Reconstruction of the shots in the Tippit killing

Greg Doudna · August 15, 2022

Reconstruction of the shots in the Tippit killing

On the assumption that if there were substitutions in the four hulls sent by the Dallas Police to the FBI for examination, any substitutions would be hulls of the same manufacturer (i.e. substitution of Winchester-Western [W] for Winchester-Western, Remington-Peters [R] for Remington-Peters), there were 2 W's and 2 R's found at the Tippit crime scene, but there were 3 W's and 1 R found in Tippit's body at the autopsy. This means there were 5 shots fired, not 4, to account for that. 5 shots were fired, 4 hit, 1 miss (a R). One hull (a W) was either not found that day or was kept by someone as a souvenir and not turned in. 5 shots. The 5 shots agrees with perhaps the most reliable of the earwitnesses, Callaway, who said he heard 5, which he remembered as sounding bam...bam...bam bam bam, 1 then 1 then 3 rapid. However Benavides in his first known telling of his story to authorities, months later in his testimony to the Warren Commission, says he heard just 3. Tatum heard 3 before he stopped his car on the west side of Tenth after clearing the Tenth and Patton intersection, followed by a few seconds delay for the killer to run around the back of the car for a final shot, or 4 total for Tatum.

But entirely independent of the earwitnesses, the physical evidence (autopsy and hull finds) when put together says 5 shots: 4 hits, 1 miss.

The shot into Tippit's right temple was at a steep upward angle, ca. 35 degrees and ca. 46 degrees upward, front and side skeletal views respectively. (All of these degree measurements are my measurements using a protractor measuring Myers' front and side skeletal view schematics, p. 303 of 2013. In the front matter of the book Myers says "all dimensional illustrations and maps were created by the author". These angles-of-degree therefore reflect Myers' shot trajectory illustrations reconstructed by Myers from the written anatomical descriptions in the autopsy report.)

The steep upward angle of the right temple shot is close to the same angle--according to the visual schematics shown in Myers--as one, but not both, of the two shots that went into Tippit's chest entering from Tippit's right side. One of the chest shots is ca. 51 degrees and ca. 38 degrees upward, front and side views respectively. A different chest shot is ca. 13 degrees and ca. 21 degrees upward, front and side views respectively, of Myers on p. 303. (Another body shot hit a button on Tippit's jacket and was described as superficial, not penetrating into the rib cage and no trajectory is given for that bullet.)

The one chest shot hitting Tippit at ca. 13 and 21 degrees upward, close to flat although a little upward, is consistent with a shooter hitting an upright Tippit from the passenger side firing from a revolver just above the hood.

But the other chest shot clusters in agreement with the right temple shot both as suggesting a different position of the shooter (somewhere other than the right front bumper on the passenger side firing over the top of the hood), and that both of those two shots were likely fired from the same (different) position.

shot enters right chest: 51 and 38 degrees upward

shot enters right temple: 35 and 46 degrees upward

Those two shot trajectories do not agree with hitting an upright Tippit from shots fired across the top of the hood but do agree with being fired from a different position, namely, a position in which shots were fired into Tippit prone on the ground by a gunman who was standing.

Myers' explanation for the two distinctively steep-upward trajectories--the right temple shot and one of the chest shots--is inadequate. First, Myers conflates all three trajectories just described as if they are all similar, "consistent with the killer firing from the hip and striking Tippit as he walked around toward the front of his squad car. Each bullet striking the chest enters at about the same angle, moving front to back, slightly upward and to the left" (p. 304). Myers argues--against HSCA which cited the steep-upward of the right temple shot as indicative of a coup de grace while Tippit was on the ground--that "In fact, there are three wounds that slant upward through the body. An examination shows that the angle of the head wound is not significantly steeper than the angles of the two chest wounds."

That description is not accurate according to Myers' schematic, or any other evidence shown by Myers which would conflict with his schematic. Myers talks of chest shots at degrees 51/38 upward and 13/21 upward as if they are both equivalent to the right temple shot's 35/46 upward, and all three compatible with a gunman firing horizontally at Tippit over the top of the hood.

It will not work. Only one of the two chest shots is equivalent to the temple shot's 35/46, and those two are not compatible with being fired over the hood at a standing Tippit.

The problem is in Myers conflating both chest shots as if they are equivalent to the right temple shot when only one is, and then citing that erroneous claim of equivalence as an argument that therefore all three could be fired horizontally over the top of the front hood, when that conclusion works for only one of those shots, the 13/21 chest shot, but not the other two.

Myers' claim that "the angle of the head wound" (35/46 degrees) "is not significantly steeper" than the angle of the chest wound which had 13/21 degrees, that both of those angles are "about the same angle", prima facie is not the case. The autopsy report of Dr. Rose also showed a difference in description of trajectory of the two chest shots (emphasis added):

"The wound described as No. 2 [= the 13/21] ... pursued a course very slightly upward, to the left, and backwards."

"Wound No. 3 [= the 35/46] ... pursues a course backward, upward, and to the left"

Tatum

In a Nov 18, 2018 blog post Myers presented an update concerning the Jack Tatum story (http://jfkfiles.blogspot.com/2018/11/jack-ray-tatum.html). In a Nov 6, 2020 comment to that post Myers also corrected two expressions attributed by Myers to Tatum in quotation marks in With Malice, citing an interview by himself of Tatum of March 3, 1982, now corrected to not said by Tatum. There was a contradiction between the 2018 blog post (in which Myers said Tatum never claimed he saw the final shot was to the head) and the earlier With Malice in which Myers had verbatim quotes of Tatum saying that. A commenter called this to Myers' attention in 2020 and Myers replied that those quotations from Tatum in With Malice were errors and not quotations. Myers' conclusion in the 2018 update seems to emphasize more skepticism of Tatum's story than did With Malice though treatment of Tatum's story there also was equivocal. Myers in 2018: "there is nothing that disproves [Tatum's story] with absolute certainty. Conversely, there is nothing that supports it."

In the 2018 blog update, Myers remarkably suggests that both of the steep-upward trajectory shots could have hit Tippit when Tippit was in a non-prone position, while Tippit was falling: "Moriarty and the HSCA apparently failed to consider that the upward trajectories of the bullets--including the fatal head wound--could easily be attributed to the fact that Tippit was falling away from Oswald as the bullets struck".

Myers claims all three bullets had upward trajectories, not just the one in the right temple, as cause for discounting the argument that the steep upward trajectory suggested a coup de grace shot into Tippit's right temple when Tippit was prone. But Myers misstates the argument, for both chest shots do not have steep upward trajectories, only one of the two chest shots does. One has a steep upward trajectory effectively identical to the steep upward trajectory of the right temple shot. But the other does not; it has only a slight upward trajectory, not steep.

From this data a solution to the shots emerges which I believe Myers missed. It never made much sense that Tippit could be hit with four shots from over the top of the hood, one of which was into the right temple, etc., before Tippit would fall below line of fire, below the level of the hood. How could Tippit get hit with four shots over the hood, including one directly into the right temple and brain, and two body shots striking vital organs, and Tippit not go down below the level of the hood of the car, through the duration of those shots? It makes no sense. Any one of those three shots would take Tippit down if hitting Tippit when Tippit was upright.

The reconstruction here is 5 shots in which the first 3 were fired over the top of the hood, then the killer went around the rear of the car as seen by Tatum and partly seen also by Helen Markham, went up close to Tippit prone on the ground and fired the final 2 shots into Tippit's prone body at closer range (hence the steep upward trajectories of two, not just one, of the bullets). What Tatum saw as a final 1 was actually a final 2. What Callaway heard as "bam...bam..." followed by a final rapid "bam bam bam" was actually "bam...bam...bam..." the first three, followed by a rapid "bam bam" final two. And of the first three over the hood, one hit Tippit's button and would have only stunned not killed Tippit, and another missed altogether, likely because Tippit was falling at the time the missed shot was fired, therefore the missed shot would not have been #1, and likely was #3.

Shot #1 is fired over the hood just as Tippit goes around his car door which he partly but not fully closes, as traffic may be driving by in a street with parked cars (discussed, With Malice, 121). Shot #1 is the one that hits Tippit in his jacket button which wallops Tippit but does not seriously injure him due to the fortuitous metal button. The gunman fires #2 which enters Tippit's right side of the chest. This is the bullet in the chest which does not have the unusual steep upward trajectory. This is the bullet into the right chest which has a trajectory (13/21 degrees) consistent with a shot fired over the hood, nearly level trajectory, slightly upward, fired at an upright target.

