Southwestern Publishing Doors Locked, Someone Inside. With View of Elm Street.

[Ron Bulman]

16 hours ago, Sean Coleman said:

So someone was on the phone when the phone lines were (reportedly) down.

Geez, at every turn, more complications. This puzzle don’t get no easier. 
 

Not when some muddy the water.

 

[Michael Davidson]

modern photo but lots of trees at that height it would appear 

[Nick Bartetzko]

15 hours ago, Benjamin Cole said:

DVP-

Yes unlikely but...

Suppose the true perps planned to camp out in the publisher's offices until things cooled off.  That doesn't seem like a sound plan...but it turns out, it would have worked. They were strangers inside the TSBD and did not want to be seen. 

Not searching people leaving the TSBD was almost certainly bad police procedure too. After all, rifles can be disassembled. Shorter rifles could be hidden under a full length coat, of the type many wore that winter day....

Hughes indicated she left at 1 pm. If true, that means 30 minutes after someone assassinated JFK, and no one knew who, Hughes left one of the primary scenes of the crime, the TSBD, unsearched. That is stupifying. Astonishing really. 

So, to sum up:

1. Hughes said she sat in an office, the second-floor Southwestern Publishers office, with a bird's eye view of the motorcade. If LHO could shoot JFK, then someone in the Hughes office could too. 

2. Three shots as loud as a "cannon" are heard inside the TSBD on the second floor by Geneva Hine. Louder than other people say the shots were, possibly indicating proximity. 

3. A unidentified woman, probably Hughes, is seen in the Southwestern Publisher's office in the moments after the TSBD, but she refuses to open the locked door. She is seen through a curtain, her outline. She appears to be talking on the phone. There may be others in the office unseen, of course. 

4. The woman, likely Hughes as no strangers are seen that day inside the TBSD, then leaves the premises one-half hour after the JFKA, and is not searched. 

5. Hughes office is never dusted for prints. Hughes is never tested for gunshot residue, ala LHO. It may even be possible a credenza or other furniture with a false bottom was inside the publisher's office. 

6. The other oddity is that Hughes' boss, Warren Caster, had been showing off rifles inside the TSBD a few days before the JFKA. 

No, this is hardly dispositive.

But when you ponder people are leaving the TSBD 30 minutes after the JFKA unsearched....and people with locked offices overlooking the kill zone are not substantively questioned....

Well....

 

 

 

Well, speaking of strange, the 2nd floor etc. We have the tale of Helen Forrest who claims to have seen a man with a rifle on the 2nd floor. That information is per historian Michael Kurtz. There are no details really on who Helen Forrest is and I think little of Mr Kurtz work based on other alleged interviews he claims to have conducted. More interesting, though, is the tale of one Claude Capehart of Glomar Explorer fame. It seems his girlfriend recognized his photo during the HSCA time and he supposedly admitted he was in the TSBD at the time. Judge David Minier and Deputy Dale Fore were on the way to visit with him when he had a fatal heart attack in about 1989. This subject has been covered here a bit and there are newspaper articles from papers in the Fresno California area If I recall correctly. Too bad there isn’t much information on the building tenants. But it’s understandable as the emphasis was pinning this on Ozzie. 

[Benjamin Cole]

1 hour ago, Nick Bartetzko said:

Well, speaking of strange, the 2nd floor etc. We have the tale of Helen Forrest who claims to have seen a man with a rifle on the 2nd floor. That information is per historian Michael Kurtz. There are no details really on who Helen Forrest is and I think little of Mr Kurtz work based on other alleged interviews he claims to have conducted. More interesting, though, is the tale of one Claude Capehart of Glomar Explorer fame. It seems his girlfriend recognized his photo during the HSCA time and he supposedly admitted he was in the TSBD at the time. Judge David Minier and Deputy Dale Fore were on the way to visit with him when he had a fatal heart attack in about 1989. This subject has been covered here a bit and there are newspaper articles from papers in the Fresno California area If I recall correctly. Too bad there isn’t much information on the building tenants. But it’s understandable as the emphasis was pinning this on Ozzie. 

NB-

Thanks for commenting. 

