An argument for actual innocence of Oswald in the Tippit case

[Joseph McBride]

I refer you to the highly detailed discussion and analysis of the murder scene in my book INTO THE NIGHTMARE. Jerry Rose first proposed this theory about Ruby in an article for The Third Decade, "Jack Ruby and J. D. Tippit: Coincidence or Conspiracy?," March 1985; you can find that article on the Mary Ferrell site.

Edited December 15, 2021 by Joseph McBride

[Karl Hilliard]

Quote

Oswald was present in the Texas Theatre, some distance from the scene of the Tippit killing, at the time Tippit was killed in Oak Cliff. This is based on testimony of four out of four staff and patrons of the Theatre who gave information concerning time of arrival of LHO to the theatre, that is, one hundred percent of the witnesses among the staff and patrons of the theatre that day who have given information concerning knowledge of the time of Oswald's arrival.

Curious...Where are these statements documented? Because you can't really call something 'testimony' unless it is sworn to and/or signed.

[Karl Hilliard]

Quote

“Dallas Police Sergeant Gerald Hill, a key figure in the arrest of Oswald, was one of the first policemen to arrive at the scene of the Tippit slaying (. . .) At the scene, Sergeant Hill inspected the cartridge hulls and ordered Officer Poe to mark them as evidence and turn them over to the crime lab.

 http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg Subject Index Files/D Disk/Dallas Police Department/Dallas Police Department Records/Volume 04/Item 01.pdf

Quote

(EULSE and MC DANIEL) Go ahead, 350/2 (HILL).
553/2 (Sergeant G. HILL) The shell[s] at the scene indicates
that the suspect is armed with an
automatic .38 rather than a
pistol.

How could Hill have misidentified such an obvious difference in the nomenclature of the .38 special vs .38 automatic [or was it a 380] auto shells?
 

[Greg Doudna]

On 12/14/2021 at 10:18 AM, Paul Jolliffe said:

The mysterious "IMB men" really did prompt Brewerto walk down the sidewalk and speak with Julia Postal.

How do we know?

Because Johnny Brewer admitted to Ian Griggs that "he didn't really know why he was there . . ." Why not?

Because the universally told story that Johnny Brewer witnessed the unknown man duck into the theater without buying a ticket was a lie.

No one can stand on the sidewalk in front of Hardy's Shoes and see the ticket booth at the Texas Theater. The booth is recessed back from the sidewalk. The only way to see the booth is to walk to the front of the theater. Any transaction at the booth would have been invisible to Johnny Brewer unless he was standing almost in front of the theater. Yet the very reason he claimed he was suspicious was because he saw the man duck in without paying. Brewer could have seen no such thing from any location on the sidewalk anywhere near Hardy's.

Incidentally, as I pointed out years ago, all three early audio/video taped interviews with Johnny Brewer all contain the same bizarre interruption of his narrative, just as he about to describe how and why he went down to the Texas Theater.

Some comments in defense of Brewer

Johnny Brewer never claimed to see the man open the door to the theatre and go inside, even though the man did. Brewer said he saw a suspicious man outside his store appearing to hide from police cruisers. Suspicious, Brewer went out to the sidewalk and saw the man turn to the right out of his sight into the vestibule area outside the doors of the Texas Theatre. Brewer followed him because suspicious and asked Julia Postal if the man, whom Julia Postal had also seen out of peripheral vision or a glance as she momentarily left the ticket window to go to the sidewalk to look at the police cruisers--Julia Postal said, no, he had not bought a ticket. Julia Postal saw him "duck in" in the direction of the theatre doors, and then he is nowhere to be seen, and he had not bought a ticket. Therefore both concluded he was inside and had not purchased a ticket. The story is straightforward and two witnesses are in agreement on it not simply one. I don't see you challenging that it happened (the man entered the theatre), but you are questioning why Brewer followed the man in the first place. 

