennedy at the time of his autopsy and that they had not been altered in any manner."

Thanks, Glenn. But no thanks. I'll stick with my current batch of reasoning skills. Lest I end up in the "Everything's Fake" arena.

We have no image that shows the scalp resting down the back of the head. DR McClelland says that is why you do not see the hole in the back of the head. Right or wrong, the point is we do not have access to that image. So to say that the Autopsy images do not corroborate the Parkland doctors is not correct. Some of the images do not support them - but we cannot say that all the images do not support them.

James,

We KNOW that McClelland's crazy "scalped pulled up over the wound in the BOH" theory is not accurate, because if it were accurate, then this X-ray would show a big hole in the back of the head---and it shows no such thing. This X-ray is the #1 pictorial item that proves there was no massive hole in the rear of JFK's head. There is NO MISSING BONE at the back of the head. And McClelland (and Company) insist that the BACK of Kennedy's head was blown out....

Gary comes to the rescue of the DPD as a response to DVP's post in which he faulted Curry for saying the paraffin tests showed Oswald had fired a gun.

That's not true, Pat. Check out the timing. Gary's e-mail to me was sent one minute BEFORE I posted my last post above. So nothing in Gary's e-mail message could possibly be in "response" to anything I said my Post #4 above.

Dealey Plaza, Dallas, Texas, throughout the years....

Click on each picture for more info and/or more photos:

1936:




CIRCA 1954:




NOVEMBER 22, 1963:




MAY 24, 1964:




OCTOBER 2012:



Many more Dealey Plaza pics here....

kennedy-photos.blogspot.com/2012/11/kennedy-gallery-270.html

E-MAIL FROM GARY MACK:

Date: 6/8/2015 4:03:46 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time
From: Gary Mack
To: David Von Pein

-------------------

Hi Dave,

It's always interesting to me to see what folks leave out of their posts in an effort to make a point. The "sophisticated" test the AEC did on Oswald's cast was, of course, not available to the DPD which conducted the first study. And why did DPD do the test to begin with? So they could intimidate Oswald by telling him, honestly, that they could run a nitrate test to see if he "fired a gun so you might as well confess."

Also left out is the very simple fact that there was no way [to] test the specific shooting circumstances by a nitrate or any other kind of test. Maybe the swirling wind at the Elm/Houston intersection blew any gases away from Oswald's cheek as he pulled the trigger? I don't know, nor does Speer or J. Edgar.

Those and other explanations (ink, urine or other chemicals on the skin) explain why Hoover properly deemed the paraffin tests unreliable. All one could reasonably hope to achieve was an indicator of some sort to be used as the investigation continued.

There, and I did it in less than a chapter!

Gary

==============================

DAVID VON PEIN SAYS:

My thanks to Gary Mack (as always) for the useful information he continues to provide on all matters "JFK" related.

Pat,

All of that stuff you just wrote above is all very nice and tidy (and probably very accurate).

But.....

The fact remains, just as my thread title suggests, that paraffin tests are totally unreliable when it comes to proving whether or not someone fired a gun.

And the absolute proof that the paraffin tests are not reliable is contained in my thread-starting post (and in Commission Document 787), wherein it is revealed that the various tests conducted by the FBI resulted in a number of false positives AND false negatives. You don't deny the veracity of those FBI tests, do you Pat? Or do you?

But, yes, Pat, I do definitely agree with you about one thing you said. And that is when you said this....

"The FBI used the DPD's test to suggest Oswald's guilt both to the press in the aftermath of Oswald's murder, and to President Johnson in their 12-9 report (CD1), and that they only started denouncing the test after Mark Lane discovered the cheek test was negative. You, at the very least, should acknowledge their disingenuousness on this matter, even if you think the tests are meaningless." -- P. Speer

I agree completely with your above statement, Pat. The DPD (and probably the FBI too) was not telling the complete story to the public about the inherent unreliability of the paraffin tests when Chief Jesse Curry told the press (and the world) on live television on 11/23/63 that a positive paraffin result on Oswald's hands positively indicated that he had "fired a gun" (see the video here).

