A Question for the supporters of Ruth Paine

[Tony Krome]

I've noticed there are quite a few members that rally to support Ruth Paine here on various topics, so I have a question;

1. We know 100% that Ruth was very helpful in disclosing items and information after the assassination regarding Oswald, to authorities.

2. We know 100% that the revelation of Dial Ryder's "Oswald" repair tag was sensational public news, in that he was the subject of media and law enforcement enquiries regarding the fitting of an "Oswald" scope mount weeks before the assassination.

3. We know 100% that the Jones/Ryder house was across the road from the Randles at the time of the assassination.

So my question is this; Do you think Ruth Paine was aware of the Jones/Ryder house occupants, and that her weekend visitor's name was the same name on the Oswald tag? If so, is this something, in your opinion, that Ruth Paine may have considered helpful to law enforcement enquiries?

[Sandy Larsen]

1 hour ago, Tony Krome said:

So my question is this; Do you think Ruth Paine was aware of the Jones/Ryder house occupants, and that her weekend visitor's name was the same name on the Oswald tag? If so, is this something, in your opinion, that Ruth Paine may have considered helpful to law enforcement enquiries?

 

Maybe it's just me, but I had a little trouble understanding Tony's first question. I figured it out, so I hope Tony doesn't mind if I rephrase it for anybody else who might have trouble. I'll just rewrite the whole thing, keeping most of Tony's words:

Ruth Paine certainly heard the big news after the assassination about Dial Ryder attaching a scope to a rifle belonging to an Oswald -- whose name appeared on the work tag -- just weeks before the assassination.

Tony's questions are these: Do you think Ruth Paine was aware that Dial Ryder lived across the street of her friend, Linnie Mae Randle? And that Oswald was the same name as on Ryder's work tag?

If so, is this something, in your opinion, that Ruth Paine may have considered helpful to law enforcement enquiries?

I hope this is an okay paraphrase.

 

[Tony Krome]

10 minutes ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

Maybe it's just me, but I had a little trouble understanding Tony's first question. I figured it out, so I hope Tony doesn't mind if I rephrase it for anybody else who might have trouble. I'll just rewrite the whole thing, keeping most of Tony's words:

Ruth Paine certainly heard the big news after the assassination about Dial Ryder attaching a scope to a rifle belonging to an Oswald -- whose name appeared on the work tag -- just weeks before the assassination.

Tony's questions are these: Do you think Ruth Paine was aware that Dial Ryder lived across the street of her friend, Linnie Mae Randle? And that Oswald was the same name as on Ryder's work tag?

If so, is this something, in your opinion, that Ruth Paine may have considered helpful to law enforcement enquiries?

I hope this is an okay paraphrase.

 

Perfect!

[Greg Doudna]

I think Ruth's position on the Furniture Mart and Sport Shop Oswald sighting stories as they were reported was dismissal that they were true, because in her mind she knew Lee and Marina had not gone anywhere without her knowledge. So in her mind she knew they weren't true. That was what she said then to a reporter asking her (about the Furniture Mart sighting), and that is what she has said ever since to the present day, which was also the conclusion of the Warren Report which also dismissed that Oswald was ever in either of those places.

I see no reason to assume Ruth would know Dial Ryder's in-laws living several houses away, or if she did know who they were or had met them, might not necessarily know of the daughter's marriage to Dial, and unless she learned from some neighborhood gossip that Dial Ryder in the news about the Sport Shop was the husband of the daughter of the family down the street, she easily could never have known that either. And if she did, it wouldn't matter. Because Ruth from all accounts never considered either of those stories (Furniture Mart or Irving Sport Shop) as being true, based on what she thought she knew firsthand. 

And I do not think Dial Ryder himself was living in his wife's parents house. Instead he was living at 2028 Harvard St. (as reported by FBI 11/25 and Secret Service 12/1) and Peggy with him based on the Hunter Schmidt reporter's account of his phone call to Dial being answered sleepily early in the morning by his wife; Dial's reference to what he may have told or not told his wife the weekend of the assassination; and usually young married people live together.

[Edit 11/26/63: I have removed a closing sentence proposing a recent marriage and non-updated drivers' license of Peggie after learning from Tony Krome that Peggie and Dial were married in 1959.] 