Yes, I think the reputation of Michael Kurtz is, well, checkered. 

https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-9th-circuit/1404853.html

This is lawsuit regarding Capehart. The Fresno Bee article is behind a paywall. 

My take-away from the Carol Hughes-Southwestern Publishing angle is that people were leaving the TSBD within one hour of the JFKA and were not even searched. 

Obviously, a second weapon could have been extracted. 

Hughes' behavior in the immediate aftermath of the JFKA is inexplicable. 

I wonder if anyone out there knows anything about Carol Hughes, her background, previous employers, etc. 

One of Jack Ruby's girls was working in the TSBD on 11/22. I think that comes from James Tague. 

Interesting.

Add on: It appears that Carol Hughes not only stayed behind while others left to watch the motorcade, but then locked the office door. 

 

 

Edited November 2, 2022 by Benjamin Cole

[Benjamin Cole]

9 hours ago, David Von Pein said:

Here's something odd about the floor plan of the 2nd Floor of the TSBD....

According to this diagram of the second floor [pictured below], there is no wall or divider of any kind separating the Southwestern Publishing office from the Lyons & Carnahan office. That seems very strange (and unlikely).

Plus, this floor chart shows no wall separating the ladies room from the Southwestern office either. And there's no wall between the Men's Room and the Ladies Room either. (That would have made for some interesting bathroom visits, huh?) 🙂

Errors of omission? I would certainly think so.

Plus....these bathrooms look way too big. According to this chart, the 2 restrooms take up almost the entire length of the building on the west end. That's highly doubtful. There must be something else there on the west side besides just the two bathrooms, especially when comparing the size of those two 2nd-floor restrooms to the much smaller bathrooms that were on the first floor [here].

And here's something else....

The way this chart is marked, it leads me to think that there is actually a third separate room (marked "Private" on the diagram), which is situated between Southwestern and Lyons. Which would mean yet another wall is absent from this chart. Kind of curious indeed:

My guess is there are temporary walls in place, and the diagram is only showing permanent walls. Temporary walls, of two-by-fours and drywall. That does not explain the lack of walls around the bathrooms, which I would think would be permanent. 

There may have been another office in between the two publisher's offices. 

The publisher's offices are seen to line the Elm Street side of the TSBD from the second through fourth floors, in TSBD diagrams. 

You would think that people, employees inside those offices would be "suspects" or detained on 11/22. 

 

[Paul Cummings]

13 minutes ago, Benjamin Cole said:

My guess is there are temporary walls in place, and the diagram is only showing permanent walls. Temporary walls, of two-by-fours and drywall. That does not explain the lack of walls around the bathrooms, which I would think would be permanent. 

There may have been another office in between the two publisher's offices. 

The publisher's offices are seen to line the Elm Street side of the TSBD from the second through fourth floors, in TSBD diagrams. 

You would think that people, employees inside those offices would be "suspects" or detained on 11/22. 

 

Why? They didn't even close Elm Street after the assassination even though blood, brain tissue and a skull fragment were on the road. DPD not only corrupt but incompetent.

[John Kennedy White]

16 hours ago, Benjamin Cole said:

If anyone is interested...

Judging from diagrams, there were publisher's offices on the second, third and fourth floors of the TSBD. All of these offices had employees who were not a part of the TSBD roll-call, and there is no record of such offices being searched. 

The TSBD fifth, sixth and seventh floors appear to have been storage. 

I searched online, but to no avail: Does anyone have a picture of the TSBD that would show the second floor window of the Southwestern Publishing company during or near the time of the JFKA? 

Great question

[Denis Morissette]

Is it on the same floor that Alyea filmed this portion?

 

 

[Gerry Down]

18 hours ago, Tom Gram said:

A FD-302 report is just the standard FBI report for any contact with a witness: in person, phone calls, anything. Every single witness contact in an FBI investigation is written up in a FD-302 for record keeping. Here is an example. I’m sure you’ve seen this format: 

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=57688#relPageId=123

Information disseminated to outside agencies would generally be written up in a letterhead memorandum, or LHM, but the information in the LHM was usually copied directly from 302 reports in the relevant investigative file. For many WC requests however, the FBI skipped the 302s and went directly to the LHM, for the excuses mentioned in my previous comment e.g. it wasn’t a part of an official FBI investigation. The problem with this is it eliminates any internal FBI record of the interviews ever happening. A classic example is the Bardwell Odum interviews about CE399. Odum told Tink Thompson and Gary Aguilar that if he had really conducted the interviews, there would be a 302 report, since that’s how the FBI operated. However, since those interviews were conducted on request from the WC, Odum was specifically ordered not to write a 302. He probably just forgot. 

