The wallet at the Tippit scene: a simpler solution?

Greg Doudna · December 26, 2020

Basic to accounts of the killing of officer Tippit following the JFK assassination is the story of a wallet, filmed that day by WFAA TV news being handled and examined by police officers at the scene of Tippit's death. Mountains of speculation have been built up concerning this wallet. Many consider it as a starting-point for analysis that the wallet was Oswald's. Those who believe Oswald was innocent of the Tippit killing develop scenarios in which the wallet was planted by to implicate Oswald, then the plant immediately covered up by Dallas police. For there is no record of that wallet in any of the DPD reports that day; none of the individual DPD officers' written reports mention it; there is no such wallet in the inventory of evidence logged in from the scene. Yet it is considered almost with bedrock certainty in many quarters that the wallet either was Oswald's or was a faked attempt to implicate Oswald by making up a wallet that looked like it was Oswald's.

Here I set forth a different interpretation which argues that the notion of an Oswald wallet at the Tippit scene is simply one gigantic mistake in researchers' discussions and should be dispensed with, and that there is a simpler solution which accounts for the key facts which have seemed so inexplicable in making sense of that wallet, namely: whose wallet was it; why were there no police reports of it; why did not a single witness at the site either police or civilian see a wallet on the ground or retrieved from the ground at the site; what became of that wallet; and what is to be made of the credible witness testimony of FBI Special Agent Barrett who was there and said that the wallet was Oswald's?

First, the wallet was not Tippit's wallet for reasons brought out in Dale Myers’ book on the Tippit killing, With Malice (2013 ed.). Tippit's wallet was retrieved from Tippit's body at the hospital and logged in as evidence and exists today and it is a different wallet from that shown in the WFAA news footage. Myers has an interview of Mrs. Tippit, the widow, verifying the evidence wallet was Tippit's.

Second, it also is not Oswald's wallet for the two reasons Myers names: It would have been reported in DPD reports if it had been Oswald's. There was overwhelming belief and desire to reinforce that belief that Oswald was the killer on the part of DPD and other authorities, and it makes absolutely no sense, is inexplicable, that all DPD officers would fail to report--would unanimously conspire to cover up the existence of smoking-gun evidence placing a material item of Oswald's--Oswald's wallet--at the scene of the crime, if it had been Oswald's. Yet not one DPD officer's report at the time so much as mentioned any Oswald wallet--or any wallet--found at the scene of the crime. And the other reason cited by Myers for excluding Oswald as the owner of the wallet is that comparison of the wallet in the WFAA footage, with the wallet taken from Oswald's person following his arrest in the Texas Theatre, shows that those two wallets are distinct items, not identical. The photographs-comparison claim requires close attention because the styles of the two wallets are the same (a common style of men's wallet at the time), and photo comparisons are notoriously a source of Rorschach-Inkblot subjective perception in JFK assassination discussions. But in this case Myers' analysis that the photos show distinct wallets which are not the same wallet, stands. So those are two independent, stand-alone reasons for excluding the wallet's ownership as Oswald's.

But there WAS a wallet, because it was filmed by WFAA TV news. The positive argument for it being Oswald's wallet is FBI Special Agent Barrett plus two other DPD officers are reported to have said that was Oswald's wallet, three witnesses in all. Well, those vanish upon analysis. Barrett never claimed to have seen that the wallet was Oswald's. He inferred that it was because Westbrook asked Barrett questions about the names Oswald and Hidell after Barrett had seen Westbrook looking at that wallet. Officer Leonard Jez, often claimed to be a confirming witness, Myers shows that no on-the-record evidence exists that Jez said that, and that it is fairly clear that the sole hearsay claim that Jez did is not correct (see 2013 edition of Myers’ With Malice, footnote 1081, pp. 783-84). Nothing there beyond a late hearsay claim that is more likely wrong than right. So that is two gone out of three.

That leaves officer Croy, the first officer at the Tippit scene to have received the wallet, which he said had been handed to him by someone, a civilian, identity unknown. Croy consistently until late in life never identified the wallet as Oswald’s. Myers reports that according to a 2009 interview of him with Croy, Croy said, “I recovered Tippit’s pistol and a billfold that I think had seven different ID’s in it. I looked at the IDs. None of them had any photographs or the name Lee Harvey Oswald on them”.

But later Croy, perhaps persuaded by arguments from his correspondent that it was Oswald’s wallet (or as a joke?--hard to tell for sure) for the first time claimed credit for finding Oswald’s wallet in a signed photo inscription to Rookstool reported in 2013. In assessing this Croy’s earlier statements take priority over his later photo autograph inscription. But what IS the explanation of that wallet, whose existence was filmed but which none of the police reports ever mentioned? Myers after discussing the facts ends by leaving the wallet's ownership unexplained, says he does not know. That may be an honest answer but it is not very satisfying.

The only one who has that wallet ID correct so far to my knowledge has been David von Pein: the wallet was Ted Callaway's. Callaway is the used car manager and ex-Marine who heard Tippit shot, came to the scene, took the dead Tippit's service revolver and with Scoggins the cab driver took off in hot pursuit circling the blocks looking for the killer. However another car of two private security persons, Ken Holmes and Bill Wheless, suspicious, forced the cab to a stop a couple of blocks to the east of the Tippit scene. Callaway stepped out with Tippit's revolver in his hand, whereupon the alarmed Holmes, thinking Callaway may be the killer, drew his own firearm and ordered Callaway at gunpoint to disarm. Holmes took possession of Tippit's revolver and drove back to the Tippit scene where he turned the Tippit revolver over to police, while Callaway and Scoggins returned to the scene separately in their vehicle.

What happened, it can be reconstructed, is that Callaway was not only divested of Tippit's revolver but also of his own wallet/identification, by Ken Holmes at the point of disarming Callaway. It is not reasonable or likely that, suspecting Callaway was the killer and taking the revolver away from Callaway at gunpoint, Holmes would not also have obtained Callaway's ID before letting Callaway and Scoggins drive away by themselves, perhaps never to be seen again. Holmes, a trained security professional in the private sector, would have told Callaway he was taking both the revolver (which Callaway was claiming was Tippit's but how would Holmes know for certain that was true), and Callaway’s wallet, to the scene to turn over to police, while instructing Callaway also to return to the scene to speak to police. Callaway in that tense moment, trying to explain to Holmes holding him at gunpoint that he was innocent and looking for the killer himself and that the revolver in his hand was actually officer Tippit’s, in response to demand would have handed over his whole wallet with one hand to Holmes, which Holmes kept pending turning over both items to the police.

When Holmes and Wheless returned to the scene of Tippit's patrol car and body, where DPD officers were present, Holmes handed Tippit's revolver and Callaway's wallet to an officer, which would be Croy who said he had been given the wallet "by someone", “by a citizen”. Although hardly any accounts of the wallet-mystery issue have noticed it, that "someone", that "unnamed citizen" referred to by Croy would be Ken Holmes who had just disarmed Callaway a couple of blocks away. Who else would it be? Frequently Croy's claim that he does not remember who handed him the wallet is quoted and left as an unexplained mystery, or regarded as sinister (with aspersions cast on Croy as if what he said on that point was being intentionally deceptive), without those discussions making the connection: Ken Holmes who handed the Tippit revolver to officers (taken from Callaway) = Ken Holmes who handed the wallet to officers (taken from Callaway). That the two items--the Tippit revolver and the wallet--turned up at the scene in police hands at the exact same time, is seen in the WFAA news video footage. In that footage a closeup is filmed of an officer’s hands holding both Tippit’s revolver (which had just been handed to him) and the wallet (which had just been handed to him), at the SAME TIME in the SAME HAND! That is not simply highly suggestive, but prima facie convincing to the point of settling the matter, that those two items had been received at the same time and from the same source. And there need be no mystery about the identity of that citizen who handed both of those items to police, even if Croy himself did not know when asked in later years. It was Ken Holmes. The revolver had been taken from Callaway, and the wallet also, by Ken Holmes, and Ken Holmes turned both items over to police at the scene. In retrospect is this not the obvious explanation?

Callaway returned by separate vehicle to the scene at the same time as Holmes. DPD officers at the scene, realizing Callaway was not the killer, would have handed Callaway's wallet back to Callaway, and under normal circumstances that would have been the end of the wallet matter. This is the simple explanation both to how the wallet came to be filmed by WFAA in officers' hands being examined at the scene, when there was no wallet found near Tippit's body on the ground that anyone ever saw. It is the simple explanation of what became of that wallet and why it was not retained as evidence or reported in any DPD police report. The brief handling and inspection of Callaway's wallet by DPD officers did not appear in any police report nor was it retained and logged into evidence for any unusual or sinister reason, but because it was not relevant to the Tippit killing. Callaway was not a suspect in the Tippit killing, and the wallet had nothing to do with the scene of the crime or the Tippit killer. Why would it be unusual that a wallet which had nothing to do with the crime would be handed back to its owner and nothing further would become of it?

In Myers’ 2009 interview of Croy, Myers reported--without Myers catching the significance of this (p. 356)

“Croy also claimed…Tippit’s pistol…was found with the billfold a short distance from the scene”

That represents Croy’s own ignorance or lack of knowledge concerning the source of the wallet that he had been handed. Croy somehow thought--in 2009--that the Tippit killer had tossed both items while running away--Tippit's revolver and the wallet both!--and someone had found them together a short distance away (Myers, p. 356, citing his interview of Croy of 2009). While Croy had that wrong, the key point is Croy's memory of the association of the Tippit revolver as from the same source, together with, handed in together with, at the same time, the wallet. Croy did not know who had handed those items in or where exactly they had been found, but he knew that it was a citizen (not an officer); he knew those two items came from away from the scene of the crime; and he knew they were found and turned in together. Although Croy did not know, from the facts and research available to us in Myers' book and documents on the Mary Ferrell site, we can know that both of these items came from Ken Holmes, who took both from Callaway! And the identity of Croy's unknown citizen source is no longer a mystery. This is the overlooked solution to this whole puzzle.

