THE BACK OF PRESIDENT KENNEDY'S HEAD (PART 9)


JOHN CANAL SAID:

>>> "Good to see you laughing while you are making a total ass out of yourself." <<<


DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

The above words were spoken by a person who thinks that the autopsy
doctors decided to deliberately underplay (or under-represent) the
wounds to JFK's head for no good reason whatsoever.

I guess they all decided it would be wise to start misrepresenting the wounds
of the dead U.S. Chief Executive, just for the hell of it. ALL THREE of them!

Crazy, huh?

Now let's tackle John Canal's list of silliness. This should be fun (yet again):


>>> "1. The trail of opacities that Dr. Joe Davis told [Dr. Michael] Baden, on the record, was evidence of a low hit." <<<

And yet we have Dr. Davis agreeing to just go along with Dr. Baden and
the remaining FPP members with respect to the "cowlick"
determination....right John?

Or is this another one of Baden's lies?:

DR. MICHAEL BADEN -- "This is a drawing [JFK Exhibit F-48] made from photographs taken at the time of the autopsy showing the back of the President's head and showing a ruler adjacent to an area of discoloration in the cowlick area of the back of the head of the scalp, which the panel determined was an entrance perforation, an entrance bullet perforation." ....

MR. KLEIN -- "Doctor, does this drawing fairly and accurately represent the location of the wound in the back of the President's head?"

DR. BADEN -- "Yes, it does, in the unanimous opinion of all of the panel members."


>>> "2. The lack of any such trail (which represents the pieces of bone that were beveled out from the inner skull table around the entry) at the proposed high sight." <<<

The ONLY "trail" that can be positively said to be a "trail" in the X-
ray is the "bullet fragment trail" that is HIGH in the head of
JFK...not "low" in the head.

John Canal admits he's never even seen the original X-ray at the
National Archives that shows this supposed "bone trail", and yet he's
convinced that there's a "trail of [bone] opacities" low in the head
on the lateral X-ray.

And, of course, any such "trail of opacities" (i.e., bone fragments),
even if they do exist, couldn't POSSIBLY have been as a result of
something OTHER than an EOP entry wound. Right, John?

BTW, John C. is living in a fantasy world all his own when it comes to
the topic of JFK's head wounds.


>>> "3. The fact that [Dale K.] Myers' computer analysis revealed the cowlick entry trajectory pointed back 124 feet above the roofline of the Dal-Tex building." <<<

Why you're dragging this nonsense out of your stale closet is anyone's
guess. I've discussed this with you previously, and I even included
citations from Dale Myers himself and links to his website where he
talks about this issue (and Myers' explanation is an entirely
reasonable one, and is one that still supports the "cowlick" entry
location for JFK's head wound).

Here's what I said on this matter on April 1, 2009:

"You [John Canal] should have quoted the remainder of what Dale Myers concluded with respect to the trajectory of the shot that struck JFK in the head:

[Quoting Dale K. Myers:]

"Since the position of JFK's head used in the computer recreation ["Secrets Of A Homicide: JFK Assassination"] closely matches Zapruder frame 312...and a trajectory line based on the HSCA's outshoot wound tracks to an impossible firing source located 124 feet above the roofline of the Dal-Tex Building, it is concluded that the OUTSHOOT WOUND [DVP's emphasis] used by the HSCA to calculate a trajectory path was NOT the result of a straight line trajectory (i.e., the bullet was deflected after making contact with the skull). ....

"In conclusion, a headshot trajectory cannot be calculated from the available evidence, due to the possibility that the bullet fragmented, creating more than one exit wound, and the likelihood that the course of the bullet changed after striking the skull."

[/End Myers' Quotes.]

http://jfkfiles.com

"I'll also add the following observation here -- Dale Myers fully supports the HIGH ON THE HEAD (cowlick) entry location. And the animated photo on the webpage linked above verifies that fact (the second picture from the bottom).

"So Dale is saying, in essence, that the House Select Committee GOT IT RIGHT when it comes to the high location of the entry wound in JFK's head. He further states (via his computer animation study of the trajectories involved) that a definitive declaration regarding the exact trajectory the head-shot bullet took "cannot be calculated".

"But based on Myers' website and his sample computer images, he certainly does NOT believe the entry wound in Kennedy's head was located "low" on the head near the EOP. He thinks it was very HIGH on the head, as his sample images illustrate fully." -- DVP; 04/01/09


>>> "4. The fact that a channel-like laceration began at the tip of the occipital lobe far from the parietal lobe where a bullet entering in the cowlick would have been." <<<

I have no idea what you're babbling about here. Are you talking about
JFK's brain here?


>>> "5. The fact that a bullet entering in the cowlick and exiting at the official exit site cannot be reconciled with the windshield damage." <<<

This one's really silly, John.

As Dale Myers stated (and I completely agree), the bullet could have
easily changed course after striking JFK's head. And it probably did
change course. Common sense would tell a reasonable person that
Oswald's bullet, after striking the hard skull of JFK at full muzzle
velocity [2,100+ fps], would likely have changed direction somewhat
before exiting the head.


>>> "6. The fact that F8, the Clark Panel's report, F8, the autopsy report, and the autopsy descriptive sheet all prove that the area of skull where the high entry was supposed to be was fragmented....while the HSCA claimed part of the entry was in intact bone." <<<

That must be why the Clark Panel said this in 1968, huh John?:

"On one of the lateral films [X-rays] of the skull (#2), a hole measuring approximately 8 mm. in diameter on the outer surface of the skull and as much as 20 mm. on the internal surface can be seen in profile approximately 100 mm. above the external occipital protuberance. The bone of the lower edge of the hole is depressed."

Is the above paragraph another "lie", John?

And you're placing way too much faith in F8, IMO. F8 is essentially
useless for determining anything.

Do you deny that many very SMART people have major disagreements about
what F8 depicts?


>>> "7. The fact that one of the HSCA's own radiologists reported that evidence for a high entry on the x-rays was inconclusive." <<<

Big deal.

All NINE of the HSCA's FPP members, including Dr. Joseph Davis (unless
you want to call Dr. Baden a "liar" yet again), were unanimous in their
conclusions about the entry hole in Jack Kennedy's head being HIGH on
his head near the cowlick.

Quoting Dr. Baden:

"We, as the panel members, do feel after close examination of the negatives and photographs under magnification of that higher perforation, that it is unquestionably a perforation of entrance; and we feel very strongly, and this is unanimous, all nine members, that X-rays clearly show the entrance perforation in the skull to be immediately beneath this perforation in the upper scalp skin.

"And further, although the original examination of the brain was not complete, photographs of the brain were examined by the panel members, and do show the injury to the brain itself is on the top portion of the brain. The bottom portion or undersurface of the brain, which would have had to have been injured if the bullet perforated in the lower area as indicated in the autopsy report, was intact.

"If a bullet entered in this lower area, the cerebellum portion of the brain would have had to be injured and it was not injured. So that is the basis for what remains a disagreement between our panel and the original autopsy doctors. ....

"It is the firm conclusion of the panel members...that beyond all reasonable medical certainty, there is no bullet perforation of entrance any place on the skull other than the single one in the cowlick. .... It is the firm conclusion of the panel that there is no bullet perforation of entrance beneath that brain tissue [near JFK's hairline]...and we find no evidence to support anything but a single gunshot wound of entrance in the back of the President's head." -- DR. MICHAEL BADEN

Footnote:

John Canal's explanation for why Dr. Michael Baden wanted to go in
front of the HSCA (on the official record) and tell one lie after
another regarding the entry wound to JFK's head is just downright
laughable.

For anyone who is unaware of John Canal's insane theory about Dr.
Baden, I'll summarize it -- John C. thinks that Baden would have lied
his ass off ("several times", per Canal) in order to have the HSCA's
conclusions match those of the Clark Panel from ten years earlier,
particularly the observations of Dr. Russell S. Fisher of the Clark
Panel, with respect to the "cowlick" location for the entry wound in
JFK's head (which is a wound that the Clark Panel said was "100
millimeters [4 inches] above the EOP").

Canal thinks that Baden would be willing to lie about the true entry
location of JFK's head wound in order to avoid having yet another
contradiction in the official records relating to President Kennedy's
wounds.

And, evidently, Dr. Baden was (according to Mr. Canal) such an
intimidating fellow that he was able to convince his other eight
comrades on the HSCA's Forensic Pathology Panel to jettison their
moral fiber and go along with Baden's "cowlick" lies for the sake of
the HSCA's investigation. Apparently ALL EIGHT of the other FPP
members were willing to do this at the evil Dr. Baden's request.

