JFK ASSASSINATION ARGUMENTS
(PART 1353)


DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

For many years now, a claim made by JFK assassination conspiracy theorists has been that the initials of FBI agent Elmer Lee Todd were not present on the bullet (Warren Commission Exhibit No. 399) that was found on a Parkland Hospital stretcher shortly after President Kennedy was shot on November 22, 1963.

But it has now been proven that Elmer Todd's initials are on Bullet CE399. This proof arrived in 2022 and was supplied by assassination researcher Steve Roe, whose article concerning this matter, entitled "The Unfounded Attack on CE 399’s Chain of Custody", was published online at the Washington Decoded website on June 11, 2022. The article can be found HERE and HERE.

That article by Steve Roe contains new high-definition photographs of CE399, including the picture below, which clearly shows that the initials "ET" (Elmer Todd) have been scratched into the surface of the bullet near the nose, which is precisely where Elmer Todd himself said in Commission Document No. 7 he had etched his initials:



So, with Mr. Roe's definitive discovery of Elmer Lee Todd's initials on that crucial and long-maligned piece of assassination-related evidence known as Commission Exhibit 399, it should forever put to rest yet another long-standing (and inaccurate) argument that has been made by conspiracy theorists—the argument that Todd's initials are nowhere to be found on CE399.


VINCE PALAMARA SAID [HERE AND HERE]:

I must admit that I see the "ET" right away and am stunned others who saw the bullet in person missed it...if it was truly there for many decades.

[...]

That "E" and "T" look mighty big (and awkward) to have been missed by ANYONE all these years. A clumsy, awkward late addition?


DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

I think Vince needs to take into consideration the fact that the photograph that contains the "ET" marking on CE399 is a picture of the bullet that has been zoomed-in and enlarged considerably in order to highlight the "ET" area being focused on.

In order to put the actual size of the bullet into better perspective, here's a montage photo I created that shows on the left side a human hand holding Commission Exhibit 399 and on the right is the new hi-def photo of the nose end of the bullet with Elmer Todd's initials:


CLICK TO ENLARGE:



I think it's clear when looking at the "bullet in the hand" photo on the left that those "ET" initials occupy a very very small amount of space at the nose end of that bullet.

The full length of a Mannlicher-Carcano bullet like CE399 is only about 1.2 inches (per the Warren Commission testimony of FBI firearms examiner Robert A. Frazier). So the actual size of Elmer Todd's "ET" mark on the bullet must surely be measured in mere millimeters.

So perspective plays a huge role in explaining why Todd's markings look so large to Vincent Palamara.


DAVID VON PEIN LATER SAID:

During the last several years, conspiracy believer James DiEugenio has many times made a big deal out of Elmer Todd's initials in my discussions with him. When a search is performed at my JFK Archives website for "Elmer Todd" and "James DiEugenio" and "CE399", several separate discussions pop up:

http://JFK-Archives.blogspot.com/Search Terms= Elmer Todd + James DiEugenio + CE399

Sample argument from October 3, 2012:

ROBERT HARRIS -- "Those initials [of FBI agent Elmer Todd] are not on CE399."

DAVID VON PEIN -- "Yes, they are. You just can't see them in the NARA photos."

JAMES DiEUGENIO -- "This has now gone beyond absurdity. Davey Boy, everyone here is still waiting for you to put your money where your mouth is. Something you never ever do. In other words...go to Travelocity, book a flight and a hotel room, and go ahead and do what you have been saying you would do for ages: Prove John Hunt is a liar."

DAVID VON PEIN -- "Yeah, right, Jimbo. Like the NARA is going to allow me to just waltz right in and examine CE399. Get real. Fact is: John Hunt DID NOT examine the bullet itself. He examined the same photos that have been posted in this very thread. And those photos (as good as they might be) are not definitive proof that Todd did not mark CE399. Plus: There are TWO separate (and corroborating) official FBI documents that tell us that Elmer Todd DID mark the bullet (CD7 and CE2011). And CD7 confirms that Todd marked the bullet on the day of the assassination itself. Spit on those records if you want to; call them fake if you want to (and you do want to, naturally). But I'm not willing to do so. Period."

Now back to 2022:

Mr. DiEugenio now has no choice but to drop the "Todd's Initials Aren't On The Bullet" argument. Or maybe he'll say the initials were faked and added by somebody other than Todd. Ya think?


MARTIN WEIDMANN SAID:

Why are you posting about your interactions with Jim DiEugenio when he's not a member here?


DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

Why not?

Plus:

Any time a chance exists to make a longtime conspiracy clown look even more like a clown---why should such an opportunity go to waste? 😁


MARTIN WEIDMANN SAID:

Yeah, I thought it was something sick like that. Posting stuff about somebody who isn't a member and thus won't reply.

Weak, pathethic, underhand[ed] and exactly what I would expect from a LN weasel.

You've told us just about everything we need to know about you and it isn't pretty.

It's one thing to simply disagree about the facts of this case. That would be civil. This, on the other hand, isn't. Anything but!


DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

^^^^ From the desk of Saint Martin. ^^^^


MARTIN WEIDMANN SAID:

Said the clown who is posting this crap.

Pretty obvious who is the Saint and who is the low life.

Which makes me wonder why this is so important to you. All this went down nearly sixty years ago and nowadays only a small minority is even interested. The rest are so ignorant that all they know (if they know anything at all) that Kennedy was killed by some guy shooting from a building. So, what in the world motivates you to conduct a bogus propaganda campaign against a guy who died nearly sixty years ago and who may or may not have killed Kennedy?

Get a life, will ya.


DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

The silly part about my conducting "a bogus propaganda campaign" is, of course, complete and utter nonsense, but as for my motivation....




MARTIN WEIDMANN SAID:

The world can do without your biased opinions.


DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

But we certainly could never do without yours, right?




MARTIN WEIDMANN SAID:

You are no authority on the Kennedy murder.


DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

And I have never once ever said I was. Ever.


MARTIN WEIDMANN SAID:

It's funny though that you apparently seem to want to explain what your motivation is for not conducting the propaganda campaign you clearly are conducting. What a joke.


DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

I just follow the actual evidence in the case, Martin. That's all. (You know, that's the stuff that most conspiracists have chosen to mangle, skew, or just plain ignore.)

And just because I choose to believe that the evidence in the case has not all been faked and/or manufactured (and therefore my belief is that Lee Oswald was not "just a patsy"), I am accused of "conducting a bogus propaganda campaign".

Beautiful.




MARTIN WEIDMANN SAID:

You just collect some videos and have an opinion.


DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

And my OPINION is to be considered a "bogus propaganda campaign", but your OPINION, however, is not to be considered "propaganda" in the slightest way. Is that it, St. Martin?

Beautiful.

PROPAGANDA (noun) --- Information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view.

Reprise ---->


Bonus Breath Of Fresh Air....

"It is remarkable that these conspiracy theorists aren't troubled in the least by their inability to present any evidence that Oswald was set up and framed. For them, the mere belief or speculation that he was is a more-than-adequate substitute for evidence." -- Vincent T. Bugliosi



MARTIN WEIDMANN SAID:

No. You selectively follow the evidence and deliberately ignore all the problems with that evidence.

You can believe whatever you want. The difference between your opinion and mine is that I am in no way trying to convince anybody of anything, where you have blogs (where you misrepresent and manipulate other people's postings on forums like this) and You Tube channels to desperately try to convince as many people as you can that there was no conspiracy. That's why you run a bogus propaganda campaign and I don't.


DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

I strongly disagree with your "deliberately ignore all the problems with that evidence" and "bogus propaganda" and "misrepresent and manipulate" assessments. I do not believe I belong in those categories at all. But everybody is entitled to have their own opinions. And yours are duly noted.


REPLAY....
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

I just follow the actual evidence in the case, Martin. That's all.


JOHN IACOLETTI SAID:

Given that 19 or your 21 items of “Oswald killed JFK evidence” [on this DVP webpage] are not evidence at all, that is patently absurd.


DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

And how many of Vincent Bugliosi's 53 pieces of evidence would you say are "not evidence at all"? I'm just a little curious to know if any CTer thinks ANY of The VB 53 qualifies as "evidence" or not. Start with Vincent's first 20 items, which are listed HERE.


OTTO BECK SAID:

The list shows how straight-up desperate whackjob Vince was and each of them can be dismissed in 5 seconds by anyone with basic knowledge of the case.

Like #17: there is zero evidence of Oswald ever boarding a bus to whatever rooming house he allegedly lived at.

Embarrassing to even post that link.


DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

Yeah, I knew that's what all broken-record Internet CTers would say.

Thanks for not disappointing me, Otto. (I hope John does the same.) [He did....here.]

You continue the rich CT tradition of Not Getting It.

And I guess this item below qualifies as "zero evidence" too, eh? (Undoubtedly planted, like everything else, right?)....




OTTO BECK SAID:

How would the Marsalis bus take him to his rooming house?


DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

It wouldn't. And, of course, that very fact is part of the "Oswald's Change In Behavior" point that Vince Bugliosi was making in that 17th item in his "Summary Of Oswald's Guilt" book chapter:

"17. After exiting the front door of the Book Depository Building, if Oswald hadn't just murdered the president but still wanted to go home, he only had to turn left on the sidewalk in front of the building, cross Houston, and wait for the Beckley bus, which stopped at the northeast corner of Houston and Elm. This is the same bus that he took every weekday to and from work. .... But instead of waiting at the bus stop at Houston and Elm for his Beckley bus, Oswald walked past the bus stop and continued walking east on Elm, apparently wanting to get as far away as he could and looking for the very first Oak Cliff bus that came along, eventually boarding the Marsalis bus, which was proceeding westbound on Elm about seven blocks from the Book Depository Building. But the closest the Marsalis bus could possibly take him to where he lived was Marsalis and Fifth Street, requiring him, if he had stayed on the bus, to walk five blocks to the west and one block north to get to his home. Why would Oswald take a bus that he knew couldn't take him closer than a half mile from his home (when he knew
the next bus, the Beckley bus, would take him to his front door) if he weren't
in a frenzied flight from the scene of where he had done something terrible?"

-- Vincent Bugliosi; Page 959 of "Reclaiming History"


JOHN IACOLETTI SAID:

And even if Oswald did board a bus, how is that evidence of murder?

It's evidence of murder when you don't have actual evidence of murder.


OTTO BECK SAID:

Well, as I understand the argument, it was the way he boarded the bus as opposed to his every day way of boarding the bus, of which no evidence is provided, that proves his guilt. LOL


DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

The key part of that "bus" item that CTers will apparently never grasp is that Oswald, on Nov. 22, decided he would walk several blocks east of his workplace to catch a bus, instead of just waiting for his Beckley Avenue bus at the bus stop which is located right on the corner of Elm & Houston. (And isn't it fairly reasonable to conclude that on days other than 11/22/63 [not counting Fridays when he went to Irving with Buell Frazier] Oswald very likely DID board his bus at the bus stop at Elm and Houston Streets? I'd say so.)


OTTO BECK SAID:

No, it's beyond stupid to expect Oswald to hang out on that street corner for the next hour, waiting to be recognised and picked up by the police.


DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

Exactly.

And it's nice to see an Internet CTer actually admitting that Sweet Patsy Lee Harvey Oswald must have done at least something illegal on November 22, otherwise why would he be the slightest bit concerned about being "picked up by the police"?

Thanks for that admission, Otto.

At least Otto proves via the above comment that he doesn't believe in Oswald's complete innocence like many CTers do.


DAVID VON PEIN ALSO SAID:

Several of the items on Vincent Bugliosi's 53-item list are things similar in nature to that "bus" item—i.e., things which emphasize the Change In Behavior that Oswald exhibited on November 21st and 22nd, 1963. And, IMO, that type of circumstantial "evidence" should most definitely be included when constructing a list like the ones prepared by Vince Bugliosi and myself.


PAUL J. CUMMINGS SAID:

Who are these CT'ers that believe Oswald is completely innocent?


DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

Well, as of 1988 at least, it would appear as though Jim Garrison was one such CTer. Here's what he said in '88:

"Lee Oswald was totally, unequivocally, completely innocent of the assassination .... and the fact that history, or in the re-writing of history, disinformation has made a villain out of this young man who wanted nothing more than to be a fine Marine .... is in some ways the greatest injustice of all." -- Jim Garrison; Spoken during an on-camera interview for the A&E Cable-TV mini-series "The Men Who Killed Kennedy" (Part 4; "The Patsy") (1988)

And there was also a CTer named J. Raymond Carroll, plus several other people I've talked to over the years online that have at least given me the impression that they believed Oswald was snow-white innocent on 11/22.


MARTIN WEIDMANN SAID:

We don't know if he [Oswald] was concerned about being picked up by the police. Even if he wasn't concerned about that, why would he hang around to wait for a bus that, due to what was going on, wouldn't probably come for some time?

But while we are on the subject of doing stupid things:

Why would a guy, who allegedly is on the run, not jump [on] the next bus out of town and instead take a taxi (being willing to give it up for a woman) and then, after a brief visit to his rooming house, walk down to a dead go-nowhere street in the middle of a suburban area? That's something no LN have even been able to provide a plausible or believable answer for. What in the world is a guy on the run doing there and why was he in such a hurry to get there?


DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

Which begs an obvious question: Why was Oswald in such a hurry to leave the Depository in the first place on Nov. 22?

And why wasn't he the slightest bit interested in hanging around and seeing what all the commotion was all about?

He had literally a front-row seat for all the "action" surrounding the Book Depository immediately after the President was shot, and what does he want to do? He wants to get the heck out of the area as soon as humanly possible and go to a movie. Not logical at all---unless he's the assassin (or at the very least, he's guilty of being involved in some way in the murder that has just taken place on Elm Street).

Under those latter conditions of guilt, then Oswald's actions (fleeing the TSBD, going to his roominghouse to get his revolver, killing policeman J.D. Tippit, and then ducking into a dark movie theater without paying for the cheap ticket) all make perfect sense to me.

As for Lee Oswald's destination after leaving the TSBD --- We'll never know for certain of course, but some people have speculated that Oswald was on his way to General Walker's house to try and finish the job he failed to complete in April.

It could also be that Oswald didn't have any kind of an "escape plan" at all. Maybe he was just in a mad desperate flight after he made it out of the Depository alive, without any real focus or destination in mind at all. Perhaps he was surprised that he managed to get out of the building alive.

The inner workings of the mindset and thoughts of a Presidential assassin are, indeed, difficult to contemplate and discern. Especially when the authorities only had 48 hours to get any answers out of him.


DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

Getting back to the topic of Elmer Todd's initials on Commission Exhibit 399...

I created this comparison "montage" showing the National Archives [NARA] and National Institute of Standards and Technology [NIST] versions of CE399, with my montage below including a clearer version of the NARA photo [when compared to this version created by Pat Speer]. I can't really see the "T" (or the "E") in the NARA picture. It's just too indistinct to make out in the NARA version, IMO.


CLICK TO ENLARGE:



DAVID VON PEIN LATER SAID:

FYI / FWIW....

Here's yet another "montage" photo that I just now created---this time depicting a different NARA photo of CE399 from the ones presented earlier.

And this is quite frustrating, because the area of the bullet which most definitely does contain the "ET" initials of FBI agent Elmer Todd is most certainly shown in this NARA image below---just to the right of the "K" in Charles Killion's initials. And Killion's "K" is easily discernible in both photos, indicating that Killion dug deeper into the bullet's surface with his marking than did Todd, because I can't see a trace of Todd's "E" or "T".

This only tends to emphasize the point I have made many times over the last 10 or more years --- i.e., that Todd's initials are most certainly on the bullet, but the NARA photos just aren't clear or pristine enough to capture those initials.

I enlarged the NARA pic in this montage below. To see the same photo in its original (non-enlarged) condition, go here.


CLICK TO ENLARGE:


David Von Pein
June 11-16, 2022
June 29, 2022









THE INITIALS OF FBI AGENT ELMER TODD ARE ON COMMISSION EXHIBIT 399


DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

For many years now, a claim made by JFK assassination conspiracy theorists has been that the initials of FBI agent Elmer Lee Todd were not present on the bullet (Warren Commission Exhibit No. 399) that was found on a Parkland Hospital stretcher shortly after President Kennedy was shot on November 22, 1963.

Conspiracists such as James DiEugenio (among others) have made this claim even though the FBI agent in question (Elmer Todd) wrote up a report on 11/22/63 specifically saying that he had, indeed, etched his initials into the nose of the bullet:





Here's a conversation I had with DiEugenio in July 2015 concerning the topic of CE399 and Todd's initials:


JAMES DiEUGENIO -- "Todd's initials are not on the bullet."

DAVID VON PEIN -- "FBI Agent Elmer Todd most certainly marked Bullet CE399. It's just that the pictures of the bullet don't show the markings very well at all. And even Frazier's and Cunningham's and Killion's initials are very hard to discern. But Commission Document No. 7 proves enough (to me) to indicate that Elmer Todd marked bullet CE399."

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

And five years earlier, in August of 2010, I had this exchange with Jim DiEugenio:


JAMES DiEUGENIO -- "[John] Hunt then brought magnifying glasses and a computer scanner to visually inspect the documents, the bullet, and the photos at very close range and under magnification. Does anyone truly believe that he could not locate Todd's initials under those circumstances?"

DAVID VON PEIN -- "Yes, I do. ALL of the markings that John Hunt found on Bullet CE399 from the NARA photos are very faint and quite difficult to see and discern. I can easily envision Todd's faint mark on that bullet being overlooked."

JAMES DiEUGENIO -- "So let me ask you, if Todd's marks were on the bullet, would John [Hunt] not have been able to see them and arrow them as easily as he did the others? Right?"

