Revisiting Tatum's testimony at the Tippit crime scene

[Bill Brown]

6 minutes ago, Greg Doudna said:

It must be that Frank Wright got out to his front yard about ca. 60 seconds after the time of shot #2, time enough for Jimmy Burt to have gotten his car there by the time Frank Wright is in his front yard to look.

Wasn't Frank Wright an older man? He, peacefully watching TV, and his wife hear what sound like shots. They listen (he does not jump up and run out the door). They keep listening as shots #2, #3, #4, #5 (or however many) are completed. They wait, listening, maybe asking each other "what is that?" They wait some more for more shots, until enough seconds pass (15 seconds? 30 seconds?) that there are no more shots. Husband and wife look at each other, shocked. Frank to Mrs. Wright: I'm going to go out and see what is going on. Maybe you'd better call the police." (Optional seconds here for confusion or discussion of what number to call and what to say.) Frank (is he heavyset and slow moving? unknown) goes out the door, maybe takes the steps of the porch slowly (have to be careful not to trip), gets out in the middle of the front yard and now sees Tippit's body, and either already there or momentarily soon after Smith standing over him. 

But it was Smith, and it was Burt's car, Bill, unless you are take the position that Frank Wright fabricated the entire thing.

One thing that isn't fabricated about Frank and Mrs. Wright though is that Mrs. Wright did make a phone call, and that phone call is what got patched through by police to the Dudley Funeral Home to dispatch an ambulance, I believe with the Wrights' address information getting mixed up in the written and police radio data causing momentary confusion. 

If Mrs. Wright's phone call was for real, isn't it a bit arbitrary to say her husband, Frank, just imagined out of whole cloth the whole thing he said he saw? 

"It must be that Frank Wright got out to his front yard about ca. 60 seconds after the time of shot #2..."

 

Must be... only if one is willing to ignore what he did say and believe something that he never did say.

 

 

"One thing that isn't fabricated about Frank and Mrs. Wright though is that Mrs. Wright did make a phone call, and that phone call is what got patched through by police to the Dudley Funeral Home to dispatch an ambulance, I believe with the Wrights' address information getting mixed up in the written and police radio data causing momentary confusion."

 

Correct... And she said she phoned the police "immediately" (her word, according to George and Patricia Nash); not after having these fictional discussions and all this rigmarole necessary for your theory to be true.

 

 

"If Mrs. Wright's phone call was for real, isn't it a bit arbitrary to say her husband, Frank, just imagined out of whole cloth the whole thing he said he saw?"

 

I haven't said here that Frank Wright imagined the whole thing he said he saw.  On the other hand, YOU are indeed saying things happened, re: Frank Wright, that the man himself never said.

[Bill Brown]

16 minutes ago, Greg Doudna said:

They also gave conflicting stories. Each of them are not entirely truthful or forthcoming on other details of their stories. Frank Wright is truthful. That is the basic picture here, such that I interpret what Frank Wright saw as sufficient to establish a fact, that the car drove away when he saw it drive away. Frank Wright could have been mistaken about Smith having gotten in the car, or Smith running to catch up with the car or something. Frank Wright may not necessarily have seen perfectly where Smith went. But that the car drove off when Frank Wright saw it drive off is no mistake. I take that to be a fact on the strength of what Frank Wright saw. I suggest reconstructing Jimmy Burt's and Bill Smith's movements around that taken to be a fact, rather than vice versa. 

Jimmy Burt and Bill Smith were on foot, making their way down Patton towards Jefferson (in search of the killer; all they knew is that the killer turned south onto Patton from Tenth before losing sight of him).  In a 1968 interview, Burt told Al Chapman that they were making their way down Patton with the intention of going all the way to Jefferson.  Once they got halfway down Patton, they looked west along the alley and saw the killer in the alley a block down (putting the killer right behind the back lot of the Texaco station where the jacket wad found, by the way).

 

Burt literally said "we stood there" (looking west along the alley) before deciding to stop chasing the killer (he had a gun, they didn't) and make their way back up to the shooting scene.

[Bill Brown]

I appreciate your passion for the Tippit case, Greg.  But I feel your thoughts, for whatever reason, are misguided.

 

For my own reference, Greg, how long do you think the shooting lasted?  I believe the time between the first shot and the last shot to be maybe 4 seconds total.  It seems you believe the sequence took much longer.

