In Lee Harvey Oswald's Room

[Steve Duffy]

Brilliant, Jim. That's the Armstrong theory that works for me, and the Collins Radio link makes this more than just a cop killing. All these strange threads, and Von Pien is treating it as a straightforward cop homicide. what about the Abundant Life Temple, near where the Discarded jacket was found?

[David Von Pein]

Lee,

Your argument about the cab re-enactments is nonsense (of course). WHALEY HIMSELF said the second re-enactment took between 5 and 6 minutes. Those words came out of WHALEY'S own mouth.

I have no idea why one re-enactment supposedly took 9 minutes (according to Whaley), while another one took only 5.5 minutes. But the fact is: the 4/8/64 re-enactment took 5.5 minutes--and WHALEY HIMSELF VERIFIED IT via his WC testimony.

Therefore, the trip from the Greyhound bus station to Beckley & Neely could definitely be driven in less than 9 minutes (and even less than 6). Or are we supposed to believe that Whaley is a xxxx now too?

Is there any end to the number of people the conspiracy theorists are willing to call liars? Any end at all? (Just curious.)

Oswald wasn't on the bus.

Yeah, I've been expecting to hear that stupid theory from one of you Anybody-But-Oswald nuts pretty soon. Thanks for not disappointing me, Lee boy.

As usual, per the ABO crowd, everything is fake, including the item pictured below, which was found in LHO's pocket. (Prob'ly planted there, right Lee?)

And Farley has to paint his precious patsy as a xxxx in the "bus" regard too, because Oswald himself admitted to getting on a bus after leaving the Depository on November 22nd. The cops probably lied about the patsy saying that, right Lee? Yeah, that must be it.

That's a nice all-encompassing pack of worthless liars you've got there -- from virtually all the witnesses (e.g., Whaley, V. Davis, B. Davis, Scoggins, Callaway, Markham, Brennan, and a multitude of others), to the DPD, to the FBI, to the WC, to the HSCA. All liars right down the line. Right, Lee boy?

Edited August 21, 2010 by David Von Pein

[William Kelly]

So Dave,

Why do you think Oswald had Whaley drive him FIVE Blocks past his rooming house, so then he had to walk back?

BK

[David Von Pein]

So Dave, Why do you think Oswald had Whaley drive him FIVE Blocks past his rooming house, so then he had to walk back?

Simple, Bill. The reason was very likely two-fold on Oswald's part:

LHO didn't want the cab driver to know exactly where he lived. And #2 (which is even a better reason IMO), he wanted to see if any police or strangers were lurking near 1026 Beckley. After all, he had just killed the President, and he had to know that the cops would be hot on his trail very soon.

Yes, he could, of course, have checked the immediate area around his roominghouse for cop cars and "strangers", etc., and then have Whaley let him out just a few yards beyond the roominghouse, which would have made the walk back to his room much shorter. But he didn't do that. And since nobody can read his mind on this issue, we'll never know for sure exactly why Oswald did all of the things he did on November 22. But we know he DID do them.

And: Oswald also knew that nobody at the TSBD had his Beckley address, so that fact would buy him some extra time to go get his revolver (and, no, I don't know why he would not have taken his Smith & Wesson revolver with him to work on 11/22; the reason there, IMO, is likely because he would have needed to take the revolver into work at the Depository Building TWICE [and transport the gun in Wes Frazier's car TWICE too], because of his unusual Thursday trip to Irving; perhaps he thought Frazier might see it and start asking questions, with Frazier possibly putting 2 & 2 together and then saying something to somebody about LHO having a gun; I really don't know).

I also think it's quite possible that Oswald just simply forgot his revolver when he left for work on Thursday, the 21st. His plan to murder JFK was, indeed, slipshod and half-assed in some ways. And it certainly reeks of being "last minute" (or nearly so, relatively-speaking).

But, hey, it's hard to argue with success, isn't it? He achieved his primary goal of killing the President, despite a slipshod getaway plan.

Too many people criticize the way Oswald did things on Nov. 21 and 22, 1963. But, as mentioned, it's hard to knock perfection. And Oswald achieved "perfection", from his point-of-view -- he assassinated the person he was attempting to assassinate.