Tippit now collapses from the impact of that second shot. When he falls he falls below the level of the hood. Tippit's falling becomes the explanation for the missed shot which would be #3, missing because Tippit fell out of the line of fire as the gunman squeezed the trigger for #3. After #3 there is no line of fire ability for the gunman to fire any further shots at Tippit, because Tippit is down. These three shots (#1, #2, #3) are all the shots fired from the gunman in that position.

Tatum fully, Benavides partially, and Helen Markham partially, saw what happened next, before the final 2 shots.

Benavides pulled his truck over and ducked down as soon as he heard shot #1, and only heard but did not see the gunman fire those first 3 shots (though Benavides saw the gunman standing on the passenger side of the Tippit cruiser at the right front bumper, and Tippit getting out of his car, moments before hearing the shots). Benavides says he heard three shots, which would be #1, #2, and #3 just described. Benavides would have heard (because he was right there) #4 and #5 to follow but his memory must have blanked or conflated those final two, because he never mentioned hearing a further distinct final two, in his first testimony or reporting months later. After hearing 3 shots, Benavides says he looked up and saw the gunman turning to the gunman's left and going back to the sidewalk, then a few steps west, then paused. Benavides then said to the WC--his first known report of being interviewed, months later--that the gunman threw out a hull at that point, then walked the further distance to the Davises' house on the corner and threw out more hulls and went around the corner. This is months later testimony. I believe on the basis of the other information here--the evidence that there were 5 shots not 3; and what Tatum and Helen Markham saw--that Benavides after seeing that "pause" of the gunman after taking a few steps on the sidewalk, ducked back down again and did not see what happened with the final 2 shots although he would have heard them, but conflated the hearing of them in memory with the first 3 shots, and remembered only what he saw when he next looked up, which was see the gunman at the Davises' house going around to south on Patton. Benavides may also have been mistaken in where he says he saw the killer throw out the first hull, though Benavides did see the gunman throw out hulls at the Davises' house and Benavides later went and found two of them there where the killer had thrown them.

Tatum after he stopped his car after hearing (not seeing) behind him those first 3 shots (#1, #2, #3), got his car safely to a full stop, then turned around and looked (there was no viewing through a rear-view window in any account told by Tatum). Apart from the issue of his identification of the gunman as Oswald and number of shots, Tatum is a credible and reliable witness, in terms of the gunman's movements, and Tatum gives the complete picture as no other witness does, as to what actually happened. In fact what Tatum saw is supported by the autopsy revealing the trajectories of two of the shots, which we may now identify as shots #4 and #5.

For Tatum saw the gunman, in agreement with Benavides, go down the passenger side of the Tippit patrol car heading west a few steps, and hesitate (= Benavides' pause of the gunman). Then Tatum saw the gunman go around the rear of Tippit's car into the street and east, up the driver's side of the car toward the prone Tippit in the street next to the cruiser. Tatum saw the gunman go toward Tippit on the ground. Tatum seemed to remember the gunman blocking his (Tatum's) view of Tippit's body by where the gunman was standing. Tatum then saw the gunman, standing, shoot from an oblique angle the prone Tippit on the ground. What Tatum saw and thought was only one shot was actually two, shots #4 and #5: one into the right chest of Tippit on the ground; one into the right temple of Tippit on the ground, both steep upward angles consistent only with those two shots having been fired with Tippit on the ground and the gunman standing close to Tippit's prone body. Tippit was not shot in either of those shots when Tippit was upright (as if those shots were fired from a gunman 1 foot tall at about Tippit's knee level shooting upward into an upright Tippit at close range). No, Tippit was on the ground, the gunman was standing near him and that is why there is what would have been, if Tippit had been standing, the steep upward trajectory of those two shots. The trajectory makes sense for the final two shots in agreement with where Tatum saw the position of the killer at the time of the final shot.

After these shots #4 and #5 Tatum saw the gunman turn around and head west on the street again, in his direction. Tatum thought the gunman looked like he was coming Tatum's way, so Tatum quickly drove forward and saw nothing more of the killer except the killer heading south on Patton.

One of the objections raised against Tatum's story is that no other witness saw the gunman go around the back of Tippit's car. That objection may be insubstantial when examined closely. First of all, there was a shot into Tippit's right temple at a steep upward angle, also a shot into Tippit's right chest, that requires the gunman to have fired those while Tippit was prone. Those two shots cannot have been fired from across the hood where witnesses saw the gunman when he fired the first shots. Furthermore Tippit is unlikely to have been physically capable of remaining upright while being shot so many times. These considerations mean the gunman necessarily did move from his original shooting position, to be able to get access to line of fire to Tippit, who was then lying on the street, for shots #4 and #5. This means the gunman either went around the front of the car or around the rear of the car, one or the other--there are no other options than those two--in order to shoot into Tippit's right temple and once in Tippit's right chest when Tippit was on the ground.

However, no witness saw the gunman move around the front to deliver two final shots at close range. Whereas Tatum, and in part Helen Markham, did see the killer go around the rear of the car. At this point the position of Tippit's body must be considered, when considering trajectory.

Myers claimed in 2020 an unusual posture or position for Tippit's body in the second sentence below:

"Tippit reportedly was found lying on his left side, chest partially turned downward. His feet were near the left front tire, with the head angled out toward the center of the street. In that position, one of the chest wounds--the one near the right armpit--and the right temple head wound would have been exposed to any shooter firing into the body as it lay on the ground. However--and this is very important--the trajectories extrapolated from both of these wounds would place the shooter in front of the squad car, NOT along the driver's side of the squad car as alleged by Jack Ray Tatum. As I explained in the article above, Tatum's account of the shooting ... does not square with other eye and earwitness accounts, the timing of the shooting sequence and Oswald's escape, or the physical layout of the crime scene." (Feb 1, 2020 comment at the 2018 blog post, emphasis Myers')

Myers' positioning of Tippit's body above is not supported from any witness testimony as to relative position of the head and the feet. (There is only witness testimony to go on since no photographs exist of Tippit's body in situ before ambulance attendants took Tippit away.)

Bowley, who was at the scene: Tippit was "lying next to the left front wheel" (affidavit to DPD, 12/2/63)

Nash and Nash 1964 reporting on Dudley Funeral Home's ambulance attendant Butler's testimony: "The officer lay on his side, face down with part of his body under the left front fender of the police car. Butler and Kinsley rolled him over and saw the bullet went through Tippit's temple".

Frank Cimino, who lived at 405 E. 10th immediately across the street and saw up close: "The officer was lying on his side with his head in front of the left front head light of his car. His gun was out of the holster and lying by his side."

Frank Wright, looking from down the block: "He [Tippit] was on the ground, and then he turned over face down. Part of him was under the left front fender of the car."

(There is a statement in an HSCA interview report of Bowley in 1977 that has Bowley saying Tippit was lying on his right side (https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=149247#relPageId=5). That cannot be correct and must be mistaken. There is no record of Bowley saying that before 1977, or any other witness. It is contradicted by witnesses Benavides and Helen Markham who both saw the bullet hole in Tippit's right temple when they got to the body, which is not possible if Tippit was lying on his right side. It is contradicted by the trajectory of the right temple bullet, and also the trajectory of one of the right chest bullets, both of which must have been fired when Tippit's right side was accessible to a shooter. Tippit was lying on his left side. When witnesses refer to "Tippit" being next to the left front wheel, and "his head in front of the left front headlight", this suggests Tippit's head or upper part of his body, not his feet, were closest to the left front wheel.)

There is a spot which appears to be blood about two feet or so out from the left front of Tippit's cruiser on E. 10th Street, in police photos taken at the crime scene (https://www.maryferrell.org/photos.html?set=WCD-TIPPIT&title=Spot Where Tippit Fell). Scoggins said there was blood at the site of Tippit's body, and Barnes from the DPD crime lab and who probably took the police photos identified the spot on the street in the photo as blood in his WC testimony. Let it be assumed that the blood came from the wound in Tippit's right temple, and that that is the wound Helen Markham meant when she said she saw blood "gushing out" when she got to look at Tippit. By the time Benavides got there he saw Tippit "lying there and he had, looked like a big clot of blood coming out of his head". Both Scoggins and Helen Markham, who testified they saw blood where Tippit was, thought Tippit (meaning presumably Tippit's head or upper body) was located closer to the car than the blood spot in the photo. That could be attributed to an optical illusion caused by Tippit's legs and feet being farther from the cruiser causing Tippit's head to seem closer by comparison. In any case it is hard to know Myers' basis for assuming Tippit's feet were at the location of the left front fender.

