In Oak Cliff: one shooter, one accomplice, no automatic, no Oswald

[Donald Willis]

In Oak Cliff--one shooter, one accomplice, no automatic, no Oswald

Hard to discount rumors of the presence of two gunmen in Oak Cliff.  There are two solid bases for two different escape routes.  1)  Patrolman Summers' radio report on the suspect, at 1:37:  "running on the north side of the street from Patton, on East Jefferson".  Then north through the Texaco parking lot and then west.  (map, "With Malice" p20).  2)  DPD was kind enough, though, to provide, also, a competing escape route:  "W on alley [from Patton] to Crawford, left on Crawford to E. Jefferson" (Sgt. Barnes' crime lab sketch, WM p161).  The former made some folks happy since it included a pit stop for discarding the infamous jacket.  The latter route seems in error when it posits a left turn on Crawford.  There's a solid basis for a right turn off the alley, up to the Abundant Life Temple, on 10th St.:  "An unidentified witness gave Officer J.M. Poe 2 empty hulls in an empty cigarette pack & stated... that the suspect reloaded the gun as he ran across the church lawn." (11/22/63 Poe-Jez report)  Implied: This witness, later ID'd as Domingo Benavides, found said hulls on the church lawn, then, not in the yard at 10th & Patton.  And it makes sense:  The only reason for the gunman to have left them in the Davis yard--long before reloading, if the temple tale is on the money--would be to have graciously provided the police with evidence.  Otherwise, the four hulls would only have been found if the gunman had been followed from 10th & Patton to the temple. As DPD Sgt. Gerald Hill put it, at 1:44, on the police radio:  "A witness said he saw the gunman last at the Abundant Life Temple at 10th... 400 block."  Benavides saw him first at 10th & Patton.

Benavides bent the truth, then, when he testified that he had told officers at the scene--in answer to, "Did you tell the officers what you had seen?"--"No.  I left right after" (v6p450)... after handing Poe the shells, that is.  He had, in fact, told Poe about the "church lawn".  The gunman, according to Benavides, reloaded later, on the church lawn.  The DPD was forced to explain away two police-radio references to the use of an automatic.  But Benavides' discovery of the hulls so far from the scene indicates that the murder weapon was a revolver.

More fallout from Benavides' inconvenient statement re the belated reloading:  Witness Pat Patterson was mistaken when he said that he saw a gunman "obviously trying to reload" on Patton.  (FBI report 1/23/64)  And the witnesses who said that they saw unloading or reloading around 10th & Patton were--if the temple tale is on the money--conspiring to cover-up:  Barbara Davis, Virginia Davis, and Sam Guinyard.  In fact, Guinyard went a little crazy with the unloading business.  He testified, haplessly, that the gunman was running up Patton "knocking empty shells out of his pistol" (v7p397)--this would have been in addition to the four shells supposedly knocked out on 10th St.  Just trying to help the police, apparently. 

I don't recall seeing even one reference to the alley or the church in the record of the Warren Commission interviews.  The cover-up of the alternate route continued with Myers' book:  "The gunman was last seen by Jimmy Burt and Bill Smith in the alley behind the cars near Crawford" (photo caption WM p91).  This was based on a 1968 interview with Burt.  However, in a more timely 12/15/63 FBI interview, Burt stated that "when he was close enough to Patton St. to see to the south he saw the man running INTO AN ALLEY located between 10th & Jefferson on Patton."  Not "near Crawford".  The hearings, Myers, maybe even Burt--all seemed aware of the spectre of a second gunman if the problem of the alley was raised.  Of course the fact that it was not raised tends, now, to support the existence of that spectre.  

However, most of the "6 to 8 witnesses... all telling officers that the subject was running west in the alley between 10th & Patton" (Poe-Jez DPD report 11/22/63) may have actually just been witnesses to a vigilante tailing the "subject".  In his Commission testimony, Sgt. Barnes did not mention speaking to any of the witnesses, by name, at the scene.  However, a frame grab in "With Malice" shows the police questioning Helen Markham "near the passenger side door" (p152)--she had testified that the suspect had "leaned over" the passenger door (v3p315)--as Barnes looks on.  And Barnes was the one who provided the diagram of the alternate escape route.  Interviewed in later years, Mrs. Markham said that the suspect had indeed run down the alley.  She must have been the source of a "report that a cab driver had picked up Tippit's gun and had left, presumably.  They don't know whether he was the one that had shot Tippit... [or had] attempted to give chase." (DPD Sgt. Kenneth Croy [v12p202])  More later on the Markham-Scoggins tie-in with the account of the Holmes-Wheless cab chase...

Markham was one of several alley witnesses to Scoggins' flight.  The testimony of sisters-in-law Virginia and Barbara Davis was inextricably linked to her own testimony.  Before Virginia D even refers to the suspect, she offers, "Well, Mrs. Markham was trying to say--"  At this point, David Belin has to ask, "Mrs. Markham?", since that's the first he heard her mention Markham.  Virginia 😧 "We heard her say, 'He shot him.  He is dead.  Call the police.'"  Still no explanation of that "he".  "She was screaming."  Finally, Belin has to come right out and ask, "Did you see anything else as you heard her screaming?"  "Well, we saw Oswald."  (v6pp456-7)  Ah!  So Mrs. M's screaming drew Virginia D's attention to "Oswald".  Now, Barbara 😧  "First off, [Mrs. M] went to screaming before I had paid too much attention to... the man... coming across the yard." (v3p343)  Again, the presence of the man in the yard seems secondary, for the Davises, to the sound of Mrs. M's screaming.

