The Total Unreliability Of Paraffin Tests

[David Von Pein]

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.

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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."

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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

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Edited June 8, 2015 by David Von Pein

[David Von Pein]

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

Edited June 8, 2015 by David Von Pein

[Pat Speer]

Geez, David. While you are correct in that the standard PARAFFIN tests for nitrates performed by the DPD would subsequently fall in disfavor, you miss that

1) 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 dis-ingenuousness on this matter, even if you think the tests are meaningless. Failing that, you should be willing to show us at least one time in history prior to the assassination that the FBI testified against the paraffin tests, and in defense of a suspect for whom the test was positive. (A final detailed study on the test was conducted in 1967, if I recall, that found that it was not conclusive, but that it was nevertheless accurate 3/4 of the time.)

2) most CTs incorrectly claiming the cheek test always showed gunshot residue when someone fired a rifle are conflating the tests performed by the FBI for nitrates with the tests performed FOR the FBI by the AEC (that are still considered scientific and accepted in court). These tests found that yessirree, gunshot residue was ALWAYS present on the cheek when one fired a Mannlicher-Carcano rifle. This is discussed in far greater detail than anywhere else in chapter 4d of my website. It is, at least so far, the definitive study of this issue, miles and miles beyond anything Bugliosi would ever dream of.

3) Cunningham deliberately deceived the commission. He said that he PERSONALLY wouldn't expect to find gsr on a cheek, since rifles don't leak. This was utter--hoo-ha. Up until recent years, every rifle leaked gsr onto the cheek. There are studies online that demonstrate this. Cunningham's testifying on his PERSONAL expectation, moreover, gives away the game. FBI experts do not testify as to personal expectations...they testify as to tests performed by the FBI. The test performed by the AEC for the FBI used an FBI shooter--RF--who was almost certainly Cunningham's partner, Robert Frazier. This test showed that in opposition to Cunningham's testimony, gsr was apparent on the shooter's cheek after firing an M/C rifle. This test was confirmed, moreover, by a series of tests run by the AEC without FBI involvement, and then reported to the FBI. (This gave the FBI plausible deniability--where they could deny their role in these tests should they become public.) These tests were performed by Dr. Vincent Guinn. These tests confirmed that the amount of antimony--a component of gsr--found on Oswald's cheek was far less than one would expect, should he have really fired a rifle three times. They supported Oswald's innocence. Which is why the FBI tried to pretend these tests were not conducted. It was fortunate for us, then, that Dr. Guinn told his colleagues about the tests, and that this got reported in the media. The FBI and the WC then went into panic mode. They dragged FBI spectrography expert John Gallagher out to testify as the last witness for the Warren Commission. It was just Gallagher and Norman Redlich, with Gallagher reading from a report and pretending it was testimony. Gallagher obfuscated repeatedly, and regularly, to hide from the public what they weren't supposed to know. This is discussed in detail in chapter 4d.

Do some reading, will ya?

Edited June 8, 2015 by Pat Speer

[David Von Pein]

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

Edited June 8, 2015 by David Von Pein

[David Von Pein]

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 Speer]

Bizarre. 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. He defends them further by faulting me for leaving out that the DPD didn't have access to the NAA tests later performed. He suggests the DPD was just bluffing, that they were just trying to get Oswald to confess, and that they would never have used the paraffin test against Oswald in an actual court of law.

This is nonsense. The DPD and the Dallas DA, like most police departments and district attorneys, routinely presented paraffin tests in courts of law as evidence of guilt in the 50's and continued to do so until after the assassination. One need only to read the WC testimony of Det. Barnes to see as much. He was skeptical of the cheek test, but expressed no reservations about the tests of the hands. He says he'd been performing the tests since 1956, and says he couldn't say yes or no when Belin asks him if he'd performed the test a hundred times or so. It follows then that the test was performed with some regularity, and that those performing the test thought they were for real, and not merely a vehicle to gully suspects into confessing.

