Mr. Biggio. Yes; Lovers Lane is a street. We sent an officer out there, Detective Hellinghousen, F. A.
Mr. Jenner. Francis A. Hellinghousen [spelling] H-e-l-l-i-n-g-h-o-u-s-e-n?
Mr. Biggio. That is correct; yes, sir.
Mr. Jenner. Of the Dallas City Police?
Mr. Biggio. Yes, sir. He went to that particular area—there are two cafes across the street there in the 5000 block from the particular location that the lady friend of mine said. One of them was the Cafe Coffee Shop, was the name of it—the Cafe Coffee Shop. It was closed up at that time. Now, this took place approximately 3 weeks after the shooting. It was closed—ordinarily through our bureau we can find out who the owner was of such a place, because we keep the records of everyone through the beer licenses which we have to keep in our particular bureau, but this particular place did not have a beer license. It did not deal in beer.
It had been closed—we couldn’t find out who the owner was, so I sent Officer Hellinghousen and requested him to go by and talk to the woman who had originally given me that information and see if she would be willing to give him the same thing—the man’s name. Officer Hellinghousen went by and talked to her and she gave him the man’s name and at that particular time the man was attending a real estate convention which was here and being held here in Dallas and the word was sent to him from the company that he works for, the Bill Hardy Real Estate Co.—word was sent to the man, his name was Chesher [spelling] C-h-e-s-h-e-r—Bill was his first name. I believe it is correct—William R. He lives on Lupton Street.
Mr. Jenner. Is he still alive?
Mr. Biggio. No, sir. I tried to contact Hellinghousen today. Mr. Davis had gone up to talk to Captain Gannaway in regard to that report. I had understood that Hellinghousen had written a report from what he had learned from Mr. Chesher and I tried to contact him and could not, after Captain Gannaway had called me, so I went out to the Bill Hardy Real Estate Co. where Chesher works, and I talked to the manager of that company who is Wey, Jr. The location of the real estate company is 6340 E. Mockingbird Lane. Mr. Wey informed us that Bill Chesher died night before last of a heart attack in the hospital here. We then asked him if he had talked to Chesher any about hearing this mechanic talking in the cafe and he said, “No, he had heard some talk of it, though and he knew one man who had talked to him” and he called in another employee of the company, Mr. John P. [spelling] S-c-h-n-i-t-z-i-u-s, who is also an employee of the Bill Hardy Real Estate Co. and he told us that Chesher told him the same thing, that the mechanic had came in and sat by him and it was—that it took place at approximately 10 o’clock at night. He was leaving town—he was going out of town. He stopped there to get coffee and a sandwich and the man came in while he was there and he had given no description of the mechanic other than that he was short and was dressed in work clothes and that the clothes were greasy and that’s the information that he had, and I believe the man was telling the truth when he said he was a mechanic and that’s as far as we have been able to go.
Mr. Jenner. What is it that the mechanic is alleged to have said?
Mr. Biggio. He said that Oswald had been driving Ruby’s car for approximately 2 weeks and that he had brought the car into his garage for repairs, but he did not mention the name of the garage or the type of repairs, the type of automobile or anything else.