A Response To DiEugenio's "Dale Myers and his World of Illusion"

[Lori Spencer]

What I took away from that long diatribe is that Myers has had a lingering butthurt ever since that night at Sully’s in Dearborn back in 1994 — and he’s still not over it 😤 

[W. Tracy Parnell]

Excellent article by Myers for the 59th anniversary:

JFK Files: The Murder of J.D. Tippit: A Grief Too Much to Bear

[Michael Griffith]

27 minutes ago, W. Tracy Parnell said:

Excellent article by Myers for the 59th anniversary:

JFK Files: The Murder of J.D. Tippit: A Grief Too Much to Bear

Did you not read any of the previous posts in this thread that point out some of the severe problems with Myers' flimsy arguments about the Tippit shooting?

And, just for the record, J. D. Tippit was a lackluster policeman who cheated on his wife. To this day, no one can give a credible innocent explanation for why Tippit was in Oak Cliff, far out of his assigned area, and for his strange actions in the 30 minutes leading up to his death. I refer to his parking at the Gloco gas station and apparently watching Oswald's most likely route from Dallas, his sudden departure from the Gloco gas station, his stopping at Oswald's rooming house and tapping his horn, his strange and frantic use of the phone in the Top Ten Record Shop when he could have used one of the special phones available for police use in every fire station in Dallas, and his slow-speed recon on 10th Street just before he was shot. 

Edited November 23, 2022 by Michael Griffith

[Bill Brown]

On 11/20/2022 at 6:32 AM, Michael Griffith said:

There is another crucial reason that Myers cannot accept the evidence that Tippit's killer was walking west, toward the patrol car, when Tippit encountered him: If the killer was Oswald, this would mean that Oswald had gone "way out of his way" and was walking back toward his rooming house, which obviously makes no sense. This is one of the reasons that the WC claimed, against the weight of the evidence, that the assailant was walking east and that Tippit therefore drove up behind him. 

Bugliosi admits, quoting Bowles, that "any route that would have him walking westbound on Tenth at the time Tippit pulled over would be way out of his way." And, as Henry Hurt noted, assuming that the killer was Oswald and admitting that he was walking west when Tippit encountered him would not only have Oswald walking back toward his rooming house but would wreck the WC's already dubious timeline of Oswald's alleged movements: 

       One of the most glaring discrepancies of all is seen in the accounts of the direction in which Tippit's killer was walking just before Tippit stopped. William Scoggins, a cab driver who was an eyewitness, testified that the gunman was walking west toward Tippit's car prior to the shooting. Another witness [Jim Burt] reported similarly. Reports from the Dallas police as well as the first reports of the Secret Service reflect the same impression. Despite the preponderance of evidence that the killer and Tippit's car were moving toward each other, the Warren Report concluded the killer was walking in the opposite direction. The commission version held that Tippit's car overtook the pedestrian killer.

       This [claiming the killer was walking east] was necessary for the Warren Commission's tenuous version to work at all. If he was Oswald, the killer had to be walking east, in the same direction as the police car was moving when it overtook the killer. Otherwise, Oswald, on his exceedingly tight time schedule, would have had to move from the rooming house to a point beyond the scene of the shooting and then to have turned and been heading back to reach the location of the murder. Because of time considerations, that was preposterous even by commission standards, so the commission ignored the testimony (Reasonable Doubt, pp. 149-150, original emphasis)

 

(Dale K. Myers, With Malice, 2013 edition, pg. 427)

"Three and a half minutes after the Tippit murder, a Dallas County sheriff patrol unit radioed from the corner of Tenth and Jefferson, about 500 feet from the Marsalis bus stop where Oswald's transfer could have been used. if that patrol car was in the vicinity a few minutes earlier, it might have been enough to dissuade Oswald from hanging around until the bus showed up at 1:30 p.m."

In other words (and it's admittedly speculation on Myers' part but it makes more sense than anything else), there is the possibility that Oswald walks the most direct route from the rooming house to Tenth Street. He's now walking east on Tenth, towards Marsalis, on his way to the only bus stop in Oak Cliff where the transfer would still be good. He reaches a point about two blocks east of Tenth and Patton (Tenth Street begins to curve to the right at roughly forty-five degrees). This curve prevents Oswald from noticing a sheriff's deputy patrol car until he (Oswald) is already at the curve.

Having no idea at this point if his face has been plastered all over television, Oswald does not want to walk right past a patrol car so he turns around and is retracing his steps, now walking west on Tenth (back towards Crawford and then Patton).

Oswald's about-face goes unnoticed by the sheriff's deputy and this possibly gives Oswald the confidence to do it again minutes later when he sees Tippit's patrol car approaching him... And it is this about-face which causes Tippit to pull up alongside.

