Derek Thibeault Posted August 16, 2022 Share Posted August 16, 2022 This witness fascinates me. She was in Rush to Judgement and then seemingly disappears. Is it true, no researchers would ever be able to track her down? I am curious - did she have kids or relatives that she may have told about what she saw? Is there no obituary or death record for her? Did she run away due to fear or because she wanted to be left alone? I tried to get info on Ancestry.com, and she is like a ghost. An Acquilla Elizabeth Clemons married a Robert Legway prior to 1963 in Dallas. Do we have other witnesses who seemingly disappeared and can not be accounted for in history? There must be a trail or family members to talk to. A lot of key people have passed on, but they left families with possible info. The Tippit case witnesses are extremely compelling because like what Joseph McBride says it's like Rashomon with their descriptions. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joseph Borelli Posted August 16, 2022 Share Posted August 16, 2022 Agreed her disappearance is fascinating. Is it possible she just changed her name after the threats I'm sure she received ? Its not like her name was John Martin or anything so you'd think she'd be easier to track down with a rare first name like Aquilla . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joe Bauer Posted August 16, 2022 Share Posted August 16, 2022 (edited) The Tippit murder scene eyewitnesses were such a mixed personality and background bunch and with such different testimonies and actions that day. Helen Markham ( bless her stressed out self ) took the cake. Edited August 17, 2022 by Joe Bauer Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Thibeault Posted August 16, 2022 Author Share Posted August 16, 2022 39 minutes ago, Joe Bauer said: I wasn't taken by Aquilla Clemons as a witness as much as others. I think she disappeared after losing her job due to her employer's uncomfortableness toward her notoriety. If she wanted work she learned right away to keep her immediate past behind her, imo anyways. The Tippit murder scene eyewitnesses were such a mixed personality and background bunch and with such different testimonies and actions that day it bordered on humorous. Helen Markham ( bless her stressed out self ) took the cake. Two others grabbed a gun and a car and began to race around looking for that SOB and exact good ole boy Texas justice! "Hey man..what's goin on?" shouted the used car dealer ( It think the car chase feller ) to a running man he described as Oswald. Yeah, Markham was problematic. It's hard to take their testimony at 100% because of the Rashomon effect, but would love to hear what they thought over time or if any were threatened. Did they continue to live in the community? None really pulled a Ruth Paine - they mostly vanished or died. The Tippitt case is so important and so poorly investigated at the time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Thomas Posted August 16, 2022 Share Posted August 16, 2022 (edited) 2 hours ago, Derek Thibeault said: This witness fascinates me. Derek, Acquilla is one of my heroes. FBI 105-82555 Oswald HQ File, Section 218 Memorandum to the Director of the FBI from the SAC Dallas: Page 4 https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=60308#relPageId=69&search=Acquilla_Clemons Fair Play, Issue #34, May-June 2000 Current Section: A Legacy of Fear Page 9 https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=217869#relPageId=9&search=Acquilla_Clemons A Record from Mary's Database https://www.maryferrell.org/php/marysdb.php?id=2433&search=Acquilla%20Clemons Record: CLEMONS, ACQUILLA Sources: Rush to Judgment, Lane (176, 190, 193-4, 200, 274, 280-1, 384); They've Killed the President, Anson (35, 57, 65-6, 351, 353); Coincidence or Conspiracy, Fensterwald (443, 559); Heritage of Stone, Garrison (37, 59); The Assassinations, Scott & Hoch (59); Conspiracy, Summers (120-1); Oswald: Assassin or Fall Guy, Joesten (168); Citizens Dissent, Lane (53) Mary's Comments: In film, Rush to Judgment, she says she was a nurse for Smotherman Family. There was a John B. Smotherman, wife Cornelia, at 327 E. 10th St., Dallas, TX (214) 946-1898. She witnessed Tippit slaying. If the FBI was looking for a Clemmons (with two mm's) They might not have found anyone. Steve Thomas Edited August 16, 2022 by Steve Thomas Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Thibeault Posted August 16, 2022 Author Share Posted August 16, 2022 Interesting spelling it a different way. I find her fascinating. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greg Doudna Posted August 16, 2022 Share Posted August 16, 2022 (edited) Edit: below is not her. Could this be her? Mary Aquila Groves Clemmons (note spellings), 1915-1999, born and died in North Carolina? https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/38251926/mary-aquila-clemmons That that Aquila Clemmons was African American is confirmed by the photo of a brother, James Franklin Groves, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/29310869/james-franklin-groves. The age looks about right for the "Ac(q)uila Clem(m)ons" in the Mark Lane interview video. According to the obituary page, Mary Aquila Groves Clemmons received the name "Clemmons" by marriage, to one Homer Bryan Clemmons. If this is the correct identification, searches for records of her as "Clemons" would not turn up the right person, but also "Aquila" was misspelled. Edited August 17, 2022 by Greg Doudna Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joseph Borelli Posted August 16, 2022 Share Posted August 16, 2022 32 minutes ago, Greg Doudna said: Could this be her? Mary Aquila Groves Clemmons (note spellings), 1915-1999, born and died in North Carolina? https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/38251926/mary-aquila-clemmons That that Aquila Clemmons was African American is confirmed by the photo of a brother, James Franklin Groves, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/29310869/james-franklin-groves. The age looks about right for the "Ac(q)uila Clem(m)ons" in the Mark Lane interview video. According to the obituary page, Mary Aquila Groves Clemmons received the name "Clemmons" by marriage, to one Homer Bryan Clemmons. If this is the correct identification, searches for records of her as "Clemons" would not turn up the right person, but also "Aquila" was misspelled. It definitely could be! But unfortunately if it is her, it doesn't look like she has any surviving children or siblings. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joe Bauer Posted August 16, 2022 Share Posted August 16, 2022 (edited) Please inform me again as to what aspects of Aquilla Clemon's Mark Lane documentary interview recollection statements shook up the general over-all eyewitness testimony to any degree of alternate truth importance outside of her stating an armed man whom she assumed to be a police official came to see her two days after the shooting and told her she should not talk about what she saw or she might get hurt? 3:34 The Witnesses: Mrs. Acquilla Clemons 65K views · Sep 30, 2010 Edited August 17, 2022 by Joe Bauer Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Thibeault Posted August 16, 2022 Author Share Posted August 16, 2022 3 hours ago, Greg Doudna said: Could this be her? Mary Aquila Groves Clemmons (note spellings), 1915-1999, born and died in North Carolina? https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/38251926/mary-aquila-clemmons That that Aquila Clemmons was African American is confirmed by the photo of a brother, James Franklin Groves, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/29310869/james-franklin-groves. The age looks about right for the "Ac(q)uila Clem(m)ons" in the Mark Lane interview video. According to the obituary page, Mary Aquila Groves Clemmons received the name "Clemmons" by marriage, to one Homer Bryan Clemmons. If this is the correct identification, searches for records of her as "Clemons" would not turn up the right person, but also "Aquila" was misspelled. I guess the question is - did this one ever leave North Carolina? I found an Acquilla Clemons marrying a Richard Legway in TX. Again may not be the right one or a second marriage or the right one but that's it. She has an uncommon name. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greg Doudna Posted August 16, 2022 Share Posted August 16, 2022 (edited) 2 hours ago, Derek Thibeault said: I guess the question is - did this one ever leave North Carolina? I found an Acquilla Clemons marrying a Richard Legway in TX. Again may not be the right one or a second marriage or the right one but that's it. She has an uncommon name. Derek, could you say your source for a marriage of an Acquilla Clemons to a Richard Legway in Texas? (Or Robert Legway in your opening post?) Or if you do not have a link or source at hand, can you say as best as you can recall where you remember having seen that? I cannot find these names in any search engine I have tried, including google. Edited August 16, 2022 by Greg Doudna Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Von Pein Posted August 16, 2022 Share Posted August 16, 2022 (edited) http://jfk-archives.blogspot.com/2017/11/acquilla-clemons-and-murder-of-jd-tippit.html Edited August 16, 2022 by David Von Pein Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joseph McBride Posted August 16, 2022 Share Posted August 16, 2022 (edited) Acquilla Clemmons (as I spell her name, although it sometimes is spelled Clemons; her unusual first name derives from "Eagle," which befits her courage and patriotism) was never seen again after doing the interview with Mark Lane at her home in North Oak Cliff on March 23, 1966, for RUSH TO JUDGMENT. I found the unedited transcript of that interview in the papers of the film's director, the radical documentarian Emile de Antonio. I and other researchers have tried to find Mrs. Clemmons. I found some indications that she may have moved to Philadelphia. But given her age at the time of the assassination and the murder of Officer Tippit (she told Lane she was about 55 and had lived in Dallas since she was 15), she would be around 111 if she survives. It is disturbing that she disappeared, let's hope not violently but perhaps having to flee the white supremacist atmosphere of Dallas and the threats against her from the DPD. De Antonio said in an interview with him and Lane for Film Comment's Winter 1966-67 issue that when they went to Dallas to film RUSH TO JUDGMENT, all the tension was around the Tippit murder, not the events in Dealey Plaza. Mrs. Clemmons was a brave woman to keep speaking out about two men she saw as involved in the Tippit murder. She was one of the people to whom I dedicated INTO THE NIGHTMARE. The true heroes of this case are the courageous, honest civilian witnesses who have spoken out in contradiction of the official myth, as well as some insiders such as Roger Craig and the medical personnel in Dallas and Bethesda. Edited August 17, 2022 by Joseph McBride Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James DiEugenio Posted August 17, 2022 Share Posted August 17, 2022 De Antonio did some quite controversial documentary films: on RMN, on McCarthy, on Vietnam. He said, never in his career did he meet the kind of fear and paranoia that he did on the JFK case. And it was worse with the Tippit side. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Thibeault Posted August 17, 2022 Author Share Posted August 17, 2022 4 hours ago, Greg Doudna said: Derek, could you say your source for a marriage of an Acquilla Clemons to a Richard Legway in Texas? (Or Robert Legway in your opening post?) Or if you do not have a link or source at hand, can you say as best as you can recall where you remember having seen that? I cannot find these names in any search engine I have tried, including google. It was on Ancestry.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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