Joyce McDonald(s)

[William Kelly]

After posting the article Thursday Night at the Cabana Lounge, which had been written years earlier, I got a response and comment from Cynthia Ann McDonald, who protested that her mother wasn't dead, as the article implies.

http://jfkcountercoup.blogspot.com/2008/01...ana-lounge.html -

comments

1 COMMENTS:

Cynthia said...

MY MOTHER IS NOT DEAD!!!!!!

Joy Dale was never AKA BETTY MCDONALD.

She has a sister named Betty, who never went by McDonald.

My mother Joyce Gordon is alive and well and living in North Texas.

Recently she was seen on the History channel.

Please be careful about your facts. This really upset my mother!!!!

Sincerely Cynthia Ann McDonald

One of the hazards of historical research is having multiple individuals with the same name. Usually its only the first and last name, but sometimes it can get complicated. This is a recurring problem, especially in regards to the assassination of President Kennedy, so keeping subject's identities straight is important.

As far as McDonald goes, it has been long recognized that there are more than one, as the WR index indicates.

Warren Report Index:

McDonald, Elizabeth, vol. IX, 452

McDonald, Florence, vol. IX, 452

McDonald, Joyce Lee, vol. I, 436, 439; vol. XIII, 214-218, 353-355, 361-363,

365-367, 371-372, 419, 427,; vol XIV, 49, 62, 64, 159-160, 273, 275; vol. XV, 422, 625, 628.

McDonald, Sheila, vol. V, 532

Florence “Betty” McDonald is the Betty McDonald who worked as a librarian at Magnolia Oil and was at the party when Oswald met Ruth Paine.

Joyce Lee “Joy Dale” W. Witherspoon McDonald, married Jimmie Edward McDonald, and became Joyce McDonald, though they later divorced.

This is the former Carousel dancer who is now Joyce Gordon and is alive and well in North Dallas and on the History Channel, and mentioned in No Case To Answer, p. 227, Ian Griggs (2005) "…Joy Dale (Joyce Lee Witherspoon McDonald), now Joyce Gordon."

This is also the "Joyce McDonald" who met "Anne" (aka Jean Aase/West), who accompanied Larry Meyers from Chicago on the weekend of the assassination.

What is interesting is that there is an official report that identifies "JOYCE LEE MCDONALD, a dancer whose stage name is JOY DALE, 410 ½ - 10th Street, Dallas, Texas;" which if true, would put her residence pretty close to the scene of the Tippit killing.

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/...bsPageId=141602

Mary’s File:

JOY DALE, ---- (JOYCE LEE MCDONALD)

Stripper at Carousel. See Joyce Lee McDonald

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/...ult&id=5306

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/...ult&id=2968 

DALE, JOY "JOYCE LEE MCDONALD"

WC, Vol. 19 (44); CE 2158; HSCA, Vol. IX (829, 1089, 1091-92, 1104); Day Kennedy Was Shot, Bishop (300-1)

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/...ult&id=6366

MCDONALD, JOYCE LEE WITHERSPOON ("JOY DALE")

WC Vol 13, p. 353; WC Vol 24, p. 798; CE 1322, p. 744; CE 1606; CE 2158; CR Hall Exhibit, p. 40; CD 4, pp. 517-518; CD 86, pp. 499, 527; TX Atty Gen's Report Vol. 5, M 6, 7; HSCA Vol 9, pp. 806, 832, 868, 875, 923; Day Kennedy Was Shot, Bishop, 348

Carousel Club stripper. Lawrence V. Meyers gave her a $200 check

Warren Commission Hearings Vol. XXIV CE 2158 – WFAA-TV reel PKT 30, November 24, 1963, entitled, “Interview With Joy Dale by WFAA-TV” :

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/...p;relPageId=816

See Photo: Joy Dale, Jack Ruby, Karen Bennett Armstrong Exhibit No. 5300 series.

