A Question of Credibility: Tippit Witnesses Can't Agree

[David Josephs]

6 hours ago, Tommy Tomlinson said:

Thanks a lot David. I'll open a bottle and make that this evening's reading...

  Let me know if you have any concerns/questions.  Hope it makes sense.

DJ

[David Josephs]

4 hours ago, Evan Marshall said:

What I learned as a Detroit copper is that "eyewitnesses" often aren't. Witnesses need to be separated early on so they can't share their version of the truth with other potential witnesses. Also, they need to be interviewed outside their comfort zone. At Homicide we found the results were much better if we are sitting in an interrogation room on the 5th floor of police headquarters.  Interviewing of prospective witnesses should be done ONLY after we gather as much info about the incident as possible. Rushing thru this process is never a good idea. AND witnesses that are not familiar with the sound of gunshots and violent events are often terrible witnesses.

 

And cops are often horrible witnesses too.

I wanted to thank you for you input Evan - a perspective only a small handful of us have experienced first hand.

I'd like to ask your opinion of this statement:

In this specific JFK/Tippit murder cases, the witness statements and their corroboration are much more important in determining the truth of the matter than the physical evidence in the record.

[Bill Brown]

20 hours ago, Tommy Tomlinson said:

Thanks for that Gil.

To me, that journey is the cornerstone of labeling Oswald the Tippit killer.  If you can show he covered that distance in the time the evidence establishes you get to say "he could have killed Tippit". If you can't show that a) he DID manage to do that or b) he COULD do that, you have to concede it might have not been him.

Both Roberts and Markham have come in for some bruising over the years depending on which side of the fence people are sitting when throwing stones, but both are considered to be pretty reliable in terms of the times. The only reason one could have to doubt them would be to forward an agenda or theory that doesn't fit without them being completely wrong.

The Warren Report did itself no favours by asserting the time of the shooting as being at 1:16PM. Helen Markham would have long been at her bus stop by that time, following her daily routine of setting off slightly after 1PM to meet a bus that arrrived at 1:12PM, though she said it was some time around 1:15... Regardless of the possibility of the bus' delayed arrival that day, she would have been there by 1:12PM and nowhere near the scene.

Seeing as how she estimated being about a minute and a half to two minutes away from the bus stop... even if her daily routine had her land at exactly the same time as the bus every day, the shooting was no later than 1:10-1:11PM 

The WC relied on Oswald enterring and leaving "around 1PM" allowed time for him to "briskly" walk the 9/10 of a mile in what the reader was meant to believe was 16 minutes... OK that's fine... PLENTY of time.. But when Roberts reliably placed his leaving at 1:03/1:04PM, and Markham reliably placed herself at the scene at no later than 1:10/1:11PM, that brisk walk suddenly becomes a hard run. 

 

Add to the melee that a witness who turned up a couple of minutes after the shooting having the good sense to check his watch for the time, and placing the time at 1:10PM

Unless I'm mistaken the timescales mentioned by people who have no credible reason to be disbelieved puts the shooting pretty much around 1:08/1:09PM

I did some checks on various times taken to run a mile and simply applied a 9/10 modifer to it... not exactly scientific, but pretty close. This is assuming ideal conditions and wearing suitable running gear... (lightweight vest, shorts, running shoes...) An intermediate level 20-25 yr old middle distance runner could have done it in a little under 6 minutes. Someone who was not a middle distance runner but was in decent shape could do it in around 8 1/2 minutes. (These times are increased significantly if not wearing suitable footwear...) However, in both circumstances, upon stopping their exertion, the runner would have been exhausted! Remember... this isn't "jogging" we are talking about, its running. Normal, healthy, "non-runners" struggle to keep up a full run for more than 2-3 minutes. 

At best Oswald needed to RUN for 6 to 8 minutes, wearing THREE layers of clothing, and wearing normal shoes.  

