Finish The Sentence, Re: Tippit:

[Bill Brown]

Greg Doudna asked:

"But back to Benavides. Why Benavides but not Acquilla Clemons?"

 

My simple answer is that though she was interviewed by amateur sleuths in the summer of '64 (Salandria, Martin and the Nashes), there is nothing in an official capacity.

[Greg Doudna]

32 minutes ago, Bill Brown said:

By the way, Greg...

I wonder if you could clear something up for me.

Earlier in this thread, while you and I were discussing the partial prints lifted from the car by Barnes, I stated that Jimmy Burt (over 300 feet away and on the other side of the street) is not credible, regarding whether or not the killer touched the patrol car.

I asked you if you agreed with me or if you feel Burt is credible, re: whether or not the killer touched the car.

Do you feel Burt is credible when he discusses what happened down at the patrol car even though he was over 300 feet away?

I don’t understand Jimmy Burt’s testimony, there are contradictions in his tellings. I agree his claim of witnessing the killer’s hands touching the top of the right front passenger door where the fingerprints were lifted 20 minutes later, as you note from 300 feet away (if his location at that moment was as he said), is not stronger than supporting plausibility that the killer touched (since he said he saw the killer there).

[Greg Doudna]

10 hours ago, Bill Brown said:

Bill Smith and Domingo Benavides aren't after the fact.  They both testified to the Warren Commission.  Clemons did not.

The FBI was completely unaware of Clemons until after the Warren Report was released.  Clemons was visited by Vincent Salandria, Shirley Martin, as well as George & Patricia Nash in the summer of '64.  Martin's recorded interview with Clemons proved that Lane was telling porky pies, regarding a mysterious 2nd female witness to the Tippit murder.

Because Smith and Benavides testified to the Warren Commission and Clemons refused/was reluctant, it is faulty to place Clemons in the same category of witnesses as Smith, Benavides, Burt, Markham, B. Davis, V. Davis, Scoggins, Guinyard, Callaway, Reynolds, Patterson, Russell and Lewis.

"Martin's recorded interview with Clemons proved that Lane was telling porky pies, regarding a mysterious 2nd female witness to the Tippit murder [other than Helen Markham]."

That is not the issue Bill and you know it. The issue is the same as for your other witnesses, that she saw the gunman leaving the scene. The way you cite this, an average reader will read you as saying it was a lie that Acquilla Clemons was a witness of the gunman, although in your hair-splitting meaning of "witness to the Tippit murder" you will deny that you said or meant "witness of the gunman of the Tippit murder". 

"Because Smith and Benavides testified to the Warren Commission and Clemons refused/was reluctant, it is faulty to place Clemons in the same category of witnesses as Smith, Benavides, Burt, Markham, B. Davis, V. Davis, Scoggins, Guinyard, Callaway, Reynolds, Patterson, Russell and Lewis."

Bill, where do you get Clemons "refused/was reluctant" to testify to the Warren Commission?? She was never asked!! The Warren Commission was never informed or had knowledge of her existence as a witness.

And who cares whether or not she was reluctant. What does that have to do with it. What does her testimony or lack of such to the Warren Commission have to do with whether she is a witness for historians or investigators today?

Let me repeat the question as to the simple starting fact: do you agree that she was a witness? Simple question. 

Edited December 23, 2023 by Greg Doudna

[Bill Brown]

18 hours ago, Greg Doudna said:

"Martin's recorded interview with Clemons proved that Lane was telling porky pies, regarding a mysterious 2nd female witness to the Tippit murder [other than Helen Markham]."

That is not the issue Bill and you know it. The issue is the same as for your other witnesses, that she saw the gunman leaving the scene. The way you cite this, an average reader will read you as saying it was a lie that Acquilla Clemons was a witness of the gunman, although in your hair-splitting meaning of "witness to the Tippit murder" you will deny that you said or meant "witness of the gunman of the Tippit murder". 

