Richard Randolph Carr

[Antti Hynonen]

Just to add a little of my personal opinion. The obituary clearly is that of the same Richard Randolph Carr, that is, the man who witnessed the JFK assassination and who also testified at the Clay Shaw trial. I base my opinion on the following information known about him (RRC):

• Exactly the same name
  
• Age must be pretty much correct
  
• Same profession
  
• Same military background (so far we can confirm WW2)
  
• Ties to Texas, as stated in obituary
  
• Ties to Georgia, as stated in obituary
  

What remains is to clear up the last few uncertainties regarding his background. Hopefully Duke can help us out.

[John Simkin]

The Clay Shaw trial testimony of Richard Randolph Carr

http://www.jfk-online.com/carrshaw.html

Q: Can you show us the are from which you heard the three shots coming on the area photograph?

A: The three shots came from in this direction right here (indicating).

Q: Can you recognize the cement arcade in the area photograph?

A: Yes.

Q: Now, are you able to recall from which ends of the cement arcade the three shots came from, was it from the end towards the Depository or the end towards the overpass?

A: At the end towards the overpass, right here.

MR. GARRISON: Let the record show that Mr. Carr just indicated, would you point your ruler up there -- let the record show Mr. Carr is indicating an area on the grassy knoll in the vicinity of the picket fence.

THE COURT: Let it be noted on the record.

BY MR. GARRISON:

Q: Now, after the shots, did you notice any movement of any kind --

A: Yes, I did.

Q: -- as unusual, that was unusual?

A: Yes, I did.

Q: Would you tell us what you observed.

A: Should I point it out, sir?

Q: Yes.

A: At this point right here, at this School Book Depository there was a Rambler Station Wagon there with a rack on the back, built on the top of this.

Q: Which way was the station wagon facing?

A: It was parked on the wrong side of the street, next to the School Book Depository heading north.

Q: North being the top of the photomap, north is the top as you have indicated?

A: North is the top, and it was headed in this direction towards the railroad tracks, and immediately after the shooting there was three men that emerged from behind the School Book Depository, there was a Latin, I can't say whether he was Spanish, Cuban, but he was real dark-complected, stepped out and opened the door, there was two men entered that station wagon, and the Latin drove it north on Houston. The car was in motion before the rear door was closed, and this one man got in the front, and then he slid in from the -- from the driver's side over, and the Latin got back and they proceeded north and it was moving before the rear door was closed, and the other man that I described to you being in this window which would have been one, two, the third window over here came across the street, he came down, coming towards the construction site on Houston Street, to Commerce, in a very big hurry, he came to Commerce Street and he turned toward town on Commerce Street and every once in a while he would look over his shoulder as if he was being followed.

Q: Now, Mr. Carr, did you have occasion to give this information to any law enforcement agencies?

A: Yes, I did.

Q: Did anyone tell you not to say anything about this?

A: Yes.

MR. DYMOND: I object to what anyone told him, Your Honor, on the grounds it's hearsay.

THE COURT: A moment ago you asked Mrs. Parker if anybody threatened her. Is it your question, Mr. Garrison, whether or not Mr. Carr was threatened by someone? Is your question to the witness a question of whether or not anyone threatened Mr. Carr?

MR. GARRISON: I will rephrase it.

BY MR. GARRISON:

Q: Did anyone threaten you?

MR. DYMOND: At this time we object to the Court's suggesting questions to Counsel for the State. The suggested question is completely different from the question previously propounded by the State. This is not the function of a Trial Judge in any trail.

MR. GARRISON: May it please the Court, I will phrase my own questions on this.

BY MR. GARRISON:

Q: Mr. Carr, did you talk to any FBI agents about this incident?

A: Yes, I did.

Q: Did they tell you to forget about it?

MR. DYMOND: I object to that as hearsay.

BY MR. GARRISON:

Q: Were you threatened in any way --

THE COURT: I sustain the objection. You cannot tell us the words used by someone who spoke to you because of hearsay; however, you can state that you had conversations with them and what did you do as a result of the conversation, I will permit that.

BY MR. GARRISON:

Q: As the result of the conversations with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, what did you do?

A: I done as I was instructed, I shut my mouth.

Q: Were you called to testify before the Warren Commission?

