The motorcade was 5 minutes late in arriving at Dealey Plaza, yet 5 minutes before the shooting started, Harold Norman and Junior Jarvis had seen Lee Oswald in the first floor lunchroom (aka the domino room) just before going up to the 5th floor to watch the motorcade.

If Oswald had been even one of the shooters, much less the lone gunman, he would have already been up there on the sixth floor.

Bonnie Ray Williams stated that he was eating his chicken lunch on the 6th floor until a few minutes before the motorcade arrived, then joined his co-workers one floor lower.

 

Funnily enough, even CBS reporter Dan Rather mentioned, on the very day of the assassination, that the Dallas Police investigators had found pieces of fried chicken in the South East corner of the sixth floor, the spot where shots were fired from.

This doesn’t sound like something a trained sniper would do.

In any case the above fact is clear evidence that Oswald was not on the sixth or fifth floor at the time of the shooting.

To me, he is acquitted right here. But these witness testimonies didn’t matter, since Oswald was linked to Tippit’s death first.

Unless of course even that was highly impossible.

Let’s see what Mr. Oswald did after the shooting on Elm Street had taken place.

 

Being an intelligent young man, with an IQ of 115, and knowing the people involved, he knew that staying in the depository wasn’t a good idea. Without telling his boss, William Shelley, that he decided to leave, he did just that.

He left, at approximately 12:33, using the front door. (according to his own statements made later that day)

An innocent man would leave out the front door, which by that time was growing crowded, but one witness claimed a man left the building using the Houston Street exit, or the loading dock in the rear of the building. No one knows for sure who used which exit.

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At 12:40 he, apparently, gets on a bus (the number 30 to Marsilis) he spots on Murphy Street, eventhough it’s not a scheduled stop for the driver to make. Traffic around Dealey Plaza is very heavy, and the bus cannot make its way through it easily enough, so Oswald asks the driver for a transfer ticket, which he gets, and disembarks the bus at 12:44.

He then proceeds to the corner of South Lamar and Commerce, at the Greyhound Terminal, where, at 12:48, he gets into a taxi driven by William Whaley, wanting to go to the 500 block of North Beckley. The driver proceeds along Jackson Street, South Austin Street, Wood Street, and Zang Boulevard, eventually stopping on North Beckley Avenue, at the corner of Neely Street.

This is the 700-block of Beckley where Oswald says to Whaley "this will do fine".

At 12:53 Oswald hands Whaley a $1,00 dollar bill, leaving the driver with a nickle tip, then leaves the cab to walk to his boarding house at number 1026, another 2 to 3 minute walk.

At 1:01 he enters his boarding house, witnessed by housekeeper Earlene Roberts who mentions that a man had shot the President.

This was announced by CBS at 12:40 as they interrupted “As The World Turns”.

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While Oswald is in his room, presumably grabbing his revolver and changing at least his shirt, a police car pulls up in front of the house at 1:02, honks the horn twice, then drives off. Earlene Roberts later explained that a police car always pulls up in front of the house and that she knew the officers well. However, as she later stated, this car didn’t have the same patrol car number.

At 1:04 Oswald leaves the house, walks up to the bus stop and waits for the bus to arrive, also witnessed by Mrs. Roberts.

She, however, never saw him get on a bus. So this is where he falls out of view.

[ Ibid. Mrs. Roberts later told investigators she never actually saw Oswald's face during that quick visit. She thought it had to be him. ]

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At 1:34 Oswald is seen in front of a shoe store, acting nervously and suspiciously. The clerk, Johnny Brewer, recognizes him from the earlier radio bulletin description of the man who is involved of the shootings at Dealey Plaza, and the possible murder of a patrolman.

Brewer calls the police.

At 1:37 Oswald slips into the Texas Movie Theater at 231 West Jefferson Boulevard, where he gets arrested 12 minutes later at 1:49 pm.

 

The hunt for the Kennedy assassin is over.

 

Or is it?

 

The gap between 1:04 and 1:34 leaves 30 minutes, giving Oswald ample time to not only kill officer Tippit, but also take a bus from the nearest bus stop, to the first available stop on West Jefferson Boulevard. In fact, the Tippit murder scene is close enough to the Texas Theater to walk / run. The 30 minute window leaves Oswald very exposed, and open to accusations.

But why kill Tippit?

