Report of the President's Commission on the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy

by United States. Warren Commission

THE KILLING OF PATROLMAN J. D. TIPPIT

After leaving the Depository Building at approximately 12:33 p.m., Lee Harvey Oswald proceeded to his roominghouse by bus and taxi. He arrived at approximately 1 p.m. and left a few minutes later. At about 1:16 p.m., a Dallas police officer, J. D. Tippit, was shot less than 1 mile from Oswald’s roominghouse. In deciding whether Oswald killed Patrolman Tippit the Commission considered the following: (1) positive identification of the killer by two eyewitnesses who saw the shooting and seven eyewitnesses who heard the shots and saw the gunman flee the scene with the revolver in his hand, (2) testimony of firearms identification experts establishing the identity of the murder weapon, (3) evidence establishing the ownership of the murder weapon, (4) evidence establishing the ownership of a zipper jacket found along the path of flight taken by the gunman from the scene of the shooting to the place of arrest.

Oswald’s Movements After Leaving Depository Building

The bus ride.—According to the reconstruction of time and events which the Commission found most credible, Lee Harvey Oswald left the building approximately 3 minutes after the assassination. He probably walked east on Elm Street for seven blocks to the corner of Elm and Murphy where he boarded a bus which was heading back in the direction of the Depository Building, on its way to the Oak Cliff section of Dallas. (See Commission Exhibit 1119-A, [p. 158].)

When Oswald was apprehended, a bus transfer marked for the Lakewood-Marsalis route was found in his shirt pocket.[C4-418] The transfer was dated “Fri. Nov. 22, ’63” and was punched in two places by the busdriver. On the basis of this punchmark, which was distinctive to each Dallas driver, the transfer was conclusively identified as having been issued by Cecil J. McWatters, a busdriver for the Dallas Transit Co.[C4-419] On the basis of the date and time on the transfer, McWatters was able to testify that the transfer had been issued by him on a trip which passed a check point at St. Paul and Elm Streets at 12:36 p.m., November 22, 1963.[C4-420]

McWatters was sure that he left the checkpoint on time and he estimated that it took him 3 to 4 minutes to drive three blocks west from the checkpoint to Field Street, which he reached at about 12:40 p.m.[C4-421] McWatters’ recollection is that he issued this transfer to a man who entered his bus just beyond Field Street, where a man beat on the front door of the bus, boarded it and paid his fare.[C4-422] About two blocks later, a woman asked to get off to make a 1 o’clock train at Union Station and requested a transfer which she might use if she got through the traffic.

* * * So I gave her a transfer and opened the door and she was going out the gentleman I had picked up about two blocks [back] asked for a transfer and got off at the same place in the middle of the block where the lady did.

* * * It was the intersection near Lamar Street, it was near Poydras and Lamar Street.[C4-423]

Commission Exhibit No. 1119-A

WHEREABOUTS OF
LEE HARVEY OSWALD
between
12:33 P.M. and 1:50 P.M.
November 22, 1963
(ALL TIMES ARE APPROXIMATE)

The man was on the bus approximately 4 minutes.[C4-424]

At about 6:30 p.m. on the day of the assassination, McWatters viewed four men in a police lineup. He picked Oswald from the lineup as the man who had boarded the bus at the “lower end of town on Elm around Houston,” and who, during the ride south on Marsalis, had an argument with a woman passenger.[C4-425] In his Commission testimony, McWatters said he had been in error and that a teenager named Milton Jones was the passenger he had in mind.[C4-426] In a later interview, Jones confirmed that he had exchanged words with a woman passenger on the bus during the ride south on Marsalis.[C4-427] McWatters also remembered that a man received a transfer at Lamar and Elm Streets and that a man in the lineup was about the size of this man.[C4-428] However, McWatters’ recollection alone was too vague to be a basis for placing Oswald on the bus.

Riding on the bus was an elderly woman, Mary Bledsoe, who confirmed the mute evidence of the transfer. Oswald had rented a room from Mrs. Bledsoe about 6 weeks before, on October 7,[C4-429] but she had asked him to leave at the end of a week. Mrs. Bledsoe told him “I am not going to rent to you any more.”[C4-430] She testified, “I didn’t like his attitude. * * * There was just something about him I didn’t like or want him. * * * Just didn’t want him around me.” [C4-431] On November 22, Mrs. Bledsoe came downtown to watch the Presidential motorcade. She boarded the Marsalis bus at St. Paul and Elm Streets to return home.[C4-432] She testified further:

And, after we got past Akard, at Murphy—I figured it out. Let’s see. I don’t know for sure. Oswald got on. He looks like a maniac. His sleeve was out here. * * * His shirt was undone.

* * * * *

Was a hole in it, hole, and he was dirty, and I didn’t look at him. I didn’t want to know I even seen him * * *

* * * * *

* * * he looked so bad in his face, and his face was so distorted.

