Mike Williams

1. No one saw him do it

Even Fritz is obviously disappointed when he says that they cannot place him (Oswald) in the window with a rifle at the time of the shots while the one witness, Brennan, in his book "Eyewitness to History" says:

I said brusquely, “He looks like the man, but I can’t say for sure!” I needed some time to think. I turned to Mr. Lish, who had detected my resentment and said, “Let’s go back to the office. We have some talking to do.” As we went, I commented that the man in the lineup wasn’t dressed the same way the man in the window had been.

Brennan was the one and only witness putting Oswald in that window and he refused to ID him... for a variety of reasons... but this left the DPD with no one to ID Oswald.

As I wrote... "No one saw him (LHO) do it" Unless you have something to add to the thread other that insulting attacks

Interesting how you put that "for a variety of reasons" I wonder if his reasons included the fact he felt betrayed by the DPD, or possibly was in fear? How about this from Brennan's own book:

"The officer walked over to me sticking out his hand to shake. He greeted me by name and I knew if he knew who I was and what my connection with the case was, then others must know. He asked me, “Does the second man from the left look most like the man you saw?” He was talking about Oswald and I knew what he wanted me to say.

I felt even more angry and betrayed. I hadn’t agreed to make an identification to the local authorities. I knew that there were ways my identity could become known though the leaks in the police department and I didn’t want any part of it. I knew that they had Oswald on enough charges that he wasn’t going anyplace. He had been charged with resisting arrest and carrying a firearm without a permit. There was overwhelming evidence that he had killed Officer Tippit and so my identification in that moment wasn’t absolutely necessary. If they needed me later, I knew I could identify him."

I knew I could identify him, if they needed me later! Sounds like Brennan saw Oswald in that window. Now I wonder why you did not elaborate on "for a variety of reasons"

2. He was seen elsewhere just before and just after.. with a woman who told a researcher she was giving him change when the shots were fired.

Do we really need to do the Oswald timeline again? He's seen as late as 12:15-12:20 on the first floor - and please try to remember if he was the lone assassin he has no way of knowing EXACTLY when the limo is passing... based on what the public knew JFK would pass by anytime between 11:55 and 12:25 (luncheon had public start times of both 12 and 12:30). Add to this that Williams is eating his lunch, at a 6th floor window until 12:15 or so. And then again LHO is seen in the 2nd floor lunchroom at 12:31 - maybe... the Baker/Truly/Oswald rememberance of this event is still very much at odds with each other.

I wish I could find the person who posted the comment about a woman coming forward claiming to have been giving Oswald change for the Coke machine on his trip from the 1st floor to the 2nd, before he buys the coke. Maybe someone can come to my aid while I continue to look for it.... Bottom line? Oswald was not on the 6th floor when witnesses saw numerous men with rifles moving about on that floor.

Mrs Reid definitely places a coke in his hand as he walks thru her office out towards the front, after the "Baker" encounter.

So where was he DURING the assassination. You readily admit you have him located just before, and just after. Rowland does in fact see a dark complected man in the window at about 12:15, as I recall. He also sees a gunman, which rather fits Oswald's description, but he never sees the both at the same time. So you have Oswald accounted for till say 12:20, and then again at 12:31. This does not rule him out at all.

As far as someone telling a researcher something, come on, you don’t really believe hearsay like that iss going to fly do you? I am not a CT. I don’t bite that easily.

3. He didn't fire a rifle that day

Google the parafin tests please... 2 positives on his hands and a negative on his cheek... the hands can lead to many different interpretations, the most damaging that he fired a pistol yet the results should have been positive on the shooting hand and negative on the other unless he was incontact with substances that could cause both positives - which he was during his normal day at work.

Nothing on his cheek is the most telling as to why he didn't fire a rifle that day... the fact that nobody fired THAT rifle THAT day is a whole other story...

Paraffin eh? Your kidding me right? You do of course know of the unreliability of this test. Let me refresh for you by asking you to read what Cunningham had to say in WCH3p487.

"And 17 men were involved in this test. Each man fired five shots from a .38 caliber revolver. Both the firing hand and the hand that was not involved in the firing were treated with paraffin casts, and then those casts treated with diphenylamine. A total of eight men showed negative or essentially negative results on both hands. A total of three men showed positive results on the idle hand, but negative on the firing hand. Two men showed positive results on their firing hand and negative results on their idle hands. And four men showed positive on both hands, after having fired only with their right hands."

And then Further:

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.

EISENBERG:

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

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. 

Cunningham had explained earlier why a false negative could arise with the rifle (3H492):

EISENBERG: 

A paraffin test was also run of Oswald's cheek and it produced a negative result.

CUNNINGHAM:

Yes.

EISENBERG:

Do your tests, or do the tests which you ran, or your experience with revolvers and rifles, cast any light on the significance of a negative result being obtained on the right cheek?

CUNNINGHAM:

No, sir; I personally wouldn’t expect to find any residues on a person's right cheek after firing a rifle due to the fact that by the very principles and the manufacture and the action, the cartridge itself is sealed into the chamber by the bolt being closed behind it, and upon firing the case, the cartridge case expands into the chamber filling it up and sealing it off from the gases, so none will come back in your face, and so by its very nature, I would not expect to find residue on the right cheek of a shooter. 

I find it interesting that you would try to use something that is inconclusive, as an indication of exoneration. Note I said interesting, not surprising.

4. The rifle was the worst POS imaginable for a number of reasons

Really Mike? If I remember correctly you are knowledgeable about weapons yes? You think a 20+ year old rifle, with 20+ year old ammo, a rickety scope, a badly damaged firing pin and a partially filled "non existent" clip shooting a round with a bent hull was a RELIABLE weapon, was not a POS that repeatedly jammed, was hard to shoot by experts and appeared as if it hadn't been fired or oiled in who knows how long?

Really?

Yes I have read these claims before. Pure rubbish, and spewed by people who have no idea what they are talking about in regard to firearms. To answer your question, yes, I do think a 20 year old firearm with a partially loaded clip (which is irrelevant) could have done the deed.

Now I don’t know exactly what you mean by "non-existent" clip. There is documented proof the clip was in the TSBD.

I also assume in talking about the firing pin, you are referring to it showing signs of much use? Imagine that a war rifle showing signs of use. I also suppose you are going to quote that they were afraid to dry fire it because they feared breaking the firing pin.

I hear this often, and it is comical. You are aware of the fact that you never dry fire a weapon with this type of pin design aren't you? The reason is, that even if the pin is BRAND NEW, you run the risk of breaking it. They were not afraid to dry fire it because it was defective, they were afraid to because that is standard firearms knowledge. Its also the reason these were made to allow gunsmiths, like myself, to test fire weapons and have a striking surface for the pin:

Now a word about the scope. You do realize that it was in very good firing order on 11/27/63 when the FBI tested it? In fact they fired six rounds that made a keyhole in the target!:

Of course these rounds were fired at 15 yards. Someone with no knowledge would jump all over that, but what they fail to realize is this is a strong indication that the scope was in fact zeroed in at 400 yards. More about this to come.

As for the ridiculousness of the dented shell. Of course it could not have been fired dented, but it sure could have been dented after. Its called a short cycle. I have done it many times, and have seen it done by others. It is simply, not pulling the bolt far enough back to eject the shell, then when you run the bolt forward it hits the chamber lip.

Here are a pile of examples:

4. His .38 did not fire automatic rounds - he did not kill Tippit either

1:34 221 (Ptm. H.W. Summers) *Channel 1 Message*

Might can give you some additional information. I got an eye-ball witness to the get-away man. That suspect in this shooting is a white male, twenty-seven, five feet eleven, a hundred sixty-five, black wavy hair, fair complected, wearing a light grey Eisenhower-type jacket, dark trousers and a white shirt, and (. . . ?). Last seen running on the north side of the street from Patton, on Jefferson, on East Jefferson. And he was apparently armed with a 32 dark-finish automatic pistol which he had in his right hand.

1:34pm 550/2 (Sgt. G.L. Hill) *Channel 1 Message*

The shells at the scene indicate that the suspect is armed with an automatic 38, rather than a pistol.

What you would fail to realize is that in the day pistols were automatics, and revolvers were well revolvers. Another epic case of someone not knowing what they are talking about. People who murder with revolvers generally don’t hang around long enough to eject the shells. It is perfectly logical for the officer to assume they were autos, just because they were laying around on the ground. There is no indication that he picked them up and examined them before making the statement. I dare say, can you find the auto and the special in this illustration?

So you see David, once you apply a little common sense, and actually know what you are talking about things become far more clear. So I would have to give you some advice, based on the advise you gave me. I do my research, thats why is it so easy to debunk foolish theories like to ones you propose. Stop parroting someone elses work, your obviously not an idiot, stop being lazy, and do your own work. Things will become clear for you as well.

Mikey -

Reading thru this thread all we find is you once again copy/pasting someone elses words, thoughts conclusions with not a single one of your own..

my mistake, you do tell us how much a stamp weighs.

You DONT address the issue of CE399 being a complete fabrication and only defer to the person you stole from - DVP...

Mike Williams

Advanced Member

Group: Members

Posts: 769

Joined: 31-October 07

From DVP,

DVP said exactly:"You can't prove any initials were "erased". You just want to believe that. And even if something was erased, you can't prove that such action was conspiratorial in nature. Can you, Bob?" --- DVP; 05/19/10

So lets see.

In Harris theory the initials of Bell, turn out to be that of Fritz when turned over!

Hilariously stupid error in my book

You can insult real well, you can condemn others using what yet a third person wrote... but when it comes to posting something from your own little mind the best you have is "stupid error" and more quotes from your mentor DVP.

How about YOU debating with Bill - bring SOMETHING to the table beyond "DVP said...."

are you not able to formulate your own opinions and back them with your own research and your own illustrations and your own conclusions?

As you so eloquently posted

Time to put up or SHUT UP... or maybe you can have DVP write you a note - say you have a doctor's appointment or your dog ate your homework

Really? You dont say? You obviously have never read anything I have done in making your moronic assumptions, why am I not surprised?

Bill,....What is the issue here?

Mike, you are the issue for using the forum to attack Robert Harris and to announce your attack in the head of the thread. Who is Tom Foolery? He's in the headline next to Robert Harris and CE399? And then you point out that he got one thing wrong in his film and you call it a fabrication. It is only a fabrication if he knew it was wrong ahead of time and I don't think he did, and since he's now been corrected, we all know it is Fritz's

initials upside down.

Evidence is not about Bob Harris or David Von Pein, its about the envelope, who had possession of the envelop, and what's in it. Now if we can weigh a postage stamp, why can't we weigh a few bullet fragments - all four of them, or both of them, and what happened to the whole bullet? That was different than CE399 wasn't it? And what did Nurse Bell tell the HSCA and ARRB about it?

And someone is misrepresenting you - David Von Pein - he's the one misrepresenting the truth in this case and he should not even be mentioned in any serious research, especially in regards to any ballistics that you want to be considered at all. The bottom line is the evidence, and not those who misrepresent it - like Von Pein. I don't know Robert Harris, but anybody who can sturr the displeasure of DVP is a friend of mine.

Bill Kelly

Bill,

I would say the same thing to someone I could not hold my own with. I have an idea, why dont you debate DVP there Bill? Im sure it would be very informative lol

1. No one saw him do it

2. He was seen elsewhere just before and just after.. with a woman who told a researcher she was giving him change when the shots were fired.

3. He didn't fire a rifle that day

4. The rifle was the worst POS imaginable for a number of reasons

4. His .38 did not fire automatic rounds - he did not kill Tippit either

David,

I pasted this from another post, so as not to detract from that thread. I would like to offer you the opportunity to qualify the remarks and offer some support for your position on this, because I believe there are some fundamental errors within.