"Because Smith and Benavides testified to the Warren Commission and Clemons refused/was reluctant, it is faulty to place Clemons in the same category of witnesses as Smith, Benavides, Burt, Markham, B. Davis, V. Davis, Scoggins, Guinyard, Callaway, Reynolds, Patterson, Russell and Lewis."

Bill, where do you get Clemons "refused/was reluctant" to testify to the Warren Commission?? She was never asked!! The Warren Commission was never informed or had knowledge of her existence as a witness.

And who cares whether or not she was reluctant. What does that have to do with it. What does her testimony or lack of such to the Warren Commission have to do with whether she is a witness for historians or investigators today?

Let me repeat the question as to the simple starting fact: do you agree that she was a witness? Simple question. 

 

I've never been totally convinced that Clemons saw the killer as he was making his escape.  However, to include her is to also include Jack Tatum, who undoubtedly said the guy was Oswald.  Fair enough?

 

[Greg Doudna]

On 12/23/2023 at 5:28 PM, Bill Brown said:

I've never been totally convinced that Clemons saw the killer as he was making his escape.  However, to include her is to also include Jack Tatum, who undoubtedly said the guy was Oswald.  Fair enough?

This is not a negotiation. There is no linkage between Clemons and Tatum. Either zero, one, or both were witnesses, with neither affecting the other. It is OK with me whatever you judge, I and others can agree or disagree, state our reasons, etc. 

You say above you have not been convinced Clemons was a Tenth and Patton witness, but then in the same breath you express a conditional, seeming to say (I think) that you will accept her as a Tenth and Patton witness if (the conditional) I accept that Tatum was a Tenth and Patton witness, and ask me if that is "fair".

What I think of Tatum--or anyone else, or you on Tatum--should have no logical bearing on your judgment on Clemons. I will tell you straight where I stand: yes Clemons was a witness, and yes Tatum was a witness. I think they both were there, both saw the gunman. We can discuss whether 100 percent of what each of these witnesses--as all the others too--reported was accurate or mistaken in specifics, how to interpret what they said, etc. That is a distinct issue from were they there and did they see.

But Tatum has nothing to do with the judgment on Clemons, nothing at all.

It is exasperating sometimes trying to get a straight answer from you. Please clarify. 

You know she was working at a house only two or three houses or however many it was removed from the Tenth and Patton intersection. Do you doubt she worked at or was at that house that day?

You know she said she came out to the sidewalk upon hearing the shots. You know from the film interview of her that she says she saw the gunman, in agreement with what other witnesses saw and told.

You know that Myers in 2020 reported a Tenth and Patton girl present at the time who told Myers how as a girl she saw a black woman--clearly Acquilla Clemons--at that very Tenth and Patton corner, "bawling" and wringing her hands at what had just happened to Tippit moments after the fact--exactly the position in which Acquilla Clemons was positioned from her testimony to have seen what she said she saw and told.

There is no sign Acquilla Clemons materially changed her story over time. There is no sign Acquilla Clemons' story was of late first appearance or origin. There is no sign Acquilla Clemons sought publicity (just the opposite).

There is no known sign that Acquilla Clemons had a history of prevarication or dishonesty, unless you have knowledge of something related to her character that has not been made public. 

Can you say why you have "never been totally convinced that Clemons saw the killer as he was making his escape"?

Edited December 25, 2023 by Greg Doudna

[Bill Brown]

On 12/23/2023 at 1:13 AM, Greg Doudna said:

I don’t understand Jimmy Burt’s testimony, there are contradictions in his tellings. I agree his claim of witnessing the killer’s hands touching the top of the right front passenger door where the fingerprints were lifted 20 minutes later, as you note from 300 feet away (if his location at that moment was as he said), is not stronger than supporting plausibility that the killer touched (since he said he saw the killer there).

 

So do you find Jimmy Burt's description of what happened at the patrol car to be credible or no?

 

[Greg Doudna]

5 hours ago, Bill Brown said:

So do you find Jimmy Burt's description of what happened at the patrol car to be credible or no?

