A Picture Worth a Thousand Words
What follows below is an examination into the various pieces of evidence captured in the picture above. This was one of the first photographs taken of the evidence collected by Dallas Police in regards to the case against Lee Harvey Oswald. What is astounding is the fact that not one of these pieces of evidence is without controversy.
Amidst the vast and endless collection of evidence attributed to the assassination of 35th President of the United States John F. Kennedy there exists hundreds upon hundreds of evidence-based photographs. Practically everyone has their own intriguing story to tell but very few tie together the extreme complexities and conspiratorial suspicion like the photograph shown above. This photograph is highly significant for several reasons. One, it is one of the first photographs taken of the evidence collected (before anyone really had a chance to possibly tamper with it). Two, it is a conglomerate of almost all the physical evidence in existence tying Oswald to the assassination, and thus the legitimacy of what is presented within it is highly significant. The only other piece of physical evidence against him that is missing from this photograph are two infamous backyard photographs taken of him presumably holding the rifle he killed the President with and the revolver he supposedly killed Dallas police officer J.D. Tippit with. However, these photographs wouldn’t be “discovered” until two weeks after the assassination, thus making sense of their not being gathered up along with the evidence in this photograph.
In my examination of this key evidence I will work from left to right, addressing the small items at the base of the photograph and then moving up to the much larger pieces of evidence. The purpose here is to show how flimsy and in much simpler terms how impossible it was for Lee Harvey Oswald, acting alone, to kill the President based on this evidence. If Oswald was, without a doubt, the killer of the President, as some claim, this evidence should be more than ironclad. However, such is simply not the case.
ITEM 1: SHELLS RECOVERED
One of the most startling discoveries on the day of the President’s assassination occurred fifty-two minutes after the shooting itself when, so the story goes, three spent shells were recovered from under a window in the southeast corner of the Texas School Book Depository (the location where Oswald supposedly shot the President from). The manner in which the shells were splayed on the floor has varied with different police officer’s accounts but one thing that has always remained consistent is that three shells were recovered from the crime scene. This is highly significant because at the very least three bullets were involved in the President’s assassination, and this is after we accept the single-bullet theory, arguing that one bullet inflicted seven wounds between President Kennedy and Texas Governor John Connally.
However, despite the official story, in this evidence photograph, taken shortly after the assassination there are only two spent shells. In an official document listing the recovered evidence it too only mentions two spent shells having been recovered. There is no way that Oswald could have performed the assassination alone with only two bullets, even with the single-bullet theory. The time in which the single-bullet (more better known in popular culture as the “magic bullet”) supposedly struck the President and the Governor and the time when the fatal shot struck the President in the head are far too spread out to have been caused by the same bullet so there alone are two necessary shots. However, a bystander, James Tague, was wounded when a piece of concrete from a curbstone ahead of the Presidential limousine struck him in the cheek. Upon examination, a bullet mark was found on the curbstone, signifying a necessary third shot. The early existence of only two empty shells instead of three then is highly significant and furthermore it seems all early documentation only showed two shells having been recovered. Then, it appears, a third shell simply worked its way into evidence much like other items such as the clip that was supposedly recovered attached to the “murder weapon”.
Before moving on, it is of interest to mention that Dallas Captain Will Fritz expressed that nothing in the supposed sniper’s nest was to be removed until it had been photographed in place. And yet the Captain himself was seen corrupting evidence when after he arrived on the scene on the sixth floor of the Book Depository, he reached down and picked up the spent shells on the ground. One even saw him place the shells in his pocket before supposedly returning them to their place. This complete violation of his own basic orders is highly suspicious, especially considering the truth of this discrepancy between how many shells were recovered. Whatever the case, the credibility to the argument that there were three shells actually recovered from the Book Depository is practically shot with the revelation of this photograph (in accordance with other documentation).
ITEM 2: OSWALD’S PALM PRINT
A piece of “evidence” long argued in favor of is a palm print of Oswald’s reportedly recovered from the Mannlicher-Carcano rifle recovered on the sixth floor of the Depository. This was argued as indisputable evidence of his guilt, however once again there are issues with this piece of evidence. When the rifle was recovered it was put in the hands of Carl Day of the Dallas Police who was put in charge of dusting the rifle for prints. By his own documentation he only found a few smudges, none of which could be attributed to Oswald nor anyone else. Interestingly enough, shortly after Oswald’s death, agents visited the funeral home where he was being kept before his burial. These agents had a weapon in their possession and obviously ink with them as well as after their departure Oswald had ink smudged all over his hand. This must be seen as highly suspicious, especially considering the fact that shortly after this visit a palm print belonging to Oswald was suddenly discovered on the rifle after initial searches turned up nothing. Like so many other elements of the evidence against Oswald, this palm print simply doesn’t hold any legitimacy.
This particular palm print of Oswald’s was recovered from a box on the sixth floor, and thus deemed strong evidence against him. However, part of Oswald’s job was moving boxes of books around and thus it would have made total sense for his fingerprints to be all over the place, especially on the sixth floor, which was used as a place to store book boxes. While this print could certainly keep Oswald in the ballpark as far as possible suspects, it doesn’t come close to being solid proof against him. Before moving on, it is of interest to note that a small crooked stack of boxes was found stacked along the southeast corner window of the sniper’s nest. Presumably this was used by Oswald to prop up his rifle. However, if this were the case, it means that Oswald most definitely would have had to move these boxes, thus leaving prints all over them, Nevertheless none of these boxes yielded any prints belonging to Oswald, and yet these are boxes that necessitated prints of his. He had to have touched them in setting them up as a makeshift tripod and there is no evidence that he wore or was wearing gloves at any time on November 22nd.
