DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
How did your make-believe thief get the rifle out of Ruth Paine's garage without being heard or seen?
ANTHONY MARSH SAID:
Oh Master of Illogic, how did Oswald supposedly get the rifle out of Ruth Paine's garage without being heard [or] seen?
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Oswald was staying at the Paine house on Nov. 21 and therefore had easy access to the garage. He wasn't a thief on the outside trying to get in.
And you think it would have been extremely difficult for Oswald to have merely taken his own rifle out of the Paine garage on Friday morning while everyone else in the house was asleep? You think that sleeping people would have noticed Oswald leaving the house with a package in his hands? That's odd.
ANTHONY MARSH SAID:
How did Oswald smuggle his 40-inch rifle into the TSBD without anyone seeing it?
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
He didn't. Wesley Frazier saw it (the large package). And Wesley saw Oswald ENTER THE BUILDING with the package. (See Page 2 of Buell Wesley Frazier's 11/22/63 affidavit for confirmation of this.)
ANTHONY MARSH SAID:
Where did he hide it all morning long so that no one would stumble across it?
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Nobody can answer that question. And it is something I have asked myself too. But the fact we can never know where within the Book Depository Oswald hid his rifle prior to 12:30 PM on 11/22 is certainly not strong evidence that he never took the rifle into the building AT ALL.
Wes Frazier's testimony about seeing LHO take a package INTO THE BACK DOOR OF THE BUILDING, coupled with the fact that Oswald's own Carcano rifle was found on the sixth floor after the assassination, plus the empty brown bag in the Sniper's Nest (with Oswald's prints on it), pretty much make this part of the case easy to figure out. Oswald took his own rifle to work in a paper bag on 11/22/63.
But I can just as easily ask the conspiracy theorists the same two questions Tony Marsh just asked me:
How did THE CONSPIRATORS smuggle Oswald's 40-inch rifle into the TSBD without anyone seeing it?
And:
Where did THE CONSPIRATORS hide it all morning long so that no one would stumble across it?
Any ideas, Tony?
Or do you think that NOBODY brought that Carcano into the TSBD on the MORNING of Nov. 22? Do you think it made its way into the building by way of the police breaking into Ruth Paine's garage on the afternoon of Nov. 22 (but before 1:22 PM) and then the cops rushed the Carcano to the TSBD where it could be conveniently planted behind the boxes on the sixth floor (and then filmed by Tom Alyea before 1:30 PM)?
ANTHONY MARSH SAID:
Looking for the most simplistic solution is not a good way to solve a crime.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Yeah, sure Tony. It's always much much better to muddy the waters by pretending that a whole bunch of unprovable things happened -- like your theory about Oswald's rifle being stolen from Ruth Paine's house.
(Occam is turning over in his grave right now.)
ANTHONY MARSH SAID:
Don't factor in what you can't prove.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Says the man who thinks Oswald's rifle was stolen.
Pot meets kettle--again.
ANTHONY MARSH SAID:
We know that the police lied about what Oswald said.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
We do? How do "we" know this for a fact, Anthony? Please enlighten us.
ANTHONY MARSH SAID:
We don't know that Oswald lied, because they did not record the interviews.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
You say with such certainty that "we know that the police lied about what Oswald said", but one second later you say "we don't know that Oswald lied, because they did not record the interviews".
So, even though we're talking about the very same unrecorded interviews, Tony Marsh is absolutely positive about the DPD telling lies, but he wants to give poor LHO the benefit of the doubt.
Nice double standard there, Tony.
ANTHONY MARSH SAID:
Prove that he [Oswald] did [lie to Buell Wesley Frazier about the contents of the paper bag].
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
The proof that Oswald lied about the curtain rods is the fact that no curtain rods were ever found in the TSBD (and no curtain rods were ever found at Oswald's roominghouse on Beckley).
And I can only assume, Tony, that you don't really think that Oswald took some curtain rods out of the building at about 12:33 PM on Nov. 22 and then he just tossed them in a trash dumpster somewhere between the Depository and 1026 Beckley. Do you?
