WILLIAM KELLY SAID:
Those Lone Nutters who believe Oswald killed JFK by himself who seem to have time on their hands, having already wrapped up the case, should be able to answer the following questions. I started out shooting for 50, but have come up with a few more.
50+ Questions that can and should be answered about the assassination of President Kennedy....
1.) How many shots were fired, which one missed, and which one was the head shot?
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Three shots were fired (total). All of them were fired by Lee Harvey Oswald from the southeast corner window on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository Building. The weapon used: Oswald's Mannlicher-Carcano rifle (serial number C2766).
Shot #1 @ Zapruder frame 160 (approx.) (the missed shot).
Shot #2 @ Z224 (the SBT shot hitting both Kennedy and Connally).
Shot #3 @ Z313 (quite obviously). The fatal head shot.
2.) From what direction(s) did the shots come?
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
All three shots came from the sixth floor of the TSBD Building. The evidence to support this conclusion is overwhelming in nature (despite the opinions to the contrary expressed by conspiracy proponents).
Only four or five witnesses said they heard shots coming from more than one single direction/location (that's less than 5% of the total witnesses). And more than 75% of the witnesses heard EXACTLY three shots. And THREE expended shells were found under the sniper's window in the Depository. That's pretty decent "Three Shots Were Fired" corroboration right there, sans anything else at all.
+--+Location+Of+Shots.jpg)
Source:
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/shots.htm
Note -- In 2013, John McAdams compiled updated charts regarding the earwitnesses, with even more witnesses now falling into the "three shots" pie slice. Here are the 2013 charts:
3.) Where did the bullets come from? [Vincent] Bugliosi says that Oswald bought them, but there's no evidence of that. Where did they come from? You can’t buy one bullet, you buy bullets like cigarettes in packs and cartons and boxes, each of which has a tracking number that can tell you where and when it was sold and shipped. There were three shell casings found on the floor of the Sixth Floor Sniper’s Nest window and one unused bullet in the chamber.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
The only answer to this question is: Nobody knows.
But does that answer have to mean that Lee Oswald did not obtain any bullets to go into his newly-purchased mail-order rifle in March of 1963? Answer--of course not.
After all, common sense would tell a reasonable person that if somebody buys a rifle, then it's logical to assume that the purchaser of that rifle probably would want to get some bullets to put into that rifle. And I think it's fairly obvious that Oswald did, indeed, obtain some bullets (from somewhere) to put into his Carcano rifle prior to his shooting at General Edwin Walker with that gun on April 10, 1963, and (of course) also prior to taking that same gun to work with him on November 22, 1963, and firing three bullets at President Kennedy.
A logical question I could throw back in the face of the CTers would be this one.....
Since many many Internet conspiracists actually believe in the fairy tale theory that has Oswald being set up and framed as the "patsy" for JFK's murder (with many of those same CTers also believing that the entire paper trail that links Oswald with the Carcano rifle is a phony/fake paper trail)....then why didn't those patsy plotters take the additional step of phonying up some documents that would provide a paper trail for LHO's bullet purchases too?
Did the plotters just figure nobody would ask the question Bill Kelly just asked: Where did Oswald buy his bullets??
~shrug~
A final common-sense inquiry....
Who buys a rifle and then never purchases a single bullet to go into it?
Food for Carcano thought....isn't it?
4.) Where did the rifle come from? How come nobody at the post office recalls handing the weapons over the counter to Oswald?
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
The rifle came from Klein's Sporting Goods Co. in Chicago. It was shipped to OSWALD'S known alias (A. Hidell) to OSWALD'S own post-office box in Dallas. Why this question is even asked over and over again by the conspiracy crowd is a huge mystery to me, because Oswald's ownership of the Carcano rifle could not be any more solid, firm, final, and irrevocable.
OSWALD'S handwriting is on the money order that paid for the rifle.
OSWALD'S writing is also on the order form for the rifle...and on the envelope mailed to Klein's.
And OSWALD'S P.O. Box number is the address that Klein's definitely shipped the rifle to on 3/20/63 (per Waldman No. 7 below). And the serial number is on this internal Klein's order form too. How much more proof is required than this to prove that Rifle C2766 found in the TSBD was OSWALD'S/"HIDELL'S" own rifle? Is this document supposedly a fake too? Was Klein's Sporting Goods part of the "plot" to frame Oswald too? IOW--how far down "Everything's Fake Avenue" is a sensible person expected to travel?
And why would you expect a postal employee to remember a transaction from many months earlier? It was undoubtedly just another package being picked up by another P.O. Box owner. Nothing more. Nothing less. And detailed records for every package that is picked up at the post office aren't kept.
Put yourself in the shoes of the post office clerk -- After eight months have passed, do you think you could recall handing a particular package to a particular person when, at the time of the transaction, you would have had no reason at all to say to yourself: I'd better make a mental note of THIS particular package pick-up, because this guy picking up this package just might shoot the President eight months from now?
The proof that Oswald ordered and paid for (and, logically, took possession of) Rifle #C2766 (as well as Smith & Wesson Revolver #V510210) is a mile deep. Here's how deep it is (including, in the first link below, new information that I obtained recently about the "12" that appears in the postmark on the envelope that Oswald mailed to Klein's):
THE POSTMARK ON COMMISSION EXHIBIT 773
OSWALD'S RIFLE PURCHASE
OSWALD'S REVOLVER PURCHASE
5.) Where did the leather strap come from? A USAF military sidearm holster strap that had to come from somewhere, from someone who knew the owner of the rifle.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
This very peripheral question ranks as #5 on your list, Bill? Geesh. (This laundry list of yours must not be in order of importance, huh?)