ITEM 3: SHELLS RECOVERED FROM TIPPIT MURDER
Included with the evidence here are the highly suspect shells recovered from the Tippit murder scene. These shells are suspect for a number of reasons. They serve as strong evidence against Oswald in that they are shells that were traced to the revolver found on him when he was arrested. However, there are many oddities of the Tippit murder that require mention in this case, of which cast doubt on the legitimacy of these shells and Oswald’s guilt in the Tippit murder.
Most significant possibly, with regards to the type of ammunition used, all initial police reports from the scene stated that the bullets fired into Tippit had been fired from an automatic weapon. Two reports were made over the police radios and Officer Gerald Hill later stated the bullets had come from an automatic weapon. However, the revolver Oswald had was a six-shot revolver and the shells, in correspondence to his weapon, were not automatic shell casings.
Furthermore, there is the intriguing story behind the disposal of the shells. Much like with the rifle and the shells in the Book Depository (and much like James Earl Ray on the day Martin Luther King, Jr. died), Oswald seemed to have no problem leaving an obvious trail of evidence back to him that was easily recovered. According to eyewitnesses, only a minority of which fingered Oswald as the shooter (and even they had conflicting accounts of what he had looked like all the way down to the color of his clothes), after the shooter fired four rounds into Tippit he quickly emptied the shells out as he was fleeing and simply tossed them away into a nearby bush. This seems like a beyond moronic action, something an intellectual like Oswald would have been much too smart to do. And any human being, if they are fleeing for their lives will have a natural intuition to do whatever they can to protect and conceal themselves and not toss all sorts of identifiable evidence down right there at the crime scene like a present. On the other hand, if Oswald were intended to take the fall, then this is a more than obvious case of someone else conducting the shooting and planting evidence connectable to someone else at the scene of the crime. There is a great deal more evidence in defense of Oswald in this case, but for the same of keeping on topic, I will stop discussion of the Tippit shells here.
ITEM 4: METAL FRAGMENT FROM JOHN CONNALLY
Not marked on the diagram above, mostly for the same of room I had with the program I was using, included amidst this evidence is a fragment recovered from Governor Connally’s wrist. One of the prevailing arguments against the single-bullet theory is the fact that two of the wounds inflicted on Connally broke through bone. The bullet officially recognized as the bullet that inflicted the seven wounds acknowledged by the single-bullet theory (Commission Exhibit 399) was recovered on a stretcher at Parkland Hospital (that was presumably used by the Governor but little evidence shows this and in fact it is more likely the stretcher was used to aid a little boy who had been injured and rushed to the hospital on the day of the assassination). The bullet itself was modestly flattened to a degree that is almost negligible. Several practice rounds fired on behalf of the Warren Commission firing the type of ammunition used by the Mannlicher-Carcano rifle into cadavers yielded bullets that were substantially more flattened, bent or broken. And these were rounds fired into only one bone, whereas CE399 is credited as having broken four bones. This has been a long-standing criticism of the single-bullet theory that the official bullet itself came away far too undamaged considering what it must have went through.
This fragment photographed, that was removed from Connally’s wrist shines a light on another significant criticism of the single-bullet theory. A round like CE399, at its full weight is 161 grams. CE399 itself was found to weigh 158.5 grams, which means less than 2% of its overall mass was lost in the shooting. The bullet was practically intact. The problem here is that this metal fragment, from the bullet that tore through Connally’s wrist, came in at a mass greater than the 2.5 grams that CE399 lost. This means, flat out, that CE399 could not have been responsible for the wrist wound obtained by Connally. However, this is one of the seven wounds necessary to be a part of the single-bullet theory if Oswald’s lone guilt is to be salvaged. If the single-bullet is deemed impossible in any way then Oswald could not have acted alone in killing the President because it deems a fourth bullet necessary at least to substantiate for the woulds obtained by the President, Governor Connally and the would obtained by James Tague, a bullet that missed the motorcade entirely.
To add further fuel to the fire, this is only one fragment recovered from the long and winding path that CE399 supposedly took. There were other fragments recovered, primarily others from Connally’s wrist wound and another rather large fragment that was planted in his thigh, a fragment that was never removed. And there were various tiny metallic fragments disperse through both Kennedy’s and Connally’s bodies This makes for even more metal that CE399 cannot account for. This one detail alone, and more over this one little fragment put into evidence are fatal shots to the single-bullet theory. Even if every other aspect of the theory lined up perfectly (which they don’t come even close to doing). It is rather sad that there are still people out there who defend the single-bullet theory, obviously avoiding unmistakable and damning evidence such as this fragment. Furthermore, the throat wound on President Kennedy, which if coming from the Book Depository behind him would have created a large exploding wound upon exiting the front of his throat, was measured by doctors as having a diameter of three to five millimeters, which is highly significant seeing as the diameter of the ammunition used by the Mannlicher-Carcano was 6.5 millimeters. This means, even as a small entrance would (coming from the front and not from behind) wound would have still been too small for Mannlicher-Carcano ammunition to have caused it. This small fragment is thus proof that either more than three bullets were fired or that a different bullet or multiple bullets, from a different weapon or weapons, caused the woulds credited to CE399. Either way, it disproves the single-bullet theory as well as Oswald as a lone assassin. In the best of all worlds, he had at least one accomplice firing from another location.
