Why was the Walker bullet hole not a through-and-through hole?

[Gerry Down]

The Walker bullet hole seems to be blocked by the frame of the window. So how did the bullet get through? 

[Tom Gram]

Good question. The bullet supposedly went not only through that window frame, but completely through the wall on the opposite side of the room. 

Were any tests ever performed on 6.5 mm copper jacketed MC ammo to see if it had sufficient penetration power to pass cleanly through a wooden window frame and a wall? Not that I’m aware of. 

Assuming the round was capable of that, would the final deformation be consistent with the state of the extant Walker bullet?

[Benjamin Cole]

6 hours ago, Gerry Down said:

The Walker bullet hole seems to be blocked by the frame of the window. So how did the bullet get through? 

GD-

Thanks for posting. Always fun to research primary materials in the JFKA/RFK1A. 

If I am looking at this correctly, we are seeing a picture of the inside of the Walker window, as determined by the window lock just above and to the right of the purported hole. In other words, we are inside the Walker home, looking out, in this photo. 

It sure looks like a non-through hole. 

The DPD visited and examined the scene the night of the Walker shooting, with two detectives. I do not think the detectives were under pressure to do anything except their jobs that night, and two detectives and two patrolmen signed reports that night as to what they found (including a steel-jacketed slug inside the Walker home).

A couple possibilities:

1. If you look at the bullet hole in the photo, it appears darker near the top of the hole. The DPD noted a downward trajectory of the bullet from the firing location. So that dark spot, inside and near the top of the bullet hole, is actually the entrance to the tunnel made by the bullet as it passed through the wooden window frame. This is my best guess. 

2. Second guess: Walker staged the shooting. The DPD patrolman reported finding the steel-jacketed slug resting in between bundled paper literature. They reported lifting up one bundle of paper, and resting atop the next bundle was the purported Waller slug. Some have suggested the Walker shooting was a PR stunt. 

For me, the only indisputable part is that a steel-jacketed slug was officially reported as found in the Walker home that night, and the two detectives easily knew the difference between copper- and steel-jacketed slugs, and it would be extremely unlikely for DPD detectives, knowing their work would be reviewed, to incorrectly describe a bullet in what had been the most high-profile assassination attempt in Dallas history to that point. 

Also, the Walker bullet now in evidence, CE-573, may be the most obviously copper-jacketed bullet in all police annals....

So that is my best guess. But the JFKA/RFK1A is always a minefield, and to this day JFK Records are kept from the public by the Biden Administration. So...your guess is as good as mine. 

[Denise Hazelwood]

I am not sure but it could be that the window is pushed up so that it is even with the frame of the pane on the other side of the pane with the hole. There is also the very interesting area of apparent damage above and to the right of the mark by the finger.

[Gerry Down]

3 hours ago, Denise Hazelwood said:

I am not sure but it could be that the window is pushed up so that it is even with the frame of the pane on the other side of the pane with the hole. There is also the very interesting area of apparent damage above and to the right of the mark by the finger.

What kind of a latch is on the window? How does it work?

Edited Friday at 03:47 AM by Gerry Down

[Benjamin Cole]

1 hour ago, Gerry Down said:

What kind of a latch is on the window? How does it work?

GD--

I grew up in a house with these exact same window latches. 

The latch swivels. You see that part protruding towards you from the latch? 

You swivel that protruding part to the left, and on the opposite side of the latch, metal goes underneath an anchor. Really hard to explain. 

This picture should clear it up:

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/166774608506?itmmeta=01J1EGV4QS5KTPQ35VEFJ1VCHY&hash=item26d48a927a:g:tA8AAOSwv2tmS1E9

[Gerry Down]

4 minutes ago, Benjamin Cole said:

GD--

I grew up in a house with these exact same window latches. 

The latch swivels. You see that part protruding towards you from the latch? 

You swivel that protruding part to the left, and on the opposite side of the latch, metal goes underneath an anchor. Really hard to explain. 

This picture should clear it up:

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/166774608506?itmmeta=01J1EGV4QS5KTPQ35VEFJ1VCHY&hash=item26d48a927a:g:tA8AAOSwv2tmS1E9

Thanks. When the window is open, how does the window stay open?

Edited Friday at 04:20 AM by Gerry Down

[Benjamin Cole]

2 hours ago, Gerry Down said:

Thanks. When the window is open, how does the window stay open?

Well, sometimes these windows have weighted pullies and sometimes it is just friction.

[Sean Coleman]

15 hours ago, Gerry Down said:

The Walker bullet hole seems to be blocked by the frame of the window. So how did the bullet get through? 