The weirdest part of Gary's response, however, is his suggestion a slight WIND might blow gunshot residue away from a shooter's cheek, and that, as a result, a negative result has no meaning. Well, that would be news to the many forensic scientists upon whose research the field of gunshot residue analysis was constructed. This was even tested indirectly by Vincent Guinn and reported in a July 31, 1963 quarterly report to the Atomic Energy Commission. Guinn found that wind direction in relation to a shooter makes a large impact on the levels of gunshot residue found on the shooter's hands. He found that six times as much barium and 50% more antimony would wind up on the hands of a shooter with a slight wind in front of him than on a shooter with a similar wind coming from behind. As Oswald was purportedly kneeling in front of an open window, with gusts of wind throughout the plaza, one might reasonably expect his cheeks to have more residue than the cheeks of Guinn's subsequent test subjects, who were not firing from a window.

But one would be wrong.

Here's some more background for those with an interest.

From patspeer.com, chapter 4d:

As for conducting gunshot residue tests on the face as well as the hands...that also continued after Guinn's and Gallagher's tests and only gained in acceptance. A 1977 article in the Journal of Forensic Sciences by SS Krishnan asserted that gunshot residue could be found on the hands of those firing a rifle, albeit in quantities less than would normally be found on the hands of one firing a revolver. This finding, of course, could be extended to the cheek of one firing a rifle, which would be roughly the same distance from any gunshot residue as the hands. The 2000 text Current Methods in Forensic Gunshot Residue Analysis confirmed that "The face of the shooter can be sampled on occasions when firearms such as rifles and shotguns are used in the shooting. Test firings have shown that large amounts of GSR (gun shot residue) are deposited in these areas when certain types of weapons are used that cause a condition of blow back toward the chest, face, and hair." This book included the results of a "plume study" conducted in 1994. For this study, various rifles were fired in front of a high speed camera. Without exception, clouds of gun shot residue were captured flying back onto the face of the shooters. A World War II U.S. military carbine similar to the rifle used by Oswald was included in this study. The study found that the area of highest gunshot residue concentration after firing such a carbine was "from the crook of the support hand, and backward over the shooting hand, face, forehead and arm." The back of Oswald's left hand was, of course, nearly barren of residue. In 1995's Crime Scene, Larry Ragle confirms the current acceptance of gunshot residue analysis for the cheek and expands “By design, revolvers can leak…Rifles, depending on their construction and wear, can also leak. There is only one way to determine the leakage capacity of any weapon and that is to collect samples from the hands or face firing the weapon under controlled conditions while using the corresponding ammunition.” Of course, this is precisely the kind of test performed by Guinn and Gallagher back in 1964.

The acceptance of gunshot residue tests of the face has, in fact, in some ways, surpassed even that of gunshot residue tests of the hands. The Elsevier Encyclopedia of Forensic Sciences, published 2000, notes: "In the case of a living shooter, the gunshot residue may be removed by washing the hands; it may also be rubbed off the hands onto clothing. Because of the possibility that gunshot residue may be deliberately removed or inadvertently lost from a shooter's hands other sources of gunshot residue should be considered. Gunshot residue may be deposited on the face and hair of the shooter or on his clothing. Gunshot residue deposited in these areas will generally be retained longer than gunshot residue of the hands." This, of course, feeds back into the question of why, 8 hours after the shooting, there was plentiful residue on Oswald's hands, but so little residue on his cheek. One possible solution, of course, is that he did not fire a rifle on 11-22-63.

Also worth noting...While the paraffin test for nitrates performed in Dallas had already fallen in disfavor by 1963, its use remained widespread for years afterward. In April 1965, Dr. LeMoyne Snyder, one of the nation's top forensic experts, published an article in Popular Science defending the work of the Warren Commission. He was critical on one point, however--its criticism of the paraffin test. He declared: "I have used it often with good results...I still regard it as a valuable investigative tool." As late as 1977, in fact, Snyder still stood by his guns. In his prominent text Homicide Investigation, he assured: "In investigating the assassination of President Kennedy, the Warren Commission was informed that the dermal nitrate test had no value. In view of the fact that Lee Harvey Oswald fired both a rifle and a revolver several times shortly before his arrest, it is very possible and even probable that a dermal nitrate test, properly conducted, would have revealed very valuable information." As detailed in his 1965 article, Snyder believed the test results for Oswald had little merit, as the test was conducted in an office after "Oswald's hands were probably contaminated by ink from fingerprinting." This last statement, which has no support whatsoever in the historical record, indicates that Snyder was well aware that something was wrong with the residue levels and ratios on Oswald's hands, and that, much as Guinn, he had rationalized this by blaming it on the incompetence of the DPD.

