Greg Doudna

Invisibility in open view

Nobody else finds the James Odell Estes story of interest? It has never appeared in books or articles, never gets mentioned. But it is a true story of an honest man living with what he believed were dangerous secrets who, with the knowledge he will die soon due to his health conditions (which was true; he did), decided to unburden his story the only way he knew--by going to the FBI and telling them. No seeking of fame or fortune or publicity or money.

A recognition that although Estes' "Oswald" figure was not Oswald the figure also was not an invention and may be identified as Curtis Craford, if correct, is a possibly significant breakthrough, truly new in the world of JFK assassination research, with repercussions yet to be explored.. Does no one find this of interest? 

The James Odell Estes story has to be critically evaluated since it first comes to light fourteen years after the assassination. It must be given no less critical scrutiny than one gives to, say, the story of Jack Tatum's story of witnessing the Tippit killing, which first came to light about fifteen years later.

Here is my critical evaluation of James Odell Estes' story: I do not believe Estes fabricated one bit of it, as distinguished from errors in memory and interpretation of his memory (e.g. that he had had dealings with Oswald).

The FBI humored the dying man, who had lived a rough life and had no social standing. They took his statement, sent in the report to FBI hq with a note saying no further action would be taken. 

Nothing to see there. 

Its only a firsthand witness to some things in the Carousel Club about three months before the assassination. 

Its only an allegation--sure it is uncorroborated and could be total fiction, but an allegation concerning John Connally--of an appearance of a bribe or at least a bribe offer (who knows, maybe Connally refused to accept the briefcase of money, Estes didn't see him take it)--three months before Governor Connally riding with JFK was shot along with JFK in the JFK assassination. Connally alleged to be meeting a Louisiana mob type character in the office of Jack Ruby's nightclub--the nightclub of the man who shot and killed Oswald after Oswald had allegedly shot Connally and JFK.

But apart from that, nothing significant at all in the story, right?

Who involved with researching the JFK assassination, or still-unresolved questions of the role of Jack Ruby, could possibly find that of any interest? 

This is a story that has been missed in all of the published Jack Ruby books, TV specials, and magazine feature articles about JFK, Ruby, and mobsters--and missed in all of the analyses taking an interest in Curtis Craford and Craford's suspicious flight from Dallas hours after the assassination or, perhaps better put and more to the point, hours after the Tippit killing.

And why is that? What is the explanation for such studied lack of interest in the James Odell Estes written statement preserved in FBI documents available on the MFF site?

It has to be because of Estes' "Oswald" identification, his description of a figure he retrospectively thought had been Oswald but which sounds like one more mistaken identification of Curtis Craford among a number of others (not so complicated). It has to be because Estes' claim that Oswald had been hanging around the Carousel Club in Dallas in the summer of 1963 sounded so outlandish (as, if one is speaking of Oswald, it was), that Estes' story has been dismissed.

Instead of it occurring to anyone that maybe James Odell Estes' story wasn't a hallucination, but was a true story except for a misidentification of Craford, mistakenly thought to have been Oswald, and some other garbling of pronunciations of names of real persons. 

As happened with Jarnagin who saw Craford and thought it was Oswald. As happened with the staff at the Contract Electronics store who dealt with Ruby and Craford who walked in the door, then after seeing Oswald's picture on TV folllowing the assassination, the staff thought it had been Ruby and Oswald. 

As with waitress Mary Lawrence at the Lucas B & B restaurant where Ruby and Craford ate at 2-3 am in the early morning hours of Nov 22, 1963. Mary Lawrence thought the man with Ruby, Craford, had been Oswald too, even though it wasn't. Mary Lawrence was not hallucinating. She just got the identity of one of the two wrong.

And here is an FBI report of a businessman who tells the FBI on Nov 27, 1963, just five days after the assassination, that he thought the FBI should know that one of his employees had an aunt who said she had dated Ruby during the summer of 1963 and that according to the nephew "she knew Oswald was in Ruby's employ during June and July, 1963" but was "deadly afraid" of talking about it, a fearful witness, Dorothy Marcum (https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=56999#relPageId=46).

Obviously Oswald was not in Ruby's employ in June and July, 1963.

But by an amazing coincidence that is when James Odell Estes thought Oswald was there too. It raises the reasonable question whether the same man is the referent in both stories, of Dorothy Marcum and James Odell Estes. In Estes' account he says he started to work in the Carousel Club, by his memory, the last week of June, and first met the man he identified as Oswald during the first or second week of July.

Also, Estes does not say his "Oswald" was employed in the Carousel Club, only that he was there hanging around with Ruby.

But never mind those quibbles, it is close enough. Not one but two stories of an "Oswald" at the Carousel Club at the same time in July 1963. 

Of course Oswald wasn't there. Oswald was in New Orleans that summer. That is not the point here.

The point is it supports that James Odell Estes was not fabricating. James Odell Estes was there.

But there has been almost zero interest in the JFK assassination research community to an assessment of the James Odell Estes story going beyond a recognition of Mistake #1, that Oswald was not at the Carousel Club in the summer of 1963. And the JFK assassination research community, like the FBI office who humored Estes and took his report, considers Estes' mistaken identification in his retrospective interpretation to be stand-alone sufficient to therefore consider the story of no further interest.

Thereby missing a possible source of information not previously recognized about Curtis Craford, Jack Ruby, Chuck Isaacs, a possibly identifiable New Orleans mobster named "Nick", and maybe even Governor John Connally.  

That's a lot of nothing not to see there. 

James Odell Estes spoke of witnessing a visit of Governor John Connally to the Carousel Club in the summer of 1963 and what appears to have been a conveyance of bribe money. I am curious concerning the identity of the man with Connally. I believe Connally may have been conveyed to the meeting at the Carousel Club by patrolman Billy Joe Courson of the sheriff's department, whose job assigned to him by Sheriff Decker involved spending time in night clubs, including the Carousel Club. Here is Estes' account, following which I will make some comments. Estes:

"Chuck then came back down in about fifteen minutes and met two men who came in the back door. I recognized one of the men as John Connally who at that time was governor of the state of Texas. The man with him was a man who I had seen in the club a number of times previously. I never met him and never knew his name. This man was a white male, forty five to fifty years old, six feet tall, weighing 185 pounds. He was stocky but well built. He always wore western type clothes. I don't remember the color of his hair. I had no idea what he did at that time. I know that I saw this man subsequently in newspaper pictures that showed Ruby shooting Oswald. This man was standing directly behind Oswald in the pictures and was identified as a police officer. He had the same type hat that I had seen him wear in the club.

"Chuck took Connally and this other man to Rubys office. Chuck then called the bartender and told me to bring scotch, water, cigars and cigarettes to Rubys office. I took a bottle of Cutty Sark along with the other things to Rubys office. When I went in the following were in the room: Mr Connally, Mr Ruby, Chuck, Nick and Oswald [sic--Craford], and also the man who had come in with Connally. I put the liquor down and at that time I saw a black briefcase that was opened and was filled with money. I know I saw hundred dollar bills. This was the same type of brief case that Oswald [sic--Craford] had carried to the airport. I then left the room. The other men stayed in the room for forty five minutes to an hour. At that time Chuck came down stairs with Mr. Connally and the man who was with him and took them to the back door. I did not see how they left the club and I did not see how they arrived. Oswald [sic--Craford] then came down and caught a cab that was cruising by. He did not say anything to me. To the best of my belief this meeting took place during the first or second week in August [of 1963] and was a week day."

Estes seems to think the man who accompanied Connally was James Leavelle, based on seeing photos of Leavelle with Oswald in photos of Ruby shooting Oswald. But it is possible the man was Courson and Estes mistakenly thought he was Leavelle based on similarity of appearance.

Here is Courson (he was age 33 in 1963), the only known photo I could find of Courson, his age at the time of this photo unknown:

(Leavelle was age 43 in 1963.)

I tried to post a photo of Leavelle, and also the famous photo of Ruby shooting Oswald with Leavelle standing there, but the Forum software will not let me do so. I am not aware of reports that Leavelle hung out at the Carousel Club as Estes said the man did, whereas Courson did as part of his job duties. Courson would do so in plain clothes, though what kind of plain clothes is not known. (Estes said his man dressed western.)

Why would Connally be accompanied by a police officer in plain clothes? Neither Leavelle nor Courson worked for Connally nor is there any information either of them know Connally. In his account in Sneed Courson does say he came from family involved in Democratic Party politics ("I was a Democrat ... My father was a Democratic county commissioner"). 

The story told by Estes reads as a bribe, which would be money going to Connally for something. The money may be coming from New Orleans via "Nick", who is otherwise described by Estes as bedecked with flashy jewelry and driving a Cadillac with Louisiana plates and speaking with a New Orleans accent. Who knows, maybe it was mob money coming from Marcello.

