Dale Myer's Tippit book

[Terry Adams]

I placed this on the 45th Anniversary post before I saw that one had been started on the Meyers book.

Officer Tippit's murder is so overshadowed by the assassination of the President, it is important for us to remember the tragedy that his family had to endure as well. Our prayers are certainly with them during this time as well. Having said that, I would like to take some time to discuss something that I found while reading the article.

"Considering the amount of time that had elapsed and Oswald's own knowledge of what he had done, I don't believe anyone can safely assume that Oswald would have acted calm and cool in the presence of any Dallas police car." Dale K. Meyers-With Malice: The Tippit Murder 45 Years Later.

I was going to post about how Oswald would not immediately turn around upon seeing officer Tippit, but as I read on, Mr. Myers beat me to it. He indicated that most believe that no one would have been so obvious as to do an about face with a police officer looking at him. However, he says that is exactly what Oswald did because of his having been overcome with nerves and concern about being caught.

I would like to take this time to emphatically disagree and argue that the time for "nerves" had long passed, way back at the TSBD. Lee Harvey Oswald was very calm when confronted by officer Baker, and raised no cause for alarm, even with a gun pointed at him. He was just standing there enjoying a coke.

I went deer hunting here in Kentucky last weekend and managed to get a nice six point buck. I must say that "buck fever" is real. If one gets as nervous as I was from shooting an animal, I can not even imagine how one would react after having just shot the President of the United States.

As a side note, I will also mention for all of us that have talked about whether it could have been determined if the Manlicher Carcano was fired that day, I did smell both the bullet and the rifle, and the strong smell of gunpowder was present in both.

Terry

[Denis Pointing]

More baloney from Myers. There is no proof that Oswald was ever at 10th and Patton.

Jack

Really Jack, then how do you explain the fact that the shell casings found at the Tippit murder scene matched Oswald's gun? The bullets were too mangled to positively ID but the casings were positive. A plant by the DPD regarding either the castings or the gun no doubt?

Read Officer Poe's testimony that he scratched his initials on the shell casings. His initials are

not on the extant casings.

Jack

Can you give me a link to that testimony please Jack, re Poe marking the shells, the two pieces of testimony I have (see links) say no such thing. Denis.

http://jfk.ci.dallas.tx.us/21/2195-001.gif

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/...mp;relPageId=78

Edited November 24, 2008 by Denis Pointing

[Denis Pointing]

More baloney from Myers. There is no proof that Oswald was ever at 10th and Patton.

Jack

Really Jack, then how do you explain the fact that the shell casings found at the Tippit murder scene matched Oswald's gun? The bullets were too mangled to positively ID but the casings were positive. A plant by the DPD regarding either the castings or the gun no doubt?

There is "no proof" that Oswald owned a pistol.

Jack

Jack, are saying that the witnesses and police officers at the Texas theater DIDN'T see Oswald pull a revolver? I.E. This one. "When arrested, Oswald had in his possession a Smith and Wesson .38 Special Caliber Revolver". Can you please elaborate?

Edited November 25, 2008 by Denis Pointing

[Jack White]

The late Larry Ray Harris was THE expert researcher on Tippit. I choose to believe

Larry instead of Myers, Posner, or the Warrenatti.

Here is one of Larry's Tippit articles:

>>>>>>

November 22, 1963: The Other Murder - The Death of Officer Tippit Revisited by Larry Ray Harris

Thirty years later. a number of mis-conceptions about the John Kennedy assassination still linger in the public mind. One of the most enduring is that investigators compiled a virtual open-and-shut case against Lee Harvey Oswald in the slaying of a Dallas policeman named J.D. Tippit, who was abruptly gunned down on a residential street four miles from Dealey Plaza, less than an hour after JFK was shot.

The widespread public acceptance of Oswald's guilt is such that the Tippit murder has been virtually relegated to a historical footnote. This was borne out by the House Select Committee on Assassinations, whose 1979 final report devoted a scant three paragraphs to the policeman's death -- concurring with the 1964 Warren Report conclusion that Oswald was a cop-killer. More recently, attorney/author Gerald Posner's appalling new tome, Case Closed, glosses over the Tippit's murder case in just seven pages.