* * * * *

Hole in his sleeve right here.[C4-433]

As Mrs. Bledsoe said these words, she pointed to her right elbow.[C4-434] When Oswald was arrested in the Texas Theatre, he was wearing a brown sport shirt with a hole in the right sleeve at the elbow.[C4-435] Mrs. Bledsoe identified the shirt as the one Oswald was wearing and she stated she was certain that it was Oswald who boarded the bus.[C4-436] Mrs. Bledsoe recalled that Oswald sat halfway to the rear of the bus which moved slowly and intermittently as traffic became heavy.[C4-437] She heard a passing motorist tell the driver that the President had been shot.[C4-438] People on the bus began talking about it. As the bus neared Lamar Street, Oswald left the bus and disappeared into the crowd.[C4-439]

The Marsalis bus which Oswald boarded traveled a route west on Elm, south on Houston, and southwest across the Houston viaduct to service the Oak Cliff area along Marsalis.[C4-440] A Beckley bus which also served the Oak Cliff area, followed the same route as the Marsalis bus through downtown Dallas, except that it continued west on Elm, across Houston in front of the Depository Building, past the Triple Underpass into west Dallas, and south on Beckley.[C4-441] Marsalis Street is seven blocks from Beckley.[C4-442] Oswald lived at 1026 North Beckley.[C4-443] He could not reach his roominghouse on the Marsalis bus, but the Beckley bus stopped across the street.[C4-444] According to McWatters, the Beckley bus was behind the Marsalis bus, but he did not actually see it.[C4-445] Both buses stopped within one block of the Depository Building. Instead of waiting there, Oswald apparently went as far away as he could and boarded the first Oak Cliff bus which came along rather than wait for one which stopped across the street from his roominghouse.

In a reconstruction of this bus trip, agents of the Secret Service and the FBI walked the seven blocks from the front entrance of the Depository Building to Murphy and Elm three times, averaging 6½ minutes for the three trips.[C4-446] A bus moving through heavy traffic on Elm from Murphy to Lamar was timed at 4 minutes.[C4-447] If Oswald left the Depository Building at 12:33 p.m., walked seven blocks directly to Murphy and Elm, and boarded a bus almost immediately, he would have boarded the bus at approximately 12:40 p.m. and left it at approximately 12:44 p.m. (See Commission Exhibit No. 1119-A, [p. 158].)

Roger D. Craig, a deputy sheriff of Dallas County, claimed that about 15 minutes after the assassination he saw a man, whom he later identified as Oswald,[C4-448] coming from the direction of the Depository Building and running down the hill north of Elm Street toward a light-colored Rambler station wagon, which was moving slowly along Elm toward the underpass.[C4-449] The station wagon stopped to pick up the man and then drove off.[C4-450] Craig testified that later in the afternoon he saw Oswald in the police interrogation room and told Captain Fritz that Oswald was the man he saw.[C4-451] Craig also claimed that when Fritz pointed out to Oswald that Craig had identified him, Oswald rose from his chair, looked directly at Fritz, and said, “Everybody will know who I am now.”[C4-452]

The Commission could not accept important elements of Craig’s testimony. Captain Fritz stated that a deputy sheriff whom he could not identify did ask to see him that afternoon and told him a similar story to Craig’s.[C4-453] Fritz did not bring him into his office to identify Oswald but turned him over to Lieutenant Baker for questioning. If Craig saw Oswald that afternoon, he saw him through the glass windows of the office. And neither Captain Fritz nor any other officer can remember that Oswald dramatically arose from his chair and said, “Everybody will know who I am now.”[C4-454] If Oswald had made such a statement, Captain Fritz and others present would probably have remembered it. Craig may have seen a person enter a white Rambler station wagon 15 or 20 minutes after the shooting and travel west on Elm Street, but the Commission concluded that this man was not Lee Harvey Oswald, because of the overwhelming evidence that Oswald was far away from the building by that time.

The taxicab ride.—William Whaley, a taxicab driver, told his employer on Saturday morning, November 23, that he recognized Oswald from a newspaper photograph as a man whom he had driven to the Oak Cliff area the day before.[C4-455] Notified of Whaley’s statement, the police brought him to the police station that afternoon. He was taken to the lineup room where, according to Whaley, five young teenagers, all handcuffed together, were displayed with Oswald.[C4-456] He testified that Oswald looked older than the other boys.[C4-457] The police asked him whether he could pick out his passenger from the lineup. Whaley picked Oswald. He said,

* * * you could have picked him out without identifying him by just listening to him because he was bawling out the policeman, telling them it wasn’t right to put him in line with these teenagers and all of that and they asked me which one and I told them. It was him all right, the same man.

* * * * *

He showed no respect for the policemen, he told them what he thought about them. They knew what they were doing and they were trying to railroad him and he wanted his lawyer.[C4-458]

Whaley believes that Oswald’s conduct did not aid him in his identification “because I knew he was the right one as soon as I saw him.”[C4-459]

Whaley’s memory of the lineup is inaccurate. There were four men altogether, not six men, in the lineup with Oswald.[C4-460] Whaley said that Oswald was the man under No. 2.[C4-461] Actually Oswald was under No. 3. Only two of the men in the lineup with Oswald were teenagers: John T. Horn, aged 18, was No. 1; David Knapp, aged 18, was No. 2; Lee Oswald was No. 3; and Daniel Lujan, aged 26, was No. 4.[C4-462]

When he first testified before the Commission, Whaley displayed a trip manifest[C4-463] which showed a 12 o’clock trip from Travis Hotel to the Continental bus station, unloaded at 12:15 p.m., a 12:15 p.m. pickup at Continental to Greyhound, unloaded at 12:30 p.m., and a pickup from Greyhound (bus station) at 12:30 p.m., unloaded at 500 North Beckley at 12:45 p.m. Whaley testified that he did not keep an accurate time record of his trips but recorded them by the quarter hour, and that sometimes he made his entry right after a trip while at other times he waited to record three or four trips.[C4-464] As he unloaded his Continental bus station passenger in front of Greyhound, he started to get out to buy a package of cigarettes.[C4-465] He saw a man walking south on Lamar from Commerce. The man was dressed in faded blue color khaki work clothes, a brown shirt, and some kind of work jacket that almost matched his pants.[C4-466] The man asked, “May I have the cab?”, and got into the front seat.[C4-467] Whaley described the ensuing events as follows:

And about that time an old lady, I think she was an old lady, I don’t remember nothing but her sticking her head down past him in the door and said, “Driver, will you call me a cab down here?”