 

Edited November 26, 2023 by Greg Doudna

[Tony Krome]

45 minutes ago, Greg Doudna said:

I think Ruth's position on the Furniture Mart and Sport Shop Oswald sighting stories as they were reported was dismissal that they were true, because in her mind she knew Lee and Marina had not gone anywhere without her knowledge. So in her mind she knew they weren't true. That was what she said then to a reporter asking her (about the Furniture Mart sighting), and that is what she has said ever since to the present day, which was also the conclusion of the Warren Report which also dismissed that Oswald was ever in either of those places.

I see no reason to assume Ruth would know Dial Ryder's in-laws living several houses away, or if she did know who they were or had met them, might not necessarily know of the daughter's marriage to Dial, and unless she learned from some neighborhood gossip that Dial Ryder in the news about the Sport Shop was the husband of the daughter of the family down the street, she easily could never have known that either. And if she did, it wouldn't matter. Because Ruth from all accounts never considered either of those stories (Furniture Mart or Irving Sport Shop) as being true, based on what she thought she knew firsthand. 

And I do not think Dial Ryder himself was living in his wife's parents house. Instead he was living at 2028 Harvard St. (as reported by FBI 11/25 and Secret Service 12/1) and Peggy with him based on the Hunter Schmidt reporter's account of his phone call to Dial being answered sleepily early in the morning by his wife; Dial's reference to what he may have told or not told his wife the weekend of the assassination; and usually young married people live together. I interpret the Dec 1963 newspaper account of the accident of Peggy as reporting her address as it appeared on her driver's license written up in the police report. I assume the marriage to Dial must have been recent and Peggy had not yet updated her driver's license which still had her parents' address as hers.

 

Thanks. Your position is that Ruth may not have been aware that Dial Ryder was at all connected with the occupants of 2434 West 5th. If Ruth was personally asked tomorrow, you would expect her to say that she was unaware.

Do you think that the occupants of 2434 West 5th, may have been asked by their immediate neighbours about the breaking news? Linnie? Wesley? Ruth's baby sitters, the Ashby's? Or do you think the occupants remain silent, and were never asked?

[Greg Doudna]

41 minutes ago, Tony Krome said:

Thanks. Your position is that Ruth may not have been aware that Dial Ryder was at all connected with the occupants of 2434 West 5th. If Ruth was personally asked tomorrow, you would expect her to say that she was unaware.

Do you think that the occupants of 2434 West 5th, may have been asked by their immediate neighbours about the breaking news? Linnie? Wesley? Ruth's baby sitters, the Ashby's? Or do you think the occupants remain silent, and were never asked?

On Ruth, I don't know but that is what I think is most likely.

On the Dial Ryder in-laws (I assume Dial and Peggy were not living there but also that it is likely they would have been around at times and Peggy certainly and Dial maybe would be known to some neighbors), if they knew of the Peggy-Dial Ryder connection they likely would ask about the Oswald job ticket case out of curiosity, natural question to ask. 

What would the in-laws say? What would Dial say to people who asked him wherever they asked Dial (whether people on 5th St. or anywhere)? 

Just guessing--but, speaking of after Thanksgiving Nov 28, probably what Dial was saying publicly and to law enforcement after owner Greener talked to him and they both were certain that although the Oswald job ticket was real it definitely was not the rifle that killed Kennedy. Dial said he could not remember the customer or the rifle but he and Greener were certain that, as Dial put it, it was either Oswald with a different rifle, or it was not Oswald, but it certainly was not the rifle which shot President Kennedy. Peggy's family I imagine would simply relay, "Dial says xyz... strange case", etc. etc.

Unless Dial or someone asked them not to talk about it. But I have not seen any sign that Dial was asked by law enforcement not to talk about it. Dial probably was closely advised by and deferential to his boss, Greener, who did not want his shop linked to the assassination weapon for obvious reasons. 

So my guess is those neighbors who knew Peggy's husband was Dial Ryder would be curious and would ask, and the family, and Peggy and Dial if there (say, visiting) and asked in person, would answer with some version of what Dial and Greener were saying publicly and to authorities.

The Warren Commission implied that Ryder had invented or could have forged the job ticket himself. That was the mainline Warren Commission view, that the job ticket was suspected not authentic. Dial and Greener were a minority opinion in saying the job ticket was real, but it had nothing to do with the assassination rifle. The Warren Commission and FBI sought hard to find a non-Oswald explanation (e.g. a different Oswald not Lee, who had come into the shop).

But ALL were AGREED that no matter the job ticket, it had nothing to do with the assassination rifle. And agreement on that story by Dial Ryder and Greener was fixed in place by Thanksgiving, and there is no reason why anyone in the neighborhood would have asked before Thanksgiving since Thanksgiving was the first day the story hit the newspapers, and by that evening, CBS News nationwide with Walter Cronkite. 