ITEM 5: FIBERS RECOVERED FROM RIFLE
Meek and often overlooked it seems by Kennedy assassination researchers are fibers that were recovered from the Mannlicher-Carcano rifle found on the sixth floor and attributed to belonging to Oswald. Any fibers on this rifle should have in some way connected Oswald to the ownership of the rifle, especially since he had owned it for some eight months by the time of the assassination. The story behind Oswald’s ownership of the rifle itself is rather flimsy, however the official story suggests that the rifle had been left wrapped in a blanket at the home of Ruth and Michael Paine (whom Oswald’s wife Marina had been living with) for a lengthy period of time before being removed by Oswald, wrapped up in a brown paper package for concealment and then transported up to the sixth floor of the Book Depository to be used in the assassination. It is only sensible then that fibers from the blanket it had been wrapped in would have been found in it as well as brown paper fibers and most likely fibers from Oswald’s clothes.
However, to no skeptic’s surprise, none of these fibers were recovered from the rifle. Numerous fibers were recovered, none of which could be legitimately attributed to Oswald. The fact that the rifle had been wrapped in a blanket for at least some two months, a thick shaggy blanket shedding many fibers and yet not one of these were found on the rifle is simply astounding. And if Oswald owned the rifle and used it for practice as often as the Warren Commission said he did how is it possible that not one purely legitimate fiber was ever recovered from him. These fibers being unattributable to him along with the fact that no fibers from him were recovered are strong evidence to argue that the rifle recovered never belonged to him (this will be addressed in greater detail when the time comes to discuss the rifle in the photograph).
ITEM 6: RECOVERED UNFIRED ROUND
While this piece of evidence on the surface doesn’t seem to be of much intrigue, its significance is much deeper than one would presume. Most importantly, it is important to understand that with Mannlicher-Carcano’s, when a clip is loaded, which is required for a rapid fire shooting feat like Oswald supposedly performed, the clip falls out of the weapon when the last round in it is loaded into the rifle’s chamber. Because the rifle was recovered with only one round loaded in the chamber the rifle’s clip would have had to fall out. However, like other pieces of evidence there is no proof the rifle still had the clip in it (as sometimes when clips are loaded oddly they can become stuck even when the final round is loaded, but this is a rarity) and there is no legitimate explanation as to how the clip was recovered by other means. It was not found on Oswald, never found in the Book Depository, nor Oswald’s rooming house, nor at the Texas Theatre where he was arrested.
But the story doesn’t end with the simple misplacement of a clip. The fact that, at the most, three shells were recovered from the sniper’s nest, along with this one round still in the chamber, means the clip only held four rounds at the most. A Carcano clip holds six rounds, which means this clip was underloaded. A clip of this nature will often times lead to misaligned rounds and jamming of the rifle. The shells recovered presented a few oddities. Again, there are officially three shells that were discovered. Now if the official story holds water, the fact that there was one round loaded into the chamber means that none of these three bullets were the last one’s loaded from a clip. However, two of the shells showed markings from the rifle’s magazine, meaning each of them had been the last rounds loaded from a clip. Furthermore, two of them did not show markings from the rifle’s firing pin, meaning neither had actually been used to fire a round from the rifle. One of the shells also was found to have a small dent in it large enough to make it impossible for a bullet to have been loaded within it. With the oddities of the markings on these shells it seems that only one had actually been fired from the rifle and the others, at the most, had been loaded and then ejected from the rifle, likely more than once to give it some distinguishing marks traceable back to that weapon. Again, we have suggestive evidence of a set-up being done here.
ITEM 7: THE BROWN PAPER PACKAGE
In the middle portion of the photograph is the long brown paper package that Oswald reportedly used to transfer the Mannlicher-Carcano rifle into the Depository without being seen. The story behind this paper package is obscene to say the least. First of all, the only evidence that it was even potentially involved in the assassination is of course the argument put forth by the Warren Commission that it was, but beyond that there is only its placement in the national archives as such, a photograph taken of an officer holding it outside of the Book Depository and the testimony of Buell Wesley Frazier and his sister Linnie Mae Randle. Frazier was a co-worker of Oswald’s who also lived closed to the Paine family, again where Oswald’s wife Marina was living. These two are the only people to substantiate Oswald as having a large paper package with him at all. And the two of them both maintained that the package Oswald had, of which he said held curtain rods, was approximately two feet long. After excessive pressure from the Warren Commission, Frazier admitted the package at most may have been 27 or 28 inches in length. This is still a problem because, even when broken down, a Mannlicher Carcano is over 35 inches long. Therefore, the only two eyewitnesses to any type of package being in Oswald’s possession maintain it was a package much too short to contain the professed murder weapon. And the package in the photograph is obviously one much longer than two feet.
After arriving at the Depository, Frazier watched Oswald walk to the building with the package in his hand. However, upon entry, this package apparently vanished. Depository employee Jack Daugherty watched Oswald walk into the Book Depository that morning and saw nothing in his hands. Daugherty is accompanied by every other employee at the Depository that day, none of whom saw Oswald with a paper package of any kind in his possession. And yet he apparently sneaked this long and bulky package up to the sixth floor, where he cracked it open, removed the rifle and used it to fire down on the President.
