Decipherment of the James Odell Estes story (Carousel Club July-Aug 1963)

[Greg Doudna]

1 hour ago, Michael Griffith said:

I don't see how Connally's 1967 pardon of Candy Barr, four years after the assassination, has any bearing on the claim that Connally held a secret meeting with Ruby and others at Ruby's strip club before the assassination. Governors get dozens of requests for pardons every year and usually rely on some kind of screening board to vet the pardon requests. 

It just makes no sense to me that a Boy Scout like Connally, who was the governor of the state at the time, would have been caught dead in a strip club for any reason, much less that he would have attended an illicit meeting at such a club. It would have been far more logical and much safer to hold such a meeting in a private home or in a hotel room.

Is it possible that the FBI padded Estes's account and added the bit about Connally meeting with Ruby and others at the strip club? Or did Estes fabricate this meeting in an otherwise-truthful account?

No connalys pardon of Candy Barr in 1967 had nothing to do with a meeting in 1963, only the 1963 parole issue if anything. But whether the 1963 Connally meeting in Ruby’s office story of Estes had to do with “paroles” itself is only a guess, not claimed by Estes who gave or knew no reason for the meeting, only says he witnessed it. I don’t think Estes made it up and I don’t think the FBI taking his statement added it either with all the details Estes’ gave. Estes signed the whole statement. 

And I don’t know if you saw my above, but in Estes’ story Connally would not have been seen by anyone entering or at a strip club, apart from the ones present in Ruby’s office who would be the only ones who knew he was there. It is not as if he was in public watching strippers on a stage, or walked into an entrance of such an establishment. I am assuming an unmarked door in the alley in the back went to all levels of a multistory building thus even if seen need not necessarily be seen as going to the Carousel Club at a time when it was closed. I do see one point that could weigh in favor of what you are saying though. If I were Connally, I might want to control the venue out of fear of being covertly taped or caught on camera (and then set up for blackmail). 

Edited September 15, 2023 by Greg Doudna

[Greg Doudna]

2 hours ago, Michael Kalin said:

This is critical. Myers' estimate does not stand up to the facts. Markham arrived at the scene at 1:06. Bowley arrived at 1:10. The ambulance arrived at 1:19. All three of these times are about as firm as the evidence gets in this case. The intervals allow plenty of time for Benavides to arrive after the shooting but before Bowley, missing the murder event and its immediate aftermath entirely.

If there were witnesses who attested to the presence of Benavides' truck at the murder scene when Tippit was killed it would undermine Guinyard's WC testimony, but I don't believe any such witness has ever been produced. Ball tried and failed to fit Markham into this role in an amusing exchange [3H320].

As to Crafard -- Andy Armstrong didn't see a resemblance to LHO. Neither do I.

It doesn’t matter who doesn’t see a resemblance between Oswald and Craford, the fact is some witnesses did make that confusion (eg at the Contract Electronics store, and Mary Lawrence at a restaurant near the Vegas Club the early morning hours of Nov 22, to name just two). That is simple fact. You can say they would not have made that mistake which sounds fine apart from they did, after seeing Oswald on TV and “remembering” (without being able to actually see Craford again). In the case of the Tenth and Patton witnesses, it is not certain whether any got a good look at the killers face though Benavides, Markham, and Scoggins might have (Benavides’ denial notwithstanding), but none of those are certain on that point. The Tenth and Patton witnesses had less time or proximity to the killer upon which to make their Oswald ID than the staff at Contract Electronics and Mary Lawrence who did see Craford up close for a period of some consecutive minutes and mistakenly identified Craford as Oswald.

On the timing, of the three you cite I do not consider the first two certain, in the case of Bowley not because I think his watch was off but because he reported remembering the time on his watch as 1:10 first known the next day, and it could be possible he remembered incorrectly by a few minutes. Things like that can happen in next-day memories. Helen Markham I believe was walking intending to arrive at ca 1:15 in order to catch the 1:20 bus, not the 1:10 bus. Given that there were three, not one, very quick call-ins to the police or emergency services following the shooting (Mrs. Wright, Barbara Davis, and the Tippit patrol car radio, and that before Callaways arrival which 90 seconds sounds about right for that), a “long” delay before emergency response is less likely than the more “rapid” response. Myers’ timing may have some unacknowledged margin of error but it hangs together with the known police radio call time checks as approximately correct, at least that was my conclusion when I worked through the arguments on this a while ago. How I see it anyway. 

Edited September 15, 2023 by Greg Doudna

[Paul Jolliffe]

34 minutes ago, Greg Doudna said:

No connalys pardon of Candy Barr in 1967 had nothing to do with a meeting in 1963, only the 1963 parole issue if anything. But whether the 1963 Connally meeting in Ruby’s office story of Estes had to do with “paroles” itself is only a guess, not claimed by Estes who gave or knew no reason for the meeting, only says he witnessed it. I don’t think Estes made it up and I don’t think the FBI taking his statement added it either with all the details Estes’ gave. Estes signed the whole statement. 

And I don’t know if you saw my above, but in Estes’ story Connally would not have been seen by anyone entering or at a strip club, apart from the ones present in Ruby’s office who would be the only ones who knew he was there. It is not as if he was in public watching strippers on a stage, or walked into an entrance of such an establishment. I am assuming an unmarked door in the alley in the back went to all levels of a multistory building thus even if seen need not necessarily be seen as going to the Carousel Club at a time when it was closed. I do see one point that could weigh in favor of what you are saying though. If I were Connally, I might want to control the venue out of fear of being covertly taped or caught on camera (and then set up for blackmail). 

