chapter III.[C4-305] Euins, who was on the southwest corner of Elm and

Houston Streets,[C4-306] testified that he could not describe the man he saw in the window. According to Euins, however, as the man lowered his head in order to aim the rifle down Elm Street, he appeared to have a white bald spot on his head.[C4-307] Shortly after the assassination, Euins signed an affidavit describing the man as “white,”[C4-308] but a radio reporter testified that Euins described the man to him as “colored.”[C4-309] In his Commission testimony, Euins stated that he could not ascertain the man’s race and that the statement in the affidavit was intended to refer only to the white spot on the man’s head and not to his race.[C4-310] A Secret Service agent who spoke to Euins approximately 20 to 30 minutes after the assassination confirmed that Euins could neither describe the man in the window nor indicate his race.[C4-311] Accordingly, Euins’ testimony is considered probative as to the source of the shots but is inconclusive as to the identity of the man in the window.

In evaluating the evidence that Oswald was at the southeast corner window of the sixth floor at the time of the shooting, the Commission has considered the allegation that Oswald was photographed standing in front of the building when the shots were fired. The picture which gave rise to these allegations was taken by Associated Press Photographer James W. Altgens, who was standing on the south side of Elm Street between the Triple Underpass and the Depository Building.[C4-312] As the motorcade started its descent down Elm Street, Altgens snapped a picture of the Presidential limousine with the entrance to the Depository Building in the background.[C4-313] Just before snapping the picture Altgens heard a noise which sounded like the popping of a firecracker. Investigation has established that Altgens’ picture was taken approximately 2 seconds after the firing of the shot which entered the back of the President’s neck.[C4-314]

In the background of this picture were several employees watching the parade from the steps of the Depository Building. One of these employees was alleged to resemble Lee Harvey Oswald.[C4-315] The Commission has determined that the employee was in fact Billy Nolan Lovelady, who identified himself in the picture.[C4-316] Standing alongside him were Buell Wesley Frazier[C4-317] and William Shelley,[C4-318] who also identified Lovelady. The Commission is satisfied that Oswald does not appear in this photograph. (See Commission Exhibit No. 900, p. 113.)

Oswald’s Actions in Building After Assassination

In considering whether Oswald was at the southeast corner window at the time the shots were fired, the Commission has reviewed the testimony of witnesses who saw Oswald in the building within minutes after the assassination. The Commission has found that Oswald’s movements, as described by these witnesses, are consistent with his having been at the window at 12:30 p.m.

_The encounter in the lunchroom._--The first person to see Oswald after the assassination was Patrolman M. L. Baker of the Dallas Police Department. Baker was riding a two-wheeled motorcycle behind the last press car of the motorcade.[C4-319] As he turned the corner from Main onto Houston at a speed of about 5 to 10 miles per hour,[C4-320] a strong wind blowing from the north almost unseated him.[C4-321] At about this time he heard the first shot.[C4-322] Having recently heard the sounds of rifles while on a hunting trip, Baker recognized the shots as that of a high-powered rifle; “it sounded high and I immediately kind of looked up, and I had a feeling that it came from the building, either right in front of me [the Depository Building] or of the one across to the right of it.”[C4-323] He saw pigeons flutter upward. He was not certain, “but I am pretty sure they came from the building right on the northwest corner.”[C4-324] He heard two more shots spaced “pretty well even to me.”[C4-325] After the third shot, he “revved that motorcycle up,” drove to the northwest corner of Elm and Houston, and parked approximately 10 feet from the traffic signal.[C4-326] As he was parking he noted that people were “falling, and they were rolling around down there * * * grabbing their children” and rushing about.[C4-327] A woman screamed, “Oh, they have shot that man, they have shot that man.”[C4-328] Baker “had it in mind that the shots came from the top of this building here,” so he ran straight to the entrance of the Depository Building.[C4-329]

Baker testified that he entered the lobby of the building and “spoke out and asked where the stairs or elevator was * * * and this man, Mr. Truly, spoke up and says, it seems to me like he says, ‘I am a building manager. Follow me, officer, and I will show you.’”[C4-330] Baker and building superintendent Roy Truly went through a second set of doors[C4-331] and stopped at a swinging door where Baker bumped into Truly’s back.[C4-332] They went through the swinging door and continued at “a good trot” to the northwest corner of the floor where Truly hoped to find one of the two freight elevators. (See Commission Exhibit No. 1061, p. 148.) Neither elevator was there.[C4-333] Truly pushed the button for the west elevator which operates automatically if the gate is closed.[C4-334] He shouted twice, “Turn loose the elevator.”[C4-335] When the elevator failed to come, Baker said, “let’s take the stairs,” and he followed Truly up the stairway, which is to the west of the elevator.[C4-336]

The stairway is located in the northwest corner of the Depository Building. The stairs from one floor to the next are “=L=-shaped,” with both legs of the “=L=” approximately the same length. Because the stairway itself is enclosed, neither Baker nor Truly could see anything on the second-floor hallway until they reached the landing at the top of the stairs.[C4-337] On the second-floor landing there is a small open area with a door at the east end. This door leads into a small vestibule, and another door leads from the vestibule into the second-floor lunchroom.[C4-338] (See Commission Exhibit No. 1118, p. 150.) The lunchroom door is usually open, but the first door is kept shut by a closing mechanism on the door.[C4-339] This vestibule door is solid except for a small glass window in the upper part of the door.[C4-340] As Baker reached the second floor, he was about 20 feet from the vestibule door.[C4-341] He intended to continue around to his left toward the stairway going up but through the window in the door he caught a fleeting glimpse of a man walking in the vestibule toward the lunchroom.[C4-342]

Since the vestibule door is only a few feet from the lunchroom door,[C4-343] the man must have entered the vestibule only a second or two before Baker arrived at the top of the stairwell. Yet he must have entered the vestibule door before Truly reached the top of the stairwell, since Truly did not see him.[C4-344] If the man had passed from the vestibule into the lunchroom, Baker could not have seen him. Baker said:

He [Truly] had already started around the bend to come to the next elevator going up, I was coming out this one on the second floor, and I don’t know, I was kind of sweeping this area as I come up, I was looking from right to left and as I got to this door here I caught a glimpse of this man, just, you know, a sudden glimpse * * * and it looked to me like he was going away from me. * * *

I can’t say whether he had gone on through that door [the lunchroom door] or not. All I did was catch a glance at him, and evidently he was--this door might have been, you know, closing and almost shut at that time.[C4-345]

With his revolver drawn, Baker opened the vestibule door and ran into the vestibule. He saw a man walking away from him in the lunchroom. Baker stopped at the door of the lunchroom and commanded, “Come here.”[C4-346] The man turned and walked back toward Baker.[C4-347] He had been proceeding toward the rear of the lunchroom.[C4-348] Along a side wall of the lunchroom was a soft drink vending machine,[C4-349] but at that time the man had nothing in his hands.[C4-350]

Meanwhile, Truly had run up several steps toward the third floor. Missing Baker, he came back to find the officer in the doorway to the lunchroom “facing Lee Harvey Oswald.”[C4-351] Baker turned to Truly and said, “Do you know this man, does he work here?”[C4-352] Truly replied, “Yes.”[C4-353] Baker stated later that the man did not seem to be out of breath; he seemed calm. “He never did say a word or nothing. In fact, he didn’t change his expression one bit.”[C4-354] Truly said of Oswald: “He didn’t seem to be excited or overly afraid or anything. He might have been a bit startled, like I might have been if somebody confronted me. But I cannot recall any change in expression of any kind on his face.”[C4-355] Truly thought that the officer’s gun at that time appeared to be almost touching the middle portion of Oswald’s body. Truly also noted at this time that Oswald’s hands were empty.[C4-356]

In an effort to determine whether Oswald could have descended to the lunchroom from the sixth floor by the time Baker and Truly arrived, Commission counsel asked Baker and Truly to repeat their movements from the time of the shot until Baker came upon Oswald in the lunchroom. Baker placed himself on a motorcycle about 200 feet from the corner of Elm and Houston Streets where he said he heard the shots.[C4-357] Truly stood in front of the building.[C4-358] At a given signal, they reenacted the event. Baker’s movements were timed with a stopwatch. On the first test, the elapsed time between the simulated first shot and Baker’s arrival on the second-floor stair landing was 1 minute and 30 seconds. The second test run required 1 minute and 15 seconds.[C4-359]

A test was also conducted to determine the time required to walk from the southeast corner of the sixth floor to the second-floor lunchroom by stairway. Special Agent John Howlett of the Secret Service carried a rifle from the southeast corner of the sixth floor along the east aisle to the northeast corner. He placed the rifle on the floor near the site where Oswald’s rifle was actually found after the shooting. Then Howlett walked down the stairway to the second-floor landing and entered the lunchroom. The first test, run at normal walking pace, required 1 minute, 18 seconds;[C4-360] the second test, at a “fast walk” took 1 minute, 14 seconds.[C4-361] The second test followed immediately after the first. The only interval was the time necessary to ride in the elevator from the second to the sixth floor and walk back to the southeast corner. Howlett was not short winded at the end of either test run.[C4-362]

The minimum time required by Baker to park his motorcycle and reach the second-floor lunchroom was within 3 seconds of the time needed to walk from the southeast corner of the sixth floor down the stairway to the lunchroom. The time actually required for Baker and Truly to reach the second floor on November 22 was probably longer than in the test runs. For example, Baker required 15 seconds after the simulated shot to ride his motorcycle 180 to 200 feet, park it, and run 45 feet to the building.[C4-363] No allowance was made for the special conditions which existed on the day of the assassination--possible delayed reaction to the shot, jostling with the crowd of people on the steps and scanning the area along Elm Street and the parkway.[C4-364] Baker said, “We simulated the shots and by the time we got there, we did everything that I did that day, and this would be the minimum, because I am sure that I, you know, it took me a little longer.”[C4-365] On the basis of this time test, therefore, the Commission concluded that Oswald could have fired the shots and still have been present in the second-floor lunchroom when seen by Baker and Truly.