DAVID VON PEIN -- "No, not necessarily. Perhaps Todd's initials are fainter than the other FBI agents' marks. What we DO know is this: CE2011 verifies for all time that Elmer L. Todd SAW HIS OWN INITIALS on Commission Exhibit 399 (or "C1", which is what the FBI called the bullet in June 1964, via CE2011)."

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

And one more for good measure (from October 2012):


ROBERT HARRIS -- "Those initials [of FBI agent Elmer Todd] are not on CE399."

DAVID VON PEIN -- "Yes, they are. You just can't see them in the NARA photos."

JAMES DiEUGENIO -- "This has now gone beyond absurdity. Davey Boy, everyone here is still waiting for you to put your money where your mouth is. Something you never ever do. In other words...go to Travelocity, book a flight and a hotel room, and go ahead and do what you have been saying you would do for ages: Prove John Hunt is a liar."

DAVID VON PEIN -- "Yeah, right, Jimbo. Like the NARA is going to allow me to just waltz right in and examine CE399. Get real. Fact is: John Hunt DID NOT examine the bullet itself. He examined the same photos that have been posted in this very thread. And those photos (as good as they might be) are not definitive proof that Todd did not mark CE399. Plus: There are TWO separate (and corroborating) official FBI documents that tell us that Elmer Todd DID mark the bullet (CD7 and CE2011). And CD7 confirms that Todd marked the bullet on the day of the assassination itself. Spit on those records if you want to; call them fake if you want to (and you do want to, naturally). But I'm not willing to do so. Period."

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

Well, as it turns out, I was correct when I said over the years that Elmer Todd's initials are on Bullet CE399. And this fact was proven beyond any doubt whatsoever in 2022 by JFK assassination researcher Steve Roe, whose article concerning this matter, entitled "The Unfounded Attack on CE 399’s Chain of Custody", was published online at the Washington Decoded website on June 11, 2022. The article can be found at THIS LINK.

That article by Steve Roe contains new high-definition photographs of CE399, including the picture below, which clearly shows that the initials "ET" (Elmer Todd) have been scratched into the surface of the bullet near the nose, which is precisely where Elmer Todd himself said in Commission Document No. 7 he had etched his initials:



So, with Mr. Roe's definitive discovery of Elmer Lee Todd's initials on that crucial and long-maligned piece of assassination-related evidence known as Commission Exhibit 399, it should forever put to rest yet another long-standing (and inaccurate) argument that has been made by conspiracy theorists—the argument that Todd's initials are nowhere to be found on CE399.

Because as everyone can easily see via the above high-quality photograph, Mr. Todd's markings are most certainly present and accounted for on that bullet.

For more posts and articles concerning Bullet CE399's "chain of custody", click on the links below:







David Von Pein
June 11-14, 2022


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


ALSO SEE:










JFK ASSASSINATION ARGUMENTS
(PART 1352)


DAVID VON PEIN SAID ALL THIS.


JOHN IACOLETTI SAID:

What’s with the childish “Jimbo” stuff, David?


DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

That's due to the fact that DiEugenio was constantly referring to me as "Davy". So I would often reciprocate with Jimbo or Jimmy. Fair is fair, right?

And why don't you ask Jim about his childish way of referring to Ruth Paine. He would regularly attempt to demean her by calling her "Ruthy" and even "Ruthy baby". I just want to slap him silly when he does that.

I sure do wish Ruth would sue some of these crackpot CTers for slander before she leaves this Earth.


JOHN IACOLETTI SAID:

Do you honestly not find it odd as to why Ruth needed to make an annotation in her calendar about this [Oswald's rifle purchase] at all, much less on the October page?


DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

She didn't do it on the October calendar page. It was on her March page, which was the appropriate page for such a notation.

Was it odd? Well, I think it's even odder for CTers to think Ruth could be as stupid as they apparently do think she was. (See this discussion for my thoughts on this.)


JOHN IACOLETTI SAID:

And where does March 20 come from anyway, when the alleged purchase was on March 12?


DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

Again, see my last post. Ruth got the March 20 date from the news media (from Jesse Curry's Nov. 23rd hallway press gatherings).

Yes, the purchase date was March 12th, but Curry was referring to the shipping date, which was March 20th (which is the date that is shown on the "Waldman No. 7" internal Klein's form). Nothing sinister about that at all. But CTers think otherwise (naturally).


JOHN IACOLETTI SAID:

And if suspicions about someone do not equal facts, then there goes your entire case against Oswald. Nice job!


DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

Attaboy, John! Just keep pretending that I have nothing at all to go on but "suspicions" and a gut feeling that Oswald was guilty, as you totally ignore (or deem as all fake) all of this stuff which hangs your favorite patsy twenty times over.


JOHN IACOLETTI SAID:

“All this stuff” which is mostly a series of suspicions and gut feelings. Like a wedding ring in a cup.


DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

Yeah, John, just ignore the "stuff" like the rifle, the Tippit murder, Oswald's prints all over the Sniper's Nest, the paper bag in the Nest, the C2766 bullet shells in the Nest, the C2766 bullet fragments in the limousine, the many lies that Oswald told to the police....etc., etc.

Are all of those things on my list to be categorized as merely "suspicions" and "gut feelings" as well?

Conspiracy believers who think Oswald was a patsy on 11/22/63 will lose the "Evidence" battle every time. And that's because the evidence that exists in the JFK and Tippit cases will forever continue to prove that Lee Harvey Oswald was, in fact, a double-murderer.


JOHN IACOLETTI SAID:

Yes. Not a single one of those things tells you anything about who shot Kennedy — even if the shells and the fragments had been properly handled as evidence. And the only reason you consider what he allegedly told police to be “lies” is because you think he did it. How circular.

P.S. *what* “paper bag in the nest”? The dotted line in the police photo? 😁


DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

This, folks, is called Denial (a common malady amongst conspiracy fantasists). The biggest example of which can be seen HERE.


JERRY FREEMAN SAID:

Am I the only one who wonders how it is that the weapons (though ordered supposedly around 8-9 weeks apart) could have been shipped on the same exact day from seemingly opposite ends of the country?


DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

Oswald very likely mailed both of the forms (for the rifle and the revolver) at the same time on March 12th, even though he wrote "January 27" on the Seaport Traders order form.


JERRY FREEMAN SAID:

Was there not a record of the orders received and processed?


DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

Sure there was. But that doesn't tell us exactly WHEN Oswald dropped the revolver order in the mail. Seaport didn't save a microfilmed copy of the postmarked envelope like Klein's did. So we can only guess as to when Oswald mailed the Seaport form. But since we know the Seaport form got to L.A. on the exact same day as the Klein's order (March 13) and was shipped the exact same day as the Klein's order (March 20), it's probably a good guess to say that he dropped both order forms in a mailbox on March 12th.


JOHN IACOLETTI SAID:

“We” don’t know when these orders were received.


DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

Yes we do. Both were received on March 13, 1963, as proven by the dates on the internal forms....

KLEIN'S and SEAPORT TRADERS INC.


JERRY FREEMAN SAID:

But were those not order shipping dates and not order received dates?


DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

Both dates (March 13 and 20) are on both invoices (Klein's & Seaport).


JOHN IACOLETTI SAID:

Sorry Dave, but neither of these documents tells you when the orders arrived.


DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

It depends on what you mean by "When the orders arrived". Are you talking about when the order forms arrived at Klein's & Seaport?


JOHN IACOLETTI SAID:

Yes.

These documents do not tell you that.


DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

Yes they do.


JOHN IACOLETTI SAID:

How? All they tell you is when the orders were processed.


DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

And the Klein's order was MAILED the previous day, March 12. Which is, of course, one of the main reasons why CTers like to call the Klein's evidence "fake". They think it couldn't have arrived in Chicago and be processed in one day. But, as usual, the CTers are dead wrong. [See this link.]

So the Klein's order was most certainly RECEIVED by Klein's on March 13, just as the stamped date indicates on Waldman #7. And, yes, I'm ASSUMING the Seaport order was also mailed on March 12, due to the "March 13" invoice date on the Seaport internal form.

But, since coincidences like that aren't impossible, I suppose it is possible that Oswald put the revolver order in the mail on January 27 (to match the date he himself wrote on the order form), and then Seaport Traders in L.A. just let Oswald's order sit around for 6 or 7 weeks until they finally got around to processing it. But I kinda doubt that silly scenario is the truth. Don't you?


JERRY FREEMAN SAID:

Also...re this link....

I have never heard of this Rob't Prudhomme before but he is not my spokesman nor is he a spokesperson for all skeptics everywhere.


DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

And I never said that he was. I just said it was the biggest example of CTers being in denial that I can think of. When you skip down deeper into that discussion, that's when the SBT Denial really starts to take shape. It's quite remarkable....and humorous.


JERRY FREEMAN SAID:

You forgot to add that the shipments and/or notice to acquire arrived on the same day too.


DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

I have no idea why you're saying this. AFAIK, there's nothing in the records to show exactly what date the Seaport revolver or the Klein's rifle arrived at the post office. What are you basing your above comment on? [Jerry's answer.]

But even if you are correct on this, why would it be surprising to you at all? Since we know that both guns were shipped to Oswald's P.O. Box on the very same day, then why couldn't they easily have both arrived at the Dallas post office on the same day? That probably should have happened given those circumstances.


JOHN IACOLETTI SAID:

I can’t think of a more blatant example of denial than the notion that a wedding ring in a cup constitutes evidence of murdering the president.


DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

The fact that Oswald left his wedding ring behind at the Paine house on the morning of November 22nd (something he had never done before) is most definitely one of the pieces of circumstantial evidence that leads in the direction of Oswald's guilt. Only a staunch CTer would think otherwise.

But I'm not surprised that hardened conspiracists are unable to admit that such a change in Oswald's behavior is indicative of LHO's guilt. Just as no CTer on Earth will admit that Oswald's first-ever Thursday trip to Irving or his carrying a large-ish paper bag into the TSBD on 11/22 and lying about the contents of that bag to Buell Frazier are significant things at all. All of these things just roll off the backs of the conspiracy crowd. And most of the time CTers just simply ignore all of this important stuff. Just like Oliver Stone did in his 1991 movie. Which are just more examples of CTer Denial At Its Finest.


DAVID VON PEIN ALSO SAID:

An appropriate addendum to my last post....

"Oliver Stone, in his movie 'JFK', never saw fit to present for his audience's consideration one single piece of evidence that Oswald killed Kennedy! So a murder case (the Kennedy assassination) where there is an almost unprecedented amount of evidence of guilt against the killer (Oswald) is presented to millions of moviegoers as one where there wasn't one piece of evidence at all. There oughta be a law against things like this." -- Vincent Bugliosi


MARTIN WEIDMANN SAID:

Pray tell, what in the world is so important about any of these events, when you can't even offer a scintilla of evidence that there was a rifle in Ruth Paine's garage on 11/21/63. What, if anything, do you think CTs are missing here?


DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

CTers are missing the whole boat, Martin. (As usual.)


MARTIN WEIDMANN SAID:

That's not an answer. It's a cop out.

If you want to whine about CTs being in denial (as you are) you should at least be able to explain what you think it is they are missing.

I can explain exactly where I think your arguments are flawed and incorrect. You should be able to do likewise, don't you think? If not, then you are the one who is actually in denial.


DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

It's a simple matter of being able to add up and reasonably evaluate the evidence (including Lee Oswald's very important actions and movements on both November 21 and 22).

IMO, conspiracy theorists never seem to want to do this "adding up" of the evidence at all. They want to keep everything isolated. And by doing that, they (of course) can say things like:

How can a ring in a cup mean anything at all?

and

Oswald's unusual trip to Irving on a Thursday is irrelevant

and

Just because Oswald went home to get a pistol on 11/22 doesn't prove anything.

But when all these things (and many others) are placed together in the same basket, I think it becomes quite clear that Lee Oswald was not (and could not have been) anybody's innocent patsy on November 22, 1963.

What I want to know is:

Why won't the conspiracy theorists of the world invest in a cheap calculator and start to logically add up the evidence that exists in the JFK and J.D. Tippit murder cases?

Please....buy that calculator!


MARTIN WEIDMANN SAID:

Adding up evidence is fine. I have no problem with that, but there is a difference between actual evidence and mere assumptions.

The trip to Irving is a good example. If (and that's a very big if) there was a rifle in Ruth Paine's garage on 11/21/63, then Oswald's unscheduled trip to Irving, him carrying a paper bag on Friday morning and perhaps even him leaving his wedding ring behind can indeed add up to something significant and of evidentiary value.

The problem is though that there is not a shred of evidence there was in fact a rifle in Ruth Paine's garage on 11/21/63, which means that all you are adding up is nothing more than assumptions about benign events that could otherwise be explained.

It's all well and good to make one assumption after another and then add them up, but with enough assumptions you can get anybody convicted of anything.

And btw, I already have that calculator and it tells me things simply do not add up.


DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

Oh come on, Martin! You can't possibly believe this statement you just wrote (can you?)....

"The problem is though that there is not a shred of evidence there was in fact a rifle in Ruth Paine's garage on 11/21/63."

Marina SAW the damn thing in the garage in October. She testified to that fact. (Or do you want to call her a liar on this point, Martin? A lot of other CTers do call her a liar, of course.)

Plus: We know that LHO had his rifle in New Orleans in the summer of '63. And we also know that all his possessions were transported to Irving in Ruth's car in September '63. Nobody specifically saw the rifle at that time, that's true enough. But let's get out that calculator again and add some things up....

1. Lee Oswald has possession of a rifle in New Orleans in Summer 1963. (And Marina sees Lee working the bolt of the gun on the screened-in porch in that city.)

2. The Oswald possessions are taken to Ruth Paine's house in Irving, Texas, in September '63.

3. Marina sees the butt end of a rifle in a blanket in the Paine garage in about October of '63.

4. Lee Oswald carries a long-ish paper package into the TSBD on the morning of 11/22/63. (And Lee lies to Buell Wesley Frazier about the contents of that package.)

5. The blanket in Ruth Paine's garage where Marina says Lee kept his rifle was empty when the police picked up that blanket on the afternoon of 11/22/63.

If the above five things are true (and the evidence and testimony demonstrates they are true), then is it reasonable to come to the conclusion that Lee's rifle WASN'T also present in Ruth Paine's garage on 11/21/63? Why would anyone feel compelled to reach such a conclusion after adding up #1 thru #5 above?


MARTIN WEIDMANN SAID:

The most important remark is "If the above five things are true" and that's a massive "if". And no, the evidence and testimony doesn't demonstrate that they are true. In fact...it clearly is nothing more than just assumptions and conjecture. If you actually had any kind of evidence to back up those claims 1 thru 5, you would have posted it. But you didn't, for one simple reason; it doesn't exist.

So, I have indeed added up 1 thru 5 and find that they don't add up to the conclusion you attach to your assumptions.

Basically, what you have presented here is a highly circumstantial case, backed up with no significant evidence whatsoever.

I have to ask, David; You do understand the difference between assumptions and actual evidence, right?

[Martin's full post can be seen HERE.]


DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree on the topic of whether Mannlicher-Carcano Rifle No. C2766 was in Ruth Paine's garage on Thursday, November 21, 1963.

I know you'll dispute the following statement about Oswald ordering the rifle, but I'll say it anyway because I think it needs to be said in a discussion of this nature:

Since we know (via the multiple documents that exist to prove it) that Lee Oswald definitely did order a rifle from Klein's Sporting Goods in Chicago in March of 1963, and Marina took pictures of Lee holding a rifle just a couple of weeks after Lee ordered a rifle by mail....then isn't it very likely that the rifle that Marina Oswald said she saw in the blanket inside Ruth Paine's garage is the very same rifle that Lee Oswald ordered from Klein's seven months earlier?

Or would a more reasonable and more sensible conclusion be that the rifle Marina saw in the blanket in late September or early October* was a rifle that belonged to somebody else other than Lee Harvey Oswald?

I think it's fairly easy to figure out the most-likely-to-be-correct answer to that one.

* BTW, my "October" estimate for when Marina said she saw the rifle in Ruth's garage is, indeed, an accurate estimate (based on Marina's Warren Commission testimony [at 1 H 52]):

MARINA OSWALD -- "There was only once that I was interested in finding out what was in that blanket, and I saw that it was a rifle."
J. LEE RANKIN -- "When was that?"
MRS. OSWALD -- "About a week after I came from New Orleans."


Marina and Ruth Paine arrived back in Irving, Texas, from New Orleans on September 24, 1963. A week later was October 1st. But it's hardly worth quibbling over. At any rate, Marina saw the rifle in the garage no earlier than the last week of September '63.


JOHN IACOLETTI SAID:

You don’t know when the Klein’s order was mailed. That’s an assumption too (that the alleged order coupon arrived in the alleged envelope). And you certainly have nothing that tells you when the Seaport order was received, even though you claimed to. Besides, Oswald was at work at JCS [Jaggars-Chiles-Stovall] all day on March 12.

[...]

Waldman 7 says nothing about when the order was received.


DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

I see John is in need of that calculator again.

Why can't CTers ever add things up logically?

We know Oswald mailed the Klein's form before 10:30 AM on March 12. (And I think he probably mailed it BEFORE he went to work that day. The Main Post Office was likely open by 8:00 AM in those days, per Gary Mack.)

And we know that Waldman 7 shows a "Mar 13, 1963" date at the top of the document.

Ergo, Klein's received the Oswald order form on either March 12 (the day it was mailed) or March 13 (the day Waldman 7 was stamped). March 13th, of course, is the day it was likely received in the mail by Klein's.

And there is no proof whatsoever that Waldman No. 7 is some kind of phony/fake document. That's merely a baseless assumption on the part of desperate conspiracy theorists.