The invisibility act of the package does not end there though. After Oswald fled and the sixth floor was searched, it was widely known that a set of spent shells and a rifle had been found. However, no officer recalled finding a paper package there. And being of the size that the paper package is in the evidence photograph it is beyond insanity that not one officer conducting a search of this magnitude would have seen it. Most importantly, the two officers who were first to discover the shells in the sniper’s nest, Roger Craig and Luke Mooney, did not see a large package there. Dallas Police Captain Will Fritz, as mentioned earlier, told the officers searching up there not to move a thing until it had been photographed. Interestingly enough, all the evidence officially recovered in that sniper’s nest was photographed except this large paper package. There is not one photograph showing the paper package there, even amidst dozens of photos taken of the sniper’s nest during and after the search of that location. Even in the Warren Commission’s final report, the best they could do was take a photograph looking down on the sniper’s nest and draw a white dotted line around the area where the package was “discovered” in. There is no evidence whatsoever that this long bulky package was ever inside the Book Depository. Further doubt is cast on this whole facade by the simple fact that the package bore no markings of any kind that would have been characteristic of a rifle having been in there. And when the Mannlicher-Carcano was discovered it was found to be in well-oiled condition. It most certainly would have left, in the very least, trace amounts of oil on the paper. Nevertheless, no such oil was found on the paper. Nothing whatsoever was found on the package to suggest the Mannlicher-Carcano discovered in the Book Depository on November 22nd, 1963 was ever inside it or even in contact with it.
ITEM 8: SHIRT OSWALD WORE WHEN ARRESTED
While not being of particular intrigue by itself, the shirt Oswald was wearing does attribute significance to the overall story as to what went on with him that day. It is of interest to point out a very well known photograph taken around the time of the first shot, snapped by press photographer James Altgens, which shows a man standing in the entryway of the Book Depository who bears a strong resemblance to Oswald. The debate has raged on as to whether the man in the picture was Oswald, however the man in the photograph is dressed identically to the way Oswald was dressed that day, wearing the shirt in the above photograph opened with a white shirt exposed underneath it. Even Oswald himself told police that he had stepped out to watch the motorcade along with fellow Depository employees, including Bill Shelley. Shelley just happened to be standing along the entryway there watching the motorcade.
The Warren Commission determined the photograph was actually depicting Depository employee Billy Lovelady who somewhat resembled Oswald and, to be honest, bears just as good a resemblance to the blurry-figured man in the photo as Oswald did. However, Lovelady was not dressed the way the man standing in the door was and he claimed that at the time of the assassination he was sitting on the steps leading into the Depository. Both these issues cast grave doubt on him being this man in the photograph. The question still looms then, if it wasn’t Lovelady then who was is? Perhaps it was Oswald. If such is the case then obviously he could not have been the or an assassin of President Kennedy. And on a final note about the shirt. Amid the fibers removed from the rifle and included in this picture, not one fiber from Oswald’s shirt was recovered and yet it is obscene to think that the rifle wouldn’t have come into contact with his shirt at some point if the gun were his and if he did fire it that day.
ITEM 9: OSWALD’S REVOLVER
Oswald’s revolver again is an item of little intrigue, as with exception to the Mannlicher-Carcano, Oswald made no effort to deny owning the revolver. When asked why he had it upon his arrest Oswald simply stated that if you’re a man in Texas, you carry a gun (or words to that effect). Obviously the issue can be arisen again, well if the revolver belonged to Oswald and the shell casings found at the scene of the shooting were from his revolver then it’s proof of his guilt. But again, as already mentioned in the section about the recovered shells from the Tippit crime scene, there were many issues brought up as to the nature of the shooting (and remember the argument and the police evidence that it was believed an automatic weapon was used to do the killing). Beyond that there are other issues, including the fact that Oswald was reported by theatre employee Butch Burroughs as having walked into the Texas Theatre at 1:07 p.m., and yet the Warren Commission puts the time of the Tippit shooting around 1:16 p.m. All evidence puts the actual shooting some time between 1:07 and 1:10 p.m. but since Oswald didn’t reportedly leave his rooming house till about 1:04 p.m., and the Tippit murder scene was nearly a mile from there, the Co
mmission had to give time for Oswald to cover that mile. So they conveniently gave him some twelve minutes to walk to the crime scene while credible evidence only gave him about three to six minutes to go that distance. And remember, Burroughs recalled him having entered the theatre at 1:07. As with everything else in the flimsy case against Lee Harvey Oswald, the case of the Tippit shooting has its own set of issues.
ITEM 10: THE RIFLE BLANKET
The final item photographed, shows the woven blanket recovered from the Paine home. Officially this blanket was used to wrap Oswald Mannlicher-Carcano rifle in the days and weeks before the assassination, and according to the Dallas Officers who reported to the Paine home on the day of the shooting, Oswald’s wife Marina led them right to the blanket that was located in the garage, saying he kept his rifle in there. When the officers picked up the blanket there was nothing inside, leading everyone to presume Oswald’s guilt. Of course, over the next several weeks, as would be bore out in various FBI and Secret Service reports, Marina would repeatedly deny Oswald ever owned a rifle. It would only be after a prolonged stay in the company of FBI and Warren Commission personnel that she would suddenly change her story and say that Oswald did own the rifle (among many other details about him that she suddenly changed her mind about).
This blanket was presumed to be strong evidence against Oswald, but much like the recovered brown paper package, there is little to nothing to validate it other than the crooked and conflicted story that Marina knew the rifle to be wrapped in that blanket. Again, as stated before, the rifle was found to be in well-oiled condition and yet not a drop of that oil was found on the blanket. Of all the fibers recovered from the rifle, not one was recovered from this blanket, of which it presumably spent several weeks wrapped up in. Both Michael and Ruth Pain, whom Marina lived with, had no idea that Oswald had ever owned a gun and were only convinced he did when the “evidence” began to build up against him.