The "Baden Lied Because He Didn't Want To Rock The Boat Again" theory
of John Canal's is nearly as stupid and inane as John's other "Cover-
Up" theory regarding JFK's three autopsy surgeons. Those three guys
(all of them) decided to not tell the whole truth about the condition
of President Kennedy's head wounds because (per John C.) those doctors
feared World War 3, or they feared that if they revealed information
about ANY "back of the head" damage to JFK's cranium, some people
might think that a bullet hit JFK's head from the front. And that
would never do (per John C.).

That theory, too, is insane, because the irrevocable and immutable
FACT (based on the President's inshoot and outshoot head wounds
discovered at the autopsy on 11/22/63) is that John F. Kennedy was
shot in the head only ONE time, and the bullet came FROM BEHIND the
President....which is a conclusion that apparently John A. Canal
thinks the three autopsists would have been incapable of reasonably
conveying to the world if there had been ANY type of secondary or
collateral damage at all to the rear portions of JFK's head as a
result of only Lee Harvey Oswald's bullet striking Kennedy's head.

John Canal, as you might already have suspected by this time, is a
real piece of work indeed.


>>> "8. The fact that another one of the HSCA's own radiologists stated that the entry was in the right occipital bone." <<<

I guess Baden was lying (yet again) when he said this in 1978, right
John?:

"We were in agreement, as were all of the radiologists that we consulted with--Dr. Davis, Dr. Seaman, Dr. Chase--that that is the point of entrance in the right upper back skull with radiating fractures." -- DR. MICHAEL BADEN


>>> "9. The fact that the HSCA's own witness, NASA's Dr. Thomas Canning, had to fudge JFK's forward lean by more than half, just to get the cowlick entry trajectory pointed back even close to the SN." <<<

Again, the answer to this is pretty simple -- The bullet probably
changed direction after entering Kennedy's head.

And allow me to repeat the following common-sense observation by Mr.
Myers yet again:

"A headshot trajectory cannot be calculated from the available evidence, due to the possibility that the bullet fragmented, creating more than one exit wound, and the likelihood that the course of the bullet changed after striking the skull." -- DALE K. MYERS


>>> "10. The fact that four researchers and/or JFK authors have independently replicated the photo of the wound in the SKULL and have all concluded, scientifically, that Humes' entry was near the EOP." <<<

Oh, good, that crappy, miserable, indistinct F8 picture again. Wonderful.

BTW, John Canal needs all four members of the 1968 Clark Panel to be
total boobs (or liars) too, if we're to believe that the entry hole in
JFK's head was 4 inches below the cowlick....because the four Clark
Panel doctors said this back in '68:

"There is an elliptical penetrating wound of the scalp situated near the midline and high above the hairline. The position of this wound corresponds to the hole in the skull seen in the lateral X-ray film #2. .... On one of the lateral films [X-rays] of the skull (#2), a hole measuring approximately 8 mm. in diameter on the outer surface of the skull and as much as 20 mm. on the internal surface can be seen in profile approximately 100 mm. above the external occipital protuberance. The bone of the lower edge of the hole is depressed."

David Von Pein
May 17, 2009




HAROLD NORMAN
(PART 2)





PAT SPEER SAID:

To support that three evenly-spaced shots were fired by a bolt-action rifle,
he [DVP] uses Warren Commission testimony taken 4 months or more after the assassination, after the witnesses had been told by the media and their government that Oswald had acted alone. He avoids the earliest statements of the witnesses like the plague. .... This is not chaff, by any means. A competent and committed defense attorney could establish reasonable doubt on this fact alone.


DAVID VON PEIN SAID:


When thinking some more about witness Harold Norman and his comments made after President Kennedy's assassination, this thought struck me:

The argument about the SPACING between the gunshots that Norman heard is really kind of an irrelevant and unimportant argument.

Why?

Because regardless of the exact number of seconds that passed between the three shots, ALL THREE OF THOSE SHOTS CAME FROM THE SAME RIFLE ABOVE NORMAN'S HEAD.

And surely no conspiracy theorist wants to propose a theory that has TWO gunmen and TWO different rifles being fired from the Sniper's Nest window on the 6th Floor directly above Mr. Norman's head....do they?

Therefore, no matter what the precise spacing was between the shots, per Norman's never-wavering "I HEARD THREE SHOTS FROM ABOVE ME" account of the shooting, it HAS to mean that the ONE gunman WAS able to fire those three shots from the gunman's ONE rifle in the allotted time to get off three such shots from his bolt-action weapon.

The same argument I just made regarding Norman could also be made when it comes to many of the other Dealey Plaza witnesses, i.e., the witnesses who fall into the following category:

I HEARD EXACTLY THREE SHOTS AND ALL OF THOSE SHOTS CAME FROM THE GENERAL DIRECTION OF THE BOOK DEPOSITORY BUILDING.

That is to say: What major difference does it really make what the precise SPACING was between these three shots, which were ALL shots (per those witnesses in the category just mentioned) that VERY LIKELY CAME FROM THE VERY SAME GUN?

So, given these parameters that many witnesses DO agree on (i.e., exactly THREE shots fired and all coming from ONE rear location at or very near the Texas School Book Depository Building), the "spacing" issue is largely a moot point altogether.

David Von Pein
October 2007

LINK TO ORIGINAL POST (OCTOBER 2, 2007)

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VIDEOS WITH HAROLD NORMAN:









HAROLD NORMAN
(PART 1)





"Just after the President passed by, I heard a shot and several seconds later I heard two more shots. I knew that the shots had come from directly above me, and I could hear the expended cartridges fall to the floor. I also could here the bolt action of the rifle. I saw some dust fall from the ceiling of the fifth floor and I felt sure that whoever had fired the shots was directly above me."

-- Harold Norman; December 4, 1963

------------------------------------------------------------------------

When President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963, 25-year-old Harold Norman was located on the fifth floor of the Texas School Book Depository Building. He was situated directly underneath the sixth-floor "Sniper's Nest" window when rifle shots were being fired at JFK from that sixth-floor window.

Does anyone truly think that Norman was making up a false story when he claimed to hear a rifle's bolt being worked directly over his head?

And do conspiracy theorists also think that Norman lied when he said he heard exactly "three" shots being fired over his head?

And did he also lie when he said he heard "three" bullet shells (or "hulls") hitting the floor above him?

Harold Norman's testimony in each of the above "three shots" regards provides an additional (and, IMO, very important) layer of evidence leading toward Lee Harvey Oswald's guilt in the murder of President Kennedy (coupled with all the other ballistics, witness, fingerprint, and fiber evidence that back up LHO's guilt as well).

Because if Norman was dead wrong about everything he heard going on directly above his 5th-Floor location within the Book Depository, it would certainly be an incredible coincidence that he would be WRONG, but in such a "THREE SHOTS WERE FIRED FROM THE SIXTH FLOOR" fashion....which is a scenario that is backed up by lots of other evidence (and witnesses), besides just Mr. Norman.

And if conspiracists want to paint Norman as yet another in a series of "liars" or "Warren Commission shills" after the assassination, it only adds one more ludicrous and unproven "He Was Lying" allegation to the already silly length of such a list that has been created by some conspiracy theorists over the years since 1963.

And it's interesting to note in the Warren Report, that all seven Warren Commissioners (via three separate re-creations of bullet shells hitting the floor above Norman's position on the Depository's fifth floor) were each easily able to hear the cartridge cases hitting the floor.

"All seven of the Commissioners clearly heard the shells drop to the floor." -- Warren Report; Page 71

In addition, there's also the test that was conducted by Warren Commission counsel member David W. Belin. To quote Belin directly on this matter:

"We scheduled the testimony of Harold Norman on March 24, 1964. Before he testified, we wanted to interview him on the fifth floor of the TSBD Building and check whether these sounds [of the rifle shells hitting the floor and of the rifle's bolt being worked by the gunman] could be heard.

"We had with us the equipment necessary to make the test. A Secret Service agent with the bolt action rifle stood with Joe Ball in the southeast corner window on the sixth floor of the TSBD Building. I stayed with Harold Norman on the fifth floor directly below.

"Before giving the signal to conduct the experiment, I waited until a train passed on the nearby railroad overpass so there would be plenty of street noise. In addition, at that time, several large trucks were moving down Elm Street. I then yelled to have the test begin.

"I smiled, for I really did not expect to hear anything. Then, with remarkable clarity, I could hear the thump as a cartridge case hit the floor. There were two more thumps as the two other cartridge cases hit the floor above me.

"The Secret Service agent then worked the bolt of the rifle back and forth, and this too could be heard with clarity.

"When we re-assembled after the re-enactment, I said to my colleague, 'Joe, if I had not heard it myself, I would never have believed it'."

