Did Oswald murder Tippit.

[Duke Lane]

Duke -

• [Truly and the TSBD crowd] made up and coordinated a story to implicate Oswald that survived - or merely fit into - the recollections of all of the other building employees. The latter case would seemingly require advance or immediate knowledge of what each of those employees said in their statements.
  

Greg - Who was in charge of gathering the evidence? Not Truly. Stories changed to fit what was needed, when it was needed. That's a fact. How that was accomplished doesn't change that fact. The floor laying crew is another example. They seem to have had pressure put on them to say they'd seen Oswald on the 6th floor as they were going down for lunch - whereas in initial statement's it was pretty well unanimous that Oswald had been on the 5th.

Actually, I think "put[ting] pressure on" people to conform to the predetermined conclusion is a pretty fair thing to say about the entire WC/FBI rubber-stamp pseudo-investigation. You're quite correct in that TSBD didn't collect the evidence; that was left to DPD and FBI in that order. DPD was the first on the scene, so to speak, and in the best position to influence the initial direction the investigation would take, based on the evidence it gathered (or manufactured?) and passed along ... or not. Yank this one from the list.

Duke - I'm familiar with McWatters' statement about his thinking they wanted him to ID the kid, bu there are still the nagging little matters about McWatter's transfer being found on Oswald's person after he'd been arrested, and dear old Mrs Bledsoe's ID'ing him on the same bus.

Greg - McWatters: even the WC called him "vague". A little confused maybe. He thought the kid must be the assassin. He realised the kid (Milton Jones) wasn't Oswald the next day when said kid got his bus again.

The transfer: According to Fritz' testimony "He was searched, the officers who arrested him made the first search, I am sure. He had another search at the building and I believe that one of my officers, Mr. Boyd, found some cartridges in his pocket in the room after he came to the city hall. I can't tell you the exact time when he searched him." The search in which the transfer was alleged to have been found was a bit more than two hours after he was brought in. So imagine for a minute... there he is... the possible presidential assassin, sitting around for at least two hours with cartridges, a box top and bus transfer all still in his pocket/s (there were conflicting accounts as to which pocket - pants or shirt the cartridges were in). Do you really buy that? Do you buy this transfer as having come out of Oswald's pocket after what he'd been through?

Bledsoe: She admitted in testimony that /a/ she only glanced at him briefly; /b/ that the SS had brought the arrest shirt to her - thus she stated Oswald had a shirt/jacket with a hole in the elbow (too bad the arrest shirt/jacket was not what he had on at the time) and /c/ that Sorrel had helped her prepare notes for her testimony.

I don't believe that O was on the bus either; McWatters and Bledsoe clinch it. It was, however, McWatters' transfer, so it had to be obtained from him somehow.

The WC may have called him "confused" or "vague," but that was only a means to downplay his testimony, which was not particularly supportive of the story WC wanted to tell. Clearly, he was very nervous - much like some people say "y'know" a lot, McWatters' favorite phrase was "in other words," which he said 188 times in the 31 pages of his testimony, including as much as seven or eight times in one response, even two or three times in a sentence (see example below)! - and got more so as time went on, but "confused" or "vague" were not adjectives I'd used to describe him or his testimony (maybe because he'd put things "in other words" so many times, the Commissioners were getting confused?).

Sample McWatters exchange, taking place probably in less than a minute

:

Representative Ford

. Where do you put your own identification?

Mr. McWatters

. On here. Well, if it is in the morning or in the afternoon, here is your a.m., or your p.m.

In other words

, it is before 12:45, in other words, we consider up to 12:45 a.m.,

in other words

, that is the way they are.

In other words

, I would punch it in the a.m. side of it, and if it was in the afternoon,

in other words

, after that, it would be a p.m. transfer, and whatever line that you are working has the name on it right here.

In other words

, at that time that transfer I had punched was punched a p.m. Lakewood,

in other words

, because I was coming from the Lakewood addition is the way that was punched on the transfer.

Mr. Ball

. Well now, do you punch the transfer when the passenger asks for it?

Mr. Mcwatters

. No. No, sir;

in other words

, when you leave this, you are inbound when you are going into town or when you are going,

in other words

, out of town,

in other words

. I was coming in,

in other words

, when I got in Lakewood Addition I set my transfers for downtown.