Greg,

I wasn't trying to imply that his 1967 pardon of Candy Barr had anything to do with a presumed meeting in Ruby's club in 1963, merely that John Connally was indeed "familiar" with the types of people who hung around in clubs like Ruby's.

My objection was to Michael Griffin's view that John Connally was a "boy scout". 

This profile of John Connally from Texas Monthly should dispense with that notion:

"Connally became Johnson’s most trusted political operative. When the Lower Colorado River Authority, which supplied electric power for most of LBJ’s district, found its expansion threatened by private utilities, Lyndon saw that Connally was appointed to the LCRA board back in Austin. Later, Connally returned to Washington in 1949 as the top aide to newly elected Senator Johnson. They were a superb team—Johnson the compromiser, Connally the tough guy. When dirty work had to be done, Connally drew the assignment, as when he suggested at the 1960 Democratic National Convention that Jack Kennedy had a fatal disease and shouldn’t be nominated. Working for Johnson was a great education, but it had one flaw: Connally’s role as hatchet man was one-dimensional. He didn’t have to face the voters; he knew none of the restraints of holding political office and wanting to keep it."

The Truth About John Connally – Texas Monthly

[Paul Jolliffe]

1 hour ago, Michael Griffith said:

I don't see how Connally's 1967 pardon of Candy Barr, four years after the assassination, has any bearing on the claim that Connally held a secret meeting with Ruby and others at Ruby's strip club before the assassination. Governors get dozens of requests for pardons every year and usually rely on some kind of screening board to vet the pardon requests. 

It just makes no sense to me that a Boy Scout like Connally, who was the governor of the state at the time, would have been caught dead in a strip club for any reason, much less that he would have attended an illicit meeting at such a club. It would have been far more logical and much safer to hold such a meeting in a private home or in a hotel room.

Is it possible that the FBI padded Estes's account and added the bit about Connally meeting with Ruby and others at the strip club? Or did Estes fabricate this meeting in an otherwise-truthful account?

Michael,

I did not mean to imply that Connally's pardon of Candy Barr in 1967 had anything to do with a presumed 1963 meeting in Ruby's club, merely that Connally was indeed very familiar with the types of people who frequented clubs such as Ruby's. 

But for more on Connally:

The Truth About John Connally – Texas Monthly

[Joe Bauer]

1 hour ago, Paul Jolliffe said:

Greg,

I wasn't trying to imply that his 1967 pardon of Candy Barr had anything to do with a presumed meeting in Ruby's club in 1963, merely that John Connally was indeed "familiar" with the types of people who hung around in clubs like Ruby's.

My objection was to Michael Griffin's view that John Connally was a "boy scout". 

This profile of John Connally from Texas Monthly should dispense with that notion:

"Connally became Johnson’s most trusted political operative. When the Lower Colorado River Authority, which supplied electric power for most of LBJ’s district, found its expansion threatened by private utilities, Lyndon saw that Connally was appointed to the LCRA board back in Austin. Later, Connally returned to Washington in 1949 as the top aide to newly elected Senator Johnson. They were a superb team—Johnson the compromiser, Connally the tough guy. When dirty work had to be done, Connally drew the assignment, as when he suggested at the 1960 Democratic National Convention that Jack Kennedy had a fatal disease and shouldn’t be nominated. Working for Johnson was a great education, but it had one flaw: Connally’s role as hatchet man was one-dimensional. He didn’t have to face the voters; he knew none of the restraints of holding political office and wanting to keep it."

The Truth About John Connally – Texas Monthly

BINGO...BRAVO...RIGHT ON!

[Paul Jolliffe]

To summarize Greg's topic so far:

It seems as if judgments about the credibility of Estes' story hang on whether John Connally actually was present for some sort of clandestine meeting in Ruby's club.

I can't resolve that specific issue for sure one way or another yet, but we'll see.

Meanwhile, here is one more bit in favor of Estes:

 Estes claimed that he and Lee Oswald drove to Possum Kingdom Lake in a "1961 Chevy Impala . . ." which belonged to an unknown party. Estes said that he never saw that vehicle again. Yet a 1961 Chevy Impala is one of the most suspect vehicles in JFK lore!

 

From Lee Bowers testimony about what he saw behind the grassy knoll just as shots rang out, his description of a suspicious vehicle in the parking lot: a 1961 Chevy Impala:

 

Warren Commission Hearings, Volume VI (maryferrell.org)

 

 

[Joe Bauer]

Can we at least dispense of this childish notion that the totally corrupted LBJ's number one trusted political sycophant Connolly wasn't corrupted himself?

Al Capone wouldn't choose a law abiding boy scout leader to be his closest Capo.