On the surface -- and certainly as depicted by Warren Report groupies such as Posner and Jim Moore - the case against Oswald appeared to be air-tight. But viewed objectively, thoughtfully and in its entirety, the record leaves little doubt that someone other than Lee Oswald was responsible for the death of a Dallas cop.

Let's take a look back at that other murder on Nov. 22, 1963.

WHERE WAS OSWALD?

The Warren Report said Oswald, afoot, left his rooming house in the Oak Cliff section of Dallas at 1:04 p.m. Police were notified of the shooting by a citizen using the radio in Tippit's squad car at 1:16 p.m. Therefore, Oswald had no more than 12 minutes to walk from his apartment to the intersection of Tenth & Patton - about one mile away.

BUT, Oswald's landlady told the Secret Service that she looked out the window "several minutes later" and observed Oswald standing motionless at the curb in front of the house. Therefore, "several minutes" after 1:04 p.m. Oswald was still lingering in the immediate vicinity of his rooming house. (Perhaps he was waiting on the mysterious police car which, according to the landlady's testimony, paused directly in front of 1026 N. Beckley while Oswald was in his room, honked its horn twice. and drove away.)

AND, contrary to the Warren Report's assertion that he "rushed' to Tippit's car and "promptly" notified police on Tippit's radio, eyewitness Domingo Benavides testified that when the shooting began, he crouched down in the seat of his pick-up truck and laid low for "a few minutes" because he was afraid the gunman would reappear and start shooting again. Thus, 'a few minutes' elapsed between the shooting and the time police were notified at 1:16 p.m. (Benavides first tried to aid the mortally wounded officer before climbing into Tippit's squad car and fumbling with the radio microphone, trying to figure out how it worked. Contrary to the Report, which wrongly credited Benavides, it was a bystander named F. Bowley who took the microphone from him and called the dispatcher. Bowley's Nov. 22 affidavit said he came upon the scene in his car, got out and intentionally looked at his watch to note the time: 1:10 p.m. - another indication that "a few minutes" - perhaps 5 or 6 - elapsed before Bowley called the radio dispatcher).

If Oswald was still in front of his apartment house "several minutes" after 1:04, and if the Tippit shooting occurred "a few minutes" prior to the 1:16 p.m. emergency transmission by Benavides, he could not possibly 'have been in a position to shoot the policeman. This was demonstrated by Commission staff attorney David Belin (the most passionate advocate of Oswald's sole guilt in both the JFK and Tippit murders), who retraced the accused assassin's 'presumed' route with a stopwatch. It took him 17 minutes and 45 seconds.

Moreover, the Warren Report said Oswald was walking east on Tenth Street when Tippit encountered him. But, contemporaneous written reports flied by the DPD, FBI and Secret Service stated that the pedestrian who shot Tippit was walking west on Tenth Street and continued west after the shooting. Oswald could not have been walking west on Tenth because he would have been coming back toward his rooming house from a point beyond the crime scene he could not possibly have reached in the established timeframe. (A resident in the next block named Jimmy Burt later told independent researchers including the author, that he noticed the man walking west on Tenth Street just moments before the shooting; Burt said he was certain it was not Lee Harvey Oswald.)

Finally, two witnesses (Butch Burroughs and Jack Davis) have said they observed Oswald inside the Texas Theatre as early as 1:15 p.m. - much earlier than the Warren Report timetable. (Burroughs, who was working the concession counter, remembered waiting on Oswald). If correct, their accounts provide additional corroboration that Oswald was nowhere near Tenth & Patton when Tippit's was slain.

WITNESSES: THE KEY THREE

Helen Markham was the sole basis for the Report's conclusion that Oswald was walking east on Tenth. She alone said Tippit's killer -- identified by her in a line-up as Oswald -- was walking east when the police car approached him from behind. Markham thus became a cornerstone of the case against Oswald. elevating her status to "star" witness for the DPD and the Commission. Hysterical and fainting, she is said to have picked Oswald from a police line-up -- even though she told the FBI the same day (Nov. 22) that Tippit's assailant was 18, red-complexted and had black wavy hair. (Oswald was 24, fair skinned and had receding brown hair. Descriptions of Tippit's killer broadcast over the DPD radio from the scene included references to black hair.)

