J. D. Tippit: Was he part of the conspiracy?

[William Kelly]

Duke says:

And the beat goes on.

There are at least six likely conspirators in the crime against Officer Tippit who are still alive today. That none was in any way identified in, for example, a "show-up" is only because none were brought into one; the opportunity never arose to so identify them by eyewitnesses. ....

You don't think that the lack of any other "named conspirators" proves that Oswald "must have done it," do you? Wasn't that Henry Wade's modus operandi: if you don't have anyone I think is a better suspect, then the one that I favor must've been the one who did it?"

Why "named conspirators"?

Why not just OTHER SUSPECTS, of which there are plenty.

For starters, in the Sixth Floor, there's the Man in the White Shirt with a bald spot and a rifle who was seen lining up a shot, and the Man in the Brown Sportscoat, who was seen standing beside him and later seen leaving the TSBD back door and run around the corner and get into the Rambler station wagon. And then there's the Man in the White Shirt on the Grassy Knoll, and Bademan.

Now you say there are six suspects other than Oswald in the Tippit murder.

That tells me there are other suspects out there worth investigating.

BK

[Duke Lane]

Why "named conspirators"? Why not just OTHER SUSPECTS, of which there are plenty. For starters, in the Sixth Floor, there's the Man in the White Shirt with a bald spot and a rifle who was seen lining up a shot, and the Man in the Brown Sportscoat, who was seen standing beside him and later seen leaving the TSBD back door and run around the corner and get into the Rambler station wagon. And then there's the Man in the White Shirt on the Grassy Knoll, and Badgeman.

Now you say there are six suspects other than Oswald in the Tippit murder. That tells me there are other suspects out there worth investigating.

For the last time (well, probably not ... sigh!): no man was seen on the sixth floor wearing a brown sportscoat who was later seen leaving from behind the TSBD and getting into a Rambler. This does not even fit Richard Carr's supposed "Sportscoat Man," who was neither on the sixth floor (he was alternately on the fifth and "top" floors ... oh, and let's not forget that he was also behind the picket fence!) nor seen getting into a Rambler (except in his original story, and that Rambler was on Record Street driven by a "young Negro male;" later, the story morphed so that a Rambler supposedly somehow connected with the same man was (not) seen on Houston Street beside the TSBD, and it was two dark-complected Latin men who got into the car while "Sportscoat Man" walked south on Houston. Carr did not say that he'd seen any other man or men with "Sportscoat Man" in any upper windows. Carr's story is bullspit. He made it up and embellished it and couldn't even keep it straight from one telling to the next. See the "Richard Randolph Carr" thread for more info.

Amos Euins said that he never said that the man he'd seen was bald, despite police including that description in his affidavit. Arnold Rowland said he saw someone in the southwest window, but not with a sport coat.

"Named suspects" are important because, 45 years after the fact, we can't exactly be expecting someone to go looking for someone neither we nor they ever saw, and whose descriptions probably fit some 100,000 men in the city of Dallas at that particular time. Those are just specters without any substance, even if they did exist. How tall were any of them? Heavy or muscular or slim? Color hair? Facial hair? Complexion ruddy, light, medium? Big nose, little nose, pug or hawk or Bob Hope "ski jump?" Age? Weight? C'mon, to be a "suspect," shouldn't we at least be able to give investigators something to go on?

[William Kelly]

Why "named conspirators"? Why not just OTHER SUSPECTS, of which there are plenty. For starters, in the Sixth Floor, there's the Man in the White Shirt with a bald spot and a rifle who was seen lining up a shot, and the Man in the Brown Sportscoat, who was seen standing beside him and later seen leaving the TSBD back door and run around the corner and get into the Rambler station wagon. And then there's the Man in the White Shirt on the Grassy Knoll, and Badgeman.

Now you say there are six suspects other than Oswald in the Tippit murder. That tells me there are other suspects out there worth investigating.