That Oswald descended by stairway from the sixth floor to the second-floor lunchroom is consistent with the movements of the two elevators, which would have provided the other possible means of descent. When Truly, accompanied by Baker, ran to the rear of the first floor, he was certain that both elevators, which occupy the same shaft,[C4-366] were on the fifth floor.[C4-367] Baker, not realizing that there were two elevators, thought that only one elevator was in the shaft and that it was two or three floors above the second floor.[C4-368] In the few seconds which elapsed while Baker and Truly ran from the first to the second floor, neither of these slow elevators could have descended from the fifth to the second floor. Furthermore, no elevator was at the second floor when they arrived there.[C4-369] Truly and Baker continued up the stairs after the encounter with Oswald in the lunchroom. There was no elevator on the third or fourth floor. The east elevator was on the fifth floor when they arrived; the west elevator was not. They took the east elevator to the seventh floor and ran up a stairway to the roof where they searched for several minutes.[C4-370]

Jack Dougherty, an employee working on the fifth floor, testified that he took the west elevator to the first floor after hearing a noise which sounded like a backfire.[C4-371] Eddie Piper, the janitor, told Dougherty that the President had been shot,[C4-372] but in his testimony Piper did not mention either seeing or talking with Dougherty during these moments of excitement.[C4-373] Both Dougherty and Piper were confused witnesses. They had no exact memory of the events of that afternoon. Truly was probably correct in stating that the west elevator was on the fifth floor when he looked up the elevator shaft from the first floor. The west elevator was not on the fifth floor when Baker and Truly reached that floor, probably because Jack Dougherty took it to the first floor while Baker and Truly were running up the stairs or in the lunchroom with Oswald. Neither elevator could have been used by Oswald as a means of descent.

Oswald’s use of the stairway is consistent with the testimony of other employees in the building. Three employees--James Jarman, Jr., Harold Norman, and Bonnie Ray Williams--were watching the parade from the fifth floor, directly below the window from which the shots were fired. They rushed to the west windows after the shots were fired and remained there until after they saw Patrolman Baker’s white helmet on the fifth floor moving toward the elevator.[C4-374] While they were at the west windows their view of the stairwell was completely blocked by shelves and boxes.[C4-375] This is the period during which Oswald would have descended the stairs. In all likelihood Dougherty took the elevator down from the fifth floor after Jarman, Norman, and Williams ran to the west windows and were deciding what to do. None of these three men saw Dougherty, probably because of the anxiety of the moment and because of the books which may have blocked the view.[C4-376] Neither Jarman, Norman, Williams, or Dougherty saw Oswald.[C4-377]

Victoria Adams, who worked on the fourth floor of the Depository Building, claimed that within about 1 minute following the shots she ran from a window on the south side of the fourth floor,[C4-378] down the rear stairs to the first floor, where she encountered two Depository employees--William Shelley and Billy Lovelady.[C4-379] If her estimate of time is correct, she reached the bottom of the stairs before Truly and Baker started up, and she must have run down the stairs ahead of Oswald and would probably have seen or heard him. Actually she noticed no one on the back stairs. If she descended from the fourth to the first floor as fast as she claimed in her testimony, she would have seen Baker or Truly on the first floor or on the stairs, unless they were already in the second-floor lunchroom talking to Oswald. When she reached the first floor, she actually saw Shelley and Lovelady slightly east of the east elevator.

Shelley and Lovelady, however, have testified that they were watching the parade from the top step of the building entrance when Gloria Calverly, who works in the Depository Building, ran up and said that the President had been shot.[C4-380] Lovelady and Shelley moved out into the street.[C4-381] About this time Shelley saw Truly and Patrolman Baker go into the building.[C4-382] Shelley and Lovelady, at a fast walk or trot, turned west into the railroad yards and then to the west side of the Depository Building. They reentered the building by the rear door several minutes after Baker and Truly rushed through the front entrance.[C4-383] On entering, Lovelady saw a girl on the first floor who he believes was Victoria Adams.[C4-384] If Miss Adams accurately recalled meeting Shelley and Lovelady when she reached the bottom of the stairs, then her estimate of the time when she descended from the fourth floor is incorrect, and she actually came down the stairs several minutes after Oswald and after Truly and Baker as well.

_Oswald’s departure from building._--Within a minute after Baker and Truly left Oswald in the lunchroom, Mrs. R. A. Reid, clerical supervisor for the Texas School Book Depository, saw him walk through the clerical office on the second floor toward the door leading to the front stairway. Mrs. Reid had watched the parade from the sidewalk in front of the building with Truly and Mr. O. V. Campbell, vice president of the Depository.[C4-385] She testified that she heard three shots which she thought came from the building.[C4-386] She ran inside and up the front stairs into the large open office reserved for clerical employees. As she approached her desk, she saw Oswald.[C4-387] He was walking into the office from the back hallway, carrying a full bottle of Coca-Cola in his hand,[C4-388] presumably purchased after the encounter with Baker and Truly. As Oswald passed Mrs. Reid she said, “Oh, the President has been shot, but maybe they didn’t hit him.”[C4-389] Oswald mumbled something and walked by.[C4-390] She paid no more attention to him. The only exit from the office in the direction Oswald was moving was through the door to the front stairway.[C4-391] (See Commission Exhibit 1118, p. 150.) Mrs. Reid testified that when she saw Oswald, he was wearing a T-shirt and no jacket.[C4-392] When he left home that morning, Marina Oswald, who was still in bed, suggested that he wear a jacket.[C4-393] A blue jacket, later identified by Marina Oswald as her husband’s,[C4-394] was subsequently found in the building,[C4-395] apparently left behind by Oswald.

Mrs. Reid believes that she returned to her desk from the street about 2 minutes after the shooting.[C4-396] Reconstructing her movements, Mrs. Reid ran the distance three times and was timed in 2 minutes by stopwatch.[C4-397] The reconstruction was the minimum time.[C4-398] Accordingly, she probably met Oswald at about 12:32, approximately 30-45 seconds after Oswald’s lunchroom encounter with Baker and Truly. After leaving Mrs. Reid in the front office, Oswald could have gone down the stairs and out the front door by 12:33 p.m.[C4-399]--3 minutes after the shooting. At that time the building had not yet been sealed off by the police.