[Michael Kalin]

3 hours ago, Greg Doudna said:

It doesn’t matter who doesn’t see a resemblance between Oswald and Craford, the fact is some witnesses did make that confusion (eg at the Contract Electronics store, and Mary Lawrence at a restaurant near the Vegas Club the early morning hours of Nov 22, to name just two). That is simple fact. You can say they would not have made that mistake which sounds fine apart from they did, after seeing Oswald on TV and “remembering” (without being able to actually see Craford again). In the case of the Tenth and Patton witnesses, it is not certain whether any got a good look at the killers face though Benavides, Markham, and Scoggins might have (Benavides’ denial notwithstanding), but none of those are certain on that point. The Tenth and Patton witnesses had less time or proximity to the killer upon which to make their Oswald ID than the staff at Contract Electronics and Mary Lawrence who did see Craford up close for a period of some consecutive minutes and mistakenly identified Craford as Oswald.

I am unfamiliar with the incident involving a restaurant near Vegas Club, perhaps you can provide a citation. Two of the three employees at Contact Electronics refused to identify Crafard as Oswald. Regarding the one who did, in the scheme of things misidentifications are always possible. A solid hypothesis should elevate its support threshold above the "could have" test.

3 hours ago, Greg Doudna said:

On the timing, of the three you cite I do not consider the first two certain, in the case of Bowley not because I think his watch was off but because he reported remembering the time on his watch as 1:10 first known the next day, and it could be possible he remembered incorrectly by a few minutes. Things like that can happen in next-day memories. Helen Markham I believe was walking intending to arrive at ca 1:15 in order to catch the 1:20 bus, not the 1:10 bus. Given that there were three, not one, very quick call-ins to the police or emergency services following the shooting (Mrs. Wright, Barbara Davis, and the Tippit patrol car radio, and that before Callaways arrival which 90 seconds sounds about right for that), a “long” delay before emergency response is less likely than the more “rapid” response. Myers’ timing may have some unacknowledged margin of error but it hangs together with the known police radio call time checks as approximately correct, at least that was my conclusion when I worked through the arguments on this a while ago. How I see it anyway. 

I agree the ambulance arrival time comes close to certainty, but arbitrarily assigning a fuzzy memory to Bowley (and not to the Contract Electronics employee) is disingenuous & self-serving, indicative of a very flexible evaluation system.

It is unlikely Bowley forgot the actual time between 11/22/23 and his 12/2/63 DPD affidavit which contains the statement, "I looked at my watch and it said 1:10pm." Are you saying his memory went wonky within 10 days?

Markham's 1:06 is also close to certain. Her actions reflected a daily routine. There were no 1:10 & 1:20 buses. The scheduled times were 1:12 & 1:22. She left the Washateria at 1:04. The distance to Patton (400') could easily be covered in two minutes, all the way to Jefferson in five (900'). This was discussed in the "POLICE CAR IN THE ALLEY? NOPE." thread. See attached diagram & my comment:

Quote

SA Barrett's brief 3/16/64 report is instrumental when analyzing the times. It contains two pieces of critical information.

The first is that "The distance from the front door of the washateria at 328 East 9th Street to the northwest corner of the intersection at East 10th and Patton Streets was walked and timed and this time was two minutes and thirty seconds."

The actual distance is not much more than 400 feet, say 1/12 of a mile, so Barrett must have been carrying a heavy load. A sluggish pace of 24 minutes per mile will cover the distance in two minutes flat. A typical walking pace of 20 minutes per mile gets Markham to the intersection in under two minutes, easily by 1:06.

The second is that it was ascertained from the Dallas Transit System that the bus stopped at Jefferson & Patton at 1:12. The WR's 1:15 is false.

This is the real evidence of the time of the shooting. The location where Bowley parked is an incidental fact. His arrival was known to everybody except the Warren Commission.
https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/28214-police-car-in-the-alley-nope/?do=findComment&comment=492052

Myers' timings lack credibility. See CE 1974 for the timestamp fiasco, also this from Tom Gram, posted in the "New Article by Dale Myers on Tippit" thread:

Quote

That's exactly why I asked about this in the first place. I may be wrong, but I'm assuming that Myers did the regression based on the fact that the dictabelt only recorded while receiving a signal. So if you have two called-out timestamps 30 "real" minutes apart, but only 29 minutes of audio measured with a stopwatch, you could estimate real time with a linear regression - but the error margin would always be about 2 minutes (based on the inherent imprecision of each timestamp) plus the difference in real time to recorded audio.

In this scenario an example of a regression would be real time = 30/29 * measured time. The problem is you don't know where the gaps are, so if there were 29 1-minute transmissions and one 1-minute gap, the regression would either over or underestimate real time of any particular transmission. It distributes the 1-minute gap over the entire 30 minutes, so your total error margin ends up being plus or minus 3 minutes or so. A proper error calculation could get a lot more complicated, but that's the basic gist.

This is why I'm assuming Myers is emphasizing that the recording around the Tippit shooting was "nearly continuous", since that would minimize the error bracket in his calculations. The problem is that I'm almost positive that he is calculating his error margins incorrectly, and it seems like he knows it:

How do I know it’s accurate to within that margin? Because there are several “anchors” where the announced time matches times that were documented elsewhere. For example, it is documented in many places that the DPD received the citizen call from T.F. Bowley at 1:18 p.m. This matches my own linear regression analysis within the margin I described.

He's using this "anchors" method to get around the inherent error in the called-out timestamps on the recordings, without taking into account the error in the times that are "documented elsewhere". There's nothing scientific about it, and that's why I think Myers should describe exactly how he calculated each time so that his work can be "peer reviewed".