-- David Belin; Pages 139-140 of Belin's 1973 book "November 22, 1963: You Are The Jury"

http://You-Are-The-Jury.blogspot.com

------------------

Now, either Harold Norman was an amazing liar, or somebody fired three shots from just above Norman's 5th-Floor Depository position on 11/22/63 (with three shells hitting the floor too).

And Norman confirmed he did hear precisely THREE shells/("hulls") hitting the plywood floor directly above him during the shooting. He confirmed this fact in 1986 when he was being questioned about the matter by lawyer Vincent Bugliosi during the television docu-trial "On Trial: Lee Harvey Oswald".

Here is some of the verbatim testimony given by Harold Norman at that mock trial in 1986 (which can also be seen in the video presented below):

VINCENT BUGLIOSI -- "So you heard a total of three shots?"

HAROLD NORMAN -- "Yes sir."

MR. BUGLIOSI -- "Did it sound to you like a rifle was being fired directly above you?"

MR. NORMAN -- "Yes sir."

MR. BUGLIOSI -- "Was there any OTHER reason, in addition to the sound of the rifle, any other reason why you believed the shots were coming from directly above you?"

MR. NORMAN -- "Yes sir."

MR. BUGLIOSI -- "And what is that?"

MR. NORMAN -- "Because I could hear the empty hulls--that's what I call them--hit the floor; and I could hear the bolt action of the rifle being pushed back and forward."

MR. BUGLIOSI -- "You're familiar with a bolt-action rifle?"

MR. NORMAN -- "Yes sir."

MR. BUGLIOSI -- "And by 'hulls', you mean cartridge casings?"

MR. NORMAN -- "Cartridges."

MR. BUGLIOSI -- "How many did you hear falling to the floor?"

MR. NORMAN -- "Three."

MR. BUGLIOSI -- "Is the sound of that bolt action, and the ejection of the cartridge casings, and their falling to the floor something that you're going to remember for the rest of your life?"

MR. NORMAN -- "Yes sir."

MR. BUGLIOSI -- "One more question....at any time on the morning of the assassination did you see any stranger or strangers in the Book Depository Building?"

MR. NORMAN -- "No sir."



------------------------------------------------------------------

Many conspiracy believers think the three shells were "planted" in the Sniper's Nest after the shooting. But Norman heard the shells dropping to the floor DURING THE SHOOTING, not several seconds AFTER the gunfire ceased.

Do some CTers think that the plotters had a guy standing in the Sniper's Nest dropping shells to the floor IN REAL TIME during the actual eight seconds when the assassination was taking place on November 22nd?

"Real Time, As-It's-Happening Shell Planting"!

Now THAT'S Patsy-Framing organization and efficiency, for damn sure! :)

So, if Norman's not a liar (and there's absolutely no reason to think he is), then three shots WERE definitely fired from that southeast corner window of the Book Depository's sixth floor. Period. Which is something that very few conspiracy theorists I've ever talked to actually believe occurred that day.

And Harold Norman's testimony, all by itself, makes conspiracy theorist Robert Groden's crazy "No Shots Were Likely Fired From The SN Window At All" theory look even more ludicrous than it already is. (And it's pretty ludicrous to begin with.)

David Von Pein
July 28, 2006
January 1, 2007
July 30, 2010

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HAROLD NORMAN (PART 2)

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LEE BOWERS



The more one looks over the Warren Commission testimony of assassination witness Lee E. Bowers, Jr. (plus his 11/22/63 affidavit), the less and less "pro-conspiracy" and "pro-multiple shooters" Mr. Bowers becomes (despite the fact that conspiracy theorists for years have loved to prop Bowers up as a sterling and rock-solid "conspiracy" witness).

Lee Bowers' testimony is quite interesting in the "Where Did The Shots Come From?" regard. Upon looking at his April 2, 1964, Warren Commission testimony, we can certainly see how, indeed, the conspiracists have gently turned Bowers into a "conspiracy" witness, when he actually doesn't really belong in that category at all.

Bowers is one of the many assassination witnesses who heard exactly three shots fired on 11/22/63 in Dallas' Dealey Plaza, and he said the shots came from either the area of the Texas School Book Depository Building OR the Triple Underpass area. But he did not hear shots coming from BOTH of those locations. It was one or the other, but not both.

Conspiracy theorists, however, have turned Mr. Bowers into a conspiracy-favoring witness who (to hear the CTers tell it) positively saw PROOF of a second gunman atop the Grassy Knoll. But when you look more deeply at his testimony, it can be seen that he's not actually a witness with which to promote conspiracy or a Knoll shooter at all.

Bowers didn't see a gunman on the Grassy Knoll or behind the picket fence behind the Knoll. He didn't see any rifle or other weapons. He merely saw some "milling around". Let's look at Mr. Bowers' exact words to the Warren Commission:

"I just am unable to describe rather than it was something out of the ordinary, a sort of milling around, but something occurred in this particular spot which was out of the ordinary, which attracted my eye for some reason, which I could not identify." -- Lee E. Bowers, Jr.; April 2, 1964 [6 H 288]

The conspiracy buffs, in true-to-form "Make Mountains Out Of Molehills" style, have thus turned Mr. Bowers' "out of the ordinary", "milling around", "I just am unable to describe", and "I could not identify" remarks into apparent "proof" that a killer had just shot JFK from behind a fence atop the Grassy Knoll....even though Bowers saw NO WEAPONS OF ANY KIND in the hands of anyone he observed that day. And he specifically said he "could not identify" what it was that caught his eye in the area of the fence.

The testimony of Bowers also provides some idea as to the type of reverberating sounds that can be produced in Dealey Plaza. And while earwitness testimony is useful to a degree, it is at the same time, as lawyer Vincent Bugliosi has said repeatedly throughout his career, "notoriously problematic".

Mr. Bugliosi made the following remarks to a jury in London, England, in July of 1986, during a television docu-trial ("On Trial: Lee Harvey Oswald"):

"With respect to whether or not any shots were fired from the Grassy Knoll, I want to make the following observations -- firstly, it is perfectly understandable that the witnesses were confused as to the origin of fire. Not only does Dealey Plaza resound with echoes, but here you have a situation of completely-unexpected shots over just a matter of a few moments.

"When you compound all of that with the fact that the witnesses were focusing their attention on the President of the United States driving by, a mesmerizing event for many of them....and the chaos, the hysteria, the bedlam that engulfed the assassination scene....it's remarkable that there was any coherence at all to what they thought they saw and heard.

"Human observation, notoriously unreliable under even the most optimum situation, HAS to give way to hard, scientific evidence. And we do have indisputable, scientific evidence in this case that the bullets which struck President Kennedy came from his rear, not his front."

-- Vincent Bugliosi; 1986

------------------------

MORE ABOUT BOWERS AND BUGLIOSI:

"There's a strong reason to believe that what Bowers said is not credible. .... [In Bowers' 11/22/63 affidavit] he said absolutely nothing at all about the commotion and unusual activity behind the picket fence that attracted his attention."

-- Vincent Bugliosi; Page 898 of "Reclaiming History"

------------------------

"If Bowers hadn't died...in August of 1966, it probably would have been just a matter of time before he had Jack Ruby with a machine gun on the grassy knoll."

-- Vincent Bugliosi; Page 899 of "Reclaiming History"

------------------------

The above comment that Bugliosi made about Lee Bowers' affidavit is a very good point. In his original 11/22/63 affidavit, which was written by Bowers on the day the shooting occurred (when things were certainly fresher in his mind than they were at any other time after the assassination, including his filmed interview with Mark Lane in 1966), Bowers doesn't mention a single word about having seen any men near the picket fence.

In fact, practically the entire affidavit contains Bowers' observations about the three cars that circled the parking lot just prior to the assassination, with the shooting itself seemingly being a mere afterthought in Bowers' mind. The only reference to the actual shooting comes in the last two sentences of Bowers' affidavit, when he says:

"About 8 or 10 minutes after he left [i.e., the last of the three cars that toured the lot] I heard at least 3 shots very close together. Just after the shots the area became crowded with people coming from Elm Street and the slope just north of Elm."

Therefore, any men that Bowers may have seen behind the picket fence on November 22, 1963, were so UNIMPORTANT to him on the day of the assassination itself that he didn't even bother to mention seeing those men in his voluntary statement that was written within hours of President Kennedy's assassination.

But, as previously noted, Bowers did spend ample time in his affidavit explaining all about the three cars that circled the parking lot before the shooting. Obviously, THAT activity concerning the vehicles was much more important and significant to Mr. Bowers when it came to relating any pertinent details about the events of that day than were any of the men whom he might have seen hanging around the picket fence.