She had seen him get this cab and she wanted one, too, and he opened the door a little bit like he was going to get out and he said, “I will let you have this one,” and she says, “No, the driver can call me one.”

* * * * *

* * * I asked him where he wanted to go. And he said, “500 North Beckley.”

Well, I started up, I started to that address, and the police cars, the sirens was going, running crisscrossing everywhere, just a big uproar in that end of town and I said, “What the hell. I wonder what the hell is the uproar?”

And he never said anything. So I figured he was one of these people that don’t like to talk so I never said any more to him.

But when I got pretty close to 500 block at Neches and North Beckley which is the 500 block, he said, “This will do fine,” and I pulled over to the curb right there. He gave me a dollar bill, the trip was 95 cents. He gave me a dollar bill and didn’t say anything, just got out and closed the door and walked around the front of the cab over to the other side of the street [east side of the street]. Of course, the traffic was moving through there and I put it in gear and moved on, that is the last I saw of him.[C4-468]

Whaley was somewhat imprecise as to where he unloaded his passenger. He marked what he thought was the intersection of Neches and Beckley on a map of Dallas with a large “X.”[C4-469] He said, “Yes, sir; that is right, because that is the 500 block of North Beckley.”[C4-470] However, Neches and Beckley do not intersect. Neches is within one-half block of the roominghouse at 1026 North Beckley where Oswald was living. The 500 block of North Beckley is five blocks south of the roominghouse.[C4-471]

After a review of these inconsistencies in his testimony before the Commission, Whaley was interviewed again in Dallas. The route of the taxicab was retraced under the direction of Whaley.[C4-472] He directed the driver of the car to a point 20 feet north of the northwest corner of the intersection of Beckley and Neely, the point at which he said his passenger alighted.[C4-473] This was the 700 block of North Beckley.[C4-474] The elapsed time of the reconstructed run from the Greyhound Bus Station to Neely and Beckley was 5 minutes and 30 seconds by stopwatch.[C4-475] The walk from Beckley and Neely to 1026 North Beckley was timed by Commission counsel at 5 minutes and 45 seconds.[C4-476]

Whaley testified that Oswald was wearing either the gray zippered jacket or the heavy blue jacket.[C4-477] He was in error, however. Oswald could not possibly have been wearing the blue jacket during the trip with Whaley, since it was found in the “domino” room of the Depository late in November.[C4-478] Moreover, Mrs. Bledsoe saw Oswald in the bus without a jacket and wearing a shirt with a hole at the elbow.[C4-479] On the other hand, Whaley identified Commission Exhibit No. 150 (the shirt taken from Oswald upon arrest) as the shirt his passenger was wearing.[C4-480] He also stated he saw a silver identification bracelet on his passenger’s left wrist.[C4-481] Oswald was wearing such a bracelet when he was arrested.[C4-482]

On November 22, Oswald told Captain Fritz that he rode a bus to a stop near his home and then walked to his roominghouse.[C4-483] When queried the following morning concerning a bus transfer found in his possession at the time of his arrest, he admitted receiving it.[C4-484] And when interrogated about a cab ride, Oswald also admitted that he left the slow-moving bus and took a cab to his roominghouse.[C4-485]

The Greyhound Bus Station at Lamar and Jackson Streets, where Oswald entered Whaley’s cab, is three to four short blocks south of Lamar and Elm.[C4-486] If Oswald left the bus at 12:44 p.m. and walked directly to the terminal, he would have entered the cab at 12:47 or 12:48 p.m. If the cab ride was approximately 6 minutes, as was the reconstructed ride, he would have reached his destination at approximately 12:54 p.m. If he was discharged at Neely and Beckley and walked directly to his roominghouse, he would have arrived there about 12:59 to 1 p.m. From the 500 block of North Beckley, the walk would be a few minutes longer, but in either event he would have been in the roominghouse at about 1 p.m. This is the approximate time he entered the roominghouse, according to Earlene Roberts, the housekeeper there.[C4-487] (See Commission Exhibit No. 1119-A, [p. 158].)

