T.F. Bowley, A Wind-Up Wristwatch & 1:17

[Kevin Balch]

1 hour ago, Tom Gram said:

Do we know what types of prints those are, like right palm, left index finger, etc.? I have the Myers book but my kindle is dead at the moment. I just thought it kinda resembled Markham’s described hand posture, but it’s hard to tell without scale, etc. 

The right index finger prints from the fender were able to be compared with Oswald’s right index finger and there was no match.

If the Tippit killing was a pre-planned deliberate hit, it would make sense for the killer not to leave any fingerprints. But then it would not make sense to leave the shells at the scene.

The killer was so intent to quickly reload that he didn’t care about the shells. Further, he had his pistol ready to quickly fire again (the raised pistol position noted by Callaway). To me, that suggests he anticipated the possibility of soon encountering someone else with a firearm. Either other armed Texans or cops looking for him.

[Greg Doudna]

2 minutes ago, Kevin Balch said:

If the Tippit killing was a pre-planned deliberate hit, it would make sense for the killer not to leave any fingerprints. But then it would not make sense to leave the shells at the scene.

The killer was so intent to quickly reload that he didn’t care about the shells. Further, he had his pistol ready to quickly fire again (the raised pistol position noted by Callaway). To me, that suggests he anticipated the possibility of soon encountering someone else with a firearm. Either other armed Texans or cops looking for him.

That is a possible point on the prints Kevin.

Possibilities would be a non-professional killer (e.g. like Oswald although not Oswald since the prints are not from Oswald), or a hired killer who was only B or C team rated quality (e.g. Craford was not a mob member or "made man" in that sense, but did free-lance work for which he was paid, unlikely had professional assassin training). And there is the third possibility, that the prints might not be from a killer.

But so far as I understand, it is not a point about the shell hulls at the Tippit crime scene though, which are not inconsistent with best practices of a professional assassin, for this reason: The shell hulls, assuming they had no fingerprints on them (apparently a good assumption even without taking precautions), would be traceable to the murder weapon but if the murder weapon is untraceable, and ditched so as not to be found on the person or in the property of the killer, then the killer is off scot-free. The lab can match those hulls to a found murder weapon to their heart's content and it will not identify the killer. 

Like in The Godfather, the mob hitman does the hit in broad daylight in public, then slowly walks away dropping the murder weapon (free of prints and with untraceable serial number) right there at the scene of the crime, and disappears into a crowd or the city. The reason to drop the murder weapon at the scene of the crime is so it could not be found on the hitman's person if searched which would identify him. The police easily find the murder weapon because the killer left it right there, but it does them no good. The murder weapon is matched to the murder, but not matched to the one who did the murder. This could be the same principle with the shell hulls at the Tippit crime scene. If so, the fact that the killer did not also leave the murder weapon too at the scene of the crime, but instead reloaded, could be because the desire to get rid of the murder weapon was overridden by a possible need, or planned need, to use it again.

Scoggins' cab was parked where it was because Scoggins had been asked in advance by someone in Ruby's circle to be parked there at that time and place. This is not conjectured out of the air; this is the recent sober, serious, credible testimony of Scoggins' grandson that that is exactly what Scoggins told the grandson's father happened, in a Gavan McMahon recorded interview of the grandson. 

In my reconstruction of the case in light of this Scoggins' grandson information, Scoggins was not part of the killing, would not have known why he was there other than to be available to give someone a ride as needed. In fact he would have been set up to be there so he could be a getaway vehicle for the Tippit killer.

However it did not work out that way, because streetsmart Scoggins upon seeing/hearing Tippit murdered, instantly bolted out of his cab precisely so he could not be carjacked, and by the time the Tippit killer rounded the corner, possibly to have Scoggins at gunpoint drive him away (the point of having him there in the first place), that was not possible since Scoggins was not in the cab. The killer had no choice but to continue on foot.

In this scenario Tippit's killer ejecting the hulls instantly, right at the scene while walking still on 10th, would be so he could quickly reload. The reason for the need to reload so quickly is (this is hypothesized here) because he needed a loaded gun by the time he got to Scoggins' cab. Therefore there was no luxury, under this scenario, to run a block or two away first before ejecting and reloading. That cab of Scoggins was the controlling variable on that.