Caption: “Joyce McDonald (Joy Dale) and Karen Bennett “Little Lynn” Carlin in Ruby’s office

Apparently, as indicated in excerpt from Harry Livingstone's book below, there is an East 10th and a West 10th street in Oak Cliff, so there's two 410 addresses, as well as two Joyce McDonalds.

But there appears to be more than two Joyce McDonalds. Besides Florence, the Betty McDonald who worked at Magnolia Oil and met Oswald, and Joyce Lee Witherspoon "Joy Dale" McDonald, who worked for Ruby, there's a third Betty Mooney McDonald, aka Nancy Jane Mooney and Betty Jane Mooney.

I think, unless I'm mistaken and even more confused, this is the Betty McDonald who was an alibi witness to the guy who was a suspect in the shooting of Warren Reynolds, a Tippit murder witness who identified Oswald as the person leaving the scene reloading a revolver.

According to many published reports, including Mark Lane and Harry Livingstone (below), this women worked for Jack Ruby at the Carousel, was arrested for fighting with her room mate, and hung herself in her Dallas jail cell.

But official reports say that she DID NOT work for Jack Ruby, and is apparently confused with the women who DID work for Ruby, Joyce Lee Witherspoon McDonald aka "Joy Dale," now Joyce Gordon, who has a sister named Betty, though she's not a McDonald.

To confuse matters, one of these McDonalds, ostensibly Betty, married Dr. Allen Miller, of Irving, an instructor at the Southwest Medical School. It can't be the dead Betty McDonald, so this must be Florence, the librarian from Magnolia?

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/...ult&id=6076

MACDONALD, BETTY MOONEY (MRS. ALLEN MILLER)

WC Vol 11, p. 419 (unnamed); CE 342; CE 2589

Dr. Allen Miller, Irving, TX, married "Betty McDonald."

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/...ult&id=6076

BETTY MOONEY (MRS. ALLEN MILLER) MACDONALD

WC Vol. 11, p. 419 (unnamed); CE 342; CE 2589 Dr. Allen MIller, Irving, TX, married “Betty McDonald.”

ALAN N., (DR.) MILLER

Wife: Betty McDonald Miller (former librarian at Mobil Research Laboratory) He is instructor at Southwest Medical School

ALLEN J. MILLER

Wife: Charlene. He is research technician for Mobil Oil.

Knowing there are three different women named McDonald it should be easy to figure out, but just to show how confusing things can get, here's an excerpt of Harry Livingstone's book, which touches on these subjects, though doesn't seem to explain them any better.

The Radical Right and the Assassination of President Kennedy – Stunning Evidence

Of the President, by Harrison E. Livngstone p. 67

“…Then there was Captain Will Fritz, the close friend of Clint Murchison, 30 who ran the homicide bureau. He was a tough character, and right on top of much that happened the day of the assassination. He was the one who interrogated Lee Harvey Oswald and made no adequate provisions for recordings, transcripts, stenographers and the like. He later reconstructed what happened and what was said from a few notes, and maybe from what he was told to write.”

“Tough character wasn’t the word for it. One of the witnesses to the JFK case, Warren Reynolds, was shot in Dallas only two months after the assassination of President Kennedy. The suspect in the slaying was Darrell Wayne Garner, and the cops picked him up. His main squeeze, Betty Mooney McDonald (one of Jack Ruby’s stripteasers with numerous aka’s) alibied him and he was out in a week. She said he was in bed with er at the time of the shooting, and that being the South, they didn’t argue with it. Wait for what happened to her.”

“Warren Reynolds had described to Fritz someone who shot Tippit who wasn’t Oswald, but the message he received was a bullet in his head. This is, Reynolds survived and realized that Tippit’s assailant must have been Oswald after all. The upshot was that the cops picked up Garner’s alibi to disabuse her of her thories. She was found hung to death by her toreador pants in her cell. 31 There was the usual official Texas cause of death: suicide.”