Anyway, I'm not sure why you say this: "From someone who knew the owner of the rifle."
Huh? Why did you jump to such a conclusion?
Anyway, just like the "Where Did The Bullets Come From?" inquiry, this question is also in the "Unanswerable" category. AFAIK, we can never know exactly where Lee Oswald obtained the homemade-like sling that was attached to his rifle. He very likely could have gotten it from any number of places. Nobody can know for certain.
But, again, just like with the bullets, where does this type of question go anyway? Does it necessarily have to lead down "Conspiracy Road" or "Patsy Boulevard"? No, it does not. And anyone who thinks that just because there are no definitive answers to questions like these (regarding the bullets and the leather strap), it therefore means something sinister and that Oswald is innocent---is wrong. It means no such thing.
As a parallel, do you think it's necessary to know where and when O.J. Simpson bought the knife he used to kill his two victims in 1994? Heck, the murder weapon was never even found in that murder case--but Simpson's guilt is blatantly obvious nonetheless--and has been proven scientifically.
But in the JFK case, we DO have the murder weapon--and the verifiable murder weapon that killed John F. Kennedy belonged to Lee Harvey Oswald. The bullets that struck the President came from OSWALD'S very own gun. Shouldn't that fact be at least a little bit pertinent to the conspiracists of the world?
6.) Why is there a scope attached that wasn’t used by the Sixth Floor Sniper?
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Why are you assuming something you can't possibly know or prove, Bill? You don't know for a fact that the sixth-floor sniper (Oswald, of course) did not use the telescopic sight when he was shooting JFK. And I don't know either. It's another one of those "unanswerable" questions--Did he or didn't he use the scope? We can never know for sure.
But there's one thing about the rifle that is not debatable -- bullets from OSWALD'S rifle were definitely fired at JFK's limousine on 11/22/63. (And you surely don't want to claim that the two front-seat bullet fragments that came out of Oswald's gun were "planted". Do you, Bill?)
7.) What fingerprints were found on the rifle, shells, boxes, soda bottles, windows, doors, other locations within the TSBD/fingerprints that could be connected to Oswald or others?
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
I don't know the answer to this question as it relates to "windows", "doors", "soda bottles", "shells", and "other locations". And I don't really know if some of those items were even checked for fingerprints, such as doors and windows.
But we do know that your resident "patsy" had his prints lifted off of various objects that were obviously used by the assassin of JFK -- e.g., the Sniper's Nest boxes and the rifle and the paper bag found in the corner of the Nest (and multiple police officers DID testify that they DID see that paper sack [CE142] on the floor in the Sniper's Nest after the shooting--Robert Studebaker, Lt. J.C. Day, Marvin Johnson, and L.D. Montgomery all said they saw it there on the floor).
Perhaps more things on the sixth floor should have been checked for fingerprints. I don't know. But I do know that the person who owned the weapon that killed JFK had his prints on a lot of stuff on that sixth floor on 11/22/63. And yes, he worked there on a daily basis since October 16th. I don't deny that fact. And yes, he was up on that sixth floor probably every day that he worked there, giving him the opportunity to place his prints on any number of boxes and other objects on that sixth floor.
But the RIFLE and that empty 38-inch-long PAPER SACK were certainly NOT things that Lee Oswald would normally be touching on any other day except November 22, 1963. And the prints of Oswald's on the boxes (deep inside the Sniper's Nest), IMO, serve as corroborating evidence which only further bolster the idea that Oswald was, indeed, present at that sixth-floor window when Kennedy drove through Dealey Plaza.
Those "box prints" themselves don't prove Oswald shot the President. But when we ADD those prints to the OTHER things linked to Oswald inside that very same sniper's lair, then I think those box prints become more significant. How could a reasonable person examining ALL of the Sniper's Nest evidence simply toss aside the fact that Oswald's own prints were also located on two of those boxes inside that Nest? And his fairly fresh prints at that (according to the FBI fingerprint expert).
8.) How did the rifle get into the building without B.W. Frazier recognizing it?
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
WTF?
It would appear that now Mr. Kelly is inventing dumb questions just in order to inflate the number of inquiries on his laundry list. Because this one is really strange (and silly).
Of course, the answer is: Buell Frazier didn't recognize Oswald's rifle because Oswald had it wrapped up in this handmade paper bag:
Was Frazier supposed to wrestle the bag away from Oswald as Lee carried it to the building, with Frazier then ripping open the package to see what was inside?
Will the rest of Bill's questions rise above the level of silliness exhibited in question #8? Let's see....
9.) What became of the “confession” that the DPD tried to get B.W. Frazier to sign and what did it say?
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
This is yet another "unknowable"/"unanswerable" question. But I've got an opinion about this (which, I'll admit, is an opinion that might be dead wrong, but this is my feeling on this matter).....
Buell Wesley Frazier has recently said in multiple interviews that he was treated in a pretty rough fashion by DPD Homicide Captain J. Will Fritz on 11/22/63, with Frazier even saying that Fritz raised a hand to physically strike Frazier at one point when he was being questioned at City Hall. And Frazier also has said that Fritz was practically FORCING him to sign a "confession" of some kind that would indicate he was part of a conspiracy with Oswald to kill the President.