Edited July 30, 2022 by Bill Brown

[Greg Doudna]

And Bill, there is independent corroboration that the Jimmy Burt car was driven away approximately when Frank Wright said it was, assuming you accept Jimmy Burt's FBI statement that he did drive it there: because when the police arrive, crime scene photos and televised news coverage, etc., happen, starting from just minutes later, there is no Jimmy Burt car pointed the wrong way stopped in front of the Tippit cruiser. The car was gone by then, because it drove away.

Either it drove away in agreement with what Frank Wright saw, or else it was never there in the first place, one or the other. Which do you think is the more likely interpretation of Jimmy Burt's telling the FBI that he drove his car there that day? Is that a sensible kind of lie a man who has brushes with the law and AWOL issues would do? More likely Jimmy Burt told that to the FBI (which William Smith had not volunteered) because Jimmy Burt thinks it cannot be denied.

There is no information in Frank Wright's account concerning where the Jimmy Burt car went after it drove off. They could have reparked it a minute or two later just far enough away from the scene of the crime to avoid unwanted police questioning, then returned on foot to Patton or the scene of the crime in keeping with other accounts of their activities.

Which side of the Tippit cruiser was Jimmy Burt's car? 

Change of subject. Minor detail, a slight discrepancy has nagged at me. Jimmy Burt's FBI description to the FBI, which is surely the correct one concerning the location of his car with respect to the cruiser, is that he parked his car in front of Tippit's cruiser (east of the cruiser, with the front of Burt's car pointed at it). But the Nash and Nash 1964 article quotes Frank Wright as saying the car was on the other side of the Tippit cruiser, behind Tippit's cruiser (west of the cruiser). As Wright is quoted in Nash and Nash:

"It was a grey car, parked on the same side of the street as the police car but beyond it from me. It was heading away from me."

Because it makes sense in a hurried stop that Jimmy Burt heading west would pull in on the west east side of the cruiser; because Tatum was asked whether he saw any car parked between the Tippit cruiser and himself (east west of the cruiser) and he said no; and because Jimmy Burt, the driver, told the FBI he parked it west east of the cruiser, I conclude the car was west east of the cruiser. As explanation for the discrepancy in the Frank Wright statement I do not know for sure but suggest this: suppose the statement was transcribed from a tape recording as witness interviews often are conducted. Transcribers can err. It looks to me like what could have happened is Frank Wright said the grey car was

* "parked on the same side of the street as the police car beyond it from me"

not, as published,

"parked on the same side of the street as the police car but beyond it from me" 

One "b-" syllable or two heard in a recording of rapid or faint speech? Changes the location of the car completely.  

Edited April 10, 2023 by Greg Doudna

[Greg Doudna]

15 minutes ago, Bill Brown said:

Fir my own reference, Greg, how long do you think the shooting lasted?  I believe the time between the first shot and the last shot to be maybe 4 seconds total.  It seems you believe the sequence took much longer.

I don't know. I think the clean shot right in the right temple found in the autopsy suggests a shot fired from a killer standing into a prone Tippit on the ground. I know it has been argued that the shot to the right temple could have hit Tippit when he was standing but it just looks like a shot to the head after Tippit was down.

Then there are the upward trajectories not simply of the temple shot but at least two of the chest shots as I recall. I know there are reconstructions of Tippit falling to one side accounting for bullets entering at a relative upward trajectory from the other side. But might a better possibility be that those upward trajectory shots, including but not limited to the one to the right temple, make better sense from a killer having gone around to Tippit's side of the car after Tippit has fallen (so he can get at him with line of fire) and firing one or more shots into Tippit on the ground? If that is the correct reconstruction of the right temple shot, it requires the killer to have gone around the front of the car in order to have line of fire.

Is your ca. 4 seconds for the ca. 5 shots influenced by wanting to have all shots hit Tippit (that did hit) before Tippit's body has time to physically topple over and fall? 

Was the shooting all rapid shots? Callaway said he heard 1 then 1 then 3, in terms of clustering and spaces between. Warren Reynolds said he heard 1 then 4-6. After Tippit was first hit did the killer aim carefully and deliberately in the remaining shots or just pump them out in the general direction as fast as possible? I don't know, and earwitness testimonies can be unreliable, but it doesn't seem all of the shots were extremely rapid. How long total for all ca. 5? Maybe 10-15 seconds? I don't know. 

