A Question of Credibility: Tippit Witnesses Can't Agree

[Bill Brown]

7 hours ago, Michael Kalin said:

Is an ad hominem attack the best you can do? This thread asks a simple question relative to two witnesses whose statements contradict each other. You have four options.

1. Deny the contradictions.
2. Show Markham's account is correct.
3. Show Callaway's account is correct.
4. Show neither is correct.

My focus is the escape route. I get the sense you disagree with the conclusion based on an examination of the available evidence that Markham's credibility in this matter is far greater than Callaway's although you do not provide a counter-argument.

Am I right? If so it is incumbent on you to provide a carefully researched argument based on actual evidence relative to your position. Invective, thread hijacking, strawmen arguments & ad hominem attacks are not the way to go.

 

Well, before we get into all of that, I have a quick question.

 

Do you still mistakenly believe that Bowley squeezed past Tippit's patrol car (not to mention the body lying in the street) or do you now accept the reality that Bowley stopped his car before ever getting all the way to the patrol car and the body?

 

You stated that Bowley drove past the patrol car and the body and then crossed over Patton and parked in the next block and walked BACK to the scene.

 

[Michael Kalin]

15 hours ago, Bill Brown said:

Do you still mistakenly believe that Bowley squeezed past Tippit's patrol car (not to mention the body lying in the street) or do you now accept the reality that Bowley stopped his car before ever getting all the way to the patrol car and the body?

Ever the snakebit refrain. Evidently you don't realize you are neither my preceptor nor my interrogator.

How about a pact? Supplement your original thread relative to Bowley with an argument based on evidence in support of your position for consideration. You neglected to provide one then just as you now fail to provide one relative to the theme of this thread.

Do either and we will make a fresh start. Do both and prodigies of discussion may ensue as if in defiance of the proverb: 'The man who never alters his opinion is like standing water, & breeds reptiles of the mind.'

[Bill Brown]

3 hours ago, Michael Kalin said:

Ever the snakebit refrain. Evidently you don't realize you are neither my preceptor nor my interrogator.

How about a pact? Supplement your original thread relative to Bowley with an argument based on evidence in support of your position for consideration. You neglected to provide one then just as you now fail to provide one relative to the theme of this thread.

Do either and we will make a fresh start. Do both and prodigies of discussion may ensue as if in defiance of the proverb: 'The man who never alters his opinion is like standing water, & breeds reptiles of the mind.'

 

Okay.  I can do that.  But first, answer the question.

 

[Evan Marshall]

Witnesses if not separated will provide you with a composite response which will be of no value and if you don't ask the right questions, they will often not volunteer information.

[Michael Kalin]

13 hours ago, Evan Marshall said:

Witnesses if not separated will provide you with a composite response which will be of no value and if you don't ask the right questions, they will often not volunteer information.

Markham's 11/22/63 DPD affidavit was taken by Detective Graves before the 4:30PM lineup she attended after which Detectives Leavelle & Graves drove her home. Hours later the same day Leavelle took affidavits from Callaway & Guinyard. Possibly they gave a composite response, but Markham was not part of this.

SA Odum of the FBI also took a statement from Markham the same day. This is a puzzling document in that it differs significantly from the DPD affidavit: "Thereafter, the officer got out the left-hand door, drivers side of the car, walked around behind the squad car and on rounding the corner of the car was shot twice in the head by the young man." It's hard to believe she made this statement. Per the DPD affidavit she knew that Tippit fell at the "left front wheel."

I do not know if Graves & Odum interviewed Markham simultaneously or in succession.

[Greg Doudna]

On 2/17/2023 at 6:16 AM, Michael Kalin said:

SA Odum of the FBI also took a statement from Markham the same day. This is a puzzling document in that it differs significantly from the DPD affidavit: "Thereafter, the officer got out the left-hand door, drivers side of the car, walked around behind the squad car and on rounding the corner of the car was shot twice in the head by the young man." It's hard to believe she made this statement. Per the DPD affidavit she knew that Tippit fell at the "left front wheel."

Thanks Michael Kalin for calling this to attention. Bill Brown, do you have any idea why Myers' With Malice, which up to this moment I thought was exhaustive or as close to it as a researcher could reasonably be, on citing and addressing primary sources of the Tippit case, seems to make no mention of, and throughout his massive study seems to show no sign of awareness or knowledge of, the FBI Odum Nov 22 interview of Helen Markham? How could Myers have missed it? 

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=95614#relPageId=89 

Everyone including Myers has said all along there is no support from any other witness to Jack Tatum's claim to have seen the shooter run around the back of the Tippit cruiser and put a coup de grace shot into the head of Tippit on the ground. It is objected that Helen Markham should have seen that, if it happened, since she saw the shooting.