Often the FBI wouldn’t even include the name of the interviewing agent in the LHM summaries, so there was no accountability. 

Thanks. So a FD-302 form is the normal type of report one would expect when the FBI would interview someone. And the LHM is just a summary version. 

I guess you cant blame the FBI for not doing up FD-302 reports after Dec 1963. As far as the FBI were concerned, they had investigated the assassination and compiled a report and presented it to the WC. As far as the FBI were concerned, the investigation was finished at that point. They viewed the WC as just messing about from there on out and so the FBI were not going to be issuing anymore FD-302 reports which would inadvertently legitimize the WC investigation and their opinion that the FBI had conducted a less than satisfactory investigation.

From this we can perhaps deduce that the only FD-302 reports by the FBI into the JFK assassination were in the compiling of the FBIs report into the assassination which was presented to the WC in Dec 1963. And after this no FD-302 reports were done.

But there is a problem.

There were FD-302 reports done in 1964 by the FBI as far as the JFK assassination was concerned. For example Orest Penas report of June 9th 1964 is an FD-302 report:

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=69003#relPageId=16&search=orest_pena

So my simplistic understanding that no FD-302 reports were conducted by the FBI after they issued their report in Dec 1963 is incorrect. 

[Tom Gram]

1 hour ago, Gerry Down said:

Thanks. So a FD-302 form is the normal type of report one would expect when the FBI would interview someone. And the LHM is just a summary version. 

I guess you cant blame the FBI for not doing up FD-302 reports after Dec 1963. As far as the FBI were concerned, they had investigated the assassination and compiled a report and presented it to the WC. As far as the FBI were concerned, the investigation was finished at that point. They viewed the WC as just messing about from there on out and so the FBI were not going to be issuing anymore FD-302 reports which would inadvertently legitimize the WC investigation and their opinion that the FBI had conducted a less than satisfactory investigation.

From this we can perhaps deduce that the only FD-302 reports by the FBI into the JFK assassination were in the compiling of the FBIs report into the assassination which was presented to the WC in Dec 1963. And after this no FD-302 reports were done.

But there is a problem.

There were FD-302 reports done in 1964 by the FBI as far as the JFK assassination was concerned. For example Orest Penas report of June 9th 1964 is an FD-302 report:

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=69003#relPageId=16&search=orest_pena

So my simplistic understanding that no FD-302 reports were conducted by the FBI after they issued their report in Dec 1963 is incorrect. 

There were tons of FD-302’s done in ‘64. It was only on interviews conducted specifically to accommodate requests by WC that the FBI instructed agents not to write up the results in report form. I don’t think it was all-encompassing, but it seems to have been a common practice. Here’s the example discussing CE2011, which contains the Odum CE399 interviews: 

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=59608#relPageId=39

There’s another document, I’m pretty sure from Alex Rosen or Alan Belmont, from earlier in the in investigation discussing the same sort of thing but I can’t find it at the moment. 

[Benjamin Cole]

5 hours ago, Denis Morissette said:

Is it on the same floor that Alyea filmed this portion?

 

 

I can't tell

[Greg Doudna]

19 hours ago, Nick Bartetzko said:

More interesting, though, is the tale of one Claude Capehart of Glomar Explorer fame. It seems his girlfriend recognized his photo during the HSCA time and he supposedly admitted he was in the TSBD at the time. Judge David Minier and Deputy Dale Fore were on the way to visit with him when he had a fatal heart attack in about 1989. This subject has been covered here a bit and there are newspaper articles from papers in the Fresno California area If I recall correctly. Too bad there isn’t much information on the building tenants. But it’s understandable as the emphasis was pinning this on Ozzie. 