Or was Roy Truly a liar when he said what he said about curtain rods in CE2640?
Or would you like to pull a DiEugenio and call Buell Frazier a rotten liar? Frazier, as we all know, has never varied his story one bit about the curtain rods. For decades Frazier has told the same story about how Oswald (twice) mentioned "curtain rods" in association with LHO's unusual trip to the Paine home in Irving on Thursday, November 21st.
Do you really think Frazier is a liar, Tony?
ANTHONY MARSH SAID:
It wasn't a large bag. It was a small bag.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
So, you think Frazier DID lie about the bag then, eh Tony? And Linnie Mae Randle must have lied too, because she said she saw Oswald carrying a decent-sized (not "small") bag on the morning of November 22.
Why are you intentionally misrepresenting the evidence, Tony?
ANTHONY MARSH SAID:
We don't know what Oswald said to the police.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Sure we do. We can't know verbatim what Oswald told the police, but we know enough to know that Oswald was positively a big fat liar when it comes to a lot of substantive things associated with the two murder charges he was facing.
And we know for a fact that he was attempting to distance himself from the two murder weapons as much as he could--to the point of Oswald not mentioning the Neely address when he was asked to list all of his previous residences; and to the point where Oswald lied about where he purchased the Tippit murder weapon (even though he was caught red-handed with that gun on him when he was arrested).
ANTHONY MARSH SAID:
Time frame. Maybe he [Oswald] meant [he didn't own a rifle] at that moment [in November 1963].
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
You're reaching, Tony. And you know it. You know damn well that Oswald ordered, paid for, and possessed Carcano rifle #C2766 in 1963. The trail leading to him as the owner of that gun is three miles long.
You, as always, just like to argue about things that are proven facts.
ANTHONY MARSH SAID:
I can't prove it, but it seems likely [that Oswald's rifle was stolen].
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Fantasies are nice, aren't they Tony?
PAT SPEER SAID:
FWIW, David, I looked into this at one point and found...
1) The Paines were Quakers and never locked their garage door. This means the rifle could have been removed or stolen on any night over the last several weeks leading up to 11-22.
2) A cleaning crew and security agency had keys to the school book depository, and would have had access to the building on the nights leading up to 11-22.
3) The seventh floor was mostly unused, with a corner room used as a maintenance shed.
As a consequence, it is entirely possible someone stole the rifle a week or two before the shooting, then had it stashed in the building on the night of 11-21, or earlier. (I've found no evidence the cleaning crew and security guard were even interviewed along these lines. If you find these interviews, let me know, will ya?)
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
How is it even remotely possible for a reasonable and rational person who has been looking deeply into the JFK assassination evidence for several years (like Patrick J. Speer) to utter the above words about Oswald's rifle being stolen from Ruth Paine's home prior to 11/22/63?
The reason I can ask my last question is because of the following questions that I'd like for Pat Speer to answer:
1.) If Lee Oswald was only going to Irving to get some curtain rods, then why did he feel it necessary to go to the Paine house one day earlier than usual on 11/21/63?
2.) Why did Oswald lie (twice) to Buell Frazier about the "curtain rods"? If the bag really had something innocuous in it, then why does Oswald feel the need to lie about the bag's contents (twice) to Frazier (once on Thursday morning and again on Friday morning)?
3.) If not Rifle C2766, then what was in the package that Frazier and Linnie Randle saw Oswald carrying on 11/22/63?
4.) Since every last piece of physical evidence in the JFK and Tippit murder cases points straight to Lee Harvey Oswald, then why do so many conspiracists continually feel the need to paint him as an innocent patsy? Why would ANYONE do that? Just to be contrary?
PAT SPEER SAID:
This is not related to the question of whether or not it was possible someone stole the rifle and put it in the building.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
But those questions are most certainly relevant to THIS PARTICULAR CASE involving Oswald, his rifle, and his actions on November 21-22, 1963.
