Was the Tippit crime scene gunman Curtis LaVerne Craford?

[Greg Doudna]

On 8/22/2022 at 9:01 AM, Joseph Borelli said:

I think Craford is by far the most viable non Oswald suspect for the Tipping Killing. Also he literally left Dallas the next day for Michigan. My guess is because Oswald was captured alive Ruby tasked Craford to kill him in police custody and he was like screww that and bolted out of town. Then After Craford's sudden departure the responsibility of the hit fell onto Ruby. 

Joseph, you raise a good point, that Craford's precipitous departure from Dallas does not in itself mean he was guilty of anything (though it is compatible with such an interpretation). I have asked myself if--what are the chances-- I could be raising suspicion on an innocent person. Even if he is now dead, if he is innocent I would not want to do that. There are family members, surviving loved ones, after someone is dead. There is a concern for truth for its own sake, of not wanting to unjustly tarnish some deceased person's reputation even if no family members are at issue. The case for Craford's innocence would be that there is no hard evidence incriminating him (a reexamination of the Tippit cruiser fingerprints could potentially change that, but one cannot argue on the basis of evidence that does not currently exist). Craford's hit-man claim could be untrue or if true still not evidence he was a killer in this case. Craford has no known criminal record for violent crime before or after the Tippit killing.

But although not proven, I defend that Craford is legitimately a serious suspect in the Tippit case on the basis of presently available information, analogous to the way I consider Marcello, and Ruby, suspects in the JFK assassination, but do not consider e.g. Clay Shaw a suspect, since even Garrison's most ardent defenders do not even claim, in the aftermath of the collapse of the credibility of Perry Russo's witness testimony, to know of or have any specific evidence as to how Clay Shaw was involved in killing Kennedy or what Clay Shaw did to kill Kennedy. Whereas with Marcello, Ruby, and I put Craford in the same category, there are a number of specifics justifying the threshold of "suspect". Yet that is still only suspicion (with some basis) on those figures, not proof. It might be argued that Marcello confessed which would be proof, and yet even if the confession stands (which is contested) that still stops short of proof in itself because of the high incidence of false confessions, of people who for whatever reasons claim or brag that they did things they did not do.  

What makes Craford a suspect in the Tippit case to me is, above all, his relationship with Ruby, Ruby being the one hard link of involvement in some manner, even if it is not quite clear exactly how, to the assassination (and I take as a given that the Tippit killing is connected to the assassination). The Ruby connection makes Craford a suspect-by-definition if it is accepted as premise, as I do, that the heavily mobbed-up Ruby stalked and killed Oswald after the assassination as an execution, not as a spontaneous crime of passion as per Ruby's legal defense. Then there is the argument that Craford matches the Tippit killer in physical description including the plausibility that witnesses could truly believe a sighting of Craford was a sighting of Oswald. And, Craford's telling Whitmey he had been a hit man as a younger man which Craford's brother apparently told Peter Whitmey was true, not false, and Craford's special expertise with handguns (witnessed Whitmey, and from Craford's carnival job before the Tippit killing). And last but not least, a bizarrely specific possible or circumstantial link of Craford to what I believe was the true murder weapon used in the Tippit killing (to follow). Ironically, a new expert examination of the Tippit patrol car fingerprints would be the simplest way to find proof of incrimination of Craford (if there was a match) but also the simplest way to clear Craford from being a suspect (if the fingerprints went to someone else not known to be innocuous). 

[Greg Doudna]

The smoking gun of the Tippit case and its possible connection to Ruby and Craford: the paper-bag revolver

The revolver found in a paper bag at 7:30 a.m. on Nov 23, 1963 by a citizen near a street curb at Ross and Lamar in downtown Dallas, then lost—disappeared--in Dallas Police custody after having been turned in to Homicide and Robbery ... that is the smoking gun of the Tippit case, no pun intended. The $64,000 question: why was a snub-nosed Smith & Wesson .38 Special revolver tossed out of a car window on to a public street, inside a paper bag with fruit in it, within hours of the Tippit murder carried out with that kind of revolver? No, no witness saw that paper bag containing the weapon tossed out of a car window, just as most litter on a city street is not seen tossed out of a car window even though in most cases that is what happened. Sure, it is possible some local homeowner in downtown Dallas on Friday evening, Nov 22, 1963, for entirely innocent reasons, placed an unwanted revolver in a paper bag with some fruit, walked out to a nearby street curb, placed the bag by hand near the curb, then returned home again as part of routine house cleaning that particular day. Yes, such a thing, occurring a few hours after a sensational homicide in Oak Cliff broadcast around the world involving an identical kind of handgun, is possible. But what would Colombo say to that? (Referring to the old television series detective by that name.) From an FBI document, 11/25/63:

"On 11-23-63, Patrolman J. Raz brought into the Homicide and Robbery Bureau, Dallas PD, a brown paper sack which contained a snub-nosed .38 caliber Smith & Wesson, SN 893265. This gun had the word ‘England’ on the cylinder and had been found at approximately 7:30 A.M. in a brown paper sack, together with an apple and an orange, near the curb at the corner of Ross and Lamar Streets and was turned in by one Willie Flat . . ." (https://www.maryferrell.org/php/marysdb.php?id=3815; https://jfkconspiracyforum.freeforums.net/thread/983/gun-bag)

That revolver was found “near the curb” of a city street about 7:30 a.m. Sat Nov 23. Now compare the whereabouts of suspect Curtis Craford (Larry Crafard)—who could be innocent of the Tippit killing but looks like a suspect because of his close association with Jack Ruby among other things. Curtis Craford is in a car driving in the exact neighborhood where the paper-bag revolver was tossed, at 5:30-6:00 am that morning—at a time when most people, especially people who work in Ruby's night clubs, are sleeping. From the FBI interview of Curtis Craford of Nov 19, 1963, after the FBI caught up with him in Michigan:

“On Saturday morning, November 23, 1963, at about 5:30 AM, Ruby called him [Craford] and told him to meet him downstairs with the Polaroid camera and some film. Ruby was very excited and, in a matter of minutes, a telephone call was received from the fellow at the All Right Parking Lot, telling him that Jack was there and to hurry up. When he got to the car, George [Senator], Ruby’s roommate, was also there and they drove out on the Stemmons Freeway, where Ruby showed him a sign ‘Impeach Earl Warren.’ At the end of this sign it said, for further information write Post Office Box 1744 or a similar number.