There was an intriguing incident that occurred shortly before the assassination. Michael Paine, who had been in the military and served during the Korean War had a good knowledge of guns. He testified that at one point he had picked up the blanket and moved it and felt something inside but believed they were camping poles for setting up a tent. Now while one can loosely say a rifle is similar to a pipe, anyone picking up a blanket could feel the difference. They would feel the descent where the butt of the rifle would be. The rifle had a scope, which would have been noticeable and even the trigger on the bottom side of it would have been noticeable. And again, Michael Paine wasn’t just some random person lifting that blanket, he was a war veteran with mots of experience with guns. As with so many other things, there is absolutely nothing to legitimately substantiate this blanket as having held the Mannlicher-Carcano of which there is no clean cut evidence that Oswald ever owned. Therefore, like many other things, it can hardly be deemed as a legitimate piece of evidence.
In my examination of this key evidence I will work from left to right, addressing the small items at the base of the photograph and then moving up to the much larger pieces of evidence. The purpose here is to show how flimsy and in much simpler terms how impossible it was for Lee Harvey Oswald, acting alone, to kill the President based on this evidence. If Oswald was, without a doubt, the killer of the President, as some claim, this evidence should be more than ironclad. However, such is simply not the case.
ITEM 1: SHELLS RECOVERED
One of the most startling discoveries on the day of the President’s assassination occurred fifty-two minutes after the shooting itself when, so the story goes, three spent shells were recovered from under a window in the southeast corner of the Texas School Book Depository (the location where Oswald supposedly shot the President from). The manner in which the shells were splayed on the floor has varied with different police officer’s accounts but one thing that has always remained consistent is that three shells were recovered from the crime scene. This is highly significant because at the very least three bullets were involved in the President’s assassination, and this is after we accept the single-bullet theory, arguing that one bullet inflicted seven wounds between President Kennedy and Texas Governor John Connally.
However, despite the official story, in this evidence photograph, taken shortly after the assassination there are only two spent shells. In an official document listing the recovered evidence it too only mentions two spent shells having been recovered. There is no way that Oswald could have performed the assassination alone with only two bullets, even with the single-bullet theory. The time in which the single-bullet (more better known in popular culture as the “magic bullet”) supposedly struck the President and the Governor and the time when the fatal shot struck the President in the head are far too spread out to have been caused by the same bullet so there alone are two necessary shots. However, a bystander, James Tague, was wounded when a piece of concrete from a curbstone ahead of the Presidential limousine struck him in the cheek. Upon examination, a bullet mark was found on the curbstone, signifying a necessary third shot. The early existence of only two empty shells instead of three then is highly significant and furthermore it seems all early documentation only showed two shells having been recovered. Then, it appears, a third shell simply worked its way into evidence much like other items such as the clip that was supposedly recovered attached to the “murder weapon”.
Before moving on, it is of interest to mention that Dallas Captain Will Fritz expressed that nothing in the supposed sniper’s nest was to be removed until it had been photographed in place. And yet the Captain himself was seen corrupting evidence when after he arrived on the scene on the sixth floor of the Book Depository, he reached down and picked up the spent shells on the ground. One even saw him place the shells in his pocket before supposedly returning them to their place. This complete violation of his own basic orders is highly suspicious, especially considering the truth of this discrepancy between how many shells were recovered. Whatever the case, the credibility to the argument that there were three shells actually recovered from the Book Depository is practically shot with the revelation of this photograph (in accordance with other documentation).
ITEM 2: OSWALD’S PALM PRINT
A piece of “evidence” long argued in favor of is a palm print of Oswald’s reportedly recovered from the Mannlicher-Carcano rifle recovered on the sixth floor of the Depository. This was argued as indisputable evidence of his guilt, however once again there are issues with this piece of evidence. When the rifle was recovered it was put in the hands of Carl Day of the Dallas Police who was put in charge of dusting the rifle for prints. By his own documentation he only found a few smudges, none of which could be attributed to Oswald nor anyone else. Interestingly enough, shortly after Oswald’s death, agents visited the funeral home where he was being kept before his burial. These agents had a weapon in their possession and obviously ink with them as well as after their departure Oswald had ink smudged all over his hand. This must be seen as highly suspicious, especially considering the fact that shortly after this visit a palm print belonging to Oswald was suddenly discovered on the rifle after initial searches turned up nothing. Like so many other elements of the evidence against Oswald, this palm print simply doesn’t hold any legitimacy.
This particular palm print of Oswald’s was recovered from a box on the sixth floor, and thus deemed strong evidence against him. However, part of Oswald’s job was moving boxes of books around and thus it would have made total sense for his fingerprints to be all over the place, especially on the sixth floor, which was used as a place to store book boxes. While this print could certainly keep Oswald in the ballpark as far as possible suspects, it doesn’t come close to being solid proof against him. Before moving on, it is of interest to note that a small crooked stack of boxes was found stacked along the southeast corner window of the sniper’s nest. Presumably this was used by Oswald to prop up his rifle. However, if this were the case, it means that Oswald most definitely would have had to move these boxes, thus leaving prints all over them, Nevertheless none of these boxes yielded any prints belonging to Oswald, and yet these are boxes that necessitated prints of his. He had to have touched them in setting them up as a makeshift tripod and there is no evidence that he wore or was wearing gloves at any time on November 22nd.
ITEM 3: SHELLS RECOVERED FROM TIPPIT MURDER
Included with the evidence here are the highly suspect shells recovered from the Tippit murder scene. These shells are suspect for a number of reasons. They serve as strong evidence against Oswald in that they are shells that were traced to the revolver found on him when he was arrested. However, there are many oddities of the Tippit murder that require mention in this case, of which cast doubt on the legitimacy of these shells and Oswald’s guilt in the Tippit murder.
