DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
I like to occasionally ask conspiracy theorists this question, which is a question they can never answer without claiming that all of the Dallas cops were crooked and part of a plot to frame Lee Harvey Oswald for two murders he never actually committed:
Did the Dallas Police Department normally have a habit of officially charging suspects with TWO murders if they had no solid evidence against that suspect at all? (And many conspiracists seem to think the police had no real evidence at all against Oswald--let alone the huge pile of stuff that all reasonable people know the DPD actually did have against LHO.)
But when we get away from the goofy conspiracists who think everything was planted to frame Lee Oswald, a fairly decent argument can be made for Oswald's probable guilt based on just the fact that the police officially charged him with TWO murders within 12 hours of the crimes being committed. That fact alone is strong circumstantial evidence of Oswald's guilt.
In other words--the police had enough evidence within half-a-day to be confident enough to charge Oswald with double-murder. Shouldn't that important fact mean just a little something to the conspiracy theorists of the world?
ANTHONY MARSH SAID:
I don't know anyone who claims that EVERYTHING was planted.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
Then you haven't looked very hard. Because virtually all conspiracy believers that I have encountered on the Internet think that every single scrap of evidence against Lee Harvey Oswald is suspicious in some manner, including each of the following items:
1. All three bullet shells found in the Sniper's Nest.
2. All four bullet shells found at the scene of J.D. Tippit's murder.
3. Commission Exhibit No. 399.
4. The paper bag found in the Sniper's Nest (with Oswald's prints on it--and those prints are phony too, per most CTers).
5. The Mannlicher-Carcano rifle.
6. The two bullet fragments found in the front seat of JFK's limousine.
7. Each and every witness who fingered Lee Oswald for either JFK's murder or J.D. Tippit's slaying or identified LHO as the man they saw leaving the scene of the Tippit crime with gun in hand -- from Howard Brennan, to Helen Markham, to Barbara Davis, to Virginia Davis, to Ted Callaway, to William Scoggins, etc., etc.
8. The backyard photos showing Oswald holding the rifle that killed President Kennedy.
9. All of the paperwork that shows Lee Oswald purchased Rifle #C2766 from Klein's Sporting Goods in Chicago.
10. All of the paperwork that indicates Lee Oswald purchased Revolver #V510210 from Seaport Traders in Los Angeles.
11. The Walker bullet.
12. And even the five unfired revolver bullets that Oswald had in his pocket after he was arrested. Those unfired bullets, per some conspiracists, are phony too. They say the cops planted those five bullets on Oswald to add to the frame-up against him. That's how far down "Crazy Boulevard" some conspiracy mongers have travelled in their efforts to exonerate a guilty double-murderer.
About the only thing I can think of that the conspiracy theorists might say hasn't been faked or manufactured to frame Patsy Oswald are the fingerprints and palmprints of LHO's that were located on the boxes inside the Sniper's Nest.
But, naturally, the Anybody But Oswald conspiracy believers would never in a million years think that those prints could be used to incriminate poor Lee Harvey. After all, he worked there. So, quite naturally, THREE of his prints are very likely going to show up on TWO of the boxes that the Presidential assassin also must have handled (and I guess the "real" Presidential assassin must have been wearing gloves when he touched those boxes on November 22, 1963).
And just because shells from Oswald's gun were found right there in the Sniper's Nest too, why should the conspiracy theorists consider--for even a brief moment--the idea of linking the two things together (OSWALD'S shells + OSWALD'S prints)? What rational person would ever consider doing something silly like tying those two items together? Right? After all, all good conspiracy advocates always insist that those bullet shells were planted in the Book Depository too.
Ergo, nothing can be trusted. And why? Because the conspiracy hounds have said so. And when we get right down to the brass tacks of the matter, that's pretty much the only reason.
ANTHONY MARSH SAID:
No. Because officials have a habit of tampering with evidence.
DAVID VON PEIN SAID:
And there's the ever-so-convenient escape hatch used by almost all conspiracy theorists. The fact that "tampering with evidence" could have possibly been done is enough to convince those conspiracy believers (particularly "Internet CTers") that all of the evidence that incriminates Oswald was, in fact, tampered with.
Via such a wide-sweeping claim, however, no defendant who was on trial for any crime could ever be convicted---because all the sneaky defense attorneys need to do is to convince the jury that the evidence could have conceivably been tampered with.
And how can the jury possibly know with 100% certainty if any (or all) of the evidence really had or had not been tampered with? They can't possibly know such a thing--even with a rock-solid chain of possession for every last piece of evidence in the whole case. Because why couldn't a "chain of custody" trail be faked too? Obviously, it could be faked.
Ergo, every defendant could potentially walk free out of every courtroom due to the mere possibility of such underhanded shenanigans on the part of the authorities.
For an indication of what I just implied above being the absolute truth, all one has to do is to look to the O.J. Simpson sham of a trial.
But the allegation of evidence-tampering is a far cry from proving that the evidence really was tampered with.
And what PROOF does any conspiracy theorist who has ever walked this Earth possess that would verify and prove that even one piece of evidence in the JFK murder case was, in fact, "tampered with" by any of the authorities?
I'll answer my last question with the only possible answer there is --- There is no such proof. And there never has been.
David Von Pein
September 2014