For the last time (well, probably not ... sigh!): no man was seen on the sixth floor wearing a brown sportscoat who was later seen leaving from behind the TSBD and getting into a Rambler. This does not even fit Richard Carr's supposed "Sportscoat Man," who was neither on the sixth floor (he was alternately on the fifth and "top" floors ... oh, and let's not forget that he was also behind the picket fence!) nor seen getting into a Rambler (except in his original story, and that Rambler was on Record Street driven by a "young Negro male;" later, the story morphed so that a Rambler supposedly somehow connected with the same man was (not) seen on Houston Street beside the TSBD, and it was two dark-complected Latin men who got into the car while "Sportscoat Man" walked south on Houston. Carr did not say that he'd seen any other man or men with "Sportscoat Man" in any upper windows. Carr's story is bullspit. He made it up and embellished it and couldn't even keep it straight from one telling to the next. See the "Richard Randolph Carr" thread for more info.

Amos Euins said that he never said that the man he'd seen was bald, despite police including that description in his affidavit. Arnold Rowland said he saw someone in the southwest window, but not with a sport coat.

"Named suspects" are important because, 45 years after the fact, we can't exactly be expecting someone to go looking for someone neither we nor they ever saw, and whose descriptions probably fit some 100,000 men in the city of Dallas at that particular time. Those are just specters without any substance, even if they did exist. How tall were any of them? Heavy or muscular or slim? Color hair? Facial hair? Complexion ruddy, light, medium? Big nose, little nose, pug or hawk or Bob Hope "ski jump?" Age? Weight? C'mon, to be a "suspect," shouldn't we at least be able to give investigators something to go on?

Duke,

Are you making the case that it's too difficult to figure out and we'll never know the real story, or that it's just too difficult for you to figure out and that we all should adear to your opinion on the veractiy of witnesses?

BK

[Duke Lane]

Well, Bill, I always make the case that people should "adhere to" my opinions, otherwise I'd have someone else's!

My point was that nobody at the time gave an exact description of whomever they saw, thought they saw, or claimed to have seen. Do you think someone should try to get a prosecutor to open a case on "a white guy with glasses and a hat," or "a black man with a white spot on his head" that you didn't see and can't describe any better than that, not to even mention that the suspect is now 45 years older and maybe even dead? Ditto the person or persons who did see these men.

On the other side of the coin, to say "Bill Kelly, who at the time lived here and did that, very well may have been involved by doing such-and-such" might actually get a response. To merely say that "Oswald didn't do it, I can prove it; therefore, somebody else did, and it was a white guy, so go find him" isn't likely to elicit much interest on anyone's part. Y'might say that the trail's gone cold by now.

[William Kelly]

Well, Bill, I always make the case that people should "adhere to" my opinions, otherwise I'd have someone else's!

My point was that nobody at the time gave an exact description of whomever they saw, thought they saw, or claimed to have seen. Do you think someone should try to get a prosecutor to open a case on "a white guy with glasses and a hat," or "a black man with a white spot on his head" that you didn't see and can't describe any better than that, not to even mention that the suspect is now 45 years older and maybe even dead? Ditto the person or persons who did see these men.

On the other side of the coin, to say "Bill Kelly, who at the time lived here and did that, very well may have been involved by doing such-and-such" might actually get a response. To merely say that "Oswald didn't do it, I can prove it; therefore, somebody else did, and it was a white guy, so go find him" isn't likely to elicit much interest on anyone's part. Y'might say that the trail's gone cold by now.

"Y'might say that the trail's gone cold by now." - Duke

Bill Kelly: In your mind maybe, but from where I am sitting, it's seems like the case is hotter than ever, and getting hotter.

[Duke Lane]

... Y'might say that the trail's gone cold by now.

In your mind maybe, but from where I am sitting, it's seems like the case is hotter than ever, and getting hotter.

Bill, I never said anything about the case; I only commented on the trail of any perpetrator(s) of the crime.

