Finish The Sentence, Re: Tippit:

[Bill Brown]

On 12/11/2023 at 6:28 PM, Greg Doudna said:

*** The partial prints lifted from the patrol car REASONABLY APPEAR LIKELY, though not CERTAINLY, to have been the killer’s prints and no other person’s prints, prior to taking into consideration any other information on the identity of the killer, because of the expert finding that those prints from both locations came from a single individual, and because of how unusual it would be that a random single person other than the killer would leave prints in both of those two particular locations, contrasted to perfect means and opportunity for the killer to have done so, witnessed at both locations.***

 

"The partial prints lifted from the patrol car REASONABLY APPEAR LIKELY..."

 

No.  This is not true at all.  A possibility?  Of course.  Likely?  Nope.  There is no reason at all to claim that it is likely that the killer ever touched the patrol car, much less the front hood/fender/quarter panel.

 

[Bill Brown]

15 hours ago, Sean Coleman said:

…Butch Burroughs sold him popcorn at 1.15.

Wheres my prize.

 

 

Butch Burroughs testified that he told the police inside the theater that he hadn't seen the guy.

But hey, why believe what he said in 1964 over what he said to Jim Marrs and to The Men Who Killed Kennedy twenty-five years later?

 

[Greg Doudna]

6 minutes ago, Bill Brown said:

 

"The partial prints lifted from the patrol car REASONABLY APPEAR LIKELY..."

No.  This is not true at all.  A possibility?  Of course.  Likely?  Nope.  There is no reason at all to claim that it is likely that the killer ever touched the patrol car, much less the front hood/fender/quarter panel.

The first fact is that some one person put those prints there in both places, one of which is decidedly unusual (right palm print on the right front bumper low to the ground). .

The second fact is that however unlikely you suppose it would be for the Tippit killer, known to have been at both locations with hands inches away, or in the case of the right front passenger door witnessed leaning onto the car with arms or hands directly touching, to have left those prints …

… it is some magnitude still less likely that any other person would, for the same reasons you think it unlikely from the man known at those two locations of the car in live and dramatic action involving hands and motion. 

Just be real. At one of the two print locations, the top of the right front passenger door, one witness, Helen Markham, said she saw the killer leaning right on the car there with his arms crossed, hands right there at the top of that car door exactly where prints were lifted twenty minutes later.

And another witness, Jimmy Burt, claimed he saw the killer’s hands directly on the car, in physical contact with the car, at exactly that location (where prints were lifted twenty minutes later).

You can handwave however you like about this, it speaks for itself.

It is short of certainty yes. But I’d say realistically and conservatively it is in the maybe ca 70-95% range of Bayesian prior odds (odds based on known experience and information prior to discovery of the actual solution, a quantification of expectations prior to learning the truth of a matter). 

You agree it is possible a man seen standing at a car in two specific places with his hands witnessed near the car at both and witnessed touching the car at one might conceivably be the mystery person who left those prints.

I am puzzled at why you judge a very low Bayesian prior probability, as if there are higher-prior-odds possibilities elsewhere (remember, single individual only, both places). Are you supposing, say, one of the Tenth Street onlookers, or one of the ambulance attendants or a police officer, or a gas station attendant or whatever, is more likely to be that individual than the Tippit killer? 

Why not be consistent and argue no human is likely to have left those prints, for the same reasons you claim the Tippit killer is unlikely to have done so? (Just being consistent in carrying out what seems to be your logic.)

I think some human at those two locations did leave those prints, I suspect the killer of Tippit. 

[Tom Gram]

5 hours ago, Greg Doudna said:

The first fact is that some one person put those prints there in both places, one of which is decidedly unusual (right palm print on the right front bumper low to the ground). .

The second fact is that however unlikely you suppose it would be for the Tippit killer, known to have been at both locations with hands inches away, or in the case of the right front passenger door witnessed leaning onto the car with arms or hands directly touching, to have left those prints …

… it is some magnitude still less likely that any other person would, for the same reasons you think it unlikely from the man known at those two locations of the car in live and dramatic action involving hands and motion. 

Just be real. At one of the two print locations, the top of the right front passenger door, one witness, Helen Markham, said she saw the killer leaning right on the car there with his arms crossed, hands right there at the top of that car door exactly where prints were lifted twenty minutes later.