BTW, Oswald was driven only THREE blocks past his roominghouse, Bill. Not five. LHO had Whaley drop him off in the 700 block of N. Beckley, instead of travelling all the way to the 500 block, which LHO originally told Whaley was his destination.

Edited August 21, 2010 by David Von Pein

[David Von Pein]

Lee never accused Whaley of lying.

He came as close to it as possible. Plus, Whaley positively IDed Oswald as the person who rode beside him in the front seat of his taxi on 11/22.

So, Lee Farley either thinks Whaley was, indeed, a big fat xxxx---or, Lee thinks Whaley was just honestly mistaken when he picked Oswald out of a police line-up.

[David Von Pein]

Now you are saying that you want to use the official Whaley reenactment time of 5 minutes 30 seconds. That's fine. Use the official WC timing. Will you also be using the official Warren Commission timing of Oswald's walk from Beckley to Patton? 17 minutes and 45 seconds. Are you going to use this in your timeline, Dave?

You obviously cannot read. Because David Belin fully explains at 6 H 434 (below) that the 17:45 timing was the "LONG WAY AROUND ROUTE". Taking a more direct route (plus moving a little faster than the "AVERAGE WALKING PACE" that was utilized during the Commission's 17:45 trip) would have shaved considerable time off of that 17-minute journey.

Who's cherry-picking now, Lee? You seem to leave out quite a few important addendums when talking about the evidence (like Belin's "Long Way Around Route" verbiage).

Edited August 21, 2010 by David Von Pein

[David Von Pein]

Why are you showing me a picture of a brand spanking new bus ticket? Oh, wait. That's "THE" bus ticket isn't it? The one that had a fight with 10 police officers? I forgot about the third tactic that you and your ilk use didn't I. I defined two. The "Who shot JFK then?" fall back position. The "How many people were involved in the massive conspiracy?" fall back position. and now we add the "So how many people were liars then?" fall back position. If it wasn't so predictable it would be somewhat amusing.

All three of those "fall back" positions are perfectly reasonable. You only mock them because you HAVE NO REASONABLE ANSWERS TO COMBAT THEM.

Your silly Anybody-But-Oswald theory requires the coordination of dozens upon dozens (maybe hundreds) of people, cutting across all walks of life (both civilians and otherwise), working in concert to frame your innocent, snow-white patsy named Lee Harvey.

So, now the bus ticket is a plant too. Great. What's next? Oswald's brown shirt which was consistent with the rifle's butt-plate fibers? Was that planted right on his back on Nov. 22?

BTW, please prove to the world that a paper bus transfer that was in a person's shirt pocket MUST be mutilated beyond recognition after a brief scuffle with police officers in a theater. I'd like to see that proof.

If you ABO nutjobs weren't so predictable....you'd still be predictable (and really, really silly, to boot).

Edited August 21, 2010 by David Von Pein

[David Von Pein]

The trip from 1026 Beckley to the Tippit murder scene has been done in about 11 minutes, Lee. You know that.

And the most important re-creations are the ones that can determine (if possible) the MINIMUM amount of time that these things can be done in -- like the cab re-enactments. We've got two conflicting times, yes. No doubt about that. We've got a nine-minute trip and a 5.5-minute trip.

But since we know beyond all doubt that the trip CAN be made in 5.5 minutes, why on Earth would the Warren Commission assume that the NINE-minute trip is more reasonable, even though they also knew darn well that maybe Oswald and Whaley made the cab trip in just 5.5 minutes?

Another LNer at another forum pointed out a similar line of thought regarding the re-creations of Oswald's alleged movements when he went from the sixth-floor Sniper's Nest to the second-floor lunch room.

The other LNer made a good point in asking (in essence): Why in the world didn't the WC and FBI do a reconstruction of Oswald's movements AT THE FASTEST SPEED POSSIBLE by Secret Service agent John Joe Howlett (who is the SS man who performed two such re-creations in the TSBD in 1964 for the Warren Commission)?

But the WC and Howlett didn't perform a "FASTEST TIME POSSIBLE" re-creation. If they had, Howlett would certainly have been able to shave quite a few seconds off of his two "walking" times.

Howlett did one reconstruction at a "normal walk", which was 78 seconds; and he performed another re-creation at a "fast walk", which only shaved four seconds off his time, with the "fast walk" re-creation clocking in at 74 seconds.

