Who Killed J.D. Tippit?

[Jon Banks]

Barrett is the only source that Westbrook --or anyone else-- said anything about Oswald or Hidell at the crime scene before Oswald was arrested. And Barrett didn't start saying this until decades later.

That Barrett waited decades to tell his story doesn't mean he's wrong or lying. He, like others who participated in the coverups, had a career to protect and he believed Oswald was guilty anyway. His only issue is that he believes the DPD lied about Oswald's wallet. 

[Jon Banks]

Bill Simpich did a deep dive into the "Two Oswald Wallets" story back in 2015:

The Murder of JFK: Another Puzzle Piece Solved

A local TV newscast showed footage taken by the local ABC affiliate WFAA on that date more than 50 years ago. In the film, Dallas police captain Pinky Westbrook can be seen handling a wallet at the scene of Tippit’s murder. It appears to be the wallet of the accused assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald.

WFAA newscast, 11/22/13 

What makes the footage remarkable is that the official story was that the wallet was not found until about an hour later, when Dallas police detective Paul Bentley removed it from Oswald’s back pocket shortly after taking him into custody at the Texas Theatre, several blocks away from where Tippit was gunned down.

FBI agent Bob Barrett, who was at the scene of Tippit’s murder and is still alive in Pell City, Alabama, now calls Paul Bentley’s story “hogwash.”

The wallet is important because its contents connected Oswald to the guns used in the murder of President Kennedy and Officer Tippit.

The WFAA story

The WFAA story last fall said that the wallet mystery had been “settled.” Reporter Jason Whitley interviewed retired FBI analyst Farris Rookstool, who conducted an investigation of the two wallet stories. Rookstool concluded that the wallet seen in the 1963 footage is an exact match with the Oswald wallet now at the National Archives in College Park, Maryland.

Rookstool argues that the circular snaps, metal strips, and a zipper over the cash compartment are identical in both instances.

Rookstool’s conclusion is that the video footage of the wallet proves that Oswald killed Officer Tippit about 49 minutes after President Kennedy was shot and killed in downtown Dallas a mile and half away.


Left screen: The wallet found at the murder scene of officer J. D. Tippit.
Right screen: The wallet found at the time of Oswald's arrest.

https://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/32954-focus-the-murder-of-jfk-another-puzzle-piece-solved

The Murder of JFK, Part 2: Counterfeit ID Planted in Oswald's Wallet?

In my previous article, I asked the question “Who found Oswald’s wallet at the murder scene?”

Here, I pose another question: Was a phony identification card for “Alek Hidell” inserted into the wallet after Oswald’s arrest? “Alek Hidell” was the name used to order the rifle found on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository the day JFK was killed.

Listen here to Dallas Police Department Officer Gerald Hill discuss the capture of Lee Harvey Oswald on November 22, 1963. [Editor’s note: to cut to the chase, go to 3:17 in the audio file.]

Listen for what Hill does not say:

He does not say anything about “Hidell” or an identification card.

Is this omission significant? I think it is.

My previous article recounted the details. FBI agent Bob Barrett said he saw Oswald’s wallet in the hands of DPD Captain Pinky Westbrook at the scene of the murder of Dallas police office J.D. Tippit on November 22, 1963.

The article also recounted that the arresting officer, Paul Bentley, told a different story. Bentley said he found Oswald’s wallet while frisking him in the police car after leaving the Texas Theatre, where Oswald was arrested on November 22.

Both men say that the wallet contained identification cards for both Lee Harvey Oswald and “Alek Hidell.”

So was Oswald carrying the Alek Hidell ID in his wallet when he was arrested?

He had not been previously seen using the ID card, or the Hidell alias. Oswald wasn’t carrying a “Hidell” ID card in his wallet three months before in August 1963 when he was arrested in New Orleans for fighting with Cuban exiles disturbed by his pro-Castro activism. After his arrest, Oswald said he was in touch with a fellow Castro supporter named “Hidell,” which was a lie.

Questions

If Oswald’s wallet containing the Hidell ID card was found on Oswald’s person on November 22, 1963, why do none of the contemporaneous police reports from that day say anything about “Hidell” or an ID card in another name besides Oswald’s?

Bentley did not say that the Hidell ID was in Oswald’s wallet until June 11, 1964. Bentley never testified to the Warren Commission.

The critical question is not so much whether you believe Oswald created the obviously false Selective Service card identifying him as Alek James Hidell. You can go round and round on that one. (Genuine Selective Service cards did not include a photo.) He could have made the phony card in his job at Jaggers-Chiles-Stovall, a photographic production company, where he worked for a few months starting in late 1962.

