Greg Doudna

1 hour ago, Bill Brown said:

You do realize that Holan (from her apartment halfway down Patton) couldn't have seen a police car in the driveway between 404 and 410 E. 10th Street, right?  Dale Myers proved that she did not live on Tenth Street on 11/22/63, as mistakenly claimed by Brownlow, et al.

Yes Myers proved that, and yes I realize Mrs. Holan could not have seen a police car in the driveway between 404 and 410 E. 10th Street, and that is not my claim. I am claiming Mrs. Holan told of seeing a police car backing up in the alley, not that driveway, even though Brownlow said driveway. I am saying Brownlow screwed up the retelling of Doris Holan's story such as on that point. The backing-up of a patrol car of Doris Holan's story was true but her story I am reconstructing was she told of what she saw of that car in the alley. Brownlow changed what Doris Holan said of the alley to as if Doris Holan said it occurred in the driveway. Doris Holan never claimed other than what she could see from her second-story window on Patton which was the alley. Does it make sense now what I am saying?

7 minutes ago, Bill Brown said:

To the point of this thread and my original post...

I have spoken to Mike Brownlow at least a half dozen times in person.  I know for a fact that he is full of lies and "tall-tales".  I can give examples if you really do insist.  He'll say anything to make a buck or two.  It is my opinion that Doris Holan never said any of this to him or Livingstone or Pulte.  I also do not believe that Sam Guinyard ever told Brownlow (supposedly in 1970, if I recall correctly) that he (Guinyard) saw a police car in the alley.

Interesting. You are serious that you think Doris Holan never said any of that to Brownlow or Pulte? But Pulte was sitting right there with and agreeing with Brownlow in a video of Brownlow telling the story, and Pulte was with Brownlow one of the times visiting Doris Holan when she was dying of cancer. Is it believable that Pulte too would agree to endorse a total fabrication of Brownlow?

Do you accept or question that they visited her when she was dying of cancer as they said?

That Brownlow and Pulte could distort or embellish what Doris Holan said I do not doubt. But that there never was a Doris Holan story at all, that's a bit much. Why is that more likely than that they had a story of Doris Holan and just told it their way? It seems a bit much to me that both Brownlow and Pulte would collude in a total fabrication and Doris Holan never had any such story in some form. Please say more. Explain?

As you know from what I wrote, I am proposing to interpret the discrepancies in the Holan and Courson stories in terms of, in the case of Holan, transmission garbling from Livingstone/Pulte/Brownlow's retelling (i.e. I am proposing that Holan told of the alley but her transmitters, influenced by thinking she lived on 10th, had her saying driveway), and in the case of Courson, purposeful changing of details on the part of Courson (i.e. his referring to backing in his car all the way on 10th back to Denver, rather than backing in the alley all the way back to Denver). I am explaining the differences those ways, while interpreting the distinctive commonalities in the two accounts, combined with the lack of any other known information on Courson at the Tippit crime scene supporting Courson's version, as the argument for the match of the two stories.

Would an officer not drive a cruiser in his off-duty hours to have an affair? Good question. If it was off-duty, and would not get back to his wife, why not? Didn't Virginia Davis make some reference in her Warren Commission testimony to thinking a police officer lived at about 410 E 10th? Which could be explained by seeing a cruiser parked there enough times to think that. And yet there was no police officer living on that block of 10th, so there could be a patrol car and an affair, on 10th Street, perhaps the same patrol car Doris Holan saw, perhaps Courson's patrol car with the man in it who had not changed his clothes overnight. 

But carry on! I appreciate your critique.

(And believe it or not I am not being ironic. Please continue.) 

23 hours ago, Allen Lowe said:

Von Pein is like a bad nickel, keeps popping up to show us how fake it is. As for Ruth being a war tax protester, was she ever prosecuted for this? Of course not. She has, like all intelligence operatives, a get out of jail free card

This is uncalled-for Allen. I know a bit about war tax resistance. Rarely are there criminal prosecutions. Usually IRS collects the money plus penalty money and war tax resisters do not resist the forcible collection from the bank account. You fling the smearing of Ruth Paine and don't know what you are talking about. 

Wilful failure to file, in which one writes the IRS and tells them there will be no filing for reasons x, y, z, that is informs IRS of one's wilful violation of the requirement to file, is taken seriously by IRS and can be expected to risk prosecution though not always. The IRS may do their own assessment of what is owed and collect it and penalties in lieu of prosecution. But more commonly among Friends involved in tax resistance there is a filing, with partial amount of the tax money placed in a bank account for peaceful purposes instead of paid to IRS, with information to the IRS that the money is placed there instead of paid to the government for reasons x, y, z. On the books that is a violation of a different federal law (wilful failure to pay) but in practice IRS pursues collection not criminal prosecution in these cases. I don't know the details but I assume Ruth Paine followed this second route or something close to it and prosecution would not have been expected. 

An article on war tax resistance in Friends history: https://www.friendsjournal.org/quaker-war-tax-resistance/. 

Friends have long sought the U.S. Congress to pass a bill which would legalize conscientious objection for war taxes analogous to conscientious objection to military service, in which taxes paid by conscientious objectors would be earmarked for peaceful purposes. There is at present no prospect of passage. https://peacetaxfund.org/about-the-bill/

"The Peace Tax Fund Bill would affect the “current military” portion of the U.S. budget. The Peace Tax Fund Bill would amend the Internal Revenue Code to permit taxpayers conscientiously opposed to participating in war to have their income, estate or gift tax payments spent for non-military purposes only. The Bill excuses no taxpayers from paying their full tax liability." 

