Free Book Now Available -- Hasty Judgment: Why the JFK Case Is Not Closed

[Michael T. Griffith]

A few points in reply to various comments about the rifle palmprint:

* Keep in mind that Hoover’s September 4 memo, which claimed that irregularities from the rifle barrel could be seen in the palmprint lift, came a week after Liebeler’s August 28 memo. After Liebeler wrote the August 28 memo expressing doubts about the palmprint, Rankin wrote to the FBI on September 1 requesting additional information about the palmprint. Hoover’s September 4 memo was written in reply to Rankin’s request.

* We know from an internal FBI memo released in 1978 that before Rankin sent his September 1 memo to the FBI, he warned the FBI on August 28 that there was “a serious question in the minds of the Commission” about whether or not the palmprint was a “legitimate latent palm impression removed from the rifle barrel or whether it was obtained from some other source,” and that “this matter needs to be resolved.”

* In his September 4 reply, Hoover claimed that FBI “laboratory examiners” determined that the palmprint came from the rifle barrel because they said that irregularities on the rifle barrel could be seen in the palmprint lift. Let us state a few obvious facts about this claim:

-- The unnamed lab examiners were never called to testify about this alleged finding.

-- Hoover’s memo was not a sworn statement, and the lab examiners provided no sworn statement either.

-- Hoover did not address the issue of how and when the palmprint allegedly got on the rifle before it was supposedly lifted.

-- The WC made no effort to independently verify Hoover’s claim.

-- Vincent Scalice, the HSCA fingerprint expert who claimed he examined the original palmprint lift, said nothing about finding impressions of irregularities from the barrel on the palmprint lift. Not one word.

* Sylvia Meagher’s critique of Hoover’s claim is one of the best ever written. I quote a sizable part of it in my article “Was Oswald’s Palmprint Planted on the Alleged Murder Weapon?” Rather than quote it here, I refer interested readers to my article:

https://miketgriffith.com/files/palmprint.htm

* But let us assume for the sake of argument that the palmprint came from the rifle barrel. This would not automatically prove the print to be incriminating. Why? Because the FBI sent the rifle back to Dallas on 11/24, so the rifle was available in Dallas from 11/24 until Lt. Day handed it over for the second and final time to the FBI on 11/26. And we know that FBI agents took fingerprints and palmprints from Oswald’s body in the morgue on 11/24, a fact that Agent Drain found baffling and suspicious.

* Why did the FBI send the rifle back to Dallas on 11/24 only take it again on 11/26? Why? What was up with that? Why send it back for two days and then pick it up again? Why? Because Oswald’s palmprint needed to be planted on it?

* The fact that FBI agents spent a long time with Oswald’s body on 11/24 and took prints from it is well documented. This suspicious excursion was reported in the local press (Fort Worth Press), and the funeral home director, Paul Groody, confirmed the strange visit in multiple interviews.

* Therefore, at some point between the rifle’s return to Dallas on 11/24 and Oswald’s burial the next day, the rifle could have been taken to the morgue and the barrel could have been pressed and rolled against Oswald’s palm (although, as Meagher noted, Latona gave no indication that the palmprint he examined had any of the disruptions and omissions that one would see in a palmprint created by a hand holding a rifle barrel).

* Another way the palmprint could have been planted on the rifle barrel would have been to take a fresh Oswald palmprint lift and place it on the barrel. Forensic experts have known since the 1930s that lifts can be placed on other surfaces, not just on fingerprint cards. The differences between a real print and a planted one are not always readily apparent, and sometimes the differences can only be detected by microscopic examination:

Later we learned that a genuine latent impression could be picked up bodily and transplanted by means of a surprisingly simple transfer material. This looked formidable at first, but on examining the transferred impressions microscopically it was discovered that they differed in two aspects from the genuine. . . . .

While the problem of planting forged finger-prints at the site of crime is probably not quite so simple as Wehde implies, we have no doubt that in practice it could be done so skillfully as to escape detection and permit the forgeries to pass for genuine. (C.D. Lee, “Fingerprints Can Be Forged,” Police Science, Winter 1934, volume 25, pp. 672-673, available at https://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2507&context=jclc)

* Interestingly, Agent Drain suggested that the palmprint was planted on the rifle by taking one of Oswald’s palmprint cards and putting the impression on the rifle: “You could take the print off Oswald's card and put it on the rifle. Something like that happened” (Henry Hurt, Reasonable Doubt, p. 109).

