Greg Doudna

31 minutes ago, Paul Jolliffe said:

Hmm.

At the time it was found, early Saturday morning, "Oswald" was very much alive, Jack Ruby was not yet infamous, and nobody had any idea who Craford was. 

So it's true at that moment the second .38 was not likely to be considered a possible murder weapon. But once we read that both Ruby and Craford (by Craford's own admission) had been very near where that .38 was found an hour or so later, then things change. 

Surely the FBI suspected that the DPD request on November 25 to trace a .38 (found early on the 23rd) was related to the case. 

After all, just a few days later the FBI tracked down Craford.

Sorry, Bill.

While I have disagreed at length with Greg elsewhere on other key aspects of the case, on this one, I think he's on to something.

That .38 is very suspicious.

I didn't see yours until after I put up mine, but well put Paul.

1 hour ago, Bill Brown said:

The revolver was found on the ground four miles from Tenth and Patton.  There is absolutely no reason for it to be considered "a second possible murder weapon for Tippit".

Well . . . I don't know Bill . . . a .38 Smith & Wesson in a paper bag with an apple and an orange, found near a street curb . . . sort of looks like it could be a murder weapon used in a professional killing or hit doesn't it?  . . . turns up a few hours after the Tippit killing . . . and only an hour or two after the mobbed-up figure up to his ears in organized crime connections who murdered Oswald the next morning (using a different .38), drove a car in the neighborhood where the paper-bag revolver was found . . . and in that car which had opportunity to ditch a murder weapon at that place and time the mobbed-up killer of Oswald the next morning also had in the car with him a man who independently is a suspect for the Tippit gunman just before that Tippit gunman suspect took sudden flight leaving Dallas that morning . . . 

Do I have you right, that you are saying there is "absolutely no reason" to consider that a weapon which looks like an abandoned weapon recently used in a professional killing, might have some relationship to a killing done with that kind of handgun a few hours earlier four miles away?

You cite four miles from the scene of the crime as if that is exculpatory for that weapon. But it was zero miles from where two suspects in the Tippit killing were in a car under unusual circumstances just an hour or two before the abandoned weapon was found. 

But you're free to see nothing of interest there 🙂 with respect to the Tippit case, in the find of that revolver which had been tossed in a paper bag for which no innocent explanation has been established.

59 minutes ago, Bill Brown said:

And while I'm at it...

Greg...

Did you ask Myers for permission before posting your private exchanges with him?

I quoted excerpts, not full emails with metadata, of an exchange for which there were cc's, in what I considered fair use. Myers has misrepresented me publicly on his blog, misrepresented me in his response to my (genuine) attempt to invite him to cooperate in attempting to obtain a fingerprint identification, and I want it to be clear to what happened. 

47 minutes ago, Bill Brown said:

Correct.  The prints do not match the suspect; exactly as I said.  Right?

Look Greg.  Real simple...

The crime scene was not closed off right away.  A crowd gathered.  How do you know the prints do not belong to any of those bystanders?  How do you know the prints do not belong to Tippit himself?  How do you know the prints do not belong to a suspect who was told to place his hands on the car in order to be frisked in any one of the previous days leading up to 11/22/63?  How long do prints last on sheet metal?  Is it a given that rain washes away prints?

But, here is the big question...

Why are you automatically assuming that the prints belong to whoever shot Tippit?

No, the question is why are you automatically assuming that the prints do not belong to whoever shot Tippit. 

I agree the possibilities you name are possible. Getting a name for those prints would go a long way toward finding out. Do you agree?

Look, you have a murder and you have fingerprints from a single individual prominently in the very positions the murderer was seen. It should be a no-brainer to get an identification on those prints, provided that is not impossible.

I am convinced, unless it is credibly explained to me otherwise, that the Dallas Police Department was not being honest in saying that the prints on the right front fender were incapable of excluding a match with Oswald (which I am certain they checked). Lutz in 1994 did it easily upon sight in less than a minute. That apparent dishonesty on the part of DPD in 1963 on this matter necessarily suggests it may have been possible all along, from day one in 1963, to get a positive identification match on those fingerprints if there were databases at that time to check, which I believe there probably were. If the Dallas Police were capable of intentionally disappearing a possible murder weapon used in the Tippit killing, found likely abandoned by the killer hours after the Tippit killing, was there also a failure to pursue an identification of the fingerprints, or a coverup if such an identification had been pursued and the results not to the liking? We already (almost) know that the DPD was not being entirely forthcoming on the usability of those prints in the way that Lutz was easily able to do in 1994. 

2 hours ago, Bill Brown said:

Perhaps you should read my post again.

I said the prints didn't belong to the suspect.

Oswald was the suspect.

Slow down, Greg.

Of course the prints do not match to that particular suspect. That has been known ever since Myers published that finding of Lutz in 1998. If that is all you were meaning to say that is trivial. That non-match is what one would expect if a suspect is innocent. How do you go from that to "no value" and "meaningless" in the Tippit case?

Since the prints could be from the gunman, identification of the prints has the potential to exonerate any suspect in the Tippit killing who is not the identification of those prints, if that identification goes to someone for whom it can be excluded contact with the Tippit cruiser has an innocent explanation.

7 minutes ago, Bill Brown said:

Since the prints on the hood do not belong to the suspect, they're of no value because they don't prove a thing, one way or the other.  The prints could be from anyone at any recent point in time and therefore, meaningless.

Bill, this is an astonishing ex cathedra statement of knowledge you are asserting before which I am humbled--you KNOW "the prints on the hood do not belong to the suspect"! Not, "it is not proven that they were" or "they might have been left by someone else". No, nothing so conservative or cautious for you, nothing so wimpy. You just put it right out there in dogmatic certainty: you know that. 

You don't dispute the gunman was standing at exactly that position next to the patrol car.

Do you have a secret video of all the second the gunman was there showing conclusively the gunman did not put those fingerprints there? That the gunman never rested a hand on the bumper for balance? Never ducked down a little? Did not stumble? Did not reach down to the ground for some reason?

You know these things! Such claim to knowledge!!! What is your secret source for this knowledge? Extrasensory perception? Magical thinking (if I close my eyes and insist real hard that will make it so)?

Are you saying you see no benefit in pursuing an identification of the individual who left those fingerprints? If it were up to you, would you run a check that could produce a name? Just curious. Are you in a position in which you could assist in getting such a check done? (Might as well ask.)

Are your responses to these questions affected by your belief that the case is solved (Oswald did it)? Be honest?

If--hypothetically--the prrints were to turn up a match to Curtis Craford--just hypothetically--would you still claim that wouid be "meaningless"? Really?

18 hours ago, Jean Paul Ceulemans said:

I know nothing about fingerprint, but if these are not good prints I don't what good prints are 😄

In those files are also a BUNCH of Oswalds prints (full size handprints, you name it, the works....)

Thank you Jean Paul! I agree, I too have no expertise in fingerprints but just as a dumb layman would need explanation on why those right front fender prints are not good prints--how the Dallas Police crime lab could describe them as "none of value"! How could they not have known those did not match to Oswald?

14 minutes ago, Tom Gram said:

Myers is obviously afraid that an identification of the fingerprints would make him look like an idiot. I'm particularly interested in his comment from your email exchange: 

BTW, what makes you think I have not considered all of this back in 1994? This may shock you, but I don’t publish or post all of my thoughts and activities regarding my research.

Did Myers deliberately conceal evidence that didn't support his conclusion that Oswald did it? At the very least, it sure looks like he considered trying to obtain an identification of the prints in 1994 and chose not to because he was scared of what he'd find. 

Also, forgive my ignorance, but where are the prints now? Are high-quality copies available to the public? What steps would need to happen for the prints to be run through a database? 

I do not know what Myers' comment refers to. Pat Speer earlier suggested Myers could have made an attempt to identify the fingerprints that failed to have tangible outcome at that time in 1994 (and not reported that failed attempt). There is no evidence Myers covered up information exculpatory to Oswald and therefore I do not think that should be accused or suggested in the absence of evidence or cause, for which there is not any. If anything, Myers' reporting of the Lutz finding of a non-match of Oswald to the fingerprints could argue in favor of Myers' honesty, since that finding of Lutz could be argued to go against interest. I have wondered (nothing to do with Myers) if the Dallas Police crime lab in Nov 1963 did a comparison of the Tippit patrol car fingerprints to Oswald's fingerprints--that would be the obvious first thing they would check--and maybe did find the prints from the right front bumper did not match to Oswald but called that a smeared print for which nothing could be learned. There is no way of knowing or verifying that, but the basis for my suspicion on that is Myers' account of how easily experienced latent fingerprint examiner Lutz in 1994 found within one minute that the bumper fingerprints did not match to Oswald's. If Lutz in 1994 had no problem in easily seeing that non-match, is it really true that nobody in the Dallas Police crime lab in 1963 working from the same information could see the same thing? But to report that would not be helpful to making the case against Oswald, so was reported to the Warren Commission as "several smear prints. None of value", full stop, end of that? But I do not know. 