But why did Myers himself not draw this--in retrospect almost obvious--conclusion?

In his book Myers does consider but rejects Callaway as having been the owner of the wallet, but his reason why is puzzling. The only reason Myers gives is that Myers claims Callaway denied the wallet was his--or rather claims that Callaway denied that he was questioned about a wallet following his return to the Tippit scene--followed by quotations from Callaway in support of that. However none of the statements from Callaway provided by Myers is a denial that I can see. The key problem--why Myers missed the Ken Holmes/Callaway solution to the wallet's origin--appears to be that Myers crucially misunderstood a statement of Callaway--which actually referred to Callaway's turning of Tippit’s revolver over to private security person Ken Holmes--as if that was Callaway’s account of what happened after Callaway returned to the Tippit scene (p. 364). In fact, though Myers did not recognize it, this was Callaway’s version of the Ken Holmes encounter. Myers quoting Callaway (with my italicized note in the brackets not being part of the Myers' quotation):

“’When I got out of the cab,’ Callaway recalled in a 1999 interview, ‘I didn’t hesitate a bit like a lot of guys would. I walked straight to this plainclothes officer [= Kenneth Holmes!—not a DPD officer at the Tippit scene!--gd] and I said, “Here’s the officer’s pistol.” He said, “OK, thank you very much.” After that I walked right back to the lot.’”

From other incidental mentions in Myers' study it is clear that Callaway, who told and recounted his story many times over the years (of hearing the shots, going to the scene, taking Tippit's revolver and going off in pursuit of the killer...), did not like to volunteer or emphasize or talk about that embarrassing scene of how his pursuit came to an abrupt halt not of his choosing--of his vehicle being forcibly stopped and he being disarmed at gunpoint by Ken Holmes--when Callahan would tell his story. (By one way of looking at it, Callaway going off after the killer, pistol in hand, like John Wayne, had almost gotten himself shot due to stupidity.)

But contrary to Myers’ interpretation, there is no denial from Callaway that the wallet was his, in any testimony cited in Myers' book (which remains the most comprehensive and authoritative book on the Tippit killing case evidence in existence), as distinguished from Callaway skipping over in his telling some of what happened that was embarrassing. Nor am I aware of the existence of any denial from Callaway that the wallet was Callaway's outside of Myers' book, or that Callaway ever was asked the wallet question.

So this is what I believe is the simple and mundane solution to that wallet issue at the scene of the Tippit killing. It was Callaway's wallet because it makes total sense that it was and because no other explanation makes sense. It also had nothing to do with the Tippit killing, the Tippit killer, and had no relevance to the case, despite its being filmed being looked at at the scene by multiple officers.

But what about the witness of FBI Special Agent Barrett, from whom the story of the Oswald identity of the wallet at the Tippit scene originated in the 1990s by means of Hosty's book endorsing his fellow agent Barrett on this point?

Myers, respectful of Barrett personally and attesting to Barrett’s high credibility as witness testimony, nevertheless concluded (because Myers saw no other choice from his interpretation of the evidence) that Barrett cannot have been correct in the timing of his memory in saying he had been asked by DPD Captain Westbrook about the names of Oswald and Hidell at the Tippit killing scene. However Barrett is credible and I believe his account should be accepted and not rejected. Barrett was asked by Westbrook if he recognized the names of Oswald or Hidell (Barrett did not). That followed Barrett observing DPD officers including Westbrook briefly examining the Callaway wallet. But the Callaway wallet was not the source of Westbrook's question about the names Oswald and Hidell, though that is what Barrett mistakenly assumed (an easy assumption to make). In other words, Barrett's testimony is truthful as to what he witnessed, but the conclusion he drew from what he saw, however reasonable based on what it looked like, nevertheless was mistaken.

While the Callaway solution to the wallet identification mystery solves one range of problems, it unexpectedly and surprisingly raises another: for it now raises the question of what was Westbrook's source of information concerning the names Oswald and Hidell, when he asked his friend FBI agent Barrett about those names. This was before Westbrook saw or knew of Oswald's wallet removed from Oswald after Oswald's arrest at the Texas Theater. Supposedly, DPD did not know about the name "Hidell" (the Oswald alias) at this point. Yet according to Barrett, Westbrook asked him about those names, Oswald and Hidell. Based on Barrett's testimony, Westbrook must have been told the names Oswald and Hidell at the TSBD before Westbrook left to go to the scene of the Tippit killing, even if how exactly that occurred is not clear. (Another possibility, which retains most of Barrett's testimony as accurate but would suppose that in the passage of time the "Hidell" name was added in Barrett's memory, could be that Westbrook asked Barrett only about the name "Oswald" [but not Hidell], which had somehow been learned by Westbrook at the TSBD before he went to the Tippit scene. However, Barrett said he was asked about both names by Westbrook. Either way, it does not affect the conclusion that the wallet at the Tippit scene was not the source of Westbrook's information when he asked Barrett.)

Barrett's testimony, once the wallet identity is cleared up that the wallet was not Oswald's, now becomes new evidence of DPD knowledge in the timeline. Westbrook took the first opportunity upon seeing his familiar colleague FBI Special Agent Barrett at the Tippit killing scene, to ask Barrett if he recognized or knew anything about what Barrett said were the two names, Oswald and Hidell, which Westbrook knew or had been told, perhaps minutes earlier, at the TSBD. It was the juxtaposition of Barrett having been asked this by Westbrook just after the wallet episode that caused an understandable but erroneous conclusion on Barrett's part that Westbrook was asking because he had gotten those names from the wallet.

I was at a conference in the UK in 1996 on an unrelated topic and by accident one morning ate breakfast in the wrong room at the venue where breakfast was being served for another conference which I discovered was of police chiefs. I realized after sitting down at a table that I was sitting with municipal police chiefs. I got to talking with one across from me and mentioned a recent case, a scandal, in New York state where I had recently come from, of a police lab having been found to have routinely cooked evidence and a number of criminal convictions had been reopened as a result. I asked if that sort of thing happened in the UK. His answer: "Oh, you mean 'stitching someone up'? Sure, happens all the time."

I think Oswald was "stitched up". But I do not think the wallet at the Tippit scene had anything to do with it. I hope some may find this analysis helpful.

Bill Simpich · December 31, 2020

After years of studying Tippit, I concluded a few years ago that there were two similar-looking wallets. Both wallets have a leather flap that snaps over the photo section, with a metal band fixed to its leading edge. (Dale Myers, With Malice, p. 298) Both wallets also have a zipper over the cash compartment.

One wallet was "found" on the scene by Kenneth Croy, the first officer on the scene, who received it upon arrival from an alleged "unknown witness". I think Croy brought it with him. He handed it to his chief Bud Owens, who showed it to ID section chief George Doughty and then to the ranking officer on the scene Pinky Westbrook,. All this was captured on video, which got broader circulation in the 80s and 90s.

The other wallet was found by polygraph chief Paul Bentley while riding with Oswald from the Texas Theatre to the police station.

For years, I touted Bob Barrett as a truth-teller. Barrett "revealed" that Westbrook asked him while looking at the wallet if he had ever heard of Lee Oswald or Alek Hidell, whose cards were allegedly in the wallet. I called him numerous times in the year before he died in 2017. No return call.

Now, I don't believe Barrett. I think he is the worst kind of xxxx - on the Tippit wallet and many other things.

I don't believe the Callaway story, either. There is no evidence to support it, only conjecture. Callaway told Myers there was no billfold at the crime scene. It is plain that he was denying any knowledge of seeing or hearing about any wallet at the scene. (Myers, p. 300) It takes further unwarranted conjecture to conclude that Callaway was too embarrassed to admit that his wallet was taken away from him.

I'll admit this, I am embarrassed that I ever believed Barrett. Look at his track record - here's ten bullet points:

1. Barrett's November 22, 1963 report says nothing about the wallet being found at the scene. There's no way to get around the wallet captured in the video - but it goes unmentioned in every law enforcement report.

2. The same Barrett report also claims there was an indentation on the primer of Oswald's revolver. FBI firerams expert Cortlandt Cunningham testified there was no such dent, busting Barrett and Jerry Hill's false narrative about LHO trying to shoot his revolver in the Texas Theatre and that there was such a marking on the primer. (see item 8 in my article, linked here).

3. Also in the report - Barrett says someone else grabbed the revolver and gave it to Bob Carroll - then he says (fourth paragraph from the end of the attached 1983 Montgomery Advertiser story) that he grabbed it himself and pulled it from Oswald's grip.

At this point, I am tempted to write off everything Barrett says as "stolen valor" - like claiming credit so you can get a combat medal - but it's even worse than that.

4. See pp. 27-38 (a series of FBI memos of 1967). It sure looks like Barrett took custody of the Paschall film and made a duplicate of it? That's what Paschall's lawyer thought. This film was important evidence of Dealey Plaza on 11/22. Now Paschall only has a duplicate, and no longer has the original of the film. Why?

Barrett admits having possession of the film - he kind of had to, because Paschall and her lawyer knew his name. But there is no record of any FBI agent taking possession! FBI agents are not allowed to take custody of evidence without a paper trail - especially someone's film. Barrett and another agent followed many leads to obtain and review such film.

Barrett claimed that he was in the film - actually...no one has yet been able to find him in the film.

5. In the attached 1984 article, Barrett states he was "one of the last cars to arrive at the Tippit scene" - but he also claims that he saw Tippit's body being removed!!! This is another whopper. Barrett's 11/22/63 report states that he got the news about the Tippit shooting at 1:25. He was in Dealey Plaza at that time. There is no way that he got to the Tippit crime scene before 1:30 - ten minutes after Tippit's body was taken away by ambulance.