[Tim Nickerson]

A few points in reply to various comments about the rifle palmprint:

* Keep in mind that Hoover’s September 4 memo, which claimed that irregularities from the rifle barrel could be seen in the palmprint lift, came a week after Liebeler’s August 28 memo. After Liebeler wrote the August 28 memo expressing doubts about the palmprint, Rankin wrote to the FBI on September 1 requesting additional information about the palmprint. Hoover’s September 4 memo was written in reply to Rankin’s request.

* We know from an internal FBI memo released in 1978 that before Rankin sent his September 1 memo to the FBI, he warned the FBI on August 28 that there was “a serious question in the minds of the Commission” about whether or not the palmprint was a “legitimate latent palm impression removed from the rifle barrel or whether it was obtained from some other source,” and that “this matter needs to be resolved.”

* In his September 4 reply, Hoover claimed that FBI “laboratory examiners” determined that the palmprint came from the rifle barrel because they said that irregularities on the rifle barrel could be seen in the palmprint lift. Let us state a few obvious facts about this claim:

-- The unnamed lab examiners were never called to testify about this alleged finding.

-- Hoover’s memo was not a sworn statement, and the lab examiners provided no sworn statement either.

-- Hoover did not address the issue of how and when the palmprint allegedly got on the rifle before it was supposedly lifted.

-- The WC made no effort to independently verify Hoover’s claim.

Latona himself met with Rankin and Liebeler on the same day of the memo to discuss latent print issues. The latent palm print lifted by Day was one of those issues. While Hoover’s memo was not a sworn statement, and the lab examiners provided no sworn statement either, Liebeler did swear under oath that it was Latona who matched the lift with the barrel of the rifle.

-- Vincent Scalice, the HSCA fingerprint expert who claimed he examined the original palmprint lift, said nothing about finding impressions of irregularities from the barrel on the palmprint lift. Not one word.

Scalise reported that he identified five points of identity which match the lift to the barrel. If not impressions of irregularities, then what could those points of identity possibly have been? How else could they have been described?

It seems that Cecil Kirk also matched the lift to the barrel. He found six points of matching identity. Although, his finding was never included in the HSCA volumes. It's not confirmed to my satisfaction that he did. It's just something that I stumbled upon.

...
Also found in the archive is a four page typewritten statement, likely done sometime after Kirk testified before the House committee, discussing the circumstances surrounding the "latent palm print" that conspiracy theorists alleged was faked to frame Oswald. Using photographic analysis Kirk demonstrated six defects on the gun that matched the flaws on the palm print taken by the F.B.I.: "The photographs of the barrel were in effect an aerial survey which was used to locate those six craters (metal defects) that were recorded by the latent print lift 15 years earlier. Indeed, they were found to still exist and can be recognized in the photographic documentation."
...
https://goldinauctions.com/1978_John_F_Kennedy_Archive_Collection__University-LOT18935.aspx

It'd be nice to find a copy of that letter.

* Why did the FBI send the rifle back to Dallas on 11/24 only take it again on 11/26? Why? What was up with that? Why send it back for two days and then pick it up again? Why? Because Oswald’s palmprint needed to be planted on it?

The FBI sent the rifle back to the DPD on the 24th because it was part of the agreement in getting the DPD to hand it over to them on the 22nd. They received it again on the 26th by the request of DA Henry Wade, who instructed the DPD to turn all of the evidence in the assassination over to the FBI.

* But let us assume for the sake of argument that the palmprint came from the rifle barrel. This would not automatically prove the print to be incriminating. Why? Because the FBI sent the rifle back to Dallas on 11/24, so the rifle was available in Dallas from 11/24 until Lt. Day handed it over for the second and final time to the FBI on 11/26. And we know that FBI agents took fingerprints and palmprints from Oswald’s body in the morgue on 11/24, a fact that Agent Drain found baffling and suspicious.