The case for a patrol cruiser in the alley behind E. 10th Street at the time of the Tippit killing, and possible identification of the anonymous "affair" officer of the Myers story, Part 2

In 1998 an officer, not otherwise known to have been at the Tippit crime scene, gave a firsthand account of driving a cruiser at the crime scene doing strange backing-up movements, told for the first time ever in Sneed, No More Silence (1998). The officer is not a Dallas Police officer but rather a sheriff's deputy, Bill Courson. Bill Courson tells that he was in Oak Cliff, was at the scene of the Tippit crime and was at the Texas Theatre. But unlike as with other sheriff's deputies and officers at those places in Oak Cliff that day, there is no written report from Courson from that day, anywhere to be found. that day. You can search on the Mary Ferrell site and there is practically nothing on this guy. No researcher, no book author, no newspaper reporter, ever interviewed him about his presence in Oak Cliff apart from the Sneed 1998 chapter that I have ever been able to find, even though Courson was prominent enough in the sheriff's department that I believe he actually ran for sheriff in a later election although he lost the election. Roger Craig's manuscript mentions Courson a few times, maybe one or two other sheriff's deputies that day, so his name does pop up in the background here and there. But no official report on or about or from Courson himself. 

And--boy do I find this detail interesting!--Courson tells of how he was in his yesterday's crumpled clothing all the time he was at the Tippit crime scene, at the Texas Theatre, etc. A deputy sheriff on duty wearing yesterday's clothing! (Yesterday's street clothing, he was plain-clothed.) How normal is that? Sort of sounds like he maybe was in Oak Cliff overnight before unexpectedly called into service Fri Nov 22 because of the assassination, doesn't it? As if he was in yesterday's clothing because he had no chance to get home and into fresh clothing (Courson lived quite a way south of Oak Cliff). Why would an officer wear yesterday's clothing on Fri Nov 22 in Oak Cliff? Maybe he was the officer of the affair of the story told to Myers. That would be one way of explaining why Courson was in yesterday's clothes, and I do not have a very long short list of other good explanations. Courson that day was in plain clothes, street clothes (his normal dress in his work), but in a patrol cruiser.

"As I was coming up Jefferson, running fast with red lights and siren ... As I stepped out of the car, a uniformed officer who had seen the red lights and realized it was an official car, even though I was in the rumpled plain clothes that I had worn the night before, hollered at me..."" (p. 484).

"... I had on some old wrinkled clothes and really didn't look like a police officer" (p. 485)

Here is Courson's description of his driving that police cruiser in a strange backing-up way. In Courson's telling he has this occurring a few minutes after the Tippit killing in the context of all law enforcement arriving in response from elsewhere, even though no other account of the Tippit killing ever heard of Courson's presence at 10th and Patton prior to Courson's 1998 account. No official record, no known report or record in the Dallas Police archives, or on the Mary Ferrel site, mentions Courson present at the Tippit crime scene. Nor does Myers' With Malice contain any mention of Courson's presence at the Tippit crime scene. Notice Courson's description of his patrol car's movements, and compare it with echoes or similarities in the Doris Holan story.

"[I] went to the location where the office, Tippit, had been shot. Tippit's car was on the right hand side of the street facing east while I was on the right side facing west. As I pulled up alongside the car, there was another uniformed officer at the location who was evidently waiting for the wrecker to come and get Tippit's car. I don't recall whether I had heard that he was dead, but I believe I did. As I stepped out of the car, the call came in on Tippit's radio, which was still on, that 'The suspect wearing a white or light colored jacket, has been seen running into the balcony of the Texas Theater.'

"We were only a few blocks from the theater, but I had to back up and turn to get back onto Jefferson. Another officer was headed the same way, so he and I ran a race, my going backward and his going forward to see who could make that turn to get onto Jefferson first. He was in front of me and went on around to the back of the theater. I'm inclined to believe this was McDonald, the one who eventually captured Oswald, but I'm not sure. Anyway, he went on in his squad car around the theater..." (pp. 484-85)

Doris Holan story:

"[Doris Holan] also claimed she saw a Dallas police squad car, that apparently originated from the back of the lot [at 410 or 406 E. 10th], rolling slowly down the driveway toward the street. About half-way down the driveway, the squad car stopped. 'She said, I could see this--on the left side--the cherry--what they called the cherry on top,' Brownlow tells us." (Myers 2020, linked above, citing a transcript of Brownlow and Pulte 2015)

"... the police car, which was continuing to back-up in the driveway" (Myers 2020, same) 

Long story short, I studied the Doris Holan story a while ago and reconstructed what I think happened, and what I think was the same as actually happened with Courson's patrol car. The car was parked off the alley, somewhere in the vicinity of 410 or 406 E. 10th. Within moments of the shots in which Tippit was killed, as Doris Holan looked out her window with line of sight right into that alley, she saw that patrol car back up and leave the alley. The way the patrol car left was not straightforward however. From wherever it was parked, it backed into the alley itself, headed east in the alley, but for some reason was unable to turn the car around to go frontward east. From my interpretation of the accounts I believe the driver of that patrol car backed his car all the way east until coming out on Denver. Then backing into Denver out into the street, the driver was able to drive normally south on Denver the half-block to Jefferson. The reason for backing up the length of the alley east to Denver would be because of the narrowness of the alley, and perhaps because the driver at first backed out thinking he would exit the alley on Patton (closer) but perhaps from seeing persons there changed his mind to just take the longer way east to Denver, backing up the entire length of the alley due to the alley's narrowness and/or not wanting to take the time to get his cruiser turned around. In any case, this is my reconstruction of that car's movements as a match to both the Doris Holan story and Courson's story, because I think there is a very good chance those two stories are the same story.

Then, if that is true, Courson would become the unnamed officer of the story that was leaked to Myers, which was said to involve an affair.

His rumpled day-old street clothing would be consistent with his having been overnight in Oak Cliff, not at his home where he would have put on fresh clothes if so.

His failure to turn in a report or be asked to turn in a report is consistent with what Myers was told years later, that high-level insiders to Dallas law enforcement covered up that officer's presence at the scene of the crime.

The immediate leaving of the officer, instead of running out to assist Tippit and/or call for backup and/or attempt to apprehend the killer in hot pursuit, would be accounted for in terms of his not wanting his presence and the affair to come out. (It could also be accounted for in terms of his having been part of the killing itself, but I reason that is not the case, since in that case it is unlikely he would openly park his police cruiser in the alley right there. The affair is how it was told to Myers, and although it is hard to know for sure, the story at least hangs together with Courson's day-old clothing.) 

