Part 10

Mr. STOMBAUGH. No, sir; I cannot think of anything else at this time.

Mr. EISENBERG. In your opinion, would the blanket have made a secure package wrapped in the way and manner that it appeared to you?

Mr. STOMBAUGH. Yes, sir; it would have. With the crease at fold "A," had it been folded down, it would have made a very snug and secure package containing some type of item in it.

Mr. EISENBERG. Now, Mr. Stombaugh, was there anything about the string, Paine Exhibit 2, which would make an identification possible?

Mr. STOMBAUGH. No, sir; the string is just common white cotton string. It is found in most stores throughout the country, and used for, well, many uses. There is nothing distinctive about the string itself which could be traced as to manufacturer or any definite use it was made for.

Mr. EISENBERG. Any distinctive accidental markings on it?

Mr. STOMBAUGH. No; I found none.

Mr. EISENBERG. What kind--was it tied in a knot?

Mr. STOMBAUGH. Yes, sir; it was tied in a granny knot, and also a bow knot.

Mr. EISENBERG. Could you illustrate that for us? You are holding up a piece of string?

Mr. STOMBAUGH. This is another piece of string, not the original.

Mr. EISENBERG. Not the original.

Mr. STOMBAUGH. A granny knot is a common knot, tied with two simple thumb knots. It is a very hard knot to open as opposed to the boy scout knot, or the square knot rather, which is tied in this manner. This knot is very easy to open because all one has to do is to pull one free end of it and the other free end slides out.

Mr. EISENBERG. You are referring to the so-called "boy scout" knot?

Mr. STOMBAUGH. It is actually not a boy scout knot but a square knot.

Mr. EISENBERG. And you tie that left over right, right over left, is that the formula?

Mr. STOMBAUGH. Yes; left over right and right over left.

Mr. EISENBERG. How do you spell that, by the way?

Mr. STOMBAUGH. G-r-a-n-n-y.

Mr. EISENBERG. The granny knot, Mr. Stombaugh, is this a common or an uncommon knot?

Mr. STOMBAUGH. It is a very common knot. I believe that knot is tied more than any other knot because it is right over right, right over right, and it is usually used by people wrapping packages who want it tied securely so the package will not come open.

Mr. EISENBERG. Did you say there was also a bow knot?

Mr. STOMBAUGH. Yes, sir.

Mr. EISENBERG. Could you illustrate that?

Mr. STOMBAUGH. This is the type of knot we use when we tie our shoe strings. It is made by forming a loop with the one free end, and wrapping the other free end around it and pulling it through.

Mr. EISENBERG. Is that a hard or an easy knot to slip out, Mr. Stombaugh?

Mr. STOMBAUGH. This is very easy, because you just take one of the loose ends and pull it and the knot falls apart.

Mr. EISENBERG. What was the relationship between the granny knot and the bow knot?

Mr. STOMBAUGH. I don't know. I have seen this numerous times, on numerous different occasions when one would either tie a granny knot or a square knot and follow it up with a bow knot. The granny knot would be to secure the package so it would not come loose. The bow knot is a temporary knot tied by one who wants the string to come off easily.

Now why they would tie a granny knot and follow this up with a bow knot I don't know, unless they had some long loose ends which they wanted to slacken up, shorten up, rather, so as they would not be hanging down.

Mr. EISENBERG. The Exhibit Paine No. 2 is tied into a knot at this point. Can you tell us what kind of a knot that is?

Mr. STOMBAUGH. This was a simple bow knot which I put into it.

Mr. EISENBERG. You put it into it?

Mr. STOMBAUGH. Yes, sir.

Mr. EISENBERG. So the knot does not reproduce the knots as you found them originally?

Mr. STOMBAUGH. No; they do not.

Mr. EISENBERG. Mr. Stombaugh, I wonder if you could tie the demonstration piece of string you have been using into the granny knot and bow knot, in the manner in which you received it.

Mr. STOMBAUGH. There is the granny knot and here is the bow knot.

Mr. EISENBERG. You are not here trying to approximate the diameter or the circumference of the string, but only the knots?

Mr. STOMBAUGH. No.

Mr. EISENBERG. Mr. Chairman, may I admit this string as an illustrative exhibit?

The CHAIRMAN. It may be done.

Mr. EISENBERG. That will be 664, Mr. reporter.

(The item referred to was marked Commission Exhibit No. 664, and received into evidence.)

Now, Mr. Stombaugh, did you examine this blanket to determine its composition?

