David Von Pein

15 hours ago, Greg Doudna said:

...that license plate number seen on Vaganov’s car in Oak Cliff that belongs to Tippit’s friend Carl Mather of Collins Radio who doesn’t live anywhere near Oak Cliff. Nobody on the Oswald LN side has explained that. Myers doesn’t. I doubt you have (willing to be corrected if you have). Vaganov looks like he was sent down by some mob boss in Philadelphia, Bruno probably, to just be helpful. Vaganov by his own account spent time in the building Craford lived, of all places in Dallas, the day or two before the Tippit killing. A car matching Vaganov’s red car description was sighted in front of Ruby’s apartment a few blocks away from the Tippit crime scene, at approximately the time Tippit was killed by his killer seen arriving walking from the east as if coming from Ruby’s apartment which agrees with that is where the car-less Craford could have been the night before since he was last seen with Ruby the previous night.

I'm confused about something here....

There are conspiracy theorists who seem to want to believe that the "red Ford" [6 H 453] that was in front of witness Domingo Benavides at the time of Officer Tippit's murder was, in fact, the red Ford Thunderbird owned by Igor Vaganov.

And there are apparently some conspiracists who also want to believe that Igor Vaganov was the person who actually killed J.D. Tippit.

So my question is: How could Vaganov have shot Tippit at the exact same time he was driving down Tenth Street in his red Thunderbird?

All of the witnesses said that Tippit's killer was walking on the sidewalk just before the shooting. Nobody ever said the killer was shooting from a moving car.

Please, Greg D. (or anyone else), help me understand this strange set of beliefs that some CTers seem to possess.

Are there some CTers who think Vaganov shot Tippit from the sidewalk and that somebody else was driving the Thunderbird? And was the Thunderbird supposedly the "getaway car" that Vaganov then jumped into after the shooting?

P.S. / BTW / FYI / FWIW....

For a look at the two-page endnote concerning the topic of Igor "Turk" Vaganov in Vincent Bugliosi's book "Reclaiming History", CLICK HERE.

58 minutes ago, Greg Doudna said:

And the killing of Tippit looking like a killing of a hitman, a contract hit... 

Oh for Pete sake. That's pretty far-fetched. (To put it mildly.)

The killing of Tippit looked just like what it was --- a guy who didn't want to be apprehended for shooting the President, so he shoots Officer Tippit too so he can remain at large (at least for a little while longer).

16 minutes ago, Benjamin Cole said:

Egads DVP, even that dreadful Z311-315 sequence...by Z315 JFK is being pushed back and to his left....

What would a jury think? All 12 jurors would believe that is proof of a shot from the rear? 

Would you therefore argue to the jury that JFK was struck twice in the head---once from the rear and then once from the front?

If that's the argument, how would you then explain why the THREE autopsy surgeons took the stand to say pretty definitively that there was only ONE entry wound in JFK's head....and that hole was in the rear of the head?

44 minutes ago, Benjamin Cole said:

But really...show the Z-film at regular speed, even show it at slo-mo. You know, and I know, it looks like JFK is pushed back and to his left, away from the GK, by a blow to his head.

So what? The fact is he's pushed forward first. Should I just ignore the initial FORWARD motion? Or should I pretend that it only looks that way due to a "blurring" or "smearing" effect? (Which is nonsense.)

44 minutes ago, Benjamin Cole said:

You asked the question, how would I defend LHO in an open court of law? 

Show that Z-film several times, over and over....

I will. And then I'll show the jury the super-slo-mo version to show them that what they see in "real time" cannot be relied on to be the full truth and the whole story. Let the jury watch this 50 times in a row instead....

1 hour ago, Benjamin Cole said:

Another interpretation, likely offered by the defense, is that JFK is pushed backwards after being struck, and so the fatal shot came from the GK area. 

But the backward motion only occurs AFTER the forward motion at impact....as proven here:

20 minutes ago, Greg Doudna said:

Does that answer your question David? 🙂 

Sure does. Thanks, Greg.

But I've got bad news for you and your defense team.....

