"Were the Tippit crime scene shell hulls fired from the revolver of Lee Harvey Oswald?"

[Greg Doudna]

New article I have put up, "Were the Tippit crime scene shell hulls fired from the revolver of Lee Harvey Oswald?": https://www.scrollery.com/?p=1541. 

[David Josephs]

3 hours ago, Greg Doudna said:

New article I have put up, "Were the Tippit crime scene shell hulls fired from the revolver of Lee Harvey Oswald?": https://www.scrollery.com/?p=1541. 

Nice Job Greg.  FWIW, here is a lightened version of the 2 hulls in question and the only marks on them.  Barnes, Poe, Jez

. 

 

I had also come across this in the old version of the Dallas Documents archive.  Though you might find it interesting

 

[Lawrence Schnapf]

Greg- are you aware of the new science on ballistics/toolmarks. no better than 50% (flip a coin) in many cases. some courts are now declining to allow ballistics testimony into evidence or no longer allowing blanket "match" testimony. Experts are now expected to provide a statistically certainty. if you'd like more info, let me know.  

[Norman T. Field]

The question is: why would a man with a revolver eject shell casings at a crime scene? 

[Greg Doudna]

1 hour ago, Lawrence Schnapf said:

Greg- are you aware of the new science on ballistics/toolmarks. no better than 50% (flip a coin) in many cases. some courts are now declining to allow ballistics testimony into evidence or no longer allowing blanket "match" testimony. Experts are now expected to provide a statistically certainty. if you'd like more info, let me know.  

Larry—yes I would. To be clear, are you suggesting it is possible or believable that both the fbi lab and the hsca firearms panel independently, could each separately match hulls to Oswald’s revolver that had not been fired from that revolver? I.e without substituted hulls — two identical mistaken false positives from the top firearms authorities in America to the same wrong firearm?

I am not finding any 50% error data where inconclusive findings are not included. Also from the little i see errors are not randomly distributed I.e. there are better and worse experts. I just assume the fbi lab and hsca firearms panel would be upper percentile accuracy assuming fraud is not a factor which the replication confirms is ruled out. But please speak and I’m listening, thanks Larry. 

[David Josephs]

1 hour ago, Norman T. Field said:

The question is: why would a man with a revolver eject shell casings at a crime scene? 

To leave incriminating evidence like the bogus wallet, to add to Oswald's guilt.

 

.38 special shells were use by police departments across the US at the time

This compares the bullets supposedly found on him and their smudged sides, and bullets kept in a police belt.

[Greg Doudna]

1 hour ago, Norman T. Field said:

The question is: why would a man with a revolver eject shell casings at a crime scene? 

If the revolver itself is soon tossed not to be found on person or property or association with the shooter, who cares if the shell hulls are found and matched to the firearm. As for why eject hulls immediately (not waiting), I suppose it was to be able to reload immediately, so as to be able to kill again at the theater. Do you have a better explanation?

[David Josephs]

1 minute ago, Greg Doudna said:

I suppose it was to be able to reload immediately, so as to be able to kill again at the theater.

So ducking into the theater was already planned out at the Tippit scene?  Interesting.

The man can go in virtually any direction and instead confines himself in a closed space with little opportunity for escape.

Please tell us more

[Greg Doudna]

1 minute ago, David Josephs said:

So ducking into the theater was already planned out at the Tippit scene?  Interesting.

The man can go in virtually any direction and instead confines himself in a closed space with little opportunity for escape.

Please tell us more

If you buy the idea of Oswald as a patsy then it is believable there would be an attempt to kill him the day of the assassination. Here is Oswald in the theatre and an armed and reloaded killer of tippit goes into the balcony of the very theater Oswald is. Why do that? To kill Oswald, then to escape maybe steal a vehicle out the back door if someone happened to leave a key and an engine running and was gone from the vehicle (as was the case). 

[David Josephs]

7 minutes ago, Greg Doudna said:

If you buy the idea of Oswald as a patsy then it is believable there would be an attempt to kill him the day of the assassination. Here is Oswald in the theatre and an armed and reloaded killer of tippit goes into the balcony of the very theater Oswald is. Why do that? To kill Oswald, then to escape maybe steal a vehicle out the back door if someone happened to leave a key and an engine running and was gone from the vehicle (as was the case). 

Where do you get the idea that whoever actually killed Tippit went to the theater?

Oswald went to the theater and by looking at his activities there it was obvious he was looking to meet someone.  Why else does he have the ripped dollar bills which disappear from the case as soon as they are found?

