A Question for Gary Murr re: the alleged Bell receipt

[Robert Harris]

Mr. Murr,

Recently you posted a link to an alleged receipt for a bullet fragment, apparently signed off by Audrey Bell and officer Bobby Nolan. 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzA5R7J9M0SFVl9JcGNNR3BxTDQ/view

Could you tell me your source for this document?

I'm sure you would never fabricate something like this, but without knowing where it came from, there is no way to verify its legitimacy. And since it contradicts statements of both Bell and Nolan, I believe there is reason to be skeptical. 

As I'm sure you know, I have been following this issue for a long time, and I will be eager to retract my relevant articles if they are proven to be wrong.

 

[Chris Newton]

The text along the right side seems to say "Reference Copy  CIA Collection HSCA (RC 233)".  A search on MFF for "RC 233" returns a lot of document hits but not this one so far. Maybe the orientation of the text prevented the ocr capture? Then again why would it be in the HSCA CIA collection?

I notice that the text noted above is strangely being intersected by what appears to be the black margin of the document. Which gives me the impression that it is a composite.

[Gary Murr]

Hello Robert:

I thank you for your message and question contained therein. I am on the road - work related - this week but will return home this weekend. I will look up the specific reference for you and pass it along. I understand your skepticism, but the document is  genuine. Again because I do not have  my files in front of me, and I have had a copy of this document for almost twenty years, I [understandably] cannot remember the specifics of the reference indexing. It is buried somewhere among the 300,000+ pages of documents I possess.  I also have had to take a step away from the subject matter, indeed all JFK assassination research,  for an extended period of time, health related issues that have nothing to do with our current discussion. I can tell you this much about this document; it is found in files  obtained by the ARRB. Indeed they had the same copy I possess before their contact with Audrey Bell. Now given the amount of paperwork they did acquire it is not overtly surprising to me that they/members of their staff were not aware of just where this singular piece of paper was among the thousands and thousands of pages they either possessed or continued to stream into their possession. It is hidden among one of the larger ARRB files and if one was not looking specifically for the document, nor was aware of its particular importance, it could have been easily overlooked. I believe in your prior message you asked something about why the document I have does not possess "colour" writing [?] as indicated by Bell. The answer to that is simply because the copy I have, and the copy at NARA, is a photocopy of the original and is thus reproduced only in black and white. And as a matter of interest, the original is not at NARA. If you look closely in the top right hand corner of the document, and I apologize for the quality but it is the best that is available from the files, you can just make out the name "Audrey Bell" beneath which is  the signature/initials of C. J. Price of Parkland Hospital, something I believe Audrey Bell did mention in her testimony - again this is off the top of my head as I am no where near my files.

In closing I would like to make a few comments. I must admit I was surprised, and continue to be surprised, that when I first posted a copy of this document that no one commented on the fact that in Audrey Bell indicated, in her own handwriting, that  she placed a bullet "fragment", singular, in the evidence envelope - not multiple fragments. Question for you: Since Audrey Bell appears to have both handled this evidence and prepared this same evidence envelope, was she mistaken? If as she indicates she put but a singular fragment in the envelope, an envelope that has been at/with NARA since 1965, how do we reconcile; [a] her later attestations of multiple fragments, which when I compare her drawings of these same fragments to those apparent fragments seen on X-rays taken of Connally's radial wound site appear to be both "too" large and "too" many in number - unless one wants to contend that these and potentially all X-rays taken by members of the Parkland Hospital staff are fakes, a rabbit hole I am not about to crawl into; and multiple fragments as they now exist in evidence at NARA? Have you ever entertained the thought that perhaps not all fragments recovered from the Connally radial wound site were turned over to authorities, Texas, Federal, or otherwise, on the afternoon of November 22nd and that Audrey Bell may indeed have been only given one fragment or allowed to pass along only one fragment to whomever? 

 I, like you, have studied in my past the wounding of John Connally - extensively. I spent the better part of my spare time over a 12 year span doing nothing but studying and gathering evidence that pertains to the Connally wounding. In other words, I also have "been following this issue for a long time." I believe I am one of a very few number of researchers who were allowed access to the clothing worn by John Connally, access that allowed me to take photographs and measurements of all garments and their intendant apertures. Now access such as this and accumulation of documentation does not make one an "expert,"  a noun I am loath to use. Indeed when one comes across someone who professes to be an "expert" on a specific subject matter one might be wise to turn around and run in the other direction. And finally, my father was "Mr. Murr"; my name is Gary.

 

FWIW

 

 

 

Edited August 11, 2017 by Gary Murr
Bold text inadvertently stuck on

[Robert Harris]

Mr. Murr, thank you for the prompt response. 

Audrey Bell told both the ARRB and the HSCA in 1977, that she placed "four or five" tiny fragments into her envelope, four of which are visible in CE-842.

