POLICE CAR IN THE ALLEY? NOPE.

[Tom Gram]

10 hours ago, Greg Doudna said:

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 Holan 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 younger son 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 younger son. 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).  

Lad Holan was not really adamant though. He originally believed the family lived on 10th at the time of the assassination, and only changed his mind in 2021 after being interviewed by Myers, who was on a targeted crusade to discredit Doris Holan. This is not an insignificant detail. 

Suggestion can be a pretty powerful thing, and we do not have a tape or transcript of Myers’ interview.

On your other point I’ll just paste what I wrote in a previous thread: 

The footnote isn’t exactly crystal clear. Footnote 31 covers only one sentence:

By September 1963, the Holan family moved to their second residence in central Oak Cliff – an apartment in a two-story, red brick building at 113 S. Patton Avenue, located adjacent to the alley between E. Tenth Street and E. Jefferson Boulevard. [31]

[31] Ibid., p.4 [NOTE: According to one family member, the Holan family was living at 113 ½ S. Patton by September, 1963, although the exact date could not be confirmed by other family members.]

The reference is to the 2021 interview with Lad Holan. I’m not sure what Lad contributed to that sentence on p.4 of his interview, but Myers sure makes it sound like he talked to at least three additional family members. Another possibility would be that Lad talked to his family and relayed the info to Myers in the interview. We don’t have the interview transcript so we can’t check. 

If Myers talked to these people himself, he undoubtedly would have asked them which apartment they remembered Doris living in on the day of the assassination, or if they’d been told anything by relatives about when the move occurred, etc. What did they actually say? We know that Myers at least talked to the sister. He references the letter obtained from her so if she was the source of the September date why not just say so? If Myers really had corroboration from a Holan family member that the move occurred prior to the assassination, you’d think that he’d make that clear to his readers. If the information from the family came from Lad Holan, we need the exact quote from the interview to evaluate its credibility.

[Greg Doudna]

1 hour ago, Tom Gram said:

Lad Holan was not really adamant though. He originally believed the family lived on 10th at the time of the assassination, and only changed his mind in 2021 after being interviewed by Myers, who was on a targeted crusade to discredit Doris Holan. This is not an insignificant detail. 

Where do you get "He originally believed the family lived on 10th at the time of the assassination"?

Myers says Lad Jr. changed on when the family moved to live on 10th (in 1964 versus in 1962), but not on where the family was living on Nov 22, 1963. Lad Jr. is never reported as saying other than they were living on Patton Street on Nov 22, 1963. And "adamant" is accurate about that, no other way to read it. 

1 hour ago, Tom Gram said:

Suggestion can be a pretty powerful thing, and we do not have a tape or transcript of Myers’ interview.

I do not think suggestion could cause Lad Jr to change a memory of where he was living on the day of the JFK assassination and Tippit killing. And I do not believe Myers attempted to lead or flagrantly distort witnesses' tellings. I believe Myers attempted and is among the better ones at succeeding at accurate reporting of witness interviews. 

1 hour ago, Tom Gram said:

The footnote isn’t exactly crystal clear. Footnote 31 covers only one sentence:

By September 1963, the Holan family moved to their second residence in central Oak Cliff – an apartment in a two-story, red brick building at 113 S. Patton Avenue, located adjacent to the alley between E. Tenth Street and E. Jefferson Boulevard. [31]

[31] Ibid., p.4 [NOTE: According to one family member, the Holan family was living at 113 ½ S. Patton by September, 1963, although the exact date could not be confirmed by other family members.]

The reference is to the 2021 interview with Lad Holan. I’m not sure what Lad contributed to that sentence on p.4 of his interview, but Myers sure makes it sound like he talked to at least three additional family members. Another possibility would be that Lad talked to his family and relayed the info to Myers in the interview. We don’t have the interview transcript so we can’t check. 

If Myers talked to these people himself, he undoubtedly would have asked them which apartment they remembered Doris living in on the day of the assassination, or if they’d been told anything by relatives about when the move occurred, etc. What did they actually say? We know that Myers at least talked to the sister. He references the letter obtained from her so if she was the source of the September date why not just say so?

No the reference isn't to Lad Jr., Tom!

Myers says what the reference is to: "one family member", full stop, not specified.

I think you are getting the Lad Jr. connection from the paragraph preceding the one quoted. But Myers is making a fresh, new statement, not said to be from Lad Jr., and footnoted to "one family member".

I agree with you on one point: in rereading Myers' piece he does seem to refer to plural "family members" in addition to Lad Jr.--which if taken literally means at least two with whom he talked in addition to Lad Jr. But Myers separately says he never spoke to the younger brother, and says there were only three children of Doris Holan living with her in 1963: Lad Jr., age 13; his younger brother, age 10; and sister, about age 6. That is said to be the only ones living with Doris, which does not exclude the possibility of other siblings not living in Doris's household. From the plural other "family members", there is implication that Myers contacted some other sibling(s) not living in that household, or else family in some other way (e.g. half-sibling, cousin, in-law, whatever).

Therefore "one family member" could be someone other than the sister, but there is no reason to suppose it was Lad Jr., and it cannot have been Lad Jr.'s younger brother. You may have a point that since Myers attributed the Dec 1963 letter to the sister, why wouldn't he attribute the Sept 1963 move date to the sister too, if it was her. That would weigh in favor of a different family member, perhaps another sibling who was not living with Mrs. Holan but knew when the Mrs. Holan household had moved to Patton.