While it was difficult to determine exactly when the police sealed off the building, the earliest estimates would still have permitted Oswald to leave the building by 12:33. One of the police officers assigned to the corner of Elm and Houston Streets for the Presidential motorcade, W.E. Barnett, testified that immediately after the shots he went to the rear of the building to check the fire escape. He then returned to the corner of Elm and Houston where he met a sergeant who instructed him to find out the name of the building. Barnett ran to the building, noted its name, and then returned to the corner.[C4-400] There he was met by a construction worker--in all likelihood Howard Brennan, who was wearing his work helmet.[C4-401] This worker told Barnett that the shots had been fired from a window in the Depository Building, whereupon Barnett posted himself at the front door to make certain that no one left the building. The sergeant did the same thing at the rear of the building.[C4-402] Barnett estimated that approximately 3 minutes elapsed between the time he heard the last of the shots and the time he started guarding the front door. According to Barnett, “there were people going in and out” during this period.[C4-403]

Sgt. D. V. Harkness of the Dallas police said that to his knowledge the building was not sealed off at 12:36 p.m. when he called in on police radio that a witness (Amos Euins) had seen shots fired from a window of the building.[C4-404] At that time, Inspector Herbert V. Sawyer’s car was parked in front of the building.[C4-405] Harkness did not know whether or not two officers with Sawyer were guarding the doors.[C4-406] At 12:34 p.m. Sawyer heard a call over the police radio that the shots had come from the Depository Building.[C4-407] He then entered the building and took the front passenger elevator as far as it would go--the fourth floor.[C4-408] After inspecting this floor, Sawyer returned to the street about 3 minutes after he entered the building.[C4-409] After he returned to the street he directed Sergeant Harkness to station two patrolmen at the front door and not let anyone in or out; he also directed that the back door be sealed off.[C4-410] This was no earlier than 12:37 p.m.[C4-411] and may have been later. Special Agent Forrest V. Sorrels of the Secret Service, who had been in the motorcade, testified that after driving to Parkland Hospital, he returned to the Depository Building about 20 minutes after the shooting, found no police officers at the rear door and was able to enter through this door without identifying himself.[C4-412]

Although Oswald probably left the building at about 12:33 p.m., his absence was not noticed until at least one-half hour later. Truly, who had returned with Patrolman Baker from the roof, saw the police questioning the warehouse employees. Approximately 15 men worked in the warehouse[C4-413] and Truly noticed that Oswald was not among those being questioned.[C4-414] Satisfying himself that Oswald was missing, Truly obtained Oswald’s address, phone number, and description from his employment application card. The address listed was for the Paine home in Irving. Truly gave this information to Captain Fritz who was on the sixth floor at the time[C4-415]. Truly estimated that he gave this information to Fritz about 15 or 20 minutes after the shots,[C4-416] but it was probably no earlier than 1:22 p.m., the time when the rifle was found. Fritz believed that he learned of Oswald’s absence after the rifle was found.[C4-417] The fact that Truly found Fritz in the northwest corner of the floor, near the point where the rifle was found, supports Fritz’ recollection.

Conclusion

Fingerprint and palmprint evidence establishes that Oswald handled two of the four cartons next to the window and also handled a paper bag which was found near the cartons. Oswald was seen in the vicinity of the southeast corner of the sixth floor approximately 35 minutes before the assassination and no one could be found who saw Oswald anywhere else in the building until after the shooting. An eyewitness to the shooting immediately provided a description of the man in the window which was similar to Oswald’s actual appearance. This witness identified Oswald in a lineup as the man most nearly resembling the man he saw and later identified Oswald as the man he observed. Oswald’s known actions in the building immediately after the assassination are consistent with his having been at the southeast corner window of the sixth floor at 12:30 p.m. On the basis of these findings the Commission has concluded that Oswald, at the time of the assassination, was present at the window from which the shots were fired.

THE KILLING OF PATROLMAN J. D. TIPPIT

After leaving the Depository Building at approximately 12:33 p.m., Lee Harvey Oswald proceeded to his roominghouse by bus and taxi. He arrived at approximately 1 p.m. and left a few minutes later. At about 1:16 p.m., a Dallas police officer, J. D. Tippit, was shot less than 1 mile from Oswald’s roominghouse. In deciding whether Oswald killed Patrolman Tippit the Commission considered the following: (1) positive identification of the killer by two eyewitnesses who saw the shooting and seven eyewitnesses who heard the shots and saw the gunman flee the scene with the revolver in his hand, (2) testimony of firearms identification experts establishing the identity of the murder weapon, (3) evidence establishing the ownership of the murder weapon, (4) evidence establishing the ownership of a zipper jacket found along the path of flight taken by the gunman from the scene of the shooting to the place of arrest.

Oswald’s Movements After Leaving Depository Building

_The bus ride._--According to the reconstruction of time and events which the Commission found most credible, Lee Harvey Oswald left the building approximately 3 minutes after the assassination. He probably walked east on Elm Street for seven blocks to the corner of Elm and Murphy where he boarded a bus which was heading back in the direction of the Depository Building, on its way to the Oak Cliff section of Dallas. (See Commission Exhibit 1119-A, p. 158.)

When Oswald was apprehended, a bus transfer marked for the Lakewood-Marsalis route was found in his shirt pocket.[C4-418] The transfer was dated “Fri. Nov. 22, ’63” and was punched in two places by the busdriver. On the basis of this punchmark, which was distinctive to each Dallas driver, the transfer was conclusively identified as having been issued by Cecil J. McWatters, a busdriver for the Dallas Transit Co.[C4-419] On the basis of the date and time on the transfer, McWatters was able to testify that the transfer had been issued by him on a trip which passed a check point at St. Paul and Elm Streets at 12:36 p.m., November 22, 1963.[C4-420]

McWatters was sure that he left the checkpoint on time and he estimated that it took him 3 to 4 minutes to drive three blocks west from the checkpoint to Field Street, which he reached at about 12:40 p.m.[C4-421] McWatters’ recollection is that he issued this transfer to a man who entered his bus just beyond Field Street, where a man beat on the front door of the bus, boarded it and paid his fare.[C4-422] About two blocks later, a woman asked to get off to make a 1 o’clock train at Union Station and requested a transfer which she might use if she got through the traffic.

* * * So I gave her a transfer and opened the door and she was going out the gentleman I had picked up about two blocks [back] asked for a transfer and got off at the same place in the middle of the block where the lady did.

* * * It was the intersection near Lamar Street, it was near Poydras and Lamar Street.[C4-423]

At about 6:30 p.m. on the day of the assassination, McWatters viewed four men in a police lineup. He picked Oswald from the lineup as the man who had boarded the bus at the “lower end of town on Elm around Houston,” and who, during the ride south on Marsalis, had an argument with a woman passenger.[C4-425] In his Commission testimony, McWatters said he had been in error and that a teenager named Milton Jones was the passenger he had in mind.[C4-426] In a later interview, Jones confirmed that he had exchanged words with a woman passenger on the bus during the ride south on Marsalis.[C4-427] McWatters also remembered that a man received a transfer at Lamar and Elm Streets and that a man in the lineup was about the size of this man.[C4-428] However, McWatters’ recollection alone was too vague to be a basis for placing Oswald on the bus.

Riding on the bus was an elderly woman, Mary Bledsoe, who confirmed the mute evidence of the transfer. Oswald had rented a room from Mrs. Bledsoe about 6 weeks before, on October 7,[C4-429] but she had asked him to leave at the end of a week. Mrs. Bledsoe told him “I am not going to rent to you any more.”[C4-430] She testified, “I didn’t like his attitude. * * * There was just something about him I didn’t like or want him. * * * Just didn’t want him around me.” [C4-431] On November 22, Mrs. Bledsoe came downtown to watch the Presidential motorcade. She boarded the Marsalis bus at St. Paul and Elm Streets to return home.[C4-432] She testified further:

And, after we got past Akard, at Murphy--I figured it out. Let’s see. I don’t know for sure. Oswald got on. He looks like a maniac. His sleeve was out here. * * * His shirt was undone.

* * * * *

Was a hole in it, hole, and he was dirty, and I didn’t look at him. I didn’t want to know I even seen him * * *

* * * * *

* * * he looked so bad in his face, and his face was so distorted.

* * * * *

Hole in his sleeve right here.[C4-433]

As Mrs. Bledsoe said these words, she pointed to her right elbow.[C4-434] When Oswald was arrested in the Texas Theatre, he was wearing a brown sport shirt with a hole in the right sleeve at the elbow.[C4-435] Mrs. Bledsoe identified the shirt as the one Oswald was wearing and she stated she was certain that it was Oswald who boarded the bus.[C4-436] Mrs. Bledsoe recalled that Oswald sat halfway to the rear of the bus which moved slowly and intermittently as traffic became heavy.[C4-437] She heard a passing motorist tell the driver that the President had been shot.[C4-438] People on the bus began talking about it. As the bus neared Lamar Street, Oswald left the bus and disappeared into the crowd.[C4-439]

The Marsalis bus which Oswald boarded traveled a route west on Elm, south on Houston, and southwest across the Houston viaduct to service the Oak Cliff area along Marsalis.[C4-440] A Beckley bus which also served the Oak Cliff area, followed the same route as the Marsalis bus through downtown Dallas, except that it continued west on Elm, across Houston in front of the Depository Building, past the Triple Underpass into west Dallas, and south on Beckley.[C4-441] Marsalis Street is seven blocks from Beckley.[C4-442] Oswald lived at 1026 North Beckley.[C4-443] He could not reach his roominghouse on the Marsalis bus, but the Beckley bus stopped across the street.[C4-444] According to McWatters, the Beckley bus was behind the Marsalis bus, but he did not actually see it.[C4-445] Both buses stopped within one block of the Depository Building. Instead of waiting there, Oswald apparently went as far away as he could and boarded the first Oak Cliff bus which came along rather than wait for one which stopped across the street from his roominghouse.

