James Worrell and the Magic Affidavit

[Donald Willis]

James Worrell and the Magic Affidavit

"An unidentified individual told Insp. J.H. Sawyer that he had seen an individual run from the TSBD building shortly after the shooting of Pres. Kennedy and that this individual was an unknown white male, approximately 30, slender build, 5'10", 165 pounds, carrying what looked to be a 30:30, or some type of Winchester rifle.  Insp. Sawyer then contacted Dallas Police Sgt. G.D. Henslee, radio dispatcher, and this description was broadcast to all Dallas squad cars." -- dispatch to "Director, FBI", from Dallas FBI office.  (courtesy of SkyThrone, alt.conspiracy.jfk, 9/3/23)

Of course, the Dallas Police Dept. could never admit that their actual Dealey star witness--who provided them with the 12:44 suspect description--was someone who stated that he had seen Oswald BEHIND THE DEPOSITORY, WITH A RIFLE, AFTER 12:30, on 11/22/63.  His observations were broadcast and re-broadcast, live, and could not be taken back.  DPD did the next best thing and attached the suspect description, none too credibly, to witness Howard Brennan:  The latter thought that the suspect was "standing" as he shot from the "sniper's nest" (Warren Commission hearings v3p144), hence the cockamamie (at least from his vantage point) height and weight specs.  But Brennan did see a rifle, and that's all that was needed.

Downplaying of back-of-the-depository activity began that same day, with TSBD employee Mrs. R.A. Reid, who wrote, in an affidavit, that Oswald came through her office shortly after the shooting.  At the Commisson hearings, Counsel David Belin asked her, "How would he have gotten out of the office?"  Mrs. Reid: "Right straight out this door down this stairway and out the front door." (v3p278)  (Note that she is more than helpful--she has Oswald all the way out the building, not just the office.)  She told Belin that Oswald was wearing "a white T-shirt and some kind of wash trousers" (p276).  However, Patrolman M.L. Baker--who had just encountered Oswald in the next room--wrote in his same-day affidavit that he was "wearing a light brown jacket".  Mrs. Reid may have been thinking of Oswald's usual office attire.  (As per James Jarman: "Oswald usually worked in a white tee-shirt". [12/5/63 FBI interview])

Who to believe?  TSBD secretary Geneva Hine, when asked by Counsel Joseph Ball, "When you came back in [to the same office, after 12:30] did you see Mrs. Reid?"  Hine:  "No, sir, I don't believe there was a soul in the office when I came back in right then." (v6p396)  Ball asks her, "Were you facing the door [Oswald] is supposed to have left by?"  Hine:  "Yes, sir."  Ball: "Do you recall seeing him?"  "No, sir." (p397)  Mrs. Reid--supposed witness to Oswald leaving by the front door--caught out by Baker and Hine.  

Further references, the next few days, to an Oswald front-door departure can be found in written accounts of the Oswald interviews (Warren Report pp619, 636).  The interviews were not recorded.  And if Mrs. Reid's testimony is any indication, the interview accounts of Oswald's exit route must be deemed, at best, unreliable, too.

However, all sources agree: Three minutes after the shooting, Oswald was downstairs, on the first floor, then out the front or back door.  "Out the front door by 12:33"--Warren Report (p155).  "Three minutes from the last shot to dialing the telephone inside the TSBD", after "his encounter with Oswald... inside the TSBD"--Pierce Allman (JFK Facts).  Behind the building, it was "approximately three minutes before I saw this man come out the back door here."--James Worrell (v2p195).  

On the 23rd, the downplaying of elements in the 12:44 suspect description continued.  In his affidavit, witness James Worrell, stated that, from Pacific Street, just north of the TSBD, he saw a man "come out of the building and run in the opposite direction from me... didn't have anything in hands."  So, for Worrell here, no rifle apparent on the runner.  

