Walker Bullet Errata

[Mark Ulrik]

28 minutes ago, Pat Speer said:

Thanks, Tom. I haven't studied the Walker shooting much and have never seen that photo before. Am I seeing this right? Is that black circle below the painting a supposed hole created by a badly-mashed rifle bullet that had hit a window frame upon entering a room, traveled across that room, missed Walker, and passed through the wall behind him? Well, if so, how does a badly-mashed bullet exit a wall by leaving a nice little hole? 

If this is indeed the supposed exit of the bullet on the far side of the wall behind Walker, and the bullet was indeed found "between" some stacks of paper, then it is 100% clear to me the shooting was staged. 

Edited April 26, 2023 by Mark Ulrik

[Gerry Down]

2 hours ago, Tom Gram said:

There is a photo of the stacks: 

It does seem like a stretch that something could get stuck between the stacks right up against the wall, but there are mixed reports on where exactly the bullet was picked up, and by whom. 

It is indeed incredible that the DPD supposedly took all these crime scene photos but didn’t take a single photo of the bullet itself.

It is also odd that four different cops signed off on two different reports identifying the bullet as steel jacketed and the FBI didn’t ask a single one of them to explain why they did that - while under specific orders from the WC to conduct additional investigation into the Walker shooting and resolve conflicting reports about the bullet. The FBI also allegedly didn’t talk to Van Cleave at all, which is just ridiculous. 

I’d be a lot more inclined to believe Robert Frazier excuse if there was anything resembling corroboration from the investigating officers.

Thanks for that photo. If that small black circle is a bullet hole then it would appear to indicate the bullet struck low inside the house. Therefore it struck the wooden frame of the window and was deflected lower apparently (or at least kept a level path) and was not deflected higher by the window frame as some have suggested.

[Pat Speer]

2 hours ago, Mark Ulrik said:

Thanks, Mark. So it appears that the black speck on the other photo was not on the original photo. It appears, furthermore, that the bullet exited from that presumably puttied-over shape along the wall at the top of the paper stacks. That makes a lot more sense than the bullet's leaving a tiny hole. 

Edited April 26, 2023 by Pat Speer

[Gerry Down]

That looks like white dust on top of those stacks of paper.

[Tom Gram]

6 hours ago, Pat Speer said:

Thanks, Tom. I haven't studied the Walker shooting much and have never seen that photo before. Am I seeing this right? Is that black circle below the painting a supposed hole created by a badly-mashed rifle bullet that had hit a window frame upon entering a room, traveled across that room, missed Walker, and passed through the wall behind him? Well, if so, how does a badly-mashed bullet exit a wall by leaving a nice little hole? 

If this is indeed the supposed exit of the bullet on the far side of the wall behind Walker, and the bullet was indeed found "between" some stacks of paper, then it is 100% clear to me the shooting was staged. 

This is indeed a photo of the supposed exit on the far side of the wall behind Walker. The officer who (probably) found the bullet told the FBI that the bullet was discovered resting on top of one of stacks against the wall near the bullet hole, after some of the “numerous bundles of literature and papers” were removed. His original police report states that the bullet “stopped on top of some stacks of paper”.

A detective who also claimed credit for finding the bullet told the FBI that the bullet was found “among some papers and literature”. His initial police report states that the bullet “lodged in some paper in the next room”.

So yes, the official story appears to be that a badly deformed bullet left a nice little hole in the wall and came to rest neatly between two stacks of wrapped, bundled paper. Walker also testified that the bullet was found “lying on a piece of literature there”. 

EDIT: Ah I guess that wasn’t the original photo. I got it from a McAdams link. 

Edited April 26, 2023 by Tom Gram

[Benjamin Cole]

8 hours ago, Mark Ulrik said:

By "excuse" you mean the explanation that some people commonly refer to (fmj) rifle bullets as steel-jacketed? I don't find that hard to believe at all, especially in Texas 60+ years ago.

MU--

Yes, there were steel-jacketed bullets in the early 1960s, relatively rare, and some were designed for military applications---to be armor piercing.

