POLICE CAR IN THE ALLEY? NOPE.

[Bill Brown]

5 hours ago, Greg Doudna said:

Bill, I don't think we're talking about the same thing. 

Here are seven questions for you. I have answered yours, please answer these.

(1) Do you agree with Myers' 2020 argument for the Patton Street address for Mrs. Holan on Nov 22, 1963, as convincing to you?

(2) Do you agree that that Patton Street address's front window of the living room had a wide-angle almost "perfect" view overlooking most if not all of that block of Patton Street and looked over across the street into part of the alley?

(3) Do you agree with Myers' reasons argued in his 2020 analysis for concluding Mrs. Holan was home on Nov 22, 1963?

(4) Do you think Mrs. Holan upon hearing shots in her home, would run to her front window to look?

(5) Do you think Mrs. Holan saw any of the things Brownlow told that she saw, from her front window on Patton?

(6) Do you think Professor Pulte was lying when he attested that Mrs. Holan had spoken to Brownlow and him, and that she had claimed to them that she was a witness of certain things Nov 22, 1963?

(7) Do you think it is conceivable that Brownlow could garble something a witness told him, in retelling, if that witness spoke to Brownlow?

Simple, straight "yes" or "no" answers will suffice, followed by optional brief comments supporting the "yes" or "no". Thanks. Please do not skip any of the questions, thanks. 

 

(1) Do you agree with Myers' 2020 argument for the Patton Street address for Mrs. Holan on Nov 22, 1963, as convincing to you?

 

Yes.  My opinion is that it is an established fact that Holan lived on Patton.

 

(2) Do you agree that that Patton Street address's front window of the living room had a wide-angle almost "perfect" view overlooking most if not all of that block of Patton Street and looked over across the street into part of the alley?

 

Yes, I personally haven't seen anything to suggest otherwise.

 

(3) Do you agree with Myers' reasons argued in his 2020 analysis for concluding Mrs. Holan was home on Nov 22, 1963?

 

Did Myers conclude that?  Are you sure?

 

(4) Do you think Mrs. Holan upon hearing shots in her home, would run to her front window to look?

 

Would run to the front window?  I can't agree with that since it seems to be a statement as fact.  She was roughly a half block away and around the corner.  I will agree that it is very possible that she would go to the window.  It is also possible that she would not go to the window.

 

(5) Do you think Mrs. Holan saw any of the things Brownlow told that she saw, from her front window on Patton?

 

It's possible that she looked out her window and saw Oswald fleeing down Patton.  It is not possible that she looked out her window and saw Tippit's body lying in the street (she had no line of sight from her window to the patrol car).  This claim by Brownlow (who mistakenly believed she lived on Tenth) blows his story out of the water.  Holan, living on Patton, could have never seen such a thing and therefore it is likely that she never said such a thing to Brownlow.  I have doubts that Brownlow ever talked to her at all and if he did, probably didn't get anything significant from her (same as his "interview" with Callaway).

 

(6) Do you think Professor Pulte was lying when he attested that Mrs. Holan had spoken to Brownlow and him, and that she had claimed to them that she was a witness of certain things Nov 22, 1963?

 

I think Brownlow was lying and I think Pulte went along with it.  Like I said, they may have indeed talked to Holan, but she certainly did not tell them that she saw Tippit's body lying in the street.

 

(7) Do you think it is conceivable that Brownlow could garble something a witness told him, in retelling, if that witness spoke to Brownlow?

 

I think it is possible that anyone could garble anything that anyone told them.

 

You didn't address my point that Brownlow said Holan told him that she went to her window and saw Tippit's body lying in the street.  Or, are you really going to tell me that this is something that Brownlow innocently "garbled"?

 

Edited September 2, 2023 by Bill Brown

[Ron Bulman]

5 hours ago, Bill Brown said:

I think it is possible that anyone could garble anything that anyone told them.

I think you finally got something right about your own perspective.  It seems a little garbled.

Edited September 2, 2023 by Ron Bulman

[Greg Doudna]

Thanks Bill for giving your answers to the seven questions.  

Agree with you on 1, 2, 5, and 7.