Can you expand a bit on your reasoning for the above claims?

Mike

So Mr. The Crowd goes wild I notice you avoided this like the plague, so how about putting up or shutting up?

Want to actually try to qualify these remarks, or just continue to run aimlessly at the mouth?

Counterpunch from Jimmy D

Mr. Williams:

1. Your argument about the weight of CE 399 is a cheap diversion. I just proved that CE 399 was not found at Parkland. Understand?

2. I personally have no respect for anyone who channels Von Pein for any reason on any issue. And using DVP to point out an error by Harris, while ignoring everything else he mentions in his video--which I then detailed--is typical cheap DVP trolling. Which everyone has had more than enough of. Except maybe you.

But alas, you are the guy who says there is no evidence for a front shot also. Hmm. How about the altered testimony of Sam Holland, the avulsed hole in the back of JFK's skull, the witnesses Doug Horne names in Vol. 2 who saw a hole in JFK's temple, Jackie Kennedy jumping on the back of the car to retrieve her husband's skull bones, Hargis' testimony (pre Gary mack MK Ultra) about getting hit with blood and tissue so hard it felt like a bullet, and--oh yes-- the Zapruder film's violent rearward action of JFK's body?

In light of that "non-evidence" you are a natural soul-brother of Davey Boy. Time wasters like you are one reason I lurk.

Jim D

Then Jim should have no issue coming on this forum and debating me outright on the frontal head shot. I would love to see that.

So how about it.

Time to put up or shut up.

James DiEugenio writes:

"Since I have given Von Pein three pastings in a little over a month, one of them specifically over the issue of the provenance of CE 399, I kind of guessed that he would go after the Bob Harris video since John Kelin and myself posted it at ctka.net.

(You can see two of the pastings at http://www.ctka.net/2010/dvp.html)

The reason I posted it there was because Robert included the previous work of Tink Thompson, Gary Aguilar, and John Hunt on this issue i.e. the switching of the Parkland Hospital bullet for CE 399.

In the first part of my two-part essay on Von Pein, I closed with eight questions that DVP should have posed to Vince Bugliosi about this issue. He did not pose any of them. All he did was relay the message from the prosecutor that the judge in that phony London Showtime trial had admitted a picture of CE 399 into evidence, and that he felt he could get the exhibit admitted at an actual trial. Von Pein, predictably, did not challenge either point. Even though Bugliosi said that the chain of custody test means showing that the prosecution's exhibit is what they say it is.

As Bob Tanenbaum said in Pittsburgh in 2003, one way to do this is through eyewitness identification.

Now, a pre-trial evidence admittance hearing is called a 402 proceeding. If the Dallas Police had not helped Ruby kill Oswald, there would have been several of these at Oswald's trial e.g. over the paper package which Wesley Frazier and his sister saw. (Although it is highly unlikely she saw it, and the mother made no mention of it to the FBI.)

But the one on CE 399 would have been most interesting. Even amusing.

If I were defending Oswald, I would have called D. Tomlinson, O P Wright, his wife, Bardwell Odum, and Elmer Lee Todd for starters.

Tomlinson would show two things: there is a question as to whose stretcher CE 399 was found on. TInk Thompson deduced that it probably was not found on Kennedy's or Connally's but a little boy named Ronald Fuller. (See Thompson pgs. 161-164, Marrs p. 364) And Tomlinson always felt that Arlen Specter had manipulated him on the stretcher identification issue. (Marrs pgs 363-64) Secondly, although he was not as familiar with weapons and ammo as Wright, he rejected CE 399 as the bullet found and said it was more like a pointed hunting round. (Marrs, p. 365) Right here, with the first witness, you have the beginning of an origination problem and an identification problem.

OP Wright would deepen this. Since he was very experienced with guns and ammo. When Thompson showed him a photo of CE 399 he immediately rejected it. (Thompson, p. 175) And he showed Thompson what it actually looked like and Thompson has a photo of this in his book. (ibid) No one as familiar with guns as ex law enforcement officer Wright could mistake one for the other.

Arlen Specter knew this. So when you look at the listing of Commission witnesses in Walt Brown's valuable book "The Warren Omission", you will not see OP Wright's name. Does anyone except Dave Von Pein -- and maybe Mike Williams -- think there were 500 witnesses more important than Wright? If you do, you need some help.

So now, you have both people who handled the stretcher bullet saying that the bullet in evidence -- the Magic Bullet which is absolutely essential to the Commission's efficacy ---- is not the bullet they turned over to the authorities. By Vincent Bugliosi's own definition, the government's version of the exhibit is not what the primary witnesses say it was. (See the first part of my DVP essay.)

Wright's wife was supervisor of nursing at Parkland. When Thompson went looking for Wright again after Oliver Stone's film came out, he found out he had passed away, but she was still alive. She told Thompson that there were other bullets found that day! (See Part 1 of my Reclaiming History review.)

This was startling, to everyone except Von Pein. And it may be that this Harris bullet is one of the others planted that day. Her testimony gives you a background to make the evidence planting more viable.

Bardwell Odum would give you the witness you need inside the FBI to show that Hoover knew that Wright would never identify CE 399 as the evidence he turned over.

When Aguilar and Thompson found him in retirement they decided to interview him.

For an FBI report of 6/12/64 says that Odum showed CE 399 to Wright and Tomlinson. The report says that both men said the bullet "appear to be the same one" they found on the stretcher. A funny thing happened when the authors confronted Odum with this report. This was puzzling since another FBI report of 6/2/64 says that neither man can identify the bullet.

So on November 24, 2001, 38 years after Kennedy's murder, the public found out that Hoover lied about this identification. For on that day, Thompson and Aguilar did what the HSCA should have done if Robert Blakey would not have been such a flunky. They showed the FBi report to Odum. He denied he ever showed CE 399 to any Parkland Hospital employee. (The Assassinations, edited by James DiEugenio and Lisa Pease, p. 284) Further, since he knew Wright, he would have recalled such an event.

Odum would show that the FBI knew that CE 399 was not the bullet found at Parkland.

Does it get any better than that?

Actually, it does. As everyone knows both the FBI and the Commission say in writing that FBI agent Elmer Lee Todd put his initials on CE 399. (Thompson, p. 155) Todd is crucial since he picked up the bullet at the White House from the Secret Service and then delivered it to the FBI lab and Robert Frazier that evening. Researcher John Hunt did something that neither Von Pein nor his hero Vincent Bugliosi did not. He went to the National Archives to see if this was true. Guess what, to no one's surprise except maybe Von Pein's, it is not. Hunt photographed the entire circumference of CE 399 and Todd's initials are not there. (See my Reclaiming History series, Part 7, Section 3.) So you would now have Todd on the stand trying to explain why the FBI lied about his initials and why they are not there if he did handle the bullet.

But further, Todd would have something else to explain. Frazier wrote down the time he received the stretcher bullet as 7:30. This one would tie Todd in knots. For he wrote down the time he got the bullet from the Secret Service as 8:50. If that does not constitute a break in the chain of custody then I don't know what does. The Magic Bullet is more magical than anyone ever dreamed.

So on both the chain of custody and the identification question, what prosecutor would want to go through a 402 hearing on CE 399? Maybe Von Pein, but who else? This is why this was all avoided in the phony trial that Bugliosi took part in. But if I were defending Oswald I would not ask for the 402 proceeding. At a 402, the jury is out of the room. I would want them to see and her all of this. Especially the parts about Hoover lying about a bullet he knows is the wrong one. Judges and juries don' t like to hear this kind of thing. Because it says the prosecution cannot be trusted. And it casts aspersions on the entire phalanx of evidence presented.

I would want this all in the open because after you destroyed Brennan, showed how the police coerced Frazier, showed how Givens changed history, and have Sebastian LaTona show how a print in Dallas disappeared on a plane to Washington, CE 399 would be the icing on the cake.

After that debacle, I would move to throw out the prosecution case on the grounds that it was the result of misconduct. Which of course, we know that Wade and Fritz did a lot of. But not as much as Hoover. I would then sue both the DPD and FBI and make Oswald -- and myself -- rich men.

Von Pein and Bugliosi ignore all this. And they try and discredit it all by saying Harris made a mistake. As if Bob making an error erases the clear substitution of evidence that was concealed by the FBI for almost 40 years. And which helped frame an innocent man.

The Harris video is not perfect. It couldn't be since Specter and the FBI made sure the trail would be cold and covered up when it came time to show how the bullet was actually switched. But Harris has made a decent start. That Von Pein says not a word about what Hoover and the Commission did in this fiasco, or how it was concealed for decades, but instead goes after a mistake by Harris -- well that tells you all you need to know about Davey Boy.

And also Mr. Williams.

So lets see.

In Harris theory the initials of Bell, turn out to be that of Fritz when turned over!

Hilariously stupid error in my book.

SO Bill,

Perhaps you would like to prove another part of the theory for Robert, since he so obviously cant.

Can you prove there was anything erased and written over?

Can you prove any of his other ridiculous assumptions?

Step on up. Everyone gets a swing at the ball!

Mike

Hi Mike,

That was all Jimmy D speaking, not me. I just posted it for him. But he seems to make sense. Although we don't have to think in terms of the fake trail they had in London or a hypothetical trial of Oswald, we can still take this to court while going after the real killers.

Sorry, I can't follow this chain or hardly any of the chain of custody of any of the evidence. All the chains seem to break at the first few rungs and I don't think its because of the incompentency of the Dallas cops. I think they did it on purpose.

Now looking at this just briefly, you mean to tell me that there even is/was an envelop that contained a bullet and two to four fragments taken from Connally, and all the people who handled this envelop signed their initials to it just like they do on CSI Miami?

But nobody knows who the nurse was who started the chain?

I get the part where the cop delivers it to Fritz's office, but he doesn't know who he gave it to there? And then we have Fritz's signature initials on it, upside down.

And Von Pain quotes a Warren Commission doctor who actually had the fragments in hand who, when asked if they weighed more than what was missing from CE399 actually responds with the size, and says they weighted as much as a postage stamp?

How much does a postage stamp weight, and how much is missing from CE399?

BK

The average stamp weights about a gram, or 15 grains. We know that 399 has much less loss. However a grain is 1/7000th of a pound. I hardly think we can determine anything conclusively by what anyone guessed, considering the minute weight involved.

I think the most 399 could weigh is 162. Loss from firing .4-.6 grains. So that leaves us with 161.5 potentially (using the average of .4 to.6)

Found it weighed 158.6 so it would have a loss of no more than 2.9 grains.

As you know Bill I am hardly one to support the SBT, at least not yet. So I really have no dog in this race.

I still can not help but bust a gut when I see the Robert "upside down" Harris make such gross assumptions, just to have it blow up in his face.

Since I have no communication with Jim DiEugenio Please pass on to him, that if he wished to include me in a conversation, to please have to stones to step up to the plate here himself and speak directly to me. I have little respect for a man who feels the need to go through another to make a simple post. If he cant stand his own ground, then he should refrain.

What do you mean what the average stamp weighs? Can't they weight bullet fragments?

Is that how you determine ballistics, compare the weight of bullet fragments to average postage stamps and then weight the stamp to see how much the bullet fragment weighs?

What kind of investigation is that?

And if you have such little respect for a man who feels the need to go through another to make a simple post, who can't stand on his own ground, then why did you bring a donkey like Barron Von Pain to a dog race?

BK

Bill,

I was not the one who compared the fragments to the stamp, a doctor did. I in fact proposed that this was not an accurate method, in that the weights are very minute.

This should clearly tell you that I would not investigate that way at all.