Now for Mrs. M's account.  "[The man] stared at me."  [As he stood at the SW corner of 10th & Patton/CE 524]  Counsel Ball:  "Didn't you say something?"  "No, I couldn't."  Ball: "Or yell or scream."  "I could not." (v3p308)  "I couldn't scream.  I couldn't holler.  I froze."  (v3p?)  Makes sense:  She couldn't do anything while he was staring right at her.  Then:  "He cut across Patton like this [heading] toward Jefferson.  Then he was still in sight when I began to scream and holler..." (v3p?)  In sum:  Mrs. M could not scream until *after* the suspect had begun going down Patton, away from her.  The Davises, then, like Mrs. M, have been describing a scene on *Patton*, not on 10th St.  They, too, saw what Mrs. M last saw of the suspect--the latter running into the alley.

And an apparent Freudian slip in Virginia D's 11/22/63 affidavit indicates that she was in good position to see the suspect run into the alley off Patton:  "[My sister-in-law and myself] heard a shot and then another shot and ran to the side door at Patton St."  Another such slip, in her Commission testimony, reinforces that they were not at the front door on 10th St., as they otherwise maintained:   "We saw the boy cutting across the street." (v6p461)  She gets "boy" right, supposedly, but not "street", which usually came out "lawn", in their testimony.  And 8 or 9 times, in the meandering, doubling-back course of her testimony, she rings variations on "When Mrs. Markham was standing across the street hollering, she told us to call the police, so [Barbara] Jeanette and I went in there, and Jeanette called the police, and we went back, and he was cutting across our yard." (v6p458)  This phenomenon of repetition amounts not so much to a slip as a complex.  If the two called the police first--as Virginia insisted, many times, then they were of course too late to see the actual shooter.

Like Mrs. Markham, the Davises were witnesses to a man running into the alley.  The wrong man, as it turns out--but another reason why it might have been thought that there was a second shooter.  Hence, the unheroic efforts by the DPD (and Ted Callaway) to take Tippit's pistol out of Scoggins' hands and put it into Callaway's, not just later on in the story--where it seems only natural when Scoggins is driving the cab--but from the get-go.   

The other alley witnesses: Of course Scoggins.  Burt and Smith.  And Benavides, one of the Poe-Jez "6 to 8 witnesses".  Like the Davises, though, Burt and Smith got to the scene late--they drove from 9th & Denver, a block and a half away.  So most of the alley witnesses saw only Scoggins the vigilante.  But whom did *Scoggins* see?  He must have seen Benavides, running ahead of him.  But did he see him as a fellow vigilante or as the culprit?  He certainly did not see Oswald, or--after having chased after the killer three times, on foot, by car, and by cop car--or he would most gladly have nailed him at one of the three Friday lineups.  As I have previously detailed, he was with the police as early as 1:25pm on Friday.  Either he saw Benavides as the killer or he worked in tandem with him, maybe sending him on ahead while he went back for Tippit's service pistol, then losing track of both Benavides and the killer.  (He may have been the man that Warren Reynolds saw going into the old house, off the alley, either to conceal himself or to take a short cut to Jefferson.) 

Holmes and Wheless.  This story is of course related third-hand--and very late in the day (1999)--from Kenneth Holmes Sr. to Kenneth Holmes Jr. to Dale Myers.  But it is surprisingly credible.  It meshes perfectly with the testimonies of Croy and Callaway.  Callaway:  "I went with Scoggins in the taxicab, went up to 10th. Crawford, from Crawford up to Jefferson, and down Jefferson to Beckley.  And we turned on Beckley." (v3p354)  The Holmes version:  "turning south off 10th onto Crawford [heading, then, towards Jefferson]... [then] on one of the side streets just east of Beckley", Holmes & Bill Wheless "caught up with the cab & forced it to a stop." (WM pp165, 169 [revised ed.]).  Tenth, Crawford, and Jefferson neatly frame the alley off Patton--Scoggins seems to have been calling the shots here, picking up where he had left off on foot.  

And the Holmes-Wheless narrative confirms Croy's testimony that "a cab driver had picked up Tippit's gun".  It wasn't just a "report".  And Croy was free to reveal that tantalizing detail in 1964 since it was not confirmed at the time.  It was just left hanging, tantalizingly.  When Holmes & Wheless "pulled up [at 10th & Patton], a woman in near hysterics ran up to the car and told them that 'the man who shot the officer had got in a taxi and took off'." (WM p165 [rev. ed.]) A perfect description of Mrs. Markham and a perfect explanation as to why she was in hysterics.  No wonder.  Scoggins was "getting away"--again.  She had spotted him leaving the scene and running down the alley, then, not much later, leaving the scene in the taxi. And for Mrs M to have thought that Scoggins was the killer, she must have--as I've already suggested--got to the Tippit scene a bit later than she testified that she did.  Late enough so that the first thing she saw, maybe, was Scoggins looking in the car window to see what he could see, then going to the street in front of the cab and picking up Tippit's pistol.  By then, Benavides would already have been going up the alley.