Those were and are unusual bullets. The author you cite is not conflating copper-jacketed and steel-jacketed bullets. No one minimally knowledgable about ammo does.

There was no conflating of steel- and copper-jacketed bullets in the 1960s or now. The author you cite specifically mentioned a type of bullet less prone to fragmenting---a specialty military bullet. 

Other steel-jacketed bullets on the civilian market in early 1960s include US  military surplus, from a limited period in which the Army produced steel-jacketed bullets due to wartime copper shortages. Interestingly, those were steel-jacketed 30.06 bullets. Sold as surplus after 1954 when the US military moved to NATO-compatible ammo. 

That means there were steel-jacketed 30.06 bullets on civilian markets in the early 1960s.

That would be exactly the bullet ID'ed by two DPD detectives, Van Cleave and McElroy. 

The problem faced by WC backers on this particular matter is that CE573 is a textbook photo example of a copper-jacketed bullet. 

Not only does CE573 have the semi-gloss coppery sheen of a copper-jacketed bullet, the jacket has been torn asunder, easily revealing the jacket to be solid copper, not copper-gilded.  There is no way to miss this.

That is also why no one ever---ever--- ID'ed CE399 as steel-jacketed.  I will send $100 to your favorite charity if you can find a single reference to CE399 as "steel jacketed" (other than some lulu on chat room). 

Steel-jacketed but copper-gilded bullets are shinier and glossier in appearance. When DPD officers scratched their initials into the true Walker bullet, they would have encountered relatively hard steel. That would have been hard to miss. 

The true Walker bullet was evidence in the purported assassination attempt of major public figure. To inaccurately ID the bullet as "steel-jacketed"...is unfathomable. 

MU--evidently you have downloaded the NARA hi-rez photos of CE573. Can you say you see the word "Day" on those images? I suspect you will dodge this question. 

[Benjamin Cole]

From an FBI report:

 

"In his adjoining [Walker's] room, the [Dallas Police Department] officers [Tucker and Norvell] found numerous bundles and literature and papers stacked against this common wall. Upon removing some, they found a mushroom-shaped bullet lying on one of the stacks of literature near the hole in the wall."

---30---

Really? The Walker bullet passed through a wall, and then came to rest "on one of the stacks of literature" underneath another stack? 

I sense the true Walker bullet has tales to tell....

 

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=11640#relPageId=104&search=Norvell

look at page 97.....

Edited April 27, 2023 by Benjamin Cole

[Mark Ulrik]

44 minutes ago, Benjamin Cole said:

Those were and are unusual bullets. The author you cite is not conflating copper-jacketed and steel-jacketed bullets. No one minimally knowledgable about ammo does.

There was no conflating of steel- and copper-jacketed bullets in the 1960s or now. The author you cite specifically mentioned a type of bullet less prone to fragmenting---a specialty military bullet. 

You're talking about the "Family Physician" column. That (and the small Jesse Curry item) were found in a quickie search at the Texas History portal. It's pretty clear that the good doc is comparing hollow point and FMJ ammo but is using the term "steel-jacketed" instead of FMJ. Searching for 1950-69 articles containing "copper-jacketed bullet" yields 346 hits on newspapers.com compared to 900 for "steel-jacketed bullet". How many of the articles that are using the latter as a generic term for a FMJ (or any type of metal-jacketed) bullet I haven't tried to figure out, but probably more than a few. I'll give you this, though, from The Times, November 30, 1963. It seems (at least to me) that "steel-jacketed" is used generically here, either by Curry himself or by the journalist.

Bedtime for me now. Perhaps more later.