As to questions over things like Scoggins' posture... I'm pretty new to the Tippit discussion, I have Joe's book but to my shame have yet to get round to it... I've pretty much exclusively focused my interest on the Dealey Plaza evidence part of the case and try not to speculate down too many rabbit holes. But I'm to happy to engage in discussionos over the kneeling, prostrate, standing or otherwise positions of ear-witnesses after the basic question of "How the Hell did he get from Here to There within the permitted time frame?" has been put to rest.

 

"The Warren Report did itself no favours by asserting the time of the shooting as being at 1:16PM. Helen Markham would have long been at her bus stop by that time, following her daily routine of setting off slightly after 1PM to meet a bus that arrrived at 1:12PM, though she said it was some time around 1:15... Regardless of the possibility of the bus' delayed arrival that day, she would have been there by 1:12PM and nowhere near the scene."

 

Since Markham never mentions the 1:12 bus, it's equally as possible that she intended to catch the bus at 1:22.

You don't get to automatically assume that she was intending to catch the 1:12 bus.  Regarding the bus, the only time Markham gives is 1:15.  People don't regularly get to the bus stop three minutes after the bus was due to stop by.

 

Edited August 20, 2023 by Bill Brown

[Mervyn Hagger]

Why not stick to the trunk of the tree: Oswald was a "patsy", end of story - except for David Von Pein.

[Evan Marshall]

What the evidence shows it shows-good, bad, or indifferent. If we can prove the chain is intact. Once that chain is broken it is valueless. The "caliber" and diligence of the collector is critical. We often had Detroit cops as witnesses and often their observations were wrong.

[Tommy Tomlinson]

8 hours ago, Bill Brown said:

 

"The Warren Report did itself no favours by asserting the time of the shooting as being at 1:16PM. Helen Markham would have long been at her bus stop by that time, following her daily routine of setting off slightly after 1PM to meet a bus that arrrived at 1:12PM, though she said it was some time around 1:15... Regardless of the possibility of the bus' delayed arrival that day, she would have been there by 1:12PM and nowhere near the scene."

 

Since Markham never mentions the 1:12 bus, it's equally as possible that she intended to catch the bus at 1:22.

You don't get to automatically assume that she was intending to catch the 1:12 bus.  Regarding the bus, the only time Markham gives is 1:15.  People don't regularly get to the bus stop three minutes after the bus was due to stop by.

 

I'm fairly sure it was the 1:12 since she described the one she always caught as arriving around quarter past after leaving the house at just after 1.00pm, and it being her daily schedule to arrive in time for a bus that in her brain arrived in under 15  minutes after she left. If her bus were arriving 3 minutes or so AFTER its scheduled time (schedule vs her understanding), I kind of think she'd have eventually figured out that it was closer to 1.30 than "quarter past" and she'd been waiting an extra ten minutes on top of the 3 or minutes she would have waited for the 1:!2 pm bus BY setting off "just after 1.00"?

As the conspiracy theorist here, I think it's odd that normally I would be the one supposed to be questioning Helen Markhams cerdibility as a witness, yet whe I given her the benefit of the doubt on an issue she would be far more reliable on than any identification of a man she saw for a few moments, here you are... defending her ID by way of questioning her ability to tell the time and reliably relate her daily work routone.

But whatever suits your agenda I suppose.

I know we need to follow some crazy "Well... it MIGHT have happened that way!" leaps of credulity to fit the "Oswald did it, alone... and so did Ruby!" theory based on th other witness reports. The entire case is based "Is it potentially, vaguelly theoretically possible for these events to occurr and line up at the same instance and allow us to say that one man could have done it?", why not add another.

Anything else about her testimony you think she might have messed up?