A reasonable scenario which would have Tippit's body falling in a position consistent with both the blood spot and what Tatum witnessed would be: Tippit gets out of the cruiser but intends to leave his car door open (so as to keep hearing his police radio, and because the stop will be brief). He gets out of his front seat, does not like a normal driver close the door first before walking forward. Instead, he closes the door only halfway and goes wider around the half-open door, meaning at that point he is farther from the side of the car than a normal person would be getting out of a car. If the door is maybe intended to be left open say 2 feet, the center of Tippit's body might be say 3 feet from the side of the cruiser. Then when Tippit walks forward to go around the left front of his car to speak with the man, he is not walking straight forward but is walking forward at an angle to the right toward the left front of the car. But before he gets there, while walking at that angle, he is shot by the gunman. Assume he falls forward at the same angle and ends up with his head closer to the car than his feet, with head approximately where the blood spot is, and collapsing on to his left side. This would put his body in a position that shots #4 and #5, fired from a shooter's position consistent with where Tatum witnessed the gunman at the final shot, would give the trajectories of those two bullets found in the autopsy.

The bottom line is the position of Tippit's body is uncertain; but what is certain is there were two shots, #4 and #5, fired into Tippit in a prone position, and the strength of Tatum's witness testimony favors those shots into a prone Tippit were fired from the gunman going around the rear of the cruiser instead of going around the front. If however it were to be established that Tatum should be dismissed as a fabricator (no positive reason to suppose so) then shots #4 and #5 could come from the killer moving around the front. The main reason to reconstruct #4 and #5 coming from the gunman having gotten close to Tippit by going around the rear of the cruiser is Tatum's testimony, but in any case the killer fired #4 and #5 into Tippit when Tippit was prone.

The trajectories of two of the shots from the autopsy are in agreement with Tatum's testimony and thereby lend weight in support of the correctness of Tatum's testimony, with respect to the movements of the gunman.

Benavides' not seeing the gunman do that (go up close and fire #4 and #5) may be explained not in terms of #4 and #5 did not happen, but rather as: he ducked down hiding again after briefly looking up to glimpse the gunman retreat to the sidewalk then head west after the first three shots. Similarly Scoggins not seeing the gunman run around the back of the cruiser and fire two more shots may be explained as Scoggins moving to get out of his cab in a hurry after the first three shots. As Scoggins explained, cabbie street sense says in a situation like that a gunman may want to force a cabbie at gunpoint to drive him somewhere, a carjacking with driver included, resulting in possible death to the cabbie--therefore Scoggins wants to be out of and away from the cab. His focus on scrambling to get out of and away from his cab may account for his having missed the gunman go around the back of Tippit's car into the street for shots #4 and #5, before Scoggins sees the gunman heading south on Patton.

Helen Markham partially confirms the gunman went around the rear of the patrol car for shots #4 and #5

Helen Markham, despite being an emotional wreck and getting times and distances distorted, nevertheless saw part of what Tatum saw and functions to lend some confirmation to Tatum's testimony. From her position at the northwest corner of Tenth and Patton, she saw through the windows of Tippit's cruiser the gunman as he talked to Tippit through what looked to her like an open window, which was actually the right front vent window. She described to officers at the scene and later told how she saw the killer leaning over with his arms on the cruiser's right front window "like this" (apparently showing folded arms leaning on the door while talking through the vent?). She saw the gunman take a couple of steps away as Tippit was getting out of his car, and then the gunman shoot Tippit across the hood. So far, the familiar story in agreement with other witnesses.

Helen Markham then says she saw the killer head west and something about stopping and looking at her, and she thought he was coming at her and was going to kill her, whereupon she covered her face and eyes with her hands, apparently expecting to be killed. (Some corroboration for Helen Markham's story on that point: Acquila Clemmons, who was at the same corner as Helen Markham seeing everything Helen Markham saw, probably just west of or behind Helen Markham on Tenth, also said she was fearing the gunman might come and kill her at that same point in time.)

Tatum says he saw Helen Markham with her hands over her face and knew she did not see everything. Helen Markham says she kept her hands over her closed eyes until, after a certain delay realizing she was still alive, opened her eyes and peeked out through her fingers, and saw the gunman headed south on Patton. She missed the gunman going on the north side of the Tippit cruiser and seeing shots #4 and #5 fired because her face and eyes were covered and closed. Like Benavides and Scoggins, perhaps Helen Markham remembered only what she saw, not all of what she may have heard.

Where Helen Markham's story partly confirms Tatum's account is when Helen Markham said the killer looked at her and then started coming at her. She gave conflicting answers in her WC testimony as to how close the killer got to her but she was consistent that the killer not only looked at her but she thought he was actually coming her way at her, even though (unexpectedly and without explanation from her point of view) he did not kill her. Never mind the distance distortion--Helen Markham like many witnesses is not reliable on distance or time duration estimation, she exaggerated at one point estimating the gunman coming to within only a few feet of her (but her eyes were closed at the time!). But the movement itself of the gunman she told was real. What she was actually seeing was the "pause" of the gunman that both Benavides and Tatum saw, before (as Tatum saw) the gunman seemed to decide to go around the back of the car to deliver a coup de grace (actually the final two shots, #4 and #5) after the first three. The gunman indeed may have looked at and seen Helen Markham, or Helen Markham thought he did, whichever it was, terrifying the poor woman mightily, but what Helen Markham thought was the gunman coming toward her was the gunman going around the rear of the Tippit cruiser for the purpose of getting to the other side of the Tippit cruiser. It looked to Helen Markham like he was coming in her direction for her as her last memory before she covered her face and closed her eyes, but he was not after her, he only headed in her direction coincidentally because he had to to go into the street and around the rear of the Tippit cruiser. The last Helen Markham saw the gunman was coming her way, and by covering her face and eyes she missed the killer turning east in the street in order to shoot Tippit two more times on the ground.

Conclusion: five shots reconstruction

By this reconstruction the witness accounts come together and agree with the two unusual shot trajectories found in the autopsy.

Shot #1 -- over the hood; Tippit hit in a jacket button; not fatal but stunning.

Shot #2 -- over the hood; Tippit hit full-on in the side, near-flat trajectory (slight upward, not steep); Tippit staggers forward, goes down.

Shot #3 -- over the hood; misses, due to Tippit collapsing forward at that point.

(Killer unable to fire any more shots because Tippit down, no line of fire from the other side of the car.)

(interim of perhaps ca. 8? seconds in which gunman went around rear of car to fire two more.)

Shot #4 -- close range, Tippit prone; into right chest or right temple (Tippit lying on left side)

Shot #5 -- close range, Tippit prone; into right chest or right temple (Tippit lying on left side)

(Gunman at slow lope goes west in the street back around Tippit cruiser to the sidewalk of Tenth and south on Patton passing through the Davises' yard.)

Further comments and implications

It is not quite clear why the gunman would not go around the front to shoot Tippit down on the ground, instead of the longer way around by the rear of the car, but it seems clear--from the trajectories of two of the shots; from the witness of Tatum and agreement from Helen Markham to the extent that she saw--that that is what happened. Tatum said it seemed as if the gunman hesitated on the sidewalk as if he was deciding what to do. If so, at the position of that "pause" or hesitation of the gunman, it would be about as easy--equidistant--to go around by the rear to get at Tippit than to return and go around the front. Another possibility would be if the front of Tippit's car was physically blocked making it impossible to go around the front, such as if Tippit had pulled up very close behind another parked car (which then left). Another possibility might be the gunman was not sure if Tippit had drawn his own firearm and was alive on the ground and could shoot the gunman if the gunman were to appear around the front, so the gunman went around the rear as a matter of safety and precaution. This final possibility is reasonable and I believe is probably the explanation.
On the fingerprints on the right front fender which came from the same individual who left prints at the right front window, i.e. could be from the gunman, the fingerprint examined by Lutz from the right front fender was a right middle index finger from a right hand, not a left hand. On the assumption that those fingerprints were from the killer, I conclude the killer was left-handed. The killer is standing at the right front fender position of the car on the passenger's side, shooting over the hood. He is holding the revolver in his left hand. After he shoots or as he ducks down in between shots in case Tippit's hand was to emerge over the hood with Tippit's own gun firing back, the killer places his free right hand on the right front fender for balance, then either up again to fire again or to turn to return to the sidewalk, seen by Benavides just as the gunman was turning and going to the sidewalk. Reconstruction of the posture and movements seems to rule out a right-handed shooter having left those right-front-bumper fingerprints, but is in agreement with a left-handed shooter having left those fingerprints.
The reason the gunman would be crouched down in a position to leave fingerprints from a right hand as low as on the right front bumper (not a normal place for a person to put their hand) is because the gunman was using the car itself as a protective barrier or shield behind which to fire at Tippit (who was armed and could shoot back). Those fingerprints were from the gunman and those fingerprints were not from Oswald, q.e.d.