I don’t know. On present information, not unequivocally, even though what he says he saw sounds plausible. 

You’re not going to discuss Acquilla further? It is now dawning on me why you consistently attacked my known Callaway/gunman interaction exchange episode as what Acquilla was describing having witnessed, while resolutely refusing to say your own alternative interpretation of what she saw. It’s because you don’t think she saw the gunman at all? That she made it up? Is that correct? 

[Bill Brown]

19 hours ago, Greg Doudna said:

I don’t know. On present information, not unequivocally, even though what he says he saw sounds plausible. 

You’re not going to discuss Acquilla further? It is now dawning on me why you consistently attacked my known Callaway/gunman interaction exchange episode as what Acquilla was describing having witnessed, while resolutely refusing to say your own alternative interpretation of what she saw. It’s because you don’t think she saw the gunman at all? That she made it up? Is that correct? 

 

"I don’t know. On present information, not unequivocally, even though what he says he saw sounds plausible."

 

I only ask because you strongly rely on Burt when trying to show that the killer indeed had his hands on the car.  So which is it?

 

"You’re not going to discuss Acquilla further? It is now dawning on me why you consistently attacked my known Callaway/gunman interaction exchange episode as what Acquilla was describing having witnessed, while resolutely refusing to say your own alternative interpretation of what she saw. It’s because you don’t think she saw the gunman at all? That she made it up? Is that correct?"

 

First, again, the exchange between Callaway and the cop-killer took place much too far down Patton for Clemons to have heard any of it.

 

Second, what I do know for sure is that she said nothing in an official capacity and that is why I discount her.  First Day Evidence, ya know?

 

[Greg Doudna]

26 minutes ago, Bill Brown said:

"I don’t know. On present information, not unequivocally, even though what he says he saw sounds plausible."

I only ask because you strongly rely on Burt when trying to show that the killer indeed had his hands on the car.  So which is it?

To be clear--the argument that the killer left those prints is that they came from one single individual who was at two specific distinct locations where the killer was witnessed standing at the patrol car--the one location he leaned into or against the car; the other he had his hands active and moving in a high-action sequence--not whether there exists videotape showing his fingers touching. Burt said he saw the killer's hands touching but Burt is not the argument.

Here is what is strong: the first-day interview of witness Helen Markham by FBI agent Barrett, in which Helen Markham says she saw the killer of Tippit with his face right up to the glass of the Tippit patrol car right where the unidentified fingerprints were lifted twenty minutes after Helen Markham saw this, and told this the same afternoon

"She saw a young man walk from the sidewalk to the squad car and put his face up to the right front window on the right-hand side of the car which was next to the curb and engage the officer in a brief conversation about ten seconds." (FBI, Helen Markham, Nov 22, 1963, https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=95614#relPageId=89 

Elsewhere Helen Markham repeatedly said she saw the killer's arms raised and crossed as he leaned in to talk to Tippit with what she says here was "his face up to the right front window". The killer's arms raised and crossed as he leaned in is testimony that the killer's hands were seen by this witness exactly at the position of, and likely understood by Markham to be forearms resting on, with exposed hands and fingers, the top of the right front door.

Twenty minutes later, after officer Tippit was shot dead by that man, a Dallas Police officer lifted fingerprints from the top of that right front door.

Neither the Dallas Police nor the Warren Report disclosed that Lee Harvey Oswald was excluded as the one who left those fingerprints which give every appearance of having been left by the killer in the absence of evidence showing otherwise.

Oswald's exoneration from being the one who left those fingerprints was disclosed in 1998.

Reasonable doubt that Oswald was the killer of Tippit, if a jury or the public had been allowed to know that in 1963 or 1964.

Especially if that jury or that public were also allowed to know of the paper-bag revolver, the disposal of a murder weapon of the kind used to kill Tippit, found the morning of Nov 23, 1963 tossed in a paper bag on to a street in downtown Dallas and not matched to any other murder, also not disclosed by the Dallas Police or the Warren Commission. And that there exists an alternative, named viable suspect who was repeatedly mistakenly identified by witnesses who thought they had seen Oswald when they had actually seen him.

