Two Oswalds in the Texas Theater

[Jim Hargrove]

On 8/17/2019 at 2:01 AM, Joseph McBride said:

Belmont's memo on the evening of Nov. 22, 1963, about

a bullet lodged behind the president's ear (not entered into

evidence) is the smoking gun that destroys the Warren Report by itself.

That was a terrific discovery, Joe!  I don't know why more people interested in the biological evidence don't make a bigger deal of it.  The only excuse that WC loyalists can make is that Belmont or one or more of the medics was hallucinating, right?

 

[Steve Thomas]

On 8/25/2019 at 2:23 PM, Steve Thomas said:

 

5) What happened to this "witness's Affidavit? Why doesn't Toney mention this in his after-action Report?

Steve Thomas

Obituary for Detective John B. Toney

 

Toney, Chief John B. Chief Toney served as Executive Chief for the Dallas County Sheriffs Department from 1981 to 1997 after retiring from Dallas Police Department. He is survived by his wife, Margie Toney. Services will be held 2:00PM Wednesday September 21, 2011 at Eastgate Funeral Home Chapel. Former Sheriff Jim Bowles and other chiefs will be speaking.

Published in Dallas Morning News on Sept. 18, 2011

 

Steve Thomas

[Jeremy Bojczuk]

Steve Thomas writes:

Quote

 

4) Did this witness look like Oswald? I personally think this "witness" makes for a stronger case for the guy taken out the back and being put in a squad car than a second Oswald.

5) What happened to this "witness's Affidavit? Why doesn't Toney mention this in his after-action Report?

 

Greg Parker makes a strong case that the person escorted by police officers from the rear of the Texas Theater was George Jefferson Applin, Jr:

http://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net/t2051-time-to-kill-another-myth-there-was-no-second-oswald-arrested-at-the-theater

The fact that Mr Applin was white, male and 21 years old makes it easy to understand how bystanders might have confused the event they saw with accounts they later heard or read to do with the arrest of a different early-twenties white man at the same location at the same time.

Applin's interview with Joseph Ball of the Warren Commission (Hearings, vol.7, p.90: https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=41#relPageId=100) includes this exchange:

Mr Ball: Later did you go down to the police station and make a statement?
Mr Applin: Yes, sir; I did.
Mr Ball: When?
Mr Applin: Well, it was after - I guess after they got everybody's name. I rode down with three officers.
Mr Ball: That same day, did you?
Mr Applin: Yes, sir.

Here's Applin's affidavit, which he gave on 22 November 1963 after being taken away from the Texas Theater by the police: http://jfk.ci.dallas.tx.us/04/0454-001.gif.

[Steve Thomas]

On 8/25/2019 at 2:23 PM, Steve Thomas said:

Jim,

1) Who was this witness?

Steve Thomas

 

 

Richard Gilbrede makes the case that this witness might have been Thomas Edward Beckham.

From Matrix for Assassination by Richard Gilbride. Page 311

https://books.google.com/books?id=j7iN57YRRBIC&pg=PA311&lpg=PA311&dq="John+B.+Toney"&source=bl&ots=snc7cE0BM3&sig=ACfU3U0CxbDyfQ-oemPYOfDf2ABsw5gXYQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi90IGGn6PkAhVBYKwKHVVmAfA4ChDoATAGegQICBAB#v=onepage&q="John B. Toney"&f=false

 

Beckham? Who is Beckham?

 

From page 310

 

 

A Record from Mary's Database

https://www.maryferrell.org/php/marysdb.php?id=941

 

Record:

BECKHAM, THOMAS EDWARD

Sources:

HSCA, Vol. XII (397); Kennedy Conspiracy, Flammonde (203); Cover-Up, Shaw & Harris (164); New Orleans Times Picayune, 2/3/68 (22); JFK Collection List, pg. 40 (under aliases), pg. 58 (under arrest) (AMKW 78, 96)

Mary's
Comments:

Born in Enid, Okla. Associate of David Ferrie's. Arrested with his brother Orville in July 1961 in Algiers (New Orleans) for theft. Singer and disk jockey (using name "Mark Evans"). Street preacher for a mission for Cuban exiles. Corresponded with Fred Crisman, a disk jockey who used name "John Gold". Ran for Congress in 1966 from 2nd Nebraska District. Picture from Garrison's office shows mug shot of Beckham with "sign" hanging around his neck: New Orleans, LA 6/14/62. He was in jail in Mobil, Ala, in 1978 when HSCA had "long interview" with him. Long story in Mobile, Alabama, newspaper. Beckham had a brother, A. M. "Sonny" Beckham, in Slidell, Louisiana.

