The 2nd-Floor Baker/Oswald Encounter Has Been Debunked

[Pete Mellor]

3 minutes ago, Sandy Larsen said:

I need to check out that Reid quote though. Thanks for the info.

No prob.  Ben posted a link to K's & K that Jim D. wrote also on the Reid info. (See 'Killing Floor' thread.)

[Ron Ege]

On 10/27/2022 at 5:13 AM, Jeremy Bojczuk said:

Benjamin Cole writes:

The point is that the figure standing in the shadowy corner of the steps is unidentified. The figure has some similarities to Oswald. Until a better-quality version of the Darnell or Wiegman films is released, we can't rule out the  possibility that the figure is Oswald.

A process of elimination leaves Oswald as the most likely candidate. All the other TSBD employees can be ruled out, to varying degrees of certainty. That leaves random members of the public, such as that hypothetical "middle-aged Latin woman". But this is very unlikely, because:

• All of the other people on the steps were TSBD employees.
• No-one mentioned seeing any non-employees pushing past employees to stand near the top step, an event many of them could be expected to have noticed.
• Non-TSBD people would have had easier access to better vantage points at the side of the street.

If the figure on the steps isn't a member of the public, it must be a TSBD employee. Of the few TSBD employees whose claimed locations at the time of the assassination were uncorroborated, there is only one whose appearance is consistent with that of the figure on the steps: Oswald.

It's possible that the release of better-quality images will rule out Oswald. It's also possible that it will confirm Oswald as the figure on the steps. Until such images become available, Oswald is the most likely candidate.

It holds plenty of water. We can be sure that Oswald was in the first-floor lunchroom when he was supposed to have been on the sixth floor, sorting out his sniper's nest and assembling his rifle, for the reasons I gave in my previous comment, on page 6. Witnesses placed him on the first floor, and his story about seeing Jarman and Norman entering the rear of the building is corroborated by Jarman and Norman themselves.

If, as appears to be the case, Oswald was on the first floor at the same time as a gunman was seen on the sixth floor, any involvement Oswald might have had in the assassination could not have included firing any shots.

As I pointed out on another thread (https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/28238-why-lho-was-involved-in-the-jfka/?do=findComment&comment=475129), we only have the cops' word that Oswald had a gun on him when arrested, and there are reasons to doubt the cops' account.

There is an innocent explanation for Oswald's presence at the Texas Theater: he had been told that he was no longer needed at work, and he was occupying some time before meeting Marina and Ruth at one of the nearby shoe shops. We know that Ruth Paine intended to take Marina shopping for shoes that afternoon.

This too is something I explained earlier. Oswald needn't have been murdered to prevent him spilling the beans about any involvement he might have had in an assassination plot.

He might just as easily have been murdered if he were completely innocent of any involvement, simply to prevent him testifying at a trial, when he would be able to explain his alibi in detail.

Anyone who feared the collapse of the lone-gunman explanation, whether they had planned the assassination or merely fitted up the patsy after the event, would have had the motivation to eliminate Oswald. All the main suspects had connections to Jack Ruby.

Jeremy, thanks.  Great stuff.

Relative to Oswald going to the theatre preceding a later meet with Marina and Ruth, re a shopping trip.  Seems entirely plausible.

Do you take any stock in the reports that he sat serially, directly next to three or four of the patrons before quickly moving on the next?

If true (I was not there as a witness!) that strikes me as odd - if he's just biding his time.

[John Cotter]

On 10/26/2022 at 1:30 PM, John Cotter said:

Two days have passed and there's been no reply by David Von Pein to this post.

Perhaps some other "lone nut" theorist would like to respond.

More than two more days have passed and again there's been no response from any of the lone nut theorists.

It's not hard to see why.

[Benjamin Cole]

8 hours ago, Ron Ege said:

Jeremy, thanks.  Great stuff.

Relative to Oswald going to the theatre preceding a later meet with Marina and Ruth, re a shopping trip.  Seems entirely plausible.

Do you take any stock in the reports that he sat serially, directly next to three or four of the patrons before quickly moving on the next?

If true (I was not there as a witness!) that strikes me as odd - if he's just biding his time.

RE-

Well, human behavior is often inexplicable.

After the JFKA, maybe LHO thought, "I need to get away. JFK was shot dead right outside where I work. I will watch a movie." 

So LHO takes a taxi home. 

Lonely, inside the theater, LHO tried to find someone who would share movie-time with him. 

Then the DPD stormed in and planted a revolver on LHO. 

Later, while being interrogated, LHO says he was carrying a revolver inside the theater, as "that is what boys do." 