[Bill Brown]

Greg,

 

Are you aware that Jimmy Burt told the FBI that he and Bill Smith were sitting inside his brother's house at Denver & 9th when they heard the shots?  This has them not only one block east of the shooting scene, but also another block to the north, i.e. two blocks away from the shooting.

 

Burt also told the FBI that from the shooting location, he ran over to the corner of Tenth & Patton and looked south on Patton in time to see the killer disappear into the alley (the same alley located halfway down the block that he would later see the killer in, except this time a full block down, to the west).

 

According to the FBI interview, Burt left his car and ran to the corner of Tenth & Patton, i.e. nothing about driving off in the car with Bill Smith.

 

Bill Smith told the Warren Commission that he and Burt were in the front yard of the house at 505 E. 10th Street and that he saw the officer fall and that he was unsure whether or not his buddy Burt saw the same thing.  Bill Smith says nothing about being in a house a block to the north (and effectively two blocks from the shooting) like Burt does.  Burt told Chapman in the 1968 interview that after hearing the shots, he looked at Smith and said words to the effect of "Billy, that guy just shot that policeman".

 

How could Burt have known a policeman had been shot just seconds after the shooting if he and Smith were at Ninth & Denver?  He tells Chapman in 1968 that they were at Tenth and Denver.

 

The stories of Burt and Smith directly contradict each other.  I'm inclined to believe Smith's over Burt's, that they were in the front yard of the house one block east of the shooting, they noticed the patrol car pull up alongside a man who was walking on the sidewalk, they heard the shots and Smith saw the officer fall and the gunman run away.

 

In 1968, Burt himself tells Al Chapman that he was with Bill Smith out in the front yard of the house on Tenth Street and saw the man who would eventually kill the officer walking west on Tenth Street across the street from the front yard they were in.  Burt contradicts his own earlier account, the one you are relying on.  Burt goes on to tell Chapman that he and Smith then "ran down there" to the location of the shooting.

 

It's my opinion that they went to the scene on foot from the front yard of the house at 505 E. Tenth and that you have been hoodwinked by the fabrications of Jimmy Burt, who for whatever reason, wasn't honest with the FBI during his December '63 interview with them.  By 1968, Burt is more in line with what Smith testified to.

 

Edited July 30, 2022 by Bill Brown

[Greg Doudna]

1 hour ago, Bill Brown said:

Greg,

Are you aware that Jimmy Burt told the FBI that he and Bill Smith were sitting inside his brother's house at Denver & 9th when they heard the shots?  This has them not only one block east of the shooting scene, but also another block to the north, i.e. two blocks away from the shooting.

Burt also told the FBI that from the shooting location, he ran over to the corner of Tenth & Patton and looked south on Patton in time to see the killer disappear into the alley (the same alley located halfway down the block that he would later see the killer in, except this time a full block down, to the west).

According to the FBI interview, Burt left his car and ran to the corner of Tenth & Patton, i.e. nothing about driving off in the car with Bill Smith.

Bill Smith told the Warren Commission that he and Burt were in the front yard of the house at 505 E. 10th Street and that he saw the officer fall and that he was unsure whether or not his buddy Burt saw the same thing.  Bill Smith says nothing about being in a house a block to the north (and effectively two blocks from the shooting) like Burt does.  In fact, Smith told Dale Myers that when the shots rang out, Burt looked at him and said swords to the effect of "Billy, that guy just shot that policeman".

The stories of Burt and Smith directly contradict each other.  I'm inclined to believe Smith's over Burt's, that they were in the front yard of the house one block east of the shooting, they noticed the patrol car pull up alongside a man who was walking on the sidewalk, they heard the shots and Smith saw the officer fall and the gunman run away.

In 1968, Burt himself tells Al Chapman that he was with Bill Smith out in the front yard of the house on Tenth Street and saw the man who would eventually kill the officer walking west on Tenth Street across the street from the front yard they were in.  Burt contradicts his own earlier account, the one you are relying on.  Burt goes on to tell Chapman that he and Smith then "ran down there" to the location of the shooting.