“Ruby instructed him to take three pictures of the sign and they then drove to a waffle shop near the Carousel for coffee. Ruby and George were talking about the sign and the Post Office box and they had very little conversation concerning the assassination. Ruby then dropped Crafard off at 6:20 AM and said that he and George were going down to the Post Office to look at the Post Office box. Crafard said that he was completely puzzled, as Earl Warren was unknown to him. This was the last time he saw Jack Ruby.” (https://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh19/pdf/WH19_Crafard_Ex_5226.pdf)

This car ride is when the murder weapon used in the Tippit killing may have been tossed--by the killer of Tippit riding in that car carrying Ruby, George Senator, and Craford. 

I wish I knew how to illustrate on a map of Dallas this next point because it is interesting.

The Carousel Club at 1312-1/2 Commerce where Curtis Craford was picked up ca. 5:30 a.m. is the starting point of this car trip. The destination is a billboard. George Senator in his testimony to the Warren Commission told where that billboard was: it was located at “Hall Street and Expressway where Ruby took three pictures of a poster [billboard] bearing the words, ‘Impeach Earl Warren'.”

Hall Street and Expressway is southeast of the Carousel Club. On the other hand, Ross and Lamar, where the paper-bag revolver was found, is northwest of the Carousel Club, in the opposite direction. But according to what Craford told the FBI on Nov 29, Ruby drove the car from the Carousel Club northwest, to the Stemmons Freeway, in the opposite direction from the destination, the billboard at Hall and Expressway to the southeast of the Carousel Club. Then after entering the Stemmons Freeway, by way of freeway movements Ruby would have circled around downtown Dallas to arrive at Hall and Expressway.

The point being that even though the destination (from the starting-point: the Carousel Club) was to the southwest, Ruby drove the car, with Craford and George Senator, directly through the proximate neighborhood where the revolver in the paper bag was tossed and found at Ross and Lamar, a few city blocks northwest of the Carousel Club, about midway between the Carousel Club and entrance to the Stemmons Freeway farther to the northwest.

If one looks on a map it becomes clear that Craford is in a car in the neighborhood where the paper-bag revolver was tossed from a car on the morning Craford left Dallas. And that location is in the opposite direction of the stated purpose for Ruby's unusual 5:30 a.m. “wake people up to go check out a billboard" trip early Saturday morning. But both in location and in timing it is consistent with the tossing of a murder weapon in a paper bag from a car headed in the opposite direction of the destination, except from Craford's FBI interview that is the direction Ruby did drive, in the direction where the paper-bag revolver was found.

There is: an unexplained paper bag containing what is prima facie best interpreted as a recently-used murder weapon. It is found by a citizen less than two hours after a car driven by Jack Ruby, with Curtis Craford, suspect in the Tippit killing, in that car, was driving in that area, with means and opportunity (and if the murderer of Tippit was in that car, motive) to have tossed the revolver in the paper bag where it was found two hours later.

I believe the story of Ruby calling Craford at 5:30 a.m. to take photos of the Impeach Earl Warren billboard, and Ruby waking up George Senator to go along on the trip, may be an alibi story acted out by Ruby for the purpose of having a defensible innocuous explanation for a driving around at 5-6 a.m. whose real purpose could have been Craford's departure from Dallas at that time and disposal of a murder weapon away from the premises of the Carousel Club. Or if Craford was not leaving at that moment then it was a good-by between Ruby and Craford. Craford did not have a car of his own but in that car would have opportunity to toss an untraceable murder weapon away from the Carousel Club. I would assume that even if George Senator had been aware of passenger Craford tossing a paper bag out a window he would have assumed it was only half-eaten fruit or whatever, and would have been unaware of the revolver also in the paper bag being tossed. In this scenario Ruby had housemate George Senator along to create a witness to a more convincing alibi, but Senator would not have been witting to a tossing of a murder weapon. But Ruby could have been witting, in addition to Craford.

And so this raises the following question to those who have assumed there is no question that Oswald was guilty of the Tippit killing. If you were on a jury and learned this information--of how Fritz’s department of the Dallas Police, after presenting Oswald and Oswald’s .38 Special revolver to the world on Fri Nov 22 as having done the Tippit killing, had on Sat Nov 23 received but said nothing about and then "lost" a different .38 Special revolver found abandoned in a paper bag tossed out of a car window to land near a curb of a downtown street, matching car movements of Ruby and Craford driving from the Carousel Club at unusual hours 5-6 a.m. the morning of Sat Nov 23, an hour or two before a citizen found the revolver in the paper bag near that street curb and turned it in—would this not raise a question to you whether Oswald’s revolver was in fact the correct murder weapon which killed officer Tippit? If the revolver in that paper bag found only hours after the killing of Tippit, the same kind of revolver that killed Tippit, had nothing to do with the death of officer Tippit, why did someone or someones inside the Dallas Police Department disappear it, “lose” it without paperwork? Could such an extremely relevant item of physical evidence—an almost literal smoking gun used in a recent homicide in the Dallas area turning up hours after the slaying of officer Tippit in Oak Cliff--have been lost accidentally while in police custody? Really? It is one thing for Fritz’s Homicide and Robbery Division to conceal and not turn over to the FBI the remaining three bullet slugs taken from Tippit’s body in the autopsy, then claim to the FBI/Warren Commission making inquiries months later that those bullet slugs could not be found, then a few hours later Fritz calls and corrects that to inform the FBI that they had just been found, “misfiled”. That happened. But losing a Smith & Wesson .38 Special revolver? With no paper trail in DPD files? Is it possible to misfile a revolver that way?