It's like you having done it. I say to the cops, "well it was some guy wearing a pork-pie hat, might've been blone, might've been gray, but he was definitely white, casually dressed." Well, if maybe I said that yesterday and the cops start looking for you tomorrow, you might still be alive, might still wear a pork-pie hat, and oh, did I mention he wears glasses? Great: gotcha. "Mr. Kelly, where were you on the 9th of December, 2008? Can you prove it?" Maybe I'll getcha, maybe I won't, but I've got something to work with.

Contrast that with "well, 45 years ago, as I think I told a cop, but it might've been an FBI agent, and I don't really remember if it was the same day or the next, but it seems to me that I said the guy was white, had some sort of hat, maybe wore glasses, but I'm not so sure about that, but if I saw him again (and if he looked the same), I'm sure I'd recognize him." Is that going to set your team of investigators hot on the trail of whomever it is you might've seen?

A more solid question is what you do about witnesses such as Richard Carr: two months after the fact, his claim came to the attention of your investigators, they said that he said that he saw a man in a hat in the 7th (top) floor window in a sport coat, jacket, tie and hat, wearing glasses with "thick earpieces" from 850 feet away, but didn't see a gun and sure didn't see any gunshots, but at ground level he also saw a guy trotting up Commerce Street to Record to get into a Rambler driven by a "young Negro man" and drive away. Not an actual "witness," right?

Then, three years later, he tells an independent investigator (Penn Jones) that he saw a man similarly dressed not in the 7th floor window, but behind the picket fence, who then ran "behind" the TSBD where he was joined by "colored men (he said 'Negro')," the latter of whom got into a Rambler, now on Houston Street, and drove away while the white guy came south on Houston to Commerce, turned east and went out of sight, no Rambler involved with him, and all this viewed not from street level, but from the 7th or 8th floor of the new courthouse building.

Then, two years after that, the man was not on the "top" floor, nor "by the picket fence," but now in the "third window from the SE corner" of the fifth floor of the TSBD, which we all know was occupied by "the three blind mice," Williams, Jarman and Norman. And, while dressed the same throughout, he didn't - and couldn't have - run "behind the TSBD" from "by the picket fence," but instead came out a side door or maybe from behind the building - neither of which sites were visible from the upper floors of the new courthouse where he claimed to have been this time - and was joined not by two "Negro" men, but by two Latin men of dark complexion.

Given these very exacting descriptions, will you please provide for me the descriptions of the men you now want my investigators to find and question forty-five years later. Height, weight, clothing, other identifying characteristics so I don't bring half of Dallas into a showup and ask your witness if any of those 45,000 men was the one he'd seen on any of those several occasions under so many circumstances. I need to pick up a suspect! Who shall it be?

What about Ed Hoffman's guy? I need a similar description. We know where James Files is, as well as Chauncey Holt, Charles Harrelson, E. Howard Hunt, and a host of others are ... and they're already, to various extents, "confessed" conspirators. Shouldn't my guys investigate them first, if they're not already dead? And what if they are? What are they going to tell me about who else they might've worked with to pull off the deal? Let's not even go where we can do anything with the guys that Lee Bower saw, because beyond what's on record - which isn't very much - we couldn't identify them out of a showup since, after all, Bowers isn't about to tell us who they are now.

Jim Leavelle is one of the few people I've seen lately that even resembles who he was 45 years ago, but his fellow officers aren't. And if someone was asked which of these former officers on stage here was the other one who'd been 'cuffed to Oswald when Oswald got shot, I daresay there's not even a reporter who was there who could do that today ... presuming the others are alive, which at least one of them is not.

So, given all of these factors - and probably more - exactly whom would you like me to make a case against based on the data we've got here? A white guy who might've worn a tan suit and hat and maybe worn glasses who also says that he was in New York City that Friday but, gee whiz, 45 years later, no longer has the documentation to prove it either way now, but can prove he was a resident of Seattle, Washington or Paris, France at the time?

And exactly how many of these men do you want me to identify, find and question before bringing an indictment against one or more of them?