Subpoenaed Witnesses in Kennedy Probe

https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/new-orleans-la-the-orleans-parish-grand-jury-issued-three-news-photo/515040512?adppopup=true

(Original Caption) 12/29/1967-New Orleans, LA- The Orleans Parish grand jury issued three subpoenas for witnesses in connection with DA Jim Garrison's Kennedy assassination probe. They are (left to right): Lawrence John Howard Jr., of Los Angeles; Thomas Edward Beckham, of Omaha, NE; and Loran Eugene Hail of Kernville, CA.

 

Beckham does not appear in the DPD Archives Index.

 

Steve Thomas

Edited August 3, 2022 by Steve Thomas

[Jim Hargrove]

1 hour ago, Jeremy Bojczuk said:

Greg Parker makes a strong case that the person escorted by police officers from the rear of the Texas Theater was George Jefferson Applin, Jr:

Everyone has a theory, but Applin never said he was taken out the back of the theater.  In fact, he testified that he “went out to the candy counter” after the main floor arrest and heard questions from a policeman, and provided him answers when asked for “my name and address and and where I was staying at the time.”  He added that he only went down to the station "later" after “they got everybody’s name.”  It doesn’t sound like that happened right away, and I see no reason to believe he would have exited from the alley door when he was right by the lobby.

Where, by the way, are those names the police wrote down?  When Mr. Parker is finished with his usual insults of this forum and me, perhaps he’d like to let us know about his theory on that.  Why did they have to disappear?

[Jim Hargrove]

1 hour ago, Steve Thomas said:

Richard Gilbrede makes the case that this witness might have been Thomas Edward Beckham.

From Matrix for Assassination by Richard Gilbride. Page 311

https://books.google.com/books?id=j7iN57YRRBIC&pg=PA311&lpg=PA311&dq="John+B.+Toney"&source=bl&ots=snc7cE0BM3&sig=ACfU3U0CxbDyfQ-oemPYOfDf2ABsw5gXYQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi90IGGn6PkAhVBYKwKHVVmAfA4ChDoATAGegQICBAB#v=onepage&q="John B. Toney"&f=false

Beckham? Who is Beckham?

 

From page 310

 

Steve,

Thank you for this information.  If this was Beckham, or anyone else, why was the “assistant manager” providing him with an alibi using obviously bogus information? Does anyone know this guy’s name?  It sounds preposterous.  An “assistant manager” who started that day but didn’t know when the theater opened or how to turn on the house lights?

Of course, if DPD hadn’t lost the list of theater patrons, we’d know much more.  Everything pointed to the balcony, until the main floor Oswald got busted.  And we still have two DPD reports saying "Oswald" was arrested in the balcony.

[Ron Bulman]

Jim, Steve.  You make a good point Jim, talking to police by the candy counter, going to the station "later" is not the 3-4 minutes after Oswald'a arrest that Burrough's mentions seeing a man that looked like he could have been Oswald's brother taken out the back door.  Beckham is interesting.  21, 5'7", 155 lbs. that part sounds similar to Oswald but I don't see O. in the picture above, maybe from an angle and distance if his hair was shorter.  The face, the hair especially just don't look like Ozzie to me.  I'm trying to remember details and don't have time to dig at the moment but wasn't Beckham a suspect in some respect in another aspect of the assassination?

[Steve Thomas]

On 8/27/2019 at 10:02 AM, Steve Thomas said:

Richard Gilbrede makes the case that this witness might have been Thomas Edward Beckham.

From Matrix for Assassination by Richard Gilbride. Page 311

https://books.google.com/books?id=j7iN57YRRBIC&pg=PA311&lpg=PA311&dq="John+B.+Toney"&source=bl&ots=snc7cE0BM3&sig=ACfU3U0CxbDyfQ-oemPYOfDf2ABsw5gXYQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi90IGGn6PkAhVBYKwKHVVmAfA4ChDoATAGegQICBAB#v=onepage&q="John B. Toney"&f=false

 

 

Steve Thomas

From Gilbrede's Matrix for Assassination pp. 311-312

 

If Applin's guy was wearing a "light-colored shirt", and the guy Courson saw coming down the stairs was wearing a "kind of plaid or checkered pattern shirt", they probably weren't the same guy.