I assume the originals of the Tippit patrol car fingerprints would still be with the Dallas Police Department today. Myers published enlarged photographs of the prints in With Malice and perhaps they would be online (in Dallas Police archives online?). I do not know how local or state police or federal agents run fingerprint checks through nationwide databases or what steps are needed to do that.

57 minutes ago, Pete Mellor said:

So, any movement on this Greg?

I will confess to you that when you originally posted your Craford piece on the fingerprints on Tippit's car, I contacted a researcher/author on the JFKA case, (who shall remain nameless) on your behalf, to see if there was interest in assisting you in this quest.  Sadly, a couple months on & no reply to my e-mail.  O.K. if you ever discover the prints belong to Craford, or for that matter Oswald, that would be a momentous discovery!  However, if the prints cannot be linked to any known set on record that would lean over to Oswald's innocence.

All in all, keep on trucking with your astute investigation.  

Thanks for your behind-the-scenes effort Pete. No, no movement known to me. 

...

Fingerprints of the Tippit killer?

The exclusion of a match of Oswald’s fingerprints to fingerprints lifted from the Tippit patrol car twenty minutes after Tippit was killed, from two places on that car where the killer was positioned with respect to the car according to witnesses, should in itself give cognitive dissonance to perceptions of certainty that Oswald was the gunman who killed Tippit, in the absence of an identification of those fingerprints established to be someone innocuous.

The killer was at the passenger side at the right front of the Tippit cruiser. Prints from a right hand were lifted from the right front car bumper which wrapped around to the passenger side. How many people put a right hand as low as on a car’s right front bumper, let alone after also leaving fingerprints below the right front passenger window exactly where the killer’s hands were seen? What is the obvious innocuous explanation for the right hand on the right front bumper? There is no obvious innocuous explanation. There may be possible or conceivable explanations but prima facie those prints have the appearance of being from the killer of Tippit. The same individual who put a right hand as low as the right front bumper, left fingerprints at the top of the right front passenger door just below the right front window. Helen Markham showed visually how she saw from a distance the killer place his outstretched arms at the elbows, hands clasped together, leaning with his forearms and hands resting on the top of the right front door of the patrol car talking to Tippit through a window. (See Helen Markham illustrate with her arms and hands what she saw at 0:59-1:07 at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LjmY3TaA_I.) In an Al Chapman interview Jimmy Burt said he witnessed the killer with his hands on the Tippit cruiser near the right front passenger window. The fingerprints from the two locations were determined by a latent fingerprint examiner in 1994, published by Myers in 1998, to be from a single individual who was not Oswald.

Who did leave those fingerprints? 

The only way to find out is to find out.

A failed attempt to interest Myers in helping bring about forensic examination and identification of the Tippit patrol car fingerprints

I sought to interest Dale Myers in a new expert examination of the Tippit patrol car fingerprints. It did not go well. 

I cc’d Paul Hoch, Tracy Parnell, and Steve Roe, members of a mailing list of Paul Hoch, individuals I believed Myers would find favorable and not objectionable. As background, as a research associate at the University of Copenhagen and since, I have participated on a European team in publishing scientific articles in peer-reviewed journals. In these publications personal views are set aside and there is professional cooperation in reporting science—methods, procedures, setup and description of the problem being investigated, findings and analysis and conclusions that all coauthors sign off on (the scientific publications of which I have been a coauthor can be seen on my page at academia.edu.). I know the process in coordinating scientific publications with multiple coauthors and I had something similar in mind with this, if I had received a favorable reply from Myers.

On Aug 13, 2022 I wrote:

Dale, would you consider assisting or helping in an attempt to establish an identification of the individual who left the fingerprints lifted from the two locations on the Tippit patrol car, if such is possible in light of today’s databases and expertise?

Sincerely,

Greg Doudna

On Aug 16, 2022 Myers replied negatively, objecting to the cc’s, and continued:

As I see it, your not-so-private request has all the earmarks of a loaded question. 

I’ve privately addressed a similar request from you back on September 9, 2021. At that time (9/7) you wrote, “I posted a draft outline of an argument for what I realize you and every other rational person on earth at this point consider a non-starter or impossible: an argument for Oswald’s innocence in the Tippit killing. On the one hand I do not wish to impose or draw you into what from your point of view might be a time-consuming, fruitless rehearsal in private email of what you have labored to address in print. On the other hand anything you might wish to say, now or in time to come, I would value and respect.”

I responded (9/9): “Given my position on the Tippit case, as presented in ‘With Malice’ and other publicly available writings, I am not sure what kind of response you expect from me. I can assure you that I have no desire to comment on anything that is in draft form or does not contain citations. If and when you complete your dissertation, I would be happy to review it. Thanks for your interest.”

I don’t have any more interest now than I did then in assisting you in vetting your opinions and commentary on the Tippit shooting.

I can assure you that future requests of this nature will be met with the same response.

I had not asked Myers to vet any opinions on the Tippit case in my inquiry of Aug 13. I did not understand why he was responding as if I had. On Aug 16, 2022 I tried again:

Dale, this is not about me but about getting science done, exactly for the same reasons you obtained and reported the Lutz examination of the fingerprints in 1994 which resulted in information, data, not previously known.

With your experience and name you are probably the best positioned person in the world to accomplish this.

Would you consider an attempt to identify the individual who left those fingerprints without me involved, either on your own or with an assisting team chosen by you? To further remove your objection that you do not wish to assist me as a reason not to have science done, I am willing to make no comment on the topic either directly or via intermediary for a reasonable period during which you undertook the initiative and then continuing for six months after results were announced, before offering any comment on the results. This is not about me but about getting science done for its own sake and for future generations.

Don’t make your response as if this is an issue of assisting me. It is not. It is about getting science done relevant to the Tippit case of which you are the world’s leading authority.

Please, reconsider? Think of the science. You’ve done so much on the Tippit case, this would be one more. A better understanding of how those fingerprints got there, from whom, and why. Wouldn’t you like to know that? Don’t you have just a little bit of curiosity about that yourself? What’s not to like about going further in 2022 from what you did in 1994?

Greg D.

On Aug 17, 2022 Myers responded with opening words, “Good lord, man. What part of ‘no,’ do you not understand?”

He again objected to my continuing to cc Hoch, Parnell, and Roe. He continued, as in his first reply, with impugning of motives and projection.

As I suspected, you are apparently more interested in posturing than this “science” you claim you are after.

For instance, you wrote: “…To further remove your objection that you do not wish to assist me as a reason not to have science done…”

I never said anything of the kind. I wrote: “I don’t have any more interest now than I did then (09/09/2021) in assisting you in vetting your opinions and commentary on the Tippit shooting.” (emphasis added for your benefit)

Got it? I doubt it. Unfortunately, you have a propensity to “spin” all kinds of things regarding the Tippit case, including, it seems, things I write.

BTW, what makes you think I have not considered all of this back in 1994? This may shock you, but I don’t publish or post all of my thoughts and activities regarding my research.

I suspect you’ll now add that comment to your spin-yarn about what I think and what I’ve done (or not done) and why I’ve done it. Yes?

And that’s all this is, isn’t it? A fishing expedition to get me to make comments about your work and the direction it’s taking?

Look, you don’t need *me* to do anything. I managed to do all kinds of things over the last 25-years (all at my own expense and using my own time). I believe you are resourceful enough to spend your own time and money to validate your own beliefs about the Tippit case. Right?

You already know where I stand. In fact, as you tell it, I’ve provided you with a valuable head-start: “With Malice.”

Good luck in your search for truth.

That slammed the door shut on any hope of cooperation or interest from Myers in getting new expert analysis of the fingerprints done.

Myers is right on the next to last paragraph: he has provided all who study the Tippit case with a valuable head start with research done and published. That is true.

Where it stands now

There is a very good chance that identification of the Tippit patrol car fingerprints using current forensic methods would yield the name of the gunman who killed Tippit. 

Finding that out would be vastly preferable to more years of endless speculation concerning the identity of the fingerprints and the killer. I have some idea that in the best case the right law enforcement person today could run those Tippit patrol car bumper prints and come up with a name in ten minutes. Maybe I have that wrong. But there is no record in all these years that anyone in a position to run a check on those prints has taken ten minutes to try.

Again, in 1994 Oswald was excluded, by an experienced latent fingerprint examiner, as the one who left those prints. Furthermore, that experienced latent fingerprint examiner found that a single individual left the prints in both locations, as opposed to different or multiple individuals, thus tightening the odds that those fingerprints were from the killer.

The only way to show that 1994 information concerning the Tippit patrol car fingerprints does not call into significant question Oswald’s guilt would be if those prints were identified and the identification shown to be someone innocuous, such as Pat Speer’s gas station attendant or whatever.

But that first requires obtaining an identification of the fingerprints, before such an identification can be shown innocuous (i.e. an innocent explanation for that person having his or her fingerprints at those two positions unrelated to being the killer of Tippit), if so.

As it stands, on the basis of present information (and ignorance), those fingerprints look very much like they may be from the killer, which if true means Oswald did not kill Tippit.