But, in between the taking of the affidavit and its final form--in the Commission Exhibits--a funny thing happened.  Taking Worrell's affidavit, "at about 5pm", on the 23rd, Det. R.L. Anderton wrote that, from the "north side of the TSBD... [Worrell] saw "a man run out of the building in a southerly direction.  He said when he got home and saw pictures of Lee Harvey Oswald in the newspapers and on television, he recognized him as the man he saw run from the building." (CE 2003 p185)

Now, take a look at Worrell's affidavit--Commission Exhibit No. 2003, page 69.  The name of the man that he recognized, that he "saw run from the building"... not there.  In fact, there's no name at all.  We know that Anderton took it down.  But it's not there in CE 2003.  There is just an impersonal reference to a "w/m".  "Oswald" expunged.  The Long Arm of the Law, Rewrite Dept.  

This is just the beginning of the weaning of Oswald from Worrell's narrative.  On 11/30/63, Worrell told the FBI that he got a "profile view" of the man behind the TSBD and that he "felt [Oswald] was the person he had seen."  But the next year he told the Commission that he "didn't see his face.  I just saw the back of his head."  It hardly seems likely that Worrell didn't get a glimpse of the running man's face, first running north out of the building, then turning south down Houston, "along the side of the depository building" (v2p196).  Worrell changed his mind?  No--the altered affidavit confirms that Worrell's mind was being changed for him.  

First, the rifle disappears, then "Oswald" disappears, twice.  Actually, the first disappearance would have been the identification of Sawyer's unidentified witness.  But, based on the subsequent disappearances, it seems safe to assume that that "unidentified" witness was... Worrell.  Safer than to assume that there were TWO witnesses to Oswald rushing out the rear of the building--and that Worrell somehow didn't see the other, unidentified witness.  So, the sequence of disappearing names: "Worrell" from Sawyer's report... "Oswald" from  Worrell's affidavit... and "Oswald" from Worrell's testimony.  

n and of themselves, these disappearing acts may or may not be that significant.  To put the best light on it, they may just have been a case of DPD personnel trying to save face, after invoking the specter of a man with a rifle running out the back door of the depository at 12:33.  Exposed, they could have sputtered, "Well, no one saw him inside the building with a rifle at 12:33--ask Allman", etc., till the cows came home.  But the cows, or horses, would already have long been out of the barn by that time... So the DPD simply suppressed the story.  Obviously, they did not want to deal with the complication of having Oswald connected with the back-door rifle, fictitious or not.  But the pesky Worrell kept bringing him up.

The simple fact of the altered affidavit, however, is quite significant, in one way--an illustrative way.  It shows, clearly and concisely, both the before and the after of how the DPD could suppress information.  It shows, in short, the DPD M.O.  It's a little skeleton key to the JFK assassination.

 

[Gerry Down]

48 minutes ago, Donald Willis said:

An unidentified individual told Insp. J.H. Sawyer that he had seen an individual run from the TSBD building shortly after the shooting of Pres. Kennedy and that this individual was an unknown white male, approximately 30, slender build, 5'10", 165 pounds, carrying what looked to be a 30:30, or some type of Winchester rifle.  Insp. Sawyer then contacted Dallas Police Sgt. G.D. Henslee, radio dispatcher, and this description was broadcast to all Dallas squad cars." -- dispatch to "Director, FBI", from Dallas FBI office.  (courtesy of SkyThrone, alt.conspiracy.jfk, 9/3/23)

Is this the description given by a so-called mystery unidentified witness that was then sent out over the DPD radio, and which Tippit would have heard?

And which is often claimed today to still be from an unidentified witness?

[Benjamin Cole]

2 hours ago, Donald Willis said:

James Worrell and the Magic Affidavit

"An unidentified individual told Insp. J.H. Sawyer that he had seen an individual run from the TSBD building shortly after the shooting of Pres. Kennedy and that this individual was an unknown white male, approximately 30, slender build, 5'10", 165 pounds, carrying what looked to be a 30:30, or some type of Winchester rifle.  Insp. Sawyer then contacted Dallas Police Sgt. G.D. Henslee, radio dispatcher, and this description was broadcast to all Dallas squad cars." -- dispatch to "Director, FBI", from Dallas FBI office.  (courtesy of SkyThrone, alt.conspiracy.jfk, 9/3/23)