Edited August 15, 2022 by Greg Doudna

Pete Mellor · August 15, 2022

Another very interesting synopsis Greg. Thank you.

Greg Doudna · August 16, 2022

Time span of shots fired over the hood and what it would take to bring Tippit down below hood level

A key point in addition to the steep-upward trajectories of two, and only two, of the shots as determined in the autopsy, consistent with being fired into Tippit from a gunman standing close to Tippit shooting Tippit on the ground--and inconsistent in trajectory with having hit Tippit when Tippit was upright being shot from over the hood as commonly supposed, for both of those shots--is the incongruity of the notion of Tippit remaining upright during all four shots that hit him.

I am unable to find any estimate from Myers as to duration of time from first to last shot, how many seconds. It could be supposed the one miss could be the fifth but that would still have Tippit upright over the level of the hood during four shots in succession from a revolver (not an automatic). How long is it supposed Tippit could take bullets tearing into his upper body and/or head before going down below the level of the hood? If this is addressed somewhere in the work of the Warren Commission or in Myers' work I have missed it. I have been unable to find an estimate from Myers on time duration of the shots fired over the hood.

In the reconstruction I have proposed, that anomaly (in the conventional notion that all shots were fired over the hood into an upright Tippit) is removed. Tippit goes down below hood level after the first direct hit into his upper body (shot #2)--he does not continue to remain upright until after three direct hits to upper body and/or head from over the hood.

Not an automatic

Early ideas which were mistakes, once originated, often have afterlives of almost forever, impervious to lack of positive evidence, and presence of positive counterevidence. That there were early police radio reports that the gunman used an automatic--from Gerald Hill, and from another officer likely reflecting witness Callaway--is true but can be dismissed as evidence. Gerald Hill told so many howlers that were not true that the truth becomes plain that he never looked closely at the first hulls found, did not get his "automatic" report from looking at hull labeling, no matter what he may have later claimed. The early report was just a mistake, for this reason: an automatic would eject hulls at the place where the shots were fired, but the hulls found were not found where the shots were fired, but in the Davises' house yard which is inconsistent with having come from an automatic in the Tippit shooting. This is stand-alone refutation of the automatic idea, combined with no secure evidence for it in the first place beyond the initial police radio report which was mistaken.

Neither officers Poe nor Barnes at the scene nor any other officer when discussing the matter of their marks on the hulls said anything about remembering "automatic" hulls. The problem Poe had was he saw marks on the hulls but could not identify any of the marks he saw as made by himself. He did not say, "hey, this isn't even an automatic; the hulls I had were automatics!" Nor did any of the other officers. It is not as if there is a giant coverup that there was an automatic used. It is that the initial report of an automatic was a mistake, and the evidence that exists says revolver, not an automatic. And I believe the Tippit murder weapon looks like the so-called paper-bag revolver abandoned some time in the hours following Tippit's killing that was found the next morning by a citizen, turned in to the Dallas Police, and vanished into thin air in police custody never to be seen or spoken of again, except in FBI documents. It has the appearance of a weapon having been used in a recent murder which was covered up by the Dallas Police--what recent murder using a snub-nosed .38 Special revolver could that possibly have been consistent with having been found 7:30 am Sat Nov 23 with fruit in a bag on a downtown Dallas street? The point being, if that was the Tippit murder weapon which I think it probably was, that was a revolver, the kind of weapon that killed Tippit, not an automatic.

No second gunman, and Acquilla Clemons

Another early notion for which there is no basis from any crime scene witness is the notion of two gunmen. No witness at the Tippit crime scene claimed to see a second gunman. Acquilla Clemons never claimed to see a second gunman. She never claimed to see more than one gunman, the same gunman everyone else at the scene saw, though she saw some kind of waving or shouting between the gunman and another man running in an opposite direction. Notions that the second man she saw was a second gunman or accomplice came from people like Mark Lane and Garrison, not Acquilla Clemons who only told what she saw and did not give those interpretations. The second man Acquilla Clemons saw was no second gunman and no reason to assume an accomplice either but rather the gunman’s interaction with a witness. Acquilla Clemons was at the northwest corner of Tenth and Patton and it was from that position that she saw what she saw. Myers suggests Acquilla Clemons witnessed an interaction between Frank Cimino and the gunman before the gunman left Tenth. While that is possible, more likely Acquilla Clemons witnessed the interaction between Ted Callaway and the gunman on Patton which Callaway told in his testimony. Both Callaway and Acquilla Clemons even reported independently the identical shouted words: Callaway says he shouted to the gunman, "What's going on?" and the gunman motioned and said something back to Callaway which Callaway could not hear distinctly, then kept going. Clemons says she heard shouted between the two, "Go on!". Same thing, same words! What Callaway shouted as a question, Clemons heard as two words said declaratively, but it is the same thing, the same shouting. Acquilla Clemons said the second man was tall and after the shouting ran in the opposite direction from the gunman. Callaway was tall and after the shouted exchange ran in the opposite direction from the gunman. Check and check and check. Acquilla Clemons confirms Callaway's testimony and vice versa. Acquilla Clemons saw the same gunman and movements and actions of the gunman in agreement with the testimony of the other witnesses, though Clemons' physical description of the gunman as "kind of a short guy", "kind of chunky", "short and kind of heavy" differs from the witnesses who identified the gunman as Oswald who at 5'9" was not normally described as short.

Edited August 17, 2022 by Greg Doudna

Michael Kalin · August 17, 2022

On 8/14/2022 at 11:15 PM, Greg Doudna said:

The shot into Tippit's right temple was at a steep upward angle, ca. 35 degrees and ca. 46 degrees upward, front and side skeletal views respectively. (All of these degree measurements are my measurements using a protractor measuring Myers' front and side skeletal view schematics, p. 303 of 2013. In the front matter of the book Myers says "all dimensional illustrations and maps were created by the author". These angles-of-degree therefore reflect Myers' shot trajectory illustrations reconstructed by Myers from the written anatomical descriptions in the autopsy report.)

There's not much of a chance that such a procedure will yield a result accurate to a single degree. Not doubting your skill with a protractor, but did you take into account that Myers' illustrations might have been off by a few degrees or the possibility of trajectory deflection after impact?

The Tippit autopsy papers can be found here.
https://catalog.archives.gov/id/7461220

Michael Kalin · August 17, 2022

On 8/14/2022 at 11:15 PM, Greg Doudna said:

Frank Cimino, who lived at 405 E. 10th immediately across the street and saw up close: "The officer was lying on his side with his head in front of the left front head light of his car. His gun was out of the holster and lying by his side."

If Cimino's FBI statement was valid it means neither Tatum nor Benavides were present at the scene directly after the shooting. Markham was there and nobody else. Clemons was in front of 327 E. 10th where she worked, on her side of Patton, arriving at the scene a few minutes later.

Neither Markham nor Benavides came close to implying that the gunman ran around the back of #10, either to outflank a down man or otherwise.

This practice of injecting speculative content into statements, giving them a different meaning from what was either actually expressed or unambiguously implied, is questionable at best, but things get worse regarding Hill's statement about the spent shells recovered at the scene. It is not a matter of either hearsay or a fuzzy belated recollection, but a recording of the event. Hill corrected Summers' previous transmission ("And he was apparently armed with a 32 dark-finish automatic pistol which he had in his right hand.") by reporting a direct observation: "The shells at the scene indicate that the suspect is armed with an automatic 38, rather than a pistol." I guess this is much too explicit to conjure a meaning it does not have, but what is the basis for dismissing it outright?

Callaway may have been tall, but he was neither thin nor wore yellow khakis. The other person Clemons saw was short and kind of chunky. This eliminates both Callaway and Oswald as candidates for the persons observed by Clemons, described to interviewers on several occasions.

Greg Doudna · August 17, 2022

3 hours ago, Michael Kalin said:

If Cimino's FBI statement was valid it means neither Tatum nor Benavides were present at the scene directly after the shooting. Markham was there and nobody else. Clemons was in front of 327 E. 10th where she worked, on her side of Patton, arriving at the scene a few minutes later.