The evidence is still too overwhelming to sweep aside. And that evidence is telling the world that your client committed 2 murders.

This stuff that hangs Oswald isn't going anywhere, no matter how many Matlock-like tactics you choose to employ:

41 minutes ago, Benjamin Cole said:

Also, maybe a good prosecutor would not try to prove LHO fired the fatal shot (due to the Z-film)

But the Z-Film actually proves the opposite of what you're contending. The Z-Film proves the head shot came from BEHIND....not from the front:

....FORWARD head movement between Z312-313.

....All brain/blood/tissue is seen toward the FRONT of Kennedy (i.e., coming out the large exit wound near the FRONT).

....The back of the head completely blood-free and intact.

56 minutes ago, Joe Bauer said:

I would have as many faces in the ground level bystander crowds in Dealey Plaza scanned to see if any would reveal any nefarious characters in the world of black ops.

But why on Earth would anyone "in the world of black ops" have had any desire (or need) to mill amongst the bystanders in Dealey Plaza at the exact time of the assassination? That makes zero sense (IMO).

Dealey Plaza would have been the last place on the planet a co-conspirator would want to be during that critical point in time. (And you're surely not suggesting that anyone who would be visible in pictures at street level could possibly have actually been a gunman, are you?)

1 hour ago, Benjamin Cole said:

You can see why Jack Ruby more or less insinuated LBJ/Deep State had LHO rubbed out. 

You must have meant to say "JFK" here, instead of "LHO". Right?

1 hour ago, Benjamin Cole said:

A quick answer: "Show a clear crisp copy (or original) of the Z-film to the Texas jury of 12."

Whether accurately or not, the Z-film appears to show JFK being shot from the right and front.

And after the defense attorney had shown the Zapruder Film to the jury, the prosecutor would then call all three autopsy doctors to the witness stand, who would each testify to the fact that their examination of JFK's body revealed beyond all possible doubt that President Kennedy had been struck in the head by only ONE single bullet, with that bullet entering the rear portion of JFK's skull, not the front part of his head.

And the prosecuting attorney, for good measure, would almost certainly show the jury the composite photo below (or something very similar), to illustrate the fact that the BACK of the President's head remained completely intact after the bullet struck him in the cranium, despite what the various Parkland witnesses said to the contrary.

Perry, your witness.

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The conversation below is from a discussion I had with a Mr. David Axelson at one of Amazon's forums in 2015, which was two years before Amazon decided to discontinue and completely delete all of their "forums" and discussion boards. Fortunately, however, I was able to archive a lot of interesting JFK-related Amazon Forum discussions at my own website before all of them fell prey to the big "Delete" button in cyberspace. One such interesting archived example is this one....

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DAVID AXELSON SAID:

Mr. Von Pein - Okay, here's a question for you:

Assume that you are defending LHO against the charge that he murdered JFK. Ignore the legal maneuvering that might help Oswald's case (such as a motion to exclude the Bethesda autopsy witnesses on the grounds that Texas law required the Dallas medical examiner perform the autopsy).

What approach or alternative scenario would, in your opinion, stand the best chance of producing a "Not Guilty" verdict?

And, of course, what evidence would you rely on to support that approach or scenario?

For example, you could argue that Oswald has an alibi, that he was in the second-floor lunch room, and the evidence that supports this is that he couldn't have come down from the sixth floor to the second floor (where Baker saw him), because Victoria Adams would testify that she descended the stairs immediately after the assassination, and did not see or hear Oswald.

So that would be your approach ("alibi") and supporting witness (Victoria Adams).

I'm not looking for a thesis here, just a quick analysis by some of you who are more familiar with the evidence than I.

To be honest, I couldn't think of a GOOD approach myself; I wound up proposing that some unidentified conspiracy had framed Oswald, but IMO any competent prosecutor would have destroyed that argument rather handily. But maybe you can think of something I missed.

Regards,
D. Axelson


DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

It is, indeed, difficult to come up with any kind of reasonable defense for Lee Oswald, given the evidence in the case that so clearly indicates his guilt--in TWO murders. But it's possible the Tippit murder might have been severed from the JFK murder trial, had there been one. Do you think that would have happened?

