Part 38

Mr. BALL. Roger Craig stated that about 15 minutes after the shooting he saw a man, a white man, leave the Texas State Book Depository Building, run across a lawn, and get into a white Rambler driven by a colored man.

Mr. FRITZ. I don't think that is true.

Mr. BALL. I am stating this. You remember the witness now?

Mr. FRITZ. I remember the witness; yes, sir.

Mr. BALL. Did that man ever come into your office and talk to you in the presence of Oswald?

Mr. FRITZ. In the presence of Oswald?

Mr. BALL. Yes.

Mr. FRITZ. No, sir; I am sure he did not. I believe that man did come to my office in that little hallway, you know outside my office, and I believe I stepped outside the door and talked to him for a minute and I let someone else take an affidavit from him. We should have that affidavit from him if it would help.

Mr. BALL. Now this man states that, has stated, that he came to your office and Oswald was in your office, and you asked him to look at Oswald and tell you whether or not this was the man he saw, and he says that in your presence he identified Oswald as the man that he had seen run across this lawn and get into the white Rambler sedan. Do you remember that?

Mr. FRITZ. I think it was taken, I think it was one of my officers, and I think if he saw him he looked through that glass and saw him from the outside because I am sure of one thing that I didn't bring him in the office with Oswald.

Mr. BALL. You are sure you didn't?

Mr. FRITZ. I am sure of that. I feel positive of that. I would remember that I am sure.

Mr. BALL. He also says that in that office----

Mr. FRITZ. Yes, sir.

Mr. BALL. After he had said, "That is the man," that Oswald got up from his chair and slammed his hand on the table and said, "Now everybody will know who I am." Did that ever occur in your presence?

Mr. FRITZ. If it did I never saw anything like that; no, sir.

Mr. BALL. That didn't occur?

Mr. FRITZ. No, sir; it didn't. That man is not telling a true story if that is what he said. Do you have any--could I ask a question, is it all right if I ask a question?

Mr. McCLOY. All right, go ahead.

Mr. BALL. Go ahead.

Mr. FRITZ. I was going to ask if we had any affidavits from any of our officers that would back that up? If they did I never heard of it.

Mr. BALL. If you are here tomorrow.

Mr. FRITZ. It is something I don't know anything about.

Mr. BALL. If you are here tomorrow I would like to show you the deposition of the man for you to read it.

Mr. FRITZ. I am sure I would know that. The only time I saw the man hit the desk was when Mr. Hosty talked to him and he really got upset about that.

Mr. DULLES. Is that in the testimony, have you testified about that?

Mr. FRITZ. Yes, sir.

Mr. McCLOY. That shows his agitation over the alleged----

Mr. FRITZ. Questioning.

Mr. McCLOY. Questioning of his wife.

Mr. FRITZ. That is right.

Mr. BALL. In the light of your experience in this case, do you think you should alter your regulations with the press, have a little more discipline when the press are around?

Mr. FRITZ. We can with the local press. We can't do much with those people that we don't know from those foreign countries, and from distant States, they don't ask us. They just write what they hear of and we read it.

Mr. BALL. No; but I mean in the physical control of your plant there?

Mr. FRITZ. There at city hall?

Mr. BALL. Do you think you should alter your policy?

Mr. FRITZ. We think we can control it normally, because those officers, those people from the press there wouldn't come in and start taking pictures without permission. They wouldn't do that without asking, and then usually I ask a prisoner because some prisoners don't want their pictures taken and sometimes they do, if they want it taken why it is all right. Sometimes we don't let them take them at all, depending on circumstances.

Mr. BALL. Do you permit television interrogation of your prisoners in jail?

Mr. FRITZ. No, sir.

Mr. BALL. Or in the----

Mr. FRITZ. In the jail I don't have charge of the jail but I am sure they don't because I haven't heard of that. We don't have it in the office either.

Mr. McCLOY. But----

Mr. FRITZ. I don't think it is a good idea at all because I don't know what that man might say.

Mr. BALL. I agree.

Mr. McCLOY. You would have jurisdiction to keep out foreign correspondents if you wanted to?

Mr. FRITZ. Keep them out of the office; yes, sir.

Mr. McCLOY. Keep them out of the building?

Mr. FRITZ. Yes, sir; I wouldn't have charge of the building but I can keep them out of my office, up to that door, I can have enough officers I can take care of that fine. Out in that building, that is more or less a job for the uniform division.