In a reconstruction of this bus trip, agents of the Secret Service and the FBI walked the seven blocks from the front entrance of the Depository Building to Murphy and Elm three times, averaging 6½ minutes for the three trips.[C4-446] A bus moving through heavy traffic on Elm from Murphy to Lamar was timed at 4 minutes.[C4-447] If Oswald left the Depository Building at 12:33 p.m., walked seven blocks directly to Murphy and Elm, and boarded a bus almost immediately, he would have boarded the bus at approximately 12:40 p.m. and left it at approximately 12:44 p.m. (See Commission Exhibit No. 1119-A, p. 158.)

Roger D. Craig, a deputy sheriff of Dallas County, claimed that about 15 minutes after the assassination he saw a man, whom he later identified as Oswald,[C4-448] coming from the direction of the Depository Building and running down the hill north of Elm Street toward a light-colored Rambler station wagon, which was moving slowly along Elm toward the underpass.[C4-449] The station wagon stopped to pick up the man and then drove off.[C4-450] Craig testified that later in the afternoon he saw Oswald in the police interrogation room and told Captain Fritz that Oswald was the man he saw.[C4-451] Craig also claimed that when Fritz pointed out to Oswald that Craig had identified him, Oswald rose from his chair, looked directly at Fritz, and said, “Everybody will know who I am now.”[C4-452]

The Commission could not accept important elements of Craig’s testimony. Captain Fritz stated that a deputy sheriff whom he could not identify did ask to see him that afternoon and told him a similar story to Craig’s.[C4-453] Fritz did not bring him into his office to identify Oswald but turned him over to Lieutenant Baker for questioning. If Craig saw Oswald that afternoon, he saw him through the glass windows of the office. And neither Captain Fritz nor any other officer can remember that Oswald dramatically arose from his chair and said, “Everybody will know who I am now.”[C4-454] If Oswald had made such a statement, Captain Fritz and others present would probably have remembered it. Craig may have seen a person enter a white Rambler station wagon 15 or 20 minutes after the shooting and travel west on Elm Street, but the Commission concluded that this man was not Lee Harvey Oswald, because of the overwhelming evidence that Oswald was far away from the building by that time.

_The taxicab ride._--William Whaley, a taxicab driver, told his employer on Saturday morning, November 23, that he recognized Oswald from a newspaper photograph as a man whom he had driven to the Oak Cliff area the day before.[C4-455] Notified of Whaley’s statement, the police brought him to the police station that afternoon. He was taken to the lineup room where, according to Whaley, five young teenagers, all handcuffed together, were displayed with Oswald.[C4-456] He testified that Oswald looked older than the other boys.[C4-457] The police asked him whether he could pick out his passenger from the lineup. Whaley picked Oswald. He said,

* * * you could have picked him out without identifying him by just listening to him because he was bawling out the policeman, telling them it wasn’t right to put him in line with these teenagers and all of that and they asked me which one and I told them. It was him all right, the same man.

* * * * *

He showed no respect for the policemen, he told them what he thought about them. They knew what they were doing and they were trying to railroad him and he wanted his lawyer.[C4-458]

Whaley believes that Oswald’s conduct did not aid him in his identification “because I knew he was the right one as soon as I saw him.”[C4-459]

Whaley’s memory of the lineup is inaccurate. There were four men altogether, not six men, in the lineup with Oswald.[C4-460] Whaley said that Oswald was the man under No. 2.[C4-461] Actually Oswald was under No. 3. Only two of the men in the lineup with Oswald were teenagers: John T. Horn, aged 18, was No. 1; David Knapp, aged 18, was No. 2; Lee Oswald was No. 3; and Daniel Lujan, aged 26, was No. 4.[C4-462]

When he first testified before the Commission, Whaley displayed a trip manifest[C4-463] which showed a 12 o’clock trip from Travis Hotel to the Continental bus station, unloaded at 12:15 p.m., a 12:15 p.m. pickup at Continental to Greyhound, unloaded at 12:30 p.m., and a pickup from Greyhound (bus station) at 12:30 p.m., unloaded at 500 North Beckley at 12:45 p.m. Whaley testified that he did not keep an accurate time record of his trips but recorded them by the quarter hour, and that sometimes he made his entry right after a trip while at other times he waited to record three or four trips.[C4-464] As he unloaded his Continental bus station passenger in front of Greyhound, he started to get out to buy a package of cigarettes.[C4-465] He saw a man walking south on Lamar from Commerce. The man was dressed in faded blue color khaki work clothes, a brown shirt, and some kind of work jacket that almost matched his pants.[C4-466] The man asked, “May I have the cab?”, and got into the front seat.[C4-467] Whaley described the ensuing events as follows:

And about that time an old lady, I think she was an old lady, I don’t remember nothing but her sticking her head down past him in the door and said, “Driver, will you call me a cab down here?”

She had seen him get this cab and she wanted one, too, and he opened the door a little bit like he was going to get out and he said, “I will let you have this one,” and she says, “No, the driver can call me one.”

* * * * *

* * * I asked him where he wanted to go. And he said, “500 North Beckley.”

Well, I started up, I started to that address, and the police cars, the sirens was going, running crisscrossing everywhere, just a big uproar in that end of town and I said, “What the hell. I wonder what the hell is the uproar?”

And he never said anything. So I figured he was one of these people that don’t like to talk so I never said any more to him.

But when I got pretty close to 500 block at Neches and North Beckley which is the 500 block, he said, “This will do fine,” and I pulled over to the curb right there. He gave me a dollar bill, the trip was 95 cents. He gave me a dollar bill and didn’t say anything, just got out and closed the door and walked around the front of the cab over to the other side of the street [east side of the street]. Of course, the traffic was moving through there and I put it in gear and moved on, that is the last I saw of him.[C4-468]

Whaley was somewhat imprecise as to where he unloaded his passenger. He marked what he thought was the intersection of Neches and Beckley on a map of Dallas with a large “X.”[C4-469] He said, “Yes, sir; that is right, because that is the 500 block of North Beckley.”[C4-470] However, Neches and Beckley do not intersect. Neches is within one-half block of the roominghouse at 1026 North Beckley where Oswald was living. The 500 block of North Beckley is five blocks south of the roominghouse.[C4-471]

After a review of these inconsistencies in his testimony before the Commission, Whaley was interviewed again in Dallas. The route of the taxicab was retraced under the direction of Whaley.[C4-472] He directed the driver of the car to a point 20 feet north of the northwest corner of the intersection of Beckley and Neely, the point at which he said his passenger alighted.[C4-473] This was the 700 block of North Beckley.[C4-474] The elapsed time of the reconstructed run from the Greyhound Bus Station to Neely and Beckley was 5 minutes and 30 seconds by stopwatch.[C4-475] The walk from Beckley and Neely to 1026 North Beckley was timed by Commission counsel at 5 minutes and 45 seconds.[C4-476]

Whaley testified that Oswald was wearing either the gray zippered jacket or the heavy blue jacket.[C4-477] He was in error, however. Oswald could not possibly have been wearing the blue jacket during the trip with Whaley, since it was found in the “domino” room of the Depository late in November.[C4-478] Moreover, Mrs. Bledsoe saw Oswald in the bus without a jacket and wearing a shirt with a hole at the elbow.[C4-479] On the other hand, Whaley identified Commission Exhibit No. 150 (the shirt taken from Oswald upon arrest) as the shirt his passenger was wearing.[C4-480] He also stated he saw a silver identification bracelet on his passenger’s left wrist.[C4-481] Oswald was wearing such a bracelet when he was arrested.[C4-482]

On November 22, Oswald told Captain Fritz that he rode a bus to a stop near his home and then walked to his roominghouse.[C4-483] When queried the following morning concerning a bus transfer found in his possession at the time of his arrest, he admitted receiving it.[C4-484] And when interrogated about a cab ride, Oswald also admitted that he left the slow-moving bus and took a cab to his roominghouse.[C4-485]

The Greyhound Bus Station at Lamar and Jackson Streets, where Oswald entered Whaley’s cab, is three to four short blocks south of Lamar and Elm.[C4-486] If Oswald left the bus at 12:44 p.m. and walked directly to the terminal, he would have entered the cab at 12:47 or 12:48 p.m. If the cab ride was approximately 6 minutes, as was the reconstructed ride, he would have reached his destination at approximately 12:54 p.m. If he was discharged at Neely and Beckley and walked directly to his roominghouse, he would have arrived there about 12:59 to 1 p.m. From the 500 block of North Beckley, the walk would be a few minutes longer, but in either event he would have been in the roominghouse at about 1 p.m. This is the approximate time he entered the roominghouse, according to Earlene Roberts, the housekeeper there.[C4-487] (See Commission Exhibit No. 1119-A, p. 158.)