I am afraid I do not understand what you mean to say here. Are you recommending accepting, or rejecting, Cimino's FBI statement? FBI of Frank Cimino, 12/3/63:

"He heard four loud noises which sounded like shots and then he heard a woman scream. He jumped up, put on his shoes and ran outside the house, and a woman dressed like a waitress was out in front of his residence shouting, 'Call the police'. She also advised a man had just shot a police officer and stated he had run west on Tenth Street and pointed in the direction of an alley which runs between Tenth Street and Jefferson off Patton Street. He looked in this direction but did not see anyone. He then walked over to the officer and saw he had been shot in the head. The officer was lying on his side with his head in front of the left front headlight of his car. His gun was out of the holster and lying by his side. The officer moved slightly and groaned but never said anything that he could understand. About this time people came from all directions . . ." (https://www.maryferrell.org/archive/docs/010/10408/images/img_10408_421_300.png)

No one has claimed Tatum was present at the scene directly after the shooting, so not sure your point there; Tatum's account was he turned and looked back at the scene after he stopped his car after going west through the Tenth and Patton intersection, before driving away. He said he then did return and go to the scene on foot, but that would be later. Benavides by his own account waited to emerge from his pickup truck, did not step out immediately after the shots, which would be consistent with his stepping out to look at the body after Cimino did, in agreement with Benavides being one of those Cimino said, "about this time people came from all directions".

Also not sure what your point is regarding Acquilla Clemons. Acquilla Clemons was witnessed at the northwest corner of Tenth and Patton by 12-year old Mary Little, as newly brought out in 2020 by Myers at https://jfkfiles.blogspot.com/2020/11/emory-austin-his-daughter-mary-and.html. (Mary Little as an adult decades later failed to identify Acquilla Clemons' photo as the African-American woman she saw at the same corner as Helen Markham but it clearly was Acquilla Clemons.) From that corner Acquilla Clemons was in a perfect position to have seen the interaction between the killer and Callaway on Patton. So I am not sure what your "if-then" logic is actually recommending or advocating that differs from my reconstruction. What is your reconstruction if different?

3 hours ago, Michael Kalin said:

Neither Markham nor Benavides came close to implying that the gunman ran around the back of #10, either to outflank a down man or otherwise.

And your point? Neither of them by their own accounts were looking when Tatum said he saw that happen, which corresponds to the autopsy trajectories for two of the shots indicating they were fired into Tippit while prone on the ground, and difficult to see how those could have occurred from firing over the hood into an upright Tippit.

Therefore the lack of Markham and Benavides reporting seeing what Tatum saw, is not unusual because it is not expected that they would have seen that, when they said they were not seeing anything at that point. The only thing that needs to be explained is why they did not remember hearing those two shots distinctly, but there is nothing needing explaining concerning not seeing them. And on Markham, her intense belief and fear that the gunman was coming at her, personally, after looking at her, I have given what I think is a reasonable possible interpretation of that in agreement with the "pause" reported by two other witnesses (Benavides, Tatum) of the gunman on the sidewalk a few steps down the passenger side of the patrol car, which could be when Markham saw the killer look at her, and then I drew a connection between the gunman not continuing due west to the corner on the sidewalk at that point but resuming movement starting in Helen Markham's direction, as she interpreted it, but which was actually only the first part of the gunman going around the back of the patrol car which Markham did not see fully (because covering her eyes as she said), but which Tatum did see fully. Helen Markham could have imagined or hallucinated the gunman coming for her personally from the gunman proceeding only on the sidewalk, but the interpretation works better consistent with the movement of the killer that Tatum saw.

You and I went through Tatum in a previous exchange. I understand the argument of skepticism toward a witness first coming forth publicly fifteen years later, but I do not understand claims that there are positive or overt grounds for dismissing Tatum's account, that is, overt cause to conclude he was fabricating or being wilfully untruthful or was never at the scene or that the killer going around the rear of the car to fire into Tippit on the ground could not have happened. The several claims of that nature are insubstantial upon examination.

But how do you interpret? Do you agree the head shot into the right temple was a steep upward trajectory (if hitting Tippit when upright)? The autopsy says so. Do you think it more likely that head shot hit Tippit upright or when Tippit was on the ground? And you are correct that Myers' angle-of-trajectory visual schematics are approximations and I do not believe Myers would claim otherwise, however so far as I can tell they are reasonable approximations, and I believe that the one chest shot pictured by Myers with very steep upward trajectory similar in Myers' schematic to the steep-upward head shot, is in agreement with the autopsy description of that bullet's path. Don't just object "margin of error" (of course there is margin of error), the issue is whether Myers seriously erred on one or more of those trajectories, and show it and argue it from the autopsy description if so. So there are three basic questions, which you should at some point positively answer beyond throwing brickbats at a proposed construction: do you see those two steep-upward-trajectory shots as better understood as hitting Tippit when upright or prone? If prone, then which direction did the killer run around the car to get to Tippit to fire into him prone? And finally, how are the witness testimonies to be interpreted in light of your answers to the preceding two questions?

4 hours ago, Michael Kalin said:

This practice of injecting speculative content into statements, giving them a different meaning from what was either actually expressed or unambiguously implied, is questionable at best, but things get worse regarding Hill's statement about the spent shells recovered at the scene. It is not a matter of either hearsay or a fuzzy belated recollection, but a recording of the event. Hill corrected Summers' previous transmission ("And he was apparently armed with a 32 dark-finish automatic pistol which he had in his right hand.") by reporting a direct observation: "The shells at the scene indicate that the suspect is armed with an automatic 38, rather than a pistol." I guess this is much too explicit to conjure a meaning it does not have, but what is the basis for dismissing it outright?

Oh the meaning of Gerald Hill's statement is not in dispute--no injection of speculative content into Gerald Hill's statement; the issue is whether the statement was true. Gerald Hill later said his observation was of hulls on the ground close together which he interpreted as ejected from an automatic before realizing the gunman had not fired from that location, a reason which disappears from the reality of where the killer fired. The Davis sisters-in-law, Acquilla Clemons, Helen Markham, Benavides, other witnesses described seeing the gunman "fiddling" with the handgun, "unloading and loading it" as Acquilla Clemons put it, consistent with reloading of a revolver not an automatic, and so on and so on. Myers 320-323 has the takedown of Gerald Hill's blunder there, no need to repeat all that here. I agree that if Gerald Hill's statement were based on examining the hulls in his fingers and hands and looking at the labeling that would be hard to mistake, but there is inadequate basis or likelihood for supposing Gerald Hill did that, that that happened (and Gerald Hill later said that had not happened). This is not changing the meaning of Gerald Hill's words, it is saying that some of Gerald Hill's words are not true (mistaken). And why did no other officer claim to see automatic hulls? The simplest explanation is because no officer saw automatic hulls.

One objection--you have not raised it but others have--is an argument that it makes little sense for a gunman to have thrown out hulls which could easily be traced to the firearm, at the scene of the crime. The argument is that makes little sense for an Oswald who also keeps his handgun. Since (it is argued) that makes so little sense, therefore planted hulls, witnesses not to be believed and corrupted and inventing stories of seeing the killer unload and reload a revolver, etc and etc.

Well, maybe citing Oswald is a red herring since an argument based on that only works if Oswald was the gunman which we question, so throw out that point and just talk generic "gunman", not assumed to be Oswald. First point is it doesn't matter if it makes sense to us, it happened, because witnesses saw it happen. But second, the premise that there is no logic or method to the madness, is wrong. The observed behavior makes excellent sense if understood, not as done by Oswald, but as done by a professional killer, the killing of Tippit being an execution by a hit man or contract killer. The hulls trace to the murder weapon, but if the murder weapon is ditched or disposed of without prints on it, and is untraceable via its serial number to the killer, which would be pretty close to standard m.o., then no problem. And why would a gunman using a revolver to kill Tippit throw out the hulls and reload immediately? It would be to reload in case of immediate need for further use, or, as may be reconstructed, intent to kill again within minutes, intent to kill Oswald in the theater. The revolver itself after it served its purpose would have been abandoned and may have been the paper-bag revolver found early Sat morning Nov 23 in downtown Dallas a few blocks removed from the Carousel Club.

5 hours ago, Michael Kalin said:

Callaway may have been tall, but he was neither thin nor wore yellow khakis. The other person Clemons saw was short and kind of chunky. This eliminates both Callaway and Oswald as candidates for the persons observed by Clemons, described to interviewers on several occasions.

I think Acquilla Clemons was describing Callaway and the gunman, not Callaway and Oswald. Her descriptions may not be perfect but the gunman who killed Tippit may well have been a little shorter than Oswald, enough that it could be borderline considered "short" for a man; that has other witness support. Who do you think Acquilla Clemons was seeing, and how would you correlate it with the other witness accounts?