I used to ride a city bus as a teenager, and got transfers daily, so am familiar with the general means by which transfers were given, and how they were torn from the packet of transfers drivers kept on the bus with them. Basically, the transfer was torn - using a little straight-edge gadget roughly similar to how someone might use a ruler to rip paper in a straight line - with the numbers indicating the time the transfer was given, within 15 minutes prior to the quarter-hour time shown on the transfer (i.e., if you got on a bus at 12:46 or 12:47, the transfer would read 1:00; if you got on at 12:40, it would read 12:45). One of our favorite little "tricks" was to ask for the transfer getting off the bus so you hopefully had 15 more minutes to goof off before getting on the next bus.

McWatters was pretty clear about the fact that he had issued only two transfers prior to leaving downton: one to a woman who had a 1:00 train to catch and didn't want to get stuck in traffic in the bus, and another to a man who had gotten on the bus about seven blocks from TSBD (at the intersection of Elm and Griffin, between regular bus stop locations, while the bus was stopped in a travelling lane); he gave them each transfers at the same location, between Poydras and Lamar, when they both got off of the bus.

McWatters had left the corner of Elm and St Paul at 12:36 and had made three stops and was on his way to the fourth when the man pounded on the door to be let in. He got off two blocks later, asking for the transfer after the woman who had to meet the train. (The whole "grinning" incident - someone laughing about the President being shot "in the head" - took place much later.) If the transfer was cut at 1:00, then either /a/ the man got on the bus at or after 12:45, or else /b/ McWatters was particularly generous with the time allowance since he'd punched the tickets and set them up in the ripper prior to 12:36 when he left the St Paul stop. (I suspect the latter is probably the case based on laziness or convenience, since he'd have to reset the position of the transfers in just nine minutes anyway.)

Old Cecil recalled the occasion specifically:

Well, the reason I recall the incident, I had - there was a lady that when I stopped in this traffic, there was a lady who had a suitcase and she said, "I have got to make a 1 o'clock train at Union Station," and she said, "I don't believe [

sic

] from the looks of this traffic you are going to be held up."

She said, "Would you give me a transfer and I am going to walk on down," which is about from where I was at that time about 7 or 8 blocks to Union Station and she asked me if I would give her a transfer in case I did get through the traffic if I would pick her up on the way.

So, I said, "I sure will." So I gave her a transfer and opened the door and as she was going out the gentleman I had picked up about 2 blocks [before] asked for a transfer and got off at the same place in the middle of the block where the lady did.

He later stated, "I only gave two transfers going through town on that trip and that was at the one stop of where I gave the lady and the gentleman that got off the bus, I issued two transfers. But that was the only two transfers that were issued." Asked if he was "able to identify it any further as a particular transfer you had given to any particular passenger," he replied, "No, sir."

Nowhere in the course of his testimony did McWatters volunteer that the man in question looked at all like Oswald, whom McWatters had undoubtedly seen between November 22 and March 12, the date of his testimony. Nor was he asked at any point to confirm that he even resembled Oswald. He stated that, with regard to the lineup he viewed, "I told them that there was one man in the lineup was about the size and the height and complexion of a man that got on my bus," and that the man on the bus "was just a medium-sized man ... just of average weight, and I would say a light-complected ... 135 or 140 pounds ... probably be five-seven or five-eight, in that vicinity" but "as far as positively identifying the man [in the lineup] I could not do it," and did not do so during his deposition, saying "as far as actually saying that [the man in the lineup] is the man [who got on the bus] I couldn't ... I wouldn't do it [then] and I wouldn't do it now."

Translation? It probably wasn't Oswald, although the transfer was undoubtedly given out at the time and place McWatters described to one of only two people, one of whom was a woman and certainly not Oswald. Thus, if it wasn't Oz, and the police did end up with the transfer two hours after he'd been taken into custody ...?

(To be completely fair, however, McWatters did say that he ""didn't pay any particular attention to [the man who got on the bus]. He was to me just dressed in what I would call work clothes, just some type of little old jacket on, and I didn't pay any particular attention to the man when he got on," which might account for his reticence in "positively" identifying Lee, but doesn't account for how much if any attention he paid to the man when he asked for a transfer during the course of an incident he recalled so clearly.)

[Duke Lane]

Duke on whether Tippit was really parked at a Gloco watching traffic from DP - There is one "non-discrepancy" that belies this entire scenario (which I've argued ceaselessly with Drenas) and that is where and when Tippit gave his locations on the radio. At one point (12:46?) he gave his location as being at Kiest and Bonnieview, a location in SE Oak Cliff. Eight minutes later, he was asked his location, and he said he was at 8th and Lancaster.