And another witness, Jimmy Burt, claimed he saw the killer’s hands directly on the car, in physical contact with the car, at exactly that location (where prints were lifted twenty minutes later).

You can handwave however you like about this, it speaks for itself.

It is short of certainty yes. But I’d say realistically and conservatively it is in the maybe ca 70-95% range of Bayesian prior odds (odds based on known experience and information prior to discovery of the actual solution, a quantification of expectations prior to learning the truth of a matter). 

You agree it is possible a man seen standing at a car in two specific places with his hands witnessed near the car at both and witnessed touching the car at one might conceivably be the mystery person who left those prints.

I am puzzled at why you judge a very low Bayesian prior probability, as if there are higher-prior-odds possibilities elsewhere (remember, single individual only, both places). Are you supposing, say, one of the Tenth Street onlookers, or one of the ambulance attendants or a police officer, or a gas station attendant or whatever, is more likely to be that individual than the Tippit killer? 

Why not be consistent and argue no human is likely to have left those prints, for the same reasons you claim the Tippit killer is unlikely to have done so? (Just being consistent in carrying out what seems to be your logic.)

I think some human at those two locations did leave those prints, I suspect the killer of Tippit. 

Well said. I’m guessing that Bill’s only “logic” in rating a low probability on this is that the prints are not Oswald’s. 

[Greg Doudna]

5 hours ago, Tom Gram said:

Well said. I’m guessing that Bill’s only “logic” in rating a low probability on this is that the prints are not Oswald’s. 

Don’t tell Bill I said so Tom, but I suspect you’re right! 😊

[Bill Brown]

 

Whether you two like it or not, it's foolish to attempt to build a case that the prints must belong to the killer when it is not absolute that the prints belong to the killer.

 

[Greg Doudna]

1 hour ago, Bill Brown said:

Whether you two like it or not, it's foolish to attempt to build a case that the prints must belong to the killer when it is not absolute that the prints belong to the killer.

Misrepresentation and straw man Bill. “likely” belong to the killer as prior odds, not “must”.

 

[Bill Brown]

13 hours ago, Greg Doudna said:

Misrepresentation and straw man Bill. “likely” belong to the killer as prior odds, not “must”.

 

 

Except that there is nothing which makes it "likely" that the partial prints belong to the killer.

 

[Greg Doudna]

2 hours ago, Bill Brown said:

Except that there is nothing which makes it "likely" that the partial prints belong to the killer.

Are you influenced in saying that by your knowledge that Lutz found those prints do not match to Oswald? 

Because like judges tell juries to disregard having heard certain statements, Bayesian prior judgements of expectations going into a problem are not retroactively shaped or influenced by later information. The Bayesian question is if you did not know, what would your life experience and judgment suggest as rough odds for the lead (good lead, smoking good lead, far-fetched, nonstarter, etc) before running it down and finding out.

I don’t think I have heard you either deny or confirm that the non-Oswald identity knowledge enters into your judgment stated above.

Would you confirm or deny that? In the interests of transparency as to your epistemology? 

Incidentally, there is absolutely nothing amiss with saying a lead that looked good or likely as a judgment based on experience, high Bayesian prior odds, when checked and investigated was falsified or different from expected, for other reasons and evidence learned xyz. That happens all the time (truth turns out differing from expectations). 

So it would be perfectly legitimate to have high Bayesian prior odds on, say, fingerprints on the Tippit cruiser, or a palm print on a box at the sixth floor sniper’s window TSBD, turn out on the basis of subsequent hard information to be unrelated to the gunman at those two locations. 

But I am asking you to say up or down in good faith whether you believe your statement quoted above is INFLUENCED by your knowledge that one particular person is known excluded as the Tippit patrol car prints’ source? Thanks.

Edited December 14, 2023 by Greg Doudna

[David Josephs]

On 12/12/2023 at 7:55 AM, Pete Mellor said:

Who was the 'Leon' that visited the Odio apartment?  As Fonzi wrote:-The visit was more likely on September 25,26, or 27. If it were, then Oswald, judging from evidence developed by both the Warren Commission and this committee, had to have had access to private transportation to get to Dallas from New Orleans a situation that indicates possible conspiratorial involvement.