With the narrative, both publicly and likely privately, being Ryder's and Greener's insistence that they were certain it was not the assassination rifle, it would become perceived as a curiosity, but in the end nothing more than a curiosity. Not proven related to the assassination.

Obviously I differ on key points with that narrative, but I'm giving what I think was probably roughly going on at the time as best guess. 

[Gerry Down]

15 minutes ago, Greg Doudna said:

The Warren Commission and FBI sought hard to find a non-Oswald explanation (e.g. a different Oswald not Lee, who had come into the shop).

I wonder if it's possible it was Robert Oswald. Did Robert have a rifle with a scope on it that, post assassination, he did not want to draw too much attention to?

[Greg Doudna]

1 hour ago, Gerry Down said:

I wonder if it's possible it was Robert Oswald. Did Robert have a rifle with a scope on it that, post assassination, he did not want to draw too much attention to?

Supposedly the FBI exhaustively checked all named Oswalds in the area trying to find an Oswald of that job ticket other than Lee Harvey Oswald, but came up empty. I don't recall Robert Oswald being considered in that, maybe because he was not in Dallas. But you have a man looking like Lee going into the Furniture Mart store in Irving seen driving a car of the same two-tone colors as the Michael Paine car parked unused at the house where Lee was the morning of Nov 11, 1963, with a non-speaking woman exactly looking like Marina, with a 2-year old girl and a baby which the man says is only 2-3 weeks old matching exactly to Lee and Marina's two children, and the man comes in asking for a gunsmith advertised on a sign outside.

That happens just a block and a half away from Dial Ryder's and Greener's Irving Sport Shop offering gunsmithing services, and the man of that family of four is referred at the furniture store to the Irving Sport Shop and they are last seen headed that way. That is followed by the customer at the Sport Shop of the Oswald job ticket.

In Irving, 2.3 miles from the Ruth Paine house where Lee and Marina are on Nov 11, a day when Ruth and her children were gone for ca 5 hours,

Robert isn't he in Fort Worth, long ways away? The Oswald of the job ticket sure sounds like Lee not Robert. 

Only reason to doubt it was Lee and Marina is Marina says it wasn't her. Says that to this day. If she tells the truth on that (big "if") is the stand-alone cause for dismissal of all else that says it was her with Lee and their two children on Nov 11. Marina had motive to distance from the rifle, just as did Dial Ryder and Greener. The reason Marina was on that trip may be because she wanted Lee to get rid of the rifle; to get rid of it by gift or sale required repairing the scope base mount holes to enable the scope to be reinstalled; Marina had seen the gunsmith sign in one of her rides in Irving with Ruth; and Marina knew where to direct Lee to drive to get there which Lee did not know. Something like that. 

[Tony Krome]

4 hours ago, Greg Doudna said:

I interpret the Dec 1963 newspaper account of the accident of Peggy as reporting her address as it appeared on her driver's license written up in the police report.

You have Peggie at the scene of the accident, or at the medical centre, stating to police, or ambulance crew, that her address is 2434 West 5th St, and that was translated to the Police report that the Newspaper reporter read, is that correct? In other words, if she was living at 2028 Harvard at the time of the accident, she stated she lived at a different address.

[Greg Doudna]

14 hours ago, Tony Krome said:

You have Peggie at the scene of the accident, or at the medical centre, stating to police, or ambulance crew, that her address is 2434 West 5th St, and that was translated to the Police report that the Newspaper reporter read, is that correct? In other words, if she was living at 2028 Harvard at the time of the accident, she stated she lived at a different address.

No, I see my syntax isn't clear but I meant the newspaper reported, not Peggy reported, Peggy's address. Here are the same words as I bold them to bring out the syntax I meant. I don't assume Peggy stated a wrong address other than handing over her driver's license with her parents' address still there (or even possibly, if she was unconscious from the accident, her driver's license consulted by the officer for that information without her knowledge). I assume any address information she gave when conscious to the medical centre or staff would be truthful but also irrelevant to the newspaper story as the newspaper got its information from the police report.  

18 hours ago, Greg Doudna said:

I interpret the Dec 1963 newspaper account of the accident of Peggy as reporting her address as it appeared on her driver's license written up in the police report. I assume the marriage to Dial must have been recent and Peggy had not yet updated her driver's license which still had her parents' address as hers.