But an out-and-out RUNNING re-creation would have resulted, quite obviously, in a much quicker time on the stopwatch -- probably well under 60 seconds.

But, even though the WC did not perform such a "fastest time possible" test, Howlett (even while WALKING) was able to get to the second floor in only 78 seconds, which was a few seconds ahead of Marrion Baker's average of 82.5 seconds for his two re-creations of his November 22 movements.

I wonder why more conspiracy theorists never bother to take note of the raw FACTS that I just mentioned in my last paragraph? (Maybe it's because such raw FACTS would shoot to hell their silly notion that they've embraced for decades--i.e., the notion/myth that Oswald could not possibly have made it from the Sniper's Nest to the lunchroom in under two minutes.)

Edited August 21, 2010 by David Von Pein

[David Von Pein]

Oswald wasn't wearing any jacket while on McWatters' bus on 11/22, Lee. You know that. And he wasn't wearing any jacket in Whaley's cab either.

Whaley was mistaken (times three, incredibly). He said at one point that Oswald had TWO or THREE jackets on. That's silly.

We know Oswald entered the roominghouse sans any jacket. Housekeeper Earlene Roberts said he was in shirt sleeves when entering, and zipping a jacket when leaving.

Bottom Line --- William Whaley positively IDed Lee Oswald as his 11/22 cab passenger. And he wasn't just looking at CLOTHING. He IDed the man from his face. To think that a jacket (or two--or three; LOL) trumps a positive identification of facial features is just not logical. Sorry, CTers of the world, but it isn't.

Edited August 21, 2010 by David Von Pein

[Michael Hogan]

--if there had been about a dozen witnesses to the crime, who all made a positive identification of the culprit (as there were in the case of Oswald shooting Officer Tippit), then my answer to your question would be "Yes".

Take the 12 or so Tippit witnesses, for example. You think they ALL identified the wrong man. All of 'em.

Yes. Of course she (Markham) saw Oswald kill Tippit. (Obligatory "Duh!" required here.)

But to discount A DOZEN eyewitnesses....

The Warren Commission had three eyewitnesses to Tippit's shooting. This is what Helen Markham told Joseph Ball.

Ball's frustration is palpable. (all bolds mine):

Mr. BALL. Now when you went into the room you looked these people over, these four men?

Mrs. MARKHAM. Yes, sir.

Mr. BALL. Did you recognize anyone in the lineup?

Mrs. MARKHAM. No, sir.

Mr. BALL.

You did not? Did you see anybody--I have asked you that question before did you recognize anybody from their face?

Mrs. MARKHAM. From their face, no.

Mr. BALL. Did you identify anybody in these four people?

Mrs. MARKHAM. I didn't know nobody.

Mr. BALL. I know you didn't know anybody, but did anybody in that lineup look like anybody you had seen before?

Mrs. MARKHAM. No. I had never seen none of them, none of these men.

Mr. BALL. No one of the four?

Mrs. MARKHAM. No one of them.

Mr. BALL. No one of all four?

Mrs. MARKHAM. No, sir.

Mr. BALL. Was there a number two man in there?

Mrs. MARKHAM. Number two is the one I picked.

Mr. BALL. Well, I thought you just told me that you hadn't--

Mrs. MARKHAM. I thought you wanted me to describe their clothing.

Mr. BALL. No. I wanted to know if that day when you were in there if you saw anyone in there--

Mrs. MARKHAM. Number two.

Mr. BALL. What did you say when you saw number two?

Mrs. MARKHAM. Well, let me tell you. I said the second man, and they kept asking me which one, which one. I said, number two. When I said number two, I just got weak.

Mr. BALL. What about number two, what did you mean when you said number two?

Mrs. MARKHAM. Number two was the man I saw shoot the policeman.

Mr. BALL. You recognized him from his appearance?

Mrs. MARKHAM.

I asked--I looked at him. When I saw this man I wasn't sure, but I had cold chills just run all over me

.

Taken in context with the rest of Markham's testimony, the above means little. Taken in context of how the lineups were conducted it means nothing.

Another eyewitness to the shooting was cab driver William Scoggins. Scoggins did not actually see the shooter; his vision was blocked by bushes.

He did see a man leaving the scene. Scoggins was called to ID Oswald in a lineup.