Benavides was the only one of the three searchers--also including Scoggins and Callaway--to have had any luck.  He tracked the perp as far as the temple, and he found the shells which the man had left behind.  Scoggins was a bit too late with his foot chase, and he and Callaway were way too late with the cab chase.  Benavides must have been very discouraged when he found out, though, that his "luck" was not wanted.  Nothing re searchers in and beyond the alley was wanted.  The police--thanks mainly, it seems, to Summers' transmission--had their guy's escape route.  No ambiguity, no second gunman was wanted.  

If it's difficult to reconstruct the movements of Benavides and Scoggins at the scene, it's due in part to the fact that some documents have disappeared.  I have long known that Benavides made out an affidavit. (WM p449)  Gone.  Now, Michael Kalin has found an FBI report from March 1, 1967, which states that Benavides also "made a statement to the FBI on the date of the assassination". (Education Forum 9/29/23)  Also gone.  If the Secret Service had Benavides do an affidavit, too, it's still secret.

Taken together, Summers and Poe-Jez seem to describe two shooters, one running from Patton to Jefferson, the other from Patton, through the alley, to the Abundant Life lawn.  But I lean towards:  The Jefferson running man was window dressing, not really a shooter, just an accomplice with a display gun, a display Eisenhower jacket, and a display Oswald-resemblance.  He was also a distraction, taking attention away from the vicinity of the alley.  The alley shooter, by contrast, seemed to vanish into thin air, seen perhaps by only two witnesses, Benavides and Scoggins.

The Jefferson gunman was apparently spotted by several witnesses, including Guinyard, Callaway, Warren Reynolds, and Pat Patterson.  But he was not--despite what you may have read--seen by anyone going from Jefferson into the Texaco parking lot.  On 11/22/63, Reynolds was telling police and reporters that he last saw the suspect entering an old house (frame grab of Reynolds and reporter by the house, WM p131).  Scratch Reynolds re the parking lot.  Next up:  Mrs. Mary Brock told the FBI (1/21/64) that she informed [Reynolds and Patterson] that the [suspect] proceeded north behind the Texaco station and she last observed him in the parking lot."  Busted, some time later, by the WFAA-TV footage.  More likely, Reynolds would be informing *her* re the house.  Scratch Mr. and Mrs. Brock.  The presence of the gas station "witnesses" suggests that Eisenhower man may not even have dropped the jacket at that time, but that it was already there.  I guess the "when", though, doesn't really matter...

Upshot:  Eisenhower man was last seen on the sidewalks of Jefferson.  He had done his job: witness magnet.  Except, almost ruinously, that one of his witnesses, for some reason, thought that he was wielding an automatic--possibly Callaway, who said that he thought that he saw the gunman's arm in the "raised pistol" position, "the way you'd load an automatic." (WM p78)  An unfortunate glitch for the apparent accomplice--he was supposed to have been displaying Oswald's *revolver*.  And Sgt. Hill was no help either, with his 1:41 radioed "Shells at the scene indicate that the suspect is armed with an automatic 38..."  These two apparent glitches necessitated the Davises' painstaking, but spurious descriptions of the unloading of the pistol.

Did Benavides and/or Scoggins see the accomplice?  (The attention of Benavides had to have been riveted on the alley, but Eisenhower man was pretty flagrant, so...)  Whence did the latter spring?  Did Scoggins at first think Benavides was the shooter?  Why did neither Benavides nor Scoggins attend a Friday lineup?  Both had apparently seen the killer (if not the accomplice), and the fact that neither ID'd Oswald that day indicates that it was not in fact he.  The answers to these questions might be a couple of the details lost with the disappearance of the 11/22 Benavides documents.
 

[Michael Crane]

Oswald was in the Texas Theater meeting his contact.

[Michael Crane]

 

[Donald Willis]

I recall one witness, George Applin, saying in his affidavit that the movie that just started about 1:44 was the *second* feature.  Supposedly, the theater was on regular hours.  But that statement meant that it was open early, as early as about noon.  The other feature, Cry of Battle or Battle Cry, was about 105 minutes, which would have snugged right in before War Is Hell.  Oswald could have walked in any time after noon.  

[Michael Kalin]

Thanks, Donald. Benavides' augmented role leaves me shell-shocked, altogether different from my diminished role approach.

It has the advantage of rescuing Poe/Jez from a charge of almost impossible stupidity. Even Croy was smart enough to realize that the house at 400 E. 10th was not a church.

But in general it departs radically from other Tippit murder scenarios (including several of my own), and requires further contemplation.

In the meantime, is there room in the scenario for the Oswald lookalike observed by Kinsley crossing Jefferson in front of the ambulance? According to Kinsley he then proceeded east on the south side of Jefferson, "heading toward the library."

The incident is described in Bill Drenas' Tippit After the Murder. Click on the Tippit link at Dealey Plaza UK and download Tippit 1.pdf. See pages 53-54.