Was Connally corrupt, in the sense of is this story plausible that he could take a bribe? In 1974 Connally was charged with accepting a bribe from a dairy consortium, it went to trial and in 1975 Connally was acquitted. You can look up the old newspaper stories on this. All I can say from reading them is, it is not clear to me whether he was acquitted because he was actually innocent or because of who he was and good lawyers. John Curington, HL Hunt's right-hand "fixer" and ops man, told me that Connally was on the take and HL Hunt had conveyed money to Connally by means of purchase of cattle from Connally with money paid to Connally and paperwork except Hunt never took delivery of the cattle. 

Fast forward from Estes' estimated first or second week of August 1963 time of what he saw, to the attorney Jarnagin Dec 1963 story of having been in the Carousel Club on Fri October 4 and having overheard Ruby and "Oswald" (sic, read Craford) at a nearby table. Jarnagin overheard talk of something about mob frustration with Connally for not "cooperating on paroles". From Jarnagin's December 1963 letter to FBI director J. Edgar Hoover:

"Lee: 'Not that it makes me any difference, but what have you got against the Governor?

"Ruby: 'He won't work with us on paroles; with a few of the right boys out we could really open up this State, with a little cooperation from the Governor ...."

(...)

Lee: 'How do you know that the Governor won't work with you?'

Ruby: 'Its no use, he's been in Washington too long, they're too straight up there; after they've been there awhile they get to thinking like the Attorney General. The Attorney General, now there's a guy the boys would like to get, but its no use, he stays in Washington too much..."

Ruby does not get more specific with reference to "he won't work with us on paroles" but could that allude to something more specific and concrete in the background? Its speculation of course, but did Estes witness a glimpse of a bribe to Connally to spring one or more specific names free from sentences as the quid pro quo request? Parole board interventions or something?

By the time Jarnagin overhears two months later, Ruby is telling of mob interest in killing Connally. Had they paid good money and did not get what they wanted from Connally? Connally took the money but hadn't delivered, or had not delivered in the manner and to the degree wanted, or fast enough?

If something along that line is assumed as a working hypothesis--a bribe to Connally from mob interests, taking place in Ruby's office in the Carousel Club--how does something like that work? Probably a contact and communication is made to Connally, and after the usual schmoozing maybe Connally is invited to meet a Marcello representative at the Carousel Club to discuss the matter further and "who has something he wants to give you". How the logistics could be done is Ruby arranges for a law enforcement officer--Courson with whom he is in friendly relationship, if Courson is willing--to pick up Governor Connally at such and such a time, and securely convey him to and from the meeting (the fact that he is an officer will also be reassuring to Connally for his personal security as well). The idea is Courson is chauffeur for the VIP guest being invited to the meeting at Ruby's office at his place of business. 

James Odell Estes, even though telling of this many years later, told honestly to the best of his ability what he remembered. Estes would be less likely to be mistaken on the Connally identification since Governor Connally was a public figure in all the news and not easily mistakable. But Estes more easily could be mistaken on the man accompanying Connally, and thought he recognized him in Leavelle. But the man was not Leavelle. However Courson could be plausible as functioning on behalf of Ruby. Courson was acquainted with Ruby and spent time at the Carousel Club as Estes said the man did. All that has to be supposed is Courson resembled Leavelle sufficiently and Estes mistakenly thought one was the other after seeing a photo.

From Courson in Sneed, No More Silence:

"After the sentencing, Jack [Ruby] was incarcerated at the county jail. Bill McCarthy was one of Jack's babysitters or guards there. One day he said, 'Bill, I've got to go down to the sheriff's office. Come and go with me and we'll see Jack. Jack's asked about you a couple of times, you know.' "

As I recall, Mike Lofgren’s use of the term “deep state” had nothing to do with “globalism” or a non-domestic-national meaning. Benjamin continually links those two terms by association, “deep state” and “globalism”, as if there is some definitional or obvious association or linkage. 

Also Lofgren’s use of the term was not conspiratorial, not referring to covert organized game plans (although as Adam Smith noted long ago, conspiracies seem to get hatched whenever two or more large businessmen types meet in this world, that is, conspiracies to defraud the public are as common as dirt, but that’s not what makes a deep state deep).

And third, Lofgren did not portray the “deep state” as under a central command leadership issuing top-down secret orders to far-flung extensions, as in classic global shadow government conspiracy theories.

it’s like in universities typically the president does fundraising and public relations and courts rich old ladies writing their wills for the endowment fund, whereas it’s the provost, name little known to the public, who actually runs the university day to day, makes all the key decisions. The provost is the “deep state” there. And in some large corporations, so it has been credibly told, often some highly competent executive secretary actually runs the enterprise while highly paid CEO’s get all the public credit. In my old department at the University of Copenhagen, there was a secretary like that. Impractical and more famous professors running around with better titles and salaries but that middle-aged secretary RAN that department (well I might add, rest her soul now). 

She was the “deep state” of that department. Meaning in Lofgren’s sense, where the power actually is, as opposed to where the power is said to be on paper. Nothing to do with globalism or a unified monolithic centralized-control hidden conspiracy. 

interesting how what begins as a neutral sociological systems-theory term becomes turned by association into a code word for something someone wants to demonize. 

32 minutes ago, Gil Jesus said:

I never said Ruth Paine leaving for grocery shopping was on Friday.

 Sorry, misunderstood, I see what you meant. I see you edited it to make it clearer. You had before from my printout:

"This means that the Dallas Police were alone on the property [on Nov 22], without any outside law officers present for at least 45 minutes (and maybe longer) before they called McCabe. And the homeowners, as well, would not be on the property when the photos were found. (7 H 209). A strange mutual trust. When they arrived, the Paines were getting ready to go food shopping and left the police alone on the property to conduct the search. (7 H 215)"

Reads now, clarified: "A strange mutual trust. When they arrived Saturday, the Paines were getting ready to go food shopping and left the police alone on the property..."

The 7 H 215 reference (DPD officer Henry Moore) indicates Ruth Paine leaving for grocery shopping while the officers searched was Saturday Nov 23, not Friday Nov 22.

There are miscellaneous possible indications someone was setting up Oswald in Dallas on the day of the assassination. One is two anonymous phone calls that day to both a journalist and the FBI saying that Oswald had had a rifle sighted in at the Irving Sport Shop a day or two earlier (did not use the name "Irving Sport Shop" but the caller described it and gave approximate location in such a way that its identification couldn't be missed). The anonymous caller was not content to anonymously phone in a tip to law enforcement but helpfully wanted journalists to know it too.

(In fact Oswald had had a scope reinstalled and sighted on the Mannlicher-Carcano at that shop, not a day or two before Nov 22 of the anonymous phone calls, but 11 days earlier, on the morning of Nov 11, 1963, in the company of Marina and their children and driving a car belonging to Michael Paine borrowed without permission while Ruth Paine was gone that day, and following which there is no evidence the rifle was returned to or was present again in Ruth Paine's garage, argued at https://www.scrollery.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Irving-Sport-Shop-109-pdf.pdf.) 

And, for whatever it is worth, in handwritten HSCA interview notes of former reporter in 1963 and then Dallas mayor Wes Wise, dated Jan 31, 1978 (no link on my printout but it is from a MFF file of Record Number 180-10108-10138): 

"Virgil McDaniel - (Capt-DPD). Rumor -- PD type -- "He took a call on 11/22/63 AM. "LHO will shoot JFK" -- since told another policeman "its true, but I'll deny it to the day I die'."

(A handwritten note in the margin of these interview notes, looking like it could possibly be from the same handwriting of identical block capital letters of the interview notes, has next to an arrow drawn connecting to "but I'll deny it...", this: "Officer Nick McDonald, WIT 2/2/64".)

Thank you Ron for the human side of Prof. Pulte. As an undergraduate linguistics major myself, I did not know Pulte did the Cherokee dictionary.

To the point: although Pulte did not publish his Tippit case and JFK assassination witness contacts and information, I dearly hope someone responsible can obtain from the family his relevant papers and archive them, including the hearsay and rumors, whatever is there, for the benefit of future historians.

Also, if it is not too late, I dearly hope someone would obtain Brownlow's cooperation to take down an oral history from him with everything he knows of his witness contacts, as best and as accurately as he can tell from his memory, with as many specifics in terms of names and dates as can be gotten from him, and any relevant private papers if any. As flawed as Brownlow may be, he also had contacts and rumors that may have involved contact with real information at times, and if there is no serious attempt to debrief Brownlow it will be lost with him. Again for the benefit of future historians, who may be in a better position to assess significance on some things.

