I'm not going to reply to every point you raise, as I have no intention to write a book. Some of what you are saying is entirely missing the point anyway or involves theories based on the wrong assumption that the DPD radio recordings can be considered more reliable than they really are.
Again, this is what I've been saying from the beginning: in 1963, clocks in common use could only be reasonably expected to be within 5 minutes of standard time. You keep proving my points for me! However, you haven't shown that Bowley's watch, or Davenport's, or Methodist Hospital's clocks, or Markham's *estimate* were any more accurate than the DPD's. I have never claimed that the clocks Markham, Bowley, Davenport and/or Methodist Hospital used were more accurate that the DPD's. The fact is that if you want to use the DPD clocks to determine a timeline, and reject the times supplied by the witnesses, those DPD clocks need at least to be more accurate and you have just implicitely conceded that they were not. But we already knew that from Bowles.
At best the time calls on the DPD recordings are the product of a very weak system. A master clock linked to City Hall which provides "official" time (not automatically real time). Several clocks in the dispatchers room with no direct link to the master clock and all working individually, and in need of manual correction, which at busy times often was not done or not done on time. And dispatchers calling out times that could differ by a minute or so from what their already unreliable clock said and were only intended to time stamp a sequence of events. Way too many invididual parts that could go wrong and likely frequently did.
"Channels 1 and 2 were in close synchronization, with Channel 2 announced time running approximately 15 seconds ahead of Channel 1.Whether or not channels 1 and 2 were in close synchronization is of no significance for the matter at hand. It might have been for the rebuttal to the BBN/WA echo correlation analyses but that's not what we are talking about here. And you will never get around what Bowles told the HSCA.
"However, their purpose was to stamp the time, day and date on incoming calls. While they were reliable at this, they were not synchronized as stated in the Committee report."Btw, I'm writing most of this from memory and sometimes minor errors can creep in. I don't think I ever said that Bowles testified before the HSCA, but if I did it was in error.
The implication of these synchronicities is clear: on that afternoon, the radio operators' clocks were running within a minute of each other. And everyone seems to agree that Channel 2 was running within a minute or two of "real" time that day. So, the channel one clock appears to be within 3 minutes at most of standard time. No matter what you'd have Bowles have us believe.I'm not sure who "everyone" is that agrees about channel 2 is, but it is irrelevant. The only observation of some value you make is that there is a discrepancy of some 3 minutes for channel one and standard time, whatever the latter means. If you are claiming that standard time means actual time, you have already destroyed the probative value of the DPD recordings and transcripts to determine the exact time an event took place. In other words, if the transcript shows that Callaway called the dispatcher at 1.18 that could just as easily have been 1.15!
You don't have to assume that the channel one recording was continuous to get important temporal information out of it. By the way, people have run regression analyses against the channel one recording. After the assassination, it was running very close to continuously from the open mic all the way to the Tippit killing. Any objection to the timing data from the Dictabelt based on possible gaps caused by stoppage isn't going to amount to much.That's nonsense. I have heard the recording myself and there were several stops in them. In fact, if I remember correctly, the recording I heard, which was supposed to cover 1 hour only lasted 48 minutes, which means a gap of 12 minutes was missing. Even worse, the transcripts show that no times were called by the dispatchers between 12.55 and 1.04. After that the next time call is 1.07 and then between 1.12 and 1.15 there were no time calls. Those are gaps of 9 minutes, 3 minutes and 3 minutes respectively. As there was, during all that time, not one event that could be used to pin point an exact time, there is is no starting point available for where to start an analysis of any real value.
"In combination" is, in your case, a pretty nebulous concoction. In reality, the measurement of time is subject to the same issues with precision, accuracy, and margin of error just as that any other measurement humans can make.No it isn't. I haven't tried to measure the times between Markham's estimate, Bowley's watch, the clock at Methodist Hospital, and Davenport's watch. I have used those times to create a sequence of events in a timeline, in which for each time a margin of error exists. The times themselves are less important than the sequence of events they provide, although there is a way to determine how accurate the individual times are, by simply working backwards from the moment they all got together at the scene after the shots were fired and check where all those stories fit with a point in time, like a key with several parts that all need to click into a lock at the same time to open a door. But maybe we'll get to that later.