Mr. STOMBAUGH. Yes; I did.

Mr. EISENBERG. Can you give us your conclusions?

Mr. STOMBAUGH. The blanket is composed of a very small percentage of brown and green woolen fibers; an average of about 30 percent to 40 percent of brown and green cotton fibers, and the remaining portion brown and green delustered viscose fibers.

Mr. EISENBERG. When you say "a very small portion of brown and green woolen fibers," could you be more specific; was it in the neighborhood of 1 percent or 10 percent?

Mr. STOMBAUGH. I was unable to obtain a definite percentage. This is a rather long, involved, and inaccurate method of determination because one would need a brand new blanket to get a good quantitative analysis.

However, in the samples of the fabric that I made, I found approximately 1 to 2 percent woolen fibers, 20 to, I would say, 30, 35 percent cotton fibers, and the remainder of it viscose fibers. This is just an approximation from the microscopic slide that I made.

Mr. EISENBERG. Would you have any reason to believe that the approximation was not made from a fair sample of the blanket?

Mr. STOMBAUGH. No; I wouldn't. I took the sample myself.

However, the blanket is very well worn. Most of the nap has been worn off of it. It has had a lot of use, and much of the original composition has been worn off. Now, whether or not this same percentage of composition is missing from use or not I wouldn't be able to determine, but I would say that the approximation that I had given is fairly accurate for the blanket in its present condition.

Mr. EISENBERG. Mr. Stombaugh, could you explain to us briefly how you were able to distinguish the three fibers, cotton, wool, and viscose?

Mr. STOMBAUGH. Yes, sir. This chart shows the difference in the textile fibers when one observes them under a microscope. A cotton fiber appears to be, or rather, might be compared with an ordinary soda straw which has been flattened. You can see here that the fiber is hollow. The hollow is known as the lumen in cotton. The fiber is flattened and twisted much as teenagers do to soda straws in drug stores when they twist and crush the soda straws.

Mr. EISENBERG. Pardon me, Mr. Stombaugh: this chart is a chart labeled "Textile Fibers," and having three illustrations labeled "Cotton," "Wool," and "Viscose"?

Mr. STOMBAUGH. That is correct.

A woolen fiber actually is a hair which originates from an animal and is composed of three basic parts, the outer part being the scales which are the rough area on the outside of the hair, the inner portion known as the cortex, and a center portion known as the medulla. Microscopically this is what you would look for to identify wool.

Viscose is a synthetic fiber that is made by man. It is composed of chemicals, and is very rough around the outside area, having many striations running through it. The viscose fiber I have drawn here is what we would term a lustrous fiber. It does not have the delustering agent added to it, to cut down the luster. If this were a delustered fiber then we would have millions of small spots on the outside of this fiber which have been placed there chemically so as to cut down the luster of the fiber.

Mr. EISENBERG. Was the viscose in the blanket that we have been examining lustered or delustered?

Mr. STOMBAUGH. This was delustered.

Mr. EISENBERG. Mr. Chairman, may I introduce the chart which the witness has been discussing as 665?

This chart was prepared by you or under your supervision, Mr. Stombaugh?

Mr. STOMBAUGH. It was prepared by me.

The CHAIRMAN. What is the number?

Mr. EISENBERG. That will be 665.

(Commission Exhibit No. 665 was marked, and received in evidence.)

Mr. EISENBERG. Mr. Stombaugh, did you examine this blanket to determine whether any debris was present?

Mr. STOMBAUGH. Yes; I did. I scraped the blanket and removed all the foreign textile fibers and hairs and placed them into a pillbox.

Mr. EISENBERG. Can you describe to us how this scraping was performed?

Mr. STOMBAUGH. Yes, sir. We suspend the blanket from a rack in the laboratory, place a clean sheet of kraft paper on a table directly under it and, using a spatula, thoroughly scrape it down. This knocks all the foreign material adhering to the blanket from the blanket, and it falls down to the paper. After we have thoroughly cleaned the blanket, then we scrape up all the debris and place it in the pillboxes for a microscopic examination.

Mr. EISENBERG. Why do you use this scrape method, as opposed to a fine-filter vacuum cleaner?

Mr. STOMBAUGH. We have found that the fine-filtered vacuum cleaner pulls all of the dirt and old debris from a blanket which are embedded on the inner portion of the fabric. We are not interested in this material. We are interested only in what is adhering to the top surface, which has been put there most recently. Through experience in the laboratory we have found this method to be the best so far.