Edited August 20, 2023 by Tommy Tomlinson

[Bill Brown]

2 hours ago, Tommy Tomlinson said:

I'm fairly sure it was the 1:12 since she described the one she always caught as arriving around quarter past after leaving the house at just after 1.00pm, and it being her daily schedule to arrive in time for a bus that in her brain arrived in under 15  minutes after she left. If her bus were arriving 3 minutes or so AFTER its scheduled time (schedule vs her understanding), I kind of think she'd have eventually figured out that it was closer to 1.30 than "quarter past" and she'd been waiting an extra ten minutes on top of the 3 or minutes she would have waited for the 1:!2 pm bus BY setting off "just after 1.00"?

As the conspiracy theorist here, I think it's odd that normally I would be the one supposed to be questioning Helen Markhams cerdibility as a witness, yet whe I given her the benefit of the doubt on an issue she would be far more reliable on than any identification of a man she saw for a few moments, here you are... defending her ID by way of questioning her ability to tell the time and reliably relate her daily work routone.

But whatever suits your agenda I suppose.

I know we need to follow some crazy "Well... it MIGHT have happened that way!" leaps of credulity to fit the "Oswald did it, alone... and so did Ruby!" theory based on th other witness reports. The entire case is based "Is it potentially, vaguelly theoretically possible for these events to occurr and line up at the same instance and allow us to say that one man could have done it?", why not add another.

Anything else about her testimony you think she might have messed up?

 

"I'm fairly sure it was the 1:12 since she described the one she always caught as arriving around quarter past after leaving the house at just after 1.00pm, and it being her daily schedule to arrive in time for a bus that in her brain arrived in under 15  minutes after she left."

 

I'm fairly sure Markham would quite often miss the 1:12 bus if she regularly got to the bus stop at 1:15.  This tells me that she usually got to the bus stop at 1:15 and caught the 1:22 bus.

The bottom line is that 1:15 is the only time she gives, regarding catching the bus.  You cannot claim as a fact that Markham regularly caught the 1:12 bus.  Be sure of it if you like, but it's not a fact.

[Tommy Tomlinson]

8 hours ago, Bill Brown said:

 

"I'm fairly sure it was the 1:12 since she described the one she always caught as arriving around quarter past after leaving the house at just after 1.00pm, and it being her daily schedule to arrive in time for a bus that in her brain arrived in under 15  minutes after she left."

 

I'm fairly sure Markham would quite often miss the 1:12 bus if she regularly got to the bus stop at 1:15.  This tells me that she usually got to the bus stop at 1:15 and caught the 1:22 bus.

The bottom line is that 1:15 is the only time she gives, regarding catching the bus.  You cannot claim as a fact that Markham regularly caught the 1:12 bus.  Be sure of it if you like, but it's not a fact.

 I don't think you are getting it Bill. I'm not sure if I've explained it badly or you are being wilfully contrarian? I'll ingore the nonsense strawman of me claiming these things as facts other than to say that I've specifically used phrasess such as "I believe" "fairly sure" and "confident" to describe my understanding of the situation. I freely admit I'm way behind the curve on the details of the shooting.  Are you trying to say that a the Warren Commissions assertion of a 1:16 shooting was correct?

She didn't say the bus arrived at 1:15. She said that she would leave her house just after one, and walk to the bus which would arrive around quarter past. She's clearly not a woman accustomed to taking note of details. (You've read and seen her recollections...) If she was catching that bus with any degree of regularity she would be leaving the house at just after 1:00pm and be arriving there in time to catch a bus that was shceduled to arrive at 1:12. And unless you arre planning a military operation, or maybe a bank heist, most people would accept that twelve minutes past is "around quarter past" If she were regularly having to wait an additional ten minutes, even someone as scatter brained as Helen Markham would have figured that out after a few days, and if she wasn;t even that smart, then... well.. good luck convincing me that anything she said about the shooting has any merit whatsoever.

But, the important part is the time she left the house and the time it took her to get to the stop. What MIGHT have happpened at the bus stop in terms of waiting around or quickly boarding, is not what matters, the time she left and the time she took to get to the scene of the shooting is what matters.