Edited October 8, 2023 by Michael Kalin

[Greg Doudna]

Donald Willis, I looked up the Nov 22, 1963 report of Poe and Jez to Curry. Where it reads that the person corresponding to Benavides at the scene of the crime handed two shell hulls to Poe telling him those were the bullets that had killed Tippit (known because Benavides witnessed the killing?), and that the killer “reloaded as he ran across the church lawn”, I believe that is a mistake for “corner” lawn.

Rather than an elaborate reconstruction of suborned perjury from at least four civilian witnesses plus an officer too, plus a doppelgänger killer lookalike with same kind of jacket running for the purpose of drawing witnesses’ attention on a different escape path. You have both Davis sisters at the corner house and Benavides and officer Poe conspiring to lie about the killer ejecting the hulls at the Davis’s corner lot.

And that is not counting witness Acquila Clemons who said she saw the gunman “unloading and reloading” as he left the scene, just as all the other witnesses said whom you reconstruct were all lying about it. 

You have Benavides chasing the killer on foot to Crawford to the church there, losing the killer but finding the hulls there, then returning to the scene with them, against the testimony of himself in his WC testimony, Virginia and Barbara Davis, officer Poe, and Acquila Clemons, and no other corroboration for the church location than that sole “church” word in the Nov 22 Poe and Jez report. 

The expected word modifying the lawn where Benavides found the hulls is “corner” lawn, not “church” lawn. 

This is well explained as an error from handwritten notes improperly transcribed.

In that same document the name of Helen Markham is mistakenly reported as “Helen Marsalle”. That is well explained in terms of handwritten notes improperly transcribed. As in the one case, so the other.

Furthermore two more shell hulls were later found by others at the Davis house yard, the same place Benavides found the first two.

When Croy reported that a distraught Helen Markham said the killer had gone off with Tippit’s gun in a cab, you interpret that as Scoggins running down the alley after the killer. But the taking of the Tippit gun and driving away in Scoggins’ cab by Scoggins and Callaway is known, and therefore that is the reference of Helen Markham, not a separate running of Scoggins with Tippit’s revolver down the alley.

It is possible that some of the earliest claims that the killer ran down the alley, which must be mistaken due to the witnesses establishing the gunman’s path on Jefferson, could be mistaking a witness or someone else going into that alley (your original insight I think), but that would not be Scoggins who never told of doing that.

I have come to a working litmus test for ruling out nonstarter theories: any theory that requires subornation of perjury of civilian witnesses, as opposed to witnesses mistaken or lying or fabricating for their own reasons, is by definition probably wrong, though theoretically possible in any given individual instance if a threshold of evidence were met. But any theory which requires multiple and coordinated proliferation of civilian witnesses suborned to perjury becomes improbable to the vanishing point, and would require truly extraordinary evidence to merit pursuit (such as a credible whistleblower coming forward with evidence telling of the specific supposed organized subornation to perjury of civilians).

Edited October 8, 2023 by Greg Doudna

[Donald Willis]

13 hours ago, Michael Kalin said:

Thanks, Donald. Benavides' augmented role leaves me shell-shocked, altogether different from my diminished role approach.

It has the advantage of rescuing Poe/Jez from a charge of almost impossible stupidity. Even Croy was smart enough to realize that the house at 400 E. 10th was not a church.

But in general it departs radically from other Tippit murder scenarios (including several of my own), and requires further contemplation.

In the meantime, is there room in the scenario for the Oswald lookalike observed by Kinsley crossing Jefferson in front of the ambulance? According to Kinsley he then proceeded east on the south side of Jefferson, "heading toward the library."

The incident is described in Bill Drenas' Tippit After the Murder. Click on the Tippit link at Dealey Plaza UK and download Tippit 1.pdf. See pages 53-54.

Benavides' role is harder to pin down than most of the Oak Cliff witnesses' roles, since his early statements have been "lost".  I've gone this way & that on Benavides.  You see where I stand at this moment.  The Kinsley sighting seems to take my Oswald rough-alike further down the street, but it could fit, especially if he got off the boulevard & onto a side street.  Many years ago, I took down notes from Drenas' "Car #10, Where Are You?":  "If it is ever proven that Oswald did not kill J.D. Tippit then the real murderer could have easily known where to find Tippit, since his activities were common knowledge to people in the neighborhood."  I think we may be at that point.

[Donald Willis]

11 hours ago, Greg Doudna said:

Donald Willis, I looked up the Nov 22, 1963 report of Poe and Jez to Curry. Where it reads that the person corresponding to Benavides at the scene of the crime handed two shell hulls to Poe telling him those were the bullets that had killed Tippit (known because Benavides witnessed the killing?), and that the killer “reloaded as he ran across the church lawn”, I believe that is a mistake for “corner” lawn.

Rather than an elaborate reconstruction of suborned perjury from at least four civilian witnesses plus an officer too, plus a doppelgänger killer lookalike with same kind of jacket running for the purpose of drawing witnesses’ attention on a different escape path. You have both Davis sisters at the corner house and Benavides and officer Poe conspiring to lie about the killer ejecting the hulls at the Davis’s corner lot.