The most direct route from where he was to where he went is Bonnieview, which becomes 8th, which in turn intersects with Lancaster just west of the R.L. Thornton Expressway (I-35E - see map below). I have driven this route several times at "normal" speeds - remember that JD was not told to proceed at code (lights and/or siren) - and guess what? It takes just about exactly eight minutes!

They say "the devil's in the details," and this is one that's difficult to fake, "pretending" to get from somewhere you're not to somewhere else in just the right amount of time that it would normally take.

Greg - It seems to come down to either believing Tippit was truthful about his whereabouts at 12:46 and the five Gloco witnesses lied (or were all mistaken) or, Tippit lied and the witnesses got it right. If the latter, the timing issue you raise is (for once!) a true coincidence. Whatever the case, it could not be as you say, a case of "pretending" to get from point "a" to point "b" in just the right amount of time as he presumably had no idea when his dispatcher was going to call.

Precisely. And since he had no idea, arranging to get from Gloco to Lancaster & 8th in the right amount of time after the dispatcher had called, from a place that was only 2-3 minutes away requires some duplicity on his part, either cruising slowly to make up that extra five minutes (at odds with the Gloco people's description, unless he braked heavily as soon as he was out of their sight) ... or else not being 2-3 minutes away at the Gloco station.

I opt for "the five Gloco witnesses lied (or were all mistaken)." If you've ever been to Dealey Plaza on the 22nd, you have some familiarity with the people who inject themselves into history by making wild claims of things that just never happened so they can have their 15 minutes of fame. A few years ago, a former detective sergeant told me of how he'd been at TT and was one of the guys involved in subduing Lee Oswald. Trouble is, he said that at the time he was "undercover" and that his hair was "long," and there's no such person shown in any photo at TT, or any officer who provided a report - or was named by any other officer - by his name.

To be generous, there could have been another cop there, including Patrolman V.R. Nolan, who was driving unit 222 (Accident Prevention Bureau), who indicated at 1:15 that he was at the intersection of Colorado and Sylvan (shown as '1' on the map below). Prior to that, he was last heard of at 1:11 immediately after 91 (Mentzel) was contacted about the accident at 817 Davis ('2' on the map). Dispatch merely said "222," and Nolan responded without any directions of what to do, "en route." (Of course, he was on the APB, so it would have been natural for him to respond.) Prior to the 1:11 call, he called in "clear" (not busy, ready for whatever you need me to do) at 12:41.

LEGEND

1 - Colorado & Sylvan / 2 - 817 W Davis

3 - Gloco Station / 4 - Lancaster & 8th

5 - 10th & Patton / 6 - Top Ten Records

According to Drenas' account, "Tippit" arrived "at approximately 12:45 ... at the Gloco (Good Luck Oil Company) gas station which was located at 1502 North Zangs Boulevard" (shown as '3' on the map), where he could be "watching the cars coming over the Houston Street Viaduct from downtown Dallas." Since Nolan was in the vicinity 30 minutes before the West Davis call (i.e., starting at 12:41 to 12:45), and the time between his first response to the Davis call (1:11) and his radioing in his location as "Colorado and Sylvan" (1:15) was four minutes, and since Yahoo maps shows the driving time from 1502 Zang to Colorado and Sylvan as three minutes, it seems reasonable to deduce that it very easily could have been Nolan - not Tippit - who was at the Gloco. (The one-minute discrepancy can be explained by the imprecise time-calling on the DPD radio.)

Another point, for whatever it is worth: currently, Lancaster dead-ends a little way south of where it would intersect with Zang; I don't know if it was the same way 40 years ago, but I'll see if I can find out. If it was, then nobody could have taken off from the Gloco and driven south on Lancaster. Either way, immediately to the west of Lancaster is Marsalis, which is a much broader and faster street with fewer stops (signs or lights), so if I were going to take one or the other, it would be Marsalis. Also for what it's worth: Yahoo's current driving directions tell you to go from 1502 North Zang, south on Marsalis to Colorado, and then turn west on Colorado to Sylvan as being the most direct route to take.

My guess? The Gloco people were simply mistaken. They saw Vern Nolan (maybe they just wanted to see Tippit one last time before he'd died?). Tippit was at Bonnieview and Kiest.

[John Dolva]

"William Ball: What did you notice then?

Helen Markham: Well, I noticed a police car coming.

William Ball: Where was the police car when you first saw it?

Helen Markham: He was driving real slow, almost up to this man, well, say this man, and he kept, this man kept walking, you know, and the police car going real slow now, real slow, and they just kept coming into the curb, and finally they got way up there a little ways up, well, it stopped."