Courson's 1998 story in Sneed would be Courson's alibi version, in which a careful reading could show Courson was covering all major points of a story giving his explanations, not all of which should be assumed to be accurate as Courson tells it. For example: Courson claims he was sleeping at home, way to the south of Oak Cliff, with his wife gone at work and no one at home but himself, when he claims his wife called him and told him of the assassination, whereupon he put on all his same street clothes from the day before evidently not believing there was a moment to spare to put on fresh clothes, and headed in to Dallas to assist officers there. 

"At first, I just couldn't believe it [what his wife told him over the phone re JFK shot] and that it had happened in Dallas. So I dressed, put on the old rumpled clothes that I had worn the night before, and within five minutes, since the squad car was at the house, I was on the way to downtown Dallas and checked into service about halfway between DeSoto and Oak Cliff ... I just listened to the radio until I was about halfway into Oak Cliff. I didn't try to break in and check in sooner because of the traffic..." (Sneed, p. 482) 

I do not believe Courson was at home. I think he had on his old clothes because he was in Oak Cliff overnight. When the Tippit killing occurred he fled, drove just enough south of Oak Cliff or reported his location as such, to report in to service as if he was newly arriving to Oak Cliff from his home from the south. Then Courson returned (or remained) in Oak Cliff to be present at the Texas Theatre et al. Courson's claim that he was at home, as well as other claims which can be similarly examined in his Sneed account, is his alternative storyline or alibi narrative, a counter-narrative to what may have been the actual truth, that he was that mystery officer witness told high-level to Myers, present at the scene of the Tippit killing when it happened, identity covered up. 

And Doris Holan did see that patrol car in that alley. 

So that's my reconstruction Bill. What do you think? 

The case for a patrol cruiser in the alley behind E. 10th Street at the time of the Tippit killing, and possible identification of the anonymous "affair" officer of the Myers story, Part 1

Bill, I think there is something to the story of the officer at the scene whose existence and identity was covered up and whose identity remains covered up to the present day. Part of the reason is Myers' report of the senior standing and credibility of who told him that. 

This conceivably could be some kind of intentional planting of a total fabrication (with Myers who has the most standing and credibility on the Tippit case to report), just to create a wild-goose chase. While not knowing for sure, I think Myers' judgment that his source was truthful to him (this from the way Myers' presents the story in With Malice, whether or not it is explicitly stated) weighs in favor of something there to the story. 

But what I see is it is an intentional, very late, leak to Myers. For that reason I do not regard the specifics of the story as obviously correct even if there is something to the story itself. Specifically, suppose an officer was an unknown witness at the scene. Was he really there because he was having an affair with a woman, and his presence at that location therefore completely accidental? That is the story given to Myers. If there was an officer there was that the reason or is this someone's later innocent alibi?

Many times leaks of unusual or sensational true stories happen when it is realized or feared that the true story could leak without one's wishes, so preemptively leak in the most favorable spin. It looks outwardly like someone coming forth on their own initiative. But this is standard PR practice when bad news is about to break (or there is risk of such)--get out front and leak the story yourself and frame it favorably, before hostile journalists who are after your blood leak it in a worse framing of your side. 

With this said, your whole point of this thread comes down to an argument that the Brownlow story of the police car in the alley is a tall tale, but the argument you give in support of that I have shown above is too weak to qualify as much of a significant negative argument. On the other hand Myers' high-level confidential informant saying there was a police officer there that day at that time, while not certain, is more substantial. It weighs in favor of the Brownlow story could be correct, in the sense of having something to it (not meaning in the sense of every specific of Brownlow's story).

By the Brownlow story is meant the Doris Holan story. Doris Holan claimed to be a witness that day and claimed to have seen a police car making strange back-and-forth movements and leaving that alley immediately following the shots. That Doris Holan had such a story, a claim to have been a firsthand witness, is not in dispute, though it is highly frustrating and unfortunate that there is no tape or writing from Doris Holan herself of that story, and the contents of her story are known only through the hearsay retelling of Livingstone, Brownlow, and Pulte, who unfortunately may not be the most scrupulously accurate retellers. So the only form in which Doris Holan's story is known has to be examined critically on the likely assumption that it is garbled. What Doris Holan actually said can only be reconstructed underneath the hearsay retelling of Livingstone, Brownlow, and Pulte. And of course even if there was a perfect reconstruction of what Doris Holan said, what the truth was that day can only be reconstructed underneath the telling of Doris Holan.

The Doris Holan story as Pulte, Livingstone, and Brownlow told it, and as many have believed and promoted for years, one can still find it in books, collapsed in that Myers showed that Doris Holan was not living on 10th Street at the time of the Tippit killing as Pulte, Livingstone and Brownlow had Doris Holan telling it. Myers' evidence on this is unequivocal, it is just fact, that Doris Holan did not live on 10th Street and hence the Pulte et al story of her overlooking and seeing the cruiser and the men and police car in the driveway behind the cruiser, cannot have happened as Pulte et al told it. (Added to that Myers also makes a pretty good argument that the driveway itself was blocked from exit access into the alley making the account not possible on separate grounds, but that is neither here nor there compared to the fact that Doris Holan was not living on 10th St. in the first place.) (https://jfkfiles.blogspot.com/2020/11/doris-e-holan-and-tippit-murder.html)

But the new fact established by Myers in 2020, is that Doris Holan lived at 113-1/2 S. Patton Street. That is the second floor of the apartment building on the northwest corner of Patton and the alley, and although Myers did not realize it, it actually strengthens, not weakens, the plausibility of the claim in the Doris Holan story to have seen a police cruiser in the alley. The Doris Holan story gains, is not diminished, in credibility in light of a realization of Doris Holan's actual, true, correct address. For as Doris Holan put it, when she heard the shots she ran to her front window (which in fact, not known until 2020, overlooked Patton), and the view from her window overlooking Patton looks directly east right straight directly into that alley. Doris Holan told of that alley and said she saw a police cruiser making strange backing up movements and then leaving. That is a description of seeing someone in a parked car in that alley backing up and leaving in a hurry, as it would appear to someone looking out Doris Holan's second-story window with a view looking directly into that alley.