Agree also on 4 but would strengthen that to about 90% likely. Assuming she was home about the only way she could not have heard the shots inside her house and reacted would be if she was in a sound sleep. All around, up to 1.5 blocks away, people inside houses heard the shots, recognized them as shots, went to windows and doors and came out of front doors to look, this can just be assumed for Mrs. Holan inside her second-story apartment as well, in her case by going to her window.

Question 6 is the difference and sticking point. You consider it most likely no contact occurred. I judge it 80% likely Brownlow would have talked to Mrs. Holan about her story of Nov 22 based on Brownlow's sayso alone if there were no corroboration, rising to 95% with Pulte's corroboration in the present case. I doubt Pulte lied about the existence of his contact with Mrs. Holan in the presence of Brownlow. 

On whether Mrs. Holan said any of the things of significance that Brownlow attributed to her, you say if there was a contact you think Brownlow probably didn't get anything of significance from her.

While I agree the part about her seeing Tippit's body next to his car from her window is wrong (told in that way by Brownlow), I do not think it very likely the whole story is a fabrication. For example, I think it is very plausible that Mrs. Holan told Brownlow and perhaps Pulte as well that she saw "Oswald" running up to and under her window.

To your last point,

"You didn't address my point that Brownlow said Holan told him that she went to her window and saw Tippit's body lying in the street.  Or, are you really going to tell me that this is something that Brownlow innocently "garbled"?

Probably yes Bill.

Brownlow probably in his mind believed that is what she told as he misremembered and retold. It was wrong of course. There was no line of sight visibility to Tippit's patrol car or body from her window on Patton. Mrs. Holan could not have and did not see that from her window, and therefore did not tell Brownlow that, as Brownlow claimed she had. Brownlow was influenced by his mistaken belief that Mrs. Holan viewed from a house across the street on 10th. As many journalists have been accused of doing of greater stature than Brownlow, reporters tend to put words in people's mouths based on what they think happened. 

Mrs. Holan told that she went to her window and looked out. She also told that she saw Tippit's patrol car and body in the street. (She did, after she went down to the street, out her front door, and around the corner to the growing crowd of people there.) Brownlow confused and conflated that, in his telling, into the form you quote which is obviously wrong. He did not invent that Mrs. Holan said she went to her window. He did not invent that Mrs. Holan said she saw the body of Tippit. But he erred in telling it as if Mrs. Holan had said she saw the body of Tippit from her window.

The alternative that Brownlow made up stuff completely out of whole cloth, out of thin air, attributed to the witness is theoretically possible. I judge that is a less likely explanation in this case, whereas you consider it the only reasonable explanation. From that conclusion you conclude, ipso facto, that having done a wilful total fabrication (as you think of it) in one part, that means Brownlow did so in all specifics of significance in the Mrs. Holan story, and there goes Mrs. Holan's telling of "Oswald" running up to her window and seeing a patrol car backing up across the street. 

I think the odds are about 80% that Mrs. Holan told Brownlow some form of a patrol car in the alley. You think (I think) somewhere close to 0%. Neither you nor I know for certain. As Kurt Vonnegut would say, "And so it goes." 

Edited September 2, 2023 by Greg Doudna

[Ron Bulman]

It's her word via Brownlow and SMU Professor Dr. Bill Pulte vs Dale Meyers interpretation and a son's memories.  Given Meyers other work I lean towards Holan's statement to Dr. Pulte and Brownlow.

[Bill Brown]

7 hours ago, Greg Doudna said:

Thanks Bill for giving your answers to the seven questions.  

Agree with you on 1, 2, 5, and 7.

Agree also on 4 but would strengthen that to about 90% likely. Assuming she was home about the only way she could not have heard the shots inside her house and reacted would be if she was in a sound sleep. All around, up to 1.5 blocks away, people inside houses heard the shots, recognized them as shots, went to windows and doors and came out of front doors to look, this can just be assumed for Mrs. Holan inside her second-story apartment as well, in her case by going to her window.

Question 6 is the difference and sticking point. You consider it most likely no contact occurred. I judge it 80% likely Brownlow would have talked to Mrs. Holan about her story of Nov 22 based on Brownlow's sayso alone if there were no corroboration, rising to 95% with Pulte's corroboration in the present case. I doubt Pulte lied about the existence of his contact with Mrs. Holan in the presence of Brownlow. 