I THINK I MADE IT PRETTY CLEAR THAT MARKHAM AND THE DAVISES DID NOT EVEN SEE THE ACTUAL SHOOTER.  AND YOU YOURSELF HAVE OFFICER POE LYING ABOUT BENAVIDES TELLING HIM THAT HE SAW THE PERP RELOADING THE GUN AS HE RAN ACROSS THE CHURCH LAWN, A STATEMENT MADE ON THE DAY OF THE EVENT, NOT SEVERAL MONTHS LATER.    (SEE BELOW FOR CONFIRMATION OF BENAVIDES' WORD "CHURCH".)  AND NOTICE THAT POE DID NOT SAY ONE WORD ABOUT SEVERAL WITNESSES TELLING HIM THAT THEY SAW THE PERP ENTER THE ALLEY.  THAT LATTER WORD WAS VERBOTEN, APPARENTLY, TO THE COMMISSION.  POE WAS TOEING THE LINE.

And that is not counting witness Acquila Clemons who said she saw the gunman “unloading and reloading” as he left the scene, just as all the other witnesses said whom you reconstruct were all lying about it. 

DON'T FORGET THAT CLEMMONS INVOKED THE SPECTRE OF *TWO* PERPS AT THE SCENE.  GETTING CLOSE TO MY SCENARIO, THANK YOU.  AND WAS SHE REALLY CLOSE ENOUGH TO SEE WHAT THE SHOOTER WAS DOING WITH THE GUN?

You have Benavides chasing the killer on foot to Crawford to the church there, losing the killer but finding the hulls there, then returning to the scene with them, against the testimony of himself in his WC testimony

BUT IN PARTIAL ACCORD WITH WHAT HE TOLD POE ON 11/22.  "CHURCH LAWN".

, Virginia and Barbara Davis, officer Poe, and Acquila Clemons, and no other corroboration for the church location than that sole “church” word in the Nov 22 Poe and Jez report.

"CHURCH" IS ANOTHER WAY OF SAYING "TEMPLE":  AS PER, 

Abundant Life Texoma | Our Story

In 2015 the church's name was changed from Abundant Life Temple to Abundant Life Texoma 

ALL BY WAY OF NOTING THAT THERE WERE REFERENCES TO A CHURCH/TEMPLE ON THE DPD AIRWAVES THAT AFTERNOON:

 AT 1:34, OFFICER McDONALD RADIOES, "SEND ME A SQUAD OVER HERE AT TENTH AND CRAWFORD.  CHECK OUT THIS CHURCH BASEMENT."  

"CHURCH BASEMENT", 10TH & CRAWFORD, A BLOCK FROM THE TIPPIT SCENE--CORROBORATION FOR BENAVIDES...

THEN, AT 1:44, SGT. HILL RADIOES, "A WITNESS SAID HE SAW HIM LAST AT THE ABUNDANT LIFE TEMPLE AT TENTH ABOUT THE 400 BLOCK."  IF THIS WITNESS WAS NOT BENAVIDES, WHO WAS HE?  NO OTHER WITNESS TALKS ABOUT A CHURCH.  

 

11 hours ago, Greg Doudna said:

The expected word modifying the lawn where Benavides found the hulls is “corner” lawn, not “church” lawn. 

This is well explained as an error from handwritten notes improperly transcribed.

In that same document the name of Helen Markham is mistakenly reported as “Helen Marsalle”. That is well explained in terms of handwritten notes improperly transcribed. As in the one case, so the other.

SPECULATION.

Furthermore two more shell hulls were later found by others at the Davis house yard, the same place Benavides found the first two.

When Croy reported that a distraught Helen Markham said the killer had gone off with Tippit’s gun in a cab, you interpret that as Scoggins running down the alley after the killer. But the taking of the Tippit gun and driving away in Scoggins’ cab by Scoggins and Callaway is known, and therefore that is the reference of Helen Markham, not a separate running of Scoggins with Tippit’s revolver down the alley.

AGAIN, SPECULATION.  CROY SAID THAT HE'D HEARD THAT A CAB DRIVER HAD PICKED UP THE GUN AND LEFT THE SCENE.  NOTHING ABOUT A CAB.    

11 hours ago, Greg Doudna said:

It is possible that some of the earliest claims that the killer ran down the alley, which must be mistaken due to the witnesses establishing the gunman’s path on Jefferson

AS I SAID, THERE WERE SOLID BASES FOR THE JEFFERSON ROUTE *AND* THE ALLEY ROUTE.  ANYTHING ELSE IS  OVERSIMPLIFYING.  

, could be mistaking a witness or someone else going into that alley (your original insight I think), but that would not be Scoggins who never told of doing that.

1)  CROY TESTIFYING THAT A CAB DRIVER PICKED UP TIPPIT'S GUN AND GAVE CHASE.  2)  MRS MARKHAM SAYING THAT THE KILLER RAN DOWN THE ALLEY.  3)  HOLMES SAYING THAT AN HYSTERICAL WOMAN WAS SCREAMING THAT THE KILLER WAS IN THE CAB LEAVING THE SCENE.  "CAB DRIVER", "ALLEY", "KILLER IN CAB".  JUST CONNECT THE DOTS.  IT WAS SCOGGINS, ON FOOT, THEN IN THE CAB.