But I for one think that Mr. Frazier is overstating these occurrences. I don't believe for one second that Captain Fritz became violent or raised his hand as if to hit Wesley Frazier. I just do not think that happened. And I doubt very much that Frazier was TOLD to sign any "confession" either.
However, I suppose it's possible that Fritz did, indeed, exert some degree of pressure on Frazier during his interrogation. After all, the DPD had no idea at that time whether this guy Frazier was a part of a plot with Oswald or not. For all they knew, maybe Frazier was supposed to be Oswald's getaway driver or something. After all, Frazier DID drive Oswald (and the rifle) to work that day. But as far as the threats that Frazier alludes to, I'm quite skeptical.
10.) Who else besides Oswald was involved in the Walker shooting, and why didn’t Oswald prepare for JFK like he did for Walker – taking photos of the scene, keeping notebook, leaving note with instructions for Marina, etc.?
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
There is no hard evidence that anyone other than Oswald was involved in the shooting of Edwin Walker on April 10th, 1963. If you'd like to speculate that the witness (or witnesses) who saw various vehicles outside of Walker's house at the time of the shooting indicates a "plot" to kill Walker--well, I guess you're free to speculate about such things. But it's not going to get you very far.
And can anyone with one good eye possibly deny that these two bullets are very similar (CE573 is the Walker bullet)?:
As for Oswald's preparations for killing Kennedy, once again, in order to answer this type of unanswerable question, we'd have to possess the ability to get inside the mind of Lee Harvey Oswald.
Oswald very likely didn't make any advanced plans to kill JFK simply because there really wasn't very much time for him to do so anyway. He couldn't have possibly learned about the exact Houston-to-Elm motorcade route until November 19 (at the earliest). And from his behavior and his remarks made to Marina on November 21st, I think his plan to shoot Kennedy was still a tentative and undecided one. Yes, he definitely went to Irving on Nov. 21st to retrieve his rifle (the "curtain rod" lie he told to Buell Frazier on Thursday morning pretty much proves this fact), but as far as his murderous plan being fixed in concrete as of Thursday night, I doubt that it was.
More on that here.
11.) Did George diMohrenschildt [sic] mention Oswald to the CIA officers he met in NYC two weeks after he identified Oswald as the Walker shooter?
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
I don't have the slightest idea.
12.) How did a German magazine learn of Oswald’s connection to the Walker shooting before the DPD?
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
I haven't the foggiest. But I'd be willing to bet that this is another one of the hundreds of mangled "myths" associated with the JFK case. But I've never heard about this one myself.
But there were some American reporters who were right on the ball regarding a possible connection between Oswald and the Walker shooting. As early as Saturday afternoon, November 23rd, during one of Chief Jesse Curry's many hallway interviews, a reporter asked Curry this question (which certainly was a good question indeed):
"Is there any connection yet between this and the firing at Major General Walker?"
Curry's reply was "I do not know."
13.) Who were the McCurley Brothers – who allegedly assisted Oswald in distributing FPCC leaflets in New Orleans, and did they know a man named Hidel [sic]?
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Beats me. Moe, Larry, and McCurley perhaps?
14.) How did the rifle get from Dallas to New Orleans in April of 1963 and back again in September 1963?
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Ruth Paine transported the rifle back to Dallas/Irving in her station wagon in Sept. '63. Ruth drove Lee Oswald and some of his possessions to the bus station in April of '63 when Lee moved from Dallas to New Orleans. I think it's fairly clear that Oswald's rifle was among those possessions he took by bus to New Orleans.
We know that Lee had the rifle in New Orleans in the summer of '63. Marina testified as follows:
J. LEE RANKIN. When did you first notice the rifle at New Orleans?
MARINA OSWALD. As soon as I arrived in New Orleans.
Mr. RANKIN. Where was it kept there?
Mrs. OSWALD. He again had a closet-like room with his things in it. He had his clothes hanging there, all his other belongings.
Mr. RANKIN. Was the rifle in a cover there?
Mrs OSWALD. No.
Mr. RANKIN. Did you notice him take it away from your home there in New Orleans at any time?
Mrs. OSWALD. No. I know for sure that he didn't. But I know that we had a kind of a porch with a---screened-in porch, and I know that sometimes evenings after dark he would sit there with his rifle.
15.) Why weren’t Ruth and Michael Paine called to testify under oath by the HSCA or ARRB or today?
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
HSCA: I have no idea.
ARRB: There was no reason for anybody to testify in front of the ARRB. Their job was to release documents, not to re-investigate the case. If it weren't for Doug Horne's bagful of idiocy regarding the medical evidence, there wouldn't have been ANY testimony taken by the ARRB at all. Nor did there need to be any taken, given the ARRB's mandate and responsibilities. Horne's conclusions, as we all know, were a joke and an utter embarrassment to Mr. Tunheim's Review Board.
TODAY: Huh? You think President Obama should re-open the case to satisfy the whims of you conspiracy theorists? And then Ruth Paine should be called to the witness stand again? What for? Another investigation will only give you yet another "official" committee to snub your nose at. So what's the point? Or maybe you think the next investigation should be headed up by the "Alteration Brothers" perhaps -- David Lifton and Doug Horne. (That'd be some farce, wouldn't it?)