That statement by Chief Curry, particularly the way he phrased it when speaking to the press, is just not 100% accurate due to the unreliability of such nitrate/paraffin tests. And surely Curry knew that fact when he spoke with the reporters in the DPD hallways numerous times on November 23.

Plus, I have voiced my displeasure with my favorite "LN" author, Vincent Bugliosi, concerning this "paraffin test" topic in the past too. In my opinion, Vince should definitely not have included in his book Oswald's positive paraffin result as one of his "53 pieces of evidence" that lead to Oswald's guilt. And I said so eight years ago when I wrote this....

"In [the "Summary Of Oswald's Guilt"] chapter, Vincent Bugliosi lists every one of his "53 pieces of evidence" that point toward Lee Harvey Oswald's guilt in the JFK assassination. The only item on Vince's list that I think really doesn't belong there is #41, where VB talks about the results of the paraffin test on Oswald's hands being positive.

[EDIT: Since writing the above words in 2007, I've added one more thing that appears on Bugliosi's list that I don't think belongs there--item #23 about Oswald changing his pants. (Which is something I don't think happened at all anyway, but even if it did, it shouldn't be on Vincent's 53-item list, IMO.)]

In my opinion, it was a mistake for Vince to have placed that particular item on his list because he knows that paraffin tests are not considered very reliable. And VB even discusses the unreliability of such tests on page 164 of [his] book.

However, in VB's defense of including the paraffin test results on his 53-item list, I'd like to add this .... While it is, indeed, true that paraffin tests are inherently unreliable (since the presence of nitrates on a person's hands can be caused by various other things besides just gunpowder residue) -- I'd also ask this question with respect to Lee Oswald's "positive" paraffin results in this case:

What do you suppose the odds are of something OTHER than gunpowder residue causing that "positive" result in his paraffin test when we also know that Lee Oswald was CARRYING A GUN ON HIM when he was apprehended in the Texas Theater on November 22nd, 1963?

I'd say, given these circumstances (plus the fact that the very gun Oswald had on him when he was arrested was determined beyond all doubt to be the weapon that killed Officer J.D. Tippit), the odds would be pretty doggone low that something other than gunpowder resulted in that positive paraffin conclusion.

I think Vince Bugliosi should have probably included the above "What are the odds?" argument as an addendum to his 41st item on page 965 [of "Reclaiming History"], but he did not include any such addendum." -- DVP; June 2007

David,

when you suggest that Dr. McClelland pretty much went off the "logic" rails in 1988 for NOVA/PBS. It appears then that he was not the only one. All four doctors agreed with Robert McClelland's position of the wound.

Yes. Exactly, James. And I said that very thing in my "Odd Tales" article (excerpted below).....

"Each doctor said that the autopsy photos depicted the President's body

in just exactly the way that each doctor remembers seeing Kennedy at

Parkland. And yet the exact opposite is (of course) true -- i.e.,

before viewing the photos at the National Archives, each doctor

pointed to the REAR of their heads for the PBS camera (which is where

they all said the large exit wound was located on JFK's head--with

Dulany actually pointing to the CENTER area of the back of his head,

nearer the cowlick or the EOP area). Dr. Pepper Jenkins, however,

does come close to placing the large head wound on the SIDE of JFK's

head, instead of locating it at the far-right-rear of the head only.

The four doctors then go into a room and view the photos and then they

each come back out and claim, on camera, that the wounds in the pictures

are exactly the same as what they said they saw at Parkland.

That's just nuts. It cannot possibly be kosher.

[...]

After seeing the various photos which undeniably PROVE that they were

each wrong about where they originally said the large wound on JFK's

head was located, the doctors still could not bring themselves to say

this to the NOVA camera --- "After looking at these photos, I must

admit that I was mistaken when I said that the President's large head

wound was located in the far-right-rear portion of his head. I must

have been in error. And these photographs prove that I was in error."

