What Helen Markum didn't see

[Chuck Robbins]

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a healthy woman in her late thirties is designed by nature to have a male companion. Move over, Jane Austin.

Helen Markham was designed by nature, given her solitary marital situation, to be on the lookout for a likely male. From a distance she would surely have spotted a male pedestrian well before she herself stopped for traffic on the northwest corner of Tenth & Patton.

My interest is determining an approximation of the time elapsed between Markham's first sighting of the pedestrian (presumably the gunman) and her arrival at the corner. It strikes me as entirely possible that the man could easily have walked to the designated crime scene and waited there in the time between Markham's first sighting of him and her sighting of the police car.

If the killer was "lying in wait" for Tippit, he would not want the shooting in, say, the middle of an intersection, therefore he would walk away from the corner, and eliminate the chance of being spotted by a police cruiser on Jefferson.

I can agree with the latter part, but the first? There are many women in my life who would brain me for agreeing with you!!

When she might have earliest seen the killer would largely depend upon where he came from. If he had been either walking westbound from Denver toward Patton, it would have presumably have been later than if he'd been coming eastbound from Crawford and had to cross a yard and street directly in front of Markham. If he had been stationary until he'd seen the police cruiser - say, on the porch of the house that Tippit "lived in?" - then he might not have been noticeable at all.

It would seem that motion - rather than gender! - would have been been what attracted her notice. If he'd been waiting patiently for the cruiser to come along, and his clothing not being something to attract attention (neutral colors, as they were), then the only thing left would seem to be gender. I don't think Helen's sense of smell was that acute!!

As to police cruisers on Jefferson ... what police cruisers could have been on Jefferson? Remember that Tippit was called there because - according to one of the dispatchers, Hensley I'm thinking - "resources had been drained from Oak Cliff" in response to the downtown shooting, so there were no cruisers that could've seen him.

If he was "lying in wait" for Tippit, it could only have been because he'd known that there were no cruisers in the area. Since JD was assigned to a different area a few miles away, it would have been a pretty dumb place for him to "lie in wait," don't you think? I mean, Kiest and Bonnieview would seem like a better choice, somewhere in Tippit's patrol area, no?

But ... wait!!

You're not suggesting that the killer knew there were no cops in the area, and that Tippit would be sent to central Oak Cliff, so it really was a good lying-in-wait location ... or (ohmigod!) that the dispatchers deliberately cleared Oak Cliff so that Tippit could be sent to the area where said gunman was lying in wait for his appareance, are you?

Since that couldn't possibly be true, it proves that Oswald shot JD Tippit - and that only Oswald could have shot him, all while trying to escape so he could get caught. QED. Rosetta Stone and all that. Plain as the face on your nose!

Gosh, why didn't I think of that sooner so I could've avoided this carpal tunnel syndrome I've gotten trying to convince people otherwise? What was I thinking?!?

Case closed. You can log off the forum now and cancel your membership, there's nothing left to discuss.

Duke,

We have discussed the officer who reported he was going to Jefferson. There was a cruiser on Jefferson at the time of the

Tippit murder. Just a friendly reminder of our past conversations on the subject.

[Duke Lane]

Duke,

We have discussed the officer who reported he was going to Jefferson. There was a cruiser on Jefferson at the time of the

Tippit murder. Just a friendly reminder of our past conversations on the subject.

Thanks, Chuck, I haven't forgotten, and I thank you for that. I think I'd incorporated it/them well into a later scenario than you'd replied to, do you think?