Bill Brown

You are the one who needs to learn the evidence here. Whaley picked the No. 2 guy in the lineup Oswald was standing under No. 3. Knapp was standing under No. 2 Nonsense. Yes, Oswald was the #3 man and the #3 man is who Whaley picked, despite his later claim to the Warren Commission that he picked the #2 man. This is old hat, Mr. Griffith. I suppose you believe that Knapp was "bawling out the policeman, telling them it wasn't right to put him in line with these teenagers". Really? Do you believe that Knapp was doing such a thing? Mr. BALL. They brought you down to the Dallas police station? Mr. WHALEY. Yes, sir. Mr. BALL. What did you do there? Mr. WHALEY. Well, I tried to get by the reporters, stepping over television cables and you couldn't hardly get by, they would grab you and wanted to know what you were doing down here, even with the detectives one in front and one behind you. Then they took me in an office there and I think Bill Alexander, the Assistant District Attorney, two or three, I was introduced to two or three who were FBI men and they wanted my deposition of what happened. So, I told them to the best of my ability. Then they took me down in their room where they have their show-ups, and all, and me and this other taxi driver who was with me, sir, we sat in the room awhile and directly they brought in six men, young teenagers, and they all were handcuffed together. Well, they wanted me to pick out my passenger. At that time he had on a pair of black pants and white T-shirt, that is all he had on. But you could have picked him out without identifying him by just listening to him because he was bawling out the policeman, telling them it wasn't right to put him in line with these teenagers and all of that and they asked me which one and I told them. It was him all right, the same man.

Let me put it to you this way... No witness said that the killer touched the quarter panel. You said that it is 99% obvious that the prints on the quarter panel belonged to the killer. Once you explain how you know this to be true then I will address your question to me asking for the same.

William Whaley, who supposedly drove Oswald from downtown Dallas to his neighborhood, testified that Oswald "had on two jackets" while he was allegedly in Whaley's cab. At the police lineup, Whaley selected an eighteen-year-old named David Knapp instead of the twenty-four-year-old Oswald. Long before he ever testified to the Warren Commission, Whaley described to the FBI what his passenger was wearing and he made not a single mention of any jacket. Whaley even went as far as describing, in detail, the shirt Oswald was wearing. Your claim that Whaley picked out anyone other than Oswald at the lineup is pure nonsense. Whaley picked Oswald. This is JFK 101. Learn the evidence.

First, I did not say the killer "could not have" touched the quarter panel. Don't put words in my mouth and/or misquote me. I said that none of the witnesses said the killer touched the quarter panel. You have no support for your claim that the killer did indeed touch that quarter panel. It is YOUR claim that the killer touched the quarter panel. You haven't supported it, however.

You're a guy walking on the sidewalk. A police officer pulls up alongside you in his patrol car and asks you to come over to the car so he can speak with you for a second. You are on the sidewalk facing the officer in his car. Why are you laying your hand on the quarter panel on your way over to the passenger-side window? Also, no witness saw the killer touch the quarter panel. The better question is... How do you know the killer did touch the quarter panel?

Hasan Yusuf is a Kook (I don't think I'm breaking any rules, since he is not a member here, but facts are facts). Crafard's alibi (that he was sleeping inside the Carousel Club at the time of the assassination) is solid, unless you want to add the bartender (Andy Armstrong) to the long list of regular, everyday people who lied to help frame the patsy. Is this what you are doing here?

"Then there is Helen Markham's FBI interview by Odum on the afternoon of Fri Nov 22, 1963, at her workplace the Eat-Well Cafe, wherein she gave a physical description of the killer before she saw the lineup and Oswald in that lineup whom she picked." No Sir. Markham was taken to police headquarters straight from Tenth and Patton. Why do you say Markham was at work when interviewed by Odum?

I am not saying the killer sported a mullet. I am saying that a person's collar line up against a jacket collar (you do agree that Tippit's killer was wearing a jacket. Right?) could very easily give the appearance of a "block cut" (as you call it) instead of tapered look. Your argument (tapered versus squared collar line) is poor and goes nowhere for either of us, so why do you choose to rely on it? As for the Medium jacket size versus Small jacket size, well, this is perhaps the most lame of all the arguments made in any JFK assassination-related discussions. Is it your opinion that a man who wears a size Small cannot fit into a size Medium?

Here, let me fix your statement for you... There is no photo, no evidence, no witnesses that Crafard was anywhere near Tenth and Patton in Oak Cliff at 1:15. Thing is, my statement here does not need to include the "other than" that your statement requires. However, we do have evidence that Crafard was asleep inside the Carousel Club at 12:30.