Instead, the four doctors said that the photos somehow CORROBORATED

their original belief regarding JFK's head wounds. But we know the photos

do not corroborate a single one of those doctors (although Dr. Jenkins

came the closest to admitting he was wrong about the specific location

of the exit wound).

I guess the doctors at Parkland don't like to admit they made an innocent

error, even though two of the doctors did admit in the 1988 NOVA

program that they were in error when they had earlier said they had seen

the "cerebellum" portion of JFK's brain."

David Von Pein

November 2008

May 2013

-------------

jfk-archives.blogspot.com/parkland-doctors-on-pbs-tv-in-1988

So, apparently it's the view of many conspiracy theorists that the letter we find in Commission Document No. 787 is yet another of the many alleged lies told by FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover following the assassination of President Kennedy. Because it's also stated by many conspiracy believers that the negative result of Lee Harvey Oswald's paraffin test conducted on his cheek proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that Oswald did not fire a rifle at JFK in Dallas on November 22nd, 1963.

Commission Document 787 indicates otherwise, however, to the dismay of the conspiracists, including Doug Horne, who thinks the negative "cheek" test on Oswald is one of the best reasons there is to believe that Oswald didn't shoot the President.

jfk-archives.blogspot.com/2014/06/jfk-assassination-arguments-part-723.html

A discussion with a conspiracy theorist at Amazon.com.....

PAT SPEER SAID:

Gunshot residue was always present on the cheeks of men firing a rifle like the one owned by Oswald.

DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

Dead wrong. And the above-quoted conspiracy myth was proven wrong by the FBI (and when firing Lee Harvey Oswald's C2766 rifle too, not just a similar Carcano)....

"There were negative reactions on both hands and on the cheek of the FBI agent who fired the assassination weapon. Thus, we had the other side of the coin: A negative reaction from the paraffin test did not prove that a person had not fired a rifle." -- Page 18 of "November 22, 1963: You Are The Jury" by David Belin (c.1973)

GARRY PUFFER SAID:

We need something other than a quote from one of the WC attorneys. We don't trust Belin any more than you trust Mark Lane. Please link to the actual report and an independent verification of same. Thank you.

DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

From Page 165 of Vincent Bugliosi's "Reclaiming History"....

"To confirm that firing a rifle will not leave nitrate residue on the firer's cheeks, the FBI had one of their agents, Charles L. Killion, fire three rounds in Oswald's Carcano rifle. The result of the paraffin test conducted thereafter was negative for his cheeks and hands (3 H 494, WCT Cortlandt Cunningham; WR, pp.561–562)."

==================

Now let's go to Mr. Bugliosi's two sources for the above claim....

Mr. EISENBERG. Did you make a test with the exhibit, with the rifle, 139, to determine whether that left a powder residue on the right cheek?

Mr. CUNNINGHAM. We did.

Mr. EISENBERG. Will you describe that test?

Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Yes; this time we ran a control. We were interested in running a control to find out just what the possibility was of getting a positive reaction after a person has thoroughly washed their hands. Mr. Killion used green soap and washed his hands, and we ran a control, both of the right cheek and of both hands. We got many reactions on both the right hand and the left hand, and he had not fired a gun that day.

Mr. EISENBERG. This was before firing the rifle?

Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Yes, sir. That was before firing the rifle. We got no reaction on the cheek.

Mr. EISENBERG. Also before firing the rifle?

Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Yes. We fired the rifle. Mr. Killion fired it three times rapidly, using similar ammunition to that used in the assassination. We reran the tests both on the cheek and both hands. This time we got a negative reaction on all casts.

Mr. EISENBERG. So to recapitulate, after firing the rifle rapid-fire, no residues of any nitrate were picked off Mr. Killion's cheek?

Mr. CUNNINGHAM. That is correct, and there were none on the hands. We cleaned off the rifle again with dilute HCl. I loaded it for him. He held it in one of the cleaned areas and I pushed the clip in so he would not have to get his hands near the chamber--in other words, so he wouldn't pick up residues, from it, or from the action, or from the receiver. When we ran the casts, we got no reaction on either hand or on his cheek. On the controls, when he hadn't fired a gun all day, we got numerous reactions.