It's my opinion that they went to the scene on foot from the front yard of the house at 505 E. Tenth.

All this information you bring out is true concerning the conflicting stories. No reconstruction is possible that does not necessarily have Smith and Burt telling fibs, the only question is which ones. I would have no problem with your having them go on foot from 505 E. Tenth if it were not for the testimonies that Jimmy Burt's car was there which I judge credible. I do not see why that somewhat unusual detail would be made up independently by both Jimmy Burt and Frank Wright. And I don't know whether you have seen this before but there is a possible third testimony to that car being there. I don't think this has even been published or entered into discussion. But in 2008 on the Education Forum Jack White told of getting this email from another researcher:

"In a recent email to me researcher Roy Schaeffer wrote in part...

" '... In 1988 I was at the Tippit murder scene that summer. A woman and her son who lived across the street from where Tippit was shot struck up a conversation with me. I learned from her that she was the woman who put a blanket over Tippit. When talking to me she said she noticed a grey coupe blocked the driveway in front of where Tippit pulled up behind the car. She noticed a policeman get out and go toward the coupe. The next thing she noticed was hearing shots. She ran back in the house and got a blanket off the couch and placed it on Tippit." (https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/12363-new-info-on-tippit/). 

Do you know anything about this Bill?

Although some details may be garbled, it sounds to me like hearsay of an additional witness to the presence of Jimmy Burt's car at the scene. However, I think a notion that Jimmy Burt's car was there before the Tippit cruiser stopped or even its odd parking orientation being why Tippit pulled over to investigate, the impression given in this hearsay, is not too likely for this reason: the way the car was parked wrong-way suggests a hurried momentary stop well explained by a murder next to the Tippit cruiser, but makes little sense absent that, even for a brief stop.

Edited July 30, 2022 by Greg Doudna

[Bill Brown]

14 minutes ago, Greg Doudna said:

All this information you bring out is true concerning the conflicting stories. No reconstruction is possible that does not necessarily have Smith and Burt telling fibs, the only question is which ones. I would have no problem with your having them go on foot from 505 E. Tenth if it were not for the testimonies that Jimmy Burt's car was there which I judge credible. I do not see why that somewhat unusual detail would be made up independently by both Jimmy Burt and Frank Wright. And I don't know whether you have seen this before but there is a possible third testimony to that car being there. I don't think this has even been published or entered into discussion. But in 2008 on the Education Forum Jack White told of getting this email from another researcher:

"In a recent email to me researcher Roy Schaeffer wrote in part...

" '... In 1988 I was at the Tippit murder scene that summer. A woman and her son who lived across the street from where Tippit was shot struck up a conversation with me. I learned from her that she was the woman who put a blanket over Tippit. When talking to me she said she noticed a grey coupe blocked the driveway in front of where Tippit pulled up behind the car. She noticed a policeman get out and go toward the coupe. The next thing she noticed was hearing shots. She ran back in the house and got a blanket off the couch and placed it on Tippit." (https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/12363-new-info-on-tippit/). 

Do you know anything about this or have anything to say about it Bill?

Although some details may be garbled, it sounds to me like hearsay of an additional witness to the presence of Jimmy Burt's car at the scene. However, I think a notion that Jimmy Burt's car was there before the Tippit cruiser stopped or even its odd parking orientation being why Tippit pulled over to investigate, the impression given in this hearsay, is not too likely for this reason: the way the car was parked wrong-way suggests a hurried momentary stop well explained by a murder next to the Tippit cruiser, but makes little sense absent that, even for a brief stop.

I can't be anymore clear than I was in my last post (above).  Jimmy Burt tells Chapman, in 1968, that he and Smith ran from the house at 505 E. Tenth down to the shooting scene one block west.  Burt tells Chapman that moments before the shooting, he noticed the man walking west on Tenth Street as the man was directly across the street from the yard they were in at 505 E. Tenth Street.  Burt also tells Chapman that they stood there looking west along the alley once they had made their way south on Patton a half block.  Burt also tells Chapman that, from the front yard of 505 E. Tenth Street, he said "Billy, that guy just shot that policeman", something he couldn't have known in your scenario.

 

Bill Smith also says they were in the front yard of 505 E. Tenth Street.  Bill Smith said he heard the shots, saw the officer fall and the killer run., something he couldn't have seen in your scenario.