Michael Kalin · August 18, 2022

On 8/17/2022 at 7:55 PM, Greg Doudna said:

No one has claimed Tatum was present at the scene directly after the shooting, so not sure your point there; Tatum's account was he turned and looked back at the scene after he stopped his car after going west through the Tenth and Patton intersection, before driving away. He said he then did return and go to the scene on foot, but that would be later. Benavides by his own account waited to emerge from his pickup truck, did not step out immediately after the shots, which would be consistent with his stepping out to look at the body after Cimino did, in agreement with Benavides being one of those Cimino said, "about this time people came from all directions".

Tatum claimed in 1986 that he quickly returned to the scene after the gunman departed, witnessing the cab driver & radio call among other things. He also gave personal assistance to Markham, eventually driving her to police HQ. Here's the link to the interview reports at Armstrong's document repository:
https://digitalcollections-baylor.quartexcollections.com/Documents/Detail/tippitt-shooting-nov.-22-1963/689777

Benavides told WC he "set there for just a few minutes" in his pickup after watching the gunman leave the scene, too frightened to leave the truck because he might "start shooting again" (6H448). During this interlude Cimino & Markham (with or without Tatum) were present at the scene, but this did not embolden Benavides to get out of the cab and walk around. Cimino, from his vantage as he emerged from 405 E. 10th St, would have gazed across the hood of Benavides' pickup to view Tippit's corpse. His path would have taken him within a few feet of Benavides himself sitting behind the wheel, a person he could hardly have missed if only truck & driver had been there at the time. The upshot is neither Tatum's nor Benavides' statements can be corroborated, and Cimino's report gravely undermines both while lending some support to Markham's version of events.

The interesting question relates to the subornation of the respective witnesses. Why was the FBI's briefing of Benavides to supersede Bowley so much more effective than HSCA's briefing of Tatum to supersede Markham? Surely Moriarty dropped the ball by not forcibly impressing upon Tatum the need to refrain from running off at the mouth. I may change my mind about Benavides if someone produces the two statements he gave on the day of the crime (DPD & FBI). As for Tatum, the argument is hopeless. He shot himself in the foot.

Hill told Myers in 1986 that he had "looked on the bottom" of the hull he examined at the scene. This is how he knew it was a 38 automatic.

References:

As any firearms expert can attest, it is very easy to distinguish between automatic shells and revolver shells. Additionally, in a 1986 interview, Hill said he knew the shells were .38-caliber shells because he picked one of them up and examined it. This is significant because .38 automatic shells are marked ".38 AUTO" on the bottom. Hill specifically said he looked on the bottom of the shell that he examined. It is no wonder, then, that Hill got on the radio and said "the shells at the scene indicate that the suspect is armed with an automatic .38."
https://miketgriffith.com/files/malice.pdf

Twenty-two years later, in 1986, Hill admitted to researcher Dale Myers that he made the call. When he was asked how he determined that the hulls were 38 caliber, Hill said, “Thirty-eight’s stamped on the bottom of it. I looked on the bottom.”
Hill’s problem is that the bottom of the hull will spell out for you what type of 38 it is! (See Dale Myers, With Malice, p. 261).
http://jfkfacts.org/jerry-hills-lies-heart-tippit-shooting/

Callaway identified Oswald to WC as the runner he claimed to observe at a distance of 56 feet (3H355). Neither Ted nor LHO answers to the description of short & chunky or tall, thin & wearing yellow khakis. Clemons observed two people near the murder scene, identities unknown. Name them and solve the case. I can't.

Edited August 24, 2022 by Michael Kalin

Greg Doudna · August 19, 2022

1 hour ago, Michael Kalin said:

Benavides told WC he "set there for just a few minutes" in his pickup after watching the gunman leave the scene, too frightened to leave the truck because he might "start shooting again" (6H448). During this interlude Cimino & Markham (with or without Tatum) were present at the scene, but this did not embolden Benavides to get out of the cab and walk around. Cimino, from his vantage as he from emerged from 405 E. 10th St, would have gazed across the hood of Benavides' pickup to view Tippit's corpse. His path would have taken him within a few feet of Benavides himself sitting behind the wheel, a person he could hardly have missed if only truck & driver had been there at the time. The upshot is neither Tatum's nor Benavides' statements can be corroborated, and Cimino's report gravely undermines both while lending some support to Markham's version of events.

The schematics I have seen show Benavides' truck pulled off to the right of the street a bit behind (east) of the position of Tippit's cruiser, for example Myers, 122 (Benavides' truck is in front of the house east of Cimino's building, not Cimino's), whereas Cimino at 405 E. 10th was directly across from the Tippit cruiser. I do not follow your argument that Cimino failing to mention a vehicle stopped or parked in front of a neighboring house is cause to suppose there was none there (if I am understanding your argument correctly).

1 hour ago, Michael Kalin said:

The interesting question relates to the subornation of the respective witnesses. Why was the FBI's briefing of Benavides to supersede Bowley so much more effective than HSCA's briefing of Tatum to supersede Markham? Surely Moriarty dropped the ball by not forcibly impressing upon Tatum the need to refrain from running off at the mouth. I may change my mind about Benavides if someone produces the two statements he gave on the day of the crime (DPD & FBI). As for Tatum, the argument is hopeless. He shot himself in the foot.

I do not follow here either. What FBI briefing of Benavides are you referring to? My understanding is there is no FBI interview of Benavides, nothing from Benavides until his Warren Commission testimony in 1964. Is "FBI" a typo for WC in what you meant? But I do not understand the meaning of Benavides' (WC?) "superced[ing]" Bowley, or Tatum "superced[ing]" Markham. I do not understand what you mean by Tatum should have been exhorted to "refrain from running off at the mouth". I do not understand your reference to DPD or FBI statements of Benavides on Nov 22 for I am not aware he gave any; where are you getting that? I do not understand what you mean by Tatum "shot himself in the foot". In what way? By how soon he said he got back to the scene after reparking?

I know Gerald Hill said that and a lot of other things in 1986. That's like Roger Craig saying years later he saw "Mauser" stamped on a rifle that the Alyea film shows was a Mannlicher-Carcano. Everybody knows Gerald Hill is one of the least reliable DPD sources even in real time, in terms of exaggeration and sloppiness with facts, let alone some detail 23 years later. Hill's contradictory stories of the cigarette package with the hulls being Benavides', or borrowed, or one of his own he pulled out of his own shirt pocket ... he's a raconteur. He's about as reliable as Trump on facts in his stories (I don't mean to compare the two in any other way), in other words, loose correlation between details and reality. Anyway, you can see it your way and I'll stick with mine. I just don't think Gerald Hill ever looked at those hulls personally, whereas all officers who did look at those hulls got it right that they were from a revolver. I don't think it was Oswald's revolver, but I don't doubt it was a revolver.

1 hour ago, Michael Kalin said:

Callaway identified Oswald to WC as the runner he claimed to observe at a distance of 56 feet (3H355). Neither Ted nor LHO answers to the description of short & chunky or tall, thin & wearing yellow khakis. Clemons observed two people near the murder scene, identities unknown. Name them and solve the case. I can't.

Callaway, witness, and Curtis Craford, gunman.

How do you know what color of pants Callaway was wearing, in order to keep citing "yellow" as if that is a falsification of a Callaway identity? Callaway said he was wearing a suit that day but is a color known? The white shirt Acquilla Clemons saw on the second man I interpret as Callaway had his suit jacket off, white shirt only, when Clemons saw him (Callaway with jacket off inside a warm office, hears shots and runs out with shirt only. Did Callaway return to his office and pick up his suit jacket before proceeding around to Tenth to the Tippit cruiser?) "Thin", well Callaway wasn't skinny but he was not obese or portly either (maybe a little), and Acquilla was looking at a distance. Craford may have been closer to ca. 5'7-1/2" based on some descriptions (although an FBI interview of Craford has 5'8"), within threshold of possible "short" description for a man in a way that Oswald's 5'9" is not really. Craford weighed some pounds more than Oswald even though an inch or two shorter, and although Craford was not heavyset, some have reconstructed that the jacket--the whitish or light-tan jacket the gunman was wearing--if billowed out could make him look "chunky" illusorily. Again she is at a distance. Better to match what Acquilla Clemons saw with persons at the scene known from other witnesses, and cut a bit more slack than you are giving on descriptions of a witness who herself repeatedly said she had not paid too much attention to those things, than to propose brand-new individuals present at the scene, that no other witness knows, on the basis of insisting on overly-literal interpretations of Acquila Clemons' words meaning additional personages at the scene. A key point is Acquilla Clemons' gunman is exactly the description of "unloading and loading" a revolver and running west and then south on Patton that the other witnesses, including Callaway, saw of the gunman. It is not as if Acquilla Clemons saw a gunman no other witness saw, and other witnesses failed to see the gunman Acquilla Clemons saw.