Doris Holan still could have got it wrong, been mistaken, whatever. But her story now, on its face, becomes actually more plausible, nothing implausible about it (cutting through the garbling of the Pulte et al retelling). 

And when that is combined independently with the Myers' high-level confidential leak to Myers re the secret police officer witness there that day, that sounds, not as certain, but it sounds like corroborative support for the Doris Holan claim. So much so that I have wondered if the thing that prompted the late leak to Myers might have been the garbled versions of the Doris Holan story itself kicking around on the internet.

I also have a third independent account to add to this mix, my discovery of an account of an officer in a patrol car at the scene of the crime that day whose patrol car movements evoke that described by Doris Holan, not known on any document in the Mary Ferrell site, not known in Myers' book of 2013, not known in Myers' 2020 breaking of his research on the Doris Holan story. (Continued.)

1 hour ago, Bill Brown said:

 

Either they were not competent compared to Lutz in 1994, or they were competent and were holding that finding back. Which do you think it was?

I believe a third option:

No one said the killer touched the fender.

The prints lifted from the fender don't belong to Oswald.

Oswald killed Tippit but didn't touch the fender.

The prints weren't Oswald's but they don't rule out Oswald as the killer (since no one saw the killer touch the fender).

The prints, if they could have been linked to anyone (they couldn't because they were only partial) would not rule out Oswald as the killer.

Wait a minute Bill. How is your third option different from the second (that the DPD Crime Lab found in Nov 1963 "the prints weren't Oswald's" but intentionally did not disclose that)?

Thanks Larry, that makes sense. Nothing mentioned of either of those two items to the earlier AARB is odd if Jenkins had really told those things to Wheaton.

56 minutes ago, Joe Bauer said:

Greg Doudna ...

Speaking of hand written notes from Jack Ruby, what do you think of the claim by Dallas Sheriff Al Maddox that Jack Ruby ( being escorted from his jail cell to a courtroom. ) passed him a hand written note via a hand shake where Ruby wrote that "it was a conspiracy" ( the whole JFK affair or just the Oswald killing?"

You think Maddox made that story up?

Maddox was right there on the inside during Ruby's entire time in jail.

I don't think Maddox was making that up but finding that note today or what it said exactly is not easy. The best I can find is this from a 1996-1997 issue of The Kennedy Assassination Chronicles 2, 4, which says: "By my efforts, this note was loaned to the former JFK Assassination Information Center on May 13, 1992, to be exhibited to the public. It was later sold to collector Anthony Puglcise. A section of the note states, '... my motive was to silence Oswald'" (https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=4257#relPageId=49).

Larry, here it is. Wheaton as reported in a 2005 publication by Law and Sobel, on the Spartacus site:

"Carl Jenkins formed the first Marine Corps Reserve Unit in New Orleans in Louisiana and was the CIA liaison officer between CIA headquarters and Carlos Marcello and organized crime in the area. Carl helped recruit Lee Harvey Oswald into the CIA while he was a marine... Lee was just a stooge they set up as part of a Operation Security Plan for deniability when they put a real dirty operation into place." (https://spartacus-educational.com/JFKwheaton.htm )

Is it plausible that there was a CIA-Marcello liaison? What would be the nature of that liaison relationship? What would they liaise about? Marcello was all domestic, and CIA is all non-domestic (cough cough), right? 

7 minutes ago, Bill Brown said:

No.

Because I believe Barnes when he said the prints were of no use.

But, have at it.  Good luck.

OK, a straight answer, thanks.

Incidentally, do you have any idea why Barnes did not disclose the exclusion of a match with Oswald in 1963? Would there have been any reason not to disclose that?

Was it the DPD crime lab was just not up to speed on that, really couldn't find what Lutz in 1994 easily found in a few minutes, as Myers has told?

But it sure is good to know you have certainty that the DPD crime lab was right on no ability to get a positive identification!

17 minutes ago, Bill Brown said:

Greg, have you seen the prints?  They're only partial prints and Barnes tells you that they're of no use.

Yes I've seen the prints, they're published Myers 336-337. The fender prints look like there's a lot there to me. I am not knowledgeable enough on fingerprints to know that Barnes was correct that they are useless. 

If Barnes (or whoever prepared the information to which Barnes testified) really knew what they were talking about, they would have disclosed the non-match to Oswald of those fender prints, instead of saying the prints were of no use. 

Either they were not competent compared to Lutz in 1994, or they were competent and were holding that finding back. Which do you think it was?

1 hour ago, Bill Brown said:

In saying tall-tales by "researchers", I was referring to Mike Brownlow.

I didn't manufacture anything out of thin air.  I was asking you a question.

As for the story of the officer having a "tryst with a married woman" in one of the houses on Tenth Street, I don't have an opinion on it.  I don't support it.  I don't use it in any attempt to show Oswald's guilt.  At the same time, I haven't said it was not true.  I couldn't know one way or another, since the name of the officer isn't revealed.  Because the officer's name isn't revealed, I have no interest in it.

OK thanks for clarifying. 

55 minutes ago, Bill Brown said:

I don't support futile efforts.

Understood. But what if it cost you nothing other than lending your name or endorsement, in the company of other legitimate requesting names. Worst case: it is futile, what have you lost. Best case: maybe it is possible despite your pessimism. What's the harm in pointing the telescope, so to speak, using 2022 expertise and best methods, just to see if something could be there?

What is your answer to the question? Would you support a responsible effort to obtain an identification of those fingerprints? 

I am asking you to answer the question.

David B., Larry H., if I have this right, according to Wheaton, Jenkins claimed he recruited Oswald into the CIA when Oswald was in the Marines, and also claimed he was the CIA liaison to mob boss Marcello in New Orleans. How do you assess the credibility of Jenkins on those claims?

2 hours ago, Bill Brown said:

No, I don't take that position.  

Thank you for making clear that you do not rule out that the killer may be the most likely source of the fingerprints. (Not that you are saying it is, just that you are not ruling it out that it is, the most likely source. Thank you.)

2 hours ago, Bill Brown said:

Would you support a responsible effort to obtain an identification of those fingerprints?

