The Post-Mortem Fingerprinting of Lee Harvey Oswald

[Gil Jesus]

Mortician Paul Groody of the Miller's Funeral Home says that late night November 24th, "agents" came in and fingerprinted the dead body of Lee Harvey Oswald. Why did they need Oswald fingerprints when they were already on file with the Dallas Police ?  Could this "fingerprinting" have been their excuse to access the body and place his palmprint and fingerprints on the rifle and other pieces of evidence ?

 

 

Edited January 4 by Gil Jesus

[Marcus Fuller]

I like the quote from Vincent Strain which mentions how he essentially believes the DPD did fake the prints as they were getting a lot of heat by the Sunday. I'd post it if I could remember where I saw it.

[Jamey Flanagan]

Groody also said he heard the agents saying that they didn't know who that was in the casket. Maybe they were fingerprinting him to see if it was really Lee Harvey Oswald and not a replacement sent to Russia to spy on them.

[Benjamin Cole]

Thanks for this post Gil. 

Another strange 'spooky' episode regarding LHO. 

Never explained satisfactorily. 

[Gerry Down]

I wonder if Robert Oswald and Edward Pic saying that LHO had changed alot since coming back from Russia made these agents suspicious that the person in the casket was a Russian agent and the real Oswald was locked up somewhere in Russia. Just look at the recent reports of body doubles for Putin. The Russians seem to be good at producing doubles.

[Gerry Down]

Could also have to do with the faint fingerprints on the rifle trigger guard. The agents might have felt a more thorough fingerprinting of LHO to include the sides of his fingers might be required to get a match for what little fingerprints were on that trigger guard.

The agents might also have been going on possible past experience of local police forces not doing as thorough a job of taking a suspects fingerprints as was required and so an order was given to make sure every bit of fingerprints were taken off LHOs hands before he was buried.

[Pete Mellor]

6 hours ago, Jamey Flanagan said:

Groody also said he heard the agents saying that they didn't know who that was in the casket. Maybe they were fingerprinting him to see if it was really Lee Harvey Oswald and not a replacement sent to Russia to spy on them.

Or, to see if it was really LHO and not a replacement sent to the U.S. to spy on them.

It is an interesting thought, especially considering Marina has been described as a 'swallow' by Soviet agency in Minsk.  We know Marina was previously in Leningrad hooking into U.S. defector Webster.  Did U.S. intelligence know of this by the 24th Nov?  Quite possibly if Marina's address book had been scrutinised over the previous 48hrs.

As Gerry states above, The Russians seem to be good at producing doubles.