_Arrival and departure from roominghouse._--Earlene Roberts, housekeeper for Mrs. A.C. Johnson at 1026 North Beckley, knew Lee Harvey Oswald under the alias of O. H. Lee. She first saw him the day he rented a room at that address on October 14, 1963.[C4-488] He signed his name as O. H. Lee on the roominghouse register.[C4-489]

Mrs. Roberts testified that on Thursday, November 21, Oswald did not come home. On Friday, November 22, about 1 p.m., he entered the house in unusual haste. She recalled that it was subsequent to the time the President had been shot. After a friend had called and told her, “President Kennedy has been shot,” she turned on the television. When Oswald came in she said, “Oh, you are in a hurry,” but Oswald did not respond. He hurried to his room and stayed no longer than 3 or 4 minutes. Oswald had entered the house in his shirt sleeves, but when he left, he was zipping up a jacket. Mrs. Roberts saw him a few seconds later standing near the bus stop in front of the house on the east side of Beckley.[C4-490]

Oswald was next seen about nine-tenths of a mile away at the southeast corner of 10th Street and Patton Avenue, moments before the Tippit shooting. (See Commission Exhibit No. 1119-A, p. 158.) If Oswald left his roominghouse shortly after 1 p.m. and walked at a brisk pace, he would have reached 10th and Patton shortly after 1:15 p.m.[C4-491] Tippit’s murder was recorded on the police radio tape at about 1:16 p.m.[C4-492]

Description of Shooting

Patrolman J. D. Tippit joined the Dallas Police Department in July 1952.[C4-493] He was described by Chief Curry as having the reputation of being “a very fine, dedicated officer.”[C4-494] Tippit patroled district No. 78 in the Oak Cliff area of Dallas during daylight hours. He drove a police car painted distinctive colors with No. 10 prominently displayed on each side. Tippit rode alone, as only one man was normally assigned to a patrol car in residential areas during daylight shifts.[C4-495]

At about 12:44 p.m. on November 22, the radio dispatcher on channel 1 ordered all downtown patrol squads to report to Elm and Houston, code 3 (emergency).[C4-496] At 12:45 p.m. the dispatcher ordered No. 78 (Tippit) to “move into central Oak Cliff area.”[C4-497] At 12:54 p.m., Tippit reported that he was in the central Oak Cliff area at Lancaster and Eighth. The dispatcher ordered Tippit to be: “* * * at large for any emergency that comes in.”[C4-498] According to Chief Curry, Tippit was free to patrol the central Oak Cliff area.[C4-499] Tippit must have heard the description of the suspect wanted for the President’s shooting; it was broadcast over channel 1 at 12:45 p.m., again at 12:48 p.m., and again at 12:55 p.m.[C4-500] The suspect was described as a “white male, approximately 30, slender build, height 5 foot 10 inches, weight 165 pounds.”[C4-501] A similar description was given on channel 2 at 12:45 p.m.[C4-502]

At approximately 1:15 p.m., Tippit, who was cruising east on 10th Street, passed the intersection of 10th and Patton, about eight blocks from where he had reported at 12:54 p.m. About 100 feet past the intersection Tippit stopped a man walking east along the south side of Patton. (See Commission Exhibit No. 1968, p. 164.) The man’s general description was similar to the one broadcast over the police radio. Tippit stopped the man and called him to his car. He approached the car and apparently exchanged words with Tippit through the right front or vent window. Tippit got out and started to walk around the front of the car. As Tippit reached the left front wheel the man pulled out a revolver and fired several shots. Four bullets hit Tippit and killed him instantly. The gunman started back toward Patton Avenue, ejecting the empty cartridge cases before reloading with fresh bullets.

Eyewitnesses

At least 12 persons saw the man with the revolver in the vicinity of the Tippit crime scene at or immediately after the shooting. By the evening of November 22, five of them had identified Lee Harvey Oswald in police lineups as the man they saw. A sixth did so the next day. Three others subsequently identified Oswald from a photograph. Two witnesses testified that Oswald resembled the man they had seen. One witness felt he was too distant from the gunman to make a positive identification. (See Commission Exhibit No. 1968, p. 164.)

A taxi driver, William Scoggins, was eating lunch in his cab which was parked on Patton facing the southeast corner of 10th Street and Patton Avenue a few feet to the north.[C4-503] A police car moving east on 10th at about 10 or 12 miles an hour passed in front of his cab. About 100 feet from the corner the police car pulled up alongside a man on the sidewalk. This man, dressed in a light-colored jacket, approached the car. Scoggins lost sight of him behind some shrubbery on the southeast corner lot, but he saw the policeman leave the car, heard three or four shots, and then saw the policeman fall. Scoggins hurriedly left his seat and hid behind the cab as the man came back toward the corner with gun in hand. The man cut across the yard through some bushes, passed within 12 feet of Scoggins, and ran south on Patton. Scoggins saw him and heard him mutter either “Poor damn cop” or “Poor dumb cop.”[C4-504] The next day Scoggins viewed a lineup of four persons and identified Oswald as the man whom he had seen the day before at 10th and Patton.[C4-505] In his testimony before the Commission, Scoggins stated that he thought he had seen a picture of Oswald in the newspapers prior to the lineup identification on Saturday. He had not seen Oswald on television and had not been shown any photographs of Oswald by the police.[C4-506]

Another witness, Domingo Benavides, was driving a pickup truck west on 10th Street. As he crossed the intersection a block east of 10th and Patton, he saw a policeman standing by the left door of the police car parked along the south side of 10th. Benavides saw a man standing at the right side of the parked police car. He then heard three shots and saw the policeman fall to the ground. By this time the pickup truck was across the street and about 25 feet from the police car. Benavides stopped and waited in the truck until the gunman ran to the corner. He saw him empty the gun and throw the shells into some bushes on the southeast corner lot.[C4-507] It was Benavides, using Tippit’s car radio, who first reported the killing of Patrolman Tippit at about 1:16 p.m.: “We’ve had a shooting out here.”[C4-508] He found two empty shells in the bushes and gave them to Patrolman J. M. Poe who arrived on the scene shortly after the shooting.[C4-509] Benavides never saw Oswald after the arrest. When questioned by police officers on the evening of November 22, Benavides told them that he did not think that he could identify the man who fired the shots. As a result, they did not take him to the police station. He testified that the picture of Oswald which he saw later on television bore a resemblance to the man who shot Officer Tippit.[C4-510]

Just prior to the shooting, Mrs. Helen Markham, a waitress in downtown Dallas, was about to cross 10th Street at Patton. As she waited on the northwest corner of the intersection for traffic to pass,[C4-511] she noticed a young man as he was “almost ready to get up on the curb”[C4-512] at the southeast corner of the intersection, approximately 50 feet away. The man continued along 10th Street. Mrs. Markham saw a police car slowly approach the man from the rear and stop alongside of him. She saw the man come to the right window of the police car. As he talked, he leaned on the ledge of the right window with his arms. The man appeared to step back as the policeman “calmly opened the car door” and very slowly got out and walked toward the front of the car. The man pulled a gun. Mrs. Markham heard three shots and saw the policeman fall to the ground near the left front wheel. She raised her hands to her eyes as the man started to walk back toward Patton.[C4-513] She peered through her fingers, lowered her hands, and saw the man doing something with his gun. “He was just fooling with it. I didn’t know what he was doing. I was afraid he was fixing to kill me.”[C4-514] The man “in kind of a little trot” headed down Patton toward Jefferson Boulevard, a block away. Mrs. Markham then ran to Officer Tippit’s side and saw him lying in a pool of blood.[C4-515]

Helen Markham was screaming as she leaned over the body.[C4-516] A few minutes later she described the gunman to a policeman.[C4-517] Her description and that of other eyewitnesses led to the police broadcast at 1:22 p.m. describing the slayer as “about 30, 5’8”, black hair, slender.”[C4-518] At about 4:30 p.m., Mrs. Markham, who had been greatly upset by her experience, was able to view a lineup of four men handcuffed together at the police station.[C4-519] She identified Lee Harvey Oswald as the man who shot the policeman.[C4-520] Detective L. C. Graves, who had been with Mrs. Markham before the lineup testified that she was “quite hysterical” and was “crying and upset.”[C4-521] He said that Mrs. Markham started crying when Oswald walked into the lineup room.[C4-522] In testimony before the Commission, Mrs. Markham confirmed her positive identification of Lee Harvey Oswald as the man she saw kill Officer Tippit.[C4-523]

In evaluating Mrs. Markham’s identification of Oswald, the Commission considered certain allegations that Mrs. Markham described the man who killed Patrolman Tippit as “short, a little on the heavy side,” and having “somewhat bushy” hair.[C4-524] The Commission reviewed the transcript of a phone conversation in which Mrs. Markham is alleged to have provided such a description.[C4-525] A review of the complete transcript has satisfied the Commission that Mrs. Markham strongly reaffirmed her positive identification of Oswald and denied having described the killer as short, stocky and having bushy hair. She stated that the man weighed about 150 pounds.[C4-526] Although she used the words “a little bit bushy” to describe the gunman’s hair, the transcript establishes that she was referring to the uncombed state of his hair, a description fully supported by a photograph of Oswald taken at the time of his arrest. (See Pizzo Exhibit No. 453-C, p. 177.) Although in the phone conversation she described the man as “short,”[C4-527] on November 22, within minutes of the shooting and before the lineup, Mrs. Markham described the man to the police as 5’8” tall.[C4-528]

During her testimony Mrs. Markham initially denied that she ever had the above phone conversation.[C4-529] She has subsequently admitted the existence of the conversation and offered an explanation for her denial.[C4-530] Addressing itself solely to the probative value of Mrs. Markham’s contemporaneous description of the gunman and her positive identification of Oswald at a police lineup, the Commission considers her testimony reliable. However, even in the absence of Mrs. Markham’s testimony, there is ample evidence to identify Oswald as the killer of Tippit.