Here's my gift to all Internet conspiracy believers. I only hope they will use it some day:




JOHN IACOLETTI SAID:

David’s fatal flaw is that he doesn’t distinguish between assumption (biased assumption at that) and fact.


DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

CTers suffer from the fatal flaw of not being able to properly and reasonably and logically assess the evidence and Oswald's actions. Almost all CTers immediately jump to the "It Was Faked" mantra, without having the slightest bit of PROOF to show that ANY of it was faked. They just assume it all was faked. And they have to assume that....because if it wasn't all faked, then their patsy is really a double-murderer. And no Internet CTer would stand for that. Right, John?


DAVID VON PEIN ALSO SAID:

The Denial Of The Actual Evidence in the JFK case amongst Internet CTers has reached new heights of absurdity. Pretty soon I expect to hear some crazy tale about how the assassination didn't really take place in Dallas at all. It took place in Boise, Idaho, and Dallas was merely "planted" into the assassination story.


OTTO BECK SAID:

Thank you for repeatedly showing your ignorance of such basic concepts known as "evidence" and "assumption".


DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

And I suppose you're also silly enough to think that the late attorney Vincent T. Bugliosi (the former very successful trial lawyer that you, Otto Beck, obnoxiously referred to as a "whackjob" at 1:00 AM on June 9th, 2022) was also "ignorant" and had no idea what the term "evidence" meant, right? Because Vince went even further than my 21-item list. He's got a list of 53 things in his 2007 book that he says point to the guilt of Lee Harvey Oswald (on Pages 951-969 of "Reclaiming History").



And since most Internet CTers are firmly devoted to disregarding all the evidence against Oswald, I'm sure most of those conspiracists, just like they do with my 21-item list, are of the opinion that nothing on Bugliosi's 53-item list constitutes any "evidence" whatsoever. ~smh~

Some Bonus Bugliosi Gems (to get under the skin of CTers):

  • "The Warren Commission critics and conspiracy theorists display an astonishing inability to see the vast forest of evidence proving Oswald's guilt because of their penchant for obsessing over the branches, even the leaves of individual trees. And, because virtually all of them have no background in criminal investigation, they look at each leaf (piece of evidence) by itself, hardly ever in relation to, and in the context of, all the other evidence." -- Vincent Bugliosi


  • "It is remarkable that these conspiracy theorists aren't troubled in the least by their inability to present any evidence that Oswald was set up and framed. For them, the mere belief or speculation that he was is a more-than-adequate substitute for evidence." -- Vincent Bugliosi


  • "With respect to the Kennedy assassination, once you establish and know that Oswald is guilty, as has been done, then you also necessarily know that there is an answer (whether the answer is known or not) compatible with this conclusion for the endless alleged discrepancies, inconsistencies, and questions the conspiracy theorists have raised through the years about Oswald's guilt."
    -- Vincent Bugliosi


  • "There is a simple fact of life that Warren Commission critics and conspiracy theorists either don't realize or fail to take into consideration, something I learned from my experience as a prosecutor; namely, that you cannot be innocent and yet still have a prodigious amount of highly incriminating evidence against you. That's just not what happens in life. .... With Lee Harvey Oswald, everything, everything points towards his guilt." -- Vincent Bugliosi


  • "It couldn't have been more obvious within hours after the assassination that Oswald had murdered Kennedy, and within no more than a day or so thereafter that he had acted alone. And this is precisely the conclusion that virtually all local (Dallas), state (Texas), and federal (FBI and Secret Service) law enforcement agencies came to shortly after the assassination. Nothing has ever changed their conclusion or proved it wrong." -- Vincent Bugliosi


  • "Very few people are more critical than I. And I expect incompetence wherever I turn, always pleasantly surprised to find its absence. Competence, of course, is all relative, and I find the Warren Commission operated at an appreciably higher level of competence than any investigative body I know of. It is my firm belief that anyone who feels the Warren Commission did not do a good job investigating the murder of Kennedy has never been a part of a murder investigation." -- Vincent Bugliosi


  • "Even if Ruby was at Parkland, to assume he was there to plant a bullet on Connally's stretcher to frame Oswald for Kennedy's murder, making Ruby a part of the conspiracy to murder Kennedy, is too ludicrous for words. The philosophy of the zany conspiracy theorists is that if something is theoretically possible (as most things are), then it's not only probable, it happened." -- Vincent Bugliosi


  • "No evidence plus no common sense equals go home, zipper your mouth up, take a walk, forget about it, get a life. Of course, the hard-core conspiracy theorists, who desperately want to cling to their illusions, are not going to do any of these things. .... If these conspiracy theorists were to accept the truth, not only would they be invalidating a major part of their past, but many would be forfeiting their future. That's why talking to them about logic and common sense is like talking to a man without ears. The bottom line is that they want there to be a conspiracy and are constitutionally allergic to anything that points away from it." -- Vincent Bugliosi


  • http://Reclaiming-History.blogspot.com/
    Summary Of Oswald's Guilt



    MARTIN WEIDMANN SAID:

    I don't think you can make any kind of assumption about what rifle (if any) was in Ruth Paine's garage and when, based on events that happened several months earlier and here's why:

    Even if Oswald ordered the rifle and he did so for himself (instead of possibly being manipulated to do it) and even if the rifle he is holding in the BY photos is the MC rifle, all that tells you, at best, that he had a rifle in March/April 1963. Although it might seem logical to assume that the rifle in Ruth Paine's garage, in late September, would be the same rifle, it really isn't logical at all.

    Oswald is alleged to have used his rifle to shoot at General Walker in April. He is then supposed to somehow have taken that rifle, a weapon that has now been used in an attempted murder, with him to New Orleans, risking possible exposure of himself with the rifle. He then is supposed to have kept the rifle with him during his entire stay in New Orleans only to turn it over to Ruth Paine, a person he barely knew, giving up total control over that rifle for several weeks and potentially causing a problem between himself and the woman with whom his wife and daughter would be staying.

    It seems far more logical to me that he would have disposed of the rifle after shooting at General Walker (if that's what he did) and before his trip to New Orleans.

    The problem with this is that whatever you think you can figure out is nothing more than conjecture based on assumptions. It is not evidence. You can consider something to be very likely as much as you like, but that doesn't mean that it is true. The basic error you are making is that you base your assumptions on your opinion that Oswald is guilty, which is the world upside down.

    The bottom line is that there is no evidence whatsoever to show that there ever was a rifle in Ruth Paine's garage, at any time, except for Marina telling us that she once saw one, about a week after her trip from New Orleans. Everything else Marina said about that rifle, that it belonged to Oswald and still was there on 11/21/63 are mere assumptions. I find it incredibly unbelievable that Marina never confronted Oswald about that rifle being there, especially because she knew that Ruth Paine didn't like guns one bit and a rifle being stored in her garage could well cause major problems between Marina and Ruth.


    DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

    But, Martin, don't forget the fact that Marina—within hours of President Kennedy's assassination on 11/22/63—directed the police straight to Ruth Paine's garage and straight to that blanket on the floor. And when she did that on November 22nd she was directing the police to the place in Ruth's house where Marina was certain that her husband stored a rifle.

    And regardless of what rifle it was—the C2766 Mannlicher-Carcano or another rifle altogether—Marina obviously thought that A RIFLE of some kind was wrapped up in that blanket in Ruth Paine's garage. Wouldn't you agree with that last statement?

    Or do you really think that Marina concocted her "There's A Rifle In The Garage" story right on the spot on the day of the assassination itself when she led the cops straight to the blanket on 11/22? And thusly, via such a concoction, she was in essence attempting to point an accusing finger of guilt directly at Lee Oswald for the murder of the President. Or at least it would certainly appear that way at the time she did it on Nov. 22. Would you not agree? [Martin did agree. His full reply is here.]

    Now, just ask yourself: Why on Earth would Marina have wanted to invent such a lie about a rifle being stored in Ruth Paine's garage just hours after Marina herself knew that the President had just been shot and killed from the very same place where her husband was employed?

    The notion that Marina Oswald would have ever conceived of inventing such a false story about the rifle on the very day of the assassination is just too far-fetched to be believed.

    I do, however, agree with this comment you made above:

    "It seems far more logical to me that he [Lee Oswald] would have disposed of the rifle after shooting at General Walker (if that's what he did) and before his trip to New Orleans."

    I have myself often wondered why Oswald did not get rid of the C2766 Carcano rifle after he tried to kill General Walker with it on April 10, 1963. Here are two times in the past I wrote about that mystery—in 2009 and 2016:


    "Oswald could be pretty brazen at times. For example—holding on to the rifle with which he shot at General Walker. Oswald, incredibly, apparently actually felt no need or desire to get rid of the weapon with which he took that potshot at Walker.

    For more than SEVEN MONTHS he held onto it, even though he almost certainly had to know that the bullet that he fired into Walker's house WAS recovered and could conceivably (for all Oswald knew) be linked to Carcano Rifle #C2766.