Reasonable doubt. That Oswald did that one.

[Greg Doudna]

In other words Bill it is too high of a bar to require either that someone irrefutably witnessed the hands of either the killer or some person other than the killer (as you assert) literally touching the car for either of those to be possible. 

As for the killer, we know of only four known claimed witnesses to the gunman at the car at the time of the killing: Benavides, Markham, Tatum, and Burt (and that is about how I rank them in terms of credibility relative to each other). 

Benavides said nothing either way regarding hands touching and it is not clear he would have been in a position to see with his ducking down etc. Markham gives strong indication that the killer was right up against the glass of that right front passenger door leaning in, difficult to do without arms or hand contact. 

Tatum drove by and first telling fifteen years later (weakening though not removing entirely credibility) says he saw the killers hands in his jacket pocket and that would be not leaning against the car. That would correspond to when Markham said she saw the killer step back from the car window, pull out a gun and shoot Tippit. Tatum would have gotten his glance as he drove by as the killer had stepped back and was reaching for his revolver before pulling it out. 

And finally Burt the witness farthest away and arguably most dicey in credibility of the four, says he directly saw the killer’s bare hands touching the patrol car.

The case for either the killer or as you insist, somebody else, having left those prints is not founded in either case on an unimpeachable witness testimony of literal hand contact, for no known witnesses were in a position to either confirm or deny that specifically, deliver that level of precision of information, in either case.

But all of these witnesses’ testimony, equivocal on various grounds as each one’s is, are consistent with the actual and uncontested foundation for the argument, that the killer was there, at BOTH locations where the prints were lifted, and by definition becomes the obvious candidate for the one single individual who left them. 

The apparent support from two of those four witnesses to body or hands in actual contact with the car (from Markham, strong credibility on that point; and Burt, lesser) is only gravy or supplemental support. The argument exists if neither Markham or Burt gave those testimonies. 

Compare that with your zero positive evidence or witness of any kind for your assumption of some phantom other single unknown and unidentified individual having left those prints by coincidence where the killer was in both locations, which is to be distinguished from saying that is not possible.

The point is it is not proper method to rule out a person, in this case the killer, from leaving fingerprints in two locations where he was and his hands known within inches with opportunity, simply because no unimpeachable witness literally saw hands or body actually touching, apart from the one or two witnesses who actually did say that. Under the conditions of the Tippit killing and its witnesses that is an unreasonable condition you are placing. 

Edited January 6 by Greg Doudna

[Bill Brown]

12 hours ago, Greg Doudna said:

To be clear--the argument that the killer left those prints is that they came from one single individual who was at two specific distinct locations where the killer was witnessed standing at the patrol car--the one location he leaned into or against the car; the other he had his hands active and moving in a high-action sequence--not whether there exists videotape showing his fingers touching. Burt said he saw the killer's hands touching but Burt is not the argument.

Here is what is strong: the first-day interview of witness Helen Markham by FBI agent Barrett, in which Helen Markham says she saw the killer of Tippit with his face right up to the glass of the Tippit patrol car right where the unidentified fingerprints were lifted twenty minutes after Helen Markham saw this, and told this the same afternoon

"She saw a young man walk from the sidewalk to the squad car and put his face up to the right front window on the right-hand side of the car which was next to the curb and engage the officer in a brief conversation about ten seconds." (FBI, Helen Markham, Nov 22, 1963, https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=95614#relPageId=89 

Elsewhere Helen Markham repeatedly said she saw the killer's arms raised and crossed as he leaned in to talk to Tippit with what she says here was "his face up to the right front window". The killer's arms raised and crossed as he leaned in is testimony that the killer's hands were seen by this witness exactly at the position of, and likely understood by Markham to be forearms resting on, with exposed hands and fingers, the top of the right front door.

Twenty minutes later, after officer Tippit was shot dead by that man, a Dallas Police officer lifted fingerprints from the top of that right front door.