(And I believe the Tippit murder weapon may have been abandoned by Curtis Craford in the early morning hours of Sat Nov 23 before Craford fled from Dallas that morning, the morning after the Tippit slaying, and that murder weapon is known in FBI Dallas documents which were brought to light in the 1990s, known as the paper-bag revolver found in downtown Dallas, a .38 Special revolver of the calibre that killed Tippit, found in a paper bag with an orange and an apple, that item of physical evidence known to both Dallas Police and the FBI the weekend of the assassination, but "lost" while in police custody, not disclosed to the press, not disclosed to the Warren Commission, never disclosed to anyone except in internal FBI documents.)  

An additional comment on the Tippit patrol car fingerprints...

From reading studies of expert fingerprint identification accuracy, three conclusions emerged: first, expert positive identifications of a fingerprint match are hardly ever wrong, less than a tiny fraction of 1% error incidence. Second, negative identifications (exclusions) expressed with expert certainty are often wrong, wrong about 1 out of 13 times according to a landmark study on this question. 

This is where the Lutz 1994 (reported 1998, Myers) negative exclusion of Oswald as the source of the Tippit patrol car fingerprints come in. Lutz was expert, and Lutz was positive on his finding that Oswald was excluded. Neither of those statements is in question. But the data says 1 out of 13 times exactly this kind of expert finding is, in fact, not correct. Lutz's findings have never been refuted, and are the only information there is on the Tippit patrol car prints of this nature. So it is all we have. Because of Lutz's experience, and because 12 out of 13 times negative exclusions are correct, that finding of Lutz is probably correct. But we don't know that absolutely, in the absence of review, which of course there never has been. The same study found that in these cases where errors in either positive or negative identifications did happen, they would be found upon review by other experts, second opinions, so it is not that this is unanswerable. It just takes someone somewhere caring enough to have another expert or two look at those Tippit patrol car prints, which nobody has bothered to do going on 61 years now. 

But the third conclusion of the fingerprint accuracy studies is the most interesting one: that there was quite a bit of subjectivity involved in experts deciding whether a print was "usable" (could produce a positive or negative identification), or "unusable". Recall the early finding of the Dallas Police, unattributed, unsigned, unknown origin, unwritten, reported in hearsay form by officer Barnes in his Warren Commission testimony, that somebody somewhere in the Dallas Police Department had conclusively determined the Tippit patrol car prints were unusable. 

The astonishing data studied on this was this: there was the famous Brandon Mayfield case in Portland where the FBI made a false positive (one of those tiny fraction of 1% cases where that occurred, error found upon review by Spanish intelligence examiners and then confirmed upon further review by the FBI itself in America). 

In a study, expert fingerprint examiners were given two sets of prints and asked to use their professional expertise to determine whether there was a match, and they were told these were the Brandon Mayfield prints which had been wrongly matched to the international terrorist's prints, that well-known famous case. 

A certain significant percentage (I don't have the study in front of me, but significant percentage) of the examiners professionally answered that those prints were "inconclusive", no finding was possible to be obtained. (Just like the oral hearsay of the Dallas Police determination of the Tippit patrol car prints.)

The punch line: those were not Brandon Mayfield prints (the testers had lied to the examiners). Those prints were the very own matches of those very examiners submitted in court in the past used to convict persons of crimes, on the basis of those examiners' fingerprint matches! The same prints those same examiners were now saying could NOT give any finding or information!

The conclusions from these studies are the importance of blindness (the examiner does not know the identities of the prints they are examining), and also the importance of review ("second opinions", just like in medicine). Those are the two key things as I understand the outcome of these studies. 

The Tippit patrol car fingerprints information status is in the Dark Ages still, compared to what known best practices are today.

 

[Tom Gram]

8 minutes ago, Kevin Balch said:

The right index finger prints from the fender were able to be compared with Oswald’s right index finger and there was no match.

If the Tippit killing was a pre-planned deliberate hit, it would make sense for the killer not to leave any fingerprints. But then it would not make sense to leave the shells at the scene.

The killer was so intent to quickly reload that he didn’t care about the shells. Further, he had his pistol ready to quickly fire again (the raised pistol position noted by Callaway). To me, that suggests he anticipated the possibility of soon encountering someone else with a firearm. Either other armed Texans or cops looking for him.

I knew that part, but I’ve never seen anything discussing the prints lifted from the window ledge. The card I linked to in the bottom right looks like it should be the window ledge lift, but it’s not labeled like the card that says “from right front fender of squad car” and I’ve never seen its origin confirmed. 