Tom, a key point is it is a matter of fact that the Holans were living on 10th by late 1962, and then moved to Patton by Sept 1963 at the latest, according to the unnamed family member noted by Myers (who I accept from your reasoning and point may have been not the sister but some other family member not living with Mrs. Holan and the three children). That Sept 1963 date is not the date of the move, but a terminus ad quem, latest possible month for the move since the memory is of their living at the Patton Street address that month (no doubt from some association to a dated event on the part of the one remembering). Not moved there that month, but for sure was living there that month because <xyz>. OK, that is Myers' report, have to take his word on that for the Sept 1963 if you believe he is a credible reporter. 

Following Sept 1963, there is next for sure a different family member witness claim that they are living there on Nov 22, 1963. Lad Jr., who is living today and cannot have said differently privately to Myers because if so it could easily be shown by Lad Jr. just saying so. That is incentive to keep the reporting of Lad Jr. honest even if there were not journalist's scruples to be truthful which I believe in Myers' case there are.

Then the Christmas letter mailed to the Patton St. address in December says that is their address and the address their correspondent had in December. And if in December presumably late November 3-4 weeks earlier. And the 1964 city directory has the Holans on Patton reflecting information collected from door-to-door street canvassing in the Sept.-Dec 1963 time frame (according to Myers' research reported on that timeline). 

And the original reporting that Lad Jr. thought the family had moved to 10th Street in 1964, Myers may be saying in his updatings (I'm a little unsure on this but what it looks like) that there was a misunderstanding, that Lad Jr. may not have originally meant that. 

It seems the sequence was not: (a) Myers wanted to demolish the Mrs. Holan story told by Brownlow of seeing the second patrol car; (b) Myers manipulated family witness interviews, contrived to get Lad Jr. to go on the record with what Myers wanted; (c) did the hatchet job.

The flaw in that scenario is the city directory which has the Holans on Patton in late 1963. That cannot have been contrived by Myers. It seems that that city directory listing of the Patton St. address is what actually started it for Myers, as opposed to a decision to demolish the patrol car story starting it, then go rig up some evidence.

And I don't buy the suggestion that the killing of Tippit/JFK would prompt a move of Mrs. Holan's household a few houses around the corner. Mrs. Holan is a single mom with three children, works a night shift and rents. This does not sound like a rich family with money. I know how much godawful hassle not to mention costs it was to move my boxes and stuff when I was just myself as a single person, let alone for a working single mom with three children. To move what, four or five houses away because spooked by the Tippit killing across the street? I don't think that's realistic. If that really were a reason prompting a move, which I cannot imagine, wouldn't such a move prompted by that purpose be a little farther away than only four or five houses around the corner?

5 hours ago, Tom Gram said:

I’m not really sure why you trust Myers’ reporting, especially after he reacted like a whiny child to your inquiries about the fingerprints. He clearly has an agenda, and his footnotes to anything that doesn’t support that agenda seem deliberately vague.

The reason is because the bad experience I had with Myers is not relevant to a judgment of credibility of witness reporting. When I was in the academic world I realized early on that there was no correlation between the quality of a scholar's work and how decent they were in person. It is mix and match, no correlation or causal relationship. Same principle here.

It has nothing to do with a judgment of the quality of Myers' work in With Malice. I wonder if some of the critics of that work even have seen and browsed through the physical book. It is encyclopedic, an achievement worthy of immense respect. Myers has also broken one quality story after another on his blog related to the Tippit case following With Malice, the kind of investigation that takes hard work and footwork. 

Do you see large numbers of complaints from witnesses pouring in saying Myers misquoted them? Changed their meanings from what they meant? Manipulated them in his questioning? Claimed he fabricated quotes put in their names? No. And the database is huge, Myers has done many, many interviews. 

Having said that your cross-examination is valuable Tom and I hope you will continue.  

P.s. Tom, in Myers' piece as it currently reads, the claim is not that Sept 1963 was the time of the move to Patton, but a claim that one family member confirmed that in Sept 1963 they were living on Patton. The move to Patton could have occurred earlier but not later than Sept 1963. Myers note 31 (the bracketed "NOTE" comment is Myers'):

"[31] Ibid., p.4 [NOTE: According to one family member, the Holan family was living at 113 ½ S. Patton by September, 1963, although the exact date could not be confirmed by other family members.]"

Myers independently cites a Cole's Criss-Cross Cross Reference Directory information establishing the Holans lived on 10th in late 1962. This is an update to the 2020 article.

1 hour ago, Tom Gram said:

Lad Holan was not really adamant though. He originally believed the family lived on 10th at the time of the assassination, and only changed his mind in 2021 after being interviewed by Myers, who was on a targeted crusade to discredit Doris Holan. This is not an insignificant detail. 

Where do you get "He originally believed the family lived on 10th at the time of the assassination"?

Myers says Lad Jr. changed on when the family moved to live on 10th (in 1964 versus in 1962), but not on where the family was living on Nov 22, 1963. Lad Jr. is never reported as saying other than they were living on Patton Street on Nov 22, 1963. And "adamant" is accurate about that, no other way to read it. 

1 hour ago, Tom Gram said:

Suggestion can be a pretty powerful thing, and we do not have a tape or transcript of Myers’ interview.

I do not think suggestion could cause Lad Jr to change a memory of where he was living on the day of the JFK assassination and Tippit killing. And I do not believe Myers attempted to lead or flagrantly distort witnesses' tellings. I believe Myers attempted and is among the better ones at succeeding at accurate reporting of witness interviews. 

1 hour ago, Tom Gram said:

The footnote isn’t exactly crystal clear. Footnote 31 covers only one sentence:

By September 1963, the Holan family moved to their second residence in central Oak Cliff – an apartment in a two-story, red brick building at 113 S. Patton Avenue, located adjacent to the alley between E. Tenth Street and E. Jefferson Boulevard. [31]

[31] Ibid., p.4 [NOTE: According to one family member, the Holan family was living at 113 ½ S. Patton by September, 1963, although the exact date could not be confirmed by other family members.]

The reference is to the 2021 interview with Lad Holan. I’m not sure what Lad contributed to that sentence on p.4 of his interview, but Myers sure makes it sound like he talked to at least three additional family members. Another possibility would be that Lad talked to his family and relayed the info to Myers in the interview. We don’t have the interview transcript so we can’t check. 

If Myers talked to these people himself, he undoubtedly would have asked them which apartment they remembered Doris living in on the day of the assassination, or if they’d been told anything by relatives about when the move occurred, etc. What did they actually say? We know that Myers at least talked to the sister. He references the letter obtained from her so if she was the source of the September date why not just say so?

No the reference isn't to Lad Jr., Tom!

Myers says what the reference is to: "one family member", full stop, not specified.

I think you are getting the Lad Jr. connection from the paragraph preceding the one quoted. But Myers is making a fresh, new statement, not said to be from Lad Jr., and footnoted to "one family member".

I agree with you on one point: in rereading Myers' piece he does seem to refer to plural "family members" in addition to Lad Jr.--which if taken literally means at least two with whom he talked in addition to Lad Jr. But Myers separately says he never spoke to the younger brother, and says there were only three children of Doris Holan living with her in 1963: Lad Jr., age 13; his younger brother, age 10; and sister, about age 6. That is said to be the only ones living with Doris, which does not exclude the possibility of other siblings not living in Doris's household. From the plural other "family members", there is implication that Myers contacted some other sibling(s) not living in that household, or else family in some other way (e.g. half-sibling, cousin, in-law, whatever).

Therefore "one family member" could be someone other than the sister, but there is no reason to suppose it was Lad Jr., and it cannot have been Lad Jr.'s younger brother. You may have a point that since Myers attributed the Dec 1963 letter to the sister, why wouldn't he attribute the Sept 1963 move date to the sister too, if it was her. That would weigh in favor of a different family member, perhaps another sibling who was not living with Mrs. Holan but knew when the Mrs. Holan household had moved to Patton.

1 hour ago, Tom Gram said:

If Myers really had corroboration from a Holan family member that the move occurred prior to the assassination, you’d think that he’d make that clear to his readers.

But he did make clear to his readers that he had corroboration from a Holan family member. Footnote 31: "According to one family member, the Holan family was living at 113 ½ S. Patton by September, 1963". 

As to the anonymity, that can just be assumed to be because Myers had asked and been refused permission from that source to be named, who preferred not to be named, and that request was honored by Myers. That seems to be Myers' pattern in the matter of named versus unnamed sources in his reporting.   