[Edit 11/26/63: the above is mistaken and retracted: Tony Krome has subsequently informed that Peggie and Dial were married in 1959, meaning a non-updated drivers' license of Peggie as the source of a police report/newspaper's address information cannot be correct.]

Edited November 26, 2023 by Greg Doudna

[Tony Krome]

4 minutes ago, Greg Doudna said:

No, I see my syntax isn't clear

I'm glad we cleared that up. But unfortunately, we are both guessing as to reporting procedure in regards to license information. We don't know if Peggie's license was renewed the week before, or a year ago.

[Gerry Down]

1 hour ago, Greg Doudna said:

Supposedly the FBI exhaustively checked all named Oswalds in the area trying to find an Oswald of that job ticket other than Lee Harvey Oswald, but came up empty. I don't recall Robert Oswald being considered in that, maybe because he was not in Dallas. But you have a man looking like Lee going into the Furniture Mart store in Irving seen driving a car of the same two-tone colors as the Michael Paine car parked unused at the house where Lee was the morning of Nov 11, 1963, with a non-speaking woman exactly looking like Marina, with a 2-year old girl and a baby which the man says is only 2-3 weeks old matching exactly to Lee and Marina's two children, and the man comes in asking for a gunsmith advertised on a sign outside.

That happens just a block and a half away from Dial Ryder's and Greener's Irving Sport Shop offering gunsmithing services, and the man of that family of four is referred at the furniture store to the Irving Sport Shop and they are last seen headed that way. That is followed by the customer at the Sport Shop of the Oswald job ticket.

In Irving, 2.3 miles from the Ruth Paine house where Lee and Marina are on Nov 11, a day when Ruth and her children were gone for ca 5 hours,

Robert isn't he in Fort Worth, long ways away? The Oswald of the job ticket sure sounds like Lee not Robert. 

Only reason to doubt it was Lee and Marina is Marina says it wasn't her. Says that to this day. If she tells the truth on that (big "if") is the stand-alone cause for dismissal of all else that says it was her with Lee and their two children on Nov 11. Marina had motive to distance from the rifle, just as did Dial Ryder and Greener. The reason Marina was on that trip may be because she wanted Lee to get rid of the rifle; to get rid of it by gift or sale required repairing the scope base mount holes to enable the scope to be reinstalled; Marina had seen the gunsmith sign in one of her rides in Irving with Ruth; and Marina knew where to direct Lee to drive to get there which Lee did not know. Something like that. 

You might be on to something. The package described at the furniture mart was short, like 18 inches or something. Is it possible Oswald just carried the gun barrel to have a scope fitted to it and this is why Ryder does not remember the assassination rifle? Because he only saw the barrel of it?

Would a gun store fit a scope to a gun barrel if you just brought in the barrel itself?

[Greg Doudna]

5 hours ago, Gerry Down said:

You might be on to something. The package described at the furniture mart was short, like 18 inches or something. Is it possible Oswald just carried the gun barrel to have a scope fitted to it and this is why Ryder does not remember the assassination rifle? Because he only saw the barrel of it?

Would a gun store fit a scope to a gun barrel if you just brought in the barrel itself?

From Mrs. Whitworth's (owner of the Furniture Mart) description of the size of the package in hand brought in by Oswald when he asked her for the gunsmith, I believe it was the scope that Oswald was wanting installed, the original scope that came with the rifle from Klein's, and original base mount with three screw holes.

Based on the analogy of how Oswald walked into the Furniture Mart thinking he was going to talk to a gunsmith, I assume that is how he next walked in to the Irving Sport Shop down the street where Mrs. Whitworth referred him. Dial Ryder was working alone and behind the counter that day, Veterans Day--the other employee, a woman who was a secretary and may have often assisted at the front counter, being off that day due to the holiday, and owner Greener on vacation. That is (reconstructed), Oswald parked, left Marina and June and the baby in the car, walked in the Sport Shop, scope and base mount in hand just as before, Dial is inside behind the counter. I assume the rifle remained inside the blanket, broken down, out in the car, perhaps on the back seat or in the trunk, waiting until Lee arranged inside to have the scope installed on the spot, told how much it would cost from description in answer to his question and Dial's answer on that, then brought it in. Dial might have received it over the counter in its broken-down form inside the blanket, taken it back to his workbench to work on it, and at the end returned both completed rifle sighted-in and the separate blanket. (I suppose an alternative is, Lee back to the car to obtain the rifle, after receiving confirmation from Dial at the counter that he would do the job, conceivably could have put the rifle together himself in the back seat, except for the base mount and scope, with a screwdriver while Marina and June and the baby waited in the front seat--and then took the rifle now in one piece and outside the blanket left behind in the car, into the store to give Dial?)