The argument has been whether Tippit was shot at 1:07 (multiple gunmen version) or 1:15 (lone gunman version).

Assuming the radio log accurately indicates the call for his rescue was as late as 1:17 pm, Tippit's body was picked up in two minutes and removed by 1:20.

Croy claims to the Warren Commission to have been the first cop on the scene, and saw his body removed.

Researcher William Weston says that Croy was immediately followed by H W Summers and Roy Walker. Dale Myers agrees, and puts the time of their arrival at 1:21. (Id., p. 112) They learned "a cab driver" (Callaway was with a cab driver) had picked up Tippit's gun and left the scene.

Weston adds that Hill, Owens and Alexander all arrived at 1:22, after the ambulance had left.

6. I believe the police have consistently told a story that changes the sequence of events at the plaza by 8-15 minutes - the goal to push back the Tippit shooting to as late a time as possible (1:16 instead of 1:07, I think the true time), in order to give Oswald enough time to get to the Tippit scene. I remain unconvinced that Oswald was at the Tippit scene. Barrett even walked the route from the Tippit scene to the Texas Theater and wrote a report on it.

7. Much of this may have been done to hide the truth, indicated in the Oakes video - (and determined by researcher Richard E. Sprague in a study to have been taken at 12:39 pm)...that Barrett actually was the officer photographed with Buddy Walthers in Dealey Plaza that day - and Barrett actually did pick up a bullet or a fragment from a bullet from the scene in the minutes after the assassination.

Walthers' wife said Buddy told her that "the man" picked up a bullet. (Oakes, at 5:35) Wathers' partner, Al Maddox said "an FBI man" picked up a bullet. (Oakes, at 6:00)

Walthers died in a 1969 shooting with a notorious criminal named Bob Cherry while on duty with Al Maddox - was Walthers' killing some kind of set up?

Both Barrett himself and his boss Robert Gemberling identified the man in the Dealey Plaza photo with Walthers as Barrett - only to deny it later (also in Oakes' video).

Barrett went so far as to write Oakes a note when the photo was mailed to him - "that's me in the photo, sorry." Odd phrasing.

Oakes calls Barrett to thank him. Barrett says, "my mistake, I meant to write 'that's not me in the photo, sorry.'"

Barrett is a disinformation artist.

Patrolman J. W. Foster told the WC he saw a bullet strike the turf right alongside the concrete by a manhole cover - there is supposed to be an arrow pointing to the mark, according to the transcript. (Can you see any mark - I can't?)

Also see Mark Oakes' video, start it at 2:00 with Patrolman Foster's statement, and the location as reported in the 11/23/63 Fort Worth Star-Telegram at 4:35 (also see Jim Marrs, Crossfire, p. 315) - but the Warren Commission refused to believe it.

On 11/22/63, while serving on jury duty, Edna Hartman and her husband Wallace saw two parallel holes while standing near a manhole cover. She and her husband went back on Sunday the 24th, but the grass was trampled over and they could not find the holes again. Her report was taken months later, 8/10/64, by two FBI officers - one was Robert Barrett! The Hartmans had been downtown for jury duty, and responded late in response to a public appeal.

Edna Hartman told Jim Marrs that a policeman on the scene told her the shots came from the grassy knoll. She asked the cop if the two parallel marks she was looking at were gopher holes, and the policeman said, "no ma'am, that's where the bullets struck the ground." (Marrs, Crossfire, pp. 315-316).

Cameraman Harry Cabluck photographed the scene and saw more than one gouge on the ground. He was told the gouges were formed by a bullet (or bullets?). He took his photos hours later and never saw a slug. (Marrs, at 315; also see Sprague who documents the Cabluck photos) Cabluck is still alive. Robert Groden never got access to the early generation Cabluck photos.

But Barrett's report quotes them as saying the shots came from the TSBD, not the grassy knoll, and that a "bystander" - not a policeman - supported that view.

8. In Barrett's report, Barrett claims he was in Richardson, Texas until noon and got to Dealey Plaza by 1 pm. This is well after Walthers claims that he was out in the plaza with the FBI agent looking in the grass for a bullet.

9. Barrett confuses things still more in the 1984 article by claiming that he studied all the angles of the shooting, and that his trajectory study shows that Oswald was shooting at Connally!

This theory was picked up by the son of famed NYT journalist James Reston - JR Jr. wrote a whole book on this - claiming LHO was trying to get even for then-Secretary of the Navy Connally deciding not to upgrade Oswald's discharge, which resulted in Oswald's loss of his GI benefits - which would be a useful motive for shooting that day.

More confusion, cooked up by Barrett. That Connally-killed-Oswald's-benefits story may have been one of the original reasons the planners chose LHO as the patsy, discarding the theory when they realized they didn't need it.

10. In the 1984 article, Barrett tells the story about the wallet - but this time, instead of citing Oswald and Hidell - he says the cards are for Oswald and O. H. Lee (the resident at 1026 Beckley). Was this done to prove Oswald was O. H. Lee? This is the most important day of Barrett's life - why is he getting all the facts wrong?

Why did the story of the ID of O. H. Lee change to the ID of Hidell? O. H. Lee would not tie him to the rifle purchase - Hidell would. How did Barrett get it wrong in 1984? Why should we believe his more recent version?

The Tippit evidence - and the Walthers & Paschall evidence - should be reviewed over and over again until we get it right. There is nothing simple in the JFK case - not when key investigators tell lies over and over again.

Barrett 1984 PART 2 (1).pdf

Edited December 31, 2020 by Bill Simpich

Pete Mellor · January 1, 2021

On 12/26/2020 at 7:37 PM, Greg Doudna said:

The only one who has that wallet ID correct so far to my knowledge has been David von Pein: the wallet was Ted Callaway's. Callaway is the used car manager and ex-Marine who heard Tippit shot, came to the scene, took the dead Tippit's service revolver and with Scoggins the cab driver took off in hot pursuit circling the blocks looking for the killer. However another car of two private security persons, Ken Holmes and Bill Wheless, suspicious, forced the cab to a stop a couple of blocks to the east of the Tippit scene. Callaway stepped out with Tippit's revolver in his hand, whereupon the alarmed Holmes, thinking Callaway may be the killer, drew his own firearm and ordered Callaway at gunpoint to disarm. Holmes took possession of Tippit's revolver and drove back to the Tippit scene where he turned the Tippit revolver over to police, while Callaway and Scoggins returned to the scene separately in their vehicle.

What happened, it can be reconstructed, is that Callaway was not only divested of Tippit's revolver but also of his own wallet/identification, by Ken Holmes at the point of disarming Callaway. It is not reasonable or likely that, suspecting Callaway was the killer and taking the revolver away from Callaway at gunpoint, Holmes would not also have obtained Callaway's ID before letting Callaway and Scoggins drive away by themselves, perhaps never to be seen again. Holmes, a trained security professional in the private sector, would have told Callaway he was taking both the revolver (which Callaway was claiming was Tippit's but how would Holmes know for certain that was true), and Callaway’s wallet, to the scene to turn over to police, while instructing Callaway also to return to the scene to speak to police. Callaway in that tense moment, trying to explain to Holmes holding him at gunpoint that he was innocent and looking for the killer himself and that the revolver in his hand was actually officer Tippit’s, in response to demand would have handed over his whole wallet with one hand to Holmes, which Holmes kept pending turning over both items to the police.

When Holmes and Wheless returned to the scene of Tippit's patrol car and body, where DPD officers were present, Holmes handed Tippit's revolver and Callaway's wallet to an officer, which would be Croy who said he had been given the wallet "by someone", “by a citizen”. Although hardly any accounts of the wallet-mystery issue have noticed it, that "someone", that "unnamed citizen" referred to by Croy would be Ken Holmes who had just disarmed Callaway a couple of blocks away. Who else would it be? Frequently Croy's claim that he does not remember who handed him the wallet is quoted and left as an unexplained mystery, or regarded as sinister (with aspersions cast on Croy as if what he said on that point was being intentionally deceptive), without those discussions making the connection: Ken Holmes who handed the Tippit revolver to officers (taken from Callaway) = Ken Holmes who handed the wallet to officers (taken from Callaway). That the two items--the Tippit revolver and the wallet--turned up at the scene in police hands at the exact same time, is seen in the WFAA news video footage. In that footage a closeup is filmed of an officer’s hands holding both Tippit’s revolver (which had just been handed to him) and the wallet (which had just been handed to him), at the SAME TIME in the SAME HAND! That is not simply highly suggestive, but prima facie convincing to the point of settling the matter, that those two items had been received at the same time and from the same source. And there need be no mystery about the identity of that citizen who handed both of those items to police, even if Croy himself did not know when asked in later years. It was Ken Holmes. The revolver had been taken from Callaway, and the wallet also, by Ken Holmes, and Ken Holmes turned both items over to police at the scene. In retrospect is this not the obvious explanation?

I was at a conference in the UK in 1996 on an unrelated topic and by accident one morning ate breakfast in the wrong room at the venue where breakfast was being served for another conference which I discovered was of police chiefs. I realized after sitting down at a table that I was sitting with municipal police chiefs. I got to talking with one across from me and mentioned a recent case, a scandal, in New York state where I had recently come from, of a police lab having been found to have routinely cooked evidence and a number of criminal convictions had been reopened as a result. I asked if that sort of thing happened in the UK. His answer: "Oh, you mean 'stitching someone up'? Sure, happens all the time."

I think Oswald was "stitched up". But I do not think the wallet at the Tippit scene had anything to do with it. I hope some may find this analysis helpful.

Greg, while I was aware of Callaway's taking of Tippit's revolver, the involvement of Ken Holmes and the wallet is interesting. No less so because Ken Holmes Jr., drove me around Dallas in 2003 & among the places visited was 10th & Patton. Too late now to ask questions!