I have come to a working litmus test for ruling out nonstarter theories: any theory that requires subornation of perjury of civilian witnesses, as opposed to witnesses mistaken or lying or fabricating for their own reasons, is by definition probably wrong, though theoretically possible in any given individual instance if a threshold of evidence were met. But any theory which requires multiple and coordinated proliferation of civilian witnesses suborned to perjury becomes improbable to the vanishing point, and would require truly extraordinary evidence to merit pursuit (such as a credible whistleblower coming forward with evidence telling of the specific supposed organized subornation to perjury of civilians).

AND WHO WOULD  KNOW BEST OF "ORGANIZED SUBORNATION" BUT THE SUBORNERS, AND THEY'RE NOT TELLING.  I CAN JUST  SEE (OR HEAR) ONE WITNESS TELLING ANOTHER, "I LIED, DID YOU?"

[Greg Doudna]

Donald W., with one exception I'll let your responses stand as the last word and not pursue this further other than to say I stand by mine. The one point that does call for correction is this, where you say:

AND YOU YOURSELF HAVE OFFICER POE LYING ABOUT BENAVIDES TELLING HIM THAT HE SAW THE PERP RELOADING THE GUN AS HE RAN ACROSS THE CHURCH LAWN, A STATEMENT MADE ON THE DAY OF THE EVENT, NOT SEVERAL MONTHS LATER.

No I do not have officer Poe lying at all. I said, "The expected word modifying the lawn where Benavides found the hulls is “corner” lawn, not “church” lawn. This is well explained as an error from handwritten notes improperly transcribed."

There is a big difference between a mistake on the level of a miscopying, and "lying". Lying involves two elements: it is not simply saying something untruthful, but willfully doing so, consciously knowing it is untruthful. There must be intent, for any given untruth to be an act of "lying" as opposed to misspeaking by mistake not intentionally.

From the little I have read of Poe, such as the interview of Poe in Henry Hurt, Reasonable Doubt, Poe seems to have been a decent and honest officer. He did not backtrack dishonestly in his later accounts telling of the hulls abandoned in the yard of the Davis sisters-in-law corner house. I believe he spoke truthfully of the events of that day to the best of his ability. The reason he never spoke again of a "church" lawn is because that was a mistake from handwritten "corner" lawn. 

Mr. BELIN - You heard the shot and pulled in and then what? 
Mr. BENAVIDES - Then I ducked down. 
Mr. BELIN - Then what happened? 
Mr. BENAVIDES - Then I heard the other two shots and I looked up and the Policeman was in, he seemed like he kind of stumbled and fell. 
Mr. BELIN - Did you see the Policeman as he fell? 
Mr. BENAVIDES - Yes, sir. 
Mr. BELIN - What else did you see? 
Mr. BENAVIDES - Then I seen the man turn and walk back to the sidewalk and go on the sidewalk and he walked maybe 5 foot and then kind of stalled. He didn't exactly stop. And he threw one shell and must have took five or six more steps and threw the other shell up, and then he kind of stepped up to a pretty good trot going around the corner. 
Mr. BELIN - You saw the man going around the corner headed in what direction on what street? 
Mr. BENAVIDES - On Patton Street. He was going south. 

Mr. BALL. And what happened after that? 
Mr. POE. I talked to a Spanish man, but I don't remember his name. Dominique, I believe. 
Mr. BALL. Domingo Benavides? 
Mr. POE. I believe that is correct; yes, sir. 
Mr. BALL. What did he tell you? 
Mr. POE. He told me, give me the same, or similar description of the man, and told me he was running out across this lawn. He was unloading his pistol as he ran, and he picked the shells up. 
Mr. BALL. Domingo told you who was running across the lawn? 
Mr. POE. A man, white man. 
Mr. BALL. What was he doing? 
Mr. POE. He was unloading his pistol as he run. 
Mr. BALL. And what did he say? 
Mr. POE. He said he picked the two hulls up. 
Mr. BALL. Did he hand you the hulls? 
Mr. POE. Yes, sir.  

A last point: Acquilla Clemons spoke of the gunman and a second person shouting and gesturing to each other going in opposite directions, true, but she never had that second person with a second gun, i.e. a second gunman. And the story sounds suspiciously to me like Acquilla Clemons witnessing the known exchange between Callaway and the gunman on Patton--the shouting at each other, the gesturing, the physical descriptions of the two, Acquilla's hearing of one shouting to the other "go on!" compared to the last two words of Callaway shouting "what the hell's going on?", the two going in opposite directions, and Acquilla Clemons' vantage point standing at the NW corner of Tenth and Patton having line of sight south on Patton (that detail of where Acquilla Clemons was standing from witness Mary Little, newly reported by Myers in 2020 (https://jfkfiles.blogspot.com/2020/11/emory-austin-his-daughter-mary-and.html), although Bill Brown has objected to me that the Callaway/gunman exchange occurred too far south on Patton for Acquilla Clemons to have heard it. 