Neither the Dallas Police nor the Warren Report disclosed that Lee Harvey Oswald was excluded as the one who left those fingerprints which give every appearance of having been left by the killer in the absence of evidence showing otherwise.

Oswald's exoneration from being the one who left those fingerprints was disclosed in 1998.

Reasonable doubt that Oswald was the killer of Tippit, if a jury or the public had been allowed to know that in 1963 or 1964.

Especially if that jury or that public were also allowed to know of the paper-bag revolver, the disposal of a murder weapon of the kind used to kill Tippit, found the morning of Nov 23, 1963 tossed in a paper bag on to a street in downtown Dallas and not matched to any other murder, also not disclosed by the Dallas Police or the Warren Commission. And that there exists an alternative, named viable suspect who was repeatedly mistakenly identified by witnesses who thought they had seen Oswald when they had actually seen him.

Reasonable doubt. That Oswald did that one.

 

"Burt said he saw the killer's hands touching but Burt is not the argument."

 

So I am clear, you're no longer relying on Jimmy Burt as evidence that the killer touched the patrol car?  You were before and I'm just trying to follow.

 

"Here is what is strong: the first-day interview of witness Helen Markham by FBI agent Barrett, in which Helen Markham says she saw the killer of Tippit with his face right up to the glass of the Tippit patrol car right where the unidentified fingerprints were lifted twenty minutes after Helen Markham saw this, and told this the same afternoon..."

 

But nothing from that first day statement to Barrett about the killer actually touching the patrol car.  It wouldn't matter anyway, since she was about 150 feet away and on the other side of the car.

 

"Twenty minutes later, after officer Tippit was shot dead by that man, a Dallas Police officer lifted fingerprints from the top of that right front door."

 

Surely, you're aware that the crime scene was unsecured for at least ten minutes.  Tippit's service revolver was handled by at least two witnesses on the scene.  Anyone could have touched the patrol car.  Sadly, the partial prints lifted by Barnes are not evidence of anything.

 

"Especially if that jury or that public were also allowed to know of the paper-bag revolver, the disposal of a murder weapon of the kind used to kill Tippit..."

 

Help me understand how this "paper bag revolver" has now been upgraded to the class of "murder weapon".  Thanks

 

Again, Oswald was arrested in the theater with the revolver on him which was linked (through ballistic testing) to the shells found at the scene to the exclusion of every other weapon in the world.  Thirteen witnesses saw the man either shoot Tippit or run from the scene with a gun in his hands.  Nine of these witnesses said the man was Lee Oswald.  Four of the witnesses weren't sure one way or the other.  Zero out of the thirteen said the man was not Oswald.

 

[Greg Doudna]

6 hours ago, Bill Brown said:

Help me understand how this "paper bag revolver" has now been upgraded to the class of "murder weapon".  Thanks

If you are questioning that a .38 Smith & Wesson in a paper bag tossed into a street at night is a suspected murder weapon disposal from a gangland or contract murder, I can hardly believe you are serious.

Its a murder weapon disposal hours after the Tippit murder, of the type of weapon which fired the bullets which killed Tippit hours earlier. The most plausible candidate for who tossed that paper-bag revolver, from timing and route logistics, by coincidence is none other than the leading non-Oswald suspect for the Tippit murder. The tossing into a city street near the Carousel Club is consistent with that suspect having no car of his own and being a passenger sitting in the back seat of Ruby's car driving from the Carousel Club at ca 5 am Nov 23 toward the Stemmons Freeway. A few hours later that morning that suspect, Curtis Craford, hightailed it out of Dallas for Michigan.

6 hours ago, Bill Brown said:

Thirteen witnesses saw the man either shoot Tippit or run from the scene with a gun in his hands.  Nine of these witnesses said the man was Lee Oswald.  Four of the witnesses weren't sure one way or the other.  Zero out of the thirteen said the man was not Oswald.