Also, apart from Pulte and Brownlow's claim, there is no information that puts the Mrs. Holan household other than on Patton Street on Nov 22, 1963 in the first place. There is the Christmas letter, the city directory, and Lad Jr.  It is not as if there ever was any actual dispute over the address in any form other than Brownlow's claim. When weighing that against the known information from contemporary records and the family all going the other way ... the conclusion is Brownlow had his wires crossed on something and had that wrong. But the Mrs. Holan story of seeing "Oswald" run toward and under her window and the patrol car going forward and backward across from her front window after the shots could be true from her correct vantage point that day, notwithstanding Brownlow screwed up on the address. 

Update: the Holan boy alleged by Brownlow to be a witness to the 10th and Marsalis "stabbing" story may refer back to Lad Jr. himself, not the younger brother of Lad Jr.

Pulte referred to an informant "H2" and Brownlow referred to a story of a Holan boy reporting the 10th and Marsalis "stabbing" story to his mother at the Tippit crime scene. Myers reasoned and concluded the reference had to have been to the younger Holan son, name unstated, age 10 in 1963. Myers (https://jfkfiles.blogspot.com/2020/11/doris-e-holan-and-tippit-murder.html) :

Three years later, in a January 18, 1999, letter to Harrison E. Livingstone, the source of one of the claims became clear. Professor Pulte wrote: “Informant H2, who reported a fight at 12th and Marsalis a few moments before the murder of Tippit, also provided the following information: the assailant ran westward down the alley, turned right at Crawford, ducked into the ‘hospital area’ of the Abundant Life annex, hid there for a while and then made his way to [the] second floor of the annex building. By this time, his pursuers had passed. The assailant climbed out of a second-floor window at the SE corner of the building, jumped to the ground (the second floor is quite low), and continued across Crawford and down the alley westward. I told Larry Harris what H2 had said, and he looked amazed. He said, ‘You know, Bill, Penn [Jones] used to talk about the old hospital beds down in the basement of the church annex building.’”

"Pulte’s source (identified only as ‘H2’) was a reference to the youngest son of Doris E. Holan, whom Pulte (or another unidentified individual) had obviously spoken to by 1990.[84] 

The last sentence above was not from Pulte but was Myers' own voice and conclusion, with reasoning explained in Myers' note 84:

"Lad Holan, Jr., the only other possible source, told me in 2020 that I was the first person to interview him, consequently, Pulte could not be referring to him."

The fictitious "stabbing" at 10th and Marsalis debunked

The story of the supposed stabbing at 10th and Marsalis--associated with a son of Mrs. Holan--supposedly occurred two blocks away from the Tippit crime scene at almost exactly the same time as the Tippit killing, followed by people loading the body of that stabbing victim "in the back of a blue Mercury or a Lincoln and took off with him". In fact this is another version, a garbled version, of the ambulance taking away the body of Tippit itself. That is why there has never been any police report or verified witness statement of that alleged stabbing at 10th and Marsalis, because there never was one, even though some researchers have believed there was.

The hearsay story of Pulte and Brownlow sounds like the Holan boy came from 10th and Marsalis having heard something there about the ambulance taking the Tippit body, heard something that somebody heard from somebody ... and the Holan boy goes two blocks west on 10th heading home and runs into his mother at the Tippit crime scene. She tells him an officer has been shot right there. He tells his mother, in this account according to Brownlow:

" ... he looked at his mom, he said, ‘Mom, well, I see what’s happening here,’ he said, ‘but, down at the corner,’ he said, ‘a man just got stabbed.’ He said, ‘God, there’s blood everywhere down there.’ He said they threw the man in the back of a blue Mercury or a Lincoln and took off with him.' "

But it was two versions of the rapidly spreading news in the neighborhood of the ambulance taking the Tippit body. That alleged separate stabbing event and loading of another body into another vehicle never happened. It was a garbled account of the news spreading about Tippit. 

The story at the Tippit crime scene sounds suspiciously like a hearsay version of the account of Lad Jr. (the older son) himself to Myers. Lad Jr. spoke to Myers of walking south on Lansing (one block west parallel to Marsalis) and then west on 10th (similar to route claimed by Brownlow for the younger son). Lad Jr. spoke to Myers that "Tippit was still bleeding when he arrived", and being there when "an ambulance arrived". But Lad Jr. reported by Myers said nothing of seeing his mother or his younger brother at the scene and did not think his mother was there (50+ years later).

Lad Jr. told Myers that after the ambulance arrived and the first officer showed up (that would be Croy) that he left the immediate scene, went home to their Patton St. apartment for a moment but no one was there, then came back outside and watched from under a tree at the southwest corner of Tenth and Patton.

The mention of the apartment being empty when Lad Jr. went in for a moment would be consistent with his mother having left the apartment by that time and walked to the crime scene to look. With what Lad Jr. says was his mother's car photographed at 1:45 pm that day parked in front of their Patton Street apartment being argument that she was home that day and was so at the time of the shots. But (like many other normal persons), upon hearing the shots and looking out her front window, Mrs. Holan then would have gone down to the street level and walked to the crime scene, and that could be why Mrs. Holan was not in the apartment by the time Lad Jr. entered the apartment for his momentary visit. 

16 hours ago, Tom Gram said:

Is there any evidence that is even Doris Holan’s car other than Lad Holan’s 58-year old memory, after he’d already changed his mind on the date of the move? I think I said this in the other thread, but a lot of cars look the same. A lot of cars are literally the same car. I don’t think Lad Holan’s belated ID of a generic sedan in an old photo is really evidence of anything. I can barely remember what kind of cars my parents drove in the 90s. 

True, Lad Jr. 50+ years later is the sole basis for the photo recognition of his mother's car, but it is parked right in front of the Patton Street address where someone would logically park who lived there.

There is documentary evidence Mrs. Holan lived on Patton by no later than late Dec. 1963, and Lad Jr. was adamant and certain the family lived on Patton on Nov 22, 1963. He remembered the details of where he was and what happened on Nov 22, 1963--hard to mistake where he was living in remembering the events of that day?

A second family member also says that: an unidentified family member cited by Myers saying the time of the family's move from 10th to Patton was September 1963. You ask if that family member was Lad Jr. himself, but that does not make sense. If it were Lad Jr. there would be no reason for Myers not to credit Lad Jr. since he credits Lad Jr. on the record otherwise. However, there is an anonymous daughter of Mrs. Holan mentioned elsewhere by Myers as interviewed but never named. I say she is the second family member source. Note the similarity in Myers' language: 

Myers note 31: "According to one family member, the Holan family was living at 113 1/2 S. Patton by September, 1963"

Myers note 112, reference to Mrs. Holan's daughter: "interview with Holan family member, June 3, 2020".

And finally, I see no evidence in Myers' article that any Holan family member said otherwise, or that any Holan family member was the direct source for the Livingstone, Pulte, and Brownlow belief that the Holans' address was 10th St. on Nov 22, 1963. Some here have been assuming the younger son of Mrs. Holan was that source, and one of Myers' comments makes it sound like Myers himself might have assumed that, but there is no evidence for that assumption that I can see. 

In fact, I see no evidence that the whole story of the Holan boy seeing the stabbing on Marsalis and 10th, going rapidly to the scene of Tippit's cruiser and seeing his mom there, etc., came directly from that Holan boy. It could easily come from hearsay, say someone who knew or heard of a Holan boy who told Pulte and Brownlow, at least one step removed. 

In fact the error or belief in contradiction to the testimony of the two Holan family members to Myers concerning the address on Nov 22, 1963, of Pulte and Brownlow, makes no sense coming directly from a son of Mrs. Holan living in the same house on Nov 22, 1963, as if that son would remember differently from his sister and brother, in which house he was living on the day JFK and Tippit were killed.

Yet Pulte and Brownlow believed the wrong address on 10th Street was the address. This says to me their belief came from a source at least once removed from the son, not the son.

This makes, in terms of known witnesses of family members, 2 who verify Mrs. Holan was living on Patton on Nov 22, 1963, versus 0 known to have said any differently. 2 versus 0.

And the city directory published in June 1964 based on door-to-door street canvassing ca. 7 months earlier (according to Myers' report of research on that detail) has the Holans on S. Patton. There is no reason Lad Jr. or the sister would lie about it, and no reason to suppose Lad Jr. would not remember where his home was on Nov. 22, 1963, that particular day.  

And there is no evidence going the other way, nothing, other than Pulte and Brownlow's belief that the Holans lived on 10th on Nov 22, 1963, and their journalistic standards make that not of strong weight. 

Is it possible Pulte and Brownlow could talk to Mrs. Holan without accurately nailing down the detail of Mrs. Holan's home address that day? It appears that was the case (unless there was some confusion if Mrs. Holan in the nursing home had been asked where she lived in 1963 and e.g. misunderstood the question and answered the 10th St. address).  