Most significant possibly, with regards to the type of ammunition used, all initial police reports from the scene stated that the bullets fired into Tippit had been fired from an automatic weapon. Two reports were made over the police radios and Officer Gerald Hill later stated the bullets had come from an automatic weapon. However, the revolver Oswald had was a six-shot revolver and the shells, in correspondence to his weapon, were not automatic shell casings.
Furthermore, there is the intriguing story behind the disposal of the shells. Much like with the rifle and the shells in the Book Depository (and much like James Earl Ray on the day Martin Luther King, Jr. died), Oswald seemed to have no problem leaving an obvious trail of evidence back to him that was easily recovered. According to eyewitnesses, only a minority of which fingered Oswald as the shooter (and even they had conflicting accounts of what he had looked like all the way down to the color of his clothes), after the shooter fired four rounds into Tippit he quickly emptied the shells out as he was fleeing and simply tossed them away into a nearby bush. This seems like a beyond moronic action, something an intellectual like Oswald would have been much too smart to do. And any human being, if they are fleeing for their lives will have a natural intuition to do whatever they can to protect and conceal themselves and not toss all sorts of identifiable evidence down right there at the crime scene like a present. On the other hand, if Oswald were intended to take the fall, then this is a more than obvious case of someone else conducting the shooting and planting evidence connectable to someone else at the scene of the crime. There is a great deal more evidence in defense of Oswald in this case, but for the same of keeping on topic, I will stop discussion of the Tippit shells here.
ITEM 4: METAL FRAGMENT FROM JOHN CONNALLY
Not marked on the diagram above, mostly for the same of room I had with the program I was using, included amidst this evidence is a fragment recovered from Governor Connally’s wrist. One of the prevailing arguments against the single-bullet theory is the fact that two of the wounds inflicted on Connally broke through bone. The bullet officially recognized as the bullet that inflicted the seven wounds acknowledged by the single-bullet theory (Commission Exhibit 399) was recovered on a stretcher at Parkland Hospital (that was presumably used by the Governor but little evidence shows this and in fact it is more likely the stretcher was used to aid a little boy who had been injured and rushed to the hospital on the day of the assassination). The bullet itself was modestly flattened to a degree that is almost negligible. Several practice rounds fired on behalf of the Warren Commission firing the type of ammunition used by the Mannlicher-Carcano rifle into cadavers yielded bullets that were substantially more flattened, bent or broken. And these were rounds fired into only one bone, whereas CE399 is credited as having broken four bones. This has been a long-standing criticism of the single-bullet theory that the official bullet itself came away far too undamaged considering what it must have went through.
This fragment photographed, that was removed from Connally’s wrist shines a light on another significant criticism of the single-bullet theory. A round like CE399, at its full weight is 161 grams. CE399 itself was found to weigh 158.5 grams, which means less than 2% of its overall mass was lost in the shooting. The bullet was practically intact. The problem here is that this metal fragment, from the bullet that tore through Connally’s wrist, came in at a mass greater than the 2.5 grams that CE399 lost. This means, flat out, that CE399 could not have been responsible for the wrist wound obtained by Connally. However, this is one of the seven wounds necessary to be a part of the single-bullet theory if Oswald’s lone guilt is to be salvaged. If the single-bullet is deemed impossible in any way then Oswald could not have acted alone in killing the President because it deems a fourth bullet necessary at least to substantiate for the woulds obtained by the President, Governor Connally and the would obtained by James Tague, a bullet that missed the motorcade entirely.
To add further fuel to the fire, this is only one fragment recovered from the long and winding path that CE399 supposedly took. There were other fragments recovered, primarily others from Connally’s wrist wound and another rather large fragment that was planted in his thigh, a fragment that was never removed. And there were various tiny metallic fragments disperse through both Kennedy’s and Connally’s bodies This makes for even more metal that CE399 cannot account for. This one detail alone, and more over this one little fragment put into evidence are fatal shots to the single-bullet theory. Even if every other aspect of the theory lined up perfectly (which they don’t come even close to doing). It is rather sad that there are still people out there who defend the single-bullet theory, obviously avoiding unmistakable and damning evidence such as this fragment. Furthermore, the throat wound on President Kennedy, which if coming from the Book Depository behind him would have created a large exploding wound upon exiting the front of his throat, was measured by doctors as having a diameter of three to five millimeters, which is highly significant seeing as the diameter of the ammunition used by the Mannlicher-Carcano was 6.5 millimeters. This means, even as a small entrance would (coming from the front and not from behind) wound would have still been too small for Mannlicher-Carcano ammunition to have caused it. This small fragment is thus proof that either more than three bullets were fired or that a different bullet or multiple bullets, from a different weapon or weapons, caused the woulds credited to CE399. Either way, it disproves the single-bullet theory as well as Oswald as a lone assassin. In the best of all worlds, he had at least one accomplice firing from another location.
ITEM 5: FIBERS RECOVERED FROM RIFLE
Meek and often overlooked it seems by Kennedy assassination researchers are fibers that were recovered from the Mannlicher-Carcano rifle found on the sixth floor and attributed to belonging to Oswald. Any fibers on this rifle should have in some way connected Oswald to the ownership of the rifle, especially since he had owned it for some eight months by the time of the assassination. The story behind Oswald’s ownership of the rifle itself is rather flimsy, however the official story suggests that the rifle had been left wrapped in a blanket at the home of Ruth and Michael Paine (whom Oswald’s wife Marina had been living with) for a lengthy period of time before being removed by Oswald, wrapped up in a brown paper package for concealment and then transported up to the sixth floor of the Book Depository to be used in the assassination. It is only sensible then that fibers from the blanket it had been wrapped in would have been found in it as well as brown paper fibers and most likely fibers from Oswald’s clothes.