One article which may have escaped notice in those other discussions is this recent one from the Santa Barbara News-Press, Oct 10, 2021, not on the Mary Ferrell site, written by David Minier, former Santa Barbara district attorney 1967-1975: https://aarclibrary.org/the-capehart-case-what-is-the-cia-hiding/. Minier tells of his contact with and information from Capehart's girlfriend (who is named in the article unlike all Capehart articles on the Mary Ferrell site):

"He [Capehart] told her he had worked as a 'hit man' for the CIA on numerous occasions, retiring in 1975. He told Ms. Weaver he was present with Lee Harvey Oswald at the scene of the J.F.K. assassination. He said two others were with Oswald, and it was not Oswald who shot the president." 

And this is a CIA document on Claude Capehart dated Nov 20, 1963, the date Caster's rifles went into the TSBD: https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=14179#relPageId=1.

In the 2021 Santa Barbara News-Press article, former district attorney Minier tells how in 1988 he and a district attorney investigator finally located Capehart (who had vanished in 1978), found him living in Parumph, Nevada. Capehart then suffered a suspicious death.

"Mr. Poole and I planned to confront Mr. Capehart at home in an attempt to find out his true relation with the CIA. We arranged for a Nye County sheriff's sergeant to accompany us and agreed upon a date in two weeks. A few days later, Mr. Capehart was found in his front yard, dead of an apparent heart attack."

Capehart was either 63 or 64 years old at the time of his death. Minier filed a FOIA request to the CIA.

"Seeking answers, I filed a request with the CIA in 1992 under the Freedom of Information Act. I asked if Mr. Capehart had ever been employed by that agency in any capacity. The CIA refused to confirm or deny, because that information "would reasonably be expected to cause damage to national security." I then sued the CIA in federal court for the information. The CIA claimed national security. The court ruled for the C.I.A., and I appealed. In 1994, an appeals court ruled the CIA was exempt from the Freedom of Information Act's disclosure provisions. (...)

Minier's article claims CIA documents have come to light other than the one linked above:

"Only four days after President Kennedy's assassination in 1963, the CIA requested a 'name check' on Capehart from other federal agencies. ... a 1973 CIA 'letter of assignment and investigative transmittal' designates Capehart as 'covert,' instead of 'field'. The CIA's secret documents about Mr. Capehart end in 1975, the same year he told Sgt. Fore and Kay Weaver he retired from the agency."

The CIA document on Capehart linked above and on the Mary Ferrell site, shows no reason why that document existed, its purpose, who requested it or who generated it. Its just CIA, Capehart, and the date Nov 20, 1963, in association on an authentic CIA document.

[Benjamin Cole]

11 minutes ago, Greg Doudna said:

One article which may have escaped notice in those other discussions is this recent one from the Santa Barbara News-Press, Oct 10, 2021, not on the Mary Ferrell site, written by David Minier, former Santa Barbara district attorney 1967-1975: https://aarclibrary.org/the-capehart-case-what-is-the-cia-hiding/. Minier tells of his contact with and information from Capehart's girlfriend (who is named in the article unlike all Capehart articles on the Mary Ferrell site):

"He [Capehart] told her he had worked as a 'hit man' for the CIA on numerous occasions, retiring in 1975. He told Ms. Weaver he was present with Lee Harvey Oswald at the scene of the J.F.K. assassination. He said two others were with Oswald, and it was not Oswald who shot the president." 

And this is a CIA document on Claude Capehart dated Nov 20, 1963, the date Caster's rifles went into the TSBD: https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=14179#relPageId=1.

In the 2021 Santa Barbara News-Press article, former district attorney Minier tells how in 1988 he and a district attorney investigator finally located Capehart (who had vanished in 1978), found him living in Parumph, Nevada. Capehart then suffered a suspicious death.

"Mr. Poole and I planned to confront Mr. Capehart at home in an attempt to find out his true relation with the CIA. We arranged for a Nye County sheriff's sergeant to accompany us and agreed upon a date in two weeks. A few days later, Mr. Capehart was found in his front yard, dead of an apparent heart attack."

Capehart was either 63 or 64 years old at the time of his death. Minier filed a FOIA request to the CIA.