Well...OK, this is looking a little strained.

By selective acceptance and presentation of evidence, almost any version of the JFKA can be validated.

Including the WC version. 

 

 

 

 

 

[Jeremy Bojczuk]

Ron Ege writes:

Quote

Do you take any stock in the reports that he sat serially, directly next to three or four of the patrons before quickly moving on the next?

As far as I'm aware, only one person made that claim, and Oswald sat next to only two people.

Jack Davis told Jim Marrs in 1988 that Oswald sat next to him, then got up and sat next to someone else, and then went out to the lobby. Davis's next sighting of Oswald was around 20 minutes later, as Oswald was being arrested (Crossfire, p.353). Davis told the same story to John Armstrong some time later (Harvey and Lee, pp.840-841; Armstrong doesn't mention the date of his interview with Davis).

I'm not sure that Davis's anecdote, from 25 years after the event, is strong enough by itself to demonstrate that Oswald was actively looking for someone, although I wouldn't rule out that event completely. If Davis's account has any significance, it is in the timing: Davis has Oswald in the building just as the screening began, a few minutes before 1:20, when he was supposed to have been elsewhere, shooting Officer Tippit. Although Oswald's seat-hopping has no corroboration that I'm aware of, the timing of Oswald's arrival at the Texas Theater is corroborated by Butch Burroughs.

[Greg Doudna]

16 hours ago, Jeremy Bojczuk said:

Ron Ege writes:

As far as I'm aware, only one person made that claim, and Oswald sat next to only two people.

Jack Davis told Jim Marrs in 1988 that Oswald sat next to him, then got up and sat next to someone else, and then went out to the lobby. Davis's next sighting of Oswald was around 20 minutes later, as Oswald was being arrested (Crossfire, p.353). Davis told the same story to John Armstrong some time later (Harvey and Lee, pp.840-841; Armstrong doesn't mention the date of his interview with Davis).

I'm not sure that Davis's anecdote, from 25 years after the event, is strong enough by itself to demonstrate that Oswald was actively looking for someone, although I wouldn't rule out that event completely. If Davis's account has any significance, it is in the timing: Davis has Oswald in the building just as the screening began, a few minutes before 1:20, when he was supposed to have been elsewhere, shooting Officer Tippit. Although Oswald's seat-hopping has no corroboration that I'm aware of, the timing of Oswald's arrival at the Texas Theater is corroborated by Butch Burroughs.

I do not understand this skepticism concerning Davis's testimony. I have watched Davis's oral history interview on file with the Sixth Floor Museum and it is just credible, notwithstanding how long ago. What Davis describes is not something likely to be mistaken or imagined, and there is no sign Jack Davis is a fabulist or fabricator. He was there. He tells what he saw. 

And second, there is corroboration: Butch Burroughs told that Oswald came out and bought popcorn from him. That corresponds to Davis's description of Oswald's movement through an exit out into the lobby after sitting next to him, Davis, before he saw Oswald reenter through a different rear entrance door into the seating area again to sit next to someone else. According to Burroughs, after Oswald reentered the seating area Oswald sat next to a pregnant woman in the main area, in about the location where Oswald was seated when the police arrived. This is a second testimony to Oswald's very odd behavior of sitting next to patrons in that theatre stranger to him, only in this last case, according to Burroughs, it was the person Oswald sat next to, the pregnant woman, who left and never returned, rather than Oswald getting up and leaving. I don't believe a pregnant woman as such appears in Jack Davis's version but it is the same "sitting next" to someone in a nearly-empty theatre. 

It is not as if these are only two stories of Oswald oddly sitting next to strangers in that theatre among dozens of other patrons who said nothing of it. Almost all of the other patrons never were interviewed at all. Davis is the only one who has an oral history recorded. 

Another detail, I believe the estimated number of persons in that theatre was less than the ca. 24 commonly supposed and cited. Here is Julia Postal's Warren Commission testimony:

Mr. BALL. Now, did many people go into the theatre from the time you opened at the box office until about 1:15 or so? 
Mrs. POSTAL. Some. 
Mr. BALL. How many? Can you give me an estimate? 
Mrs. POSTAL. I believe 24. 
Mr. BALL. Twenty-four? 
Mrs. POSTAL. Fourteen or twenty-four. I believe it was 24. Everything was happening so fast. 
Mr. BALL. You had sold about that many tickets? 
Mrs. POSTAL. That's right. 

