Claude Capehart at the Texas School Book Depository

[William Weston]

Claude Barnes Capehart, a hitman for the CIA, was living in Chowchilla, California, when he saw his picture in the Fresno Bee. On July 31, 1978, the newspaper ran a story on the HSCA which included photographs of three men wanted in connection with the assassination of President Kennedy.

One picture shows a dark-haired man sitting on a street curb in Dealey Plaza moments after the assassination. The middle picture is a side view of a man wearing a suitcoat. He has light or gray hair, an aquiline nose, and appears to be in his late 40s or early 50s. The third picture shows, according to the UPI article, a “handsome, apparently blond-haired man in his 20s or early 30s. He appears to be wearing a jacket over a dark turtleneck sweater or pullover.” The latter two men were in Mexico City in the fall of 1963 at the same time Lee Harvey Oswald was there.

Three days after Capehart saw the article, he fled to Las Vegas, leaving his wife Roberta behind. Frightened and distressed, she went to see Chowchilla Sheriff’s Deputy Dale Fore and showed him the newspaper article. One of the three pictures, according to Fore, was a “dead ringer” for Capehart. A picture of an older Capehart on the findagrave website shows close resemblance to the blonde-haired man.

   

Capehart was absolutely paranoid about having his picture taken. So much so, Roberta said, that even his California driver’s license lacked a picture as required by law. Fore made an inquiry with the Department of Motor Vehicles. Yes, they said, his license lacked a picture, but no one could explain why.

Claude told Roberta that he had been “in” on the plot to kill Kennedy and that Lee Harvey Oswald did not fire any of the shots. He said he was inside the Texas School Book Depository at the time of the shooting.

According to Carolyn Walther, a motorcade spectator standing on the corner Elm and Houston, a gunman with blonde or light-brown hair, wearing a white shirt, had positioned himself at the open lower part of the window of the fifth floor, not the sixth (as claimed by the Warren Commission). He had a rifle in his hands. Standing next to the blonde-haired man was another man wearing a brown suitcoat. Walther could not see his face, for it was obscured by the closed upper portion of the window. Confirming Walther’s observations were two more spectators, Ronald Fischer and Robert Edwards, who saw a man with light-colored hair and a light-colored open-neck shirt at a window on the fifth floor. Since Capehart had blonde or light-brown hair, he might have been the gunman. The other man wearing a brown suitcoat took an elevator down to the first floor and ran out the back door, running in a southerly direction. Another witness who saw him said he had black hair, was 5 feet 8 to 10 inches tall, 155 to 165 pounds, in his late 20s or early 30s. This could not have been Capehart, who according to his biographical resume in November 1963, was 6 foot 1 inch, 220 pounds, in his late 30s, and had brown hair.

 Statements by three witnesses that the gunman and his companion were on the fifth floor would mean that James Jarman, Harold Norman, and Bonnie Ray Williams had lied about their presence on the fifth floor. Oswald said that at the time of the shots he was eating lunch with some black employees. Oswald was telling the truth.

Edited January 30, 2020 by William Weston

[Rick McTague]

William,

This post is intriguing, could you please fix the picture links?

Thanks

[Rick McTague]

FYI here is another thread here on EF that focuses on Mr. Capehart.

Thanks

[David Boylan]

Capehart does appear to have worked for the CIA. Well at least as a contractor in 1973

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=14165

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=14172

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=152982

There was  an inquiry on him 11/26/63 - https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=14178 

 

[Larry Hancock]

Looks like his application in 1973 was to work as a crane operator for a CIA contractor....makes me think about the Glomar Explorer and the 1974 CIA contracted operation with Hughes to recover the K-129 Soviet Submarine - Project Arizonian.

[William Weston]

The photo below shows Bonnie Ray Williams and Harold Norman at the same fifth floor window where Walther, Fischer, and Edwards saw a blond or light brown haired man holding a rifle, positioned beside a man wearing a brown suitcoat.

The photo was taken by new cameraman Tom Dillard while riding in a car assigned to journalists. He took the picture because fellow cameraman Bob Jackson said "There's a rifle barrel up there."

Supposedly Jackson noticed the rifle because he saw two black men leaning out of the window and looking straight up at the window above them.

The photo looks like a fake to me.

Since I am not an expert in photo fakery, I invite other members to comment.