A: No, sir.

I bet afterwards he wished he did not take the advice of the FBI.

[Duke Lane]

I bet afterwards he wished he did not take the advice of the FBI.

Well, that remains to be seen, John. In the time we've been exploring this question (in two or three different threads), there are several discrepancies in his sworn testimony ... unless, of course, you subscribe to the notion that the FBI falsified everything in anticipation of his telling the truth, and of course who are you going to believe: some construction worker or the FBI?

It's an interesting thing: Carr brought up the story to two women he was visiting around Christmas 1963 (and who both happened to be friends with Jack Ruby and his sister Bertha Cheek), but if he told anyone else about it, they didn't apparently repeat it. One of the women contacted the FBI after Christmas, and the FBI in turn got in contact with Carr after the first of the year and again about a month later. As he said, Carr was not deposed by the WC nor was any statement he'd given to the FBI published in the volumes.

In sum, then, very few people knew what Richard Carr claimed to have seen which, according to his 1964 FBI statements, wasn't much. He brought the story to light himself in 1967 by contacting Penn Jones and relating the story to him. According to Jones, at least through May 1967, he did not tell anyone other than Jim Garrison about Carr or his story.

It's possible Jones (or someone he'd told later) might've published something between then and February 1969, but lacking that, the question of how any thugs came to know enough about him to track him down to Atlanta and try to beat him up remains an open question. Leaks in Garrison's office? Maybe Carr granted an interview to a newspaper? Either way, since he lived in Dallas at the time, how did someone know to try to beat him up in Atlanta or try to bomb him in Montana?

Given some of the discrepancies in his testimony, not only in terms of what he'd seen in DP (if anything of significance) but possibly also about the elite nature of his WWII US Army service (he claimed to be a Ranger, tho' nobody can find anything to substantiate that, including the Army), lacking a police report of the supposed incident he describes in Atlanta, one could easily succumb to the notion that his testimony was more sensational than factual.

As an apparently minor witness, nobody seems to have tried very hard to challenge his claims then, and nobody's been able to substantiate them now. There is, in any case, no real reason to believe that he was given any kind of "advice" by the FBI other than that we might choose to believe him.

Maybe we'll know more about that in coming weeks ...?

[Dixie Dea]

Duke...in the following paragraph you posted this:

"It's an interesting thing: Carr brought up the story to two women he was visiting around Christmas 1963 (and who both happened to be friends with Jack Ruby and his sister Bertha Cheek), but if he told anyone else about it, they didn't apparently repeat it. One of the women contacted the FBI after Christmas, and the FBI in turn got in contact with Carr after the first of the year and again about a month later. As he said, Carr was not deposed by the WC nor was any statement he'd given to the FBI published in the volumes."

However, I am not real clear if you are saying that Bertha Cheek was Carr's sister or Jack Ruby's sister. It is just that she is not a sister of either Carr or Ruby. So, I am not sure if Bertha was actually one of these two wonen or not. She was however, a businees acquntance with Jack Ruby and a sister of Earlene Roberts, who was the housekeeper, where LHO was living, on Beckley.

Dixie

[Duke Lane]

Gosh, you're absolutely right, Dixie! Now I can't remember Jack's sister's name to save my life!

Anyway, the two women had been friends with Jack's sister.

[Dixie Dea]

Duke

You are most likely thinking of Jack Ruby's sister, Eva Grant. She did manage a nightclub for Jack, called The Vegas Club. Bertha Cheek also managaed nightclubs in the past,...plus her ex husband (Lloyd Cheek) had been in a nightclub band. Although, primariy she was a property invester and owned several apartments buildings.

Where did you find that info you posted and in which I quoted? I had not read that part before, even though I have tried to research Bertha Cheek for a very long time. I was not aware she was friends with Eva Grant, although I can see that she would most likely, at least know her. I sure didn't knwo about the Carr conversation part of the info though.

Dixie

[John Simkin]

I bet afterwards he wished he did not take the advice of the FBI.

Well, that remains to be seen, John. In the time we've been exploring this question (in two or three different threads), there are several discrepancies in his sworn testimony ... unless, of course, you subscribe to the notion that the FBI falsified everything in anticipation of his telling the truth, and of course who are you going to believe: some construction worker or the FBI?