The counts on the main floor of patrons added up from several descriptions including police officers there that day and including a diagram drawn by Davis of where he remembered persons were seated which is in agreement with other descriptions, all have less than a dozen persons total in that main seating area, not counting an unknown but small number of persons in the balcony. 24 seems too many compared to the specific memories of persons inside that theatre. For that reason I believe the correct number was Julia Postal's mention of 14 tickets she might have sold, not 24. The 24 sounds like a mistake. ("Fourteen or twenty-four. I believe it was 24. Everything was happening so fast.")

Fourteen sold tickets sounds right, with most of those fourteen in the main seating area including Oswald whom I believe was one of those ticket purchasers, and who never was at any point in the balcony. The tickets were taken at the door not by Burroughs but by theatre regional general manager Callahan there that day. There is no record of Callahan ever having been interviewed by DPD, FBI, WC, HSCA, etc. nor have I found any information that he was ever interviewed by anyone in his entire life--never asked what he remembered and from whom he remembered taking tickets that day. I do not assume that no record of DPD questioning of Callahan means there was no DPD questioning of Callahan.

Jack Davis in his oral history does not offer any interpretation of Oswald's highly odd behavior of sitting down right next to patrons stranger to him including Davis, then getting up and moving to sit next to someone else, in a nearly empty theatre, only that Oswald did that. It is the extreme oddity of such behavior in a nearly-empty theatre that stands out as calling for explanation. That Oswald was trying to find someone he anticipated meeting is just about the only reasonable explanation that comes to mind. (There is no sign that Oswald was mentally disturbed, which would be about the only other conceivable explanation for such behavior.) 

I have developed elsewhere that a freak accident sighting of a man seated in a parked car for no known reason not far from the Texas Theatre in agreement with the time of Oswald's arrest in the theatre, is an excellent argument as to the party who may have been waiting for an appointed time to go to meet Oswald in that theatre, namely the person in a car traceable by license plate number to Carl Mather of Collins Radio Co., i.e. Carl Mather (https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/28004-oswald-tippit-and-carl-mather-connecting-some-dots/). 

However Oswald was arrested in the theatre before any meeting of Oswald and another party in the theatre took place. Mather left his position parked in a parking lot near the Texas Theatre for no known reason and returned to his home in far-away Garland following which Mather returned with his wife and children to Oak Cliff in a different car to the home of Mrs. Tippit that afternoon.

 

Edited October 30, 2022 by Greg Doudna

[Ron Ege]

14 hours ago, Benjamin Cole said:

RE-

Well, human behavior is often inexplicable.

After the JFKA, maybe LHO thought, "I need to get away. JFK was shot dead right outside where I work. I will watch a movie." 

So LHO takes a taxi home. 

Lonely, inside the theater, LHO tried to find someone who would share movie-time with him. 

Then the DPD stormed in and planted a revolver on LHO. 

Later, while being interrogated, LHO says he was carrying a revolver inside the theater, as "that is what boys do." 

Well...OK, this is looking a little strained.

By selective acceptance and presentation of evidence, almost any version of the JFKA can be validated.

Including the WC version. 

 

 

 

 

 

I like humor.

[Gene Kelly]

More humor.

And after entering the theater without paying, a literal squadron of DPD policemen quickly descend upon the Texas Theater ... apparently, sneaking into a movie without paying was a very serious crime in Dallas. 

[Ron Ege]

5 hours ago, Gene Kelly said:

More humor.

And after entering the theater without paying, a literal squadron of DPD policemen quickly descend upon the Texas Theater ... apparently, sneaking into a movie without paying was a very serious crime in Dallas. 

Gene, superb!

Setting aside the humor, for that scene to have unfolded as it did, then the logic had to be that Brewer (if it was, indeed, his tip and his alone, that got the "squadron" to the theatre) immediately connected the sirens, to the "sneak", and then to the assassination. 

He didn't know Tippit had been shot, right?

Why else the "squadron"?  Otherwise, wouldn't the beat cop, if he had had the extra time that day, have been sufficient to investigate the perceived dastardly crime of someone not paying for a theatre ticket?

Back in the day, when identified by someone, a theatre "nonpayer" would simply be escorted out by an usher/manager.  Maybe, a phone call home if the offender was a juvenile.

As well as darn observant, me thinks Brewer may have had above average deductive powers.

Good thing Captain, oops "Squadron Leader" W. R. Westbrook, he, the ever omnipresent/ubiquitous one that day, was there to "save the day", ala, Mighty Mouse.

 

 

 

[Benjamin Cole]

On 11/1/2022 at 5:53 PM, Gene Kelly said:

More humor.

And after entering the theater without paying, a literal squadron of DPD policemen quickly descend upon the Texas Theater ... apparently, sneaking into a movie without paying was a very serious crime in Dallas. 