In January 1967, a detailed study of paraffin test results was published in The Journal of Forensic Sciences. This study concluded that the test was simply not reliable. Even so, it revealed some interesting probabilities, some of which have a bearing on the Oswald case. For one, the study showed that “Contrary to the general belief, it was the rifle rather than the revolver that demonstrated the broadest dispersion” of nitrates. Accordingly, 75% of those firing rifles were found to have nitrates on the fingers of their left hand. Bear in mind, this was after one shot. Oswald's paraffin test revealed no nitrates on the fingers of his left hand, after purportedly firing three shots with a rifle and five shots with a revolver.

An October 1974 article by S.S. Krishnan in The Journal of Forensic Sciences reported on a similar, albeit much smaller, study using neutron activation analysis to detect gunshot residue. This study found that one could predict whether or not someone fired a weapon with 80% accuracy by comparing the relative barium, antimony, and lead levels found on the test subject’s hands. It also found that the closer the levels, the more likely it was the test subject had merely handled a weapon. As Krishnan's study found that one should expect to find on average 2.33 times as much antimony, and 1.66 times as much barium, on the shooting hand of one who'd fired a .38 revolver, when compared to his non-shooting hand, and as Oswald's ratios were 2.18 for antimony and 2.01 for barium, it looks like Oswald did indeed fire his revolver on November 22, 1963.

That the residue on Oswald's right hand came from his merely handling his weapon is discounted by a more recent study as well. For this study, as described in the November 1995 Journal of the Forensic Sciences, the hands of 43 police officers—none of whom had recently fired a weapon-- were tested to see if they had picked up gunshot residue from merely handling their weapons. The tests were positive for only 3 of them. This once again suggests—it is by no means conclusive--that Oswald fired his revolver on November 22, 1963. If this is so, moreover, then Oswald is undoubtedly the leading candidate for the murder of Officer Tippit. If one is to use gunshot residue tests to suggest that Oswald shot Tippit, however, one must simultaneously acknowledge that these same tests failed to indicate that Oswald killed Kennedy, and that this absence speaks volumes.

Edited June 9, 2015 by Pat Speer

[Jon G. Tidd]

Pat,

To your knowledge, was the sort of paraffin test performed by the DPD or by Guinn routinely admitted into evidence in criminal prosecutions in 1963-64?

[David Von Pein]

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.

Edited June 9, 2015 by David Von Pein

[Jon G. Tidd]

Just by way of background, a little chemistry.

Classic gunpowder is a mix of potassium nitrate (KNO₃), charcoal [C], and sulfur. When it goes poof, it releases gases and leaves residue. The gases are primarily CO₂ and SO₂. The residues are a mix of potassium nitrate, potassium nitrite, and un-burnt sulfur and charcoal. The residues are to an extent carried away from the combustion by the gases released. The black powder formula used by amateur rocketeers today is 75 KNO₃:15 C:10 S.

Primer mixes are sensitive to shock. A classic primer mix includes Barium Nitrate (a great oxidizer), Antimony Tri-sulphide (a great accelerant), and red phosphorous (a dangerous chemical used in explosives and meth production).

How do I know this? I've built amateur rockets and experimented with such chemicals.

Edited June 9, 2015 by Jon G. Tidd

[Pat Speer]

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.

Good eye. So then he wasn't responding to you, but entirely to me, when I was pointing fingers at the FBI and WC, and not the DPD.

[Pat Speer]

Pat,

To your knowledge, was the sort of paraffin test performed by the DPD or by Guinn routinely admitted into evidence in criminal prosecutions in 1963-64?

The test performed by the DPD was indeed routinely admitted into evidence in 1963-1964. It became popular in the 1930's, but started getting challenged around 1959. Even so, to my understanding, it wasn't until a January 1964 article by Interpol (not the FBI) that it really fell in use. That article, plus the WC's treatment of the test, spelled its doom, IMO, to the point where it was no longer performed after 1967 or so.