Publicly, the Warren Report called Markham's bizarre testimony "reliable." But, behind the scenes, the panel knew their "star" witness was a walking, talking disaster. An unpublished Commission memo summarizing Markham's deposition warned, "This witness is very unsure of herself on most points." So unsure, in fact, that she earned the contempt of commission staff attorneys Joseph Ball - who complained that her account was "full of mistakes" and "utterly unreliable" - and Wesley Liebler. who dismissed her story as "contradictory" and "worthless." (Several years later Ball derided Markham publicly during a debate, calling her "an utter screwball.") Assistant counsel Norman Redlich's hear-no-evil response to his colleagues: "The Commission wants to believe Mrs. Markham and that's all there is to it."

William Scoggins purportedly picked Oswald out of a boisterous police line-up on Nov. 23, long after the suspect had been formally charged with the officer's murder. But a FBI report reveals that two days later, when FBI agents showed him a photograph of Oswald, Scoggins told them he couldn't be sure the person he observed on Nov. 22 was "actually identical with Oswald". Later, Scoggins sheepishly admitted to the Warren Commission that when the FBI showed him pictures of several different people (including the accused assassin), he picked out a man other than Oswald as the Tippit gunman!

Domingo Benavides was the closest person to the shooting -- he said he was in his truck a mere 15 feet away -- yet he was not taken to any of the line-ups to see if he could identify the man. His Warren Commission appearance elicited only a tentative identification: he could say only that a picture of Oswald he saw on TV resembled the man who shot Tippit.

THAT'S HIM: THE POLICE LINE-UPS

The Dallas Police line-ups -- all four of them -- were a travesty. In the first two, the disheveled and bruised Oswald was paraded before witnesses (including Markham) accompanied by two detectives and a jail clerk who were neatly attired in slacks and dress shirts. The fourth and final line-up the next day (attended by Scoggins) was even more outrageous: Oswald, two teenagers and an Hispanic man! Further, throughout at least three of the line-ups Oswald was loudly and angrily protesting the unfairness of the procedure and demanding legal representation. One witness (William Whaley, a taxi driver) made the observation that "...anybody who wasn't sure could have picked out the right one just for that."

Three individuals not known to the Warren Commission later offered wildly variant accounts of the shooting and its immediate aftermath:

- Acquilla Clemons, a housekeeper, said she heard gunshots, went out to see what was going on and saw two men running from the scene in opposite directions.

Frank Wright, who lived in the next block, said he heard gunshots, went out to see what was happening and saw a man standing near a police car. He insisted the man ran and jumped in a gray car parked beyond the cruiser, and sped away west on Tenth Street.

Jack Tatum told House Assassination Committee investigators that he was driving west on Tenth and had just passed a police car when the shooting broke out; Tatum paused and watched the gunman walk behind the squad car and take careful, deliberate aim before firing one more shot into Tippit. ("This action," the HSCA Report noted, "which is commonly described as a coup de grace, is more indicative of an execution than an act of defense intended to allow escape or prevent apprehension. Absent further evidence -- which the committee did not develop -- the meaning of this evidence must remain uncertain.")

These seemingly irreconcilable accounts only add to the mystery, and serve to reiterate that official investigators and independent researchers don't really know just what transpired at Tenth & Patton that day.

FOUR + FOUR = "A SLIGHT PROBLEM"

Four bullets were removed from Tippit's body, and four empty shell casings were reportedly found at the scene of his death. Investigators' should have had no problem matching them up to indisputably establish Oswald's guilt.

BUT, the bullets taken from Tippit's body could not be traced to Oswald's revolver. According to an FBI exert, the barrel of the pistol which fired the bullets -- allegedly Oswald's .38 Smith & Wesson revolver -- had been modified, causing the bullets to pass erratically through the barrel thereby leaving inconsistent individual characteristics which made positive identification impossible. Years later in the late 1970's, the House Assassinations Committee also was unable to positively connect any of the bullets to Oswald's pistol -- even with sophisticated techniques not available in 1964.

MOREOVER, three of the bullets were manufactured by Western-Winchester, and one by Remington-Peters. BUT two of the shell casings were made by Western-Winchester, and two were made by Remington-Peters. The Report was unable to adequately explain this curious discrepancy -- which staff attorney, Melvin Eisenberg delicately described as "a slight problem" when he broke the news to the Commission's executive members.