Arrival and departure from roominghouse.—Earlene Roberts, housekeeper for Mrs. A.C. Johnson at 1026 North Beckley, knew Lee Harvey Oswald under the alias of O. H. Lee. She first saw him the day he rented a room at that address on October 14, 1963.[C4-488] He signed his name as O. H. Lee on the roominghouse register.[C4-489]

Mrs. Roberts testified that on Thursday, November 21, Oswald did not come home. On Friday, November 22, about 1 p.m., he entered the house in unusual haste. She recalled that it was subsequent to the time the President had been shot. After a friend had called and told her, “President Kennedy has been shot,” she turned on the television. When Oswald came in she said, “Oh, you are in a hurry,” but Oswald did not respond. He hurried to his room and stayed no longer than 3 or 4 minutes. Oswald had entered the house in his shirt sleeves, but when he left, he was zipping up a jacket. Mrs. Roberts saw him a few seconds later standing near the bus stop in front of the house on the east side of Beckley.[C4-490]

Commission Exhibit No. 1968

LOCATION OF EYEWITNESSES TO THE MOVEMENTS OF LEE HARVEY OSWALD IN THE VICINITY OF THE TIPPIT KILLING

Oswald was next seen about nine-tenths of a mile away at the southeast corner of 10th Street and Patton Avenue, moments before the Tippit shooting. (See Commission Exhibit No. 1119-A, [p. 158].) If Oswald left his roominghouse shortly after 1 p.m. and walked at a brisk pace, he would have reached 10th and Patton shortly after 1:15 p.m.[C4-491] Tippit’s murder was recorded on the police radio tape at about 1:16 p.m.[C4-492]

Description of Shooting

Patrolman J. D. Tippit joined the Dallas Police Department in July 1952.[C4-493] He was described by Chief Curry as having the reputation of being “a very fine, dedicated officer.”[C4-494] Tippit patroled district No. 78 in the Oak Cliff area of Dallas during daylight hours. He drove a police car painted distinctive colors with No. 10 prominently displayed on each side. Tippit rode alone, as only one man was normally assigned to a patrol car in residential areas during daylight shifts.[C4-495]

At about 12:44 p.m. on November 22, the radio dispatcher on channel 1 ordered all downtown patrol squads to report to Elm and Houston, code 3 (emergency).[C4-496] At 12:45 p.m. the dispatcher ordered No. 78 (Tippit) to “move into central Oak Cliff area.”[C4-497] At 12:54 p.m., Tippit reported that he was in the central Oak Cliff area at Lancaster and Eighth. The dispatcher ordered Tippit to be: “* * * at large for any emergency that comes in.”[C4-498] According to Chief Curry, Tippit was free to patrol the central Oak Cliff area.[C4-499] Tippit must have heard the description of the suspect wanted for the President’s shooting; it was broadcast over channel 1 at 12:45 p.m., again at 12:48 p.m., and again at 12:55 p.m.[C4-500] The suspect was described as a “white male, approximately 30, slender build, height 5 foot 10 inches, weight 165 pounds.”[C4-501] A similar description was given on channel 2 at 12:45 p.m.[C4-502]

At approximately 1:15 p.m., Tippit, who was cruising east on 10th Street, passed the intersection of 10th and Patton, about eight blocks from where he had reported at 12:54 p.m. About 100 feet past the intersection Tippit stopped a man walking east along the south side of Patton. (See Commission Exhibit No. 1968, [p. 164].) The man’s general description was similar to the one broadcast over the police radio. Tippit stopped the man and called him to his car. He approached the car and apparently exchanged words with Tippit through the right front or vent window. Tippit got out and started to walk around the front of the car. As Tippit reached the left front wheel the man pulled out a revolver and fired several shots. Four bullets hit Tippit and killed him instantly. The gunman started back toward Patton Avenue, ejecting the empty cartridge cases before reloading with fresh bullets.

Eyewitnesses

At least 12 persons saw the man with the revolver in the vicinity of the Tippit crime scene at or immediately after the shooting. By the evening of November 22, five of them had identified Lee Harvey Oswald in police lineups as the man they saw. A sixth did so the next day. Three others subsequently identified Oswald from a photograph. Two witnesses testified that Oswald resembled the man they had seen. One witness felt he was too distant from the gunman to make a positive identification. (See Commission Exhibit No. 1968, [p. 164].)

A taxi driver, William Scoggins, was eating lunch in his cab which was parked on Patton facing the southeast corner of 10th Street and Patton Avenue a few feet to the north.[C4-503] A police car moving east on 10th at about 10 or 12 miles an hour passed in front of his cab. About 100 feet from the corner the police car pulled up alongside a man on the sidewalk. This man, dressed in a light-colored jacket, approached the car. Scoggins lost sight of him behind some shrubbery on the southeast corner lot, but he saw the policeman leave the car, heard three or four shots, and then saw the policeman fall. Scoggins hurriedly left his seat and hid behind the cab as the man came back toward the corner with gun in hand. The man cut across the yard through some bushes, passed within 12 feet of Scoggins, and ran south on Patton. Scoggins saw him and heard him mutter either “Poor damn cop” or “Poor dumb cop.”[C4-504] The next day Scoggins viewed a lineup of four persons and identified Oswald as the man whom he had seen the day before at 10th and Patton.[C4-505] In his testimony before the Commission, Scoggins stated that he thought he had seen a picture of Oswald in the newspapers prior to the lineup identification on Saturday. He had not seen Oswald on television and had not been shown any photographs of Oswald by the police.[C4-506]

