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.
Conclusion
The foregoing evidence establishes that (1) two eyewitnesses who heard the shots and saw the shooting of Dallas Police Patrolman J. D. Tippit and seven eyewitnesses who saw the flight of the gunman with revolver in hand positively identified Lee Harvey Oswald as the man they saw fire the shots or flee from the scene, (2) the cartridge cases found near the scene of the shooting were fired from the revolver in the possession of Oswald at the time of his arrest, to the exclusion of all other weapons, (3) the revolver in Oswald’s possession at the time of his arrest was purchased by and belonged to Oswald, and (4) Oswald’s jacket was found along the path of flight taken by the gunman as he fled from the scene of the killing. On the basis of this evidence the Commission concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald killed Dallas Police Patrolman J.D. Tippit.
OSWALD’S ARREST
The Texas Theatre is on the north side of Jefferson Boulevard, approximately eight blocks from the scene of the Tippit shooting and six blocks from where several witnesses last saw Oswald running west on Jefferson Boulevard.[C4-615] (See Commission Exhibit No. 1968, [p. 164].) Shortly after the Tippit murder, police sirens sounded along Jefferson Boulevard. One of the persons who heard the sirens was Johnny Calvin Brewer, manager of Hardy’s Shoestore, a few doors east of the Texas Theatre. Brewer knew from radio broadcasts that the President had been shot and that a patrolman had also been shot in Oak Cliff.[C4-616] When he heard police sirens, he “looked up and saw the man enter the lobby,” a recessed area extending about 15 feet between the sidewalk and the front door of his store.[C4-617] A police car made a U-turn, and as the sirens grew fainter, the man in the lobby “looked over his shoulder and turned around and walked up West Jefferson towards the theatre.”[C4-618] The man wore a T-shirt beneath his outer shirt and he had no jacket.[C4-619] Brewer said, “He just looked funny to me. * * * His hair was sort of messed up and looked like he had been running, and he looked scared, and he looked funny.”[C4-620]
(HILL EXHIBIT B)
OSWALD IN FRONT OF TEXAS THEATER
(FRANK PIZZO EXHIBIT 453-C)
OSWALD AT DALLAS POLICE DEPARTMENT