 

[Greg Doudna]

50 minutes ago, Bill Brown said:

I can't be anymore clear than I was in my last post (above).  Jimmy Burt tells Chapman, in 1968, that he and Smith ran from the house at 505 E. Tenth down to the shooting scene one block west.  Burt tells Chapman that moments before the shooting, he noticed the man walking west on Tenth Street as the man was directly across the street from the yard they were in at 505 E. Tenth Street.  Burt also tells Chapman that they stood there looking west along the alley once they had made their way south on Patton a half block.  Burt also tells Chapman that, from the front yard of 505 E. Tenth Street, he said "Billy, that guy just shot that policeman", something he couldn't have known in your scenario.

Bill Smith also says they were in the front yard of 505 E. Tenth Street.  Bill Smith said he heard the shots, saw the officer fall and the killer run., something he couldn't have seen in your scenario.

Bill, OK let me go to this directly. Smith and Burt are at 505 E. Tenth, front yard. They see Tippit's cruiser stop down the block. They hear shots, see Tippit fall, they see the gunman shooting. Burt says "Billy, that guy just shot that policeman" and they run to Burt's car parked at the same house on the corner, maybe parked a few feet away on the west side of Denver. They quickly drive west on Tenth to right in front of the cruiser. They take the car because having a car gives more options than being on foot. The time to get to the Tippit cruiser taking the car might be maybe ca. 30-40 (?) seconds--driving there could hardly be much if any slower than running, and having the car had utility as it turned out--ability to go look for the killer who eluded Burt on foot. Arriving in the car at the Tippit cruiser at about the same time as if they had run, Burt and Smith got there just in time that they could see the killer go around the Davises house on the corner (there would be Smith's also seeing the killer flee as well as Burt, though only Burt gave chase). Burt gives chase, whereas Smith goes to the fallen Tippit to see what assistance might be possible.   

Burt runs to the corner of Tenth and Patton and a little south on Patton perhaps as far as able to look down the alley in a vain attempt not to lose sight of the fleeing killer but it is futile; the killer disappears somewhere on Patton and Burt has lost eye contact with him. Burt returns as fast as he can back to the car, signaling to or meeting Smith on the way back, and they get in the car and take off in hot pursuit.

During the time Burt gave chase to the killer east on Tenth and around the corner on to Patton, Smith went to Tippit. According to the 1968 Chapman interview Burt confirmed Smith did this. Burt said "we" both--Smith and he--"stood there for a few minutes and looked at the body". There is testimony from Burt to Smith's (also Burt's) standing and looking at the body just as Frank Wright witnessed of Smith from the distance, though in this version Burt has himself there too. The "few minutes" Burt says Smith (and Burt) were standing just means some interval of time inconsistent with being a fleeing killer (who would not stick around) but consistent with what Frank Wright saw of the man without a gun that seemed to be looking around. In reality Burt's "few minutes" that Smith (and according to Burt, Burt too) stood over the body of Tippit might be twenty seconds or a couple minutes or anything in between (compare Helen Markham's "twenty minutes" until the police arrived, and Benavides' "a few minutes" wait in his truck cab before going to Tippit's police radio as the first one to try to radio for help, as other examples of time-sense distortion in memory). Jimmy Burt, if he was there with Smith, would be there after he returned from Tenth and Patton. However I don't think Burt stood with Smith there directly for a reason that will become clear.

Smith at the body of Tippit was probably doing the expected: looking to see if he was alive, perhaps was there anything Smith could do immediately of a lifesaving nature; who was the officer. Frank Wright did not see the man (Smith) touch Tippit, just looking. 

What happens next could have two possibilities. One is that Jimmy Burt from a little around the corner on Patton or maybe as far as the alley, turns back, signals to Smith and they both run to get in Burt's car and drive off in search of the killer, after the "few minutes" that Burt says Smith (and Burt) looked at the body of Tippit just as Frank Wright saw. 