Mr. DULLES. A job for the uniform division, the police?

Mr. FRITZ. A job for the uniform division, they can take charge of it and they have uniforms.

Mr. DULLES. Who establishes the policy?

Mr. FRITZ. The chief of police establishes the policy. He has assistants, of course.

Mr. McCLOY. You have testified that you were really hampered in your investigation, in your interrogation of Oswald by reason of the confusion.

Mr. FRITZ. I think so.

Mr. McCLOY. By reason of too many people being around, isn't that right?

Mr. FRITZ. I think so, but I am not sure that could have been avoided under these circumstances.

Mr. McCLOY. Well, couldn't you----

Mr. FRITZ. I think that----

Mr. McCLOY. Couldn't you have demanded that your office be cleared so that you could have a quiet investigation?

Mr. FRITZ. I could hardly tell the Secret Service and the FBI or any other Federal agency--I had the outer office had Texas Rangers out there, several of them, and you could understand why they would be in there because the Governor had been shot and they work directly for the Governor out of Austin, so you could hardly tell people like that that you don't want them to help.

Now, if this were just an average case, just an average hijacking case we have, we could easily, we could handle it with all ease but where the President of the United States is killed it would be hard to tell the Secret Service and the FBI that they couldn't come in.

Mr. McCLOY. But you could have told the newspaper people, the media people that they couldn't come in.

Mr. FRITZ. I didn't let them come in my office or in my part of the office.

Mr. McCLOY. They never were in your office when you were examining Oswald?

Mr. FRITZ. Never. I think one of them got inside of the outer office but someone immediately put him out.

Mr. DULLES. What is the jurisdiction of the city manager as compared to the chief of police, does he have authority over the chief of police?

Mr. FRITZ. The city manager is our big boss, he is over all of us. He is over the chief of police and he operates the city. He is responsible only to the mayor and city council. And I think that they give him a pretty free hand.

We have got a city manager and he tells, he sets the policies, of course, maybe I made a mistake when I told you that the chief of police sets the policies of our police department, but the city manager would set the policies for the city as a whole.

Mr. BALL. I have no further questions.

Mr. McCLOY. Do you have anything else that you think that is on your mind that might help us in getting at the rockbottom of either the Oswald murder or the President's murder?

Mr. FRITZ. I believe that you people know about everything that we know. We have tried to get everything in this book. We have tried not to withhold anything, and I will tell you something about this case that I told some people in the beginning.

I don't know of anything about this case that we can't tell all about, the truth about it from start to finish now. I think the truth fits it better than anything we can do to it. I hope I have gotten this story to you correctly. I hope I haven't made some mistakes in some of my testimony about time and the dates and things because if I have----

Mr. McCLOY. Are there any further leads that you would like to follow up or do you feel that the case is from your point of view closed in terms of--

Mr. FRITZ. We won't ever close it. We never close any murder case and we won't ever close it. I will tell you what, if anything came up about this case that we thought we could do to help on it, and it came up 10 years from now we would work on it. We would work on it regardless of what time it came up. I do think this, that there have been a lot of things about this case that we won't be able to handle. If we get any information about anything that involves foreign relations we will pass that on to the people who know what to do with it. We won't try to handle anything like that because we might do a very wrong thing. We would give that to either the FBI or the Secret Service, depending on the type of information it was, and they would pass it on to wherever they wanted to.

Mr. McCLOY. Are there any pending leads in this case that you feel that you would like to follow up beyond?

Mr. FRITZ. Right now?

Mr. McCLOY. Right now.

Mr. FRITZ. I don't believe we have one. Do you think of any lead to follow up? I can't think of one. If I thought of one we would sure start on it. But I don't think we have.

Mr. BALL. There is one problem here in your records that we asked about. Where was Oswald between 12:35 a.m., and 1:10 a.m., on Saturday, November 23, that is right after midnight?

Mr. FRITZ. Right after midnight.

Mr. BALL. The jailer's records show he was checked out.

Mr. FRITZ. I think I know where he was right after midnight. I think he went to the identification bureau to be fingerprinted and have his picture made.

Mr. BALL. You know. You can probably advise him and he can tell us. What is it?

Mr. FRITZ. I think that, if it is the time that I am thinking about, if it is the time that after he was, after he had his arraignment, I think from what we found out since then that he went there for picture and fingerprints.