As for U.K. police stitching people up, that's a given! That old Monty Python sketch was accurate!

Greg Doudna · January 2, 2021

To whoever is interested: some source material from Dale Myers, Beyond Malice (2013 edition). What can be seen here is a series of human errors in perception and assumptions, chaos theory in action. I like to think this solution is how the TV detective Colombo (my favorite show) would have solved "The Case of the Mystery Wallet Filmed at the Tippit Crime Scene".

Callaway in pursuit of the Tippit killer

"[Ted] Callaway reached back into the squad car and picked up Tippit's .38 caliber service revolver off the front seat. He turned to Benavides and said, 'Let's chase him,' but the mechanic declined. Callaway snapped the revolver open and T.F. Bowley--who was looking on--saw that no rounds had been fired. Callaway tucked the gun in his belt and turned to the cab driver. 'You saw the guy didh't you?' Callaway asked. Scoggins replied he had. 'If he's going up Jefferson, he can't be too far. Let's go get the son-of-a-bitch who's responsible for this.' 'I thought the man was a kind of police, Secret Service or something,' Scoggins later told the Warren Commission. 'I didn't know until later than he wasn't an officer.'

"Ted Callaway and William Scoggins ran toward the cab parked at the corner of Tenth and Patton. Callaway climbed into the front seat with Scoggins behind the wheel. 'I didn't think he'd ever get that damn cab turned around', Callaway remarked. 'I said, 'Come on fella, let's move! Come on, let's go! We can get that s.o.b.' But he was just a nervous wreck. He was driving this little stick shift checkered cab and he couldn't hardly shift gears (...) this guy was so nervous we lost him. If I'd have seen him again, I would have thrown down on him and if the s.o.b. would've run, I would have shot him. I spent six years in the Marine Corps and it was all combat duty. Picking up that gun was like picking up a stick, you know?' The two men drove off in search of Tippit's killer--turning west on Tenth to Crawford, south on Crawford past the Texaco station to Jefferson, and west on Jefferson toward Beckley." (Myers, pp. 163-64)

Callaway is erroneously identified as himself the killer by hysterical eyewitness Helen Markham (mistake!)

"Seconds after Scoggins pulled away in his cab, an unmarked car arrived at Tenth and Patton. Inside were Kenneth M. Holmes, Sr., owner of Dallas Burglar Alarm Company, and William J. 'Bill' Wheless, a Dallas fire department dispatcher and part-time employee of the alarm company (...) [Holmes'] car was equipped with a number of radio receivers monitoring Dallas police and sheriff's deputy broadcasts. Holmes and Wheless were returning to Oak Cliff from a company meeting at Fair Park, when they heard [citizen] Bowley's frantic call over the police radio [from Tippit's patrol car]. Wheless immediately recognized the address that Bowley gave--404 E. Tenth--and realized they were just a few blocks away. When the two men pulled up, a woman in near hysterics [Helen Markham] ran up to the car and told them that 'the man who shot the officer had got in a taxi and took off.'" (Myers p. 165)

WC testimony of DPD officer Kenneth Croy:

Mr. Croy: She [Helen Markham] was pretty hysterical and not much that she said made too much sense.

Mr. Griffin: What was she saying?

Mr. Croy: She talked very incoherent at that particular time.

(...)

Mr. Griffin: Did you talk with the taxi driver [Scoggins]?

Mr. Croy: Yes; I did. I talked to the taxi driver.

Mr. Griffin: Now, did you talk with him at the scene of the crime?

Mr. Croy: Yes.

Mr. Griffin: Do you remember what his name was?

Mr. Croy: No; I didn't get his name. There was a private detective agency [Holmes and Wheless]. There was a report that a cabdriver had picked up Tippit's gun and had left, presumably. They don't know whether he was the one that had shot Tippit, or whether the man, I think it was he, brought someone out there, something. Anyway, he saw it and he picked up Tippit's gun and attempted to give chase or something like that.

Mr. Griffin: There was a detective who was an eyewitness?

Mr. Croy: No; he brought the taxi driver back to the scene.

Mr. Griffin: But the taxicab driver was an eyewitness?

Mr. Croy: As far as I know.

Mr. Griffin: Did you talk to the taxicab driver?

Mr. Croy: No; I took Tippit's gun and several other officers came up, and I turned him over to them and they questioned him...

Holmes and Wheless go after Callaway, thinking he is the killer

"The two men could see the taxi she [Helen Markham] was gesturing toward in the next block, turning south off Tenth onto Crawford. Holmes didn't hesitate. He floored the accelerator and tore after the taxi cab." (p. 165, citing Myers interview of Holmes Jr., 1999).

Holmes and Wheless stop and disarm Callaway at gunpoint

"On one of the side streets just east of Beckley, private security officer Ken Holmes and companion Bill Wheless caught up with the cab and forced it to a stop. Holmes had been in a few shootouts in the past and had no intention of taking any chances with someone who might be a cop killer. The taxi cab door opened and Callaway climbed out with Tippit's gun in his hand. A flood of fear swept over the two security officers. They quickly pulled their weapons and hollered, "Halt!" Callaway froze, then carefully laid the revolver down. "This is the officer's pistol," Callaway said and calmly explained who he was and what had happened. It didn't take long for Holmes to realize that, despite what he had been told at the scene, Callaway wasn't the gunman who shot the patrolman." (p. 169)

Cab driver Scoggins' version of the encounter

"We [Scoggins and Callaway] cruised around several blocks looking for him [the killer], and we--one of these police cars came by [mistaken reference to Holmes' and Wheless' car as a police car] and this fellow who was with me [Callaway] stopped it, and we got back in the car and went back up to the scene, and he [Callaway] gave them the pistol, and that time is when I found out he (Callaway) wasn't an officer." (n. 546 at p. 731, citing 1964 FBI interview).

Callaway's version of the encounter with Holmes and Wheless

To investigators in 1963-1964: no mention.

In interviews with Myers in 1986 and 1996: no mention.

To Warren Commission: "Callaway told the Warren Commission in 1964: '...we circled around several blocks, and ended up coming back to where it happened...', suggesting they returned of their own volition. Callaway also suggested that he retained possession of Tippit's pistol until he returned to the scene telling HSCA investigators in 1978, 'I was a little leery about carrying that pistol around with all those cops around, so I found the first one I knew I thought was an officer [Holmes] and gave him the pistol.' However, given Holmes' account, it is far more likely that the private security officer would have taken possession of the revolver immediately [= what Callaway just said, in different words--gd] rather than allow Callaway to keep it and turn it over to officers at the scene.

"In a 1999 interview, Kenneth M. Holmes, Jr., explained, 'My dad had been in police work all his life and even after that he was constable for three terms in Bosque County, Texas. He knew his stuff and he'd been in some shootouts back in the old days and I'm sure he wasn't going to take any chances (and risk someone pulling) a gun on him and shoot him especially since an officer was just killed. So it makes a whole lot of sense to me that he would get the gun from (Callaway) and bring the gun back (to the scene himself) and not hand it back to (Callaway).' It should be noted that according to Callaway, the officer he gave the pistol to was wearing plainclothes and a hat--a description that fit Kenneth M. Holmes, Sr." (n. 546 at p. 731)

"Note: Contrary to the impression left by Callaway in his 1996 interview, he [Callaway] probably didn't retain possession of Tippit's pistol until he returned to the scene. Plainclothes private security officer Kenneth M. Holmes, Sr., reported that Callaway turned over Tippit's pistol to him a few blocks from the shooting scene." (n. 1085 at p. 786)

Back at the Tippit crime scene, Kenneth Holmes hands Dallas police both the Tippit revolver and Callaway's identification, taken from Callaway

"Kenneth H. Croy, the 26-year-old Dallas police reserve sergeant who was the first to arrive at the Tippit shooting scene, said he was given a discarded wallet by an unknown citizen. 'I recovered Tippit's pistol and a billfold that I think had seven different ID's in it,' Croy remembered in 2009. 'I looked at the IDs. None of them had any photographs or the name Lee Harvey Oswald on them.' According to Croy, a witness said the gunman threw the billfold away as he fled. Croy also claims that Oswald had grabbed Tippit's pistol and tossed it as well. It was supposedly found with the billfold a short distance from the scene. Croy said he turned both over to accident investigator Howell W. Summers." (p. 356)

"Croy, who died in 2012, was unable to offer any clues about the identity of the person who turned over the wallet to him other than he had a vague recollection that the person was male. One thing is certain, no one, male or female, has ever come forward to say that they saw Tippit's killer discard a wallet while fleeing the shooting scerne or that they found a wallet along his escape route." (pp. 357-58)

"[A]ccording to Kenneth M. Holmes, Sr., he took possession of Tippit's pistol after encountering Callaway and Scoggins on an Oak Cliff side street and turned it over to a Dallas police sergeant who he recognized after returning to the shooting scene. Reserve sergeant Kenneth H. Croy testified that he was the officer who received Tippit's revolver." (n. 557 at pp. 732-33)

Comment: Croy does not remember where the two items, which he received at the same time, came from, but he was handed TIPPIT'S REVOLVER and THE BILLFOLD TOGETHER, at the same time that it is independently established that the plain-clothed citizen Kenneth Holmes returned to the crime scene and handed to a police officer TIPPIT'S REVOLVER (and BILLFOLD WITH CALLAWAY'S IDENTIFICATION).

Comment: the identify of the citizen who handed Croy "Tippit's pistol and a billfold" is the known identity of the citizen who handed Croy Tippit's pistol, turned over both items together: citizen Kenneth Holmes, Sr.

The wallet belonged to the individual from whom was taken the Tippit revolver, both taken from him at the same time and same event: Callaway.