I've explained this before.  The prints lifted by Barnes were of no value.  They weren't a complete set of prints.  In order to link prints to a particular person, you need a certain number of matching points (see the 12 point rule).  However, much less is needed in order to rule a person out.

In other words, the set of prints weren't complete enough (per Barnes) to link them to any particular person but there was enough information in the prints (per Myers' expert Lutz) to rule out Oswald as the person who left the prints.  Because these prints were of no value (not enough information in the prints to link them to ANYONE), a "responsible effort" to obtain an identification would be futile.

What is your answer to the question asked?

No don't be silly. You are the one, not me, who referred to tall tales of a police car at the crime scene. Are you saying the story reported by Myers is a tall tale? That is the question. I do not think it is a tall tale. What about you?

I have enough problems running afoul of Myers on real issues, I don't need you manufacturing ones out of thin air. 

2 hours ago, Bill Brown said:

You claim (without any shred of real evidence at all) that it is likely that those prints cane from the killer.  I could just as easily say that those prints came from a suspect who was told to place his hands on the car in order to be frisked by an officer during a previous shift.  I could just as easily say that those prints came from one of the bystanders at the Tippit crime scene before officers secured the area.  You do realize that people descended on the area of the patrol car well before the area was secured.  Right?

Are you saying it was one of these other scenarios you name? 

Neither of us really knows for sure, right?

I agree my "likely" is subjective, hunch rather than provable. I am saying that based on looks like a duck, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck logic. 

It is a sideshow for you to criticize my "likely" based on the grounds of your (correct) observation that there is no real way to objectively quantify or prove a priori odds or probability in this instance, unless--it is a sideshow unless--you suppose one or another alternative explanation (in aggregate) is "more likely" than that they came from the killer. Do you take that position, and if so could you explain your reasoning underlying a subjective judgment why a non-killer's origin is relatively more likely than a killer's origin (if you hold that)? If you don't hold that position, would you make that clear explicitly?

Would you support a responsible effort to obtain an identification of those fingerprints?

I have spoken with Joe Alesi two times. Strikes me as a decent, quiet, soft-spoken guy, who lives in the area where Ruth Paine lives in California and came into contact with Michael and then her by accident through his collecting activities (a contact with Michael who was then in California but not at that time living in the same assisted living place where Ruth Paine is, over a collector's item as I recall is how it started for Joe). As I understand it he became a friend and confidante to Ruth (who I understand has had some dark moments of private grief over how she is portrayed, behind her strength in public, and can use Joe's shoulder, so to speak). The "handler" suggestion is unwarranted and baseless from anything I can see. I see no sign that anybody is handling Ruth Paine other than herself. If there is a handler in that relationship, it is Ruth handling Joe in the sense of Joe being willing to do favors for Ruth, but mostly a listening ear. Joe told me that as he came to know Ruth personally he came to totally believe in her innocence. I can relate to that.

In addition to working as an investigator for Defense Investigative Service, at an earlier stage he told me he worked for the IRS. Since Ruth has some history as a war tax protester (wilful violation of federal law with respect to income taxes, to make a political statement against how the money is used), Joe told me of that as irony since he was on the other side working for IRS (as an auditor I think). 

Joe told me many interesting stories of some of his collecting history, of encounters with famous people, both involved with the JFK assassination and apart from the JFK assassination. I have no experience in the world of collecting myself so for me this was an insight into that world and fascinating.

One item in particular of possible interest is Joe told me he has some original notes of Jack Ruby handwritten when Ruby was in prison, apparently not previously known. A letterhead authenticates them purportedly signed by Earl Ruby, Jack Ruby's brother in Chicago, deceased. I was intrigued and have seen and read them, several dozen pages of handwriting. Nothing in content that bears on Oswald or the assassination. Mostly it is stories of fights or altercations Ruby was in, names and details, with Ruby's side of those altercations explained. However, and I expressed this to Joe, certain things cause me to suspect a question of authenticity with these, i.e. possible forgery, in terms of content, late apparent emergence to knowledge of these notes, and chain of custody. However, the handwriting is extensive and since authentic Jack Ruby handwriting also exists in extensive quantity, expert comparison could be done and presumably establish up or down whether that is really Jack Ruby's handwriting (which is over my head in terms of expertise). 

But never mind that, back to Alesi. I looked up Defense Investigative Service, the former name for what is now called Defense Criminal Investigative Service (the name change occurred 1999). Wikipedia says this under its article by its current name:

The Defense Criminal Investigative Service is the criminal investigative arm of the Office of Inspector General, U.S. Department of Defense. DCIS protects military personnel by investigating cases of fraud, bribery, and corruption; preventing the illegal transfer of sensitive defense technologies to proscribed nations and criminal elements; investigating companies that use defective, substandard, or counterfeit parts in weapon systems and equipment utilized by the military; and stopping cyber crimes and computer intrusions. (. . .) To be considered for a DCIS special agent position, an individual must: Be a U.S. citizen, age between 21 and 37 years, pass screening, background investigation and have exceptional communication skills. DCIS special agent candidates initially receive training at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (FLETC) located in Glynco, Georgia. They attend FLETC's basic training course for special agents, the Criminal Investigator Training Program, which lasts about 12 weeks and represents the beginning of basic training received by DCIS special agents. Later, agents may return to FLETC to attend specialized training in contractor fraud, money laundering, computer crimes, advanced interview techniques, etc. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_Criminal_Investigative_Service)

 I am glad Ruth Paine has someone supportive nearby like Alesi.

That's an interesting point Bill, though I wonder how decisive it is. Your point is that Benavides would have noticed, and would be expected to have said something if he had seen, say a parked patrol car in one of the backyards in that alley as he drove by. However Benavides is never known to have been asked that question, and Benavides in particular of witnesses kept very much out of the limelight, said very little of anything. If Benavides was not specifically asked that question by the Warren Commission, and he said little else to anyone other than his Warren Commission testimony, is his failure to volunteer such a detail of significant weight on the question?