It is likely there is sufficient fingerprint material in what was lifted from the right front bumper for a positive identification given today’s databases and software programs. If, however, that is still technically not possible for whatever reason, those prints could still be examined, case by case, to check for match versus non-match for any individual suspect for whom fingerprints exist, such as was done for Oswald in 1994 (result: non-match), and could be done for Curtis Craford (who should have prints somewhere on file since he had both service in the US Army and an arrest record in Oregon).

The only way to find out is to find out.

7 hours ago, Benjamin Cole said:

I have written about the paper-bag snub-nose .38, but gotten no further than indicated here.  It was an American-make, sent to Great Britain during WWII, and then made a return trip, as I recall. 

I speculate the snub-nose was used to create a diversion in the Grassy Knoll area. Snub-nose .38s make a lot of noise, and give off "muzzle flash" or smoke.  If the barrel is lubed, or if the bullets are steel-jacketed but coated, or if the .38 cartridges are hand-packed with cheap gunpowder, then a lot more smoke can issue.

The idea that modern guns do not issue smoke is a canard---it can depend on ammo, if the barrel was recently lubed and other factors. 

If we accept Pat Speer's conclusion that all bullet strikes on JFK and JBC were from the rear, then the story-line of the Grassy Knoll gunshots being a diversion makes more sense. A snub-nose is obviously easily concealed after use, and was the de facto concealed weapon of choice at the time. 

Taking this further, the "Secret Service" man seen by DPD Joe Hill and Sheriff Seymour Weitzman on the Grassy Knoll is a likely diversionist.

However, all I have is reasonable conjecture on this point. 

The WC's apathy regarding regarding not one, but two, law enforcement officers accosting a "Secret Service" man on the Grassy Knoll...defies the imagination.  

Benjamin, you make an interesting argument in explanation of the witnesses seeing smoke and hearing a Grassy Knoll shot. It would be possible that that could be an alternative origin of the paper-bag revolver unrelated to the Tippit killing. However, three factors. First, the Tippit killing definitely was done with a .38 Special; in your GK reconstruction the pistol shot as done with a .38 Special is conjectured (though plausible). Second, the usual scenario in professional killers abandoning the weapon used in the hit is the weapon is untraceable to the killer and the killer does not want to be found with it which would tie them to the crime; in your GK scenario there is no bullet in a body to be traced and only remotely likely that a bullet from that weapon would be found at all (to my knowledge no .38 bullet was found at Dealey Plaza related to Nov 22). Therefore the question arises, assuming your scenario is correct, what is the logic behind tossing the weapon out in a bag of fruit on to a city street, whereas the logic works very well in the scenario of Ruby driving Craford there at 5:30 am as part of Craford hightailing it out of Dallas. And third, one needs to account not only for the paper-bag revolver itself but also the disappearance of it in police custody, and suppression of a second possible murder weapon for Tippit turned in on Saturday after they already had a first one identified and announced to the world (Oswald's) on Friday would be a motive. Incidentally, on Nov 22 in the police radio transcripts there is I think a report of police investigating shots fired in north Dallas somewhere, of which I know nothing further than remember reading that in the transcript; also there was another later hearsay report (as I recall reading this somewhere) supposedly originating from an Irving police officer saying something about on the evening of Thu Nov 21 there had been an armed robbery at a store in Irving in which someone had been killed and the the thinking in the hearsay version was officers thought Oswald might have done it; slipped out that evening from his kids and Marina and held up a store and killed someone there, before returning to the Ruth Paine house for his night's sleep that night, though the objection to that account was a check showed no record of such a robbery or killing in Irving on Nov 21.

But back to your scenario: the argument for the pistol fired at the GK making smoke and noise as a diversion at Dealey Plaza is a decent conjecture that would account for the witnesses seeing smoke, and if its intent was diversion it certainly was successful in terms of witness responses. However it does not follow that that proposal must be linked to the origin of the paper-bag revolver, since that is a distinct issue. Alternatively your conjectured shooter of the diversionary pistol shot fired from the GK could have kept the weapon or done something else with it, with no necessary reason why it would be the revolver tossed in a bag of fruit out a car window at Ross and Lamar even though, as a second order of conjecture, I agree that is a non-excluded possibility for the paper-bag revolver. But Craford having opportunity to toss it from being in the car with Ruby known to have unusually driven him in that particular location two hours before the citizen found it is so striking that that, not the GK origin, remains to me the likeliest explanation that needs to be excluded. 

The smoking gun of the Tippit case and its possible connection to Ruby and Craford: the paper-bag revolver

The revolver found in a paper bag at 7:30 a.m. on Nov 23, 1963 by a citizen near a street curb at Ross and Lamar in downtown Dallas, then lost—disappeared--in Dallas Police custody after having been turned in to Homicide and Robbery ... that is the smoking gun of the Tippit case, no pun intended. The $64,000 question: why was a snub-nosed Smith & Wesson .38 Special revolver tossed out of a car window on to a public street, inside a paper bag with fruit in it, within hours of the Tippit murder carried out with that kind of revolver? No, no witness saw that paper bag containing the weapon tossed out of a car window, just as most litter on a city street is not seen tossed out of a car window even though in most cases that is what happened. Sure, it is possible some local homeowner in downtown Dallas on Friday evening, Nov 22, 1963, for entirely innocent reasons, placed an unwanted revolver in a paper bag with some fruit, walked out to a nearby street curb, placed the bag by hand near the curb, then returned home again as part of routine house cleaning that particular day. Yes, such a thing, occurring a few hours after a sensational homicide in Oak Cliff broadcast around the world involving an identical kind of handgun, is possible. But what would Colombo say to that? (Referring to the old television series detective by that name.) From an FBI document, 11/25/63:

"On 11-23-63, Patrolman J. Raz brought into the Homicide and Robbery Bureau, Dallas PD, a brown paper sack which contained a snub-nosed .38 caliber Smith & Wesson, SN 893265. This gun had the word ‘England’ on the cylinder and had been found at approximately 7:30 A.M. in a brown paper sack, together with an apple and an orange, near the curb at the corner of Ross and Lamar Streets and was turned in by one Willie Flat . . ." (https://www.maryferrell.org/php/marysdb.php?id=3815; https://jfkconspiracyforum.freeforums.net/thread/983/gun-bag)

That revolver was found “near the curb” of a city street about 7:30 a.m. Sat Nov 23. Now compare the whereabouts of suspect Curtis Craford (Larry Crafard)—who could be innocent of the Tippit killing but looks like a suspect because of his close association with Jack Ruby among other things. Curtis Craford is in a car driving in the exact neighborhood where the paper-bag revolver was tossed, at 5:30-6:00 am that morning—at a time when most people, especially people who work in Ruby's night clubs, are sleeping. From the FBI interview of Curtis Craford of Nov 19, 1963, after the FBI caught up with him in Michigan:

“On Saturday morning, November 23, 1963, at about 5:30 AM, Ruby called him [Craford] and told him to meet him downstairs with the Polaroid camera and some film. Ruby was very excited and, in a matter of minutes, a telephone call was received from the fellow at the All Right Parking Lot, telling him that Jack was there and to hurry up. When he got to the car, George [Senator], Ruby’s roommate, was also there and they drove out on the Stemmons Freeway, where Ruby showed him a sign ‘Impeach Earl Warren.’ At the end of this sign it said, for further information write Post Office Box 1744 or a similar number.

“Ruby instructed him to take three pictures of the sign and they then drove to a waffle shop near the Carousel for coffee. Ruby and George were talking about the sign and the Post Office box and they had very little conversation concerning the assassination. Ruby then dropped Crafard off at 6:20 AM and said that he and George were going down to the Post Office to look at the Post Office box. Crafard said that he was completely puzzled, as Earl Warren was unknown to him. This was the last time he saw Jack Ruby.” (https://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh19/pdf/WH19_Crafard_Ex_5226.pdf)

This car ride is when the murder weapon used in the Tippit killing may have been tossed--by the killer of Tippit riding in that car carrying Ruby, George Senator, and Craford. 

I wish I knew how to illustrate on a map of Dallas this next point because it is interesting.

The Carousel Club at 1312-1/2 Commerce where Curtis Craford was picked up ca. 5:30 a.m. is the starting point of this car trip. The destination is a billboard. George Senator in his testimony to the Warren Commission told where that billboard was: it was located at “Hall Street and Expressway where Ruby took three pictures of a poster [billboard] bearing the words, ‘Impeach Earl Warren'.”

Hall Street and Expressway is southeast of the Carousel Club. On the other hand, Ross and Lamar, where the paper-bag revolver was found, is northwest of the Carousel Club, in the opposite direction. But according to what Craford told the FBI on Nov 29, Ruby drove the car from the Carousel Club northwest, to the Stemmons Freeway, in the opposite direction from the destination, the billboard at Hall and Expressway to the southeast of the Carousel Club. Then after entering the Stemmons Freeway, by way of freeway movements Ruby would have circled around downtown Dallas to arrive at Hall and Expressway.