16.) Who were the twin Hale brothers, sons of Dallas FBI agent, seen by FBI agents breaking into the apartment of Mob moll and JFK mistress Judyth Campbell Exner [sic], one of whom would later kill John Connally’s daughter?
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
I haven't the foggiest. Nor do I care.
17.) If Oswald killed JFK to obtain notoriety, as alleged, then why did he deny committing the deed?
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
But you'll have to agree that Oswald DID achieve a whole lot of "notoriety" by doing things his way (i.e., by not admitting he killed anyone). Right, Bill?
So, either way, he gained the fame he sought. And by denying guilt, and if Jack Ruby hadn't intervened, Oswald would have been the front-page news for months at his high-profile trial. That's something he would certainly relish. That's better than confessing.
18.) If Oswald was seen on the first floor of the TSBD at 12:15 pm, then who was the person seen with a rifle on the Sixth Floor at that time?
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Oswald was the person holding a gun on the west side of the Depository at approx. 12:15 (per Arnold Rowland's account). Oswald wasn't on the second floor at 12:15. Carolyn Arnold's story is full of inconsistencies and time discrepancies.
AN OSWALD TIMELINE
19.) If Oswald was seen by Baker on the other side of the closed Second Floor lunchroom door at 12:31 pm, if he went through that door as he would have to do if he was the assassin, how come that Roy Truly, ahead of Baker, didn’t see him, as he should have?
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
We're talking about a matter of a few seconds in real time. And those few seconds could have made the difference here. Oswald must have just barely slipped through the lunchroom door a matter of seconds before BOTH Truly and Baker got to the second floor.
Now, tell me how my above scenario is totally out of the realm of possibility.
20.) If Baker saw Oswald through the window of the closed Second Floor Lunchroom door, isn’t it more logical that he entered the three door vestibule through the south door, as he said he did, and therefore was not the Sixth Floor Sniper?
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Not when we factor in all of that "Oswald Did It" evidence that he left up on the sixth floor.
Plus, I've theorized in the past that the slender Mr. Oswald might very well have opened that vestibule door only a fraction of the way. You don't need to open a door all the way in order to get to the other side. I think Oswald realized that fact and only opened it as far as he needed to, in order to slide his slender frame inside the door. Therefore, the door didn't take nearly as long to close.
21.) If Oswald was on the second floor when Baker and Truly encountered him at 12:31 pm, who was the man in the Sixth Floor Sniper window moving boxes around a few minutes after the last shot?
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
There was no man in the window "a few minutes after the last shot". It's a ridiculous theory to begin with. Why on Earth would anyone have felt any need to move boxes around right after the shooting? It's dumb.
John Mytton has created a really nice gif clip which merges the Powell and Dillard pictures together, and the merged montage indicates that no boxes were moved at all. It's all a matter of perspective. Here's Mytton's montage gif:
22.) If Oswald was not the Sixth Floor Sniper, then who was the man in the white shirt and bald spot on the top of his head who shot at JFK from that window and how did he get out of the building?
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Oswald was, of course, the sixth-floor sniper, so the person with the "bald spot" that Amos Euins talked about in his testimony is Lee Harvey Oswald--without doubt. Euins was mistaken about the bald spot, of course. But he also had a hard time figuring out whether the sniper was black or white too. So we should take his descriptions of the assassin with a good-sized grain of salt.
23.) How come Oswald, if he had just shot the president, deposited the rifle behind boxes and ran down four flights of steps to get to the Second Floor Lunchroom before Baker – 90 seconds after the last shot – how come he wasn’t out of breath from running and hyper from having just blown JFK’s brains out, but instead his demeanor was cool, calm and collected, just as he was 30 seconds later when he encountered Mrs. Reid. After the Walker shooting, Oswald was still hyper and excited hours later. Was Oswald the “cool” assassin, or wasn’t he the killer at all?
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
But you don't really think Oswald shot at Walker either, do you Bill?
Anyway, here again we are faced with an unanswerable type of question. Who can know these things for sure? Nobody can. But this type of question does not magically ERASE all of that evidence with Oswald's name on it that's on the sixth floor. That evidence is still going to exist no matter what Oswald's demeanor was like when he encountered Marrion Baker.
And his cool demeanor is just as indicative of guilt, IMO. Because any truly INNOCENT person would probably NOT be cool and calm and TOTALLY SILENT when confronted at gunpoint by a police officer. An innocent person would probably have been rattled, startled, scared, and would have said SOMETHING to Baker, like: "What did I do? Why are you pointing a gun at ME?"
But Oswald says nothing. You know why? Because he didn't NEED to say those things--because he, and he alone, was the only person on the planet at 12:31 PM who knew exactly what had just happened out on Elm Street in front of the Book Depository. Ergo, he expected the cops to be crawling all over the building in very short order. Which is one of the main reasons he scurried down four flights of stairs in a very short amount of time right after the shooting.
Surely, even conspiracy theorists wouldn't expect ANY assassin to just loiter on the sixth floor playing dominoes for a half-hour after having just killed the President. Would they, William?
24.) Why do those who believe that Oswald killed the President all by himself also claim he was a no good, crazy loser rather than the very good and successful assassin he had to be?