In this case, we're talking about people running around with a cheap mechanical clock on their wrist that was last synchronized God knows when with a reference that was God knows haw far off of standard time. Again, sychronized or not, it doesn't matter. Those times represent events that happened in a particular order. By looking at the activity they represent you can roughly determine what the sequence of events must have been.
Markham is subject to the same issues that everyone else had in those days. But really, her sense of time is particularly suspect: as you've noted, she was trying to catch the "1:15" bus to downtown even though the scheduled times were 1:12 and 1:22. She didn't even know what time her bus was supposed to be there. And she left home at about 1:00 PM in order to catch a bus that would take her the 3.5 miles so she could start her shift at 2:30. That's right: she gave herself an hour and a half to go 3.5 miles. This is completely pathetic. Yes, Markham, when asked by the WC, estimated that she catched her bus at 1.15 and , yes, the FBI reported that the scheduled times for the bus were 1.12 and 1.22 (which of course only means they were scheduled to be there on those times, and not that they actually were there and thus not delayed). The fact of the matter remains that Markham placed herself at the bus stop on Jefferson for her regular bus to work at around 1.15. Whether she knew what time her bus was supposed to be there, or whether she took the (delayed) 1.12 or 1.22 is of little significance. She knew when she had to be at the bus stop!
And your point about Markham giving herself an hour and a half to go 3.5 miles is made absolutely meaningless by the mere fact that Markham was at 10th Street when Tippit was killed, which demonstrates that she was indeed on her way to the bus stop to get there at roughly the time she said (1.15) and that she did indeed give herself so much time, if in fact she started her shift at 2.30. Your entire claim that Markham's sense of time is particularly suspect is hogwash because her mere presence on 10th Street, a few minutes before 1.15 proves that her sense of time was pretty good otherwise she wouldn't have been there.
That's someone who's used to missing her bus and knew to give herself more than enough time for the next one. That's not someone who I'd expect to have a good grasp of exactly what time it was. Moot point. Busses were leaving from that bus stop every 10 minutes. If she missed the 1.12 she would have taken the 1.22. She was just one of those people who wanted to make extra sure to be on time for her work. Nothing odd about it.
You realize that Davenport altered the time of death in his report as well? In good copies, you can easily see that he'd originally put the time of death as "1:00" then overstruck the "00" with "15." This creates a problem for you. The change can't really be explained by a simple typo; on a typewriter keyboard, "0" is on the opposite side of the top row from "1", with "5" in the middle. It's hard to see how Davenport's fingers would confuse "0" for "1" and another "0" for "5." Had Davenport known firsthand that the TOD/DOA was at 1:15, he would have typed it that way the first time. Speculation. You don't know who actually wrote the report. I can speculate too that Bardin wrote it and used the wrong time, which was subsequently corrected when Davenport saw the report. Like it or not, the report that was handed in was the corrected version which says 1.15. The probative value of that report has to be determined by comparing it to other sources of information. In this regard, you seem to forget that Davenport also handed in to the identification bureau of the DPD a bullet taken from Tippit's body and a button from his uniform. On the form he used, it says handwritten "Dr. Paul Moellenhoff removed it 1.30/PM Methodist Emergency. Dr. Richard Liguori pronounced DOA @ 1.15 PM". So, if you want to argue that Davenport wasn't paying attention to what was going on you need something more than mere assumptions to prove it.
And then you had to go all Rossley on us and bring up the "official document" defense. Good luck with that. The autopsy authorization states that the time of death was 1:15, but the time of death and time declared dead aren't necessarily the same. Really, in the case of DOA, then they aren't by definition. However, if you like official reports, the DPD homicide report states that the "time of offence" for the murder was 1:18 PM, and the "Pronounced dead by physician" field says "Dr Liguori Methodist Hospital, DOA at 1:30pm," which comports well with the FBI 302 interview with Liguori placing the time declared dead at 1:25. And yet more speculation. Davenport and Liguori were there. Just like the handwritten form Davenport gave to the DPD identification bureau, the authorization for autopsy is day 1 evidence, signed and witnessed by a Justice of the Peace. The homicide report wasn't. It was written after the fact by Officer Talbert using information obtained from others, which makes the details of that report somewhat unreliable to begin with. I don't even know who that is. Even more so when you consider that in the homicide report it is also written that "suspect was later arrested om the balcony of the Texas Theater" which we all know isn't true. Given the fact that Davenport had handed in a form stating that a bullet was removed from Tippit's body at 1.30, it's not difficult to understand that Talbert was simply given the wrong DOA time, apparently by somebody called Cave. I have no idea who that is. And the 302 report written by Robert Lish is dated 29 November 1963 (a week after the events) and also has the time changed on it, from 1.15 to 1.25. Neither Davenport or Liguori ever saw that report. Maybe Lish was ordered to alter the time later on. Who knows!