Judging by the finger the frame seems to be 1” high by probably 1.5” - 2” deep? Probably made of softwood. Edwin’s house was (surprisingly) brick built.

(The house front for a change, inc. wonky flag & titled post box. Discreet wasn’t this man’s middle name)

My take is the bullet was fortunate enough to find the weakest point of entry thru soft wood, just above the brickwork (which would have stopped it). It then went thru the dry wall as unhindered as an angry teenagers fist. 
 

What puzzles me and goes largely unmentioned is that Edwin refused to identify the used slug in evidence as the one he handled after the event.

[Benjamin Cole]

38 minutes ago, Sean Coleman said:

Judging by the finger the frame seems to be 1” high by probably 1.5” - 2” deep? Probably made of softwood. Edwin’s house was (surprisingly) brick built.

(The house front for a change, inc. wonky flag & titled post box. Discreet wasn’t this man’s middle name)

My take is the bullet was fortunate enough to find the weakest point of entry thru soft wood, just above the brickwork (which would have stopped it). It then went thru the dry wall as unhindered as an angry teenagers fist. 
 

What puzzles me and goes largely unmentioned is that Edwin refused to identify the used slug in evidence as the one he handled after the event.

SC-

Actually, the interior Walker walls were the old-fashioned slat-and-plaster, not drywall. 

In days of yore (again the house I grew up in) there would be slats of wood running horizontally between vertical beams. As I recall, the slats of wood would be about 2 1/2 inches wide, and 3/8th inch thick. The slats were placed with a small gap between slats, and then workers squished the plaster into the slats and let it dry to make the wall. Lots and lots of horizontal slats on every wall. 

If the Walker bullet struck wood, and perhaps part of a (more substantial) vertical beam, that could explain disfiguring. 

But the Walker bullet in evidence today (CE-573) is likely not the same bullet that was found in Walker's home the night of the shooting, for a lot of reason, including the lack of identifying initials (marks). 

Walker was confused about a HSCA display of new steel-jacketed bullets, which were silver in color. Why the HSCA displayed such bullets is...well, just off-base.

A steel-jacketed bullet found in the Walker home likely had copper gilding, to reduce wear and tear on the gun barrel. Steel-jacketed bullets are held in disfavor among the guns-and-ammo crowd, for causing jams, sparks (banned at firing ranges and by game wardens), rusting prematurely, and when not gilded, wearing out gun barrels. 

But any detective, gun-range operator, game warden knew the difference between steel-jacketed bullets and copper-jacketed bullets.

 

 

[Matthew Koch]

3 hours ago, Benjamin Cole said:

But any detective, gun-range operator, game warden knew the difference between steel-jacketed bullets and copper-jacketed bullets.

BC, 

I grew up in a gun nut house in the 90's (Knew about Ruby ridge as a 10yr old) And, I take this with a grain of salt. I think it's a case like when the cops say hulls on the sixth floor. A hull is almost always referred to a shot gun shell, and I think something similar is happening with the officers report. I say this because a steel jacketed round especially back then would be highly unusual and would be a somewhat special/expensive round. But.. I could be in error as well. Initial reports put it as a different round (like .3030 or 30odd6) is what I remember also, and I think Walker Pointed that out. 

[Gerry Down]

22 minutes ago, Matthew Koch said:

BC, 

I grew up in a gun nut house in the 90's (Knew about Ruby ridge as a 10yr old) And, I take this with a grain of salt. I think it's a case like when the cops say hulls on the sixth floor. A hull is almost always referred to a shot gun shell, and I think something similar is happening with the officers report. I say this because a steel jacketed round especially back then would be highly unusual and would be a somewhat special/expensive round. But.. I could be in error as well. Initial reports put it as a different round (like .3030 or 30odd6) is what I remember also, and I think Walker Pointed that out. 

I think the rounded tip of the carcano bullet might have been considered "different". I think most bullets even back then had pointed tips. But I'm not a gun nut so I could be wrong on that.

[Gerry Down]

24 minutes ago, Matthew Koch said:

BC, 

I grew up in a gun nut house in the 90's (Knew about Ruby ridge as a 10yr old) And, I take this with a grain of salt. I think it's a case like when the cops say hulls on the sixth floor. A hull is almost always referred to a shot gun shell, and I think something similar is happening with the officers report. I say this because a steel jacketed round especially back then would be highly unusual and would be a somewhat special/expensive round. But.. I could be in error as well. Initial reports put it as a different round (like .3030 or 30odd6) is what I remember also, and I think Walker Pointed that out. 

Good point by the way about the hull.