The identity of the wallet as Callaway's is in keeping with correct and expected security procedure on the part of Holmes when apprehending a person in possession of Tippit's revolver who had been reported fleeing the scene of Tippit's murder by an eyewitness, a suspect in that killing--recovery and return to police not only of the revolver, but of his ID turned in to police too. Which is exactly what Croy said happened--he received not only the pistol but rather, "Tippit's pistol and a billfold". At the same time it explains why that billfold--the wallet--was not kept as evidence or reported in police reports. Because once it was correctly determined the wallet's owner, Callaway, was not the Tippit killer, the wallet would have been handed back to its rightful owner, citizen Callaway, and the wallet would have been of no further interest to police or relevance to the Tippit case.

Tippit's pistol and the billfold are filmed in an officer's hands after both had been handed to police at the same time. WFAA-TV erroneously reports via voiceover as this footage is aired that police are seen examining the killer's revolver and the killer's wallet! (wrong assumptions on both counts--both mistakes!)

"Photographer Ron Reiland, of WFAA-TV, was the only newsman at the Tippit scene who shot a motion sequence (...) The arrival of [officers] Barnes and Bentley pins the time frame of these sequences to 1:42 p.m. (...) Sergeant 'Bud' Owens is seen holding Tippit's service revolver in his left hand and a man's leather wallet in his right. Owens shows the wallet to Captain George Doughty, who is standing to his left. As Owens holds the wallet open, Doughty runs his finger along one of the celluloid photo slips which usually hold photographs or identification cards. As Doughty studies the item in the plastic sleeve, a third person [likely Westbrook] approaches from Doughty's left. Doughty pulls his hand back and a plainclothesman [likely Westbrook] reaches into the frame. Owens holds the wallet out toward the third man. Here, the tantalizing footage ends." (p. 354)

(WFAA-TV erroneously reports, as this footage is aired, that police are looking at the killer's revolver and the killer's wallet!--wrong on both counts! misunderstanding!)

FBI Special Agent Barrett, present at the crime scene, says he was asked by DPD Captain Westbrook, also at the scene, about the names "Oswald" and "Hidell", names which he, Barrett, erroneously believed that Westbrook obtained from looking at the wallet. (Barrett assumption--mistake!)

"'I've got the feeling that [Westbrook] didn't show me the contents [of the wallet],' Barrett stated. 'I feel more sure about that the more I think about it. He might have been holding it in his hand and I saw it. But, he didn't show me the identification as such.' Barrett believed the wallet to be Oswald's primarily because of Westbrook's questions.

"'I don't think Westbrook would have been asking me questions about something unrelated to the situation,' Barrett explained, 'Besides, how would Westbrook get the names? [good question--gd] [Army intelligence source?]. They didn't know who the guy was that shot Tippit. [correct--but that was not Westbrook's question basis--gd]. They knew they had a wallet, but they didn't know who it was. [I think they knew who it was--they knew it was Callaway's--gd] I had to presume--he's holding a wallet in his hand and asking me questions about two names--I had to presume it was the wallet belonging to the person they were asking me about.' [wrong--gd]

(...)

"'The only time I spoke to Westbrook at any time,' Barrett reiterated, 'was at the murder scene. And I'm adamant that there was a wallet in somebody's hand [correct--gd] and (Westbrook) asked me if I knew who 'Lee Harvey Oswald' was and who 'Hidell' was (...) the questions were asked of me at the scene [correct--gd]. I'm positive of that,' Barrett said firmly. 'And I know why he asked me that,' Barrett added, 'because, as I told you, I worked criminal intelligence. And so he figured if it was somebody in the underworld or somebody involved in underworld activity I would have been as good a (source) of information for it as anyone he could've asked. And he knew that.'" (pp. 366-67, citing Myers interviews of Barrett 1996).

First erroneous claim that the wallet filmed by WFAA-TV at the crime scene was Oswald's: FBI Agent James Hosty's 1996 book, Assignment: Oswald, telling what he had been told by Barrett. Hosty introduces new mistakes (by reconstruction) into this mistaken story.

From Hosty's book: "When the report came over the radio that an 'officer was down' in the Oak Cliff neighborhood, [FBI Agent Bob] Barrett had sped to the scene. When he got there, the ambulance crew had already removed Tippit's body. Captain Westbrook and the Dallas police were in charge, but Barrett set about inspecting the crime scene. Near the puddle of blood where Tippit's body had lain, Westbrook had found a man's leather wallet [wrong!--gd]. In it, he [Westbrook] discovered identification for Lee Oswald [wrong!--gd], as well as other identification for Alek J. Hidell [wrong!--gd]. Westbrook called Barrett over and showed him the wallet and identifications [wrong!--gd]. Westbrook asked Barrett if the FBI knew anything about Oswald or Hidell. Barrett shook his head. Westbrook took the wallet into his custody so that it could be placed into police property later [wrong!--gd]. Barrett told me that if I had been at the scene with Westbrook, I would have immediately known who Oswald was. Although official police reports would later state that Oswald's wallet and identification were found on Oswald's person when he was arrested in the movie theatre [correct--gd], Barrett insists that Westbrook found them near where Tippit was slain [wrong!--gd]. I have to speculate that at the theatre, Westbrook had handed the wallet to a lower-ranking officer, and in the confusion it was assumed that wallet had been retrieved from Oswald's person [wrong!--gd]. The FBI decided to go with the official police version, even though Barrett's version was further proof that Oswald had in fact gunned Officer Tippit down [wrong!--gd]. (quoting from Hosty, pp. 349-350 in Myers).

Barrett corrects several of the newly-introduced errors in Hosty's telling of the story

"In a 1996 interview, FBI agent Bob Barrett stated that Hosty's account of the wallet story was not entirely accurate. 'I never told Hosty, or anyone else, that I 'inspected' the crime scene, nor that Westbrook had 'found' a wallet near the body--or anyplace. I never 'insisted' to Hosty that Westbrook found the ID's at the scene. I only know that Westbrook had a wallet there. I presume it was found at the scene." (n. 1022 at pp. 777-78)

Second erroneous claim that the wallet was Oswald's, falsely attributed to Officer Kenneth Croy by JFK assassination researchers Harris and Armstrong

"Note: Croy's [alleged] claim [that the wallet was Oswald's] first appeared in John Armstrong's 2003 book Harvey and Lee: How the CIA Framed Oswald--six years after the wallet story appeared in James P. Hosty's book Assignment: Oswald and four years after additional details were published in the first edition of this volume [Myers' With Malice]. Citing a 2002 interview by long-time conspiracy theorist Jones Harris, Armstrong wrote that an unidentified civilian handed Croy a wallet that was 'later found to contain identification for Lee Harvey Oswald and Alex Hidell' (Harvey and Lee, p. 856). Yet, Croy told this author [Myers, in 2009] that the wallet he was given contained seven ID's in as many names and none of them were Oswald." (Myers, n. 1096 at p. 787)

Comment: the statement that Croy was handed a wallet is correct, but the statement that that wallet "was later found to contain identification for Lee Harvey Oswald and Alex Hidell" is baseless and is either Jones Harris's or John Armstrong's embellishment. There is no evidence Croy was aware at the time of what Jones Harris and John Armstrong were putting forth to the world in his, Croy's, name (the Armstrong book contains no direct, dated quotation of words from Croy). There is, however, a later photo inscription reported to be in Croy's handwriting next to Croy's signature, which first came to light in 2014--two years after Croy's death such that Croy was in no position to comment, and fifty-one years after the assassination--disclosed by a JFK assassination researcher who had been in correspondence with Croy, which reads, "first on the scene--found Oswald's wallet to[o]"--contrary to what Croy had said in all of his on-the-record statements re the wallet during all of the preceding 51 years when he was alive.

Third erroneous claim that an officer at the scene identified the wallet as Oswald's, attributed to Officer Leonard Jez

"On November 20, 1999, former Dallas police officer Leonard E. Jez appeared at a conference of Kennedy assassination researchers in Dallas. During an on camera interview that morning, Jez suggested that his partner Joe Poe might have been given Tippit's billfold by the ambulance driver although he didn't remember seeing one, adding, 'No one gave me anything.' At the conference banquet later than evening, researcher Martha Moyer was listening to Jez talk about his experiences at the Tippit shooting scene. In a 2012 email exchange, Moyer explained, 'I then asked him about the billfold found at the shooting site. I asked: 'Whose wallet was found that day?' He replied: 'Oswald's!' I believe Leonard went on to say he heard the names 'Oswald and Hidell' when the wallet was being examined. I dared to ask him if he was certain and he turned to me and said 'Missy, you can take it to the bank!' and he was not smiling.' (Email, Martha Moyer to Myers, 2012). This later account is not only at odds with what Jez told the conference attendees earlier that morning but, more importantly, what Jez told this author [Myers] three years earlier. When asked during a 1996 interview whether he knew anything about a report that Oswald's wallet was found at the scene of the shooting, Jez responded, 'No sir. Not to my knowledge,' then added, 'I don't know of any billfold being found.' After a lengthy discussion of the case, Jez was asked again, 'You don't recall anything about a wallet of any kind being found out at the Tippit scene?' Jez replied, 'No.'" (n. 1081 at pp. 783-84)

Comment: although the account of Martha Moyer has the ring of sincerity, recounted 13 years after the event, this would be either a misunderstanding of something that Jez said, or if it is an accurate report of a belief expressed by Jez, it would be Jez's personal belief at that point without Jez offering witness evidence or other evidential basis for that belief. However, there is no on-the-record verification that Jez ever expressed such a view in the first place.

Greg Doudna · January 2, 2021

22 hours ago, Pete Mellor said:

Greg, while I was aware of Callaway's taking of Tippit's revolver, the involvement of Ken Holmes and the wallet is interesting. No less so because Ken Holmes Jr., drove me around Dallas in 2003 & among the places visited was 10th & Patton. Too late now to ask questions!

As for U.K. police stitching people up, that's a given! That old Monty Python sketch was accurate!

