Lee Oswald’s Departure from the TSBD

[J. Raymond Carroll]

According to Google Maps (which now has walking directions and times in beta), it is 1.0 miles from 1026 to TT, going south on Beckley to Davis then cutting over to Zangs to Jefferson. Google estimates a total elapsed time of 21 minutes; my spreadsheet estimates 20.47 minutes at the 4.3 fps average, close enough. If you wanted someone to get from 1026 to TT in, say, 11 minutes, they be moving at 8.0 fps or 5.45 mph; if you wanted LHO out the door at 1:04 and walking into TT by 1:10 in time to see the start of the first movie (but miss the trailers!), he'd have been moving at 14.7 fps or 10 mph ... probably meaning that he'd gotten a ride, because that's a six-minute mile).

Handy stuff, no?

My recollection -- from a discussion on Lancer -- is that the first movie was advertised to start at 1.20. If that is true, then setting out on foot from Beckley he faced a fairly comfortable twenty-minute walk to the cinema. He missed five minutes or less of the first movi, which I for one used to consider "reasonably on time" back in the days when I too could take a whole afternoon to watch a double bill.

Thank you very much, Duke, for taking the time to do this, I would not know how or where to begin. Am I missing something, or are you the first researcher ever to calculate or demonstrate how long it takes to walk from Beckley to the Texas Theatre?

BTW, as to my second question How long would it have taken him to walk [to the cinema] from the location(s) where the Taxi dropped him off? Based on the numbers you provided I suppose I could nearly guess it at ten minutes or thereabouts.

So it is possibile that his original intention (once the bus ride became a bust) was to cab it to the Neeley Street area, which cost a buck, including tip, and then walk to the cinema. It was familiar terrain. I do not recall if he was wearing a watch, but he may have seen the cabdriver's watch and realized that he was much too early for the first show. So he now had time to hoof it back to Beckley, change out of these sweaty work clothes, maybe replace his work boots with a pair of shoes, and generally clean up before going to the movies.

[Duke Lane]

Thank you very much, Duke, for taking the time to do this, I would not know how or where to begin. Am I missing something, or are you the first researcher ever to calculate or demonstrate how long it takes to walk from Beckley to the Texas Theatre?

Good gosh, a distinction like that for little ol' me? I'm probably also the first one to use similar calculations to determine similar data for how long it took Oswald to walk from where Slim Givens saw him last on the 6th floor to the elevator, and what the implications to that were ... but that's another story for another thread. Answer is: a qualified "maybe."

BTW, as to my second question How long would it have taken him to walk [to the cinema] from the location(s) where the Taxi dropped him off? Based on the numbers you provided I suppose I could nearly guess it at ten minutes or thereabouts.

So it is possibile that his original intention (once the bus ride became a bust) was to cab it to the Neeley Street area, which cost a buck, including tip, and then walk to the cinema. It was familiar terrain. I do not recall if he was wearing a watch, but he may have seen the cabdriver's watch and realized that he was much too early for the first show. So he now had time to hoof it back to Beckley, change out of these sweaty work clothes, maybe replace his work boots with a pair of shoes, and generally clean up before going to the movies.

Nah, that wouldn't work.

Google tells us it's 0.7 miles from 700 N. Beckley (at Neeley) to the theater, approximately 14 minutes to walk; 14.33 minutes according to the spreadsheet. I think we (or I) also found that it was about six minutes' walk from 700 Beckley to 1026, meaning that it was a 10 to 15 minute round trip back to Neeley (including time to clean up?), plus 14 more minutes back to the theater in order to be ten minutes late as opposed to five minutes early.

Getting out of the cab at a point where it cost a buck seems like a reasonable thing to do, given the subject, if the theater was his intended destination.

[J. Raymond Carroll]

Nah, that wouldn't work.

Google tells us it's 0.7 miles from 700 N. Beckley (at Neeley) to the theater, approximately 14 minutes to walk; 14.33 minutes according to the spreadsheet. I think we (or I) also found that it was about six minutes' walk from 700 Beckley to 1026, meaning that it was a 10 to 15 minute round trip back to Neeley (including time to clean up?), plus 14 more minutes back to the theater in order to be ten minutes late as opposed to five minutes early.

Duke, humor me a little bit and let's accept the WC timetable, just for fun.