A better question is why would Oswald carry that card in his wallet on November 22? It wasn’t like he was seeking notoriety after JFK was killed. When asked later that day if he had shot the president, Oswald denied it.

Only on November 23 did the finding of the “Hidell” card become public knowledge in a statement made by Henry Wade, the Dallas district attorney.

That statement came just hours after the FBI allegedly discovered early on the morning of November 23 that “Hidell” had ordered the Mannlicher-Carcano rifle thought to have been used in the assassination, and had it delivered to Oswald’s post office box address. Now, for the first time, there was a paper trail supposedly linking the rifle found on the sixth floor to Oswald!

Wallet disputed

Mark Lane, the attorney hired by Lee Oswald’s mother, told the Warren Commission that the Hidell card was only found in the wallet after the discovery of Hidell’s mail order rifle purchase. Nonetheless, the Warren Commission refused to let Lane cross-examine the district attorney about the Hidell card and the rifle.

The Secret Service men present for the interrogation of Oswald in the Dallas Police Department headquarters on November 22 recalled no questions about the “Hidell” ID card. And it wasn’t like they were totally in the dark. Oswald had referred to a man named ”Hidell” as a Fair Play for Cuba Committee leader and was asked about it on November 22.

From November 23 on, the witnesses who wrote reports on November 22 slowly began to remember that Hidell’s ID was in Oswald’s wallet.

Almost everybody’s story was different, which is noteworthy.

Law enforcement officers are trained to include all relevant data in their reports. It’s hard to think of anything more relevant than the supposed finding of the Hidell ID in Oswald’s wallet on November 22.

Were all these witnesses given a secret order to not mention the Hidell name? Unlikely.

Was the Hidell ID planted in Oswald’s wallet after his arrest?

None of the five officers who drove Oswald from the Texas Theater to the police station mentioned Bentley’s discovery of the Hidell ID in their reports, including Bentley himself.

More than a week after November 22, Bentley’s report of Oswald’s arrest says only that “on the way to the city hall…. I turned his identification over to Lt. Baker. I then went to Captain Westbrook’s office to make a report of the arrest.”

The date of the report was December 3, a rather disquieting 12-day delay, given Bentley’s claim that he went to Westbrook’s office to file a report immediately after the arrest. In any case, Bentley didn’t mention the Hidell ID.

Gerald Hill told the Warren Commission months later that Bentley had found the ID while en route to police headquarters, recalling that it was the same name that had been used to order the rifle. In contrast, hours after the Hidell ID was discovered, here’s what Hill told NBC:

HILL: The only way we found out what his name was was to remove his billfold and check it ourself; he wouldn’t even tell us what his name was….

Q: What was the name on the billfold?

HILL: Lee H. Oswald. O-S-W-A-L-D.

In a radio interview earlier that afternoon, Hill mesmerized the world by revealing Oswald’s time in the USSR and that he was a “communist.”

What went unnoticed: On both occasions, Hill said nothing about the phony Hidell ID.

Bentley’s and Hill’s failure to remember the “Hidell” ID was contagious.

A review of the reports filed by other three officers who transported Oswald from the Texas Theater – Charles T Ford (December 2, 1963), Bob Carroll (December 3), and K.E. Lyons (December 4) – shows that none of them said anything about finding the ”Hidell” ID.

Yet several of them later told the Warren Commission that they remembered the card.

They also claimed that the Hidell alias was passed on to Dallas HQ as they were driving Oswald to the police station at 2 pm – but there is nothing in the radio log.

It appears that the first reference about “Hidell” may have come from George Doughty at the Identification Section of the Dallas police at about 3:15 pm, passing on information about “a selective service card bearing the name of Hidell” to military intelligence officer Robert Jones in San Antonio.

According to the military intelligence officer, his caller made no reference to “Oswald” aliases, multiple IDs, or that the ID was an obvious counterfeit because it had a photo!

Why would Doughty withhold any of that information? Especially that the draft card was an obvious counterfeit? It was hardly a moment to test the veracity of military intelligence.

Using the information about “Hidell,” military intelligence was able to cross-index “Oswald and Hidell” from files that were mysteriously destroyed in 1973.

Right about the same moment that afternoon, Dallas Police intelligence officer Don Stringfellow sent a post to a different military intelligence officer inaccurately claiming that Oswald was a “card carrying Communist” and that he had “defected to Cuba in 1959.” By the end of the day, this information was sent to the U.S. Strike Command at Fort MacDill in Florida, the base prepared for any attack to be launched against Cuba. Some people were ready to see an attack on Cuba.

Some basic questions should be asked: During that long afternoon, what did the Dallas police know about Oswald? Which officers knew what? And how?