[Benjamin Cole]

19 minutes ago, Mark Ulrik said:

You're talking about the "Family Physician" column. That (and the small Jesse Curry item) were found in a quickie search at the Texas History portal. It's pretty clear that the good doc is comparing hollow point and FMJ ammo but is using the term "steel-jacketed" instead of FMJ. Searching for 1950-69 articles containing "copper-jacketed bullet" yields 346 hits on newspapers.com compared to 900 for "steel-jacketed bullet". How many of the articles that are using the latter as a generic term for a FMJ (or any type of metal-jacketed) bullet I haven't tried to figure out, but probably more than a few. I'll give you this, though, from The Times, November 30, 1963. It seems (at least to me) that "steel-jacketed" is used generically here, either by Curry himself or by the journalist.

Bedtime for me now. Perhaps more later.

Chief Curry is referring to a bullet he never even saw or examined. He is not referring to CE399, the bullet the WC would later produce in evidence.

Perhaps Curry is linking LHO to the "steel-jacketed" bullet found in the Walker home. Curry may have suspected LHO was responsible for the Walker shooting. So he is hypothesizing that LHO fired at JFK with steel-jacketed bullet. 

The term "full metal jacket" was and is common---but almost always refers to the industry standard, the copper (or properly, copper-alloy)-jacketed bullet.  

A steel-jacketed bullet at the murder scene of a high-profile public figure would indeed be notable. 

Let me re-phrase: did any professional who examined CE399 ever--ever!--refer to CE399 as "steel jacketed"? 

But CE399 is an identical brand and bore as CE573. The copper-jacketed, Western ammo 6.5. Funny, no one ever says CE399 is "steel-jacketed." Never.  

Chief Curry's early hypothesizing about the bullets used in the JFKA, without ever examining the bullets--or even looking at photos---hardly amounts to much. Although it suggests LHO was in the mix somehow in the Walker shooting, and Curry was speculating. 

Still waiting for you to confirm you have seen the word "Day" on CE573.....you downloaded the hi-rez images available, no? 

Intellectual honesty time....

Edited April 27, 2023 by Benjamin Cole

[Mark Ulrik]

This is getting too silly.

[Benjamin Cole]

11 minutes ago, Mark Ulrik said:

This is getting too silly.

Well, de-silly-fy the conversation:

1. Did any professional ever examine CE399 and define it as a "steel jacketed" bullet? 

2. Have you downloaded hi-rez images of CE573 and did you find the word "Day" in the images? 

[Tom Gram]

I think the bigger issue here regarding the steel jacket thing is that not one of the four DPD officers who signed off on that description was ever asked about it by the FBI, or at least not on the record. Ira Van Cleave, the detective who told the press the bullet was a .30-06, was supposedly never even interviewed. 

Why is this a problem? On 5/20/64 J. Lee Rankin sent a letter to the FBI requesting additional investigation into the Walker shooting. Rankin specifically mentioned the report of McElroy and Van Cleave and requested that the FBI investigate and attempt to resolve the “conflicting stories concerning the nature of the bullet which was actually recovered from General Walker’s home”. 

Rankin also noted that the Texas AG report failed to indicate “the caliber or other basic characteristics of the bullet…”.

The FBI subsequently interviewed just about every DPD employee involved in the initial Walker investigation, expect for Ira Van Cleave. These interviews became CE1953. 

So here we have an FBI investigation on behalf of the WC to resolve “conflicting stories concerning the nature of the bullet”, and the FBI: 1) failing to interview Van Cleave, a crucial witness and one of the key sources of these “conflicting stories”; 2) failing to obtain any clarification at all from the four officers who endorsed the steel jacket description; 3) asking only one of the eight officers who saw or handled the bullet (Norvell) to provide a basic description, and even then failing to ask about the caliber and/or jacketing; and 4) obtaining more conflicting stories on the bullet from the DPD and making no attempt to resolve them. 

I could elaborate on the last point, but that’s the basic gist. How hard would it have been to ask Van Cleave about his .30-06 description, or to ask Norvell, Tucker, McElroy and Van Cleave if “steel-jacketed” was actually used as a colloquial term for FMJ? How hard would it have been to ask Tucker, McElroy, Van Cleave, Brown, Day, Alexander, or Anderson to describe what the bullet actually looked like?

It’s actually a lot worse than that, but I have a hard time believing that the FBI was really that incompetent while acting on such specific orders from the WC. 