I only addressed it at all because you asked the question:

How much does a postage stamp weight, and how much is missing from CE399?

Now as for DVP.

It was not I who tried to claim that DVP agreed to the erasing on the envelope, Harris did. I simply corrected his error, yet again, in showing that DVP was not in fact in agreement. What is the issue here?

I was not speaking for DVP, nor posting for him. I was simply relating, yet again, another piece of fabrication by Bob Harris.

I would hope that if someone misrepresented me, you would do the same. I know that if someone horribly misrepresented you, of totally fabricated a statement, and tried to pass it off as your words, I would certainly stand up for you even if I did not agree with you.

James DiEugenio writes:

"Since I have given Von Pein three pastings in a little over a month, one of them specifically over the issue of the provenance of CE 399, I kind of guessed that he would go after the Bob Harris video since John Kelin and myself posted it at ctka.net.

(You can see two of the pastings at http://www.ctka.net/2010/dvp.html)

The reason I posted it there was because Robert included the previous work of Tink Thompson, Gary Aguilar, and John Hunt on this issue i.e. the switching of the Parkland Hospital bullet for CE 399.

In the first part of my two-part essay on Von Pein, I closed with eight questions that DVP should have posed to Vince Bugliosi about this issue. He did not pose any of them. All he did was relay the message from the prosecutor that the judge in that phony London Showtime trial had admitted a picture of CE 399 into evidence, and that he felt he could get the exhibit admitted at an actual trial. Von Pein, predictably, did not challenge either point. Even though Bugliosi said that the chain of custody test means showing that the prosecution's exhibit is what they say it is.

As Bob Tanenbaum said in Pittsburgh in 2003, one way to do this is through eyewitness identification.

Now, a pre-trial evidence admittance hearing is called a 402 proceeding. If the Dallas Police had not helped Ruby kill Oswald, there would have been several of these at Oswald's trial e.g. over the paper package which Wesley Frazier and his sister saw. (Although it is highly unlikely she saw it, and the mother made no mention of it to the FBI.)

But the one on CE 399 would have been most interesting. Even amusing.

If I were defending Oswald, I would have called D. Tomlinson, O P Wright, his wife, Bardwell Odum, and Elmer Lee Todd for starters.

Tomlinson would show two things: there is a question as to whose stretcher CE 399 was found on. TInk Thompson deduced that it probably was not found on Kennedy's or Connally's but a little boy named Ronald Fuller. (See Thompson pgs. 161-164, Marrs p. 364) And Tomlinson always felt that Arlen Specter had manipulated him on the stretcher identification issue. (Marrs pgs 363-64) Secondly, although he was not as familiar with weapons and ammo as Wright, he rejected CE 399 as the bullet found and said it was more like a pointed hunting round. (Marrs, p. 365) Right here, with the first witness, you have the beginning of an origination problem and an identification problem.

OP Wright would deepen this. Since he was very experienced with guns and ammo. When Thompson showed him a photo of CE 399 he immediately rejected it. (Thompson, p. 175) And he showed Thompson what it actually looked like and Thompson has a photo of this in his book. (ibid) No one as familiar with guns as ex law enforcement officer Wright could mistake one for the other.

Arlen Specter knew this. So when you look at the listing of Commission witnesses in Walt Brown's valuable book "The Warren Omission", you will not see OP Wright's name. Does anyone except Dave Von Pein -- and maybe Mike Williams -- think there were 500 witnesses more important than Wright? If you do, you need some help.

So now, you have both people who handled the stretcher bullet saying that the bullet in evidence -- the Magic Bullet which is absolutely essential to the Commission's efficacy ---- is not the bullet they turned over to the authorities. By Vincent Bugliosi's own definition, the government's version of the exhibit is not what the primary witnesses say it was. (See the first part of my DVP essay.)

Wright's wife was supervisor of nursing at Parkland. When Thompson went looking for Wright again after Oliver Stone's film came out, he found out he had passed away, but she was still alive. She told Thompson that there were other bullets found that day! (See Part 1 of my Reclaiming History review.)

This was startling, to everyone except Von Pein. And it may be that this Harris bullet is one of the others planted that day. Her testimony gives you a background to make the evidence planting more viable.

Bardwell Odum would give you the witness you need inside the FBI to show that Hoover knew that Wright would never identify CE 399 as the evidence he turned over.

When Aguilar and Thompson found him in retirement they decided to interview him.

For an FBI report of 6/12/64 says that Odum showed CE 399 to Wright and Tomlinson. The report says that both men said the bullet "appear to be the same one" they found on the stretcher. A funny thing happened when the authors confronted Odum with this report. This was puzzling since another FBI report of 6/2/64 says that neither man can identify the bullet.

So on November 24, 2001, 38 years after Kennedy's murder, the public found out that Hoover lied about this identification. For on that day, Thompson and Aguilar did what the HSCA should have done if Robert Blakey would not have been such a flunky. They showed the FBi report to Odum. He denied he ever showed CE 399 to any Parkland Hospital employee. (The Assassinations, edited by James DiEugenio and Lisa Pease, p. 284) Further, since he knew Wright, he would have recalled such an event.

Odum would show that the FBI knew that CE 399 was not the bullet found at Parkland.

Does it get any better than that?

Actually, it does. As everyone knows both the FBI and the Commission say in writing that FBI agent Elmer Lee Todd put his initials on CE 399. (Thompson, p. 155) Todd is crucial since he picked up the bullet at the White House from the Secret Service and then delivered it to the FBI lab and Robert Frazier that evening. Researcher John Hunt did something that neither Von Pein nor his hero Vincent Bugliosi did not. He went to the National Archives to see if this was true. Guess what, to no one's surprise except maybe Von Pein's, it is not. Hunt photographed the entire circumference of CE 399 and Todd's initials are not there. (See my Reclaiming History series, Part 7, Section 3.) So you would now have Todd on the stand trying to explain why the FBI lied about his initials and why they are not there if he did handle the bullet.

But further, Todd would have something else to explain. Frazier wrote down the time he received the stretcher bullet as 7:30. This one would tie Todd in knots. For he wrote down the time he got the bullet from the Secret Service as 8:50. If that does not constitute a break in the chain of custody then I don't know what does. The Magic Bullet is more magical than anyone ever dreamed.

So on both the chain of custody and the identification question, what prosecutor would want to go through a 402 hearing on CE 399? Maybe Von Pein, but who else? This is why this was all avoided in the phony trial that Bugliosi took part in. But if I were defending Oswald I would not ask for the 402 proceeding. At a 402, the jury is out of the room. I would want them to see and her all of this. Especially the parts about Hoover lying about a bullet he knows is the wrong one. Judges and juries don' t like to hear this kind of thing. Because it says the prosecution cannot be trusted. And it casts aspersions on the entire phalanx of evidence presented.

I would want this all in the open because after you destroyed Brennan, showed how the police coerced Frazier, showed how Givens changed history, and have Sebastian LaTona show how a print in Dallas disappeared on a plane to Washington, CE 399 would be the icing on the cake.

After that debacle, I would move to throw out the prosecution case on the grounds that it was the result of misconduct. Which of course, we know that Wade and Fritz did a lot of. But not as much as Hoover. I would then sue both the DPD and FBI and make Oswald -- and myself -- rich men.

Von Pein and Bugliosi ignore all this. And they try and discredit it all by saying Harris made a mistake. As if Bob making an error erases the clear substitution of evidence that was concealed by the FBI for almost 40 years. And which helped frame an innocent man.

The Harris video is not perfect. It couldn't be since Specter and the FBI made sure the trail would be cold and covered up when it came time to show how the bullet was actually switched. But Harris has made a decent start. That Von Pein says not a word about what Hoover and the Commission did in this fiasco, or how it was concealed for decades, but instead goes after a mistake by Harris -- well that tells you all you need to know about Davey Boy.

And also Mr. Williams.

So lets see.

In Harris theory the initials of Bell, turn out to be that of Fritz when turned over!

Hilariously stupid error in my book.

SO Bill,

Perhaps you would like to prove another part of the theory for Robert, since he so obviously cant.

Can you prove there was anything erased and written over?

Can you prove any of his other ridiculous assumptions?

Step on up. Everyone gets a swing at the ball!

Mike

Hi Mike,

That was all Jimmy D speaking, not me. I just posted it for him. But he seems to make sense. Although we don't have to think in terms of the fake trail they had in London or a hypothetical trial of Oswald, we can still take this to court while going after the real killers.

Sorry, I can't follow this chain or hardly any of the chain of custody of any of the evidence. All the chains seem to break at the first few rungs and I don't think its because of the incompentency of the Dallas cops. I think they did it on purpose.

Now looking at this just briefly, you mean to tell me that there even is/was an envelop that contained a bullet and two to four fragments taken from Connally, and all the people who handled this envelop signed their initials to it just like they do on CSI Miami?

But nobody knows who the nurse was who started the chain?

I get the part where the cop delivers it to Fritz's office, but he doesn't know who he gave it to there? And then we have Fritz's signature initials on it, upside down.

And Von Pain quotes a Warren Commission doctor who actually had the fragments in hand who, when asked if they weighed more than what was missing from CE399 actually responds with the size, and says they weighted as much as a postage stamp?

How much does a postage stamp weight, and how much is missing from CE399?

BK

The average stamp weights about a gram, or 15 grains. We know that 399 has much less loss. However a grain is 1/7000th of a pound. I hardly think we can determine anything conclusively by what anyone guessed, considering the minute weight involved.

I think the most 399 could weigh is 162. Loss from firing .4-.6 grains. So that leaves us with 161.5 potentially (using the average of .4 to.6)

Found it weighed 158.6 so it would have a loss of no more than 2.9 grains.

As you know Bill I am hardly one to support the SBT, at least not yet. So I really have no dog in this race.

I still can not help but bust a gut when I see the Robert "upside down" Harris make such gross assumptions, just to have it blow up in his face.

Since I have no communication with Jim DiEugenio Please pass on to him, that if he wished to include me in a conversation, to please have to stones to step up to the plate here himself and speak directly to me. I have little respect for a man who feels the need to go through another to make a simple post. If he cant stand his own ground, then he should refrain.

COPY OF DISCHARGE..FWIW

Thanks Bernice. It certainly does say that he was Private First Class.

WHich means that somewhere along the line he was promoted for the second time.

As I recall, PFC was a rating awarded for completion of basic training (boot camp).

I had Navy boot training right next door to the San Diego Marine boot camp.

As a navy "boot", I had the rating of Seaman. On completion of boot camp, all of us

became Seaman First Class. Technically it is a promotion...but in reality, it is the

lowest rating (other than trainees or boots). I still have my navy "boots" (leggings)

that give trainees their name.

So if LHO was PFC, that is the LOWEST rating other than trainee, so is not a "promotion".

Incidentally, the word "RANK" is used only for officers. All enlisted men have RATINGS,

not ranks.

Jack

When the military went over to the "E" for enlisted pay grade system, a PFC in the Army was pay grade E-3 while in the USMC PFC was pay grade E-2. The Corps used pay grade E-3 for Lance Corporal.

Most branches handed out E-2 after 4 or 5 months of service...in the Coast Guard we got E-2, which was Seaman Apprentice out of boot camp.

Having fell down the ladder a few times myself, they usually gave you back a stripe (grades E-2,3) after 30 days of good behavior.

Jack, I still have the "Fair Play for Oswald" T-shirt I bought from you at the old ASK conference in 94.

That would be correct.

There are only a few Marines handed PFC from basic, generally for excellent performance. I myself made the trip to PFC and back a couple times. Generally for very small infractions punished under the UCMJ, non-judicial punishment. After about 30 days my stripe was given back (both times lol).