For some reason you find it unsatisfactory that a store manager might find the movements of a man outside their store windows suspicious enough to go outside and follow a suspicious man. I have dealt with hundreds of small-town retail store managers and what Brewer describes is extremely plausible and familiar to me. See something suspicious, go out front, take a look. Store owners looking out for the neighborhood, looking out for their fellow store owners.  

For some reason that simple mundane and ordinary explanation of Brewer you reject as could not have happened that way, and therefore because in your reasoning that could not possibly have happened as Brewer described it you conclude it could only be for a different reason: it must have been the two IBM men inside the store who told Brewer "that man looks suspicious--go follow him", whereupon Brewer, who had not thought of that, said, "good idea--OK", and then he goes out, follows, asks Julia Postal, etc. the same narrative, etc. All I can say is who cares, what difference does it make: there is still the man disappearing into the theatre known to Julia Postal and Brewer. And it is a red herring on your part to insist Brewer did not see the man go through the doors into the theatre--since neither Brewer nor Postal ever claimed they did--they claimed rather that they knew the man had done so, not that they had seen the man do so. 

I see people attacking Brewer and it is unjust. There is no evidence Brewer did anything in bad faith that day. He made the critical identification of Oswald on the ground level of the theatre, as the suspicious man he had seen in front of his store windows who had gone into the theatre. That identification is the crux of the matter concerning whether the Tippit killer was Oswald or was not. I happen to think Brewer's identification was incorrect. A mistaken identification. But whether Brewer's identification was right or wrong, it is wholly uncalled-for, without any evidence, to have these incredibly detailed conspiratorial scenarios in which civilian Brewer, trying to do the right thing that day, was part of or manipulated in an advance plot to frame an innocent man.

So many innocent civilians have been defamed unmercifully by JFK assassination conspiracy theorists. Living persons, ordinary persons who did not ask to be part of history that day but tried to do the right thing--or acted as ordinary human beings. Brewer sees a suspicious man avoiding police in front of his store windows at a time of racing police cars with sirens, less than an hour after the news that President Kennedy had been killed in Dallas by an assassination whose perpetrators were still at large. Why wouldn't he be curious to see where that man was headed. News flash--this is how retail store managers in neighborhoods behave. I think the things that have been said about Brewer, all on the basis of zero evidence, just witchhunt-suspicion only, have been appalling. 

On Brewer as having had Oswald as a shoe customer in his store previously. As I recall, he said he later made that connection after thinking about it. You say a pair of Oswald's shoes were confirmed to have come from his store. I do not think that claim of corroboration is accurate or correct, which is not to say Brewer's recollection was wrong. 

Brewer remembered a customer whom he retroactively identified as the man he saw in front of his store window (whom he subsequently identified as Oswald). The original claim of recognition of the man at his store window may or may not be correct. Brewer was indeterminate or fuzzy in his memory of when that shoe sale occurred. I think he ended up saying he thought it was two or three or more months earlier, before late Nov. The problem with that timing is: if it was Oswald, it had to be either earlier than April 1963 or later than Oct 4, 1963 neither of which fit well with Brewer's memory. (If Brewer's remembered shoe customer was someone other than Oswald those constraints would not apply.) If it was Oswald, Brewer is off on his memory of the timing. 

Brewer thought the suspicious man he saw in front of his store who entered the Texas Theatre without paying around 1:40 pm was Oswald. A lot of people are aware of the reasons from witnesses inside the theatre arguing that Oswald was there before that time (Jack Davis, Burroughs). Brewer's initial identification of Oswald in the theatre followed an unsuccessful attempt by him and usher Butch Burroughs to locate the suspicious man in the balcony. (Even though there was a man in the balcony encountered and talked to by several arriving officers, no name or identification of which survives in any record, and one arriving officer actually mistakenly believed that man in the balcony was Oswald himself [deputy sheriff Courson, in Sneed, No More Silence].) Failing to see anyone in the balcony where they first looked and tried to find the suspicious man, Brewer's attention from the stage was drawn to a movement of a lone man at a distance from him on the ground level who stood up then sat back down again in the darkness--this was Oswald--and (because he had not seen any such man in the balcony) Brewer told officers "that's him!", and the rest is history.