"Seeking answers, I filed a request with the CIA in 1992 under the Freedom of Information Act. I asked if Mr. Capehart had ever been employed by that agency in any capacity. The CIA refused to confirm or deny, because that information "would reasonably be expected to cause damage to national security." I then sued the CIA in federal court for the information. The CIA claimed national security. The court ruled for the C.I.A., and I appealed. In 1994, an appeals court ruled the CIA was exempt from the Freedom of Information Act's disclosure provisions. (...)

Minier's article claims CIA documents have come to light other than the one linked above:

"Only four days after President Kennedy's assassination in 1963, the CIA requested a 'name check' on Capehart from other federal agencies. ... a 1973 CIA 'letter of assignment and investigative transmittal' designates Capehart as 'covert,' instead of 'field'. The CIA's secret documents about Mr. Capehart end in 1975, the same year he told Sgt. Fore and Kay Weaver he retired from the agency."

The CIA document on Capehart linked above and on the Mary Ferrell site, shows no reason why that document existed, its purpose, who requested it or who generated it. Its just CIA, Capehart, and the date Nov 20, 1963, in association on an authentic CIA document.

A blind dog in a meathouse has less leads than a JFKA researcher....

[Tom Gram]

40 minutes ago, Greg Doudna said:

One article which may have escaped notice in those other discussions is this recent one from the Santa Barbara News-Press, Oct 10, 2021, not on the Mary Ferrell site, written by David Minier, former Santa Barbara district attorney 1967-1975: https://aarclibrary.org/the-capehart-case-what-is-the-cia-hiding/. Minier tells of his contact with and information from Capehart's girlfriend (who is named in the article unlike all Capehart articles on the Mary Ferrell site):

"He [Capehart] told her he had worked as a 'hit man' for the CIA on numerous occasions, retiring in 1975. He told Ms. Weaver he was present with Lee Harvey Oswald at the scene of the J.F.K. assassination. He said two others were with Oswald, and it was not Oswald who shot the president." 

And this is a CIA document on Claude Capehart dated Nov 20, 1963, the date Caster's rifles went into the TSBD: https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=14179#relPageId=1.

In the 2021 Santa Barbara News-Press article, former district attorney Minier tells how in 1988 he and a district attorney investigator finally located Capehart (who had vanished in 1978), found him living in Parumph, Nevada. Capehart then suffered a suspicious death.

"Mr. Poole and I planned to confront Mr. Capehart at home in an attempt to find out his true relation with the CIA. We arranged for a Nye County sheriff's sergeant to accompany us and agreed upon a date in two weeks. A few days later, Mr. Capehart was found in his front yard, dead of an apparent heart attack."

Capehart was either 63 or 64 years old at the time of his death. Minier filed a FOIA request to the CIA.

"Seeking answers, I filed a request with the CIA in 1992 under the Freedom of Information Act. I asked if Mr. Capehart had ever been employed by that agency in any capacity. The CIA refused to confirm or deny, because that information "would reasonably be expected to cause damage to national security." I then sued the CIA in federal court for the information. The CIA claimed national security. The court ruled for the C.I.A., and I appealed. In 1994, an appeals court ruled the CIA was exempt from the Freedom of Information Act's disclosure provisions. (...)

Minier's article claims CIA documents have come to light other than the one linked above:

"Only four days after President Kennedy's assassination in 1963, the CIA requested a 'name check' on Capehart from other federal agencies. ... a 1973 CIA 'letter of assignment and investigative transmittal' designates Capehart as 'covert,' instead of 'field'. The CIA's secret documents about Mr. Capehart end in 1975, the same year he told Sgt. Fore and Kay Weaver he retired from the agency."

The CIA document on Capehart linked above and on the Mary Ferrell site, shows no reason why that document existed, its purpose, who requested it or who generated it. Its just CIA, Capehart, and the date Nov 20, 1963, in association on an authentic CIA document.

Well that's the most suspicious thing I've read in a while. Thanks for sharing Greg. Does anyone know which assassination photo supposedly shows Capehart? 

[Ron Bulman]

2 hours ago, Benjamin Cole said:

A blind dog in a meathouse has less leads than a JFKA researcher....

Bullshit.