If you are trying to blow holes in Markham's credibility over her understanding and comprehension of her own, personal, regular routine for getting to work, then any credibility she has over a brief explosive event that gave her several feinting fits should be, by association and at the very least, treated with the same lack of credibility. 

If you wish to proceed discounting Markham as not being credible, we can talk about the other witnesses who established the timeline, and ignore Markham's testimony, afffidavits and interviews completely, (as several members of the WC seemed eager to do...)

Out of interest what was the 1:22 bus? I've seen the schedule for the Number 55 bus, but that ran hourly (or, more accurately, every 58 minutes for some reason...). The "15" Bus would have arrived around 1:36 and the "30" would as I understand it, (happy to be corected on this) have required her to move to a different stop. What was the bus that ran 10 minutes after the 1:12pm "55" at the same stop? From what I can see from the schedule, the next bus would have arrived at around 2:10pm, meaning she would have been stepping off the bus about 5 minutes after her shift started. I'll pop a link to the schedule up when I'm on my proper computer, this notebook is struggling to do one thing at once, let alone multi-task.

[Bill Brown]

3 hours ago, Tommy Tomlinson said:

 I don't think you are getting it Bill. I'm not sure if I've explained it badly or you are being wilfully contrarian? I'll ingore the nonsense strawman of me claiming these things as facts other than to say that I've specifically used phrasess such as "I believe" "fairly sure" and "confident" to describe my understanding of the situation. I freely admit I'm way behind the curve on the details of the shooting.  Are you trying to say that a the Warren Commissions assertion of a 1:16 shooting was correct?

She didn't say the bus arrived at 1:15. She said that she would leave her house just after one, and walk to the bus which would arrive around quarter past. She's clearly not a woman accustomed to taking note of details. (You've read and seen her recollections...) If she was catching that bus with any degree of regularity she would be leaving the house at just after 1:00pm and be arriving there in time to catch a bus that was shceduled to arrive at 1:12. And unless you arre planning a military operation, or maybe a bank heist, most people would accept that twelve minutes past is "around quarter past" If she were regularly having to wait an additional ten minutes, even someone as scatter brained as Helen Markham would have figured that out after a few days, and if she wasn;t even that smart, then... well.. good luck convincing me that anything she said about the shooting has any merit whatsoever.

But, the important part is the time she left the house and the time it took her to get to the stop. What MIGHT have happpened at the bus stop in terms of waiting around or quickly boarding, is not what matters, the time she left and the time she took to get to the scene of the shooting is what matters.

If you are trying to blow holes in Markham's credibility over her understanding and comprehension of her own, personal, regular routine for getting to work, then any credibility she has over a brief explosive event that gave her several feinting fits should be, by association and at the very least, treated with the same lack of credibility. 

If you wish to proceed discounting Markham as not being credible, we can talk about the other witnesses who established the timeline, and ignore Markham's testimony, afffidavits and interviews completely, (as several members of the WC seemed eager to do...)

Out of interest what was the 1:22 bus? I've seen the schedule for the Number 55 bus, but that ran hourly (or, more accurately, every 58 minutes for some reason...). The "15" Bus would have arrived around 1:36 and the "30" would as I understand it, (happy to be corected on this) have required her to move to a different stop. What was the bus that ran 10 minutes after the 1:12pm "55" at the same stop? From what I can see from the schedule, the next bus would have arrived at around 2:10pm, meaning she would have been stepping off the bus about 5 minutes after her shift started. I'll pop a link to the schedule up when I'm on my proper computer, this notebook is struggling to do one thing at once, let alone multi-task.

 

"She didn't say the bus arrived at 1:15. She said that she would leave her house just after one, and walk to the bus which would arrive around quarter past."

 

First, where did she say such a thing?

You keep using the phrase "around quarter past" with quotes.  What makes you say this?