By 10 pm on November 22, FBI agent Manning Clements questioned Oswald and reviewed the contents of his wallet on the desk. Clements said that the Hidell ID was inside the wallet at that time, but Oswald wouldn’t answer any questions about it. Clements’ inventory of the wallet cites the Hidell ID, but was not dictated until November 23.

[Mitch Todd]

In a post, I asked Martin this question: "And where is it written that the police will never broadcast the name of a suspect?" This question is a response to your position that "police never give names of potential suspects on the radio."

In his response to my post, Martin neglected to answer my question. So I ask again: where is it written that police will never broadcast the name of a suspect? Where is this a policy, anywhere? When has this been a policy?

[Mitch Todd]

That Barrett waited decades to tell his story doesn't mean he's wrong or lying. He, like others who participated in the coverups, had a career to protect and he believed Oswald was guilty anyway. His only issue is that he believes the DPD lied about Oswald's wallet.

That Barrett waited decades to tell his story doesn't mean he's wrong or lying.

You're technically correct. However, it's still a red flag. Especially considering how badly so many of the other latter day revelations turned out. W

[Martin Weidmann]

In a post, I asked Martin this question: "And where is it written that the police will never broadcast the name of a suspect?" This question is a response to your position that "police never give names of potential suspects on the radio."

In his response to my post, Martin neglected to answer my question. So I ask again: where is it written that police will never broadcast the name of a suspect? Where is this a policy, anywhere? When has this been a policy?

Who said it was written somewhere? It may well be part of some guidelines but I have no intention to look for them, because your question is of no significance for the case we are discussing. Besides, I can just as easily ask you where it is written that cops are allowed and should mention names of suspects on the air. It's a red herring.

The fact of the matter is, that in the Tippit case no name of a suspect was broadcast and the mere fact that you think the name would or should have been broadcast is absolutely meaningless and does not prove that Westbrook didn't hold a wallet with an Oswald and a Hidell ID in it. That's the argument you want to make and it's a pathetic one, just like your now debunked claim that Baker could have been the unidentified officer who gave Gus Rose the wallet.

That Barrett waited decades to tell his story doesn't mean he's wrong or lying.

You're technically correct. However, it's still a red flag. Especially considering how badly so many of the other latter day revelations turned out. W

No, it's not a red flag at all. Even if all the other people in the world remembered something incorrectly, that still doesn't mean that Barrett did. He mentioned what he believed happened to Hosty in a private conversation that was never intended for publication. He believed Oswald was the killer but, because of his knowledge of the wallet at the Tippit scene, it was his opinion that the DPD didn't handle that matter by the book. That was all.

The bottom line is that you have no real reason, except your bias, to argue that Barrett misremembered. It's the classic LN strategy to call any witness mistaken who says something that the LNs don't like.

[John Mytton]

I agree with Richard, a wallet which is excellent supportive evidence of Oswald being at the crime scene and then covered up is absolutely bonkers.
It's no wonder the CT's never give a plausible narrative for this Oswald wallet because even they must realize that there isn't one.

Anyway, the original video clip shows exactly what happened, The Police Officer has no worries that his gun is pointed towards the detective but when the civilian reaches for his wallet the Officer hurriedly points the gun away. No big mystery.



JohnM

[Martin Weidmann]

I agree with Richard, a wallet which is excellent supportive evidence of Oswald being at the crime scene and then covered up is absolutely bonkers.
It's no wonder the CT's never give a plausible narrative for this Oswald wallet because even they must realize that there isn't one.

Anyway, the original video clip shows exactly what happened, The Police Officer has no worries that his gun is pointed towards the detective but when the civilian reaches for his wallet the Officer hurriedly points the gun away. No big mystery.



JohnM

a wallet which is excellent supportive evidence of Oswald being at the crime scene and then covered up is absolutely bonkers.

Who said it was covered up? It was already known that Bentley took a uninteresting wallet from Oswald in the car. The easist way to solve the problem is just switch wallets and make the Bentley one dissappear. It's isn't difficult to understand, yet you seem to be struggling. What else is new?


the original video clip shows exactly what happened, The Police Officer has no worries that his gun is pointed towards the detective but when the civilian reaches for his wallet

What makes you think it was a civilian reaching for the wallet and who says that it was that civilian's wallet? If you want to make up stuff, you need to do far better than this, John.

What would interest me is who is the officer in uniform holding the wallet? Could that be Croy?

[John Mytton]

The easist way to solve the problem is just switch wallets and make the Bentley one dissappear.

What problem, there's no need for this to get any more complicated with ridiculous wallet switching, do you ever think through your bizarre convoluted scenarios?

Oswald had identification for himself and an alias, and if the Dallas Police said Oswald had two wallets, no one would bat an eyelid.







Try again! Hahahaha!

JohnM