I would also not that I know that once one retires, or leaves honorable, you can actually retain the rank/title. Such as R Lee Ermy, who is to this day called Gunny.

I am less certain about and undesirable discharge.

Mike

James DiEugenio writes:

"Since I have given Von Pein three pastings in a little over a month, one of them specifically over the issue of the provenance of CE 399, I kind of guessed that he would go after the Bob Harris video since John Kelin and myself posted it at ctka.net.

(You can see two of the pastings at http://www.ctka.net/2010/dvp.html)

The reason I posted it there was because Robert included the previous work of Tink Thompson, Gary Aguilar, and John Hunt on this issue i.e. the switching of the Parkland Hospital bullet for CE 399.

In the first part of my two-part essay on Von Pein, I closed with eight questions that DVP should have posed to Vince Bugliosi about this issue. He did not pose any of them. All he did was relay the message from the prosecutor that the judge in that phony London Showtime trial had admitted a picture of CE 399 into evidence, and that he felt he could get the exhibit admitted at an actual trial. Von Pein, predictably, did not challenge either point. Even though Bugliosi said that the chain of custody test means showing that the prosecution's exhibit is what they say it is.

As Bob Tanenbaum said in Pittsburgh in 2003, one way to do this is through eyewitness identification.

Now, a pre-trial evidence admittance hearing is called a 402 proceeding. If the Dallas Police had not helped Ruby kill Oswald, there would have been several of these at Oswald's trial e.g. over the paper package which Wesley Frazier and his sister saw. (Although it is highly unlikely she saw it, and the mother made no mention of it to the FBI.)

But the one on CE 399 would have been most interesting. Even amusing.

If I were defending Oswald, I would have called D. Tomlinson, O P Wright, his wife, Bardwell Odum, and Elmer Lee Todd for starters.

Tomlinson would show two things: there is a question as to whose stretcher CE 399 was found on. TInk Thompson deduced that it probably was not found on Kennedy's or Connally's but a little boy named Ronald Fuller. (See Thompson pgs. 161-164, Marrs p. 364) And Tomlinson always felt that Arlen Specter had manipulated him on the stretcher identification issue. (Marrs pgs 363-64) Secondly, although he was not as familiar with weapons and ammo as Wright, he rejected CE 399 as the bullet found and said it was more like a pointed hunting round. (Marrs, p. 365) Right here, with the first witness, you have the beginning of an origination problem and an identification problem.

OP Wright would deepen this. Since he was very experienced with guns and ammo. When Thompson showed him a photo of CE 399 he immediately rejected it. (Thompson, p. 175) And he showed Thompson what it actually looked like and Thompson has a photo of this in his book. (ibid) No one as familiar with guns as ex law enforcement officer Wright could mistake one for the other.

Arlen Specter knew this. So when you look at the listing of Commission witnesses in Walt Brown's valuable book "The Warren Omission", you will not see OP Wright's name. Does anyone except Dave Von Pein -- and maybe Mike Williams -- think there were 500 witnesses more important than Wright? If you do, you need some help.

So now, you have both people who handled the stretcher bullet saying that the bullet in evidence -- the Magic Bullet which is absolutely essential to the Commission's efficacy ---- is not the bullet they turned over to the authorities. By Vincent Bugliosi's own definition, the government's version of the exhibit is not what the primary witnesses say it was. (See the first part of my DVP essay.)

Wright's wife was supervisor of nursing at Parkland. When Thompson went looking for Wright again after Oliver Stone's film came out, he found out he had passed away, but she was still alive. She told Thompson that there were other bullets found that day! (See Part 1 of my Reclaiming History review.)

This was startling, to everyone except Von Pein. And it may be that this Harris bullet is one of the others planted that day. Her testimony gives you a background to make the evidence planting more viable.

Bardwell Odum would give you the witness you need inside the FBI to show that Hoover knew that Wright would never identify CE 399 as the evidence he turned over.

When Aguilar and Thompson found him in retirement they decided to interview him.

For an FBI report of 6/12/64 says that Odum showed CE 399 to Wright and Tomlinson. The report says that both men said the bullet "appear to be the same one" they found on the stretcher. A funny thing happened when the authors confronted Odum with this report. This was puzzling since another FBI report of 6/2/64 says that neither man can identify the bullet.

So on November 24, 2001, 38 years after Kennedy's murder, the public found out that Hoover lied about this identification. For on that day, Thompson and Aguilar did what the HSCA should have done if Robert Blakey would not have been such a flunky. They showed the FBi report to Odum. He denied he ever showed CE 399 to any Parkland Hospital employee. (The Assassinations, edited by James DiEugenio and Lisa Pease, p. 284) Further, since he knew Wright, he would have recalled such an event.

Odum would show that the FBI knew that CE 399 was not the bullet found at Parkland.

Does it get any better than that?

Actually, it does. As everyone knows both the FBI and the Commission say in writing that FBI agent Elmer Lee Todd put his initials on CE 399. (Thompson, p. 155) Todd is crucial since he picked up the bullet at the White House from the Secret Service and then delivered it to the FBI lab and Robert Frazier that evening. Researcher John Hunt did something that neither Von Pein nor his hero Vincent Bugliosi did not. He went to the National Archives to see if this was true. Guess what, to no one's surprise except maybe Von Pein's, it is not. Hunt photographed the entire circumference of CE 399 and Todd's initials are not there. (See my Reclaiming History series, Part 7, Section 3.) So you would now have Todd on the stand trying to explain why the FBI lied about his initials and why they are not there if he did handle the bullet.

But further, Todd would have something else to explain. Frazier wrote down the time he received the stretcher bullet as 7:30. This one would tie Todd in knots. For he wrote down the time he got the bullet from the Secret Service as 8:50. If that does not constitute a break in the chain of custody then I don't know what does. The Magic Bullet is more magical than anyone ever dreamed.

So on both the chain of custody and the identification question, what prosecutor would want to go through a 402 hearing on CE 399? Maybe Von Pein, but who else? This is why this was all avoided in the phony trial that Bugliosi took part in. But if I were defending Oswald I would not ask for the 402 proceeding. At a 402, the jury is out of the room. I would want them to see and her all of this. Especially the parts about Hoover lying about a bullet he knows is the wrong one. Judges and juries don' t like to hear this kind of thing. Because it says the prosecution cannot be trusted. And it casts aspersions on the entire phalanx of evidence presented.

I would want this all in the open because after you destroyed Brennan, showed how the police coerced Frazier, showed how Givens changed history, and have Sebastian LaTona show how a print in Dallas disappeared on a plane to Washington, CE 399 would be the icing on the cake.

After that debacle, I would move to throw out the prosecution case on the grounds that it was the result of misconduct. Which of course, we know that Wade and Fritz did a lot of. But not as much as Hoover. I would then sue both the DPD and FBI and make Oswald -- and myself -- rich men.

Von Pein and Bugliosi ignore all this. And they try and discredit it all by saying Harris made a mistake. As if Bob making an error erases the clear substitution of evidence that was concealed by the FBI for almost 40 years. And which helped frame an innocent man.

The Harris video is not perfect. It couldn't be since Specter and the FBI made sure the trail would be cold and covered up when it came time to show how the bullet was actually switched. But Harris has made a decent start. That Von Pein says not a word about what Hoover and the Commission did in this fiasco, or how it was concealed for decades, but instead goes after a mistake by Harris -- well that tells you all you need to know about Davey Boy.

And also Mr. Williams.

So lets see.

In Harris theory the initials of Bell, turn out to be that of Fritz when turned over!

Hilariously stupid error in my book.

SO Bill,

Perhaps you would like to prove another part of the theory for Robert, since he so obviously cant.

Can you prove there was anything erased and written over?

Can you prove any of his other ridiculous assumptions?

Step on up. Everyone gets a swing at the ball!

Mike

Even he does not dispute the fact that initials have been erased and overwritten.

Another complete fabrication by Harris.

DVP said exactly:"You can't prove any initials were "erased". You just want to believe that. And even if something was erased, you can't prove that such action was conspiratorial in nature. Can you, Bob?" --- DVP; 05/19/10

SO now that we all realize that Harris simply examined the evidence up side down, which is funny as all get out, we see that he can not even be relied upon to tell the truth regarding a simple exchange.

I dont know about anyone else, but I for one and not surprised.

OK, no takers.

If you look at the testimony of Lieutentant Day before the Warren Commission, you find on one page:

http://www.jfk-assassination.de/warren/wch/vol14/page253.php ,about half way down, Day is taking about what he did on the day Kennedy was assassinated when he was on the sixth floor at about 1:20pm. You will see the bit where he says:

"..Were taken. I processed these three hulls for fingerprints, using powder. Mr. Sims picked them up by the ends and handed them to me. I processed each of the three, did not find fingerprints. As I had finished that, Captain Fritz sent word for me..."

So, Lieutenant Day says he fingerprinted the three spent cartridges on the afternoon of the assassination and Dhority says that Lieutenant Day fingerprinted the three cartridges when he took them to him later that evening.

Now that seems strange to me, why would Lieutenant Day fingerprint the cartridges twice?

Perhaps for the same reason they fingerprinted Oswald twice. Also I thought Fritz kept one in his desk and that only 2 went to the FBI.Maybe he kept the dented/short cycled one?.

Ian,

That would be correct.

Tony,

Perhaps he used a different method the second time. I dont know but that is interesting.

Why would that be poor Lee? If in fact we are using the watch as a time stamp to verify important events, should we not consider the accuracy that represents?

Of course we should.

It's just something we'll never know Mike. We can never, ever, know if all of the watches and clocks used to time stamp information were fast, slow or accurate. I just didn't get your comment about 1963. It read like watches and clocks were less reliable in 1963. If that was what you meant?

I know they didn't use sundials so variations in times given are going to only be wrong in terms of the odd minute forward or backward surely? We would hope that all public service officials such as paramedics and police officers in any city know the importance of ensuring your watch keeps good time...

Lee,

I was meaning by what standard the watch was set. This was a time when atomic clocks and such were still in their development. It was not as simple as turning on your cell phone to get an accurate satellite time etc.

Even by todays standards I bet you would find a majority of watches that are not accurate.

Yes, but irrespective of that any rifle would have this own characteristic, so a 3 shot replay with a same model carcano loaded as expected would show a consistency in pattern. That in itself could be a comparison.

Part of the whole thing is to objectively test PC findings and not blindly accept them (or anything) as given.

Sure, it would show a consistency in pattern for THAT rifle. Which does not reflect at all on the actual rifle, which could in fact have a completely different pattern. Unless we could test the actual rifle, the results we would have would not yield any relevant comparison information.

1. No one saw him do it

2. He was seen elsewhere just before and just after.. with a woman who told a researcher she was giving him change when the shots were fired.

3. He didn't fire a rifle that day

4. The rifle was the worst POS imaginable for a number of reasons

4. His .38 did not fire automatic rounds - he did not kill Tippit either

David,

I pasted this from another post, so as not to detract from that thread. I would like to offer you the opportunity to qualify the remarks and offer some support for your position on this, because I believe there are some fundamental errors within.

Can you expand a bit on your reasoning for the above claims?

Mike

John...Americans are not afraid of the government...they for the large part are not

informed enough to understand the corruption. They think we have a two-party

system...but both parties are controlled by the same people. They have from childhood

been taught certain myths which are not easily overcome. If the people were fully

informed, there would be a new American Revolution. One is needed.

Jack

Jack,

If you and I NEVER agree on ANYTHING else, we surely do on this! You Sir are spot on with every syllable.