Another witness, Domingo Benavides, was driving a pickup truck west on 10th Street. As he crossed the intersection a block east of 10th and Patton, he saw a policeman standing by the left door of the police car parked along the south side of 10th. Benavides saw a man standing at the right side of the parked police car. He then heard three shots and saw the policeman fall to the ground. By this time the pickup truck was across the street and about 25 feet from the police car. Benavides stopped and waited in the truck until the gunman ran to the corner. He saw him empty the gun and throw the shells into some bushes on the southeast corner lot.[C4-507] It was Benavides, using Tippit’s car radio, who first reported the killing of Patrolman Tippit at about 1:16 p.m.: “We’ve had a shooting out here.”[C4-508] He found two empty shells in the bushes and gave them to Patrolman J. M. Poe who arrived on the scene shortly after the shooting.[C4-509] Benavides never saw Oswald after the arrest. When questioned by police officers on the evening of November 22, Benavides told them that he did not think that he could identify the man who fired the shots. As a result, they did not take him to the police station. He testified that the picture of Oswald which he saw later on television bore a resemblance to the man who shot Officer Tippit.[C4-510]

Just prior to the shooting, Mrs. Helen Markham, a waitress in downtown Dallas, was about to cross 10th Street at Patton. As she waited on the northwest corner of the intersection for traffic to pass,[C4-511] she noticed a young man as he was “almost ready to get up on the curb”[C4-512] at the southeast corner of the intersection, approximately 50 feet away. The man continued along 10th Street. Mrs. Markham saw a police car slowly approach the man from the rear and stop alongside of him. She saw the man come to the right window of the police car. As he talked, he leaned on the ledge of the right window with his arms. The man appeared to step back as the policeman “calmly opened the car door” and very slowly got out and walked toward the front of the car. The man pulled a gun. Mrs. Markham heard three shots and saw the policeman fall to the ground near the left front wheel. She raised her hands to her eyes as the man started to walk back toward Patton.[C4-513] She peered through her fingers, lowered her hands, and saw the man doing something with his gun. “He was just fooling with it. I didn’t know what he was doing. I was afraid he was fixing to kill me.”[C4-514] The man “in kind of a little trot” headed down Patton toward Jefferson Boulevard, a block away. Mrs. Markham then ran to Officer Tippit’s side and saw him lying in a pool of blood.[C4-515]

Helen Markham was screaming as she leaned over the body.[C4-516] A few minutes later she described the gunman to a policeman.[C4-517] Her description and that of other eyewitnesses led to the police broadcast at 1:22 p.m. describing the slayer as “about 30, 5’8”, black hair, slender.”[C4-518] At about 4:30 p.m., Mrs. Markham, who had been greatly upset by her experience, was able to view a lineup of four men handcuffed together at the police station.[C4-519] She identified Lee Harvey Oswald as the man who shot the policeman.[C4-520] Detective L. C. Graves, who had been with Mrs. Markham before the lineup testified that she was “quite hysterical” and was “crying and upset.”[C4-521] He said that Mrs. Markham started crying when Oswald walked into the lineup room.[C4-522] In testimony before the Commission, Mrs. Markham confirmed her positive identification of Lee Harvey Oswald as the man she saw kill Officer Tippit.[C4-523]

In evaluating Mrs. Markham’s identification of Oswald, the Commission considered certain allegations that Mrs. Markham described the man who killed Patrolman Tippit as “short, a little on the heavy side,” and having “somewhat bushy” hair.[C4-524] The Commission reviewed the transcript of a phone conversation in which Mrs. Markham is alleged to have provided such a description.[C4-525] A review of the complete transcript has satisfied the Commission that Mrs. Markham strongly reaffirmed her positive identification of Oswald and denied having described the killer as short, stocky and having bushy hair. She stated that the man weighed about 150 pounds.[C4-526] Although she used the words “a little bit bushy” to describe the gunman’s hair, the transcript establishes that she was referring to the uncombed state of his hair, a description fully supported by a photograph of Oswald taken at the time of his arrest. (See Pizzo Exhibit No. 453-C, [p. 177].) Although in the phone conversation she described the man as “short,”[C4-527] on November 22, within minutes of the shooting and before the lineup, Mrs. Markham described the man to the police as 5’8” tall.[C4-528]

During her testimony Mrs. Markham initially denied that she ever had the above phone conversation.[C4-529] She has subsequently admitted the existence of the conversation and offered an explanation for her denial.[C4-530] Addressing itself solely to the probative value of Mrs. Markham’s contemporaneous description of the gunman and her positive identification of Oswald at a police lineup, the Commission considers her testimony reliable. However, even in the absence of Mrs. Markham’s testimony, there is ample evidence to identify Oswald as the killer of Tippit.

Two young women, Barbara Jeanette Davis and Virginia Davis, were in an apartment of a multiple-unit house on the southeast corner of 10th and Patton when they heard the sound of gunfire and the screams of Helen Markham. They ran to the door in time to see a man with a revolver cut across their lawn and disappear around a corner of the house onto Patton.[C4-531] Barbara Jeanette Davis assumed that he was emptying his gun as “he had it open and was shaking it.”[C4-532] She immediately called the police. Later in the day each woman found an empty shell on the ground near the house. These two shells were delivered to the police.[C4-533]