On whether Mrs. Holan said any of the things of significance that Brownlow attributed to her, you say if there was a contact you think Brownlow probably didn't get anything of significance from her.

While I agree the part about her seeing Tippit's body next to his car from her window is wrong (told in that way by Brownlow), I do not think it very likely the whole story is a fabrication. For example, I think it is very plausible that Mrs. Holan told Brownlow and perhaps Pulte as well that she saw "Oswald" running up to and under her window.

To your last point,

"You didn't address my point that Brownlow said Holan told him that she went to her window and saw Tippit's body lying in the street.  Or, are you really going to tell me that this is something that Brownlow innocently "garbled"?

Probably yes Bill.

Brownlow probably in his mind believed that is what she told as he misremembered and retold. It was wrong of course. There was no line of sight visibility to Tippit's patrol car or body from her window on Patton. Mrs. Holan could not have and did not see that from her window, and therefore did not tell Brownlow that, as Brownlow claimed she had. Brownlow was influenced by his mistaken belief that Mrs. Holan viewed from a house across the street on 10th. As many journalists have been accused of doing of greater stature than Brownlow, reporters tend to put words in people's mouths based on what they think happened. 

Mrs. Holan told that she went to her window and looked out. She also told that she saw Tippit's patrol car and body in the street. (She did, after she went down to the street, out her front door, and around the corner to the growing crowd of people there.) Brownlow confused and conflated that, in his telling, into the form you quote which is obviously wrong. He did not invent that Mrs. Holan said she went to her window. He did not invent that Mrs. Holan said she saw the body of Tippit. But he erred in telling it as if Mrs. Holan had said she saw the body of Tippit from her window.

The alternative that Brownlow made up stuff completely out of whole cloth, out of thin air, attributed to the witness is theoretically possible. I judge that is a less likely explanation in this case, whereas you consider it the only reasonable explanation. From that conclusion you conclude, ipso facto, that having done a wilful total fabrication (as you think of it) in one part, that means Brownlow did so in all specifics of significance in the Mrs. Holan story, and there goes Mrs. Holan's telling of "Oswald" running up to her window and seeing a patrol car backing up across the street. 

I think the odds are about 80% that Mrs. Holan told Brownlow some form of a patrol car in the alley. You think (I think) somewhere close to 0%. Neither you nor I know for certain. As Kurt Vonnegut would say, "And so it goes." 

 

"I think the odds are about 80% that Mrs. Holan told Brownlow some form of a patrol car in the alley. You think (I think) somewhere close to 0%. Neither you nor I know for certain. As Kurt Vonnegut would say, "And so it goes.""

 

This is where you're wrong.

 

Holan did not say anything to anyone in all the years between 11/22/63 and the time of the supposed interview about seeing the killer flee, the body lying in the street, etc.

 

Same goes for Sam Guinyard.

 

Brownlow stated as a fact that Holan told him that she went to her window and "threw the curtain back and looked out the window and she could see this officer – Dallas police officer laying in the street; saw his squad car."

Come on, Greg.  Face it.  Brownlow mistakenly believed Holan lived on Tenth Street and made up this story.  We know Holan never said such a thing to him since she couldn't have seen the body from her window on Patton.

 

You're so desperate to believe Brownlow that you're changing what he said to get it to fit your narrative.

 

 

 

 

Edited September 2, 2023 by Bill Brown

[Bill Brown]

6 hours ago, Ron Bulman said:

It's her word via Brownlow and SMU Professor Dr. Bill Pulte vs Dale Meyers interpretation and a son's memories.  Given Meyers other work I lean towards Holan's statement to Dr. Pulte and Brownlow.

 

You "forgot" that the Top Ten Record store ever existed.  Your opinion doesn't really matter, regarding anything related to Oak Cliff.

 

[Greg Doudna]

2 hours ago, Bill Brown said:

You're so desperate to believe Brownlow that you're changing what he said to get it to fit your narrative.

