David Von Pein

So you do want to call Brewer a li@r. (Why am I not surprised in the slightest?)

Plus: If Lee Oswald had really been innocent of killing BOTH John Kennedy and J.D. Tippit, as so many CTers seem to believe he was, then why did Oswald act like such a guilty person in the Texas Theater? Do completely innocent people normally do the things we know Oswald did while he was being apprehended in the theater that day? Things such as pulling a gun on police officers and saying things like "It's all over now" and/or "This is it". Those two verbal statements -- all by themselves -- are extremely incriminating circumstantial evidence against Lee Oswald. What do CTers think Oswald meant by "It's all over now" or "This is it"? (And he most certainly uttered at least one of those phrases, if not both, on Nov. 22 in the theater.) Can any conspiracy theorist explain (in a reasonable and believable way) what the "It" means in each of those statements? More on Oswald's post-arrest behavior here: http://jfk-archives.blogspot.com/2015/07/jfk-assassination-arguments-part-983.html

Oswald, himself, admitted to having the gun in the theater (see WCR Pg. 601 below): https://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wr/html/WCReport_0313a.htm Plus, in order to promote the "Oswald Didn't Really Have Any Gun In The Theater" theory, you'd have to call civilian witness Johnny Brewer a li@r too (see video below). And is that a reasonable thing to do?....

One more VB gem---just for the common sense (and the laughs): "The Garrison devotees have apparently never been troubled by the question of why [Clay] Shaw and [David] Ferrie would select Oswald, of all people, as their hit man...or patsy when they had no way of knowing that the president would even come back to New Orleans, where Oswald lived at the time. Or were they planning to finance Oswald as he traveled, Carcano in his violin case, all around the country stalking Kennedy for a good opportunity to kill him or be the patsy for someone else who would? If the latter, aren't they troubled by the fact that we know, from Oswald's known whereabouts, that he never did travel around the country?" -- Vince Bugliosi; Page 847 of "Reclaiming History" Endnotes

And here are two more quotes from Mr. Bugliosi that should be very easy for any reasonable person to wholeheartedly agree with who has been exposed to the threadbare arguments presented by the various conspiracy theorists since 1963: ------------------- "The dreadful illogic and superficiality of the conspiracy theorists' modus operandi has inevitably resulted in the following situation: Though they have dedicated their existence to trying to poke holes in the Warren Commission's findings, they have failed abysmally to tell us (if the Warren Commission was wrong) what actually did happen. In other words, other than blithely tossing out names, they have failed to offer any credible evidence of who, if not Oswald, killed Kennedy. Nor have they offered any credible evidence at all of who the conspirators behind the assassination were. So after more than forty years, if we were to rely on these silly people, we'd have an assassination without an assassin (since, they assure us, Oswald didn't kill Kennedy), and a conspiracy without conspirators. Not a simple achievement." -- Vincent Bugliosi; Page 982 of "Reclaiming History" ------------------- "The conspiracy community regularly seizes on one slip of the tongue, misunderstanding, or slight discrepancy to defeat twenty pieces of solid evidence; accepts one witness of theirs, even if he or she is a provable nut, as being far more credible than ten normal witnesses on the other side; treats rumors, even questions, as the equivalent of proof; leaps from the most minuscule of discoveries to the grandest of conclusions; and insists that the failure to explain everything perfectly negates all that is explained." -- Vincent Bugliosi; Page xliii of "Reclaiming History" ------------------- Dozens Of Bonus VB Quotations (Culled By Yours Truly): http://jfk-archives.blogspot.com / DVP's Favorite Vince Bugliosi Quotes