______________________

Dale Myers Comments on the Donald Willis "With Malice" Series:

"...It was parked angled head *out* from the curb/alley, not parked *parallel* or *head in*, as I always imagined it must have been, if the story re Tippit pulling up alongside the suspect were accurate. This does not necessarily change the story, but it adds one more oddity unexplained...

From Mr. Willis fertile imagination comes an "oddity" that is so, simply because Mr. Willis never thought of it before. (Huh?) This "head-out" parking then becomes a reason to doubt the account of Tippit stopping a man walking on the sidewalk. This "doubt" is apparently based on little more than the fact that Mr. Willis finds the position of Tippits car "odd." And some people wonder how these kind of silly allegations get started. Next, Mr. Willis attempts to spin this "insight" into something "meaningful":

...the angling out of the car would seem to have made Tippit even *more* vulnerable to someone on the other side of the car... made him have to walk away from the suspect at an even greater angle...

Holy cow. The crime lab photo Mr. Willis refers to on page 162-63 of "With Malice" shows Tippits car cantered at an angle of about 10-degrees relative to the curb. This is the "great" angle that Mr. Willis sees as forcing Tippit to walk "away" from the suspect. More minutiae."

And a little bit more minutae:

The front wheel appears very slightly turned to the left. Markham has the car going towards the curb. The photo has it going away. It looks as if the reason the car stopped as it did is because someone stepped into the road. Or at least approached the curb as if to intercept the patrol car.

Edited November 20, 2006 by John Dolva

[Guest John Gillespie]

According to the record, Marrion Baker upon hearing the shots believe they come fom an upper floor of the B/D. He drives straight to the biulding, and rushes up the stairs joined by the building super who is in the doorway, and hurries up the steps to the second floor, where he catches a glimpse of someone through a glass window and challenges him to "come here" gun in hand he is about to start questioning him when Truly arrives and identifies Oswald as an employee. Question, is there any evidence that anyone else in the biulding was challanged by Baker in this aggresive way, or had he, by shear luck, picked on the lone assassin..What ever, this incident seems to have got Oswalds motor running, and he goes from a calm, Coke drinking employee, to a fugative on the run.

________________________________

Yeah, Stephen, that was LHO's epiphany, as it were. George V. Higgins couldn't have written up any better.

JG

Duke:

"I opt for "the five Gloco witnesses lied (or were all mistaken)."

My guess? The Gloco people were simply mistaken. They saw Vern Nolan (maybe they just wanted to see Tippit one last time before he'd died?). Tippit was at Bonnieview and Kiest.

"

_____________________________

Duke, Duke, Duke, Duke of (Gloco) oil, Duke, Duke, Duke of oil...

Happy Thanksgiving,

JG

[Dawn Meredith]

Duke, Duke, Duke, Duke of (Gloco) oil, Duke, Duke, Duke of oil...

Happy Thanksgiving,

JG

Great song. Does that bring back memories.

Terry Mauro is coming in tomorrow night and we are gonna paint this town-and one of my walls- red.

Wish you all could be here. It's gonna just rock.

Dawn

Happy Thanksgiving to all. I have sooo much to be thankful for this year.

I echo what Myra wrote: "I love this forum".

Thanks John, and Andy. I have made some wonderful friendships here.

[Duke Lane]

William Ball

: What did you notice then?

Helen Markham

: Well, I noticed a police car coming.

William Ball

: Where was the police car when you first saw it?

Helen Markham

: He was driving real slow, almost up to this man, well, say this man, and he kept, this man kept walking, you know, and the police car going real slow now, real slow, and they just kept coming into the curb, and finally they got way up there a little ways up, well, it stopped."

... The crime lab photo ... on page 162-63 of With Malice shows Tippit's car cantered at an angle of about 10-degrees relative to the curb. ... The front wheel appears very slightly turned to the left. Markham has the car going towards the curb. The photo has it going away. It looks as if the reason the car stopped as it did is because someone stepped into the road. Or at least approached the curb as if to intercept the patrol car.

I don't think the photo is per se inconsistent with Markham's description inasmuch as it's highly unlikely that the patrol car was - or that anyone would expect it to be - travelling within a foot of the curb, but rather much more toward the center of the roadway, which is significantly to the car's left. The car had, apparently, moved "into the curb" from its "normal" route of travel; that it turned outward just before it stopped is not in opposition to that description.

Your rationale for why it ended up parked as it was is certainly sound, although I've always gotten the impression from Markham that the car had pulled up beside the shooter before the shooter approached it. (I do not, incidentally, consider Markham an entire non-credible witness, at least not with respect to her usual itinerary and what happened before she went hysterical after the shooting.)