Of course, the Dallas Police Dept. could never admit that their actual Dealey star witness--who provided them with the 12:44 suspect description--was someone who stated that he had seen Oswald BEHIND THE DEPOSITORY, WITH A RIFLE, AFTER 12:30, on 11/22/63.  His observations were broadcast and re-broadcast, live, and could not be taken back.  DPD did the next best thing and attached the suspect description, none too credibly, to witness Howard Brennan:  The latter thought that the suspect was "standing" as he shot from the "sniper's nest" (Warren Commission hearings v3p144), hence the cockamamie (at least from his vantage point) height and weight specs.  But Brennan did see a rifle, and that's all that was needed.

Downplaying of back-of-the-depository activity began that same day, with TSBD employee Mrs. R.A. Reid, who wrote, in an affidavit, that Oswald came through her office shortly after the shooting.  At the Commisson hearings, Counsel David Belin asked her, "How would he have gotten out of the office?"  Mrs. Reid: "Right straight out this door down this stairway and out the front door." (v3p278)  (Note that she is more than helpful--she has Oswald all the way out the building, not just the office.)  She told Belin that Oswald was wearing "a white T-shirt and some kind of wash trousers" (p276).  However, Patrolman M.L. Baker--who had just encountered Oswald in the next room--wrote in his same-day affidavit that he was "wearing a light brown jacket".  Mrs. Reid may have been thinking of Oswald's usual office attire.  (As per James Jarman: "Oswald usually worked in a white tee-shirt". [12/5/63 FBI interview])

Who to believe?  TSBD secretary Geneva Hine, when asked by Counsel Joseph Ball, "When you came back in [to the same office, after 12:30] did you see Mrs. Reid?"  Hine:  "No, sir, I don't believe there was a soul in the office when I came back in right then." (v6p396)  Ball asks her, "Were you facing the door [Oswald] is supposed to have left by?"  Hine:  "Yes, sir."  Ball: "Do you recall seeing him?"  "No, sir." (p397)  Mrs. Reid--supposed witness to Oswald leaving by the front door--caught out by Baker and Hine.  

Further references, the next few days, to an Oswald front-door departure can be found in written accounts of the Oswald interviews (Warren Report pp619, 636).  The interviews were not recorded.  And if Mrs. Reid's testimony is any indication, the interview accounts of Oswald's exit route must be deemed, at best, unreliable, too.

However, all sources agree: Three minutes after the shooting, Oswald was downstairs, on the first floor, then out the front or back door.  "Out the front door by 12:33"--Warren Report (p155).  "Three minutes from the last shot to dialing the telephone inside the TSBD", after "his encounter with Oswald... inside the TSBD"--Pierce Allman (JFK Facts).  Behind the building, it was "approximately three minutes before I saw this man come out the back door here."--James Worrell (v2p195).  

On the 23rd, the downplaying of elements in the 12:44 suspect description continued.  In his affidavit, witness James Worrell, stated that, from Pacific Street, just north of the TSBD, he saw a man "come out of the building and run in the opposite direction from me... didn't have anything in hands."  So, for Worrell here, no rifle apparent on the runner.  

But, in between the taking of the affidavit and its final form--in the Commission Exhibits--a funny thing happened.  Taking Worrell's affidavit, "at about 5pm", on the 23rd, Det. R.L. Anderton wrote that, from the "north side of the TSBD... [Worrell] saw "a man run out of the building in a southerly direction.  He said when he got home and saw pictures of Lee Harvey Oswald in the newspapers and on television, he recognized him as the man he saw run from the building." (CE 2003 p185)

Now, take a look at Worrell's affidavit--Commission Exhibit No. 2003, page 69.  The name of the man that he recognized, that he "saw run from the building"... not there.  In fact, there's no name at all.  We know that Anderton took it down.  But it's not there in CE 2003.  There is just an impersonal reference to a "w/m".  "Oswald" expunged.  The Long Arm of the Law, Rewrite Dept.  