Well, reading this FBI interview of Markham that afternoon of the event (before she identified Oswald in the lineup), it is pretty clear to me she did see what Tatum later said he saw, and in her distraught state told it or tried to, and Odum writing up his report simply got it garbled in hearing from Markham as to who ran around the back of the cruiser. And it supports what I have come to realize on my own, that it wasn't just one shot into the head when the gunman moved around closer after firing over the front hood (around the back of the car according to Tatum and apparently around the back according to Markham now too), but Markham says "two" and I believe may have been actually two or three, not Tatum's one at the finale. Only one actually went into the head, but two or three were fired into Tippit when Tippit was prone on the ground by his left front tire, one of those shots, perhaps the last, of which went into the right temple. 

Also the description Markham gives of the gunman may be of interest, occurring before she fixed on Oswald in the lineup and influenced by that. The "tan" jacket agrees with other color descriptions of the gunman's light-colored or near-white jacket (e.g. Callaway). The younger age of 18, the "black" hair and "red" complexion, none of which well describe Oswald, may or may not be significant.  

"On the early afternoon of November 22, 1963, possibly around 1:30 p.m., she observed a marked Dallas Police Department patrol car parked in the 400 block of East 10th Street. She saw a young man walk from the sidewalk to the squad car and put his face up to the front window on the right-hand side of the car which was next to the curb and engage the officer in a brief conversation of about ten seconds. Thereafter, the officer got out the left-hand door, drivers side of the car, walked around behind the squad car and on rounding the corner of the car was shot twice in the head by the young man. 

"Mrs. Markham immediately ran out to the car and was afraid that this young man might shoot her, but felt that she must go to the aid of the officer. The young man ran west on 10th Street to the corner, turned south and disappeared.

"Mrs. Markham stated that she is sure that she can identify him and described him as a white male, about 18, black hair, red complexion, wearing black shoes, tan jacket, and dark trousers." (https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=95614#relPageId=89)

[EDIT: I am convinced now that Helen Markham, who knew full well that Tippit had moved toward the front of his cruiser when shot, simply spoke of Tippit going "behind" the cruiser relative to where she was observing, meaning away from her, Tippit intending to go around what actually was the front (but which Helen Markham was calling "behind") the cruiser to get to the man who shot him. Helen Markham is reported using the same telling of Tippit going "in front of the cruiser" in telling officers at the crime scene of what she saw minutes later, according to a separate report of FBI Barrett telling of hearing Helen Markham say that at the scene of the crime, in Barrett's FBI report of 11/22/63 (at p. 641 in With Malice). In Helen Markham's later WC testimony she says the same thing but has now correctly refers to the "front of" Tippit's patrol car.] 

Edited April 8, 2023 by Greg Doudna

[Bill Brown]

39 minutes ago, Greg Doudna said:

Thanks Michael Kalin for calling this to attention. Bill Brown, do you have any idea why Myers' With Malice, which up to this moment I thought was exhaustive or as close to it as a researcher could reasonably be, on citing and addressing primary sources of the Tippit case, seems to make no mention of, and throughout his massive study seems to show no sign of awareness or knowledge of, the FBI Odum Nov 22 interview of Helen Markham? How could Myers have missed it? 

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=95614#relPageId=89 

Everyone including Myers has said all along there is no support from any other witness to Jack Tatum's claim to have seen the shooter run around the back of the Tippit cruiser and put a coup de grace shot into the head of Tippit on the ground. It is objected that Helen Markham should have seen that, if it happened, since she saw the shooting.

Well, reading this FBI interview of Markham that afternoon of the event (before she identified Oswald in the lineup), it is pretty clear to me she did see what Tatum later said he saw, and in her distraught state told it or tried to, and Odum writing up his report simply got it garbled in hearing from Markham as to who ran around the back of the cruiser. And it supports what I have come to realize on my own, that it wasn't just one shot into the head when the gunman moved around closer after firing over the front hood (around the back of the car according to Tatum and apparently around the back according to Markham now too), but Markham says "two" and I believe may have been actually two or three, not Tatum's one at the finale. Only one actually went into the head, but two or three were fired into Tippit when Tippit was prone on the ground by his left front tire, one of those shots, perhaps the last, of which went into the right temple.

Also the description Markham gives of the gunman may be of interest, occurring before she fixed on Oswald in the lineup and influenced by that. The "tan" jacket agrees with other color descriptions of the gunman's light-colored or near-white jacket (e.g. Callaway). The younger age of 18, the "black" hair and "red" complexion, none of which well describe Oswald, may or may not be significant.  