Certainly you don't expect me to convene a grand jury just to declare that Oswald - who was never judicially declared guilty, which is my sole jurisdiction - was de facto innocent even while never guilty de jure, do you? Oh, and by the way, while we know who didn't do it, we still don't know who did ... and even if we think we know who did, he is dead, unidentifiable or possibly imaginary.

If I were an elected district attorney, I would pursue that only as a lame duck in my final weeks of tenure, knowing full well that my legacy will be that of "kook" and being perfectly comfortable with that, and then only to say that I'd "tried" to solve the crime.

If you were in "my" prosecutorial shoes, how might you do it differently? (I don't usually get answers to such questions, maybe this time you'll be the first.)

[William Kelly]

... Y'might say that the trail's gone cold by now.

In your mind maybe, but from where I am sitting, it's seems like the case is hotter than ever, and getting hotter.

Bill, I never said anything about the case; I only commented on the trail of any perpetrator(s) of the crime.

It's like you having done it. I say to the cops, "well it was some guy wearing a pork-pie hat, might've been blone, might've been gray, but he was definitely white, casually dressed." Well, if maybe I said that yesterday and the cops start looking for you tomorrow, you might still be alive, might still wear a pork-pie hat, and oh, did I mention he wears glasses? Great: gotcha. "Mr. Kelly, where were you on the 9th of December, 2008? Can you prove it?" Maybe I'll getcha, maybe I won't, but I've got something to work with.

Contrast that with "well, 45 years ago, as I think I told a cop, but it might've been an FBI agent, and I don't really remember if it was the same day or the next, but it seems to me that I said the guy was white, had some sort of hat, maybe wore glasses, but I'm not so sure about that, but if I saw him again (and if he looked the same), I'm sure I'd recognize him." Is that going to set your team of investigators hot on the trail of whomever it is you might've seen?

A more solid question is what you do about witnesses such as Richard Carr: two months after the fact, his claim came to the attention of your investigators, they said that he said that he saw a man in a hat in the 7th (top) floor window in a sport coat, jacket, tie and hat, wearing glasses with "thick earpieces" from 850 feet away, but didn't see a gun and sure didn't see any gunshots, but at ground level he also saw a guy trotting up Commerce Street to Record to get into a Rambler driven by a "young Negro man" and drive away. Not an actual "witness," right?

Then, three years later, he tells an independent investigator (Penn Jones) that he saw a man similarly dressed not in the 7th floor window, but behind the picket fence, who then ran "behind" the TSBD where he was joined by "colored men (he said 'Negro')," the latter of whom got into a Rambler, now on Houston Street, and drove away while the white guy came south on Houston to Commerce, turned east and went out of sight, no Rambler involved with him, and all this viewed not from street level, but from the 7th or 8th floor of the new courthouse building.

Then, two years after that, the man was not on the "top" floor, nor "by the picket fence," but now in the "third window from the SE corner" of the fifth floor of the TSBD, which we all know was occupied by "the three blind mice," Williams, Jarman and Norman. And, while dressed the same throughout, he didn't - and couldn't have - run "behind the TSBD" from "by the picket fence," but instead came out a side door or maybe from behind the building - neither of which sites were visible from the upper floors of the new courthouse where he claimed to have been this time - and was joined not by two "Negro" men, but by two Latin men of dark complexion.

Given these very exacting descriptions, will you please provide for me the descriptions of the men you now want my investigators to find and question forty-five years later. Height, weight, clothing, other identifying characteristics so I don't bring half of Dallas into a showup and ask your witness if any of those 45,000 men was the one he'd seen on any of those several occasions under so many circumstances. I need to pick up a suspect! Who shall it be?

What about Ed Hoffman's guy? I need a similar description. We know where James Files is, as well as Chauncey Holt, Charles Harrelson, E. Howard Hunt, and a host of others are ... and they're already, to various extents, "confessed" conspirators. Shouldn't my guys investigate them first, if they're not already dead? And what if they are? What are they going to tell me about who else they might've worked with to pull off the deal? Let's not even go where we can do anything with the guys that Lee Bower saw, because beyond what's on record - which isn't very much - we couldn't identify them out of a showup since, after all, Bowers isn't about to tell us who they are now.