Interesting Pete. I think the reason there was so much confusion over the wallet including a whole mythology worked into conspiracy theories was none of this wallet issue occurred to anyone as a question (except to Barrett privately and whoever he told privately) until after Hosty's book in 1996, which is a long time after 1963. Callaway's version of the Ken Holmes, Sr., encounter is a little illogical: on the one hand he was intent upon finding and catching or killing (the way he talked he didn't seem to care which) the Tippit killer, on the other hand he explains (retroactively after the fact) that on second thought he decided it was not such a great idea for him to be running around with Tippit's revolver with all the police in the area so he changed his mind, found the first officer he could find, who happened, he said, to have been plainclothed (he misunderstood Holmes Sr. to have been a plainclothed officer), and voluntarily turned the pistol over to that officer (= Holmes Sr.). According to Myers Callaway told some form of that to Myers one or more times, with Myers evidently not realizing that Callaway actually was telling all along of the Holmes Sr. encounter just in a different, more face-saving way. The way Callaway told it, it had been Callaway's idea to decide voluntarily to abandon his chase for the killer moments after he had begun and to turn over the pistol to Holmes Sr., leaving out the slight additional detail that his voluntary decision to take those actions occurred in a context of what he understood to be two plainclothes police officers ordering him at gunpoint to do so. I read somewhere, do not remember where (cannot find it in Myers book), that in later years someone told of attempting to question Callaway more closely about the Holmes Sr. encounter but Callaway got angry and cut off the conversation--that it may have been a sore point for Callaway. Cool that you talked to Holmes Jr.

Greg Doudna · January 2, 2021

On 12/31/2020 at 12:59 AM, Bill Simpich said:

I don't believe the Callaway story, either. There is no evidence to support it, only conjecture. Callaway told Myers there was no billfold at the crime scene. It is plain that he was denying any knowledge of seeing or hearing about any wallet at the scene. (Myers, p. 300) It takes further unwarranted conjecture to conclude that Callaway was too embarrassed to admit that his wallet was taken away from him.

Bill, do you mean the story of Callaway taking Tippit's revolver and with Scoggins chasing after the killer? That was Callaway's consistent story, Scoggins said so too, Helen Markham although remembered as hysterical said that is what she saw, and Croy in his 1964 WC testimony also referred to being told on that day of it having happened. Kenneth Holmes, Sr. said it happened. I cannot see that all of these diverse witnesses would all collude in intentionally and deceptively putting forth versions of a single fictitious Callaway/Tippit-revolver chase story, or all have mistakenly imagined their own participation in the same fictitious story.

Callaway told Myers that he saw no billfold lying on the ground at the crime scene and knew of no wallet found at the crime scene, both of which are correct. There were plenty of wallets at the crime scene, in every man's pocket and a few no doubt pulled out at the crime scene for purposes of producing identification. Most people if asked "do you remember if there was a wallet found at a certain crime scene?" would not think that meant wallets inside bystanders' pockets on the scene or produced by persons to police checking identification. Are you sure Callaway understood the question to be referring to the specific instance filmed by WFAA-TV video of police handling that wallet, or other instances of police checking ID of citizens?

When Callaway aborted his intent to chase and arrest or kill the killer, and decided instead, as he later explained, to give the pistol to the first officer he saw, described by Callaway as in plain clothes (= non-officer Holmes Sr.) . . . when the pistol was taken from Callaway by Holmes, it would be expected that Holmes would obtain Callaway's ID as well. Yet in this case Holmes Sr. was not an officer, and Holmes Sr. was taking possession of those items solely to convey immediately and directly to police at the crime scene, not to examine or assess himself. How would Holmes obtain and convey identification of Callaway to police under such circumstances? About the only way that makes sense is by asking Callaway to hand over his identification or wallet. Can you think of some other way by which that would more reasonably be accomplished, that would not involve physically obtaining Callaway's wallet?

Then moments later after returning to the crime scene we know the pistol and a billfold with identification in it were, in fact, turned in at the same time, that is, somebody's billfold with identification in it was turned in with the pistol when Holmes Sr. turned in the pistol. We know that because the WFAA-TV footage which by accident happened to capture that, shows that. The WFAA footage shows a uniformed officer with Tippit pistol and billfold with identification in the same officer's hands.

In every telling of Callaway of his personal story of what happened that day, Callaway tells it such that he looks good. By one interpretation Callaway changed a forcible stop to his hot pursuit, and a forcible handover of the Tippit pistol, into a voluntary choice on his part, in his storytelling spin of how it happened. In this light Callaway's omission in telling specifically how his identification was checked--a minor detail in the story in any case--would not seem unusual in context.

However I would also like to add that I can also see how it is possible Callaway's story of turning over of the pistol to Holmes might, in fact, have been voluntary from Callaway's point of view as Callaway represented it, even if the at-gunpoint was also true (caused by a misunderstanding quickly cleared up). I say this because of the mention in Scoggins' (the driver of the cab's) Warren Commission testimony alluding to Callaway having flagged down the police vehicle. It could be that Callaway with Scoggins did take off in hot pursuit of the killer, but when stopped by what Callaway and Scoggins both assumed was a plain-clothes police vehicle (Holmes Sr. and Wheless), Callaway indeed was glad they were on the scene and happy to hand off the hot pursuit to actual officers.

On the Barrett credibility issue, perhaps you and Myers could be correct that Barrett's story is incorrect of having been asked about the Oswald names by Westbrook at the crime scene after Westbrook was looking at the wallet in the WFAA-TV video. Myers supposes the Barrett/Westbrook exchange may well have happened but later that afternoon, simply misplaced in timing in the years-later memory of Barrett. It seems you may suspect something different, perhaps some intentional disinformation on Barrett's part in his years-later story first published via Hosty in the 1990s. But in either case--if Barrett's story of the Westbrook crime-scene exchange did NOT happen as Barrett later claimed--I am just curious: why are you supposing the WFAA-TV wallet filmed at the crime scene was an "Oswald wallet" at all? (as indicated by your singling out for association, out of hundreds of thousands if not millions of such similar-appearing wallets in existence in Texas at the time, you say there were "two", of which the other one was the one taken from Oswald's person following his arrest. By "two" I understand you to mean not two similarly-looking wallets, but two similarly-looking Oswald wallets. But if the main witness and total cause for origin of the story of an "Oswald wallet" at the Tippit crime scene is gone (by your understanding), on what basis are you holding on to the story that there ever was an "Oswald wallet" at the Tippit crime scene in the first place?

Bill Simpich · January 3, 2021

Greg,

On what basis are you asking me this question about "holding on to the story" of the Oswald wallet?

I wrote it in the first two sentences of my post: "There were two similar-looking wallets. Both wallets have a leather flap that snaps over the photo section, with a metal band fixed to its leading edge. (Dale Myers, With Malice, p. 298) Both wallets also have a zipper over the cash compartment."

That is not an accident.

I also added that I believe Kenneth Croy may have brought the first wallet with him to the scene, and pretended that he was given it by a witness. Croy's story was that the witness told him he found it in the shrubs, which is pure malarkey.

Croy was no good. The Warren Commission thought he played the role of a fullback to conceal the presence of Jack Ruby until the very last minute. Their concern was valid. Croy knew Ruby. I think Croy was in on the killing of Oswald.

I will grant that Croy could have cooked up the entire wallet story years later just to be in the history books - but the two very similar wallets remain a big problem.

Let me flip the script - on what basis do you think the wallet belonged to Callaway?

Why would four policeman be passing around this Callaway's wallet for 10-20 minutes: Croy, Owens, Doughty and Westbrook.

As an attorney, I have done a lot of criminal law. Cops do not want to handle your wallet. It violates the laws of search and seizure, unless you have been arrested. Even more importantly, they don't want to be accused of stealing money.

Cops ask for the ID. Not the wallet. These four attorneys were asked this question - and they all said the same thing - the cop should not ask for the wallet.

I don't know Ken Holmes - and he didn't claim receiving the wallet - and for all I know he could have made up his story just to be in the history books.

Steve Thomas · January 3, 2021

reg,

I'm sorry, but these accounts just do not add up.

When the two men pulled up, a woman in near hysterics [Helen Markham] ran up to the car and told them that 'the man who shot the officer had got in a taxi and took off.'" (Myers p. 165)

Helen Markham never told anyone else any such thing.

https://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/russ/testimony/markham1.htm

Mr. BALL. What did the man do?
Mrs. MARKHAM. The man, he just walked calmly, fooling with his gun.
Mr. BALL. Toward what direction did he walk?
Mrs. MARKHAM. Come back towards me, turned around, and went back.
Mr. BALL. Toward Patton?
Mrs. MARKHAM. Yes, sir; towards Patton. He didn't run. It just didn't scare him to death. He didn't run.

Mr. BALL. When he went towards Jefferson you say he went at sort of a trot?
Mrs. MARKHAM. Yes, sir.
Mr. BALL. Did he cross Patton?
Mrs. MARKHAM. Yes, sir.

Mr. BALL. Did you see Mr. Scoggins?
Mrs. MARKHAM. I don't remember--
Mr. BALL. The taxicab driver.
Mrs. MARKHAM. Yes, I saw the taxicab driver.
Mr. BALL. Where was the taxicab?
Mrs. MARKHAM. Parked on Patton.
Mr. BALL. On Patton?
Mrs. MARKHAM. Yes, sir.
Mr. BALL. Did you see the man later, did you see him before the shooting?
Mrs. MARKHAM. Yes, he was sitting in his cab.
Mr. BALL. He was. Then you saw him afterward, didn't you?
Mrs. MARKHAM. Yes, sir.

Callaway tucked the gun in his belt and turned to the cab driver.

The taxi cab door opened and Callaway climbed out with Tippit's gun in his hand.

He (Scoggins, a taxi cab driver) was driving this little stick shift checkered cab and he couldn't hardly shift gears

Did Callaway stop Holmes's car, or did Hlmes stop Scoggins's cab?