He left the taxi at 12.54 (WR 163), and if he chose to walk directly to the theatre, he would arrive there at 1.08, 12 minutes before the first movie was advertised to begin. When he exited the cab he was only 5 minutes away from his room, according to the WC, so a 10 minute round-trip detour to his room, plus say 5 minutes or less to change his clothes, would bring him back to to the same spot where the cab dropped him at around 1.10. Walking at a google pace he would now reach the cinema at 1.24, four minutes late [= fashionably late?] for the beginning of the first movie.

That works fine for me.

Edited October 4, 2008 by J. Raymond Carroll

[Duke Lane]

Seems reasonable ... but you know, of course, that there is some reason to believe that Lee Oswald did not go back to his room to change his shirt, right? For example, what was the clothing description given by William Whaley as being worn by his cab rider?

[J. Raymond Carroll]

Seems reasonable ...

Thank you, Sir, we do try.

but you know, of course, that there is some reason to believe that Lee Oswald did not go back to his room to change his shirt, right?

Mrs. Roberts was partly blind, but no one has so far asserted that she was COMPLETELY blind, and we know for a fact that she was not deaf. So if this proposition is in fact correct, then Earlene Roberts was a perjurer and obstructor of justice. In deference to Occam and his predecessors, there are a multiplicity of assumptions hidden in that proposition, and a little bit of PROOF might be in order, before we could give it further consideration.

For example, what was the clothing description given by William Whaley as being worn by his cab rider?

I think it fair to say that Whaley's eye -- and memory -- for men's attire was not the keenest, and I am not sure that my own is any better. Now if his passenger had been a hot-looking female, he might have noticed more and remembered better.

I see from Google Maps today that if I wanted to get from 1026 Beckley to the Texas Theatre I could walk south to Fifth and take an 8- minute bus ride. If I time the bus right I could make it door to door in a little over 10 minutes. If such a bus existed in 1963, and I happened to catch the schedule right, I could have left 1026 Beckley at 1.04 and made the 1.20 movie with bags of time to spare.

http://maps.google.com/maps?client=firefox...l=en&tab=wl

So here's the $64,000 question: Does anybody know anybody who knows enough about the 1963 Dallas Bus schedule to

figure out if if a southbound bus was scheduled to depart 5th Street between 1.05 and say 1.12?

[Duke Lane]

... Lee Oswald did not go back to his room to change his shirt, right?

... if this proposition is in fact correct, then Earlene Roberts was a perjurer and obstructor of justice. In deference to Occam and his predecessors, there are a multiplicity of assumptions hidden in that proposition, and a little bit of PROOF might be in order, before we could give it further consideration.

I didn't say it was a fact, Ray; I said there is "reason to believe," and the reason to believe is as strong as just about anything else to do with the case against Oswald.

Earlene Roberts was blind in one eye; I'm thinking it was the left one, but I don't recall offhand if she specified. You also know that she was distracted not alone by the television, but by the information she'd received from her friend on the telephone, if not the telephone itself (she never specifically said that she'd hung up the phone, tho' my recollection of phones in those days is that they didn't have long - or necessarily even coiled - wires either from the wall or between the unit and the handset, so I merely presume that she did); in any case, it's distinctly possible that the information about Kennedy being shot did to her what it did to millions of other people that day: upset her pretty badly.

In any case, I think we'd both agree that she was not focused on Oswald, but on the information and tuning in the television. I submit in that case that virtually anyone could have come into the house and Oswald's room, and the simple fact that he knew where to go was probably sufficient for Roberts to believe it was Oswald.

But that's not the teller; what is may also support your supposition of Oswald going to the theater.

For example, what was the clothing description given by William Whaley as being worn by his cab rider?

I think it fair to say that Whaley's eye -- and memory -- for men's attire was not the keenest, and I am not sure that my own is any better. Now if his passenger had been a hot-looking female, he might have noticed more and remembered better.

In his FBI interview of November 23, William Whaley told agents, first, that he had dropped Oswald off in "the 500 block of Beckley Street, where the man stated 'this will do right here'. Then he got out, gave Mr. Whaley a dollar bill to pay the fare of $.95, and stated 'keep the change'. The man then angled across the street and started walking down Beckley Street in a southward direction. At that point, Mr. Whaley left him and did not see him any more." [CD5, p349; emphasis added] In other words (to paraphrase Mr. McWatters!), Oswald got out of Whaley's cab and walked in a direction away from 1026.