I don't know how much more clear I can be. But, I'll try again. Tippit's killer is walking on the sidewalk. Tippit pulls up alongside. The killer walks over to the passenger window of the patrol car and leans forward. The killer may or may not have touched the door. The killer did not touch the quarter panel. Partial prints are found on the door. Partial prints are found on the quarter panel. These prints are from the same person (the opinion of Myers' fingerprint expert Herb Lutz). The killer did not touch the quarter panel. Therefore, the prints on the quarter panel are not the killer's prints. If the prints on the quarter panel are not the killer's, then the prints on the door are not the killer's.

I knew that was coming. Sorry, but I don't believe a hit man admits he was a hit man to an interviewer, unless he is about to testify under immunity in court. Is this the best you have, re: proof that Crafard was a hit man?

Captain George Doughty retrieved shell #3 (the shell found by Barbara Davis). Detective Dhority took possession of shell #4 (the shell found by Virginia Davis). Regarding the chain of possession of the shells, In June of '64, the FBI visited both Doughty and Dhority. The FBI presented both men with the four shell casings in evidence. Each man found his marking and positively identified the shell he handled on 11/22/63. There is no issue with the chain of possession of these two shell casings. These two shell casings were positively linked, through ballistic testing, to the revolver taken from Oswald inside the theater (per Nicol, Cunningham, Frazier, Killion). These are the facts, Greg.

"Because that's like how its done in mob movies"... Well, How can I argue with that?

What you are calling a "failed attempt at the Texas Theatre to kill Oswald" is nothing more than an excuse for a faulty theory. If the plan was to kill Oswald inside the theater, then he would have been killed inside the theater. Your faulty theory doesn't quite fit so to correct it, you create this fictitious scenario about how the patsy was supposed to be killed inside the theater.

Your entire point above is that because a witness can be mistaken, then Brewer was mistaken.

And the fingerprints on the Tippit cruiser which are 99% likely from the killer (it’s just obvious), are excluded as from Oswald. Plus there never has been any sense at all to why Oswald would walk to the tippit crime scene location in the first place, whereas the killer was seen walking to the crime scene from proximity of Ruby’s nearby apartment. And witness Benavides saw up close the killer had a block cut hairline in the back of his head but Oswald had a taper cut not block cut. Not one witness said Tippit's killer touched the front passenger quarter panel of the patrol car. The prints on that quarter panel were pretty much a match with the prints left on the passenger door. There is no evidence that Tippit's killer touched the quarter panel. If Tippit's killer did not touch the quarter panel, then the prints on the passenger door did not belong to Tippit's killer. To claim that it is 99% likely that the prints came from Tippit's killer is to make a claim without anything to support it; it's wishful thinking on your part, Greg. As for Oswald having no reason to be walking on Tenth Street, well, there was a reason, we just don't know it. Only Oswald, of course, would know the reason. But one thing we know for sure, Oswald was indeed walking on Tenth Street. We know this because multiple eyewitnesses said he was the man they saw with a gun in his hand at the scene (Markham, B. Davis, V. Davis, Scoggins., Guinyard, Callaway, Reynolds, Patterson, Russell) and also the shell casings thrown to the ground by the killer matched the revolver taken from Oswald a little over a half hour later, to the exclusion of any other weapon in the world. Have I mentioned that part yet? The "Oswald's revolver to the exclusion of any other weapon in the world" part? You are perfectly aware that Crafard was asleep inside Ruby's club at the time of the assassination. Right? Hardly the state of being for him to be in if he's supposed to be in Oak Cliff walking along Tenth Street having just left Ruby's apartment on Ewing. As for Benavides and the tapered collar line versus squared off collar line, the killer could have been sporting a 80's style mullet but if the mullet was tucked inside the collar of the jacket (the killer was wearing a jacket, right?) then it would appear squared off instead of tapered. To try to make any sort of a case for the killer being someone other than Oswald because of this tapered versus squared collar line is highly ill-advised.

And Craford was housed by and employed by the killer of Oswald two days later on Sunday morning. And Craford was an experienced hit man, unlike Oswald, and the Tippit killing looks like the work of a professional who reloaded prepared to kill again, then went into the theatre… That Crafard was staying at Ruby's club is really the ONLY reason you're trying so hard to tie him into the Tippit killing. There's no other reason. Also, there is no proof that Larry Crafard really was an "experienced hit man" and you won't be able to provide any. Yes, Tippit's killer "reloaded" and "prepared to kill again". But, that does not automatically mean that it was a professional and not Oswald, especially since (again) the revolver taken from Oswald a little over thirty minutes later was the weapon responsible for those shell casings found on the ground as the killer "reloaded" and "prepared to kill again".