Another cab driver, William Whaley was there at the same time with Scoggins. This is how Whaley described the lineup:

(Vince Bugliosi does an excellent job of describing this episode on page 226-227 of Reclaiming History. It is just one

of many examples of a conspiracy to frame Oswald that appear in his book.)

Mr. WHALEY. So, I told them to the best of my ability. Then they took me down in their room where they have their show-ups, and all, and me and this other taxi driver who was with me, sir, we sat in the room awhile and directly they brought in six men, young teenagers, and they all were handcuffed together. Well, they wanted me to pick out my passenger. At that time he had on a pair of black pants and white T-shirt, that is all he had on.

But you could have picked him out without identifying him by just listening to him because he was bawling out the policeman, telling them it wasn't right to put him in line with these teenagers

and all of that and they asked me which one and I told them. It was him all right, the same man.

Mr. BALL. They had him in line with men much younger?

Mr. WHALEY. With five others.

Mr. BALL. Men much younger?

Mr. WHALEY. Not much younger, but just young kids they might have got them in jail.

Mr. BALL. Did he look older than those other boys?

Mr. WHALEY. Yes.

Mr. BALL. And he was talking, was he?

Mr. WHALEY. He showed no respect for the policemen, he told them what he thought about them. They knew what they were doing and they were trying to railroad him and he wanted his lawyer.

Mr. BALL. Did that aid you in the identification of the man?

Mr. WHALEY. No, sir; it wouldn't have at all,

except that I said anybody who wasn't sure could have picked out the right one just for that

. It didn't aid me because I knew he was the right one as soon as I saw him.

After the above lineup, an "FBI or Secret Service" agent showed Scoggins some pictures:

Mr. BELIN. Sometime later, after the lineup, did any of the police officers show you with a picture of anyone and ask you if you could identify him?

Mr. SCOGGINS. Yes.

Mr. BELIN. Do you remember if he was an FBI man or a Dallas policeman or a Secret Service agent?

Mr. SCOGGINS. He was an FBI or a Secret Service.

Mr. BELIN. What did he ask you and what did you tell him?

Mr. SCOGGINS. He gave me some pictures, showed me several pictures there,, which was, some of them were, pretty well resembled him, and some of them didn't, and they looked like they was kind of old pictures, and I think I picked the wrong picture. I am not too--

Mr. BELIN. What did he say to you and what did you say to him, if you remember?

Mr. SCOGGINS. I don't really--I know he showed me his credentials.

Mr. BELIN. Did he say to you something like "These are pictures we have of Lee Harvey Oswald"? Did he use that name in front of you, or did he say, "Here are some pictures. See if you can identify them"--if you remember?

Mr. SCOGGINS. I don't remember, but after I got through looking at them and everything, and I says, I told them one of these two pictures is him, out of this group he showed me, and the one that was actually him looked like an older man than he was to me. Of course,

I am not too much on identifying pictures. It wasn't a full shot of him, you know, and then he told me the other one was Oswald.

The third (and closest) eyewitness to Tippit's shooting was Domingo Benavides. He could not identify Oswald and did not attend any lineup.

Mr. BENAVIDES - I then pulled on up and I seen this officer standing by the door. The door was open to the car, and I was pretty close to him, and I seen Oswald,

or the man that shot him

, standing on the other side of the car

.

and:

Mr. BENAVIDES - Later on that evening, about 4 o'clock, there was two officers came by and asked for me, Mr. Callaway asked me---I had told them that I had seen the officer, and the reporters were there and I was trying to hide from the reporters because they will just bother you all the time. Then I found out that they thought this was the guy that killed the President. At the time I didn't know the President was dead or he had been shot.

I was just trying to hide from the reporters and everything, and these two officers came around and asked me if I'd seen him, and I told him yes, and told them what I had seen,

and they asked me if I could identify him, and I said I don't think I could

. At this time I was sure, I wasn't sure that I could or not. I wasn't going to say I could identify and go down and couldn't have.

Mr. BELIN - Did he ever take you to the police station and ask you if you could identify him?

Mr. BENAVIDES - No; they didn't.

Mr. BELIN - You used the name Oswald. How did you know this man was Oswald?