Back in March of 2020, I walked from the bus stop in front of the rooming house on Beckley to Tenth and Patton (south on Beckley, west on Davis, south on Patton). I reached the corner of Tenth and Patton in 12:25. Give Oswald a minute and a half to walk east along Tenth (after originally arriving at the intersection with Patton) to the point where Tenth Street curves and then give him a minute and a half to walk back to the point where he is encountered by Tippit, then we have Oswald standing beside Tippit's patrol car at 1:14-1:15 (if Oswald left the bus stop in front of the rooming house at 12:59 p.m.).

[Bill Brown]

On 11/20/2022 at 9:44 PM, Lori Spencer said:

What I took away from that long diatribe is that Myers has had a lingering butthurt ever since that night at Sully’s in Dearborn back in 1994 — and he’s still not over it 😤 

 

How so? Please explain.

 

[Bill Brown]

From the Dale Myers blog:

 

"Jimmy D likes to point out that I don’t have the credentials of famed forensic scientist Dr. Henry C. Lee (as if I’m supposed to before embarking on the creation of a forensic animation) and concludes that I have no business discussing trajectories, wound ballistics, and the like.

 

Ironically, then, Jimmy trots out Millicent Cranor, Pat Speer, Bob Harris, and others to take pot shots at my animation work. What are their credentials in the field of computer animation? Answer: Nada."

 

I wonder if perhaps Mr. DiEugenio would like to address this by explaining the point he was trying to make when he mentions Cranor, Speer, Harris and others.

 

Edited November 25, 2022 by Bill Brown

[Bill Brown]

More from the Dale Myers blog:

 

"The credentials I hold in my chosen field are solid. My computer animation work was evaluated and vetted by Z-Axis Corporation in 2003. They concluded that the methods I used to match the path of the limousine to the Zapruder and other film and photographic sources were sophisticated and accurate; that I did an excellent job of matching the positions of Kennedy and Connally in the car; that my use of a straight line for the trajectory of the single-bullet was a reasonable assumption given the speed and relatively short distance the bullet could have traveled; that errors in wound placement based on the autopsy and operative reports of JFK and JBC were properly constrained by the use of an error cone which was well thought out and accurately created; and that the methods used to determine the source of the head shot were sound and logical. In summary, they wrote, “Mr. Myers has taken a comprehensive and reasoned approach to animating this event and has successfully incorporated many diverse visual records into a unified and consistent recreation. We believe that the thoroughness and detail incorporated into his work is well beyond that required to present a fair and accurate depiction.” (emphasis added)

 

What does Jimmy D do with the Z-Axis Corporation’s report? He ignores it, of course! Instead, he substitutes a strawman argument that I am unqualified in the field of forensic science."

 

Myers' animation work was vetted by Z-Axis Corporation in 2003.  'Nuff said.

[Bill Brown]

More from the Myers blog:

 

"Jimmy D’s latest rant claims that Don Thomas destroyed my argument that Dallas Police Motorcycle Officer H.B. McLain would had to have been “riding at 200 mph to be in the correct spot” to capture the sounds of the gunshots as presented by the HSCA.

 

Actually, what I concluded was much more sophisticated and destructive to the HSCA and Thomas.

 

You see, we know McLain’s speed as he entered Houston street. It was 14.7 mph as he rounded Main onto Houston. We also know when this happened in relationship to the HSCA’s own acoustic timing – just 0.6 seconds before the first shot! And according to the HSCA, McLain was traveling at the speed of the motorcade – 10.5 mph – between shots 1 and 2.

 

That means – if the HSCA’s acoustic evidence is valid – then McLain would have to accelerate from 14.7 mph to a speed significantly greater than 198 mph in just 0.2 seconds and then slow down to 10.5 mph before reaching the first shot position – all of this during the allotted 0.6 seconds! Does that sound possible to anyone with a fifth-grade education in science and physics?"

 

Mr. DiEugenio, would you like to respond to this?

 

[Bill Brown]

More from the Myers blog:

 

"As for the Tippit shooting, Jimmy’s claim that I used Jack Ray Tatum as my chief witness in the 1993 PBS / Frontline special “Who Was Lee Harvey Oswald?” infers that I had something to do with Tatum being on the PBS special. I was hired as a consultant and on-camera talking-head. Producer Mike Sullivan made all the decisions regarding the production. In fact, the Tatum segment was filmed before I arrived in Dallas to do my part."

 

Mr. DiEugenio, do you care to address this and perhaps correct yourself?