The real question that needs to be asked is why did the FBI go through so much trouble and harass nurses and doctors of Methodist Hospital for a week, on a daily basis, solely with questions about the DOA time? In any other investigation, when a doctor tells you a DOA time you take his word for it. In most homicides the exact time of the shooting is of minor importance. It becomes important when it looks that the suspected killer could not have been there at that particular time. That's when you investigate the exact time of the event some more. So why did the FBI have so much interest in that particular time? Could it be that the time they had did not fit in the narrative they were trying to construct?
A few years ago someone posted Tippit's death certificate, as official document as official documents get. It put the time of death at 1:15pm, but curiously stated that the "time of injury" was 1:18. Maybe Tippit got hit by one of those bullets from the movie Tenet? Relying on "official documents" may not be the game-changer you seem to believe. Or maybe it was just human error. The death certificate was prepared at Parkland. They had to have been informed about the time of DOA by somebody from Methodist and perhaps somebody just mistook a badly handwritten 5 for an 8. Who knows! But you are correct, official documents by themselves are not enough to rely on, which is why I don't rely on those alone. I also rely on what witnesses are saying to derive a timeline from their combined comments, just as I started doing a bit earlier in this thread.
There is one other source for time in the Tippit case that you don't realize exists. The records of Dudley Hughes Funeral Home. Back in '64, George and Patricia Nash interviewed the folks at that establishment and were allowed access to the Hughes ambulance dispatch documentation for the Tippit case. The Dudley Hughes dispatcher received the call from the DPD to dispatch an ambulance to 501 E 10th (ie, responding to Mrs Wright's call) at 1:18PM. First of all, I was aware of this. Secondly, to accept this time as correct, you need to rely on the clock of the funeral home to be 100% correct, which it, going by your own reasoning, probably wasn't. There have been claims for years that a time stamp card for the incoming call showing 1.18 existed but I have never been able to find it. The National Archives don't have it, so it's not part of the official record, which is strange as it would be a valuable piece of evidence compared to some of the other stuff they confiscated. I question the veracity of this information for two good reason;
The DPD transcripts have Callaway using the DPD radio at 1.18 (I should note that time is very likely not correct and should IMO actually be several minutes earlier) and he refers to that call in his testimony, when he explains what he saw when he arrived on the scene;
Mr. CALLAWAY. I saw a squad car, and by that time there was four or five people that had gathered, a couple of cars had stopped. Then I saw--I went on up to the squad car and saw the police officer lying in the street. I see he had been shot in the head. So the first thing I did, I ran over to the squad car. I didn't know whether anybody reported it or not.
So I got on the police radio and called them, and told them a man had been shot, told them the location, I thought the officer was dead. They said we know about it, stay off the air, so I went back. By this time an ambulance was coming.Add to this that driver Clayton Butler radioed his arrival at the scene at 1.18 which, according to Nash was within 60 seconds of leaving the funeral home. In other words, the ambulance which is supposed to have been dispatched from Jefferson, after receiving a call at 1.18, arrived at 10th/Patton at 1.18 - after allegedly driving 60 seconds - just when Callaway ended his radio call allegedly also 1.18. It simply doesn't add up.
And the second reason is that Tippit's death certificate gives the time of death at 1.15. On the document it states the name of the funeral home where Tippit's body was delivered. Despite the fact that Dudley Hughes Funeral Home were given a copy of the death certificate, they nevertheless told FBI agent Robert Lish - if his 302 report is to be believed - that their records showed Tippit's time of death as 1.25. So much for keeping reliable records! To me this whole thing can not be verified, never was verified or corroborated, and with none to very limited probative value.