That's the first "reason to believe;" the second is that, in the same interview, Whaley recalled that "the young man he drove in his cab was wearing a heavy identification bracelet on his left wrist ... was dressed in gray khaki pants ... [and] had on a dark colored shirt with some light color in it. The shirt had long sleeves and the top two or three buttons were unbuttoned." [ibid.; emphases added]

Shades of Mary Bledsoe! (One could almost be convinced Whaley picked up Billy Lovelady, too, but we won't go there!)

So, if all of this is true and accurate - other than, perhaps, Whaley's recollection of the block he'd dropped Oswald off at, that being Neches, which the WCR was quick to point out did not intersect Beckley and, quite frankly, doesn't sound a lot different than "Neeley," which could account for such a mistake - then not only did Oswald not depart in the direction of his room, but he also did not change his shirt nor, apparently, did he pick up a jacket and a pistol.

If he did not change his shirt, it could well explain a bus transfer still being in his pocket. If we insist that Bledsoe was correct in identifying him even if his clothing didn't match McWatters' and Jones' descriptions, her description certainly matched Whaley's, which in turn sounds an awful lot like the shirt Oswald was arrested in. If we believe Bledsoe, supported by Whaley, then we'd have to know that the information - passed along by police, not heard directly from Oswald - about him changing clothes is completely false. Since he also supposedly admitted to picking up a gun to carry to the movies "like boys do," he did not use changing clothes as his "excuse" for stopping by his room. Why say so at all if it wasn't true? (Ahhh ... because some would say he was a pathological xxxx! So why, then, not lie and say he didn't pick up a gun? Changing a shirt wasn't illegal; carrying a concealed weapon was. Doesn't make sense, does it.)

... if I wanted to get from 1026 Beckley to the Texas Theatre I could walk south to Fifth and take an 8- minute bus ride. If I time the bus right I could make it door to door in a little over 10 minutes. If such a bus existed in 1963, and I happened to catch the schedule right, I could have left 1026 Beckley at 1.04 and made the 1.20 movie with bags of time to spare.

So here's the $64,000 question: Does anybody know anybody who knows enough about the 1963 Dallas Bus schedule to

figure out if if a southbound bus was scheduled to depart 5th Street between 1.05 and say 1.12?

The FBI picked up a handful of bus schedules from the Dallas Transit Company, but I neither recall in what report you'll find them (it's a Commission Document, not an Exhibit) or whether the Beckley Street bus schedule was among them. We know a bus ran down the street, however, simply on account of Earlene Roberts' saying that she'd last seen "Oswald" standing at the bus stop in front of the house.

When I was researching my (unfinished) piece on Dicky Worrell (Deep Politics Quarterly, July 2006, I think), I contacted several sources, including a retired bus drivers' social group, about bus schedules back then, but came up completely empty-handed. I was concerned with a different route at the time (line 39, I think it was; the one between Love Field and downtown), hence my failure to note the Beckley Street bus. There are no 1963 schedules in DART's archives today, nor with any of the bus afficianado groups that I was able to find, including the one that operates the trolleys downtown today, whose director was a DTC employee back then.

[Antti Hynonen]

Duke and Ray,

How do you account for the statements by Julia Postal, Warren Burroughs and Johnny Brewer? That is, mainly regarding the man (Oswald?) popping into the shoe store and then the movie theater. Julia and Johnny seemed to conclude this about that the man who popped into the shoestore and the movie theatre: "This man is running from them for some reason."

What about those witnesses at the Tippit crime scene, mainly for timing issues? Would you see that these statements are useful?

How reliable do you think that the police radio recordings and time stamps for these transmissions are? Didn't Benavides first try to use the Police radio at 1:16 p.m. according to these records?

How does it all fit in, or doesn't it?

[J. Raymond Carroll]

How does it all fit in, or doesn't it?

Great question, Anti, and when we find the answer......

Many of the questions you raise have been discussed (not the same as "answered") in other Tippit-related threads.