It's good that Myers backtracked on his ridiculous claim in his article that his calculations actually represent real time down to the second, but I suspect that his claim of accuracy down to the minute is equally dubious. Again I could be wrong, but all I'm saying is that it might be worth it to review and try to replicate his work.
https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/27936-new-article-by-dale-myers-on-tippit/?do=findComment&comment=465547

 

[Paul Jolliffe]

6 hours ago, Greg Doudna said:

It doesn’t matter who doesn’t see a resemblance between Oswald and Craford, the fact is some witnesses did make that confusion (eg at the Contract Electronics store, and Mary Lawrence at a restaurant near the Vegas Club the early morning hours of Nov 22, to name just two). That is simple fact. You can say they would not have made that mistake which sounds fine apart from they did, after seeing Oswald on TV and “remembering” (without being able to actually see Craford again). In the case of the Tenth and Patton witnesses, it is not certain whether any got a good look at the killers face though Benavides, Markham, and Scoggins might have (Benavides’ denial notwithstanding), but none of those are certain on that point. The Tenth and Patton witnesses had less time or proximity to the killer upon which to make their Oswald ID than the staff at Contract Electronics and Mary Lawrence who did see Craford up close for a period of some consecutive minutes and mistakenly identified Craford as Oswald.

On the timing, of the three you cite I do not consider the first two certain, in the case of Bowley not because I think his watch was off but because he reported remembering the time on his watch as 1:10 first known the next day, and it could be possible he remembered incorrectly by a few minutes. Things like that can happen in next-day memories. Helen Markham I believe was walking intending to arrive at ca 1:15 in order to catch the 1:20 bus, not the 1:10 bus. Given that there were three, not one, very quick call-ins to the police or emergency services following the shooting (Mrs. Wright, Barbara Davis, and the Tippit patrol car radio, and that before Callaways arrival which 90 seconds sounds about right for that), a “long” delay before emergency response is less likely than the more “rapid” response. Myers’ timing may have some unacknowledged margin of error but it hangs together with the known police radio call time checks as approximately correct, at least that was my conclusion when I worked through the arguments on this a while ago. How I see it anyway. 

All well and good, Greg, except, as you know, Estes said that Lee Oswald introduced himself by name to Estes as "Lee Oswald." Furthermore, Estes said that "Chuck" also used the name "Mr. Oswald." In his interview with the FBI, his affirmation "He did use the name 'Mr. Oswald' ", is clearly in response to a specific question from the FBI. (FBI: "Are you sure Chuck used the name "Mr. Oswald"?

Estes: "He did use the name 'Mr. Oswald.'")

There is no other way to interpret that.

Whoever was in Ruby's club that summer, he was using the "Oswald" name. 

This was NOT a case of misremembering the name by Estes. 

Estes believed to his dying day that he had met someone who not only resembled but called himself "Lee Oswald."

And since the comings and goings in the Carousel Club in June, July and August of 1963 had nothing to do with the upcoming assassination of JFK (the Texas trip had not yet been fully planned, let alone announced), and since there is exactly zero evidence that Crafard and Ruby had met before October of 1963, this "Lee Oswald" was . . . who exactly?

[Greg Doudna]

On 9/12/2023 at 2:28 PM, Leslie Sharp said:

A prime candidate for "Nick" at the Carousel Club, Nick Popich:

As noted in this government record, Popich had known William Wayne Dalzell* since Dalzell was a young lad. 

Popich had agreed that if Dalzell — who had significant experience in the oil industry in Yemen in particular — could arrange anything concrete with any Middle East government, he/Popich Marine Construction would be on board any feasible project.

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=68908#relPageId=1&search=addis_ababba

As revealed in a 1964 article detailing Bobby Baker's role in the F-111 scandal, in May 1963, Nick Popich played host to his business associate, Puerto Rican Paul Aguirre along with Baker, his girlfriend Nancy Carole Tyler, and Ellen Rometsch.**

At the time, Popich was operating the Vieux Carré, a venue he co-owned with Marcello. Buried in remarks we find that Andrew "Moo Moo" Sciambra shared a passion for boxing with Popich who employed him at the restaurant. 

Fast forward, it was Asst. DA Sciambra who provided memos to his boss Jim Garrison outlining the activities of Popich's friend for decades, Bill Dalzell  including a brief collaboration with Ed Butler of INCA which was partially funded by Dallas oilman Clint Murchison. I've not found any indication that Moo Moo disclosed to Garrison his past employment at Popich's Vieux Carré; we do have reason to consider the restaurant also employed sous chef Jean Martin a.k.a. Pierre Lafitte at the time.