 

 

[Bill Brown]

3 hours ago, Tommy Tomlinson said:

 I don't think you are getting it Bill. I'm not sure if I've explained it badly or you are being wilfully contrarian? I'll ingore the nonsense strawman of me claiming these things as facts other than to say that I've specifically used phrasess such as "I believe" "fairly sure" and "confident" to describe my understanding of the situation. I freely admit I'm way behind the curve on the details of the shooting.  Are you trying to say that a the Warren Commissions assertion of a 1:16 shooting was correct?

She didn't say the bus arrived at 1:15. She said that she would leave her house just after one, and walk to the bus which would arrive around quarter past. She's clearly not a woman accustomed to taking note of details. (You've read and seen her recollections...) If she was catching that bus with any degree of regularity she would be leaving the house at just after 1:00pm and be arriving there in time to catch a bus that was shceduled to arrive at 1:12. And unless you arre planning a military operation, or maybe a bank heist, most people would accept that twelve minutes past is "around quarter past" If she were regularly having to wait an additional ten minutes, even someone as scatter brained as Helen Markham would have figured that out after a few days, and if she wasn;t even that smart, then... well.. good luck convincing me that anything she said about the shooting has any merit whatsoever.

But, the important part is the time she left the house and the time it took her to get to the stop. What MIGHT have happpened at the bus stop in terms of waiting around or quickly boarding, is not what matters, the time she left and the time she took to get to the scene of the shooting is what matters.

If you are trying to blow holes in Markham's credibility over her understanding and comprehension of her own, personal, regular routine for getting to work, then any credibility she has over a brief explosive event that gave her several feinting fits should be, by association and at the very least, treated with the same lack of credibility. 

If you wish to proceed discounting Markham as not being credible, we can talk about the other witnesses who established the timeline, and ignore Markham's testimony, afffidavits and interviews completely, (as several members of the WC seemed eager to do...)

Out of interest what was the 1:22 bus? I've seen the schedule for the Number 55 bus, but that ran hourly (or, more accurately, every 58 minutes for some reason...). The "15" Bus would have arrived around 1:36 and the "30" would as I understand it, (happy to be corected on this) have required her to move to a different stop. What was the bus that ran 10 minutes after the 1:12pm "55" at the same stop? From what I can see from the schedule, the next bus would have arrived at around 2:10pm, meaning she would have been stepping off the bus about 5 minutes after her shift started. I'll pop a link to the schedule up when I'm on my proper computer, this notebook is struggling to do one thing at once, let alone multi-task.

 

"Out of interest what was the 1:22 bus? I've seen the schedule for the Number 55 bus, but that ran hourly (or, more accurately, every 58 minutes for some reason...). The "15" Bus would have arrived around 1:36 and the "30" would as I understand it, (happy to be corected on this) have required her to move to a different stop. What was the bus that ran 10 minutes after the 1:12pm "55" at the same stop? From what I can see from the schedule, the next bus would have arrived at around 2:10pm, meaning she would have been stepping off the bus about 5 minutes after her shift started. I'll pop a link to the schedule up when I'm on my proper computer, this notebook is struggling to do one thing at once, let alone multi-task."

 

In March of '64, Agent Bob Barrett (of the FBI) determined with the Dallas Transit System that a bus stopped at that bus stop (Jefferson and Patton) at "about 1:12 and every ten minutes thereafter".

 

[Tommy Tomlinson]

23 minutes ago, Bill Brown said:

 

"She didn't say the bus arrived at 1:15. She said that she would leave her house just after one, and walk to the bus which would arrive around quarter past."

 

First, where did she say such a thing?

You keep using the phrase "around quarter past" with quotes.  What makes you say this?

 

 

In her testimony to the WC she says "1:15" in one of the other interviews  she phrases it slightly different, I have neither the time nor inclination to retrace the instance as it's a distracting matter of semantics, entirely irrelevant to the matter of what time she was present at the shooting, unless, as I asked before you are going to contend that The Warren Commissions estimation of the shooting is accurate at 1:16.