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Why can't both descriptions apply to Oswald? I think they can.....
He WAS a very successful Presidential assassin. (The evidence proves that fact beyond doubt.)
And:
He was "no good". (Most Presidential assassins can--and should--be classified as such, don't you agree?)
He was "crazy". (Again, to be a Presidential assassin, you've got to be at least a tad bit bonkers, right?)
He was a "loser". (Most everybody agrees on this point to describe Oswald, whether they belong in the Conspiracy camp or the Lone Assassin camp.)
Therefore, both of the descriptions laid out by Bill Kelly above are most appropriate to describe Lee Harvey Oswald.
25.) What became of the Coke bottle? What became of the Dr. Pepper bottle found on the Sixth Floor? And what became of the photos of the broken soda bottle at the base of the park bench on the Grassy Knoll?
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Are you referring to the Coke bottle which is sitting atop the retaining wall in some of the photos taken in Dealey Plaza? Or do you mean Oswald's Coke bottle? In either case, I have no idea. But is it really important?
As for the broken soda bottles (and I think Marilyn Sitzman said there were two bottles that were broken by the young couple on the park bench), again, I haven't any idea. But what difference does it make?
And the Dr. Pepper bottle has no relation to Oswald. We know this bottle on the sixth floor belonged to Bonnie Ray Williams:
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26.) What became of [the] black couple who were sitting on that park bench eating lunch and drinking the soda when they witnessed the assassination [and] accidentally broke the bottle. What did they see and why haven’t they come forward?
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Lots of witnesses have never been identified. In fact, how many of the women lining the north side of Elm Street have ever been officially identified (other than Mary Woodward)? How many of those women gave statements to the police and/or gave testimony to the Warren Commission? Any idea? My guess is: very few.
And these women (who are believed to be nothing but "cardboard cutouts" by the Jim Fetzers of the world) were actually some of the closest witnesses to the President when the shooting occurred. Were all these women kept under wraps because of what they knew?
27.) What became of Ms. McKinnon, who claims to have witnessed the assassination from the Grassy Knoll and has since disappeared?
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
I've heard recently that Ms. McKinnon is not really Ms. McKinnon at all. The "cowering" woman believed for years to be named McKinnon is actually another person altogether. (Or so I heard.) The woman's daughter (Karen Moore) came forward in just the last few months to make the claim that it was her mother, and not the McKinnon woman, who is seen crouching on the Knoll in films after the shooting.
Whether the new story is accurate, I have no idea. But, again, as I stated in my last post, MANY witnesses in the Plaza were never identified and never gave statements. Why single out THIS person or THAT person, when we know that dozens and dozens of different people all belong in that same "Never Identified" category?
28.) Why hasn’t the HSCA acoustics study been followed up on and the acoustical evidence evaluated properly?
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
You don't think the NAS/NRC study in the early 1980s produced a "proper" evaluation of the acoustics evidence, Bill? Why not? What's wrong with the NAS study?
BTW, here's a rare interview with one of the scientists who studied the Dictabelt evidence for the National Academy of Sciences in the 1980s (Charles Rader).
29.) What is the provenance of CE#399?
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Go HERE and HERE.
30.) What’s the real story behind the DNA testing of CE#345?
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
I'm not familiar with this subject at all. And CE345 is a photo of the back of the limousine. Did you get the right CE number?
31.) Why wasn’t the TSBD building secured immediately by the three DPD officers out front?
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Yes, the building I suppose could have been sealed off a little sooner than it was. I think the official "sealing" time was 12:37 PM, seven minutes after the shooting and about four minutes after Oswald escaped the building.
So, in hindsight and in a perfect world where everybody does everything perfectly and in a timely manner, it would have been better if the police had sealed the building at 12:31 instead of 12:37. But that's the way it was. You don't think the seven-minute delay was deliberate, to allow the "real assassins" to escape, do you Bill?
32.) Why did so many witnesses believe the shots came from the Grassy Knoll and run there afterwards if no shots came from there?
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Better question --- If you had just seen the President murdered by rifle fire and if you had truly thought the killer was located on the Grassy Knoll, would you have any desire to run directly toward the source of the gunfire? IMO, that's nuts. I'd be wanting to run in the OPPOSITE direction--AWAY from the assassin--not run right into his arms.
Most of the witnesses who ran up the Knoll probably didn't know exactly where the shooter was located, and they just followed the crowd. Yes, Jean Hill would be an exception there, because she WAS, indeed, crazy enough to want to chase the gunman up the Knoll after thinking the shots had just come from the place she was running toward. And she admitted in a radio interview that she "didn't have any better sense, because I started running up there too".
But more than half of the witnesses thought the only shots they heard came from the Book Depository.
IMO, the sound played tricks on the "Knoll" witnesses' ears. The sounds of Oswald's TSBD shots were such that many witnesses thought those shots came from a point further WEST than they actually originated.
Call me a silly little "WC defender" (like Tony Marsh constantly does), but that's my opinion nonetheless. In fact, given the overall weight of the evidence that convinces me there was no Grassy Knoll shooter at all, the opinion I just gave HAS to be my opinion about this matter. How could I possibly buy any other explanation?
33.) How come – if Brennan and Eunis [sic; Euins] and other witnesses told DPD and Sheriff’s officers that they saw a sniper with [a] rifle in the SE corner window of the TSBD sixth floor at 12:31, how come it wasn’t located and secured until Sheriff’s deputy Luke Mooney “discovered” it after 1 pm?