Some time ago I requested that the moderators create a separate INDEX of Tippit-related threads, but of course I was ignored as usual. Perhaps you could use your influence with the bigwigs, Anti, and get such an index created. It would be very helpful at times like this. The murder of J.D. Tippit is certainly important enough.

Oswald got out of Whaley's cab and walked in a direction away from 1026.

Right. At that point he was headed towards the Texas Theatre. And if his landlady is right, he must have then turned around and gone back to his room. I recently read an extract from Armstrong's book that says the DPD found a khaki pants at 1026 and a shirt that I think matched Whaley's description. I have not checked this out yet.

Another thing that merits checking is his footwear. He was wearing "workman's boots" when De Mohrenschildt first met him, and for all I know he wore boots to work at the TSBD. What kind of footwear he was wearing at the cinema is something I do not know.

The FBI picked up a handful of bus schedules from the Dallas Transit Company, but I neither recall in what report you'll find them (it's a Commission Document, not an Exhibit) or whether the Beckley Street bus schedule was among them.

I have seen that report also, and will search for it again.

[Duke Lane]

You're jumping just a little ahead of the conversation, Antti - we haven't even gotten Oswald beyond the rooming house yet! - so allow me to just tackle your last part:

... What about those witnesses at the Tippit crime scene, mainly for timing issues? Would you see that these statements are useful? ...

You'll have to realize that most of the witnesses did not give any sort of accurate time, ranging from "lunchtime" to "around 1:00" to as late as 1:30. One of them - I'm thinking Ted Callaway - was even asked in his deposition what he was doing "at about 1:20," being told the time the shooting took place rather than being asked.

I've got this all broken down somewhere, but the bottom line is that most of the people queried were not "doing anything" other than Markham and Bowley. The Davis girls were lazing around with their kids; Donnie Benavides' lunch hour was pretty casual; Callaway was going about his business; Scoggins was eating lunch; Smith and Burt were just hanging out; etc. Only Markham and Bowley were trying to get somewhere at a particular time and thus paying some attention to the hour, Bowley even looking at his watch.

Only Markham and Bowley's afffidavits gave reasonably exact times: on November 22, Helen's affidavit [CD81, page 347; also CE2003, page 37 at 24H215] began by noting that "at approximately 1:06 PM, November 22, 1963 -- I was standing on the corner ...." In her testimony [3H306], when asked what time she'd thought the shooting had occurred, she replied that she'd "be willing to bet it wasn't 6 or 7 minutes after 1," which she knew because she was on her way to catch her "1:15" bus (it actually came at 1:12).

(These, incidentally, are the only times she mentioned what time it was, which the WC disposed of in its "Rumors and Speculations" section by noting that "in her various statements and in her testimony, Mrs. Markham was uncertain and inconsistent in her recollection of the exact time of the slaying" [R651; emphasis added]. I guess saying "6 or 7 minutes" qualifies as that, eh?)

Bowley's December 2 statement (he'd gone on vacation to San Antonio with his wife and daughter, and was on his way to pick her up at the phone company office at 9th and Zangs when he stumbled across the shooting) said that he'd looked at his watch, which read 1:10. He was not deposed; having met and talked with Bowley several times, I'm pretty sure he'd have stuck to his guns and proven that it actually was 1:10.

... How reliable do you think that the police radio recordings and time stamps for these transmissions are? Didn't Benavides first try to use the Police radio at 1:16 p.m. according to these records?

I don't believe that there is anything wrong with the tapes (dictabelts), at least not during the timeframe in question.

As to who was on the radio, there are two male voices, one belonging to Tom Bowley, the other belonging to Ted Callaway. Donnie Benavides tried using the radio, but didn't have any luck. Both he and Bowley state that Bowley got into the patrol car after Donnie got out; Bowley is certain that he'd gotten through, while Benavides only "knows" he did because the WC said he did. It was Benavides who testified to Callaway's getting on the radio later on and being told to get off, as indeed there is such an exchange a couple of minutes or so after the first "citizen" call.

The WCR determined that if Oswald "left his roominghouse shortly after 1 p.m. and walked at a brisk pace, he would have reached 10th and Patton shortly after 1:15. Tippit's murder was recorded on the police radio tape at about 1:16 p.m." (R165). Well, of course the actual shooting was not "recorded on the police radio tape," and Oswald's being able to get there "shortly after 1:15" does not take into account either Benavides' saying that he'd waited in his truck "for a few minutes" to be sure the shooter was gone, or Bowley's arrival at 10th and Denver and seeing Tippit lying in the street before he'd driven part-way up the street and stopped his car so his elementary school-aged daughter couldn't see everything before walking the rest of the way to the scene, or the delay in his waiting for Benavides to get finished fumbling with the microphone (which the WC simply pretended didn't happen).