Markham says that she estimates the time of the shooting was 1:06 to 1:07 having just left her house at a little after 1PM. 

Benavides says that after the shooter leaves he waits a further 2 minutes, then moves to attend to Tippit, and then moves to try the radio.

Bowley arrives around that time, checks his watch and it's 1:10. He moves to Tippit, and attempts to help him before taking over the radio from Benavides, he gets the radio wokring and makes a call to dispatch the time of that call is 1:16.

I know people are very keen to argue to the far end of a fart about technical discrepancies in where someone was standing or what angle they were at, or using situations to further theories by postulating "Ah, but what IF????" scenarios... I;m not at that point yet with this part of the case I just want to know how Oswald got there in the time they say he did when the timescales say he couldn't have unless he was runing VERY fast indeed, and am still suprised that with the way DPD decnded on that Movie Theatre, that no one was interest in a guy sprinting hell for leather through the streets. Was that a common occurrence in Dallas in 1963? I don't know!  

What evidence, suggests that timeline is incorrect (taken from statements made to the WC) and that all three were individually out of whack to almost identical levels of disparity for the Commission to decide, and subsequent people accepted... that everyone was wrong, and they were right?

 

 

[Bill Brown]

7 hours ago, Tommy Tomlinson said:

In her testimony to the WC she says "1:15" in one of the other interviews  she phrases it slightly different, I have neither the time nor inclination to retrace the instance as it's a distracting matter of semantics, entirely irrelevant to the matter of what time she was present at the shooting, unless, as I asked before you are going to contend that The Warren Commissions estimation of the shooting is accurate at 1:16.

Markham says that she estimates the time of the shooting was 1:06 to 1:07 having just left her house at a little after 1PM. 

Benavides says that after the shooter leaves he waits a further 2 minutes, then moves to attend to Tippit, and then moves to try the radio.

Bowley arrives around that time, checks his watch and it's 1:10. He moves to Tippit, and attempts to help him before taking over the radio from Benavides, he gets the radio wokring and makes a call to dispatch the time of that call is 1:16.

I know people are very keen to argue to the far end of a fart about technical discrepancies in where someone was standing or what angle they were at, or using situations to further theories by postulating "Ah, but what IF????" scenarios... I;m not at that point yet with this part of the case I just want to know how Oswald got there in the time they say he did when the timescales say he couldn't have unless he was runing VERY fast indeed, and am still suprised that with the way DPD decnded on that Movie Theatre, that no one was interest in a guy sprinting hell for leather through the streets. Was that a common occurrence in Dallas in 1963? I don't know!  

What evidence, suggests that timeline is incorrect (taken from statements made to the WC) and that all three were individually out of whack to almost identical levels of disparity for the Commission to decide, and subsequent people accepted... that everyone was wrong, and they were right?

 

 

 

"In her testimony to the WC she says "1:15"

 

Right.  So in the interest of accuracy, maybe stop putting quotes at "around quarter past".

By the way, when she gave the time of 1:15, it was in response to the question asked by Ball about what time she gets her bus (a strange way to ask a question).  Therefore, we don't really know if Markham is telling us she gets to her bus stop at 1:15 or if she gets on the bus at 1:15.  Since a bus stopped there at 1:12 and again at 1:22, I'm going with the notion that she gets to her bus stop regularly at 1:15 in order to catch the 1:22 bus.  Like I said before, one does not normally plan on getting to the bus stop three minutes after the bus was due.  One would miss the bus over half the time (if not more).

 

"Benavides says that after the shooter leaves he waits a further 2 minutes, then moves to attend to Tippit, and then moves to try the radio."

 

If you really believe Benavides was cowering down in his truck for two minutes after the shooting, then you have Benavides hiding inside his truck, a mere fifteen feet from Tippit's body, while Helen Markham, Frank Cimino and others are already beginning to mill around the body.  Did you think this through?  No way is this the scenario which occurred.

