Mr. Hubert. I have one final matter I would like to ask you about. I have been advised that you represented an individual who happened to be in jail on the day the President was shot and had a view through the window?
Mr. Kaufman. Yes; this was an interesting development, Mr. Hubert. As I told you before we took the deposition, I represent a number of insurance companies and when I say a number, I maybe have three or four that we do defense work for, and when I talked to Mrs. Stroud of the U.S. attorney’s office, I told her that——
Mr. Hubert. That was just a couple of days ago?
Mr. Kaufman. Yes, sir; when I received the notice from the Committee. I had a case styled Lowe versus Mitchell that was in the 44th Judicial District Court and I was representing this, as I say, on behalf of an insurance company, and this boy, Willie Mitchell, a colored boy who we incidentally had a great deal of trouble getting into a defendant’s case. He felt that he had already served his term in jail and that he didn’t owe any debt to society moneywise or otherwise, and there was a serious question of whether we were going to continue to defend him or whether or not he had any coverage, but notwithstanding that, we did settle his case, and I did get him to come by the office one day for an interview, and in the course of my conversation he let me know that he was in the jail serving a DWI offense at the time the President was killed, and I sat back and forgot about the automobile accident and just let him talk, and he related how all of these prisoners up in jail had been advised by the jailers and that they had read in the newspapers that the President was coming to town, and they looked in the papers and they saw the route, how the President was coming to town, and the jailers told them where and that they were coming and they congregated at this window—I mean—this side of the jail. Apparently they had a good view of what took place, and he described to me exactly, and when I say “exactly,” he didn’t see anyone in that window, but I did tell Mrs. Stroud that I thought it might be helpful to the Commission to know that there were people in jail who saw the actual killing.
He described the President as having been hit from the rear and he said there was no question in his mind that the bullet came from the window. He said when the President’s head was hit, it was just like throwing a bucket of water at him—that’s the way it burst. He said it made him sick and everybody else sick up there.
I felt that Mrs. Stroud should know this and would want the Commission to know it for the reason that there seems to have been some question as to what I’ve read in the newspaper as to whether or not there was more than one bullet and whether or not the bullet came from the back or came from the front.
I was a small-arms instructor myself over in China, having been trained in the infantry school in Fort Benning, and I certainly feel I would love to, if I could, volunteer anything that would be helpful to the Commission, and if that information were helpful, I will be glad to get Willie Mitchell’s address and furnish it to you.
Actually, I don’t know who else was in jail. I do know that Willie Mitchell was, and I had even suggested that he get in touch with the Warren Commission, but he just has as many people have this “I don’t want to get involved” attitude. I mean, he felt that he had already been too much involved with that DWI and didn’t want to get involved with anything else.
Mr. Hubert. Does Mitchell live in Dallas?
Mr. Kaufman. He’s a construction worker and lives in Dallas.