Who was the imposter reported by Hoover as using Oswald's birth certificate while LHO was in Russia?

Who hitched a lift with Ralph Yates?

Who was the crazy Oak Cliff rifle range shooter?

Who was the Lincoln Mercury test drive person who caused the salesman to write the name Lee Oswald?

Who was creating a scene at the Dobbs House restaurant, identified as Oswald, while LHO was working at the Depository?

Answer these questions and we can then look at Calloway's fleeing cop killer.

I too noticed how your post was fluffed over Pete.... and really too bad as these are THE critical question if you'd like to understand a little bit regarding the "patsifying" of LHO.

Thanks for the refreshing - cut to the point - post.  And we need to deal with people who continue to claim the different aspects of this case are "easy" to understand.... as long as you don't add in too many conflicting bits of evidence or bother them with facts.

Ralph Yates has to be one of the saddest unknown stories of the assassination next to Abe Bolden.  Ralph Yates was institutionalized for 11 years

A crucial transition in the psychic health of Ralph Yates seems to have occurred at the FBI office on January 4, 1964. Something the FBI said after Ralph's polygraph test puzzled and disturbed Dorothy (his wife):

"They told me that he was telling the truth [according to the polygraph machine], but that basically he had convinced himself that he was telling the truth. So that's how it came out. He strongly believed it, so it came out that way."

Ralph was picked up and returned to Woodlawn. He was soon transferred to Terrell State Hospital, a psychiatric facility about thirty miles east of Dallas, where he lived for eight years. He was then transferred to the Veterans Hospital in Waco for a year and a half, and finally to Rusk State Hospital for the final year and a half of his life. While a patient at all three hospitals, he spent intermittent periods of from one to three months at home with his wife and children. He was never able to work again.

In the course of Ralph's psychiatric treatment, Dorothy said, he was given the tranquilizing drugs Thorazine and Stelazine to the point where "they made him walk around like a zombie." He learned to resist the process.  Just as Abraham Bolden had done in the Springfield Penitentiary psychiatric unit, Ralph faked swallowing the pills.

More difficult to avoid were the shock treatments. He received over forty of them. The impact of the shock treatments on his long-range memory was, his wife said, "evidently nothing, because he didn't forget what he was there for," his encounter with the hitchhiker he had dropped off at Elm and Houston.

[Bill Brown]

On 12/13/2023 at 2:30 AM, Greg Doudna said:

The first fact is that some one person put those prints there in both places, one of which is decidedly unusual (right palm print on the right front bumper low to the ground). .

The second fact is that however unlikely you suppose it would be for the Tippit killer, known to have been at both locations with hands inches away, or in the case of the right front passenger door witnessed leaning onto the car with arms or hands directly touching, to have left those prints …

… it is some magnitude still less likely that any other person would, for the same reasons you think it unlikely from the man known at those two locations of the car in live and dramatic action involving hands and motion. 

Just be real. At one of the two print locations, the top of the right front passenger door, one witness, Helen Markham, said she saw the killer leaning right on the car there with his arms crossed, hands right there at the top of that car door exactly where prints were lifted twenty minutes later.

And another witness, Jimmy Burt, claimed he saw the killer’s hands directly on the car, in physical contact with the car, at exactly that location (where prints were lifted twenty minutes later).

You can handwave however you like about this, it speaks for itself.

It is short of certainty yes. But I’d say realistically and conservatively it is in the maybe ca 70-95% range of Bayesian prior odds (odds based on known experience and information prior to discovery of the actual solution, a quantification of expectations prior to learning the truth of a matter). 

You agree it is possible a man seen standing at a car in two specific places with his hands witnessed near the car at both and witnessed touching the car at one might conceivably be the mystery person who left those prints.

I am puzzled at why you judge a very low Bayesian prior probability, as if there are higher-prior-odds possibilities elsewhere (remember, single individual only, both places). Are you supposing, say, one of the Tenth Street onlookers, or one of the ambulance attendants or a police officer, or a gas station attendant or whatever, is more likely to be that individual than the Tippit killer? 