On the evening of November 22, Barbara Jeanette and Virginia Davis viewed a group of four men in a lineup and each one picked Oswald as the man who crossed their lawn while emptying his pistol.[C4-534] Barbara Jeanette Davis testified that no one had shown her a picture of Oswald before the identification and that she had not seen him on television. She was not sure whether she had seen his picture in a newspaper on the afternoon or evening of November 22 prior to the lineup.[C4-535] Her reaction when she saw Oswald in the lineup was that “I was pretty sure it was the same man I saw. When they made him turn sideways, I was positive that was the one I seen.”[C4-536] Similarly, Virginia Davis had not been shown pictures of anyone prior to the lineup and had not seen either television or the newspapers during the afternoon.[C4-537] She identified Oswald, who was the No. 2 man in the lineup,[C4-538] as the man she saw running with the gun: she testified, “I would say that was him for sure.”[C4-539] Barbara Jeanette Davis and Virginia Davis were sitting alongside each other when they made their positive identifications of Oswald.[C4-540] Each woman whispered Oswald’s number to the detective. Each testified that she was the first to make the identification.[C4-541]

William Arthur Smith was about a block east of 10th and Patton when he heard shots. He looked west on 10th and saw a man running to the west and a policeman falling to the ground. Smith failed to make himself known to the police on November 22. Several days later he reported what he had seen and was questioned by FBI agents.[C4-542] Smith subsequently told a Commission staff member that he saw Oswald on television the night of the murder and thought that Oswald was the man he had seen running away from the shooting.[C4-543] On television Oswald’s hair looked blond, whereas Smith remembered that the man who ran away had hair that was brown or brownish black. Later, the FBI showed Smith a picture of Oswald. In the picture the hair was brown.[C4-544] According to his testimony, Smith told the FBI, “It looked more like him than it did on television.” He stated further that from “What I saw of him” the man looked like the man in the picture.[C4-545]

Two other important eyewitnesses to Oswald’s flight were Ted Callaway, manager of a used-car lot on the northeast corner of Patton Avenue and Jefferson Boulevard, and Sam Guinyard, a porter at the lot. They heard the sound of shots to the north of their lot.[C4-546] Callaway heard five shots, and Guinyard three. Both ran to the sidewalk on the east side of Patton at a point about a half a block south of 10th. They saw a man coming south on Patton with a revolver held high in his right hand. According to Callaway, the man crossed to the west side of Patton.[C4-547] From across the street Callaway yelled, “Hey, man, what the hell is going on?” He slowed down, halted, said something, and then kept on going to the corner, turned right, and continued west on Jefferson.[C4-548] Guinyard claimed that the man ran down the east side of Patton and passed within 10 feet of him before crossing to the other side.[C4-549] Guinyard and Callaway ran to 10th and Patton and found Tippit lying in the street beside his car.[C4-550] Apparently he had reached for his gun; it lay beneath him outside of the holster. Callaway picked up the gun.[C4-551] He and Scoggins attempted to chase down the gunman in Scoggin’s taxicab,[C4-552] but he had disappeared. Early in the evening of November 22, Guinyard and Callaway viewed the same lineup of four men from which Mrs. Markham had earlier made her identification of Lee Harvey Oswald. Both men picked Oswald as the man who had run south on Patton with a gun in his hand.[C4-553] Callaway told the Commission: “So they brought four men in. I stepped to the back of the room, so I could kind of see him from the same distance which I had seen him before. And when he came out I knew him.”[C4-554] Guinyard said, “I told them that was him right there. I pointed him out right there.”[C4-555] Both Callaway and Guinyard testified that they had not been shown any pictures by the police before the lineup.[C4-556]

The Dallas Police Department furnished the Commission with pictures of the men who appeared in the lineups with Oswald,[C4-557] and the Commission has inquired into general lineup procedures used by the Dallas police as well as the specific procedures in the lineups involving Oswald.[C4-558] The Commission is satisfied that the lineups were conducted fairly.

Commission Exhibit No. 143

REVOLVER USED IN TIPPIT KILLING

As Oswald ran south on Patton Avenue toward Jefferson Boulevard he was moving in the direction of a used-car lot located on the southeast corner of this intersection.[C4-559] Four men—Warren Reynolds,[C4-560] Harold Russell,[C4-561] Pat Patterson,[C4-562] and L. J. Lewis[C4-563]—were on the lot at the time, and they saw a white male with a revolver in his hands running south on Patton. When the man reached Jefferson, he turned right and headed west. Reynolds and Patterson decided to follow him. When he reached a gasoline service station one block away he turned north and walked toward a parking area in the rear of the station. Neither Reynolds nor Patterson saw the man after he turned off Jefferson at the service station.[C4-564] These four witnesses were interviewed by FBI agents 2 months after the shooting. Russell and Patterson were shown a picture of Oswald and they stated that Oswald was the man they saw on November 22, 1963. Russell confirmed this statement in a sworn affidavit for the Commission.[C4-565] Patterson, when asked later to confirm his identification by affidavit said he did not recall having been shown the photograph. He was then shown two photographs of Oswald and he advised that Oswald was “unquestionably” the man he saw.[C4-566] Reynolds did not make a positive identification when interviewed by the FBI, but he subsequently testified before a Commission staff member and, when shown two photographs of Oswald, stated that they were photographs of the man he saw.[C4-567] L. J. Lewis said in an interview that because of the distance from which he observed the gunman he would hesitate to state whether the man was identical with Oswald.[C4-568]

Murder Weapon

When Oswald was arrested, he had in his possession a Smith & Wesson .38 Special caliber revolver, serial number V510210. (See Commission Exhibit No. 143, [p. 170]). Two of the arresting officers placed their initials on the weapon and a third inscribed his name. All three identified Exhibit No. 143 as the revolver taken from Oswald when he was arrested.[C4-569] Four cartridge cases were found in the shrubbery on the corner of 10th and Patton by three of the eyewitnesses—Domingo Benavides, Barbara Jeanette Davis, and Virginia Davis.[C4-570] It was the unanimous and unequivocal testimony of expert witnesses before the Commission that these used cartridge cases were fired from the revolver in Oswald’s possession to the exclusion of all other weapons. (See app. X, [p. 559].)