* The fact that FBI agents spent a long time with Oswald’s body on 11/24 and took prints from it is well documented. This suspicious excursion was reported in the local press (Fort Worth Press), and the funeral home director, Paul Groody, confirmed the strange visit in multiple interviews.

* Therefore, at some point between the rifle’s return to Dallas on 11/24 and Oswald’s burial the next day, the rifle could have been taken to the morgue and the barrel could have been pressed and rolled against Oswald’s palm (although, as Meagher noted, Latona gave no indication that the palmprint he examined had any of the disruptions and omissions that one would see in a palmprint created by a hand holding a rifle barrel).

* Another way the palmprint could have been planted on the rifle barrel would have been to take a fresh Oswald palmprint lift and place it on the barrel. Forensic experts have known since the 1930s that lifts can be placed on other surfaces, not just on fingerprint cards. The differences between a real print and a planted one are not always readily apparent, and sometimes the differences can only be detected by microscopic examination:

Again, the problem with that, which I stated earlier, is that according to Paul Groody, he never even got to the funeral home with the body until around 11 o'clock that night. The FBI had handed the rifle back over to the DPD at 3:40 pm that day.

* Interestingly, Agent Drain suggested that the palmprint was planted on the rifle by taking one of Oswald’s palmprint cards and putting the impression on the rifle: “You could take the print off Oswald's card and put it on the rifle. Something like that happened” (Henry Hurt, Reasonable Doubt, p. 109).

"As to Lieutenant Day, I've known him a long time, and I think that he's an honest individual." -- Vincent Drain, quoted in "No More Silence", by Larry Sneed, page 260

Day handed the lift over to Drain on November 26, 1963 and Drain signed for it.

[John Iacoletti]

Liebeler did swear under oath that it was Latona who matched the lift with the barrel of the rifle.

Hearsay at best. There is no first hand account or documentation of any kind from Latona that he did this or what procedures he used or what the results were.

[Tom Scully]

Interesting. So what did John Hunt scan in the National Archives, the original magic partial palmprint lift or just a copy?

Maybe Pat Speer would know.

John, Pat's article doesn't seem to address the specific generation of the archived evidence.

http://www.patspeer.com/chapter4c%3Athefingerprintsofmyth
......
....But that changed circa 2003, when researcher John Hunt was allowed to make a scan of the barrel lift in the archives...and wisely shared his scan with the research community.

I present Hunt's scan below, on the left. On the right is Oswald's right palm print as found in the Warren Commission's volumes.

And so I ask you, is this a
......................................................................Match?

......
....Or No Match?

I honestly don't know.The prints bare a strong resemblance, but there are clear differences between the two.

I'm not sure if this is related to the age of the lift when scanned by Hunt, or not.

But one thing is clear.

The central loop in the print on the barrel lift (CE 637) is not a clear match with the central loop in the FBI's photo of the palm print found on the paper bag (CE 632).

They are placed side by side below, with the bag print on the left and the supposed rifle print on the right. Keep in mind that these are supposedly the identical loop from Oswald's right palm. (While both images are of low quality, they are taken from the best quality versions of these images available to the public.).....

http://www.patspeer.com/chapter-4d-boxing-day
Chapter 4d: The Myth of Fingerprints and The Fingerprints of Myth
.....

[Michael T. Griffith]

One of the reasons so many researchers doubt the authenticity of the backyard rifle photos is that the official account of their alleged discovery and of the discovery of the camera contains suspicious claims and odd contradictions. Here are some of those claims and conntradictions:

* The Dallas Police Department (DPD) claimed they found two negatives of the backyard photos in Ruth Paine’s garage, but the DPD only gave one negative to the Warren Commission (WC), and the other negative disappeared without explanation. Can you imagine how a police department could “misplace” one of the two most important negatives in the history of crime?

* The backyard photos were not found until the day after the assassination. Somehow the multiple waves of DPD officers and federal agents who searched Ruth Paine’s home hours after the assassination “missed” them. 

* 133-C-Dees, the backyard photo that Roscoe White’s widow Geneva Dees gave to the Senate Intelligence Committee in 1976, was judged by the HSCA PEP to be a first-generation print, which would mean the DPD must have had the picture’s negative. However, that negative has also gone “missing.”