Michael Kalin · August 19, 2022

If the schematics are not based on actual measurements taken when the truck was parked in situ they have little value. Even so, here's an exercise: draw a line on a schematic from Cimino's front door to #10's left front wheel. How close (in feet) does it come to Benavides' pickup?

Leavelle's Supplementary Offense Report of 11/22/63 states that "Another witness who saw the officer lying in the street, but did not see suspect, was a Domingo Benavides..." and contains no reference to his pickup. It also says Benavides made an affidavit. I do not have a link to the report. Incidentally, Leavelle's case report does not list Benavides as a witness. Bowley made the cut, even Guinyard, which is interesting. Guinyard saw Benavides arrive at the scene in his pickup after the shooting.

The critical FBI document can be found among Weisberg's papers at Hood.
http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg Subject Index Files/B Disk/Benavides Domingo/Item 01.pdf

Evidently Weisberg did not reckon with the implications of this memo, but he was somewhat obtuse regarding the Tippit murder.

1. Benavides had given a statement to the FBI on 11/22/63.
2. Benavides kept his FBI handlers abreast of developments.

In short he operated as an FBI informant.

Re the yellow khakis:

"One man, she said, seemed to be talking to a second man, who was tall and wore yellow khaki pants and a white shirt."
Praise From A Future Generation" by John Kelin, p. 95

At this point you may wish to reevaluate Myers' contribution to Tippit research. Much of it is worthless.

Edited August 19, 2022 by Michael Kalin

Greg Doudna · August 20, 2022

48 minutes ago, Michael Kalin said:

If the schematics are not based on actual measurements taken when the truck was parked in situ they have little value. Even so, here's an exercise: draw a line on a schematic from Cimino's front door to #10's left front wheel. How close (in feet) does it come to Benavides' pickup?

Leavelle's Supplementary Offense Report of 11/22/63 states that "Another witness who saw the officer lying in the street, but did not see suspect, was a Domingo Benavides..." and contains no reference to his pickup. It also says Benavides made an affidavit. I do not have a link to the report. Incidentally, Leavelle's case report does not list Benavides as a witness. Bowley made the cut, even Guinyard, which is interesting. Guinyard saw Benavides arrive at the scene in his pickup after the shooting.

The critical FBI document can be found among Weisberg's papers at Hood.
http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg Subject Index Files/B Disk/Benavides Domingo/Item 01.pdf

Evidently Weisberg did not reckon with the implications of this memo, but he was somewhat obtuse regarding the Tippit murder.

1. Benavides had given a statement to the FBI on 11/22/63.
2. Benavides kept his FBI handlers abreast of developments.

On the Benavides 2/20/67 phone call to the FBI, he refers to having been "interviewed by the FBI on a prior occasion, during the assassination investigation because he was a witness to the Oswald - Tippit killing", however there is no date attached, so your conclusion that he gave a statement to the FBI on 11/22/63 is not supported from the document cited. CE 2011 says Benavides was interviewed by FBI agent Odum on 6/11/64 asking Benavides to identify cartridge hulls found at the Tippit crime scene (https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=211236#relPageId=34 ). Since there is no other known FBI interview or contact with Benavides, the FBI interview with him of 6/11/64 of CE2011 would seem to be the Benavides reference in 1967 to an earlier FBI contact. There is no reference to any other contacts between Benavides and FBI before his phone call in 1967. Therefore I think you are overinterpreting in referring to Benavides having "FBI handlers" on the basis of a citizen's phone call in 1967, and I fail to see either of the two implications you see as derivative from the facts cited. I do not understand your first question asking how many feet away was Benavides' pickup; maybe say your point? On whether Benavides saw the gunman, it looks to me like he did but falsely claimed he didn't at the beginning, then in his WC testimony told that he did.

Michael Kalin · August 21, 2022

On 8/19/2022 at 8:37 PM, Greg Doudna said:

On the Benavides 2/20/67 phone call to the FBI, he refers to having been "interviewed by the FBI on a prior occasion, during the assassination investigation because he was a witness to the Oswald - Tippit killing", however there is no date attached, so your conclusion that he gave a statement to the FBI on 11/22/63 is not supported from the document cited.

Please read the document again. Last sentence first page says Benavides made "his statement to the FBI on the date of the assassination." Here it is (with typos, emphasis added):

It was BENAVIDES belief that BERENDT was trying to place VAGANOV at the scene possibly as the mand in the "red Ford" which he (BENAVIDES) had eluded to in his statement to the FBI on the date of the assassination.

Crafard may be sufficiently malleable to morph him into a chunky gunman, but the memo is written in straightforward declarative English. The meaning is unambiguous. No amount of interpretation can convert "the date of the assassination" into anything but 11/22/63.

Greg Doudna · August 21, 2022

8 hours ago, Michael Kalin said:

Please read the document again. Last sentence first page says Benavides made "his statement to the FBI on the date of the assassination." Here it is (with typos, emphasis added):

It was BENAVIDES belief that BERENDT was trying to place VAGANOV at the scene possibly as the mand in the "red Ford" which he (BENAVIDES) had eluded to in his statement to the FBI on the date of the assassination.

Crafard may be sufficiently malleable to morph him into a chunky gunman, but the memo is written in straightforward declarative English. The meaning is unambiguous. No amount of interpretation can convert "the date of the assassination" into anything but 11/22/63.

I see your point Michael and I have nothing against Benavides talking to the FBI on the day of the assassination if he did, but I honestly think that is a mistake, not in your reading, but in the choice of words or expression of the author of that 1967 FBI memo, FBI agent Hodgens. I think the sense of what Benavides meant was in reference to the "red Ford" that Benavides said he had seen on the day of the assassination, in his Warren Commission testimony. Hodgens in 1967:

"Benavides furnished the above information to the FBI indicating that he had a photograph of Vaganov which had been left with him by Berendt. Benavides stated if the FBI desired the photograph they could have it any time they wanted to pick it up. In conclusion, Benavides stated that Vaganov appeared familiar to him for some reason, but he can not state now where he has seen him in the past. It was Benavides belief that Berendt was trying to place Vaganov at the scene possibly as the man in the 'red Ford' which he (Benavides) had eluded [sic] to in his statement to the FBI on the date of the assassination."

So I am not faulting your statement that, as it stands, it does appear to read as a statement that Benavides gave a statement to the FBI on the date of the assassination (although the syntax could also be read as the "red Ford", not the "statement to the FBI", being "on the date of the assassination"). But I think the way that is worded is a misunderstanding on the part of Hodgens. ~~It makes no sense that the FBI would be talking to Benavides on Nov 22, 1963 since FBI had not started talking to any Tippit crime scene witnesses that early, and because t~~[T]here is no record of any FBI interview with Benavides on Nov 22, 1963. And the specific reference to Benavides alluding (not "eluding") to a red Ford "in his statement" is Benavides in his testimony to the Warren Commission, not the FBI in any known FBI record.

That is, Benavides alluded to a red Ford on the date of the assassination (= car of Tatum) in his statement (to the Warren Commission), and he "had been interviewed by the FBI on a previous occasion" (6/11/64 by Odum re cartridge hulls), and the agent misconstrued that into the words above. To me that makes better sense than that the FBI interviewed Benavides on Nov 22, 1963. I think you will agree that FBI agents writing memos or interview reports are not infallible, and that from what Benavides told Hodgens (and Hodgens not having personal knowledge of what Benavides was telling from 1963 and 1964) it would be an easy garbling for Hodgens to misunderstand, just as Hodgens erred in writing "eluding" for "alluding".

Edited August 21, 2022 by Greg Doudna

Michael Kalin · August 21, 2022

5 hours ago, Greg Doudna said:

It makes no sense that the FBI would be talking to Benavides on Nov 22, 1963 since FBI had not started talking to any Tippit crime scene witnesses that early, and because there is no record of any FBI interview with Benavides on Nov 22, 1963.

Not so. Markham gave a statement to SA Odum on 11/22/63:
https://catalog.archives.gov/id/7460725
The Odum report is the fourth item, dated 11/22/63, visible at the bottom of the page. Nothing prevented him or someone else from interviewing Benavides the same day. The fact that "there is no record of any FBI interview with Benavides on Nov 22, 1963" indicates the report was destroyed before compilation.

As for Hodgens' memo the typo ("eluding") is irrelevant, same as the typo "mand" for man. These errors were committed by the typist (initials "bkg") and have no impact on the meaning of the content. OTOH pretending the critical phrase ("in his statement to the FBI") does not appear before "on the date of the assassination" violates the structure of the document. The latter phrase modifies the "statement," not the "red Ford" of the sentence's preceding clause. That's how English works.