Mike

I am aware of that, Mike. I'm suggesting a test of that data (and some other matters.). I don't know all that much about guns so I don't know how big an ask it is. I'd suggest a grid on soft ground replicating as well as can the shots in the time frame maybe three times over to get a rough average of ejection pattern.

John,

The issue is that different rifles may eject differently. Even the same make and model. Certainly different shooter could have an effect as well. Anything that we tested would not be worth diddle. The best tests in my opinion are the ones done with the MC in evidence. At least that was with the same weapon.

Exhibit 517 is the photo of the rifle still between the boxes. I use Boone as he specifically mentions the time the rifle was found yet incorrectly places the assassination at 1pm. "It was 1pm when we heard the shots" Simply trying to put the timeline in context.

Also to put Truly's statements into context - he is fairly sure Fritz is with the rifle and Truly's gone up there not too long after 1pm

Mr. BALL - The diagram on the sixth floor, as the Commission knows, has been correlated with certain pictures. I now have Commission Exhibit 517 marked, which has the figure 35 on it, which corresponds to the position of the camera at the time the picture was taken. In other words, at about point 35 on this map. And now I show you a photograph marked 517. Is that about the way the rifle looked when you first saw it?

Mr. BOONE - Yes; it is. There was some newsman up there right behind Officer Whitman and myself who took movie film of it too. I don't know his name.

Mr. BALL - What time was it?

Mr. BOONE - 1:22 p.m. in the afternoon.

Mr. BALL - 1 :22?

Mr. BOONE - Yes.

Mr. BALL - You looked at your watch?

Mr. BOONE - That is correct.

Mr. BALL - And made a note of it?

Mr. BOONE - Yes; I did.

Fritz arrives at 12:58

Hill with Boone and Mooney and someone else go up to the 7th and then down to the 6th floor right away

Over Alyea's film you can hear someone say "Gerry Hill just leaned out the window"

.. Is that Decker with Fritz walking in?

.. It cuts to street cops as Fritz goes in - the shadows are very long, at this point, or so it seems

.. at 24 seconds in they are just trampling all over that crime scene corner, they seem to be standing on the hulls

.. at 27/28/29 seconds it appears as if Fritz is holding a hull and while talking... watch the space between the 2 men and you can see his hand - don't see much of it - wish I could work with that video - I may have the mpg and will try tomorrow

I believe it is Gerry Hill who tells Sawyer when/where the hulls were found a minute or so before he radios in at 1:11pm.

Hill doesn't find the hulls, Mooney does

After Hill meets Fritz at the elevator - I place this about 1:07/1:08pm - he takes him over as the testimony says...

The hulls were found before Fritz arrives, before Hill shows him where and before Hill gets to the ground floor to meet with Sawyer, that's got to take a couple-few minutes, no?

Plus Hill takes a minute or so to speak with Lt Day...

Hill's WC testimony

Captain Fritz and his men were coming up on the elevator.

I told him what we found and pointed out the general area, pointed out the deputies to them, and told him also that I was going to make sure the crime lab was en route.

About the time I got to the street, Lieutenant Day from the crime lab was arriving and walking up toward the front door. I told him that the area we had found where the shots were fired from was on the sixth floor on the southeast corner, and that they were guarding the scene so nobody would touch anything until he got there. And he said, "All right."

And he went on into the building, and I went over to tell Inspector Sawyer, who was standing almost directly in front of the building across the little service drive there at what would actually be Elm and Houston. About this time I saw a firetruck come up, but I didn't pay any attention.

So I hope you see that I don't think they waited very long at all... just took 4-7 minutes to get up there, find it, tell Fritz, tell Day, tell Sawyer and have it broadcast at 1:11pm. the rifle was found not too long after that.

Riddle me this batman

If someone fired and ejected the hulls as they were shooting... where was the clip?

Kidding aside... I think we can see that the hulls were found before 1:12 and Fritz may have just entered or had only recently entered the building when they were found. Truly puts the time even earlier. and then LATER, imo, boxes were stacked and moved and photographed and, and, and... it all becomes like comparing the xrays to the photos... pointless.

DJ

The clip was still in the rifle.

Interesting thoughts, let me look a bit more into this and see what I come up with. Looks as though those fellas might have been about as good at telling time, as they were anything else.

Pretty shoddy performance all in all, to say the least.

Mike, I wonder if you can post a birdseyeview sketch and or a description of the ''brass spit (?)'' arc or whatever expected of a rapidly cycled downwads pointing MC? (With dimensions, please?)

As well, Mike, do you have any spent MC cartridges to do some experiments with?

John,

I do have some cartridges, and a Carcano as well. The ejection pattern is documented in the WC, as well as the HSCA if I recall correctly.

Mike

I believe that events happened much earlier as well as much later on the 6th floor.

Shells/Hulls and rifles were found in a variety of places, imo, and little by little I'd like to prove it.

IMO the key players are Hill, Sawyer, Alyea, Truly, Mooney and Boone… Roger Craig is not mentioned by a single one of these witnesses!

and the hulls were definitely found before 1:11 while the rifle had to have been found not much later... well before the official 1:22.

I’ve tried to keep a timeline going but there is a little jump around to substantiate my {thoughts}.

{Sawyer only receives the news of the hulls being found from someone who had found them... he never went up to the 6th floor. Someone came down and told Sawyer... who and when? Hill comes down sometime between 12:50 when he gets to the TSBD and 1:11 when Sawyer calls in the hulls being found.}

Dispatcher 10-4. 1:11 p.m.

9 (Inspector J.H. Sawyer) On the 5th floor of this book company down here, we found empty rifle hulls and it looked like the man had been here for some time. We are checking it out now.

{Mike - Sawyer says the fifth, Hoover says the fifth, Alyea says the fifth, Mooney came up from the 5th to the 6th floor...

it also appears that the food and soda were also down on the 5th floor}

Mr. HILL. On that particular day, I was at the city hall in the personnel office, and did not have an assignment of any kind pertaining to the President's trip or any other function other than the investigation of police applicants.

Mr. BELIN. When did you leave the city hall?

….

{Hill con’t} I stood there for a minute and I heard a voice which I am almost sure was Inspector Sawyer---but being I didn't see a broadcast, I couldn't say for sure--- saying we think we have located the building where the shots were fired from at Elm and Houston Streets, and send us some help.

At this time I went back to the personnel office and told the captain that Inspector Sawyer requested assistance at Elm and Houston Streets. The captain said, "Go ahead and go." {Capt. W. R. Westbrook, who was my commander}

From the DPD transcripts

12:41 9 (Inspector J.H. Sawyer) “We need some more men down at the Texas School Book Depository. We should have some on Main if we could get someone to pick up and bring them down here.”

{Meanwhile Fritz is on route to the hospital yet I thought it only took a few minutes to get to Parkland… they left at 12:33 and still in route at 12:41??}

12:41 Ch2 300 (Captain John Will Fritz) En route to the hospital.

12:47 550/2 (Sgt. G.L. Hill) 550/2

12:47 Dispatcher Go ahead 550.

12:47 550 car 2 550/2 and 104 en route to Elm and Houston, Code 3.

{Hill con’t}

We started out of the basement to get in his car, and a boy named Jim E. Well, with the Dallas Morning News, had parked his car in the basement and was walking up and asked what was going on, and we told him the President was shot.

And he said, "Where are you going?"

And we said, "Down to Elm and Houston where they think the shots came from."

And he said, "Could I go with you?"

So we took him in the back seat of the car. And I don't remember what the number was.

We came out of the basement on Commerce, went to Central, turned left, went over on Elm, ran into a traffic jam on Elm, went down as far as Pearl Street and turned back to the left on Pearl and went to Jackson Street, went west on Jackson to Houston Street, and turned back to the right and pulled up in front of the Book Depository at Elm and Houston, Jumped out of the car and Inspector Sawyer was there.

I asked him did he have enough men outside to cover the building properly, and he said, "Yes; I believe so."

And I said, "Are you ready for us to go in and shake it down?"

And he said, "Yes, let's go in and check it out."

About this time Captain Fritz and two or three more detectives from homicide. a boy named Roy Westphal, who works for the special service bureau, and a couple of uniformed officers, and a couple of deputy sheriffs came up.

{came up as in “to the front of the TSBD” or up into the building?? In wither case we can assume this happens at 12:58}

Mr. FRITZ. Well, sir; we arrived there---we arrived at the hospital at 12:45, if you want that time, and at the scene of the offense at 12:58.

Mr. BALL. 12:58; the Texas School Book Depository Building.

Mr. FRITZ. Yes.

…

Mr. BALL - And who were you with?

Mr. BOONE - Officer Mooney was out there, I believe, and several of the office personnel, women in the office, clerk-typist and what have you. Ralph Walters, Buddy Walthers, Allen Sweatt, L. C. Smith. Officer Gramstaff. That is about all I can remember.

Mr. BALL - What happened there?

Mr. BOONE – Well, it was approximately 1 o'clock when we heard the shots.

{AND THIS IS THE MAN WE ARE TRUSTING WITH THE 1:22 TIMING OF FINDING THE RIFLE??}

The motorcade had already passed by us and turned back to the north on Houston Street. And we heard what we thought to be a shot. And there seemed to be a pause between the first shot and the second shot and third shots--a little longer pause. And we raced across the street there.

Mr. BALL - Did you go up into the building then?

Mr. BOONE – I took him {Bowers} on over to the sheriff's office, and placed him in the sheriff's office, took his camera, to bring it back to the ID Bureau to be developed. Placed him in the sheriff's office at that time to await somebody to take a statement from him.

Then some other officers, Ralph Walters and Officer Gramstaff, and I don't know whether—I don't remember Officer Mooney was with them or not at that time they headed back to get some heavy power flashlights. They said they wanted to look around in the attic. And there were a bunch of pallets, that they moved the books around, and it was dark and they couldn't see. So we got the lights and went over to the building.

At that time, we proceeded directly to the sixth floor.

Mr. BALL - Somebody tell you to go to the sixth floor?

Mr. BOONE - Well, that is just where everybody was going. And they said five floors below that--I believe Inspector Sawyer with the city was out there, and he said the other floors were in the process of being searched or had been already searched. This was after Officer Mooney found the shells.

Mr. BALL - Did somebody tell you Officer Mooney had found some shells?

Mr. BOONE - Not him in particular. They said the shells had been found on the sixth floor. At that time, I didn't know he had found them.

{Boone places the shots at 1pm, is back at the sheriff’s office, gets back to the TSBD and knows that Mooney found the hulls, just as Hill describes… yet not nearly as late as Boone is trying to say. Mike is not so far off… Boone’s watch was 30 minutes fast!!}

{Mr. Hill’s action while Fritz is “running back and forth from floor to floor”}

Mr. BELIN. Then what did you do?

Mr. HILL. Left the uniformed officer there, and these two deputies* and I went down to sixth. I started to the right side of the building.

Mr. BELIN. When you say the right side, you mean----

Mr. HILL. Well, it would have been the west side.

Mr. BELIN. All right, they moved over to the east side?

Mr. HILL. We hadn't been there but a minute until someone yelled, "Here it is," or words to that effect. I moved over and found they had found an area where the boxes had been stacked in sort of a triangle shape with three sides over near the window. Two small boxes with Roller books on the side of the carton were stacked near the east side of the window.

Mr. FRITZ. We began searching the floors, looking for anyone with a gun or looked suspicious, and we searched through hurriedly through most all the floors.

Mr. McCLOY. Which floor did you start with?

Mr. FRITZ. We started at the bottom; yes, sir. And, of course, and I think we went up probably to the top.

Different people would call me when they would find something that looked like something I should know about and I ran back and forth from floor to floor as we were searching, and it wasn't very long until someone called me and told me they wanted me to come to the front window, the corner window, they had found some empty cartridges.