The right rear tire is still within(?) a foot of the curb even though the front tires have the car pointed away from it. I cannot tell from the photo how much the front wheels are turned, if at all, so can't deduce whether the car pointing away from the curb is the result of several feet of travel after Tippit began to turn the car slightly away from it, or if it's the result of an abrupt movement just before he'd stopped. Can you?

Another rationale for the car's position could be that Tippit turned to look over his right shoulder just before stopping, turning the steering wheel to the left as an unintended part of that movement; another might be that Tippit had been pulling to the curb (to park the car, for example) when, for whatever reason, he decided notp to complete that movement and intended to look to the man walking as if he (Tippit) was not going to be parking the car, but rather was merely driving by. In the first instance, it would appear that Tippit was headed toward the curb from the normal route of travel; the only question is what caused his car to be positioned the way it was just before he stopped.

I tend toward the latter possibility - that Tippit didn't want the man to think that he was going to park the car, but was just "driving by" (albeit abnormally close to the curb) - based on several factors:

• It is an established fact that Tippit had (at least) a dalliance with someone who was separated from her husband at the time, and who lived in Oak Cliff during that separation. (She reconciled - at least temporarily - with her husband on November 23, 1963).
  • Larry Ray Harris established that she received her mail during that time via general delivery at the Marsalis postal station, only a few blocks away, proving that she lived in that area if not at that particular house. (Larry Ray took whatever other information he had about her to the grave, and reportedly was "very circumspect" about anything else to do with her.)
    
  • In her (unsworn and unrecorded) interview with the HSCA, the woman - by then remarried as Johnnie Maxie Witherspoon - claimed that "the affair was over" at least a few weeks before November 22. Even while that may be true in a technical sense - i.e., that "as far as she was concerned" it was over, or that "nothing physical" took place after late September - it does not preclude any man from attempting to continue that relationship even after it's "over," nor that she may not have been telling the complete truth.
    

  [*]William Scoggins' testimony that "I wasn't paying too much attention to the man [in the police car], you see, just used to see him every day," coupled with Charlie Virginia Davis' testimony that the police car "was parked between the hedge that marks the apartment house where he lives in and the house next door" to the Davises' home (that is, between the second and third houses east of the corner of 10th and Patton, the Davises' home being the one on the corner) shows that Tippit was a "regular" in the neighborhood

  • Scoggins himself was a "regular" at the Gentlemen's Club at 125 Patton, south of 10th, as evidenced by his characterization of his first driving by the club looking for a place to park:
    
    (O)ne of the guys hollered at me and asked me did I know the President had been shot, and I made the remark that I had not heard that one. ... I thought it was some kind of a joke.
    
    

    It is not the normal course of events for "one of the guys" (itself a term of familiarity) to yell to a stranger passing by about anything, and given the seriousness of the news, highly unlikely that a passing stranger who had been yelled to would think that "it was some kind of a joke." If Scoggins was a regular at the club and "just used to see [Tippit] every day," then - discounting a complete misidentification of Tippit by Scoggins - it stands to reason that Tippit was, in fact, in the neighborhood fairly frequently if not exactly "every day."
    

  • Charlie Davis' statement in effect means that Tippit was in the neighborhood frequently enough that she actually thought he lived two doors away from her (or at the very least, that some officer did, again requiring a complete misidentification of Tippit by Davis, too). Clearly, Tippit did not live in that house, the neighborhood, or even nearby.
    • The third house in was a multi-unit home - an "apartment house" by Davis' description - so she would not have seen Tippit - even if he'd lived there - out mowing the lawn or trimming the hedges. Given that Tippit lived about five miles away and had a family, it's unlikely that Davis would have seen him lounging around on the front porch in the evenings either.
      
    • If she'd only seen him in the evenings or on weekends, Tippit was not high enough on the food chain to have brought his patrol car home, so she would not necessarily know that her "neighbor" was a patrol cop in that area, even if she had seen him in uniform. So, if she saw Tippit frequently enough that she thought he lived just a couple of doors away, it was most likely during the day, perhaps thinking that he was coming home for lunch.
      

    (Incidentally, I don't buy her disclaimer in With Malice that she "didn't know why" she'd made the statement about Tippit living two houses from her.)

  [*]According to DPD Officer Tom Tilson, who claims to have known Tippit well, it was "common knowledge at the station" that Tippit had a "girlfriend" who lived "on the south side of 10th" (sorry, I don't recall the source for that particular statement).