And so, unless there was a secret Dallas Police Department conveyance of that revolver to some other agency which also did not come forward with it because they were never asked (possible fallback deniability if DPD personnel ever were called on the carpet about the revolver’s disappearance), we may be looking at a felony destruction or suppression of evidence by someone or someones inside the Dallas Police Department, but who? And why? At minimum we are looking at a coverup of some kind involved in that weapon which almost must be related to the Tippit killing because the circumstances of that revolver make no sense otherwise. And when that is combined with the observation that the only ballistics evidence tying the Tippit killing to Oswald's revolver was established, unusually in the published record, by the FBI and Warren Commission via workarounds to, rather than by, sworn testimony on the chain of custody so as to establish that the cartridge hulls turned over to the FBI were the same hulls found at the scene of the crime, does that—should that—alter the perception of certainty that Oswald was the killer of Tippit? It should. It most definitely should. 

Step back for a moment and consider: two distinct snub-nosed .38 Special revolvers were recovered and came into Dallas Police custody within hours of each other on Nov 22-23, 1963, immediately following the Tippit killing. The one was on Oswald at the time of his arrest in the Texas Theatre. The other, found near a street curb in downtown Dallas after having been tossed from a car window, has the appearance of a disposal of an untraceable weapon after use in a professional killing. But the only known recent killing with that kind of weapon in the Dallas area was Tippit. There is no other homicide by handgun known in the Dallas area in that time frame.

Two revolvers which could be the murder weapon, for one murder which involved only one of those revolvers. One of those two revolvers had nothing to do with the killing of Tippit, its identical kind and caliber to the killing of Tippit being an actual coincidence—but which? The one abandoned in the paper bag hours after the Tippit killing for which the reason for such an abandonment prima facie is use in a recent homicide? 

Or the revolver carried by Oswald in keeping with a million other Americans who carried concealed snub-nosed .38 Special revolvers on their persons without implication that a person carrying such a revolver means it has been used or is intended to be used to murder? Oswald’s other behavior that day indicates he was under stress and acting evasively in the aftermath of the assassination. Whether that was because Oswald was the assassin of President Kennedy, or for some other reason such as he feared and was seeking to escape the assassins, is not at issue here; the point is Oswald's evasive action renders comprehensible that Oswald would want to pick up his revolver from his room for protection; that does not, in itself, mean he killed Tippit with it, just as Oswald going to the theatre from his rooming house whether to meet someone or hide also is comprehensible, but what is not comprehensible is Oswald walking to Tenth and Patton, not the direction of the theatre from his rooming house, for no known reason why he would want to be there, where the killing of Tippit occurred.

In short: Oswald carrying his revolver at the time of his arrest following the killing of Tippit by the same kind of weapon, in itself is easily understood as coincidence, since the snub-nosed .38 Special revolver was probably the most common kind of concealed-carry handgun in America at the time.

But the snub-nosed .38 Special revolver in the paper bag tossed by someone on a street in downtown Dallas a few hours after the murder of Tippit carried out by the same kind of handgun--that is a different matter. That is not so easily understood as coincidence. It just isn’t. 

The .38 Special revolver found in the paper bag in downtown Dallas early Saturday morning Nov 23 is the smoking gun of the Tippit case.

And that .38 Special revolver, after it was turned in to the Dallas Police, disappeared while in the custody of a police department intent on, as Leavelle put it, “wrapping up” Oswald “real tight” on the Tippit case, formally separate from but everyone considered related to the case against Oswald for the assassination of President Kennedy. 

The discovery in the early 1990s, in FBI documents which had been released in 1978 but nobody noticed (https://www.jfk-assassination.net/weberman/tfdrev.htm), of the existence of this extraordinary item of physical evidence and its even more extraordinary unusual disappearance while in police custody—the possible true weapon used in the murder of officer Tippit—should have been front and center in the Tippit case from the first day that revolver’s existence came to light, but it has not been.

That revolver, the paper-bag revolver, is the Rosetta Stone, or what might be called the Rosetta Revolver, of the Tippit case.

And that revolver gives a good case for going to Jack Ruby and Curtis Craford for the truth of how officer Tippit met his death on a day in Oak Cliff so long ago.

Edited August 29, 2022 by Greg Doudna

[Tom Gram]

3 hours ago, Greg Doudna said:

The smoking gun of the Tippit case and its possible connection to Ruby and Craford: the paper-bag revolver

The revolver found in a paper bag at 7:30 a.m. on Nov 23, 1963 by a citizen near a street curb at Ross and Lamar in downtown Dallas, then lost—disappeared--in Dallas Police custody after having been turned in to Homicide and Robbery ... that is the smoking gun of the Tippit case, no pun intended. The $64,000 question: why was a snub-nosed Smith & Wesson .38 Special revolver tossed out of a car window on to a public street, inside a paper bag with fruit in it, within hours of the Tippit murder carried out with that kind of revolver? No, no witness saw that paper bag containing the weapon tossed out of a car window, just as most litter on a city street is not seen tossed out of a car window even though in most cases that is what happened. Sure, it is possible some local homeowner in downtown Dallas on Friday evening, Nov 22, 1963, for entirely innocent reasons, placed an unwanted revolver in a paper bag with some fruit, walked out to a nearby street curb, placed the bag by hand near the curb, then returned home again as part of routine house cleaning that particular day. Yes, such a thing, occurring a few hours after a sensational homicide in Oak Cliff broadcast around the world involving an identical kind of handgun, is possible. But what would Colombo say to that? (Referring to the old television series detective by that name.) From an FBI document, 11/25/63:

"On 11-23-63, Patrolman J. Raz brought into the Homicide and Robbery Bureau, Dallas PD, a brown paper sack which contained a snub-nosed .38 caliber Smith & Wesson, SN 893265. This gun had the word ‘England’ on the cylinder and had been found at approximately 7:30 A.M. in a brown paper sack, together with an apple and an orange, near the curb at the corner of Ross and Lamar Streets and was turned in by one Willie Flat . . ." (https://www.maryferrell.org/php/marysdb.php?id=3815; https://jfkconspiracyforum.freeforums.net/thread/983/gun-bag)