Well the argument could be made that he would have only done that if he feared being arrested for what happened on Elm Street earlier.

So naturally, if you did one crime, you were involved with the other crime too.

Of course, in later years, some speculations were launched. Among them, that Tippit, a Patrolman with an outstanding service record, had debts that would be wiped clean if he killed Oswald. Which would mean Oswald defended himself.

Then came rumours and innuendoes about Tippit himself; that he had extra-marital affairs, on top of his gambling debts, which left him open to blackmailing, that he frequented Jack Ruby’s club, and that, because he looked like JFK and even had his build, he could easily be used as a bodydouble when it was time to take autopsy photos, and that’s why there was a cock-up with the caskets during travel between Dallas and Bethesda Naval Hospital in Maryland.

In any case, the seemingly insignificant murder of Patrolman J.D. Tippit became much bigger than perhaps intended.

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So, at approximately 1:15 pm Dallas police officer J.D. Tippit is murdered on the corner of 10th and Patton. Oswald is arrested at the theater in connection with the death of Tippit, and once he is booked for this crime it’s assumed, because he partially fit the description of the assassin in the book depository window given by eye witness Howard Brennan, that Oswald also shot Kennedy and Connally.

The following morning Oswald is booked for killing the President of the United States.

How anyone down on Elm Street could have guessed his height and size is a riddle, but according to Gerald Hill of the Dallas Police Department, this is exactly what happened.

 

B.M. Patterson (*) claims that the man who shot Tippit came from the direction of Crawford Street, which would make Oswald’s route from Beckley to Davis Street, to Crawford Street, and finally down Patton Avenue, to the corner of East 10th street.

(*) B.M. Patterson, gives a shaky account; in January of 1964 he couldn’t be sure it was Oswald he saw, but in August of 1964 he was positive it was! Patterson is the only witness to this sighting. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if someone had gotten to him and pressured him to say he saw Oswald.

 

At a stiff pace, not running or jogging, but walking briskly, for a man of Oswald’s build and age, and in a healthy physical state, it would have taken 11 minutes and 10 seconds. All this, assuming of course, that Tippit was shot at around 1:15 pm.

And we can only speculate as to why Oswald would have gone in that direction at all.

Perhaps he thought he was being followed and wanted to lose whomever was following him before going to the theater?

Or was he on his way to Jack Ruby’’s apartment on 223 South Ewing Ave.?

Still, for all this to work, Tippit’s timeline would have to be in sync with these events too. Are they? Let’s have a look:

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12:43 pm                         

Dallas Police Officer J.D. Tippit was in the Top Ten Record Shop on West Jefferson Boulevard trying to make a telephone call, possibly to try and get hold of someone at the precinct, since there was too much jabbering and clutter on the police radio.

According to the clerk Tippit spoke to no one. Perhaps the line was busy, so he went back to his patrol car and continued his rounds.

 

12:54 pm                         

Tippit managed to get a hold of dispatch, so he radioed his location (intersection of Lancaster and 8th). Then the dispatcher broadcasted a description of a man in connection with the shooting at Dealey Plaza. This description fit Lee Oswald.

 

Approximately 20 minuters later, Tippit lay dead on the street next to his patrol car.

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Oswald had undergone paraffin tests, and the results came out negative, meaning he did not fire any shots that day. 

So he couldn’t be linked to the rifle, nor could he ever be formally charged with the murder of President Kennedy and the near fatal wounding of Governor Connally. He was exactly what he said he was; “a patsy”.

But he wasn’t getting out from under the killing of Patrolman Tippit.

Then Police Chief Jesse Curry began to tell reporters that Oswald’s paraffin tests were positive.

Reporter: “What does that mean, Chief?”

Curry: ” That he fired a gun.”

What Curry didn’t know was that the residue found on Oswald’s hands, barium and antimony, but not on his cheek, which, after tests with several subjects was very clear, was caused by the handling of books, as these two components can also be found in ink.

Chief Curry was asked what the possibility would be of finding any prints on the weapon that was found. He answered:

“I don’t know whether it would be enough to convict him or not, if we put his prints on the rifle. It would certainly connect him with the rifle.”

 

Now, I could be called paranoid, but it almost seems like Chief Curry was part of the elaborate Oswald set-up.

Curry’s use of the words “if we put his prints on the rifle” isn’t something one would expect from a respected police Chief.