Sure, theoretically it's POSSIBLE that someone else could have swiped LHO's rifle before the assassination....but given the circumstances as they unfolded involving that rifle's OWNER (a chap named Oswald) on Nov. 21-22, is it REASONABLE to think that the theoretical possibility of some other person stealing Oswald's rifle is the truth in this case?
And, Pat, you know darn well that the four questions I posed in my previous post are reasonable and relevant questions when it comes to answering this big-ticket question:
Did Lee Harvey Oswald take his rifle into the TSBD on 11/22/63?
But you avoided having to deal with the reality of the situation by
merely pasting in the same "This is not related.." response to each of the questions I asked.
PAT SPEER SAID:
But that wasn't the question at hand. I answered truthfully that there were other ways for the rifle to get in the building, and you went into attack mode. .... You attacked me for telling the truth, then, rather than admit you were wrong, you asked a bunch of unrelated questions.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
If you were Oswald's defense lawyer at his murder trial, then, yes, you probably would offer up the anemic argument about the rifle being conveniently stolen without Oswald's knowledge (just as Gerry Spence did at the '86 mock trial in London when he had Ruth Paine on the witness stand).
But a reasonable jury isn't going to buy a single word of that pathetic argument when they hear the other side of the story -- i.e., when they hear the prosecution tell them all about Lee Oswald's own actions...and about the paper bag with Oswald's prints on it (which has never been proven to be a fake)...and about the make-believe "curtain rods"...and about Oswald's continuous lies that he told the police to distance himself as much as possible from the murder weapon...etc.
PAT SPEER SAID:
Well, right there you show the error of your ways. No one has to prove the bag was fake, only that it might be fake. And I've shown that over and over again--starting with the fact [DPD Lieutenant J.C.] Day LIED about signing the bag in the building, and the WC repeated this lie.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
But if you want to talk ONLY about "theoretical possibilities" regarding Mannlicher-Carcano Rifle #C2766 and how it got from Point A (Ruth Paine's garage in Irving, Texas) to Point B (the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository in downtown Dallas), then have a ball.
But given the evidence that says it was Lee Harvey Oswald HIMSELF who removed that rifle from Mrs. Paine's house on 11/22/63, any theory being proposed about Oswald's rifle being stolen is just about as believable as a theory which has Barbara Eden of "I Dream Of Jeannie" using her magic powers to "blink" the rifle from the Paine residence to the Depository.
Deep down, you know my last paragraph above is 100% spot-on accurate....don't you Pat?
PAT SPEER SAID:
No, not at all. First of all, there's no evidence the rifle was even in the house (or garage) on 11/22. Second of all, I find Frazier credible when he describes the bag he saw as a bag less than half the size of the bag in the FBI photos. You're locked onto this idea that the rifle had to have been in the bag, and the bag removed from the building is the one photographed by the FBI. I have no such lock.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Then explain to us how an empty brown paper bag (very similar in color to the one seen by Frazier and Randle), with Oswald's prints on it, ended up right below the window where JFK's assassin was located on 11/22?
Are you really suggesting that the Sniper's Nest bag (CE142), with LHO's prints on it, was a DIFFERENT bag from the one Frazier saw Oswald carrying?
You don't really want to travel down that road--do you, Pat?
Or, as a CT alternative, do you really think that Lt. Day, L.D. Montgomery, and Bob Studebaker (and possibly one other DPD officer) lied when they each said they saw the empty paper bag in the Sniper's Nest just after the assassination (even though it wasn't photographed on the floor)?
JEAN DAVISON SAID:
Excuse me, Pat, but those questions *are* related to the idea that someone stole Oswald's rifle. A stolen rifle has to fit with the rest of the evidence or it's not worthy of belief.
PAT SPEER SAID:
It does. There are a number of pieces of evidence more suggestive of a set-up than guilt. Fibers that appear after the rifle's been dusted for prints. Palm prints uncovered by the DPD after the FBI dusted the rifle and found no prints. A paper bag put into evidence that supposedly held the rifle that bears little resemblance to the bag removed from the building.