1 hour ago, Tom Gram said:

If Myers really had corroboration from a Holan family member that the move occurred prior to the assassination, you’d think that he’d make that clear to his readers.

But he did make clear to his readers that he had corroboration from a Holan family member. Footnote 31: "According to one family member, the Holan family was living at 113 ½ S. Patton by September, 1963". 

As to the anonymity, that can just be assumed to be because Myers had asked and been refused permission from that source to be named, who preferred not to be named, and that request was honored by Myers. That seems to be Myers' pattern in the matter of named versus unnamed sources in his reporting.   

Also, apart from Pulte and Brownlow's claim, there is no information that puts the Mrs. Holan household other than on Patton Street on Nov 22, 1963 in the first place. There is the Christmas letter, the city directory, and Lad Jr.  It is not as if there ever was any actual dispute over the address in any form other than Brownlow's claim. When weighing that against the known information from contemporary records and the family all going the other way ... the conclusion is Brownlow had his wires crossed on something and had that wrong. But the Mrs. Holan story of seeing "Oswald" run toward and under her window and the patrol car going forward and backward across from her front window after the shots could be true from her correct vantage point that day, notwithstanding Brownlow screwed up on the address. 

Edited September 3, 2023 by Greg Doudna

[Greg Doudna]

P.s. Tom, in Myers' piece as it currently reads, the claim is not that Sept 1963 was the time of the move to Patton, but a claim that one family member confirmed that in Sept 1963 they were living on Patton. The move to Patton could have occurred earlier but not later than Sept 1963. Myers note 31 (the bracketed "NOTE" comment is Myers'):

"[31] Ibid., p.4 [NOTE: According to one family member, the Holan family was living at 113 ½ S. Patton by September, 1963, although the exact date could not be confirmed by other family members.]"

Myers independently cites a Cole's Criss-Cross Cross Reference Directory information establishing the Holans lived on 10th in late 1962. This is an update to the 2020 article.

"However, following the initial publication of this article, it came to my attention that the 1963 Cole’s Criss-Cross Cross Reference Directory for Greater Dallas, published on July 25, 1963, and providing information on the residency of citizens in the fall of 1962, showed Doris Holan already living at 409 E. Tenth in 1962. [27]"

 

So first they lived at 10th, then at some point they moved to Patton. They are confirmed on 10th fall of 1962, and the move to Patton can have happened no later than before Sept 1963 (unnamed family member); and before Nov 22, 1963 (Lad Holan Jr.); and before Dec 26, 1963 (Christmas letter mailed to Holans on Patton). 

 

Myers has updated the 2020 piece since its initial writing, and possibly is backtracking (not clear on this) on his original reporting that Lad Jr. claimed an erroneous date of 1964 for the move of the family from Patton to 10th. Here is what Myers has now. From the date of the interview noted, this is definitely an update from Myers from originally. Myers note 121 (the "NOTE" and bracketed is Myers'):

 

"[121] [NOTE: I initially reported that “…Holan insisted that he was living on Patton on November 22nd and that they later moved to Tenth. He recalled walking passed the house that they later moved to on his way home from school every day.” (Original 2020 version) However, during an exchange in 2021, I told Holan, “When we first started talking about this, you said you remembered the 409 [E. Tenth] address and I think the first thing you told me is you said, ‘Yeah, because I used to walk by it on my way to school.’ I thought you meant that you remember walking past 409 E. Tenth before you moved there. Then, after getting a copy of the 1963 Cole’s Directory, I got to thinking that maybe he’s remembering walking by it after you had moved from there.” Lad replied, “Yeah. Exactly.” (Interview of Lad A. Holan, Jr., March 26, 2021, Pt.2, pp.24-25)]"

 

Edited September 3, 2023 by Greg Doudna

[James DiEugenio]

I much appreciate Tom's contributions to this thread.

It seems he had not forgotten about the record of Mr. Single Bullet Fact.

Example:   after not being able to find him for decades, 10 days after he buys McBride's book he declares Tippit's father incompetent.

[Tom Gram]

6 hours ago, Greg Doudna said:

Where do you get "He originally believed the family lived on 10th at the time of the assassination"?

Myers says Lad Jr. changed on when the family moved to live on 10th (in 1964 versus in 1962), but not on where the family was living on Nov 22, 1963. Lad Jr. is never reported as saying other than they were living on Patton Street on Nov 22, 1963. And "adamant" is accurate about that, no other way to read it. 

I do not think suggestion could cause Lad Jr to change a memory of where he was living on the day of the JFK assassination and Tippit killing. And I do not believe Myers attempted to lead or flagrantly distort witnesses' tellings. I believe Myers attempted and is among the better ones at succeeding at accurate reporting of witness interviews. 

No the reference isn't to Lad Jr., Tom!

Myers says what the reference is to: "one family member", full stop, not specified.

I think you are getting the Lad Jr. connection from the paragraph preceding the one quoted. But Myers is making a fresh, new statement, not said to be from Lad Jr., and footnoted to "one family member".