Conspiracy theorists who think Lee Bowers holds the key to unlocking the mystery that surrounds JFK's murder just might be wise to ask themselves why, in Mr. Bowers' mind on November 22, the information about CARS CIRCLING THE PARKING LOT trumped and superceded (in importance) A MAN SHOOTING AT THE PRESIDENT WITH A GUN NEAR THE PICKET FENCE?

Food for thought....isn't it?

David Von Pein
December 9, 2007
January 5, 2008


================================


RELATED DISCUSSION....


CORY SANTOS SAID:

Is Lee Bowers a liar?


DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

Lee Bowers is one of those witnesses who has been turned into a (supposedly) excellent "conspiracy" witness by conspiracy authors, but he's really not much of a "conspiracy" witness at all. It's CTers (like Mark Lane) who want everyone to believe Bowers saw some killers on the Grassy Knoll. But Bowers never ever said any such thing.


LANCE PAYETTE SAID:

Witnesses always got "better," conspiracy-wise, in the hands of Mark Lane, didn't they? Despite the heavy editing and convenient cuts for which Lane is famous, insofar as Cory's assertions are concerned, he said nothing different from what he had said at the WC.


DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

Except that in the interview with Mark Lane [available to view below], Bowers added a comment about possibly seeing "a flash of light" or "smoke" near the Grassy Knoll. He never said anything about "flashes of light" or "smoke" in his Warren Commission testimony. (I just looked.) So that makes me wonder what influence Mr. Lane had on Mr. Bowers prior to that 1966 interview.

David Von Pein
December 11-14, 2018


================================


MARK LANE'S INTERVIEW
WITH LEE BOWERS IN 1966:




LEE OSWALD, HIS CO-WORKERS,
AND THE BOOK DEPOSITORY ELEVATORS




On Friday, November 22, 1963 (the day of President Kennedy's
assassination), a group of Texas School Book Depository employees
(who were working on the sixth floor of that Dallas textbook warehouse
before lunchtime) "raced" the two freight elevators to the first floor
shortly before noon, with 24-year-old Lee Harvey Oswald being the only
employee who decided not to join his co-workers downstairs for lunch.

Oswald, instead, stayed on the sixth floor when the other employees
took the elevators downstairs. Oswald even asked for one of the two
elevators to be sent back up to him.

I can't quite figure out, however (via the witness testimony), if an
elevator actually WAS sent back up to Oswald or not. Charles Givens'
testimony doesn't say one way or the other; and Bonnie Ray Williams'
Warren Commission testimony verifies that Oswald yelled for one of
the boys (Williams says he probably yelled at Givens specifically) to
send an elevator back up to him by closing the gate when the elevator
reached the first floor, but Williams never verified whether an elevator
did, in fact, go back up after the boys raced them both to the bottom
floor.

But if an elevator was sent back up, Oswald probably left the gate
open after it was sent back up to him; by doing this, the elevator
would have been stuck on the sixth floor.

The overall evidence indicates that no employees (other than Oswald)
were on the sixth floor at the exact time of the President's
assassination (12:30 PM).

Depository employee Bonnie Ray Williams was on the 6th Floor for a
short time just after 12:00, eating his chicken-sandwich lunch (with
Oswald more than likely hiding in his "Nest" the whole time, without
Williams realizing he was there).

Before he joined James Jarman and Harold Norman on the 5th Floor
around 12:15, Williams left his empty lunch sack and Dr. Pepper soda
bottle near a hand cart ("two-wheeler truck") in the middle of the sixth
floor.

Here's Warren Commission Exhibit No. 484, showing the cart/truck
and soda bottle:




The picture below shows another view of the Dr. Pepper bottle on the
sixth floor, taken from a different angle. A portion of the "two-wheeler
truck", as Bonnie Ray Williams called it, can be seen in the upper
left-hand part of the photograph:



Early news reports just after the assassination erroneously were
reporting that the assassin had been "snacking on a chicken lunch"
just before shooting President Kennedy, with some reporters going so
far as assuming the assassin had been camped out for "several days"
in the Sniper's Nest prior to performing the evil deed on November 22.
(That one always makes me laugh a tad bit.)

--------------------------

How both elevators came to be stuck on the FIFTH floor
just after the
shooting:


Bonnie Ray Williams, after eating his lunch on the 6th Floor, took the
east elevator down one floor to the 5th Floor to join Jarman and Norman
(although when he started down, Williams said he didn't know if anyone
was on that floor or not, but he thought there might have been, because
he heard someone "walking" around and the windows were "moving or
something" [3 H 171]).

Harold Norman testified that he and James Jarman took the west elevator
to the fifth floor (from the first floor) a short time before the motorcade
arrived in Dealey Plaza.

This is perfectly consistent with Depository Superintendent Roy Truly's
testimony....when Truly said that both freight elevators were on the fifth
floor when he and police officer Marrion Baker were trying to retrieve one
of them around 12:31 to 12:32.

Those stuck elevators on the fifth floor were indirectly responsible
for Oswald almost getting caught coming down the stairs. Because if
one of the elevators had been available to Truly and Baker, they would
not have needed to take the stairs and would have, instead, gone
straight to the seventh floor by elevator (seeing as how Baker thought
the shots had come from the roof of the building...via the pigeons
flying off the roof).

Final analysis:

When all available evidence is weighed and considered, it can be
reasonably determined that nobody (except Lee Harvey Oswald) occupied
the sixth floor of the Book Depository at the exact time of JFK's murder.


================================


SOME FOLLOW-UP (CLARIFYING)
"ELEVATOR" COMMENTS:


By all accounts, it appears that Lee Oswald's request for an elevator
to be sent back up to him on the 6th Floor of the TSBD around 12:00
Noon on November 22nd was not granted.

Several TSBD employees raced the Book Depository's two freight elevators
from the 6th Floor to the 1st Floor at noontime on 11/22/63, with Lee
Oswald being the lone employee up on the sixth floor to not join this
group of four.

The employees were: Billy Lovelady, Charles Givens, Bonnie Ray Williams,
and Danny Arce.

Three of those four employees--Lovelady, Williams, and Arce--acknowledged
the fact that Oswald yelled down to the boys for an elevator to be sent
back up, but none of the employees actually verified that an elevator
WAS sent back up to Oswald.

Williams, in his Warren Commission testimony, said "I don't know what
happened after that", indicating that he didn't know if an elevator was
sent back up or not.

And this testimony from Charles Givens leads to the conclusion that an
elevator was never sent back up to Oswald:

CHARLES GIVENS -- "I was getting ready on the elevator, and I say, 'Boy, are you going downstairs?'"

DAVID BELIN -- "What did he say to you?"

GIVENS -- "I say, 'It's near lunch time'. He said, 'No, sir. When you get downstairs, close the gate to the elevator'. That meant the elevator on the west side, you can pull both gates down and it will come up by itself."

BELIN -- "What else did he say?"

GIVENS -- "That is all."

BELIN -- "What did you say to that? Did you say you would close the elevator gate, or not say anything?"

GIVENS -- "I said, 'Okay', and got on the elevator."

BELIN -- "Do you know whether or not when you got down to the first floor, the west elevator was there?"

GIVENS -- "No, sir, it wasn't; because I looked over there to close the gate and it wasn't there."

BELIN -- "It wasn't there when you got down to the first floor?"

GIVENS -- "No, sir; it wasn't."

BELIN -- "Do you know where it was?"

GIVENS -- "No, sir; I don't."

---------------------

What is interesting about Givens' testimony shown above (in a
"confusing" fashion) is that Givens says all of the above occurred
only AFTER Givens went back up to the sixth floor to retrieve his
jacket and cigarettes (which he had forgotten on his first trip
downstairs on the elevators with the other employees).

So, either Oswald TWICE asked Givens (or the other employees) to
send an elevator back up to him (which is certainly quite possible) --
or Givens is mistaken about exactly when Oswald made his elevator
request.

But, either way, it would seem that Oswald never did get that elevator
sent back up to him....an elevator that Oswald probably wanted to
freeze on his sixth floor so that he'd have a quick escape route off
of the Death Floor just after shooting at the President.

But, instead, Lee was forced to take the stairs, because he obviously
wasn't going to just wait around for an elevator to arrive on his floor
just after he had fired a series of bullets at the President of the
United States from that very same sixth floor.

But I always had the impression that an elevator WAS sent back up to
Oswald. (However, perhaps this is merely an "impression", similar to
many of the "conspiracy myths" that have been foisted upon the public
since 1963.)

Interestingly, however, the excellent 1964 David L. Wolper-produced
documentary film on the JFK assassination ("Four Days In November")
implies that an elevator was sent back up to Oswald on the sixth
floor.

The exact words spoken in the movie by narrator Richard Basehart
are .... "As other employees go downstairs to see the President,
Oswald stays on the sixth floor. He asks a fellow worker to arrange
to send the
elevator back up." [See the video below, at the 9:15 mark.]