You still assume that Markham was a particularly time conscious person who would be expected to be correct about time, when there is no good reason to do so, and good reasons not to.You keep coming back to Markham's time estimate, by itself, as if it means something. It doesn't! In concert with other information it might, but like I said before, maybe we'll get to that later.
Now, let me make a counter-scenario here, and we'll see what the punters think.
Let me start off by defining some kind of standard time scale, I'll call it real time or RT, to represent true (presumed NBS) time. And I'll assert the observation that any clock in common usage in 1963 could be reasonably expected to be accurate to within +/5 minutes of RT. And I will note, again, that "time of death" is not necessarily the same thing as "time declared dead."
There are three sources where we can be sure that there is first-hand knowledge of a specific time, derived from direct observation of a clock during the events in question:
1.) TF Bowley and his watch. Bowley looked at his watch when he pulled up to the crime scene after the shooting and looked at his watch. He reports that it read "1:10" his time (hereafter "Bowley time" or "BT").
2.) The DPD channel 1 recordings. They have two dispatcher notations for 1:16 spaced about 10 seconds apart. 1:40 after the latter of these, Bowley radios in that a Policeman has been shot. About two and a half minutes after that, Callaway attempts to call the shooting in, but is cut short by the dispatcher. Dallas Police time is hereafter denoted by "DPT".
3.) The Dudley Hughes ambulance dispatch logs. They report that they received notice of the shooting at 1:18, dispatched an ambulance that arrived within a minute, and that the ambulance arrived at Methodist Hospital at 1:26, all "Dudley Hughes Time" or "DHT".You can stop right here. As I have already explained, the DPD channel 1 recordings are in no way reliable to base any time line on. In fact, if you study the information provided by Bowley, Benavides and Callaway, in his affidavit and their testimony respectively, you should, if you do it correctly, come to the conclusion that everything between the shots being fired and Callaway's arrival at the scene and radio call happened in roughly two minutes.
So, if Tippit (as per Dale Myers) was killed at 1.14 (which is a very big "IF"), there is no way that Bowley made his call, three minutes later, at 1.17 and it is absolutely unbelievable that Callaway would make his call at 1.18, some four minutes after the shots. In this scenario the DPD transcripts are cleary not correct. On the other hand, if you believe the DPD transcripts are correct, and Bowley and Callaway did make their calls at 1.17 and 1.18, then the consequence is that the shots must have been fired at 1.16, in which case Myers' estimate for Tippit's murder is wrong. I happen to think that both are wrong, but that's another matter. Whatever you think is true, there is a gap of 2 minutes between Myers' estimate and the times of the calls as recorded in the DPD transcripts which means both can't be correct.
As far as the Dudley Hughes ambulance "dispatch logs" go, I want to see them, before I believe they actually exist. And even then, as there is no reason to assume that their clock was more accurate as any other clock, there is also no sound reason to rely, without corroboration, on the information as reliable enough for reconstructing a timeline.
Some info about what people do in the aftermath of the shooting will probably be helpful:1.) Bowley didn't mention seeing a fleeing suspect, so the suspect would have either already ran to a point where Bowley would not have been able to see him, or at least far enough away that he wouldn't distract Bowley's attention from Tippit.
2.) Domingo Benavides testified that, after the shooting, the gunman walked a few steps back to the sidewalk, hesitated (but did not stop), took a few more steps, then began running at "a pretty good trot." Benavides also said that he did not leave the cab of his truck until after he saw the gunman disappear behind the house at the end of the block.Both points are true. As to point nr. 2; Benavides testified that he waited until the killer had disappeared on to Patton before leaving his truck. When he did leave the truck, he ran to Tippit, saw he was dead and instantly tried to use the radio. He failed and when he gave up another man [Bowley] was there to take the radio from him. To put a time on this is rather easy; there is a video on YouTube featuring Bill Brown, in which somebody walks the distance between Tippit's car and the corner of 10th and Patton. That walk is timed at roughly 20 seconds, so if we double that to accomodate the killer's hesitation, you end up with a time of no more than 40 seconds after the murder that Benavides tried to make his radio call, which in turn means that Bowley arrived at the scene within less than a minute after the shooting and started making his radio call. According to the DPD transcripts it allegedly took him 3 minutes after the shots to make the call, which simply can not be correct.