==================

And the Warren Commission Report, pages 561-562....

"In a third experiment, performed after the assassination, an agent of the FBI, using the C2766 rifle, fired three rounds of Western 6.5-millimeter Mannlicher-Carcano ammunition in rapid succession. A paraffin test was then performed on both of his hands and his right cheek. Both of his hands and his cheek tested negative."

==================

And here's the FBI letter sent by J. Edgar Hoover to the Warren Commission, dated April 2, 1964, concerning the paraffin tests mentioned above (Commission Document No. 787) ———> PAGE 1 --- PAGE 2

David Von Pein

June 7-8, 2015

====================================================

====================================================

We all know that there is absolutely no evidence of any shot having been fired from the sniper's nest...

This is called "TOTAL DENIAL", folks. There simply is no other way to describe it.

Kenneth HAS to know (or he SHOULD know) about all of the various SEPARATE pieces of evidence AND witness testimony that all indicate someone WAS firing rifle bullets at President Kennedy from the southeast corner window on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository Building located at 411 Elm Street in Dallas, Texas, USA, on Friday, November 22nd, 1963 AD. Kenny HAS to know that.

And yet we're treated to this brilliant and Oscar-winning quote from Louisiana's own Kenneth Drew....

"We all know that there is absolutely no evidence of any shot having been fired from the sniper's nest."

After reading such claptrap, about the only thing a sensible person can do is just roll their eyes, smile a little half-smile, and then walk away in complete bewilderment by what they have just heard.

That's what I'm going to do now ....

bless his heart, though, to be so clear at his age. good stuff.

I agree with you there, Glenn. Dr. McClelland certainly doesn't sound like an old man in any of the interviews he's given during his "senior" years. He sounds very coherent and clear-thinking indeed. He gives an excellent interview every time.

He pretty much went off the "logic" rails in 1988 for NOVA/PBS, however. What a bunch of malarkey this is....

THE ODD TALES OF THE PARKLAND DOCTORS ON PBS-TV IN 1988:

jfk-archives.blogspot.com/2010/06/parkland-doctors-on-pbs-tv-in-1988.html

DVP,

If there was a conspiracy to kill JFK (that's just an assumption I ask you to make for discussion purposes), do you believe the conspirators would be sophisticated individuals?

I know you don't believe in a conspiracy. That's fine by me. I'm just asking your opinion based on a given assumption.

In such a situation, I would lean toward the conspirators having at least a fairly decent amount of "sophistication".

And if that had been the case, I certainly cannot envision (for even a moment) a group of plotters planning the assassination the way most Internet CTers think it was planned (and the way Oliver Stone thinks it was planned too) --- i.e., a plot that requires three gunmen to fire up to six shots at JFK while also attempting to frame a single patsy named Oswald in the TSBD. That type of pre-planning isn't something any sane plotter would have considered. It's suicide. Not to mention, just plain dumb (as well as wholly unnecessary overkill).

David J.,

I plead total ignorance on the "Detective Brown" matter. I haven't the slightest idea what it's all about.

And yet you just gave a detailed account of the detective Brown situation. One you are totally ignorant of. Well, at least you're predictable.

I was informed about it in greater detail by Gary Mack in his e-mails to me in the last two days. Haven't you been following the thread progression at all?

I knew very little about the "Detective Brown" re-creation pictures until Gary e-mailed me all kinds of excellent information yesterday and today (which I have posted in this thread). And then I looked up a couple things myself, including the KDFW videos and the Fritz testimony that I posted earlier.

That's how my "total ignorance" could be eradicated in just 48 hours.

Does that do it for you, Ken? Or is further explanation required, utilizing charts and graphs and a blackboard?

Some additional background information and testimony concerning the "Detective Brown re-creation" photos.....

This is from DPD Captain J. Will Fritz' 1964 WC testimony....

-------------------------

Mr. BALL. We offer 713, 712, and 714 as two pictures taken.

Mr. FRITZ. These are the pictures I told about a while ago.