Of course none of them were shown Craford live or in photos beside Oswald for comparison but instead persons who did not look like Oswald. Also, case by case the security of those witness identifications is equivocal, none gold-standard quality. And I don't think your claim is accurate, if the truth were known, that no witnesses said it was not Oswald. 

And as for the number of equivocal-quality witness identifications, consider this: on a certain day in early November 1963 Jack Ruby and Curtis Craford went into the Contract Electronics store in Dallas. We know, even if they did not, with certainty that it was Craford and not Oswald in the store with Ruby that day. Three out of three of the employees in that store--that is 100 percent of the witnesses there--believed it had been Oswald. Not a single witness in the store on that occasion said the man was not Oswald. https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=1142#relPageId=307.

If you were on a jury judging someone charged with a capital crime, would you vote the electric chair for Oswald based alone on the Tenth and Patton witnesses in the case of the murder of Tippit? Would you vote the electric chair for Oswald if the man with Ruby in the Contract Electronics store had committed a capital crime in that store, based alone on those witness identifications of Oswald?  

I would like a straight answer from you to this last question above, with explanation as to why in your answer. 

Edited January 7 by Greg Doudna

[Bill Brown]

21 hours ago, Greg Doudna said:

If you are questioning that a .38 Smith & Wesson in a paper bag tossed into a street at night is a suspected murder weapon disposal from a gangland or contract murder, I can hardly believe you are serious.

Its a murder weapon disposal hours after the Tippit murder, of the type of weapon which fired the bullets which killed Tippit hours earlier. The most plausible candidate for who tossed that paper-bag revolver, from timing and route logistics, by coincidence is none other than the leading non-Oswald suspect for the Tippit murder. The tossing into a city street near the Carousel Club is consistent with that suspect having no car of his own and being a passenger sitting in the back seat of Ruby's car driving from the Carousel Club at ca 5 am Nov 23 toward the Stemmons Freeway. A few hours later that morning that suspect, Curtis Craford, hightailed it out of Dallas for Michigan.

Of course none of them were shown Craford live or in photos beside Oswald for comparison but instead persons who did not look like Oswald. Also, case by case the security of those witness identifications is equivocal, none gold-standard quality. And I don't think your claim is accurate, if the truth were known, that no witnesses said it was not Oswald. 

And as for the number of equivocal-quality witness identifications, consider this: on a certain day in early November 1963 Jack Ruby and Curtis Craford went into the Contract Electronics store in Dallas. We know, even if they did not, with certainty that it was Craford and not Oswald in the store with Ruby that day. Three out of three of the employees in that store--that is 100 percent of the witnesses there--believed it had been Oswald. Not a single witness in the store on that occasion said the man was not Oswald. https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=1142#relPageId=307.

If you were on a jury judging someone charged with a capital crime, would you vote the electric chair for Oswald based alone on the Tenth and Patton witnesses in the case of the murder of Tippit? Would you vote the electric chair for Oswald if the man with Ruby in the Contract Electronics store had committed a capital crime in that store, based alone on those witness identifications of Oswald?  

I would like a straight answer from you to this last question above, with explanation as to why in your answer. 

 

"If you are questioning that a .38 Smith & Wesson in a paper bag tossed into a street at night is a suspected murder weapon disposal from a gangland or contract murder, I can hardly believe you are serious."

 

Who says it's a murder weapon?  You?

Please list a murder in the Dallas area which ballistic evidence ties this weapon to.

 

"Its a murder weapon disposal hours after the Tippit murder..."

 

Who, other than you, says it was a murder weapon?

 

"The most plausible candidate for who tossed that paper-bag revolver, from timing and route logistics, by coincidence is none other than the leading non-Oswald suspect for the Tippit murder."

 

Nonsense.

Any one in that part of Dallas could have tossed that paper bag at any time before it was found.

 

"The tossing into a city street near the Carousel Club..."

 

Near the carousel club?  What characteristics are you using to determine what is "near" anywhere?  I know how far away this bag was found from the Carousel Club.  Do you?