Whether Brewer got that identification right or wrong, in either case Brewer was trying to help catch a suspicious man, trying to help law enforcement. Brewer does not deserve the opprobrium he has received from assassination conspiracy theorists, who not really knowing what happened, cast about for anyone on the scene who is nearby and lynch whoever is handy. Its so easy following some unsolved crime to just pick some random innocent person nearby, lynch them, and everybody feels better that a scapegoat has been found. Witchhunt logic.

An officer that day confused a man in the balcony (who was not Oswald) with Oswald. Brewer and Julia Postal saw a suspicious man, who went into the theatre up into the balcony (these last two statements concluded by Julia Postal as opposed to seen by her)--at a time later than Oswald entered that theatre according to witnesses inside the theatre.

There is the appearance not of an advance intent to frame Oswald on the part of police, but of some kind of police coverup after the event. A man in the balcony, exactly where Julia Postal knew and told officers the suspicious man had gone, was questioned by police, then let go without preserved written record of that man's identity, name, address, or what he was asked or answered. This after commanding officer Westbrook, as well as subordinate officers, testified that Westbrook had ordered that names and addresses be taken. It can be considered certain that names and addresses were taken by officers in keeping with those orders, especially since officers testified they did take names and addresses. But there is no record of names and addresses of Texas Theatre patrons that day known in any Dallas Police Department records. That suggests someone inside that theatre may have been let go on purpose that day. 

The reconstruction which I have been proposing, that the suspicious man outside Brewer's storefront who, as Julia Postal said, entered the theatre without paying--going through the doorway and then up a stairs to the balcony, was Jack Ruby's employee Curtis Craford aka Larry Crafard, accounts for the confusion in identifications due to known, non-Tippit-related Craford/Oswald identification confusions from witnesses. The argument here is that Brewer's good-faith attempt to help officers nail a suspected cop-killer (a good motivation) was one more of a number of Craford/Oswald identification confusions which are otherwise known.

Oswald entered the Texas Theatre at an earlier time than the non-ticket-payer suspicious man. Usher Burroughs remembered selling Oswald popcorn. Other patrons remembered Oswald sitting on the main floor. Oswald likely never was in the balcony. Oswald was watching the movie on the ground floor! He would have bought a ticket going in. (There is no record of the manager who took the tickets that day, Callahan, being asked whether he remembered taking a ticket from Oswald--a question some might consider odd not to have been asked and answered.) Oswald was not seen walking to the area of Oak Cliff in which officer Tippit was killed. No reason has been established to render sensible why Oswald would be in the area where Tippit was killed at all. There was no motivation for Tippit to stop Oswald there, even if there were some reason for Oswald to have been there which eludes comprehension. The standard scenario makes little sense, having in its favor some imperfect eyewitnesses and cartridge hulls of disputable chain of custody match to Oswald's revolver. 

Whereas it is not certain that Oswald had a confirmed prior history of murder or intent to murder (see the argument concerning the shot into Walker's house as a possible faked murder attempt as opposed to actual attempted murder, at https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/27502-the-oswald-family-at-the-furniture-mart-a-rifle-scope-installation-in-november-1963-and-why-it-matters-a-sale-of-the-rifle-before-the-assassination/page/5/#comments), Craford by his own later account came to Dallas with prior hit man and Mob-association history. He worked for mobbed-up Ruby whose killing of Oswald gives every appearance of having been connected in some way to the JFK assassination plot, and Craford precipitously fled Dallas for another end of the country leaving only hours after the killing of Tippit and arrest of Oswald. That is, hours after the man coming from the balcony at the Texas Theatre reported seen by deputy sheriff Courson--the likely killer of Tippit and would-be killer of Oswald in the theatre--was allowed to leave that theatre without any record of his name or address or police interview information of that man. An appearance of coverup. By an officer or officers possibly related to Ruby's significant cultivated police contacts. 