Edited April 27, 2023 by Tom Gram

[Lawrence Schnapf]

@Mark Ulrik- all that news article means is that the doctor may have been confused...or that he was aware of the prevalence of steel-jacked bullets. one would expect trained police officers to be able to distinguish between a steel-jacketed and copper-jacketed bullet.

@Gerry Down to me, the discovery of the walker bullet among papers more resembles the discovery of CE399 rather than the limo fragments...

[Benjamin Cole]

3 hours ago, Tom Gram said:

I think the bigger issue here regarding the steel jacket thing is that not one of the four DPD officers who signed off on that description was ever asked about it by the FBI, or at least not on the record. Ira Van Cleave, the detective who told the press the bullet was a .30-06, was supposedly never even interviewed. 

Why is this a problem? On 5/20/64 J. Lee Rankin sent a letter to the FBI requesting additional investigation into the Walker shooting. Rankin specifically mentioned the report of McElroy and Van Cleave and requested that the FBI investigate and attempt to resolve the “conflicting stories concerning the nature of the bullet which was actually recovered from General Walker’s home”. 

Rankin also noted that the Texas AG report failed to indicate “the caliber or other basic characteristics of the bullet…”.

The FBI subsequently interviewed just about every DPD employee involved in the initial Walker investigation, expect for Ira Van Cleave. These interviews became CE1953. 

So here we have an FBI investigation on behalf of the WC to resolve “conflicting stories concerning the nature of the bullet”, and the FBI: 1) failing to interview Van Cleave, a crucial witness and one of the key sources of these “conflicting stories”; 2) failing to obtain any clarification at all from the four officers who endorsed the steel jacket description; 3) asking only one of the eight officers who saw or handled the bullet (Norvell) to provide a basic description, and even then failing to ask about the caliber and/or jacketing; and 4) obtaining more conflicting stories on the bullet from the DPD and making no attempt to resolve them. 

I could elaborate on the last point, but that’s the basic gist. How hard would it have been to ask Van Cleave about his .30-06 description, or to ask Norvell, Tucker, McElroy and Van Cleave if “steel-jacked” was actually used as a colloquial term for FMJ? How hard would it have been to ask Tucker, McElroy, Van Cleave, Brown, Day, Alexander, or Anderson to describe what the bullet actually looked like?

It’s actually a lot worse than that, but I have a hard time believing that the FBI was really that incompetent while acting on such specific orders from the WC. 

As usual, Tom Gram is right.

The whole picture of FBI/WC in regards to CE573 and the true Walker bullet reveals oceanic apathy and indifference. 

The chain of evidence in the CE573 is very suspect. 

The WC's questioning (or lone question, rather) of FBI'er Frazier, rather than either one of the DPD detectives, regarding the "steel jacketed" ID on CE 573 is as thin as summertime ice on a Louisiana pond. Frazier said "some individuals" refer to "all rifle bullets" that way. A rather broad category including park winos and hunter's housewives, but almost certainly excluding police detectives or anyone familiar with ammo. 

DPD'er Lt. Day told the WC his name "Day" is on true Walker bullet, but no one can find his name on CE573. Day told the WC his name was on CE573, by pointedly referring to his police files. 

The FBI, acting on behalf of the WC, asked only the DPD patrolman Norvell to ID CE573 as the true Walker bullet. Norvell had a six-month career with the DPD and law enforcement, leaving one month after the Walker shooting. Norvell said he did not remember if he put an "N" or "BN" on the bullet. 

The WC/FBI did not ask Detectives Van Cleave or McElroy (13-year veteran of the DPD) to ID CE573, despite there being conflicts in the record who handled the Walker bullet. 

There is no DPD photograph of the Walker bullet. 

 

 

[Lawrence Schnapf]

@Tom Gram @Benjamin Cole  Can you imagine what a defense counsel would have down when the government tried to introduce testimony about the walker shooting into evidence... that is if the government survived motion to exclude the bullet.