Although, to be perfectly technical, that verbiage from the "Four Days"
film doesn't really verify that an elevator WAS, in fact, sent back up.
Those words merely indicate that Oswald took measures to "arrange"
for a fellow worker to send an elevator back up to him. Whether that
"arrangement" materialized or not, the film stops short of saying.

I put a lot of trust in a Wolper documentary for accuracy. Mr. Wolper's
films are normally well-researched and historically accurate (at least
the ones I have seen). And "Four Days In November" is very accurate
and factual, in my opinion. I've watched the film countless times (and
have yet to tire of it), and I think I have found only one factual error,
and it was a very minor one.

Another very good film that was made the same year as "Four Days" (1964)
is Wolper's haunting and poignant documentary on Marilyn Monroe,
"The Legend Of Marilyn Monroe".

I recommend those two David Wolper films highly. Excellent music scores
accompany each of those motion pictures as well.



David Von Pein
March 2007
July 2010


================================


RELATED DISCUSSIONS:


PAT SPEER SAID:

>>> "David, you're going down with the ship on this one, and making a big splash. The effect of Givens' lie was not to put Oswald on the sixth floor, it was to put Oswald on the sixth floor AFTER Shelley and Piper had seen him on the first floor." <<<


DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

Nonsense, Pat.

Charles Givens' trip back up to the sixth floor doesn't put Oswald on
the sixth floor AFTER Eddie Piper's timeline at all. Piper said he
last saw Oswald "just at 12 o'clock" [6 H 383].

Givens said he last saw Oswald "about 5 minutes to 12" [6 H 351]. (I'm
guessing that CTers want to make David Belin out to be a liar and a
schemer by the fact that he seems to cut off Givens right after Givens
says "5 minutes to 12". I'm sure that some conspiracists think Belin
was stopping Givens from saying something like this: "...because it
was right before I saw Malcolm Wallace in the building; Wallace had a
rifle and some spent shells in his hand; as I was going back down in
the elevator, he told me that he needed to get back up to the sixth
floor to start planting a bunch of stuff; I really didn't understand
what Mac was talking about though, Mr. Belin, so I just came on back
down and ate my lunch."
)

Bill Shelley said he last saw Oswald on November 22 on the first floor
"10 or 15 minutes before 12" [7 H 390].

But the Warren Commission and its counsel were smart enough to know
that ALL of these times for the various "Last Sightings Of Oswald" are
only approximate times. They are, of course, just guesses on the part
of the people who supplied the information -- from Givens, to Shelley,
to Piper, and all the other TSBD witnesses too.

At the time of their "I Saw Oswald" observations on November 22nd,
none of these people had any reason at all to take notice of the EXACT
time they saw another employee walking around the building. They were
later asked to reconstruct (as best they could) the timing of certain
events.

And the timing of seeing Oswald in the building is an event that was
undoubtedly so completely insignificant and unimportant to each one of
those witnesses at the time it was occurring that they had no way to
reconstruct with precision the times at which they saw Oswald.

It was, however, around lunchtime for these employees (around
noontime). So that fact ("lunch") helps out when it comes to the
times. But as some of the witnesses also said--they apparently broke
for lunch a little earlier than their normal time on November 22 (to
see the President).

But, overall, the "timing" issue is far from being exact. And, as I
said, the Warren Commission knew that this was the case in the first
place. They HAD to know it. They were asking a group of people to
search their memories for the time of an event (seeing Lee Harvey
Oswald) that meant absolutely NOTHING to each one of those people at
the time when it occurred.

And while Charles Givens' cigarette trip back up to the sixth floor
does, indeed, put Oswald on the sixth floor after Bill Shelley's
stated time of having last seen Oswald that day--we're still only
talking about a matter of about five minutes (in approximated time).

Givens could easily have been off in his time by 5 or 10 minutes.
Maybe more. We can never know for certain. And the same thing applies
to Eddie Piper and William Shelley and Bonnie Ray Williams and all the
rest of the TSBD witnesses.

But to think that a bunch of random estimated times supplied by the
Depository employees is enough to exonerate Lee Oswald for shooting
JFK is just not a reasonable position to take.

The bottom line is this -- We know that Lee Harvey Oswald was on an
upper floor of the TSBD at some point in time that was shortly before
12:00 noon on 11/22/63, because the four men in the elevator race
(Williams, Givens, Arce, and Lovelady) all corroborate that single
event -- Oswald being on an upper floor of the building at the time
when those four men were descending to the first floor FOR THEIR
LUNCH BREAK, WHICH WAS OBVIOUSLY PRETTY CLOSE TO NOONTIME
ON NOVEMBER 22.

David Von Pein
September 7, 2010


================================


PAT SPEER SAID:

>>> "Here's an explanation. Givens DID see Oswald on the sixth floor before going down for lunch, and was later convinced to say this happened after going down for lunch." <<<


DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

That's ridiculous, since we're only talking about a very few minutes
in real time here (probably less than 3 minutes in actual time).

Plus, Givens' account of seeing Oswald on the sixth floor at about 11:55
doesn't put LHO on the sixth floor (or inside the Sniper's Nest) when the
shooting occurred at 12:30. It only puts him on the sixth floor of the
building at about 11:55.

And here's a very important point that I think conspiracy theorists
overlook [which I talked about earlier in this post]:

Charlie Givens is not even needed when it comes to putting Oswald on
an upper floor of the TSBD at about lunchtime on 11/22/63. And that's
because there were multiple OTHER employees who testified that Oswald
yelled down the elevator shaft (from either the fifth or sixth floor)
when the other employees raced the elevators downstairs.

So Givens making up a lie about seeing Oswald is not even needed to
put Oswald on an upper floor of the Book Depository about 45 minutes
before the assassination.

And surely there aren't too many conspiracists who want to call all
three of the following TSBD employees liars when it comes to their
testimony about hearing Lee Oswald shout down the elevator shaft from
an upper floor shortly before noon on November 22 --- Bonnie Ray
Williams, Billy Lovelady, and Danny Arce.

All three of the above employees testified they heard Oswald's voice
coming from an upper (fifth or sixth) floor. Therefore, why would
Charles Givens lie about anything relating to Lee Harvey Oswald's
whereabouts around noontime on November 22, 1963?

I suppose the conspiracy theorists will insist that the police and FBI
desperately HAD to have a witness say that he physically saw Lee
Oswald on the SIXTH floor shortly before the assassination (vs. the
inconclusive testimony of Arce, Williams, and Lovelady concerning the
exact floor that Oswald was on when he yelled down the elevator
shaft).

But that type of speculation regarding the authorities in this case
(although it's speculation that has become commonplace and routine
among CTers, of course) is something I do not buy at all, particularly
when there are so many other people who could (and did) testify to the
fact that Oswald was, indeed, on an upper TSBD floor around lunchtime.
(Plus there's Howard Brennan as well, who saw Oswald actually murder JFK.)

David Von Pein
February 10, 2012





ANOTHER ONE:



AND ONE MORE:


BUELL WESLEY FRAZIER,
LINNIE MAE RANDLE,
AND THE PAPER BAG




DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

BOTH [Buell Wesley Frazier and Linnie Mae Randle] confirmed that the bag found on the sixth floor after the assassination generally looked like the bag they saw Lee Harvey Oswald carrying on 11/22/63.


RICHARD VAN NOORD SAID:

A patent lie, David. So now we're resorting to a complete lie to make the case? Typical. They said the package was no more than two feet in length and carried with a cupped hand under the armpit.


DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

In the 1964 motion picture "Four Days In November", Linnie Mae Randle said the package was "approximately two-and-a-half feet long" [see audio file linked below]. That's 30 inches, just a mere 8 inches shorter than the actual length of the package.



Plus -- There's the fact that both the top and the bottom ends of the bag were quite possibly "folded" in some manner as Oswald carried the bag. At least the top of the bag was "folded", per Frazier. (See later discussion in this post regarding Wesley Frazier's November 22nd affidavit, which involves information concerning the bag's "folds".)

Also -- Randle, in her Warren Commission testimony, said that the bag she saw Oswald carrying was about "27 inches" long. And 27 inches is, of course (just like her "2-and-a-half feet" estimate from the movie "Four Days"), more than two feet, which makes your above statement of "no more than two feet in length" incorrect (with respect to the estimates of the bag's length made by Linnie Randle).

Also from Randle's Warren Commission session:

JOE BALL -- "You figure about 2 feet long, is that right?"

LINNIE MAE RANDLE -- "A little bit more."

------------------

You might also be interested in this 11/22/63 FBI Report written by James Bookhout [which can also be seen in Commission Document No. 5], which states that Linnie Mae saw Oswald put "a long brown package, approximately
3 feet by 6 inches, in the back seat area"
of her brother's Chevrolet sedan.