I agree with you on one point: in rereading Myers' piece he does seem to refer to plural "family members" in addition to Lad Jr.--which if taken literally means at least two with whom he talked in addition to Lad Jr. But Myers separately says he never spoke to the younger brother, and says there were only three children of Doris Holan living with her in 1963: Lad Jr., age 13; his younger brother, age 10; and sister, about age 6. That is said to be the only ones living with Doris, which does not exclude the possibility of other siblings not living in Doris's household. From the plural other "family members", there is implication that Myers contacted some other sibling(s) not living in that household, or else family in some other way (e.g. half-sibling, cousin, in-law, whatever).

Therefore "one family member" could be someone other than the sister, but there is no reason to suppose it was Lad Jr., and it cannot have been Lad Jr.'s younger brother. You may have a point that since Myers attributed the Dec 1963 letter to the sister, why wouldn't he attribute the Sept 1963 move date to the sister too, if it was her. That would weigh in favor of a different family member, perhaps another sibling who was not living with Mrs. Holan but knew when the Mrs. Holan household had moved to Patton.

But he did make clear to his readers that he had corroboration from a Holan family member. Footnote 31: "According to one family member, the Holan family was living at 113 ½ S. Patton by September, 1963". 

As to the anonymity, that can just be assumed to be because Myers had asked and been refused permission from that source to be named, who preferred not to be named, and that request was honored by Myers. That seems to be Myers' pattern in the matter of named versus unnamed sources in his reporting.   

Also, apart from Pulte and Brownlow's claim, there is no information that puts the Mrs. Holan household other than on Patton Street on Nov 22, 1963 in the first place. There is the Christmas letter, the city directory, and Lad Jr.  It is not as if there ever was any actual dispute over the address in any form other than Brownlow's claim. When weighing that against the known information from contemporary records and the family all going the other way ... the conclusion is Brownlow had his wires crossed on something and had that wrong. But the Mrs. Holan story of seeing "Oswald" run toward and under her window and the patrol car going forward and backward across from her front window after the shots could be true from her correct vantage point that day, notwithstanding Brownlow screwed up on the address. 

You are right that Myers only says that Lad Holan originally thought the move to 10th St. occurred later - or at least that’s what’s in the current version of the article. I was going off memory... Still though, Myers’ next paragraph has Lad Holan supposedly remembering walking past the 10th St. address: “he recalled walking past the house that they had previously lived in (409 E. Tenth Street) on his way home from school every day.” So Lad Holan was definite in his memory, but couldn’t even remember if the family lived at the 10th St. address before or after the assassination? That kind of makes my point. Holan’s 58-year old memory just isn’t credible - and we don’t have a tape or transcript to verify what Holan actually said to Myers. If Holan originally remembered the family moving to 10th St. after the assassination, isn’t it possible that he mixed up 10th with Patton?

This thing about Myers backtracking on his original claim is exactly why we need a transcript, and preferably a tape of the interview(s). How certain was Holan really when Myers first asked about the Patton address? How did Myers phrase his questions? Did Myers share any information with Holan prior to the interview? Etc. etc. etc.

I’m not really sure why you trust Myers’ reporting, especially after he reacted like a whiny child to your inquiries about the fingerprints. He clearly has an agenda, and his footnotes to anything that doesn’t support that agenda seem deliberately vague. Footnote 31 is a prime example. Like you said, if it really was the sister, why not just say so? If Myers really talked to other family members, he obviously would’ve asked them about the date of the move. What did they actually say? Myers says that they couldn’t confirm the exact date of the move. Did they at least agree with Lad that the move occurred prior to Nov. 22nd? Did they corroborate Doris Holan’s alleged statement to Brownlow and Pulte? Did they not remember either way?

We shouldn’t have to parse Myers’ exact phrasing like it’s some secret code. If one family member recalled the Holans living on Patton “by September”, why did they think that? Was there a reason they remembered September specifically? Were they just guessing? Did Myers mention his theory before he asked? Etc. etc. etc. If Myers’ was an impartial reporter, these are the questions he should’ve asked and shared with his readers. 

I agree it’s totally possible that Pulte and Brownlow misreported what Doris Holan said, or that she just didn’t remember correctly 40+ years later. I just think the evidence leaves a legitimate probability that the family still lived where Doris Holan allegedly said they did on Nov 22. The Holans did live directly across the street from the scene of the Tippit murder in 1963, so Brownlow and Pulte didn’t just make that up.

Ignoring all the other evidence, going with the September thing as a lower bound, and accepting Myers’ questionable assumption that the Holans’ Christmas letter spent an entire week in the mail, that gives us a span of 9/1 - 12/19/63. 9/1 to 11/21 is 81 days and 11/23 to 12/19 is 26 days, for a total of 107 days. 26/107 is approximately 24%. 24% is a heck of a lot higher than zero. 

There’s also one very good reason why the Holans might have decided to move down the street after Nov. 22nd. 

Edited September 3, 2023 by Tom Gram

[Greg Doudna]

Tom, a key point is it is a matter of fact that the Holans were living on 10th by late 1962, and then moved to Patton by Sept 1963 at the latest, according to the unnamed family member noted by Myers (who I accept from your reasoning and point may have been not the sister but some other family member not living with Mrs. Holan and the three children). That Sept 1963 date is not the date of the move, but a terminus ad quem, latest possible month for the move since the memory is of their living at the Patton Street address that month (no doubt from some association to a dated event on the part of the one remembering). Not moved there that month, but for sure was living there that month because <xyz>. OK, that is Myers' report, have to take his word on that for the Sept 1963 if you believe he is a credible reporter. 