However that reconstruction is not in agreement with what Tatum saw his man standing near Tippit's body (Smith) do, which was to run west on Tenth and turn south on to Patton. The second possibility therefore in agreement with Tatum would have Smith, after getting a sufficient look at Tippit to realize it was hopeless and he was dead, and so on, leaves Tippit and runs to catch up with Burt. This entails Smith running in the street west which is what Tatum saw. Tatum saw his man run west then south on Patton out of Tatum's view as Tatum immediately drove forward as soon as he saw the man running in his direction. Out of Tatum's range of vision Smith ran toward Burt on Patton just enough to meet Burt and then together they ran at top speed back to Burt's car and took off as fast as possible, for the same reason Callaway and Scoggins a few minutes later took off in Scoggin's cab, to try to find the killer so he could not escape. This movement of Smith would appear to Frank Wright watching from down the block as Smith running around the Tippit cruiser and getting in the gray car and taking off in the gray car with extreme haste.  

When Burt and Smith could not find the killer (in the car) they parked the car somewhere and again were on foot at the scene of the crime, including telling officers what they had seen or knew of the killer's movements, stopping short of giving identification information but apparently wishing to help short of that.

This still leaves some unexplained questions, principally how did Burt and Tippit know each other; why was Tippit a familiar figure in that neighborhood not in his normal territory; why does Smith in his first interview seem to not want to disclose that his friend Burt saw anything; and why the reticence concerning Burt's car. But those questions aside, this would be the basic framework of movements as best as I can reconstruct.

[Michael Kalin]

On 7/30/2022 at 2:41 PM, Greg Doudna said:

On photographs of William Lawrence Smith, the friend of Jimmy Burt, yes, Myers publishes two photos of him, on pp. 111 and 218 of 2013.

Burt's friend was William Arthur Smith. The bricklayer, William Lawrence ("Red") Smith, was working at 500 E. 10th Street, across the street from the Wright residence. This Smith left for lunch just before Tippit was killed. While heading east toward Marsalis he was passed by a man walking in the opposite direction (west), and on 1/11/64 told the FBI that he felt "sure that the man who walked by him going west on 10th Street while he (SMITH) was going to lunch was LEE HARVEY OSWALD."

Red Smith, the bricklayer, would have destroyed the official timeline, but WC did not call him to testify. Meanwhile no sign of Tatum for 14 years until he states to HSCA investigators on 2/1/78, "Both the squad car and this young white male were coming in my direction (East on 10th Street)." It's an obvious lie from a witness developed by the HSCA for the purpose of propping up the WR Tippit murder scenario, but his appearance at the scene was imaginary. Consequently, every piece of "evidence" he provided is mendacious. He wasn't there.

[Greg Doudna]

14 hours ago, Michael Kalin said:

Burt's friend was William Arthur Smith. The bricklayer, William Lawrence ("Red") Smith, was working at 500 E. 10th Street, across the street from the Wright residence. This Smith left for lunch just before Tippit was killed. While heading east toward Marsalis he was passed by a man walking in the opposite direction (west), and on 1/11/64 told the FBI that he felt "sure that the man who walked by him going west on 10th Street while he (SMITH) was going to lunch was LEE HARVEY OSWALD."

Red Smith, the bricklayer, would have destroyed the official timeline, but WC did not call him to testify. Meanwhile no sign of Tatum for 14 years until he states to HSCA investigators on 2/1/78, "Both the squad car and this young white male were coming in my direction (East on 10th Street)." It's an obvious lie from a witness developed by the HSCA for the purpose of propping up the WR Tippit murder scenario, but his appearance at the scene was imaginary. Consequently, every piece of "evidence" he provided is mendacious. He wasn't there.

Thanks Michael, right, it is William Arthur Smith who was the friend of Jimmy Burt which is the Smith I meant, I corrected the reference. On Tatum as an imaginary witness who wasn't there, I don't buy it. All that work of Tatum, a professional man with a career, for the rest of his life propping up a known fabrication for the purpose of supporting that the gunman arrived from the west to reduce a timing issue with Oswald if the gunman arrived from the east? Tatum's story of his presence there hangs together, no other known record in his life of being a fabricator, and how would it work exactly--Tatum had a handler? Puts himself out there in public for the remaining decades of his life on that story with handlers having no fear he would maybe tell who the handlers were? When no other track record of Tatum being other than a responsible professional man? 