"3 feet" = 36 inches. The sixth-floor bag was 38 inches long. (And the lengthiest section of Lee Oswald's Italian-made Mannlicher-Carcano rifle was 34.8 inches long when it was broken down.)

So, who's telling lies now, Richard Van Noord? Or don't you even know what these witnesses said?

Wesley Frazier told the Warren Commission:

"I just roughly estimate and that would be around two feet, give and take [sic] a few inches."

Via Frazier's 11/22/63 affidavit, we find something interesting regarding the bag's length too:

"Before I got in the car, I glanced in the back seat, and saw a big sack. It must have been about 2 feet long, and the top of the sack was sort of folded up, and the rest of the sack had been kind of folded under. I asked Lee what was in the sack, and he said "curtain rods", and I remembered that he had told me the day before that he was going to bring some curtain rods."

The intriguing part of the above affidavit, IMO, is:

"The top of the sack was sort of folded up, and the rest of the sack had been kind of folded under."

Therefore, Frazier is saying via his affidavit comments made on the very same day he saw Oswald with the paper bag that the "2-foot"-long bag had at least one of its ends "folded" in some fashion, which would certainly make the overall length of the bag longer when the bag is completely unfolded.

Frazier's other "folded" remark in his affidavit is a bit more ambiguous and hard to figure out.....

"And the rest of the sack had been kind of folded under."

The "folded under" comment could indicate the bottom being "folded under", I suppose. But it would seem he's referring to the bulk of the LENGTH of the bag in that "folded under" comment. I'm not quite sure.

But that could also explain why Frazier said that the full width of the bag looked too wide when he was shown the unfolded bag by the Warren Commission. If the WHOLE bag, for the most part, had been "folded under" itself in some fashion, then when Frazier saw Oswald with the bag on November 22, the bag would obviously have looked NOT AS WIDE in Frazier's eyes.

The above "folded" comments in Wes Frazier's November 22nd affidavit seem to have been overlooked by many conspiracy theorists who are bent on clearing dear, sweet Lee Harvey of the Presidential murder he so obviously committed with the object that was stuffed inside that paper bag (with multiple "folds") that he put in Frazier's car on the morning of November 22, 1963.

BTW, a man who is 5'9" tall can't fit a 27-inch object (or a 24-inch object) under his armpit while also cupping it in his hand (unless he's got monkeys for close relatives). So, the Randle/Frazier estimates as to the length of the package they saw are almost certainly wrong--even from a "conspiracy" POV.

In other words, Frazier can't possibly be exactly correct about BOTH things -- i.e., "under the armpit and cupped in his right hand" AND "roughly about two feet long" (via his WC testimony).*

Both of those things cannot be 100% true. But CTers like to think that Frazier's and Randle's bag-length estimates ARE, indeed, spot-on accurate.

* 2018 INTERJECTION....

For the record....

Allow me to correct what I said earlier about a 5-foot-9 man not being able to wedge a 2-foot object under his armpit while cupping it in his hand at the same time. I'm just under 5-9, and I can ALMOST do it. It comes out to 23 inches on me. Ray Mitcham [on The Education Forum] said he's 5-9 and it came out to 24 inches on him (which I can, indeed, accept).

But a 27-inch object? No way.

So even staunch CTers should admit that BOTH the famous "27-inch" measurement given by Linnie Randle AND the famous "armpit & cupped in the hand" scenario painted by Buell Frazier cannot BOTH be exactly accurate.

And I'm fully willing to eat some crow and say "I was wrong" when it comes to my earlier remark (from 2007), when I said a 24-inch object could not be wedged in the armpit by a 5-foot-9 man. That was, indeed, an incorrect statement (based on Ray Mitcham's test that he performed today [March 19, 2018]).

However, on a "27 inch" object, I stand firm. That couldn't have been done by the 5-foot-9 Oswald.

[End 2018 Interjection.]

And isn't it funny that the empty 6th-Floor bag just happened to have the RIGHT PALMPRINT of Lee Oswald on it....perfectly matching the way Wes Frazier said Oswald carried the bag "cupped in his right hand".

The "under the armpit" observation of Frazier's was obviously a mistake....and he said so, under oath:

VINCENT BUGLIOSI (during the 1986 Docu-Trial in London) -- "Did you recall how he [LHO] was carrying the bag?"

BUELL WESLEY FRAZIER -- "Yes sir. He was carrying it parallel to his body."

BUGLIOSI -- "Okay, so he carried the bag right next to his body....on the right side?"

FRAZIER -- "Yes sir. On the right side."

BUGLIOSI -- "Was it cupped in his hand and under his armpit? I think you've said that in the past."

FRAZIER -- "Yes sir."

BUGLIOSI -- "Mr. Frazier, is it true that you paid hardly any attention to this bag?"

FRAZIER -- "That is true."

BUGLIOSI -- "So the bag could have been protruding out in front of his body, and you wouldn't have been able to see it, is that correct?"

FRAZIER -- "That is true."



------------------

And now a passage from Vince Bugliosi's "Reclaiming History":

"Frazier's statements that the rifle was tucked under Oswald's armpit is hardly as definitive as the critics claim. While Frazier's description of how Oswald carried the rifle was consistent in all of his statements to investigators, it was clearly inferable from his Warren Commission testimony that this was only an assumption on his part based on his limited view.

"Frazier told the Commission that "the only time" he saw the way Oswald was carrying the package was from the back, and that all that was visible was "just a little strip [of the package] running down" along the inside of Oswald's arm. ....

"Since he could only see this small portion of the package under Oswald's right arm, and because he didn't notice any part of the package sticking above his right shoulder...Frazier assumed that it must have been tucked under his armpit, telling the Commission, "I don't see how you could have it anywhere other than under your armpit."

"Although the critics have been quick to embrace Frazier's conclusion, it should be repeated that he told the Commission over and over (no less than five separate times) that he didn't pay much attention to the package or to the way Oswald carried it. ....

"In other words, and understandably, Frazier was confused. So we don't even know, for sure, how Oswald was carrying the rifle in front of his body, which Frazier could not see. At the London trial [in 1986] I asked Frazier, "So the bag could have been protruding out in front of his body and you wouldn't have been able to see it?" and he responded, "That's true."

"The most likely scenario was postulated well by Dan Rather [of CBS News in 1967], who rhetorically told his audience, "You can decide whether Frazier, walking some fifty feet behind and, in his own words, not paying much attention, might have missed the few inches of the narrow end of such a package sticking up past Oswald's shoulder"." -- Vincent Bugliosi; Pages 409-410 of "Reclaiming History" (Via the Endnotes on CD-ROM)(c.2007)

------------------

Anyway, my earlier comment, which was.....

"And BOTH [Randle/Frazier] confirmed that the bag found on the 6th Floor after the assassination generally looked like the bag they saw Oz carrying on 11/22."

.....wasn't referring to the exact LENGTH of the sixth-floor bag (quite obviously). I was referring to the TYPE and GENERAL LOOK of the brown paper bag (CE142) that was shown to Frazier and Randle by the Warren Commission.

Frazier, in his usual confused, odd, and hard-to-understand way of expressing himself, told the WC that the color of the bag Oswald carried closely matched the color of the replica bag made by the FBI for general identification purposes (CE364).

And Frazier said that the untreated and lighter portion of CE142 (the actual Sniper's-Nest bag) "could have been, and it couldn't have been" similar to the color of the bag he saw in the back seat of his car on the morning of November 22nd.

So, once again, we're forced to try and figure out some of Wesley Frazier's rather odd phraseology. But the words "could have been" are certainly in there. So use your proverbial grain of salt here, as we should do with all of Frazier's testimony to a certain extent, especially when he starts to talk in strange ways, which he often did in front of the Warren Commission.

------------------

Now, with respect to Linnie Mae Randle's testimony regarding the general look and color of the paper bag [at 2 H 249]:

JOE BALL -- "Looking at this part of the bag which has not been discolored, does that appear similar to the color of the bag you saw Lee carrying that morning?"

LINNIE MAE RANDLE -- "Yes; it is a heavy type of wrapping paper."

------------------

I'll offer up this common-sense question once again, because it's worth repeating numerous times:

I wonder what the odds are of Lee Oswald having carried a DIFFERENT brown bag into work from the one WITH HIS TWO IDENTIFIABLE PRINTS ON IT that was found by the cops in the Sniper's Nest on the 6th Floor?

Care to guess at what those odds might be? They must be close to "O.J. DNA" type numbers (in favor of the empty brown bag that was found by the police on the 6th Floor of the Book Depository being the very same bag that Buell Wesley Frazier and Linnie Mae Randle saw in Lee Harvey Oswald's hands on the morning of November 22, 1963).