Mr. BENAVIDES -

From the pictures I had seen. It looked like a guy, resembled the guy. That was the reason I figured it was Oswald

.

It's not because Benavides didn't get a good look.

Mr. BELIN - Let me ask you now, I would like to have you relate again the action of the man with the gun as you saw him now.

Mr. BENAVIDES - As I saw him, I really---

I mean really got a good view of the man after the bullets were fired

, he had just turned. He was just turning away. In other words, he was pointing toward the officer, and he had just turned away to his left, and then he started. There was a big tree, and it seemed like he started back going to the curb of the street and into the sidewalk, and then he turned and went down the sidewalk to, well, until he got in front of the corner house, and then he turned to the left there and went on down Patton Street.

Researchers were onto this stuff shortly after the ink was dry on the Commission's 26 volumes. It's tedious to revisit it so many years later.

Barbara Davis and her 16 year old sister-in-law Virginia allegedly picked Lee Oswald out of a lineup on the evening of

November 22. The Warren Report's description of this event is very brief: The two women were "sitting alongside each

other when they made their positive identification of Oswald. Each woman whispered her identification to the detective.

Each testified that she was the first to make the identification." (WCR168)

Just on the above, there is reason to doubt the positive identification by the Davis women. Add to it the inherent unfairness

of the Whaley-Scoggins episode as described by Bugliosi and it becomes apparent that this stuff never would have been deemed

admissable in a courtroom.

Sam Guinyard and Ted Callaway also attended a lineup on the night of November 22. They also were allowed to view the lineup together!

The men in the lineup were identical to the ones viewed earlier by Helen Markham. There is the possibility that Cecil McWatters attended

the same lineup. Their identification of Oswald is of limited probative value for these reasons and others already mentioned.

As Ian Griggs wrote: The handling of the eyewitnesses in the Tippit case was "totally inappropriate and the organization of the

many identity parades was a complete disgrace....The so-called evidence of the identification was to have been one of the

prosecution's strongest weapons against Oswald. It was the weakest!

Edited August 21, 2010 by Michael Hogan

[David Von Pein]

C'mon, Michael, you should be able to figure out Markham's "I didn't recognize anyone" testimony there.

Mrs. Markham was obviously not the sharpest crayon in the Crayola Big Box of 64 with the built-in sharpener (or the newer "Big Box" of 96). I think we all know that. (And that isn't meant to be a shot at Helen Markham. It's just the way it seems to be.)

Markham's testimony that Michael Hogan has cited above is, indeed, one great-big mess. It's actually quite hilarious now. But I don't imagine Joe Ball had a smile on his face when questioning Mrs. M.

Yes, Markham says she had never "seen" any of the men in the line-up before. But we also know she picked Oswald out of the lineup and positively said that LHO was Tippit's killer. She even started to shake and cry the minute Oswald entered the lineup room. She knew who the killer was right away.

But when Markham said she didn't "know" or "recognize" anybody in the police lineup, what I think she meant is that she had not been ACQUAINTED with anyone in the lineup at any time in her life. She was confused by Ball's questions. But, as mentioned, Helen wasn't an Einstein as far as intelligence goes either. Which, of course, is no doubt part of the reason that CTers feel so comfortable in dismissing her positive identification of Oswald. Ergo, CTers feel she was a dumb box of rocks who wouldn't know one murderer from another.

But even if we toss Markham's IDing of LHO in the ash can, what are CTers going to do with the other TWELVE or so witnesses who IDed the same man (Oswald) as either Tippit's killer or the ONE & ONLY PERSON fleeing the scene with a gun in his hands?

And Ted Callaway wasn't any Helen Markham either (referring to basic intelligence). I think even CTers will agree that Mr. Callaway was a pretty smart cookie.

FYI -- MARKHAM & CALLAWAY VIDEOS:

MARKHAM

CALLAWAY

Edited August 21, 2010 by David Von Pein

[David Von Pein]

Shall we ignore the fact that the reenactment that resulted in 11 minutes wasn't done in one go. That it was stop and start.

Huh?

Sounds like you're implying that the people who did it in 11 minutes were STOPPING along the way to Tenth. (Am I missing something here?)

They STOPPED, then started again...and still made it in 11 minutes? How does that HURT the bottom-line "11 minute" clocking of the journey, Lee?

