WALT CAKEBREAD SAID:
Name ONE piece of evidence that you think is "rock solid" as evidence that Lee [Oswald] murdered JD Tippit. Let's examine it and see how solid it is.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
I'll name fifteen:
1.) The bullet shell found by Barbara Davis in her side yard (which has a chain of custody that even most conspiracy kooks don't gripe about).
2.) The bullet shell found by Virginia Davis in her side yard (which has a chain of custody that even most conspiracy kooks don't gripe about).
3.) Commission Exhibit No. 603, which is one of the four bullets removed from J.D. Tippit's body. According to Illinois firearms expert Joseph D. Nicol, that particular bullet (CE603) positively came out of Lee Harvey Oswald's Smith & Wesson revolver.
Quoting Nicol --- "On specimen...[CE] 603...I found sufficient individual characteristics to lead me to the conclusion that that projectile was fired in the same weapon that fired the projectiles in 606."
4.) William Scoggins positively identified Lee Harvey Oswald as the one and only gunman he saw leaving the scene of Officer Tippit's murder.
5.) Ted Callaway positively identified Lee Harvey Oswald as the gunman he saw leaving the scene of Officer Tippit's murder.
6.) Sam Guinyard positively identified Lee Harvey Oswald as the gunman he saw leaving the scene of Officer Tippit's murder.
7.) Barbara Davis positively identified Lee Harvey Oswald as the gunman she saw dumping bullet shells out of a gun as he cut across her yard immediately after Tippit was shot.
8.) Virginia Davis positively identified Lee Harvey Oswald as the gunman she saw leaving the scene of Tippit's murder on 11/22/63. Virginia Davis, just like Barbara Davis, witnessed Oswald emptying shells out of his gun as he cut through her yard at the corner of Tenth Street and Patton Avenue.
9.) B.M. Patterson positively identified Lee Harvey Oswald as the gunman he saw leaving the scene of Officer Tippit's murder.
10.) Helen Markham positively identified Lee Harvey Oswald as the one and only gunman she saw shoot J.D. Tippit on 11/22/63.
(If needed, I can also add a few more witnesses to this list who positively identified Oswald as he fled the general area of the Tippit murder.)
11.) When arrested in the Texas Theater just 35 minutes after Tippit was killed, Lee Harvey Oswald exhibited behavior that can only be interpreted as the behavior of a person who was guilty of some type of crime. This behavior included pulling a gun on the arresting officer, striking the arresting officer in the face, and uttering one or two verbal statements that reek with guilt. Those statements being "This is it" and/or "It's all over now".
12.) At approximately 1:36 PM CST on 11/22/63, which was approximately 20 to 22 minutes after Officer Tippit had been shot, Lee Harvey Oswald was seen by Johnny Brewer in front of the Hardy's Shoe Store on Jefferson Boulevard, a short distance from the scene of Tippit's murder. Brewer, in his 12/6/63 sworn affidavit, said that Oswald "acted as if he was scared" as he stood in front of the shoe store.
13.) After he was apprehended, Oswald lied to the police when he told them that he had purchased his revolver in Fort Worth, Texas. The police would later learn that Oswald had actually obtained the gun from a Los Angeles, California, mail-order company.
This 13th item, Oswald's blatant and easily provable lie about where he bought the gun, is very powerful "consciousness of guilt" circumstantial evidence. If LHO had been innocent of shooting anyone with that particular Smith & Wesson revolver, then logically he would have had no reason whatsoever to lie to the police about where he purchased that gun.
Oswald, quite obviously, was attempting to distance himself as much as he could from the Tippit murder weapon--even though he knew that he was caught with that murder weapon in his own hands when he was arrested.
I'll end my list with two items that don't prove Lee Oswald shot Officer Tippit, but these things certainly do lead in that direction:
14.) Both shortly before and shortly after J.D. Tippit was shot on Tenth Street in the Dallas suburb of Oak Cliff, Lee Harvey Oswald was seen (on foot) in Oak Cliff. Oswald, shortly before Tippit was murdered, was seen by Earlene Roberts as he quickly left his roominghouse at 1026 North Beckley Avenue. And he was seen (again on foot) by Johnny Brewer on Jefferson Boulevard less than 25 minutes after Tippit was killed.
Brewer told the Warren Commission that Oswald "looked funny to me". Brewer also said that Oswald's "hair was sort of messed up and [he] looked like he had been running, and he looked scared." (7 H 4)
Lee Harvey Oswald just being in the general area of the Tippit murder both shortly BEFORE and just AFTER Tippit was shot is evidence that deserves to be considered very heavily. And the fact that Oswald was carrying a gun during this same period also must be factored into the overall weighing of the evidence too.
Add to this the fact that the gun Oswald was carrying in Oak Cliff on November 22, 1963, was determined by firearms experts to positively be the gun that ended the life of Officer J.D. Tippit. That fact, all by itself, pretty much seals the deal. Oswald shot Tippit. There's no doubt about it.
15.) It is also known that Lee Harvey Oswald went into the Texas Theater without buying a movie ticket. That fact, of course, does not prove LHO shot anybody, but it certainly indicates that Oswald was very anxious to get inside that darkened movie theater just a half-hour after a policeman was killed nearby.
For, if he had not just done something that required him to get off the street very quickly, then why wouldn't he pay for his movie ticket at the box office? He had more than $13 in his pocket, so we know he could have paid for a ticket if he had wanted to do so.
This act of ducking into the theater without purchasing a ticket is another circumstantial piece of evidence that must be considered and weighed when trying to determine whether or not Oswald shot Officer Tippit. And such an act on Oswald's part, occurring less than half-an-hour after Tippit was slain, is certainly an act that leads more toward guilt than it does innocence (especially when weighed in conjunction with items 1 through 14 above).
David Von Pein
January 10, 2012