* The pose of the backyard figure in 133-C-Dees is different from the poses in the two other backyard photos, yet we learned in 1992 that one week after the assassination, DPD officers took backyard rifle photos in Oswald’s backyard, during which one of the officers struck the same pose seen in 133-C-Dees. We know this because some of the photos from this photo shoot were released in 1992.

* Robert Hester, a photographer who worked at the National Photo Lab in Dallas and who helped process assassination-related film for the Dallas police and the FBI on 11/22, reported in a 1970 interview that he saw an FBI agent with a transparency of one of the backyard pictures on 11/22, which was the day before the police said they "found" the photos. Moreover, one of the backyard photos Hester processed showed no figure in the picture, just like one of the DPD prints that were discovered in 1992. Obviously, Hester could not have known about the DPD print that shows a silhouette instead of the Oswald figure because it was not released until 1992.

* The Imperial Reflex camera, the camera that was allegedly used to take the backyard photos, was not included in the inventories of Oswald’s possessions seized by the DPD.

* The Imperial Reflex camera was not “found” until nearly three months after the assassination.

* On February 24, 1964, Oswald’s brother Robert gave the Imperial Reflex camera to law enforcement authorities. Robert claimed that he did not hand over “this cheap camera” sooner “because he had never been asked for it previously” and because “it had never occurred to him that anyone would be interested in the camera.” But federal agents had asked Robert about his Lee’s cameras and showed him pictures of cameras on February 16.

* Perhaps realizing that Robert Oswald’s story sounded suspicious (assuming it even was his story and not a story that he was coerced into telling), many months after the assassination, the FBI produced a report that claimed that Detective John McCabe of the Irving Police Department saw the Imperial Reflex camera in a gray metal box in Ruth Paine’s garage on 11/23, but that McCabe did not take the camera because he did not think it was important! Right, so none of the waves of police and federal agents who searched that garage on 11/22 and 11/23 saw the camera, but McCabe saw it, and then ignored it.

* The gray box in which McCabe belatedly claimed he saw the Imperial Reflex camera on 11/23 had already been itemized by the FBI. The FBI itemization said the box contained 13 books and some random items—no camera was listed. The 11/23 DPD inventory of the gray box likewise did not mention a camera.

* Police officers and detectives gave conflicting stories about who found the backyard rifle photos (see Meagher’s detailed discussion on this in Accessories After the Fact, pp. 200-209).

* The WC described the Imperial Reflex camera as “a relatively inexpensive, fixed-focus, one-shutter speed, box-type camera, made in the United States” (WCR 593). Even that was being generous. The camera had a cheap plastic body and a basic set of flimsy elements within. It was one of the cheapest, most basic cameras you could buy at the time.

* Incidentally, regarding the HSCA PEP’s admission that there are only “small,” “very small,” “slight” differences in the distances between objects in the backgrounds of the backyard photos, we should pause to consider how those photos would have been taken with the Imperial Reflex camera:

The camera’s viewer was on top of the camera, so the camera had to be held at mid-body rather than held to the eye. Moreover, in order to snap a picture, one had to push down on a lever rather than simply press a button. These facts make it all the more impossible that the backyard photos could have been taken in the manner alleged. Even a skilled photographer could not have used this camera without a tripod and produced pictures that contained only incredibly tiny differences in the distances between objects in the backgrounds.

* Jeff Carter, a filmmaker and audio technician, notes that none of the Oswald-taken photos taken during Oswald’s time in Dallas have the dimensions and borders of 133-A and 133-B:

From the record, excluding the backyard photos, there appear to be only six Oswald family-type snapshots from the first months of 1963 and, from the record, very few others from Oswald’s entire stay in Dallas in 1962-63. . . .