People were already gathered around the car when Bowley got there, so either he arrived a few minutes after the shooting or Oswald had a bigger audience than anyone has acknowledged so far.

So there you have the most accurate estimates of the time the event occurred: 1:06, 1:06 or 1:07, before 1:10, before the 1:12 bus, and several minutes before 1:16. If Oswald could have gotten there in 11 minutes (4.9 mph, a 12-minute mile at 7.2 fps vs. the "normal" 4.3), es machts nichts. Tippit was already dead.

[Duke Lane]

In his FBI interview of November 23, William Whaley told agents, first, that he had dropped Oswald off in "the 500 block of Beckley Street, where the man stated 'this will do right here'. Then he got out, gave Mr. Whaley a dollar bill to pay the fare of $.95, and stated 'keep the change'. The man then angled across the street and started walking down Beckley Street in a southward direction. At that point, Mr. Whaley left him and did not see him any more." [CD5, p349; emphasis added] In other words (to paraphrase Mr. McWatters!), Oswald got out of Whaley's cab and walked in a direction away from 1026.

I should note that everything above in quote marks is an actual, direct quote from the FBI report of an interview with William Whaley on Saturday, November 23, 1963. I note this because I've gotten an email that suggests that my paraphrase is only "partially true" because ...

In a filmed recreation for CBS prior to release of the Warren Report, Whaley explained how Oswald stepped out of the southbound vehicle, crossed in front of his cab at the northwest corner of Neely and Beckley, reached the sidewalk and started walking south but immediately turned around to go north. That, of course, is directly toward his room at 1026 N. Beckley.

Granted, Whaley was a little confused about the street names in his testimony, but he took CBS to the street he remembered. Somehow, Warren Commission exhibit 1119-A shows Oswald walking north on the west side of Beckley, not the east side as Whaley explained.

As for Earlene Roberts' eyesight, it was good enough to recognize a roomer she had known for five weeks. According to radio interviews she gave that day to KLIF, and either KRLD or WFAA (I don't recall), and to newspaper reporters including the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Oswald arrived in shirtsleeves and left zipping up a light jacket.

So we come now to the conclusions that, after multiple stories had been broadcast and printed about what Oswald did after leaving the Depository, Whaley's memory was more accurate at some point prior to 10 months having elapsed than it was the day after the events he described took place.

One might think that watching someone cross the street, start walking in one direction and then suddenly turning around and walking in the opposite direction - especially after having seen said passenger's face on TV the night before for having killed the President, possibly (but not necessarily!) raising your suspicions about him, his actions and his intentions - might be somewhat memorable, maybe even important to mention to the FBI ("y'know, now that I think about it, I thought it was strange that he turned around suddenly, going in the opposite direction. Sneaky fella, trying to make me think he was going one way when he really wanted to go the other!"), but we don't find it in Whaley's initial statement.

We do see, however, that Whaley reported seeing this suspicious passenger of his "walking ... in a southward direction," at which point saying he "left him and did not see him any more." Didn't say that he noticed that he'd "immediately" changed directions, or that he thought his doing so might've been a wee bit odd; no, just that he "did not see him any more."

He didn't even say that he'd last seen Oswald walking "in a northward direction" after having started southward, but because he said it on TV months later, it must be what happened. Only long after it became evident that Oswald would've had to walk northward from where Whaley had dropped him off in order to get to his room does he reconcile this apparent discrepancy in what he'd said before by adding this little detail that had escaped him earlier.

Maybe someone told him that if he didn't see Oswald walking north rather than south, then he couldn't have had Oswald in the cab with him. Maybe he simply didn't think the change in direction was noteworthy. Maybe the FBI got it wrong, or he was as confused about directions as he was about street names, but whatever the cause, his updated version is the correct one.

Mea culpa. My new mantra: "I've seen the light, the Report is right. I've seen the light, the Report is right. I've seen the light, the Report is right...."