On the gunman arriving from the west seeing what Helen Markham saw, Myers' idea of the man arriving from the east, headed west, and changing directions to head east when seeing the Tippit cruiser prior to the stop, if that is how it worked (is plausible), accounts for what Helen Markham saw and Tatum saying he saw the same thing before he drove through the Tenth and Patton intersection, in a way that still has the gunman as the man seen headed west toward the scene of the Tippit shooting just before the shooting. 

Then there is Benavides who saw Jack Tatum's car--car of same color and make and its movements in agreement with Tatum's story. That's too much coincidence not to be Tatum when Tatum is later found and confirms it. The argument for the gunman not being Oswald does not need to mess with going to lengths to prove timing would be theoretically impossible for Oswald to get there; it doesn't matter whether the timing was theoretically possible or not possible, the real issue is it makes no sense that Oswald was there, no known reason why Oswald would have gone there in the first place. Whereas there is a very good reason why Oswald would go to the Texas Theatre where he did go, for a meeting with someone, which looks like it would have been with Carl Mather of Collins Radio who was seen nearby in a parked car verified to have been there (referring to the car--Mather being the obvious man in the car registered to himself, who left home that morning driving that car), behaving like waiting to appear nearby for a meeting appointment. And a witness, a theatre patron inside the theatre, Jack Davis, credible, told of Oswald showing unusual behavior inside the theatre consistent with looking to find someone he expected to meet. Benavides in 1964:

"I think there was another car that was in front of me, a red Ford, I believe. I didn't know the man, but I guess he was about 25 or 30, and he pulled over. I didn't never see him get out of his car, but when he heard the scare, I guess he was about six cars from them, and he pulled over, and I don't know if he came back there or not."

Edited August 2, 2022 by Greg Doudna

[Ron Bulman]

6 hours ago, Michael Kalin said:

Burt's friend was William Arthur Smith. The bricklayer, William Lawrence ("Red") Smith, was working at 500 E. 10th Street, across the street from the Wright residence. This Smith left for lunch just before Tippit was killed. While heading east toward Marsalis he was passed by a man walking in the opposite direction (west), and on 1/11/64 told the FBI that he felt "sure that the man who walked by him going west on 10th Street while he (SMITH) was going to lunch was LEE HARVEY OSWALD."

Red Smith, the bricklayer, would have destroyed the official timeline, but WC did not call him to testify. Meanwhile no sign of Tatum for 14 years until he states to HSCA investigators on 2/1/78, "Both the squad car and this young white male were coming in my direction (East on 10th Street)." It's an obvious lie from a witness developed by the HSCA for the purpose of propping up the WR Tippit murder scenario, but his appearance at the scene was imaginary. Consequently, every piece of "evidence" he provided is mendacious. He wasn't there.

And!  Tatum saw it all in his rear-view mirror!

[Greg Doudna]

On 8/1/2022 at 9:30 PM, Ron Bulman said:

And!  Tatum saw it all in his rear-view mirror!

Tatum said he brought his car to a complete stop, then turned around and looked after the car was brought to a complete stop. Tatum never said anything about a rear-view mirror.

That is an artifact of later people mistakenly paraphrasing what Tatum said and embellishing it with the rear-view mirror detail.

[edit: Tatum does refer to looking in a rear view mirror, in a video. My apologies Ron.]

Edited October 4, 2022 by Greg Doudna

[Michael Kalin]

Red Smith passed Oswald in the 500 block of East 10th Street, too far away to support Myers' preposterous scheme of changing direction after "seeing the Tippit cruiser prior to the stop." Other witnesses saw the same person walking west on 10th Street east of Marsalis, a location from which the murder site was not visible.

The matter of Tatum's credibility should have been handled by HSCA investigators Moriarty & Basteri. It was their business to confirm & corroborate Tatum's statements.

For example, when a journalist (John Berendt) investigated a possible Vaganov/Benavides connection he arranged a meeting between them. Berendt also obtained information from Benavides that the car he saw was a red Ford with a white roof, possibly a Thunderbird. This is not a match for Tatum's all red Galaxie, but reconciling the two descriptions was a task left undone by HSCA.
https://digitalcollections-baylor.quartexcollections.com/Documents/Detail/misc.-witnesses-igor-vaganov/706450?item=706451

We know this encounter occurred because Benavides immediately phoned it in to the FBI.
http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg Subject Index Files/B Disk/Benavides Domingo/Item 01.pdf

Did Moriarty & Basteri even go so far as to ascertain that Tatum actually owned a red Galaxie in 1963?

