LBJ and the deaths of George Krutilek, Harold Orr & Coleman Wade

[John Simkin]

George Krutilek was was an accountant and worked for Billie Sol Estes. On 4th April, 1962, Krutilek was found dead. Despite a severe bruise on Krutilek's head, the coroner decided that he had also committed suicide. The next day, Estes, and three business associates, were indicted by a federal grand jury on 57 counts of fraud. Two of these men, Coleman Wade and Harold Orr later died in suspicious circumstances.

Coleman Wade was a building contractor in Altus, Oklahoma. Wade became a business associate of Billie Sol Estes. This included building storage facilities for Billie Sol Enterprises. He therefore became involved in the Billie Sol Estes scandal. Wade died in 1963 when his plane crashed after attending a meeting with Estes in Pecos.

Harold Orr was president of the Superior Manufacturing Company of Armarillo, Texas. He was involved in the Billie Sol Estes scandal. Harold Orr was also arrested and was eventually given a ten-year prison sentence. He was allowed to go home and rumours began to circulate that Orr was planning to provide information on the case to the authorities.

On 28th February, 1964, Harold Orr was found dead in his garage. The Justice of the Peace pronounced it accidental death by carbon monoxide poisoning.

J. Evetts Haley published A Texan Looks at Lyndon in 1964. In the book, Haley suggested that LBJ had arranged the deaths of Coleman Wade, George Krutilek, Harold Orr, John Kinser and Henry Marshall.

On 9th August, 1984, the lawyer of Billie Sol Estes, Douglas Caddy, wrote to Stephen S. Trott at the U.S. Department of Justice. In the letter Caddy claimed that Billie Sol Estes, Lyndon B. Johnson, Mac Wallace and Clifton C. Carter had been involved in the murders of Henry Marshall, George Krutilek, Harold Orr, Ike Rogers, Coleman Wade, Josefa Johnson, John Kinser and John F. Kennedy. Caddy added: "Mr. Estes is willing to testify that LBJ ordered these killings, and that he transmitted his orders through Cliff Carter to Mac Wallace, who executed the murders."

[Terry Adams]

John, as you know, we all watched the History Channel special, "The Men Who Killed Kennedy". Then we all watched as it was removed, never to be seen again. The argument for it's removal: that it was so insulting to the Johnson memory and absolutely no merit to the claims. Do we have only Billie Sol Estes left to validate any of this? Now that you have started the postings on the people supposedly ordered killed by Johnson, I hope that someone else can come forward to add credibility to these claims. Although, as I have stated elsewhere, everyone that could've had any association with any of this is dead or soon will be. (Time is unrelenting)

Terry

[Tim Gratz]

John, certainly Estes himself had a motive to murder these witnesses against him.

It is therefore hard to accept without corroboration the accusations of Estes, a convicted con-man, against LBJ.

Unless these people had terribly incriminating evidence against LBJ, it seems hard to believe that LBJ would have ordered their murders (for what motive, preventing the conviction of Estes?).

Terry's point is well-taken: is there any corroboration for Estes' claims?