The point being that even though the destination (from the starting-point: the Carousel Club) was to the southwest, Ruby drove the car, with Craford and George Senator, directly through the proximate neighborhood where the revolver in the paper bag was tossed and found at Ross and Lamar, a few city blocks northwest of the Carousel Club, about midway between the Carousel Club and entrance to the Stemmons Freeway farther to the northwest.

If one looks on a map it becomes clear that Craford is in a car in the neighborhood where the paper-bag revolver was tossed from a car on the morning Craford left Dallas. And that location is in the opposite direction of the stated purpose for Ruby's unusual 5:30 a.m. “wake people up to go check out a billboard" trip early Saturday morning. But both in location and in timing it is consistent with the tossing of a murder weapon in a paper bag from a car headed in the opposite direction of the destination, except from Craford's FBI interview that is the direction Ruby did drive, in the direction where the paper-bag revolver was found.

There is: an unexplained paper bag containing what is prima facie best interpreted as a recently-used murder weapon. It is found by a citizen less than two hours after a car driven by Jack Ruby, with Curtis Craford, suspect in the Tippit killing, in that car, was driving in that area, with means and opportunity (and if the murderer of Tippit was in that car, motive) to have tossed the revolver in the paper bag where it was found two hours later.

I believe the story of Ruby calling Craford at 5:30 a.m. to take photos of the Impeach Earl Warren billboard, and Ruby waking up George Senator to go along on the trip, may be an alibi story acted out by Ruby for the purpose of having a defensible innocuous explanation for a driving around at 5-6 a.m. whose real purpose could have been Craford's departure from Dallas at that time and disposal of a murder weapon away from the premises of the Carousel Club. Or if Craford was not leaving at that moment then it was a good-by between Ruby and Craford. Craford did not have a car of his own but in that car would have opportunity to toss an untraceable murder weapon away from the Carousel Club. I would assume that even if George Senator had been aware of passenger Craford tossing a paper bag out a window he would have assumed it was only half-eaten fruit or whatever, and would have been unaware of the revolver also in the paper bag being tossed. In this scenario Ruby had housemate George Senator along to create a witness to a more convincing alibi, but Senator would not have been witting to a tossing of a murder weapon. But Ruby could have been witting, in addition to Craford.

And so this raises the following question to those who have assumed there is no question that Oswald was guilty of the Tippit killing. If you were on a jury and learned this information--of how Fritz’s department of the Dallas Police, after presenting Oswald and Oswald’s .38 Special revolver to the world on Fri Nov 22 as having done the Tippit killing, had on Sat Nov 23 received but said nothing about and then "lost" a different .38 Special revolver found abandoned in a paper bag tossed out of a car window to land near a curb of a downtown street, matching car movements of Ruby and Craford driving from the Carousel Club at unusual hours 5-6 a.m. the morning of Sat Nov 23, an hour or two before a citizen found the revolver in the paper bag near that street curb and turned it in—would this not raise a question to you whether Oswald’s revolver was in fact the correct murder weapon which killed officer Tippit? If the revolver in that paper bag found only hours after the killing of Tippit, the same kind of revolver that killed Tippit, had nothing to do with the death of officer Tippit, why did someone or someones inside the Dallas Police Department disappear it, “lose” it without paperwork? Could such an extremely relevant item of physical evidence—an almost literal smoking gun used in a recent homicide in the Dallas area turning up hours after the slaying of officer Tippit in Oak Cliff--have been lost accidentally while in police custody? Really? It is one thing for Fritz’s Homicide and Robbery Division to conceal and not turn over to the FBI the remaining three bullet slugs taken from Tippit’s body in the autopsy, then claim to the FBI/Warren Commission making inquiries months later that those bullet slugs could not be found, then a few hours later Fritz calls and corrects that to inform the FBI that they had just been found, “misfiled”. That happened. But losing a Smith & Wesson .38 Special revolver? With no paper trail in DPD files? Is it possible to misfile a revolver that way?

And so, unless there was a secret Dallas Police Department conveyance of that revolver to some other agency which also did not come forward with it because they were never asked (possible fallback deniability if DPD personnel ever were called on the carpet about the revolver’s disappearance), we may be looking at a felony destruction or suppression of evidence by someone or someones inside the Dallas Police Department, but who? And why? At minimum we are looking at a coverup of some kind involved in that weapon which almost must be related to the Tippit killing because the circumstances of that revolver make no sense otherwise. And when that is combined with the observation that the only ballistics evidence tying the Tippit killing to Oswald's revolver was established, unusually in the published record, by the FBI and Warren Commission via workarounds to, rather than by, sworn testimony on the chain of custody so as to establish that the cartridge hulls turned over to the FBI were the same hulls found at the scene of the crime, does that—should that—alter the perception of certainty that Oswald was the killer of Tippit? It should. It most definitely should. 

Step back for a moment and consider: two distinct snub-nosed .38 Special revolvers were recovered and came into Dallas Police custody within hours of each other on Nov 22-23, 1963, immediately following the Tippit killing. The one was on Oswald at the time of his arrest in the Texas Theatre. The other, found near a street curb in downtown Dallas after having been tossed from a car window, has the appearance of a disposal of an untraceable weapon after use in a professional killing. But the only known recent killing with that kind of weapon in the Dallas area was Tippit. There is no other homicide by handgun known in the Dallas area in that time frame.

Two revolvers which could be the murder weapon, for one murder which involved only one of those revolvers. One of those two revolvers had nothing to do with the killing of Tippit, its identical kind and caliber to the killing of Tippit being an actual coincidence—but which? The one abandoned in the paper bag hours after the Tippit killing for which the reason for such an abandonment prima facie is use in a recent homicide? 

Or the revolver carried by Oswald in keeping with a million other Americans who carried concealed snub-nosed .38 Special revolvers on their persons without implication that a person carrying such a revolver means it has been used or is intended to be used to murder? Oswald’s other behavior that day indicates he was under stress and acting evasively in the aftermath of the assassination. Whether that was because Oswald was the assassin of President Kennedy, or for some other reason such as he feared and was seeking to escape the assassins, is not at issue here; the point is Oswald's evasive action renders comprehensible that Oswald would want to pick up his revolver from his room for protection; that does not, in itself, mean he killed Tippit with it, just as Oswald going to the theatre from his rooming house whether to meet someone or hide also is comprehensible, but what is not comprehensible is Oswald walking to Tenth and Patton, not the direction of the theatre from his rooming house, for no known reason why he would want to be there, where the killing of Tippit occurred.

In short: Oswald carrying his revolver at the time of his arrest following the killing of Tippit by the same kind of weapon, in itself is easily understood as coincidence, since the snub-nosed .38 Special revolver was probably the most common kind of concealed-carry handgun in America at the time.

But the snub-nosed .38 Special revolver in the paper bag tossed by someone on a street in downtown Dallas a few hours after the murder of Tippit carried out by the same kind of handgun--that is a different matter. That is not so easily understood as coincidence. It just isn’t. 

The .38 Special revolver found in the paper bag in downtown Dallas early Saturday morning Nov 23 is the smoking gun of the Tippit case.

And that .38 Special revolver, after it was turned in to the Dallas Police, disappeared while in the custody of a police department intent on, as Leavelle put it, “wrapping up” Oswald “real tight” on the Tippit case, formally separate from but everyone considered related to the case against Oswald for the assassination of President Kennedy. 

The discovery in the early 1990s, in FBI documents which had been released in 1978 but nobody noticed (https://www.jfk-assassination.net/weberman/tfdrev.htm), of the existence of this extraordinary item of physical evidence and its even more extraordinary unusual disappearance while in police custody—the possible true weapon used in the murder of officer Tippit—should have been front and center in the Tippit case from the first day that revolver’s existence came to light, but it has not been.

That revolver, the paper-bag revolver, is the Rosetta Stone, or what might be called the Rosetta Revolver, of the Tippit case.

And that revolver gives a good case for going to Jack Ruby and Curtis Craford for the truth of how officer Tippit met his death on a day in Oak Cliff so long ago.

24 minutes ago, Bill Brown said:

Again, Clemons stated the other man went "straight down Tenth Street that way"; nothing about the other man first having to trek three-fourths of a block up Patton before reaching Tenth.

You are free to consider the matter settled all you wish, but that means nothing.

OK! I will 🙂 . Because it is the only reading of Acquilla Clemons' testimony that makes sense. 

And after all the attempts from me to get a straight answer out of you, you are still not going to put any cards on the table of your own as to just what and whom you suppose Acquilla Clemons saw, if not Callaway? 

Are you proposing some phantom non-Callaway person, like an Invisible Man, that only Acquilla Clemons saw running east on Tenth and no one else saw? Clarify? 

On 8/22/2022 at 9:01 AM, Joseph Borelli said:

I think Craford is by far the most viable non Oswald suspect for the Tipping Killing. Also he literally left Dallas the next day for Michigan. My guess is because Oswald was captured alive Ruby tasked Craford to kill him in police custody and he was like screww that and bolted out of town. Then After Craford's sudden departure the responsibility of the hit fell onto Ruby. 