Anyway, since ALL of the physical evidence points to Oswald, I can't see any legitimate defense for Oswald's counsel. They would, therefore, be pretty much forced into arguing the same lame things we always hear from the CTers today -- the "Everything Is Fake" approach.

How would it even be possible for Oswald's attorneys to NOT offer up such a defense, given the evidence that exists here (guns, bullets, shells, prints, paper bag, fibers, etc.)? And that doesn't even count Oswald's own guilty-like actions.

How could a defense lawyer sidestep Oswald's fleeing the scene of the crime (when also considering the evidence that was found up on the sixth floor)? And his lying (twice) about the "curtain rod" package?

That lie about the "curtain rods"--all by itself--might be enough to tip the scales in the mind of at least one juror. For why--if he's innocent--does he TWICE tell such a blatant falsehood to co-worker Buell Wesley Frazier about the contents of that brown paper package?

Lee's in bad shape just based on that big fat lie alone.

I suppose LHO's lawyers could always claim "Not Guilty By Reason Of Insanity".

Or:

"Not Guilty Because CTers Insist Upon Saying Oswald Never Ordered The C2766 Rifle, Even Though The Paperwork Proving He Ordered It Is Six Miles Deep With Oswald's Handwriting On Most Of It".

https://jfk-archives.blogspot.com/2014/12/oswald-ordered-rifle.html

And the "Victoria Adams Didn't See Him" defense tactic would sink rather quickly too, IMO. Here's why.

It's a good topic to ponder, however -- i.e., WHAT KIND OF DEFENSE WOULD YOU COME UP WITH FOR A PERSON WHO IS SO OBVIOUSLY GUILTY?

Well, I guess Johnnie Cochran and Company were faced with that same dilemma in 1995. But, fortunately for them, they had a man named Mark Fuhrman and those racy tapes to help them set a double-murderer free.


DAVID AXELSON SAID:

Mr. Von Pein -

[Quoting DVP from an earlier post:]

"But it's possible the Tippit murder might have been severed from the JFK murder trial, had there been one. Do you think that would have happened?"

[End Quote.]

That, actually, is one of the moves that I expect LHO's defense counsel would have made, had there been a trial. It's extremely hard to see how to argue that LHO isn't JFK's killer, if the evidence comes in that he killed Tippit. It's actually a two-step process — first, a motion to sever the trial for the murder of Tippit from the trial for the murder of JFK, and then a separate motion to exclude the "Tippit evidence" from the JFK trial.

Would it have worked? My conclusion was that the judge would have granted the motion for a separate trial, but denied the motion to exclude. I think the judge would have ruled that the "Tippit evidence" showed Oswald's "guilty knowledge", that it was evidence of "flight to avoid prosecution", or possibly that it was all part of the same set of circumstances.

You haven't mentioned it, but Oswald's attempt to kill Nick McDonald presents many of the same issues. It's hard to suggest that Oswald lacked the will to kill JFK, when he pulled out his gun and tried to shoot McDonald. So as a defense attorney, you would want to keep that out of the JFK trial as well . . . but I think the evidence of LHO's actions at the Texas Theater during his arrest are probably more admissible than the Tippit encounter. And that, actually, makes it HARDER for the judge to exclude the "Tippit evidence"; it doesn't make much sense for the judge to say that the "Tippit evidence" is inadmissible, once he's decided that the "McDonald evidence" can come in.

Take a look at that 1964 film, "The Trial of Lee Harvey Oswald", and you'll see that the filmmakers reached that same conclusion, since the evidence presented in that version includes the "Tippit evidence". Not conclusive on the question, certainly, but a pretty good indication as to how contemporary lawyers viewed the situation.

[Quoting DVP:]

"I suppose LHO's lawyers could always claim `Not Guilty By Reason Of Insanity'."

[End Quote.]

True, and that's the defense offered in the 1964 film. Couple of problems with that approach, however. First of all, we today have no evidence that 1963 LHO met the legal requirements for a claim of insanity. No psychiatrist or psychologist examined him during that time period, so we have none of the expert testimony that would have been required.