I don't hold any strong views on Carr. I don't need his testimony to convince me that there was one or more gunman who killed JFK. It does seem strange to me that you have gone to such lengths to discredit this witness.

If you type in "Richard Randolph Carr" at Google my page on him comes first. I have incorporated your research and provided a link to this discussion.

[Duke Lane]

... Where did you find that info you posted and in which I quoted? I had not read that part before, even though I have tried to research Bertha Cheek for a very long time. I was not aware she was friends with Eva Grant, although I can see that she would most likely, at least know her. I sure didn't knwo about the Carr conversation part of the info though.

I think my mentioning Bertha Cheek may have confused the point; she had nothing to do with any of this, I just confused one name with the other is all.

The two women that Richard Carr and his wife had been visiting were Mary Sue Brown and Elsie Johnson, who were sisters (nee Barnes). When they had moved to Dallas (from somewhere else in Texas not specified), they had each befriended Eva Grant separately, and at least one of them lived with her for a period of time.

Sometime in the '50s, there had been a disagreement between Elsie and Eva over a diamond ring which Eva apparently believed that Elsie had stolen from her (she moved out from Eva's house or apartment the same evening it had gone missing, or that Eva had brought it up to Elsie), but which Elsie said that she thought Eva had never either lost the ring, or maybe had never even had the ring, and was simply making an issue over it for insurance money.

I also recall that Mary Sue had been a singer at one of Eva's clubs, which she thought had actually belonged to Jack. She also worked for Jack's brother Hyman for a time, when he was building ... for some reason, I think it was laundromats, but I could be off base on that; he was building some sort of commercial buildings, anyway. She had also visited Jack at his apartment a time or two. I'm not clear on whether the relationship between either of the girls and the Ruby/Rubenstein brothers continued after Elsie and Eva had their falling-out, or if Mary Sue had any relationship with Eva afterward.

There is no indication of how the girls knew Carr, or if it was his wife that either of them knew, or if either of the Carrs were actualy acquaintences of a third woman who'd been a part of the gathering at the sisters' house around Christmas, when Carr told his story to them.

Elsie apparently became something of an "assassination buff" for at least a short while, at one time "telephonically advising" the FBI that she was taking out a subscription to The Worker, but stating that she was not a Communist, didn't support the Communist Party, etc.

(There was an Elsie Johnson who had also known Michael Paine and had met Ruth once as well. Ruth had an entry in her address book for someone by that name as well, but didn't seem to know her well. It may have been a different Elsie Johnson, though, judging by the address.)

All of this info is among the Commission Documents set, and can be searched on the Mary Ferrell Foundation website.

[Duke Lane]

I don't hold any strong views on Carr. I don't need his testimony to convince me that there was one or more gunman who killed JFK. It does seem strange to me that you have gone to such lengths to discredit this witness.

If you type in "Richard Randolph Carr" at Google my page on him comes first. I have incorporated your research and provided a link to this discussion.

I don't need his testimony for that, either. I should point out, however, that I had no particular axe to grind against Carr when I started to look into his deal; indeed, I'd actually been looking at disproving someone who (I'd heard) said that he'd been "in the building where Carr was," had "looked out" and not been able to see what Carr had said he'd seen.

In part, I accomplished that, now knowing where Carr had been and knowing that nobody could have been "in the building where Carr was" and been able to see anything, primarily because "where Carr was" has no windows to look out from. Whether or not anyone ever actually made that claim, I don't know, but Carr's inability to have been able to see Houston Street from where he was is firmly established. (Whether everyone agrees with that assessment or not, if they were to go to Dealey Plaza and see for themselves, they'd have no doubts in their mind.)

Some minor points with respect to your Spartacus entry:

Richard Randolph Carr was born in Atlanta, Georgia, on 29th April, 1922. He found work as a mechanic before enlisting in the United States Army on 2nd October 1942. During the Second World War he served in North Africa and took part in the fighting at Anzio where his battalion was annihilated (only 13 men survived). However, research by Duke Lane suggests that Carr might have lied about his war service.

