The Missing Walker Shell

[Greg Doudna]

Gerry Down yes, on your good point of no ejected shell hull expected from a single shot fired from a bolt-action rifle. 

The absence of a hull actually could be an additional weak argument in agreement with Oswald’s rifle being the weapon that fired, in that hull-ejecting firearms might be excluded.

I suggested Surrey, who I am convinced unappreciated evidence shows was at the location from which the shot was fired when it was fired (or very close by at most), could have picked it up. Against that is the common sense of the shooter (and accomplices if any) leaving instantaneously rather than lingering at the location, on the other hand if Surrey was there and took a split second to retrieve it from the ground before leaving, maybe? … but probably simpler there just was no ejected hull. 

[Benjamin Cole]

12 minutes ago, Gerry Down said:

I didn't realise the internal partition wall in Walkers house was masonry. I assumed it was a timber stud wall. 

Was it?

I thought it was an old-fashioned residential plaster wall, over wooden slats. 

Before drywall, you would often see residential houses with horizontal thin wooden slats, running between vertical beams. I guess the plasterers will stick the plaster in there. 

It would be rare to find cinder block on an internal wall, especially in a "better" neighborhood. 

 

 

[Gerry Down]

14 minutes ago, Benjamin Cole said:

Was it?

I thought it was an old-fashioned residential plaster wall, over wooden slats. 

Before drywall, you would often see residential houses with horizontal thin wooden slats, running between vertical beams. I guess the plasterers will stick the plaster in there. 

It would be rare to find cinder block on an internal wall, especially in a "better" neighborhood. 

 

 

Michael Griffith believes it was masonry. I don't know.

[David Von Pein]

[Gerry Down]

9 minutes ago, David Von Pein said:

I wonder how the dpd got to the scene within a minute or two of the shooting. That seems awfully quick. Perhaps an exaggeration.

[David Von Pein]

1 hour ago, Gerry Down said:

I didn't realise the internal partition wall in Walker's house was masonry. I assumed it was a timber stud wall. 

To see film footage of the wall that Oswald's bullet penetrated at Walker's house, GO HERE.

 

Edited January 19 by David Von Pein

[Benjamin Cole]

1 hour ago, David Von Pein said:

Yes, the mysterious steel-jacketed 30.06 bullet. LHO's rifle was a 6.5 M-C, and fired copper-jacketed bullets. 

It sure looks like Van Cleave, one of two detectives on the scene who authored and signed reports attesting they had found a relatively rare "steel-jacketed" slug in the Walker home, appears to be the one who told AP  that the slug found was a "30.06."

Two patrolmen also signed reports that might attesting the true Walker slug was "steel jacketed." 

Those official reports were made same-day after the most high-profile assassination attempt in Dallas history up to that point, of a nationally prominent public figure.

You think two detectives could tell the difference between steel- and copper-jacketed bullets? Knowing that, due to the prominent nature of the Walker, their work would be scrutinized? 

The slug recovered by the DPD was never photographed in DPD custody, before it was sent to the FBI. The FBI lab says it received a copper-jacketed bullet, 6.5. 

If I had to bet, the Walker CE573 bullet now in evidence was not the bullet recovered from the Walker home on 11/22. 

 

Edited January 19 by Benjamin Cole

[Lawrence Schnapf]

On 1/17/2024 at 9:26 PM, Mark Ulrik said:

Egad. Whatever questions Curry may have had about the JFKA bullets were answered in a lab report dated 11/23 sent to him by the FBI. The idea that he was still waiting one week later for "confirmation that they were steel-jacketed" doesn't make a lot of sense. The journalist obviously knew nothing about the lab report but did have a doctor with expertise in bullet wounds who could explain the difference in behavior of dumdum bullets and regular "steel-jacketed" bullets. The misnomer "steel-jacketed" in place of simply "jacketed" may have come from either Curry, the good doctor, or the journalist himself.

You are assuming that the bullet the FBI tested in November was the same bullet that was stored at the Parkland lab for the prior six months? Misnomer or was Curry speaking accurately?

[Steve Roe]

20 hours ago, Lawrence Schnapf said:

You are assuming that the bullet the FBI tested in November was the same bullet that was stored at the Parkland lab for the prior six months? Misnomer or was Curry speaking accurately?

Larry, do you really still believe that the FBI did a bullet switcheroo on the Walker Bullet??????

If you do, why did the FBI conclude they could not match that bullet slug to Oswald's Carcano to the exclusion of all other rifles????