Again this is pure speculation, and I know next to nothing about fingerprints, but if the card is indeed from the window ledge, and the print pattern is consistent with Markham’s testimony, it would add support to the notion that the prints were left by the killer. That’s why I’m curious. 

I’m not convinced the Tippit murder was premeditated though. It seems like the killer might have been hoping to talk himself out of it then realized he was screwed when Tippit got out of the car. Either that or he wasn’t particularly sophisticated, didn’t think or care about leaving fingerprints, or knew somehow the cops would ignore it. 

Bill will love this, but I’m not even 100% convinced the Tippit killer wasn’t Oswald. I think there’s a very compelling case that Oswald didn’t do it, and the prints are a major component in that, but like everything else in the JFKA it’s impossible to know for certain.

With a competent attorney, I think Oswald almost certainly would’ve been acquitted at trial for the Tippit murder. The reasonable doubt is definitely there, but it’s a pretty big leap from doubt of guilt to conclusive proof of innocence.

[Tom Gram]

1 hour ago, Greg Doudna said:

Recall the early finding of the Dallas Police, unattributed, unsigned, unknown origin, unwritten, reported in hearsay form by officer Barnes in his Warren Commission testimony, that somebody somewhere in the Dallas Police Department had conclusively determined the Tippit patrol car prints were unusable.

I’m no fingerprint expert, but considering Lutz’s findings and just looking at the fender lift, Barnes’ testimony is a bit hard to believe. I think it’s more likely the DPD realized the prints didn’t belong to Oswald and decided they were “unusable” to implicate him in the Tippit killing. 

[Bill Brown]

14 hours ago, Greg Doudna said:

Both vent windows were open, that may have been how Tippit liked to drive, nothing to do with having opened it to talk. You don't know that he opened the vent to listen to the man, or that the man talked through the vent. You might as well ask yourself where's your witness to the man talking through the vent and why you are making up that scenario when no witness said they saw that.

In my experience, when strangers approach the passenger side of a car wanting to speak, the most common response as a driver (if one does not ignore them altogether) is roll the window down a crack. Not open the vent. Roll the window down a crack. Not roll down a lot (at least in urban America today) for safety reasons. Enough to enable hearing but not enough to allow an arm to come in.

I don't know if a police officer in 1963 Oak Cliff would instinctively be as cautious as such habits today, but this has been my experience. I can imagine police officers being instinctively cautious in 1963 Dallas. Never know what any given person is going to be like, from an officer's point of view, I imagine.  

But I don't need a witness on rolling the window back up a crack if the witness (Jimmy Burt) saw Tippit reach over to roll down the window a crack or two.

If the witness was correct on that, then the window WAS rolled back up, evidence being it was found rolled up, therefore it was rolled back up.

This is not making stuff up. This is evidence-based if the witness statement is correct that the window was rolled down a crack or two or three. If so, it was rolled back up because it was found up, therefore it had been rolled back up.

I don't drive around with my passenger window down, whether or not my driver's side window is down which can vary. I think of how I react when people occasionally flag me down or tap seeking to speak through the passenger window. Sometimes its panhandlers. Other times it might be someone asking a question of a location, or being helpful offering some information or advice, whatever. 

And if I roll down the window a crack to talk, find out what the person wants, when the person leaves I'm gonna roll it back up again. (Because as noted, I like the passenger window rolled up when I drive alone.) 

This strange, strange notion you keep repeating that if no witness such as Helen Markham or Jimmy Burt saw the killer do a hand movement it didn't happen (also if Helen Markham or Jimmy Burt did see a hand motion it also didn't happen), is no less arbitrary than what you characterize me as doing. 

Very simply: if the witness is correct that Tippit rolled down the passenger window a crack or partway, then he did roll it back up because the window was found up. That's all there is to it on that. 

And there's nothing that doesn't make sense about Tippit cracking the passenger window down partway for the man flagging him down, find out what he wants (unaware the man is about to kill him), the only issue is how far to roll the window down for personal security and safety reasons. 

Now maybe Tippit just sat there and looked and the man did awkwardly speak through the vent which he already found open, without Tippit making a move. Maybe it did happen that way. Maybe Jimmy Burt was just blowing smoke saying so very specifically and repeatedly that he witnessed Tippit reach over, and roll down the window. I don't know. Do you? 