The classic definition of insanity is the "M'Naghton test": "to establish a defense on the ground of insanity, it must be clearly proved that, at the time of the committing of the act, the party accused was laboring under such a defect of reason, from disease of the mind, as not to know the nature and quality of the act he was doing; or, if he did know it, that he did not know he was doing what was wrong."

Did Oswald have a "disease of the mind"? Well, he would probably be diagnosed today as having antisocial personality disorder, but I doubt that would qualify as a "disease". Nor did he have a "defect of reason" as a result; he was able to function normally enough on a daily basis — hold a job, plan for the next day, and so on. And he CLEARLY knew the nature, quality, and wrongfulness of his actions, since he fled the scene.

So IMO, "insanity" had no chance of working as a defense. And that's assuming you could have gotten Oswald himself to agree to that approach.

At any rate, your analysis pretty much confirms the conclusions I had reached. So thanks!

But that brings us to your final question, which I wrestled with as well: "WHAT KIND OF DEFENSE WOULD YOU COME UP WITH FOR A PERSON WHO IS SO OBVIOUSLY GUILTY?"

What I came up with for my presentation (which was (a) the best of a bunch of BAD options, and (b) extremely unlikely to succeed) was, in fact, a "conspiracy to frame" defense. I argued that person or persons unknown might have broken into the Paine garage, stolen Oswald's rifle, smuggled it into the TSBD, and used it to kill JFK. They had also seen Oswald carrying his package, realized that it would have his fingerprints on it, and stolen that from wherever he placed it in the TSBD, and dropped it in the sniper's nest.

This approach conceded that all of the evidence linking Oswald to the rifle and the sniper's nest was correct (that is, the rifle DID have his palm print on it, since it was his rifle), but attempted to wriggle though the cracks to offer a plausible alternative scenario (i.e., a "reasonable doubt"). Would it have worked? Almost certainly not, but that glimmer of hope seemed to me better than anything else a defense attorney might have tried.

The hardest part of that approach would have been keeping Oswald himself off the stand; I believe that once LHO started testifying, he would have had NO chance of winning acquittal. (Wade's first question on cross-examination: "Now, Mr. Oswald, is it true that you're a COM-MUN-NIST?")

Regards -
D. Axelson


DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

Thank you, Mr. Axelson, for your follow-up post above. I enjoyed reading it. Very interesting stuff.

David Von Pein
January 2015

Clicking = Enlargement:

Here's a somewhat rare interview with former Chief Justice Earl Warren. In this excerpt, Mr. Warren engages in a discussion about the Warren Commission:



To hear the complete 56-minute interview, Click Here.

2 hours ago, Jonathan Cohen said:

If those YouTube videos are any indication, Lifton has gone positively off his rocker with claims even more preposterous than the ones previously outlined in Best Evidence.

Indeed. It's just one outrageous and ridiculous theory after another. It's really quite humorous to see.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist/David Lifton

22 hours ago, Kirk Gallaway said:

Dave I think I recall you're not a Chicago or Cleveland fan buts it's the Reds...

Yes, that's right. I've been a Cincinnati Reds fan since about 1970. Unfortunately, however, I never had a chance to watch a game at Crosley Field. My first in-person game (at age 9) came in 1971 at Riverfront Stadium, which many people hated, but I loved it. I knew every inch of that ballpark. My brother and I had season tickets for 2 straight years (1977 and '78). We went to tons of games in those days.

And I even made a visit to Candlestick Park in 1975 to watch the Reds play the Giants in 2 games. George Foster hit a grand-slam in one of those games off Randy Moffitt (I'm sure you remember him, the brother of Billie Jean King).