“The message was: The Dallas jails were not safe and neither were the cops, of which Will Fritz was one. Darrell Wayne Garner complained to Jim Garrison that Will Fritz had threatened his life. 32 He was supposed to have died later of an overdose of heroin in Metairie, Louisiana. But they buried him in Dallas. We always seem to have a symbiosis of Dallas and Louisiana in this case....” p. 343

“…At the time of the shooting, Helen Markham lived at 328 ½ East 9th Street, Dallas (one block from where Tippit was killed!), which was the same address as Joyce McDonald lived at one time or another. 96. It isn’t clear when, but it seems that she was either the apartment mate of Markham, or lived on the same floor of a small building with only two apartments. The coincidence of those who knew either, Ruby, and Tippit, or were witnesses in the Tippit killing grows. Markham showed Greg Lowry and Bill Pulte where she lived and said that she did not know McDonald. 97”

“Prof. Jerry Rose points out that McDonald formerly lived at 3116 Alaska Street in Oak Cliff, the same block upon which another Tippit shooting witness, Willie Scroggins, a taxicab driver, lived (at 3138 Alaska). McDonald’s husband, Jimmie, still lived there. Scoggins had just delivered a fare from Love field to 321 N. Ewing, and Ruby’s strip teaser, ‘Kathy Kay’ (Kay Coleman) lived at 315 N. Ewing with her policeman boyfriend, Harry Olson. 98”

“Prof. Rose proposes the idea that Ruby’s role was to assemble a group of ‘witnesses’ to Tippit’s murder, who would testify that Oswald was the murderer. This concept makes more and more sense to me as time goes by, if Ruby himself did not kill Tippit for raping one of his girls, or a women within his circle.”

“Tippit’s car was parked between 404 and 410 E. Tenth when he was killed. The driveways of these two house are adjacent; from west to east there is the house at 404, the driveway for 404, the driveway for 410, and the house at 410. Tippit’s car was parked in front of the 404 driveway. There is a neighborhood account that Tippit’s assailant came down from the driveway between the two houses…”

“ ‘Joy Dale,’ (Joyce MacDonald), 20 years old, was one of Ruby’s dancers and was very close to Ruby. Bill Pulte wrote to me the following: ‘In one of the Warren Commission documents there is a statement that Joyce McDonald had lived at 410 Tenth Street. This report does not specify East Tenth or West Tenth. There is therefore a 50/50 chance that MacDonald had been renting an apartment at 410 E. Tenth Street. Although MacDonald was supposedly living at 424 W. Tenth on November 22, she might have lived at 410 E. Tenth prior to the assassination, and possibly one of her friends might have replaced her, or a roommate might have stayed on after she left. This puts the rumor that the assailant came down the driveway in a different perspective. If true, the assailant may have been trying to get to MacDonald’s apartment, or may even have emerged from what had been MacDonald’s apartment at 410. 102.’”

“A letter of Lt. H. M. Hart of the Dallas Police Criminal Intelligence Section, February 17, 1964, to Captain W. P. Gannaway, confirms that Joyce Lee McDonald lived at 424 ½ W. Tenth at that time, had previously lived at 427 W. Tenth, and 328 ½ E. Ninth, and in 1959 had lived at 3116 Alaska with Jimmie Edward McDonald, whom she divorced in 1961.”

“Verda Mae Harrell was Johnnie Maxie Witherspoon’s (her married name at the time was Mrs. Stephen Thompson) mother. 103. Harrell worked at a café off Beckley at the Clifton Towers Coffee Shop on Davis Avenue at Ballard…and saw Tippit and Oswald at breakfast there. Oswald came in for dinner at 5 pm every day after work, having a hamburger platter. He always sat alone in the same isolated alcove. 104.”

“The Clifton Towers Coffee Shop was a typical hotel coffee shop which was one block from the Dobbs House at Davis and North Beckley. Amos Euins may have been the young cook at this restaurant. He was one of the witnesses in Dealey Plaza during the shooting.”

“Oswald never talked to anyone except Verda Mae, and always left her a 25 cent tip at this establishment. Verda Mae described him as a good customer, though they never actually conversed.”