Following Sept 1963, there is next for sure a different family member witness claim that they are living there on Nov 22, 1963. Lad Jr., who is living today and cannot have said differently privately to Myers because if so it could easily be shown by Lad Jr. just saying so. That is incentive to keep the reporting of Lad Jr. honest even if there were not journalist's scruples to be truthful which I believe in Myers' case there are.

Then the Christmas letter mailed to the Patton St. address in December says that is their address and the address their correspondent had in December. And if in December presumably late November 3-4 weeks earlier. And the 1964 city directory has the Holans on Patton reflecting information collected from door-to-door street canvassing in the Sept.-Dec 1963 time frame (according to Myers' research reported on that timeline). 

And the original reporting that Lad Jr. thought the family had moved to 10th Street in 1964, Myers may be saying in his updatings (I'm a little unsure on this but what it looks like) that there was a misunderstanding, that Lad Jr. may not have originally meant that. 

It seems the sequence was not: (a) Myers wanted to demolish the Mrs. Holan story told by Brownlow of seeing the second patrol car; (b) Myers manipulated family witness interviews, contrived to get Lad Jr. to go on the record with what Myers wanted; (c) did the hatchet job.

The flaw in that scenario is the city directory which has the Holans on Patton in late 1963. That cannot have been contrived by Myers. It seems that that city directory listing of the Patton St. address is what actually started it for Myers, as opposed to a decision to demolish the patrol car story starting it, then go rig up some evidence.

And I don't buy the suggestion that the killing of Tippit/JFK would prompt a move of Mrs. Holan's household a few houses around the corner. Mrs. Holan is a single mom with three children, works a night shift and rents. This does not sound like a rich family with money. I know how much godawful hassle not to mention costs it was to move my boxes and stuff when I was just myself as a single person, let alone for a working single mom with three children. To move what, four or five houses away because spooked by the Tippit killing across the street? I don't think that's realistic. If that really were a reason prompting a move, which I cannot imagine, wouldn't such a move prompted by that purpose be a little farther away than only four or five houses around the corner?

5 hours ago, Tom Gram said:

I’m not really sure why you trust Myers’ reporting, especially after he reacted like a whiny child to your inquiries about the fingerprints. He clearly has an agenda, and his footnotes to anything that doesn’t support that agenda seem deliberately vague.

The reason is because the bad experience I had with Myers is not relevant to a judgment of credibility of witness reporting. When I was in the academic world I realized early on that there was no correlation between the quality of a scholar's work and how decent they were in person. It is mix and match, no correlation or causal relationship. Same principle here.

It has nothing to do with a judgment of the quality of Myers' work in With Malice. I wonder if some of the critics of that work even have seen and browsed through the physical book. It is encyclopedic, an achievement worthy of immense respect. Myers has also broken one quality story after another on his blog related to the Tippit case following With Malice, the kind of investigation that takes hard work and footwork. 

Do you see large numbers of complaints from witnesses pouring in saying Myers misquoted them? Changed their meanings from what they meant? Manipulated them in his questioning? Claimed he fabricated quotes put in their names? No. And the database is huge, Myers has done many, many interviews. 

Having said that your cross-examination is valuable Tom and I hope you will continue.  

Edited September 4, 2023 by Greg Doudna

[Ron Bulman]

Given his title of Professor Bill Pulte of SMU and his dismissal by BB as starting to fall asleep in an interview I was curious about him and looked for myself.  As a general rule a PhD in virtually any field requires learning at least some research techniques and actual research, developing a thesis, giving a dissertation etc.  SMU is a long established, respected institution of higher education.  So I went looking.

First, Dr. Pulte passed away this past March 31, 2023 at age 82.  Born and raised in Gainesville, north of Dallas he would have been a student at North Texas State University in Denton on November 22, 1963, where he received degrees in Spanish. Given he taught German and Latin at the HS level and wrote the Cherokee - English dictionary he spoke at least four languages fluently, probably more.  He later obtained his PhD in Linguistics from the University of Texas at Austin.

In January 1973 he joined the Anthropology Department at SMU.  Where he developed and directed their Bilingual Education program including the Master's program in it for over 25 years, retiring after 42 years as a professor emeritus.  The annual Dr. Bill Pulte Bilingual Leadership award by Vida Education is named after him.

He was no slouch intellectually.  Nor a nutty professor like McAdams.

Dr. William "Bill" Pulte Obituary - Visitation & Funeral Information (restlandfuneralhome.com)

SMU Retired Faculty

More I've found on Brownlow in a few days, I need to evaluate first.

[Michael Kalin]

6 hours ago, Ron Bulman said:

He was no slouch intellectually.  Nor a nutty professor like McAdams.

Dr. William "Bill" Pulte Obituary - Visitation & Funeral Information (restlandfuneralhome.com)

SMU Retired Faculty

More I've found on Brownlow in a few days, I need to evaluate first.