This is not what is going on ("desperation to believe Brownlow"). I don't care whether there was a patrol car, and I have no particular interest in believing Brownlow, or Mrs. Holan. As you have just seen, I don't unqualifiedly believe. It is a critical judgment, not of any dispute over what words Brownlow said, but of what Mrs. Holan might have seen and told, for reasons explained. You keep repeating the above and it is a misrepresentation. 

As said before ad nauseum, I am not changing what Brownlow said, any more than you. Never have (unless somewhere unintentionally by mistake), and explicitly just got through emphasizing exactly what Brownlow said, which is in no dispute since it is on tape. Stop the misrepresentation.

Edited September 2, 2023 by Greg Doudna

[Bill Brown]

 

"So, she ran from the back to the living room and threw the curtain back and looked out the window and she could see this officer – Dallas police officer laying in the street; saw his squad car." -- Mike Brownlow (on what Doris Holan supposedly told him)

 

There is zero line of sight from Holan's apartment window on Patton to the location of Tippit's patrol car around the corner on Tenth.

 

[Tom Gram]

11 hours ago, Ron Bulman said:

It's her word via Brownlow and SMU Professor Dr. Bill Pulte vs Dale Meyers interpretation and a son's memories.  Given Meyers other work I lean towards Holan's statement to Dr. Pulte and Brownlow.

You aren’t wrong Ron. It is not an “established fact” that Doris Holan lived on Patton on Nov. 22nd. It’s possible, and maybe even probable, but it’s also very possible that she still lived on 10th St. Jack Myers randomly mentioned my comments on this issue in his recent K&K article: 

These are the actual facts: 

1. Dale Myers found a letter addressed to the Holans on Patton dated Dec. 26th. 

2. The Holans’ Patton address is in the 1964 Dallas City Directory. 

3. Dale Myers’ only other source is a 2021 interview with Lad Holan. Holan originally remembered the move taking place after the assassination, and only changed his mind while under the influence of Dale Myers. 

4. (As far as I know) There is no tape or transcript of Myers’ interview with Holan available online. 

5. There is a vague footnote to the 2021 interview in Myers’ article which states that “one family member” recalled the move taking place in September, but that “other family members” could not confirm the exact date. Myers does not share the recollections of these other family members, and the footnote is unclear if the “one family member” was just Lad Holan after he’d changed his mind.

I’ll quote myself cause I’m lazy:

The letter is clear and convincing evidence that the move occurred by mid December, but that does not prove that the Holans lived at 113 S. Patton on Nov. 22nd. They could have had a lease expire at the end of November, or even on Jan. 1st and just moved out a bit early. The assassination could have even been a catalyst, and Doris decided to move down the street because she didn’t want to be overlooking such a notorious murder scene. 

Basically, we don’t have enough information to really say that this is settled history, IMO. It’s very possible that Myers is correct, but the state of the evidence is such that there’s still a very real probability that the Holans lived on 10th St. on the day of the assassination. I’d love to see concrete proof that establishes the date of the move, but we just don’t have it right now. 

[Greg Doudna]

Tom G., your fact-checking is valuable, but in this case have you taken into account the photo Myers published in his 2020 piece of Mrs. Holan's car parked on Patton on Nov 22, 1963, on the same side of the street as her Dec 1963 apartment on Patton, right next to her Dec 1963 apartment on Patton?

If she was still living on 10th St. in Nov 1963, not yet moved to the Patton Street address where she is confirmed living in Dec 1963, why is her car on Nov 22 parked on Patton, and not on 10th? From all the photos of the crime scene I have seen, there weren't that many parked cars on 10th. It does not look like it was difficult or impossible to find street parking on 10th. But even if that was so and she couldn't find a parking spot on 10th, isn't it a bit of a coincidence that she would end up as a Plan B to park on Nov 22 exactly next to where she was living in Dec 1963, if she wasn't already living there?

[Tom Gram]

52 minutes ago, Greg Doudna said:

Tom G., your fact-checking is valuable, but in this case have you taken into account the photo Myers published in his 2020 piece of Mrs. Holan's car parked on Patton on Nov 22, 1963, on the same side of the street as her Dec 1963 apartment on Patton, right next to her Dec 1963 apartment on Patton?