"We [Scoggins and Callaway] cruised around several blocks looking for him [the killer], and we--one of these police cars came by [mistaken reference to Holmes' and Wheless' car as a police car] and this fellow who was with me [Callaway] stopped it

"On one of the side streets just east of Beckley, private security officer Ken Holmes and companion Bill Wheless caught up with the cab and forced it to a stop.

Steve Thomas

Greg Doudna · January 4, 2021

19 hours ago, Bill Simpich said:

Greg,

On what basis are you asking me this question about "holding on to the story" of the Oswald wallet?

I wrote it in the first two sentences of my post: "There were two similar-looking wallets. Both wallets have a leather flap that snaps over the photo section, with a metal band fixed to its leading edge. (Dale Myers, With Malice, p. 298) Both wallets also have a zipper over the cash compartment."

That is not an accident.

I also added that I believe Kenneth Croy may have brought the first wallet with him to the scene, and pretended that he was given it by a witness. Croy's story was that the witness told him he found it in the shrubs, which is pure malarkey.

Croy was no good. The Warren Commission thought he played the role of a fullback to conceal the presence of Jack Ruby until the very last minute. Their concern was valid. Croy knew Ruby. I think Croy was in on the killing of Oswald.

I will grant that Croy could have cooked up the entire wallet story years later just to be in the history books - but the two very similar wallets remain a big problem.

Let me flip the script - on what basis do you think the wallet belonged to Callaway?

Why would four policeman be passing around this Callaway's wallet for 10-20 minutes: Croy, Owens, Doughty and Westbrook.

As an attorney, I have done a lot of criminal law. Cops do not want to handle your wallet. It violates the laws of search and seizure, unless you have been arrested. Even more importantly, they don't want to be accused of stealing money.

Cops ask for the ID. Not the wallet. These four attorneys were asked this question - and they all said the same thing - the cop should not ask for the wallet.

I don't know Ken Holmes - and he didn't claim receiving the wallet - and for all I know he could have made up his story just to be in the history books.

Bill, I meant holding on to the story of that wallet being a second Oswald wallet in having Oswald identification in it. I understand that you mean it is faked and not really Oswald's wallet, but why hold the idea that the wallet was forged to look like it was Oswald's, was my question. I was asking, where does the idea come from for you, since no one ever said that at the scene or in any report.

However you answer that question here: the similarity in how the two billfolds look: "that is not an accident". Why do you say that? From all reports that was a very common style of wallet, sold by the millions in America to men, nearly every man in America carrying a billfold. So I don't follow how the similarity in that billfold to Oswald's in appearance has significance or can be other than accidental. If it was not accident, what is your theory of what happened? Are you supposing someone surreptitiously took a photo of Oswald's wallet, perhaps at a store when he was paying for a purchase, or perhaps when he had his pants off when sleeping, then someone else with that photo went shopping in department stores for a lookalike, before sending it over to the forgery department to stuff with forged Oswald ID, then hand it to officer Croy to plant it at the Tippit crime scene? Seems to me, if they are not the same wallet, that the similarity in appearance is indeed a nonsignificant accident.

My argument for the Callaway identity solution to that wallet proposes to offer, in a way compatible with known testimony, explanations to the key anomalies several of which you cite:

why are officers looking at that wallet? (though I do not know where you get "10-20 minutes" time looking.)
you note from your experience as an attorney that when officers ask citizens for identification today the usual practice is not to ask for or want to hold a wallet, which may have been the same practice or sensitivity then, so what explanation accounts for departure from usual procedure in examining someone's identification, seen in the WFAA-TV video?
whose identification was in the wallet and what happened to that wallet?
what is the connection of that wallet with officer Tippit's pistol with which it was both seen and reported to have been in association?
and above all, the $64,000 question, why is there no report or record made of that wallet in any of the contemporary police officer reports?

I will not repeat it here, you can look it up above, but I offered a reconstruction, a solution, based on existing, off-the-shelf witness testimony, which purports to address and offer satisfactory explanation for each of those points. Even if, in the nature of any reconstruction based on fragmentary and incomplete evidence from long ago, there are points of interpretation and reasoning which can be disputed or lack verification, the bottom line fact is there was a wallet (the WFAA-TV video) which calls for explanation.

What is your explanation, in your theory of the case (that the wallet was a second purported or forged Oswald wallet planted by Croy), for these points, in particular the last one: why no mention of it was made in the police reports at the time? And explanation for why, consistent with your theory of the case, nobody then or since--not one person ever in history, to the present day--ever even claimed to have seen identification purporting to be of Oswald in that wallet?

I gave my answer to this question. What is yours? (if you care to say, if not is OK)

I realize assessments of witness testimonies are always judgment calls. Issues of overstatement of confidence in police lineup witness identifications aside, I think Callaway and Scoggins were good witnesses in the sense that they were eyewitnesses who were not inventing or fabricating entire chunks of narrative, such as the pursuit of the killer in Scoggin's cab with Callaway holding Tippit's revolver. Reserve officer, off-duty but uniformed at the time, Croy's claim to have been handed the wallet and Tippit's pistol at the crime scene by someone, and to have been told that both Tippit's pistol and that wallet had been found together having been tossed and abandoned by the fleeing killer, is obviously incorrect, but I interpret that as hearsay that was mistaken, or some garbling of the true story in transmission, rather than concluding wilful deception on the part of Croy on that point.

Your comments on Croy being "no good", and being in on the killing of Oswald by assisting Ruby ... I looked up those references. All I can find are Croy's statement that his most recent personal contact with Ruby had been three years earlier in some small-group lunch, said he had not seen Ruby personally in the three years since then though he had been at the Carousel Club since. Then Croy was standing next to Ruby in the basement just as Ruby lunged by to kill Oswald, with Croy claiming (it seems) not to have recognized Ruby until after the fact realizing it was Ruby. You mention Warren Commission suspicions of Croy having involvement in the Ruby killing of Oswald, and Croy himself said Dallas police investigators had questioned him eight (!) hours over that matter. But I would like to know if you have written or know of anything written on Croy that establishes, as distinguished from assertion or suspicion, that Croy was a "bent cop". That he was standing next to Ruby I do not think is sufficient in itself to know that. I do not doubt that Ruby had inside help getting into that basement and the timing, but the devil is in the details on that.

Ron Bulman · January 4, 2021

You do know there were three wallet's?

JFK Facts » Who found Oswald’s wallet?

Ron Bulman · January 4, 2021

10 minutes ago, Ron Bulman said:

You do know there were three wallet's?

JFK Facts » Who found Oswald’s wallet?

Oswald's Wallet - JFK Assassination Debate - The Education Forum (ipbhost.com)

Greg Doudna · January 4, 2021

On 1/3/2021 at 1:09 AM, Steve Thomas said:

reg,

I'm sorry, but these accounts just do not add up.

When the two men pulled up, a woman in near hysterics [Helen Markham] ran up to the car and told them that 'the man who shot the officer had got in a taxi and took off.'" (Myers p. 165)

Helen Markham never told anyone else any such thing.

https://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/russ/testimony/markham1.htm

Mr. BALL. What did the man do?
Mrs. MARKHAM. The man, he just walked calmly, fooling with his gun.
Mr. BALL. Toward what direction did he walk?
Mrs. MARKHAM. Come back towards me, turned around, and went back.
Mr. BALL. Toward Patton?
Mrs. MARKHAM. Yes, sir; towards Patton. He didn't run. It just didn't scare him to death. He didn't run.

Mr. BALL. When he went towards Jefferson you say he went at sort of a trot?
Mrs. MARKHAM. Yes, sir.
Mr. BALL. Did he cross Patton?
Mrs. MARKHAM. Yes, sir.

Mr. BALL. Did you see Mr. Scoggins?
Mrs. MARKHAM. I don't remember--
Mr. BALL. The taxicab driver.
Mrs. MARKHAM. Yes, I saw the taxicab driver.
Mr. BALL. Where was the taxicab?
Mrs. MARKHAM. Parked on Patton.
Mr. BALL. On Patton?
Mrs. MARKHAM. Yes, sir.
Mr. BALL. Did you see the man later, did you see him before the shooting?
Mrs. MARKHAM. Yes, he was sitting in his cab.
Mr. BALL. He was. Then you saw him afterward, didn't you?
Mrs. MARKHAM. Yes, sir.

Callaway tucked the gun in his belt and turned to the cab driver.

The taxi cab door opened and Callaway climbed out with Tippit's gun in his hand.

He (Scoggins, a taxi cab driver) was driving this little stick shift checkered cab and he couldn't hardly shift gears

Did Callaway stop Holmes's car, or did Hlmes stop Scoggins's cab?

"We [Scoggins and Callaway] cruised around several blocks looking for him [the killer], and we--one of these police cars came by [mistaken reference to Holmes' and Wheless' car as a police car] and this fellow who was with me [Callaway] stopped it

"On one of the side streets just east of Beckley, private security officer Ken Holmes and companion Bill Wheless caught up with the cab and forced it to a stop.

Steve Thomas

On the second of the two points you raise, lack of testimony from Helen Markham concerning seeing Callaway and Scoggins drive off with Tippit's pistol, and contradiction to Helen Markham saying she saw the killer run past her in the other direction (past the 10th and Patton corner heading south on Patton toward Jefferson) ...

It is not in contradiction unless you are assuming witnesses in the immediate moments of the shooting and minutes afterward could have certainty that there was only one gunman and not more. That Helen Markham was traumatized, that the trauma was real--she always said when the killer came by where she was standing he looked at her and she closed her eyes and put her hands in front of her face expecting or fearing to be shot or executed that moment though it did not happen--need not be doubted, nor the route taken by the killer that Helen Markham said she saw, since that killer's route has other witness corroborations. But that does NOT mean Helen Markham could not also have seen and told of someone else also picking up the Tippit pistol and drive off with it, which in her distraught state, having no idea what was going on, could get confused.