An impressive scholar, but evaluation of his contribution to Tippit research may prove difficult. Unless I've overlooked a major repository nothing he did is documented in an orderly, scholarly way. Instead, he had a tendency to release material in dribs & drabs via associates & intermediaries going back at least to one of Livingstone's books.

I hope this impression is wrong and his estate has a mass of papers relative to his Oak Cliff neighborhood Tippit research which will be placed in the hands of a diligent caretaker. It would be encouraging if this has already happened.

Ron, thanks for the information.

[Greg Doudna]

Thank you Ron for the human side of Prof. Pulte. As an undergraduate linguistics major myself, I did not know Pulte did the Cherokee dictionary.

To the point: although Pulte did not publish his Tippit case and JFK assassination witness contacts and information, I dearly hope someone responsible can obtain from the family his relevant papers and archive them, including the hearsay and rumors, whatever is there, for the benefit of future historians.

Also, if it is not too late, I dearly hope someone would obtain Brownlow's cooperation to take down an oral history from him with everything he knows of his witness contacts, as best and as accurately as he can tell from his memory, with as many specifics in terms of names and dates as can be gotten from him, and any relevant private papers if any. As flawed as Brownlow may be, he also had contacts and rumors that may have involved contact with real information at times, and if there is no serious attempt to debrief Brownlow it will be lost with him. Again for the benefit of future historians, who may be in a better position to assess significance on some things.

[Tom Gram]

14 hours ago, Greg Doudna said:

Not moved there that month, but for sure was living there that month because <xyz>. OK, that is Myers' report, have to take his word on that for the Sept 1963 if you believe he is a credible reporter. 

There is no “because”. Myers didn’t share that key detail. I think you can agree that is something he undoubtedly would have asked. There are also multiple other unnamed family members who could not confirm the September date, for which Myers didn’t share the critical detail of whether they recalled the move to Patton occurring before or after the assassination. 

I mentioned this in the old thread, but the City Directory only reflects that the Holans were aware of their upcoming address during the canvassing, for which we also do not have an exact date. Most people start apartment hunting months in advance of their lease running out, so the Directory alone doesn’t tell us anything about the exact date of the move. 

Lad Holan’s 58 year old memory regarding apartments separated by a few hundred feet is not credible, and we can’t confirm what he actually said to Myers in context. My point about Myers having an agenda wasn’t meant to imply that he’d outright fabricate witness statements. My point is he is so rabidly biased that his presentation of evidence cannot be trusted as complete, especially when he doesn’t make his sources available for peer review. Like was there really a “misunderstanding” about Lad Holan misremembering the date of the move? We don’t know, and until Myers releases a transcript or preferably a tape we won’t be able to check. I’m not going to hold my breath. 

Myers writes with dramatic flair to spice up anything that supports his thesis (see Lad Holan’s alleged statements about the car photo), while dismissing any evidence or any person he doesn’t like with invective and condescension. He throws literal tantrums like a pompous child, regularly appeals to his own authority, and has zero interest in making any of his raw research product available for peer review. With Malice is no exception. That book is heavily based on Myers’ time calculations on the dictabelt, but he has never shared his exact methodology so it’s impossible to reproduce his work. I’m not sure about his witness interviews. Has Myers released any tapes or transcripts from his interviews in With Malice? 

Didn’t you also find that Myers had omitted a key FBI statement by Helen Markham? 

There is also a precedent for Myers being deliberately deceptive in his presentation of evidence. Myers’ reactions to Pat Speer and others when they pointed out the deceptions in his Single Bullet animation were embarrassing and revealing, and do not reflect very well on his overall credibility. That is not directly relevant here, but it’s worth mentioning the fact that Myers is not quite the monolith of honesty and objectivity in the JFK case he makes himself out to be. 

Plenty of pro-conspiracy authors conduct interviews and don’t release tapes or transcripts. Hell we even have an example here with Brownlow, Pulte and Doris Holan. My point is that Myers should not be held to a different standard, and it would be naive to take anything he says at face value. Myers has demonstrated a bias in his research that exceeds some of the most extreme conspiracy theorists, and I wouldn’t take his word for anything without checking and rechecking every single citation. However, several of Myers’ citations are impossible to verify and/or appear to be deliberately vague like footnote 31. That does not inspire confidence that we are getting the full, unfiltered story about this Holan thing.  

Even if we are getting the full story, the fact remains that the only evidence placing the Holans move to Patton before the assassination is the 58-year old unreliable memory of Lad Holan, and a cryptic footnote to the alleged statement of only one out of several interviewed Holan family members, who recalled, 58 years later, the family living on Patton in September ‘63 for unstated reasons. If the same type of “evidence” was presented as conclusive proof of Doris Holan living on 10th, as Myers has done with the move to Patton, it would be subjected to ridicule and condescension by Myers and his acolytes. 

Lastly, I disagree that the Tippit murder is not a plausible reason for the Holans moving to Patton. If Doris Holan actually witnessed what Brownlow and Pulte say she did for example, that would’ve been a very traumatic experience and could have been triggered every time she looked out that window. Like you said, the family was not wealthy, so the easiest solution in that scenario would be to move to down the street so they weren’t directly overlooking the murder scene.