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
That's not a bad question, Bill. And I do not have the answer to that question. And I, too, have pondered that same thing myself.
But the fact remains that an APB bulletin was definitely put out on the Dallas Police radio at 12:45 PM concerning the description of the TSBD sniper. There's no doubt that such an APB was broadcast on the DPD radio at 12:45 PM.
And even if that 12:45 PM description of the sniper didn't come from Howard Brennan, who we know saw a gunman in the sixth-floor window, then it would mean that yet ANOTHER witness saw pretty much the same thing that Brennan did -- i.e., a slender white gunman in the TSBD who was about 5-10 in height and weighed about 165 pounds. That description matches Brennan's 11/22/63 affidavit too--don't forget that.
So, I can't see how you can create anything sinister or conspiratorial out of this topic at all. Because you can't just ignore the fact that several witnesses did see a gunman and/or a rifle in the sixth-floor window when the assassination was occurring. So, despite any delay in finding the Sniper's Nest, those witnesses still do exist and they saw what they saw. But for some reason, the word didn't spread to the investigating officers (such as Mooney) who were searching inside the Depository. ~shrug~
34.) Who was the man in the Sixth Floor Sniper window with a rifle, standing at port arms with the rifle, the one in a white shirt and bald spot on top of his head? And who was the man in the brown sports coat who was seen on the Sixth Floor with the man in the white shirt and rifle?
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
The only gunman was Oswald (of course). Not every single witness report was correct. You surely can appreciate that fact, can't you? How many assassins with rifles do you think were firing at JFK from the Depository anyway? Two? Three? More?
35.) Who was the man in the white shirt who ran down the Grassy Knoll and got into a Rambler station wagon?
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Yet another unanswerable question. Nobody knows who the Rambler Man is. But there's one person we know it wasn't. Can you guess who that is?
Somebody got in a Rambler at about 12:40 PM, yes. But it wasn't Oswald. He was getting on Cecil McWatters' bus at about that same moment. And the bus transfer ticket proves it. (Don't tell me THAT was planted on Oswald too?)
36.) How come there is no film or photo of Oswald leaving the front door of the TSBD, as there should be? Or is there?
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Why do you say "as there should be"? Why do you think a photo or film MUST exist of Oswald exiting the building? Quite obviously you're wrong when you say "as there should be", and here's the logical reason why you're wrong about that....
Since you think Oswald should definitely have been photographed if he left the TSBD at about 12:33 PM on November 22, then that certainly must mean you also think that both Robert MacNeil and Pierce Allman should have been photographed as they entered the building that day too (and as they each possibly encountered and spoke to Lee Harvey Oswald on their way into the building).
But as far as I know, no photo or film exists showing either MacNeil or Allman near the entrance of the Depository at about 12:33 or 12:34 PM. And we KNOW for a fact that both of those reporters did enter the building at about that time through the front entrance.
And there are no doubt many other witnesses who were near the TSBD on November 22 shortly after the shooting who were not captured in photos or films taken that day either.
Plus, your argument goes nowhere (really fast) when we approach it from another angle too:
Even without having Oswald on film as he departed the Depository, we KNOW he definitely DID leave the building very shortly after the shots were fired at the President. You surely don't deny that the following two facts are 100% true, do you Bill?....
1.) Lee Oswald was INSIDE the Book Depository Building at about 12:31 to 12:32 PM when he encountered Marrion Baker and Roy Truly on the second floor.
2.) Lee Oswald hurriedly entered his roominghouse on Beckley Avenue at about 1:00 PM. (Earlene Roberts confirms this fact.)
And since Oswald was not capable of flying the 2+-mile distance between the Depository and 1026 N. Beckley in Oak Cliff, then he obviously utilized some means of transportation to get to his roominghouse within roughly 28 minutes of encountering Baker in the TSBD.
Ergo, Oswald had to have departed the Depository very shortly after 12:32 PM. Wouldn't you agree?
So what's your point? What are you trying to prove? Are you implying that Oswald really wasn't Oswald and never left the building shortly after 12:30?
37.) Why did Oswald walk seven blocks east of the TSBD and then get on a bus going back to the scene? And why did he get on a bus that would take him away from his rooming house when the bus behind it went directly to it?
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
I think the answers to these questions are obvious, Bill. Basic common sense and logic provide the best answers:
After having just shot the President from his workplace, Oswald certainly wasn't going to just hang around the Depository's front stoop and shoot the breeze with Wes Frazier, Bill Shelley, and Billy Lovelady.
Oswald naturally wanted to get the heck out of Dodge as quickly as he could, and since he had no car to take him anywhere, he utilized his own two feet to walk several blocks east of the murder scene, in order to quickly put as much distance between himself and the Depository as he possibly could.
And the fact that he boarded a Marsalis Street bus instead of waiting to board his usual Beckley bus is a real good indication that November 22nd wasn't just an ordinary day for Lee Harvey Oswald. He got on Cecil McWatters' Marsalis bus because it was very likely the first bus he saw as he walked east on Elm Street that day.
And he probably wanted to get off the street as soon as he could too. So he hopped on the first bus to come along (which was, of course, travelling back toward the Depository; but there's no other direction McWatters' bus COULD be travelling, because Elm Street was a one-way street going west; so Oswald had no choice of directions at that point, if he chose to board a vehicle on Elm, which he did).