In the final analysis, the four shell casings are the only tangible evidence linking Oswald's pistol to the Tippit murder; without question, they were fired in his .38 Smith & Wesson. When they were fired is another matter altogether, for there is reason to wonder if the shells turned over to the Warren Commission were the same shells found at the scene on Nov. 22.

The second description of the suspect broadcast over police radio that day said the gunman was "apparently armed with a .32 caliber dark finish automatic pistol."

A few minutes later, Sgt. Jerry Hill notified the DPD radio dispatcher: "The shell at the scene indicates that the suspect is armed with a .38 caliber automatic, rather than a pistol." [Note: There are only two types of handgun, automatic and revolver; both are pistols, therefore, Hill meant to say "automatic, rather than revolver."]

Was Tippit slain with an automatic handgun, as these two radio transmissions indicate? If so, Oswald was not the killer - for he was allegedly carrying a revolver, which fires ammunition of a different size and shape than that made for an automatic (which 'automatically' ejects the shells as the bullets are fired; revolver shells must be ejected manually). Anyone with a passing familiarity with handguns could distinguish between automatic and revolver ammunition at a glance. Would a seasoned police sergeant like Jerry Hill, investigating the murder of a brother officer, make such a misidentification?

Uncertainty about the Tippit ballistics evidence grows with the revelation that Dallas policeman J.M. Poe, who took custody of two shell casings on Nov. 22, was later unable to identify them. Patrolman Poe was instructed by Sgt. Hill at the scene to 'mark' two shells found by Domingo Benavides; Poe scratched his initials on them to establish a chain of evidence: But seven months later, FBI agents asked Poe to examine the four shells turned over to the Warren Commission. The FBI report told the tale: Poe "stated he recalled marking these cases... but he stated after a thorough examination of the four cartridges shown to him on June 12, 1964, he cannot locate his marks; therefore, he cannot positively identify any of these cartridges as being the same ones he received from Benavides."

All of this suggests the possibility of police tampering with evidence to prop up a hastily-contrived, shoddy case against a hapless suspect. Coupled with the utter lack of any other credible evidence implicating Oswald, it raises the specter of a classic police frame-up ....

THE JACKET THAT DIDN'T FIT

Police found a white jacket on a parking lot behind a nearby gas station. The jacket eventually turned over by police to the FBI and Warren Commission was gray. The Warren Report flatly stated that this jacket, designated Commission Exhibit 162, belonged to Oswald and was discarded by him as he fled the scene of Tippit's death.

The few known references to the jacket that weekend, including the DPD radio transmission announcing its discovery, called it white. CE 162, the garment given the Warren Commission is officially a "gray zipper jacket." (I have held this jacket at the National Archives and it is gray; conceivably someone might call it 'light gray', but no one - least of all trained policemen - would call it white or even off-white.)

A commercial laundry tag stapled in the jacket was never traced to Oswald. Unpublished FBI reports disclose an investigation requested by the Warren Commission in which all dry cleaning firms in the Dallas/Fort Worth and New Orleans areas were contacted without identifying the one which laundered the garment. The Warren report didn't mention the laundry tag or the unsuccessful effort to trace it.

The same FBI investigation determined that Marina Oswald handwashed all of her husband's clothing (including two jackets) and that she never knew him to use a commercial cleaner. And, whereas CE 162 was size 'medium', all of Oswald's other clothing was size 'small'.

Dallas Police crowed all weekend about each new development - however circumstantial or tentative - in the case against Oswald. But they were strangely silent about the jacket. Nor is it mentioned anywhere in the dozens of police reports published in the Report's 26 volume appendix. A police captain was erroneously credited with finding the jacket - he explicitly testified he didn't find it - and there is no report from #279, the "unknown" officer who called the radio dispatcher to report his discovery. (In 1978 I identified and attempted to interview this officer, who responded angrily when I asked what color the jacket was. "That information might be something they don't want given out," he said tersely, terminating a brief conversation.)

According to a Secret Service report, Oswald "complained of a lineup wherein he had not been granted a request to put on a jacket similar to those worn by some of the other individuals in the lineup." Why would Oswald want to wear a jacket if he had discarded the one he was wearing when he shot Tippit? And why didn't police facilitate the identification process by making him wear the white jacket in the line-ups?

DPD, FBI and Secret Service reports detailing interrogations of Oswald do not mention a jacket; nothing in the official record indicates he was questioned about or confronted with the white jacket by his hosts (as he was confronted with the infamous 'backyard photos' of himself holding a rifle).