Edit: Oops. My mistake. It wasn't me who was "partially right," it was the witness! Still: "I've seen the light ...!"

Edited October 6, 2008 by Duke Lane

[J. Raymond Carroll]

I've gotten an email that suggests that my paraphrase is only "partially true" because ...

In a filmed recreation for CBS prior to release of the Warren Report, Whaley explained how Oswald stepped out of the southbound vehicle, crossed in front of his cab at the northwest corner of Neely and Beckley, reached the sidewalk and started walking south but immediately turned around to go north. That, of course, is directly toward his room at 1026 N. Beckley.

Let's not forget Whaley's Warren Commission testimony Vol. II - Page 256:

Mr. Whaley.

I wasn't parked, I was pulled to the curb on Neches and North Beckley.

Mr. Ball.

Neches, corner of Neches and North Beckley?

Mr. Whaley.

Which is the 500 block.

Mr. Ball.

What direction was your car?

Mr. Whaley.

South.

Mr. Ball.

The cab was headed?

Mr. Whaley.

South.

Mr. Ball.

And it would be on the west side of the street?

Mr. Whaley.

Parked, stopped on the west side of the intersection, yes, sir.

Mr. Ball.

When he got out of the tab did he go around in front of your tab?

Mr. Whaley.

He went around in front, yes, sir; crossed the street.

Mr. Ball.

Across to the east side of the street?

Mr. Whaley.

Yes, sir.

Mr. Ball.

Did you see whether he walked south?

Mr. Whaley.

I didn't see whether he walked north or south from there.

Mr. Ball.

In other words, he walked east from your cab and that is the last time you saw him?

Mr. Whaley.

Yes, sir.

I must agree with Duke that Whaley added the Northbound turnaround later on, after it was obvious that such a turnaround MUST have happened if in fact Oswald returned to his room (as I personally believe he did).

But the evidence that he went back to his room does not come from Whaley, but from Earlene Roberts and from his own reported statements in custody, as well as the discarded clothing at his rooming-house.

Going back to buses, he could have caught a southbound bus at 5th Street that would have taken him to the Texas THeatre, as we can today, according to this report http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/...p;relPageId=451

As to the timing, that looks like a hit-or-miss proposition. THis report says says buses in the area tended to be at 20 minute intervals, but the schedule was disrupted on the afternoon of Nov. 22nd.

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/...amp;relPageId=2

Edited October 6, 2008 by J. Raymond Carroll

[Duke Lane]

Well, there ya go! Thanks for that, Ray!

Contrary to my earlier post, it appears that Whaley did not see Oswald heading south. Also, contrary to his later statement, he also did not see him heading north. Yes, he did. No, wait! No, he didn't. Well, he must have, because that's what he told CBS!

Imagine the pluck of that man Whaley! He lies to the FBI - ain't no Feebie got nothin' over on no Dallas cabbie, nossir! - and under oath in front of the Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, but put a camera in front of him - or anybody! - and out comes the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth! I wonder how it is that the court system hasn't picked up on this: y'know, put a guy on the stand, get a bunch of reporters holding microphones out to him, cameras whirring, and Presto! instant confession!

But wait. Further email suggests that it's "picking and choosing" if we were to select one of Whaley's statements to the exclusion of any others, so which one do we lend more credence to? Or do we lend equal credence to all of them, i.e., Whaley didn't see anything, but what he did see proves that Oswald went southward and northward? Or that none of them are true, that Oswald didn't walk anywhere or that Whaley wasn't paying any attention to him?

Ah! Wait! I see the light! If Whaley said that he saw Oswald walk south on the day following his cab ride, but then says he didn't see which way he went, and then months later in front of a camera he said southward - validating the first statement - but turned around and went north, he validates the Report, which means the WC understood Whaley correctly no matter how many ways he told it. After all, it makes sense, doesn't it? How else could he have gotten to the rooming house if he didn't walk north whether Whaley saw him or not? QED.

But the evidence that he went back to his room does not come from Whaley, but from Earlene Roberts and from his own reported statements in custody, as well as the discarded clothing at his rooming-house.

Going back to buses, he could have caught a southbound bus at 5th Street that would have taken him to the Texas THeatre, as we can today, according to this report ....