Mr. EISENBERG. So that by use of the scrape you gathered the more recent debris, as opposed to the older debris?

Mr. STOMBAUGH. That is correct.

Mr. EISENBERG. And what type of debris did you find, Mr. Stombaugh?

Mr. STOMBAUGH. I found numerous foreign textile fibers of various types and colors, as well as a number of limb and pubic hairs.

Mr. EISENBERG. Did you draw any conclusions as to those hairs upon your initial examination of them?

Mr. STOMBAUGH. Yes; I did. They all had originated from a person of the Caucasian race and I compared these hairs with hair samples obtained from Harvey Oswald----

Mr. EISENBERG. That is Lee Harvey Oswald?

Mr. STOMBAUGH. That is, Lee Harvey Oswald, and I found that of the limb and pubic hairs I removed from the blanket, several matched Oswald's in all observable microscopic characteristics and could have originated from Oswald.

Mr. EISENBERG. You said these hairs were from a person of Caucasian race. Can you explain how you can tell the difference between hairs of the various types of races?

Mr. STOMBAUGH. Yes, sir. Going back to my charts, I have a chart here which contains a diagram of a hair. This isn't any particular hair, this is a type of hair that could be animal or human. I am just using this to give one an idea of what a hair looks like.

First, we have the root, which is the portion of the hair embedded in the scalp or in the skin, whichever type hair it might be.

(At this point, Mr. Dulles entered the hearing room.)

Mr. STOMBAUGH. And from the root, extending out and growing, is the shaft of the hair, and the very distal end of that is the tip.

If we were to take this hair and place it under a microscope, this is what we would see. We find that the hair basically consists, in the shaft area, of scales composing the outside portion of the hair. Directly under the scales is the cortex. Now the scales vary in size and shape among animal and human hairs. The cortex also varies. Running through the center of the hair shaft, much as the lead in the center of a lead pencil, is what is known as the medulla.

The medulla is nothing more than air cells running through the center of the hairshaft.

In the cortex of the hair are small granules which appear under a microscope like tiny grains of sand. These are known as the hair pigment. This is the part of the hair that gives the hair its color, whether it is blond, dark brown, black, or what-have-you.

Also present in the cortex you will occasionally find air spaces located among the pigment granules which are known as cortical fusi. These will vary in size, shape, form, and location on the hair. Many hairs do not have any.

Basically that is what a hair looks like, and the basic component parts of the hair.

Mr. EISENBERG. May I have this admitted as 666, this diagram of the hair?

The CHAIRMAN. Yes; it may be admitted.

(Commission Exhibit No. 666 was marked, and received in evidence.)

Mr. STOMBAUGH. Now, keeping the diagram of the hair on the side where we can refer to it, our first differentiation in the hair, of course, would be separating the human from the animal hairs. These are photomicrographs of human hairs which I took through a microscope.

Here are the animal hairs.

The first thing we look for, of course, would be the color, length, and texture of the hair. This comes from experience from looking at thousands of hairs, and we can usually pick one up and tell by the naked eye whether it is animal or human.

Mr. EISENBERG. Pardon me. You are referring to a chart which has on the upper right, "Human Hairs" and on the upper left, "Animal Hairs" as captions?

Mr. STOMBAUGH. That is correct.

However, when we place these hairs under a microscope we find that animal hairs vary from human hairs in many different aspects.

One, the medullary structure. In animal hair the medullary structure is much wider than that in a human hair. You will find that it exceeds more than one-third of the width of the hair shaft.

Secondly, the shape of the medulla, as in this rabbit hair, varies greatly. You can see the individual medullary cells very distinctly. In this chart I have some photographs of human hairs in which a medulla is not present. But the medulla in a human hair would look just about like this, very thin.

We move down to the pigmentation of the hair, which is located in the cortex. In the human hair the pigmentation is very fine and granular, and in this animal hair it is very coarse and elongated.

The size and shape of a root on the animal hair differs from the size and shape of the root in the human hair. Here we see the root of a dog hair which is very long and very thin. The root of a human hair is more or less shaped similar to a light bulb. The scales of animal hairs are very large. The scales of the human hairs are much smaller.

Mr. EISENBERG. Mr. Chairman, may I have this chart which the witness has been using introduced as 667?

The CHAIRMAN. It may be admitted.

(The chart referred to was marked Commission Exhibit No. 667, and received in evidence.)

Mr. EISENBERG. You are looking at a new chart called "Racial Determination of Hairs" with the subcaption "General Appearance of Shaft"?