After the war Carr worked as a steel construction worker in Dallas. On 22nd November, 1963, Carr was working on the seventh floor of the new courthouse building

[1]

on the corner of Houston Street in Dealey Plaza. Just before President John F. Kennedy was shot Carr saw

[2]

a heavy-set man with horn-rimmed glasses and a tan sport jacket on the sixth floor of the Texas Book Depository.

[3]

After the shooting Carr saw the man emerge from the building. Carr followed the man

[4]

and later told the FBI: "This man, walking very fast, proceeded on Houston Street south to Commerce Street to Record Street. The man got into a 1961 or 1962 gray Rambler station wagon which was parked just north of Commerce Street on Record Street." This evidence corroborated those claims made by Roger Craig. Both Carr and Craig described the driver of the car as being dark-skinned.

[5]

Carr's story was not believed by the authorities.

[6]

The Warren Commission did not call him as a witness nor was he mentioned in any of their published evidence. A FBI agent told him

[7]

that: "If you didn't see Lee Harvey Oswald in the School Book Depository with a rifle, you didn't see it." Later, several members of the Dallas Police Department raided his house in the middle of the night. They claimed that they were looking for stolen goods but he was not charged with any offence.

Carr also received threatening phone calls telling him to leave Texas. He moved to Montana. Later he found dynamite taped to his car ignition. Just before he testified in the New Orleans trial of Clay Shaw a gunman attempted to kill him. Another attempt on his life took place in Atlanta. This time he was stabbed but he managed to kill one of the two men who attacked him.

[8]

Richard Randolph Carr died in Norton,

[9]

West Virginia, on 4th August 1996.

In the interest of accuracy, my comments:

[1]

Carr was not working on the building, he had gone there to look for work.

[2]

Carr

said

he saw such a figure, at one time describing his build as "athletic."

[3]

Initially, he said the man was on the "top" floor of the TSBD; in

Shaw

, he said the "fifth" floor. He never said sixth.

[4]

He never said that he followed the man other than visually. His claim to seeing the man "emerge" from the TSBD did not have the Rambler at the end of the sequence; only his initial statements to the FBI had him getting into the Rambler and the Rambler on Record Street; in

Shaw

, he said that the Rambler was parked next to the TSBD and that two other men got into it, while the man in the sport coat and glasses did not.

[5]

Until

Shaw

, Carr had described the man as "Negro," not merely dark-skinned. Also, the gray Rambler does not "corroborate" the

green

Rambler Craig saw.

[6]

The FBI

did

apparently believe his story, but since he did not claim to have seen the sixth floor, it wasn't considered significant.

[7]

Carr made this

claim

.

[8]

Ditto.

[9]

He actually died in Clarksburg, West Virginia.

It's all just a matter of dealing with facts, although I do certainly admit that I can be something of a pit bull at times!

[Dixie Dea]

Duke

Thanks for your explanation, as well as for your additional informatiom, regarding those two women. You referred me to Mary Ferrell's site, and I am also noticing that so much information can be obtained on that site. But, unfortunately I am unable to even access that site anymore. Something about it was changed and now causes my set to freeze and then just disconnets me. So, I know that I am missing out on a lot of great information. Hopefuly my access problems will wventualy be remedied.

Dixie

[William Kelly]

Duke

Thanks for your explanation, as well as for your additional informatiom, regarding those two women. You referred me to Mary Ferrell's site, and I am also noticing that so much information can be obtained on that site. But, unfortunately I am unable to even access that site anymore. Something about it was changed and now causes my set to freeze and then just disconnets me. So, I know that I am missing out on a lot of great information. Hopefuly my access problems will wventualy be remedied.

Dixie

Dixie,

I think the Mary Ferrell site was down earlier today because I tried to access it and had the same problem you did. It is now back on line.

And to answer Duke's final question:

Absent verifiable proof to the contrary, it appears that Richard Randolph Carr was not an Army Ranger during WWII, was not in the Fifth Ranger Battalion, did not serve at Anzio or any of the other places he claimed, was not one of the few survivors of an "annihilated" Ranger battalion, and may not have even served in the Army or been wounded or even experienced gunfire in combat as he claimed to have done. If he did none of these things, then it is a very short leap of faith - even not in light of the evidence we've discussed elsewhere - that he did not see or hear any of the things he claimed he did in Dealey Plaza on November 22, 1963, if he was even there ... the "proof" of which is only this man's own word, which does not appear to be worth anything.