Edited September 4, 2023 by Tom Gram

[Paul Jolliffe]

On 9/1/2023 at 3:52 PM, Greg Doudna said:

The tentative scenario reconstruction proposal emergent as a result of discussion from Paul, which is not an "affair" scenario:

• start from the phone number of Virginia Davis in Ruby's notebook of phone messages often written down by Craford answering the phone. Take this as the starting point. How and why is that phone number there, and why is it in the name of a woman acquaintance of Ruby who has nothing to do with Virginia Davis, that phone number, or that address? 
• Paul gave what I regard as the key insight: that that phone number/message in Ruby's notebook is, just as Craford testified he thought it was, a phone callin from a woman inquiring about employment. The scenario would be Ruby runs an ad for the Carousel Club, and one of the two sisters-in-law associated with Virginia Davis's phone, calls in inquiring about the job, perhaps as a waitress or "champagne girl" (less likely stripper if the caller did not already have stripping experience, which probably neither of the Davis sisters-in-law did)
• Although the call could have come from either one of the Davis sisters-in-law, I am assuming Barbara, the older of the two with the two children, though the reconstruction would work the same if it were the younger Virginia, who was only age 16. 
• The baffling puzzle of why Virginia Davis's phone number has "Leona Miller", a known woman acquainted with Ruby who has nothing to do with Virginia Davis's phone number or address, is explained in that the caller, Barbara Davis (calling from Virginia's phone), wants to keep this communication confidential, planning on having a first conversation with her husband about working afternoons as a waitress at the Carousel Club only if there was a firm job offered. But on this phone call, Craford answers, cannot answer her questions, offers to take a message to give to Ruby and politely asks for her name and phone number so Ruby, or someone on Ruby's behalf, can call her back. But Barbara does not want to give her name and phone number for the obvious reason of not wanting, at this stage, either of the brothers/husbands of the sisters-in-law living in two units at 400 E. 10th to find out. Craford learns this concern from Barbara calling and (perhaps not the first time this kind of issue has arisen) suggests a simple workaround: he picks a name out of the air at random--which is the name of a woman in Ruby's circle, and tells Barbara that will be who the return call will ask for, and by that means Virginia and Barbara (Virginia, whose phone is being used, is witting to this with Barbara) will know it is the Carousel Club calling back. If by mistake Virginia's husband answers the phone asking for "Leona Miller" the call will be assumed to be a wrong number.
• This explains what has previously eluded solution, how that phone number from 400 E. 10th, the scene of the Tippit killing, ended up in Ruby's notebook with the fictitious name. It was all about a job inquiry from one or the other of the two Davis sisters-in-law, with a bit of subterfuge based on not wanting the husbands to know about that job inquiry at that time. 
• And the location of the Tippit crime scene being associated with the same address (one house away from where Tippit stopped his patrol car when shot) is caused by the address of Virginia Davis's phone number in Ruby's phone book, and not a freak coincidence, as follows.
• There is a planned hit on officer Tippit. Not known why, but Tippit was executed in an ambush (argued fact), meaning it was planned (follows from argued fact). Presumed Tippit had some deadly knowledge, as the most likely reason, in the absence of a specific known reason. It may possibly be relevant that Tippit was in contact with Oswald (argued fact) and was seen two days earlier at the same time in the same restaurant as Oswald also there at a different table (known fact). The reason for suspecting relevance is the killer of Tippit immediately next set out to kill Oswald in the Texas Theatre minutes later. Therefore Tippit and Oswald contacts prior to Nov 22 take on interest in this light.  
• The killer of Tippit was Craford, not Oswald (case independent grounds).
• Craford could have been in Ruby's apartment the night of Nov 21/22 and morning of Nov 22, following Ruby giving Craford a ride home from work at the Vegas Club and an after-work meeting of Ruby and Craford in a restaurant where they were seen together at about 2 am Nov 22. He could have been in Ruby's apartment the morning of Nov 22 after George Senator left (who would not necessarily know Craford was sleeping in Ruby's separate room) and after Ruby left that morning. This puts Craford within several blocks walking distance to the scene of the Tippit killing, at the time just before the Tippit killing. 
• And here is the crux of everything--the breakthrough--why Tippit was set up for an ambush and execution at that particular location: it all goes to that original phone number and address of Virginia Davis, contact with Ruby. 
• Barbara or Virginia Davis, whichever one it was (if Barbara, Virginia was witting and assisting her older sister-in-law), is called and an appointment fixed responsive to the job inquiry--at say set for 1:30 pm on Nov 22--the planned visit to be carried out by Craford.
• Ruby/Craford also asks for the presence at that location of their contact Courson (whom they know from his hanging out evenings in plain clothes at the Carousel Club in performance of his job duties with the Sheriff's Department). (One could conjecture several reasons for this, not excluding the possibility of a setup "framing" of Courson as a suspect in the Tippit killing? In any case some purpose in the interests of the planned hit on Tippit, although Courson would be unwitting to intention of the killing itself. Unwitting is established by his driving his own marked patrol car to park in the alley near the scene.)
• Now Craford has an alibi for why he walks to Virginia Davis's apartment, and a good excuse to hang around there for any amount of time allowance for variability in Tippit's time of arrival to the planned meeting. In the event, that was not necessary (Craford saw Tippit's cruiser pull up just as he arrived by walking on 10th Street), but if Tippit had been delayed or showed up a few minutes late, Craford has an alibi for why he might be seen sticking around that location. 
• The intended location of the meeting of Barbara Davis was in Virginia Davis's apartment, vacant from Virginia's husband gone to work. Virginia herself is over in Barbara's apartment already by prearrangement, to babysit Barbara's children while Barbara goes around to Virginia's apartment for the planned meeting appointment.
• Tippit is killed in an ambush and execution in this matter after having been lured to that spot at a particular time, say 1:15 pm, by prearrangement, and that spot was what it was because that was the Davis's address of the phone call inquiry to the Carousel Club from Virginia Davis's phone and address. 
• Courson successfully flees the scene upon hearing the shots without his presence becoming publicly known. A witness who saw Courson leaving in the alley in a marked patrol cruiser in addition to seeing the gunman on Patton from her front window that day after running to her front window upon hearing the shots, never came forward, a fortuitous accident favorable to Courson's presence remaining unknown.
• The gunman, Craford, after killing Tippit, immediately reloads and proceeds to the Texas Theatre for the purpose of killing Oswald there next. He goes into the balcony, goes right past Courson who does not stop him coming out of the balcony even though Courson knows the suspect is said to be in the balcony. Following Julia Postal's phone call instigated by gunman-witness Brewer, police and sheriff's deputies swarm the Texas Theatre and arrest the wrong guy by mistake (in terms of the Tippit killing, the point of the suspicion and arrest at that time)--the killer's intended victim in the Texas Theatre (Oswald seated on the ground level) instead of the killer (Craford in the balcony). It happens that the arrestee, Oswald, turned out to be the leading suspect in the assassination of JFK, resisted arrest, and had a concealed gun on his person of the same type that shot Tippit (the most common type of concealed carry, so that in itself is not completely inexplicable if Oswald was innocent and also scared at the time). So Oswald was "cooked" in terms of perceived guilt. The man in the balcony, the killer of Tippit (and almost killer of Oswald that day if the police had not arrived and interrupted saving Oswald's life), Craford, got away from the theater without so much as a single officer even reporting his name written down. Scot-free. 
• Courson privately tells Sheriff Decker, his immediate superior and good working relationship, the true facts as Courson knows and understands.
• Upon decision of Decker, Decker and Courson cover up Courson's presence at the Tippit crime scene at the time of the Tippit killing. As part of this cover up, Courson is not asked, and does not submit, a written report of what he saw and did that day, as nearly all other relevant law enforcement officers did, even though Courson was actively involved at the Texas Theatre at the time of Oswald's arrest.
• The coverup had nothing to do with any "affair". It had to do with awareness of a mob/Ruby connection to the killing of Tippit being covered up inconsistent with the narrative closing the case and solving the crime in the name of the dead man, Oswald, a "satisfactory" closing of the case in the best interests of all concerned: the widow's pension, the honor of the slain officer, the good name of the Sheriff's Department, and the good of the country in keeping with the wishes of higher authority (LBJ and Hoover). 