Mr. BALL. That was on the sixth floor?

Mr. FRITZ. That is right; the sixth floor, corner window.

Mr. BALL. What did you do?

Mr. FRITZ. I told them not to move the cartridges, not to touch anything until we could get the crime lab to take pictures of them just as they were lying there and I left an officer assigned there to see that that was done, and the crime lab came almost immediately, and took pictures, and dusted the shelfs for prints.

Mr. BALL. Which officers, which officer did you leave there?

Mr. FRITZ. Carl Day was the man I talked to about taking pictures.

{So this MUST occur between 12:58 and 1:11, more realistically between 1:03 and 1:09 since it takes time for Hill to get up and down to the 6th floor and for Fritz to also get to the 6th floor yet we know Hill tells Sawyer about the hulls BEFORE the 1:11 transmission}

{This begins to conflict with Truly’s story about going up to talk to Fritz about Oswald BEFORE 1pm yet he does feel as if the rifle was found when he gets there}

Mr. BALL. While you were there Mr. Truly came up to you?

Mr. FRITZ. Yes, sir; where the rifle was found. That was about the time we finished Mr. Truly came and told me that one of his employees had left the building, and I asked his name and he gave me his name, Lee Harvey Oswald, and I asked his address and he gave me the Irving address.

Mr. BALL. This was after the rifle was found?

Mr. FRITZ. Yes, sir; after the rifle was found.

Mr. BALL. Another witness has testified that the rifle was found at 1:22 p.m., does that about accord with your figures or your memory?

Mr. FRITZ. Let's see, I might have that here. I don't think I have that time.

Mr. BALL. Do you have the time at which the shells were found?

Mr. FRITZ. No, sir; I don't have that time.

{Truly has a very hard time with the time being at least 1:22 when he went up… he went in with Baker, ran up the stairs to the roof and came back down again to learn that Oswald was gone (see my previous post for statements) met with Lumpkin and was taken immediately up to Fritz.

{Hill con't} Now you identified them to me the other day, the two boys that were on the sixth floor from the sheriff's office.

Mr. BELIN. I think when we chatted briefly the other day, *I believe I said Boone and Mooney. Does that sound familiar?

Mr. HILL. I wouldn't know, but I know they identified themselves to us as deputy sheriffs, and some more people knew them.

{At some point after the hulls are found Hill meets Fritz at the elevator after Fritz had started on the first floor to work his way up... Hill and others - Boone, Mooney and ? went to the 7th floor and worked down (supposedly Alyea was working his way up with Fritz) . }

Mr. HILL:….

…When I got toward the back, at this time I heard the freight elevator moving, and I went back to the back of the building to either catch the freight elevator or the stairs, and Captain Fritz and his men were coming up on the elevator. I told him what we found and pointed out the general area, pointed out the deputies to them, and told him also that I was going to make sure the crime lab was en route.

{This takes a couple of minutes… so yes, Fritz is in the building when the hulls are found but is NOT on the 6th floor at the time not is he outside with Decker as Mooney claims yet as a Deputy Sheriff Mooney had to be more concerned with alerting Decker than Fritz… he could have assumed Fritz was simply with Decker yet may not have seen him.}

Sawyer’s transmission at 1:11

Dispatcher 10-4. 1:11 p.m.

9 (Inspector J.H. Sawyer) On the 5th floor of this book company down here, we found empty rifle hulls and it looked like the man had been here for some time. We are checking it out now.

Mr. BELIN. We will call this Sawyer's Deposition Exhibit B.

I see here that you go on at 12:45 p.m., with this statement by your No. 9. You want to read it?

Mr. SAWYER. Yes.

Mr. BELIN. "From this building it is unknown if he is still there or not. Unknown if he was there in the first place."

Mr. BELIN. Then it reads back here, "All the information we have received, indicates it did come from the fifth or fourth of that building." That is the central headquarters back to you, is that it?

Mr. SAWYER. That's right.

Mr. BELIN. That is at least after 12:45 p.m., and before 12:48 p.m.?

Mr. SAWYER. Right.

Mr. BELIN. Now looking down on this log until the next time your number appears, is 1:12 p.m. What does that say?

Mr. SAWYER. "We have found empty rifle hulls on the fifth floor and from all indications the man had been there for some time."

Mr. BELIN. Then is there anything else?

Mr. SAWYER. This was reported to me by somebody inside the building.

Mr. BELIN. That was at 1:12 p.m., that the hulls were found, or at least shortly prior to that? This doesn't say anything else. It apparently doesn't go in detail much past 1:58 p.m., on Sawyer Deposition. Exhibit B, and 1:53 p.m., on Sawyer's Deposition Exhibit A.

Mr. SAWYER. That's right.

."

From the Logs:

12:45 9 (Inspector J.H. Sawyer) On this building, it's unknown whether he is still in the building or not known if he was there in the first place.

1:11 9 (Inspector J.H. Sawyer) On the fifth floor of this book company down here, we found empty rifle hulls and it looked like the man had been here for some time. We are checking it out now.

{as an aside... It's between 12:58 and 1:12 or so that Tippet is murdered}

{Hill’s testimony later on}

I was talking to Inspector Sawyer, telling him what we found, when Sgt. C. B. Owens of Oak Cliff--he was the senior sergeant out there that day, and actually acting lieutenant--came up and wanted to know what' we wanted him to do, being that he had been dispatched to the scene.

Mr. BELIN. Let me stop you right there. Who dispatched him to the scene?

Mr. HILL. Apparently the dispatcher. Now his call number that day could have been 19.

Mr. BELIN. Okay, go ahead, Sergeant Hill.

Mr. HILL. We were standing there with Inspector Sawyer and Assistant District Attorney Bill Alexander came up to us, and we had been standing there for a minute when we heard the strange voice on the police radio {1:16 transmission} that said something to the effect that, if I remember right, either the first call that came out said that they were in the 400 block of East Jefferson, and that an officer had been shot, and the voice on the radio, whoever it was, said he thought he was dead.

{G.L. Hill helps find the hulls and winds up in the car with the .38 revolver in his hands, not 20 minutes before the shells he was shown provided a different result}

Mr. BELIN. Now I am going to hand you what has been marked Commission Exhibit 143. Would you state if you know what this is?

Mr. HILL. This is a .38 caliber revolver, Smith & Wesson, with a 2" barrel that would contain six shells. It is an older gun that has been blue steeled, and has a worn wooden handle.

1:26 550/2 (Sgt. G.L. Hill) 500/2.

1:26 550/2 (Sgt. G.L. Hill) I'm at Twelfth and Beckley now. Have a man in the car with me that can identify the suspect if anybody gets him.

1:34 550/2 (Sgt. G.L. Hill) 550/2.

1:34 550/2 (Sgt. G.L. Hill) The shells at the scene indicate that the suspect is armed with an automatic 38, rather than a pistol.

1:46 550/2 (Sgt. G.L. Hill) 550/2.

1:46 550/2 (Sgt. G.L. Hill) Do you have any additional information on this Oak Cliff suspect?

1:46 550/2 (Sgt. G.L. Hill) 10-4.

1:52 550/2 (Sgt. G.L. Hill) 550/2.

1:52 550/2 (Sgt. G.L. Hill) Suspect on the shooting the police officer is apprehended and en route to the station.

1:52 550/2 (Sgt. G.L. Hill) Caught him on the lower floor of the Texas Theater after a fight.

1:53 550/2 (Sgt. G.L. Hill) 550/2.

1:53 550/2 (Sgt. G.L. Hill) 223 is in the car with us. See if someone can pick up his car at the rear of the Texas Theater and take it to the station. It's got the keys in it.

1:53 550/2 (Sgt. G.L. Hill) We're bringing the prisoner straight to the City Hall.

1:53 550/2 (Sgt. G.L. Hill) 550/2.

1:53 550/2 (Sgt. G.L. Hill) Special Service unit is with us also. We're in his car, 492.

1:53 550/2 (Sgt. G.L. Hill) Zangs and Colorado.

1:53 550/2 (Sgt. G.L. Hill) Yes, sir. Him and his gun.

{On the drive back }

Mr. HILL. That was the second question that was asked the suspect, and he didn't answer it, either.

About the time I got through with the radio transmission, I asked Paul Bentley, "Why don't you see if he has any identification."

Paul was sitting sort of sideways in the seat, and with his right hand he reached down and felt of the suspect's left hip pocket and said, "Yes, he has a billfold," and took it out.

I never did have the billfold in my possession, but the name Lee Oswald was called out by Bentley from the back seat, and said this identification, I believe, was on the library card.

And he also made the statement that there was some more identification in this other name which I don't remember, but it was the same name that later came in the paper that he bought the gun under.

Mr. BELIN. Would the name Hidell mean anything? Alek Hidell?

Mr. HILL. That would be similar. I couldn't say specifically that is what it was, because this was a conversation and I never did see it written down, but that sounds like the name that I heard.

Mr. BELIN. Was this the first time you learned of the name?

Mr. HILL. Yes; it was.

{I believe the hulls were found by 1:03 or 1:04, Mooney yells out to Decker and mistakenly says Fritz was also down there

Hill looks out the window for Fritz (possibly) and decides to go down and find him...

Fritz arrives at the 6th floor about 1:05/1:06 and does his thing... (I am positive there is testimony about the surprise at least one observer has to Fritz picking the hulls up... just need to find it)

The rifle is found soon after (Hill says nothing about the rifle, he's on his way towards Oak Cliff)

I hope I got this post correct as I've moved stuff around and been doing quite a bit of research at the same time.

My memory is pretty good about detail yet I like to have the source material handy.

DJ

Let me read through this a bit and try to make hide nor hair of this time line.

On the envelope with the casings it would have been Sims who recorded the time and date, I'm not quite sure what this has to do with Boone?

If the first record of transmission about the shells is t 1:11, then why do you believe they were found at 103 or 104? Do you really think that they would have waited almost 10 minutes to transmit this information?

If in fact we can verify that the watch that was looked at was accurate, which may be a huge assumption in 1963.

Mike. That's poor. That's very very poor.

Why would that be poor Lee? If in fact we are using the watch as a time stamp to verify important events, should we not consider the accuracy that represents?

Of course we should.

TONY FWIW AYLEA'S FIRST REPORT FROM CONNIE KRITZBERG'S BOOK, DEC.16/63..MAY BE OF HELP...FROM A POST A FEW YEARS BACK I MADE ON JFK RESEARCH...B

Thomas Aylea WFAA Newsman/Reporter..

Information from "Pictures of the Pain"..pages 520-521

Tom Aylea used a Bell & Howell 70 DR 16 mm camera, loaded with black and white film , it was an old camera and had the history of loosing the fim loop when being operated. He also grabbed three extra cans of of film along with the emergency roll he always carried in his back pocket.All told he had 500 feet of unprocessed film available to him .He and Ray John had been assigned on the 21st to cover the President's arrival and activities in Ft Worth.

While there around the Hotel Texas , his camera had broken down and he had been forced to borrow one, he returned it prior to his trip back to Dallas..The men took the WFAA news station wagon via Route 20 from Ft Worth to Dallas.with John driving.

The afternoon of the 22nd was to be spent at the station processing the film for the evening news.They arrived back in Dallas about 12.30 pm.and traveling East on Commerce within the Dealey Plaza area, John was preparing to make a right onto Houston Street to the WFAA station on Young Street. The newsmen had both the car's radio as well as the police band radios turned on. Not cognizant of the fact that they were only several hundred feet south of Elm St. when the remnants of the presidential motorcade was passing by, they were halted at a traffic light some eight cars lengths from Houston..