Brewer acted with honorable intentions that day and from all that is known, to the present day. The only issue is whether he fingered the right man. But that is an issue of fact and evidence, and has nothing to do with that he acted in good faith, in his heart and conscience, that day, on the basis of any known evidence. 

Those who are so quick to condemn Brewer over this or that wildly hallucinatory imagined scenario, with no actual evidence or sound argument, might consider: what should Brewer have done differently that day? 

The only thing I can see is: not have identified Oswald as the suspicious fleeing man (= Tippit killer) who entered the theatre without buying a ticket. But as serious as that mistake was, as horrible the consequences that a mistaken witness identification can be on an innocent person in the cases where that has happened, if that was indeed the case, there is nothing about Brewer that suggests it was malicious or dishonest from his perspective.

Brewer deserves better from JFK assassination research people. 

Edited July 19, 2022 by Greg Doudna

[Karl Hilliard]

Quote

There is no evidence Brewer did anything in bad faith that day.

He was the only person on the planet that claimed to have have heard that a policeman had been shot at the Oak Cliff location at the time he specified because that report was not made on public radio until almost 2:00 PM. Oswald had already been arrested and loaded into a squad car by then.

So no...something was fishy there.

[Karl Hilliard]

20 minutes ago, Greg Doudna said:

Brewer acted with honorable intentions, that day and from all that is known, to the present day.

The present day? The story has morphed into Brewer had heard the report on his transistor radio that a Policeman had been shot and killed right during the same time that the announcement was awaited on the fate of JFK.

https://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/johnny-calvin-brewer-man-helped-catch-jfk-assassin-lee-harvey-oswald-honored-dallas-police-article-1.981586

I have personally heard all of the the Dallas radio recordings from that day. Anybody can too.. just look them up on youtube. Brewer's radio report does not exist. This [being pointed out to Dale Myers, David Van Pein and other Warren defenders] is just ignored.

 

[Greg Doudna]

On 12/15/2021 at 9:50 PM, Karl Hilliard said:

He was the only person on the planet that claimed to have have heard that a policeman had been shot at the Oak Cliff location at the time he specified because that report was not made on public radio until almost 2:00 PM. Oswald had already been arrested and loaded into a squad car by then.

So no...something was fishy there.

Nothing fishy. Brewer's response to seeing the suspicious man appearing to be avoiding flashing sirens of police cruisers and etc. would be sensible no matter what Brewer may or may not have heard on the radio. But see the extended footnote 617 of Myers, With Malice, pp. 738-739. Without quoting the whole footnote, Myers assesses:

"The exact time that Brewer heard the radio broadcast on the shooting of Office Tippit is not known, although it was very likely broadcast at about 1:31 p.m. over KBOX radio. There were five major radio stations covering the Dallas area--WFAA (570 AM), WBAP (820 AM), KRLD (1080 AM), KBOX (1480 AM), and KLIF (1190 AM). All of hem routinely monitored the Dallas police radio. A review of archival recordings made by the four radiop stations show that neither the shooting in Oak Cliff nor its location was broadcast until after Oswald was arrested at 1:51 p.m. However, the archival recordings of two of the radio stations--WFAA and KBOX--do not cover the entire assassination period. The WFAA recordings begin at 1:47 p.m.; KBOX recordings. begin at 1:35 p.m. A 1:59 p.m KBOX report from newsman Sam Pate, repeats information known to have been previously broadcast, including a report about the Tippit shooting ("Moments ago a police officer reported to have been shot down at Tenth and Patton in the Oak Cliff area. Several squads of police, approximately twenty men, ordered to the Oak Cliff area. A late word shows that the police officer was dead on arrival at Methodist Hospital.") This KBOX report on the Tippit shooting was probably broadcast earlier on KBOX shortly after 1:31 p.m. when it was reported over the Dallas police radio that Tippit was DOA at Methodist Hospital."