Dissenting opinions are always welcome. I'm not prepared, however, to give this man the benefit of doubt; is anyone else?

Yes, I do give him the benefit of doubt.

Bill Kelly

Edited February 14, 2009 by William Kelly

[Bernice Moore]

B.....

[John Dolva]

(D.O.S. attacks, bombing, nuking et.c., can do that to a computer, a site (just) being down for day shouldn't cause a computer to freeze and disconnect. A sustained attack* can 'overbuffer' a firewall causing it to freeze, I don't know what firewall has a feature that auto disconnects if it itself is compromised, or threatens to be. Sounds interesting. Gremlins?)

one comment : the building (orig. 5 stories, after replaced/rebuilt after a fire in 1901 with a sixth floor, and the seventh floor was added about 1907. So for some time the fifth floor was the top floor, then for some years the sixth floor was the top floor (so the floor below was the fifth), then the top floor became the seventh floor thus the floor below became the sixth floor.

So, for someone with perhaps limited personal knowledge could hear it happened on the sixth floor, then a chinese whisper passing through an oldtimer may lead it to say it was on the top floor, so with the seventh floor as top floor, then a correction was necessary, that it was the floor below, this then becomes the the fifth floor, while all the time the info fed to Carr was about the sixth floor.

Confusing? Join the club. Just speculating.

ps With regards to surviving attacks, unlike others, this rather frail heavily specatacled bloke survives many, including killing one of two attackers, (presumably sending the other running?).

Pretty good for an ole' boy.

pps another one is that in some parts of the world the first floor is the floor above the ground floor, so for such a person the seventh floor may be the sixth floor at the same time.

one can project (on other photos) along this level building area/streets to identify the floors of the building under construction and see that the floors RRC saw things from where he couldn't have seen some of them. I doubt him, but give a measure of benefit of doubt as well. This (topic) is instructive on many levels, not just the immediate subject matter. Most worthwhile IMO.

ppps *on an attack on a dynamic address the ISP may close a connection.

pppps see "what's a bot?" -

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.ph...view=getnewpost

Edited February 15, 2009 by John Dolva

[Duke Lane]

Well, that remains to be seen, John. In the time we've been exploring this question (in two or three different threads), there are several discrepancies in his sworn testimony ... unless, of course, you subscribe to the notion that the FBI falsified everything in anticipation of his telling the truth, and of course who are you going to believe: some construction worker or the FBI?

Very interesting hit-thread to discredit a credible witness you have posted here Duke. I'd take any average construction worker, toilet clearner or prostitute over the FBI anyday. The FBI has repeatedly proven themselves to be liars, consealers of the truth, complicit in crime and covorting with criminals, turning a blind eye to others, loosing evidence on purpose, and I could go on. ... The FBI purposely changed testimony and facts; changed spellings of names to protect the guilty; threatened those that saw the truth and worse. To add to that the 'poll' at the front-end of this thread is designed to confuse and confound and make even those who believe Carr look as if they do not. Nice hit thread. anti-bravo. What is your special love of the FBI, inquiring minds want to know.

Am I now or have I ever been a member of the Communist Party? If I've never denounced it, therefore I must support it? Someone might reasonably conclude from some of the quotations in your signature line that you must be anti-American, possibly subversive, and potentially a terrorist. That may have as much truth in it as someone's claim that, because I might disagree with them, I'm a "CIA plant" (the claim has been made).

The last time I checked, most of the FBI is made up of actual people, and most of them American. While I'm certainly aware of Ruby Ridge and Waco and find both deplorable, I don't think Timothy McVeigh's polite little reminder was an appropriate response. Dame Hoover's foibles and follies don't reflect on the average FBI employee, be they agent or clerk. They, like most people, do not operate with a complete single-mindedness. They are generally not thugs. You may disagree.

I - and you - have seen where a son has accused his dead father of being a Presidential assassin. We've seen more than a couple of people claim to be a shooter and have dared prosecutors to prove that they are what they, themselves, say they are. We have more than one person claiming to be "the" shooter on the sixth floor. We have several people claiming to have seen what they could not - physically - have seen, and you'd like to pin it all upon "the lying FBI?"