 

[Mark Ulrik]

20 hours ago, Lawrence Schnapf said:

You are assuming that the bullet the FBI tested in November was the same bullet that was stored at the Parkland lab for the prior six months? Misnomer or was Curry speaking accurately?

The JFKA bullet specimens never were in the possession of the DPD, and Curry was waiting for the FBI to provide details (as he had obviously not read the 11/23 lab report yet). I'm assuming that he was aware of the live round recovered at the sixth floor, so why say "steel-jacketed" to reporters? Did he hear it from someone else? Did the AP writer misquote him? Keep in mind that the journalistic angle here was not steel vs. copper but "steel-jacketed" (presumably meaning FMJ) vs. dumdum.

[David Von Pein]

10 minutes ago, Steve Roe said:

why did the FBI conclude they could not match that bullet slug to Oswald's Carcano to the exclusion of all other rifles????

"The fact that CE573 cannot be linked to any specific rifle is virtual proof, right there, that it was not "planted" into the evidence pile. Because only a total idiot would want to do something so stupid. Although, yes, CE573 looks exactly like CE399 in many respects. No doubt about it. But if you're going to go to the trouble of PLANTING a bullet to frame a particular person, you're surely going to make sure that that bullet can be tied exclusively to the patsy's gun." -- DVP; March 2016

http://jfk-archives.blogspot.com/2012/12/edwin-walker-and-lee-harvey-oswald.html

 

[Tom Gram]

1 hour ago, David Von Pein said:

"The fact that CE573 cannot be linked to any specific rifle is virtual proof, right there, that it was not "planted" into the evidence pile. Because only a total idiot would want to do something so stupid. Although, yes, CE573 looks exactly like CE399 in many respects. No doubt about it. But if you're going to go to the trouble of PLANTING a bullet to frame a particular person, you're surely going to make sure that that bullet can be tied exclusively to the patsy's gun." -- DVP; March 2016

http://jfk-archives.blogspot.com/2012/12/edwin-walker-and-lee-harvey-oswald.html

 

David, the FBI Lab analysis does not support that the bullet was too mangled to be linked to a specific rifle. The Lab actually thought the toolmarks in Oswald‘s rifle had changed between March and November, which @Lawrence Schnapf has pointed out before is not even remotely believable, especially with how much Oswald allegedly “practiced”. The Lab even asked agents to look for older bullets from Oswald’s rifle for comparison. 

The “mangled” interpretation became the official line only in a subsequent memo to (or from) Hoover, if I recall, but the original conclusions of the FBI Lab strongly suggest that the bullet was identifiable with a specific weapon, and that it did NOT match Oswald’s gun. The implication of this is there is a significant probability that CE573 was fired from a different MC. 

Basically, the evidence you are citing in support of an authentic bullet actually suggests the opposite, if you look a little deeper.

Edited January 23 by Tom Gram

[Bill Brown]

On 1/17/2024 at 8:24 PM, Gerry Down said:

Just realized that of course there would be no shell at the Walker scene. As Oswald only fired one shot he did not work the bolt for a second shot. And by not working the bolt for a second shot, he ejected no shell at the scene. 

The shell remained in Oswalds rifle as he ran away from the scene. 

I wonder what became of that shell. One would think Oswald would have liked to keep it as a keepsake seeing how he had kept a diary as a keepsake detailing how he planned to kill Walker, until Marina made him get rid of that keepsake diary. But obviously no such shell turned up among Oswalds possessions after the assassination. So maybe Oswald ditched it in the bushes along the railroad track where he hid the rifle. 

It would be worth going along that track with a metal detector to see if that shell could still be found today. 

 

"It would be worth going along that track with a metal detector to see if that shell could still be found today."

 

Today, it's a fully concrete alley.

 

[Gerry Down]

7 minutes ago, Bill Brown said:

 

"It would be worth going along that track with a metal detector to see if that shell could still be found today."

 

Today, it's a fully concrete alley.

 

That means there would have been quite a bit of work done with an excavator levelling off the area and creating a foundation for the concrete. The shell could well have been carried off in the bucket of the excavator.

Of course Oswald's escape route along the tracks was quiet long. I think @Steve Roe has a diagram of Oswald's escape route along the tracks but I have not seen it. Oswald could have discarded the shell anywhere along the track.

[Larry Hancock]

Gayle Nix Jackson's book has a lot of detail on the FBI investigation including all the photos including the railroad and path area as well as diagrams and sketches of the route. Its an excellent resource on the Walker shooting.