“Verda Mae knew J.D. Tippit very well and used to spend a lot of time with him at Austin’s Barbeque, where they talked about children. She had ten children herself. She was also tight with Austin Cook, the owner. She never knew Jack Ruby….” p. 345

“…The mother of Joyce Witherspoon, Verda Mae Harrell (?), may have also worked at the same restaurant [Dobbs House]. Both were on North Beckley. Verda had ten children, one of whom was Jack Ruby’s dancer ‘Joy Dale’ whose real name was Joyce W. Witherspoon. Joyce Witherspoon married Jimmie McDonald and became the Joyce McDonald we’ve been writing about in this chapter, not to be confused with ‘Betty’ (Florence) McDonald, who was misnamed by the Warren Commission and mixed up with Joyce, or another of Ruby’s dancers, Betty Mooney McDonald. Joyce McDonald listed her next of kin as Mrs. Roy Witherspoon of 939 Pleasant Run Road, Lancaster,l Texas. 108 The relationship was not explained, but it would seem to be her mother.”

Note: “Betty’s actual name was Florence. She was the ‘McDonald’ about whom George DeMohrenschildt testified that the name was familiar to him, and that she was at the 1963 party given by Mrs. Everett Glover that the Oswald’s attended with the DeMohrenschildts. Florence McDonald was a librarian at Magnolia Oil, a subsidiary of Mobil Oil Corp. The account given by Ruth Paine says that she saw ‘McDonald’ at a ‘meeting,’ Ruby had two McDonalds stripping for him: Betty Mooney McDonald (aka Nancy Jane Mooney), and Joyce McDonald (‘Joy Dale’), but these appear to be different women. This has confused researchers for years.”

Indeed it has.

Edited June 17, 2009 by William Kelly

[William Kelly]

Okay, The women who provided (DWG) an alibi for the Warren Reynolds shooting, which involved a .22 rifle, was NANCY JANE MOONEY, aka Betty McDonald [per CE 342 and CE 2589]

She was 24 years old in 1963, had worked as a stripper at Jack Ruby's Carousel Club years before, and was then working as a waitress at Mickey's bar in Oak Cliff. She had four children, who were taken from her and were living were her mother in Paris, Texas. (Sounds like a good movie?).

Reynolds was shot in the head by a .22 rifle in the basement of the used car dealership, from where he had observed the murder of Tippit running away, reloading a revolver.

The 5 foot 5" assailant was also seen running away with a rifle in his hand. While DWG had tried to sell Reynolds a 57 Olds without the papers, had a grudge and owned a .22 rifle, Nancy Jane Mooney, aka Betty McDonald provided him with an alibi - (we were driving around and went and got a six pack), and both passed a lie detector.

A few weeks later NJM/BMcD was arrested for having a fight with he room mate over a guy at Mickeys, and she hung herself while under arrest. She had twice tried to commit suicide earlier.

This Nancy Jane Mooney - Betty McDonald can't be the person who married the doctor.

I guess the Reynolds shooting remains unsolved. Reynolds got a phone call from Gen. Walker after an article about the all this appeared in the newspaper, and Reynolds visited Walker and they both concluded that the shooting was connected to his witnessing the fleeing Tippit murderer. Walker wrote a letter to the Warren Commission saying that Reynolds should be questioned by the Commission.

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/...p;relPageId=444

BK

CE 2589

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/...p;relPageId=901

CE 342

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/...p;relPageId=901

Edited June 19, 2009 by William Kelly

[Ron Ecker]

Ruby employee Andrew Armstrong Jr. told the WC that it was Joy Dale (Joyce McDonald) who picked up Ruby's dog Sheba at the pound (Sheba having supposedly been left in Ruby's car after Ruby shot Oswald). Joy Dale told Gary Mack that she had no recollection of that. Armstrong told the HSCA, not once but twice, that he remembered picking up Sheba. So why did he tell the WC that Dale did it, if years later he could emphatically remember doing it himself? Just one more question that will never be answered.