It is therefore possible, at least, that Johnnie Maxie still lived in Oak Cliff, and in the "apartment house" two doors away from the Davises, and if so, that Tippit was dropping by to see her.

In such a case, he would be slowing down (and would have been "every day" that Scoggins saw him from his vantage point on Patton Street) and pulling toward the curb - and he was clearly at least driving near the curb prior to his pulling away ... which he only could have been doing since he hadn't been driving on the sidewalk, something anyone would have noticed, even Markham! - to stop in front of that house.

Why, then, would he have subsequently been pulling away from the curb before he actually stopped the car? Scoggins noted in his testimony about the man walking on the street that "I kind of looked down the street, saw this, someone, that looked to me like he was going west, now, I couldn't exactly say whether he was going west or was in the process of turning around, but he was facing west when I saw him."

Scoggins further noted that when he noticed the man walking, he was "ust a little east [of the police car] is the best I can remember. ... just a little bit forward [of it]. The police car headed east and he was a little bit, maybe not more than the front end of the car," that is, in a position where Tippit could see his face.

If the man had first been walking east and had, as Scoggins allowed, been "in the process of turning around," that means that Tippit might have seen that there was someone walking along the street, but did not know who it might have been until the last moment when the man turned around. In that case, Tippit might have hoped that the man wouldn't notice him if he kept driving down the street, and the man's suddenly turning around meant that that wasn't going to happen.

If Tippit was visiting the house surreptitiously, he well might not have wanted anyone to see him pulling up and stopping; that might be especially true if he thought, perhaps, that the man walking was Johnnie Maxie's estranged husband (who may also have thought the affair was over and would find out that it wasn't, or who might confront Tippit if he encountered him there), or if he noticed that the man was someone he knew and didn't want to catch him approaching a possible tryst.

Either way, Tippit could no longer pull away from the curb and continue down the road if he was caught in the act of parking his vehicle. If it was Johnnie Maxie's husband, the man might not have recognized him by face, but only known that JM's paramour was a cop, QED. Even still, JD was "caught in the act," but had no good reason to stop and probably would have been better off - even ignoring that he was subsequently shot to death - if he kept on driving anyway: let Johnnie Maxie deal with the husband, and JD could apologize to her later. If it was the husband, JD had every reason to keep driving ... but didn't. There's no sensible reason why not.

Thus we're left with only a couple of possibilities:

1. JD really was stupid and wanted to engage himself in "real friendly-like" conversation with the husband who was obviously prowling the streets waiting to encounter - and probably confront - the competitor to his wife's affections;
   
2. The man was just some "John Doe" walking down the street and JD decided to stop and chat with him on such a pretty fall day, possibly about the playful squirrels or the uplifting chirping of songbirds; or
   
3. JD recognized the man and, moreover, knew that the man recognized him and that, even if he'd continued driving away nonchalantly like he'd never seen or recognized the man, the man would bring it up to him again later, so there was no way to actually avoid the encounter, but merely to postpone it. JD was "caught" and there was no getting away with it.
   

Since Scoggins was specific about the man facing west and being in front of the patrol car (that is, facing the patrol car, ahead of it), we can eliminate my first proposal about Tippit turning around in his seat to see who was walking on the sidewalk and inadvertantly turning the steering wheel to the left to account for his position. We can likewise eliminate the possibility that the car ended up in line with its prior line of travel because directly behind it was nothing but grass and sidewalk, and Tippit had obviously not been driving on the sidewalk or grass.

We can probably also eliminate the possibility that the man - supposedly Oswald - was walking east and that Tippit pulled over to confront him as a possible suspect if only because there would have been no need to park in a "nose out" position to talk with a pedestrian on the sidewalk. The purpose of police nose-out street-side parking is to act as a shield to deflect traffic from hitting the officer from behind when involved in a traffic stop; no such protection is needed if the officer is going to be not only on the right-hand side of the car, but on the sidewalk to boot.

Finally, since Scoggins had testified that the man was on the sidewalk, facing the patrol car and, from his point of view at least, slightly in front of the vehicle, we can probably also eliminate the possibility that Tippit pulled out from the curb as any kind of evasive action.

Thus, the most likely scenario is that JD saw and was seen by someone he knew. He attempted to turn back into traffic unnoticed, but once he knew he'd been seen, he didn't have much choice other than to act as if he'd always intended to pull over and talk with the man (nose-out parking notwithstanding: it probably would have seemed more curious if he'd attempted to turn back into the curb before stopping, thus bringing more attention to the fact he'd tried pulling away from it in the first place).