If she was still living on 10th St. in Nov 1963, not yet moved to the Patton Street address where she is confirmed living in Dec 1963, why is her car on Nov 22 parked on Patton, and not on 10th? From all the photos of the crime scene I have seen, there weren't that many parked cars on 10th. It does not look like it was difficult or impossible to find street parking on 10th. But even if that was so and she couldn't find a parking spot on 10th, isn't it a bit of a coincidence that she would end up as a Plan B to park on Nov 22 exactly next to where she was living in Dec 1963, if she wasn't already living there?

Is there any evidence that is even Doris Holan’s car other than Lad Holan’s 58-year old memory, after he’d already changed his mind on the date of the move? I think I said this in the other thread, but a lot of cars look the same. A lot of cars are literally the same car. I don’t think Lad Holan’s belated ID of a generic sedan in an old photo is really evidence of anything. I can barely remember what kind of cars my parents drove in the 90s. 

[Ron Bulman]

14 hours ago, Bill Brown said:

 

You "forgot" that the Top Ten Record store ever existed.  Your opinion doesn't really matter, regarding anything related to Oak Cliff.

 

Yep, I did forget about Top Ten for a few seconds discussing Tippit at 8'th and Lansing in another thread.

Oak Cliff.  Aunt Kate and Unk, Uncle Clarence, 1960-61-62.  They worked at the Hospital, one with an elevator, Parkland?   We visited.  Then there was Aunt Ellie, who ran a grocery my dad used to visit and fill up on sandwiches when he went to stay with her in the 1930's.  Korea, Unk, NAS Grand Prairie, home to Grapevine for the night.

I'd bet TT Records still has some SRV available, as him and Jimmy were natives. 

Did their lives or Jim Marrs book inspire this song?

  

Edited September 3, 2023 by Ron Bulman

[Greg Doudna]

16 hours ago, Tom Gram said:

Is there any evidence that is even Doris Holan’s car other than Lad Holan’s 58-year old memory, after he’d already changed his mind on the date of the move? I think I said this in the other thread, but a lot of cars look the same. A lot of cars are literally the same car. I don’t think Lad Holan’s belated ID of a generic sedan in an old photo is really evidence of anything. I can barely remember what kind of cars my parents drove in the 90s. 

True, Lad Jr. 50+ years later is the sole basis for the photo recognition of his mother's car, but it is parked right in front of the Patton Street address where someone would logically park who lived there.

There is documentary evidence Mrs. Holan lived on Patton by no later than late Dec. 1963, and Lad Jr. was adamant and certain the family lived on Patton on Nov 22, 1963. He remembered the details of where he was and what happened on Nov 22, 1963--hard to mistake where he was living in remembering the events of that day?

A second family member also says that: an unidentified family member cited by Myers saying the time of the family's move from 10th to Patton was September 1963. You ask if that family member was Lad Jr. himself, but that does not make sense. If it were Lad Jr. there would be no reason for Myers not to credit Lad Jr. since he credits Lad Jr. on the record otherwise. However, there is an anonymous daughter of Mrs. Holan mentioned elsewhere by Myers as interviewed but never named. I say she is the second family member source. Note the similarity in Myers' language: 

Myers note 31: "According to one family member, the Holan family was living at 113 1/2 S. Patton by September, 1963"

Myers note 112, reference to Mrs. Holan's daughter: "interview with Holan family member, June 3, 2020".

And finally, I see no evidence in Myers' article that any Holan family member said otherwise, or that any Holan family member was the direct source for the Livingstone, Pulte, and Brownlow belief that the Holans' address was 10th St. on Nov 22, 1963. Some here have been assuming the younger son of Mrs. Holan was that source, and one of Myers' comments makes it sound like Myers himself might have assumed that, but there is no evidence for that assumption that I can see. 

In fact, I see no evidence that the whole story of the Holan boy seeing the stabbing on Marsalis and 10th, going rapidly to the scene of Tippit's cruiser and seeing his mom there, etc., came directly from that Holan boy. It could easily come from hearsay, say someone who knew or heard of a Holan boy who told Pulte and Brownlow, at least one step removed. 