[William Kelly]

Ruby employee Andrew Armstrong Jr. told the WC that it was Joy Dale (Joyce McDonald) who picked up Ruby's dog Sheba at the pound (Sheba having supposedly been left in Ruby's car after Ruby shot Oswald). Joy Dale told Gary Mack that she had no recollection of that. Armstrong told the HSCA, not once but twice, that he remembered picking up Sheba. So why did he tell the WC that Dale did it, if years later he could emphatically remember doing it himself? Just one more question that will never be answered.

Ron,

I disagree. How can you say that it is just one more question that can never be answered when it has already been answered, and the witnesses are alive today to answer the question?

Andrew Armstrong, as Carousel bartender, gives us some really interesting and in depth and up close views of what happened there, and his first statement that Joy Dale picked up the dog from the pound was later corrected when he recalled, many months later, that he himself had picked the dog up, and Joy Dale (Joyce McDonald) confirmed that she didn't.

And since Joy Dale, aka Joyce McDonald, has a daughter who has contacted me and wants to set the record straight about things, why can't we straighten out all the outstanding questions?

She just needs a more serous venue to answer the questions than the History Channel.

BK

[Bernice Moore]

ANDREW ARMSTRONG, JR....

HSCA May/73

http://www.geocities.com/m_j_russ/armstr.htm

Info re Ian Griggs.......

Joy Dale (originally Joyce Lee McDonald, now Joyce Gordon) is alive and well and living in the Dallas area.

*************

'Joy Dale the little redheaded stripper from Dallas'

Joyce McDonald

My Mom is alive and well!

http://knol.google.com/k/cynthia-ann-mcdon...&locale=en#

Below Left: Joyce Lee McDonald ( JoyDale) ...Ruby......Right..Karen Bennet Carlin ( Little Lynn )

B....

[Ron Ecker]

Ruby employee Andrew Armstrong Jr. told the WC that it was Joy Dale (Joyce McDonald) who picked up Ruby's dog Sheba at the pound (Sheba having supposedly been left in Ruby's car after Ruby shot Oswald). Joy Dale told Gary Mack that she had no recollection of that. Armstrong told the HSCA, not once but twice, that he remembered picking up Sheba. So why did he tell the WC that Dale did it, if years later he could emphatically remember doing it himself? Just one more question that will never be answered.

Ron,

I disagree. How can you say that it is just one more question that can never be answered when it has already been answered, and the witnesses are alive today to answer the question?

Andrew Armstrong, as Carousel bartender, gives us some really interesting and in depth and up close views of what happened there, and his first statement that Joy Dale picked up the dog from the pound was later corrected when he recalled, many months later, that he himself had picked the dog up, and Joy Dale (Joyce McDonald) confirmed that she didn't.

And since Joy Dale, aka Joyce McDonald, has a daughter who has contacted me and wants to set the record straight about things, why can't we straighten out all the outstanding questions?

She just needs a more serous venue to answer the questions than the History Channel.

BK

The question was, why did he tell the WC that Joy Dale picked up the dog, if he remembered "many months later" that he picked up the dog? Has he answered this question? To be more precise, what so dramatically restored or corrected his memory? Electric shock therapy?

[William Kelly]

Joyce Lee McDonald is the one who knows a lot of the answers.

She was the one who was at the Texas State Fair at the same show as Larry Crafard, she was the one who got the check from Larry Meyers to support the floundering show, and she's the one who met Jean Aase (aka Ann West) and made plans to go shopping with her while Larry Meyers was otherwise busy with business or playing golf.

In her TV interview she said that Ruby was a good guy, and would do anything for you if he liked you, giving as an example, him taking in Crafard, giving him a job and a place to say in back of the Carousel Club.

She also said it would have been hard for someone on stage (like Billy DeMarr) recognizing someone in the audience because of the stage lights.

Joyce Lee McDonald (aka "Joy Dale") was also one of the first people to see and talk with Ruby after the assassination - at the Carousel Club about 3 pm, a few hours after the assassination.

I think she said that she had just arrived at the Carousel from the hospital, where she had been for some personal reason, but that would have placed her there at the time of the arrival of the motorcade. Has she ever been asked about this?

