And I said, "What do you mean, son?" And, he said, "Well, when you have one leader over everyone else." And, he said, leader—he didn't just say country. I remember that—how he said it. And, I said, "What do you mean 'one leader'"? And he said, "Well, when you don't have a leader in every little old country and them trying to scramble with one another" and he said, "Another thing, like you—you own the shop and these other fellows work for you and you get part of their money and he said when everybody has a say, when one man is not allowed to hog up the whole country and let another man starve," he says "that's when we are going to quit having wars and all this junk." And I said, "Where in the world did you get that kind of stuff?"
He never did answer me, but it made me so—if I knew then what I know now, I would probably have took him and bought him a steak to try to quiz him and find out who it was and where he got all of that. Instead, it made me mad, just to be honest about it—I would like to have took one of them razor straps and tore him up. If he had been a 14-year-old boy of mine that said a thing like that he would have got it, but he got up and left the shop and I haven't heard him since, and I didn't find out where he lived, who he was or nothing. The anger in him saying that is where I did it, and I—the guy that talks like that, I know one thing I should, as Mr. Odum told me, I should have found out where he lived, where he went to school or something, but I didn't do it. It just made me so mad the thing I wanted him to do was get out of there.
Mr. Jenner. Mr. Odum is the FBI agent?
Mr. Shasteen. Well, he's one of them, and I know Mr. Odum—he came back. He wasn't the first one that came to talk to me, but he has come back several times and I met him several times—I don't know. I will be honest with you—I don't—I know how to call him at any time, but that's where your old temper gets away with you. I realize now that I should have just, when the kid said that, instead of saying anything back to him—I didn't have to agree with him, but I could have found out where he lived, what he did and that kind of thing, but you know it had to take something like this before it wakes up some of us and I never give it a thought.
Just like Oswald—I owned the shop and naturally I wanted to see every head of hair come in there that will, but the thing of it is—a guy like Oswald and that kid—you just disagree with them so much that you hope they don't ever come back and that's the attitude I felt, but I know I was wrong about it, but it's done and there ain't nothing I can do about it.
I just have watched and watched and I don't know a soul to ask, because Oswald is dead and he's the only one I ever saw that kid with—he is the only one that I ever saw that kid with and I don't remember seeing him since that time—I don't know who he was any more than nothing.
Mr. Jenner. How many times—you personally, now, without someone else having told you the boy was in the shop, how many times do you recall when he was in your shop?
Mr. Shasteen. The 14-year-old boy?
Mr. Jenner. Yes.
Mr. Shasteen. Three times—I know. In other words, I know he came with Oswald the night I'm talking about when he wanted to know where I was going and I went to the back door. You see, I seen them coming in and I did hurry to get out the back door.