Joseph, you raise a good point, that Craford's precipitous departure from Dallas does not in itself mean he was guilty of anything (though it is compatible with such an interpretation). I have asked myself if--what are the chances-- I could be raising suspicion on an innocent person. Even if he is now dead, if he is innocent I would not want to do that. There are family members, surviving loved ones, after someone is dead. There is a concern for truth for its own sake, of not wanting to unjustly tarnish some deceased person's reputation even if no family members are at issue. The case for Craford's innocence would be that there is no hard evidence incriminating him (a reexamination of the Tippit cruiser fingerprints could potentially change that, but one cannot argue on the basis of evidence that does not currently exist). Craford's hit-man claim could be untrue or if true still not evidence he was a killer in this case. Craford has no known criminal record for violent crime before or after the Tippit killing.

But although not proven, I defend that Craford is legitimately a serious suspect in the Tippit case on the basis of presently available information, analogous to the way I consider Marcello, and Ruby, suspects in the JFK assassination, but do not consider e.g. Clay Shaw a suspect, since even Garrison's most ardent defenders do not even claim, in the aftermath of the collapse of the credibility of Perry Russo's witness testimony, to know of or have any specific evidence as to how Clay Shaw was involved in killing Kennedy or what Clay Shaw did to kill Kennedy. Whereas with Marcello, Ruby, and I put Craford in the same category, there are a number of specifics justifying the threshold of "suspect". Yet that is still only suspicion (with some basis) on those figures, not proof. It might be argued that Marcello confessed which would be proof, and yet even if the confession stands (which is contested) that still stops short of proof in itself because of the high incidence of false confessions, of people who for whatever reasons claim or brag that they did things they did not do.  

What makes Craford a suspect in the Tippit case to me is, above all, his relationship with Ruby, Ruby being the one hard link of involvement in some manner, even if it is not quite clear exactly how, to the assassination (and I take as a given that the Tippit killing is connected to the assassination). The Ruby connection makes Craford a suspect-by-definition if it is accepted as premise, as I do, that the heavily mobbed-up Ruby stalked and killed Oswald after the assassination as an execution, not as a spontaneous crime of passion as per Ruby's legal defense. Then there is the argument that Craford matches the Tippit killer in physical description including the plausibility that witnesses could truly believe a sighting of Craford was a sighting of Oswald. And, Craford's telling Whitmey he had been a hit man as a younger man which Craford's brother apparently told Peter Whitmey was true, not false, and Craford's special expertise with handguns (witnessed Whitmey, and from Craford's carnival job before the Tippit killing). And last but not least, a bizarrely specific possible or circumstantial link of Craford to what I believe was the true murder weapon used in the Tippit killing (to follow). Ironically, a new expert examination of the Tippit patrol car fingerprints would be the simplest way to find proof of incrimination of Craford (if there was a match) but also the simplest way to clear Craford from being a suspect (if the fingerprints went to someone else not known to be innocuous). 

On 8/26/2022 at 7:35 AM, Michael Kalin said:

Myers makes a solid case that Doris Holan resided on Patton not Tenth the day of the Tippit murder, but no case at all that she was home when it occurred. Her son, Myers' chief witness Lad Holan, told Myers:

--Asked if his mom was home when he arrived at the apartment, Lad said, “I don’t remember. I don’t think she was home. I really don’t.”

I think four things support Doris Holan was home when Tippit was killed. First, Lad Jr. says "I don't remember" (her not being home). Second, Myers showed that at 1:45 pm her car was photographed parked on Patton near her apartment that day but then a later photograph by 4:15 pm showed her car was not in the earlier parked position,  indicating her car in front of where she lived had been moved some time between 1:45 pm and 4:15 pm that day. That prima facie suggests she was home, to account for her car having been driven away in that time frame. Third, the account transmitted via Brownlow and Pulte in which Mrs. Holan said she was home, heard the shots, looked out and saw, etc.--not to be taken in every detail the way Brownlow/Pulte retold it, but rather as a garbled account of Mrs. Holan telling some story of what she saw that day from the perspective of where she lived on the second story at 113-1/2 S. Patton.

And fourth and finally, the story of Mrs. Holan's youngest son, a 10-year old, quoted by Brownlow and Pulte, the story of his having bicycled west on Tenth to the scene of the Tippit cruiser and seeing his mother there, and then the story of him telling his mother of hearing about a stabbing at 12th and Marsalis or 10th and Marsalis. The story is an independent support for Doris Holan being home that day, then going to the scene of the Tippit cruiser. (Incidentally, on the fight/stabbing story of the 10-yr. old Holan boy, a while ago I figured out that that was nothing other than a hearsay version of the ambulance taking away Tippit, which the boy had heard someone tell somewhere else before he arrived to the Tippit scene and saw and told his mother. That is why there is no police record or evidence of any fight or stabbing at 10th and Marsalis just about the same exact time Tippit was shot--it was another version of the same thing, the Tippit slaying and removal by ambulance, as the news spread like wildfire through hearsay in the neighborhood with garbling thereof.)

So I see these things as weighing in favor of Doris Holan was at home as she is reported to have claimed, and then walked to the scene of the Tippit cruiser as her youngest son is reported to have claimed, against which there is no hard evidence she was not at home, nothing stronger against than Lad Jr's "I don't think she was" although he directly qualified that with "I don't remember". Therefore my verdict: she was there, and the issue is not whether she was there but is it possible to get behind the Brownlow/Pulte hearsay to what Doris Holan might actually have told of what she saw from her true second-story vantage point looking out over Patton after she heard the shots, and of course then how to interpret that. 

I listened to the interview of Vox Charles Swift on patreon yesterday.

He had a house in Granada (name of city) in Nicaragua which he built in 2000 and divided his time between there and in St. Petersburg Fl. He attended the St. Petersburg Friends Meeting sporadically starting from mid-1990s and became aware of Ruth Paine and ProNica there. He was not a member of the Quakers or the Friends Meeting in St. Petersburg but visited/attended.

He would see in a quarterly Bulletin at the Friends Meeting photos of what ProNica was doing in Nicaragua including in his city of Granada. He tried to confirm ProNica activities in Granada claimed in the Friends Bulletin, and says he found nothing happening that was claimed in the photos and brochures in the St. Petersburg Meeting which were used for fundraising.

He became convinced ProNica was nothing other than a total money-making fraudulent scam. At first he thought Ruth Paine was duped and victim by people in Nicaragua, then he believed she had been l-ying to him all along and that Ruth had duped the head of the Friends in St. Petersburg. Then he realized the top Quaker also was in on it (when he tried to tell the head Quaker his allegations and that man did not believe him). In a visit to his hometown in Pa. he visited the Friends Meeting there and talked to a leading Quaker there for an hour who also was not convinced, and he became convinced that man was in on it too and the top Quakers in Philadelphia running the Quakers in America were also all in on the financial fraud--"millions of dollars"—all the Quaker leaders in America were in it for the money, all a scam, none of the money fundraised was going to claimed projects. 

(His time of sporadic attendance at the St. Petersburg Friends meeting overlapped when I was there 2001-2003, though I do not recall him if I ever did cross paths with him there.)

His evidence of financial fraud is he says he tried for eighteen months to verify activity of ProNica in Granada and elsewhere in Nicaragua and he could not verify anything that was claimed. He told a couple of stories of going to addresses of claimed projects and finding empty rooms or buildings. The claimed hq of ProNica in Nicaragua in a city told to him by Ruth Paine, he found ProNica was not known to the mayor’s office and the phone company never heard of ProNica. A claimed home where youth were said to be living he went there and found an empty building and a caretaker only.

(I remember the youth project in Managua that the St. Petersburg Friends was supporting and the guy who ran it visiting the St. Petersburg Meeting telling of it; certainly sounded real to me at the time.)

When asked if any others in the Friends Meeting shared his suspicions that ProNica was a financial scam he said no. They all supported Ruth Paine, thought she was a hero. He was the only one who thought she was a fraud.

(That agrees with what I remember, everyone in the St. Petersburg Friends Meeting regarded Ruth Paine favorably.)

He thought due to his criticisms ProNica probably had changed to doing legitimate things today [at time of interview in 2017], but he thought at the time—2000-2001--nothing at all was happening, that it was pure graft with "millions of dollars" in Quaker fundraising none going to claimed purposes, a total fraud by design and intention of which all Quakers in St. Petersburg and America were either fooled or part of. He said the persons in America doing fundraising for ProNica were helping themselves to that money personally. He offered no evidence of such misappropriation of funds for personal enrichment but was sure it was happening. He offered no evidence for his belief that the leaders of Quakers in America were running a scam charity in an organized way from the top as a moneymaking scheme.

He tried to show his evidence—a photo of an empty building, photos of that nature—to the "top Quaker" in Saint Petersburg but he only got halfway through and the man told him Ruth Paine and others had worked very hard and he did not believe the allegations. He then realized that man was in on it too.