I'm eagerly awaiting the logical and believable conspiracy-slanted explanation that will answer the question of why a 38-inch empty paper bag (which could house Oswald's 34.8-inch disassembled rifle [see the comparison photo below]), which was an empty bag with Oswald's fingerprints on it, was in the place where it was found after the assassination (the sixth-floor Sniper's Nest) and yet still NOT have Lee Oswald present at that sniper's window on 11/22/63.

I, for one, cannot think of a single "Oswald Is Innocent" explanation for that empty paper sack being where it was found after the assassination of John Kennedy....AND with Oswald's fingerprints on it.

David Von Pein
October 2007
March 2018




================================


MORE “PAPER BAG” DISCUSSION....


DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

I think it's quite possible that the police officers who later said they did not see any paper bag on the sixth floor of the Book Depository Building might have actually physically seen the bag on the floor but simply didn't associate it with "evidence" in the JFK case.

Maybe they thought it was merely a piece of trash lying in the corner (akin to the many cigarette butts that were littering the TSBD floorboards; and I don't think every one of those cigarette butts was retrieved as "evidence" by the Dallas Police Department), and therefore even though some of those officers (the ones who stood right in the Sniper's Nest itself) must have caught at least a glimpse of the bag, it was something that just didn't register in their minds as anything of importance that they should retain in their memory.

We must also remember that the bag was not found directly underneath the sniper's window. It was found east of the window, as indicated in Commission Exhibit No. 1302.

According to Dallas Police Detective Robert Studebaker, who saw the paper bag lying on the floor before he himself picked it up, the bag was located "in the southeast corner of the building, in the far southeast corner, as far as you can get is where it was" [Studebaker; WC Testimony; at 7 H 144].

Studebaker also testified [at 7 H 143-144] that when he saw and picked up the bag (or "sack") in the corner of the sixth floor, it was "folded" and "doubled over".

And according to DPD Officer Marvin Johnson [at 7 H 103], the bag he saw in the corner was "folded and then refolded. It was a fairly small package":

-----------------------

JOSEPH BALL -- "Now, did you at any time see any paper sack around there?"

ROBERT L. STUDEBAKER -- "Yes sir."

MR. BALL -- "Where?"

MR. STUDEBAKER -- "Storage room there—in the southeast corner of the building—folded."

[Later...]

MR. BALL -- "Does that sack show in any of the pictures you took?"

MR. STUDEBAKER -- "No; it doesn't show in any of the pictures."

MR. BALL -- "Was it near the window?"

MR. STUDEBAKER -- "Yes, sir."

MR. BALL -- "Which way from the window?"

MR. STUDEBAKER -- "It was east of the window."

MR. BALL -- "Over in the corner?"

MR. STUDEBAKER -- "Over in the corner—in the southeast corner of the building, in the far southeast corner, as far as you can get is where it was." [Emphasis added by DVP.]

[...]

DAVID BELIN -- "Did you find anything else up in the southeast corner of the sixth floor? We have talked about the rifle, we have talked about the shells, we have talked about the chicken bones and the lunch sack and the pop bottle by that second pair of windows. Anything else?"

MARVIN JOHNSON -- "Yes, sir. We found this brown paper sack or case. It was made out of heavy wrapping paper. Actually, it looked similar to the paper that those books was [sic] wrapped in. It was just a long narrow paper bag."

MR. BELIN -- "Where was this found?"

MR. JOHNSON -- "Right in the corner of the building."

MR. BELIN -- "On what floor?"

MR. JOHNSON -- "Sixth floor."

MR. BELIN -- "Which corner?"

MR. JOHNSON -- "Southeast corner."

MR. BELIN -- "Do you know who found it?"

MR. JOHNSON -- "I know that the first I saw of it, L.D. Montgomery, my partner, picked it up off the floor*, and it was folded up, and he unfolded it."

MR. BELIN -- "When it was folded up, was it folded once or refolded?"

MR. JOHNSON -- "It was folded and then refolded. It was a fairly small package." [Emphasis added by DVP.]

-----------------------

* This part of Marvin Johnson's testimony conflicts with that of L.D. Montgomery. Montgomery testified [at 7 H 98] that it was Detective Studebaker who physically picked the bag up off of the floor.

There are other possible explanations for why some of the officers did not notice the bag, such as:

They weren't in a position to see the bag at all (which would certainly be the explanation for those officers who never actually stepped INSIDE the Sniper's Nest area itself prior to the bag being picked up on 11/22/63).

Or:

Perhaps some of the policemen in question just simply weren't as observant as other officers, and for one reason or another they missed seeing the paper bag in the far southeast corner of the 6th floor.

But there's ample testimony from multiple other police officers who said they did see the bag to indicate that the paper bag (CE142) was most definitely found on the sixth floor of the Depository on November 22nd.

Do conspiracy theorists really think all of these officers were lying when they each testified that they saw the bag on the 6th floor?:

J.C. Day [4 H 267].
L.D. Montgomery [7 H 97].
Marvin Johnson [7 H 103].
Robert Studebaker [7 H 143-144].



PAT SPEER SAID THIS.


DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

Why you're saying "all of them" missed seeing the paper bag is mystifying (and just dead wrong too). I already linked to the testimony of FOUR different DPD officers who said the bag was there. And I think there are 2 others who said they saw it too.

Plus....

I haven't checked every officer's testimony in this regard, but let me repeat something I said in my last post (which certainly might apply to several officers):

Isn't it possible that some of the officers who said they didn't see the bag simply were never in a position to see the bag at all? Maybe some of those officers were at least partially blocked out by the Sniper's Nest boxes, so they didn't have a good view of the far southeast corner.

Plus, according to Marvin Johnson, the bag was folded over TWICE, not just once, which made it (per Johnson) "a fairly small package".

Shouldn't those two things I just mentioned at least be considered as possible explanations for why more people failed to see the bag that 4 to 6 other officers absolutely confirmed WAS there on 11/22/63?


DAVID VON PEIN ALSO SAID:

Important Paper Bag Addendum....

On October 22, 2019, Patrick Jackson (in this post at Duncan MacRae's JFK Assassination Forum) noticed something in one of the original DPD photographs taken on the sixth floor of the Book Depository on 11/22/63 that apparently nobody else had ever noticed prior to that time in 2019. Jackson noticed that the empty paper bag (which became Commission Exhibit No. 142, as well as CE626) was actually visible in this picture (also seen below) which shows the boxes around the sixth-floor Sniper's Nest.

The paper bag, with its creases and folds plainly visible, is sitting on top of some of the Sniper's Nest boxes. I've drawn a blue box around the paper bag, which has been, quite literally, hiding in plain sight for over 50 years:

CLICK TO ENLARGE:


And here's an extra-large zoomed-in version of the photo, produced in 2019 by Patrick Jackson, highlighting the paper bag on top of the boxes (click to enlarge):



The Warren Commission utilized the above photograph showing the outside of the Sniper's Nest as Commission Exhibit No. 508 and Commission Exhibit No. 723. And the back side of the original photograph taken by the Dallas Police Department indicates that that photo was taken on "11-22-63" on "6th floor, 411 Elm, SE Corner where shots fired from window".

And here's another high-quality version of the very same photo (from the Dallas Municipal Archives). Click for a bigger view:



So, the above 11/22/63 photo showing an empty paper bag sitting atop boxes which are bordering the Sniper's Nest (which is a location just a few feet from where the police originally discovered the folded-up paper sack) is providing pretty good evidence for CE142 being a legitimate and valid piece of evidence in the JFK murder case.

Because if there was never any paper bag found near the Sniper's Nest at all on November 22nd, as many CTers claim, then how can they explain the presence of what certainly looks like the CE142 bag sitting on top of those SN boxes on November 22?

After looking at the above picture, will conspiracists now contend that the evil DPD cops decided to haul their "fake" paper bag back up to the sixth floor and place it atop the Sniper's Nest boxes?

But if the evil Dallas cops did something like that, why in the world wouldn't they have wanted to take a photograph of the fake bag in the place where they say it was originally discovered (the far southeast corner, on the floor)?

In my opinion, the above photo of the bag creates quite a problem for the many conspiracy theorists who currently reside in the "There Was Never Any Paper Bag Found On The Sixth Floor On November 22nd" club.


BENJAMIN COLE SAID THIS.


DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

Nonsense. It's the SIZE and the SHAPE of the paper bag that's the key (of course). How many hunks of TSBD wrapping paper shaped like the one on top of those boxes do you think were in the building at that moment on 11/22?

The likely answer to that question is: 1 (which is the same one Lee Oswald brought to work in Buell Frazier's car that morning).