In fact the error or belief in contradiction to the testimony of the two Holan family members to Myers concerning the address on Nov 22, 1963, of Pulte and Brownlow, makes no sense coming directly from a son of Mrs. Holan living in the same house on Nov 22, 1963, as if that son would remember differently from his sister and brother, in which house he was living on the day JFK and Tippit were killed.

Yet Pulte and Brownlow believed the wrong address on 10th Street was the address. This says to me their belief came from a source at least once removed from the son, not the son.

This makes, in terms of known witnesses of family members, 2 who verify Mrs. Holan was living on Patton on Nov 22, 1963, versus 0 known to have said any differently. 2 versus 0.

And the city directory published in June 1964 based on door-to-door street canvassing ca. 7 months earlier (according to Myers' report of research on that detail) has the Holans on S. Patton. There is no reason Lad Jr. or the sister would lie about it, and no reason to suppose Lad Jr. would not remember where his home was on Nov. 22, 1963, that particular day.  

And there is no evidence going the other way, nothing, other than Pulte and Brownlow's belief that the Holans lived on 10th on Nov 22, 1963, and their journalistic standards make that not of strong weight. 

Is it possible Pulte and Brownlow could talk to Mrs. Holan without accurately nailing down the detail of Mrs. Holan's home address that day? It appears that was the case (unless there was some confusion if Mrs. Holan in the nursing home had been asked where she lived in 1963 and e.g. misunderstood the question and answered the 10th St. address).  

Edited September 3, 2023 by Greg Doudna

[Greg Doudna]

The fictitious "stabbing" at 10th and Marsalis debunked

The story of the supposed stabbing at 10th and Marsalis--associated with a son of Mrs. Holan--supposedly occurred two blocks away from the Tippit crime scene at almost exactly the same time as the Tippit killing, followed by people loading the body of that stabbing victim "in the back of a blue Mercury or a Lincoln and took off with him". In fact this is another version, a garbled version, of the ambulance taking away the body of Tippit itself. That is why there has never been any police report or verified witness statement of that alleged stabbing at 10th and Marsalis, because there never was one, even though some researchers have believed there was.

The hearsay story of Pulte and Brownlow sounds like the Holan boy came from 10th and Marsalis having heard something there about the ambulance taking the Tippit body, heard something that somebody heard from somebody ... and the Holan boy goes two blocks west on 10th heading home and runs into his mother at the Tippit crime scene. She tells him an officer has been shot right there. He tells his mother, in this account according to Brownlow:

" ... he looked at his mom, he said, ‘Mom, well, I see what’s happening here,’ he said, ‘but, down at the corner,’ he said, ‘a man just got stabbed.’ He said, ‘God, there’s blood everywhere down there.’ He said they threw the man in the back of a blue Mercury or a Lincoln and took off with him.' "

But it was two versions of the rapidly spreading news in the neighborhood of the ambulance taking the Tippit body. That alleged separate stabbing event and loading of another body into another vehicle never happened. It was a garbled account of the news spreading about Tippit. 

The story at the Tippit crime scene sounds suspiciously like a hearsay version of the account of Lad Jr. (the older son) himself to Myers. Lad Jr. spoke to Myers of walking south on Lansing (one block west parallel to Marsalis) and then west on 10th (similar to route claimed by Brownlow for the younger son). Lad Jr. spoke to Myers that "Tippit was still bleeding when he arrived", and being there when "an ambulance arrived". But Lad Jr. reported by Myers said nothing of seeing his mother or his younger brother at the scene and did not think his mother was there (50+ years later).

Lad Jr. told Myers that after the ambulance arrived and the first officer showed up (that would be Croy) that he left the immediate scene, went home to their Patton St. apartment for a moment but no one was there, then came back outside and watched from under a tree at the southwest corner of Tenth and Patton.

The mention of the apartment being empty when Lad Jr. went in for a moment would be consistent with his mother having left the apartment by that time and walked to the crime scene to look. With what Lad Jr. says was his mother's car photographed at 1:45 pm that day parked in front of their Patton Street apartment being argument that she was home that day and was so at the time of the shots. But (like many other normal persons), upon hearing the shots and looking out her front window, Mrs. Holan then would have gone down to the street level and walked to the crime scene, and that could be why Mrs. Holan was not in the apartment by the time Lad Jr. entered the apartment for his momentary visit. 