You may think you know, but I know you don't. 

I will agree with you on one thing. If Jimmy Burt was a block away, I wonder how he could claim to see that precision of movement of Tippit inside the car. If it can be settled conclusively that Jimmy Burt was a block away (as distinguished from Wm Smith and Jimmy Burt saying they were a block away), then I would not pay much attention to it (and would still consider it open that Tippit could have cracked the passenger window, then raised it back up again, before being killed, in the absence of direct witness testimony). 

But if Jimmy Burt was inside his car where two witnesses claim to have seen his car next to Tippit's patrol car at the moment Tippit was killed, then its a different matter. In that case, Jimmy Burt could have seen it very clearly.

If Jimmy Burt's claim to what he said he saw is true, that Tippit rolled down the window a crack or two, THEN Tippit did roll it back up, because the window was found up. 

 

You guys are completely unbelievable.  I never said Tippit opened the vent window to talk to the guy.

 

[Greg Doudna]

4 hours ago, Bill Brown said:

You guys are completely unbelievable.  I never said Tippit opened the vent window to talk to the guy.

I corrected you don’t know that Tippit opened the vent or the man talked through the vent, to just, you don’t know the man talked through the vent. 

Edited April 19 by Greg Doudna

[Bill Brown]

Here's the bottom line...

The two witnesses (Helen Markham and Jimmy Burt) who said the eventual killer placed his hands on the car were in questionable positions while viewing the goings-on.  It's possible they were both right, but at the same time they should not be relied upon to show as a fact that the killer indeed touched the car.

Jack Tatum drove by at this same moment in time and said the killer had his hands in his jacket as he was leaning forward talking to the officer.

Pete Barnes of the crime lab said the prints lifted were of no value.  They were partial.  He stated that no legible prints were found.

The fact is, whether anyone likes it or not, these prints could have belonged to anyone who happened upon the crime scene before police secured the area.  Anyone could have touched the car (Callaway left with Tippit's service revolver, for crying out loud).  These partial prints could have belonged to anyone who had occasion to touch that car earlier that day, unrelated to Tenth & Patton.

Using the prints to try to determine who the killer was is simply a non-starter.

Some of you seem to enjoy grasping at straws.

 

[Greg Doudna]

 

On 4/19/2024 at 3:44 PM, Bill Brown said:

Using the prints to try to determine who the killer was is simply a non-starter.

Some of you seem to enjoy grasping at straws.

Do you think the Dallas Police were grasping at straws? Would you care to give your thoughts on why you suppose police lift prints at crime scenes?

Mr. BELIN. What did you do when you got to the scene? 
Mr. BARNES. The first thing that I did was to check the right side of Tippit's car for fingerprints. 

(. . .)  

Mr. BELIN. Why did you happen to check that particular portion of the vehicle for fingerprints? 
Mr. BARNES. I was told that the suspect which shot Tippit had come up to the right side of the car, and there was a possibility that he might have placed his hands on there. 

On 4/19/2024 at 3:44 PM, Bill Brown said:

Pete Barnes of the crime lab said the prints lifted were of no value.  They were partial.  He stated that no legible prints were found.

But your belief, based on Barnes to the Warren Commission in 1964, that none of the prints were capable of being matched to another print for a positive identification turned out to be probably not true, didn't it, with Lutz in 1994/1998 as reported by Myers. 

Lutz reported his opinion that a Tippit patrol car right fender fingerprint was from the same person who left another, unrelated fingerprint at another location in time and space, the passenger door of the Tippit patrol car. 

Barnes' claim that those bumper prints were too smeared to be capable of a positive match to another print falls into what studies found was wide variance and subjectivity in examiner claims of prints being inconclusive or unusable. That is why these studies have emphasized the importance of blindness and review, as best practices in fingerprint analyses going forward (the studies did find that review was effective in catching errors in examiners' findings, where errors exist).

In the Barnes/Dallas Police case of the Tippit patrol car prints, there was not blindness. They were looking for a match to Oswald's fingerprints. They did not find such a match. They claimed—in keeping with so many subjective errors in this kind of claim found by studies-- that the right bumper fingerprint were unusable and not capable of being matched to any other fingerprint at all. 