Scenes from Lafitte’s New OrleansIn 1961, with significant funding from Californian industrialist Patrick J. Frawley and Dallas oilman Clint Murchison, mentioned previously as a financial benefactor of Ferenc Nagy’s Permindex, and with financial support from his friends at International Trade Mart, Lloyd Cobb and Director Clay Shaw, twenty-seven-year-old Ed Butler founded the Information Council of the Americas (INCA). His publications under that banner were relied on by the CIA in a blitz of propaganda just prior to the invasion at the Bay of Pigs which could explain his association with Deputy Director CIA, Charles Cabell. Some of their money went toward a film titled Hitler in Havana, reviewed as a “tasteless affront to minimum journalistic standards” by the New York Times.      Researchers will be aware that Butler was a member of “Free Voice of Latin America” for a short time before being ousted for his extreme right political views. Its own secretary treasurer, William Klein who filed incorporation papers which designated a young Cuban student at Univ of Tulane as president, and a shy, intelligent former citizen of Belize Honduras as vice president, wrote in a recap of the organization for DA Jim Garrison, “The life of the Free Voice as a corporate entity was ephemeral and uneventful. For my own part it was an absolute bore.”       The letter states that Ed Butler’s globe-encircling communist conspiracy theory quickly made his removal from office mandatory. According to Grand Jury testimony, the originator of the concept of Free Voice was William Dalzell. He testified that along with Klein (who according to an investigator present during Grand Jury later went to work at the Office of Naval Intelligence in DC), he wanted to “warn Latin America of what has transpired here since Castro has been in power for the last few years.” Klein’s dismissive remarks about the organization as well as his version of Butler’s role at Free Voice contradicts Dalzell’s testimony in several areas, including that Butler was never active because INCA was in effect competing with Free Voice. However, there is no doubt that Butler and Dalzell were well acquainted in spite of his claims. 

* On Wednesday, April 17, Pierre Lafitte made the following entry: “Dalzell – K money for Drilling.” Three days earlier, Lafitte’s entry reads, “Delong meet with T. Cuba.” We have reason to believe that “Delong” is a reference to the patent holder of various designs of heavy equipment for the oil industry, Leon Delong; we know that Dalzell had been attempting to raise money in New Orleans for another of his oil related schemes, and we know that he had been employed briefly in Odessa, Texas by Dixilyn Drilling the same year that the West Texas oil company invested in the “Julie Ann,” one of the first floating, self-contained platform rigs with jack-up legs for off-shore drilling designed by Texan R. G. LeTourneau.*** An oil industry manufacturing magnate, LeTourneau had been in joint ventures with Delong. The “Julie Ann” was the fifth such jack up rig based in Longview, Texas (the first two being commissioned by Zapata Oil founded by George H. W. Bush who held extensive contracts with LeTourneau). Three months later, on July 17, Lafitte wrote “-Dalzell crazy? (Rene says ignore his antics.)” Bill Dalzell had been in psychiatric care the summer of 1963. 

**  Author G. R. Schreiber in a book published in 1964 by ultra-conservative Regnery Press, The Bobby Baker Affair: How to Make Millions in Washington, confirms Lafitte’s entries when he writes that East German born Ellen Rometsch, on at least one occasion “went along with Bobby and Nancy Carole [Tyler] and Paul Aguirre, a friend from Puerto Rico, on a jaunt to New Orleans.” Continues Schreiber, “The chief counsel for the Senate Rules Committee said that Bobby's Puerto Rican friend told committee investigators that if he were ‘asked anything about what took place [on the trip to New Orleans] he would take all the amendments, from 1 to 28.’” We see from Pierre Lafitte entries that later in the year a shipment of LSD from New Orleans to Dallas was on the cards. Schreiber goes on, “The Rules Committee did not call Paul Aguirre, but Senator Hugh Scott reported on some of what the Puerto Rican told the committee's investigators. "Mr. Aguirre admitted that Baker brought Carole Tyler and Ellen Rometsch with him from Washington to New Orleans on the May, 1963, trip.’” This claim coincides with Lafitte’s record of May 14: “Carole – (airport) Paul Aguirre  Others?” 

*** Dr. Lawrence Alderson stated that a Captain, first name unknown, Letourneau [sic]  replaced him at the depot in Petette Malioun, France, and it is his understanding that Captain Letourneau became well acquainted with [OAS Captain Jean Rene] Souetre. He stated Letourneau was from Texas, but he does not know his address.

Could you identify your reference for your statement concerning Nick Popich: "As revealed in a 1964 article ... Nick Popich played host to ... Aguirre along with [Bobby] Baker, his girlfriend Nancy Carole Tyler, and Ellen Rometsch"?

What 1964 article reveals that?

Your two stars go to a footnote citing a 1964 book,The Bobby Baker Affair, by G.R. Schreiber. 

There is no reference to Nick Popich in that book. I know, because I checked today. Wasted 90 minutes of my precious time trying to find your claimed reference in that book (the book has no index), and it isn't there. The name Nick Popich isn't in the book. 

Edited December 20, 2023 by Greg Doudna

[Greg Doudna]

17 hours ago, Michael Kalin said:

I am unfamiliar with the incident involving a restaurant near Vegas Club, perhaps you can provide a citation. Two of the three employees at Contact Electronics refused to identify Crafard as Oswald. Regarding the one who did, in the scheme of things misidentifications are always possible. A solid hypothesis should elevate its support threshold above the "could have" test.

The reference is to Mary Lawrence and the Lucas B & B Restaurant, https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=10626#relPageId=397. That it was Craford with Ruby: https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=1136#relPageId=374.

Then there is this, a report of someone intimidating this witness:

"At 1:00 P.M., December 3, 1963, Mary Lawrence, head waitress, B & B Restaurant, Oak Lawn Avenue in Dallas, telephonically advised SA J. Doyle Williams she had received an anonymous call from a male caller about 6:00 A.M. on December 3, 1963, who stated: "If you don't want to die, you better get out of town."