Why not be consistent and argue no human is likely to have left those prints, for the same reasons you claim the Tippit killer is unlikely to have done so? (Just being consistent in carrying out what seems to be your logic.)

I think some human at those two locations did leave those prints, I suspect the killer of Tippit. 

 

Greg, first, why do you keep saying that a palm print was lifted from the patrol car?  Have you seen Barnes Exhibit A?  Partial FINGER prints were lifted from the top of the passenger door frame and the passenger-side front fender above the wheel well.  Fingerprints, not palm prints.

 

Helen Markham was on the wrong side of the patrol car (and over probably 150 feet away).  She saw the short conversation taking place but there's no way she could know if Tippit's killer indeed touched the patrol car or not.  She was on the opposite side of the patrol car as was the killer.  Markham simply assumed that the killer touched the car (a natural assumption to make).  Jimmy Burt was over 300 feet away.  However, Jack Tatum drove right past the patrol car as the conversation between Tippit and his killer was taking place.  Tatum said Oswald was leaned over and had his hands in his jacket pockets.

 

If you wish to talk statistics, what are the odds that nine witnesses would ALL be wrong when each positively identified Lee Oswald as the man they saw either shoot Tippit or run from the scene with a gun in his hands?

 

Thirteen REAL witnesses saw Tippit's killer fire the shots or run from the scene holding a gun.

 

Eyewitnesses who said the man was Lee Oswald:

Helen Markham, Barbara Davis, Virginia Davis, William Scoggins, Sam Guinyard, Ted Callaway, Warren Reynolds, Pat Patterson and Harold Russell.

 

Eyewitnesses who could not say if the man was Lee Oswald or not:

Jimmy Burt, Bill Smith, Domingo Benavides & L.J. Lewis.

 

Eyewitnesses who stated that the man they saw was in fact NOT Lee Oswald:

(NONE)

 

Edited December 15, 2023 by Bill Brown

[Bill Brown]

 

More on Bayesian Statistics...

http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~gelman/research/published/badbayesmain.pdf

[Greg Doudna]

On 12/14/2023 at 7:43 AM, Bill Brown said:

Except that there is nothing which makes it "likely" that the partial prints belong to the killer.

You are saying it is LIKELY that the prints, belonging to one single person lifted from the two specific locations matching to where the killer was witnessed in a scene of high action and physical movements of hands, came from someone OTHER than that killer. 

Now it is perfectly obvious why one would think that if one knows the killer was Oswald. Because it has been found to be fact (easily discovered but only first publicly disclosed in 1998, a mere 35 years after the case was deemed solved) that those prints did not come from Oswald. If those prints HAD been left by the killer, that is exculpatory to Oswald, and would mean, astonishingly to many people, that it wasn’t him after all.

But as you know as well as anyone, the case against Oswald as the killer of Tippit, if it had come to trial then, with all the information known today, and all information is stipulated admissible, was strong, many consider so strong as to be airtight. Assuming a competent prosecutor, the case would fairly be said to be a tough one for a defense counsel to beat. Principally referring to the witnesses’ identifications of Oswald and the shell hulls at the scene exclusively matched to Oswald’s revolver on him at the time of his arrest.

Defense counsel would attempt to show flawed chain of custody on the shell hulls (leaving open the possibility of police malfeasance in the handling of physical evidence), argue for witness errors in the identifications, and argue that a better suspect for the killer was mob- and Ruby-connected confessed contract killer Curtis Craford, known to have a history not only of witnesses mistakenly identifying him as Oswald, but reports that he personally at times had falsely represented himself to be Lee Oswald, including with wallet identification, which defense counsel would suggest could be related to the killer leaving a wallet with Oswald identification while leaving the crime scene, like disposing of a murder weapon no longer needed so as not to be found on one’s person if arrested and searched. 

If you know it was Oswald however, then the chances that those fingerprints lifted from the patrol car could have come from the killer is indeed low, as in zero, for that reason. Even though the original reason police lifted those prints in the first place was because those two locations were where the killer had been seen, and at least one crime lab officer was reported as believing those were the killer’s prints (in the O’Toole book).

Is your belief or knowledge, or however you want to put it, that Oswald was the killer, or is that not, entering into your statements that it is more likely someone other than the killer would have left those prints?