Two young women, Barbara Jeanette Davis and Virginia Davis, were in an apartment of a multiple-unit house on the southeast corner of 10th and Patton when they heard the sound of gunfire and the screams of Helen Markham. They ran to the door in time to see a man with a revolver cut across their lawn and disappear around a corner of the house onto Patton.[C4-531] Barbara Jeanette Davis assumed that he was emptying his gun as “he had it open and was shaking it.”[C4-532] She immediately called the police. Later in the day each woman found an empty shell on the ground near the house. These two shells were delivered to the police.[C4-533]

On the evening of November 22, Barbara Jeanette and Virginia Davis viewed a group of four men in a lineup and each one picked Oswald as the man who crossed their lawn while emptying his pistol.[C4-534] Barbara Jeanette Davis testified that no one had shown her a picture of Oswald before the identification and that she had not seen him on television. She was not sure whether she had seen his picture in a newspaper on the afternoon or evening of November 22 prior to the lineup.[C4-535] Her reaction when she saw Oswald in the lineup was that “I was pretty sure it was the same man I saw. When they made him turn sideways, I was positive that was the one I seen.”[C4-536] Similarly, Virginia Davis had not been shown pictures of anyone prior to the lineup and had not seen either television or the newspapers during the afternoon.[C4-537] She identified Oswald, who was the No. 2 man in the lineup,[C4-538] as the man she saw running with the gun: she testified, “I would say that was him for sure.”[C4-539] Barbara Jeanette Davis and Virginia Davis were sitting alongside each other when they made their positive identifications of Oswald.[C4-540] Each woman whispered Oswald’s number to the detective. Each testified that she was the first to make the identification.[C4-541]

William Arthur Smith was about a block east of 10th and Patton when he heard shots. He looked west on 10th and saw a man running to the west and a policeman falling to the ground. Smith failed to make himself known to the police on November 22. Several days later he reported what he had seen and was questioned by FBI agents.[C4-542] Smith subsequently told a Commission staff member that he saw Oswald on television the night of the murder and thought that Oswald was the man he had seen running away from the shooting.[C4-543] On television Oswald’s hair looked blond, whereas Smith remembered that the man who ran away had hair that was brown or brownish black. Later, the FBI showed Smith a picture of Oswald. In the picture the hair was brown.[C4-544] According to his testimony, Smith told the FBI, “It looked more like him than it did on television.” He stated further that from “What I saw of him” the man looked like the man in the picture.[C4-545]

Two other important eyewitnesses to Oswald’s flight were Ted Callaway, manager of a used-car lot on the northeast corner of Patton Avenue and Jefferson Boulevard, and Sam Guinyard, a porter at the lot. They heard the sound of shots to the north of their lot.[C4-546] Callaway heard five shots, and Guinyard three. Both ran to the sidewalk on the east side of Patton at a point about a half a block south of 10th. They saw a man coming south on Patton with a revolver held high in his right hand. According to Callaway, the man crossed to the west side of Patton.[C4-547] From across the street Callaway yelled, “Hey, man, what the hell is going on?” He slowed down, halted, said something, and then kept on going to the corner, turned right, and continued west on Jefferson.[C4-548] Guinyard claimed that the man ran down the east side of Patton and passed within 10 feet of him before crossing to the other side.[C4-549] Guinyard and Callaway ran to 10th and Patton and found Tippit lying in the street beside his car.[C4-550] Apparently he had reached for his gun; it lay beneath him outside of the holster. Callaway picked up the gun.[C4-551] He and Scoggins attempted to chase down the gunman in Scoggin’s taxicab,[C4-552] but he had disappeared. Early in the evening of November 22, Guinyard and Callaway viewed the same lineup of four men from which Mrs. Markham had earlier made her identification of Lee Harvey Oswald. Both men picked Oswald as the man who had run south on Patton with a gun in his hand.[C4-553] Callaway told the Commission: “So they brought four men in. I stepped to the back of the room, so I could kind of see him from the same distance which I had seen him before. And when he came out I knew him.”[C4-554] Guinyard said, “I told them that was him right there. I pointed him out right there.”[C4-555] Both Callaway and Guinyard testified that they had not been shown any pictures by the police before the lineup.[C4-556]

The Dallas Police Department furnished the Commission with pictures of the men who appeared in the lineups with Oswald,[C4-557] and the Commission has inquired into general lineup procedures used by the Dallas police as well as the specific procedures in the lineups involving Oswald.[C4-558] The Commission is satisfied that the lineups were conducted fairly.

As Oswald ran south on Patton Avenue toward Jefferson Boulevard he was moving in the direction of a used-car lot located on the southeast corner of this intersection.[C4-559] Four men--Warren Reynolds,[C4-560] Harold Russell,[C4-561] Pat Patterson,[C4-562] and L. J. Lewis[C4-563]--were on the lot at the time, and they saw a white male with a revolver in his hands running south on Patton. When the man reached Jefferson, he turned right and headed west. Reynolds and Patterson decided to follow him. When he reached a gasoline service station one block away he turned north and walked toward a parking area in the rear of the station. Neither Reynolds nor Patterson saw the man after he turned off Jefferson at the service station.[C4-564] These four witnesses were interviewed by FBI agents 2 months after the shooting. Russell and Patterson were shown a picture of Oswald and they stated that Oswald was the man they saw on November 22, 1963. Russell confirmed this statement in a sworn affidavit for the Commission.[C4-565] Patterson, when asked later to confirm his identification by affidavit said he did not recall having been shown the photograph. He was then shown two photographs of Oswald and he advised that Oswald was “unquestionably” the man he saw.[C4-566] Reynolds did not make a positive identification when interviewed by the FBI, but he subsequently testified before a Commission staff member and, when shown two photographs of Oswald, stated that they were photographs of the man he saw.[C4-567] L. J. Lewis said in an interview that because of the distance from which he observed the gunman he would hesitate to state whether the man was identical with Oswald.[C4-568]

Murder Weapon

When Oswald was arrested, he had in his possession a Smith & Wesson .38 Special caliber revolver, serial number V510210. (See Commission Exhibit No. 143, p. 170). Two of the arresting officers placed their initials on the weapon and a third inscribed his name. All three identified Exhibit No. 143 as the revolver taken from Oswald when he was arrested.[C4-569] Four cartridge cases were found in the shrubbery on the corner of 10th and Patton by three of the eyewitnesses--Domingo Benavides, Barbara Jeanette Davis, and Virginia Davis.[C4-570] It was the unanimous and unequivocal testimony of expert witnesses before the Commission that these used cartridge cases were fired from the revolver in Oswald’s possession to the exclusion of all other weapons. (See app. X, p. 559.)