Had there been a trial, whether or not Oswald had legal representation by that time, it would not have been easy to build a good case with so much questioning without a lawyer present, and with statements like the above being made. Of course this was Oswald’s choice.

He opted to answer questions without a lawyer present, in the hopes the lawyer of his choice would be found before a trial took place.

Even Oswald had to have known that anything he said could be twisted and turned in court, and there would be little he could have done about that. I can’t imagine the fear he must have been feeling, knowing that he would never get a fair trial.

That the law, which was meant to protect him and many others, was working hard to have him removed from society any which way possible. Some of the FBI agents, as well as Deputies, the Chief of Police, used to be attorneys at one time or another, and of course Dallas D.A. Henry Wade was around them the whole time. Certainly all these important law men knew that working this way would ensure that Oswald would never see the inside of a court, because once a lawyer did arrive, the table would be turned.

The questioning would stop, and the Q&A would be well documented. Perhaps they did all this to spare Jackie Kennedy the misery of facing her husband’s alleged killer. But that’s all that Lee Oswald ever was. Alleged. Never anything more.

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The argument could be made that he waived his rights to remain silent by talking freely with law enforcement officers.

He was in fact offered a court-appointed lawyer, but requested John Abt, a lawyer from New York.

At approximately 5:30 pm on Friday 22 November, Oswald was visited by H. Louis Nichols, President of the Dallas Bar Association who stated that Oswald said to him:

"Well, I really don't know what this is all about, that I have been kept incarcerated and kept incommunicado. . . . Do you know a lawyer in New York named John Abt? I believe in New York City. I would like to have him represent me. That is the man I would like. Do you know any lawyers who are members of the American Civil Liberties Union? I am a member of that organization, and I would like to have somebody who is a member of that organization represent me."

Mr. Nichols offered to help find a lawyer, but Oswald said: "No, not now. You might come back next week, and if I don't get some of these other people to assist me, I might ask you to get somebody to represent me."

If that is true, he WAS offered legal assistance accordingly, but flat-out refused? What would that have done IF he had gone to trial?

Well, it would have made him look incredibly guilty, as well as foolish. The above, if true, didn’t help him one little bit.

And I say “if true”, because over the years certain foggy statements have surfaced. Statements were made during questioning between Oswald and either Fritz or Curry or Secret Service agent Forrest Sorrells, that were not properly documented, and were even brought to people’s attention upon the refusal by Oswald to sign certain documents with his initials.

Especially when he was heard saying “I did not say that”.

But he wasn’t the first person to claim his statements had been altered.

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Another witness came forward with information regarding certain activities around the plaza before the assassination, and this information was also seen as highly important, as this took place during the set-up stage of the event.

Julia Ann Mercer spoke to the FBI and the Dallas County Sheriff’s Office, but was never questioned by the Warren Commission.

She later told New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison that the statements she made to the FBI and the Sheriff’s Office were later falsified. She stated to them, that she was driving down Elm Street in a rented light-blue Valiant at 11:00 am, caught in very heavy traffic. Mercer noticed a green pickup truck, possibly a Ford, parked along side the road near the underpass, with at least one of its wheels on the sidewalk. She was adament that Jack Ruby sat behind the wheel of this truck, and that she also saw a man getting out the other side and getting something from the back of the truck. From the shape of the item it looked to her to be a gun case, approximately 4 feet in length, and that this man with this case then made his way up the grassy knoll.

Mercer identified Ruby from a series of photographs shown to her by the FBI during her questioning.

This was the day before he killed Oswald. 

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“According to Ms. Mercer, she was driving down Elm St. an hour or so before the assassination took place, on her way to work in Fort Worth, and was forced to drive around a stalled green Ford pick-up truck parked in the curb lane, just before the triple under-pass. According to the November 22 report, the truck had the words “Air Conditioning” printed in black on the driver’s side and the hood was up. As she slowly passed the truck, she noticed a middle-aged, heavy set man slumped over the steering wheel, while a younger man, wearing a plaid shirt and woolen hat with a tassell, reached over the rear of the pick-up and took out what looked like a gun case. He proceeded to carry the case up the side of the grassy knoll towards the picket fence and disappeared from sight.