I realize Oswald had a .38 revolver on him. But Craford was in proximity to and a plausible explanation for what looks like the real abandoned murder weapon from the Tippit killing (because it has not been otherwise explained), the tossed paper-bag .38 revolver on a downtown city street, only hours later. The one which nobody knew about until decades later fbi documents told of it, because the Dallas Police disappeared it and that was hardly an innocent disappearance. Wait. How does a revolver found in a paper bag lying on the ground near the curb in downtown Dallas automatically mean that it "looks like the real abandoned murder weapon from the Tippit killing"? The revolver taken from Oswald is the weapon linked to the shell casings found at the scene (Nicol, Killion, Cunningham, Frazier), to the exclusion of any other weapon in the world. Therefore, a revolver found in a paper bag lying in the street in a big city nowhere near Tenth and Patton could not be the weapon responsible for those shell casings.

The fact is Craford was identified as Oswald by other witnesses on other occasions, and Courson’s story in itself confirms there were two persons in the theatre who people were identifying as Oswald, which does not mean there were two Oswalds, but does mean there is some room for witness error in Brewer’s identification by analogy. Can it be excluded that Brewer saw Craford, not Oswald, acting furtively in front of his store windows for a few moments before continuing on? And then, failing to see him in the balcony in the theatre (even though he actually was up there somewhere), mistakenly identified Oswald below to police as the man he knew had run into the theatre? You keep bringing up Crafard as if there's even a tiny shred of evidence that he has anything to do with anything at all in Oak Cliff. There is nothing, nada, zilch. Why do you keep mentioning him trying to tie him into Oak Cliff? I don't get it. You're taking a blind leap. As for Brewer, he said the man in front of his shoe store was Lee Oswald, not Larry Crafard. That's it. Period. Regarding Brewer, that is what we have to go on. I realize this doesn't seem like much of a response from me but that's only because you're not making much of a case.

In this case what do you make of a different witness, Jack Davis, inside the theatre, who told of Oswald movements not easily compatible with Oswald having been the killer who ran into the balcony? Have you seen Jack Davis’s Sixth Floor Museum oral history interview? He looks no less credible than Brewer to me, and less likely to be mistaken in telling of the strange movements of Oswald inside the theatre than Brewer could be mistaken in seeing someone stand and sit down in the back of a semi darkened theatre from the stage and point him out to police, “that’s him”. It's foolish (in my opinion) to really believe that the best system the killer and the handler could come up with was to randomly have the killer begin to sit next to people inside the theater in the hopes that he would eventually sit beside the right person. It's nonsense and laughable.

I do not question the sincerity of Brewer, but are you aware of how many people have been falsely convicted on the basis of mistaken eyewitness identifications, in cases of brief sightings at distances? Brewer saw the arrested Oswald well enough in the theatre and many times thereafter in photos, and I believe him that he sold shoes to Oswald in the past, but how certain is it the man Brewer saw acting furtively in front of his store windows (=tippit killer) was the same person (if one was not influenced by other information on the Tippit case)? Brewer said he was ten feet from Oswald. Brewer also said that the man taken from the theater (Oswald) was the same man he saw standing ten feet from him in the shoe store entrance.

"An officer approached him and he hit the officer and knocked him back. Several other officers then joined the fight and the man was taken out of the theater. This was the same man I had seen in front of the shoe store where I work." -- Johnny Brewer

Earlene Roberts: "He went to his room and he was in his shirt sleeves but I couldn't tell you whether it was a long-sleeved shirt or what color it was or nothing, and he got a jacket and put it on---it was kind of a zipper jacket. -- It was a zipper jacket. How come me to remember it, he was zipping it up as he went out the door." ================================ Johnny Brewer: "I saw a man standing in the lobby of the shoe store. This man was wearing a brown sport shirt. -- He had a brown sports shirt on. His shirt tail was out." David Belin: "Any jacket?" Johnny Brewer: "No." ================================ So I ask again... Why would Oswald ditch his jacket between the rooming house on Beckley and the shoe store on Jefferson?

Great article by Steve Roe. Robert Frazier tells us all we really need to know here.

Indeed.