[Benjamin Cole]

34 minutes ago, Matthew Koch said:

BC, 

I grew up in a gun nut house in the 90's (Knew about Ruby ridge as a 10yr old) And, I take this with a grain of salt. I think it's a case like when the cops say hulls on the sixth floor. A hull is almost always referred to a shot gun shell, and I think something similar is happening with the officers report. I say this because a steel jacketed round especially back then would be highly unusual and would be a somewhat special/expensive round. But.. I could be in error as well. Initial reports put it as a different round (like .3030 or 30odd6) is what I remember also, and I think Walker Pointed that out. 

MK-

Thanks for your collegial commentary. 

I grew up in a do-goody liberal household but spent about 10 years studying ammo for the Walker story (not every day of course, but just boning up on the topic). Plus I lived near downtown L.A. for while before departing for SE Asia, so I wondered if I should carry a gun, and researched options. 

Actually, most steel-jacketed ammo post WWII on US civilian markets in the late 1950s and early 1960s was either US military surplus or cheap crap from Eastern Europe. 

The US, under duress of wartime copper shortages, did produce lesser amounts copper-gilded steel-jacketed ammo during WWII. The steel-jacketed ammo was held in low regard for jamming equipment (it was not as ductile) and rusting, and higher rates of misfire.  

Civilians did not like the ammo for the same reasons, and worried about wear on gun barrels even with the copper gilding. 

Much of the US WWII steel-jacketed copper-gilded ammo ended up on civilian markets after the war, in the 1950s and 1960s.  Also, the US switched to Nato-compatible ammo, and dumped the older ammo (typically the 30.06). 

But as stated, anybody familiar with guns and ammo was attuned to the cheap steel-jacketed ammo and its flaws. It was typically banned from private gun ranges, and from public areas where hunting was allowed, by game wardens. 

The idea that two DPD detectives would examine a slug in a very high-profile assassination attempt (Walker was nationally prominent at the time), put initials on the slug, and then incorrectly ID the slug as "copper jacketed" is just...ludicrous.

In addition, you are right in that steel-jacketed slugs were much in the minority in US ammo in the early 1960s, with copper-jackets being the default slug of choice. Any police department, any official body, and the US military used copper-jacketed bullets. 

So, it makes sense that the two DPD detectives explicitly noted they had found a "steel-jacketed" slug in the Walker home, as it was unusual, uncommon. 

The Warren Commission has in evidence a "Walker" bullet, CE 573, which is a copper-jacketed slug. 

Well, the WC ran a snuff job on a true JFKA investigation. 

 

 

[Tom Gram]

I do think it’s possible that the steel jacket description was used as a colloquial term for all jacketed bullets, but it’s not really that simple. 

If the steel jacket description was really a genuine mistake, the WC and FBI could have cleared it up in two seconds. 

Instead, not one of the four cops - two officers and two detectives - who signed the two police reports containing the steel jacket description was ever asked a single question about it, at least not on the record.

The only officer who ever even provided a basic description of the recovered bullet to the FBI was B. G. Norvell, who had quit the DPD less than a month after the Walker shooting. All he said was that the bullet was mushroomed - not one word about the jacketing. 

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=60410#relPageId=110

Norvell was also the only officer who was shown the actual bullet by the FBI, which was by design. The WC had specifically directed the FBI to only display the bullet to the person who discovered it. 

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=62229#relPageId=119

However, there were conflicting reports on who actually discovered the bullet that were never resolved. Detective Don McElroy for example told the FBI that he found the bullet himself. 

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=60410#relPageId=129

Even the WC was suspicious about the Walker bullet. J. Lee Rankin sent a memo to the FBI on 5/20/64 ordering additional FBI investigation into the Walker shooting, citing the “conflicting stories concerning the nature of the bullet which was actually recovered from General Walker’s home”. 

Rankin even specifically mentioned the report of detectives McElroy and Ira Van Cleave. Van Cleave was the guy who told the press that the bullet recovered was a .30-06. He also could have cleared up the chain of custody issue since he was McElroy’s partner. 

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=61500#relPageId=163

Note that Rankin also requests a full chain of custody. 

As a result of Rankin’s memo, the FBI interviewed the DPD officers involved in the Walker investigation and compiled a LHM for the WC that became CE1953. All the officers involved were interviewed and accompanying 302 reports were prepared, with one glaring exception: Ira Van Cleave.

So despite Rankin’s memo that specifically mentions Van Cleave - one of the first two detectives on the scene and arguably the most important witness to the entire event - we’re supposed to believe that the FBI didn’t talk to him at all.

Long story short, the evidence strongly suggests that FBI’s failure to resolve the questions surrounding the Walker bullet was intentional. That alone doesn’t prove anything, but a reasonable suspicion is more than warranted here, IMO. 

Edited Friday at 07:10 PM by Tom Gram