"Lawrence stated she has known Jack Ruby for the past eight years and that she saw him at approximately midnight on November 22, 1963, after the President had been shot or during the early morning hours of November 23 [sic], 1963. Ruby was at the B & B Restaurant at that time and was with an individual, possibly identical with Lee Harvey Oswald." (https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=10489#relPageId=554)

From the dates, Mary Lawrence's first contact to the FBI was the report of the threat, following which the FBI interviewed her about her sighting of Ruby and what she thought may have been Oswald with him, which actually was Ruby and Craford.

Edited September 16, 2023 by Greg Doudna

[Greg Doudna]

Paul Jolliffe -- 

You note that Estes clearly thought the man was Lee Oswald and said the man had used the name "Lee Oswald" and was called "Mr. Oswald" by another at the Carousel Club. All true. 

You close with: 

"And since the comings and goings in the Carousel Club in June, July and August of 1963 had nothing to do with the upcoming assassination of JFK (the Texas trip had not yet been fully planned, let alone announced), and since there is exactly zero evidence that Crafard and Ruby had met before October of 1963, this "Lee Oswald" was . . . who exactly?"

My short response is:

FACT ONE: the man was not Oswald. Oswald was in New Orleans. It is not possible Estes' "Oswald" was Oswald.

FACT TWO: It was Curtis Laverne Craford, from argument. Argument for similarities and identity run through these four figures: Estes' "Oswald" = Jarnagin's "Oswald" = Larry Crafard = Tippit killer.

With those two facts in place, the question is how is the memory of Estes that the man claimed to be "Lee Oswald" explained. 

Either it was a mistaken memory, or it was not a mistaken memory and Craford was impersonating Oswald. It is one of those two.

I believe the possibility that Craford was impersonating Oswald (using the name "Lee Oswald") has too many improbabilities and incongruities to be viable.

Therefore, it was a mistake in Estes' memory. Had to have been, because no other alternative makes sense. 

The question now becomes: the mechanism for the mistake, how did it happen?

Fact: cases of other witnesses who saw Oswald on television after the assassination, and were convinced that someone they had seen pre-Nov 22 might have been Oswald or was Oswald.

Fact: in a few of these cases witnesses actually "remembered" the person, who absolutely was not Oswald, using the name "Lee Oswald" (e.g. an Alice, Texas "Oswald" sighting). Those must be mistaken memories provided it indeed is excluded that Oswald was that person in these cases, and if impersonation is also not a reasonable explanation.

Context for Estes: Estes was traumatized, feared the people he had dealt with in the summer of 1963 the rest of his life, in light of the assassination which followed not long after his leaving the Carousel Club. Estes shows inaccuracy in memory of the exact name of the woman with whom he then lived (Carousel Club waitress Bonnie Killough, whom he remembered as "Barbara Kelly"). The analogy of inaccurate memory of Bonnie's name and the trauma and shock of thinking the man he knew in July and Aug 1963 had been Oswald, the assassin of the president, must be reconstructed as causing the memory that the man called himself and was called "Oswald" to be a created memory. It must be so, because no other explanation works to account for the facts. 

Estes tells his story for the first time in 1977, fourteen years after the fact. No sign he had even ever written it down before. It is not even clear that he had even ever told his story before.

He tells of his first meeting with the man, in which he says he told the man his (Estes') nickname, "Whitey". Possibly, Curtis Craford told Estes his nickname, "Larry". Perhaps the reality was the two exchanged nicknames, first-name basis, no last name used normally.

And just as "Bonnie" became retroactively remembered as "Barbara", maybe "Larry" was retroactively remembered as "Lee" (possibly that in itself explicable even without invocation of the traumatic influence of seeing Oswald on television).

(Incidentally Dan Rather, the newsman, told the FBI that the weekend of the assassination he spoke to a Mr. "Dollar" at the locked front entrance of the Carousel Club who told Rather he thought he might have seen Oswald in the club. Repeatedly, Rather kept telling the FBI about that "Mr. Dollar". It was William DeMar, the memory-act entertainer. To show how names can be misunderstood in pronunciation in memory.)

And then under the post-Nov 22 influence of the shock of seeing Oswald and Ruby on television, a memory of use of "Oswald" attached to "Lee" (Larry) became a created or manufactured memory.

Paul, that's about the best I can do on this. You ask good questions that go right to the issues, and it is puzzling.

I will elaborate further on why Estes' "Oswald" was Craford, so clearly that it is a fact to me, but not today.  

[Paul Jolliffe]

6 hours ago, Greg Doudna said:

Paul Jolliffe -- 

You note that Estes clearly thought the man was Lee Oswald and said the man had used the name "Lee Oswald" and was called "Mr. Oswald" by another at the Carousel Club. All true. 

You close with: 

"And since the comings and goings in the Carousel Club in June, July and August of 1963 had nothing to do with the upcoming assassination of JFK (the Texas trip had not yet been fully planned, let alone announced), and since there is exactly zero evidence that Crafard and Ruby had met before October of 1963, this "Lee Oswald" was . . . who exactly?"

My short response is:

FACT ONE: the man was not Oswald. Oswald was in New Orleans. It is not possible Estes' "Oswald" was Oswald.

FACT TWO: It was Curtis Laverne Craford, from argument. Argument for similarities and identity run through these four figures: Estes' "Oswald" = Jarnagin's "Oswald" = Larry Crafard = Tippit killer.