Quoting the late Vincent Bugliosi (who knew more than just a little bit about the subject of "Admissible Evidence" at a court trial): "An argument frequently heard in the conspiracy community is that Oswald could not have been convicted in a court of law because the "chain of custody [or possession]" of the evidence against him was not strong enough to make the evidence admissible in a court of law. .... The first observation I have to make is that I would think conspiracists...would primarily want to know if Oswald killed Kennedy, not whether he could get off on a legal technicality. Second, there is no problem with the chain of custody of much of the physical evidence against Oswald, such as the rifle and the two large bullet fragments found in the presidential limousine. Third, and most important on this issue, courts do not have a practice of allowing into evidence only that for which there is an ironclad and 100 percent clear chain of custody, and this is why I believe that 95 percent of the physical evidence in this case would be admissible. I can tell you from personal experience that excluding evidence at a trial because the chain of custody is weak is rare, certainly the exception rather than the rule. The typical situation where the chain is not particularly strong is for the trial judge to nevertheless admit the evidence, ruling that the weakness of the chain goes only to "the weight of the evidence [i.e., how much weight or credence the jury will give it], not its admissibility"." -- Vincent T. Bugliosi; Page 442 of Endnotes in "Reclaiming History" ---------------------- Related Link:

Oh no! Tell me you're just kidding! I'm destroyed beyond repair! I've been put on Ignore by a conspiracy fantasist! Oh, the horror of it!!! And this is a conspiracy fantasist who thinks there were two LHOs and two Marguerites and who also has the temerity to gush forth this ridiculous and absurd statement: "There is not a single item of evidence you can offer that cannot [be] shown to be inauthentic...not one." Fantasy at its best right there. More absurdities authored by David Josephs over the last several years are archived below: http://jfk-archives.blogspot.com/search?q=David+Josephs

From March 2010: A CONSPIRACY THEORIST SAID: That look he [Lee Oswald] gives when told he is being charged with the President's murder is priceless. DAVID VON PEIN SAID: I think there might be just a small bit of a "surprised" reaction on Oswald's face for just an instant after the reporter tells him (for the second time): "You have been charged" with JFK's murder. But, in my opinion, the major reaction that I see from Oswald at his famous midnight press conference is more DISGUST and ANNOYANCE. (Poor Lee Harvey truly looks annoyed and PUT OUT when he's being removed from that room right after his brief press conference.) In other words [simulating Oswald's feelings at that moment] -- "HOW DARE THEY TREAT ME LIKE THIS! ALL I DID WAS KILL THE PRESIDENT AND A POLICEMAN! I'M GONNA SUE THESE DAMN COPS FOR CHARGING ME WITH AN ASSASSINATION I COMMITTED!" Now, when analyzing this a little bit more, since all reasonable people who have studied the JFK assassination know beyond any and all doubt that Lee Harvey Oswald shot and killed President Kennedy, this immutable FACT of Oswald's guilt HAS to mean that Oswald could not possibly have been VERY surprised by the news that he was being officially charged with the President's murder. Knowing that he assassinated Kennedy AND that he had left a popcorn trail of physical evidence behind on the sixth floor of the Book Depository Building AND that he had been arrested earlier in the day on a charge of murdering a policeman, Oswald therefore couldn't possibly have thought that he WOULDN'T eventually be officially charged with the President's murder too. Unless Oswald was completely retarded (which he certainly wasn't), he had to realize that Presidential assassins aren't normally given just a light slap on the wrist and a $10 fine for having assassinated a U.S. President. Given these undeniable facts regarding Oswald's guilt, there's no way that Lee Harvey could have been shocked very much (if at all) when the reporter told him he had already been charged with JFK's assassination. Here's my guess (and I fully admit this is just a wild guess, and I certainly could be wrong about this)--- Oswald looked a little bit surprised possibly due to the fact that a NEWS REPORTER was breaking the news to him that he was being charged with the death of the President. This was probably a very unusual case where the prisoner (being held in a police station, with policemen and detectives all around him for ten hours!) first learned of a murder charge against him from a news reporter, instead of first learning of that murder charge from the police themselves. This possibly startled and surprised Oswald a little bit, to hear that news FIRST from a newsman, vs. the cops who were surrounding him. Again, that's just a pure guess on my part. But there's no way in Hades that Oswald truly thought he WOULDN'T be charged with JFK's murder, in light of the massive amount of evidence he conveniently left behind (not to mention the circumstantial stuff, such as the many lies he told the police in those first ten hours of interrogation). I'll also add this -- It's quite possible that Oswald didn't even hear the reporter say the words "You have been charged". There was quite a bit of noise in that room at that particular time, so maybe Oswald didn't even hear the reporter. On the videotape version of the midnight press conference, the reporter's words "You have been charged" are, indeed, quite audible and clear. But from where Oswald was standing, I'm wondering if he heard those words as clearly as we do on the videotape? We can never know this for certain, of course. But if, in fact, Oswald didn't even hear the reporter, it puts a whole new light on any "reaction" that we see on LHO's face, because under those conditions, it would obviously mean that Oswald's reaction wasn't one of "surprise" at all. PAT SPEER SAID: David, your response to this reeks of desperation. DAVID VON PEIN SAID: Thanks, Pat. Now, continue reading and we'll see who the "desperate" one is.... http://jfk-archives.blogspot.com/2015/01/oswald-midnight-press-conference.html