Only one of six witnesses shown the gray CE 162 stated positively it was the one worn by Tippit's killer; their descriptions of the gunman's jacket varied, and in several instances were significantly inconsistent with the Commission garment. Oswald's landlady could not identify CE 162 as the one he was wearing when he left his room at 1:04.

There was no credible evidence whatsoever that CE 162 belonged to Oswald and was abandoned by him near Tenth & Patton.

WHO SHOT J.D.?

After 30 years, that remains a valid question in the estimation of this writer. The information set forth above is the proverbial tip of the iceberg. Virtually every aspect of the official case against Oswald in the Tippit murder is tainted or flawed or outright undermined by the known facts, evidence and testimony. Other anomalies surrounding the policeman's death are too numerous to outline here. They include the circumstances which brought Tippit to the quiet residential street where he died, miles from his own patrol district; his activities in the hour preceding his murder; and an aspect of Tippit's personal life which -- had it been known to investigators in 1964 -- might have cast the officer's demise in a different light altogether.

Unfortunately, the truth about Tippit's death may never be known. Because of the unbelievably shoddy and dubious case concocted by the Dallas Police, and its endorsement by myopic government investigators, the record of J.D. Tippit's murder is inaccurate and incomplete. At least to those with open minds, the strange death of a policeman on Nov 22, 1963 seems destined to remain that date's other unsolved murder.

LARRY RAY' HARRIS of Dallas is co-founder of JFK Assassination Information Center. He is co-author with Gary Shaw of the book Cover-up. (1976)(1992) and was consultant to the U.S. House Select Committee on Assassinations. During his 17 years of active research on the JFK assassination Harris has been involved with numerous books, articles and films about the case.

[Antti Hynonen]

http://jfkassassination.net/russ/testimony/poe.htm

Mr. POE. I turned it in with the two cartridges.

Mr. BALL. To the crime lab?

Mr. POE. Yes, sir.

Mr. BALL. Now, I have here a package which has been marked "Q"--FBI lab. Q-74 to Q-77. Would you look those over and see if there is any identification on there by you to indicate that those were the hulls given to you by Benavides?

Mr. POE. I want to say these two are mine, but I couldn't swear to it.

Mr. BALL. Did you make a mark?

Mr. POE. I can't swear to it; no, sir.

Mr. BALL. But there is a mark on two of these?

Mr. POE. There is a mark. I believe I put on them, but I couldn't swear to it. I couldn't make them out any more.

Mr. BALL. Now, the ones you said you made a mark on are you think it is 'these two? Q-77 and Q-75?

Mr. POE. Yes, sir; those two there.

-------------------------------

Clay Shaw trial testimony.

[William Kelly]

http://jfkassassination.net/russ/testimony/poe.htm

Mr. POE. I turned it in with the two cartridges.

Mr. BALL. To the crime lab?

Mr. POE. Yes, sir.

Mr. BALL. Now, I have here a package which has been marked "Q"--FBI lab. Q-74 to Q-77. Would you look those over and see if there is any identification on there by you to indicate that those were the hulls given to you by Benavides?

Mr. POE. I want to say these two are mine, but I couldn't swear to it.

Mr. BALL. Did you make a mark?

Mr. POE. I can't swear to it; no, sir.

Mr. BALL. But there is a mark on two of these?

Mr. POE. There is a mark. I believe I put on them, but I couldn't swear to it. I couldn't make them out any more.

Mr. BALL. Now, the ones you said you made a mark on are you think it is 'these two? Q-77 and Q-75?

Mr. POE. Yes, sir; those two there.

-------------------------------

Clay Shaw trial testimony.

Antti, why do you have "Clay Shaw trial testimony" there?

If you follow the link, is that the entire testimony?

Ball only questons him for two minutes and cuts it off abruptly?

BK

[Antti Hynonen]

William Kelly Posted Today, 11:54 AM

Antti, why do you have "Clay Shaw trial testimony" there?

If you follow the link, is that the entire testimony?

Ball only questons him for two minutes and cuts it off abruptly?

BK

Bill,

I was hoping to add to the post of Dennis' (copy below), since I didn't see this section in the links he had provided. I quoted a section of the questioning of Officer Poe from the WC not the Shaw trial as I stated earlier mistakenly. Thanks.