"On the early afternoon of November 22, 1963, possibly around 1:30 p.m., she observed a marked Dallas Police Department patrol car parked in the 400 block of East 10th Street. She saw a young man walk from the sidewalk to the squad car and put his face up to the front window on the right-hand side of the car which was next to the curb and engage the officer in a brief conversation of about ten seconds. Thereafter, the officer got out the left-hand door, drivers side of the car, walked around behind the squad car and on rounding the corner of the car was shot twice in the head by the young man. 

"Mrs. Markham immediately ran out to the car and was afraid that this young man might shoot her, but felt that she must go to the aid of the officer. The young man ran west on 10th Street to the corner, turned south and disappeared.

"Mrs. Markham stated that she is sure that she can identify him and described him as a white male, about 18, black hair, red complexion, wearing black shoes, tan jacket, and dark trousers." (https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=95614#relPageId=89)

 

"...and Odum writing up his report simply got it garbled in hearing from Markham..."

 

Odum got it "garbled" and therefore completely wrote down the wrong thing, as far as who shot who and where.  Sorry Greg.  I'm not buying it.  You're changing the words of a witness for no other reason than to get it to fit a narrative. 

 

[Greg Doudna]

On 2/17/2023 at 8:53 PM, Bill Brown said:

"...and Odum writing up his report simply got it garbled in hearing from Markham..."

Odum got it "garbled" and therefore completely wrote down the wrong thing, as far as who shot who and where.  Sorry Greg.  I'm not buying it.  You're changing the words of a witness for no other reason than to get it to fit a narrative. 

Whatever. You go ahead and interpret the wording wooden-literally giving a meaning completely outlandish or say Markham hallucinated same-day, whichever suits you best. Any idea how Myers missed the Odum FBI Markham Nov 22 interview? I have looked and its just not in his book, and is missing at points where one would expect mention of it if he knew of it when he was writing. Can you shed any light what was going on with that? It is not like Myers to overlook a primary source. Why?

Edited April 8, 2023 by Greg Doudna

[Charles Blackmon]

I learned from J. McBride's book that Tippit's widow Marie received the 1963 equivalent of over 4 million bucks in donations from individuals and groups in the weeks following her husband's murder(!!)

[Evan Marshall]

Witnesses if not separated will provide you with a composite response which will be of no value and if you don't ask the right questions, they will often not volunteer information.

[Evan Marshall]

"Credibility" sometimes means they support your belief of what happened rather than what actually happened. Long before I became a copper in 1969 detectives would place 3 or 5 fingers on their chest to indicate who they should pick. 1963 would be about the right time frame and Dallas a prime location for such abhorrent behavior.

[Greg Doudna]

On 2/17/2023 at 8:53 PM, Bill Brown said:

Odum got it "garbled" and therefore completely wrote down the wrong thing, as far as who shot who and where.  Sorry Greg.  I'm not buying it.  You're changing the words of a witness for no other reason than to get it to fit a narrative. 

Bill let's discuss this a moment OK? You know Markham knows where Tippit fell because she was there. That is the point Michael Kalin made. In this FBI interview, which was the same day as the Dallas Police statement, as Odum tells it, Helen Markham has Tippit going around the rear of the cruiser and being shot at the rear of the cruiser "twice in the head". 

Now be serious: is it reasonable to you that Helen Markham is going to say Tippit fell in a different place than at the left front of the cruiser where Tippit plainly fell and Helen Markham was there and saw it? Which is more likely, that Helen Markham would claim to see Tippit fall around behind the cruiser which she knew did not happen, or that her statement was garbled in Odum's rewrite in his report? Seriously, which do you think is more likely? 

Your reaction comes across a little like insisting that a witness who hears 3 shots cannot have heard the same shooter as heard by another witness who heard only 2 shots, because that is "changing the words of a witness for no other reason than to get it to fit a narrative". Any time there are multiple versions of the same event especially told secondhand there are going to be minor differences. And you know FBI agents can make errors in reporting hearsay (witness interview reports), and the situation here is a very simple error to have made, getting a pronoun mixed up as to who went around the rear of the cruiser as Helen Markham tells likely in runon sentences and Odum tries to follow what Helen is saying. It is like you are being such a stickler on FBI agent-written-report-inerrancy, on a hearsay report, at the cost of having Helen Markham highly improbably claiming Tippit fell in two very different locations. Do you really believe Helen Markham would say Tippit fell behind the cruiser? Where's your common sense here? Isn't it more likely Helen Markham knows where Tippit fell and was not really saying different from that, even if it came out that way or Odum heard it that way--that is hardly what she can have actually meant?