On reference to researchers' tall-tales referring to a police car in the alley, what do you make of Myers' report of a presence of a police officer in a house overlooking the crime scene at the time of the murder, covered up by members of the Dallas Police? From the 2013 With Malice, 374:

"Recently, it was learned that there was a Dallas police officer who had frequented the Tenth and Patton area and, in fact, was there at the time of Tippit's murder.

"According to sources, a Dallas police officer was involved in a tryst with a married woman on the afternoon of November 22, 1963, in a house that overlooked the Tippit murder scene. At the sound of the shots, the officer looked out a window and observed the killer fleeing the scene. Reportedly, the officer positively identified the gunman as Lee Harvey Oswald; however, the story never crept beyond a handful of lawmen for fear of unintentionally exposing the relationship. The story was confirmed in 1996 by a high ranking Dallas official who stated that the 'information received was sufficient to cause belief.'

"'This person's credibility level was high,' the official remarked, 'because after all is said and done,. you're not going to get yourself any favorable publicity from it. There's no motive for saying it if it weren't true.' Only a handful of people were aware of the story and as far as the official knew it was never made available to officers investigating Tippit's death."

Bill Brown--apart from the heads-up on dispatcher Murray Jackson's last name being Jackson (thanks), the rest of your points mostly go to well-known references where I think you already know what you are asking me to provide. But let's run through them anyway. 

On the fingerprints lifted from the Tippit cruiser in agreement with where the killer's hands were witnessed in closer proximity than any other known person

2 hours ago, Bill Brown said:

There is no reason whatsoever to believe that the partial prints lifted from the patrol car ever belonged to the killer.  No witness ever said the killer touched the front passenger fender.  Why would the killer touch the front passenger fender?  These partial prints are not "likely" to have come from the killer, despite the claim by Doudna.

Well, well. I would like to answer your question with a question: do you think it likely or unlikely that the fingerprints were left by a human being?

No, I'm not being facetious, I am asking you to answer that question and explain why, since all of your objections to an individual known to have been in proximity to where those prints were found, apply equally well if not more so to all other human beings on the planet too. 

"No witness ever said a human being touched the front passenger fender."

"Why would a human being touch the front passenger fender?"

"[Therefore] these partial prints are not 'likely' to have come from a human being."

Now I don't want to put words into your mouth, but would that be an accurate transference of your logic structure and logical conclusion? 

On the paper-bag revolver found abandoned on a street in downtown Dallas about 18 hours after the Tippit murder, the revolver the Dallas Police department covered up and disappeared, as the possible Tippit murder weapon

2 hours ago, Bill Brown said:

No.  The revolver taken from Oswald during the scuffle inside the theater is the murder weapon.  The shell casings in evidence tell you so (per Frazier, Killion, Cunningham and Nicol).

There are two issues here. The first is would you know the paper-bag revolver was not the murder weapon, independently of the reported FBI match of Oswald's revolver to the evidence shell hulls. (Answer: no, you would not know that.)

The second is, does the report of the FBI lab experts named on the shell casings in evidence establish a different revolver than the paper-bag revolver was the Tippit murder weapon. (Answer: arguably no, see the next point)

On significance of the absence of police sworn testimony under oath establishing chain of custody on the shell hulls close to the crime scene found by the Davis sisters-in-law

2 hours ago, Bill Brown said:

Please explain the "serious questions" surrounding the chain of possession of the two shell casings found by the Davis girls.

https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/28114-tippit-ballistics-is-it-established-that-oswalds-revolver-was-the-murder-weapon/

On the credible witness in the Texas Theatre who told of unusual seating behavior of Oswald in the theatre, and its interpretation as Oswald looking to meet someone.

2 hours ago, Bill Brown said:

What "credible witness" said Oswald was looking to meet someone?  What makes this "witness" credible?  How would this "witness" know what Oswald was looking to do?

Jack Davis. Request his oral history account from the Sixth Floor Museum, as I have done, and judge for yourself. Davis reports behavior of Oswald he observed (Oswald oddly seating himself directly next to one theatre patron after another briefly then moving again, including Davis, in a theatre practically entirely empty). Davis does not interpret its meaning. What does that behavior as reported by this witness sound like to you? My discussion: https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/28004-oswald-tippit-and-carl-mather-connecting-some-dots/.

On Ruby telling police on Nov 24 that his dancer Joy Dale lived at "410-1/2 10th St" in Oak Cliff

2 hours ago, Bill Brown said:

Greg Doudna said:

• The street address of the house at which Tippit stopped his cruiser when he was killed, 410 E. 10th, was given by Ruby two days later, on Sun Nov 24 the day Ruby killed Oswald, as the home address of one of his dancers, a friend of the self-confessed hitman who was in Ruby's car the morning of Sat Nov 23 and fled Texas. That dancer is not verified to have actually lived at the address Ruby gave and is believed to have lived elsewhere in Oak Cliff. But the point of interest is Ruby gave that address where Tippit stopped his cruiser when he was killed, "410-1/2 10th", as that dancer's home address. Why that mistake?

Cite please, for Ruby giving anyone the address of 410 E. 10th Street.

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=62477#relPageId=49

A question for you: do you think Joyce McDonald (Joy Dale) lived at either 410 E 10th or 410 W 10th? If not, how do you interpret Ruby giving that as her address? Why would he give a wrong address for her--that is in agreement with where Tippit stopped his cruiser? I don't know myself. Do you have any bright idea on this? What would the fictional television detective "Columbo" do with that?

Do you think it is possible either Ruby or Joyce McDonald (Joy Dale) did have an apartment on a second story (that would be the "1/2") either at 410 E. 10th where Tippit stopped his cruiser and was killed, or 410 W. 10th? 

On the Tippit crime scene witness identifications of Oswald out of lineups

2 hours ago, Bill Brown said:

"When everyone is agreed on something, it is probably wrong"

Greg, regarding the Tippit witnesses supposedly agreeing on everything, the aphorism you cite is invalid.

For the sake if the point you are trying to make, you have to take all of the witnesses into account (not only those who said the man was indeed Lee Oswald).  Jimmy Burt, Bill Smith, Domingo Benavides, L.J. Lewis and Robert Brock... all five of these witnesses stated that they couldn't say one way or the other if the man they saw was Lee Oswald.