That revolver was found “near the curb” of a city street about 7:30 a.m. Sat Nov 23. Now compare the whereabouts of suspect Curtis Craford (Larry Crafard)—who could be innocent of the Tippit killing but looks like a suspect because of his close association with Jack Ruby among other things. Curtis Craford is in a car driving in the exact neighborhood where the paper-bag revolver was tossed, at 5:30-6:00 am that morning—at a time when most people, especially people who work in Ruby's night clubs, are sleeping. From the FBI interview of Curtis Craford of Nov 19, 1963, after the FBI caught up with him in Michigan:

“On Saturday morning, November 23, 1963, at about 5:30 AM, Ruby called him [Craford] and told him to meet him downstairs with the Polaroid camera and some film. Ruby was very excited and, in a matter of minutes, a telephone call was received from the fellow at the All Right Parking Lot, telling him that Jack was there and to hurry up. When he got to the car, George [Senator], Ruby’s roommate, was also there and they drove out on the Stemmons Freeway, where Ruby showed him a sign ‘Impeach Earl Warren.’ At the end of this sign it said, for further information write Post Office Box 1744 or a similar number.

“Ruby instructed him to take three pictures of the sign and they then drove to a waffle shop near the Carousel for coffee. Ruby and George were talking about the sign and the Post Office box and they had very little conversation concerning the assassination. Ruby then dropped Crafard off at 6:20 AM and said that he and George were going down to the Post Office to look at the Post Office box. Crafard said that he was completely puzzled, as Earl Warren was unknown to him. This was the last time he saw Jack Ruby.” (https://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh19/pdf/WH19_Crafard_Ex_5226.pdf)

This car ride is when the murder weapon used in the Tippit killing may have been tossed--by the killer of Tippit riding in that car carrying Ruby, George Senator, and Craford. 

I wish I knew how to illustrate on a map of Dallas this next point because it is interesting.

The Carousel Club at 1312-1/2 Commerce where Curtis Craford was picked up ca. 5:30 a.m. is the starting point of this car trip. The destination is a billboard. George Senator in his testimony to the Warren Commission told where that billboard was: it was located at “Hall Street and Expressway where Ruby took three pictures of a poster [billboard] bearing the words, ‘Impeach Earl Warren'.”

Hall Street and Expressway is southeast of the Carousel Club. On the other hand, Ross and Lamar, where the paper-bag revolver was found, is northwest of the Carousel Club, in the opposite direction. But according to what Craford told the FBI on Nov 29, Ruby drove the car from the Carousel Club northwest, to the Stemmons Freeway, in the opposite direction from the destination, the billboard at Hall and Expressway to the southeast of the Carousel Club. Then after entering the Stemmons Freeway, by way of freeway movements Ruby would have circled around downtown Dallas to arrive at Hall and Expressway.

The point being that even though the destination (from the starting-point: the Carousel Club) was to the southwest, Ruby drove the car, with Craford and George Senator, directly through the proximate neighborhood where the revolver in the paper bag was tossed and found at Ross and Lamar, a few city blocks northwest of the Carousel Club, about midway between the Carousel Club and entrance to the Stemmons Freeway farther to the northwest.

If one looks on a map it becomes clear that Craford is in a car in the neighborhood where the paper-bag revolver was tossed from a car on the morning Craford left Dallas. And that location is in the opposite direction of the stated purpose for Ruby's unusual 5:30 a.m. “wake people up to go check out a billboard" trip early Saturday morning. But both in location and in timing it is consistent with the tossing of a murder weapon in a paper bag from a car headed in the opposite direction of the destination, except from Craford's FBI interview that is the direction Ruby did drive, in the direction where the paper-bag revolver was found.

There is: an unexplained paper bag containing what is prima facie best interpreted as a recently-used murder weapon. It is found by a citizen less than two hours after a car driven by Jack Ruby, with Curtis Craford, suspect in the Tippit killing, in that car, was driving in that area, with means and opportunity (and if the murderer of Tippit was in that car, motive) to have tossed the revolver in the paper bag where it was found two hours later.

I believe the story of Ruby calling Craford at 5:30 a.m. to take photos of the Impeach Earl Warren billboard, and Ruby waking up George Senator to go along on the trip, may be an alibi story acted out by Ruby for the purpose of having a defensible innocuous explanation for a driving around at 5-6 a.m. whose real purpose could have been Craford's departure from Dallas at that time and disposal of a murder weapon away from the premises of the Carousel Club. Or if Craford was not leaving at that moment then it was a good-by between Ruby and Craford. Craford did not have a car of his own but in that car would have opportunity to toss an untraceable murder weapon away from the Carousel Club. I would assume that even if George Senator had been aware of passenger Craford tossing a paper bag out a window he would have assumed it was only half-eaten fruit or whatever, and would have been unaware of the revolver also in the paper bag being tossed. In this scenario Ruby had housemate George Senator along to create a witness to a more convincing alibi, but Senator would not have been witting to a tossing of a murder weapon. But Ruby could have been witting, in addition to Craford.