Cortlandt Cunningham, of the Firearms Identification Unit of the FBI Laboratory, testified that he compared the four empty cartridge cases found near the scene of the shooting with a test cartridge fired from the weapon in Oswald’s possession when he was arrested. Cunningham declared that this weapon fired the four cartridges to the exclusion of all other weapons. Identification was effected through breech face marks and firing pin marks.[C4-571] Robert A. Frazier and Charles Killion, other FBI firearms experts, independently examined the four cartridge cases and arrived at the same conclusion as Cunningham.[C4-572] At the request of the Commission, Joseph D. Nicol, superintendent of the Illinois Bureau of Criminal Identification Investigation, also examined the four cartridge cases found near the site of the homicide and compared them with the test cartridge cases fired from the Smith & Wesson revolver taken from Oswald. He concluded that all of these cartridges were fired from the same weapon.[C4-573]

Cunningham compared four lead bullets recovered from the body of Patrolman Tippit with test bullets fired from Oswald’s revolver.[C4-574] He explained that the bullets were slightly smaller than the barrel of the pistol which had fired them. This caused the bullets to have an erratic passage through the barrel and impressed upon the lead of the bullets inconsistent individual characteristics which made identification impossible. Consecutive bullets fired from the revolver by the FBI experts could not be identified as having been fired from that revolver.[C4-575] (See app. X, [p. 559].) Cunningham testified that all of the bullets were mutilated, one being useless for comparison purposes. All four bullets were fired from a weapon with five lands and grooves and a right twist[C4-576] which were the rifling characteristics of the revolver taken from Oswald. He concluded, however, that he could not say whether the four bullets were fired from the revolver in Oswald’s possession.[C4-577] “The only thing I can testify is they could have on the basis of the rifling characteristics—they could have been.”[C4-578]

Nicol differed with the FBI experts on one bullet taken from Tippit’s body. He declared that this bullet[C4-579] was fired from the same weapon that fired the test bullets to the exclusion of all other weapons. But he agreed that because the other three bullets were mutilated, he could not determine if they had been fired from the same weapon as the test bullets.[C4-580]

The examination and testimony of the experts enabled the Commission to conclude that five shots may have been fired, even though only four bullets were recovered. Three of the bullets recovered from Tippit’s body were manufactured by Winchester-Western, and the fourth bullet by Remington-Peters, but only two of the four discarded cartridge cases found on the lawn at 10th Street and Patton Avenue were of Winchester-Western manufacture.[C4-581] Therefore, one cartridge case of this type was not recovered. And though only one bullet of Remington-Peters manufacture was recovered, two empty cartridge cases of that make were retrieved. Therefore, either one bullet of Remington-Peters manufacture is missing or one used Remington-Peters cartridge case, which may have been in the revolver before the shooting, was discarded along with the others as Oswald left the scene. If a bullet is missing, five were fired. This corresponds with the observation and memory of Ted Callaway,[C4-582] and possibly Warren Reynolds, but not with the other eyewitnesses who claim to have heard from two to four shots.

Ownership of Revolver

By checking certain importers and dealers after the assassination of President Kennedy and slaying of Officer Tippit, agents of the FBI determined that George Rose & Co. of Los Angeles was a major distributor of this type of revolver.[C4-583] Records of Seaport Traders, Inc., a mail-order division of George Rose & Co., disclosed that on January 3, 1963, the company received from Empire Wholesale Sporting Goods, Ltd., Montreal, a shipment of 99 guns in one case. Among these guns was a .38 Special caliber Smith & Wesson revolver, serial No. V510210, the only revolver made by Smith & Wesson with this serial number.[C4-584] When first manufactured, it had a 5-inch barrel. George Rose & Co. had the barrel shortened by a gunsmith to 2¼ inches.[C4-585]

REVOLVER PURCHASE AND SHIPPING DOCUMENTS

Commission Exhibit No. 790

Michaelis Exhibit No. 2

Michaelis Exhibit No. 4

Michaelis Exhibit No. 5

Sometime after January 27, 1963, Seaport Traders, Inc., received through the mail a mail-order coupon for one “.38 St. W. 2” Bbl.,” cost $29.95. Ten dollars in cash was enclosed. The order was signed in ink by “A. J. Hidell, aged 28.”[C4-586] (See Commission Exhibit No. 790, [p. 173].) The date of the order was January 27 (no year shown), and the return address was Post Office Box 2915, Dallas, Tex. Also on the order form was an order, written in ink, for one box of ammunition and one holster, but a line was drawn through these items. The mail-order form had a line for the name of a witness to attest that the person ordering the gun was a U.S. citizen and had not been convicted of a felony. The name written in this space was D. F. Drittal.[C4-587]

Heinz W. Michaelis, office manager of both George Rose & Co., Inc., and Seaport Traders, Inc., identified records of Seaport Traders, Inc., which showed that a “.38 S and W Special two-inch Commando, serial number V510210” was shipped on March 20, 1963, to A. J. Hidell, Post Office Box 2915, Dallas, Tex. The invoice was prepared on March 13, 1963; the revolver was actually shipped on March 20 by Railway Express. The balance due on the purchase was $19.95. Michaelis furnished the shipping copy of the invoice, and the Railway Express Agency shipping documents, showing that $19.95, plus $1.27 shipping charge, had been collected from the consignee, Hidell.[C4-588] (See Michaelis Exhibits Nos. 2, 4, 5, [p. 173].)