But if there had REALLY been any curtain rods (i.e., if Oswald really had rods in his large package on 11/22), then Oswald would (of course) have told the police that fact after he was in custody. That only stands to reason. But he didn't do that. Instead, he denied all knowledge of any curtain rods.* * Yes, I know CTers will insist that I'm supposed to believe that Captain Fritz was the "real li@r" in this regard....but IMO that solution is just not a reasonable one. Certainly not as reasonable or realistic as having the accused assassin being the one telling the police tall tales. Plus, it's not ONLY Fritz we'd have to call a li@r here. It's other people too--like Jim Bookhout of the FBI and Thomas Kelley of the Secret Service: "He [LHO] denied telling Wesley Frazier that the purpose of his visit to Irving, Texas, on the night of November 21, 1963, was to obtain some curtain rods from Mrs. Ruth Paine." -- James W. Bookhout; 11/23/63 FBI Report ---------- "In response to questions put by Captain Fritz, Oswald...denied that he brought a package to work on that day and he denied that he had ever had any conversation about curtain rods with the boy named Wesley who drove him to his employment." -- Thomas J. Kelley; WCR, Page 626

Well, I have, indeed, been looking for just such a picture in my photo archive, but I haven't been able to find one that shows the proper place on the shirt where the hole was located. But the hole IS definitely there, of course. It just can't be seen in the famous photograph of LHO raising his handcuffs (even though you seem to think the area in question on the sleeve is in that photo; but, of course, it's really not, because if it were---we'd see the hole). And your inserts showing the hole are certainly not proof that the hole was created by the cops as part of yet another in a seemingly non-stop stream of fraudulent evidence manufactured by the police to frame poor sap Oswald. (Photogrammetry anyone?) I'll keep looking for more 11/22 pictures of Oswald wearing his brown arrest shirt though. Maybe I'll get lucky and find the hole.

Also see the following excerpt from Vincent Bugliosi's book concerning the topic of Oswald's brown shirt (click to enlarge):

Yes, but he also said there WAS some fingerprint powder on them, which he then cleaned off: "These were fairly good long fibers. They were not dirty, with the exception of a little bit of fingerprint powder on them which I cleaned off, and the color was good." -- Stombaugh Nothing about this "Fibers In The Butt Plate" issue seems the slightest bit suspicious or strange or "cover-uppish" to me. It's the CTers who are creating the "strangeness" and the "suspicion" (IMO). Repeating an earlier comment of mine (just for good measure).... "Once again, like most CTers in the world, you're putting some kind of conspiratorial/sinister spin on something that doesn't require it at all."

Oh Good Lord! More alleged fakery? It just never ends, does it? So silly.

Does it have a hole in the elbow (as described by Bledsoe)?

And your thinking that no powder at all could have gotten into the crevice is mind-bogglingly silly on your part. (After all, those DPD cops were nothing but incompetent boobs most of the time, right?) Anyway, obviously SOME powder DID seep into the crevice, whether it was intentionally done by Day or not. Once again, like most CTers in the world, you're putting some kind of conspiratorial/sinister spin on something that doesn't require it at all. You should stop doing that, Pat.

