A propos de Tom Alyea's Dec. '63 statement...

[Donald Willis]

... in which he seems to think that Bonnie Ray Williams' chicken and soda bottle indicated a shooting site:  It started me thinking (always a bad sign) that Insp. Sawyer's police-radio message and his briefing for reporters might have been based on the same mistaken assumption.  The radio version:  "We have found empty rifle hulls on the fifth floor and from all indications the man had been there for some time" (from Sawyer's testimony).  The news briefing:  "Police found the remains of fried chicken and paper on the fifth floor.  Apparently, the person had been there quite a while."  (quoted in the Stockton (CA) Record, the San Fransisco Examiner, and the Oakland (CA) Tribune)  Someone at Cop HQ, though, must have panicked and believed that Sawyer's briefings might be taken as saying that there were chicken scraps in & around the "nest" itself.  So the DPD and the sheriff's office industriously enlisted several hapless deputies and police officers to concoct a shells-and-chicken's-nest story, including deputies Mooney, McCurley, and Weatherford and DPD Sgt. Hill.  I say "concoct" because, dutifully, photographers Det. Studebaker (of the DPD Crime Lab) and Alyea insisted that no chicken remains were found in and about the "nest" itself, or it would have appeared in some of their photos and film there.  As it turns out, though--if Sawyer was referring simply to the Williams stash--the officers perpetrated the hoax all for nothing.  The police and sheriff's departments, then, somewhat hilariously, colluded in a cover-up of something which didn't need covering up, a conspiracy to cover up... nothing!  

[Pat Speer]

Yes, much hay was made of the chicken bones in the first few days. Newspaper accounts used them to paint a picture of a cold-blooded killer, Lee Oswald, calmly eating chicken while he awaited his moment in the sun. 

It turned out, of course, that the chicken bones were from Williams' lunch. It is unclear just when the DPD learned this, but it seems probable it was on Sunday, or so. Well, this suggests that as of the night of the shooting, they thought the chicken bones and Pepper bottle were connected to the shooting. Well, the bottle must have been covered with greasy prints, right? So why isn't there a report saying they compared the bottle prints with Oswald's prints, and they didn't match? There should be a record of this, right? 

Anyhow, all this makes me suspect they DID test the prints on the bottle, and DITCHED the report after it came up negative, and ditched the lunch sack and bottle after Oswald was killed. 

Edited January 19 by Pat Speer

[Donald Willis]

1 hour ago, Pat Speer said:

Yes, much hay was made of the chicken bones in the first few days. Newspaper accounts used them to paint a picture of a cold-blooded killer, Lee Oswald, calmly eating chicken while he awaited his moment in the sun. 

It turned out, of course, that the chicken bones were from Williams' lunch. It is unclear just when the DPD learned this, but it seems probable it was on Sunday, or so. Well, this suggests that as of the night of the shooting, they thought the chicken bones and Pepper bottle were connected to the shooting. Well, the bottle must have been covered with greasy prints, right? So why isn't there a report saying they compared the bottle prints with Oswald's prints, and they didn't match? There should be a record of this, right? 

Anyhow, all this makes me suspect they DID test the prints on the bottle, and DITCHED the report after it came up negative, and ditched the lunch sack and bottle after Oswald was killed. 

Alyea's report in December sounds as if he still thought the chicken & bottle site was a scene of shooting.  But whatever the authorities made of the chicken references in Sawyer's bulletins, they weren't taking a chance and "moved' the chicken to the "nest"--just to make us civilians happy... Unfortunately for them, Studebaker wasn't notified, and gave away the charade.