The Walker Bullet: Does This Look "Steel Jacketed"?

[Benjamin Cole]

See the photo in this thread of the CE573, the "Walker Bullet." 

Does that look like a steel-jacketed bullet---even a copper-gilded steel jacketed bullet? 

Edited March 28, 2023 by Benjamin Cole

[Mark Ulrik]

31 minutes ago, Benjamin Cole said:

I want to post a picture of CE 573, obviously a copper-jacketed bullet (Walker shooting). 

But I have used all my attachment space, and cannot seem to free up space. I have traded notes with administrators regarding his matter, but Mark Knight said there is nothing he can do. 

Sometime back someone posted a note about first going into Google Docs or something along those lines. 

Any clues? 

I have no experience with Google Docs, but postimage (postimg.cc) has served me well.

[Benjamin Cole]

14 minutes ago, Mark Ulrik said:

I have no experience with Google Docs, but postimage (postimg.cc) has served me well.

Wow!

 

Even though I am bald, I take my hat off in salute. 

[Benjamin Cole]

More coming....

Edited March 28, 2023 by Benjamin Cole

[Benjamin Cole]

OK, here is the deal on the CE573: you can see places (in the excellent photo) where the shell, or hull, has been ripped apart by the impact into the wall at Walker's house. 

If CE573 were a steel-jacketed bullet, even one with copper-gilding, those exposed cracked areas would be the color of steel. Steel-colored. 

But instead, the cracked areas are copper-colored (despite some oxidizing. I do not know when this photo was taken). At the day Walker was shot at, those exposed areas would have been even more coppery-colored, due to less oxidization. 

Really, it stretches credulity that a Dallas Police Department detective, in the most high-profile murder attempt in the city's to that date, looked at CE573 and said, "Oh, this is a steel-jacketed bullet."

But that is what DPD reports indisputably say: The bullet removed from the Walker home was a steel-jacketed bullet. 

Even if a DPD detective made such a large and obvious mistake regarding CE573, would not the bullet have been sent to a crime lab? And still, no one noticed that CE573 was in fact copper-jacketed? 

My guess is DPD detectives probably found a steel-jacketed bullet in the Walker home. They properly recorded what they found. 

By the time the CE573 bullet arrived in the FBI crime lab, it had become copper-jacketed. 

If I sat on a jury, and defense counsel asked the right questions, and framed the right narrative...I think I would have reasonable doubt about the authenticity of CE573. 

Reasonable doubt does not mean I am 100% certain that the CE573 bullet is ersatz.

Just...I wouldn't send a guy to the chair on evidence like that. 

 

[Lawrence Schnapf]

The DPD police did say it was steel-jacket.  and Walker said the bullet in evidence was not the bullet found in his home. he even wrote a letter in february 1979 to the Attorney general telling him  "I inspected it [i,e, the bullet] carefully. There is no mistake. There has been a substitution of the bullet fired by Oswald and taken out of my house- FWIW

[Benjamin Cole]

1 hour ago, Lawrence Schnapf said:

The DPD police did say it was steel-jacket.  and Walker said the bullet in evidence was not the bullet found in his home. he even wrote a letter in february 1979 to the Attorney general telling him  "I inspected it [i,e, the bullet] carefully. There is no mistake. There has been a substitution of the bullet fired by Oswald and taken out of my house- FWIW

That is what happened. 

This does get complicated. 

But, if memory serves, Walker had seen images of unfired un-gilded steel-jacketed bullets on TV during the HSCA hearings, and the HSCA seemed to be positing that a similar bullet had been found in the Walker home.  

In fact, the bona fide Walker bullet was badly mangled or distorted. 

Walker's letter meant that no shiny steel-jacketed bullet had been found in his house. 

All that said, the true Walker bullet was likely a steel-jacketed and badly mangled bullet, possibly copper-gilded.

See my comments above. It strains credulity that a DPD detective, and DPD ballistics guys, would made such rudimentary errors in any case, let alone such a high-profile case. 

 

 

[Benjamin Cole]

Add on: Why assume a rifle, and not a handgun, in the Walker shooting? 

[Chris Bristow]

5 hours ago, Benjamin Cole said:

Add on: Why assume a rifle, and not a handgun, in the Walker shooting? 

Is it possible to estimate the velocity of the bullet based on its depth within the wall, and could that lead them to conclude it was a rifle?

[Benjamin Cole]

17 minutes ago, Chris Bristow said:

Is it possible to estimate the velocity of the bullet based on its depth within the wall, and could that lead them to conclude it was a rifle?

The DPD report actually specifies a "high powered rifle." 

The bullet nicked the bottom edge of a window pane, then passed through a wall, which I believe was the old -fashioned wood slats and plaster variety. 