Antti

Denis Pointing Posted Today, 02:53 AM

Can you give me a link to that testimony please Jack, re Poe marking the shells, the two pieces of testimony I have (see links) say no such thing. Denis.

http://jfk.ci.dallas.tx.us/21/2195-001.gif

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/...mp;relPageId=78

[Denis Pointing]

William Kelly Posted Today, 11:54 AM

Antti, why do you have "Clay Shaw trial testimony" there?

If you follow the link, is that the entire testimony?

Ball only questons him for two minutes and cuts it off abruptly?

BK

Bill,

I was hoping to add to the post of Dennis' (copy below), since I didn't see this section in the links he had provided. I quoted a section of the questioning of Officer Poe from the WC not the Shaw trial as I stated earlier mistakenly. Thanks.

Antti

Denis Pointing Posted Today, 02:53 AM

Can you give me a link to that testimony please Jack, re Poe marking the shells, the two pieces of testimony I have (see links) say no such thing. Denis.

http://jfk.ci.dallas.tx.us/21/2195-001.gif

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/...mp;relPageId=78

Thanks Antti, I'm not sure why the links no longer working but that was the relevant section I had intended. Cheers .

Bill, if you type in the second web address rather than "click" on it you can see the compleate interview between Ball and Poe. Its quite a few pages long. Denis.

[Wim Dankbaar]

Right: James Files

Left: The man that shot J.D. Tippit, according to Files

[Royce Bierma]

Right: James Files

Left: The man that shot J.D. Tippit, according to Files

Gary E. Marlow, who passed away last year, right? Do we know anything else about him?

Regards,

Roy Bierma

[Jack White]

Right: James Files

Left: The man that shot J.D. Tippit, according to Files

Gary E. Marlow, who passed away last year, right? Do we know anything else about him?

Regards,

Roy Bierma

Who is Gary Marlow and what does he have to do with anything?

Jack

[Duke Lane]

More baloney from Myers. There is no proof that Oswald was ever at 10th and Patton.

Really Jack, then how do you explain the fact that the shell casings found at the Tippit murder scene matched Oswald's gun? The bullets were too mangled to positively ID but the casings were positive. A plant by the DPD regarding either the castings or the gun no doubt?

Read Officer Poe's testimony that he scratched his initials on the shell casings. His initials are not on the extant casings.

The beauty of discussions such as this - partially the result of prior investigations being only quasi-legal and not subject to the usual rules of trial procedure and evidence - is that any information we have can be used to further an argument, whether or not it would be admissible or admitted in a court of law.

The fact is that Officer Poe could not positively identify the shells as those he'd received into evidence. It doesn't matter whether or not they were, only that he could not positively identify them as such. If he could not positively state that they were the same shells, they would have been excluded from evidence in any court of law, and especially in a murder trial.

It is an entirely separate matter what the shells might have been, whether Poe marked them or not, and/or if the shells may have been substituted at any time that they languished in a filing drawer at DPD for nearly six months. The basic point is that, if they cannot be positively identified, they can't be used against the defendant.

It was presumably a fact that the bullets in evidence were those extracted from JD Tippit's body; there is no question about their authenticity. Those bullets, while conclusively the cause of Officer Tippit's death, could not conclusively be tied to the weapon to the exclusion of any others (except those of smaller and larger calibers, of course); they likewise could not be tied to the (excluded) shells, and therefore any competent defense attorney would move for the exclusion of the S&W .38-cal as the weapon used to kill Officer Tippit as well.

Officer Poe was faced with a conundrum: he recalled having marked the shells, but the evidence before him was that he hadn't. Either his memory or training had failed him, or the shells were not the same as those he'd taken. It is much simpler to believe that he'd not marked the shells than it is to prove they'd been substituted. In either event, we have an officer who cannot swear that those are the shells taken into evidence, and that is a basic requirement of evidence: that you know that what you've got in your hand now is what you had in your hand then.

That you've got - as Larry Ray Harris phrased it so pithily - "Four + Four = 'A Slight Problem'" adds weight to the possibility of substitution - there was unquestionably ample means and opportunity, and motive might be arguable (to "make sure that cop-killer fries?") - since there was no direct match between the shells' manufacture and the bullets', and no evidence of a shot that missed.