Jim Leavelle is one of the few people I've seen lately that even resembles who he was 45 years ago, but his fellow officers aren't. And if someone was asked which of these former officers on stage here was the other one who'd been 'cuffed to Oswald when Oswald got shot, I daresay there's not even a reporter who was there who could do that today ... presuming the others are alive, which at least one of them is not.

So, given all of these factors - and probably more - exactly whom would you like me to make a case against based on the data we've got here? A white guy who might've worn a tan suit and hat and maybe worn glasses who also says that he was in New York City that Friday but, gee whiz, 45 years later, no longer has the documentation to prove it either way now, but can prove he was a resident of Seattle, Washington or Paris, France at the time?

And exactly how many of these men do you want me to identify, find and question before bringing an indictment against one or more of them?

Certainly you don't expect me to convene a grand jury just to declare that Oswald - who was never judicially declared guilty, which is my sole jurisdiction - was de facto innocent even while never guilty de jure, do you? Oh, and by the way, while we know who didn't do it, we still don't know who did ... and even if we think we know who did, he is dead, unidentifiable or possibly imaginary.

If I were an elected district attorney, I would pursue that only as a lame duck in my final weeks of tenure, knowing full well that my legacy will be that of "kook" and being perfectly comfortable with that, and then only to say that I'd "tried" to solve the crime.

If you were in "my" prosecutorial shoes, how might you do it differently? (I don't usually get answers to such questions, maybe this time you'll be the first.)

Duke,

You answered my question by making my head spin.

Can't you try to make things more clear instead of more confusing?

While you imagine yourself an elected district attorney, and make up sentences upon sentences of imaginary conversations, and limit yourself to dead witnesses and every conceivable angle that doesn't make sense, your legacy is established.

I would like to return to the topic of this thead, though not considering whether Tippit was part of a conspiracy as much as whether Tippit's murder was connected to the assassination of the President.

BK

[Duke Lane]

Duke, You answered my question by making my head spin. Can't you try to make things more clear instead of more confusing?

I'll make a deal with you: I'll be more concise when you stop quoting everything I said that confuses you so everyone else gets to read it twice (and thus become twice as confused?) in the very next message. Let me save you the trouble this time:

Duke, You answered my question by making my head spin. Can't you try to make things more clear instead of more confusing?

I'll make a deal with you: I'll be more concise when you stop quoting everything I said that confuses you so everyone else gets to read it twice (and thus become twice as confused?) in the very next message. Let me save you the trouble this time:

Duke, You answered my question by making my head spin. Can't you try to make things more clear instead of more confusing?

I'll make a deal with you: I'll be more concise when you stop quoting everything I said that confuses you so everyone else gets to read it twice (and thus become twice as confused?) in the very next message. Let me save you the trouble this time:

Boring, isn't it?

Duke, You answered my question by making my head spin. Can't you try to make things more clear instead of more confusing?

I'll make a deal with you: I'll be more concise when you stop quoting everything I said that confuses you so everyone else gets to read it twice (and thus become twice as confused?) in the very next message. Let me save you the trouble this time:

How about now?

Duke, You answered my question by making my head spin. Can't you try to make things more clear instead of more confusing?

I'll make a deal with you: I'll be more concise when you stop quoting everything I said that confuses you so everyone else gets to read it twice (and thus become twice as confused?) in the very next message. Let me save you the trouble this time:

Have I made my point yet?

Fair enough?

I've never been accused of using a sentence when I had a whole page to work with. I've also never been accused of arguing a point with someone by pointing out the same argument I've used against them on another day in another place as if I thought arguing the point again today would make it a valid argument, at least in the other person's mind, to wit Carr's "Sportcoat Man."