Mr. BALL. They were taken by your crime lab?

Mr. FRITZ. Our crime lab took these pictures when I went over there with Mr. Sorrels. [Fritz is referring to CE712 and CE713 only here. He's not talking about CE714.]

Mr. BALL. Where were they taken?

Mr. FRITZ. In the backyard of the Neely Street address. If you will note, you will see in this picture, you notice that top right there of this shed. Of course, this picture is taken up closer, but if you step back further you can see about where the height comes to on that shed right there. Not exactly in the same position.

Mr. BALL. I offered these.

(Commission Exhibits Nos. 712, 713, and 714 were admitted.)

http://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh17/html/WH_Vol17_0262a.htm

http://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh17/html/WH_Vol17_0262b.htm

Mr. FRITZ. It shows the gate.

Mr. BALL. Indicating the location of the picture taken--this set will indicate the pictures were all taken at the Neely Street backyard.

Mr. DULLES. You recall the date of these pictures, in April?

Mr. FRITZ. I believe they will be dated on the back of them.

Mr. DULLES. April, so the trees would be about the same.

Mr. BALL. When were the pictures taken by your crime lab?

Mr. FRITZ. I am not sure but I believe the date will be on the back of the picture. November 29, 1963. Picture made by Officer Brown who works in the crime lab.

-------------------------

In connection with what Gary Mack said in the e-mail above, here are some 1992 videos from the KDFW-TV archives regarding the backyard photos, including an interview with Dallas Detective Bobby Brown:

PART 1

PART 2

PART 3

PART 4

-----------------

Also see:

JFK VIDEO: THE DALLAS TAPES

Bobby Brown Re-Creation Photo

Here's another excellent interview with Dr. McClelland (from 2009). The interviewer is Brent Holland of Canada....

Also See:

jfk-archives.blogspot.com/2011/05/robert-mcclelland.html

The pose of Oswald holding the rifle above his head was taken in Russia, when he was hunting. His hosts said he was a lousy shot.

E-Mail from Gary Mack......

Subject: B.G. "Bobby" Brown

Date: 6/6/2015 11:31:45 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time

From: Gary Mack

To: David Von Pein

-----------------

Ha-Ha, now Mitcham makes up a story that the BY photo of Oswald holding his rifle over his head was taken in Russia! Based on what or who?

If he'd bothered to speak with the only two people on the planet who both saw and destroyed the picture, as I did decades ago, he'd know that the picture was definitely one of the BY photos we're all familiar with.

Marguerite, especially, was very knowledgeable about the BY photos and wanted desperately to find some proof her son was innocent. But as she explained to me in the late 70s, the picture location was the same as the other BY poses. Unless, of course, Marguerite and Marina were part of the dastardly evil plotters' cabal.

Here is Oswald's 201 file [and also see the photo at the bottom of this post] with a report mentioning Brown, Fritz and others taking the re-creation pictures at 214 Neely and there's a 1992 Now It Can Be Told show in which Brown appears on camera telling what he did and why. I've got a tape of it somewhere, but maybe you have it too. Brown is the person IN the picture re-creating 133-C, so obviously he and perhaps other DPD people knew about it in 1963.

And it seems to me, in addition to a report on KDFW-TV here, there was a newspaper story about Brown and the photos, for they were a news item in the JFK movie days and the release of Dallas Police docs by the city. At the time, Brown was living in Oklahoma but he's since passed away.

Gary

David J.,

The main point regarding the backyard photos, which you will forever ignore, is that Marina Oswald Porter has always and forever said that she took SOME PICTURES of Lee Oswald in the Neely backyard.

What difference does it make HOW MANY she took? Or if she remembers exactly how many she took? The key is --- she remembers taking pictures in the Neely backyard of Lee wearing all black and holding guns.

Why do you insist on calling this woman named Marina a bald-faced xxxx, David? Why?

And Marguerite must have been a xxxx too, right David? Because Marguerite told the Warren Commission that she flushed one of the backyard pictures down the toilet in her hotel room on Nov. 23rd....