Supporting discussions: "Were the Tippit crime scene shell hulls fired from the revolver of Lee Harvey Oswald?" (28 pp.), https://www.scrollery.com/?page_id=1581; "Lee Harvey Oswald's two jackets and why the Tippit killer's jacket was not one of them" (117 pp.), https://www.scrollery.com/?page_id=1581. 

Greg,

I'd like to read your theory as to why Crafard (presumably acting on Ruby's behalf) would have shot J.D. Tippit.

[Greg Doudna]

5 hours ago, Paul Jolliffe said:

Greg,

I'd like to read your theory as to why Crafard (presumably acting on Ruby's behalf) would have shot J.D. Tippit.

Paul, on why, I don't know. Default assumption is Tippit had "deadly knowledge" of some kind, common reason for mob hits. 

I believe Tippit and Oswald knew each other and likely had regular nonpublic meetings, with the circumstantial argument for that being they both were reported as regulars at the same Dobbs House Restaurant on Beckley, according to a waitress there who knew Tippit a long time, even though that restaurant was way out of Tippit's area but was practically next door to Oswald's rooming house. And there is the detail that Oswald in his morning visits there with some regularity was said to often order coffee only, which sounds like more than a poor man might spend on coffee but like a poor man saving money on buying a full meal. In other words, maybe he was a regular there mornings for other than food and beverage. And Tippit there regularly makes little sense at all, by coincidence where Oswald goes regularly, q.e.d.  

By my reconstruction Craford was the killer of Tippit. (On that, see "Craford, the Tippit killing, and the James Odell Estes story" at https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/29006-decipherment-of-the-james-odell-estes-story-carousel-club-july-aug-1963/page/2/#comments, which I just put up this morning.) In this reconstruction the reason the killer (Craford) went to the Texas Theatre next was to kill Oswald there, a killing #2 that day by the same contract killer. (I also suspect he had a ticket in his pocket from an earlier purchase that day, such that although he ran by Julia Postal without buying a ticket, he actually already had one if he had been asked for it. That ealier purchase would be one of Julia Postal's memory that 14  or 24, that is 14, tickets were sold that day, making 12 accounted for from known persons in the theater including the Tippit killer who ran into the balcony (Craford).