Mr. BALL. I have no further questions.

Mr. FRITZ. Maybe you should ask Lieutenant Baker here something that I don't know anything about, that he knows, that might help to clarify that question you asked me just then. I thought he went for the picture, but tell him.

TESTIMONY OF T. L. BAKER

Mr. McCLOY. Lieutenant, will you be sworn, please?

Raise your right hand. Do you solemnly swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?

Mr. BAKER. I do.

Mr. BALL. State your name.

Mr. BAKER. T. L. Baker.

Mr. BALL. What is your occupation?

Mr. BAKER. Lieutenant, police department, Dallas, Tex.

Mr. BALL. You are up here with Captain Fritz?

Mr. BAKER. Yes, sir.

Mr. BALL. And you are the man who prepared Commission Document 81-B; is that correct?

Mr. BAKER. I assisted in it, sir.

Mr. BALL. You were sort of the editor, is that right?

Mr. BAKER. Something like that.

Mr. BALL. The question we addressed to Captain Fritz was where was Oswald between the 12:35 and, I believe, 1:10 in the evening, 1:10 a.m., on Saturday, November 23, that is, right after midnight?

Mr. BAKER. Yes, sir; at 12:35 a.m., Lieutenant Knight of the I.D. bureau took him out of the jail on the fifth floor and with the assistance of Sergeant Warren and one of the jailers brought him to the fourth floor where the I.D. bureau was located.

Mr. McCLOY. The I.D. bureau is the identification bureau?

Mr. BAKER. Yes, sir. There in the presence of Sergeant Warren and this jailer, one of his assistants, he was processed through the I.D. bureau, which consists of taking his pictures and fingerprints and making up the different circulars that go to the FBI, and so forth. When they had finished processing him, he returned him to the jail. Lieutenant Knight released him. He was placed back in the jail at 1:10. Approximately 1:30 Sergeant Warren received a call from Chief Curry, advising him to bring him back to the identification bureau the same place, for arraignment. Sergeant Warren and the same jailer returned him to the I.D. bureau, where he was arraigned by Judge Johnston at approximately 1:35 a.m. This arraignment took approximately 10 minutes, and he was returned to the fifth-floor jail by Sergeant Warren at approximately 1:45 a.m.

Mr. BALL. That is all.

Mr. McCLOY. Thank you very much.

TESTIMONY OF J. W. FRITZ RESUMED

Mr. DULLES. Could I ask just one question?

Mr. FRITZ. Yes, sir.

Mr. DULLES. Had you or your office, to your knowledge, ever heard of Oswald prior to November 22, 1963?

Mr. FRITZ. No, sir; I never heard of him, and I don't believe anyone in my office had ever heard of him, because none of them knew him when we got him. That was our first----

Mr. DULLES. There are no reports; you found no reports in your files?

Mr. FRITZ. No, sir.

Mr. DULLES. About him that antedated November 22, 1963?

Mr. FRITZ. We had no reports on him at all.

Mr. McCLOY. Did you ever hear of a man named Weissman? Does that mean anything to you, Bernard Weissman?

Mr. FRITZ. The name sounds familiar. I don't know him. I saw that ad that he had in the paper, and had his name signed to it at the bottom.

Mr. McCLOY. But that is all you know about him?

Mr. FRITZ. That is all I know about him.

Mr. McCLOY. Any other questions?

Mr. DULLES. I have no other questions.

Mr. McCLOY. We are through. We thank you very much for your cooperation, Captain.

TESTIMONY OF J. C. DAY

Mr. McCLOY. Do you solemnly swear the testimony you give at this hearing will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?

Mr. DAY. I do.

Mr. BELIN. State your name for the Commission.

Mr. DAY. J. C. Day.

Mr. BELIN. What is your occupation?

Mr. DAY. Lieutenant, Dallas Police Department assigned to the crime scene search section of the identification bureau.

Mr. BELIN. How old are you?

Mr. DAY. Fifty.

Mr. BELIN. How long have you been associated with the Dallas Police Department?

Mr. DAY. Twenty-three years.

Mr. BELIN. Did you go to school in Texas?

Mr. DAY. Yes, sir.

Mr. BELIN. How far did you get through school?

Mr. DAY. Through high school.

Mr. BELIN. And then what did you do?

Mr. DAY. I went to work for a machinery company there in Dallas for about 9 years before I went with the city.