Related information....... Date: 6/5/2015 (3:57:47 P.M. EDT) E-Mail From: Gary Mack To: David Von Pein ------------------- Hey Dave, Well, the CTs are all wound up again over the BY photos but I'm continually puzzled as to why they claim things don't make sense? For example, [David] Josephs misrepresents when the third pose was found by saying "NYE 1976". I guess that's code for New Year's Eve? Anyway, that third pose was known to exist in November 1963. Det. Bobby Brown was interviewed for local TV back in the early 90s and described how and why Fritz sent him out to duplicate the poses (plural) to look into Oswald's claim that CE134 (the blowup) was fake. So yes, DPD had at least three poses and it's fair to wonder what the heck happened to the missing negative. But the poses were evidence when Brown made his test studies. As for the copies, as we know from DPD reports and later interviews, Det. Studebaker made souvenir copies of them for many officers, including Rusty Livingstone and, apparently, Roscoe White. Of course, anyone could have acquired copies from other officers in later weeks and months and there's just no way to know now who did what and when. What the CTs never talk about is Marguerite and Marina both admitting to destroying a fourth pose in which Oswald held the rifle over his head. They did that the next day BEFORE Dallas Police found the other pictures. I knew Marguerite and I know Marina (although we haven't spoken in years) and not only did both women readily admit to having testified to the WC about destroying the photo, both were aware of the picture controversy and both said the destroyed picture was, in fact, just like the other three - taken in the Neely Street back yard. What this means is that IF the BY photos are fake (but they aren't), Oswald is the one who faked them! Phew! It's hard to keep all this straight. Gary

You're totally misrepresenting what Stombaugh said. He said (my emphasis): "I found a tiny tuft of fibers which had caught on that jagged edge, and then when the individual who dusted this dusted them, he just folded them down very neatly into the little crevice there, and they stayed." It's the "jagged edge" that tore the fibers from Oswald's shirt. They were adhering to that "jagged edge" and then when Day came along with his brush, he "folded" them down into the crevice. That's a very logical conclusion, and it doesn't require any conspiracy or cover-up involving anyone. And there's no reason at all why a scenario couldn't have occurred which had Lt. Day dusting the crevice area of the rifle FIRST (before he ever touched the fibers), thus filling the crevice with powder, and only THEN he folded the fibers down into that crevice which was now filled with fingerprint powder. You can't possibly prove some scenario like that DIDN'T occur. In my opinion, Pat, the manner in which you have evaluated Paul Stombaugh's testimony and the whole "Fibers On The Rifle" topic is the only thing here that "smells to high heaven". Plus.... It looks like most CTers here have decided to just take the word of the accused assassin when he claimed that he changed his shirt at his roominghouse on Nov. 22 (from a red one to a brown one)---even though we know from the testimony of at least three witnesses (and there's probably even more) that Oswald WAS wearing a BROWN shirt on 11/22 BEFORE he ever went to his roominghouse that day.

No it didn't. Not even close. You're being too overzealous in your efforts to paint the DPD as rotten evidence-planters here, Pat. You're telling us what you THINK Stombaugh SHOULD have said in a given scenario. But I don't think you're correct in your assumptions about Stombaugh's testimony at all. Because there's no reason to believe that Lt. Day's dusting of the rifle couldn't have resulted in some of the fingerprint powder working its way down into the crevice of the gun. And this section of Stombaugh's testimony says that the fibers were "caught" on a "jagged edge" of the gun, and then Lt. Day pushed ("folded") them further down into the crevice: "I found a tiny tuft of fibers which had caught on that jagged edge, and then when the individual who dusted this dusted them, he just folded them down very neatly into the little crevice there, and they stayed." Nothing sinister or even unusual there at all, IMO. And there's most certainly nothing in Stombaugh's testimony that would lead me to think the fibers were definitely resting ON TOP of all of the fingerprint powder. He just simply did not make any such definitive statement.

But there are statements from multiple witnesses who saw Oswald on Nov. 22 BEFORE he ever went home to his Beckley room, with those witnesses saying that they saw Oswald wearing a BROWN shirt. Marrion Baker being one such witness (and I think it's reasonable to think that when Baker said "brown jacket", he was talking about LHO's brown untucked shirt, because we know that Oswald didn't even own a brown "jacket"). Another "brown shirt" witness is Mary Bledsoe, who saw Oswald on Cecil McWatters' bus, which was also before Oswald ever had any chance to get to his roominghouse to change any clothes on 11/22: Mr. BALL - Now, what color shirt did he have on? Mrs. BLEDSOE - He had a brown shirt. And another "brown shirt" witness is cab driver William Whaley: Mr. WHALEY -- He had on a brown shirt with a little silverlike stripe on it.

