A question for the LNers regarding the Backyard Photographs

[Gil Jesus]

In his report on the assassination, Captain Fritz reports that he questioned Oswald on Saturday November 23rd at 12:35 pm about where he ( Oswald ) "was living when the picture was made of him holding the rifle...." ( Report, pg. 607 )

But according to the FBI, the officers who conducted the search of the Paine residence on Saturday didn't find the photograph until 3:20pm.

In fact, Detective Stovall, who was involved in the search, testified that the police did not arrive at the Paine residence until 1:30 or 2:00 pm.

So my question is this: How did Capt. Fritz know about the existance of a photograph showing Oswald holding a rifle "which looked to be the same rifle we had recovered", almost three hours before the photograph was found by his detectives ?

 

[Tom Gram]

There was this guy Jerry O’Leary, a reporter who insisted he saw one of the BYPs in the hands of police on either Friday night or Saturday morning:

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=61493#relPageId=190

[Mark Ulrik]

1 hour ago, Gil Jesus said:

So my question is this: How did Capt. Fritz know about the existance of a photograph showing Oswald holding a rifle "which looked to be the same rifle we had recovered", almost three hours before the photograph was found by his detectives ?

Turn to page 628 of the WR. According to Inspector Kelley (USSS) the question of the location of the backyard came up during a later interrogation session. We seem to have conflicting accounts of the timing. Whose is supported by other evidence?
PS: Why do you always use a much larger font than everyone else?

Edited August 18, 2022 by Mark Ulrik

[Gerry Down]

Two different sessions possibly?

In the first session did Fritz ask Oswald about the different places he had lived in order to find out where the photo had been taken, but never actually showed Oswald the photo or told him about it.

Then in the second session Fritz brings out the photo and shows it to Oswald.

I wonder if Oswald had a copy of the backyard photo at 1026 north Beckley and this was found in one of the Friday searches of his room there.

[Gil Jesus]

2 hours ago, Tom Gram said:

There was this guy Jerry O’Leary, a reporter who insisted he saw one of the BYPs in the hands of police on either Friday night or Saturday morning:

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=61493#relPageId=190

Michael Paine was another person who claimed to have seen the same "picture on the cover of Life" ( magazine ) "the  first night of the assassination" and was asked to identify the location by police. He recognized it as a "small clapboard structure" being the apartment house on Neely St. 

Paine's ID of the Neely St. address is supported by Fritz's report noted above that prior to his interview of Oswald, "Mr. Paine told me about where Oswald lived on Neely St." and when he confronted Oswald about the address that "Oswald was very evasive about this location" when questioned about it.

The point is that O'Leary and Paine both saw the pictures before they were officially found and it's clear that they had the photographs on Friday night.

My guess is that they found them after Ruth Paine told them to stop searching. They were doing a "consent search", the consent given by Mrs. Paine, which means when Mrs. Paine said stop, they had to stop. The problem with a consent search is that they can go anywhere and take anything. With a search warrant, they have to tell a judge specifically what they're searching for and the warrant limits where they can search.

For example, if they were looking for a stolen car, they couldn't look in Mrs. Paine's bedroom dresser drawer. But if they were looking for stolen car parts, they could search inside furniture.

When Mrs. Paine saw them walking out of her house with HER belongings, she got pissed and put an end to the search. If they found these photos after she ended the search, technically, they would have obtained them illegally and it would make sense why they claimed they found them on Saturday, when they HAD the search warrant.

Regardless of the reason, it's obvious that police lied about when they found the evidence and I'm confident a good lawyer would have been able to prove these photos were obtained illegally and have them disqualified as evidence at a trial.

Edited August 18, 2022 by Gil Jesus

[Guest]

Those pictures were a big mess, in the end everybody had one (including Marina, she was said to have one in her shoe when visiting Oswald)

They ended up with (for all I know) :

Prints :

133-A / 133-A DeMöhrenschildt / 133-A Stovall / 133-B / 133-C / 133-C Dees

+ all the re-prints and copies made for CIA, FBI, press, etc (the 134, not sure about those numbers)

Negatives :

DPD said they found 2 BY.Neg.,but only 1 made it to the Warren C. ??

 

With so many copies, who's going to tell what's original and what's not.

 

I believe DPD in general made one big mess of the whole case... they wanted a confession

above anything.  The Fritz-attitude I guess...