Lutz also reported a conclusive negative finding, that the prints did not match to Oswald's prints. Barnes/DPD may have believed that no negative match was possible, since they did not report the negative exclusion of Oswald. If so, that Dallas Police error was found upon review (Lutz/Myers 1994/1998).

If the Tippit right bumper fingerprint contained sufficient information for an examiner opinion of a match to the passenger door smeared prints (Lutz's opinion that it did), with likelihood that the match would be a conclusive positive identification if the passenger door prints were not so smeared, then there is enough information in that bumper fingerprint for an examiner positive match to a fingerprint on a fingerprint card, i.e. that Tippit patrol car bumper print is capable of positive identification to a named individual. 

Have you been mistaken in believing up to the present moment Barnes' 1964 report of impossibility of an examiner positive identification of the right bumper fingerprint, when Lutz 1994/1998 appears to have indicated differently?

Here is Dale Myers’ account of the Lutz fingerprint analysis (I found this fascinating):

“I was the person who arranged to have the fingerprints examined by a qualified fingerprint expert for my 1998 book With Malice.

“In 1994, retired Crime Scene Technician, Wayne County Sheriff’s Department, Wayne Co., MI., Herbert W. Lutz, arrived at my home on the appointed day and I showed him photographic prints obtained from the Dallas Municipal Archives and Records Center (DMARC).

“I asked Mr. Lutz if the photographs were sufficient to draw a reliable conclusion? He looked at the photographic prints and said that normally he would look at the originals, but he stated that the photographs were of good quality and felt that he could make a determination based on the photographs.

“He had brought a crime scene kit with him and removed a loupe magnifier and began looking at the photographs. Just as he started looking at the photos, I told him that I would be willing to loan him the photographic prints so that he could take his time examining them, but he said, “That won’t be necessary.”

“He picked up the photograph of Oswald’s fingerprints and added, “I don’t believe that the fingerprints taken from Tippit’s car are Oswald’s prints.” Within a minute he confirmed his previous pronouncement, saying, “No, these don’t match.”

“Lutz used the photographic image of the fingerprints taken from the right-front fender of Tippit’s squad car (DMARC 91-001/326) to demonstrate to me how the prints were those of a right hand that had been placed on the car and then dragged away, causing a smear.

“Lutz pointed out the right-middle index finger among the group and had me look through the loupe magnifier. Then, he had me view Oswald’s right-middle index fingerprint taken by the Dallas police on November 23, 1963 (DMARC 91-001/314).

“Lutz told me to look at the difference in the spacing between ridges. The fingerprints taken from Tippit’s car showed furrows that were wide, while Oswald’s fingerprint furrows were much narrower. In addition, the number of ridges and location of the bifurcations – or “forks” in the patterns – were different. “In short,” Lutz stated, “the fingerprints found on the right fender of Tippit’s patrol car were not Oswald’s.”

“Lutz looked at the other fingerprints lifted from Tippit’s squad car. The smears obtained from the top of the right-side passenger door (DMARC 91-001/200 and 91-001/286) were of less value, according to Lutz, although he felt that the ridges and furrows were consistent with fingerprints found on the right front fender. Lutz was of the opinion that one person was probably responsible for all of them.” (https://jfkfiles.blogspot.com/2022/07/lies-and-deception-in-tippit-murder.html)

I agree that the prints could have been left by any person who was in proximity to both locations on the Tippit patrol car from where they were lifted. 

I think there is a good chance that person was the killer of Tippit.

I'd like to see those prints identified to a named individual, and find out. Wouldn't you?

[Tom Gram]

12 hours ago, Greg Doudna said:

The smears obtained from the top of the right-side passenger door (DMARC 91-001/200 and 91-001/286) were of less value, according to Lutz, although he felt that the ridges and furrows were consistent with fingerprints found on the right front fender.

This is kinda interesting. I thought it was just the one lift card /200 from the window ledge, but apparently this lift /286 is also from the window ledge: 

https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth49474

I don’t have any reason to doubt its origin, but I’m curious how Myers figured that out from an unlabeled, stand alone card.

The /200 lift is lumped in with the labeled fender lift /326 at least in a record titled “Fingerprints from Tippit’s car”: 

https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth337647/

I haven’t seen anything similar for /286. 

I’m still pretty curious about /200, since it looks like there could be some partial palm prints in there, but Lutz apparently didn’t comment on what types of prints are visible on that card: 

https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth49758/

Edited April 21 by Tom Gram