Handwriting experts, Alwyn Cole of the Treasury Department and James C. Cadigan of the FBI, testified before the Commission that the writing on the coupon was Oswald’s. The signature of the witness, D. F. Drittal, who attested that the fictitious Hidell was an American citizen and had not been convicted of a felony, was also in Oswald’s handwriting.[C4-589] Marina Oswald gave as her opinion that the mail-order coupon was in Oswald’s handwriting.[C4-590] When shown the revolver, she stated that she recognized it as the one owned by her husband.[C4-591] She also testified that this appeared to be the revolver seen in Oswald’s belt in the picture she took in late March or early April 1963 when the family was living on Neely Street in Dallas.[C4-592] Police found an empty revolver holster when they searched Oswald’s room on Beckley Avenue after his arrest.[C4-593] Marina Oswald testified that this was the holster which contained the revolver in the photographs taken on Neely Street.[C4-594]

Oswald’s Jacket

Approximately 15 minutes before the shooting of Tippit, Oswald was seen leaving his roominghouse.[C4-595] He was wearing a zipper jacket which he had not been wearing moments before when he had arrived home.[C4-596] When Oswald was arrested, he did not have a jacket.[C4-597] Shortly after Tippit was slain, policemen found a light-colored zipper jacket along the route taken by the killer as he attempted to escape.[C4-598] (See Commission Exhibit No. 1968, [p. 164].)

At 1:22 p.m. the Dallas police radio described the man wanted for the murder of Tippit as “a white male about thirty, five foot eight inches, black hair, slender, wearing a white jacket, white shirt and dark slacks.”[C4-599] According to Patrolman Poe this description came from Mrs. Markham and Mrs. Barbara Jeanette Davis.[C4-600] Mrs. Markham told Poe that the man was a “white male, about 25, about five feet eight, brown hair, medium,” and wearing a “white jacket.” Mrs. Davis gave Poe the same general description: a “white male in his early twenties, around five foot seven inches or eight inches, about 145 pounds,” and wearing a white jacket.

As has been discussed previously, two witnesses, Warren Reynolds and B. M. Patterson, saw the gunman run toward the rear of a gasoline service station on Jefferson Boulevard. Mrs. Mary Brock, the wife of a mechanic who worked at the station, was there at the time and she saw a white male, “5 feet, 10 inches * * * wearing light clothing * * * a light-colored jacket” walk past her at a fast pace with his hands in his pocket. She last saw him in the parking lot directly behind the service station. When interviewed by FBI agents on January 21, 1964, she identified a picture of Oswald as being the same person she saw on November 22. She confirmed this interview by a sworn affidavit.[C4-601]

At 1:24 p.m., the police radio reported, “The suspect last seen running west on Jefferson from 400 East Jefferson.”[C4-602] Police Capt. W. R. Westbrook and several other officers concentrated their search along Jefferson Boulevard.[C4-603] Westbrook walked through the parking lot behind the service station[C4-604] and found a light-colored jacket lying under the rear of one of the cars.[C4-605] Westbrook identified Commission Exhibit No. 162 as the light-colored jacket which he discovered underneath the automobile.[C4-606]

This jacket belonged to Lee Harvey Oswald. Marina Oswald stated that her husband owned only two jackets, one blue and the other gray.[C4-607] The blue jacket was found in the Texas School Book Depository[C4-608] and was identified by Marina Oswald as her husband’s.[C4-609] Marina Oswald also identified Commission Exhibit No. 162, the jacket found by Captain Westbrook, as her husband’s second jacket.[C4-610]

The eyewitnesses vary in their identification of the jacket. Mrs. Earlene Roberts, the housekeeper at Oswald’s roominghouse and the last person known to have seen him before he reached 10th Street and Patton Avenue, said that she may have seen the gray zipper jacket but she was not certain. It seemed to her that the jacket Oswald wore was darker than Commission Exhibit No. 162.[C4-611] Ted Callaway, who saw the gunman moments after the shooting, testified that Commission Exhibit No. 162 looked like the jacket he was wearing but “I thought it had a little more tan to it.”[C4-612] Two other witnesses, Sam Guinyard and William Arthur Smith, testified that Commission Exhibit No. 162 was the jacket worn by the man they saw on November 22. Mrs. Markham and Barbara Davis thought that the jacket worn by the slayer of Tippit was darker than the jacket found by Westbrook.[C4-613] Scoggins thought it was lighter.[C4-614]

There is no doubt, however, that Oswald was seen leaving his roominghouse at about 1 p.m. wearing a zipper jacket, that the man who killed Tippit was wearing a light-colored jacket, that he was seen running along Jefferson Boulevard, that a jacket was found under a car in a lot adjoining Jefferson Boulevard, that the jacket belonged to Lee Harvey Oswald, and that when he was arrested at approximately 1:50 p.m., he was in shirt sleeves. These facts warrant the finding that Lee Harvey Oswald disposed of his jacket as he fled from the scene of the Tippit killing.