Whether that would take a high-powered rifle or not...probably conjecture. Did the Walker bullet strike a wooden slat, or upright 2x4? Electrical conduit? 

It is true, most handguns shoot at about one-half the velocity of a high-powered rifle bullets. But there are many exceptions. 

A 30.06 shoots at 3,400 fps. That is among the most powerful commonly available rifles. 

If memory serves, a Mannlicher Carcano fires at 1,800 fps (by some definitions, not a true high-powered rifle).

A .357 Magnum handgun can achieve very similar fps to the Mannlicher Carcano. 

That Walker was shot at with a rifle...seems largely conjecture. 

 

 

[Gil Jesus]

On 3/28/2023 at 4:01 AM, Benjamin Cole said:

See the photo in this thread of the CE573, the "Walker Bullet." 

Does that look like a steel-jacketed bullet---even a copper-gilded steel jacketed bullet? 

This whole issue of the Walker Bullet could have been resolved had the Commission called ANY of the witnesses who handled the bullet and asked them to identify it.

The names of six witnesses who either saw, handled or in whose care the bullet was ( McElroy, Norvell, Tucker, B.G. Brown, Alexander and Anderson ) do not appear on the list of 552 witnesses who were called to give testimony. ( Report, Appendix V, pgs. 483-500 )

They were never called to testify, let alone identify CE 573 as the bullet they handled.

General Walker saw the bullet the night it was recovered and was called to testify, but was never shown CE 573 and asked to identify it.

An eighth witness, McElroy’s partner Ira Van Cleve, also saw the bullet and described it in his report on the crime. He also was never called to give testimony and identify CE 573.

B.G. Brown claimed he marked the bullet they recovered from Walker's house. ( Osw 201 file, vol 44, sec. 7, pg. 5 )

So the question becomes does the bullet currently in evidence have his mark ?

It’s unconscionable that the Commission omitted eight witnesses who either saw, handled or in whose possession the Walker bullet was.

That's a lot of witnesses to omit for it to be an innocent oversight.

It just seems to me that if you're building a case against a suspect, if you recovered a bullet, you'd want the officers who found the bullet to identify the bullet in evidence as the bullet they found.

Especially if it was marked.
 

Edited March 29, 2023 by Gil Jesus

[Sean Coleman]

whose mark is present? Looks like a ‘H’ above a ‘T?’

[Benjamin Cole]

29 minutes ago, Gil Jesus said:

This whole issue of the Walker Bullet could have been resolved had the Commission called ANY of the witnesses who handled the bullet and asked them to identify it.

The names of six witnesses who either saw, handled or in whose care the bullet was ( McElroy, Norvell, Tucker, B.G. Brown, Alexander and Anderson ) do not appear on the list of 552 witnesses who were called to give testimony. ( Report, Appendix V, pgs. 483-500 )

They were never called to testify, let alone identify CE 573 as the bullet they handled.

General Walker saw the bullet the night it was recovered and was called to testify, but was never shown CE 573 and asked to identify it.

An eighth witness, McElroy’s partner Ira Van Cleve, also saw the bullet and described it in his report on the crime. He also was never called to give testimony and identify CE 573.

B.G. Brown claimed he marked the bullet they recovered from Walker's house. ( Osw 201 file, vol 44, sec. 7, pg. 5 )

So the question becomes does the bullet currently in evidence have his mark ?

It’s unconscionable that the Commission omitted eight witnesses who either saw, handled or in whose possession the Walker bullet was.

That's a lot of witnesses to omit for it to be an innocent oversight.

It just seems to me that if you're building a case against a suspect, if you recovered a bullet, you'd want the officers who found the bullet to identify the bullet in evidence as the bullet they found.

Especially if it was marked.
 

GJ--Thanks for your excellent comments, per usual. 

Egads, you mean seven DPD officers and detectives handled the original Walker bullet, and not one of then said, "Oh, this is actually a copper-jacketed bullet, not a steel-jacketed bullet." ? 

That sort of strains credulity. 

If I had to bet, I would bet the DPD found a steel-jacketed bullet in the Walker home, unknown bore or make. 

CE573 became a Western ammo copper-jacketed bullet sometime later. 

And for all we know, someone shot in the Walker home with an easily concealed handgun. 

Edited March 29, 2023 by Benjamin Cole

[Benjamin Cole]

3 minutes ago, Sean Coleman said:

whose mark is present? Looks like a ‘H’ above a ‘T?’

Yeah, I saw that "H" too, and possibly an inverted "V."

No telling when that "H" was put on CE573. Possibly by someone on the receiving end at the FBI. 

[Mark Ulrik]

57 minutes ago, Sean Coleman said:

whose mark is present? Looks like a ‘H’ above a ‘T?’

Cunningham's "JH"?