With those two facts in place, the question is how is the memory of Estes that the man claimed to be "Lee Oswald" explained. 

Either it was a mistaken memory, or it was not a mistaken memory and Craford was impersonating Oswald. It is one of those two.

I believe the possibility that Craford was impersonating Oswald (using the name "Lee Oswald") has too many improbabilities and incongruities to be viable.

Therefore, it was a mistake in Estes' memory. Had to have been, because no other alternative makes sense. 

The question now becomes: the mechanism for the mistake, how did it happen?

Fact: cases of other witnesses who saw Oswald on television after the assassination, and were convinced that someone they had seen pre-Nov 22 might have been Oswald or was Oswald.

Fact: in a few of these cases witnesses actually "remembered" the person, who absolutely was not Oswald, using the name "Lee Oswald" (e.g. an Alice, Texas "Oswald" sighting). Those must be mistaken memories provided it indeed is excluded that Oswald was that person in these cases, and if impersonation is also not a reasonable explanation.

Context for Estes: Estes was traumatized, feared the people he had dealt with in the summer of 1963 the rest of his life, in light of the assassination which followed not long after his leaving the Carousel Club. Estes shows inaccuracy in memory of the exact name of the woman with whom he then lived (Carousel Club waitress Bonnie Killough, whom he remembered as "Barbara Kelly"). The analogy of inaccurate memory of Bonnie's name and the trauma and shock of thinking the man he knew in July and Aug 1963 had been Oswald, the assassin of the president, must be reconstructed as causing the memory that the man called himself and was called "Oswald" to be a created memory. It must be so, because no other explanation works to account for the facts. 

Estes tells his story for the first time in 1977, fourteen years after the fact. No sign he had even ever written it down before. It is not even clear that he had even ever told his story before.

He tells of his first meeting with the man, in which he says he told the man his (Estes') nickname, "Whitey". Possibly, Curtis Craford told Estes his nickname, "Larry". Perhaps the reality was the two exchanged nicknames, first-name basis, no last name used normally.

And just as "Bonnie" became retroactively remembered as "Barbara", maybe "Larry" was retroactively remembered as "Lee" (possibly that in itself explicable even without invocation of the traumatic influence of seeing Oswald on television).

(Incidentally Dan Rather, the newsman, told the FBI that the weekend of the assassination he spoke to a Mr. "Dollar" at the locked front entrance of the Carousel Club who told Rather he thought he might have seen Oswald in the club. Repeatedly, Rather kept telling the FBI about that "Mr. Dollar". It was William DeMar, the memory-act entertainer. To show how names can be misunderstood in pronunciation in memory.)

And then under the post-Nov 22 influence of the shock of seeing Oswald and Ruby on television, a memory of use of "Oswald" attached to "Lee" (Larry) became a created or manufactured memory.

Paul, that's about the best I can do on this. You ask good questions that go right to the issues, and it is puzzling.

I will elaborate further on why Estes' "Oswald" was Craford, so clearly that it is a fact to me, but not today.  

Greg,

You and I agree on a number of key points:

1. The Lee Oswald in Ruby's club in the summer of 1963 who interacted with Odell Estes several times over several weeks, was NOT the "Oswald" who was shot to death by Jack Ruby on 11/24/63. Whoever Estes knew that summer, that person was absolutely NOTthe accused assassin. That man, the accused assassin, was indeed in New Orleans during the summer of 1963. We agree on that.

2. A number of Dallas witnesses saw Jack Ruby in late October and early November with a man who somewhat resembled the accused assassin. You and I agree that this second man was probably Larry Crafard who bore a general (but far from identical) resemblance to "Oswald."

3. You and I agree that the possibility that Crafard was somehow deliberately impersonating "Oswald" by using his name during the summer of 1963 at Ruby's club is not viable. 

But I think you've made too much of a few things:

Estes didn't call her "Barbara" - he knew her by her nickname "Bobby". The FBI transcribed her name as "Barbara Gene Kelly", per Estes. Greg, there is no way that any self-respecting Southern girl would spell her middle name as "Gene" instead of "Jean". (You have already implicitly admitted that when you spelled it as "Jean", not "Gene".)

Surely the "Gene" and not "Jean" is a mistake by the FBI men who were writing down what Estes told them in 1977. (Estes could not write anything at that point!) Did Estes have an accent which the FBI tended to garble?

I believe so - note their "Carrsal Club". They knew perfectly well that the club was the "Carousel Club", but they were phonetically transcribing what Estes said. 

So, did Estes say "Bobby" or "Bonnie"? I don't know, and since the waitress/go-go dancer herself had a southern accent, her name conceivably could have been blurred either way when she and Estes were conversing.

My point is that the name thing is pretty thin gruel to dismiss Estes' adamant belief that the man he met (who sure looked like Lee Oswald) used the name "Lee Oswald." Estes affirmed to the FBI that "Chuck" also used the name "Mr. Oswald" when referring to this man.

You say it's impossible that anyone was using the name "Lee Oswald" that summer. 

I strongly disagree, and there has been a whole body of research going back decades to support that likelihood that the name "Lee Harvey Oswald" was being used by multiple people for years before the assassination. While that is a separate thread, it cannot be dismissed as a possibility.

You are too smart and too careful to rule that out.

(BTW, did you see my point about Estes' comment on the 1961 Chevy Impala?)