I just want to know exactly who you expect a DA convene a grand jury toward bringing an indictment against. "Suitcoat Man" just ain't gonna cut it. Nor are any of the other nebulous men who were seen but can't be described and aren't even vaguely known.

The trail of these unknown persons is cold, cold, cold, whether or not any interest in the case is or isn't. The least any taxpayer should expect is a target, not just an open-ended investigation that will remain forever open-ended until every grand juror becomes a Poirot or Marples in order to solve over the short term what you and I have spent years upon years looking into.

Absent the "named conspirator" - a target - nothing at all is going to happen. Grand Juries aren't convened simply to declare someone innocent of a crime they were never convicted of, but rather with an intent toward convicting someone. Give me a "someone." By name. Who's alive.

Then, I'll put my imaginary staff on it, tût suite. Promise.

And in due course, I'll post those six names, too. Promise.

[William Kelly]

Duke, You answered my question by making my head spin. Can't you try to make things more clear instead of more confusing?

I'll make a deal with you: I'll be more concise when you stop quoting everything I said that confuses you so everyone else gets to read it twice (and thus become twice as confused?) in the very next message. Let me save you the trouble this time:

Duke, You answered my question by making my head spin. Can't you try to make things more clear instead of more confusing?

I'll make a deal with you: I'll be more concise when you stop quoting everything I said that confuses you so everyone else gets to read it twice (and thus become twice as confused?) in the very next message. Let me save you the trouble this time:

Duke, You answered my question by making my head spin. Can't you try to make things more clear instead of more confusing?

I'll make a deal with you: I'll be more concise when you stop quoting everything I said that confuses you so everyone else gets to read it twice (and thus become twice as confused?) in the very next message. Let me save you the trouble this time:

Boring, isn't it?

Duke, You answered my question by making my head spin. Can't you try to make things more clear instead of more confusing?

I'll make a deal with you: I'll be more concise when you stop quoting everything I said that confuses you so everyone else gets to read it twice (and thus become twice as confused?) in the very next message. Let me save you the trouble this time:

How about now?

Duke, You answered my question by making my head spin. Can't you try to make things more clear instead of more confusing?

I'll make a deal with you: I'll be more concise when you stop quoting everything I said that confuses you so everyone else gets to read it twice (and thus become twice as confused?) in the very next message. Let me save you the trouble this time:

Have I made my point yet?

Fair enough?

I've never been accused of using a sentence when I had a whole page to work with. I've also never been accused of arguing a point with someone by pointing out the same argument I've used against them on another day in another place as if I thought arguing the point again today would make it a valid argument, at least in the other person's mind, to wit Carr's "Sportcoat Man."

I just want to know exactly who you expect a DA convene a grand jury toward bringing an indictment against. "Suitcoat Man" just ain't gonna cut it. Nor are any of the other nebulous men who were seen but can't be described and aren't even vaguely known.

The trail of these unknown persons is cold, cold, cold, whether or not any interest in the case is or isn't. The least any taxpayer should expect is a target, not just an open-ended investigation that will remain forever open-ended until every grand juror becomes a Poirot or Marples in order to solve over the short term what you and I have spent years upon years looking into.

Absent the "named conspirator" - a target - nothing at all is going to happen. Grand Juries aren't convened simply to declare someone innocent of a crime they were never convicted of, but rather with an intent toward convicting someone. Give me a "someone." By name. Who's alive.

Then, I'll put my imaginary staff on it, tût suite. Promise.

And in due course, I'll post those six names, too. Promise.

Ah Ha, So you don't really want to discuss Tippit and whether his murder was connected to Dealey Plaza, you want to know who MY suspects are when a grand jury begins proceedings. The DA who convenes the grand jury desides who witnesses will be, but he doesn't have to have a suspect, just a crime that's yet to be solved, and the witnesses and the evidence lead him to the suspects.

All I can tell you is that the best new witnesses are not discussed on forums, or at least have not yet been discussed, and I don't see that happening, at least until after a grand jury or congressional hearings are held. Intenet forums are not exactly the proper venues for new witness testimony in a homicide.