However, to no skeptic’s surprise, none of these fibers were recovered from the rifle. Numerous fibers were recovered, none of which could be legitimately attributed to Oswald. The fact that the rifle had been wrapped in a blanket for at least some two months, a thick shaggy blanket shedding many fibers and yet not one of these were found on the rifle is simply astounding. And if Oswald owned the rifle and used it for practice as often as the Warren Commission said he did how is it possible that not one purely legitimate fiber was ever recovered from him. These fibers being unattributable to him along with the fact that no fibers from him were recovered are strong evidence to argue that the rifle recovered never belonged to him (this will be addressed in greater detail when the time comes to discuss the rifle in the photograph).
ITEM 6: RECOVERED UNFIRED ROUND
While this piece of evidence on the surface doesn’t seem to be of much intrigue, its significance is much deeper than one would presume. Most importantly, it is important to understand that with Mannlicher-Carcano’s, when a clip is loaded, which is required for a rapid fire shooting feat like Oswald supposedly performed, the clip falls out of the weapon when the last round in it is loaded into the rifle’s chamber. Because the rifle was recovered with only one round loaded in the chamber the rifle’s clip would have had to fall out. However, like other pieces of evidence there is no proof the rifle still had the clip in it (as sometimes when clips are loaded oddly they can become stuck even when the final round is loaded, but this is a rarity) and there is no legitimate explanation as to how the clip was recovered by other means. It was not found on Oswald, never found in the Book Depository, nor Oswald’s rooming house, nor at the Texas Theatre where he was arrested.
But the story doesn’t end with the simple misplacement of a clip. The fact that, at the most, three shells were recovered from the sniper’s nest, along with this one round still in the chamber, means the clip only held four rounds at the most. A Carcano clip holds six rounds, which means this clip was underloaded. A clip of this nature will often times lead to misaligned rounds and jamming of the rifle. The shells recovered presented a few oddities. Again, there are officially three shells that were discovered. Now if the official story holds water, the fact that there was one round loaded into the chamber means that none of these three bullets were the last one’s loaded from a clip. However, two of the shells showed markings from the rifle’s magazine, meaning each of them had been the last rounds loaded from a clip. Furthermore, two of them did not show markings from the rifle’s firing pin, meaning neither had actually been used to fire a round from the rifle. One of the shells also was found to have a small dent in it large enough to make it impossible for a bullet to have been loaded within it. With the oddities of the markings on these shells it seems that only one had actually been fired from the rifle and the others, at the most, had been loaded and then ejected from the rifle, likely more than once to give it some distinguishing marks traceable back to that weapon. Again, we have suggestive evidence of a set-up being done here.
ITEM 7: THE BROWN PAPER PACKAGE
In the middle portion of the photograph is the long brown paper package that Oswald reportedly used to transfer the Mannlicher-Carcano rifle into the Depository without being seen. The story behind this paper package is obscene to say the least. First of all, the only evidence that it was even potentially involved in the assassination is of course the argument put forth by the Warren Commission that it was, but beyond that there is only its placement in the national archives as such, a photograph taken of an officer holding it outside of the Book Depository and the testimony of Buell Wesley Frazier and his sister Linnie Mae Randle. Frazier was a co-worker of Oswald’s who also lived closed to the Paine family, again where Oswald’s wife Marina was living. These two are the only people to substantiate Oswald as having a large paper package with him at all. And the two of them both maintained that the package Oswald had, of which he said held curtain rods, was approximately two feet long. After excessive pressure from the Warren Commission, Frazier admitted the package at most may have been 27 or 28 inches in length. This is still a problem because, even when broken down, a Mannlicher Carcano is over 35 inches long. Therefore, the only two eyewitnesses to any type of package being in Oswald’s possession maintain it was a package much too short to contain the professed murder weapon. And the package in the photograph is obviously one much longer than two feet.
After arriving at the Depository, Frazier watched Oswald walk to the building with the package in his hand. However, upon entry, this package apparently vanished. Depository employee Jack Daugherty watched Oswald walk into the Book Depository that morning and saw nothing in his hands. Daugherty is accompanied by every other employee at the Depository that day, none of whom saw Oswald with a paper package of any kind in his possession. And yet he apparently sneaked this long and bulky package up to the sixth floor, where he cracked it open, removed the rifle and used it to fire down on the President.
The invisibility act of the package does not end there though. After Oswald fled and the sixth floor was searched, it was widely known that a set of spent shells and a rifle had been found. However, no officer recalled finding a paper package there. And being of the size that the paper package is in the evidence photograph it is beyond insanity that not one officer conducting a search of this magnitude would have seen it. Most importantly, the two officers who were first to discover the shells in the sniper’s nest, Roger Craig and Luke Mooney, did not see a large package there. Dallas Police Captain Will Fritz, as mentioned earlier, told the officers searching up there not to move a thing until it had been photographed. Interestingly enough, all the evidence officially recovered in that sniper’s nest was photographed except this large paper package. There is not one photograph showing the paper package there, even amidst dozens of photos taken of the sniper’s nest during and after the search of that location. Even in the Warren Commission’s final report, the best they could do was take a photograph looking down on the sniper’s nest and draw a white dotted line around the area where the package was “discovered” in. There is no evidence whatsoever that this long bulky package was ever inside the Book Depository. Further doubt is cast on this whole facade by the simple fact that the package bore no markings of any kind that would have been characteristic of a rifle having been in there. And when the Mannlicher-Carcano was discovered it was found to be in well-oiled condition. It most certainly would have left, in the very least, trace amounts of oil on the paper. Nevertheless, no such oil was found on the paper. Nothing whatsoever was found on the package to suggest the Mannlicher-Carcano discovered in the Book Depository on November 22nd, 1963 was ever inside it or even in contact with it.