 

"...is consistent with that suspect having no car of his own and being a passenger sitting in the back seat of Ruby's car driving from the Carousel Club at ca 5 am Nov 23 toward the Stemmons Freeway."

 

How is a paper bag containing a revolver and found in the street up against the curb "consistent" with any of the above?  Explain.  A paper bag containing a revolver found on the ground must be tossed out of the backseat of a car by someone in the backseat because he has no car of his own?  I don't understand how you're making these leaps.  It certainly isn't based on a shred of evidence.

 

"I would like a straight answer from you to this last question above, with explanation as to why in your answer."

 

If I were on the jury, I would vote Oswald guilty based on the eyewitness positive identifications along with the ballistic evidence linking the shells found at the scene to the revolver taken from Oswald when he was arrested.

 

The shells found at the Tippit murder scene didn't come from the revolver found in a paper bag near downtown Dallas because the shells have been proven (through ballistic testing) to have come from Oswald's revolver.

 

When fired, the revolver puts a distinct marking (a "fingerprint") on the shell.

The shell casing is up against the breech face and the firing pin. The bullet is fired when the hammer makes contact with the primer. When this happens, the shell is thrown back against the breech face. This action is what places the "fingerprint" onto the base of the shell casing (marks which match the breech face to the shell casing). The marks on the breech face matching the marks on the shell casing is what is what proves that the shell casing was fired from that specific weapon, to the exclusion of every other weapon in the world.

Joseph Nicol (Superintendent of the Bureau of Criminal Identification & Investigation for the State of Illinois)

Cortlandt Cunningham, Robert Frazier, Charles Killion (all three of the Firearms Identification Unit of the FBI Laboratory in Washington D.C.)

These four experts each examined the shell casings found at the scene at Tenth and Patton as well as Oswald's revolver (taken from him upon his apprehension at the theater). Using this manner of ballistic testing, these investigators, independent of each other, determined that the shells were linked to Oswald's revolver to the exclusion of every other weapon in the world.

 

For those who haven't yet, get a copy and actually read With Malice by Dale Myers.

 

[Greg Doudna]

32 minutes ago, Bill Brown said:

"I would like a straight answer from you to this last question above, with explanation as to why in your answer."

If I were on the jury, I would vote Oswald guilty based on the eyewitness positive identifications along with the ballistic evidence linking the shells found at the scene to the revolver taken from Oswald when he was arrested.

Understood but that’s not an answer to the question asked.

That is what I meant by asking for a straight answer—answering the question. 

I will engage the shell casings with you momentarily, but I want to stick to and wrap up this on the witnesses first. You have been citing the crime scene witness identifications of Oswald as establishing Oswald’s guilt beyond reasonable doubt. Would you answer the question (actually two related questions).

[Greg Doudna]

And while waiting for your answer to the two questions re the witnesses, in anticipation of the shell hulls discussion, to save time I stipulate that the four shell hulls submitted by the Dallas Police, identified as found at the Tenth and Patton crime scene, to the Dallas FBI on Thu Nov 28, and received in Washington, D.C. a day later by the FBI lab at headquarters, were conclusively identified by the FBI lab as fired from Oswald's revolver, and that that conclusion is correct.

It will save further time if you will stipulate that although there are markings on the inside lips of each of those four shell hulls submitted by the Dallas Police giving the appearance of, minimally, two officers apiece marking each of those shell hulls either at the crime scene or at the time of same-day conveyance to the DPD crime lab--there exists no firsthand testimony or statement, either sworn or unsworn, from any of the five officers reported to have marked those hulls at the crime scene, establishing identification of any of those marks on the hulls examined by the FBI lab as their marks.

With my stipulation of the first, and if you are willing to stipulate the second, time can be saved to proceed to contested issues. My stipulation of the first is however not linked to your willingness to stipulate the second--it will save time if you stipulate that but I cannot compel you to do that.

Apart from settling these preliminary stipulation issues if so, I propose wrapping up the witnesses issue question before getting into the contested issues with the shell hulls.

Edited January 8 by Greg Doudna