The big problem with the Tatum story has always been the gap required between the time of the first four shots and then the final one (assuming with you the logic that there were five shots). But the premise is wrong: there were two groups of shots but it was not 4 + 1. Rather it was as Callaway heard and said: 1 + 1 + 3! bam...bam...bam-bam-bam! That is 2 + 3! Two over the hood, Tippit falls, killer now has no line of fire because Tippit has fallen, so killer has to go around the car either around the front or the back to get to Tippit prone on the ground and fires 3 more rapidly at Tippit prone, killing Tippit dead for sure. And the only two witnesses to have directly seen the shooting (unless there was someone on a porch or something that did not come forward) were Helen Markham for sure and the contested later witness Tatum. (Or maybe it was 3 + 2 if Callaway got the grouping of the shots off by one. Whichever it was, there was more than one final shot into Tippit prone. It was either two or three finales, not one.) 

Again the logic: Helen Markham would not have told Odum that Tippit went around the rear of the cruiser and was shot twice in the head at the rear of the cruiser, since Helen Markham knew full well where Tippit fell. But Helen Markham does speak of seeing "walk[ing] around behind the squad car" and Tippit "shot twice in the head" (what it looked like to her). q.e.d.

It sort of just leaps out pretty clearly what is going on: Helen Markham told on Nov 22, 1963, in what may be the earliest law enforcement witness report of Helen Markham (the FBI Odum report), what the years-later Tatum to so much criticism and skepticism said he also saw that day.

Its the same thing, plain as can be, two versions of the same thing.

Edited April 8, 2023 by Greg Doudna

[Greg Doudna]

p.s. Bill it occurs to me an answer to another question that has bothered me: why the gunman would might run the longer way around the back of the cruiser (as indicated in two out of two of the witnesses who actually saw the run-around and shooting, that's one hundred percent of the eyewitnesses, both of them), instead of the shorter way around the front of the car, to get to Tippit on the ground and finish him off. 

I had wondered if it was because Tippit had pulled up and stopped behind some other car's rear bumper so close that it was not possible for the gunman to walk around the front. That would be one possible way of accounting for that.

But it is not necessary to suppose that (a bumper-to-bumper stopped Tippit cruiser). The longer run around the rear of the cruiser can be explained on personal safety grounds, if the gunman believes Tippit is only wounded and may have seen Tippit going for his gun. Go around the front, Tippit even though hit and on the ground could be waiting for him, gun drawn, and shoot him. The gunman therefore runs around the rear where he can more easily approach the fallen Tippit from behind where Tippit may not be looking, and only when seeing it is safe to do so does the gunman go closer and fire the final 2-3 finale shots including the coup de grace to the right forehead, Tippit on the ground and now dead for sure.

Either way this was an execution, a professional killing, a hit, an ambush, not a random or impulse killing, and I believe the Oswald identifications of Helen Markham and Tatum (and Callaway and Scoggins and Brewer) were mistaken identifications, though that is a larger and obviously more complicated and difficult discussion but does not affect the point here, which is that Helen Markham and Tatum were not wrong on seeing a running around the rear of the cruiser before final shot(s), as both said, and as counterintuitive as it may have seemed to decades of later researchers to imagine a run around the rear of the cruiser of the gunman.  

Edited April 8, 2023 by Greg Doudna

[Michael Kalin]

11 hours ago, Greg Doudna said:

It sort of just leaps out pretty clearly what is going on: Helen Markham told on Nov 22, 1963, in what may be the earliest law enforcement witness report of Helen Markham (the FBI Odum report), what the years-later Tatum to so much criticism and skepticism said he also saw that day.

Its the same thing, plain as can be, two versions of the same thing.

Maybe two diametrically opposed versions of the same thing that did not happen. Phantom Tatum claimed he saw the killer, not the victim, run around the squad car from behind. The only result produced by conflating Odum's garbled report with Moriarty's work of fiction is to add another layer of confusion to the stack of existing narrative fables replete with fantastic scenarios that bedevil research into this murder.

[Greg Doudna]

 

On 2/19/2023 at 8:48 AM, Michael Kalin said:

Maybe two diametrically opposed versions of the same thing that did not happen. Phantom Tatum claimed he saw the killer, not the victim, run around the squad car from behind. The only result produced by conflating Odum's garbled report with Moriarty's work of fiction is to add another layer of confusion to the stack of existing narrative fables replete with fantastic scenarios that bedevil research into this murder.

How do you interpret the Nov 22 FBI interview report of what Helen Markham said she saw, concerning her seeing someone go around the rear of the cruiser before two shots were fired into the head of Tippit, Michael? 

Edited April 8, 2023 by Greg Doudna