/EDIT 10/12/23. The last sentence has been edited to correctly read “heard” it, replacing incorrect “seen” it./

Edited October 12, 2023 by Greg Doudna

[Michael Kalin]

@Greg Doudna While its speculative that either Poe or Jez may have hastily written their notes, both could read and signed the brief typed report. Either or both would be expected to raise an objection to "church" if what had been heard & written was "corner." Regardless, no evaluation of the claim of transcription error is possible unless the handwritten notes are produced.

@Donald Willis An excerpt from Bowley's 11/12/77 HSCA interview supports the church connection:

Quote

He was told by someone on the scene that a man shot the officer and had ran West on 10th Street toward the church.

It's a four page report that can be found at Baylor's repository of Armstrong's material. Warning: the documents have been reorganized and searching can be arduous. My links are broken. The old index page that made things easy to find is gone. The file is much too big to post.

History is rich with irony. In an extraordinary development Bowley was honored in 2010 with a Citizen's Certificate of Merit for making the radio call. I suspect the citation did not mention he was banished from the murder scene by the suborners almost immediately after giving an affidavit to DPD on 12/2/63.

There are many versions of what happened to Tippit's pistol, including Bowley's of 12/2/63, which baffled him during a 1992 interview with Joseph McBride.

Quote

According to a written statement Callaway signed for the police, he took the gun, commandeering a cab to go off in an unsuccessful pursuit of the gunman, thus breaking the chain of official custody on Tippit's revolver. This is an incident Bowley did not remember witnessing; he expressed surprised when I showed him his police affidavit with his account of that incident with Callaway. Also differing from Bowley's recollection of picking up Tippit's pistol and placing it on and then inside the car, the affidavit states, "As we picked the officer up, I noticed his pistol laying on the ground under him. Someone picked the pistol up and laid it on the hood of the squad car. When the ambulance left, I took the gun and put it inside the squad car. A man took the pistol out and said, 'Let's catch him.' He opened the cylinder, and I saw that no rounds in it had been fired. This man then took the pistol with him and got into a cab and drove off." After reading the affidavit, Bowley told me, "I don't remember that part about the pistol. I really don't."
Into the Nightmare [247]

The man who took Tippit's pistol at the scene was unknown to Harold Russell. It looks like he was also unknown to Bowley.

 

[Greg Doudna]

Michael K., thank you and (also to Donald Willis) I stand corrected. I found the Bowley HSCA interview to which you refer on the MFF site (https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=149247#relPageId=6), and there is a second reference to "church". Bowley in 1977 to HSCA:

"While awaiting the arrival of the police Bowley began to ask what had happened. He was told by someone on the scene that a man shot the officer and had run West on 10th Street toward the Church. When the police arrived on the scene Bowley gave a uniformed officer his name and where he could be reached..."

I do not believe Benavides saw the killer ejecting shells at the Abundant Life Temple, because of the witnesses telling of that happening at Tenth and Patton. But I accept that the word "church" is confirmed to have been heard by Poe and/or Jez and written up in their report, and my error. 

The Abundant Life Temple seems to have been something of a landmark in that neighborhood. Note the header of this document in a Dallas Police file using the Abundant Life Temple as a landmark for the neighborhood of the Tippit killing (page 75 of here, https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-Gig-Pi9TEQZWh8obarl2tM8s8mOuLjc/view ).

"Re: Residents, Tenth Street, Oak Cliff, Dallas, Area of Tippitt [sic] Murder andmthe [sic] Abundant Life Temple . . .

Edited October 9, 2023 by Greg Doudna

[Donald Willis]

On 10/9/2023 at 4:55 AM, Michael Kalin said:

@Greg Doudna While its speculative that either Poe or Jez may have hastily written their notes, both could read and signed the brief typed report. Either or both would be expected to raise an objection to "church" if what had been heard & written was "corner." Regardless, no evaluation of the claim of transcription error is possible unless the handwritten notes are produced.

@Donald Willis An excerpt from Bowley's 11/12/77 HSCA interview supports the church connection:

It's a four page report that can be found at Baylor's repository of Armstrong's material. Warning: the documents have been reorganized and searching can be arduous. My links are broken. The old index page that made things easy to find is gone. The file is much too big to post.

History is rich with irony. In an extraordinary development Bowley was honored in 2010 with a Citizen's Certificate of Merit for making the radio call. I suspect the citation did not mention he was banished from the murder scene by the suborners almost immediately after giving an affidavit to DPD on 12/2/63.

There are many versions of what happened to Tippit's pistol, including Bowley's of 12/2/63, which baffled him during a 1992 interview with Joseph McBride.

The man who took Tippit's pistol at the scene was unknown to Harold Russell. It looks like he was also unknown to Bowley.

 

Good  points on the Poe-Jez report.  And I had forgotten Bowley's reference to the shooter running west on 10th toward the church.  Oddly enough, Mrs Markham's original affidavit echoes that reference:  "I screamed and the man ran west on E. 10th St. across Patton  & went out of sight."

[Michael Kalin]

17 hours ago, Donald Willis said:

Good  points on the Poe-Jez report.  And I had forgotten Bowley's reference to the shooter running west on 10th toward the church.  Oddly enough, Mrs Markham's original affidavit echoes that reference:  "I screamed and the man ran west on E. 10th St. across Patton  & went out of sight."