And so this raises the following question to those who have assumed there is no question that Oswald was guilty of the Tippit killing. If you were on a jury and learned this information--of how Fritz’s department of the Dallas Police, after presenting Oswald and Oswald’s .38 Special revolver to the world on Fri Nov 22 as having done the Tippit killing, had on Sat Nov 23 received but said nothing about and then "lost" a different .38 Special revolver found abandoned in a paper bag tossed out of a car window to land near a curb of a downtown street, matching car movements of Ruby and Craford driving from the Carousel Club at unusual hours 5-6 a.m. the morning of Sat Nov 23, an hour or two before a citizen found the revolver in the paper bag near that street curb and turned it in—would this not raise a question to you whether Oswald’s revolver was in fact the correct murder weapon which killed officer Tippit? If the revolver in that paper bag found only hours after the killing of Tippit, the same kind of revolver that killed Tippit, had nothing to do with the death of officer Tippit, why did someone or someones inside the Dallas Police Department disappear it, “lose” it without paperwork? Could such an extremely relevant item of physical evidence—an almost literal smoking gun used in a recent homicide in the Dallas area turning up hours after the slaying of officer Tippit in Oak Cliff--have been lost accidentally while in police custody? Really? It is one thing for Fritz’s Homicide and Robbery Division to conceal and not turn over to the FBI the remaining three bullet slugs taken from Tippit’s body in the autopsy, then claim to the FBI/Warren Commission making inquiries months later that those bullet slugs could not be found, then a few hours later Fritz calls and corrects that to inform the FBI that they had just been found, “misfiled”. That happened. But losing a Smith & Wesson .38 Special revolver? With no paper trail in DPD files? Is it possible to misfile a revolver that way?

And so, unless there was a secret Dallas Police Department conveyance of that revolver to some other agency which also did not come forward with it because they were never asked (possible fallback deniability if DPD personnel ever were called on the carpet about the revolver’s disappearance), we may be looking at a felony destruction or suppression of evidence by someone or someones inside the Dallas Police Department, but who? And why? At minimum we are looking at a coverup of some kind involved in that weapon which almost must be related to the Tippit killing because the circumstances of that revolver make no sense otherwise. And when that is combined with the observation that the only ballistics evidence tying the Tippit killing to Oswald's revolver was established, unusually in the published record, by the FBI and Warren Commission via workarounds to, rather than by, sworn testimony on the chain of custody so as to establish that the cartridge hulls turned over to the FBI were the same hulls found at the scene of the crime, does that—should that—alter the perception of certainty that Oswald was the killer of Tippit? It should. It most definitely should. 

Step back for a moment and consider: two distinct snub-nosed .38 Special revolvers were recovered and came into Dallas Police custody within hours of each other on Nov 22-23, 1963, immediately following the Tippit killing. The one was on Oswald at the time of his arrest in the Texas Theatre. The other, found near a street curb in downtown Dallas after having been tossed from a car window, has the appearance of a disposal of an untraceable weapon after use in a professional killing. But the only known recent killing with that kind of weapon in the Dallas area was Tippit. There is no other homicide by handgun known in the Dallas area in that time frame.

Two revolvers which could be the murder weapon, for one murder which involved only one of those revolvers. One of those two revolvers had nothing to do with the killing of Tippit, its identical kind and caliber to the killing of Tippit being an actual coincidence—but which? The one abandoned in the paper bag hours after the Tippit killing for which the reason for such an abandonment prima facie is use in a recent homicide? 

Or the revolver carried by Oswald in keeping with a million other Americans who carried concealed snub-nosed .38 Special revolvers on their persons without implication that a person carrying such a revolver means it has been used or is intended to be used to murder? Oswald’s other behavior that day indicates he was under stress and acting evasively in the aftermath of the assassination. Whether that was because Oswald was the assassin of President Kennedy, or for some other reason such as he feared and was seeking to escape the assassins, is not at issue here; the point is Oswald's evasive action renders comprehensible that Oswald would want to pick up his revolver from his room for protection; that does not, in itself, mean he killed Tippit with it, just as Oswald going to the theatre from his rooming house whether to meet someone or hide also is comprehensible, but what is not comprehensible is Oswald walking to Tenth and Patton, not the direction of the theatre from his rooming house, for no known reason why he would want to be there, where the killing of Tippit occurred.

In short: Oswald carrying his revolver at the time of his arrest following the killing of Tippit by the same kind of weapon, in itself is easily understood as coincidence, since the snub-nosed .38 Special revolver was probably the most common kind of concealed-carry handgun in America at the time.

But the snub-nosed .38 Special revolver in the paper bag tossed by someone on a street in downtown Dallas a few hours after the murder of Tippit carried out by the same kind of handgun--that is a different matter. That is not so easily understood as coincidence. It just isn’t. 

The .38 Special revolver found in the paper bag in downtown Dallas early Saturday morning Nov 23 is the smoking gun of the Tippit case.

And that .38 Special revolver, after it was turned in to the Dallas Police, disappeared while in the custody of a police department intent on, as Leavelle put it, “wrapping up” Oswald “real tight” on the Tippit case, formally separate from but everyone considered related to the case against Oswald for the assassination of President Kennedy. 

The discovery in the early 1990s, in FBI documents which had been released in 1978 but nobody noticed (https://www.jfk-assassination.net/weberman/tfdrev.htm), of the existence of this extraordinary item of physical evidence and its even more extraordinary unusual disappearance while in police custody—the possible true weapon used in the murder of officer Tippit—should have been front and center in the Tippit case from the first day that revolver’s existence came to light, but it has not been.

That revolver, the paper-bag revolver, is the Rosetta Stone, or what might be called the Rosetta Revolver, of the Tippit case.

And that revolver gives a good case for going to Jack Ruby and Curtis Craford for the truth of how officer Tippit met his death on a day in Oak Cliff so long ago.

Great stuff Greg. That alleged early morning billboard trip is just nutty. 

The Dallas Field Office file 89-43-636 seems to reflect that Patrolman Raz contacted the FBI on 11/25 and asked them to run a serial number trace, but did not hand over the actual gun - so I think you are right that the gun disappeared in the hands of the DPD.

I also think it’s interesting that the FBI wasn’t informed about the gun until after Oswald was dead. My guess would be that the gun was tested for fingerprints by the DPD between the 23rd and 25th, but shouldn’t the FBI have been told about the SN right away? 

As far as I know, there is nothing in the DPD files about this gun - not its discovery, testing, informing the FBI, nothing. The only way we even know about it is because the FBI put the SN trace documents in their JFKA files - which makes me think the DPD did not, and the reports, evidence slips, etc. were filed in some routine local crime file, or something like that. They already had their suspect, and their gun, so why stir  the pot? 