He believed both Ruth Paine and Michael Paine have been CIA their entire lives "because their relatives were", that Ruth supported the contras in Nicaragua, and that Ruth was spying giving CIA intelligence in Nicaragua. No evidence offered or claimed from him on that but he believed that. He had no doubt that Ruth and Michael Paine knew in advance that JFK would be assassinated.

As for the claimed activities and projects of ProNica in Managua which many people from the St. Petersburg Meeting had visited and seen personally, he was convinced they were "cook's tours" of wealthy donors flown to Managua and shown around, visiting poor people living on dirt floors, etc., which he believed could easily be arranged with twenty-dollar bills to poor people in Nicaragua to set up fake photo ops to fool the prospective donor being shown around. He believed the Quakers and ProNica were very good and professional at fooling people this way. 

He never reported to authorities his allegations (nor am I aware of any reported complaints to authorities of allegations of this nature), and his attempts to report once to the top St. Petersburg Quaker and again in Philadelphia to a leading Quaker there, both were fruitless and he realized they were in on it was why.

On 8/25/2022 at 1:23 PM, Bill Brown said:

Greg, are you aware of just how far Callaway was down Patton when he walked out to the sidewalk and had the encounter with the gunman?  It's quite a ways down from the corner of Tenth and Patton.  I was being conservative when I said it was two-thirds of the way down the block (from the intersection of Tenth and Patton).  It was more like three-fourths of the way down Patton, i.e. almost to the corner of Jefferson Blvd. and Patton.

Clemons says nothing about the other man (who you are claiming is Callaway) first making his way all the way up the three-fourths of a block on Patton just to even get to Tenth so that he could then go "straight down Tenth Street that way".

It wasn't Callaway.

What difference does it make how far it was from Acquilla Clemons, if she saw it? All that matters is she tells of seeing an interchange, and Callaway and the killer then went opposite directions in the directions she gestured and told in words: the killer south on Patton, Callaway east on Tenth (after north on Patton). Unless you are arguing that Acquilla Clemons did not see anything, she had to have seen something in accord with known movements of known persons, and Callaway is the one person at the Tippit crime scene seen running east on Tenth. Your objection becomes reduces to a criticism that Acquilla Clemons could not have referred to Callaway running east on Tenth because if it was Callaway she saw, you require Clemons to have described it in cumbersome manner such as, "first he ran north on Patton, then he went straight down Tenth", instead of Clemons' shorter and simpler, "he went straight down Tenth". What Clemons says of the second man is what Callaway did do, following an opposite-sides-of-street shouted exchange with the gunman just as Clemons described. You have offered no suggestion of anyone other than Callaway that Clemons could have seen running east on Tenth following a Callaway-like interaction with the gunman. In the absence of any good alternative, I consider the matter settled that Acquilla Clemons' second man was Callaway. 

13 minutes ago, Bill Brown said:

Greg, are you aware of just how far Callaway was down Patton when he walked out to the sidewalk and had the encounter with the gunman?  It's quite a ways down from the corner of Tenth and Patton.  I was being conservative when I said it was two-thirds of the way down the block (from the intersection of Tenth and Patton).  It was more like three-fourths of the way down Patton, i.e. almost to the corner of Jefferson Blvd. and Patton.

Clemons says nothing about the other man (who you are claiming is Callaway) first making his way all the way up the three-fourths of a block on Patton just to even get to Tenth so that he could then go "straight down Tenth Street that way".

It wasn't Callaway.

Who do you think it was?

2 hours ago, Bill Brown said:

The Rush To Judgement interview with Mark Lane.

OK found it. Its not in the book, Rush to Judgment. I checked index references to Clemons, not there. But it is in the video clip interview by Mark Lane of Acquilla Clemons, at 1:05-1:45, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTjq7jz8b5g.

Lane: Was there any other man there?

Clemons: Yes, the one on the other side of the street. All I know, he told him to go on (gesturing)

Lane: Mrs. Clemons, the man who had the gun, did he make any motion at all to the other man across the street?

Clemons: No more than told him to go on (motions)

Lane: So he waved his hand--

Clemons: Yes, he said go on (gesturing)

Lane: And then what happened with the man with the gun?

Clemons: He unloaded and reloaded.

Lane: And what did the other man do?

Clemons: Man kept going--straight down the street.

Lane: And then did they go in opposite directions?

Clemons: Yes, they were--they weren't together. They went this way from each other (gesturing). The one done the shooting went this way (gesturing). Other one went straight down Tenth Street that way (gesturing).

OK Bill no dispute on the words but I am going to offer a different interpretation than you are assuming. I see no evidence Clemons saw anything before the gunman at "the corner" "unloading and reloading". I think Clemons saw the Callaway/gunman exchange on Patton with the gunman going further south on Patton, and Callaway coming down to Tenth and east on Tenth, or as Clemons put it of Callaway, "straight down Tenth that way", which is exactly where Callaway did go, to the Tippit cruiser. 

I will agree she does not specifically speak of going around a corner, or a turn, and "kept going--straight down the street" (and across the street from the gunman) could sound like a man already heading eastward on the north side of Tenth who has the waving interaction with the gunman and continues heading eastward (on the north side of Tenth). The wording is ambiguous in that sense.

But that reading makes little sense, because who is that phantom man that no other witness tells of, who is just in front of Helen Markham, and Acquilla Clemons, and Mary Little, already heading east and keeping going heading east from "across the street" from the southeast corner of Patton and Tenth? 

No such interaction, no such witness is known. In Clemons' known transcripts and accounts, there is nothing in what she says which places the interaction at the site of the cruiser itself. At the earliest it is when the gunman is at the corner, "unloading and loading". But I read it as happening after that. The gunman is on the west side of Patton headed south, and Callaway is on the east side of Patton heading north and then, as Clemons puts it, "went straight down Tenth that way" (east, on the south side, toward the Tippit cruiser). 

Recall from the Myers interview of Mary Little, just after the blanket was thrown over Tippit's body, before the ambulance arrived, with Mary at the site of the cruiser, and in Mary's telling, Acquilla Clemons is back at the northwest corner of Tenth and Patton. Mary Little: "Suddenly a white man appeared on the scene, coming from the east end of the block, but that was all she remembered about him."

That's Acquilla Clemons' second man that she saw who "went straight down Tenth Street that way [eastward] (gesturing)". The "tall" (and thin, got that wrong if it is Callaway, but got "tall" right) Callaway. At the time Clemons was, in Mary Little's account, in position to see Callaway and the gunman go in the opposite directions as she described, on opposite sides of the street--the gunman south on Patton, and Callaway in the opposite direction (to) east on Tenth.

This interpretation aligns Clemons' testimony with movements of known persons at the crime scene in accord with other testimony, rather than a necessity to postulate a phantom different person seen only by Clemons and by no one else among the people who were there at the same time as Clemons. Myers' suggestion of witness Frank Cimino on Tenth I do not think will work since Cimino did not head east on Tenth and also never saw or interacted with the gunman. 

Helen Markham never saw the interaction of gunman/second man that Clemons described. Mary Little did not. Frank Cimino did not. Lad Holan, Jr., nothing. These were all Tenth Street witnesses. But Mary Little did see a man--Callaway--coming east on Tenth in the identical direction of movement Clemons gave for her second man, after the gunman/Callaway interaction which the other Tenth Street witnesses never saw, but which Acquilla Clemons, because of where she was positioned and looking, did see. 

53 minutes ago, Bill Brown said:

Clemons stated that after their encounter, one of the two men went straight down Tenth Street.  She is not speaking about the encounter between the killer and Callaway, which occurred damn near all the way down Patton by Jefferson.

What's your reference on that Bill?

23 hours ago, Bill Brown said:

Hi Greg.

I don't think Clemons got to the corner in time to see the brief exchange between the killer and Callaway.  The exchange between these two men took place about two-thirds of the way down Patton toward Jefferson.

One, I'm not sure Clemons got to the corner in time to be looking that far down Patton to see the exchange.

Two, Clemons doesn't describe the exchange as happening that far from the shooting scene.

Bill, a decent comment but after restudy of the Shirley Smith interview transcript and the Mark Lane video interview, I think it remains correct that Clemons was describing the gunman/Callaway interaction that happened on Patton, as you say about two-thirds down Patton toward Jefferson.

A first point is Clemons never directly said the exchange happened on Tenth even though that has always been assumed. On the timing, Myers' blog post of Nov 16, 2020 on the story of then 12-year old Mary Little, has this from Mary. After hearing the shots when inside her house with her stepfather, Emory Austin, in their house on Patton next to the nw corner of Patton and Tenth:

"Her step-father reiterated, 'No, that's not a backfire. That was gunfire.'

"Mary ran out the front door and saw a black maid [= Acquilla Clemons] approaching the northwest corner of Tenth and Patton from the west.

"Mary ran up to her. She was bawling and taking the white apron she was wearing and wringing her hands with it, saying, 'Oh my god! What's happening? First the president and now this!' ...