Because of this, your entire point is moot.

None of those were taken to lineups were they.

Taking the Tippit crime scene witnesses' lineup testimonies on their own, viewed in isolation, do you regard that as stand-alone decisive in establishing the gunman's identification as Oswald, or would you acknowledge or allow for something short of certainty in confidence of correctness of those witness identifications? What do you think?

On the interpretation of the Tippit killing as Tipping being ambushed by a professional killer

2 hours ago, Bill Brown said:

Greg Doudna said:

But set that aside and on the what I consider more likely scenario that Tippit was ambushed, a hit on Tippit, something had to have brought him there at that time, or else he was a regular there at a certain time and someone was lying in wait based on pattern or habitual behavior.

Greg, Jimmy Burt said the man who would eventually kill Tippit was walking from east to west on Tenth.  Burt said he saw the man walking on the sidewalk on the south side of Tenth a full block to the east of the shooting scene (walking west, toward the eventual shooting scene). 

Lying in wait?  What?

I developed the first of that "or" set of two possibilities. I am interpreting the killer as walking to a prearranged location to meet Tippit at a prearranged time, so in that sense he is "in wait" for Tippit's cruiser to pull up even if the killer arrived only a little earlier. That is how I am interpreting the killer's change of direction on the sidewalk, the back and forth ... someone is out front near the address waiting for Tippit's arrival, Tippit pulls up, the killer flags him down, says something to lure Tippit out of the car ... kills Tippit professionally. 

On Helen Markham picking Oswald out of the lineup

1 hour ago, Bill Brown said:

Greg, you are implying that Markham, during the lineup, decided to simply pick out the man who had the most resemblance to the man she saw shoot Tippit, even if it was not the man she saw do the shooting.  You are saying that Markham wasn't going to leave the lineup without picking someone.  You are saying that it was not an option for Markham to simply tell the officers conducting the lineup that none of the four was the man she saw shoot Tippit.

Referring to the lineup, Markham said: "Number two was the man I saw shoot the policeman."

Greg would have us believe that Markham said instead: "Number two looked the most like the man I saw shoot the policeman."

I don't think I need to go through the Helen Markham lineup identification, you know the details. You know how she at first told the Warren Commission that she did not recognize anyone in the lineup when the lineup first appeared, at first thought she had not seen any of them before, including Oswald in that lineup. You know how she was distraught and fainting. You know how police let her take her time and finally she decided it was Oswald based on getting "cold shivers" looking at him and interpreting her bodily reaction (instead of visual recognition apparently) as her intuitive or instinctual reason, in her highly distraught state, for knowing (in her mind) it was Oswald, then reported finally as a (visual) recognition. 

Mrs. Markham.

Well, let me tell you. I said the second man, and they kept asking me which one, which one. I said, number two. When I said number two, I just got weak.

Mr. Ball.

What about number two, what did you mean when you said number two?

Mrs. Markham.

Number two was the man I saw shoot the policeman.

Mr. Ball.

You recognized him from his appearance?

Mrs. Markham.

I asked--I looked at him. When I saw this man I wasn't sure, but I had cold chills just run all over me.

Mr. Ball.

When you saw him?

Mrs. Markham.

When I saw the man. But I wasn't sure, so, you see, I told them I wanted to be sure, and looked, at his face is what I was looking at, mostly is what I looked at, on account of his eyes, the way he looked at me. So I asked them if they would turn him sideways. They did, and then they turned him back around, and I said the second, and they said, which one, and I said number two. So when I said that, well, I just kind of fell over. Everybody in there, you know, was beginning to talk, and I don't know, just--

Mr. Ball.

Did you recognize him from his clothing?

Mrs. Markham.

He had on a light short jacket, dark trousers. I looked at his clothing, but I looked at his face, too.

Would you judge this as a "maybe" or as a "certainty", if you were on a jury?

44 minutes ago, Michael Griffith said:

Here is more information on the devastating effectiveness of Operations Linebacker I and Linebacker II, as well as on the effectiveness of the naval operations that immediately preceded them. This information comes from an article titled “Operation Linebacker: The Sea-Power Factor,” by Edward Marolda, published two months ago (August 2022) on the U.S. Naval Institute’s website. Among other things, Marolda politely notes that the Linebacker attacks should have been done in 1965.

It is worth repeating over and over that Linebacker II alone refutes the claim that the war was unwinnable. In just 11 days, we brought North Vietnam to the verge of collapse and made them desperate to resume peace

What exactly was the war objective? Regime change in North Vietnam? 

Ho Chi Minh was their George Washington, right? You topple Ho Chi Minh and install a US puppet regime in North Vietnam, or let the existing communist regime remain but with someone other than George Washington running it, how do you prevent the same guerilla war and partisans in South Vietnam all over again? 

Would this be a permanent military presence/occupation in the Vietnams analogous to the Koreas? That is the best-case endgame? 

I did business with a Vietnam vet who ran a computer repair shop in Anacortes, Washington (he's moved to Florida and retired now). He told me he enlisted with six of his high school buddies, seven in all, very tight. Five killed, only two came home, him and one other. He said the very night he landed in Vietnam he knew it was a mistake but what could he do? He said he couldn't very well desert, you just keep going because of your friends and hope to get through it. He carried lifelong fury against wealthy persons in power who profit from wars and send people like him and his high school friends as cannon fodder. He was a decent quiet man who treated people decently but it broke him. 

Is this something to be proud of? "How U.S. chemical warfare in Vietnam unleashed an enduring disaster", https://phys.org/news/2017-10-chemical-warfare-vietnam-unleashed-disaster.html. "More than 10 years of U.S. chemical warfare in Vietnam exposed an estimated 2.1 to 4.8 million Vietnamese people to Agent Orange. More than 40 years on, the impact on their health has been staggering. This dispersion of Agent Orange over a vast area of central and south Vietnam poisoned the soil, river systems, lakes and rice paddies of Vietnam, enabling toxic chemicals to enter the food chain."

Joe Alesi, spelling of name. I've corrected.