I'm not a lawyer, but even I could get Oswald off with evidence as shaky as this. Which might be too bad... IMO, there's a slight possibility Oswald killed Kennedy, but that the DPD and FBI were afraid it wouldn't stick, and fudged up a case against him...mucking it up forevermore.
JEAN DAVISON SAID:
No, that's not what I meant by "fit with the rest of the evidence." Let's not change the subject back to the same-old CT complaints about the WC's case, okay? I'm trying to focus on the weaknesses in the CTs' case, for a change.
If what you propose actually happened, was it just a coincidence that Oswald went to Irving on Thursday, left his wedding ring, and carried a package to work -- a package unusual enough for Frazier to ask Oswald what it was and for his sister to bring it up to the cops?
PAT SPEER SAID:
I have no idea. Oswald might have provided us the answer but he was murdered while under the "protection" of the Dallas Police.
Since Oswald was murdered before he could answer questions 1-3, it is illogical and unfair to assume he had no answers for them.
JEAN DAVISON SAID:
Oswald did answer questions 1-3, according to his interrogators. He said that he went to Irving on Thursday because there was going to be a children's party that weekend (the party had actually taken place the previous weekend). He said that the only package he brought was his lunch, which he kept in the front seat. Either Oswald lied, or these people did.
The theory that Oswald was innocent requires many improbable coincidences and a long, long list of people who lied in order to help frame him. CTs never seem to want to address this problem, though.
[...]
As I said, Oswald did provide an answer during questioning. But let's say those people lied too, and that Oswald had a perfectly good reason for his actions. It doesn't matter! It would STILL be a huge coincidence that Oswald carried out these actions that made him look guilty.
Think about it. What remarkably bad luck it was to bring a package from Irving and leave his wedding ring on the very day that his rifle was found in the TSBD. And his bad day continued. He may've had another perfectly good reason for not watching the motorcade and for being near the back stairs at just the time the sniper would've arrived there if he'd hurried downstairs.
Or maybe Oswald was just incredibly dumb and following orders. In your view, which do you think is more likely -- unlucky or dumb?
I hope you'll answer that. Up to now, those are the only two alternatives to the WC's explanation that CTs have ever come up with, so far as I know.
PAT SPEER SAID:
You seem to be inflicted with the Oswald virgin/whore complex I discussed earlier. He's either unlucky or dumb? Are you kidding me?
JEAN DAVISON SAID:
Certainly not. I'm asking you to give me an explanation for this evidence other than the obvious one -- Oswald went to Irving a day early because his rifle was there. He left his wedding ring, took his rifle to work, shot JFK, then hurried downstairs.
Hundreds of CT books have been written, yet virtually none of them even try to explain it some other way. The reason is obvious: it's hard to do. (It's sort of like trying to give an innocent explanation for the cuts on O.J.'s hands.)
It seems you've chosen the "following orders" alternative. Okay...
PAT SPEER SAID:
Is it really beyond your imagination that Oswald was involved in some sort of plot--let's say a plot to hoist a banner from a sixth floor window calling for co-existence with Cuba (or the opposite--an invasion of Cuba)--and that this was turned against him? Or that he was ordered by Phillips to infiltrate an anti-Castro plot--that turned it around on him? I mean, in this last scenario, do you think Phillips and the CIA would ADMIT Oswald was their man? Really?
Well, seeing as they never told the WC of the plots against Castro, and still refuse to cough up the truth about Joannides, I think it's obvious they would admit no such thing... In the name of national security, etc...
Heck, for all WE know, Oswald is one of the unidentified stars on the CIA's wall. Right by the Alabama National Guardsmen, killed during the Bay of Pigs, who were really working for the CIA, which the government claimed were mercenaries, for years.
JEAN DAVISON SAID:
It's not beyond my imagination at all, but is it plausible? The plotters would have to make certain that Oswald didn't manage to establish an alibi for himself. How would they do that? (The one and only CT explanation I've read is that Oswald was ordered to hide in the second floor bathroom while the motorcade went by. Really??)