But, via Hanlon's adage, the "stupidity" you laid out in your simulated scenario is certainly NOT "adequate". And, just as you said, nobody with an ounce of brains could possibly even begin to believe such nonsense. Therefore, Hanlon's Razor cannot possibly be applied in your given scenario. But the "Fibers Wedged In The Butt Plate" situation is rather different, and when looking at the WC testimony of the FBI's hair and fiber expert, Paul Stombaugh, I see no problem at all in believing that the fibers became legitimately adhered to Oswald's rifle via ordinary non-conspiratorial, non-planted means. It seems likely to me that when Lt. Day was dusting the rifle for prints, he merely pushed the fibers into the butt-plate crevice. And that's precisely what Stombaugh says in his testimony (excerpted below): Mr. STOMBAUGH. I found a tiny tuft of fibers which had caught on that jagged edge, and then when the individual who dusted this dusted them, he just folded them down very neatly into the little crevice there, and they stayed. These I removed and put on a glass microscope slide, and marked this particular slide "No. 2," because this little group of fibers--little tuft of fibers, appeared to be fresh. The fibers on the rest of the gun were either adhering to a greasy, oily deposit or jammed into a crevice and were very dirty and apparently very old. [...] Mr. STOMBAUGH. ...This was just a small tuft. They were adhering to the gun on a small jagged edge. In other words, the gun had caught on a piece of fabric and pulled these fibers loose. They were clean, they had good color to them, there was no grease on them and they were not fragmented. They looked as if they had just been picked up. They were folded very neatly down in the crevice. Mr. EISENBERG. Were these fibers in a position where they could have easily been knocked off by rough use? Mr. STOMBAUGH. No; they were adhering to the edge rather tightly. Mr. EISENBERG. In the crevice? Mr. STOMBAUGH. Well, it had the jagged edge sticking up and the fibers were folded around it and resting in the crevice. Mr. DULLES. I think you testified, though, that might have been done in part by the dusting? Mr. STOMBAUGH. Yes, sir; I believe when the fingerprintman dusted it he probably ran his brush along the metal portion here. Mr. EISENBERG. Of the butt plate? Mr. STOMBAUGH. Of the butt plate, and at the time the brush folded these down into the crevice. Mr. EISENBERG. What led you to the particular conclusion that they had been folded into the crevice by the dusting? Mr. STOMBAUGH. Because of the presence of fingerprint powder being down in and through the crevice here. It looked as if it had been dusted with a brush. You could make out the bristlemarks of the brush itself. ------------------- Pat, Where did you get your information about the fibers being ON TOP of the fingerprint powder? I can't find anything in Stombaugh's testimony where he says any such thing. The closest would be this passage here, but he doesn't specifically say the fibers were resting ON TOP of the powder: "These were fairly good long fibers. They were not dirty, with the exception of a little bit of fingerprint powder on them which I cleaned off, and the color was good." Is there other testimony from somebody other than Stombaugh about the rifle fibers which says they were "On Top" of the powder? Also.... Pat, do you also believe that the fibers found in the CE142 paper bag (which generally matched the blanket in Ruth Paine's garage) were "planted" by the cops too? Just wondering.

Pat, The key word in Hanlon's rule of thumb which you seem to have sidestepped in your courtroom scenario above is this important word: "Adequately."

Bull! Always remember Hanlon's Razor, Pat.... "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."

Well, Pat, I certainly don't believe for a single solitary second that any of the authorities planted the shirt fibers on the rifle in order to try and frame Oswald. (Which quite obviously is what you believe happened.) Therefore, I believe there must be a non-"planting" (i.e., non-conspiratorial) answer to what you just said above about the fingerprint powder and the fibers. Just like there is a non-conspiratorial explanation for all other "conspiracy" claims made by JFK conspiracy believers (to date). (IMHO.) Maybe Lieutenant Day did miss seeing the fibers initially. Isn't that a much more likely answer than the CTer "The fibers were planted" explanation?

But that doesn't mean that Lee Oswald would have necessarily been aware of this "rare" fact on 11/22/63, does it Pat? I think he did wipe down most of the gun with his brown shirt....but he missed the trigger guard prints.