You have consistently refused to give a straight answer to this question when asked. 

Why not answer the question? 

Edited December 16, 2023 by Greg Doudna

[Bill Brown]

18 hours ago, Greg Doudna said:

You are saying it is LIKELY that the prints, belonging to one single person lifted from the two specific locations matching to where the killer was witnessed in a scene of high action and physical movements of hands, came from someone OTHER than that killer. 

Now it is perfectly obvious why one would think that if one knows the killer was Oswald. Because it has been found to be fact (easily discovered but only first publicly disclosed in 1998, a mere 35 years after the case was deemed solved) that those prints did not come from Oswald. If those prints HAD been left by the killer, that is exculpatory to Oswald, and would mean, astonishingly to many people, that it wasn’t him after all.

But as you know as well as anyone, the case against Oswald as the killer of Tippit, if it had come to trial then, with all the information known today, and all information is stipulated admissible, was strong, many consider so strong as to be airtight. Assuming a competent prosecutor, the case would fairly be said to be a tough one for a defense counsel to beat. Principally referring to the witnesses’ identifications of Oswald and the shell hulls at the scene exclusively matched to Oswald’s revolver on him at the time of his arrest.

Defense counsel would attempt to show flawed chain of custody on the shell hulls (leaving open the possibility of police malfeasance in the handling of physical evidence), argue for witness errors in the identifications, and argue that a better suspect for the killer was mob- and Ruby-connected confessed contract killer Curtis Craford, known to have a history not only of witnesses mistakenly identifying him as Oswald, but reports that he personally at times had falsely represented himself to be Lee Oswald, including with wallet identification, which defense counsel would suggest could be related to the killer leaving a wallet with Oswald identification while leaving the crime scene, like disposing of a murder weapon no longer needed so as not to be found on one’s person if arrested and searched. 

If you know it was Oswald however, then the chances that those fingerprints lifted from the patrol car could have come from the killer is indeed low, as in zero, for that reason. Even though the original reason police lifted those prints in the first place was because those two locations were where the killer had been seen, and at least one crime lab officer was reported as believing those were the killer’s prints (in the O’Toole book).

Is your belief or knowledge, or however you want to put it, that Oswald was the killer, or is that not, entering into your statements that it is more likely someone other than the killer would have left those prints?

You have consistently refused to give a straight answer to this question when asked. 

Why not answer the question? 

 

It is absolutely my belief that Oswald was Tippit's killer.

The revolver taken from Oswald was a ballistic match to the four shell casings found at the scene to the exclusion of any other weapon in the world.

Nine eyewitnesses (Markham, B. Davis, V. Davis, Scoggins, Guinyard, Callaway, Reynolds, Patterson & Russell) said the man they saw running with a gun was Oswald and NONE of the other eyewitnesses (Burt, Smith, Benavides & Lewis) said the man was not Oswald.

While we're at it, you are wrong to say that the defense would attempt (during the trial) to show a flawed chain of custody of the shells.  Once evidence is actually admitted, the defense does not spend time challenging the authenticity of said evidence during trial proceedings.  All that does is make it appear to the jury that this particular piece of evidence must be pretty damning to the defendant.  Sorry Greg, but this just isn't done during a trial.  It makes me wonder why you make such a claim.  Do you have courtroom experience or are you (mistakenly) assuming what a defense attorney would do?

Next, and this is a fact.... there is nothing to suggest that the partial fingerprints (have you acknowledged yet that you were wrong to say one was a palm print?) lifted from the patrol car by Barnes MUST belong to the killer.  This simply is not a MUST.  The scene was not secured for damn near ten minutes after the shooting and plenty of citizens (some known and some not known) were in the direct vicinity of the patrol car.  Hell, Benavides, Bowley and Callaway were literally inside the car (though admittedly on the driver's side).  Point being, if these three men were able to do what they did, then who's to say others did not touch the passenger side?  I'm not saying this is a must, but a definite possibility.  What about someone back at the parking lot where the patrol cars were kept?  Who had that car during the shift the night before and did that officer frisk anyone for whatever reason where the suspect was made to place his hands on the car?  Almost anyone in South Oak Cliff could have touched that car in the previous 12 hours leading up to the assassination.  Why is automatic to you that the partial fingerprints could only belong to the killer?  It sounds like wishful thinking on your part and nothing more.