And the fact that the bus was moving toward the scene of the shooting was probably not a big deal to Oswald at that time. After all, how likely would it be that the police would be stopping and searching every bus and car and cab that was travelling down Elm Street? Not very likely. So Oswald felt safe aboard that bus, even though he knew it would have to pass right through Dealey Plaza (if the traffic jam hadn't impeded its progress).
Now, let me reverse the tables for just a moment here and ask you these questions:
If Lee Oswald had been the totally innocent patsy that so many conspiracy proponents truly believe he was (i.e., he shot nobody on 11/22/63 and was completely unaware of the assassination plot that swirled all around him, which is indeed the type of "innocence" that some CTers advocate for Mr. Oswald--with one of those CTers being veteran Internet forum participant J. Raymond Carroll)....then how can Oswald's actions right after the assassination be explained away?
Why does he do such out-of-the-ordinary things on November 21st and 22nd if, as J. Raymond Carroll and a few others believe, he was a complete and total unwitting patsy/fall guy?
How can a conspiracy theorist like Carroll possibly explain Oswald's unusual Thursday trip to Irving to get those nonexistent "curtain rods"? And the large package that LHO took to work with him on November 22nd? How is Oswald's brown paper package conveniently and "innocently" explained away by the conspiracy theorists (particularly when we KNOW that Oswald told a lie to Buell Wesley Frazier about that package containing curtain rods)?
And what about Oswald leaving the TSBD building within just a few minutes of the assassination? Why did he do that if he's totally snow-white innocent?
And, as you asked, what about the fact Oswald walked several blocks east on Elm right after the shooting took place? Why wouldn't he have just stayed there at the corner of Elm & Houston (at the bus stop on that corner) and waited for his usual Beckley bus to pick him up? Why walk further AWAY from his Oak Cliff destination?
And, indeed, as you also asked, why would he get on the WRONG BUS if he wasn't in a big hurry to get off the streets of Dallas? Why would he do that if he had done nothing he wanted to run away from that day?
More food for "Patsy Oswald" thought, don't you think?
38.) Why did Oswald offer his cab to an old lady if he was escaping the scene of a crime, and why did he take it five blocks past his rooming house?
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
The answer to the first part of your question is, of course, another unknowable. Who knows why Oswald offered to give up the cab? Nobody can know. But, after all, Oswald WAS right there at the Greyhound taxi stand. And there were bound to be more taxis coming and going from that taxi stand in a very short time. And, in fact, we know that another cab pulled up right behind William Whaley's cab when the lady stuck her head in the window.
As to why Oswald took the cab three blocks beyond his roominghouse (it wasn't five blocks beyond, because Oswald was dropped off at the corner of Beckley & Neely, which is the 700 block of Beckley), I think the answer to that is two-fold:
He didn't want cab driver Whaley to be able to tell anybody later exactly where he lived. And, probably of more critical importance to Oswald at the time, he wanted to check the area of his roominghouse for police activity. Oswald would have had no way of knowing how quickly the police would be on his trail, and he certainly didn't want to walk right into the arms of a waiting policeman on his Beckley doorstep.
Yes, it's true that Oswald wouldn't have to have driven three whole blocks beyond his room in order to see if some police were at 1026 N. Beckley, but he might have been thinking that anybody who wanted to surprise the Presidential assassin probably wouldn't be advertising himself by parking his marked police car right in front of 1026 Beckley. Therefore, he wanted to "case" the neighborhood a few blocks away from his room. (IMO, that's what he did.)
I'll once again reverse the tables regarding this question:
If Lee Oswald didn't have anything to hide and wasn't worried about being picked up by the authorities on 11/22/63, then why indeed did he tell William Whaley to drive a few blocks beyond his roominghouse that day?
In the final analysis, doesn't this type of strange behavior on the part of Lee Harvey Oswald on the day the President was shot from Oswald's own workplace lead much more toward Oswald's GUILT than it does his INNOCENCE?
39.) Who gave the DPD the description of the assassin that was broadcast over the police radio at 12:45pm?
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
I touched on this topic in answering Question #33. It was very likely Howard L. Brennan who provided the description that was broadcast on the DPD radio at 12:45. But even if it wasn't Brennan--so what? In fact, I've always kind of liked the idea that maybe it WASN'T Brennan who was responsible for that APB broadcast. Because in that case, as I mentioned before in Question 33, it means that there was yet another (unidentified) person in Dealey Plaza who described the sixth-floor TSBD assassin virtually the same way that Howard Brennan did. Here's the verbatim words that were broadcast over the Dallas Police radio at 12:45 PM CST on November 22, 1963, just fifteen minutes after President Kennedy was shot:
"Attention all squads. The suspect from Elm and Houston is reported to be an unknown white male about thirty, slender build, 5 feet 10 inches tall, 165 pounds, armed with what is thought to be a 30-30 rifle. No further description at this time, or information. 12:45."
Let's compare that description with what Howard Brennan wrote in his 11/22/63 affidavit:
"He was a white man in his early 30's, slender, nice looking, slender and would weigh about 165 to 175 pounds."
Notice any similarities?