What would prevent LHO from blurting out the truth after his arrest? It doesn't sound likely to me, and there's no evidence that this is what happened, is there?
PAT SPEER SAID:
Well, how about Thomas Kelley, who testified about the May 24 SBT re-enactment for the Secret Service? He testified that the horizontal trajectory worked because Connally's jump seat was six inches inboard of the back seat, when the schematics released by the HSCA showed it to be 2 1/2 inches.
JEAN DAVISON SAID:
Every witness and every investigator was fallible, so the default explanation ought to be "mistake," not "lie."
The WR didn't even use Kelley's "six inches inboard," apparently. It said:
"Even though the precise distance cannot be ascertained, it is apparent that President Kennedy was somewhat to the Governor's right." [WR; Page 105]
PAT SPEER SAID:
So, let's be clear, do you think Specter was telling the whole truth when, AFTER viewing the back wound photo, he nevertheless supported the accuracy of the Rydberg drawings in both Kelley's testimony, and the Warren Report? Or was this just a little over-sight?
JEAN DAVISON SAID:
I don't follow you. At one point Kelley said that the chalk mark was based on the drawing *and* the hole in JFK's coat, and clearly the chalk mark is much closer to the hole in the coat (and to the actual back wound) than the inaccurate Rydberg drawing was.
The SBT requires that the wound be where it actually was -- in the upper back, not in the neck itself. It's a myth that the wound was "moved up" or that it needed to be.
[...]
How many liars were there? Specter, Kelley, Shaneyfelt, Cunningham, Eisenberg, Gallagher, Lt. Day, the men who said the bag was found in the SN... who am I forgetting?
JOHN CORBETT SAID:
The CTs really have two choices to make the case for conspiracy. One would be to accept Oswald's obvious guilt but make the case that he had accomplices. The other is to claim Oswald was just a patsy, which makes a de facto case for conspiracy. The former would seem to be the obvious way to go but since they can't find any compelling evidence to link Oswald to any group or individuals, they resort to the second choice which forces them to argue that the physical evidence was all tampered with to make poor innocent LHO look guilty. Never mind that it would take a cast of hundreds if not thousands to pull that one off.
PAT SPEER SAID ALL THIS.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
After reading Pat Speer's last post, I think I'll merely repeat my earlier question (which will always be valid whenever discussing the JFK case with conspiracy theorists):
"Since every last piece of physical evidence in the JFK and Tippit murder cases points straight to Lee Harvey Oswald, then why do so many conspiracists continually feel the need to paint him as an innocent patsy? Why would ANYONE do that? Just to be contrary?" -- DVP; 4/10/12
PAT SPEER SAID:
Thanks, David, I'll take that as a clear admission on your part that you agree Specter lied--but that you just don't care. Most LNs--for some strange reason--tend to look at the assassination as strictly a matter of whodunnit. They think Oswald did it and that's all that matters. My interest in the case transcends "whodunnit" and extends to how was it investigated and did the government LIE. The answer is clearly YES, we were lied to, over and over.
At this point in time, moreover, that clear-cut fact is far more important than Oswald's guilt or innocence.
PAT SPEER ALSO SAID:
Open your eyes, David. The wound was on [JFK's] back.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
And the wound is on the stand-in's back in CE903 too. So, as I asked before--why are conspiracy theorists complaining?
You seem to still want to believe that Specter's pointer has the entry wound way up in the neck someplace. Why do you continue to believe that, Pat?
DAVID VON PEIN ALSO SAID:
Pat,
Do you REALLY think that there is a huge difference in the back-wound locations in the two photos shown below?
Do you really think Specter's rod is NOT in just about the same place as the real wound in JFK's upper back (as seen in the righthand picture)?
The level of the wounds in both pictures is pert-near identical. JFK's real wound in the center of his upper back is situated very near the top of his shoulders, just where Specter has it in CE903.
Anyone looking at these two photographs side-by-side who still thinks that Specter's rod isn't even close to the real wound is, frankly, a fool:
David Von Pein
April 10-16, 2012
