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.