From Joe Alesi in California, posted Oct 3, 2022, on a facebook site, JFK Truth Be Told (https://www.facebook.com/groups/553546571932211/) :

" 'Well done, but powerfully awful.' Those were Ruth Paine's words today after watching Max Good's film 'The Assassination and Mrs. Paine' with me today for the first time at her apartment where much of it was filmed. She held up well because the truth is on her side and she is a strong, optimistic and generous woman. Ruth turned 90 exactly one month ago today. God bless her."

These convinced me: Points #3 and #4 of this 8-minute video produced by Denis Morisette: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVdjbDIB7_8.

Point #3 starting at 4:59 shows the camera held by the Babushka Lady matches to a box camera taking still pictures. There never was any movie film camera or movie film. 

Point #4 starting at 6:03 shows that one of Beverly Oliver's central claims, in which she holds up shoes of her own and says they are the same shoes the Babushka Lady is wearing in the Allen film, is not correct. The Babushka Lady's shoes have heels (and are practical for outdoor wear, as the Babushka Lady was outdoors). But Beverly Oliver's shoes have no heels but are what are called "wedge sole" shoes. They are not the same shoes. Beverly Oliver's wedge-sole shoes give better traction or grip on a stage or indoor hardwood floor because the entire sole of the shoe is in contact with the stage or wood floor but those shoes are less suitable for outdoor wear because they wear out so quickly if worn outdoors. 

There is no mystery movie film still out there. There never was any Babushka Lady movie film. It was a box camera still photos.

Two additional points for what they are worth (and if the below are considered indecisive, they do not affect the above two).

-- From wikipedia, "Babushka Lady" with refs there: "On November 18, 1994, assassination researcher Gary Mack testified before the Assassination Records Review Board that he had recently been told by an executive in Kodak's Dallas office that a woman in her early 30s with brunette hair brought in film purported to be of the assassination scene while they were processing the Zapruder film. According to Mack, the executive said the woman explained to federal investigators already at the film processing office that she ran from Main Street across the grass to Elm Street where she stopped and snapped a photo with some people in the foreground of the presidential limousine and the Texas School Book Depository. Mack said that he was told by the Kodak executive that the photo was extremely blurry and 'virtually useless' and indicated that the woman likely went home without anyone recording her identity." Hard to say whether this is a match to the Babushka Lady or not but it could be.

-- Michael Brownlow claims Grassy Knoll witness Charles Brehm, who with his 5-year-old son was very close to the Babushka Lady, told him, Brownlow, that he, Brehm, spoke to the Babushka Lady, looked her right in the face, and that her age was ca. 40-45. "Hell no that was no 17 year old girl", Brownlow quotes Brehm as saying, at 1:22f here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaWX0ElEItU. 

Ruminations on learning the true killer of Tippit

Those who consider it settled that Oswald killed Tippit explain the lack of match of Oswald to the patrol car fingerprints in terms of it is not proven that those fingerprints came from the killer. Which is true but does not negate that there is a good likelihood that they are the killer's fingerprints. I think the Dallas Police crime lab realized immediately the first weekend of Nov 22-24 that Oswald was excluded as a match to those fingerprints but did not report that, instead said the prints were all too smudged to know, and it was not until 1994, published 1998 by Myers, that the exclusion of Oswald as a match became known from a latent fingerprint expert who easily did so (suggesting the exclusion may have been equally easily done in Nov 1963).

There has been no interest in finding to whom those fingerprints match. Just none. In the year 2022, all this time, 59 years, there has been not one single reported attempt, ever, to find an identification or match to those prints, not by the FBI, not by anyone, even though the prints are published and accessible.

Not one of the Tippit crime scene witnesses who picked Oswald out in lineups as the fleeing gunman knew Oswald previously or had better than brief fleeting glimpses. And there are so many instances of demonstrable mistaken identifications of Oswald by people after the assassination. If the killer of Tippit had some rough resemblance in physical description to Oswald such that witnesses could confuse, naturally they are going to like Helen Markham pick the one that looks most closely like what they remembered out of the choices. Innocence Project exonerations of innocent persons wrongly convicted involve reversal of mistaken eyewitness positive identifications in a majority of cases. 

The self-confessed hit man accompanying Jack Ruby hours after the Tippit killing (Ruby himself being the killer of Oswald the next day on Sunday), when Ruby drove that self-confessed hit man at the odd time of 5 a.m. on the morning of Sat Nov 23, in the vicinity of where that very night someone for no known reason mysteriously tossed a revolver of the same kind that killed Tippit, in a paper bag out a car window (reconstructed mechanism for how that paper-bag revolver ended up in the street in the middle of the night) . . . that self-confessed hit man, who fled Texas that same morning, was close enough in physical description to Oswald to have separately been mis-identified as Oswald by witnesses who saw him in the early a.m. hours of Nov 22 with Ruby at the Lucas B&B Restaurant; and witnesses who saw him earlier with Ruby at the Contract Electronics store, to name just two instances in which it is certain a man mistakenly identified by witnesses as Oswald was not Oswald but was the self-confessed hit man recently employed by Ruby. What is the difference between those witnesses who said they had seen Oswald when they had really seen the self-confessed hit man associated with Ruby, and the witnesses seeing the fleeing gunman from the killing of Tippit who said they had seen Oswald?

What is the difference? Only that in one class of cases it went as far as picking out of lineups and, if Oswald had not been executed Sunday morning by the self-confessed hit man's employer and driver, could have led to a murder conviction of Oswald by a jury and capital sentence. The other class of cases simply were FBI interview reports of witnesses saying they had seen Oswald which were correctly dismissed as mistaken identifications and nothing further came of it.

There have been plenty of articles on the flawed methods of the Tippit crime scene witness lineups; the high rates of convictions of arrested suspects under Captain Fritz involving innocent persons in the mix; and the extraordinary pressure on Leavelle (in charge of the Tippit murder investigation) and co. from Fritz and higherups to, in Leavelle's words, wrap up Oswald real tight on Tippit, because of fear that the case against Oswald for the JFK assassination might be tougher to carry to conviction at trial.

No wonder there would be no interest in an identification of who left the fingerprints on Tippit's patrol car that look like they could be from the killer, once it was realized there was no match to Oswald.