"Mary told me that she looked to her left and saw a police car. The door of the squad car was wide open and a policeman was laying near the left front tire. She later said that once she arrived at the corner of Tenth and Patton, she was focused on the police car to her left and that had she simply turned to look south down Patton, she might have seen Lee Harvey Oswald [sic] making his escape."

(Comment: note the timing of when and where Acquilla Clemons is in this account.)

"Mary walked toward the police car parked further down Tenth Street, adding that the black maid never crossed Patton to get any closer to the car but instead remained on the northwest corner of Tenth and Patton.

"As the twelve-year old approached the fallen officer, she saw a bullet wound in his right temple, but no other wounds. The wound in the temple had a trickle of blood coming from it.

"A lady came out of a white, wooden two-story house, located directly across the street from the police car, carrying a blanket. She said, 'Oh my god! Oh my god! Just throw this over him! Throw it over him! The woman then retreated to her home.'

"Suddenly a white man appeared on the scene, coming from the east end of the block [= Callaway?], but that was all she remembered about him. She didn't see anyone using the police radio or any other people at the scene other than the three she described--the black maid, the woman with the blanket, and the man. Mary believed she was the third person to arrive on the scene. After throwing the blanket over the officer, she returned to the corner where the black maid was still standing ... she saw the black maid go back to the house on Tenth Street where she was taking care of an elderly man and woman ... Mary said that the house that the black maid returned to was the second one west of the intersection of Tenth and Patton and that it was located on the north side of the street."

In the Shirley Martin transcript, Clemons tells of seeing the gunman on "that corner" across from her, with the reference being either the southeast or the southwest corner of Tenth and Patton. So far as I can tell, Clemons never claims to have seen the gunman shooting, Tippit falling, etc. anything before her repeated telling of seeing the gunman "at that corner". 

Twice Shirley Martin tries to get Clemons to say there were two men "at that corner", a second man with the gunman at the corner. Each time Clemons declines to confirm that, indicating that is not where Clemons saw the second man.

Question: ... They were both on that same corner?

Clemmons: I don't know. All I know he was talking to (------) who done the shooting (------). He was talking to a tall guy on the other side of the street with yellow khakis and a white shirt on, but I don't know whether he was in on it or he was just going to get out of the way or something. I don't know because I had to go back in [her house] and tend to him [the elderly man for whom she was caring].

Repeatedly Clemmons refers to the location of the second man--the only information on where the second man was located--as "on the other side of the street". But the other side of which street?

Everyone has assumed that means the other side of Tenth, with some image of the second man running east on Tenth and the gunman running west before turning the corner of Patton. But no other witness saw any man running east on Tenth, and Clemons' testimony seems to have her first see the gunman at the corner of Tenth and Patton, after which the gunman ran south on Patton which is where Clemons would have been able to see, from where Clemons was positioned on the nw corner of Tenth and Patton according to Mary Little. The "other side of the street" then becomes the other side of Patton, with the gunman on the west side, and Callaway on the east side. (The capital letters below are in the Shirley Martin transcript.)

"Question: I mean he [gunman] didn't go right up that street? [MEANING UP PATTON TOWARDS JEFFER.

"Clemmons: No. The other one did. The one who done the shooting went across there ...

(. . .)

Question: The other one went up that..Patton?

Clemmons: Yeah. He went up (-------). He may have been just a boy getting out of the way.

Clemons later refers to coming out (= from her house or porch?) and seeing the gunman "unloading his gun and reload[ing] it".

Clemmons: I can't remember. (I was afraid. He frightened me. To come out and) see him unloading his gun and reload it. (. . .) He acted like he wanted to shoot me. (. . .) I didn't pay his hair any attention. I was getting out of his way a 'cause I didn't know. See I was pretty close to him. Between that (telegram) post and that tree loading his gun..on this side. And I was on this side of the walk standing right there and I didn't want him to be shooting me.

Question: You didn't hear them yell or say anything?

Clemmons: No. I heard no more than I heard that lady call [= Helen Markham screaming 'he shot him']. She told me to look at the man shooting the police. (. . .) she was closer than I [to the Tippit cruiser/body of Tippit] because she runned in front of me and I went down there when..when I went down there, there wasn't anybody there but her. I guess she was there. I don't know. It was all excitement.

Question: Did a lot of people come running out?

Clemmons: Yes, they did. Police and everybody. It looked like a..I don't know. There was so many policemen you couldn't walk out there. But I don't know. I don't know...

Later Clemons gives the clearest indication that at the time of the shooting of Tippit she was sitting on the front porch, though I cannot find any claim of Clemons that she saw the Tippit cruiser stop, Tippit get out, Tippit get shot, etc.

"I got tired, come out here [on the porch?], and sit down here [on the porch?], and then that happened.

I conclude what Acquilla Clemons saw was not different from what others saw happen, and that what she describes as the second man was Callaway on Patton with the interaction Callaway described, which Acquilla Clemons also saw and described.

I think Acquilla Clemons saw the Callaway and gunman interaction, and Clemons may have gone to the Tippit cruiser scene very briefly before hurrying back to the elderly man for whom she was caring. In Myers' blog post of Nov 19, 2020 on the Doris Holan story (https://jfkfiles.blogspot.com/2020/11/doris-e-holan-and-tippit-murder.html), Myers quotes Lad Holan, Jr. The reference below to "a couple of black women" to me supports Clemons did go to the Tippit cruiser (in agreement with what Clemons said; in disagreement with Mary Little).

"When he [Lad Holan Jr.] got closer, he saw that a Dallas police officer was lying in the street next to the police car. He ran up to the car, not knowing what had happened. The squad car door was open and the police radio was blaring, but the car wasn't running. Tippit was skill bleeding when he arrived. Three to six people were rushing about in a panic--a couple of black women and two or three white women." 

The reconstruction would be that Acquilla Clemons saw the exchange of the second man and the gunman, from her position at the corner of Tenth and Patton and that that exchange happened south on Patton, before she continued east on Tenth to the Tippit cruiser, and then returned to the house where she was working.

Also in that same Nov 19, 2020 blog post Myers deconstructs the Doris Holan story as told by Brownlow and Pulte based on showing evidence that in Nov 1963 Doris Holan did not live at 409 E. Tenth Street as Brownlow and Pulte were presenting it. Myers proves where the Doris Holan family actually was living at that time which was 113-1/2 S. Patton Ave, second story of the building right on the nw corner of the east-west alley between Tenth and Jefferson, with the front of their living quarters facing east overlooking Patton. Brownlow and Pulte gave an oral hearsay rendition of what Doris Holan told them just before Doris Holan died of cancer. Because of the screwup on the address--Brownlow and Pulte shaping their retelling of Holan's account in light of the mistaken address assumption--what Doris Holan actually told Brownlow and Pulte may have been garbled in the Brownlow/Pulte transmission. From Doris Holan's vantage point looking out her window from where she actually did live she would have been in a perfect position to have seen the gunman and Callaway interchange on Patton, and I believe in the garbled oral-retelling transmission of Brownlow/Pulte there may be another version of the same encounter which Acquilla Clemons saw and told (and of which Callaway, a participant in that encounter, told). The story of Doris Holan, filtered through her memory and distorted in Brownlee/Pulte's oral retelling, is mixed in with claims of seeing a second patrol car doing strange backing up and forward motions in a driveway (= is that "driveway" the alley running east-west between Tenth and Jefferson, looking almost directly across from Doris Holan's line of sight from her window overlooking Patton?). But bypassing that, is it possible the below is Doris Holan from 113-1/2 Patton telling of seeing the gunman and Callaway on Patton? This is Myers describing and then quoting what Brownlow said Doris Holan said:

"As she [Doris Holan] watched the man in the white jacket [= gunman], a second man walked down the driveway [= alley?] in a dark blue jacket [= Callaway with his jacket now on?] Mrs. Holan claimed the second man was about the same height as the man in the white jacket but much heavier--weighing well over two-hundred pounds [= Callaway?] (. . .)

"[quoting Brownlow] 'And then he [heavy-set man in the blue jacket = Callaway?] turned to the man in the white jacket,' Brownlow said, 'and began to do this (gesturing with his arm as if to say 'Go on')--like telling him to leave, get out of there. She said, that's when the man in the white jacket turned to his left and proceeded toward Patton."

As Myers proves, Doris Holan could not have seen the above occur on Tenth Street (as Brownlow and Pulte presented it) because Doris Holan was not living on Tenth Street. But where Doris Holan was living, and was present that day at the time of the Tippit killing, as Myers broke the story and showed, on Patton, is in agreement with her story as told by Brownlee and Pulte that she ran to her window and looked out and saw what she saw--which would have been (unknown to Pulte and Brownlow) on Patton. Underneath the garbling and misreporting, Doris Holan was in an excellent position to have seen the gunman/Callaway interchange, and may have seen it and told of it, even though Pulte and Brownlow garbled her story including where it took place. The story of Doris Holan sounds somewhat similar to the story of Acquilla Clemons, and in Doris Holan's case can only have occurred on Patton.