Evidence isn't evidence simply because we agree with the conclusion it leads us to. It is that which rises to the standard by which you would want that which was to be used against you to meet. No questions, no doubts ... and from the prosecutor's perspective, no appeal.

But then, perhaps there are some who wouldn't mind going to prison or having a last, lethal cocktail in a reclining position based upon "this gun could have killed the victim because these shells might have actually held the bullets that we know killed the victim, just like we know that the shells were fired in the defendant's gun and that the gun is the defendant's, and when you add the fact we know the cops would never, ever lie, tamper with or substitute evidence or do anything else wrong, what we know outweighs what we don't know, and so three-out-of-five says he did it," which is the essence of this whole question, isn't it, whether you'd want your trial to go the same way?

Edited November 25, 2008 by Duke Lane

[Wim Dankbaar]

Hey Roy,

To whom have you been talking?

Gary Eugene Marlow, yes.

Wim

DATE: April 4, 2007

PUBLICATION: Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The (GA)

TYPE: News Obituary Listing

GARY E. MARLOW, 66, of Conyers died Monday. The body was cremated. Memorial service, 11 a.m. Friday, Scot H. Ward, Harry White Chapel.

[Denis Pointing]

The late Larry Ray Harris was THE expert researcher on Tippit. I choose to believe

Larry instead of Myers, Posner, or the Warrenatti.

Here is one of Larry's Tippit articles:

>>>>>>

"In the final analysis, the four shell casings are the only tangible evidence linking Oswald's pistol to the Tippit murder; without question, they were fired in his .38 Smith & Wesson."

"Patrolman Poe was instructed by Sgt. Hill at the scene to 'mark' two shells found by Domingo Benavides;" [unquote

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Well Jack there's certainly a great deal that could be, and indeed has been, contested in Harris's article. But just to stick with the revolver and shell casings for now, you said earlier that there was no proof Oswald owned a gun, well it seems Larry Harris, who in your opinion was "THE expert researcher on Tippit" and the researcher you "choose to believe" didn't agree. The top quote from Harris makes it quite clear that he accepted Oswald DID own a gun and that the casings came from them.

Also the second quote from Harris, re Sgt. Hill instructing Poe to mark the shells would seem doubtful, see below.

----------------------------------------------------------------

"Others at the Dallas Police Department flatly deny that Poe marked the hulls at all. Retired homicide detective Jim Leavelle says, "Some officers think they are doing the right thing and get in over their heads. But I talked to Poe. He said he didn't remember marking [the cartridges]. But that is something we didn't do back then. I didn't do it. [He] didn't do it. And I didn't ask [him] to do it. When I was out there and Poe offered the shells to me I said, 'No, just go ahead and put them in the envelope and send them on to the crime lab and let them work with them from there.' My intention was simply to cut down on the [number of officers involved in the] chain of evidence."(41)

------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Former Dallas crime lab Lieutenant J. Carl Day confirms that in 1963, the Dallas police had no consistent policy regarding the marking of evidence."(42)

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Edited November 25, 2008 by Denis Pointing

[Denis Pointing]

Officer Poe was faced with a conundrum: he recalled having marked the shells, but the evidence before him was that he hadn't. Either his memory or training had failed him, or the shells were not the same as those he'd taken. It is much simpler to believe that he'd not marked the shells than it is to prove they'd been substituted.

or:

Mr Ball

Now, I have here a package which has been marked "Q"--FBI lab. Q-74 to Q-77. Would you look those over and see if there is any identification on there by you to indicate that those were the hulls given to you by Benavides?

Mr. Poe.

I want to say these two are mine, but I couldn't swear to it.

Mr. Ball.

Did you make a mark?

Mr. Poe.

I can't swear to it; no, sir.

Mr. Ball.

But there is a mark on two of these?

Mr. Poe.

There is a mark. I believe I put on them, but I couldn't swear to it. I couldn't make them out any more. Mr. Ball.

Now, the ones you said you made a mark on are you think it is 'these two? Q-77 and Q-75?

Mr. Poe.

Yes, sir; those two there.

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Which would imply that by this time the shells had so many identifying scratches on them from others at the DPD, that he could not tell whether his mark was present or not.

There was also two other shells found at the scene. The chain of evidence for these is solid.

Edited November 25, 2008 by Denis Pointing