Tom G., your fact-checking is valuable, but in this case have you taken into account the photo Myers published in his 2020 piece of Mrs. Holan's car parked on Patton on Nov 22, 1963, on the same side of the street as her Dec 1963 apartment on Patton, right next to her Dec 1963 apartment on Patton?

If she was still living on 10th St. in Nov 1963, not yet moved to the Patton Street address where she is confirmed living in Dec 1963, why is her car on Nov 22 parked on Patton, and not on 10th? From all the photos of the crime scene I have seen, there weren't that many parked cars on 10th. It does not look like it was difficult or impossible to find street parking on 10th. But even if that was so and she couldn't find a parking spot on 10th, isn't it a bit of a coincidence that she would end up as a Plan B to park on Nov 22 exactly next to where she was living in Dec 1963, if she wasn't already living there?

2 hours ago, Bill Brown said:

You're so desperate to believe Brownlow that you're changing what he said to get it to fit your narrative.

This is not what is going on ("desperation to believe Brownlow"). I don't care whether there was a patrol car, and I have no particular interest in believing Brownlow, or Mrs. Holan. As you have just seen, I don't unqualifiedly believe. It is a critical judgment, not of any dispute over what words Brownlow said, but of what Mrs. Holan might have seen and told, for reasons explained. You keep repeating the above and it is a misrepresentation. 

As said before ad nauseum, I am not changing what Brownlow said, any more than you. Never have (unless somewhere unintentionally by mistake), and explicitly just got through emphasizing exactly what Brownlow said, which is in no dispute since it is on tape. Stop the misrepresentation.

Thanks Bill for giving your answers to the seven questions.  

Agree with you on 1, 2, 5, and 7.

Agree also on 4 but would strengthen that to about 90% likely. Assuming she was home about the only way she could not have heard the shots inside her house and reacted would be if she was in a sound sleep. All around, up to 1.5 blocks away, people inside houses heard the shots, recognized them as shots, went to windows and doors and came out of front doors to look, this can just be assumed for Mrs. Holan inside her second-story apartment as well, in her case by going to her window.

Question 6 is the difference and sticking point. You consider it most likely no contact occurred. I judge it 80% likely Brownlow would have talked to Mrs. Holan about her story of Nov 22 based on Brownlow's sayso alone if there were no corroboration, rising to 95% with Pulte's corroboration in the present case. I doubt Pulte lied about the existence of his contact with Mrs. Holan in the presence of Brownlow. 

On whether Mrs. Holan said any of the things of significance that Brownlow attributed to her, you say if there was a contact you think Brownlow probably didn't get anything of significance from her.

While I agree the part about her seeing Tippit's body next to his car from her window is wrong (told in that way by Brownlow), I do not think it very likely the whole story is a fabrication. For example, I think it is very plausible that Mrs. Holan told Brownlow and perhaps Pulte as well that she saw "Oswald" running up to and under her window.

To your last point,

"You didn't address my point that Brownlow said Holan told him that she went to her window and saw Tippit's body lying in the street.  Or, are you really going to tell me that this is something that Brownlow innocently "garbled"?

Probably yes Bill.

Brownlow probably in his mind believed that is what she told as he misremembered and retold. It was wrong of course. There was no line of sight visibility to Tippit's patrol car or body from her window on Patton. Mrs. Holan could not have and did not see that from her window, and therefore did not tell Brownlow that, as Brownlow claimed she had. Brownlow was influenced by his mistaken belief that Mrs. Holan viewed from a house across the street on 10th. As many journalists have been accused of doing of greater stature than Brownlow, reporters tend to put words in people's mouths based on what they think happened. 

Mrs. Holan told that she went to her window and looked out. She also told that she saw Tippit's patrol car and body in the street. (She did, after she went down to the street, out her front door, and around the corner to the growing crowd of people there.) Brownlow confused and conflated that, in his telling, into the form you quote which is obviously wrong. He did not invent that Mrs. Holan said she went to her window. He did not invent that Mrs. Holan said she saw the body of Tippit. But he erred in telling it as if Mrs. Holan had said she saw the body of Tippit from her window.

The alternative that Brownlow made up stuff completely out of whole cloth, out of thin air, attributed to the witness is theoretically possible. I judge that is a less likely explanation in this case, whereas you consider it the only reasonable explanation. From that conclusion you conclude, ipso facto, that having done a wilful total fabrication (as you think of it) in one part, that means Brownlow did so in all specifics of significance in the Mrs. Holan story, and there goes Mrs. Holan's telling of "Oswald" running up to her window and seeing a patrol car backing up across the street. 

I think the odds are about 80% that Mrs. Holan told Brownlow some form of a patrol car in the alley. You think (I think) somewhere close to 0%. Neither you nor I know for certain. As Kurt Vonnegut would say, "And so it goes." 

3 hours ago, Bill Brown said:

Greg Doudna said:

"I have said from the beginning that she was living on the Patton address on the day of the assassination"

""No, she could not have seen Tippit's patrol car, Tippit's body, etc. from her Patton Street front window."

Mike Brownlow said (relaying what he claims Doris Holan told him):

""So, she ran from the back to the living room and threw the curtain back and looked out the window and she could see this officer – Dallas police officer laying in the street; saw his squad car."

Greg, there's more, but this should be enough to get you to just stop it already.

Bill, I don't think we're talking about the same thing. 

Here are seven questions for you. I have answered yours, please answer these.

(1) Do you agree with Myers' 2020 argument for the Patton Street address for Mrs. Holan on Nov 22, 1963, as convincing to you?

(2) Do you agree that that Patton Street address's front window of the living room had a wide-angle almost "perfect" view overlooking most if not all of that block of Patton Street and looked over across the street into part of the alley?

(3) Do you agree with Myers' reasons argued in his 2020 analysis for concluding Mrs. Holan was home on Nov 22, 1963?

(4) Do you think Mrs. Holan upon hearing shots in her home, would run to her front window to look?

(5) Do you think Mrs. Holan saw any of the things Brownlow told that she saw, from her front window on Patton?

(6) Do you think Professor Pulte was lying when he attested that Mrs. Holan had spoken to Brownlow and him, and that she had claimed to them that she was a witness of certain things Nov 22, 1963?

(7) Do you think it is conceivable that Brownlow could garble something a witness told him, in retelling, if that witness spoke to Brownlow?

Simple, straight "yes" or "no" answers will suffice, followed by optional brief comments supporting the "yes" or "no". Thanks. Please do not skip any of the questions, thanks. 

The tentative scenario reconstruction proposal emergent as a result of discussion from Paul, which is not an "affair" scenario:

• start from the phone number of Virginia Davis in Ruby's notebook of phone messages often written down by Craford answering the phone. Take this as the starting point. How and why is that phone number there, and why is it in the name of a woman acquaintance of Ruby who has nothing to do with Virginia Davis, that phone number, or that address? 
• Paul gave what I regard as the key insight: that that phone number/message in Ruby's notebook is, just as Craford testified he thought it was, a phone callin from a woman inquiring about employment. The scenario would be Ruby runs an ad for the Carousel Club, and one of the two sisters-in-law associated with Virginia Davis's phone, calls in inquiring about the job, perhaps as a waitress or "champagne girl" (less likely stripper if the caller did not already have stripping experience, which probably neither of the Davis sisters-in-law did)
• Although the call could have come from either one of the Davis sisters-in-law, I am assuming Barbara, the older of the two with the two children, though the reconstruction would work the same if it were the younger Virginia, who was only age 16. 
• The baffling puzzle of why Virginia Davis's phone number has "Leona Miller", a known woman acquainted with Ruby who has nothing to do with Virginia Davis's phone number or address, is explained in that the caller, Barbara Davis (calling from Virginia's phone), wants to keep this communication confidential, planning on having a first conversation with her husband about working afternoons as a waitress at the Carousel Club only if there was a firm job offered. But on this phone call, Craford answers, cannot answer her questions, offers to take a message to give to Ruby and politely asks for her name and phone number so Ruby, or someone on Ruby's behalf, can call her back. But Barbara does not want to give her name and phone number for the obvious reason of not wanting, at this stage, either of the brothers/husbands of the sisters-in-law living in two units at 400 E. 10th to find out. Craford learns this concern from Barbara calling and (perhaps not the first time this kind of issue has arisen) suggests a simple workaround: he picks a name out of the air at random--which is the name of a woman in Ruby's circle, and tells Barbara that will be who the return call will ask for, and by that means Virginia and Barbara (Virginia, whose phone is being used, is witting to this with Barbara) will know it is the Carousel Club calling back. If by mistake Virginia's husband answers the phone asking for "Leona Miller" the call will be assumed to be a wrong number.
• This explains what has previously eluded solution, how that phone number from 400 E. 10th, the scene of the Tippit killing, ended up in Ruby's notebook with the fictitious name. It was all about a job inquiry from one or the other of the two Davis sisters-in-law, with a bit of subterfuge based on not wanting the husbands to know about that job inquiry at that time. 
• And the location of the Tippit crime scene being associated with the same address (one house away from where Tippit stopped his patrol car when shot) is caused by the address of Virginia Davis's phone number in Ruby's phone book, and not a freak coincidence, as follows.
• There is a planned hit on officer Tippit. Not known why, but Tippit was executed in an ambush (argued fact), meaning it was planned (follows from argued fact). Presumed Tippit had some deadly knowledge, as the most likely reason, in the absence of a specific known reason. It may possibly be relevant that Tippit was in contact with Oswald (argued fact) and was seen two days earlier at the same time in the same restaurant as Oswald also there at a different table (known fact). The reason for suspecting relevance is the killer of Tippit immediately next set out to kill Oswald in the Texas Theatre minutes later. Therefore Tippit and Oswald contacts prior to Nov 22 take on interest in this light.  
• The killer of Tippit was Craford, not Oswald (case independent grounds).
• Craford could have been in Ruby's apartment the night of Nov 21/22 and morning of Nov 22, following Ruby giving Craford a ride home from work at the Vegas Club and an after-work meeting of Ruby and Craford in a restaurant where they were seen together at about 2 am Nov 22. He could have been in Ruby's apartment the morning of Nov 22 after George Senator left (who would not necessarily know Craford was sleeping in Ruby's separate room) and after Ruby left that morning. This puts Craford within several blocks walking distance to the scene of the Tippit killing, at the time just before the Tippit killing. 
• And here is the crux of everything--the breakthrough--why Tippit was set up for an ambush and execution at that particular location: it all goes to that original phone number and address of Virginia Davis, contact with Ruby. 
• Barbara or Virginia Davis, whichever one it was (if Barbara, Virginia was witting and assisting her older sister-in-law), is called and an appointment fixed responsive to the job inquiry--at say set for 1:30 pm on Nov 22--the planned visit to be carried out by Craford.
• Ruby/Craford also asks for the presence at that location of their contact Courson (whom they know from his hanging out evenings in plain clothes at the Carousel Club in performance of his job duties with the Sheriff's Department). (One could conjecture several reasons for this, not excluding the possibility of a setup "framing" of Courson as a suspect in the Tippit killing? In any case some purpose in the interests of the planned hit on Tippit, although Courson would be unwitting to intention of the killing itself. Unwitting is established by his driving his own marked patrol car to park in the alley near the scene.)
• Now Craford has an alibi for why he walks to Virginia Davis's apartment, and a good excuse to hang around there for any amount of time allowance for variability in Tippit's time of arrival to the planned meeting. In the event, that was not necessary (Craford saw Tippit's cruiser pull up just as he arrived by walking on 10th Street), but if Tippit had been delayed or showed up a few minutes late, Craford has an alibi for why he might be seen sticking around that location. 
• The intended location of the meeting of Barbara Davis was in Virginia Davis's apartment, vacant from Virginia's husband gone to work. Virginia herself is over in Barbara's apartment already by prearrangement, to babysit Barbara's children while Barbara goes around to Virginia's apartment for the planned meeting appointment.
• Tippit is killed in an ambush and execution in this matter after having been lured to that spot at a particular time, say 1:15 pm, by prearrangement, and that spot was what it was because that was the Davis's address of the phone call inquiry to the Carousel Club from Virginia Davis's phone and address. 
• Courson successfully flees the scene upon hearing the shots without his presence becoming publicly known. A witness who saw Courson leaving in the alley in a marked patrol cruiser in addition to seeing the gunman on Patton from her front window that day after running to her front window upon hearing the shots, never came forward, a fortuitous accident favorable to Courson's presence remaining unknown.
• The gunman, Craford, after killing Tippit, immediately reloads and proceeds to the Texas Theatre for the purpose of killing Oswald there next. He goes into the balcony, goes right past Courson who does not stop him coming out of the balcony even though Courson knows the suspect is said to be in the balcony. Following Julia Postal's phone call instigated by gunman-witness Brewer, police and sheriff's deputies swarm the Texas Theatre and arrest the wrong guy by mistake (in terms of the Tippit killing, the point of the suspicion and arrest at that time)--the killer's intended victim in the Texas Theatre (Oswald seated on the ground level) instead of the killer (Craford in the balcony). It happens that the arrestee, Oswald, turned out to be the leading suspect in the assassination of JFK, resisted arrest, and had a concealed gun on his person of the same type that shot Tippit (the most common type of concealed carry, so that in itself is not completely inexplicable if Oswald was innocent and also scared at the time). So Oswald was "cooked" in terms of perceived guilt. The man in the balcony, the killer of Tippit (and almost killer of Oswald that day if the police had not arrived and interrupted saving Oswald's life), Craford, got away from the theater without so much as a single officer even reporting his name written down. Scot-free. 
• Courson privately tells Sheriff Decker, his immediate superior and good working relationship, the true facts as Courson knows and understands.
• Upon decision of Decker, Decker and Courson cover up Courson's presence at the Tippit crime scene at the time of the Tippit killing. As part of this cover up, Courson is not asked, and does not submit, a written report of what he saw and did that day, as nearly all other relevant law enforcement officers did, even though Courson was actively involved at the Texas Theatre at the time of Oswald's arrest.
• The coverup had nothing to do with any "affair". It had to do with awareness of a mob/Ruby connection to the killing of Tippit being covered up inconsistent with the narrative closing the case and solving the crime in the name of the dead man, Oswald, a "satisfactory" closing of the case in the best interests of all concerned: the widow's pension, the honor of the slain officer, the good name of the Sheriff's Department, and the good of the country in keeping with the wishes of higher authority (LBJ and Hoover). 

Supporting discussions: "Were the Tippit crime scene shell hulls fired from the revolver of Lee Harvey Oswald?" (28 pp.), https://www.scrollery.com/?page_id=1581; "Lee Harvey Oswald's two jackets and why the Tippit killer's jacket was not one of them" (117 pp.), https://www.scrollery.com/?page_id=1581. 

3 minutes ago, Bill Brown said:

So we have the switching of "driveway" to "alley" and the switching of "police" to "county sheriff".

A switching of (accurately) a detective of the Sheriff's Department to "police", yes, whether on the part of Myers' source or Myers' source's source. That can happen unintentionally in hearsay but in this case there is motive for intention. Also, this is on the assumption my proposed identification, of Courson, is correct. It is of course possible Myers' source story was true and actually was Dallas Police, not Courson. But I am making the case for this identification, giving my reasons.

Now on driveway and alley, we've been through this and Paul explained it well earlier. It is not known what word Mrs. Holan used. Get that straight: it, is, not, known, what Mrs. Holan said exactly, because there is no tape recording and the only information is Brownlow's less-than-reliable hearsay version. 

Mrs. Holan could have said "driveway", though most people would say "alley" and by default it would be most likely Mrs. Holan would probably say "alley", although this is guessing at which word she actually did use. If she said "alley", then the proposal is not that I am changing the word, but that Brownlow did, from what Mrs. Holan said.

That is all there is to that. Not too complicated.

3 minutes ago, Bill Brown said:

Thanks for answering.  Yes, I have read every post of yours which I have replied to.  I'm just clarifying a couple things.

Do you believe that Holan, from her apartment on Patton, could see Tippit's stopped patrol car?  Does Holan have a line of sight from her apartment window to Tippit's patrol car?  

No, she could not have seen Tippit's patrol car, Tippit's body, etc. from her Patton Street front window. Brownlow channeling Mrs. Holan (and Brownlow mistakenly thinking Mrs. Holan lived on 10th) told her story as if she saw that from her front window, but Mrs. Holan could not have seen that from her front window. Therefore she did not see that from her front window and would not have told Brownlow that.

However Mrs. Holan did describe after seeing from her front window (looking out on Patton and onto a portion of the alley across the street from her window) then got dressed, got her shoes on, etc., went down to the street level and walked around the corner on 10th to the scene of the Tippit patrol car, where she then did see the Tippit patrol car and was among the people gathered there.

I believe that is what Mrs. Holan told--it was true that she saw the Tippit patrol car, but she did not see the Tippit patrol car from her front window. 

Brownlow just butchered and garbled what Mrs. Holan told him, is what I think happened there. 

2 minutes ago, Bill Brown said:

You missed my point.  The "source" from Dale Myers said that the officer having the tryst with a married women who was living on Tenth Street was Dallas Police.  In an attempt to tie in Courson as being suspicious, YOU are switching it to County Sheriff.