4 hours ago, Tony Krome said:

From one of your posts: Helen Markham said the killer looked at her and then started coming at her. 

Helen Markham testimony: Mr. BALL. Where do you work now?  Mrs. MARKHAM. Eat Well Restaurant, 1404 Main Street, Dallas, Tex.  Mr. BALL. Were you working there on November 22, 1963?  Mrs. MARKHAM. I was.

Crafard Exhibit 5226: Crafard would stay at the club and eat his meals at the Eat Well Cafe

That's interesting Tony. "Craford would stay at the [Carousel] club and eat his meals at the Eat Well Cafe and the drugstore across the street from the club" (https://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh19/pdf/WH19_Crafard_Ex_5226.pdf). In this interview of Helen Markham, could her gesture illustrating the Tippit killer's reaction at the moment of eye contact between the killer and her, at 2:00f, be interpreted as the killer possibly recognizing her? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPjc6tsdRcs.  

Direct calculation of bullet trajectories from the autopsy information

This is calculation direct from the Tippit autopsy measurements reported by Dr. Rose, and can be done by anyone, bypassing Myers' schematics. The question here is the upward angle of elevation starting from where the bullet entered if Tippit were upright. The angles calculated assume the bullet enters at the same angle or path the bullet takes after entering the body (in reality bullets do not always continue straight). The Tippit autopsy: https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth338568/.

For what the autopsy refers to as Wound No. 1, the head shot entering at the right temple: it entered 4.75" below the top of the head and was found almost passed through the head at 1" below the top of the head, for a "rise" of 3.75". It entered 3.75" to the R of midline and ended 3" to the L of midline. Here an estimate must be made of how long the "run" or length traversed of that bullet was in Tippit's head, for a man 5'11" height and 180 pounds. An estimate of 7" from skin to skull exit and subtracting 1" because the bullet did not exit gives an estimate of ca. 6" "run". Using an online elevation grade calculator such as here, https://www.omnicalculator.com/construction/elevation-grade (plug in your own different or improved estimates and see the differences), that Tippit head shot has an angle of rise of 32 degrees angle if that hit Tippit when he was upright.

For what the autopsy refers to as Wound No. 2, the almost horizontal chest shot entering at the right side, it entered 17" below the top of the head and ended 16" below the top of the head, 1" rise, with an estimate of 9" if it had exited minus an arbitrary 1" because it did not exit, estimated 8" run, giving an angle of rise of 7 degrees for an upright Tippit.

For what the autopsy refers to as Wound No. 3, the other chest shot entering the right side, it entered 21" below the top of the head and ended 16.5" from the top of the head, a rise of 4.5". Again the run is estimated at 8", and that gives an angle of rise of 29 degrees for an upright Tippit. There is no information in the autopsy as to in which order these wounds occurred.

So that is angles of elevation of 32, 7, and 29 by these rough calculations, compared to angles of Myers' schematics for the same respectively measured at ca. 35, 13, and 51. It can be seen there is good agreement with Myers' schematic for the first two but a significant difference for No. 3 (29 versus 51). I do not know why there is that difference in No. 3 (i.e. do not know how Myers arrived at the angle in his schematic for No. 3). 

However the point remains: of these three bullet trajectories, only one is obviously compatible with an over-the-hood horizontal shot into an upright Tippit (No. 2). The other chest shot (No. 3) clusters not with the first chest shot (No. 2) but with the coup de grace to the temple, a completely sensible and indicated angle for both of those two shots, not simply the temple shot, fired into Tippit on the ground from a shooter standing nearby and almost over him. 

I suppose one could hypothetically have autopsy No. 2 hit Tippit fully upright, knocking Tippit over to his left, and then No. 3 hit Tippit again from the right side as he was in free fall to the left accounting for that angle of entry. However that would still leave explained the temple shot, the coup de grace, and since the No. 3 chest shot is effectively the same angle as the temple coup de grace, it makes sense that it was fired at the same time and from the same shooter's position. 

So the reconstruction holds: three shots fired from over the hood (one into Tippit's chest, one blocked by a button, and a miss) and a final two shots from a closer position in which the gunman was standing shooting into a prone Tippit who had fallen on his left side. 

Myers' positioning of Tippit's prone body: I think I found where he got that

I noted above that Myers had written in 2020, "Tippit reportedly was found lying on his left side, chest partially turned downward. His feet were near the left front tire, with the head angled out toward the center of the street." I did not see an explanation or understand how Myers got that (there is no photo of Tippit's body before it was removed by the ambulance). However I think I found where that may come from: an interview of ambulance attendant Eddie Kinsley from the Dudley Funeral Home, Tippit 2.pdf at https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/11VbgFnRlaInmLoE6_fKcY-T965DmBrEG. It appears to be a transcript of a recording, date not clear, there is a 1996 date on a printout. Kinsley:

"And it was in the middle of a block there where Tippit's police car was. And he was partly under the car. From his knees down was under the left hand wheel of the car."

Since there was a blood spot on the street 2 or 3 feet removed from the left front of the car and the blood spot probably came from the head wound, based on the Kinsley description Tippit would have fallen with his upper body and head a little out from the car but feet and lower legs sprawled behind the left front wheel under the car. 

If Tippit fell such that he landed on his back initially facing up before rolling over to be on his left side after being shot, the shooter could have shot into his right side on both of those final two shots from a position on the west side from coming around the back of the patrol car. Some witnesses did seem to see the body of Tippit move after the shots. If however Tippit was already on his left side before the final two shots, it would mean that the shooter will have had to have shot from east or south of the body, not west or north, to agree with the trajectories, and in that case either the gunman came around the front, or the gunman came around the rear of the car and went around Tippit's prone body before firing two final shots westward or northward into Tippit's right side and right temple.

2 hours ago, Michael Kalin said:

Not so. Markham gave a statement to SA Odum on 11/22/63:
https://catalog.archives.gov/id/7460725
The Odum report is the fourth item, dated 11/22/63, visible at the bottom of the page. Nothing prevented him or someone else from interviewing Benavides the same day. The fact that "there is no record of any FBI interview with Benavides on Nov 22, 1963" indicates the report was destroyed before compilation.

As for Hodgens' memo the typo ("eluding") is irrelevant, same as the typo "mand" for man. These errors were committed by the typist (initials "bkg") and have no impact on the meaning of the content. OTOH pretending the critical phrase ("in his statement to the FBI") does not appear before "on the date of the assassination" violates the structure of the document. The latter phrase modifies the "statement," not the "red Ford" of the sentence's preceding clause. That's how English works.

You're right on the FBI interview of Helen Markham on 11/22/63. I wonder where that occurred, at the Dallas Police station when Markham was there doing the lineup? (Benavides was not there for those lineups.) I still think it more likely Benavides was not interviewed by FBI on 11/22/63 since there is no FBI document for it and that the 1967 Hodgens was a misunderstanding by Hodgens, but I suppose the other possibility of a secret FBI interview of Benavides on 11/22/63 with destroyed document, that Hodgens never got the memo should not have been mentioned in Hodgens' 1967, is possible, I don't know. Let's suppose you are right. What is it you can cite of the contents of that destroyed, now non-existent, interview document of 11/22/63, that can contribute information to anything, if what you hold is correct? i.e. where do you go with it if it was as you say? 

2 hours ago, Michael Kalin said:

You persist in parking Tatum's Galaxie in this space despite a failure to deal effectively with the massive objections to Tatum's presence at the scene. How is that? Naming a single witness who saw him there and identified him would shore up your shaky argument.

Persist in seeing it as credible yes, as the car in front of Benavides described by Benavides in his WC testimony. I have not seen you give any "massive objections to Tatum's presence at the scene". The objection of red-and-white two-tone later description of Benavides is not substantial unless it is first established that Tatum's red Galaxie was not two-tone, etc. I don't care whether Tatum was there or not actually, but I don't understand the claims that there are "massive objections" to his having been there. Could you be specific? As for naming a witness or attestation to his being there, if he never gave his name and left, which is what he says he did and is believable (other witnesses do that), what does it prove that no one there mentioned him by name? There is an unidentified person told by Gerald Hill in Hill's WC testimony which agrees with what Tatum said of himself at the scene (though this person could be someone else); Hill: "The first man that came up to me, he said, 'The man that shot him was a white male about 5 foot 10 inches, weighing 160 to 170 pounds, had on a jacket and a pair of trousers, and brown bushy hair.' I turned this man over to Officer Joe Poe, who had just arrived. I didn't even get his name." 

I hope it is clear that in my view the two final shots of the killer as fired into Tippit on the ground, in the manner of a professional execution, is established from the trajectory of two bullet paths found in the autopsy, whether or not Tatum saw movements of the killer in agreement with that interpretation of the information from the autopsy. I am influenced in favor of credibility of Tatum (in the absence of known reason not to be) by what Tatum said he saw being in agreement with that information from the autopsy--which Tatum could not have known at the time Tatum was found and interviewed by HSCA since the autopsy was not released until the 1980s.