    I've often wondered why in the world Oswald didn't toss Rifle C2766 in the trash after he shot at Walker on April 10, 1963 (or dispose of it in some other fashion). He ran a fearful risk by keeping that rifle in his possession for all those months.

    Perhaps it was a sign of Oswald's miserly and penny-pinching ways. Maybe he just hated the idea of spending $21.45 for a weapon he would only be using once.

    I also wonder this --- Would Oswald have disposed of his rifle if he had succeeded in killing General Edwin A. Walker in April 1963?

    And I also sometimes wonder this --- If Oswald HAD trashed his Carcano rifle after the Walker shooting, would he have purchased another rifle at some point in time to use in another assassination attempt?

    It's possible, of course, that even if Oswald had disposed of the C2766 Carcano, he could have still purchased another gun to use on President Kennedy. Oswald had enough time to get himself another gun between the time he could have learned for certain that JFK would be passing by the front door of the Depository and November 22 itself.

    Which begs the follow-up question (which has been asked by many people too) --- Since Oswald had more than $170 and since he had at least 2 to 3 days to get himself another gun...why did LHO decide to use his traceable mail-order Mannlicher-Carcano rifle to shoot the President?

    Food for thought anyway.

    In summary:

    We can never know the answers to all these questions relating to Lee Harvey Oswald, his rifle, and the thoughts that might have been floating around in his warped brain. But the one thing that we do know beyond all REASONABLE DOUBT is this --- Lee Oswald took Mannlicher-Carcano rifle #C2766 to work with him on 11/22/63 and fired three shots from that weapon at President Kennedy from the sixth floor of the Book Depository Building."
    -- DVP; June 28, 2009

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

    "Lee Oswald purchases a cheap rifle for himself in March 1963 (so he can shoot a certain retired general in Dallas). He misses in his attempt to kill General Walker, but decides to hang on to the Carcano rifle (for some reason that I've never quite been able to figure out, other than his own extreme stinginess and unwillingness to get rid of something he only used once)." -- DVP; March 6, 2016


    JERRY FREEMAN SAID:

    Face facts... there never was any rifle at the Paines.


    DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

    Then what was in that large-ish package that Lee Oswald took inside the Book Depository Building on the morning of November 22nd? (And you're surely not going to respond with, Curtain rods, what else?, are you?)

    Quick Summary:

    .... Lee Harvey Oswald orders a rifle through the mail in March '63.

    .... On March 20, Klein's ships Carcano Rifle No. C2766 to Oswald's known Dallas mailing address (P.O. Box 2915 at the Dallas post office).

    .... While talking to Buell Wesley Frazier on the morning of 11/21/63, Oswald makes up a story about wanting to get some curtain rods at Ruth Paine's house in Irving that evening.

    .... Oswald, who spent the night at Ruth Paine's house on the night of 11/21, is seen by Frazier taking a long-ish package into the TSBD on the morning of 11/22.

    .... Carcano Rifle No. C2766 is found on the sixth floor of the TSBD 52 minutes after President Kennedy was assassinated (via rifle fire) from that very same sixth floor.

    .... An empty long-ish brown paper bag is also found on the 6th floor---very near the window where someone had just shot at the President. Two of Oswald's prints turn up on that bag.

    Even without a calculator, it's not exactly a tough chore to add up these pieces of information in order to arrive at the logical answer. But if you're a conspiracy believer, it would seem as if the evidence connected with JFK's murder is about as useful as a lawn mower in the Sahara.


    JOHN IACOLETTI SAID:

    I see you’re confusing your assumptions with facts again. You don’t know that Klein’s shipped this rifle anywhere. You don’t know that Oswald “made up a story” about curtain rods. You don’t know that Kennedy was assassinated from the sixth floor or from that window. You don’t know where the CE142 bag was found or that it was the same package Frazier saw.


    DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

    I see we're still having to endure the constant denials regarding the evidence from the conspiracy fantasists. No surprise there, of course.

    In a CTer's mind, Frazier lied....Marina lied....the cops all lied....the Warren Commission lied....the FBI lied....and God knows who else lied. It was a regular Liars Convention in Dallas in November of 1963.

    Shouldn't a belief in THAT MANY liars be a pretty good hint to CTers that there's something wrong with the way conspiracists think about this case? I think it should serve as a very very big hint.


    JOHN IACOLETTI SAID:

    The police (either out of malice or sheer incompetence — and it doesn’t matter which) completely mishandled the evidence. By the way, when Oswald was (illegally and without probable cause) arrested, the alleged revolver was allegedly in the alleged possession of the alleged Bob Carroll.

    Shells don’t kill people. You don’t know what the “Tippit murder weapon” was because the bullets removed from Tippit did not have sufficient characteristics to identify a specific weapon.

    And correction: the shells that you cannot demonstrate were ever at Tenth and Patton or related to Tippit’s murder were matched conclusively to a revolver that you cannot demonstrate was ever in Oswald’s possession.


    DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

    Good God, what a bunch of horses**t. Every single word of it.

    And Iacoletti doesn't even have the decency to blush. Incredible.


    JOHN IACOLETTI SAID:

    Cool rebuttal, bro.


    DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

    Oh God, I sure hope we're not bros! Yuck!


    JOHN IACOLETTI SAID:

    Point to a single specific thing I said that was incorrect.


    DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

    As I said, every single thing in your last ultra-stupid post was horse-hockey. Without a doubt.

    You said:
    "The police completely mishandled the evidence."

    That's utter B.S.

    Maybe a few things could have been "handled" better (such as Oswald himself when he was killed by Ruby on Sunday in the DPD basement, but that's another discussion), but overall the Dallas Police Department gathered the pertinent evidence (including the Tippit evidence you were referring to above) and by Friday midnight the DPD had the correct assassin charged with the two murders he committed. Pretty good police work (until Sunday rolled around), I'd say.

    You then foolishingly uttered:
    "Oswald was (illegally and without probable cause) arrested."

    Yeah, sure, John. Why would the cops have any reason at all to want to arrest sweet lil' Lee? All he was doing in the theater is trying to shoot some policemen with a gun. That's all. They should have pinned a medal on him instead.

    (If Iacoletti would just blush ONCE, it would at least be something. But no.)

    You said:
    "You don’t know what the “Tippit murder weapon” was because the bullets removed from Tippit did not have sufficient characteristics to identify a specific weapon."

    Another very stupid comment given the known actions of Tippit's killer (Oswald, of course). CTers love to pretend that ALL THAT MATTERS is whether the BULLETS themselves could be matched up with the gun (which, of course, firearms expert Joe Nicol DID do with one of the four Tippit bullets). The CTers will always completely disregard and throw in the trash the bullet SHELLS, which were definitively tied to Oswald's V510210 revolver by several firearms experts, which the CT crowd just ignores (or totally misrepresents, as demonstrated in Iacoletti's next hunk of silliness).

    You said:
    "The shells that you cannot demonstrate were ever at Tenth and Patton or related to Tippit’s murder were matched conclusively to a revolver that you cannot demonstrate was ever in Oswald’s possession."

    In order for the above batch of claptrap to be true, you'd have to believe the Dallas Police lied their eyes out concerning the origins of the 4 bullet shells found by Benavides and the two Davis girls on November 22. And you'd have to believe the DPD also lied about the gun that Oswald had in his possession when he was arrested.

    Many CTers believe that Oswald had NO GUN at all in the theater, and they believe the DPD merely "planted" the Smith & Wesson V510210 revolver into the evidence pile connected with Tippit's murder. Which would mean that somebody also had to fake the whole Seaport Traders paper trail that shows that Oswald was the owner of said gun.

    Whew (and Pfffttt!).


    OTTO BECK SAID:

    Shells from an automatic are ejected, not dumped on the ground.


    DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

    So what? Since no automatic was involved in shooting Tippit, your comment is useless and irrelevant.

    Or would you like to pretend that an automatic WAS fired at Tippit? If so, why weren't those shells found RIGHT NEXT to Tippit's police car?

    And if an automatic really was used, that means you have no choice but to call various witnesses liars who said the killer was manually dumping shells on the ground as he fled.


    OTTO BECK SAID:

    Highly relevant, unless you can produce an affidavit (or similar) by Gerald Hill that states the police tape transcript is in error:

    "Shells at the scene indicate the suspect is armed with an automatic .38 rather than a pistol."

    Take your time!


    DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

    But we know from the various witnesses who were at the scene WHEN THE SHOOTING WAS OCCURRING that the killer was NOT armed with an automatic, because the killer was emptying his shells on the ground. If the killer had had an automatic weapon, there would have been no need for him to manually empty his shells.

    Do you think both Davis girls just made up their testimony about the killer "unloading the gun" in their yard as he ran?

    And was Domingo Benavides also wrong when he saw the killer dumping shells too?

    Take your time.