Well...

OK, the DPD (regardless of all else) knew that "one of their own" had been gunned down.

I have not known a lot of cops, but the two I did regarded one crime as serious above all others: Shooting at or killing an officer.  I understand why, it has to be that way. 

The DPD had a report of someone furtively entering a movie theatre after Tippit had been gunned down, not far away. Were the DPD put up to it?

Possibly. 

BTW, how do we determine which witness testimony we accept and which to toss out? 

 

[Benjamin Cole]

On 10/29/2022 at 4:18 PM, Jeremy Bojczuk said:

Ron Ege writes:

As far as I'm aware, only one person made that claim, and Oswald sat next to only two people.

Jack Davis told Jim Marrs in 1988 that Oswald sat next to him, then got up and sat next to someone else, and then went out to the lobby. Davis's next sighting of Oswald was around 20 minutes later, as Oswald was being arrested (Crossfire, p.353). Davis told the same story to John Armstrong some time later (Harvey and Lee, pp.840-841; Armstrong doesn't mention the date of his interview with Davis).

I'm not sure that Davis's anecdote, from 25 years after the event, is strong enough by itself to demonstrate that Oswald was actively looking for someone, although I wouldn't rule out that event completely. If Davis's account has any significance, it is in the timing: Davis has Oswald in the building just as the screening began, a few minutes before 1:20, when he was supposed to have been elsewhere, shooting Officer Tippit. Although Oswald's seat-hopping has no corroboration that I'm aware of, the timing of Oswald's arrival at the Texas Theater is corroborated by Butch Burroughs.

JB--

I enjoy and respect your commentary. 

But, there is a pattern through the JFKA research community.

We credit those witness statements we want to, and discredit those we do not.  

So it goes....

 

 

 

[Paul Cummings]

Odd that Oswald was willing to buy popcorn but snuck into the theatre without paying.

[Guest]

7 hours ago, Paul Cummings said:

Odd that Oswald was willing to buy popcorn but snuck into the theatre without paying.

I'm an agnostic on the Tippit/Oak Cliff episode, Paul, but regarding your point: the reason Oswald would have avoided buying a ticket was not financial; it was to avoid detection ie 'Hey lady, did someone buy a ticket from you in the past 10 minutes?' 'No, sir.' Once he thought he had gained entry without being spotted, the anonymity would have allowed him the opportunity to relax a little and buy popcorn. This, I presume, would be the rationale. Whether Oswald did or didn't buy a ticket is debatable (several years later, the man on the concessions stand, Butch Burrows, said that he did). But it should be noted that tickets presented for checking were ripped and returned to the customer, so one has to wonder why Oswald wasn't in possession of a cinema ticket when he was searched yet, allegedly, had a torn bus ticket from McWatter's bus. 

[Paul Cummings]

50 minutes ago, Mike Kiely said:

I'm an agnostic on the Tippit/Oak Cliff episode, Paul, but regarding your point: the reason Oswald would have avoided buying a ticket was not financial; it was to avoid detection ie 'Hey lady, did someone buy a ticket from you in the past 10 minutes?' 'No, sir.' Once he thought he had gained entry without being spotted, the anonymity would have allowed him the opportunity to relax a little and buy popcorn. This, I presume, would be the rationale. Whether Oswald did or didn't buy a ticket is debatable (several years later, the man on the concessions stand, Butch Burrows, said that he did). But it should be noted that tickets presented for checking were ripped and returned to the customer, so one has to wonder why Oswald wasn't in possession of a cinema ticket when he was searched yet, allegedly, had a torn bus ticket from McWatter's bus. 

Avoided detection by sneaking in but a little while later he doesn't need to avoid detection by buying popcorn? If he wanted to avoid detection why would he jump from seat to seat in the theatre? He had money to buy a ticket. Don't buy the WC version of how LHO ended up in TT.

Edited November 4, 2022 by Paul Cummings

[Matthew Koch]

2 hours ago, Paul Cummings said:

Avoided detection by sneaking in but a little while later he doesn't need to avoid detection by buying popcorn? If he wanted to avoid detection why would he jump from seat to seat in the theatre? He had money to buy a ticket. Don't buy the WC version of how LHO ended up in TT.

I'm agnostic also, there might be another variable here, and also with the encounter on the second floor that is the 'Second Oswald' that seems to be at the TSBD (also the rambler sighting) possibly at the Tippit shooting and at the Texas Theater.

 

That's why I don't think we can call the encounter "Debunked" yet, because there seems to be some kind of shell game going on with Oswald that stops when he gets arrested.