The Boston Field Office supposedly claimed that they’d lost their entire JFKA file in response to that FOIA request - but I’m pretty sure the file is at NARA. If it’s there, it might be something worth looking into. I’ll check the database tomorrow. 

[Benjamin Cole]

1 hour ago, Tom Gram said:

Great stuff Greg. That alleged early morning billboard trip is just nutty. 

The Dallas Field Office file 89-43-636 seems to reflect that Patrolman Raz contacted the FBI on 11/25 and asked them to run a serial number trace, but did not hand over the actual gun - so I think you are right that the gun disappeared in the hands of the DPD.

I also think it’s interesting that the FBI wasn’t informed about the gun until after Oswald was dead. My guess would be that the gun was tested for fingerprints by the DPD between the 23rd and 25th, but shouldn’t the FBI have been told about the SN right away? 

As far as I know, there is nothing in the DPD files about this gun - not its discovery, testing, informing the FBI, nothing. The only way we even know about it is because the FBI put the SN trace documents in their JFKA files - which makes me think the DPD did not, and the reports, evidence slips, etc. were filed in some routine local crime file, or something like that. They already had their suspect, and their gun, so why stir  the pot? 

The Boston Field Office supposedly claimed that they’d lost their entire JFKA file in response to that FOIA request - but I’m pretty sure the file is at NARA. If it’s there, it might be something worth looking into. I’ll check the database tomorrow. 

I have written about the paper-bag snub-nose .38, but gotten no further than indicated here.  It was an American-make, sent to Great Britain during WWII, and then made a return trip, as I recall. 

I speculate the snub-nose was used to create a diversion in the Grassy Knoll area. Snub-nose .38s make a lot of noise, and give off "muzzle flash" or smoke.  If the barrel is lubed, or if the bullets are steel-jacketed but coated, or if the .38 cartridges are hand-packed with cheap gunpowder, then a lot more smoke can issue.

The idea that modern guns do not issue smoke is a canard---it can depend on ammo, if the barrel was recently lubed and other factors. 

If we accept Pat Speer's conclusion that all bullet strikes on JFK and JBC were from the rear, then the story-line of the Grassy Knoll gunshots being a diversion makes more sense. A snub-nose is obviously easily concealed after use, and was the de facto concealed weapon of choice at the time. 

Taking this further, the "Secret Service" man seen by DPD Joe Hill and Sheriff Seymour Weitzman on the Grassy Knoll is a likely diversionist.

However, all I have is reasonable conjecture on this point. 

The WC's apathy regarding regarding not one, but two, law enforcement officers accosting a "Secret Service" man on the Grassy Knoll...defies the imagination.  

 

[Greg Doudna]

7 hours ago, Benjamin Cole said:

I have written about the paper-bag snub-nose .38, but gotten no further than indicated here.  It was an American-make, sent to Great Britain during WWII, and then made a return trip, as I recall. 

I speculate the snub-nose was used to create a diversion in the Grassy Knoll area. Snub-nose .38s make a lot of noise, and give off "muzzle flash" or smoke.  If the barrel is lubed, or if the bullets are steel-jacketed but coated, or if the .38 cartridges are hand-packed with cheap gunpowder, then a lot more smoke can issue.

The idea that modern guns do not issue smoke is a canard---it can depend on ammo, if the barrel was recently lubed and other factors. 

If we accept Pat Speer's conclusion that all bullet strikes on JFK and JBC were from the rear, then the story-line of the Grassy Knoll gunshots being a diversion makes more sense. A snub-nose is obviously easily concealed after use, and was the de facto concealed weapon of choice at the time. 

Taking this further, the "Secret Service" man seen by DPD Joe Hill and Sheriff Seymour Weitzman on the Grassy Knoll is a likely diversionist.

However, all I have is reasonable conjecture on this point. 

The WC's apathy regarding regarding not one, but two, law enforcement officers accosting a "Secret Service" man on the Grassy Knoll...defies the imagination.  

Benjamin, you make an interesting argument in explanation of the witnesses seeing smoke and hearing a Grassy Knoll shot. It would be possible that that could be an alternative origin of the paper-bag revolver unrelated to the Tippit killing. However, three factors. First, the Tippit killing definitely was done with a .38 Special; in your GK reconstruction the pistol shot as done with a .38 Special is conjectured (though plausible). Second, the usual scenario in professional killers abandoning the weapon used in the hit is the weapon is untraceable to the killer and the killer does not want to be found with it which would tie them to the crime; in your GK scenario there is no bullet in a body to be traced and only remotely likely that a bullet from that weapon would be found at all (to my knowledge no .38 bullet was found at Dealey Plaza related to Nov 22). Therefore the question arises, assuming your scenario is correct, what is the logic behind tossing the weapon out in a bag of fruit on to a city street, whereas the logic works very well in the scenario of Ruby driving Craford there at 5:30 am as part of Craford hightailing it out of Dallas. And third, one needs to account not only for the paper-bag revolver itself but also the disappearance of it in police custody, and suppression of a second possible murder weapon for Tippit turned in on Saturday after they already had a first one identified and announced to the world (Oswald's) on Friday would be a motive. Incidentally, on Nov 22 in the police radio transcripts there is I think a report of police investigating shots fired in north Dallas somewhere, of which I know nothing further than remember reading that in the transcript; also there was another later hearsay report (as I recall reading this somewhere) supposedly originating from an Irving police officer saying something about on the evening of Thu Nov 21 there had been an armed robbery at a store in Irving in which someone had been killed and the the thinking in the hearsay version was officers thought Oswald might have done it; slipped out that evening from his kids and Marina and held up a store and killed someone there, before returning to the Ruth Paine house for his night's sleep that night, though the objection to that account was a check showed no record of such a robbery or killing in Irving on Nov 21.