Please enlighten me. (And I just took a Helen Markham pill...so please go slowly.)

The fact is the trip could be made to 10th St. in about 11 minutes. You, however, like the longer timelines, as all CTers in the ABO clique do. But what you want to be true couldn't possibly matter less. If it can be done in 11 minutes, it can be done in 11 minutes.

-Mark VII-

You can always still pretend Oswald was being impersonated on Tenth Street. The "impersonation" crappola is always a good "fall back" position for Oswald defenders anyway. Right, Lee F.?

Edited August 21, 2010 by David Von Pein

[David Von Pein]

It's interesting how you ignore the fact that Scoggins managed to identify Oswald's smashed up face in one of the most unethical and unfair lineups ... [snipping the remainder of Farley's silly anti-DPD tirade re: the lineups]...

LOL. Oh, sure. His face was bloodied and "smashed up" to an absolute pulp by those evil DPD bastards, wasn't it Lee? I can hardly tell that it's Oswald at all here, his face is so pulp-like. Get real:

Your MO is so predictable.

So is yours. I can see through you like a great-big ol' sheet of Reynold's Wrap.

Edited August 21, 2010 by David Von Pein

[David Von Pein]

So what you're saying is that the overall time won't be affected by stopping, giving the guy a break, and then starting the clock again? How long were his breaks? Do Mack and Perry tell us in the reenactment?

I didn't fully understand what you were saying about "stopping & starting" previously.

So, you are now implying that the CLOCK was stopped in the middle of a journey that encompassed a mere 0.85 of a mile?? That's ridiculous.

Why on Earth would anyone who wasn't in an iron lung need to stop and take a break on such a short trip? Where on Earth did you get such a silly idea? Who told you the 11-minute trip included BREAKS (plural?!); he needed more than ONE break on his across-the-desert trip of a whopping 0.85 of a mile, is that what you're saying? That's stupid. It's utter nonsense. It never happened.

Edited August 21, 2010 by David Von Pein

[Michael Hogan]

I think even CTers will agree that Mr. Callaway was pretty smart cookie.

So smart that he had to ask Benavides which way the killer went.

MR BENAVIDES

: And so Ted then got in the taxicab and the taxicab came to a halt and he asked me which way he went.

I told him he went down Patton Street toward the office, and come to find out later Ted had already seen him go by there.

Did Callaway tell the Warren Commission or Bugliosi of his encounter with Benavides?

FYI, I saw Ted Callaway's "testimony" when it first aired on Showtime. Coming almost a quarter of a century

after Tippit was shot, it is incomplete, conflicting, self-serving, unsworn, and basically worthless.

Callaway told Bugliosi he heard five shots, as he told the Warren Commission.

Callaway told Bugliosi that he felt Tippit's pulse, something he did not tell the Warren Commission.

Callaway got in Scoggin's cab and made the mistake of letting a nervous Scoggins drive. In Callaway's mind, that's the reason Tippit's shooter got away. Please.

Callaway (who had been a Marine) reportedly described the suspect's weapon as an automatic to a patrolman minutes after the shooting.

Despite interviewing Callaway in 1996, the only evidence Dale Myers could offer to refute this was the unconvincing testimony of the Davis sisters.

David, your post was basically unresponsive to what I wrote. Even Dale Myers was unable to demonstrate that the lineups were conducted fairly.

He concedes that a least one of them wasn't. Other than a brief and self-serving statement by Jim Leavelle, Myers is unable to offer any evidence

that any of the lineups were fair.

Bugliosi does a good job of demonstrating how unfair the Whaley-Scoggins lineup was.

Before she viewed Oswald in a lineup, Markham was described as hysterical and had to be administered a sedative.

Her hysteria did not begin the minute Oswald entered the lineup room.

David, I really don't enjoy fencing with you about these things. For me this stuff is forty-five years old.

As a kid watching much of it unfold on television, I knew something was not right. I knew it then and I know it now.

Having you view me as an idiot and living in a topsy-turvy world, while insulting, matter little.

Conspiracy and non-conspiracy believers alike are fond of utilizing carefully selected bits and pieces of evidence

and testimony to try and establish a certainty. This is almost always demonstrably futile.

On the other hand, doing the same thing to show uncertainty about what really happened is an entirely different matter.