Of course, the part about the suspect being armed with a "30-30 rifle" probably didn't come from Brennan, because Brennan didn't know guns at all. So that part of the 12:45 DPD broadcast must have come from a different source entirely. But the description of the assassin is identical to the way Brennan himself described the assassin just a short time later on November 22nd in his Sheriff's Department affidavit.
40.) Who was in the DPD cop car outside Oswald’s rooming house while he was there?
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Bill, you probably should change the title of this list of questions, because the current title of "50 Questions that Can and Should be Answered" is certainly not accurate when it comes to many of the unanswerable questions you've been asking so far -- such as this 40th entry.
Your thread title suggests that this question "can" be answered. Well, it cannot be answered. Nobody knows the answer to it, and it's very likely that nobody will ever know the answer to it.
But when this topic about the police car stopping in front of the Beckley roominghouse comes up, I always like to mention this fact (copied from an earlier Internet post I made on the subject):
"With respect to the horn-honking police car --- it must be kept in mind that Mrs. Roberts testified that it was not unusual at all for a police car to stop in front of the roominghouse and toot its horn. It happened on multiple OTHER days, according to Roberts.
So even if such an occurrence DID take place on November 22nd, it could be looked upon as a NORMAL occurrence, not an ABNORMAL or unusual one.
Or do some conspiracy theorists think that the Dallas Police were so shrewd in their advanced planning of the so-called "Frame-Up" of Lee Harvey Oswald that they had a police car stop in front of 1026 N. Beckley Avenue every so often in the weeks and/or months BEFORE the assassination, just so the car could honk its horn in front of the house...in order to make it look like an ordinary occurrence?
I'd like to know how the conspiracy theorists who think that a police car was "signalling" to Oswald on November 22 can possibly explain away the very same kind of horn-honking which took place at that exact same residence on multiple OTHER days when Presidents WEREN'T being murdered?
When we look at the horn-honking topic from that point-of-view, it makes any 11/22 horn-honking incident seem much less sinister. And if it WAS "sinister", then it's an awfully strange coincidence that the horn was honked ("tip-tip", says Roberts) in the exact same manner in which it was honked by other policemen on OTHER days prior to November 22nd. Wouldn't you agree?"
-- DVP; April 17, 2008
41.) Who was Tippit calling from the Top Ten Records shop phone ten minutes before he was killed?
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
~sigh~
Once again--unanswerable.
How the heck am I supposed to answer these unknowable questions, Bill? How can anybody possibly answer them? How?
42.) Who was the “Oswald” patron at the Top Ten shop and the beer drinking Oswald with the drivers license ID?
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Once more--unanswerable. (I'm detecting a pattern here.)
43.) Why did Tippit stop his assailant?
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
This question also falls under the heading of "unanswerable" (since J.D. Tippit would be the only person who could possibly answer this question, and he was killed by Oswald). But it is an interesting question nonetheless. And I think the probable answer is:
Officer J.D. Tippit, for some reason, was somewhat suspicious of Oswald's movements. And Tippit had certainly heard the radio broadcast about the description of JFK's assassin....and in a general way, Oswald matched that description (slender white male; 5-feet-10, 165 pounds).
I don't think there's any reason whatsoever to think that Oswald was stopped by Tippit for any reason other than the one I just suggested.
44.) Whose wallet was found at the scene [of J.D. Tippit's murder] and examined by officers?
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
It was probably J.D. Tippit's wallet.
More in this 3-part series ---> JFK Archives / Wallets
45.) Who found the jacket under the car and where did the cleaning tag come from?
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Don't know. But we know that Oswald left his roominghouse zipping up a jacket, but he didn't have that jacket on when he was seen about 35 minutes later lurking in the entrance to Johnny Brewer's shoe store. And the jacket was found along the route that was taken by J.D. Tippit's killer.
The math isn't too hard to figure out here, is it?
46.) Who were the IBM employees at the shoe store when Tippit’s assailant came by?
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Is there some reason anybody should care about this?
~shrug~
47.) Who was the “Oswald” guy who entered the theater at around 1 pm who bought a ticket and popcorn?
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Gee, lookie here! Another unanswerable question.
But maybe John "Multiple Oswalds" Armstrong knows the answer. Go ask him.
The remainder of Bill Kelly's laundry list of questions aren't very meaningful or intriguing, and most of them, once again, reside in the "unanswerable" category, and therefore I can't possibly answer them. Except perhaps the question about the disappearance of JFK's brain. The answer there, while unknowable, is that Robert Kennedy, just as the HSCA concluded, very likely disposed of his brother's brain in 1965, in order to keep it from possibly becoming a freak show exhibit at some point in the future.
William Kelly was obviously straining his brain to come up with additional questions to befuddle weak-minded lone-assassin believers like myself. HERE are Bill's remaining questions if anyone wants to see them.
Amazingly, Bill didn't want to ask a single question about the Single-Bullet Theory or JFK's head snap to the rear after the fatal shot. And nothing about the paper bag found in the Sniper's Nest. And not a word about the Parkland Hospital doctors who said they saw a huge hole in the back of JFK's head. Not a word about Jim Garrison either.
Oh well. Maybe Bill will include those questions when he expands his list to 100 someday.
And I guess Bill's question about the IBM employees at the shoe store and the question about where Oswald's leather strap came from and the one about the "McCurley Brothers" are far more important things to ask than any of those things I just mentioned.
~big shrug ~
David Von Pein
September 2013