But back to your scenario: the argument for the pistol fired at the GK making smoke and noise as a diversion at Dealey Plaza is a decent conjecture that would account for the witnesses seeing smoke, and if its intent was diversion it certainly was successful in terms of witness responses. However it does not follow that that proposal must be linked to the origin of the paper-bag revolver, since that is a distinct issue. Alternatively your conjectured shooter of the diversionary pistol shot fired from the GK could have kept the weapon or done something else with it, with no necessary reason why it would be the revolver tossed in a bag of fruit out a car window at Ross and Lamar even though, as a second order of conjecture, I agree that is a non-excluded possibility for the paper-bag revolver. But Craford having opportunity to toss it from being in the car with Ruby known to have unusually driven him in that particular location two hours before the citizen found it is so striking that that, not the GK origin, remains to me the likeliest explanation that needs to be excluded. 

[Benjamin Cole]

8 hours ago, Greg Doudna said:

Benjamin, you make an interesting argument in explanation of the witnesses seeing smoke and hearing a Grassy Knoll shot. It would be possible that that could be an alternative origin of the paper-bag revolver unrelated to the Tippit killing. However, three factors. First, the Tippit killing definitely was done with a .38 Special; in your GK reconstruction the pistol shot as done with a .38 Special is conjectured (though plausible). Second, the usual scenario in professional killers abandoning the weapon used in the hit is the weapon is untraceable to the killer and the killer does not want to be found with it which would tie them to the crime; in your GK scenario there is no bullet in a body to be traced and only remotely likely that a bullet from that weapon would be found at all (to my knowledge no .38 bullet was found at Dealey Plaza related to Nov 22). Therefore the question arises, assuming your scenario is correct, what is the logic behind tossing the weapon out in a bag of fruit on to a city street, whereas the logic works very well in the scenario of Ruby driving Craford there at 5:30 am as part of Craford hightailing it out of Dallas. And third, one needs to account not only for the paper-bag revolver itself but also the disappearance of it in police custody, and suppression of a second possible murder weapon for Tippit turned in on Saturday after they already had a first one identified and announced to the world (Oswald's) on Friday would be a motive. Incidentally, on Nov 22 in the police radio transcripts there is I think a report of police investigating shots fired in north Dallas somewhere, of which I know nothing further than remember reading that in the transcript; also there was another later hearsay report (as I recall reading this somewhere) supposedly originating from an Irving police officer saying something about on the evening of Thu Nov 21 there had been an armed robbery at a store in Irving in which someone had been killed and the the thinking in the hearsay version was officers thought Oswald might have done it; slipped out that evening from his kids and Marina and held up a store and killed someone there, before returning to the Ruth Paine house for his night's sleep that night, though the objection to that account was a check showed no record of such a robbery or killing in Irving on Nov 21.

But back to your scenario: the argument for the pistol fired at the GK making smoke and noise as a diversion at Dealey Plaza is a decent conjecture that would account for the witnesses seeing smoke, and if its intent was diversion it certainly was successful in terms of witness responses. However it does not follow that that proposal must be linked to the origin of the paper-bag revolver, since that is a distinct issue. Alternatively your conjectured shooter of the diversionary pistol shot fired from the GK could have kept the weapon or done something else with it, with no necessary reason why it would be the revolver tossed in a bag of fruit out a car window at Ross and Lamar even though, as a second order of conjecture, I agree that is a non-excluded possibility for the paper-bag revolver. But Craford having opportunity to toss it from being in the car with Ruby known to have unusually driven him in that particular location two hours before the citizen found it is so striking that that, not the GK origin, remains to me the likeliest explanation that needs to be excluded. 

Greg D.-

Yes, my version of the Grassy Knoll bang-and-smoke is conjectural. 

So, you ask a good question. Why toss out a working firearm, if all it did was fire into the air? 

Perhaps the perp(s) feared apprehension, and did not want the recently fired snub-nose .38 on them. There might fear that roadblocks were  being set up, and they planned to leave town. At first discreet moment, they tossed the bag. Perhaps they saw an officer eyeing people, or even some arrestees (the tramps).  If the DPD was rousting tramps, why not them? 

A second, less likely, possibility is that they actually shot at the President limo, and feared bullets might be recovered, ergo better to toss the weapon. 

But, my version is speculative.  

 

 

[Bill Brown]

On 8/29/2022 at 11:38 AM, Greg Doudna said:

And third, one needs to account not only for the paper-bag revolver itself but also the disappearance of it in police custody, and suppression of a second possible murder weapon for Tippit turned in on Saturday after they already had a first one identified and announced to the world (Oswald's) on Friday would be a motive.

 

The revolver was found on the ground four miles from Tenth and Patton.  There is absolutely no reason for it to be considered "a second possible murder weapon for Tippit".

 

[Paul Jolliffe]

2 hours ago, Bill Brown said:

 

The revolver was found on the ground four miles from Tenth and Patton.  There is absolutely no reason for it to be considered "a second possible murder weapon for Tippit".

 

Hmm.

At the time it was found, early Saturday morning, "Oswald" was very much alive, Jack Ruby was not yet infamous, and nobody had any idea who Craford was. 

So it's true at that moment the second .38 was not likely to be considered a possible murder weapon. But once we read that both Ruby and Craford (by Craford's own admission) had been very near where that .38 was found an hour or so later, then things change. 

Surely the FBI suspected that the DPD request on November 25 to trace a .38 (found early on the 23rd) was related to the case. 

After all, just a few days later the FBI tracked down Craford.

Sorry, Bill.

While I have disagreed at length with Greg elsewhere on other key aspects of the case, on this one, I think he's on to something.

That .38 is very suspicious.

 

[Greg Doudna]

1 hour ago, Bill Brown said:

The revolver was found on the ground four miles from Tenth and Patton.  There is absolutely no reason for it to be considered "a second possible murder weapon for Tippit".