 

Secondly, and more importantly, Benavides tells Eddie Barker (The Warren Report, part 3, CBS, 1967) that he watched the killer go around the corner and then sat in his truck "for a second or two" before getting out.

 

It's most likely that Benavides was out of his truck and on the patrol car radio about sixty seconds after the shooting.  We can hear Benavides begin to key the mic at 1:16.

 

"Bowley arrives around that time, checks his watch and it's 1:10. He moves to Tippit, and attempts to help him before taking over the radio from Benavides, he gets the radio wokring and makes a call to dispatch the time of that call is 1:16."

 

Bowley tells us that he pulled up to the scene, got out of his car, walked over to the body, saw right away that there was nothing he could do for Tippit, then immediately went over to the driver's side door and grabbed the mic from Benavides.  How long do you think something like that would take?  Sixty seconds?  Ninety seconds?  No way does Bowley pull up at 1:10 and then take roughly seven minutes (1:17, per Dale Myers) before making the report on the squad car radio.

 

I refuse to believe Bowley's 1960 era windup wristwatch was more accurate than the clocks in the dispatch room (which place Bowley's call at 1:16).  Bowles, the dispatch supervisor, tells us that those clocks could be off by a minute or so (he's simply allowing room for error, smart man) but there is no reason to believe they were off that day.  I also refuse to believe Bowley was on the scene for six or seven minutes, standing there looking at the body, before getting on the squad car radio.

 

[Tommy Tomlinson]

6 hours ago, Bill Brown said:

 

"In her testimony to the WC she says "1:15"

 

Right.  So in the interest of accuracy, maybe stop putting quotes at "around quarter past".

By the way, when she gave the time of 1:15, it was in response to the question asked by Ball about what time she gets her bus (a strange way to ask a question).  Therefore, we don't really know if Markham is telling us she gets to her bus stop at 1:15 or if she gets on the bus at 1:15.  Since a bus stopped there at 1:12 and again at 1:22, I'm going with the notion that she gets to her bus stop regularly at 1:15 in order to catch the 1:22 bus.  Like I said before, one does not normally plan on getting to the bus stop three minutes after the bus was due.  One would miss the bus over half the time (if not more).

 

"Benavides says that after the shooter leaves he waits a further 2 minutes, then moves to attend to Tippit, and then moves to try the radio."

 

If you really believe Benavides was cowering down in his truck for two minutes after the shooting, then you have Benavides hiding inside his truck, a mere fifteen feet from Tippit's body, while Helen Markham, Frank Cimino and others are already beginning to mill around the body.  Did you think this through?  No way is this the scenario which occurred.

 

Secondly, and more importantly, Benavides tells Eddie Barker (The Warren Report, part 3, CBS, 1967) that he watched the killer go around the corner and then sat in his truck "for a second or two" before getting out.

 

It's most likely that Benavides was out of his truck and on the patrol car radio about sixty seconds after the shooting.  We can hear Benavides begin to key the mic at 1:16.

 

"Bowley arrives around that time, checks his watch and it's 1:10. He moves to Tippit, and attempts to help him before taking over the radio from Benavides, he gets the radio wokring and makes a call to dispatch the time of that call is 1:16."

 

Bowley tells us that he pulled up to the scene, got out of his car, walked over to the body, saw right away that there was nothing he could do for Tippit, then immediately went over to the driver's side door and grabbed the mic from Benavides.  How long do you think something like that would take?  Sixty seconds?  Ninety seconds?  No way does Bowley pull up at 1:10 and then take roughly seven minutes (1:17, per Dale Myers) before making the report on the squad car radio.