Why is Ruby at the theater? You were aware of that, yes?

Who do they arrest in the balcony?

As to stealing a vehicle from out the back door, there was a pickup truck in the alley behind the theater when the DPD gets there that they checked and thought was strange... and then of course we have Bernard Haire who sees "Oswald" taken out the back into the alley and driven away.

Help us understand please

[Greg Doudna]

1 minute ago, David Josephs said:

Where do you get the idea that whoever actually killed Tippit went to the theater?

Oswald went to the theater and by looking at his activities there it was obvious he was looking to meet someone.  Why else does he have the ripped dollar bills which disappear from the case as soon as they are found?

Why is Ruby at the theater? You were aware of that, yes?

Who do they arrest in the balcony?

As to stealing a vehicle from out the back door, there was a pickup truck in the alley behind the theater when the DPD gets there that they checked and thought was strange... and then of course we have Bernard Haire who sees "Oswald" taken out the back into the alley and driven away.

Help us understand please

I think the man who went past brewers store and into the theatre when Julia Postal was distracted, up into the balcony, was the killer of tippit, not Oswald. I think Oswald was already a paid ticket patron seated on the main floor area, already there (to meet someone, perhaps Carl Mather). I think Applin was mistaken in thinking ruby was there, probably some heavyset unrecognized law enforcement person or fbi man or something seated in the back watching.

[Paul Cummings]

Davis reporting of ejecting the shells in the yard and when the DPD arrived that evening is odd.

[Lawrence Schnapf]

Greg- firearms examination is highly subjective. no minimum number of matches required with no regard to the width and depth of the toolmarks. Inconclusives are discounted in many tests which dramatically distorts the accuracy rate. The studies performed by ASFE were not properly designed from a statistical standpoint amd simply intended to  their profession. garbage to support junk science. Iregularly attend programs by CSAFE and the Center for Integrity for Forensic Science. they have lots of good material on its website. 

Given the subjectivity, it is quite likely that the FBI gave the WC the testimony it needed to match the bullets to Oswald's weapons since there was not going to be a trial. And the HSCA committee was comprised of experts who worked for labs that had government funding. no way any lab employee was going to disagree with the prior conclusions.

Indeed, when they could not match the bullets fired from the the alleged assassination in 1978 against those fired in 1964, they came up with a lame excuse that the rust and hundred or so firings of the rifle in 1964 changed its toolmarks. There have been studies that have shown firing thousands of rounds have not changed the toolmarks. We had Cliff Spiegelman testify on this issue in the 2017 mock trial. I also asked raised this issue at a recent CSAFE conference and got the same answer.           

[Lawrence Schnapf]

The DPD committed numerious violations of the procedures set forth in the manual of crime scene investigation that was in effect in 1963. Perhaps the most serious violations were not taking photos of shells on the ground where they were located both at the Tippit shooting and on the sixth floor. Fritz picked up the shells before they were photographed. They disturbed the "snipers nest", did not photograph the paper bag and Fritz ejected the unfired shell in the rifle chamber rifle. These "errors" allowed the FBI to paper over the evidence and manufacture the historic record they needed to pin the assassination on Oswald.

In our mock trial, Bill Simpich and I had prepared a long list of evidentiary challenges that we later agreed to drop in the interests of time. But in a real trial, the government would have struggled to support its evidence.      

[David Josephs]

3 minutes ago, Greg Doudna said:

I think the man who went past brewers store and into the theatre when Julia Postal was distracted, up into the balcony, was the killer of tippit, not Oswald. I think Oswald was already a paid ticket patron seated on the main floor area, already there (to meet someone, perhaps Carl Mather). I think Applin was mistaken in thinking ruby was there, probably some heavyset unrecognized law enforcement person or fbi man or something seated in the back watching.

Ok... so Oswald did not kill Tippit; on this we agree.  Which in turn creates a domino effect related to the evidence of his doing it with the pistol they claimed was his.

https://www.kennedysandking.com/images/pdf/JosephsPistol.pdf. This explains my pov better than anything I can write here.

And speaking of Tippit... what is your explanation for the disappearing wallet and ID attributed to a wallet found in Irving that day?

From where Brewer's store was, seeing anyone do anything at the theater would be extremely difficult...  and of course there is the Tommy Rowe and IBM dudes aspect to that story.  

Help me understand what you mean though.  A number of DPD reports call out an arrest of someone in the balcony... do you suppose that was the man taken out the back in front of Haire, yet disappears?