Armstrong the bartender also said Joy Dale picked up Sheiba the dog from the pound, but when she denied it, he remembered that he picked her up. I don't know what that means, but there remains the question of why Ruby had the dog in the first place? And why he locked the key to the car in the trunk and put the key to the trunk in the glove compartment? What was that all about?

Now as Joyce Gordon, she has been interviewed for the History Channell.

Has anyone seen this History Channel segment that she is in?

And if so, what does she say? Does she answer any of these questions?

BK

[Jack White]

As I recall, the woman that Tippit allegedly was having an affair with was named Witherspoon.

Jack

[William Kelly]

As I recall, the woman that Tippit allegedly was having an affair with was named Witherspoon.

Jack

The question seems to be is Ruby dancer Joyce Lee Witherspoon McDonald Gordon, related to Tippit paramour Johnny Maxie or her ex-husband Claude Witherspoon?

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?

showtopic=6638&pid=60757&mode=threaded&start=#entry60757

From RCD:

"The" waitress was named [Mrs. Stephen] Johnny Maxie Thompson [later remarried to Claude Witherspoon in 1968.] She and Tippit apparently conducted an affair between the summer of '62 and the summer of '63, with Ms. Thompson briefly reconciling with husband Stephen in late summer or September '63. However, when interviewed by the HSCA, Ms. Witherspoon also reported that there had been another Austin's BBQ waitress in whom Tippit had also shown a romantic interest. I have no idea what that second waitress' name is, but the HSCA memos may disclose it.

From Dixie Dee:

Below is an interview Jack Moriarity, of the HSCA, had with Johnnie Maxie

Witherspoon, in 1977, in which she mentions Clara Jo Monk.

Johnnie Maxie Witherspoon was interviewed in her home on 9-24-77 by Jack

Moriarity and two other members of the House Select Committee. At the

time she was unemployed.

Information collected at that time:

Date of birth: 10-10-34, Height 5'1", Weight 130, Eyes: Blue, Hair

Blonde.

Wears glasses and is right handed.

Had been Tippit's girl friend 1961-1963

Husband in 1963: Stephen Thompson Jr.

Thompson "is remarried. He and wife have a nightclub and love it

now. They had been in the antique business."

"Tippit had shown an interest in another female employee at Austin's

barbaque by the name of Clara Jo Monk, a car hop and waitress. ( Married

to a truck driver)."

The investigators were especially interested in the station wagon that

J.D. had bought while the two were dating. Moriarity: " During

that time J.D. Tippit bought what may have been

a new station wagon, may have been a Pontiac and it might have been the

color blue, is that right?"

Johnnie: "To the best that I can remember, yes."

Moriarity: "Would this have been about a 1963, if you recall, or a

62? I know it was within that three year period but was this toward the

end of your relationship or at the beginning of it?" Johnnie: "

Closer to the end of it I believe." I think that they were

interested in the station wagon because a station wagon fitting that

description was seen driving around the TSBD before the motorcade

entered Dealey Plaza. However, it was described as an Oldsmobile.

Johnnie's mother, Verda Mae Herell, was interviewed on 3-14-78.

Verda worked at the Clifton Towers Coffee Shop located on Ballard ( one

block from the Dobbs House where LHO stopped for breakfast. Lee had also

eaten at her place of employment. Verda: "He was a regular dinner

customer. He never talked to anyone except to her when he ordered his

regular hamburger platter and left a 25 cent tip."

Her boss was Zerrell Owen. Verda said that there were few tears when

JFK was killed because they "were all Republicans." Also working

there was a "black boy cook" Amos (Euins) , about 16, whose parents,

brother and sister worked there. On 11-22-63, the police called advising

that they were holding Amos as a witness as he saw JFK shot.

Verda knew Tippit well. She used to sit in a booth and talk to J.D.

about raising kids. "He was interested in the subject..." She was aware

of his three jobs and said "the saddest aspect of the entie tragedy was

the development of the older son in the wrong direction. It happened

from the moment of J.D's. death."