None of the photos in the record from this time period, including the photos of the Walker house attributed to Oswald, have the dimensions or borders of the backyard photos known as 133-A and 133-B. The “drugstore” finishing is unique to these photos. (https://kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/a-new-look-at-the-enigma-of-the-backyard-photographs-parts-1-3)

* A note on British photographic expert Malcolm Thompson and his  “deferring” to the HSCA PEP on the authenticity of the backyard photos: First of all, Thompson was indeed a genuine forensic photography expert. He ran the Police Forensic Science Laboratory Identification Bureau for 25 years. He was also a president of the Evidence Photographers International Council and a fellow of the Institute of Incorporated Photographers, the Royal Photographic Society, and the Institute of Professional Investigators.

Lone-gunman theorists usually overstate the degree to which Thompson deferred to the HSCA PEP. Thompson told the PEP that he still believed that the backyard figure’s chin was “suspiciously different” from Oswald’s chin. He also said that he doubted that even computer analysis (on which the PEP relied heavily) could detect a fake photo that was a photocopied composite:

Thomson did, however, reserve his opinion that the chin in the backyard pictures was suspiciously different from the chin that he had observed in the Dallas arrest photographs of Oswald. He also remained skeptical as to the ability of a computer to detect a photocopied composite photograph. (6 HSCA 177)

So, in other words, Thompson told the PEP that they did a great and thorough job and that he deferred to their conclusions about fakery, but in the next breath he said that he rejected the PEP’s explanation for the most glaring indication of fakery in the photos and that he doubted that computer analysis could detect a composite picture that had been photocopied.

If anyone wants to read the extensive interview that Thompson gave on the backyard photos, I include the entire interview in the section on the photos in my article “Faulty Evidence: Problems with the Case Against Lee Harvey Oswald” and in chapter 5 of my free online book Hasty Judgment:

https://miketgriffith.com/files/faulty.htm

https://miketgriffith.com/files/hastyjudgmentbook.pdf

* Finally, there are three issues that the PEP simply ignored: the fact that the ring visible on the backyard figure’s left hand in 133-B is not visible in 133-A (so he took off his ring for one picture but left it on for the others?); the fact that the rifle sling in the backyard photos is a rope sling, whereas the alleged murder weapon had a leather sling; and the fact that the backyard figure is wearing clothing that was never found among Oswald’s possessions.

[Tom Scully]

One of the reasons so many researchers doubt the authenticity of the backyard rifle photos is that the official account of their alleged discovery and of the discovery of the camera contains suspicious claims and odd contradictions. Here are some of those claims and conntradictions:

* The Dallas Police Department (DPD) claimed they found two negatives of the backyard photos in Ruth Paine’s garage, but the DPD only gave one negative to the Warren Commission (WC), and the other negative disappeared without explanation. Can you imagine how a police department could “misplace” one of the two most important negatives in the history of crime?

* The backyard photos were not found until the day after the assassination. Somehow the multiple waves of DPD officers and federal agents who searched Ruth Paine’s home hours after the assassination “missed” them. 

......

Michael, maryferrell link in my post I've quoted below opens to page of Marina's HSCA vague, barely remembered details reluctantly corroborating Marguerite's earlier claim.

Jim Martin was a WWII Navy deserter and convicted car thief with a subsequent scrape with the law, but there is consistency in the claims of all three witnesses. It is curious Martin was not background checked by the SS, a routine action of the protective advance teams, or by his two most recent employers.

Both 1930 and 1940 US Census records for Martin's family, parents Hebert John and Gertrude Martin, (brother Robert in 1940 census) inidicate James Herbert Martin's age as 3 and 13, (born no earlier than in 1926.) Yet his birthdate in the FBI's arrest report is 6 October, 1925:
See bottom of page at following link, for Martin's birthdate:
http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=71119&relPageId=14

Martin's US Navy enlistment date was 1 Oct., 1943, he may have been 5 days shy of his 17th birthday on that date.:
http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=71119&relPageId=15

http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=71122&relPageId=8
Martin received a bad conduct discharge from the US Navy on 2 March, 1945, as a result of being A.W.O.L. and charged with crimes described below.:

June, 1945, James Herbert Martin sentenced to one year suspended and two years probation for interstate auto theft:
http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=71123&relPageId=3

James Herbert Martin's probation was extended two years until 1950.:
http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=71128&relPageId=3

In 1967, the FBI had a new D.O.B. for Martin, exactly one year younger:
http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=97748&relPageId=8

DPD's Jack Revill reported a background check on Martin and his wife, Wanda, on 2 Dec., 1963. Revill includes a 1926 birth year, not 1925 as displayed in Marttin's 1945 FBI arrest report. Some of Martin's employment details differ with his WC testimony:
https://web.archive.org/web/20150919002536/http://jfk.ci.dallas.tx.us/11/1173-001.gif

What do you make of this? If Martin's 1992 claim is accurate, and it explains how Marina was still in possession, in late November, of BYP missed entirely in the searches, days before, IMO it tends to support the authenticity of the BYP.