 

Steve Thomas

Edited August 3, 2022 by Steve Thomas

[Steve Thomas]

Beckham's 28 page interview before investigators for the HSCA:

Beckham’s 28 page interview before the HSCA

https://www.fittonbooks.org/rpf825215.pdf

 

There is some info about delivering a package to Lawrence Howard in Dallas two weeks before the assassination, but nothing about being in the Theater, or even being in Dallas on the 22nd.

 

Steve Thomas

[Jim Hargrove]

Steve,

Thanks for the link on Beckham.  What a hoot!  

John A. describes Beckham as “a runner for Ferrie, Banister, Clay Shaw, Sergio Arcacha, and Grady Durham..." who “was given $200 by Ferrie and told to deliver a package to a man at the Executive Inn Motel in Dallas. Beckham delivered the package, which contained photographs and street maps, to Lawrence Howard at the motel...."   John added in a note that the “package may also have contained diagrams of the sewer system in Dealey Plaza, which Lieutenant Francis Fruge learned from Captain Will Fritz had been found in (Sergio) Arcacha’s apartment following the assassination."

What’s really stunning in this interview is that just as Beckham was getting up to what happened in Dallas, the HSCA guy said he was running out of tape (or the tape was running  too long) and wrapped things up!!

What an investigation!  Perhaps Beckham would have talked about the theater, but we’ll never know.  Maybe it's just me, but I'm beginning to think the HSCA didn't want to know a whole lot of things.  On that measure, they were a bang-up success!

[John Kozlowski]

33 minutes ago, Jim Hargrove said:

Steve,

Thanks for the link on Beckham.  What a hoot!  

John A. describes Beckham as “a runner for Ferrie, Banister, Clay Shaw, Sergio Arcacha, and Grady Durham..." who “was given $200 by Ferrie and told to deliver a package to a man at the Executive Inn Motel in Dallas. Beckham delivered the package, which contained photographs and street maps, to Lawrence Howard at the motel...."   John added in a note that the “package may also have contained diagrams of the sewer system in Dealey Plaza, which Lieutenant Francis Fruge learned from Captain Will Fritz had been found in (Sergio) Arcacha’s apartment following the assassination."

What’s really stunning in this interview is that just as Beckham was getting up to what happened in Dallas, the HSCA guy said he was running out of tape (or the tape was running  too long) and wrapped things up!!

What an investigation!  Perhaps Beckham would have talked about the theater, but we’ll never know.  Maybe it's just me, but I'm beginning to think the HSCA didn't want to know a whole lot of things.  On that measure, they were a bang-up success!

Of course they cut him off. Beckham knows a good bit of what went down the weekend of the assassination and the time leading up to it. Joan Mellon wrote that LJ Delsa and Robert Buras were suspended from the HSCA by Blakley for giving Beckham an unauthorized polygraph. He brought up Fred Lee Crisman and Buras and Adela’s wanted to have him investigated. Funny thing is Louis Stokes gave them permission to do so. Beckham ran with the guys in New Orleans and claimed he met with Oswald at the TSBD. 

Do you have any clue if he’s still alive? I thought I heard on a podcast he still was but am not certain on that.

[Joseph McBride]

Maybe the title of this thread could be fixed

to remove the incorrect apostrophe.

[Ron Bulman]

There's a lot of good information, that should be pursued, on a few others here, e.g. Beckham and Brewer.  But reviewing the thread I thought of the topic, Two Oswald's in the Texas Theater and wondered about what I'd learned.  Please correct me but I think the following can now be said.

1.  Between 1:00 and 1:07 concessionaire Butch Burroughs is convinced someone came in the theater front doors but not on through the doors into his concession area behind the floor/orchestra seats.  He was never fully questioned about how he concluded such, (heard them shut?) but he seemed convinced of this, repeating it over time.  If he is correct such person would have to go up the stairs he also couldn't see to the balcony.  No other choice.

2.  During opening credits for the movie, after the advertisements for coming attractions and popcorn, customer Jack Davis has a stranger sit down beside him in the 900 seat theater with about 20 people in it.  After a minute the stranger gets up and goes and sits by another of the few patrons.  Then another.  Then he gets up and goes out to the concession area behind them. 