You persist in parking Tatum's Galaxie in this space despite a failure to deal effectively with the massive objections to Tatum's presence at the scene. How is that? Naming a single witness who saw him there and identified him would shore up your shaky argument.

Edited August 21, 2022 by Michael Kalin

Greg Doudna · August 21, 2022

2 hours ago, Michael Kalin said:

Not so. Markham gave a statement to SA Odum on 11/22/63:
https://catalog.archives.gov/id/7460725
The Odum report is the fourth item, dated 11/22/63, visible at the bottom of the page. Nothing prevented him or someone else from interviewing Benavides the same day. The fact that "there is no record of any FBI interview with Benavides on Nov 22, 1963" indicates the report was destroyed before compilation.

As for Hodgens' memo the typo ("eluding") is irrelevant, same as the typo "mand" for man. These errors were committed by the typist (initials "bkg") and have no impact on the meaning of the content. OTOH pretending the critical phrase ("in his statement to the FBI") does not appear before "on the date of the assassination" violates the structure of the document. The latter phrase modifies the "statement," not the "red Ford" of the sentence's preceding clause. That's how English works.

You're right on the FBI interview of Helen Markham on 11/22/63. I wonder where that occurred, at the Dallas Police station when Markham was there doing the lineup? (Benavides was not there for those lineups.) I still think it more likely Benavides was not interviewed by FBI on 11/22/63 since there is no FBI document for it and that the 1967 Hodgens was a misunderstanding by Hodgens, but I suppose the other possibility of a secret FBI interview of Benavides on 11/22/63 with destroyed document, that Hodgens never got the memo should not have been mentioned in Hodgens' 1967, is possible, I don't know. Let's suppose you are right. What is it you can cite of the contents of that destroyed, now non-existent, interview document of 11/22/63, that can contribute information to anything, if what you hold is correct? i.e. where do you go with it if it was as you say?

2 hours ago, Michael Kalin said:

You persist in parking Tatum's Galaxie in this space despite a failure to deal effectively with the massive objections to Tatum's presence at the scene. How is that? Naming a single witness who saw him there and identified him would shore up your shaky argument.

Persist in seeing it as credible yes, as the car in front of Benavides described by Benavides in his WC testimony. I have not seen you give any "massive objections to Tatum's presence at the scene". The objection of red-and-white two-tone later description of Benavides is not substantial unless it is first established that Tatum's red Galaxie was not two-tone, etc. I don't care whether Tatum was there or not actually, but I don't understand the claims that there are "massive objections" to his having been there. Could you be specific? As for naming a witness or attestation to his being there, if he never gave his name and left, which is what he says he did and is believable (other witnesses do that), what does it prove that no one there mentioned him by name? There is an unidentified person told by Gerald Hill in Hill's WC testimony which agrees with what Tatum said of himself at the scene (though this person could be someone else); Hill: "The first man that came up to me, he said, 'The man that shot him was a white male about 5 foot 10 inches, weighing 160 to 170 pounds, had on a jacket and a pair of trousers, and brown bushy hair.' I turned this man over to Officer Joe Poe, who had just arrived. I didn't even get his name."

I hope it is clear that in my view the two final shots of the killer as fired into Tippit on the ground, in the manner of a professional execution, is established from the trajectory of two bullet paths found in the autopsy, whether or not Tatum saw movements of the killer in agreement with that interpretation of the information from the autopsy. I am influenced in favor of credibility of Tatum (in the absence of known reason not to be) by what Tatum said he saw being in agreement with that information from the autopsy--which Tatum could not have known at the time Tatum was found and interviewed by HSCA since the autopsy was not released until the 1980s.

Edited August 21, 2022 by Greg Doudna

Greg Doudna · August 22, 2022

Direct calculation of bullet trajectories from the autopsy information

This is calculation direct from the Tippit autopsy measurements reported by Dr. Rose, and can be done by anyone, bypassing Myers' schematics. The question here is the upward angle of elevation starting from where the bullet entered if Tippit were upright. The angles calculated assume the bullet enters at the same angle or path the bullet takes after entering the body (in reality bullets do not always continue straight). The Tippit autopsy: https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth338568/.

For what the autopsy refers to as Wound No. 1, the head shot entering at the right temple: it entered 4.75" below the top of the head and was found almost passed through the head at 1" below the top of the head, for a "rise" of 3.75". It entered 3.75" to the R of midline and ended 3" to the L of midline. Here an estimate must be made of how long the "run" or length traversed of that bullet was in Tippit's head, for a man 5'11" height and 180 pounds. An estimate of 7" from skin to skull exit and subtracting 1" because the bullet did not exit gives an estimate of ca. 6" "run". Using an online elevation grade calculator such as here, https://www.omnicalculator.com/construction/elevation-grade (plug in your own different or improved estimates and see the differences), that Tippit head shot has an angle of rise of 32 degrees angle if that hit Tippit when he was upright.

For what the autopsy refers to as Wound No. 2, the almost horizontal chest shot entering at the right side, it entered 17" below the top of the head and ended 16" below the top of the head, 1" rise, with an estimate of 9" if it had exited minus an arbitrary 1" because it did not exit, estimated 8" run, giving an angle of rise of 7 degrees for an upright Tippit.

For what the autopsy refers to as Wound No. 3, the other chest shot entering the right side, it entered 21" below the top of the head and ended 16.5" from the top of the head, a rise of 4.5". Again the run is estimated at 8", and that gives an angle of rise of 29 degrees for an upright Tippit. There is no information in the autopsy as to in which order these wounds occurred.

So that is angles of elevation of 32, 7, and 29 by these rough calculations, compared to angles of Myers' schematics for the same respectively measured at ca. 35, 13, and 51. It can be seen there is good agreement with Myers' schematic for the first two but a significant difference for No. 3 (29 versus 51). I do not know why there is that difference in No. 3 (i.e. do not know how Myers arrived at the angle in his schematic for No. 3).

However the point remains: of these three bullet trajectories, only one is obviously compatible with an over-the-hood horizontal shot into an upright Tippit (No. 2). The other chest shot (No. 3) clusters not with the first chest shot (No. 2) but with the coup de grace to the temple, a completely sensible and indicated angle for both of those two shots, not simply the temple shot, fired into Tippit on the ground from a shooter standing nearby and almost over him.

I suppose one could hypothetically have autopsy No. 2 hit Tippit fully upright, knocking Tippit over to his left, and then No. 3 hit Tippit again from the right side as he was in free fall to the left accounting for that angle of entry. However that would still leave explained the temple shot, the coup de grace, and since the No. 3 chest shot is effectively the same angle as the temple coup de grace, it makes sense that it was fired at the same time and from the same shooter's position.

So the reconstruction holds: three shots fired from over the hood (one into Tippit's chest, one blocked by a button, and a miss) and a final two shots from a closer position in which the gunman was standing shooting into a prone Tippit who had fallen on his left side.

Myers' positioning of Tippit's prone body: I think I found where he got that

I noted above that Myers had written in 2020, "Tippit reportedly was found lying on his left side, chest partially turned downward. His feet were near the left front tire, with the head angled out toward the center of the street." I did not see an explanation or understand how Myers got that (there is no photo of Tippit's body before it was removed by the ambulance). However I think I found where that may come from: an interview of ambulance attendant Eddie Kinsley from the Dudley Funeral Home, Tippit 2.pdf at https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/11VbgFnRlaInmLoE6_fKcY-T965DmBrEG. It appears to be a transcript of a recording, date not clear, there is a 1996 date on a printout. Kinsley:

"And it was in the middle of a block there where Tippit's police car was. And he was partly under the car. From his knees down was under the left hand wheel of the car."

Since there was a blood spot on the street 2 or 3 feet removed from the left front of the car and the blood spot probably came from the head wound, based on the Kinsley description Tippit would have fallen with his upper body and head a little out from the car but feet and lower legs sprawled behind the left front wheel under the car.

If Tippit fell such that he landed on his back initially facing up before rolling over to be on his left side after being shot, the shooter could have shot into his right side on both of those final two shots from a position on the west side from coming around the back of the patrol car. Some witnesses did seem to see the body of Tippit move after the shots. If however Tippit was already on his left side before the final two shots, it would mean that the shooter will have had to have shot from east or south of the body, not west or north, to agree with the trajectories, and in that case either the gunman came around the front, or the gunman came around the rear of the car and went around Tippit's prone body before firing two final shots westward or northward into Tippit's right side and right temple.

Edited August 22, 2022 by Greg Doudna

Reconstruction of the shots in the Tippit killing

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