This is just the beginning of the weaning of Oswald from Worrell's narrative.  On 11/30/63, Worrell told the FBI that he got a "profile view" of the man behind the TSBD and that he "felt [Oswald] was the person he had seen."  But the next year he told the Commission that he "didn't see his face.  I just saw the back of his head."  It hardly seems likely that Worrell didn't get a glimpse of the running man's face, first running north out of the building, then turning south down Houston, "along the side of the depository building" (v2p196).  Worrell changed his mind?  No--the altered affidavit confirms that Worrell's mind was being changed for him.  

First, the rifle disappears, then "Oswald" disappears, twice.  Actually, the first disappearance would have been the identification of Sawyer's unidentified witness.  But, based on the subsequent disappearances, it seems safe to assume that that "unidentified" witness was... Worrell.  Safer than to assume that there were TWO witnesses to Oswald rushing out the rear of the building--and that Worrell somehow didn't see the other, unidentified witness.  So, the sequence of disappearing names: "Worrell" from Sawyer's report... "Oswald" from  Worrell's affidavit... and "Oswald" from Worrell's testimony.  

n and of themselves, these disappearing acts may or may not be that significant.  To put the best light on it, they may just have been a case of DPD personnel trying to save face, after invoking the specter of a man with a rifle running out the back door of the depository at 12:33.  Exposed, they could have sputtered, "Well, no one saw him inside the building with a rifle at 12:33--ask Allman", etc., till the cows came home.  But the cows, or horses, would already have long been out of the barn by that time... So the DPD simply suppressed the story.  Obviously, they did not want to deal with the complication of having Oswald connected with the back-door rifle, fictitious or not.  But the pesky Worrell kept bringing him up.

The simple fact of the altered affidavit, however, is quite significant, in one way--an illustrative way.  It shows, clearly and concisely, both the before and the after of how the DPD could suppress information.  It shows, in short, the DPD M.O.  It's a little skeleton key to the JFK assassination.

 

Interesting. 

[Steve Thomas]

Donald,

In your calculations, you have to take in account, Lieutenant Erich Kaminsky.

After the assassination, George Lumpkin returned to the TSBD and took command there.

[Report from Charles Batchelor to Chief J. E. Curry, November 30, 1963] Page: 43 of 70

https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth338584/m1/43/?q=Stevenson

pp21-22.

According to the Dispatch Tapes, George Lumpkin had arrived at the TSBD by 12:49 PM

http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/dpdtapes/

15 (Captain C.E. Talbert): “15 is at the scene. We... the building's the Old Purse Company on the east side of Houston. Somebody cut off the back side, will you? Make sure nobody leaves there.”

Dispatcher: “10-4, 15”

15: “15's in charge down here. Correction 5's (Deputy Chief Lumpkin) in charge.”

(It appears that Talbert had the wrong building in mind).

 

It was Kaminsky who Deputy Chief Lumpkin had positioned at the front door of the TSBD.

Portal to Texas History

[Report from Charles Batchelor to Chief J. E. Curry, November 30, 1963] Page: 43 of 70

https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth338584/m1/43/?q=Stevenson

pp21-22.

This matches exactly what Postal Inspector, Harry Holmes wrote in his Report of Oswald's interrogation on Sunday, November 24^th.

See Warren Report, Appendix XI page 636

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=946#relPageId=660&tab=page

Steve Thomas

 

[Donald Willis]

11 hours ago, Gerry Down said:

Is this the description given by a so-called mystery unidentified witness that was then sent out over the DPD radio, and which Tippit would have heard?

And which is often claimed today to still be from an unidentified witness?

It's usually claimed to be from witness Howard Brennan, but the height/weight specs would have to have been incredibly lucky guesses by Brennan.  Much more likely from Sawyer's unidentified running witness, ground level.

[Donald Willis]

1 hour ago, Steve Thomas said:

Donald,

In your calculations, you have to take in account, Lieutenant Erich Kaminsky.

After the assassination, George Lumpkin returned to the TSBD and took command there.

[Report from Charles Batchelor to Chief J. E. Curry, November 30, 1963] Page: 43 of 70

https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth338584/m1/43/?q=Stevenson

pp21-22.