Other problems with Tatum's unsubstantiated self-promotion as belated star witness can be found in the Into the Nightmare: A Milestone thread. No point in repeating them here.
https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/27969-into-the-nightmare-a-milestone/

[Greg Doudna]

On 8/2/2022 at 11:50 AM, Michael Kalin said:

Red Smith passed Oswald in the 500 block of East 10th Street, too far away to support Myers' preposterous scheme of changing direction after "seeing the Tippit cruiser prior to the stop." Other witnesses saw the same person walking west on 10th Street east of Marsalis, a location from which the murder site was not visible.

The matter of Tatum's credibility should have been handled by HSCA investigators Moriarty & Basteri. It was their business to confirm & corroborate Tatum's statements.

For example, when a journalist (John Berendt) investigated a possible Vaganov/Benavides connection he arranged a meeting between them. Berendt also obtained information from Benavides that the car he saw was a red Ford with a white roof, possibly a Thunderbird. This is not a match for Tatum's all red Galaxie, but reconciling the two descriptions was a task left undone by HSCA.
https://digitalcollections-baylor.quartexcollections.com/Documents/Detail/misc.-witnesses-igor-vaganov/706450?item=706451

We know this encounter occurred because Benavides immediately phoned it in to the FBI.
http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg Subject Index Files/B Disk/Benavides Domingo/Item 01.pdf

Did Moriarty & Basteri even go so far as to ascertain that Tatum actually owned a red Galaxie in 1963?

Other problems with Tatum's unsubstantiated self-promotion as belated star witness can be found in the Into the Nightmare: A Milestone thread. No point in repeating them here.
https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/27969-into-the-nightmare-a-milestone/

I think you are conflating two issues Michael, the credibility issue of a witness's story and whether he was at the scene at all. I agree on credibility issues. I do not believe Tatum is credible on his Oswald identification of the man he said he saw running around the back of the car after he stopped his car and looked (= witness William Smith, argued above). But that is a distinct issue from saying he wasn't there.

The Nightmare: A Milestone thread to which you refer look to me like arguments for considering Tatum's testimony not credible rather than argument that Tatum was not there.  

You raise an interesting detail, that Benavides said the red car he saw had a white roof. When you say that is "not" a match with Tatum's car, is that certain? If it could be verified that Tatum's car had no white roof, was not two-tone red and white, against Benavides certain that his red car was, that would be of interest. Tatum is not around to ask (was he asked that when he was alive?). I found this article discussing the Benavides car description to which you refer: https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=48708#relPageId=3. In this article it is stated several times that Tatum's car was 100% red and not a two-tone red but the article does not saw how that is known. 

Its not impossible a late-blooming witness such as Tatum could make the whole thing up but in this case there is no evidence or overt specific signal that that is going on, unresolved car color issue aside. It looks like a case of a smart guy who thought it looked like mob or gangland activity and decided to keep quiet for that reason, pretty understandable, but against his wish was later outed. No personal history of fraud or fabrication otherwise in his life showing m.o. or rendering it plausible that he would pull a stunt like newly pretending to be a Tippit crime scene witness 14 years after the fact. No family member or knowledgeable person known to have questioned his story (of being there), which is often the case in actual cases of fabricators. Most important of all, the article just cited above (William Weston, "Was Jack Tippit an Eyewitness of the Tippit Shooting?", claims several instances of Tatum telling others he had been to the Tenth and Patton crime scene on Nov 22, 1963. His wife, the owner and patrons in the Mardi Gras bar, another married couple, though I am not aware of statements from any of those persons corroborating that, most if not all of whom would be deceased now. He apparently told a jeweler about it with whom he had dealings that day which is how HSCA discovered he had a story at all. It would be of interest to know whether Tatum told the jeweler his story just before HSCA learned of it or in Nov 1963, but I don't see verification of that information.

~ ~ ~

EDIT ADDED 8/9/22: I see errors in this thread in my interpretation of what Tatum saw at the crime scene, also the timeline and movements of Burt and Wm Smith (I believe my interpretation of what Frank Wright saw remains correct). I am preparing a rewrite.

Edited August 9, 2022 by Greg Doudna