As for your imiginary scenarios, you are only topped by Tom Waldman's JFK & RFK's Dec 1 coup in Cuba that never happened, and cabinet members don't remember even being talked about.

Why make up stuff like that when real life scenarios are far more tantalizing.

Like JD Tippitt really did work weekends at a barbeque restaurant owned by a Bircher whose business partner was the same guy who was business partners with Jack Ruby, and who reportedly had dinner with Ruby at the Egyptian Lounge on the night before the assassination. - Now that's a scenario that does tie Tippit to the events of Dealey Plaza.

BK

[Duke Lane]

I knew you couldn't not copy the entire post all over again!

Ah Ha, So you don't really want to discuss Tippit and whether his murder was connected to Dealey Plaza, you want to know who MY suspects are when a grand jury begins proceedings. The DA who convenes the grand jury desides who witnesses will be, but he doesn't have to have a suspect, just a crime that's yet to be solved, and the witnesses and the evidence lead him to the suspects.

Ultimately, that's true, but as I've said, the trail leading to most individual suspects has grown cold. If Carr's man did exist, Carr's not around to identify him, and any description he could give (if he were alive) probably doesn't even begin to match said suspect if he were alive (and existed in the first place). And then there are the red herrings, like Carr's guy and one-Negro-driver-cum-two-Negroes-cum-two-Latins, Hoffman's "Suit Man," an unidentified and possibly non-existent "Badgeman," and so forth.

I fear that, while what you say is true of grand juries in general, there's not much of a chance that any prosecutor anywhere at any level is going to convene one to start with a clean slate and every imaginable suspect out there.

Nowhere have I ever asked who "your" witness(es) might be; I've only said that, to garner a prosecutor's interest, you've got to have real, identifiable people as potential suspects. I think I've said a hundred times over that Tippit's murder was absolutely connected to the downtown shooting.

...Why make up stuff like that when real life scenarios are far more tantalizing. Like JD Tippitt really did work weekends at a barbeque restaurant owned by a Bircher whose business partner was the same guy who was business partners with Jack Ruby, and who reportedly had dinner with Ruby at the Egyptian Lounge on the night before the assassination. - Now that's a scenario that does tie Tippit to the events of Dealey Plaza.

That's a scenario, if true, that would tie Tippit's murder to the events in the plaza, but it doesn't necessarily tie Tippit himself to anything at all. The question is, is it true?

Ralph Paul was Ruby's benefactor and, according to one source, "the closest thing to a friend" that Ruby had. He was a semi-silent partner in Jack's businesses, all or most of which Paul described in detail during his depositions, of which there were two. Strangely - since I can't see the relevance - he was asked about businesses he'd been involved in with other people, not just Ruby, and he spoke freely of them. The names of Austin Cook and Austin's Barbecue were not among any of those discussed, and of course, Cook himself was not interviewed about anything other than his general impression of JD Tippit and the fact he'd worked for Cook.

The HSCA did discover an indirect relationship between Paul and Cook, through Cook's former business partner Bert Bowman. Austin's Barbecue was originally called "The Bull Pen," Cook changing its name after Bowman left. Bowman kept the name "The Bull Pen," which was also the name of Paul's restaurant in Arlington. In 1978, Cook expressed the opinion that Paul bought Bowman's restaurant "about 8 or 10 years ago," which would have been 1968 or 1970. Paul, however, owned "The Bull Pen" in Arlington as the sole stockholder in a corporation called "Bappo, Inc."

Ralph Paul was living in Bowman's home, also in Arlington, in 1963 and 1964, prior to his building his own home in that town. It is entirely possible that he used the same as Bowman had "kept" when dissolving his partnership with Austin Cook, and completely legal because both (1) "The Bull Pen" was no longer operating in Dallas, and (2) Paul's "Bull Pen" was located in a different county and operating under what's alternately called a "business alias," or a "d.b.a." (doing business as), the name search for those being limited to other businesses in the same county (Dallas is in Dallas County, Arlington is in neighboring Tarrant County).