TOM GRAM SAID THIS.


DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

The DPD didn't "make up" anything. The bag was first found folded up and on the floor near the pipes in the far southeast corner of the sixth floor. It was then picked up and unfolded and placed on the boxes surrounding the Sniper's Nest. It was then photographed by the DPD (with that photo later becoming CE508).

But, of course, the purpose of the CE508 photograph was most certainly not an effort to document the paper bag. (That's fairly obvious, seeing as how nobody on Earth even noticed that the bag was sitting on top of those boxes until 56 years later.) The bag just happened to show up (just barely) in one of the crime scene photos.


CHARLES BLACKMON SAID THIS.


DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

Of course it looks bigger that the estimates provided by Frazier and Randle. That's because it IS bigger than those incorrect 24-to-27-inch estimates.** It's really a 38-inch bag (when unfolded and fully extended).

** Linnie Mae Randle, however, did provide this "36-inch" estimate to the FBI on the very same day of the assassination [also available to view in Commission Document No. 5]. She apparently revised that "3 feet" estimate later on and decided the bag was only about 27 inches in length.


CHARLES BLACKMON SAID THIS.


DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

I agree with you about Buell Wesley Frazier with respect to his observations about the way Lee Oswald was carrying the package. Buell is not a good witness in that regard. At the 1986 mock trial, Frazier admits that the bag could have been "protruding" out in front of LHO's body, but in other interviews he insists that the package HAD to be under Lee's armpit AND cupped in his right hand.

So, you're right, he's not a good (or reliable) witness to that part of the day's events. He has, in effect, admitted that he really has no idea just how Oswald was carrying the package as he walked toward the TSBD on 11/22.


GREG DOUDNA SAID THIS.


DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

If Lee Oswald really did have curtain rods in his large paper package on Nov. 22, then why did Lee tell this lie to Captain Fritz? ....

"I asked him [Lee Oswald] if he had told Buell Wesley Frazier why he had gone home a different night, and if he had told him anything about bringing back some curtain rods. He denied it." -- Captain Will Fritz' written report [Warren Report; Page 604]

So, you're going to try to convince people that LHO really did have curtain rods in that package on 11/22, but he then deliberately LIES to the police after he's arrested concerning that very thing---whether he did or did not bring curtain rods into the building?!

Come on! Let's not allow all common sense to go sliding down the drain here!

Or am I supposed to believe that Captain Fritz was the real liar in the above quote from his report?

And if you think that Fritz was actually the person telling tall tales about the curtain rods, instead of Mr. Oswald being the liar, then you also have no choice but to add FBI agent James Bookhout to your Liars List in this regard as well. Because Bookhout, in this 11/23/63 FBI report, said he also heard Oswald denying all knowledge of any curtain rods:

"He [LHO] denied telling Wesley Frazier that the purpose of his visit to Irving, Texas, on the night of November 21, 1963, was to obtain some curtain rods from Mrs. Ruth Paine." -- James W. Bookhout


GREG DOUDNA SAID THIS.


DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

Thanks for your post above, Greg. It's refreshing to hear a conspiracy believer utter the words "I do not have a good answer to it" when talking about a particular sub-topic associated with JFK's assassination. Thank you for admitting that.

In putting myself in the shoes of the CTers who believe in Oswald's innocence, I've been straining my brain today trying to come up with some kind of at least halfway logical and semi-sensible reason for why an innocent Lee Harvey Oswald, if he really had brought some curtain rods with him to work on Nov. 22 (instead of bringing his Carcano rifle to work with him that morning), would have had any desire at all to want to tell the police after his arrest that he hadn't brought any curtain rods into the TSBD Building on that day.

And I'm coming up blank. Because I can't understand why Oswald (via the scenario in which he really did take curtain rods to work instead of his rifle) would have thought it was actually better for him to tell a lie to the cops about the curtain rods instead of simply telling Fritz & Company the truth about the rods (and the associated reason for why Oswald decided to not take those rods with him when he left the building at approximately 12:33 PM on 11/22, which seems to me would be another sticky problem for conspiracists to reconcile in a scenario which has Oswald totally innocent of shooting the President).

The chronology of Captain Fritz' interrogations of Oswald, per Fritz' written report, indicates that the "curtain rod" subject (and Oswald's denial of all knowledge of that topic) occurred during the interrogation session on Saturday (November 23) at 10:25 AM. And by that time on Saturday, of course, Oswald had already been officially charged with JFK's murder and Officer Tippit's slaying.

So when Oswald denied all knowledge of the curtain rods, he certainly knew the full reasons for why he was being held in custody by the DPD, which makes any "curtain rods" denial coming from an innocent Lee Oswald all the more perplexing. For Lee certainly didn't think that possession of an innocuous and harmless item like curtain rods on the day of the President's visit to Dallas would (or could) be looked upon as something suspicious that he would want to hide from the authorities. Right? Right. So what would be his incentive for denying any knowledge of the curtain rods story?

The answer to my last question is, in my opinion, very simple and very logical (after weighing the sum total of evidence in the JFK case). But the answer comes from my perspective as a "Lone Assassin" advocate, instead of coming from an "Oswald Didn't Shoot Anybody" point-of-view:

Oswald's incentive for denying that he said anything to Wesley Frazier about "curtain rods" was:

Mr. Oswald was (quite obviously, IMO) attempting to distance himself from that large paper package as much as he could because he knew that that package contained the rifle that he used to shoot President Kennedy.


PAT SPEER SAID (VIA AN E-MAIL DISCUSSION):

Please present any evidence you have suggesting that those first on the scene saw the bag and dismissed it as trash. It seems clear you just made that up.


DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

I have no direct evidence relating to my "trash" comment. It's merely guesswork on my part. (And please don't tell me I shouldn't ever rely on "guesswork", because virtually every single thing that conspiracy theorists do regarding their analysis of the JFK case revolves largely around that very word—"guesswork". Without guesswork, in fact, CTers might as well pack up and go home, because they'd have nothing to pin their hopes on without relying on "guesswork" and "gut feelings", and everybody here knows it.)

Actually, I think my "trash" theory makes quite a bit of (common) sense. The notion that some of the officers could have merely thought the twice-folded-up paper bag that was resting in the farthest reaches of the dusty and dirty sixth floor's southeast corner was simply a piece of discarded trash lying in that corner makes a great deal of sense to me.

Plus, some officers who might have caught a glimpse of the bag might not have even realized it was a "paper bag" at all, seeing as how it had been folded up twice (per the testimony of Police Officer Marvin Johnson), thus reducing its size considerably as it lay in the corner. Johnson testified that the package he saw in the southeast corner was "a fairly small package".

Also....

Another possible answer to the "mystery" as to why some officers never saw the bag at all could be because those officers were simply never in a proper position within (or near) the Sniper's Nest itself to have seen the paper bag in the first place.

In offering up these various "Paper Bag" scenarios, I'm just trying to present some possible non-sinister and non-conspiratorial reasons to explain why we have one group of police officers who said they did see something on the sixth floor, while another group of officers said they didn't see it.

And if some of the members of that second group had actually seen the bag but failed at the time to associate the "fairly small package" with the crime scene, and instead had merely thought it was a piece of paper debris that had been swept into the far southeast corner, then that could (IMO) certainly account for some of the confusion revolving around the testimony of the various witnesses concerning the paper bag.


PAT SPEER SAID:

Those arriving on the scene before its discovery said they saw no such thing ["trash"] and those claiming to have discovered it said it was out in the open covering much of the open floor by the boxes, where anyone inspecting the boxes or looking out the window would have seen it. It’s a mystery.


DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

The things you just said about the bag being "out in the open" and "covering much of the open floor by the boxes" are things that are totally contradicted by two of the officers who said they definitely did see the paper bag on the 6th floor:

MR. STUDEBAKER -- "Over in the corner—in the southeast corner of the building, in the far southeast corner, as far as you can get is where it was."

MR. JOHNSON -- "It was folded and then refolded. It was a fairly small package. .... That sack was right in the corner. .... I would say that the sack was folded up here and it was east of the pipes in the corner."

That doesn't sound to me like Studebaker or Johnson saw the bag "out in the open".

Also....

Can anyone explain to me how the following four Dallas Police Department officers could have seen a brown paper object in the southeast corner of the sixth floor that was never ever there? ....

Robert Studebaker, L.D. Montgomery, J.C. Day, and Marvin Johnson.

In some of my comments above, I've been attempting to reconcile the controversy surrounding the "Paper Bag Witnesses" without having to resort to calling any of the witnesses "liars". I think I accomplished that goal. I'm wondering if any conspiracy theorist could do the same. I doubt they can.

David Von Pein
January 2023
December 7-8, 2023


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