 

[Greg Doudna]

2 hours ago, Paul Jolliffe said:

(BTW, did you see my point about Estes' comment on the 1961 Chevy Impala?)

Yes. Craford did not own a car but did know how to drive, which corresponds to Estes telling of his "Oswald" one-time driving a 1961 Chevy Impala, but all other occasions being seen by Estes taking a cab, being met at or dropped off at the Greyhound bus station, etc., indicating a non-car owner (just like Craford). Therefore the 1961 Chevy Impala sounds like a loaned car. Since the lake cabin where "Oswald" and Estes drove and stayed, described by Estes as at Possum Kingdom Lake near Mineral Wells, Texas, was also said by the man (according to Estes) to have been loaned for use by a friend of the man, it is possible the 1961 Chevy Impala was provided by the same source who provided the loaned cabin at the lake.

You note that a 1961 Chevy Impala was spotted in the parking area behind the Grassy Knoll area of Dealey Plaza the day of the assassination, and raise the possibility or question as to whether that was the same car. 

One discrepancy is that the 1961 Chevy Impala spotted in the Grassy Knoll parking area is said to have been white, whereas Estes' statement says, "I think [it] was an off-green color", though I don't think that in itself would falsify their being the same car if there were other reasons for a match. However, apart from worth noting the similarity, I assume at this point this is coincidence. There does not seem to be enough tangible to take this anywhere further on present information. There is no certainty that the white 1961 Chevy Impala in the parking lot had anything to do with the assassination. It could be interesting if you find anything further on this though.  

[Paul Jolliffe]

1 hour ago, Greg Doudna said:

Yes. Craford did not own a car but did know how to drive, which corresponds to Estes telling of his "Oswald" one-time driving a 1961 Chevy Impala, but all other occasions being seen by Estes taking a cab, being met at or dropped off at the Greyhound bus station, etc., indicating a non-car owner (just like Craford). Therefore the 1961 Chevy Impala sounds like a loaned car. Since the lake cabin where "Oswald" and Estes drove and stayed, described by Estes as at Possum Kingdom Lake near Mineral Wells, Texas, was also said by the man (according to Estes) to have been loaned for use by a friend of the man, it is possible the 1961 Chevy Impala was provided by the same source who provided the loaned cabin at the lake.

You note that a 1961 Chevy Impala was spotted in the parking area behind the Grassy Knoll area of Dealey Plaza the day of the assassination and raise the possibility or question as to whether that was the same car. 

One discrepancy is that the 1961 Chevy Impala spotted in the Grassy Knoll parking area is said to have been white, whereas Estes' statement says, "I think [it] was an off-green color", though I don't think that in itself would falsify their being the same car if there were other reasons for a match. However, apart from worth noting the similarity, I assume at this point this is coincidence. There does not seem to be enough tangible to take this anywhere further on present information. There is no certainty that the white 1961 Chevy Impala in the parking lot had anything to do with the assassination. It could be interesting if you find anything further on this though.  

Greg, 

You're right of course that I can't prove that the same 1961 Chevy Impala ridden in by Estes was the same one seen by Bowers, but might I point out that an "off-green color" was probably Chevrolet's "Seafoam Green".

Further, since the 1961 Impala seen by Bowers was "muddy up to the windows", might I suggest that a dirty up to the windows Seafoam Green (with white accents, maybe?) might be described as "white" by Lee Bowers at a distance in the Texas noonday sun?

The reason I focused on this was because the last Bowers saw of this car, the lone male driver was not only circling the parking lot adjacent to the TSBD just before the assassination, but 

"Mr. BALL - Then did he leave?
Mr. BOWERS - The last I saw of him he was pausing just about in--just above the assassination site."

Now, I don't know what Bowers meant by "just above the assassination site". He was looking at a car near the fence on the grassy knoll, not a car hovering in mid-air above the sixth-floor window of the TSBD.

But since Joseph Ball asked no clarifying questions of Bowers (i.e., "What do you mean - ' just above the assassination site'?"), we can only guess at Bowers cryptic statement. 

 

In any event, what about this one?

Estes said that the second time that he and Lee Oswald went to Possum Kingdom Lake, they drove in the waitress/go-go dancer's "1963 Galaxie Ford with Texas plates."

Now according to W.P. Gannaway's helpful report (which you linked earlier - good work!), Barbara Bonnie Gene Jean Louise Hethcoat Kelly Kellough did not have a spare penny to her name as of late November 1963. 

[Intelligence Report - Bonnie Louise Kellough, January 23, 1964] - Page 1 of 2 - The Portal to Texas History (unt.edu)

So how did Ms. Cutie Pie get herself a brand-new Ford Galaxie to use?

Hmm.

By an amazing coincidence, Jack Ruby's club at which our girl worked in 1963 was regularly frequented by several/many/dozens/hundreds of different officers, both on and off duty, of the Dallas Police Department!

Who knew?

And the Dallas Police Department's official vehicles for both marked and unmarked patrol cars were . . . 

1963 Ford Galaxies.

JFK Files: Replica 1963 Dallas police squad car to honor officer slain by Lee Harvey Oswald

One can only ponder the vast mystery of how an attractive 23-year-old woman, working in various capacities at a strip joint, might have had access to vehicle the exact same make and model year as the very cops she served at Ruby's place every night . . . 

Such a riddle . . .