The death of President Kennedy was reported on radio news 1:35 p.m. Is it possible Brewer was confusing hearing radio news of President Kennedy, with the local Tippit killing? Then conflated the two retroactively in his memory? If so, then the suspicious person Brewer saw would not be a suspected cop-killer at that point in time but would be a suspicious person in a context of a presidential assassination and police sirens on Jefferson Blvd. If it is not the unverified but argued possible KBOX report of Myers, then Brewer misremembered which news report he heard first of the two (JFK and Tippit). Big deal. If it was a confusion of reporting of Kennedy and Tippit being killed it means Brewer is a mortal human with fallible memory. It would be different if the error had meaning or went somewhere, but this is in the genre of finding some random mistake in a witness and concluding not that they got something wrong in their memory but that therefore that proves they were part of a sinister plot. If Brewer got that radio news report wrong as to which killing it was, why assume more than he was mistaken? Do you seriously think he heard of Kennedy over the radio but intentionally said to himself, "I am going to lie and say I heard about Tippit?" What point to such a lie? Why so quick to see goblins in Brewer? Why so quick to condemn or judge so harshly?

Edited July 17, 2022 by Greg Doudna

[Karl Hilliard]

9 hours ago, Greg Doudna said:

Brewer's response to seeing the suspicious man appearing to be avoiding flashing sirens of police cruisers

This is your thread 'possible innocence of Oswald' so who was this guy that supposedly acted suspiciously?

 

9 hours ago, Greg Doudna said:

Myers assesses:

"The exact time that Brewer heard the radio broadcast on the shooting of Office Tippit is not known, although it was very likely broadcast at about 1:31 p.m. over KBOX radio.

It was not.

 

9 hours ago, Greg Doudna said:

Is it possible Brewer was confusing hearing radio news of President Kennedy, with the local Tippit killing?

Not likely. See KBOX coverage below--Tippit was actually claimed to have been in the theater.

  KBOX clip around 2:00 PM....

Quote

Detective J D Tippit along with his partner M N McDonald [tipped off by an usher at the Texas Theater] fought with a man...believed to be the assassin of [the president]...they bravely entered with guns drawn....two shots were fired.. Tippit fired into the air...[suspect] shot Tippit killing him..the man was arrested and believed to be the prime suspect in the assassination...

 The public was presented with news that this assailant was the assassin of JFK. Presumed guilty from then on.

 

 

[Karl Hilliard]

One thing further about the Texas Theater business...the affidavit of Julia Postal---

https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth338516/m1/1/

https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth338516/m1/3/

Odd that the police switchboard answered Postal's call so quickly [as if it wasn't very busy that day]

Actually, Ms Postal was not a witness to anything [according to her own statement and testimony]

Notice that the affidavit was not obtained until almost two weeks later. It reads almost like the script for a movie [which it ultimately became]

https://i.postimg.cc/k4KLppxm/Oswald-Brewer.gif

[Dan Rice]

On 12/14/2021 at 11:10 PM, Joseph McBride said:

 Jerry Rose first proposed this theory about Ruby in an article for The Third Decade, "Jack Ruby and J. D. Tippit: Coincidence or Conspiracy?," March 1985; you can find that article on the Mary Ferrell site.

showDoc.html (maryferrell.org)

Edited December 17, 2021 by Dan Rice

[Greg Doudna]

[deleted]

Edited July 19, 2022 by Greg Doudna

[Ian Lloyd]

16 hours ago, Greg Doudna said:

Sirleurence Myles

The name Sirleurence Myles, who said he was working at the corner of 9th and Patton on the day Tippit was shot and killed, is so little known in discussions of the Tippit killing that his name does not appear in the index in Dale Myers' With Malice: Lee Harvey Oswald and the Murder of Officer J.D. Tippit (2013 edn of 1998 original). I only first noticed this several days ago. An FBI report of 6/11/64:

"Jesse Lee Davis, Jr., a self-employed plastering contractor (. . .) discussed [a different incident--bogus claimed sighting by Davis] with a friend named Salon Myers, who lives somewhere on Denley Street, Dallas, Texas. Davis stated that Myers informed him he also observed Lee Harvey Oswald on November 22, 1963. He stated Myers informed him that he saw Oswald on East 10th Street in the Oak Cliff area of Dallas, and stated that Oswald had either driven to that location in a car or had been driven there because, when he (Myers) saw him, he apparently had just left the car. His reason for leaving the car, Myers informed, was because a police cruiser had stopped to question him. Davis said Myers told him that, at this point, Oswald drew a gun, ran toward the police car and shot the police officer while he was still seated in the car. After doing this, Davis stated, Myers advised him Oswald then ran across a vacant lot and disappeared. (. . .) Davis related that he had been advised by many of his associates not to furnish the above information to the Fedeal Bureau of Investigation, since he might get into trouble. He said he had not planned to five the above information to the Federal Bureach of Investigation but, on May 17, 1964, he found a 'San Antonio Express' newspaper in his car. He said the newspaper was dated November 22, 1963, and carried an article concerning the President's visit to San Antonio on November 21, 1963. Davis stated this newspaper was in 'issue' condition and was not dirty or wrinkled. He stated he had no idea who left the paper in the car, but stated his car was unlocked and someone may have spent the night there. After finding this newspaper and after 'praying,' Davis said he decided to furnish this information to the Federal Bureau of Investigation." (https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=11790#relPageId=151&search=sirleurence)

On 7/4/64 there is an FBI report that Jesse Davis made a correction in the person's information:

"Jesse Lee Davis, Jr., self-employed plastering contractor (. . .) advised that he had previously informed that a Salon Myers resided somewhere on Denley Street, Dallas, Texas. Davis stated he was mistaken and now wants to correct his previous statements in that he has determined that Salon Myers is actually Sirleurence Myles and resides in the last house on the right on Baden Street, which would be on the northwest end of Baden Street, Dallas."

FBI agents tracked down Sirleurence Myles and reported that Myles saw nothing, heard nothing, knew nothing. But he was close to the scene.

"Sirleurence Myles, 1315 Baden Street, Dallas, Texas, advised he was born December 23, 1908, at Dallas, Texas. He said when he can find employment, he works as a bricklayer's helper. Myles advised that on November 22, 1963, he was working on an apartment building at Patton and 9th Streets, Dallas, Texas.

"Myles stated he never knew and, to his knowledge, never had any contact with Lee Harvey Oswald. He stated he never saw Oswald on November 22, 1963, and never informed anyone that he had seen Oswald on that date.

"Myles further stated that he did not witness the shooting of police officer J. D. Tippit by Oswald on November 22, 1963, and stated any information to the contrary is completely without basis in fact.

"Myles stated he had no information that would assist in the investigation of the assassination of President Kennedy."

Jesse Davis, the source of the story, is presented in the rest of the FBI reporting about him as a bit whackadoo, idiomatically put, with claims of extrasensory perception and his own bogus claimed sighting of a man he thought was Oswald driving into his driveway and inquiring of him, Davis, on Fri morning, Nov. 22, if Davis would like any tree-trimming done. That can be set aside here. The point of interest is the account of the phone call with Sirleurence Myles, and that also would not be of much interest if it did not turn out that Sirleurence Myles was in proximity in the neighborhood at the time of the killing of Tippit.

A work location of Myles at 9th and Patton would not put Myles in line of sight to have been in a position to see the Tippit killing circumstances on 10th. Myles refusing to volunteer to the FBI what that phone call with Jesse Davis was about (if the FBI report is accurate on that) would be consistent with Davis's friends, who may or may not have included Myles himself, advising Davis not to tell the FBI anything for fear of getting into trouble, which could be fear of suspected organized crime interests as easily as law enforcement. Obviously when reading reports of this nature, for "Oswald" substitute "the killer of Tippit". Conclusion: don't know what to make of this one, wish there had been more followup, such as verification that an apartment on 9th and Patton had bricklayers working on it, in addition to known bricklayers working on a building on 10th east of Davis which did involve witnesses to the Tippit killing--and if those two sets of bricklayers knew or talked to each other that day.

Deleted

Edited December 22, 2021 by Ian Lloyd
My error