.......
https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=81&search=porter_and+burned#relPageId=248&tab=page


Only the 1964 FBI report and the interview in 1992 of Jim Martin include the word scrapbook.....

Marina and Lee: The Tormented Love and Fatal Obsession Behind Lee ...
https://books.google.com/books?isbn=1586422170
Priscilla Johnson McMillan - 2013
FOUND INSIDE - PAGE 543
Alone in the bedroom she found June's baby book, which, by some miracle of oversight, the policemen had left behind. In it were the two small photographs of Lee dressed in black and wearing his guns. He had given them to her to keep for ...More

http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/russ/testimony/2_10_64_AM.htm
TESTIMONY OF MRS. MARGUERITE OSWALD

The President's Commission met at 10 a.m. on February 10, 1964,

....I sensed we were alone. And there I was with a Russian girl. And I didn't want anybody to know who we were, because I knew my son had been picked up.
So this is where the picture comes in.
While there, Marina--there is an ashtray on the dressing table. And Marina comes with hits of paper, and puts them in the ashtray and strikes a match to it. And this is the picture of the gun that Marina tore up into bits of paper, and struck a match to it.
Now, that didn't burn completely, because it was heavy--not cardboard--what is the name for it--a photographic picture. So the match didn't take it completely.
Mr. RANKIN. Had you said anything to her about burning it before that?
Mrs. OSWALD. No, sir. The last time I had seen the picture was in Marina's shoe when she was trying to tell me that the picture was in her shoe. I state here now that Marina meant for me to have that picture, from the very beginning, in Mrs. Paine's home. She said--I testified before "Mamma, you keep picture."
And then she showed it to me in the courthouse. And when I refused it, then she decided to get rid of the picture.
She tore up the picture and struck a match to it. Then I took it and flushed it down the toilet.
Mr. RANKIN. And what time was this?
Mrs. OSWALD. This--now, just a minute, gentlemen, because this I know is very important to me and to you, too.
We had been in the jail. This was an evening. Well, this, then, would be approximately 5:30 or 6 in the evening.
Mr. RANKIN. What day?
Mrs. OSWALD. On Saturday, November 23. Now, I flushed the torn bits and the half-burned thing down the commode. And nothing was said. There was nothing said.
Mr. RANKIN. That was at the Executive Inn?
Mrs. OSWALD. At the Executive Inn. ...

[Michael T. Griffith]

The three photographs differ among themselves in camera tilt, parallax, etc. Changes caused by the camera being held in a unique manner for each exposure. There's shadow movement seen on objects as well, meaning time has passed between each picture.

So your answer to the problem that there are only microscopic differences in the distances between background objects is to essentially repeat what I said and act like this somehow solves the problem.

Yes, of course, the camera changed positions for each picture. That's a non-response response. You need to address the point that the camera positions were so astonishingly similar that the differences between background objects was found to be so miniscule (tiny fractions of inches) that they had to be measured photogrammetrically. You need to explain how that could happen with pictures (1) that were supposedly taken by handing the camera back and forth twice between exposures and (2) that were allegedly taken with a camera that required the cameraman to press down on a lever instead of just pressing a button.

I'll tell you what, fellas: Why you don't you perform a home experiment with a similar camera? Take three pics. Hand the camera back and forth twice between the pics. And see if you can produce three photos that have such microscopic differences in distances between their background objects. Let's see it. It's just nonsense. It's total nonsense.