According to the Dispatch Tapes, George Lumpkin had arrived at the TSBD by 12:49 PM

http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/dpdtapes/

15 (Captain C.E. Talbert): “15 is at the scene. We... the building's the Old Purse Company on the east side of Houston. Somebody cut off the back side, will you? Make sure nobody leaves there.”

Dispatcher: “10-4, 15”

15: “15's in charge down here. Correction 5's (Deputy Chief Lumpkin) in charge.”

(It appears that Talbert had the wrong building in mind).

 

It was Kaminsky who Deputy Chief Lumpkin had positioned at the front door of the TSBD.

Portal to Texas History

[Report from Charles Batchelor to Chief J. E. Curry, November 30, 1963] Page: 43 of 70

https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth338584/m1/43/?q=Stevenson

pp21-22.

This matches exactly what Postal Inspector, Harry Holmes wrote in his Report of Oswald's interrogation on Sunday, November 24^th.

See Warren Report, Appendix XI page 636

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=946#relPageId=660&tab=page

Steve Thomas

 

I've used the Stevenson police chronology quite a bit.  That's where I found out, for instance, that there was no "roll call" per se, but a checking off at the front door of people as they left the depository.  Kaminski would have been posted at the front door (as you say, by Lumpkin) around 12:40, long after Oswald would have left the building (by any door). 

When I met fellow researcher Walt Cakebread at a Stockton (CA) library, I took the opportunity to check the 11/22/63 Stockton Record newspaper and found a reference to Kaminski:

"Lt. Erich Kaminski said the assassin's weapon appears to have been a "hi-powered army or Japanese rifle of about 25 calibre." (page 😎

And I've long been interested in Holmes' account.  Yes, Holmes, in his earlier report and in his testimony, states that Oswald had said that he left by the front door.  In fact, in his testimony, he said he was stopped right at the front entrance by the police.  If so, that would have placed him out of range of the 6th-floor.  But that's just what Oswald *said*, though that seems to have upset the horses at the interviews--Fritz & co. deigned not to mention THIS reference to the Baker-Truly encounter in their own reports of this interview session:  Of course, because that would have contradicted what Bookhout and Fritz reported from the first interview.  Sleeping dogs... 

But SkyThrone's discovery of two dispatches to Hoover saying that Insp. Sawyer had a suspect running out of the building with a rifle--which had to have been the back of the building--and Mrs. Reid's quite apparently invented story of Oswald running down the stairs and out the front--make me think that Oswald might not have been telling the truth.  Of course, Sawyer's witness may have been the one not telling the truth, and that would balance Oswald's own version.  For me, the decider is Mrs. "front door" Reid, who was CLEARLY not telling the truth.  OK OK--unless both Baker & Hine were lying, which I doubt... It's complicated.

[Gerry Down]

1 hour ago, Donald Willis said:

It's usually claimed to be from witness Howard Brennan, but the height/weight specs would have to have been incredibly lucky guesses by Brennan.  Much more likely from Sawyer's unidentified running witness, ground level.

Do you know if Worrell spoke to Sawyer?

Edited September 22, 2023 by Gerry Down

[Donald Willis]

Don't know for sure but, as I wrote, I think that Worrell was the running-man witness Sawyer quoted for the 12:44 suspect description.  Others disagree, but the age/height/weight specs align, from Worrell to running man to 12:44 and even to Patrolman Baker.  Just a coinkydink?  By the way, those specs are all off for Oswald, except for the height.  Curious that Worrell, running man, and Baker should all get the same (wrong) estimates, for age and weight... Curious, also, that Sawyer did not get Worrell's (or running man's) name OR Brennan's.  Even though Chief Deputy Sheriff Allan Sweatt wrote that Sawyer was taking down names and data in front of the building.  But I don't think that I ever heard that Sawyer did come up with ANY names.  Just as Patrolman Haygood didn't come up with the name of his "2nd-window-from-the-end" witness, though the dispatcher had specifically told him to get those names.  I say Haygood's witness, but it wasn't really his witness--it was Patrolman Hill's.  Haygood just subbed for him at the hearings.  What's in a name?--nothing for the DPD.

[Gerry Down]

Thanks

[Ron Bulman]