Revisiting The Three Tramps In Dealey Plaza.

[Joe Bauer]

I know there are volumes of Three Tramps threads in the Forum Archives.

If someone knows a couple of the most informing and interesting ones, please repost them. I am not that savvy regards the archives myself.

I just want to revisit this specific subject because it seems to me that the research determinations and conclusions are mostly as nebulous today as they were 57 years ago.

I'm just going to throw out some general thoughts of contemplation to begin the discussion. However, I want to read again the thoughts of others on this subject. It's always been a favorite JFK side story to me.

Questions:

Were all three tramps found in the same box car? Or were they in separate cars by themselves?

Either way , did the police gather what booze containers they may have been drinking from?

The E. Howard Hunt look-alike Tramp has his paper bag. Did this contain his bottle?

Mentioned many times, they all seem clean shaven. Was their box car drinking a part time thing in the day where they went home at night to a clean up bathroom?

Were any of these three showing signs of inebriation when they were pulled out of the box car or cars? 

They sure don't looked boozed up to me? Did they stagger at all on their blocks long perp walk?

Were these guys Dallas residents? Or did they ride in from out of town?

Their haircuts look quite maintained except the taller Tim Robbin's look-alike whose hair is a bit tousled even though trim on the sides and not too long.

"Frenchy's" hair looks downright well trimmed.

For a train box car tramp the guy looks like a male model in an Italian fashion ad.

Chic combo of nice, clean, well fittied sports coat over a clean knit sweater shirt with it's collar stylishly pulled up. Complimented with hip ( again well fitting) jeans which is really cool before it's time. Nice shoes to boot. No train track walking dirty well worn footwear for this Romeo.

He reminds me of some well known Italian/American crooner back in those days. 

He looks fit, trim, tan, hand and nail clean and well sleep rested. Could be any Mediterranean type although I don't see him as Cuban or Mexican. Wonder if he spoke with a foreign accent?

Tim Robbin's "might" be more box car hopping looking than Frenchy. Still, his clothing doesn't look too dirty. A little rumpled. Shirt untucked. His eyes do look tired imo. He does have a slight grin at times in different photos. Maybe he is thinking this is all so ridiculous it's kind of humorous?  I don't think this guy is Charles Harrelson. I don't see the resemblance as much as others.

Baggy Gabby bringing up the rear does of course look more box car residing rumpled and unkempt. His outfit almost looks too tramp perfect. Like he came across Charlie Chaplin's actual movie wardrobe.  The perfect ragged crumpled hat, sweater too short, unwashed pants unevenly pulled up and belted, over sized pointy boots.

And he walks like Chaplin with feet sticking way out sideways.

His expression in one of exaggerated grumpiness. Pinched eyes, hanging down mouth.

Could Baggy Gabby be an act?

Could Bond type spy novel writer Hunt pull off this master of disguise play? Would he even try?

Could one or both the police escorts of the three tramps be wearing an ear piece?

Are they really carrying their shotguns incorrectly? Is that really Colonel Ed Lansdale the three tramps walk by in front of the Texas School Book Depository building on their way to interrogation?

The detainment and questioning records of these three is suspect?

 

 

Edited July 26, 2020 by Joe Bauer

[Joe Bauer]

Curious, not one response posting.

Not even a link to perhaps some interesting past "three tramps" threads on the forum.

I've been searching the net for any three tramps essays. Several found but so redundant in their mostly sparse facts inconclusive identification conclusions.

Chauncy Holt ( the man most often identified as the old frumpy hat tramp) is recited and even quoted. The guy sounds absolutely nuts and unbelievable.

Charles Rogers is most often cited as Frenchy. His background is associated with intelligence connections so convoluted and weird he's another ridiculous sounding character. One story goes that he chopped up his elderly Houston Texas residing parents ( because they knew too much ) and stuffed their wrapped pieces into their own refrigerator.  With at least one of their heads found in the frig vegetable drawer.

And just as crazy, his parents were actually killed this way!

The middle tramp most often Identified as Charles Harrelson or Frank Sturgis has never been adequately identified. You'd think at least a few people in his past would have immediately came forward and stated his true identity.

"Hey! That's our Uncle Ralph. He's been in and of mental health wards due to depression driven alcoholism." But nothing?

And it is true that most of the police booking paperwork centered around these three characters has gone missing.

These three train box car hanging fellows are perhaps the three most neglected Dealey Plaza/train yard suspicious characters it seems to me. Yet, there they are in iconic Dealey Plaza photos that are such a well known part of the JFK event.

 

Edited July 26, 2020 by Joe Bauer

[Mark Stevens]

Joe,

I believe the Tramps were just that...tramps. 

I believe they were on the train already and were told to move along by some form of law enforcement so they went to another car and were then pulled off again and arrested.

Here is a link I had with some information on the Tramps:

https://www.oocities.org/capitolhill/senate/5439/Documents.html

[Ron Bulman]

Joe, this might keep you busy a while/give you some insight.

 

[Joe Bauer]

Thanks.

[Larry Hancock]

For reference,  Lee Bowers reported seeing an individual inside an open hopper car (not a box car) looking down from his position in the tower, the car was on a train moving into the yard from downtown Dallas and the engine was pulling it out of his yard over the bridge. He stopped the train, and held it for police. One man, not in a box car.  Bowers made no remarks in his statements about seeing tramps in boxcars or seeing them or anyone else taken into custody and removed by police in the yard behind the fence.

[Mark Stevens]

26 minutes ago, Larry Hancock said:

For reference,  Lee Bowers reported seeing an individual inside an open hopper car (not a box car) looking down from his position in the tower, the car was on a train moving into the yard from downtown Dallas and the engine was pulling it out of his yard over the bridge. He stopped the train, and held it for police. One man, not in a box car.  Bowers made no remarks in his statements about seeing tramps in boxcars or seeing them or anyone else taken into custody and removed by police in the yard behind the fence.

Thanks Larry,

If memory serves right, there were multiple reports/stories regarding the tramps and persons in the rail yard.

I believe there were two, if not three reports of people taken off trains and I believe at least one that stated the tramps were in or around the rail yard but not in a rail car.

How do you interpret these events in the context of Bowers statements? Do you believe the incidents may not have happened, or that if they did Bowers didn't see them?

[Larry Hancock]

The reports do talk about tramps being taken into custody in the yard on the other side of the bridge, by the postal office complex. Its possible that these three may even have been brought across the bridge and down by the TSBD.   I've found no indications of other tramps being taken into custody in the Bowers rail yard area and given his attention to detail about cars and other suspicious things he observed I have to doubt he would not have mentioned something simple like that.  If memory serves the only cars in the yard actually at the time of the shooting - and until Bowers released rail traffic - were the three cars being used as temporary officers by the railroad, the ones with the steam line running to them.  We have photos of police around them and on top of them but no reports on their being searched...

What does seem fair to say is if the three tramps were taken into custody in a box car in Bowers yard he missed it...and they would have been in a car that had come from downtown into the well after the attack in the plaza...something like an hour or more....not in one that had been in the yard during the attack.

 

Edited July 27, 2020 by Larry Hancock

[Ron Bulman]

I guess I'll demonstrate my technological ignorance once again.  I'd like to bump a post in the latter of the two threads I linked above in this thread.  But I don't know how.  So I guess I'll just quote the post and thus bump the whole thread in on the forum.