 

 

 

 

[Guest]

Just to complete the topic

 

 

Edited August 24, 2022 by Jean Paul Ceulemans
Pictures removed to save space

[Gil Jesus]

43 minutes ago, Jean Paul Ceulemans said:

Just to complete the topic

And while we're at it, let's throw one more report in there for good measure. This one comes from the papers of Capt. Will Fritz and is a report by SS agent Thomas Kelley who was present during Fritz's interrogation of Oswald on November 23rd ( Saturday ). Kelley reports that at the 6pm interrogation, Fritz showed Oswald "blowups" of the photographs showing him holding a rifle and a pistol.

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=29106

The fact that the Dallas Police had the ability to blow up the pictures indicates the department had the capability to alter photographs.

Oswald responds that he was photographed a number of times on Friday by police who superimposed on the photographs a rifle and "PUT A GUN IN HIS POCKET". This is a curious statement.

If Oswald had the gun in a holster when the pictures were taken, why would he think the gun in the picture was in his pocket ?

Edited August 18, 2022 by Gil Jesus

[Tom Gram]

5 minutes ago, Gil Jesus said:

And while we're at it, let's throw one more report in there for good measure. This one comes from the papers of Capt. Will Fritz and is a report by SS agent Thomas Kelley who was present during Fritz's interrogation of Oswald on November 23rd ( Saturday ). Kelley reports that at the 6pm interrogation, Fritz showed Oswald "blowups" of the photographs showing him holding a rifle and a pistol.

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=29106

The fact that the Dallas Police had the ability to blow up the pictures indicates the department had the capability to alter photographs.

Oswald responds that he was photographed a number of times on Friday by police who superimposed on the photographs a rifle and "PUT A GUN IN HIS POCKET". This is a curious statement.

If Oswald had the gun in a holster when the pictures were taken, why would he think the gun in the picture was in his pocket ?

Interesting. Do you think that could have been a different allegation towards the police that was combined with what Oswald said about the BYPs? As you know, Gus Rose told Larry Sneed that Oswald claimed in his interrogations that the cops planted the revolver on him in the theater - but that allegation isn’t reflected in any of the extant reports, which as far as I know universally say that Oswald admitted to carrying the gun.

Of course we don’t know what Oswald really said, but I’ve always thought it was a bit of a stretch to think that Oswald’s admission was completely fabricated. “Put a gun in his pocket” really is some strange language though, and sounds a lot like what Oswald might say if an officer had been feeling around his pockets and dropped a throwaway pistol in there to instigate a fight. It’s not proof of anything but it’s definitely an interesting anomaly. Good catch. 

[Mark Ulrik]

1 hour ago, Gil Jesus said:

And while we're at it, let's throw one more report in there for good measure. This one comes from the papers of Capt. Will Fritz and is a report by SS agent Thomas Kelley who was present during Fritz's interrogation of Oswald on November 23rd ( Saturday ). Kelley reports that at the 6pm interrogation, Fritz showed Oswald "blowups" of the photographs showing him holding a rifle and a pistol.

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=29106

This can also be found on page 628 of the WR (as mentioned above). You conveniently ignore that Kelley's account contradicts the idea that Fritz had foreknowledge of the BYP.
PS: Why do you always use a much larger font than everyone else?

[Gil Jesus]

3 hours ago, Tom Gram said:

Interesting. Do you think that could have been a different allegation towards the police that was combined with what Oswald said about the BYPs? As you know, Gus Rose told Larry Sneed that Oswald claimed in his interrogations that the cops planted the revolver on him in the theater - but that allegation isn’t reflected in any of the extant reports, which as far as I know universally say that Oswald admitted to carrying the gun.

Of course we don’t know what Oswald really said, but I’ve always thought it was a bit of a stretch to think that Oswald’s admission was completely fabricated. “Put a gun in his pocket” really is some strange language though, and sounds a lot like what Oswald might say if an officer had been feeling around his pockets and dropped a throwaway pistol in there to instigate a fight. It’s not proof of anything but it’s definitely an interesting anomaly. Good catch. 

Tom, one of the things I find interesting about the revolver in the theater is that McDonald didn't use normal procedure to search Oswald. The normal procedure is to have the person being searched spread out their arms. You search them beginning at the top with the shoulders, out to the arms, down the torso, around the waist and then down each leg to the ankles, one leg at a time.

Oswald was standing with his arms out, expecting to be searched in a normal fashion.