... Unless there's another possibility I haven't considered here?

[James Richards]

Duke,

Do you think it possible that Tippit reversed his car to that position?

James

[Duke Lane]

Do you think it possible that Tippit reversed his car to that position?

Absent any suggestion of that from either Helen Markham or Bill Scoggins, both of whom were watching the car as it pulled up to stop, I'd say no. With white reverse lights even back then, it would be something that would have been noticeable and noticed, even aside from the obvious change of direction of the car (to Markham, at least), since both were in a position to have seen them.

Well, "possible," yes ... but about as likely as that Tippit was practicing parallel parking or had actually been towed there.

[John Dolva]

Duke, I base 'wheels slightly turned to the left" on looking at the illumination on the rear tire and the front tire. I'll blow them up and have a closer look. A comment you made re 'parking' makes me think of preparing to get the car into position for reversing into the driveway there. It's peculiar that the car stops straddling the drive. In general the routine would be to avoid that. Could 'hubby' have been in a blind spot behind the tree and startled Tippit when coming into view?

The side rear photo is a bit deceptive because of perspectives. By resizing the front wheel and gutter one gets a better idea of the angle it is facng away from the curb which then is more consistent with the perhaps 20-30 degrees suggested by the head on photo.

EDIT looking closer at the head on photo there's reason to say the tyre is not slightly turned as hinted at by the side rear photo.

Edited November 21, 2006 by John Dolva

[John Dolva]

“Olsen said that on the day of the assassination he was guarding a ramshackle house in Oak Cliff, sitting inside."

Does this house qualify as 'ramshackle'? What does the sign say?

(image)

EDIT"Does this house qualify as 'ramshackle'?" I think it does. Here are various edges highlighted and even taking into account lens distorion some of the lines don't obey lens distortion consistently but are higgledy-piggledy as if there's been assorted foundation shifts and leans.

(image)

Edited November 21, 2006 by John Dolva

[John Dolva]

???? sun glasses inside?

(image)

Mr OLSEN. I was employed by the Dallas Police Department and I was working at an extra job guarding an estate.

Mr SPECTER. Whose estate was that?

Mr OLSEN. I don't remember the name.

Mr SPECTER. How did you happen to get that extra job?

Mr OLSEN. A motorcycle officer was related to this elderly woman and he was doing work, but he was in the motor----

Mr SPECTER. Cade?

Mr OLSEN. Motorcade of the President, and I was off that day and able to work it.

Mr SPECTER. Do you recall the name of the motorcycle officer?

Mr OLSEN. No.

??

"Nor were they able to verify that the Channel I tape they analyzed was the original DPD tape, and thus could not say for sure that the cross-talk had been recorded on November 22, 1963. Finally, subsequent private analysis as well as further review by Dr. Barger has revealed that the NRC's tests appear to have been conducted with the tapes being run at an improper speed, thus invalidating their calculations of when the impulse patterns at issue actually did occur in relation to the assassination."

perhaps that should read "not say for sure that the cross-talk had been recorded at the time of the assassination of Kennedy..." 4-6 shots, no crowd noise or sirens, MC parked at rear??? Are all MC's accounted for as far as determining if one was in that house?

Edited November 21, 2006 by John Dolva

[John Dolva]

Do you think it possible that Tippit reversed his car to that position?

Absent any suggestion of that from either Helen Markham or Bill Scoggins, both of whom were watching the car as it pulled up to stop, I'd say no. With white reverse lights even back then, it would be something that would have been noticeable and noticed, even aside from the obvious change of direction of the car (to Markham, at least), since both were in a position to have seen them.

Well, "possible," yes ... but about as likely as that Tippit was practicing parallel parking or had actually been towed there.

Is this what you have in mind, James?

"Dallas radio personality Kevin McCarthy had a number of talk shows dealing with the assassination in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Bill Pulte heard this broadcast and repeated the following to me from memory.

A man called into the radio program and told this story. “My girlfriend told me something that might be important about the Tippit murder. She was driving east on 10th Street behind a police car; she was some distance behind it. The officer in the police car hit his brakes quickly and backed the car up very fast. The woman hit her brakes but could not stop completely and bumped the rear of the police car. She said “Oh no” to herself because she hit the police car and thought that the officer was going to be upset and give her a ticket, but the officer did not pay any attention to her. She backed up went around the police car and drove on her way. Later she recalled that the location where this happened was exactly where Tippit’s car was when he was killed, and she realized that she had bumped Tippit’s car.”