[Bill Brown]

More from the Myers blog:

 

"Regardless, Jimmy D points his readers to the work of Jack Myers (no relation) who claims that Tatum’s eyewitness account is suspect largely because he claimed to have seen Tippit’s killer from a distance of 10-15 feet and positively identified him as Lee Harvey Oswald.

 

But wait! The gunman was never closer than 100 feet of Tatum’s position when he heard the shots and stopped his car, we are assured. Consequently, Jack questions whether Mr. Tatum was even a witness and that the inclusion of him in the Frontline special was producer Mike Sullivan’s own twist on the truth.

 

Slow down, Hoss. Even a bone-head knows that Tatum drove past Oswald as he looked into Tippit’s squad car from the passenger side. That put Tatum at 10-15 feet from Oswald as he passed, just like he said in Frontline. (By the way, Tatum told me the same thing in 1983.)"

 

Mr. DiEugenio, did you not know that Tatum's account has him passing within fifteen feet of Oswald as he (Oswald) talked to Tippit through the opened vent window?  If you were unaware of this, then you should educate yourself on the very basics of the Tippit case before ever commenting on it further.  However, if you were aware that Tatum's account has him passing within fifteen feet of Oswald, then why are you ignoring it when attempting to make your ill-advised point that Tatum was too far away for an accurate identification?  I'm very curious about this.

[Bill Brown]

More from the Myers blog:

 

"This is where you probably cry “Uncle!” But for a lout and load mouth like Jimmy D it’s never enough.

 

What is Jimmy is so sore about? Is it the fact that he is often irrelevant to the discussion at hand? Does he really know as much as he professes? Or is he afraid everyone will find out how little he does know?

 

So much of what he writes amounts to little more than citations from other writers. More than once, I’ve been shocked at how little he knows about the minute-to-minute mechanics of November 1963. And he’s not the only one.

 

No, Jimmy D will never stop trying to pull people down in order to get to the top of the pile. In the end, it’s hard to get mad at someone you just feel sorry for."

 

I think this pretty much sums it up, unless of course Mr. DiEugenio would like to clear up any of the points raised in the above posts.

[James DiEugenio]

On 11/20/2022 at 3:32 AM, Michael Griffith said:

There is another crucial reason that Myers cannot accept the evidence that Tippit's killer was walking west, toward the patrol car, when Tippit encountered him: If the killer was Oswald, this would mean that Oswald had gone "way out of his way" and was walking back toward his rooming house, which obviously makes no sense. This is one of the reasons that the WC claimed, against the weight of the evidence, that the assailant was walking east and that Tippit therefore drove up behind him. 

Bugliosi admits, quoting Bowles, that "any route that would have him walking westbound on Tenth at the time Tippit pulled over would be way out of his way." And, as Henry Hurt noted, assuming that the killer was Oswald and admitting that he was walking west when Tippit encountered him would not only have Oswald walking back toward his rooming house but would wreck the WC's already dubious timeline of Oswald's alleged movements: 

       One of the most glaring discrepancies of all is seen in the accounts of the direction in which Tippit's killer was walking just before Tippit stopped. William Scoggins, a cab driver who was an eyewitness, testified that the gunman was walking west toward Tippit's car prior to the shooting. Another witness [Jim Burt] reported similarly. Reports from the Dallas police as well as the first reports of the Secret Service reflect the same impression. Despite the preponderance of evidence that the killer and Tippit's car were moving toward each other, the Warren Report concluded the killer was walking in the opposite direction. The commission version held that Tippit's car overtook the pedestrian killer.

       This [claiming the killer was walking east] was necessary for the Warren Commission's tenuous version to work at all. If he was Oswald, the killer had to be walking east, in the same direction as the police car was moving when it overtook the killer. Otherwise, Oswald, on his exceedingly tight time schedule, would have had to move from the rooming house to a point beyond the scene of the shooting and then to have turned and been heading back to reach the location of the murder. Because of time considerations, that was preposterous even by commission standards, so the commission ignored the testimony (Reasonable Doubt, pp. 149-150, original emphasis)

This is really good Mike.

 

[James DiEugenio]

To the Mods.

Do we have a rule about flooding the Board? 

I think 8 posts in a row would do it.

[Bob Ness]

13 minutes ago, James DiEugenio said:

To the Mods.

Do we have a rule about flooding the Board? 

I think 8 posts in a row would do it.

Mods. Don't take them down! I'm on it! Wait for my response.

Edited November 25, 2022 by Bob Ness

[Bill Brown]

1 hour ago, James DiEugenio said:

To the Mods.

Do we have a rule about flooding the Board? 

I think 8 posts in a row would do it.

 

This is your response to the points raised?  Disappointing.