J. LEE RANKIN -- "Had you said anything to her about burning it before that?"

MARGUERITE OSWALD -- "No, sir. The last time I had seen the picture was in Marina's shoe when she was trying to tell me that the picture was in her shoe. I state here now that Marina meant for me to have that picture, from the very beginning, in Mrs. Paine's home. She said--I testified before "Mamma, you keep picture." And then she showed it to me in the courthouse. And when I refused it, then she decided to get rid of the picture. She tore up the picture and struck a match to it. Then I took it and flushed it down the toilet."

--------------

Face it, fellows, those backyard pictures are real and genuine and they were taken in the Neely Street backyard in the spring of 1963, just exactly as Marina Oswald has always maintained.

Conspiracy theorists should (once again) make at least a tiny effort to discard some of the perpetual myths that have surrounded the JFK case for five decades now. And the notion that the backyard photographs of Lee Harvey Oswald are fake photos (regardless of how many photos Marina took) is one of those myths.

Why don't you just ask who killed JFK? Since I and others here believe there was a conspiracy, surely we must know who did it!

Yes, that would be mighty helpful, Ron.

Any chance that any CTer--some day or some year--will ever prove that somebody besides Lee Harvey Oswald murdered the 35th U.S. Chief Executive?

Is it really asking too much to expect an answer to the above inquiry, Ron?

Date: 6/5/2015 (9:50:14 P.M. EDT)
E-Mail From: David Von Pein
To: Gary Mack

-------------------

Thanks so much, Gary. Your vast knowledge about this case continues to be amazing and almost beyond belief.

I love it so much that you feel comfortable writing to me all the time (and unsolicited too!) about everything under the sun which is "JFK"-related.

I'm so pleased to be able to have many of the crazy conspiracy myths so thoroughly debunked via your wealth of knowledge regarding this case.

And your messages to me also add a huge element of credibility and detailed info to my articles when I add them to my own website/blog (which as you probably know, I often do), such as your mail today regarding the backyard photos.

Many thanks.

Regards,
David Von Pein

jfk-archives.blogspot.com/2015/06/jfk-assassination-arguments-part-949.html#Gary-Mack

E-Mail from Gary Mack (re: the backyard photographs)....

Date: 6/5/2015 3:57:47 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time

From: Gary Mack

To: David Von Pein

-------------------

Hey Dave,

Well, the CTs are all wound up again over the BY photos but I'm continually puzzled as to why they claim things don't make sense?

For example, [David] Josephs misrepresents when the third pose was found by saying "NYE 1976." I guess that's code for New Year's Eve? Anyway, that third pose was known to exist in November 1963. Det. Bobby Brown was interviewed for local TV back in the early 90s and described how and why Fritz sent him out to duplicate the poses (plural) to look into Oswald's claim that CE134 (the blowup) was fake.

So yes, DPD had at least three poses and it's fair to wonder what the heck happened to the missing negative. But the poses were evidence when Brown made his test studies.

As for the copies, as we know from DPD reports and later interviews, Det. Studebaker made souvenir copies of them for many officers, including Rusty Livingstone and, apparently, Roscoe White. Of course, anyone could have acquired copies from other officers in later weeks and months and there's just no way to know now who did what and when.

What the CTs never talk about is Marguerite and Marina both admitting to destroying a fourth pose in which Oswald held the rifle over his head. They did that the next day BEFORE Dallas Police found the other pictures.

I knew Marguerite and I know Marina (although we haven't spoken in years) and not only did both women readily admit to having testified to the WC about destroying the photo, both were aware of the picture controversy and both said the destroyed picture was, in fact, just like the other three - taken in the Neely Street back yard.

What this means is that IF the BY photos are fake (but they aren't), Oswald is the one who faked them! Phew! It's hard to keep all this straight.

Gary

David Josephs,

As I said before, I haven't the foggiest idea what the "Detective Brown" stuff is all about.

But let me once again stress the importance of the following two facts. And these are two facts that a certain number of conspiracy theorists will apparently forever label as "fake" or "phony" or "lies", but these two quotes are still going to be there for CTers to ignore until the cows come home....