I don't dispute Hoover's possible complicity; he was, after all, a "hero" of several right-wing groups who thought JFK was a Pinko if not an outright "instrument" of Soviet Russia. Does that mean that each and every FBI investigator was a xxxx when it came to JFK's assassination? I might not even dispute that some of these guys were trying to keep their jobs by keeping The Director happy, but to suggest that anything and everything that came from anyone associated with the FBI was falsified? That they all "threatened" witnesses to change their story, or intimidated them into saying what they, of a mind, all wanted them to say?

Sorry, I don't buy it. If that were the case, why didn't they get Helen Markham to change her time of Tippit's death to something closer to 1:15, or simply change the documents - her affidavit and her testimony - to reflect something closer to what they knew to be the eventual official story? Why didn't they harrass Tom Bowley or permit his "1:10" estimation of Tippit's death to remain on record? Why was there any testimony allowed to stand, unchanged, that suggested anything other than what the official conclusion would be? Since it was so easy for them to make supposed changes in other people's testimony, why didn't they make it all conform to what would eventually be determined, rightly or wrongly?

Since they didn't change all the testimony, one must wonder why they changed only a select portion of it, and not even consistently at that. For all the institutional "smarts" you attribute to them, how come they didn't get it all "right?" Since they did such a shoddy job of getting everyone to fall into line or changing the statements and testimony of those who wouldn't toe the party line, on what basis do you suggest that they changed or falsified any of it? The later claims of those who said they said something else?

Don't you realize that the JFK assassination is an industry in which you can gain notoriety by disclaiming what you'd once said? In which those who claim to be "searching for the truth" can make pleas for "contributions" without even pretending to be a non-profit organization in their corporate filings? You don't wonder at how some people can do what you and I do - and I'm presuming here that you do actual research and are not just a "believer" - with no other visible means of support, and travel the nation to make speeches and hold symposia, staying in nice hotels and going out to fine dinners, without holding forth something that people will "buy into" ... and do?

Instead, you want to tell me that civil servants - even well-paid and well-educated ones - can and do routinely (but not very thoroughly) falsify the record whenever possible, generally all the time? And that the burden of proof of such falsification lies on ... whom? Certainly not the one who makes it: explain to me why so many people signed things that they didn't say. Why Richard Carr read over and made changes to a hand-written statement that was a complete and total lie, yet signed it anyway. Do you know the caliber of weapon the FBI agents held against his head to make him do so?

I don't suspect you can prove it, but I also don't think that you think you have to, sort of like "the tie always goes to the runner:" that anything similarly sinister ever happened is proof enough that it always happens and everybody - especially those dastardly FBI agents - does it, right? All I have to do is say that the statement I signed was in some way, shape or form coerced, and I'm automatically vindicated, right? The truth is anything other than what I put my name to, as long as I claim a federal agent "made me do it."

I don't have a "special love of the FBI," but it does seem that you have a special hatred of them. The twain shall probably never meet. I'm okay with that. The solution to a murder does not come down simply to whom you wish to believe versus what the facts tell you, it is about discerning facts. If Carr's story is not factual, it needs to be consigned to the dust bin. End of story.

[Duke Lane]

... one comment : the building (orig. 5 stories, after replaced/rebuilt after a fire in 1901 with a sixth floor, and the seventh floor was added about 1907. So for some time the fifth floor was the top floor, then for some years the sixth floor was the top floor (so the floor below was the fifth), then the top floor became the seventh floor thus the floor below became the sixth floor. ... another one is that in some parts of the world the first floor is the floor above the ground floor, so for such a person the seventh floor may be the sixth floor at the same time.

All true ... except that in 1907, RRC wasn't even born, and when he was, 15 years later, it wasn't anywhere near Dallas, so his presumed knowledge of what was the "top" floor has no bearing on what actually was the "top" floor in 1963. And, unlike "ground" and "first" floors, the "top" floor has no such ambiguity.

one can project (on other photos) along this level building area/streets to identify the floors of the building under construction and see that the floors RRC saw things from where he couldn't have seen some of them. I doubt him, but give a measure of benefit of doubt as well. This (topic) is instructive on many levels, not just the immediate subject matter. Most worthwhile IMO.

Be careful with these leaps of faith: you might be mistaken as being not among the faithful!