Well . . . I don't know Bill . . . a .38 Smith & Wesson in a paper bag with an apple and an orange, found near a street curb . . . sort of looks like it could be a murder weapon used in a professional killing or hit doesn't it?  . . . turns up a few hours after the Tippit killing . . . and only an hour or two after the mobbed-up figure up to his ears in organized crime connections who murdered Oswald the next morning (using a different .38), drove a car in the neighborhood where the paper-bag revolver was found . . . and in that car which had opportunity to ditch a murder weapon at that place and time the mobbed-up killer of Oswald the next morning also had in the car with him a man who independently is a suspect for the Tippit gunman just before that Tippit gunman suspect took sudden flight leaving Dallas that morning . . . 

Do I have you right, that you are saying there is "absolutely no reason" to consider that a weapon which looks like an abandoned weapon recently used in a professional killing, might have some relationship to a killing done with that kind of handgun a few hours earlier four miles away?

You cite four miles from the scene of the crime as if that is exculpatory for that weapon. But it was zero miles from where two suspects in the Tippit killing were in a car under unusual circumstances just an hour or two before the abandoned weapon was found. 

But you're free to see nothing of interest there 🙂 with respect to the Tippit case, in the find of that revolver which had been tossed in a paper bag for which no innocent explanation has been established.

[Greg Doudna]

31 minutes ago, Paul Jolliffe said:

Hmm.

At the time it was found, early Saturday morning, "Oswald" was very much alive, Jack Ruby was not yet infamous, and nobody had any idea who Craford was. 

So it's true at that moment the second .38 was not likely to be considered a possible murder weapon. But once we read that both Ruby and Craford (by Craford's own admission) had been very near where that .38 was found an hour or so later, then things change. 

Surely the FBI suspected that the DPD request on November 25 to trace a .38 (found early on the 23rd) was related to the case. 

After all, just a few days later the FBI tracked down Craford.

Sorry, Bill.

While I have disagreed at length with Greg elsewhere on other key aspects of the case, on this one, I think he's on to something.

That .38 is very suspicious.

I didn't see yours until after I put up mine, but well put Paul.

[Bill Brown]

17 hours ago, Greg Doudna said:

Well . . . I don't know Bill . . . a .38 Smith & Wesson in a paper bag with an apple and an orange, found near a street curb . . . sort of looks like it could be a murder weapon used in a professional killing or hit doesn't it?  . . . turns up a few hours after the Tippit killing . . . and only an hour or two after the mobbed-up figure up to his ears in organized crime connections who murdered Oswald the next morning (using a different .38), drove a car in the neighborhood where the paper-bag revolver was found . . . and in that car which had opportunity to ditch a murder weapon at that place and time the mobbed-up killer of Oswald the next morning also had in the car with him a man who independently is a suspect for the Tippit gunman just before that Tippit gunman suspect took sudden flight leaving Dallas that morning . . . 

Do I have you right, that you are saying there is "absolutely no reason" to consider that a weapon which looks like an abandoned weapon recently used in a professional killing, might have some relationship to a killing done with that kind of handgun a few hours earlier four miles away?

You cite four miles from the scene of the crime as if that is exculpatory for that weapon. But it was zero miles from where two suspects in the Tippit killing were in a car under unusual circumstances just an hour or two before the abandoned weapon was found. 

But you're free to see nothing of interest there 🙂 with respect to the Tippit case, in the find of that revolver which had been tossed in a paper bag for which no innocent explanation has been established.

 

What makes this revolver look like "a murder weapon recently used in a professional killing"?

 

Cite for your claim that Crafard and Ruby were recently "zero miles" from where the revolver was found.

[Greg Doudna]

1 hour ago, Bill Brown said:

What makes this revolver look like "a murder weapon recently used in a professional killing"?

Cite for your claim that Crafard and Ruby were recently "zero miles" from where the revolver was found.

On the first question, I am obviously speaking of like in Mob movies where hitmen will drop untraceable weapons rather than have them on their persons or in their possession. I will be glad to elaborate further but I would like you to say what would be on your short list of possible explanations for how a revolver with an apple and an orange in a paper bag ends up near a street curb in downtown Dallas one night. It is odd, right? There has to be an explanation for it, but what? Don't just say "no one knows". That may be true in an existential sense, but what are your good guesses as to reasonable possibility of how that might have happened? What is your short list of non-outlandish possibilities? What does that revolver look like to you?

On Craford and Ruby zero miles from where the revolver was found, did you see my above "The Smoking Gun of the Tippit Case..."? Craford telling the FBI of Ruby driving him and George Senator from the Carousel Club to the Stemmons Freeway an hour or two before the revolver was found, compared with the location where the revolver was found. You missed my above, with quotation and link, on that?

[Bill Brown]

5 hours ago, Greg Doudna said:

On the first question, I am obviously speaking of like in Mob movies where hitmen will drop untraceable weapons rather than have them on their persons or in their possession. I will be glad to elaborate further but I would like you to say what would be on your short list of possible explanations for how a revolver with an apple and an orange in a paper bag ends up near a street curb in downtown Dallas one night. It is odd, right? There has to be an explanation for it, but what? Don't just say "no one knows". That may be true in an existential sense, but what are your good guesses as to reasonable possibility of how that might have happened? What is your short list of non-outlandish possibilities? What does that revolver look like to you?

 

I don't have to provide an explanation for how a revolver came to be found lying on the ground inside a paper bag.  I will say, however, that if conspirators were trying to get rid of a gun used in the murder of a police officer, they would choose a far better method than to simply throw it to the ground.  I assume you've heard of the Trinity River (just west of Dealey Plaza).

[Bill Brown]

5 hours ago, Greg Doudna said:

On Craford and Ruby zero miles from where the revolver was found, did you see my above "The Smoking Gun of the Tippit Case..."? Craford telling the FBI of Ruby driving him and George Senator from the Carousel Club to the Stemmons Freeway an hour or two before the revolver was found, compared with the location where the revolver was found. You missed my above, with quotation and link, on that?

 

I didn't miss your post above.  Did you explain how you know for a fact that the path taken by Ruby, Senator and Crafard (on their way over to Stemmons) took them right past the location on the ground where the revolver was found?  If you did, then I did miss that, yes.

[Denis Morissette]