As to the timing, that looks like a hit-or-miss proposition. I saw another report (can't find it now) that says buses in the area tended to be at half-hour intervals.

Well, the bus that Helen Markham rode to work came every ten minutes (see CD630h). The bus from Love Field to downtown came at 20-minute intervals, as I recall. There is that series of bus schedules out there among the CD's somewhere....

Discarded clothes? Matching the ones he was wearing in Whaley's cab and apparently seen by Mary Bledsoe? Is there a more reliable test for determining when someone wore clothes than there is for when they fired a rifle ("Oh, man! These are ripe! I'd say from the smell that he took these off between 1:01 and 1:05 ....")?

[Antti Hynonen]

Duke Lane Posted Yesterday, 07:16 PM

You're jumping just a little ahead of the conversation, Antti - we haven't even gotten Oswald beyond the rooming house yet! - so allow me to just tackle your last part:

Duke, thanks for your reply. Well I could have sworn that the Texas Theater was mentioned on this thread already last week..... At any rate, I'll sit back, let you advance the discussion further a bit, so we can cover/recap the goodies that were said in the various Tippit threads with regards to the timing and events at 10th and Patton as well as the TT.

J. Raymond Carroll Posted Yesterday, 05:02 PM

QUOTE(Antti Hynonen @ Oct 6 2008, 10:53 AM)

How does it all fit in, or doesn't it?

Great question, Anti, and when we find the answer......

Many of the questions you raise have been discussed (not the same as "answered") in other Tippit-related threads.

Some time ago I requested that the moderators create a separate INDEX of Tippit-related threads, but of course I was ignored as usual. Perhaps you could use your influence with the bigwigs, Anti, and get such an index created. It would be very helpful at times like this. The murder of J.D. Tippit is certainly important enough.

Ray, thaks for your reply. I will browse through the Tippit threads to see if I can refresh my memory on what was discussed. With regards to creating an index, I must say I haven't got a clue as to how to go about creating one. I can ask and see if John S. would know. Sorry for ignoring your request previously.

Oh, by the way, once the discussion goes beyond the rooming house. Will you consider the alternative that perhaps Oswald made use of that transfer ticket and got on a bus that took him closer to 10th and Patton? Or are you asking me again to refer to the previous Tippit threads?

[Duke Lane]

Duke Lane Posted Yesterday, 07:16 PM

You're jumping just a little ahead of the conversation, Antti - we haven't even gotten Oswald beyond the rooming house yet! - so allow me to just tackle your last part:

...I'll sit back, let you advance the discussion further a bit, so we can cover/recap the goodies that were said in the various Tippit threads with regards to the timing and events at 10th and Patton as well as the TT.

Sorry about that; what I should've said was that you were getting there a little faster than me! Didn't mean to be so arrogant ....

... Oh, by the way, once the discussion goes beyond the rooming house. Will you consider the alternative that perhaps Oswald made use of that transfer ticket and got on a bus that took him closer to 10th and Patton? Or are you asking me again to refer to the previous Tippit threads?

The "technical" problem with that scenario is that a bus driver would have taken the transfer from the rider in lieu of a cash fare, meaning that the paper transfer would no longer have been in the rider's possession ... unless the bus driver was also "in on the plot!"

[J. Raymond Carroll]

Oh, by the way, once the discussion goes beyond the rooming house. Will you consider the alternative that perhaps Oswald made use of that transfer ticket and got on a bus that took him closer to 10th and Patton? Or are you asking me again to refer to the previous Tippit threads?

I must admit that I do not understand how the transfer system worked. I am not sure that the transfer was any good after he left downtown. It has been suggested here that the transfer in his possession was planted in order to make it seem that he was on McWatter's bus, but I have serious doubts about that. In any case, while he may have hoped to use the transfer later, the "fact" that he still had the transfer in his possession suggests that he did not use it again.

If there was a possibility that he caught a bus that would take him closer to 10th and Patton, I feel sure the Warren Commission would have tried to exploit that against him, and I don't remember them trying to do so.

If I was in his shoes and wanted to catch the 1.20 movie, I know I would walk south on Beckley to the bus stop at 5th, and keep on walking if no bus was in sight. There were bus stops every block going south, so I might catch one further along the way or just keep walking if no bus came. Either way I would miss no more than a few minutes of the opening of the first movie.