One final thought... You live in the Pacific Northwest, right?  Crafard also lived in the Pacific Northwest.  Why don't you try to get hold of his fingerprints?  Then have a fingerprint expert compare them to a clear copy of the partial prints which Barnes lifted from the patrol car that day.  The result would most likely be that the prints do not belong to Crafard and we know this because eyewitnesses at the scene said the man they saw was in fact Lee Oswald and Lee Oswald was caught with the revolver responsible for the shell casings found at the scene.

 

Edited December 17, 2023 by Bill Brown

[Greg Doudna]

If Craford was the gunman, all of the witness identifications of the gunman as Oswald go out the window as being determinative, in light of how known that particular identification confusion was to witnesses who did not know either individual well from prior knowledge.

We have Oswald not a match to the fingerprints from a right hand on the right front bumper, and right front passenger door. (Correct, fingerprints, not a palm print, on the bumper, the person was not putting weight on that hand while touching, perhaps more like resting fingers for balance.)

On Tatum driving by and seeing the killer standing with hands in pockets, that could well be true until after Tatum drove by and missed seeing the killer lean into the side of the car to speak through that open vent window. Tatum would not see that since he was facing forward looking where he is driving. 

Also, Helen Markham insisted and was very clear she saw the killer’s arms raised, both of them, as he leaned into and talked through the patrol car window. She would have been able to see that through the glass of the patrol car. You might say she imagined the arms raised, and that is possible. But that’s what she said, and she said it consistently and immediately starting within minutes of the crime to police (Tatum over a decade later). 

On the shell hulls match to Oswald’s revolver, the issue is the chain of custody. As I showed in my paper on this matter (linked earlier above in this thread), of the five DPD officers who marked one or more of the shell hulls at the scene, four of those five never stated any identification firsthand in their own signature or direct sworn or unsworn testimony, and the fifth who did so testified under oath to a shell hull identification of his own mark which was rejected by the Warren Commission as correct and laughed at by Leavelle who didn’t believe it.

Do you accept Barnes’ sworn WC testimony to his own shell hull mark identification that the Warren Commission rejected and Leavelle too with mockery? 

(Straight answer to this question requested please.)

(And bear in mind that Barnes’ rejected and dismissed ID in his WC testimony is the only one of those five who swore to a chain of custody identification of any of those four hulls.)

But back to Craford, if he was the gunman then the murder weapon becomes the paper-bag revolver which Craford had means, motive and opportunity to have ditched out the rear window of a car driven by Ruby a few hours later, ca 6 am the next morning, before Craford took flight from Dallas for Michigan. 

And as shown on the other thread, the testimony from witnesses inside the theater, three out of three who gave information on this point, put Oswald in that main seating area on the ground level in the 1:15-1:20 pm time frame, meaning Oswald was not the man who ran into the balcony at 1:35, and means Oswald could not have been the killer of Tippit at Tenth and Patton at 1:15 pm since he was in the theater at that time. 

And the WC testimony of one of those three witnesses to Oswald’s alibi, Burroughs, who, in answer to WC counsel questioning, sounded like Burroughs identified the balcony man as Oswald, even though Burroughs insisted later that is not what he meant and that is not what happened, becomes explained by the reason brought out by Joe Bauer: Burroughs had failed a mental test in the Army and was no match for experienced WC counsel manipulative questioning. But Burroughs in his own voice later told that Oswald was in that theater before the movie started, as a paid-ticket customer. 

Even the claim of an “Oswald ID” wallet found somewhere at or close by the crime scene may need revisiting if Craford is a suspect. For Craford appears to have at times falsely claimed he was Oswald. The WFAA-TV wallet is a puzzle. I have thought it was Callaway’s but what if it was a wallet left behind by Craford who independently had occasionally impersonated Oswald. I have accepted Myers’ argument that the Barrett story of that wallet was mistaken and that may still be right, but if a gunman suspect is independently established to have elsewhere impersonated Oswald that is a bit of a coincidence. 

Edited December 17, 2023 by Greg Doudna