 

Ms. Mercer had assumed the man with the gun case was with the Secret Service, having commented that they weren’t so secret after all, while eating a late breakfast at a Howard Johnson’s restaurant. Being a regular customer, she had gotten to know the employees and other customers, which often included several policemen. As a result of her comment and the fact that JFK had just been shot (unbeknownst to her), Ms. Mercer was pulled over by two policemen and brought back to Dallas for questioning by the Dallas County Sheriff’s Dep’t. The next morning she was questioned again by the FBI and claimed to have been shown four photos of the possible driver, selecting one with the name “Jack Ruby” on the flip side. When she saw Ruby shoot Oswald on live television the next day, she told her family who were visiting that he was the person whose photo was shown to her by the FBI. However, the FBI makes no such statement in its Nov. 23 report, although photos of Ruby and Oswald were shown to Ms. Mercer on Nov. 25 and Nov. 28.

 

In early 1968 Ms. Mercer and her husband, who was a member of the Illinois State Legislature, were in New Orleans on business, and contacted Jim Garrison in regard to her contention that the police and FBI summaries of her recollections were inaccurate. According to Garrison’s handwritten comments in the margins of the affidavit she allegedly signed on Nov. 22, 1963, she stated that the signature at the end of the statement was not hers but was a forgery. She also claimed that there was no woman present during her interview, even though it is signed by “Rosemary Allen”, a notary public of Dallas County (whose signature looks suspiciously like “Julia Ann Mercer”). Mercer also denied that the truck had any printing on the driver’s side, and insisted that she had gotten a good look at the driver, contrary to what was stated in the affidavit.  She pointed out that she had looked directly at him and that he had looked back at her twice, which was why she recognized Ruby when he shot Oswald two days later.

 

In 1993, on the heels of Oliver Stone’s film “JFK”, which dramatized Julia Ann Mercer’s recollections when she met with Garrison, Gerald Posner’s anti-conspiracy book Case Closed was published. He briefly describes Ms. Mercer’s account, including the alleged identification of the man with the gun case as Oswald (citing Crossfire by Jim Marrs as his source), but like Josiah Thompson years earlier, refers to the policeman’s FBI statement in regard to the stalled truck.  The same year Michael Benson published Who’s Who In the JFK Assassination, and to his credit includes both Mercer’s allegations as well as the explanation provided by Dallas policeman Joe Murphy.”

 

[ SOURCE: http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/creatingapatsy.htm  ]

 

The last paragraph is a very clear, but simple, example of how easily sources are moved around, and how easily wrongful information is spread.

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Something else that never sat right with me: if Oswald was involved with the assassination, why didn’t he have his revolver on him in case he needed to shoot his way out of the building during a getaway? He wasn't a dumb guy, so I have to assume he would have taken that possibility into account. Of course he could have just forgotten it, but if you’re one of very few people who left the building some shots were fired from, without telling anyone that you left or asking for permission to leave, it’s clear you would soon become the suspect and your home address would be the first place where they come looking for you.

So it’s the very last place you should go.

So, in my opinion, when Oswald went home, for whatever reason, to be seen by housekeeper Earleane Roberts at 1:01 pm, he did so because he hadn’t shot anyone from that building. He felt he was innocent.

Assuming, of course, he had his wits in order that day. Because maybe he was just ignorant or arrogant like he sometimes was.

 

It’s interesting to note that one of the few witnesses to this shooting, Ms. Helen Markham, stated clearly what her daily routine was.

She was walking towards the bus stop to catch her regular bus which, according to her statement, was scheduled to leave at 1:15 pm.

(Dallas Transit System states that bus was scheduled to arrive at 1:12 pm).

So if the bus was on time, and she had gotten on it, she would have never been able to witness the shooting.

Hence, the shooting must have taken place before 1:12 pm.

This would explain why the FBI claimed she was an unreliable witness. To undermine her.

 

T.F. Bowley made for an even better witness, as he describes his sequence of actions in an affidavit:

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                                               - he drove up to the scene, and noticed Tippit’s body laying in the road;

                                               - he parked his car;

                                               - “I looked at my watch and it said 1:10 pm”;

                                               - he tried to assist Tippit;

                                               - and finally he took over the car radio from Domingo Benavides

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Mr. Bowley was never questioned by the Warren Commission.

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Domingo Benevides testified that he heard 4 shots, Helen Markham testified that she heard 3 shots, and Acquilla Clemons said she heard 4 shots. Where the idea came from that six shots were fired is beyond me.