ITEM 8: SHIRT OSWALD WORE WHEN ARRESTED
While not being of particular intrigue by itself, the shirt Oswald was wearing does attribute significance to the overall story as to what went on with him that day. It is of interest to point out a very well known photograph taken around the time of the first shot, snapped by press photographer James Altgens, which shows a man standing in the entryway of the Book Depository who bears a strong resemblance to Oswald. The debate has raged on as to whether the man in the picture was Oswald, however the man in the photograph is dressed identically to the way Oswald was dressed that day, wearing the shirt in the above photograph opened with a white shirt exposed underneath it. Even Oswald himself told police that he had stepped out to watch the motorcade along with fellow Depository employees, including Bill Shelley. Shelley just happened to be standing along the entryway there watching the motorcade.
The Warren Commission determined the photograph was actually depicting Depository employee Billy Lovelady who somewhat resembled Oswald and, to be honest, bears just as good a resemblance to the blurry-figured man in the photo as Oswald did. However, Lovelady was not dressed the way the man standing in the door was and he claimed that at the time of the assassination he was sitting on the steps leading into the Depository. Both these issues cast grave doubt on him being this man in the photograph. The question still looms then, if it wasn’t Lovelady then who was is? Perhaps it was Oswald. If such is the case then obviously he could not have been the or an assassin of President Kennedy. And on a final note about the shirt. Amid the fibers removed from the rifle and included in this picture, not one fiber from Oswald’s shirt was recovered and yet it is obscene to think that the rifle wouldn’t have come into contact with his shirt at some point if the gun were his and if he did fire it that day.
ITEM 9: OSWALD’S REVOLVER
Oswald’s revolver again is an item of little intrigue, as with exception to the Mannlicher-Carcano, Oswald made no effort to deny owning the revolver. When asked why he had it upon his arrest Oswald simply stated that if you’re a man in Texas, you carry a gun (or words to that effect). Obviously the issue can be arisen again, well if the revolver belonged to Oswald and the shell casings found at the scene of the shooting were from his revolver then it’s proof of his guilt. But again, as already mentioned in the section about the recovered shells from the Tippit crime scene, there were many issues brought up as to the nature of the shooting (and remember the argument and the police evidence that it was believed an automatic weapon was used to do the killing). Beyond that there are other issues, including the fact that Oswald was reported by theatre employee Butch Burroughs as having walked into the Texas Theatre at 1:07 p.m., and yet the Warren Commission puts the time of the Tippit shooting around 1:16 p.m. All evidence puts the actual shooting some time between 1:07 and 1:10 p.m. but since Oswald didn’t reportedly leave his rooming house till about 1:04 p.m., and the Tippit murder scene was nearly a mile from there, the Co
ITEM 10: THE RIFLE BLANKET
The final item photographed, shows the woven blanket recovered from the Paine home. Officially this blanket was used to wrap Oswald Mannlicher-Carcano rifle in the days and weeks before the assassination, and according to the Dallas Officers who reported to the Paine home on the day of the shooting, Oswald’s wife Marina led them right to the blanket that was located in the garage, saying he kept his rifle in there. When the officers picked up the blanket there was nothing inside, leading everyone to presume Oswald’s guilt. Of course, over the next several weeks, as would be bore out in various FBI and Secret Service reports, Marina would repeatedly deny Oswald ever owned a rifle. It would only be after a prolonged stay in the company of FBI and Warren Commission personnel that she would suddenly change her story and say that Oswald did own the rifle (among many other details about him that she suddenly changed her mind about).
This blanket was presumed to be strong evidence against Oswald, but much like the recovered brown paper package, there is little to nothing to validate it other than the crooked and conflicted story that Marina knew the rifle to be wrapped in that blanket. Again, as stated before, the rifle was found to be in well-oiled condition and yet not a drop of that oil was found on the blanket. Of all the fibers recovered from the rifle, not one was recovered from this blanket, of which it presumably spent several weeks wrapped up in. Both Michael and Ruth Pain, whom Marina lived with, had no idea that Oswald had ever owned a gun and were only convinced he did when the “evidence” began to build up against him.
There was an intriguing incident that occurred shortly before the assassination. Michael Paine, who had been in the military and served during the Korean War had a good knowledge of guns. He testified that at one point he had picked up the blanket and moved it and felt something inside but believed they were camping poles for setting up a tent. Now while one can loosely say a rifle is similar to a pipe, anyone picking up a blanket could feel the difference. They would feel the descent where the butt of the rifle would be. The rifle had a scope, which would have been noticeable and even the trigger on the bottom side of it would have been noticeable. And again, Michael Paine wasn’t just some random person lifting that blanket, he was a war veteran with mots of experience with guns. As with so many other things, there is absolutely nothing to legitimately substantiate this blanket as having held the Mannlicher-Carcano of which there is no clean cut evidence that Oswald ever owned. Therefore, like many other things, it can hardly be deemed as a legitimate piece of evidence.
Comments
Post a Comment