And the one-two intended killings of Tippit, then Oswald, by the same killer in the employ of Ruby (who finished killing #2 on Sunday when the police arrival prevented Craford from doing it in the Texas Theatre on Friday), says to me the prior relationship of Tippit and Oswald is not coincidence, but must have a role in why Tippit was killed. That is just too coincidental. But I still do not know why.

Another link of Tippit to Oswald that I see is: I believe Carl Mather, friend (or informant handler?) to Tippit, was the person seen in the car with Carl Mather's license plates parked on Beckley in Oak Cliff at ca. 2 pm Nov 22. The position of Mather in that car, between Oswald's rooming house and the Texas Theatre, was such that he could have seen if Oswald were walking down Beckley. In any case his otherwise-strange sitting in a parked car not far from the Texas Theatre I believe is the other half of Oswald inside the Theatre looking like he was there to meet someone, i.e. Mather may have been that meeting contact, or else on site overseeing the meeting to happen, something like that. Then when Mather learned the news from his car radio that Oswald had been arrested, Mather bolted Oak Cliff and returned to his home in Garland, then returned with his wife again in a different car to Oak Cliff to visit and console the bereaved Mrs. Tippit, their friend and the new widow. Mather's first purpose in Oak Cliff that day having to do with a meeting with Oswald was aborted.

There have been speculations concerning Tippit living somewhat beyond his means, even though he worked many hours moonlighting. Also, that Tippit lacked ambition. That could be accounted for in terms of idiosyncracy of personal character. But it also could be consistent with Tippit having a regular source of income as some kind of informant (and not needing promotion or advancement or raises in pay on his police salary). Even Tippit's moonlighting which put him in contact with lots of people could be helpful as cover for informant information collecting, though that is speculation.

I am convinced that Tippit's murder appears to have been an execution in which he was lured and ambushed and killed, a classic contract hit, but specifically why I have no good clear answer to offer, more than these possibly relevant background observations related to he may have had contacts with Oswald prior to the day they were both slated for death.

On the identification of the mystery man in the car with Carl Mather's license plates as Carl Mather (I am not sure but I think I originated that identification proposal), I have an article in preparation which I will put up on my website shortly. Mechanic White who saw the man in the car and took down the license plate thought the man looked like or was Oswald. Of course the man in that car was not Oswald, nor was he a "double" or impersonation as Douglass and a few others have gone off the rails in suggesting. What kind of sense does it make to run an impersonation and try to keep anyone, including mechanic White, from noticing?--sort of defeats the purpose of an impersonation, doesn't it?

But it was no impersonation; it was a mistaken identification, solved to me when I discovered a photo of Carl Mather in his early 20s in which his face looks to me a whole lot like Oswald (by accident), therefore that mystery becomes no mystery: it was simply a mistaken identification on mechanic White's part.

However I am convinced that mechanic White did see those license plate numbers on a red car, the red Falcon or whatever it was White told Wes Wise. As bizarre as it sounds, I believe there is no other conclusion than that Mather himself, at his place of work at Collins Radio where he worked that morning, drove from Collins Radio to and from Oak Cliff (before going home to Garland that day), making use of a different red car there in the parking lot, different than his own, with his own license plates installed on the different, red car for the trip, then switched back upon return. If that is objected to as bizarre, the argument is that all other alternative explanations, or absence of explanation, are even more bizarre. Note that Myers does not even attempt or even suggest an explanation, while setting forth and not disputing the facts of the license plate number going to the Tippits' friend Carl Mather who lived a long way away. 

I believe bizarre facts do call for explanation, if they are facts, which the Carl Mather registered license plate number is. That is my explanation.

A third point on Tippit having known Oswald prior to Nov 22: the patrol car seen "honking" out front of Oswald's rooming house appearing to be looking for Oswald, seen by housekeeper Earlene Roberts, who remembered the number of the patrol car as "107" (one of the variants of the number remembered). Tippit's cruiser was "10" and Earlene had poor eyesight, blind in one eye, but still saw the "10" of Tippit's number, plus the patrol car can hardly have been any other than Tippit's and certainly has never been identified as any other. If Tippit was looking for Oswald at his home address just before Tippit was shot, that means Tippit knew him.

So there are three distinct lines of argument that Tippit knew Oswald. And for some reason Craford, a contract hitman, and Ruby operating on behalf of mob interests, want both Tippit and Oswald dead, and got one out of two done that day. With Ruby doing the cleanup on Sunday of what was unfinished business on Friday. 

News flash--breaking--in a complete surprise, early reports are that Bill does not agree! 🙂 

 

Edited September 8, 2023 by Greg Doudna

[Bill Brown]

 

The bottom line is that Doris Holan couldn't have seen the things she supposedly told Brownlow that she saw.  I doubt she ever told Brownlow such things.  I believe Brownlow mistakenly believed she lived on Tenth Street and invented the whole thing.

It's guys like Brownlow who muddy the waters.

 

[Tony Krome]

On 9/8/2023 at 3:53 AM, Greg Doudna said:

Craford

I think more focus should be on this guy, and not just 10th & Patton.

[Tom Gram]

3 hours ago, Tony Krome said:

I think more focus should be on this guy, and not just 10th & Patton.

Question, do you know if Dallas also did their city directory canvassing in December?