One of the first games I ever attended (in 1971) was also against your Giants, Kirk (you are a big Giants fan, right?). The S.F. pitcher that day was Gaylord Perry, and I think he was ejected for throwing the spitter in that game. I don't have a specific memory of seeing Willie Mays play for the Giants in that '71 game, but I would have to think that Willie probably was in the lineup. That was his last full season as a Giant.

http://dvp-video-audio-archive.blogspot.com/2017/09/Legends Of Baseball: Willie Mays

My greatest baseball memory came on July 4, 1972 (Reds vs. Cardinals at Riverfront). After the game in the parking garage under the stadium, I managed to get 13 members of the Cincinnati Reds to sign my scorebook, including All-Stars Johnny Bench and Tony Perez [Photo Here]. That's over half the roster in just one single autograph session! Hard to beat that!

Kirk, you might enjoy the Giants game linked below, which I added to one of my websites in 2017 after I found it online. It's a dandy game, featuring Harry Caray in the radio booth and back-to-back homers by the 2 "Willies" (Mays and McCovey)....

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I want to say Thanks to the EF mods for permitting us to go off-topic for a while to talk about the grand ol' game of baseball. I like to reminisce about old baseball memories once in a while. My heyday for such Major League Baseball memories is circa 1972 to 1986. You wouldn't believe the number of hours I used up while compiling and typing up hundreds of homemade Cincinnati Reds scorebooks in the early '80s. I've taken screen captures of 8 of my scorebooks here:

http://dvp-potpourri.blogspot.com/2019/04/DVP's Cincinnati Reds Scorebooks

I kept track of some stats in the '80s that I don't think they even keep track of today.

Also see my Cincinnati baseball collection below....

(Many Giants games here too!)....

9 hours ago, Ron Bulman said:

Willie Mays and JFK Jr.  I wonder if Dad ever saw him play?

He did indeed. At least this once anyhow. At the first 1962 All-Star Game (when JFK threw out the 1st pitch). Sorry for this awful video quality, but that was beyond my control....

David Lifton's 14-part video series (recorded in November 2013 and put on YouTube in October 2022)....

As the Charles Bronson photograph shown below illustrates, "directly behind" Bill Newman would have put a shooter a little to the EAST of Abraham Zapruder in the pergola area. And nobody I've ever encountered thinks any shots came from there:



Obviously, Bill Newman was confused and was wrong about two major things: The number of shots that were fired and the location of the gunman who was firing those shots that he heard.

In addition, both Bill and Gayle Newman are very good witnesses when it comes to supporting the truth about the location of where the large exit wound was located on President Kennedy's head. And as far as I am aware, Bill and Gayle Newman are the only witnesses who ever provided this much first-hand detail about the key issue of WHERE on JFK's head the large wound was located.

Both Bill and Gayle stated on live WFAA-TV on 11/22/63 (within literally minutes of the assassination) that they both saw blood coming from the RIGHT SIDE of JFK's head, with Gayle Newman providing even more graphic details during the second of her two interviews with WFAA's Jay Watson:

"President Kennedy reached up and grabbed--looked like grabbed his ear--and blood just started gushing out." -- Gayle Newman; 11/22/63

Abraham Zapruder was another witness who, on the day of the assassination, clearly indicated that the President had a big hole in the right SIDE portion of his head, and not the right REAR part of his head.

33 minutes ago, Pat Speer said:

He [Bill Newman] specified many times that he didn't hear a shot from his right--the picket fence. 

Exactly correct. --- https://jfk-archives.blogspot.com/2010/11/bill-and-gayle-newman.html

Thanks for your answer, Denise.

48 minutes ago, Denise Hazelwood said:

there was no “front of the head” blowout.

Let me remind you where Abe Zapruder and Gayle Newman (two of the closest witnesses to JFK when he was shot) placed the blowout wound....

11 hours ago, Denise Hazelwood said:

I take the statement that you quoted to be liars continuing to lie.

Liars, liars everywhere. And fake evidence in even more places. (Geez Louise.)

In your opinion, Denise, is there any "legit" (i.e., not tampered with) evidence to be found in the JFK/Tippit murder cases? And if so, what is that evidence? Thanks.

Click for a bigger view........

QUESTION:

What were the top headlines in The Boston Daily Globe ["Extra" edition] newspaper on the day of JFK's birth (May 29, 1917)?
 

(Answer in next post.)