Mr. BELIN. Then you went there directly to the city?

Mr. DAY. Yes, sir.

Mr. BELIN. Were you on duty on November 22, 1963?

Mr. DAY. Yes, sir.

Mr. BELIN. Could you describe your activities from about noon on of that day?

Mr. DAY. I was in the identification bureau at the city hall. About a quarter of one I was in the basement of the city hall, which is three floors under me--actually I am on the fourth floor--and a rumor swept through there that the President had been shot.

I returned to my office to get on the radio and wait for the developments. Shortly before 1 o'clock I received a call from the police dispatcher to go to 411 Elm Street, Dallas.

Mr. BELIN. Is there any particular building at that particular location?

Mr. DAY. The Texas School Book Depository, I believe is the correct name on it.

Mr. BELIN. Did you go there?

Mr. DAY. Yes, sir; I went out of my office almost straight up 1 o'clock. I arrived at the location on Elm about 1:12.

Mr. BELIN. What did you do when you got there?

Mr. DAY. I was directed to the sixth floor by the police inspector who was at the front door when I arrived.

Mr. BELIN. Do you know who that was?

Mr. DAY. Inspector Sawyer.

Mr. BELIN. What did you do when you got to the sixth floor?

Mr. DAY. I had to go up the stairs. The elevator--we couldn't figure out how to run it. When I got to the head of the stairs, I believe it was the patrolman standing there, I am not sure, stated they had found some hulls over in the northeast corner of the building, and I proceeded to that area--excuse me, southeast corner of the building.

Mr. BELIN. Now, in your 23 years of work for the Dallas Police Department, have you had occasion to spend a good number of these years in crime-scene matters?

Mr. DAY. Yes, sir.

Mr. BELIN. How long, about?

Mr. DAY. The past 7 years I have been--I have had immediate supervision of the crime-scene search section. It is our responsibility to go to the scene of the crime, take photographs, check for fingerprints, collect any other evidence that might be available, and primarily we are to assist the investigators with certain technical parts of the investigation.

Mr. BELIN. Do you carry any equipment of any kind with you when you go there?

Mr. DAY. Yes, sir. We have a station wagon equipped with fingerprint equipment, cameras, containers, various other articles that might be needed at the scene of the crime.

Mr. BELIN. Have you had any special education or training or background insofar as your crime-scene work is concerned?

Mr. DAY. In the matter of fingerprints, I have been assigned to the identification bureau 15 years. During that time I have attended schools, the Texas Department of Public Safety, on fingerprinting; also an advanced latent-print school conducted in Dallas by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. I have also had other schooling with the Texas Department of Public Safety and in the local department on crime-scene search and general investigative work.

Mr. BELIN. Now, I believe you said that you were informed when you got there that they had located some hulls?

Mr. DAY. Yes, sir.

Mr. BELIN. What did you do then?

Mr. DAY. I went to the northeast corner--southeast corner of the building, and first made photographs of the three hulls.

Mr. McCLOY. What floor was this?

Mr. DAY. On the sixth floor. I took photographs of the three hulls as they were found before they were moved.

Mr. BELIN. I am going to hand you some pictures here and ask you to say if these pictures are the photographs you took. First, I will hand you a picture marked "Commission Exhibit 715," and ask you to state, if you know, what this is.

Mr. DAY. Yes, sir. That is one of the photographs we made of the hulls on the floor.

Mr. BELIN. Now, who took the actual picture?

Mr. DAY. Detective Studebaker; R. L. Studebaker.

Mr. BELIN. Who is he?

Mr. DAY. At my direction.

Mr. BELIN. Who is he?

Mr. DAY. He is one of the officers who took this under my supervision, and he accompanied me from the office to this building.

Mr. BELIN. Can you see in this picture the location of the hulls?

Mr. DAY. Yes, sir.

Mr. BELIN. I wonder if you could take this pen and circle the hulls that you see there.

Mr. McCLOY. I only see two.

Mr. DAY. The other one doesn't show in this picture, I don't believe.

Mr. BELIN. You have circled two hulls that appear to be resting near what would be the south wall of the building; is that correct?

Mr. DAY. Yes, sir.

Mr. BELIN. Can you see the third hull in that picture?

Mr. DAY. I think you can barely see the tip end of it sticking out there. I believe that is it.

Mr. BELIN. Do you want to circle where you think you can see the third tip sticking out? I am now going to hand you what is marked "Commission Exhibit No. 716," and ask you to state, if you know, what this is.