Edited September 3, 2023 by Greg Doudna

[Greg Doudna]

Update: the Holan boy alleged by Brownlow to be a witness to the 10th and Marsalis "stabbing" story may refer back to Lad Jr. himself, not the younger brother of Lad Jr.

Pulte referred to an informant "H2" and Brownlow referred to a story of a Holan boy reporting the 10th and Marsalis "stabbing" story to his mother at the Tippit crime scene. Myers reasoned and concluded the reference had to have been to the younger Holan son, name unstated, age 10 in 1963. Myers (https://jfkfiles.blogspot.com/2020/11/doris-e-holan-and-tippit-murder.html) :

Three years later, in a January 18, 1999, letter to Harrison E. Livingstone, the source of one of the claims became clear. Professor Pulte wrote: “Informant H2, who reported a fight at 12th and Marsalis a few moments before the murder of Tippit, also provided the following information: the assailant ran westward down the alley, turned right at Crawford, ducked into the ‘hospital area’ of the Abundant Life annex, hid there for a while and then made his way to [the] second floor of the annex building. By this time, his pursuers had passed. The assailant climbed out of a second-floor window at the SE corner of the building, jumped to the ground (the second floor is quite low), and continued across Crawford and down the alley westward. I told Larry Harris what H2 had said, and he looked amazed. He said, ‘You know, Bill, Penn [Jones] used to talk about the old hospital beds down in the basement of the church annex building.’”

"Pulte’s source (identified only as ‘H2’) was a reference to the youngest son of Doris E. Holan, whom Pulte (or another unidentified individual) had obviously spoken to by 1990.[84] 

The last sentence above was not from Pulte but was Myers' own voice and conclusion, with reasoning explained in Myers' note 84:

"Lad Holan, Jr., the only other possible source, told me in 2020 that I was the first person to interview him, consequently, Pulte could not be referring to him."

But the reasoning given by Myers does not mean "Informant H2" was therefore the younger brother of Lad Jr.! For reasons noted in my previous, it looks like the referent of the Holan boy in Brownlow's telling is Lad Jr. himself in some garbled hearsay form, and there is no younger Holan boy in this picture at all. That may be a mistake. 

 

"Informant H2" could be neither of the two Holan boys but rather some hearsay source telling of Lad Jr.  Since Pulte and Brownlow claim they had witnesses to the "stabbing" among employees of a business located at 12th and Marsalis, was "Informant H2" one of those claimed (never verified, but claimed) witnesses at 12th and Marsalis who told Pulte and/or Brownlow some hearsay of Lad Jr.--and "H2" was not either of the Holan boys themselves?

 

In this picture the referent of Brownlow's story becomes Lad Jr., and yet it was hearsay of Lad Jr. and Brownlow never spoke to him (nor did he claim to have done so), based on Lad Jr. told Myers he had never been interviewed by anyone prior to Myers.

 

If correct, this is of possible interest as an actual test case by which an example of witness hearsay reported by Pulte and Brownlow, by a fortuitous accident, can be checked against a firsthand account of an actual referent in a hearsay story told by Brownlow. That referent was Lad Jr., with Lad Jr. himself, the referent, coming forth to tell Myers for the first time his account firsthand 50+ years later.

 

The hearsay telling of Lad Jr. 30+ years later (Brownlow's story), compared to the firsthand account of Lad Jr. 50+ years later, even though stemming from the same Lad Jr., are sufficiently different that they have not been recognized as stemming from a common origin. And yet the details in the stories are sufficient to make this match.

 

It is a case study of how hearsay can garble things while preserving certain details at the same time.

 

So to me it looks like (unless Myers had undisclosed additional information establishing the younger son was the true referent) all the talk about the younger Holan boy may be a red herring re the Pulte/Brownlow 12th and Marsalis "stabbing" story.

 

Myers says he tried to contact the younger Holan son but the younger Holan son never responded or said anything. So it is not as if there is confirmation from the younger Holan son of any role in Pulte's and Brownlow's tellings. 

 

Edited September 3, 2023 by Greg Doudna