 

I refuse to believe Bowley's 1960 era windup wristwatch was more accurate than the clocks in the dispatch room (which place Bowley's call at 1:16).  Bowles, the dispatch supervisor, tells us that those clocks could be off by a minute or so (he's simply allowing room for error, smart man) but there is no reason to believe they were off that day.  I also refuse to believe Bowley was on the scene for six or seven minutes, standing there looking at the body, before getting on the squad car radio.

 

So there we have it... they are right when I want them to be and wrong when I need them to be.

[Michael Kalin]

15 hours ago, Bill Brown said:

I refuse to believe Bowley's 1960 era windup wristwatch was more accurate than the clocks in the dispatch room (which place Bowley's call at 1:16).  Bowles, the dispatch supervisor, tells us that those clocks could be off by a minute or so (he's simply allowing room for error, smart man) but there is no reason to believe they were off that day.  I also refuse to believe Bowley was on the scene for six or seven minutes, standing there looking at the body, before getting on the squad car radio.

See my comment about the farcical inaccuracy of the dictabelt timestamps in the "Was Tippit at Lancaster and 8TH?" thread. Your belief system about this is irrelevant.

On 8/20/2023 at 5:42 PM, Bill Brown said:

I'm fairly sure Markham would quite often miss the 1:12 bus if she regularly got to the bus stop at 1:15.  This tells me that she usually got to the bus stop at 1:15 and caught the 1:22 bus.

Regarding Markham's passage of two blocks (900 feet) along Patton Avenue, she told Barrett she left the Washeteria at 1:04. Barrett makes no effort to explain why it would take 11 minutes to cover this distance (substantially less than a quarter mile), easily traversed in less than five minutes. Maybe you can provide an explanation?

The alternative is to expand your belief system to include Barrett's injection of the fudged "about 1:15 PM" into his report.

You keep forgetting the task assigned to the WC was to hang the rap on a patsy as the lone assassin, and the FBI readily manufactured and/or suppressed evidence to support this conclusion.

[Tommy Tomlinson]

As far as the timeline the three witnesses (Markham, Benavides, and Bowley) plus the Police Dispatchers, established goes, it is a very straight forward, linear, common sense explanation of the events. Having followed a lot of true crime investigations, that time line seems better than most police get from multiple witnesses at a crime scene. Beyond the timeline matching it does all go a bit "He said/She said..." and gets a bit all over the place when it comes to identifying the shooter, but that timeline is a pretty solid baseline. 

What was it that caused anyone to initially question them? What caused them to say? "Maybe she usually caught a different bus, and is wrong? Maybe he didn't hide as long as he said? Maybe his watch was wrong? Maybe the dispatch times were wrong?" What caused that initial lack of trust in those witnesses? A level of trust that with some of them was suddenly re-invigorated as to suggest almost eidetic levels of memory in things other than their fundamental understanding of linear time?

And I mean legitimate, substantive cause to doubt the "I set off around at this time and the shots were fired around that time..." "I ducked behind a car and hid, then came out..." "I arrived and checked my watch and it was a time that substantiates the others..." and the police saying "WE recieved a call on our dispatch desk at a time that substantiates all those timings..."? What was it about the incident that made people go... "Hang on... something about this just doesn't add up!"

Why shouldn't those times be trusted? Why do people who say Bowley's watch might be wrong, or the dispatch clock may be wrong always make that error in favour of the time being LATER? So Bowley's watch may have been wrong by a couple of minutes? OK, so potentially 1:08 then? Dispatch may have been out by a couple of minutes too and got that call at 1:14! and Markham may have set off bang on 1.00PM!!! Hey, that old lady seems a bit crazy... Oswald might still have been standing outside the house at gone five past!!! But no... THAT line of thinking is, "being ridiculous!"

So who WAS the first person to say "These timings simply can't be right!" and what was the reason they gave for WHY the timings couldn't be right? 

If there is an actual answer beyond "Well... Oswald oviously! They needed to create a window for him to get there on foot" I would genuinely like to know what it is.