3.) Callaway testified that, after he heard the shooting, he walked towards Patton. As he was just about to the east side sidewalk, he saw a man with a gun running across Patton, then southbound on Patton once on the other side. When the man with the gun reached a point slightly south of the alley between 10th and Jefferson, Callaway had a brief conversation with him. After that, the gunman continued on to Jefferson, and Callaway ran north, around the corner and to Tippit's squad car.In the quote of Callaway's testimony, I provided earlier, he tells us what he did when he arrived on the scene. Now, here's the thing; Callaway was less than one block away from 10th street, on the porche of his office, when he heard the shots. He ran on Patton towards 10th street and encountered Tippit's killer roughly halfway down the block. After that brief encounter he ran to 10th street. There is no way that this sequence of events would have taken Callaway four minutes after the shots to arrive on the scene, when the entire block is no more than 400 feet long and could have been passed walking in 2 minutes. This alone tells you, or should tell you, that Callaway probably arrived at the scene, about two minutes after the shots and made his call directly after his arrival, which ties in perfectly with Bowley already being there and having made his radio call.
We can use these to get some idea of the amounts of time that lapsed between the shooting, when Bowley arrived, and the point where Callaway got to the quad car. Already done...See above. The whole thing from the shots until Callaway's arrival went down in roughly two minutes!
I am skipping your time calculations for Bowley and Callaway because they are roughly the same as mine.
Now, lets go back and deal with the people looking at clock faces. On the channel one tape, the Bowley transmission comes one minute and forty seconds after the channel one dispatcher calls out 1:16 PM for the second time. This timestamp is 10 seconds after the first. At a minimum, assuming that the first time call-out happened at exactly 1:16:00, then Bowley cut in no sooner than 1:17:50. More likely somewhere in 1:18:00 proper, so we'll just use that. So there's a tentative sync between the channel one dispatcher clock and Bowley's watch where 1:10 Bowley time equals 1:18 Dallas Police time. This isn't too far out of whack. If clocks tended to be accurate within 5 minutes, then 1:10 Bowley time could be anywhere from 1:05 to 1:15 "real" time; similarly, 1:18 channel one time could really be anywhere from 1:13 to 1:23 RT. That leaves an overlap between Bowley time and DPD channel one time from 1:13 to 1:15 RT. Since we've already determined that the shooting happened about one minute before Bowley's call, then the shooting would have occurred between 1:12 and 1:14 RT. This, first of all, starts again with the wrong assumption that the DPD transcripts can be relied upon, when they clearly can't. For the sake of argument, I have used Dale Myers estimation of 1.14 as the time of the shooting and related everything to that. By doing it that way, I have already explained that the calls Bowley and Callaway made could not have been made at 1.17 and 1.18. You conclusion that the shooting would have occurred between 1.12 and 1.14 is IMO getting closer to the actual time it happened, but is still off because you have forgotten one crucial element. You have failed to look at what Bowley said he was doing prior to arriving at 10th street. In his affidavit he stated that he picked up his daughter from school at 12.55. He was then en route to pick up his wife who worked (if memory serves) on 9th street. To cover the distance between the school and 10th street, using Marsalis, he would have needed about 15 minutes, which shows that his watch may not have been 100% accurate but it was pretty close nevertheless.
And secondly, Bowley said he looked at his watch when he arrived, not when he made the radio call. So you can not equal Bowley's 1:10 with 1:18 Dallas Police time.
I am skipping your next part about the Hertz clock etc, as it is of very little significance to the Tippit murder, simply because neither channel 1 or channel 2 ran continuously, the time stamps were missing at various points and those that were there were called out by the dispatchers rather than being marked in an electronic manner. In all, you can argue until your blue in the face that the time stamps can be relied up because both dispatchers called 12.30 when Kennedy was killed, but it will still be meaningless. You can not conclude from that the time calls for the Tippit murder are anywhere near "real" time.