I see your point now. I agree the version told to Myers said "police". I am proposing it was Courson of the Sheriff's department, and that that detail as told to Myers was not accurate. 

If there was a coverup and if the coverup was ongoing at the time Myers was told--which is obvious, since all the anonymity of both source and the name of the officer--saying it was Sheriff's Department (if it was) would be way too specific. Saying it was a police officer, Dallas Police, would be safely general and unspecific, maintaining the coverup that the source said was continuing. That's all. You don't have to agree.

3 hours ago, Bill Brown said:

@Greg Doudna

Quick question, just for verification...

Where do you believe Doris Holan was living on the afternoon of 11/22/63?

I do not know why you are even asking this Bill. I have said from the beginning that she was living on the Patton address on the day of the assassination shown convincingly by Myers in his 2020 blog research piece. Have you not been reading all I have written before on your own thread?

1 hour ago, Bill Brown said:

The patrol car supposedly at the scene was Dallas Police, not Dallas County Sheriff (I've told you this before).  Courson was NOT Dallas Police.  The "source" who relayed the story to Myers (of the officer having a tryst with a married woman living on Tenth Street) said it was a Dallas police officer; nothing about it being a Sherriff's deputy.  There is a difference.

 

No nothing about Mrs. Holan's sighting of a patrol car identified that patrol car as Dallas Police rather than Sheriff Department. The story was she saw the cherry on top and recognized it as a patrol car. If she did say "police" (no knowledge that she did since it is all hearsay transmission through Brownlow) that would not be from knowledge but from assumption, what most people would call a patrol car seen from a distance. Red herring.

56 minutes ago, Ron Bulman said:

There you go again with the rambling.

I'll try to ramp up the quantity a bit more just to get more of your great music videos. Its like stuttering, I am what I am. If my discussion with Paul bothers you such that you're unable to gracefully skip over what is not to taste, do you want to go away or should I go away?   

On 8/31/2023 at 12:53 PM, Paul Jolliffe said:

Hmm.

Greg, your theory should not be dismissed out of hand as impossible by anyone, and you are to be commended for your creativity (I assume it is your theory, right?)

Yes it is my thinking.

On 8/31/2023 at 12:53 PM, Paul Jolliffe said:

Mrs. Charlie Virginia Davis's testimony is a doozy: she couldn't get the timeline straight at all. Belin finally got what he wanted her to say: Barbara called the police AFTER they had seen the gunman cross the yard. But man! It took forever to get to that point. 

Honestly, I believe Belin was smart enough to quit her testimony immediately after he got her to that point. If he kept at it, she'd have changed her timeline again! (And he gave up trying to reconcile what she said in her two affidavits . . .)

I too have long wondered how Virginia Davis's phone number would up in Ruby's notebook. You refer to it as "Ruby/Crafard notebook" which implies that it had entries in it from Larry Crafard, right?

As I understand it the notebook was all Ruby phone numbers and messages (not Craford's) but Craford took many of the messages in his handwriting.

On 8/31/2023 at 12:53 PM, Paul Jolliffe said:

I have always wondered, like many people, if Dallas strip club owner Jack Ruby had the phone number for 16-year-old, childless, (bored, stay-at-home housewife dreaming of extra money?) Virginia Davis because she, or someone acting on her behalf, had given it to him for reasons at which (I presume) the readership here is worldly enough to guess. 

But you have come up with a creative "innocent" alternative, and of course, none of us can know now what the truth was. You might be right, but I have a couple of questions:

If Courson did spend any time at all in Virginia Davis's apartment (for whatever reasons), why would he use that phone number as a way for Ruby to contact him? Your theory implies that Ruby needed to be able to get ahold of Courson at a moment's notice, and surely Courson couldn't have been there (theoretically) that often, right?

I mean, Barbara Davis's husband, Troy Lee Davis, did live there with Barbara and their two kids! He was there that afternoon to take Virginia and Barbara down to the lineups at the police station late that afternoon. Troy Lee Davis wasn't off somewhere else on November 22- he was a local roofer right there in Oak Cliff. (Further, roofing is a daytime, not a nighttime business.)

Courson's contact with Ruby was presumably due to "official" police business. Ruby surely could contact Courson anytime through the Dallas Sheriff's Department and they could get ahold of Courson very quickly.

But Courson was absolutely "off duty" if he was whiling away the hours with Barbara Davis in Virginia Davis's apartment. If Ruby tried to reach Courson at Virginia Davis's apartment, there was a very real chance that her husband, Mr. Charles Davis (the brother of Troy Lee Davis) would answer the phone!

And that would be a complete disaster for both Courson and Barbara Davis, and very likely a disaster for Virginia Davis. 

So, clever as your theory is, that part simply doesn't work for me.

We do agree that the name "Leona Miller" was a cover next to Virginia Davis's phone number.

But for now, I think the simpler explanation is more likely. "Leona Miller" was the name Ruby assigned to cover the number from the person who gave him that number: Virginia Davis herself.

You make good points Paul, to which I can add one more: I have cited Courson's day-old clothes as suggesting he might have been the officer of the affair but the day-old clothes assumes an overnight, which cannot have involved either Barbara or Virginia Davis's apartments because as you note, they each had husbands who lived there and were there at night. 

Then you question the plausibility of Courson giving Virginia Davis's phone number. My suggestion on the Virginia Davis phone number implied that Courson had crossed the line and was operating "bent" with one or more of the targets of his job to surveil, such as Ruby. As part of the "bent" aspect, some mechanism of getting a message to him via phone call to that number asking for "Leona Miller" (becomes a wrong number if someone unwitting answered the phone).

However you suggest a different explanation, that Virginia Davis (not Courson) gave her phone number to Ruby for interest in prostitution. One objection to that is Virginia was only 16, seems a bit young, but maybe Ruby didn't know she was only 16. 

But the phone inquiry could be about a job as a waitress or server at the Carousel Club. This would agree with how Craford explained that phone number in his WC testimony.

Mr. GRIFFIN. There is a line under that telephone number, "UN-3" and then "UN-3" is scratched out and then on the following line there is a name written. What is that name? 
Mr. CRAFARD. Leona Miller. 
Mr. GRIFFIN. Who was she? 
Mr. CRAFARD. I believe she was a girl that called in connection with or in answer to an ad that Jack Ruby had in the paper for waitresses. 

But what about the name "Leona Miller" which goes with a woman long known to Ruby who was in his synagogue? The connection of that name is with Ruby, not Virginia Davis.

Imagine: Virginia or Barbara calls asking about a job. Craford takes the call, talks to her. Woman caller has never worked in a club before, doesn't want to be called back due to nervousness of what her husband will think. Craford suggests a solution: gives her a name, which is the name of some other acquaintance of Ruby, "Leona Miller", and assures Virginia if there is call back to her from Ruby they will ask for "Leona Miller" and if she answers the phone it will be for her. Problem solved. Explains how that got written in the notebook and why.

A Carousel Club job employment meeting pretext scenario

This is what I suggest: Barbara Davis is the one, even though married with two children, making the call to the Carousel Club asking if there is waitress work or other employment.

Barbara Davis uses her sister-in-law Virginia's phone because she wants to keep this from becoming an issue with her husband until there is something concrete to discuss with and explain to him, such as starting to work at the Carousel Club, that conversation. Barbara makes the call from Virginia's number, agrees with Craford on the other end to have the name "Leona Miller" as the name any return call will ask for (at Virginia's number), and if Virginia answers the phone she will go get Barbara the intended person to be reached. 

Was Courson visiting Barbara on behalf of Ruby? A discussion of possible employment?

Ruby lived only a few blocks away, and Ruby was Craford's ride home from the Vegas Club the night before and a restaurant where Ruby and Craford were seen together after that at 2-3 am Nov 22. Ruby and George Senator told in their testimony that Ruby occasionally brought employees to his home overnight--maybe Craford the night of Nov 21/22 was one such. George Senator left that morning from his separate room in the apartment, would not necessarily know that Craford was sleeping in Ruby's room if Craford was, and George Senator was gone all day until that evening. Ruby also left the morning of Nov 22. That could leave Craford alone in Ruby's apartment by late morning. (The sole claim of evidence that Craford was anywhere else on Nov 22 was Craford's own claim, and the testimony of fellow Carousel employee, faithful loyal Andy Armstrong, who said Craford was at the Carousel Club, also Ruby. Nobody unrelated to those three though.)

So it could be--hypothetically--that Craford was within easy walking distance of 10th and Patton on Nov 22, from Ruby's apartment, consistent with witnesses seeing the gunman, who looked a lot like Craford, walking to the Tippit crime scene coming from a direction consistent from having started walking from Ruby's apartment.