Mr. STOMBAUGH. That is correct.

Once we have separated the animal hairs from the human hairs, our next problem is determining the race of the individual from whom the particular human hairs in which we are interested originated.

Looking at the hair under low power--under a low-power microscope--we find that a Caucasian hair differs from the hair of the Negroid or Mongoloid race in diameter fluctuation. The hair shaft varies in width through its entire length. I might take, for instance, this yellow or this black pencil. Here we find that the diameter of the pencil is uniform through the entire length. Now, if we would twist this pencil we would change the diameter of the pencil slightly. This would be so in a Caucasian hair, where there might be slight fluctuations in a hair, such as a person with wavy hair would have a slight fluctuation. The person with straight hair has hair shafts which for all practical purposes, are uniform in diameter the entire length.

In Negroid hair, there is great fluctuation. Their hair is very curly and kinky. This is caused by the great fluctuation present in their hairs.

Mr. EISENBERG. You mean in the diameters?

Mr. STOMBAUGH. Yes; diameters.

In Mongoloid hair, which includes Asiatic and North American Indians, there is little or no fluctuation present in their hairs.

Going back to the Caucasian hair, the color of the Caucasian individual's hair differs from black to blond and, of course, white.

Negroid hairs are dense black usually; some are white. There are a few exceptions here where we find some redheaded persons of this race. The Mongoloids are always black, but not quite as dense black as those of the Negroid race.

The texture of the hair: Caucasian head hairs, are very soft, flexible; Negroid hairs are very stiff and wiry; and Mongoloid hairs are flexible, but not as soft and flexible as the Caucasian.

Now, as to the general width, or rather diameter, of the shaft, we find Caucasian is medium, the Negroid is medium, the Mongoloid hairs are much larger than either the Negroid or the Caucasian.

Mr. EISENBERG. May I have this chart which the witness has been discussing marked as 668, Mr. Chairman?

The CHAIRMAN. Yes.

(Commission's Exhibit No. 668 was marked, and received in evidence.)

The CHAIRMAN. May we take a recess at this time just for a few moments.

(Short recess.)

Mr. DULLES. Mr. Eisenberg, would you proceed?

Mr. EISENBERG. Yes, sir. Mr. Stombaugh, you were discussing the characteristics of Caucasian as opposed to Negroid and Mongoloid hair. Could you proceed with that discussion?

Mr. STOMBAUGH. I have another chart here.

Mr. EISENBERG. That is labeled "Racial Determination of Hairs" and unlike chart 668 it has no subcaption under that general caption, is that correct?

Mr. STOMBAUGH. That is correct. In the previous chart I used I had taken some photographs of hairs under relatively low power, 100 diameters.

In this chart I have enlarged the hairs, taking them under approximately 400 diameters, so we can look into the hair. Here we begin to see the real differences between the hairs among the various races.

In the Caucasian race, the cuticle, in other words, the layer of scales around the outside of the hair, is medium to thick.

In the Negroid hair the cuticle is very thick. In the Mongoloid hair the cuticle is very thick.

Pigmentation in the cortex, which gives the hair the color, in Caucasian hair is very fine to coarse and is very evenly distributed throughout the cortex of the hair. In Negroid hair the pigment is medium to coarse, but the big difference is that the pigment granules are clumped together, leaving large white-gapped areas throughout the cortex of the hair.

In the Mongoloid hair, the pigment is medium to coarse but it is very heavily distributed throughout the hair. As you can see, in the Caucasian hair the cortex is relatively light. In Negroid hair it is clumped, and in Mongoloid hair it is dense.

Mr. EISENBERG. Mr. Chairman, may I have this chart admitted as 669?

Mr. DULLES. It is admitted as 669.

(Commission Exhibit No. 669 was marked, and received in evidence.)

Mr. EISENBERG. You have a chart here "Racial Determination of Hairs," and no subcaption, is that right?

Mr. DULLES. You haven't asked for this other to be admitted, have you?

Mr. EISENBERG. No; I will ask after he has finished with it.

Mr. STOMBAUGH. Occasionally we will run into situations in hairs, where we cannot determine with any certainty whether or not the hairs are of the Caucasian or Negroid or Mongoloid race, by examining it longitudinally, and we have to make a cross-section of the hair. If we make a cross-section of the hair it is the same as taking a banana and cutting off a very thin slice of the banana and placing it under a microscope and examining it. We find in the Caucasian race the hairs are oval in shape. In the Negroid race the hairs are flat, and have a flattened appearance, and in the Mongoloid race they are perfectly round. This is another characteristic which we use in determining the racial origin of hair.