Cortlandt Cunningham, of the Firearms Identification Unit of the FBI Laboratory, testified that he compared the four empty cartridge cases found near the scene of the shooting with a test cartridge fired from the weapon in Oswald’s possession when he was arrested. Cunningham declared that this weapon fired the four cartridges to the exclusion of all other weapons. Identification was effected through breech face marks and firing pin marks.[C4-571] Robert A. Frazier and Charles Killion, other FBI firearms experts, independently examined the four cartridge cases and arrived at the same conclusion as Cunningham.[C4-572] At the request of the Commission, Joseph D. Nicol, superintendent of the Illinois Bureau of Criminal Identification Investigation, also examined the four cartridge cases found near the site of the homicide and compared them with the test cartridge cases fired from the Smith & Wesson revolver taken from Oswald. He concluded that all of these cartridges were fired from the same weapon.[C4-573]

Cunningham compared four lead bullets recovered from the body of Patrolman Tippit with test bullets fired from Oswald’s revolver.[C4-574] He explained that the bullets were slightly smaller than the barrel of the pistol which had fired them. This caused the bullets to have an erratic passage through the barrel and impressed upon the lead of the bullets inconsistent individual characteristics which made identification impossible. Consecutive bullets fired from the revolver by the FBI experts could not be identified as having been fired from that revolver.[C4-575] (See app. X, p. 559.) Cunningham testified that all of the bullets were mutilated, one being useless for comparison purposes. All four bullets were fired from a weapon with five lands and grooves and a right twist[C4-576] which were the rifling characteristics of the revolver taken from Oswald. He concluded, however, that he could not say whether the four bullets were fired from the revolver in Oswald’s possession.[C4-577] “The only thing I can testify is they could have on the basis of the rifling characteristics--they could have been.”[C4-578]

Nicol differed with the FBI experts on one bullet taken from Tippit’s body. He declared that this bullet[C4-579] was fired from the same weapon that fired the test bullets to the exclusion of all other weapons. But he agreed that because the other three bullets were mutilated, he could not determine if they had been fired from the same weapon as the test bullets.[C4-580]

The examination and testimony of the experts enabled the Commission to conclude that five shots may have been fired, even though only four bullets were recovered. Three of the bullets recovered from Tippit’s body were manufactured by Winchester-Western, and the fourth bullet by Remington-Peters, but only two of the four discarded cartridge cases found on the lawn at 10th Street and Patton Avenue were of Winchester-Western manufacture.[C4-581] Therefore, one cartridge case of this type was not recovered. And though only one bullet of Remington-Peters manufacture was recovered, two empty cartridge cases of that make were retrieved. Therefore, either one bullet of Remington-Peters manufacture is missing or one used Remington-Peters cartridge case, which may have been in the revolver before the shooting, was discarded along with the others as Oswald left the scene. If a bullet is missing, five were fired. This corresponds with the observation and memory of Ted Callaway,[C4-582] and possibly Warren Reynolds, but not with the other eyewitnesses who claim to have heard from two to four shots.

Ownership of Revolver

By checking certain importers and dealers after the assassination of President Kennedy and slaying of Officer Tippit, agents of the FBI determined that George Rose & Co. of Los Angeles was a major distributor of this type of revolver.[C4-583] Records of Seaport Traders, Inc., a mail-order division of George Rose & Co., disclosed that on January 3, 1963, the company received from Empire Wholesale Sporting Goods, Ltd., Montreal, a shipment of 99 guns in one case. Among these guns was a .38 Special caliber Smith & Wesson revolver, serial No. V510210, the only revolver made by Smith & Wesson with this serial number.[C4-584] When first manufactured, it had a 5-inch barrel. George Rose & Co. had the barrel shortened by a gunsmith to 2¼ inches.[C4-585]

Sometime after January 27, 1963, Seaport Traders, Inc., received through the mail a mail-order coupon for one “.38 St. W. 2” Bbl.,” cost $29.95. Ten dollars in cash was enclosed. The order was signed in ink by “A. J. Hidell, aged 28.”[C4-586] (See Commission Exhibit No. 790, p. 173.) The date of the order was January 27 (no year shown), and the return address was Post Office Box 2915, Dallas, Tex. Also on the order form was an order, written in ink, for one box of ammunition and one holster, but a line was drawn through these items. The mail-order form had a line for the name of a witness to attest that the person ordering the gun was a U.S. citizen and had not been convicted of a felony. The name written in this space was D. F. Drittal.[C4-587]

Heinz W. Michaelis, office manager of both George Rose & Co., Inc., and Seaport Traders, Inc., identified records of Seaport Traders, Inc., which showed that a “.38 S and W Special two-inch Commando, serial number V510210” was shipped on March 20, 1963, to A. J. Hidell, Post Office Box 2915, Dallas, Tex. The invoice was prepared on March 13, 1963; the revolver was actually shipped on March 20 by Railway Express. The balance due on the purchase was $19.95. Michaelis furnished the shipping copy of the invoice, and the Railway Express Agency shipping documents, showing that $19.95, plus $1.27 shipping charge, had been collected from the consignee, Hidell.[C4-588] (See Michaelis Exhibits Nos. 2, 4, 5, p. 173.)

Handwriting experts, Alwyn Cole of the Treasury Department and James C. Cadigan of the FBI, testified before the Commission that the writing on the coupon was Oswald’s. The signature of the witness, D. F. Drittal, who attested that the fictitious Hidell was an American citizen and had not been convicted of a felony, was also in Oswald’s handwriting.[C4-589] Marina Oswald gave as her opinion that the mail-order coupon was in Oswald’s handwriting.[C4-590] When shown the revolver, she stated that she recognized it as the one owned by her husband.[C4-591] She also testified that this appeared to be the revolver seen in Oswald’s belt in the picture she took in late March or early April 1963 when the family was living on Neely Street in Dallas.[C4-592] Police found an empty revolver holster when they searched Oswald’s room on Beckley Avenue after his arrest.[C4-593] Marina Oswald testified that this was the holster which contained the revolver in the photographs taken on Neely Street.[C4-594]

Oswald’s Jacket

Approximately 15 minutes before the shooting of Tippit, Oswald was seen leaving his roominghouse.[C4-595] He was wearing a zipper jacket which he had not been wearing moments before when he had arrived home.[C4-596] When Oswald was arrested, he did not have a jacket.[C4-597] Shortly after Tippit was slain, policemen found a light-colored zipper jacket along the route taken by the killer as he attempted to escape.[C4-598] (See Commission Exhibit No. 1968, p. 164.)

At 1:22 p.m. the Dallas police radio described the man wanted for the murder of Tippit as “a white male about thirty, five foot eight inches, black hair, slender, wearing a white jacket, white shirt and dark slacks.”[C4-599] According to Patrolman Poe this description came from Mrs. Markham and Mrs. Barbara Jeanette Davis.[C4-600] Mrs. Markham told Poe that the man was a “white male, about 25, about five feet eight, brown hair, medium,” and wearing a “white jacket.” Mrs. Davis gave Poe the same general description: a “white male in his early twenties, around five foot seven inches or eight inches, about 145 pounds,” and wearing a white jacket.

As has been discussed previously, two witnesses, Warren Reynolds and B. M. Patterson, saw the gunman run toward the rear of a gasoline service station on Jefferson Boulevard. Mrs. Mary Brock, the wife of a mechanic who worked at the station, was there at the time and she saw a white male, “5 feet, 10 inches * * * wearing light clothing * * * a light-colored jacket” walk past her at a fast pace with his hands in his pocket. She last saw him in the parking lot directly behind the service station. When interviewed by FBI agents on January 21, 1964, she identified a picture of Oswald as being the same person she saw on November 22. She confirmed this interview by a sworn affidavit.[C4-601]

At 1:24 p.m., the police radio reported, “The suspect last seen running west on Jefferson from 400 East Jefferson.”[C4-602] Police Capt. W. R. Westbrook and several other officers concentrated their search along Jefferson Boulevard.[C4-603] Westbrook walked through the parking lot behind the service station[C4-604] and found a light-colored jacket lying under the rear of one of the cars.[C4-605] Westbrook identified Commission Exhibit No. 162 as the light-colored jacket which he discovered underneath the automobile.[C4-606]

This jacket belonged to Lee Harvey Oswald. Marina Oswald stated that her husband owned only two jackets, one blue and the other gray.[C4-607] The blue jacket was found in the Texas School Book Depository[C4-608] and was identified by Marina Oswald as her husband’s.[C4-609] Marina Oswald also identified Commission Exhibit No. 162, the jacket found by Captain Westbrook, as her husband’s second jacket.[C4-610]

The eyewitnesses vary in their identification of the jacket. Mrs. Earlene Roberts, the housekeeper at Oswald’s roominghouse and the last person known to have seen him before he reached 10th Street and Patton Avenue, said that she may have seen the gray zipper jacket but she was not certain. It seemed to her that the jacket Oswald wore was darker than Commission Exhibit No. 162.[C4-611] Ted Callaway, who saw the gunman moments after the shooting, testified that Commission Exhibit No. 162 looked like the jacket he was wearing but “I thought it had a little more tan to it.”[C4-612] Two other witnesses, Sam Guinyard and William Arthur Smith, testified that Commission Exhibit No. 162 was the jacket worn by the man they saw on November 22. Mrs. Markham and Barbara Davis thought that the jacket worn by the slayer of Tippit was darker than the jacket found by Westbrook.[C4-613] Scoggins thought it was lighter.[C4-614]

There is no doubt, however, that Oswald was seen leaving his roominghouse at about 1 p.m. wearing a zipper jacket, that the man who killed Tippit was wearing a light-colored jacket, that he was seen running along Jefferson Boulevard, that a jacket was found under a car in a lot adjoining Jefferson Boulevard, that the jacket belonged to Lee Harvey Oswald, and that when he was arrested at approximately 1:50 p.m., he was in shirt sleeves. These facts warrant the finding that Lee Harvey Oswald disposed of his jacket as he fled from the scene of the Tippit killing.