    P.S., Sergeant Gerald Hill, who initially (incorrectly) thought the Tippit shells were from an automatic weapon, tried to clear up the confusion when he said this in 1986:

    "I assumed that it was an automatic simply because we had found all the hulls in one little general area. If you find a cluster of shells, you have to assume that they were fired from an automatic." -- Quote by Gerald Hill (Taken from Dale Myers' book, "With Malice" [1998 Edition]; Pages 260-261)


    OTTO BECK SAID:

    So what kind of pea-brain would THEN post the load of BS coming from Gerald Hill claiming the clustering of shells made him jump to the wrong conclusion even though they were NOWHERE near the car?


    DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

    There was certainly some confusion amongst the police officers about what kind of gun Tippit's killer was carrying (automatic vs. revolver), there's no denying that fact. But why do CTers insist on focusing on the wrong (i.e., the worst) information that's out there?

    Sergeant Gerald Hill simply made a mistake about the killer possessing an "automatic" weapon.

    How can we know for a fact it was just a "mistake"?

    Because of the various witnesses (Benavides, B. Davis, and V. Davis) who clearly stated that Tippit's one and only killer (who was carrying only ONE single gun) was manually unloading spent shell casings out of that same gun that was just used to shoot Officer Tippit.

    There is nowhere for the conspiracists to go on this issue. Given the statements made by the people who were there at the time Tippit was being killed, we know that Tippit's killer was not (and could not have been) using an automatic gun on Tenth Street. That fact is as ironclad as can be---despite Gerald Hill's confusion.

    Or would you like to start saying that all three of the aforementioned witnesses were either lying or mistaken when they each said they saw Tippit's murderer emptying shells from his gun (by hand)?


    JOHN IACOLETTI SAID:

    None of those various witnesses saw Tippit's killer kill Tippit.


    DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

    You don't think Domingo Benavides qualifies as a "Tippit murder witness", eh?

    That's about as silly as the CTers who insist William Scoggins shouldn't be classified as a "Tippit murder witness" either.




    DAVID VON PEIN ALSO SAID:

    BTW, my earlier "one and only killer" remark is derived from knowing what the eyewitnesses (in total) said about the question of "HOW MANY PEOPLE SHOT TIPPIT?"

    The answer to that is, of course, one.


    JOHN IACOLETTI SAID:

    They either saw somebody shoot somebody or they did not. I realize you want to manufacture more witnesses than you actually have.

    It hasn't escaped my notice that WC-cultists always make broad claims about the JFK assassination, and invariably always revert to discussing the Tippit case instead.


    DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

    It's not possible to fully and properly discuss the JFK assassination without also discussing the Tippit murder. Can't be done. Because the two murders (just 45 minutes apart) are inexorably linked.

    Are you actually implying, John, that the Tippit case should never be brought up when discussing the murder of John Kennedy? You don't think the two crimes are in any way related?


    JOHN IACOLETTI SAID:

    The only thing that links them is your belief that the same person committed both crimes. That’s it.


    DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

    And the fact that more than half-a-dozen witnesses positively identified Lee Harvey Oswald as either the man who shot J.D. Tippit or as the man they saw leaving the immediate area of the shooting with a gun in his hand doesn't mean anything to you, does it John?

    And the fact that this same man named Lee Harvey Oswald was also the Book Depository employee whose rifle was found in the Depository on 11/22/63, which was proven to be the rifle that murdered President Kennedy, also means zilch to you, correct John?

    A kindergarten student with massive learning disabilities could easily tie these two crimes together. But, for some reason known only to a higher power, conspiracy theorists can never manage to do it.


    MARTIN WEIDMANN SAID:

    Going to a movie isn't exactly what one would expect an assassin of the President to do. And neither is taking a walk to a go nowhere suburban street like 10th street.


    DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

    Well, Martin, suppose you tell me what you think Oswald was doing on that "go nowhere" street in Oak Cliff in the middle of the day on 11/22/63?

    Even from the POV of Oswald being completely innocent of shooting JFK (but possibly part of some "plot"), does it make any sense to you that Oswald would be walking around a "go nowhere" street in Oak Cliff?

    I mean, we know Oswald was there on 10th Street on 11/22. So he must have had some reason for being there, right?

    So let's hear YOUR interpretation of Oswald's movements.


    MARTIN WEIDMANN SAID:

    I am not convinced he was even there.

    I don't think he had any reason to be there at all.

    We know he was there? Really?


    DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

    So who shot J.D. Tippit?

    Was it the Easter bunny (who looked just exactly like Lee Oswald)?


    MARTIN WEIDMANN SAID:

    I have no idea.

    It is possible Oswald was indeed there and did it, but the evidence I have seen simply isn't conclusive enough to justify that conclusion.


    DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

    You're joking, right? (You must be.)


    MARTIN WEIDMANN SAID:

    No.

    Let me ask you this: do you believe it is possible that Oswald was not on 10th street?


    DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

    No. Absolutely not possible.

    The best possible combination of evidence that could possibly exist (lacking a confession from the killer) does, indeed, exist in the Tippit murder case --- i.e., (1) more than half-a-dozen witnesses who positively identified Oswald as either the killer of Tippit or as the man who was leaving the scene of the shooting holding a gun and (2) the culprit being caught with the murder weapon in his very own hands at the time of his arrest (which was just half-an-hour after Officer Tippit was gunned down).

    You couldn't get a better "evidence combination" to prove that Lee Harvey Oswald killed J.D. Tippit.

    CTers will argue that there's "no evidence" at all against Oswald for Tippit's slaying. And they'll argue that they think the cops tampered with the shells AND did a switch-a-roo with the revolver.

    But where's the PROOF that ANY evidence WAS tampered with? Do the CTers have any such PROOF? Of course they don't.


    MARTIN WEIDMANN SAID:

    So you do believe that Helen Markham, who was supposed to get her regular bus to work at 1:15 (according to her testimony) took 9 minutes to walk one block and just happened to miss her bus that day?

    And you do believe that Bowley needed around 20 minutes to drive from his daughter's school to 10th street, which normally doesn't take any more than around 13 minutes?

    And you do believe that Ted Callaway didn't make his radio call until six minutes after the shots were fired and he only had less than one block to run to get to the scene?

    And you must disbelieve Bowles, the chief of the DPD dispatchers, when he said that the time stamps called out by the dispatchers do not reflect real time and that the clocks they used did not match the master clock which in turn did not match the main clock in the town hall?

    And btw, where did you get the idea that Oswald was "caught with the murder weapon in his very own hands at the time of his arrest"? Haven't you been paying attention at all?


    DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

    Why would you disregard all of the best evidence (positive witness I.D.s + ballistics proof) in favor of the much-less-reliable "timeline" type of evidence?

    Makes no sense to do that. And yet, CTers are experts at doing just that.


    PAUL J. CUMMINGS SAID:

    I would hardly label Markham testimony as best evidence.


    DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

    It's not just Markham. Several other witnesses IDed LHO in the area with a gun. But you'll just ignore them, right?


    PAUL J. CUMMINGS SAID:

    Again you're ignoring the time frame of the Tippit murder, including Oswald being in the theatre.


    DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

    So you think Oswald was in the theater at about 1:00 PM, right? Which, if true, means he would have then left the theater about 35 minutes later in order to be seen standing in front of Johnny Brewer's shoe store at about 1:35 PM. And then Oswald re-enters the theater after seemingly trying to avoid the police cars screaming past the Hardy's Shoe Store on Jefferson Boulevard (per Brewer's testimony).

    How much sense does that scenario make---even if you're a CTer? Did the plotters screw up and have TWO different "Lee Oswalds" go to the theater at about the same time between 1 and 2 PM on Nov. 22? How dumb would that have been?


    PAUL J. CUMMINGS SAID:

    Also, witnesses at the Tippit scene indicated two men. So, who was with LHO?


    DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

    Nobody was with LHO:

    http://jfk-archives.blogspot.com/Acquilla Clemons & The Tippit Murder


    PAUL J. CUMMINGS SAID:

    It's like he [DVP] can't comprehend that Oswald WAS IN THE THEATRE. Does he even research beyond the WC report?


    DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

    Oswald was in his room on Beckley at 1 PM. How could he be in the theater at the same time?

    Or is Earlene Roberts supposed to be tossed under the bus too?


    PAUL J. CUMMINGS SAID:

    Oh I can play that game. What about the employee who served Oswald at the theatre?

    Go read Roberts' testimony. I would hardly call her credible.


    DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

    Even if you think Earlene Roberts wasn't as credible as that uber-observant Super Witness Butch Burroughs at the Texas Theater, would you mind telling me who you think it was who rushed into the roominghouse at 1026 Beckley at about 1:00 PM on 11/22, if it wasn't Lee Harvey Oswald?!

    Did some stranger come bursting into the Beckley residence and go immediately to Oswald's room?

    Or do you think Roberts lied about ANYONE hurriedly entering the roominghouse that day? [Paul's response: Yes, I don't believe Roberts.]


    PAUL J. CUMMINGS SAID:

    Did it occur to you that he [Lee Oswald] was at the rooming house before 1PM?


    DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

    It's very possible that Oswald did, indeed, arrive at his room prior to 1:00 PM (CST) on 11/22. But not by enough to allow him to also be at the theater at the time Burroughs said.


    PAUL J. CUMMINGS SAID:

    Oswald was picked up by the Nash Rambler 12:40-12:45PM.


    DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

    Why is it you believe the LHO "Nash Rambler" sighting but just can't begin to believe the much more believable** "bus and cab" sightings?

    ** They're "much more believable" because of the paper bus transfer in LHO's pocket, plus Mary Bledsoe's account (she KNEW Oswald on sight, keep in mind), plus William Whaley's positive-I.D. testimony, plus Lee Oswald's very own admission that he DID take a bus and a cab on 11/22. (And there was absolutely no reason under the sun for even the chronic liar named Oswald to lie about his Nov. 22nd bus and cab rides.)

    I'm always accused of being biased and selectively choosing the evidence that favors the Lone Assassin scenario, but there can be no doubt that CTers do the same thing all day long (as Paul Cummings just demonstrated above).


    PAUL J. CUMMINGS SAID:

    It's a short drive from TSBD to Beckley....but hey, it doesn't fit the narrative does it?


    DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

    Since we all know (based on the sum total of evidence) that Oswald walked east on Elm for seven blocks before getting on Cecil McWatters' bus, of course the Rambler fantasy doesn't fit the Warren Commission's narrative (aka the proper narrative).


    PAUL J. CUMMINGS SAID:

    You have more eye witnesses saying Oswald got into the Rambler than him getting in the cab.


    DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

    Well, that's not too surprising. Would you have expected Whaley's taxicab stand at the Greyhound bus station to be packed with onlookers on any given day?


    PAUL J. CUMMINGS SAID:

    The timeline with Oswald killing Tippit and then going to the theatre doesn't work for the WC.


    DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

    The Warren Commission timeline works just fine. In fact, it works perfectly.

    Is it a tight WC timeline? Sure it is. But, hey, given what Oswald did and when he did it on November 22, it definitely should be an extremely tight timeline. Why wouldn't it be tight?

    But to think, as many CTers do, that such a timeline can be fine-tuned right down to the exact minute is just not a reasonable thing to believe, IMO. All timelines associated with Lee Harvey Oswald's 11/22 movements (including this one that I constructed) are "approximate" times, just as the Warren Commission said in CE1119-A.




    MARTIN WEIDMANN SAID THIS.


    DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

    Martin is trying to micro-manage the Tippit murder timeline down to the second, which really cannot be done.

    Yes, before anyone jumps down my throat for talking out of both sides of my pie hole, I have done a bit of that "micro-managing" myself, when I said I agree with Dale Myers' exacting 1:14:30 time for when the shooting occurred. But I happen to think that Dale has done probably the most work and research that has ever been done by anyone in the world when it comes to the Tippit murder case, and so I am certainly inclined to lean toward his conclusions about various things related to J.D. Tippit's demise....such as Dale's very detailed 2017 article concerning many of the "loose ends" (if you will) concerning the topic of Acquilla Clemons.

    But when Martin says something like this....

    "...and you end up at 1:18:35 as the actual time (according to the recording) where the dispatcher called 1:19."

    ....we're only talking about a difference of 25 seconds in real (actual) time—even if Martin's analysis is 100% correct (which is a big "if" right there).

    Now, am I really supposed to just flush all of the "Oswald Shot Tippit" evidence (and witnesses) down the nearest toilet due to an alleged 25-second discrepancy when comparing the Dallas police radio transcript with the analysis performed by a guy named Martin Weidmann?

    Pardon me if I choose not to perform that last bit of flushing.


    MARTIN WEIDMANN SAID:

    Markham left her home at 1:06 or 1:07.


    DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

    You know that for an absolute fact, do you? Remarkable.

    Was there an atomic clock flashing the Naval Observatory time above Markham's head as she left the washateria?


    MARTIN WEIDMANN SAID:

    The point which you are so desperate to confuse is that in Markham's mind she had to be at that bus stop on Jefferson by 1:15.


    DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

    Why? Do you think she was totally unaware of the fact that a bus would pass that bus stop every 10 minutes?

    She was very likely quite aware that she could catch the 1:22 if she missed the 1:12. It's just too bad the WC didn't ask her about that very thing.


    MARTIN WEIDMANN SAID:

    I think Markham was very well aware of the fact that a bus would come every 10 minutes and she probably did take a delayed 1:12 sometimes and a 1:22 on other occassions. But people don't arrive at a bus stop at the exact moment a bus is due to arrive. They get there a couple of minutes earlier and the fact remains that Markham said she got on her regular bus at 1:15.


    DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

    She couldn't possibly have "Got On" her regular bus at 1:15, because (per CD630) there was no bus at 1:15. It was 1:12.

    I think she normally attempted to be at her bus stop at 1:15 (to catch the 1:22 bus, because she sure as heck didn't catch the 1:12 every day, unless it was always late), but on Nov. 22 she was just a tiny bit behind schedule.


    MARTIN WEIDMANN SAID:

    Why don't you explain what reasons you have exactly to doubt Markham's timestamps?


    DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

    Well, it boils down to this question: What is the best and most reliable evidence re: the Tippit murder (or any murder case for that matter)?

    CTers, for the most part, tend to disbelieve and distrust virtually all of the evidence that exists against Oswald. But I, myself, don't see a lot of problems with the evidence---including the Tippit evidence.

    One big reason to think that no hanky-panky was occurring with the Tippit evidence is: Because it was one of Dallas' own cops who had just been killed. And what kind of rotten lowlife would have wanted the killer of one of their own to get away with murder? You could hardly get mucher lower than that. But it seems that some CTers favor the notion that the DPD did do just that---i.e., framed an innocent Oswald as a cop-killer. Such a notion is just ridiculous, IMO.

    So, IMO, not a single bit of the evidence against Oswald was faked or planted. So, therefore, Oswald's got to be guilty. Because in the real world, you can't be the owner of BOTH murder weapons on 11/22 and be innocent. That's just not a reasonable conclusion to reach.


    MARTIN WEIDMANN SAID:

    Don't use the words of others on your blog (without their consent) or post all of it. What you do is dishonest, a misrepresentation of the facts, and btw an admission of the weakness of your own arguments. Ever thought about that, have you?


    DAVID VON PEIN SAID:

    Absolutely not. As far as the JFK and J.D. Tippit murder cases are concerned, I do not think (and never have thought) that any of my arguments are "weak". Just the opposite. The case against Oswald couldn't be much stronger. (Regardless of what portions of a particular discussion I choose to post at my own website.)

    It's the "Conspiracy" and "Cover-Up" and "Oswald Was Framed" arguments that are pathetically weak when put up against the vast amount of Oswald-Did-It evidence. And that includes your recent "Callaway/Markham/Bowley Timeline" argument. That, too, is a very weak argument when placed alongside the virtual PROOF of Oswald's guilt in the Tippit murder which exists in the "Eyewitnesses & Bullet Shells" combination of evidence.

    CTers will forever tell me that that combination of "Witnesses & The Bullet Shells" is just worthless and "proves" nothing. But those CTers are just talking through their hats, and even they probably know it.

    When a CTer has to practically ignore (or gloss over) all of Lee Oswald's very own incriminating and unusual Nov. 22 actions, plus the PHYSICAL ballistics evidence and the multiple witnesses who positively IDed LHO as the gun-toting man on 10th Street, with that CTer instead focusing on the much-less-reliable mush such as "Timeline Evidence" of various witnesses....then I say it's time for that CTer to step back and attempt to re-evaluate the things that really matter the most in the Tippit murder case.

    IOW---Should the Markham/Bowley/Callaway timeline really trump the fact that Lee Oswald was caught with the Tippit murder weapon in his very own hands on 11/22/63?*

    * And, yes, in my opinion (and in the opinion of the two official Government investigations who looked into this matter), it is a FACT that Oswald was carrying the Tippit murder weapon on him when he was arrested in the Texas Theater a mere 35 minutes after J.D. Tippit was killed.


    DAVID VON PEIN ALSO SAID:

    "Just having Lee Oswald in the general area of the crime, with a gun, and acting "funny" and obviously avoiding the police is a good hunk of circumstantial evidence leading to his guilt right there. Where does the road of common sense take a reasonable person when JUST the above after-the-shooting activity of Lee Harvey Oswald is examined objectively? It sure doesn't lead to total innocence, I'll tell ya that right now. (Especially when the stuff that went on inside the movie theater is factored in as well.) In a nutshell, this murder boils down to the following concrete fact (based on the overall weight of the evidence that surrounds the crime): If Lee Harvey Oswald didn't kill J.D. Tippit -- then J.D. Tippit wasn't killed at all. Maybe it was all some kind of "Bobby Was In The Shower" type of dream or something instead." -- David Von Pein; October 2006


    A final thought....




    David Von Pein
    June 7-11, 2022
    June 9-14, 2022
    June 16-25, 2022