Mr. EISENBERG. May I have this chart admitted as 670?

Mr. DULLES. Yes.

(Commission Exhibit No. 670 was marked, and received in evidence.)

Mr. EISENBERG. Was it definitely established in your mind as a result of the various characteristics you have explained that the hairs found in the blanket were Caucasian hairs?

Mr. STOMBAUGH. Yes, sir; they were all Caucasian hairs.

Mr. EISENBERG. Did you examine those hairs and compare them with any known samples to determine whether they might have come from any specific individual?

Mr. STOMBAUGH. Yes; I did.

Mr. EISENBERG. What was your conclusion on that score?

Mr. STOMBAUGH. I examined the hairs found on the blanket and determined that most of them were limb and pubic hairs. In other words, they originated either from the leg or the arm or from the pubic area. I found several head hairs on the blanket also.

These hairs I compared with known hair samples from Lee Harvey Oswald. I found several of the limb hairs from the blanket and several of the pubic hairs from the blanket matched in all observable microscopic characteristics, and concluded these hairs could have come from Oswald.

Mr. EISENBERG. Where did you get the known sample, Mr. Stombaugh, of Lee Oswald's hair?

Mr. STOMBAUGH. These were obtained and were sent to the laboratory by the FBI office in Dallas.

I do not know whether the agent in Dallas personally took the samples or had a member of the Dallas Police Department take the samples.

Mr. EISENBERG. Were these hairs taken from one area or were they a representative sample?

Mr. STOMBAUGH. It was a fairly good representative sample.

Mr. EISENBERG. Could you review the microscopic characteristics which led you to your conclusion, Mr. Stombaugh?

Mr. STOMBAUGH. This chart contains a photomicrograph of Oswald's pubic hairs. This is just a very small area taken of a glass microscope slide containing the hairs. There were numerous other hairs. The photograph on the right shows one of the hairs I removed from the blanket, and one of the hairs from Oswald, showing, generally, the match.

Mr. EISENBERG. Now, did you take these photographs on the left and right side yourself?

Mr. STOMBAUGH. Yes; I did.

Mr. EISENBERG. This chart is captioned on the left "Photomicrograph of Oswald's Pubic Hairs" and on the right "Hair from the Blanket" and "Hair from Oswald"?

Mr. STOMBAUGH. Yes, sir.

Mr. EISENBERG. May I have it admitted?

(The item referred to was marked as Commission Exhibit No. 672, and received into evidence.)

Mr. DULLES. May I ask a question? The one on the right seems darker than the one on the left, the hair itself.

Mr. STOMBAUGH. This one and this one?

Mr. DULLES. What is it?

Mr. STOMBAUGH. Are you referring----

Mr. EISENBERG. The hair shown on the right appears darker.

Mr. DULLES. There are two specimens there or two----

Mr. STOMBAUGH. Two.

Mr. DULLES. That is what I thought.

Mr. STOMBAUGH. You are thinking this hair looks darker than this one?

Mr. DULLES. No; I was thinking that both the hairs on the right, which I understand were taken from Oswald----

Mr. EISENBERG. One hair was actually from the blanket, one from Oswald.

Mr. DULLES. Seems darker than the ones taken from the blanket. Is the left the blanket?

Mr. STOMBAUGH. This portion here is one separate hair. This was taken from the blanket.

Mr. DULLES. That was taken from the blanket. The right-hand is taken from the blanket and the left-hand hairs were taken from Oswald himself?

Mr. STOMBAUGH. Yes, sir; these are from Oswald.

Mr. DULLES. Yes.

Mr. STOMBAUGH. This is a comparison shot. This photograph was taken through two microscopes simultaneously showing how this portion of a pubic hair from the blanket matched a pubic hair from Oswald, which is this portion of the photograph.

Mr. EISENBERG. You are pointing to the right side of the chart 672?

Mr. STOMBAUGH. Yes; this photograph was taken at 100 diameters and this photograph was taken at 400 diameters. There is a difference there also.

Mr. EISENBERG. Could you state that again please?

Mr. STOMBAUGH. The photograph on the left was taken approximately at 100 diameters.

Mr. EISENBERG. That is Oswald's pubic hairs, a known sample?

Mr. STOMBAUGH. Yes; this is a general shot of his known sample.