The job ticket at Dial's writeup at the counter showed Lee was quoted a price for a bore sighting in addition to three drill and taps (based on Dial looking at the counter at the original Klein's base mount with three screw holes and mistakenly assuming this was going to be a first-time scope installation like most other rifle scope installations were). Ryder's testimony suggests however that bore sighting, charged $1.50 if that was the only service done, may normally have routinely been done for free as a courtesy after new scope drill-and-tap installations, but Ryder, at the counter alone doing a cash job that was going into his pocket not through the cash register, may have opportunistically added a $1.50 charge for the bore sighting to the price at writeup or quotation of the price to Lee, tacked on since Lee would not know any better.

In any case Ryder repaired existing damaged screw holes (did not drill new holes as Dial had first supposed and reflected at writeup), installed the scope, and did bore sight it. Lee paid $6.00 total charge, the cash went into Dial's pocket. (As Dial told the FBI agent on Mon Mov 25, there would be no store record of the purchase other than the job ticket, which is why owner Greener later looking through his cash register tapes was unable to find or produce one for that job to the FBI despite looking.) I cannot imagine only a barrel being sighted-in as opposed to the rifle complete, therefore it had to be the complete rifle, my reasoning in answer to your question.

As for what Lee did with the rifle that day after walking out of the store with scope installed and the rifle sighted-in, I can think of about only three hypothetical possibilities: either he broke the rifle down again and put it back into the blanket, with scope now on, returned back into the garage (wasting the money paid for the bore sighting); took it to someone nearby in Irving or was met by someone to whom he conveyed the rifle from the car before returning to Ruth's house; or drove to the bus station and stored it complete in a storage locker before driving back to Ruth's house. Although each of these can be speculated and/or advocated, I don't know which was the case. 

Lee drove Marina, June and the baby, back to Ruth's house, reparked and locked Michael Paine's car where it had been before (parked on the street in front of Ruth's house, from Ruth's description), returned the blanket to the garage, put Ruth's key to Michael's car back in whatever drawer or place Ruth had kept it where they had obtained it, and were at home when Ruth returned that afternoon never realizing Lee and Marina had left the house.

[Gerry Down]

I wonder if the $1.50 bore sighting charge could refer to the installation of shims. This would explain why LHO might have been willing to pay such a fee even though afterwards he intended on breaking the rifle back down.

Dial may have spotted that the scope needed shims and so he may have convinced LHO to add on this charge as the rifle could not be sighted in by LHO afterwards without those shims.

[Greg Doudna]

34 minutes ago, Gerry Down said:

I wonder if the $1.50 bore sighting charge could refer to the installation of shims. This would explain why LHO might have been willing to pay such a fee even though afterwards he intended on breaking the rifle back down.

Dial may have spotted that the scope needed shims and so he may have convinced LHO to add on this charge as the rifle could not be sighted in by LHO afterwards without those shims.

Well that's an interesting angle. It would not be impossible by my interpretation, since in my reconstruction the job ticket was written up at intake at the counter before Dial Ryder may have even seen the full rifle yet--I imagine Lee coming in, asking if Dial could do it, confirming how much it would cost, Dial writing up a hurried intake job ticket of what he quoted Lee as Lee was there or going out to the car getting the rifle to bring back in. The point being that technically that job ticket is not evidence of what work was actually done, only what work was planned and quoted to be done at intake. If other work after that was found to be needed, or the price changed up or down notified to the customer, that would probably not show up on that job ticket. It would instead normally be reflected in the cash register ticket or something equivalent, but in this case no such cash register record happened since the cash went into Dial's pocket that day as windfall in addition to his pay rather than run through the cash register of the business as was supposed to be done. 

The main objection I see to the shims idea is that the rifle when it was found eleven days later on the 6th floor of the TSBD is not reported to have any shims in it, or did not have shims at the point the FBI was looking at the rifle or later at the test-firing when it was found shims were needed? 

But maybe you could be right after all--wasn't there something about someone saying the rifle could not be sighted-in at all without those shims? 

I have assumed Lee paid whatever was quoted because he wanted the scope installed on the spot and if he was told something was a required charge he would accept that in order to get it accomplished. And if the rifle in fact was not broken down again (unknown), Lee would be able to proudly tell a hypothetical buyer or conveyee (if so) "it's all sighted in and ready to go!" But your explanation could be possible--thanks.