John Mytton, let me just see if I can encapsulate how irrelevant your GIF is: If the differences shown by your GIF, which are created because the figure's arm moves--if those are the kinds of differences that the HSCA PEP was trying to explain, don't you find it very odd that they did not pounce on the differences displayed in your GIF? Did they just "miss" them? This would have been an answer to their prayers.

The problem is that those are not the kinds of differences they were talking about. They were talking about the fact that outside experts who had studied the backyard photos had noted that the same background appeared to have been used for all three photos. The HSCA PEP's response to this argument was that they found very small differences in the distances between background objects. They ignored the fact that Thompson had already noted the presence of these tiny differences. They simply pretended that the differences meant the backgrounds were not the same. Those guys were surely aware that those tiny differences could have been created by keystoning the backgrounds. They also surely knew that the odds would have been 1,000,000 to 1 that the camera would have returned to virtually the same position--to within tiny fractions of of an inch horizontally, vertically, and distance-wise--for each photo.

When I asked McCamy about this--when I asked him why the PEP did not explain how the camera could have returned to virtually the same exact position each time and thus produce such tiny distances between objects in the background--he abruptly ended our correspondence.

[Michael T. Griffith]

atona himself met with Rankin and Liebeler on the same day of the memo to discuss latent print issues. The latent palm print lifted by Day was one of those issues. While Hoover’s memo was not a sworn statement, and the lab examiners provided no sworn statement either, Liebeler did swear under oath that it was Latona who matched the lift with the barrel of the rifle.

And that's good enough for you? Really? Hoover said "examiners"--plural--had done so. But Liebeler said it was just Latona. What's going on?

And if it was Latona, why didn't he say a word about barrel irregularities supposedly appearing in the lift in his very extensive WC testimony? Did this important matching factor slip his mind?

At some point do not these endless contradictory stories give you pause?

Scalise reported that he identified five points of identity which match the lift to the barrel. If not impressions of irregularities, then what could those points of identity possibly have been? How else could they have been described?

Huh? The points of identity would have been the ulnar loops, ridge flows, principal lines, wrinkle features, and delta-point features from the palm. He said nothing about irregularities from the barrel also appearing in the lift. And he only matched five points, well below the minimum needed for a credible identification.

And, pray tell, what "irregularities" would there be on the part of the rifle barrel that is protected by the stock? No one could even touch that part of the barrel unless they removed the stock.

It seems that Cecil Kirk also matched the lift to the barrel. He found six points of matching identity. Although, his finding was never included in the HSCA volumes. It's not confirmed to my satisfaction that he did. It's just something that I stumbled upon.

Yeah, strange that his "identification" was not included in the HSCA volumes, hey? Six points--you need at least 10--many experts say 12--for a credible match.

And none of this deals with the issue *how* the print supposedly got on the barrel.

The FBI sent the rifle back to the DPD on the 24th because it was part of the agreement in getting the DPD to hand it over to them on the 22nd. They received it again on the 26th by the request of DA Henry Wade, who instructed the DPD to turn all of the evidence in the assassination over to the FBI.

Uh-huh. It's not like the FBI didn't blow off the DPD whenever they felt like it. Why did the DPD want the rifle back only to hand it over again on the 26th? Why would the FBI have bothered sending it back when they were going to get it back two days later? Let me guess: None of this strikes you as the least bit odd.

Again, the problem with that, which I stated earlier, is that according to Paul Groody, he never even got to the funeral home with the body until around 11 o'clock that night. The FBI had handed the rifle back over to the DPD at 3:40 pm that day.

Which means there was ample time to take one of the fresh palmprint lifts and transfer it to the rifle's barrel before the rifle was handed back to the FBI on the 26th. Or, they could have taken a different rifle, pressed his hand against it, and lifted that print.

"As to Lieutenant Day, I've known him a long time, and I think that he's an honest individual." -- Vincent Drain, quoted in "No More Silence", by Larry Sneed, page 260. Day handed the lift over to Drain on November 26, 1963 and Drain signed for it.

I'll take Hurt's recorded interviews with Drain in 1983 and 1984 over Drain's chapter in Sneed's 2002 book. Moreover, Drain's later statement does not address Day's repeated claim that he told Drain about the print and also showed it to him when he gave him the rifle.