LHO's shirt

[William Pilgrim]

Do we have a consensus view on what shirt LHO wore on the morning of the assassination?
What type and color was it?
Was it different from the one he wore when he was arrested at the TT? (As the claim is that he changed shirt when he went back to his rooming house in Oak Cliff) 

[Walt Cakebread]

Do we have a consensus view on what shirt LHO wore on the morning of the assassination?
What type and color was it?
Was it different from the one he wore when he was arrested at the TT? (As the claim is that he changed shirt when he went back to his rooming house in Oak Cliff)

Hi William,   I don't know about a consensus view of anything pertaining to the coup d e'tat.... Other than the consensus that JFK was murdered in Dealey Plaza in Dallas on 11/22/63....  However The FACTS and evidence, indicate that Lee did in fact go to his rented room at 1026 N. Beckley at 1:00pm that day, and he changed his clothes.   A  DPD Detective named Potts found the dirty clothes (gray Trousers and reddish brown shirt with a BUTTON DOWN COLLAR) in a dresser drawer where Lee put them when he donned his clean clothes.   

[Dan O'meara]

Do we have a consensus view on what shirt LHO wore on the morning of the assassination?
What type and color was it?
Was it different from the one he wore when he was arrested at the TT? (As the claim is that he changed shirt when he went back to his rooming house in Oak Cliff)

Marrion Baker -  "...he had a light brown jacket on and maybe some kind of white-looking shirt."

Charles Givens -  "...it was kind of a greenish looking shirt and pants was about the same color as his shirt"

Jeraldean Reid - "... a white T-shirt and some kind of wash trousers"

Not much in the way of consensus.

[Walt Cakebread]

Marrion Baker -  "...he had a light brown jacket on and maybe some kind of white-looking shirt."

Charles Givens -  "...it was kind of a greenish looking shirt and pants was about the same color as his shirt"

Jeraldean Reid - "... a white T-shirt and some kind of wash trousers"

Not much in the way of consensus.

Marrion Baker -  "...he had a light brown jacket on and maybe some kind of white-looking shirt."

Not pertinent.... Because Baker was thinking of the "DARK haired 165 pound man who he caught walking away from the stairs" and that was NOT Lee Oswald.

Charles Givens -  "...it was kind of a greenish looking shirt and pants was about the same color as his shirt"

Irrelevant .... Because Givens described clothing that Lee didn't even own...there are no such items of clothing among Lee's possessions.

Jeraldean Reid - "... a white T-shirt and some kind of wash trousers"

Sorry, Mrs Reid was mistaken....Because when Lee boarded the city bus all of the people who saw him said that he was wearing an outer shirt.

[William Pilgrim]

Thanks for that Walt,

In the WC testimonies, the witnesses who claim to have met LHO immediately after his departure from the TSBD are the bus driver, the bus passenger and the taxi driver.

The bus driver was unable to provide a description of how LHO was dressed but the latter two make inconsistent claims regarding his clothing.

Both mention a brown shirt and grey pants though Whaley then muddies the water by describing a blue grey jacket, whereas Blesdoe makes no mention of a jacket as she describes the shirt with the right sleeve whole and no buttons.

Both claim that the shirt LHO wore when arrested is the same shirt he wore on the bus and in the taxi, Whaley positively identifies Exhibit 150 and Blesdoe seems to be describing the shirt after LHO had been arrested in TT and the buttons were torn off in the struggle between him and DPD).

It strikes me that it should not have been difficult for law enforcement to determine what clothes LHO was wearing on that morning as his fellow workers would have been able to provide enough details to enable law enforcement to determine what they should be looking for. Was it possible that these clothes when found could be subject to forensic investigation to determine if they had been in worn by someone who had recently used a firearm? 

Did the dirty clothes found by DPD Detective Potts undergo any forensic examination?  If they did what was the results? If they did not, then why not?

[Walt Cakebread]

Thanks for that Walt,

In the WC testimonies, the witnesses who claim to have met LHO immediately after his departure from the TSBD are the bus driver, the bus passenger and the taxi driver.

The bus driver was unable to provide a description of how LHO was dressed but the latter two make inconsistent claims regarding his clothing.

Both mention a brown shirt and grey pants though Whaley then muddies the water by describing a blue grey jacket, whereas Blesdoe makes no mention of a jacket as she describes the shirt with the right sleeve whole and no buttons.

Both claim that the shirt LHO wore when arrested is the same shirt he wore on the bus and in the taxi, Whaley positively identifies Exhibit 150 and Blesdoe seems to be describing the shirt after LHO had been arrested in TT and the buttons were torn off in the struggle between him and DPD).

It strikes me that it should not have been difficult for law enforcement to determine what clothes LHO was wearing on that morning as his fellow workers would have been able to provide enough details to enable law enforcement to determine what they should be looking for. Was it possible that these clothes when found could be subject to forensic investigation to determine if they had been in worn by someone who had recently used a firearm? 

Did the dirty clothes found by DPD Detective Potts undergo any forensic examination?  If they did what was the results? If they did not, then why not?

The police were not interested in providing evidence that would have cleared Lee Oswald....Some of the higher ranking officers knew that Lee was not guilty, and nearly ALL of the cops thought that he had shot and killed one of their fellow officers so they wanted him hanged.

Apparently you failed to notice that the REDDISH BROWN shirt with the BUTTON DOWN COLLAR  that Detective Potts found in Lee's dresser drawer does NOT match the arrest shirt.    Lee told the interrogators that the shirt that he wore that morning was a long sleeved reddish brown shirt with a BUTTON DOWN COLLAR .  He changed his clothes in his room at 1:00 pm,  Even a person with poor vision can see that the shirt that Lee was wearing when he was dragged from the theater does NOT have a BUTTON DOWN COLLAR.    Clearly the arrest shirt IS NOT the shirt that Lee wore at the TSBD that morning.

[Alan Ford]

This is the shirt Mr Oswald wore to work that day (credit: Mr Pat Speer)--------------

[William Pilgrim]

Walt,

Was not trying to state that the LHO arrest shirt was the same as the one you informed me about at the rooming house, was just unsure as to whether the REDDISH BROWN shirt with the BUTTON DOWN COLLAR that you mentioned was proven to be the one worn on the morning of the assassination, hence my question as to whether it had been forensically tested.

I had read about LHO changing his clothes when he returned to the rooming house but I was unsure as to the 'consensus' (that word again) around his pre and post 1:00 pm attire.

I am happy to accept that he changed his clothes and that the shirt is the one Alan has highlighted above. Are there people who dispute this?

It is important that their is clarity around this as how this is answered impacts other events of that day.

For example,

If LHO changed his working clothes at the rooming house then

The witness statements of the bus passenger Blesdoe and the taxi driver Whaley do not stand up as they both describe him wearing the shirt he was arrested in at the TT.

Some of the debate and analysis around the evidence for LHO being outside the TSBD as the motorcade drives by rely on photographs that compare the shirt worn by the figure in the photograph with the shape and contours of the LHO shirt that he did not wear until 1:00pm.


It just seems to me that we should know the fact of what he was wearing as this ripples through the events of that day and can be used to discount certain testimonies and theories that are at variance to this known fact.


Does the forum know if the REDDISH BROWN shirt with the BUTTON DOWN COLLAR and the grey pants are still held as evidence somewhere and could modern scientific forensics examine them for evidence of firearms?