Bill Pulte said that “the caller sounded excited and completely unrehearsed, and the call seemed spontaneous” The caller said that his girlfriend refused to come forward with her story because she did not want to get involved."

Could it be that Tippit was reversing to park in front of that house? This is a witness (supposedly) who preserved her testimony separately of the others. Among the DPD files are some curious photos related to the Tippit shooting such as of the fender and of a street sign that has been knocked down as if there was an investigation to explain some damage to the car. A photo of the rear of the car seems to be missing.(edit:: found it) And it appears to support a straight ahead wheel.

Also there seems to be a mark or dent on the fender.

Edited November 21, 2006 by John Dolva

[Duke Lane]

... Among the DPD files are some curious photos related to the Tippit shooting such as of the fender and of a street sign that has been knocked down as if there was an investigation to explain some damage to the car. ...

From William Scoggins' testimiony:

Mr. Dulles

. How near the intersection were you?

Mr. Scoggins

. Right near. They had a stop sign there and someone had had a wreck previously, I don't know, the sign was down. It was laying there, it had been bent over.

As to the rear-ending-the-cop-car story, I'm sure the boyfriend-caller sounded particularly "completely unrehearsed" and "spontaneous" since he'd heard the story from someone he generally believed, but it's impossible to say how the girlfriend would've sounded if she'd been the caller!

[Duke Lane]

“Olsen said that on the day of the assassination he was guarding a ramshackle house in Oak Cliff, sitting inside."

For curiosity, where is this quote from? Harry testified to no such thing, actually, although it is clearly the impression he gave to Bill Turner for the Garrison deal. Also - if one is to believe anything that Harry told anybody - the "estate" was on 8th Street (2 blocks to the north) near the "Stemmons freeway" (actually R.L. Thornton ... but they are just names for different sections of the same highway), that is, north and east of the murder site. This is furthered by Kay Coleman's having stopped at the 7-11 to get Harry some milk for lunch, the 7-11 being located at 8th and either Marsalis or Lancaster (I can't remember which right now, but they're only a block apart).

This, incidentally, is the same photo corrected for perspective and rotation(the original shot was taken at a slight downward angle, hence the "V" of what are normally parallel lines at either side of the photo, and none of the usual things that you'd think were vertical - e.g., doorways, the vent window of the car, etc. - were actually vertical. This is stuff I do literally every day):

Unretouched

Retouched for perspective and rotation

Take a look at it using the same "gridded" and highlighted technique as above, could you?

"Does this house qualify as 'ramshackle'?" I think it does. Here are various edges highlighted and even taking into account lens distorion some of the lines don't obey lens distortion consistently but are higgledy-piggledy as if there's been assorted foundation shifts and leans.

I'm curious to see how it appears ....

[John Dolva]

“Olsen said that on the day of the assassination he was guarding a ramshackle house in Oak Cliff, sitting inside."

For curiosity, where is this quote from? Harry testified to no such thing, actually, although it is clearly the impression he gave to Bill Turner for the Garrison deal. Also - if one is to believe anything that Harry told anybody - the "estate" was on 8th Street (2 blocks to the north) near the "Stemmons freeway" (actually R.L. Thornton ... but they are just names for different sections of the same highway), that is, north and east of the murder site. This is furthered by Kay Coleman's having stopped at the 7-11 to get Harry some milk for lunch, the 7-11 being located at 8th and either Marsalis or Lancaster (I can't remember which right now, but they're only a block apart).

This, incidentally, is the same photo corrected for perspective and rotation(the original shot was taken at a slight downward angle, hence the "V" of what are normally parallel lines at either side of the photo, and none of the usual things that you'd think were vertical - e.g., doorways, the vent window of the car, etc. - were actually vertical. This is stuff I do literally every day):

Unretouched

Retouched for perspective and rotation

Take a look at it using the same "gridded" and highlighted technique as above, could you?

"Does this house qualify as 'ramshackle'?" I think it does. Here are various edges highlighted and even taking into account lens distorion some of the lines don't obey lens distortion consistently but are higgledy-piggledy as if there's been assorted foundation shifts and leans.

I'm curious to see how it appears ....

Duke, I'm not a hundred percent sure I understand lens distorion fully. I use Richard Rosenmans plugin. Here the two lower are set to 35 and 50 mm lens presets. The top half of the 50mm most closely corresponds to your correction. Could you comment before I look at the lines, please? As you can see I've applied the correction before rotating the picture. Your correction is placed over 'mine' at 50 % transparency to compare.

I'll relocate the 'ramshackle' quote and post.

Edited November 21, 2006 by John Dolva