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The Bowley time seems plausible since he signed a sworn affidavit that he noticed the time of 1:10 pm on his watch when he arrived at the Tippit scene, and that a few minutes after relaying their location to the dispatcher, an ambulance arrived and that he even helped put Tippit’s body on the stretcher and into the ambulance.

He noticed Tippit’s gun laying under his body and later put it on the hood of the squad car, and eventuallly somewhere inside the car, from where a man, Ted Callaway, who was at the scene, took the gun, got in a cab with the idea to find the shooter!

All this is mentioned in the same affidavit.

He also describes how Benevides failed to understand how to operate the police radio, which is why Bowley radioed dispatch in his stead. Mr. Bowley was the most credible witness at that scene, and his time of 1:10 pm is on record and proves that Tippit could have never been killed by Oswald at 1:15 pm or otherwise.

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Domingo Benavides was said to have made the radio call from Tippit’s patrolcar at 1:03 pm: “A policeman has been shot”.

This is inaccurate information spread by someone, and which found its way into the mainstream media through Oliver Stone's movie.

However​ Roger Craig was adament that he heard a patrolman tell Captain Fritz, while they were on the 6th floor of the book depository, that a patrolman had been shot in Oak Cliff. Oddly enough this was at the exact moment the mysterious Mauser rifle was found.

Craig looked at his watch and noted the time: 1:06 pm.

This was never taken seriously because of the timing, the fact that the Warren Commission said Tippit's time of death was 1:15 pm and they stuck with it, and people began to say the Mauser was never found. The Mauser story was buried, so the time of 1:06 pm went away.

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Unfortunately Benavides isn’t asked, nor did he say, what time he was at the scene.

He remembers he was in that area after 1 o’clock, because he had already had his lunch, but he didn’t remember it as the day of Kennedy’s assassination, nor did he remember what day it was exactly. He thought it was the 24th. Sunday.

This doesn't make him the most reliable witness, in my opinion. From the testimony he gives, it must have been closer to 1:15 than to 1:03, which helps Roger Craig's time of 1:06 disappear.

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And with this, the statement of Butch Burroughs seeing Oswald entering the theater at 1:07 is destroyed, unless that was the real Oswald, because the description of the shooter given by Benavides doesn’t match Oswald.

(nearly 5’11”, average weight, with a darker than average complexion, ruddy face, curly hair)

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Could it have been Billy Seymour?

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Oswald leaving his boarding house at 1:04 and entering the theater at 1:07 can only be maintained if he was driven there from North Beckley. Because it can’t be done on foot in 3 minutes. Not by walking, hiking, nor by running.

Cab driver William Whaley was adament it was Oswald in his cab, and not someone who only looked like him.

Of course all this is assuming Oswald walked up to his boarding house from the spot the cabdriver dropped him off.

Benevides' failure to identify Oswald as the shooter, despite describing him by name (because at the time of the hearing Benavides had learned Oswald's name through the media), still puts a little hope in Oswald's innocence with regards to Tippit’s murder.

Also the cops said Tippit was shot six times. The closest witnesses heard three or four shots.

 

So back to Mrs. Clemons.

 

Acquilla Clemons lived on the North side of 10th Street in Dallas.

On the 22nd of November, 1963, Clemons was sitting on the porch of her house when she saw Patrolman J.D. Tippit killed.

 

Afterwards she claimed that there were two men involved in the attack on Tippit. She later testified in a television documentary that the gunman was a "short guy and kind of heavy". [ibid. Jack Ruby?] The other man was tall and thin in khaki trousers and a white shirt.

She also claimed that Dallas Police warned her not to repeat this story to others or "she might get hurt".

 

Anthony Summers, the author of The Kennedy Conspiracy: "Obviously, Mrs. Clemons should have been questioned more thoroughly than in a television interview. She said she had been visited by the FBI, who decided not to take a statement because of her poor health.

Mrs. Clemons suffered from diabetes, hardly a condition to deter efficient investigators from taking a statement. According to two reporters, who visited Mrs. Clemons several years after the assassination, she and her family still spoke with conviction of seeing two men at the scene of the Tippit shooting. Mrs. Clemons' story finds corroboration from another witness, and he too was ignored."

 

Acquilla Clemons was not called to testify before the Warren Commission.

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