Alyea " We sat there listening to the parade coverage on the radio. I didn't even think to look across Dealey Plaza to the Depository.The first indication that anything had gone wrong came when we heard a voice on the police radio. It gave an unusual alert---" All units on Stemmons and Industrial, Code 3 Parkland"..Not associating the call with the President at first, the call was repeated, and within about 20 seconds the men heard WFAA commercial radio announcer, John Allen break in with the statement that shots had been fired at the President near Houston and Em.."We were still waiting for the traffic light to change: suddenly I realized where I was......

I grabbed Ray's camera, told him to take the other film on to the station , and I took off across Dealey for the Houston and Elm intersection . I fimed while running and, assuming that the shots came from the ground, I looked around and began shooting".

"I raced across Commerce and Main Sts. dodging traffic .On the far side of Elm I saw people rushing around, I had begun filming on the way as I crossed Main St. and as I was filming I was looking for police. They were not around. Some people were running towards the railroad tracks while others towards the monument area..I thought "There's nothing going on here"..and I went up to Ellm and Houston ,"Not knowing anything about the incident, and seeing little direct activity around the intersection, Alyea did notice several cops and one man looking up at the Depository Building, He fimed the entrance, and as six or seven plaincothesmen rushed in through the double entry door, Alyea followed unchallenged with Dallas Morning News reporter Ken Biffle directly behind him. As they got in, Alyea heard a fellow say, "Shut the door! Lock it ---no one in---no one out."..It would appear that Alyea arrived at the TSBD some time between 12.34 and 12.36pm....when there was still much confusion in front of the building and prior to the large scale uniformed police response to the police dispatch orders ..

Tom's story follows.....

Interview Dec. 16/63........

By Tom Alyea ..."The Facts and the Photos"..

From :Connie Kritzbergs..book

..

"Secrets From the Sixth Floor Window"....p.39...46

Editor's Note: Tom Aylea, the only newsman to join the initial police search team on the sixth-floor of the Texas School Book Depository on November 22,1963, denounces the disruption of the barricade fashioned of boxes as he first saw it.

Aylea, former WFAA ( owned by the Dallas Morning News ) newsman/reporter , who recorded the panic on Dealey Plaza explains that the positioning of boxes was destoryed before the general press with still cameras were allowed in the building .He had completed his work in photographing everything of note and returned to his station long before the building was opened to the general press.

He recorded three cartridges where they landed after they were ejected from the rifle, He recorded the rifle as it was found, before it was touched."...All such evidence was available from Tom through a prescription to his newsletter " JFK Facts" ..

""I was the first newsman into the building and the only newsman to

accompany the search team as they went from floor to floor searching for

the person who fired the shots. At this time, we did not know the

president had been hit. I rushed in with a group of plain clothesmen and a

few uniformed officers.

I (followed ) the search team that was on its way to the rear elevator, to

start the floor by floor search. We searched every floor, all the way to

the roof. The gunman could have still been in the building. Finding

nothing, they started back down. After approximately 18 minutes, they were

joined by Captain Fritz, who had first gone to Parkland Hospital.

The barricade on the sixth floor ran parallel to the windows, extending in

an "L" shape that ended against the front wall between the first and

second twin windows. The height of the stack of boxes was a minimum of 5

ft. I looked over the barricade and saw three shell casings laying on the

floor in front of the second window in the two window casement. They were

scattered in an area that could be covered by a bushel basket. They were

located about half way between the inside of the barricade. I set my lens

focus at the estimated distance from the camera to the floor and held the

camera over the top of the barricade and filmed them before anybody went

into the enclosure. I could not position my eye to the camera's view

finder to get the shot. After filming the casings with my wide angle lens,

from a height of 5 ft., I asked Captain Fritz, who was standing at my

side, if I could go behind the barricade and get a close-up shot of the

casings. He told me that it would be better if I got my shots from outside

the barricade. He then rounded the pile of boxes and entered the

enclosure. This was the first time anybody walked between the barricade

and the windows.

Fritz then walked to the casings, picked them up and held them in his hand

over the top of the boxes for me to get a close-up shot of the evidence. I

filmed about eight seconds of a close-up shot of the shell casings in

Captain Fritz's hand. I stopped filming, and thanked him. I do not recall

if he placed them in his pocket or returned them back to the floor,

because I was preoccupied with recording other views of the crime scene. I

have been asked many times if I thought it was peculiar that the Captain of

Homicide picked up evidence with his hands. Actually, that was the

first thought that came to me when he did it, but I rationalized that he

was the homicide expert and no prints could be taken from spent shell

casings. Therefore, any photograph of shell casings taken after this, is

staged and not correct. It is highly doubtful that the shell casings that

appear in Dallas police photos of the crime scene are the same casings

that were found originally. The originals by this time were probably in a

plastic bag at police headquarters. Why? Probably this was a missing link

in the report the police department had to send to the FBI and they had to

stage it and the barricade box placement to complete their report and

photo records.

The position of the barricade, while difficult to follow for one who was

not there, is important because of the difference in photographs seen

today.

There are four different box positions.

There was one box in the barricade stack that was considerably higher

than the others. This box is the one that can be seen in the photos taken

from outside the window by Tom Dillard, because it was high enough to

catch the sunlight and still be seen from the ground below. It is not to

be confused with the second box set at an angle in the window sill, that

was used as a brace for the assassin's rifle.

A portion of this box can also be seen in these same photos taken by

Tom Dillard. It shows up in the lower right hand corner of the picture.

Two boxes were stacked on the floor, inside the window, to give arm

support to the assassin. The top box was one of the two boxes from which

the crime lab lifted palm prints.

The fourth box of importance was on the floor behind the sniper

location. Officers also lifted palm prints from this box. It is suspected

that the sniper sat on this box while he waited for the motorcade to pass.

The positioning of boxes 2, 3, and 4 were recorded by the police crime

lab. They are the only boxes involved in the crime scene.

The actual positioning of the barricade was never photographed by the

police. Its actual positioning is only on my movie footage, which was

taken before the police started dismantling the arrangement.

We all looked over the barricade to see if the half open window with three

boxes piled could form a shooting rest for a gunman. One box was actually on

the window sill, tilted at an angle. There was a reason for this that I

cover in my JFK Facts newsletter. The shooting location consists of two

windows set together to form one single window. (The police photo showing

the shell casings laying next to the brick wall was staged later by crime

lab people who did not see the original positioning because they were not

called upon the scene until after the rifle was found nearly an hour

later.

Only recently I saw a picture of Lt. Day with a news still cameraman on

the 6th floor. Day was shown pointing to the location where the rifle was

found. This was nearly 3:30 or after. It was my understanding that Day and

Studebaker had taken the prints, rifle and homemade sack back to police

headquarters. I personally would like to know what they were doing back at

the scene unless it was to reconstruct shots they had failed to take

during the primary investigation. But this evidence had been destroyed and

they were forced to create their own version. The photo I have seen of the

barricade wasn't even close. I have also seen recently a police photo of

the assassin's lair taken from a high angle which indicates that it was

shot before the barricade box arrangement was destroyed, but it did not

show the barricade itself. This has no bearing on the case other than the

public has never seen the original placement. I show it in my JFK Facts

newsletter.

Police officers who claim they were on the 6th floor when the assassin's

window was found have reported that they saw chicken bones at or near the

site. One officer reported that he saw chicken bones on the floor near the

location. Another said he saw chicken bones on the barricade boxes, while

another reported that he saw chicken bones on the box which was laying

across the window sill. Some of these officers have given testimony as to

the location of the shell casings. Their testimony differs and none of it

is true. I have no idea why they are clinging to these statements. They

must have a reason. Perhaps it is because they put it in a report and they

must stick to it.

One officer stated that he found the assassin's location at the 6th floor

window. He went on to say that as he and his fellow officers were leaving

the building, he passed Captain Fritz coming in. He said he stopped

briefly to tell Captain Fritz that he had found the assassin's lair at the 6th

floor window. This seems highly unlikely because Captain Fritz joined

us on the 5th floor and aided in the search. The chances are great that

this, or these officers heard the report, that stemmed from WFAA-TV's

incorrect announcement that the chicken bones were found on the 6th floor.

This officer or officers perhaps used this information to formulate their

presence at the scene. There were no chicken bones found on the 6th floor.

We covered every inch of it and I filmed everything that could possibly be

suspected as evidence. There definitely were no chicken bones, were no

chicken bones on or near the barricade or boxes at the window. I shot

close-up shots of the entire area. The most outstanding puzzle as to why

these officers are sticking to this story is the fact they claim to have

found the sniper's location, then left the building, as they said to join

the investigators at the Tippit shooting location. I have never seen a

report that indicates they attempted to use any telephone in the building

in an attempt to notify other investigators. They just left the scene to

check another assignment, and by chance ran into Capt. Fritz coming in the

front door. They claim to have placed a detective at the location but they

did not relay their finding to any other officer before they left the

building. I presume that the alleged detective they allegedly left at the

scene was instructed to stand there until someone else stumbled upon the

scene, or they found time to report it after investigating the Tippit

scene. Sorry, it doesn't wash.

I do however know that Officer Mooney was present when the rifle was found

because I took film of him at the scene. He is shown talking to another

detective, but this was nearly an hour after the sniper's location was

found at the window. I have no idea when he arrived. We ended up with more

men than when we started. As they joined us during the search the

latecomers would bring us the latest news of the president's condition.

When Captain Fritz arrived 18 minutes after we started, he brought news

that both Governor Connally and the president had been hit but by the time

he left, the seriousness of their wounds was unknown. Fritz left the

hospital almost immediately when he was notified that a search was

underway in the Texas School Book Depository for the sniper. We in the

search team had no phones, radios or TV sets. As I recall, we learned that

the president was dead about the time we found the rifle. I don't know who

brought us this word. Several officers arrived while we were waiting for

Lt. Day. One of them was Roger Craig, who is responsible for giving much

misinformation to the press. None of us were prepared to hear that the

president's wound was a fatal one. We thought perhaps it was a minor thing

or possibly a flesh wound. It was a stunning shock, and our attitude

( towards) the rifle had suddenly changed. We stared at the small portion

of the butt as it lay under the overhang boxes while we waited for Lt. Day

to arrive and recover the weapon that killed our president. I give an

account of this in JFK Facts.

We finished combing the 6th floor, looking for the assassin or any other

evidence. Finding nothing more at this time Captain Fritz ordered all of

us to the elevator and we started searching the 7th floor and from there

we went to the roof.

Nothing in the way of evidence was found so we retraced our search back

down, floor by floor. Shortly after we arrived back on the 6th floor,

Deputy Eugene Boone located the assassin's rifle almost completely hidden

by some overhanging boxes near the stairwell. I filmed it as it was found.

In my shot, the figure of Captain Fritz is standing within the enclosure

next to the rifle. He knew then that the possibility of a fire fight with

the sniper had greatly diminished. He dispatched one of his men to go down

and call for the crime lab. About fifteen minutes later, Lt. Day and

Studebaker arrived. Still pictures were taken of the positioning of the

rifle, then Lt. Day slid it out from its hiding place and held it up for

all of us to see. The world has seen my shot of this many times. Lt. Day

immediately turned toward the window behind him and started dusting the

weapon for fingerprints. Day was still within the enclosure formed by the

surrounding boxes. I filmed him lifting prints from the rifle. He lifted

them off with scotch tape and placed them on little white cards. When he

had finished, he handed the rifle to Captain Fritz. Fritz pulled the bolt

back and a live round ejected and landed on the boxes below. Fritz put the

cartridge in his pocket. I did not see Fritz pick up anything other than

the live round.