Reason through the facts here. Helen Markham was present and would have seen it (the Callaway/Scoggins Tippit-pistol departure from the crime scene).

That Callaway and Scoggins did take the Tippit pistol and drive off with it in Scoggins' cab is independently (unrelated to Helen Markham) established on the basis of Scoggins' specific and clear testimony in 1964 (WC) that that happened, as well as Callaway's equally clear and specific testimony that that happened.

Since it happened, and since Helen Markham was standing right there at the scene or in the immediate vicinity when that happened by all accounts, she could hardly NOT have seen it. Therefore the TWO hearsay reports of her, distraught, telling of seeing that, make complete sense--one attributed to her directly (Holmes Sr./Jr. later); the other implied attributed to her in Croy's 1964 WC (Croy said "someone" had said something about that at the scene to him, after Croy just got through telling of his talking with Helen Markham at the scene though he described her as incoherent and did not make explicit that she was his source for the Scoggins/Callaway chase Tippit pistol story, but it sure looks like it). It has nothing to do with contradicting Helen Markham seeing a shooter run by her in a different direction minutes earlier, that also being what she saw.

On your first point, you cite a discrepancy between Scoggins' testimony that he and Callaway in the cab stopped their chase of the killer when Callaway flagged down a police car, as in disagreement with the Holmes, Sr. story of purposely forcing the cab to stop. True, that is a discrepancy in that detail. What do you conclude from that discrepancy? That neither were true and no such stopping of the cab by another vehicle, away from the Tippit crime scene, happened at all?

No, both versions agree that the Scoggins/Callaway pursuit of the Tippit killer happened, also that it was ended unsuccessfully. The discrepancy is in how exactly. To break this down these are the witness testimonies:

CALLAWAY: took Tippit's revolver at the crime scene; asked Scoggins to drive to help find the fleeing killer; they drive away; do not find the killer; return to crime scene; surrenders the Tippit revolver to "the first officer he saw", an officer in plain clothes (note this last detail, important--because officer Croy was uniformed, not in plain clothes).
SCOGGINS: thought Callaway was an officer (in plain clothes); drove Callaway looking for the fleeing killer; do not find the killer; pursuit ends away from the Tippit crime scene when Callaway flags down a police car.
HOLMES, SR., as told by son Holmes, Jr. to Myers: Holmes Jr.'s dad (Holmes, Sr.) was the one who stopped the Scoggins/Callaway cab and retrieved the Tippit pistol. His dad, Holmes, Sr., was not a police officer at this time but was in the private security business. His dad's car was not a police car. (Did his dad's car have any external "security" markings or signage at the time? Unknown. But it was not a police car.)

On assessment of the later Holmes Jr. story of his dad being the one who stopped the Scoggins/Callaway cab--as I understand it Holmes Jr. was himself a JFK assassination researcher and, so far as I know, well regarded. I have read one or two things written by him in publications in the past, on the Mary Ferrell site. In his interviews with Myers reported in Myers' book, Holmes Jr. described his father as having been lifetime law enforcement both police and private security. There is no indication I am aware of that either Holmes Sr. or Holmes Jr. were known to or would have invented this story. The story agrees with the Callaway detail that what Callaway supposed to be the "officer" he saw was plain-clothed (Holmes Sr. was plain-clothed). It agrees with Callaway saying he surrendered the Tippit pistol to the "first" officer he saw (who was plain-clothed). It agrees with Scoggins' account that there was a stop and encounter by the two vehicles, involving Callaway, away from the scene of the crime, before returning to the scene of the crime.

But if it was Holmes Sr., then it was not a police car at that encounter of the two vehicles, even though Scoggins thought and said that it was. If it was Holmes Sr.'s car, which was not a police car, how could Callaway have initiated the flagging down of that car at all (as per Scoggins' story)? Callaway could not. The detail of Holmes Sr being in plain clothes, and the Holmes Sr car not being a police car, yet being the car that stopped the Scoggins/Callaway cab, weighs in favor of the Holmes Sr. version of the "forcible stop" conclusion to the Scoggins/Callaway chase, rather than Scoggins' version that the vehicle stop had been initiated by Callaway flagging down a police car. No police officers or information ever came forward to identify a police car which stopped the Scoggins cab. Scoggins, with his focus on driving, may not have been looking or able to distinguish between Callaway sitting next to him initiating contact with, versus Callaway responding to, men gesturing in the other vehicle. Scoggins may not have known who caused who to stop at the time both vehicles did. And Scoggins, who all that time was thinking Callaway himself was a police officer (even though not so), could easily have also assumed, as Callaway also mistakenly assumed, that the plain-clothed Holmes Sr. was a police officer and that the Holmes Sr. vehicle was therefore a police vehicle, as Scoggins later remembered and told it. Witnesses can and do get details wrong without meaning their entire story is untrue!

The strength of the Holmes Sr. testimony as learned from his son Holmes Jr., even though it was late to become known, I think is credible, both because of assessment of Holmes Jr and indirectly Holmes Sr., but also because the account so strikingly makes explicable--fills in certain gaps--in the narrative of how the Tippit revolver was retrieved and returned to the crime scene ... and all the more credible in that none of these witnesses' accounts--Callaway, Scoggins, Holmes Sr./Jr.--show any sign or hint of having been motivated by clearing up the mystery of the WFAA-TV crime scene wallet! THAT clearing up of that mystery (by reconstruction) is an unintended byproduct of these testimonies. THAT is what I see as significant, and weighing in favor of the reconstruction, at least in basic outline or principle as outlined. There is no need for incredibly complicated Oswald-wallet-impersonation theories, which never had any basis to begin with, when there is an elegant on-the-ground mundane solution emerging unintended from these credible witness testimonies.

If you have a different or better theory please say.

Bill Simpich · January 4, 2021

why are officers looking at that wallet? (though I do not know where you get "10-20 minutes" time looking.)

Officers are looking at that wallet because it was "found" by someone. Who gave it to Owens? I still think Croy planted it - Owens was his chief.

Why are Barrett and Jez backing up Croy's story? Why are all three of them making it up, IMHO? I think to cover up a blunder - other people at the Tippit crime scene may remember that there was an unexplained wallet there, and this is being played out to convince them there is an explanation and there is no need to go public.

I believe Callaway turned over the revolver no later than 1:30 - and that the wallet was reviewed on camera at 1:40 or later.

you note from your experience as an attorney that when officers ask citizens for identification today the usual practice is not to ask for or want to hold a wallet, which may have been the same practice or sensitivity then, so what explanation accounts for departure from usual procedure in examining someone's identification, seen in the WFAA-TV video?

Again, because the wallet was "found", not provided by Callaway or any other wallet owner.

whose identification was in the wallet and what happened to that wallet?

Croy said it wasn't Oswald - but couldn't remember the name. More phoniness from him.

Croy says there was no Oswald ID -- so why does he say the wallet belonged to Oswald?

Again, why are Croy, Barrett and Jez making up this story about Oswald's wallet being at the Tippit death scene?

what is the connection of that wallet with officer Tippit's pistol with which it was both seen and reported to have been in association?

No one says there is a connection except for you - because you see both the wallet and the revolver in the same hand in the video - can you post the clip that shows that, and the Ken Holmes interview you have been raising? Thanks for whatever you can do.

and above all, the $64,000 question, why is there no report or record made of that wallet in any of the contemporary police officer reports?

That is the big question - I think it is because the wallet in the video and the wallet in evidence have many similar characteristics:

1. Both wallets have a leather flap that snaps over a photo section,

2. Both wallets have a metal band fixed to its leading edge. (Dale Myers, With Malice, p. 298)

3. Both wallets also have a zipper over the cash compartment.

And also...Croy could not produce his witness...so if it's true that he reported it at the time - that would have caused an enormous scandal.

And, again, ...three law enforcement officers claim that they saw Oswald's wallet at the Tippit death scene. Whether their claim is true or false - and at this point, I am leaning towards false - why are they making such a big statement that flies in the face of the record?

Again, I think it is to protect a blunder that occurred - I think there was an Oswald look-alike wallet at the Tippit death scene that caused some conversation and confusion, and they are trying to deal with it in a variety of ways to make sure the story goes back to bed.

This is the same strategy Barrett used in both admitting and denying that he was at Dealey Plaza with Buddy Walthers at 12:39 pm on 11/22. See Mark Oakes video about Barrett on youtube:

Barrett was one of those higher-ups, and he has spread confusion ever since - in the 80s he said it happened, but mistook Westbrook for Westphal and O.H. Lee for Alek Hidell - how is that possible on the most important day of his life?

Edited January 4, 2021 by Bill Simpich

Robert Montenegro · January 4, 2021

1 hour ago, Bill Simpich said:

Barrett was one of those higher-ups, and he has spread confusion ever since - in the 80s he said it happened, but mistook Westbrook for Westphal and O.H. Lee for Alek Hidell - how is that possible on the most important day of his life?

It is absolutely preposterous that FBI special agent Robert M. Barrett could not get his own whereabouts pinpointed for almost three decades, considering that Lt. Jack Revill, Paul M. Rothermel Jr., Sheriff J. E. "Bill" Decker, & Assistant Chief Don Stringfellow were all SA Barrett's confidential informants at one point or another!

I mean, couldn't they get their lies, err, I mean, stories straight?!

Edited January 4, 2021 by Robert Montenegro

Adam Johnson · January 4, 2021

20 hours ago, Greg Doudna said:

and above all, the $64,000 question, why is there no report or record made of that wallet in any of the contemporary police officer reports?

Possibly the most logical answer is because the wallet was returned to the owner(who was at the scene), once the DPD had cleared its owner as being a non suspect.

The wallet at the Tippit scene: a simpler solution?

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