Bowley may have forgotten seeing Callaway at the scene taking the gun and commandeering the cab, but Harold Russell saw someone do exactly that.

Quote

RUSSELL advised upon arriving at the intersection of Tenth and Patton he observed a Dallas uniform police officer lying on the ground in front of a Dallas police car, and from all indication the Dallas police officer was apparently dead. RUSSELL advised the police officer's weapon was lying on the front seat of the Dallas police officer's car. At this point an unknown individual stated to RUSSELL, "Let's take the police officer's gun and go get the S.O.B. who is responsible for this." FBI 1/21/64

Ambulance driver Butler also witnessed Tippit's gun at the murder scene, but left before the cab was commandeered.

There's also Guinyard's WC testimony that he saw Benavides arrive in his truck at the murder scene, not easily dismissed because it wasn't his idea. Ball led him into the affirmation.

The challenge is to devise a sequence of events that has Scoggins chasing someone (either the killer or Benavides) on foot all the way to the Abundant Life Temple with Scoggins & Benavides both returning prior to Bowley's arrival.

Something like this -- 1) Tippit is killed; 2) Scoggins grabs Tippit's gun and follows the killer toward ALT; 3) Benavides pulls himself together and drives his truck in the same direction; 4) The killer easily outruns old Scoggins, pausing on the front lawn of ALT to reload his gun; 5) Benavides pulls up at ALT; 6) The killer sees him coming and ducks into the cavernous temple; 7) Scoggins arrives with Tippit's gun; 8} Scoggins & Benavides discuss matters and return to the murder scene just before Bowley arrives; 9) Scoggins returns and places the gun on the front seat of Tippit's squad car; and 10) Benavides mashes the radio in #10.

Problem -- nobody reports anything like this happening, possible exception Guinyard but he said Benavides "came up from the east side---going west."

Edited October 11, 2023 by Michael Kalin
improved formatting

[Ron Bulman]

Ha.  In relation to the cavernous Abundant Life Temple in 1963, it turned up this interesting article by of all people Fred Litwin, on Jim Garrison.  I have to wonder, was Baptist Pastor Billy Graham, of Dallas, the pastor to presidents, a favorite of my mother, and filler of Texas Stadium with fervent young white men, related to O B Graham, owner od Abundant Life?  This get's deeper, still an AL organization, don't know about the church/building.

Jim Garrison's Fascination with Odd (and Old) Churches... (onthetrailofdelusion.com)

[Greg Doudna]

2 hours ago, Michael Kalin said:

There's also Guinyard's WC testimony that he saw Benavides arrive in his truck at the murder scene, not easily dismissed because it wasn't his idea. Ball led him into the affirmation.

Michael I think it can be dismissed as a mistake, because the error is not that hard to understand. Ball was leading Guinyard into that because that was probably language Guinyard had used in preinterview, and an alert Ball had noticed that and picked up on it. Ideally Guinyard would have said it again on his own; when he didn't Ball gently helped him out, nudged him to say it for the record. Ball may have been interested in bringing that out if it could cast doubt on or impeach Benavides' testimony which (also from preinterview) could have been considered problematic or a wild card due to the physical description Benavides was giving of the killer, which differed in certain respects from Oswald, combined with Benavides was the closest of any witness to the killer so would carry credibility. The WC counsels were like prosecutors seeking a stronger not weaker case against Oswald, and Ball as an experienced trial attorney knew how to question witnesses for that purpose. 

Guinyard comes across as a little confused but he's trying to tell the truth. Imagine Guinyard arrives to the scene with Callaway, Benavides isn't around. Guinyard assists in loading Tippit's body on to the ambulance when it arrives. Then Guinyard looks up and there he sees Benavides walking toward him looking like he just got out of his pickup truck. Some people--Guinyard in this case--seeing that could think the driver had just arrived and gotten out of the vehicle. That's what it could look like. Easy assumption to make. I think that's what happened. Guinyard did not realize Benavides waited inside the cabin of his pickup truck for some small amount of time after the shots before getting out of the cabin. Guinyard had no idea when Benavides' pickup truck actually arrived, but saw him arriving on foot from his vehicle and assumed that is when Benavides had arrived in his vehicle.

Mr. BALL. Was he dead or alive at that time? 
Mr. GUINYARD. He looked like he was dead to me. 
Mr. BALL. What did you do? 
Mr. GUINYARD. Helped put him in the ambulance. 
Mr. BALL. You stayed there until the ambulance came? 
Mr. GUINYARD. Yes, sir. 
Mr. BALL. Were you there when the truck came up that was driven by Benavides? 
Mr. GUINYARD. Yes, sir. 
Mr. BALL. He came up right after this? 
Mr. GUINYARD. Yes; he came up from the east side---going west. 
Mr. BALL. And then what did you do after that? 
Mr. GUINYARD. Well, we stood there a while and talked and I called him Donnie, he picked up all them empty hulls that come out of the gun. 
Mr. BALL. Who did--Benavides? 
Mr. GUINYARD. Yes. 
Mr. BALL. Did you pick them up---any of them? 
Mr. GUINYARD. He picked them up--I didn't pick them up---I was there with him.