I filmed Captain Fritz talking with associates in this dismantled area

( the "sniper's nest") along with Studebaker, who was dusting the Dr.

Pepper bottle which had been brought up to him from the 5th floor. This is

all recorded on my film. I never learned if prints were lifted from the

pop bottle. I'm not sure if anybody ever asked.

I took the film from my camera, placed it back into its metal can, wrapped

the tape around it, and tossed it to our News Editor, A. J. L'Hoste, who

was waiting outside with the other newsmen who were not allowed in the

building. A. J. raced it to the television station which was about three

blocks away. About fifteen minutes later the world saw the murder weapon,

where it was found and pictures of the crime lab people dusting it for

fingerprints, and the shell casings that once housed those bullets. They

also saw how the assassin prepared for his ambush and the view he had of

the killing zone.....""

End of quote..

"Pictures of the Pain "..page 537

Back at the station Aylea's fim was being processed as quickly as it arrived most of it being broadcast unedited..Sometime after 3.15 pm the first Alyea film was telecast. ..The one minute 45 second sequence was not the first Tom had taken as it shows the rifle already discovered , as well as 15 other short sequences including the snipers nest scene.A short time later a 25 second additional segment was shown looking from the inside first floor entrance through the closed door at the two cops on the steps is also projected. All told WFAA broadcast Alyea's films some 5 separate occasions. Not including replays some 34 scenes were show, including views of the police on the street below and the spectators corralled below on the opposite side of Elm, near the reflecting pool area.The total none repeated film totalled 4 minutes..12 seconds. A David Wolper documentary film included five other short clips by Alyea not seen on the WFAA telecasts of 1963. These clips show an additional 14 seconds of film.A still later televised series ,

"The Men Who Killed Kennedy" included additional film.Among these three sources are a total of 54 separate fim clips of approximately 5 minutes 26 1/2 seconds duration , all identifiable to Alyea..The clips include several other views of the southeats corner of the 6th floor and views of the rifle prior to its being picked up by Lt. Day.Alyea shot all of his fim ammounting to some 500 feet.But at the station this precious film was not looked upon as of any historical documentation..or even as possible investigative use, It was part of a news package and would be edited, cut up, and shown only with only the concern of telling a breaking news story.....

Alyea increduously remembers, "The news director had a bunch of it burned and I said, "Bob, don't burn anything ---this is history, we don't know what's going on there..."..He said if we can't use it on the news get it out of here.".So much film was piling up in the cramped editing room floor that the next day much of it was destroyed .Alyea recalls that in between assignments he would come in to have his new fim processed , and while there would pick up some of his discarded film, spin it on a reel and take it. He retained some of these clips, but bemoans the lose of other potentially historic film , "I could have shot Oswald coming out ---could have shown someone else coming out."

In Apri 1964...WFAA furnished to the FBI, upon it's request ,a dub of all the segments which survived and could be indentified as Alyea's..

Tom Ayea would film one final dramatic, though post shootong event..Scheduled on Sunday to cover a news conference by Mrs John Connally at Parkland Hospital, the gathered press learned that Oswald had been shot by a phone call to the press room. Many took off for Baylor or Methodist Hospitals which were closer to the city jail,.. Aylea on a hunch and others ran to Parkand's emergency entrance. His camera is running as a police cruiser rounds the circular drive followed by an ambulance which stops and, as a cop motions with his hand, the vehice backs under the canopy..Oswald's strecher is removed from the back amid much pandemonium .Attempting to follow the gurnet Alyea recalls, ......" the officers forced a human wall across the hallway and refused to let us pass."

In the crowded corridor Alyea could not see in front of him ..Another cameraman , Bob Welch , had a light attached to his camera ,and Alyea told him to shine the light on the cops' heads. As he did this, Alyea using the man's light, held his camera as high as possible and pushed his film button .."I coudn't see what I was shooting:..His flim includes Oswald being wheeled down the hall "I had filmed that, as well as the Doctors rushing from the emergency room to take Oswald from the police, and I hadn't even been sure that I'd gotten anything"..It was a real stroke of luck."..

Tom Alyea also covered the trial of Jack Ruby for WFAA and also filmed a day in the life of Marina Oswald.. In 1966 he moved to Lafette, Louisiana, beginning his own news service operation and publishing a bulletin relating to the oil and gas industry. Following the 1983 oil price depression, Alyea moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma ..An avid cartoonist with a flair for teaching, known as "Toma" to his audience, he produced several successful children's tapes on learning to make cartoons. It has only been in recent years he has become aware of all the misinformation concerning the assassination and now believes it important to help correct some of the factual errors ..

Alyea Clip...

Index of Photographers

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http://jfkmurderphotos.bravehost.com/photos.html

B..

Bernice,

Many thanks for your contributions. Reading through the above you see the huge amount of contradictions between the Tom Alyea version of events and the Dallas Police and Sheriff's Department version of events.

I was interested in the comment ".. crime scene peolpe who did not see the original positioning because they were not called upon the scene until after the rifle was found nearly an hour later." An awful lot of law enforcement people would have had been lying for this to be true!

With regards to general timing of events, I was interested to find that the evidence envelope that contained the three spent cartridges had a time written on it. As I said in my article, when Captain Fritz saw the rifle he told Detective Sims to go and get Lieutenant Day to photograph the weapon. Sims found Day and helped him to get the spent cartridges fingerprinted and put into an evidence envelope. The two men then returned to where the rifle was found.

Lieutenant Day testifed to the Warren Commission that the date and time that Sims took charge of the envelope was written on the envelope. He told them that the writing says: November 22, 1963, 1:23pm

This is interesting because it does not appear to be an estimate to the nearest 5 or 10 minutes eg 1:20pm or 1:25pm etc. Putting it as 1:23pm suggests that the time was checked on a watch just before it was written.

see: http://www.jfk-assassination.de/warren/wch/vol4/page256.php

This would suggest the the rifle was found about 1:20pm and that the crime scene officers must have been on the scene earlier than the 1:20pm time recorded in various statements mentioned earlier.

Tony

If in fact we can verify that the watch that was looked at was accurate, which may be a huge assumption in 1963.

Lee,

I still wonder if in fact Fritz was in the building when the casings were found. Really though it was needless to the original point. Alyea was not on the sixth floor when the casings were found, as he claimed to have been.

I would wonder why Mooney says he saw Fritz on the ground if in fact Fritz was in the building?

he stated that in his WC testimony, and in the call with me two years ago. Is it possible he is mistaken, sure it is. Is it just as possible others are, of course.

I just refuse to put a sinister turn on something causing a mistake to be called a lie, until there is an intention placed on it. If it is made to intentionally mislead then by all means, but to what end would this lie serve purpose? None None at all. If he was incorrect, and he may well be, it certainly does not mean he lied intentionally.

As for my doing my homework, What I was examining had little to do with where Fritz was, or was not. I simply asked for and received clarification about the placement of the casings.

Had you done your homework, as I said you would realize that Alyea was mistaken about being on the 6th when the casings were found, which was the whole point I was making.

Mike,

It gets Fritz away from the snipers nest in the immediate minutes following the discovery of the shells. If he's not there he can't tamper with them.

Lee

I hardly think that he would really have to lie about that. As it stands we have film footage from Alyea of Fritz entering the TSBD. If this is the case then Alyea had to enter after Fritz. So then to do we have Gerald Hill saying he yelled down to the ground as well, and then shortly after he heard Fritz et al coming up in the freight elevator.

I think it is plausible that Fritz may have been still on the ground when they were found.

Basically what we have is crime scene photos that Mooney says are consistent with what he saw. This is completely contradictory to Craig who said they were all neat in a row, and Alyea who says they could be covered by a hand towel. I might also note that not even Alyea seems to agree with Craig.

Mike

Mike

If Fritz got to the TBSD at 12:58PM then I think it conceivable that Alyea could get the footage of Fritz entering, follow him in, Fritz stops on most of the floors then goes to the 7th. Alyea is then on the 6th. The casings are found at 1:15PM. Fritz comes down from the 7th floor 1:16PM-1:17PM.

Mike - have you seen any affidavits from Luke Mooney about his discovery? I've looked in the DPD files and there is zilch for Mooney.

Lee

Lee,

Buddy I am sure I have. Let me do some digging, as I think we are making good ground here.

Mike

Clearly the shells were no found anyplace but the 6th. Just as obvious Craig lied without shame about many parts of that day.

Mooney clearly says he was alone when they were found. It is possible Alyea filmed Fritz entering and arrived on the 6th at some point when Fritz did as well. However the point is Alyea was incorrect when he said he was on the 6th when they were found.

It is also interesting that Hill also claims it is not until he yelled down that hea then heard Fritz coming up in the elevator.

I have also read that many tried to claim the time was much earlier. This is generally in an attempt to make the timing of the Oswald identification impossible. I have never read anything credible that places the discovery of the shells earlier than 1:12.

@John Dolva: LOL...i guess you know what happens when you enlarge a pic too much: one can admire the lines of chaos..

KK

KK You said it!

That thing looks like a howitzer shell!

Best to ya buddy,

Mike

Lee,

I still wonder if in fact Fritz was in the building when the casings were found. Really though it was needless to the original point. Alyea was not on the sixth floor when the casings were found, as he claimed to have been.

I would wonder why Mooney says he saw Fritz on the ground if in fact Fritz was in the building?

he stated that in his WC testimony, and in the call with me two years ago. Is it possible he is mistaken, sure it is. Is it just as possible others are, of course.

I just refuse to put a sinister turn on something causing a mistake to be called a lie, until there is an intention placed on it. If it is made to intentionally mislead then by all means, but to what end would this lie serve purpose? None None at all. If he was incorrect, and he may well be, it certainly does not mean he lied intentionally.

As for my doing my homework, What I was examining had little to do with where Fritz was, or was not. I simply asked for and received clarification about the placement of the casings.

Had you done your homework, as I said you would realize that Alyea was mistaken about being on the 6th when the casings were found, which was the whole point I was making.

Mike,

It gets Fritz away from the snipers nest in the immediate minutes following the discovery of the shells. If he's not there he can't tamper with them.

Lee

I hardly think that he would really have to lie about that. As it stands we have film footage from Alyea of Fritz entering the TSBD. If this is the case then Alyea had to enter after Fritz. So then to do we have Gerald Hill saying he yelled down to the ground as well, and then shortly after he heard Fritz et al coming up in the freight elevator.

I think it is plausible that Fritz may have been still on the ground when they were found.

Basically what we have is crime scene photos that Mooney says are consistent with what he saw. This is completely contradictory to Craig who said they were all neat in a row, and Alyea who says they could be covered by a hand towel. I might also note that not even Alyea seems to agree with Craig.

Mike

Mike

If Fritz got to the TBSD at 12:58PM then I think it conceivable that Alyea could get the footage of Fritz entering, follow him in, Fritz stops on most of the floors then goes to the 7th. Alyea is then on the 6th. The casings are found at 1:15PM. Fritz comes down from the 7th floor 1:16PM-1:17PM.

Mike - have you seen any affidavits from Luke Mooney about his discovery? I've looked in the DPD files and there is zilch for Mooney.

Lee

Lee,

I could not find an affidavit from Mooney but I did find a brief report he wrote dated the day after the assassination that you might find interesting and, sorry to say, it will probably provoke more arguments!

http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/russ/testimony/mooney1.htm

Tony

Tony,

Please do not misunderstand. At this point Lee and I are just ironing out some stuff here. I have no issue with Lee and rather enjoy dicussing issues with him. I think he is a top notch guy!

I think somewhere I do have the Mooney AFF. I will have to see if I can find it. I lost a hard drive about a year ago with a ton of good stuff on it!

Best to you Tony!

Mike