The test performed by Guinn (using a nuclear reactor, and searching for barium and antimony) was experimental at the time, but would soon become the preferred test for gsr. It would still be accepted in court today, but it faded from use (in the 80's, if I recall) after the development of cheaper and more practical tests.

Edited June 9, 2015 by Pat Speer

[Greg Burnham]

Gary Mack is conflating the goal hoped to be achieved from two separate tests. The police often employed the technique of suggesting that a LIE DETECTOR TEST be administered in order to elicit a confession. Of course, lie detector tests have never been admissible in court, but paraffin tests were. There is a vast difference between the two tests. The paraffin test reveals the presence or absence of a substance. The lie detector test is wholly dependent on human interpretation of the result.

[David Von Pein]

E-MAIL FROM GARY MACK:

Subject: Paraffin Tests

Date: 6/8/2015 9:13:43 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time

From: Gary Mack

To: David Von Pein

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

As for DPD comments about the paraffin test results, they were made hours and hours after Oswald, based on other evidence police possessed, had already been charged with killing JFK. As is very clear from media recordings, Curry merely said the test "only showed that he fired a gun."

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DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

Right. And that is NOT an accurate statement, because a paraffin test will not reliably tell you that information. That's the whole point of the discussion I started---the tests are not reliable. They can swing in all directions.

So when Curry told the press (and millions watching on TV) that the paraffin test "showed that he fired a gun", he was not really telling the whole story. He should have said it this way:

"It only shows that he MIGHT have fired a gun. But that kind of test is never conclusive one way or the other, so we can't say for sure."

But I suppose we could surmise that Curry was just playing things a little "dumb" because he didn't want a softer statement (like the one above) to somehow make its way to Oswald's ears (and there seemed to be no way to keep the reporters from shouting out anything they wanted to shout at Oswald during his many trips through the DPD hallways during those 2 days at City Hall).

Is that what you think Curry could have been doing? Was he using a bit of psychology by not telling the whole truth to the press about the uselessness of paraffin tests? I don't know. But I do know the statement he made to the press on 11/23 was not an accurate one.

Another possibility (however remote) is that Curry was just plain ignorant about paraffin test results. Maybe he really DID think that a positive result positively meant that Oswald "fired a gun". ~shrug~

It's hard for me to believe that the POLICE CHIEF in a huge U.S. city could truly be that ignorant of the facts about paraffin tests, however.

DVP

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E-MAIL FROM GARY MACK:

Subject: Paraffin Tests

Date: 6/9/2015 3:15:53 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time

From: Gary Mack

To: David Von Pein

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

Hi Dave,

Well, Dave, looks like Burnham's the one who is "conflating", for lie detector tests are always admissible in court as long as the prosecution and defense agree to do so. Besides, when the DPD told Oswald on 11/22 that they could run a paraffin test to determine if he fired a gun, neither he nor they were in court. One was in jail and the other was gathering evidence. And as I recall, not only did Oswald agree to allow the test, he taunted the officers by saying they'd just have to do the test instead of him confessing. What Oswald didn't know, and what Curry certainly didn't want the public to know, was that DPD knew full well that the test results might or might not be conclusive. That is why he said what he did to the press once the paraffin test results came in....and what he told them was accurate. What he left out of his statement was that the test might have been positive for some other reason.

Gary

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DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

No. What Curry told the press about the paraffin test results was not completely accurate. He was stretching the truth, because he very likely knew the positive test result did not NECESSARILY mean what he told the press (and the world) it DEFINITELY DID mean -- i.e., that Oswald had "fired a gun".

He was misleading the press on that topic--without question. Although I agree that his motive for misleading them was likely a valid and legitimate one, versus it being a dastardly and underhanded "cover-up" motive on Chief Curry's behalf.

Edited June 9, 2015 by David Von Pein

[Mark Knight]

DVP as a Gary Mack sock puppet.

I'm not surprised.

[David Von Pein]

DVP as a Gary Mack sock puppet.

I'm not surprised.

Says Mark Knight even though this "sock puppet" (DVP) expressed his disagreement with Gary on the Jesse Curry issue discussed above.

Maybe I'm a new breed of "sock puppet" --- a sock puppet with a mind of his own. Imagine the uniqueness of that!