Mr. DAY. This is another view taken from a different angle of the same location. All three hulls are clearly visible here.

Mr. BELIN. Would you circle the three hulls on Exhibit 716? Do you know whether or not Exhibit 716 and Exhibit 715 were taken before these hulls were moved?

Mr. DAY. They were taken before anything was moved, to the best of my knowledge. I was advised when I got there nothing had been moved.

Mr. BELIN. Who so advised you?

Mr. DAY. I believe it was Detective Sims standing there, but I could be wrong about that.

Mr. BELIN. Now, turning again to Exhibit 715, I notice that there is a box in a window which is partially open. I am going to first ask you to state what window this is.

Mr. DAY. This is the south window closest to Houston Street or, in other words, it is the easternmost window on the south side of the building on the sixth floor.

Mr. BELIN. Was this window in about the same location with respect to how far it was open at the time you got there?

Mr. DAY. That is the position it was in when I got there.

Mr. BELIN. All right. I notice boxes throughout the picture, including the box in the window. To the best of your knowledge, had any of those boxes been moved prior to the time the picture, Exhibit 715, was taken?

Mr. DAY. No, sir; they had not.

Mr. BELIN. Now, I am going to show you a picture which has been identified previously in Commission testimony as Commission Exhibit 482, which purports to have been a picture taken by a newspaper photographer shortly after the assassination, showing the easternmost windows on the south side of the fifth and the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository Building.

You will notice there are two Negro males looking out of the lower pair of windows, which would be the fifth-floor windows, and above that there is one window which appears to be open with a box or boxes in it.

I am going to first ask you to state whether or not the boxes in that picture, Exhibit 482, appear to be in the same location as you saw them when you first got on the crime scene.

Mr. DAY. Yes, sir; I believe they are.

Mr. BELIN. Now, as you face the picture, the box to the right, which would be to the east, has a corner sticking out, or just a corner of the box shows. Is that the same box that appears to be resting on the window ledge in Exhibit 715?

Mr. DAY. In my opinion, it is.

Mr. BELIN. I also note there is another box that appears to be in the window on Exhibit 482. Is this box shown at all on either Exhibit 715 or 716, if you know?

Mr. DAY. No; I don't think it is.

Mr. BELIN. What do you think happened to this other box in the window on Exhibit 482?

Mr. DAY. I think the box you see through the window is to the west of the box you see here.

Mr. BELIN. You are pointing out that the box you see in the window, and you are now pointing to Exhibit 482----

Mr. DAY. I think that is east of the four boxes shown in your No. 715. Well, there are----

Mr. BELIN. Let me give you another question. On Exhibit 715 there is only one box shown in the window actually resting on the ledge, which is the box that you identified the corner out of in the eastern part of the window shown on 482.

Now, what is the fact as to whether or not this other box on 482 would have been resting on the ledge, or is it a pictorial view of something that actually was in back of the window?

Mr. DAY. I think this is one of the boxes 2 feet 11 inches back from the wall. There were two stacks of them, one behind the window sill that you see here.

Mr. BELIN. You are pointing to the window sill between the pair of windows on Exhibit 482?

Mr. DAY. That you can't see in this picture. This one is the other one I am trying to say, this stack here--there are two stacks of boxes here. This one is behind here. You can't see it.

Mr. BELIN. What you are pointing is, as you point to Exhibit 715, you are saying that the tier of boxes which is in the left foreground, if you were standing outside taking a picture, would be hidden by the heavy beam between the windows, but beyond that, to the east of that, there is another tier of boxes of which you think this other box in Exhibit 482 is one; am I correct? Is this correct?

Mr. DAY. That is correct.

Mr. BELIN. Handing you Exhibit 716, will you see this at all on Exhibit 716?

Mr. DAY. This is the box, I think, showing here.

Mr. BELIN. Do you want to make an X on the box on Exhibit 716 that you think is the other box showing in the window on Exhibit 482?

Mr. DAY. The corner that is showing I don't believe shows in the picture.

Mr. BELIN. All right. You put an X on a box which I would say, looking at this picture, appears to be the fourth box starting from the bottom count, and you believe that is the picture or--that is the box that is shown in the window?

Mr. DAY. Yes, sir.

Mr. BELIN. All right.

Mr. DAY. I don't know what time this was taken. Do you?