Did Craford call the Virginia Davis phone, answered by Virginia, and set up a meeting with Barbara at a certain time, to take place at Virginia's apartment?

Was Courson in touch with Ruby and/or Craford and also there as part of that meeting? (This would not be an affair scenario, but a job interview pretext scenario?) 

Unexplained: how would Tippit be lured there at the right time, if the ambush was an intent by Craford to kill Tippit there?

No known contacts between Tippit and Ruby, Craford, Courson, or the Davis sisters-in-law. Unless there was a Tippit contact that is unknown.

Say there was some contact between Ruby/Craford and Tippit, and Craford called Tippit and said "meet me at 1:15 in front of 404 E. 10th", on some pretext. That would bring Tippit there at 1:15, whereupon Craford ambushes and kills him.

And Craford would have a place to "go", an alibi for why went there at all, and Barbara, meeting in an apartment alone with a strange man would feel more safe in the meeting with an officer present, three in all, not just her alone with the unknown man from the Carousel Club representing Ruby. 

And if Tippit was late, or didn't show, or delayed, Craford would have a legitimate alibi for hanging out and being present at that location (10th and Patton) until Tippit did get there. But as it happened, Craford is walking there and sees Tippit pulling up just as Craford arrives and Craford flags down Tippit from the sidewalk ... and the rest is history. 

In this scenario, Craford knows he is going to kill Tippit, but Barbara Davis, Virginia Davis, and Courson do not know that. Hence, in this scenario, when Courson hears the shots, he is not only spooked but he also has a pretty good idea of who might have just got killed, one of those two, and the other possibly the shooter, even without seeing. 

In this scenario Courson--who is fully dressed (there is no affair in this scenario or delay in needing to get dressed) takes off like a bolt and hightails it out of there. He would not have shown up in a marked cruiser if he was party to the murder in the first place. He is innocent of the murder, but he is in deep dooky if he sticks around because he has been doing off-job dealings with the criminal world in the persons of Ruby and Craford. Plus, he was party to (even though he did not realize it until after the fact) the setup of Tippit! How would that be explained? Courson's solution was to be somewhere else in a hurry and not get caught up in it. 

(One could also envision, depending on the timing, Courson in the alley, car parked, in plain clothes, perhaps standing somewhere in the alley, waiting for the time of the planned meeting, and Barbara Davis still in her own house, just before she would have walked around to the side apartment of Virginia, all set up with Virginia doing babysitting. All of this with the shooting happening just before the meeting would have taken place, such that Barbara would still be in her own apartment with Virginia as testified, there was no marital unfaithfulness in this episode, and Courson had an even faster start in his getaway if he heard the shots while already in the alley not far from his car.)  

OK Paul, this is my modified scenario in light of your good comments. Your objections to Courson providing the Virginia Davis phone number to Ruby have merit, now corrected. In this scenario, the phone call to the Carousel Club from Virginia Davis's phone, duly written down by Craford in the notebook, would have come from one of the two Davis women, and of the two I believe Barbara is the more likely, enlisting young Virginia as a witting helper in Barbara's interest in a club employment. Courson is present at the scene in this scenario but there is no affair. 

If this was the scenario, Courson was involved with the killing of Tippit though he was not witting in advance that Tippit was going to be murdered. But his unwitting involvement in the killing of Tippit, rather than an affair, would motivate Courson to flee rather than stay on the scene and attempt to assist in apprehending the otherwise-unknown killer. 

When Courson went to the Texas Theatre and went up to the balcony to find the suspected killer of Tippit said to be in the balcony, he let a man coming from the balcony walk down the stairs past him without stopping him. By this scenario, that man could indeed have been the killer of Tippit, Craford, who after killing Tippit had reloaded and fled on foot, had gone past Brewer's store, ran by Julia Postal and up into the balcony, there intent upon killing Oswald next seated in the main seating area below, with a running vehicle with the keys in the ignition and engine running out the back door set for the escape after killing Oswald (but Oswald's life was saved by the police arrival and arrest).  

In this scenario, it could be Courson recognized the man he let walk by him coming from the location where police radio said the suspect was. By that time Courson knew that a police officer had been killed, meaning Tippit was dead and not Craford, from the shots Courson may have heard at 10th and Patton. Then Courson encounters Craford, who by this reconstruction Courson may have known (Courson did after all hang out in the Carousel Club), the suspect in the balcony. But Courson does not stop or arrest him.

Now Courson, by that action, even though he was not party to the murder of officer Tippit, is in even deeper, for he knew and yet he let the man go when he could have stopped him. 

Myers' source told Myers that there was a coverup of the officer's presence. The coverup may be true but the affair explanation for that coverup could be smoke and untrue. It sounds like a plausible explanation, but the affair may have been a fiction designed to make a good alibi, when the actual coverup was that it was not a coincidence that an officer was having an affair exactly where Tippit showed up to get shot, but that the officer's, Courson's, presence was part of Tippit getting shot, in the sense of (unwitting) involvement in Tippit being lured there. 

If this scenario were correct, would Courson have told higher-ups the truth of what happened there that day?

We would not know for sure, but let me take a guess and say, yes, he would tell Decker, his immediate superior. He was in good relationship and confidence with Sheriff Decker. Courson was essentially Decker's right-hand man, with there being something of a rivalry between Courson and Walthers for who Decker would pick or favor to be sheriff after Decker (from several of the accounts in Sneed, also Roger Craig's book).  

This would mean Decker knew (maybe). Not that Decker did it, but that Decker knew. Then there was a decision to cover up, which looks like it would come from Decker (the decision). And that would be the coverup told to Myers. Closely held, successful. This would explain why Decker never had Courson write any report. It would explain why Courson stayed completely under the radar of everything, no interviews to anyone whatsoever (known to me anyway) until Courson gives a single, sole, prepared "cover story" to Sneed, shortly after which he conveniently expires at the ripe old age of 60, following which someone in the know tells Myers a version of the truth being covered up, of the officer's presence (which was Courson), sanitizing it saying it was because of an affair, and the reason for the coverup was to "protect the woman's reputation". Sounds good, sounds plausible! But it was not the truth of why the coverup. 

I will be interested in your assessment of this Paul.

For the record, this scenario assumes priorly that the killer of Tippit was Craford/Ruby related and that the killing of Tippit was an ambush and an execution. It assumes two studies I have developed separately on the Tippit case, "Were the Tippit crime scene shell hulls fired from the revolver of Lee Harvey Oswald?" and "Lee Harvey Oswald's two jackets and why the Tippit killer's jacket was not one of them" at my website: https://www.scrollery.com/?page_id=1581.

OK Ron, that is what I thought, nothing documentary from 1963. What you are quoting is oral history he gave probably in the late 1980s (because he died 1990), published 1998, decades after the fact, no corroboration. 

If he was not the patrol car that Mrs. Holan saw leaving in the alley, the officer told to Myers present at the scene, the story might be true as it stands.

But if Courson was that officer, the officer that Myers' source said was protected in a coverup from revelation of his identity ... do you think he is going to blab to Sneed about how he was the officer who fled the scene of the crime that way?

Of course not. In fact, since the Sneed story is his only account of that day in his entire life, if he was the covered-up officer of the Tippit crime scene he would be expected not to volunteer that aspect.

And in your excerpted quotations, one of the ellipses parts is Courson saying how he is (he says) at home, he says his wife phones him and tells him JFK has been shot. Then he does the logical thing any officer called at home will do, puts on yesterday's used shirt and yesterday's clothes, to report for duty leaving home! 

Does that make sense?

Then he ends up going in the direction of Oak Cliff which is neither where he lives nor his normal place of work nor where he says he was headed when he left home (downtown), before receiving, by coincidence, after already turned to head toward Oak Cliff, the news of Tippit being shot in Oak Cliff! 

And on top of those and more anomalies as previously discussed, for unknown reason he is never asked to submit a written report like other DPD and Sheriff's Dept officers did that day. But he is in Oak Cliff within minutes of when Tippit was shot. And then at the Texas Theatre at Oswald's arrest.

The point: your reliance upon Courson himself as he tells it to Sneed twenty-five years later as "clearing" Courson from being possibly the officer of the affair at the scene of the crime--is pretty naive.

Over two decades later, his sole sayso ... good enough for you, that settles it, he wasn't there twenty minutes before he says he was on that day a quarter of a century earlier?

I say Courson's account of being at home and getting dressed by putting on yesterday's clothes to go to work is off-key and suggests Courson's story is not altogether accurate, that maybe he was not at home at the time of the JFK assassination as claimed.