Conclusion

The foregoing evidence establishes that (1) two eyewitnesses who heard the shots and saw the shooting of Dallas Police Patrolman J. D. Tippit and seven eyewitnesses who saw the flight of the gunman with revolver in hand positively identified Lee Harvey Oswald as the man they saw fire the shots or flee from the scene, (2) the cartridge cases found near the scene of the shooting were fired from the revolver in the possession of Oswald at the time of his arrest, to the exclusion of all other weapons, (3) the revolver in Oswald’s possession at the time of his arrest was purchased by and belonged to Oswald, and (4) Oswald’s jacket was found along the path of flight taken by the gunman as he fled from the scene of the killing. On the basis of this evidence the Commission concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald killed Dallas Police Patrolman J.D. Tippit.

OSWALD’S ARREST

The Texas Theatre is on the north side of Jefferson Boulevard, approximately eight blocks from the scene of the Tippit shooting and six blocks from where several witnesses last saw Oswald running west on Jefferson Boulevard.[C4-615] (See Commission Exhibit No. 1968, p. 164.) Shortly after the Tippit murder, police sirens sounded along Jefferson Boulevard. One of the persons who heard the sirens was Johnny Calvin Brewer, manager of Hardy’s Shoestore, a few doors east of the Texas Theatre. Brewer knew from radio broadcasts that the President had been shot and that a patrolman had also been shot in Oak Cliff.[C4-616] When he heard police sirens, he “looked up and saw the man enter the lobby,” a recessed area extending about 15 feet between the sidewalk and the front door of his store.[C4-617] A police car made a =U=-turn, and as the sirens grew fainter, the man in the lobby “looked over his shoulder and turned around and walked up West Jefferson towards the theatre.”[C4-618] The man wore a T-shirt beneath his outer shirt and he had no jacket.[C4-619] Brewer said, “He just looked funny to me. * * * His hair was sort of messed up and looked like he had been running, and he looked scared, and he looked funny.”[C4-620]

Mrs. Julia Postal, selling tickets at the box office of the Texas Theatre, heard police sirens and then saw a man as he “ducked into” the outer lobby space of the theatre near the ticket office.[C4-621] Attracted by the sound of the sirens, Mrs. Postal stepped out of the box office and walked to the curb.[C4-622] Shortly thereafter, Johnny Brewer, who had come from the nearby shoestore, asked Mrs. Postal whether the fellow that had ducked in had bought a ticket.[C4-623] She said, “No; by golly, he didn’t,” and turned around, but the man was nowhere in sight.[C4-624] Brewer told Mrs. Postal that he had seen the man ducking into his place of business and that he had followed him to the theatre.[C4-625] She sent Brewer into the theatre to find the man and check the exits, told him about the assassination, and said “I don’t know if this is the man they want * * * but he is running from them for some reason.”[C4-626] She then called the police.[C4-627]

At 1:45 p.m., the police radio stated, “Have information a suspect just went in the Texas Theatre on West Jefferson.”[C4-628] Patrol cars bearing at least 15 officers converged on the Texas Theatre.[C4-629] Patrolman M. N. McDonald, with Patrolmen R. Hawkins, T. A. Hutson, and C. T. Walker, entered the theatre from the rear.[C4-630] Other policemen entered the front door and searched the balcony.[C4-631] Detective Paul L. Bentley rushed to the balcony and told the projectionist to turn up the house lights.[C4-632] Brewer met McDonald and the other policemen at the alley exit door, stepped out onto the stage with them[C4-633] and pointed out the man who had come into the theatre without paying.[C4-634] The man was Oswald. He was sitting alone in the rear of the main floor of the theatre near the right center aisle.[C4-635] About six or seven people were seated on the theatre’s main floor and an equal number in the balcony.[C4-636]

McDonald first searched two men in the center of the main floor, about 10 rows from the front.[C4-637] He walked out of the row up the right center aisle.[C4-638] When he reached the row where the suspect was sitting, McDonald stopped abruptly and told the man to get on his feet.[C4-639] Oswald rose from his seat, bringing up both hands.[C4-640] As McDonald started to search Oswald’s waist for a gun, he heard him say, “Well, it’s all over now.”[C4-641] Oswald then struck McDonald between the eyes with his left fist; with his right hand he drew a gun from his waist.[C4-642] McDonald struck back with his right hand and grabbed the gun with his left hand.[C4-643] They both fell into the seats.[C4-644] Three other officers, moving toward the scuffle, grabbed Oswald from the front, rear and side.[C4-645] As McDonald fell into the seat with his left hand on the gun, he felt something graze across his hand and heard what sounded like the snap of the hammer.[C4-646] McDonald felt the pistol scratch his cheek as he wrenched it away from Oswald.[C4-647] Detective Bob K. Carroll, who was standing beside McDonald, seized the gun from him.[C4-648]

The other officers who helped subdue Oswald corroborated McDonald in his testimony except that they did not hear Oswald say, “It’s all over now.” Deputy Sheriff Eddy R. Walthers recalled such a remark but he did not reach the scene of the struggle until Oswald had been knocked to the floor by McDonald and the others.[C4-649] Some of the officers saw Oswald strike McDonald with his fist.[C4-650] Most of them heard a click which they assumed to be a click of the hammer of the revolver.[C4-651] Testimony of a firearms expert before the Commission established that the hammer of the revolver never touched the shell in the chamber.[C4-652] Although the witnesses did not hear the sound of a misfire, they might have heard a snapping noise resulting from the police officer grabbing the cylinder of the revolver and pulling it away from Oswald while he was attempting to pull the trigger.[C4-653] (See app. X, p. 560.)

Two patrons of the theatre and John Brewer testified regarding the arrest of Oswald, as did the various police officers who participated in the fight. George Jefferson Applin, Jr., confirmed that Oswald fought with four or five officers before he was handcuffed.[C4-654] He added that one officer grabbed the muzzle of a shotgun, drew back, and hit Oswald with the butt end of the gun in the back.[C4-655] No other theatre patron or officer has testified that Oswald was hit by a gun. Nor did Oswald ever complain that he was hit with a gun, or injured in the back. Deputy Sheriff Walthers brought a shotgun into the theatre but laid it on some seats before helping to subdue Oswald.[C4-656] Officer Ray Hawkins said that there was no one near Oswald who had a shotgun and he saw no one strike Oswald in the back with a rifle butt or the butt of a gun.[C4-657]

John Gibson, another patron in the theatre, saw an officer grab Oswald, and he claims that he heard the click of a gun misfiring.[C4-658] He saw no shotgun in the possession of any policeman near Oswald.[C4-659] Johnny Brewer testified he saw Oswald pull the revolver and the officers struggle with him to take it away but that once he was subdued, no officer struck him.[C4-660] He further stated that while fists were flying he heard one of the officers say “Kill the President, will you.”[C4-661] It is unlikely that any of the police officers referred to Oswald as a suspect in the assassination. While the police radio had noted the similarity in description of the two suspects, the arresting officers were pursuing Oswald for the murder of Tippit.[C4-662] As Oswald, handcuffed, was led from the theatre, he was, according to McDonald, “cursing a little bit and hollering police brutality.”[C4-663] At 1:51 p.m., police car 2 reported by radio that it was on the way to headquarters with the suspect.[C4-664]

Captain Fritz returned to police headquarters from the Texas School Book Depository at 2:15 after a brief stop at the sheriff’s office.[C4-665] When he entered the homicide and robbery bureau office, he saw two detectives standing there with Sgt. Gerald L. Hill, who had driven from the theatre with Oswald.[C4-666] Hill testified that Fritz told the detective to get a search warrant, go to an address on Fifth Street in Irving, and pick up a man named Lee Oswald. When Hill asked why Oswald was wanted, Fritz replied, “Well, he was employed down at the Book Depository and he had not been present for a roll call of the employees.”[C4-667] Hill said, “Captain, we will save you a trip * * * there he sits.”[C4-668]

STATEMENTS OF OSWALD DURING DETENTION

Oswald was questioned intermittently for approximately 12 hours between 2:30 p.m., on November 22, and 11 a.m., on November 24. Throughout this interrogation he denied that he had anything to do either with the assassination of President Kennedy or the murder of Patrolman Tippit. Captain Fritz of the homicide and robbery bureau did most of the questioning, but he kept no notes and there were no stenographic or tape recordings. Representatives of other law enforcement agencies were also present, including the FBI and the U.S. Secret Service. They occasionally participated in the questioning. The reports prepared by those present at these interviews are set forth in appendix XI. A full discussion of Oswald’s detention and interrogation is presented in