I am also not going to address your theory about the Dudley Hughes 1.18 call. As I have already shown that Callaway more than likely was already at the scene 2 minutes after the murder and he saw the ambulance arrive, I have no confidence whatsoever in the time of the funeral home's clock or any reasoning derived from that. You assumption that Callaway tried to call the DPD dispatcher two and a half minutes after Bowley's call is way off. Another wrong assumption is that it would have taken the ambulance 8 minutes to get from the funeral home, on Jefferson, to 10th street, pick up Tippit and rush to the hospital. The whole trip wouldn't have taken half that time. I have driven the distance myself. The distance from the rooming house on North Beckley to the corner of 10th street can, at normal driving speed, be done in 2.40 minutes.
That leaves Helen Markham as the odd woman out. It continually amazes me that the people who would have you believe that she was some wild-eyed moonbat drama queen who couldn't be trusted to give you the time of day suddenly becomes a model of reason when she does, in fact, try to give you the time of day. We all know who Helen Markham was, but even a person like her isn't always wrong and confused about everything. This is a very simple matter of her going to work, at the same time and using the same bus everyday. In my youth, I've done it. At some point it simply becomes a routine you don't need to think much about. You just turn up at the bus stop on time and that's it. The mere fact that she was on 10th street to witness the killing demonstrates exactly her routine. Had she arrived a minute earlier she would have missed it completely, because she would be closer to the bus stop by then. So, you don't have to rely on her time estimate of leaving home, at least not by itself. All you have to do is look at what time she was supposed to be at the bus stop and work backwards. Doing it that way, her estimate appears to have been roughly correct.
This leaves us with this interpretation of the Tippit shooting in RT, using the more liberal (+/- 5 minute) margin of error for the DPD channel one radio dispatcher clock.
1:12-1:14 Tippit is shot
1:13-1:15 Bowley arrives and transmits news of the shooting to DPD channel 1
1:15- The Hughes ambulance arrives at 404 10th St
1:23- The ambulance arrives at Methodist Hospital
1:23- Dr Liguori declares Tippit dead, puts time of death at 1:15
If we use the stricter margin of error implied by the to-a-minute sync of the channel one and two clocks, it looks like this:
1:14 Tippt shot
1:15 Bowley arrives and alerts the DPD via radio
1:17- The ambulance arrives on scene
1:25- The ambulance arrives at Methodist
1:27- Liguori pronounces Tippit DOA and assigns the TOD as 1:15
The empty dash that appears after a the third, fourth and fifth entries in each timeline reflects that we can only know that the Hughes clock was at least 2 minutes slower than the channel one clock, but could be even slower.
I'm not saying that this is the be-all-and-end-all. There isn't really much that can be precisely quantified and the timeline I created still relies on a few estimates and a couple of fudge factors. But it's better than simply assuming that Bowley's watch was right on, Markham could correctly estimate time, and then ignoring some important additional data, like the Hughes funeral home logs.
As it stands, we seem to be not so far apart on the sequence of events. But as you insist on relying mainly on the DPD transcripts your times are off and do not correspond with the available evidence. Your assumption that the ambulance would have needed 7 minutes to get Tippit from 10th street to Methodist Hospital demonstrates how off your times are.
It's not me, who is ignoring important data. You first ignore, or rather deny, that Bowles clearly stated that DPD time stamps do not reflect real time. You then ignore the obvious 3 to 4 minute time discrepancies between the DPD transcript and the arrivals at the scene (and actual immediate radio calls) of Bowley and Callaway. You also ignore the time of death as stated on the authorization for autopsy and the death certificate as well as Davenport's handwritten information re the time of DOA on the form for the identification bureau. You next ignore the discrepancy that Callaway saw the ambulance coming while being on the radio, which happened under any circumstance (even if Tippit was shot at 1.14, as per Myers) well prior to 1.18 and you ignore the fact that there is not a shred of evidence to support the claims made about the time registration at the funeral home. And, most importantly, you completely ignore the fact that Bowley's 1.10 stands directly in relation to him picking up his daughter from school at 12.55 and having to drive roughly 15 minutes to get to 10th street.
In closing, a request. This time I have tried to answer most of your comments in as much detail as I could, but it took me way too much time to do so. In the future, please write shorter posts (divide what you want to say over several posts) because I am not doing this again. Smaller, individual posts are far easier to handle and can be answered seperately. I would prefer it that way.