Also, the contents are labelled, "bullet fragments", although a handwriting expert I submitted this to, believes that was written in a different hand than the rest of the text. Nolan BTW, stated that the information section of the envelope he initialed, was blank at the time. 

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=bobby+nolan

He also said that the nurse told him this was a whole bullet, from Connally's "gurney". Henry Wade, was told the same thing and said she was holding the bullet in her hand at the time. Combined with the absence of her initials on CE-842 and the battered condition of it, perhaps  you can see how I came to the conclusions I did. 

I do hope you get to feeling better soon. Please take your time in looking into this matter, but I would be interested in who you acquired this alleged receipt from, and if possible, where they got it. It would seem that something like this would be a high priority item for the DPD and FBI since it would be critical to proving the chain of custody. I have to wonder how it did not get to the Archives.

 

 

[Larry Hancock]

Very good dialog, now this is real research...thank you Robert and Gary.  To raise one point, it might be interesting to ponder the alternative scenario of a whole bullet and at what point it could have been removed from evidence. 

Certainly it would not be the only whole bullet that may have either gone missing or been replaced by something more acceptable to the emerging official story of the day.  Studies of exactly where, when and with who are especially interesting to me.

[Robert Harris]

2 hours ago, Larry Hancock said:

Very good dialog, now this is real research...thank you Robert and Gary.  To raise one point, it might be interesting to ponder the alternative scenario of a whole bullet and at what point it could have been removed from evidence. 

Certainly it would not be the only whole bullet that may have either gone missing or been replaced by something more acceptable to the emerging official story of the day.  Studies of exactly where, when and with who are especially interesting to me.

Thank you Larry. If the document that Gary presented is legitimate, it pretty much refutes my analysis. I can live with being wrong. It wouldn't be the first time :-)

But Bell describing her evidence as a "fragment" rather than fragments is only where the contradictions begin.

Why would Nolan, Wade and Stinson have been so certain that she said nothing about fragments (or fragment) and called it a "bullet"?

And why in holy hell would she have told them it came from Connally's "gurney", rather than from surgery?

Strange isn't it, that Connally also said the bullet fell from his gurney as he was being moved from it to the operating table?

There are numerous other problems as well, some of which I suppose could be written off to faulty memory, but how does one explain the virtually identical recollections of Wade, Nolan and Connally?

 

[Robert Harris]

21 hours ago, Chris Newton said:

The text along the right side seems to say "Reference Copy  CIA Collection HSCA (RC 233)".  A search on MFF for "RC 233" returns a lot of document hits but not this one so far. Maybe the orientation of the text prevented the ocr capture? Then again why would it be in the HSCA CIA collection?

I notice that the text noted above is strangely being intersected by what appears to be the black margin of the document. Which gives me the impression that it is a composite.

Chris,

Yes, I Googled that too, but found no reference to this alleged receipt. Nor have I ever seen it mentioned anywhere in the HSCA report.

Consider this, from the HSCA's interview of Bell:

"G:   All right, and after you placed them into the foreign body envelope and sealed  that envelope, what did you do with it?

B:   I delivered them to the FBI, and he signed for them, this was a deviation from our  procedure, he signed, ah, there was a, took an inter-office memorandum and wrote on there about my delivering those to the FBI."

The next question should have been, "But Ms. Bell, didn't you sign this receipt, releasing your envelope to officer Nolan?"

That never happened, however. There wasn't even a hint that they had this receipt.

 

[Chris Newton]

45 minutes ago, Robert Harris said:

"G:   All right, and after you placed them into the foreign body envelope and sealed  that envelope, what did you do with it?

B:   I delivered them to the FBI, and he signed for them, this was a deviation from our  procedure, he signed, ah, there was a, took an inter-office memorandum and wrote on there about my delivering those to the FBI."

The next question should have been, "But Ms. Bell, didn't you sign this receipt, releasing your envelope to officer Nolan?"

Robert,

I don't know the gist of this issue well enough to comment on the events or the questioning of the witnesses. I 'll read up on it sometime soon.

My comment about the lower right edge of the receipt/memo is still valid though. How does the edge of a document intersect a label and simultaneously appear both on top and below the label? That edge and the little label that says HSCA RC-233 do not look right.

Edited August 12, 2017 by Chris Newton

[Robert Harris]

Chris, 

You raise a good point. It kinda looks like the work of a Photoshop beginner with a hand scanner (they were popular in the 90's).

There's nothing sinister about it being a scan, but it does look like someone is trying to make it look like it was an HSCA document. 

[Gary Murr]

Unfortunately there were difficulties in transposition with my lengthy answer in this post. I have deleted the entire content and will re-post my answer either later today or early tomorrow morning. I am not at home at the present and thus do not have access to my original answer and script. Administration was kind enough to try and fix the situation, but things did not work out properly.

My apologies

Gary

Edited August 12, 2017 by Gary Murr
Why are there lines through my answer