"The panel detects no evidence of fakery in any of the backyard picture materials." -- HSCA Volume 6

and...

"Jack Duffy asked Marina if she had taken the backyard photos of Oswald holding the Carcano rifle. "Yes," she answered evenly, "I did"." -- Page 1487 of "Reclaiming History" by Vincent T. Bugliosi (c.2007)

And if you'd like to hear Marina herself say that she took the backyard photos, here she is doing so in this HSCA audio from September of 1978....

https://app.box.com/s/hf7yp5ctenxvgjttuq7jwtuuv57eagb7

In additional, during the same 1978 HSCA testimony, Marina Oswald made the following comments concerning Lee leaving their apartment in New Orleans during the summer of 1963 to go out to "target practice" with his rifle....

Mr. JAMES McDONALD -- "Did he ever take it out, outside the apartment, to practice with it, to do anything with it?"

Mrs. MARINA OSWALD PORTER -- "Yes, he did."

Mr. McDONALD -- "And what did he do?"

Mrs. PORTER -- "He will, like before it gets very dark outside, he would leave apartment dressed with the dark raincoat, even though it was a hot summer night, pretty hot weather anyway, and he would be wearing this, and he would be hiding the rifle underneath his raincoat. He said he is going to target practice or something like that."

Mr. McDONALD -- "This was one occasion you are talking about with the raincoat?"

Mrs. PORTER -- "It is several occasions, maybe more than once."

Mr. McDONALD -- "He did the same thing on several occasions, put the raincoat on...and the rifle under the raincoat?"

Mrs. PORTER -- "Yes."

Mr. McDONALD -- "And how long would he be gone?"

Mrs. PORTER -- "A few hours."

-------------

AUDIO VERSION OF ABOVE TESTIMONY -- https://app.box.com/s/wyh0qnvas7pkmkahcldp3omfjsxotmqq

So the conspiracy theorists who continue to insist that there is no evidence or testimony whatsoever to indicate that Lee Oswald ever practiced with his Carcano rifle in the months leading up to the assassination are just flat-out ignoring the above testimony by Marina Oswald, which can be found on Page 231 of HSCA Volume 2.

Nice try, little guy, but that information was contained in one of the FBI "reports". You know the ones, they were written in the third person by FBI agents, often without the subject of the report present, and the majority of them were neither seen nor signed by the person that supposedly gave the evidence.

In other words, they were lies, Dave, and most of this case is built on them.

An FBI report is whatever the agent wants it to be. Facts are irrelevant.

If you really believe the things you wrote in the two quotes shown above, Bob, I can only have pity for you. Because those two quotes are--let's face it--just plain rubbish.

And what's with this "little guy" put-down of yours? Care to explain?

Seriously, Dave, both brother and sister make separate and independent estimations of the length of the bag, both are mistaken and, incredibly, both estimate the length to be 24-27" inches?

Linnie Mae Randle wasn't always saying the package was 24-27 inches long. On the day of the assassination, in fact,

Linnie Mae told FBI agent James Bookhout that the length of Oswald's package was "approximately 3 feet"....

http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/russ/testimony/randl_l1.htm

And for David Wolper's "Four Days In November" film crew in 1964, she said the package was

"approximately 2-and-a-half feet long"....

Now, yes, it's true that both of those longer estimates supplied by Mrs. Randle are still wrong, because the package was, in reality, 38 inches long. But I don't expect every witness to nail things right on the money. Why would ANYBODY expect such pinpoint accuracy?

The fact remains, however, that both Frazier and Randle observed Lee Oswald with a large-ish (long-ish) brown bag on the day of the assassination.....and, subsequently, a long-ish EMPTY brown bag (with LHO's prints on it) turned up in the same place where a gunman fired shots at JFK.

Now, shouldn't those things make even the most stubborn "Anybody But Oswald" CTer stop and pause for a moment or two? And if not....why the heck not?

David J.,

I plead total ignorance on the "Detective Brown" matter. I haven't the slightest idea what it's all about.