The FBIs Confiscation of Police Evidence in the JFK, RFK and MLK Investigations

[Gerry Down]

On the night of Nov 22^nd 1963, the FBI confiscated the evidence in the JFK assassination from the Dallas police and flew it to Washington for examination at the FBI lab. A few days later they then quietly gave the evidence back to the DPD and then “officially” took the evidence off them at that stage. So the FBI apparently took the evidence off the DPD twice. The first time was unofficial while the second time was official.

It has been alleged that the amount of evidence the FBI took off the DPD in this second event a few days after the assassination was less than the amount they took off the DPD on the night of the assassination. The insinuation from this is that the FBI kept some of the evidence they took off the DPD on the night of the assassination and never gave it back to the DPD and never entered it into the evidence record.

All this of course is suspicious.

However recently I heard that the FBI also took control of the MLK case off the Memphis police after the MLK assassination. If the FBI did something similar in the MLK case as the JFK case (i.e. take control of the case off the local police force), this could arguably make the FBIs actions in the JFK case less suspicious. In other words, if the FBI did it in the JFK case and the MLK case, then it begins to simply look like standard operating procedure for the FBI to muscle in on any big homicide case in the U.S. and take it off the hands of the local police force. It could be argued that the reason for this is because if a case is of significant national interest, it is important that such a case be given the best management possible the U.S. has to offer. And so the FBI would consider themselves to be more professional to handle such a case than the local police force might be.

What do you think?

I’m not as familiar with the RFK and MLK investigations as the JFK case. Can a similarity be drawn between the way the FBI muscled in on the JFK case and the later situations of the RFK and MLK assassinations? If so, perhaps there is not as much suspicious in the way the FBI muscled in on the JFK case as one might think. It was perhaps just standard operating procedure for the FBI to do this.

[Mike Aitken]

All I can contribute is that I work in law enforcement and I’ve had cases and evidence dismissed because there was not a clear and transparent chain of custody, for example minor mistakes on the property/evidence forms.  At least in this day and age, the a large percentage of the evidence from the JFK, MLK, and RFK murder investigations would be immediately thrown out/dismissed.

 

It’s heavy reading, but I’ve been slowly working my way into Buried in Plain Site by John Hunt, which is his study of the RFK assassination, and it’s clear that a lot of the evidence was junk and/or corrupted by either incompetence or corruption.

[Pete Mellor]

3 hours ago, Mike Aitken said:

It’s heavy reading, but I’ve been slowly working my way into Buried in Plain Site by John Hunt, which is his study of the RFK assassination, and it’s clear that a lot of the evidence was junk and/or corrupted by either incompetence or corruption.

Too true.  Well worth working through Hunt's book on Kindle.

[Larry Hancock]

Gerry, I don't know where that came from but having done a good bit of work and written about both the MLK and RFK assassinations I have seen nothing like that.  In particular the LAPD held onto all the crime scene evidence and did their own muddling and obfuscation with no real outside help; the FBI did some field work with interviews including Sirhan Sirhan's psychic mentor and with Kyber Khan but both were minimal and added virtually nothing. They did not work directly with the crime scene material. John Hunt's book is definitely the gold standard for what happened with the RFK evidence.   As to MLK, the local police processed the crime scene material which largely consisted of ballistics evidence and material from the room house and Ray's personal possessions in his car. The FBI did begin an inquiry into known ultra right figures and worked with tracking the rifle purchase, then the manhunt for Ray....but in neither case was the crime scene evidence lifted out of town in mass as happened in Dallas. 

[Gary Murr]

1 hour ago, Larry Hancock said:

John Hunt's book is definitely the gold standard for what happened with the RFK evidence.

Without a doubt, Larry - and kudo's to Mike and Peter for taking the timeto read John's work, an exercise that anyone truly interested in the LAPD investigation into the RFK assassination should read.

FWIW

[Gerry Down]

5 hours ago, Larry Hancock said:

Gerry, I don't know where that came from but having done a good bit of work and written about both the MLK and RFK assassinations I have seen nothing like that.  In particular the LAPD held onto all the crime scene evidence and did their own muddling and obfuscation with no real outside help; the FBI did some field work with interviews including Sirhan Sirhan's psychic mentor and with Kyber Khan but both were minimal and added virtually nothing. They did not work directly with the crime scene material. John Hunt's book is definitely the gold standard for what happened with the RFK evidence.   As to MLK, the local police processed the crime scene material which largely consisted of ballistics evidence and material from the room house and Ray's personal possessions in his car. The FBI did begin an inquiry into known ultra right figures and worked with tracking the rifle purchase, then the manhunt for Ray....but in neither case was the crime scene evidence lifted out of town in mass as happened in Dallas. 

Thanks for that helpful insight. So the taking of evidence in bulk was unique to the JFK assassination. It would seem to me that the reason for this was to conceal the fact LHO had been an FBI informant for DeBrueys. The FBI needed to make sure nothing among LHOs possessions gave any clue of that fact.