Cook himself didn't make any reference to Ralph Paul in connection with his - or his and Bowman's - businesses, but his ex-wife told HSCA investigators that Paul "was a mutual friend of the Cooks and Bert Bowman." Given Paul's residence at the time in the Bowmans' house at the time, the latter seems a given; Bowman's wife (widow?), however, did not mention Austin Cook or any relationship between Cook and Paul when she was interviewed.

So, inasmuch as there was at least a mutual acquaintance between Cook and Paul, it does not appear as if he was Cook's "business partner" in any way, and that the indirect relationship between the two apparently ended with Bowman's disenfranchisement with Cook in 1958. Tippit, we will recall, only worked at Austin's Barbecue for two or three years, beginning no earlier than two years after Cook and Bowman had ceased being partners.

Is that "a scenario that does tie Tippit to the events in Dealey Plaza?" Only vaguely, in my opinion. If Tippit were a partner in Austin's Barbecue, I would perhaps see a greater significance in it, but he wasn't, so I don't.

[William Kelly]

Since I've stated in another thread that I think there's more of a chance of getting a grand jury investigation of the Tippitt murder before the JFK assassination, I thought I'd revive this thread.

BK

[William Kelly]

Since I've stated in another thread that I think there's more of a chance of getting a grand jury investigation of the Tippitt murder before the JFK assassination, I thought I'd revive this thread.

BK

Well, I certainly hope you can manage to get one on Tippitt, as such a GJ would have to get into many of the central issues that would be in the JFK one, as well. Because either one comes down on the side that 'Oswald' shot Tippitt [i don't believe the Oswald shot by Ruby did - and there seems to be no hard evidence (only some planted and changed evidence) he did] or that someone(s) else did - which opens up the whole can of worms. I sure hope you surprise us all sooner than later with this happening. Now seems to me the least bad time to do so.....Obama's lame Admin. is the best we will be allowed this side of total collapse of the economic system, now well underway - and once the collapse gets too far no one will be thinking about much other than survival and the daily horrors going on. In fact, I think that a lancing of the Dallas boil could actually cure the terminally ill National 'patient' - and not much else could [well, lancing the 911/Oil Wars/unPatriot Act boil might]. Good luck and please don't delay long. I REALLY do think the entire system is in the early stages of total collapse, not a cyclical downturn. It won't be pretty and without some light shone into the dark deep political recesses, another Chaney-type putsch will soon be along....and the scenario will be real ugly indeed, IMO.

Peter, I wish it were up to me when to proceed with a grand jury, however it is not up to me, and only a federal, state or local district attorney can conveine a grand jury, but we should be able to persuade one of a possible half-dozen with jurisdiction to do it.

Part of the hesitation in submitting the grand jury petition officially is that it is a one-shot deal, and if the petition is submitted and rejected, it will be harder to get another petition the proper attention, so the first petition must be the strongest.

BK

[Kathleen Collins]

P.S. Nic, don't feel too bad about your Mom not allowing Right Wing Books in the house. When my daughter was a pre-teen, I told her that I didn't want any of those $#%@*& "Beatles" records in the house. Then sometime later, I changed and was even trying to play their music on my guitar....:-)

How can you not like the Beatles? That's almost a character fault.

Kathy C

[Peter McGuire]

From page 342, Crossfire The Plot that Killed Kennedy by Jim Marrs:

"Another witness was Warren Reynolds, who chased Tippit's killer. He too, failed to identify Oswald as Tippit's killer until after he was shot in the head two months later. After recovering, Reynolds identified Oswald to the Warren Commission."

*Regardless of who actually killed Officer Tippit, that event was the catalyst that set off a flurry of police activity in Oak Cliff resulting in the arrest of Lee Harvey Oswald."

*page 350

Edited April 30, 2009 by Peter McGuire

[Peter McGuire]

dup

Edited April 30, 2009 by Peter McGuire