But McDonald didn't do that, he went right for Oswald's waist, just like one would do if he were planting a weapon on someone. George Applin told Earl Golz that he thought the revolver "came out of the officer's holster". A planting of the weapon by police would explain why the interviews of theater patrons who witnessed the arrest disappeared, never to be seen again. 

Edited August 18, 2022 by Gil Jesus

[Chris Bristow]

4 hours ago, Gil Jesus said:

And while we're at it, let's throw one more report in there for good measure. This one comes from the papers of Capt. Will Fritz and is a report by SS agent Thomas Kelley who was present during Fritz's interrogation of Oswald on November 23rd ( Saturday ). Kelley reports that at the 6pm interrogation, Fritz showed Oswald "blowups" of the photographs showing him holding a rifle and a pistol.

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=29106

The fact that the Dallas Police had the ability to blow up the pictures indicates the department had the capability to alter photographs.

Oswald responds that he was photographed a number of times on Friday by police who superimposed on the photographs a rifle and "PUT A GUN IN HIS POCKET". This is a curious statement.

If Oswald had the gun in a holster when the pictures were taken, why would he think the gun in the picture was in his pocket ?

It is possible the swelling on Oswald's left eye caused some blurred vision. If he closed that eye it would be better. Just a thought. 

Edited August 18, 2022 by Chris Bristow

[Tony Krome]

59 minutes ago, Gil Jesus said:

But McDonald didn't do that, he went right for Oswald's waist, just like one would do if he were planting a weapon on someone. George Applin told Earl Golz that he thought the revolver "came out of the officer's holster".

One cop at the scene reported that he saw McDonald's and Oswald's hand "on" the gun, and that when he heard the "snap" he wasn't sure which way the gun was pointing.

[Pat Speer]

5 hours ago, Gil Jesus said:

And while we're at it, let's throw one more report in there for good measure. This one comes from the papers of Capt. Will Fritz and is a report by SS agent Thomas Kelley who was present during Fritz's interrogation of Oswald on November 23rd ( Saturday ). Kelley reports that at the 6pm interrogation, Fritz showed Oswald "blowups" of the photographs showing him holding a rifle and a pistol.

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=29106

The fact that the Dallas Police had the ability to blow up the pictures indicates the department had the capability to alter photographs.

Oswald responds that he was photographed a number of times on Friday by police who superimposed on the photographs a rifle and "PUT A GUN IN HIS POCKET". This is a curious statement.

If Oswald had the gun in a holster when the pictures were taken, why would he think the gun in the picture was in his pocket ?

It's worse than that. One of the main arguments that the backyard photos are legit is that they were supposedly first generation prints made from negatives. The problem is that the HSCA's experts said the "blow-up" was also a first generation print from a negative. This is a problem because the DPD paper trail indicates they had two negatives (and lost one of them). Well, if the blow-up was a first gen print that would mean they had three negatives (and lost two of them).  

Members of the DPD in various statements and interviews have claimed, however, that the blow-up was a blow-up from one of the photos, and that Studebaker used a "copy camera" to make blow-ups and copies of the back yard photos and other evidence photos. If the HSCA's experts couldn't tell that the blow-up was made by a copy camera, then, it follows that they could have been wrong about the other photos they said were first gen. 

While studying some of the evidence photos, moreover, I realized that Studebaker (no doubt under the supervision of Lt. Day) had without a doubt used his "copy camera" to alter evidence photos. This is demonstrated below. 

From Chapter 4d at patspeer.com...

 

The box on the left is Box B in DPD photo 91-001/043, which can be found on the UNT website. The box on the right is a copy of this photo as presented to the Warren Commission on 4-6-64 by Det. Studebaker, and entered into evidence as Studebaker Exhibit J. This photo has undoubtedly been altered to make it look like the boxes are covered with fingerprint powder. Hmmm... I wonder why...

Edited August 19, 2022 by Pat Speer

[Larry Hancock]

Pat, it might be relevant to your photos but as I recall Tom Alyea claimed that Studebaker actually took two sets of crime scene photos, at least the box area; he maintained that Studebaker moved boxes during the process and could never recreate it exactly as Alyea had seen.  Therefore the boxes from the second set of photos, taken on Saturday, are not truly representative of the "snipers nest".   Interestingly that might explain why the DPD objected to printing everybody in the building and looking for prints other than Oswalds....Studebakers prints might have been all over.   In any event the idea of two sets of photos with the second done the following day and presented officially as "first day" evidence is pretty damming if true.