3.  Butch Burroughs sells popcorn to a man at 1:15 he later sees arrested and taken out the front door of the theater.  He later learns this man is named Oswald.  The Warren Omission claims Tippit was shot at 1:15 (it was earlier, closer to 1:05).

4.  Burroughs sees the man go back into the floor seats and sit by a pregnant woman.  The woman gets up and heads toward the bathrooms.

5.  Davis is "fairly certain(?)" he sees the man who sat by him earlier and went to the concession area come back in down the opposite aisle from the one close to him and sit down by another of the few customers.  

6.  Around 1:35  three doors down from the Texas Theater shoe store manager Johnny Brewer sees someone suspicious at the front of his store.  He follows him to the Texas Theater, but doesn't see him go in, yet tells ticket seller Julia Postal in the booth separate from but in front of the frond doors to call the police.

7.  Per author Leo Sauvage to author John Armstrong the Dallas Police Department receives up to a half dozen anonymous calls advising of a suspicious man entering the Texas Theater.  But the dispatch tapes for this period disappear.

8.  DPD dispatch does say at 1:46 a suspect is hiding in the balcony of the Texas Theater.

9.  Live (on tape) from the scene of the Tippit murder reporter Reiland says police were taking off because of a report of a man with a shotgun going into a local theater.

10.  Deputy Sheriff Bill Courson wrote "I started up the stairs to the balcony because that' where the call said he was hiding."

11.  Lt. Cunningham said the lady cashier said there's a young man upstairs, he just went up there.

12. Officer Paul Bentley's report says he as told by detective Toney the suspect is in the balcony.

13.  Oswald is arrested on the first floor, taken out the front door. Witnessed by Burroughs, Davis and others.

14.  3-4 minutes after this Burroughs sees a man who looked like he could have been Oswald's brother taken out the back door.

15.  Hobby shop (next to the shoe store managed by Brewer) owner Bernard Haire sees police bring a man out the back door of the Texas Theater, put him in a police car and drive him off.

16.  Tippit's autopsy report states the suspect was later arrested in the balcony of the Texas Theater.

17.  DPD officer Stringfellow, the day After the assassination and arrest, stated in writing and signed to his superior, Oswald was arrested in the balcony.

[Steve Thomas]

5 hours ago, Ron Bulman said:

10.  Deputy Sheriff Bill Courson wrote "I started up the stairs to the balcony because that' where the call said he was hiding."

 

Ron,

 

This is from the Sheriff Department's Dispatch Tapes - CE 705 p. 379.

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=1134#relPageId=405&tab=page

  I don't know who 44 and 35 are, or how 35 knew this, but between 1:40 and 1:50, units 24, 61, 25, and 29 responded that they were out at the Theater. 44 said he was enroute. By 1:51, Units 103, 104 and 23  are also there. (That's what? eight Sheriff's Deputies?) By 1:53 the suspect is in custody.

P.S. Ron, as the originator of this thread, I think you are the only one who can edit its title.

 

Steve Thomas

[Jeremy Bojczuk]

Jim Hargrove writes:

Quote

 

He added that he only went down to the station "later" after “they got everybody’s name.”  It doesn’t sound like that happened right away, and I see no reason to believe he would have exited from the alley door when he was right by the lobby.

Where, by the way, are those names the police wrote down?

 

Greg has replied to these points here:

http://reopenkennedycase.forumotion.net/t2051-time-to-kill-another-myth-there-was-no-second-oswald-arrested-at-the-theater

As for why the names vanished, isn't it obvious? It would have given away the plot involving George Applin, the Portuguese-speaking Icelandic orphan who entered the US without leaving a trace in the immigration records, and Jefferson Applin, the Swahili-speaking Japanese world war two refugee with sloping shoulders, who also entered the US without leaving a trace in the immigration records.

It was George who was driven away in a police car, and Jefferson who was beamed up into an invisible spaceship that had been hovering above the Texas Theater; the same spaceship, incidentally, that would be used several years later during the exhumation of one of the many Oswald doppelgänger so that a sneaky mastoidectomy operation could be performed on the corpse without any of the witnesses noticing.

What do you mean, this all sounds so far-fetched that only the paranoid and the gullible would take it seriously? But I have it on good authority that the 'Jefferson and George' theory, just like the 'Harvey and Lee' theory, was partly dreamed up by some guy who believed that the moon landings were faked! How could it possibly be wrong?