Who Killed J.D. Tippit?

[John Iacoletti]

But at this point, the killer didn't go all the way to Crawford nor did he go over a block.

“He was down almost to the next street”.

But, the evidence (the police tapes) tells you that Burt is wrong when he mentions the timing of the arrival of ambulance.  This is simple stuff if you'd just run off and listen to the tapes or read the transcripts.

I have done both. The existing edited and spliced police recordings and the differently abridged versions of the transcripts tell you nothing about what Burt did and when.

[John Iacoletti]

Now some would characterize this approach to evidence as shameless cherry-picking. Not me. I see it as an example of Mr. Bill Brown's rigorous and powerfully simple methodology for arriving at conclusions that will be palatable to Mr. Bill Brown.

 

Having it both ways, Bill Brown style:

- Earlene Roberts didn’t mention the police car honking until a week later, therefore it didn’t happen.

- Jimmy Burt told Al Chapman in 1968 that he saw Tippit talking to the man who was walking on the sidewalk, therefore it happened.

[Martin Weidmann]

Burt said he saw the man walking west, away from Marsalis and toward Patton.
Markham said that the man she saw was walking east and had just crossed Patton when Tippit stopped him.

If both are true, and Oswald was indeed the killer, he would have had to walk a far greater distance from the roominghouse than the much shorter route that was timed by Gary Mack at around 11 minutes.
Considering that the 11 minutes estimate was already a narrow fit, I don't see how Oswald could have gotten to Marsalis, walk west down 10th street, past Patton and then turn around for Markham to see him. Also, as Markham was walking the one block distance from 9th to 10th street she must have had a clear view of the crossing between 10th and Patton, yet she somehow failed to see the man walk west and then return?

It just doesn't add up. Could Burt have seen another man?

[Alan Ford]

Burt said he saw the man walking west, away from Marsalis and toward Patton.
Markham said that the man she saw was walking east and had just crossed Patton when Tippit stopped him.

If both are true, and Oswald was indeed the killer, he would have had to walk a far greater distance from the roominghouse than the much shorter route that was timed by Gary Mack at around 11 minutes.
Considering that the 11 minutes estimate was already a narrow fit, I don't see how Oswald could have gotten to Marsalis, walk west down 10th street, past Patton and then turn around for Markham to see him. Also, as Markham was walking the one block distance from 9th to 10th street she must have had a clear view of the crossing between 10th and Patton, yet she somehow failed to see the man walk west and then return?

It just doesn't add up. Could Burt have seen another man?

Could Mr. Burt have seen another man? This same question applies to the man Mr. Burt claims in 1968 he and Mr. Smith saw down the alley several minutes after the shooting.

Here's why. Mr. Smith in Dec. 63 said of his sighting of the shooter turning off Tenth onto Patton: "this was the last time he saw the individual".

Therefore, if Mr. Burt of 1968 hasn't just made up the later Burt-Smith sighting of a man down the alley several minutes after the assassination, then that second man cannot have been the same individual as the first man.

Mr. Bill Brown's solution to this problem will be predictably elegant: Smith@1963, like Burt@1963 but unlike Burt@1968, is not a REAL witness.

 

[Alan Ford]

Here's how Mr. Dale Myers 'solves' the problem of Ms. Acquilla Clemmons' recollection:

"Cimino’s account matches the time period during which Acquilla Clemmons claimed that a man was standing across the street from Tippit’s squad car. Was Mrs. Clemmons’ “accomplice” really Cimino? It seems likely, considering the timing of Frank Cimino’s actions and Clemmons’ distance from the scene."

Mr. Myers is being perfectly ridiculous here. Ms. Clemmons has a man with a gun by the Tippit car at the same time as the other man is standing across the street. But Mr. Cimino never even saw the gunman---------------Ms. Markham told him he had already fled down the alley off Patton by that time. Therefore he cannot have been the second man Ms. Clemmons is talking about.

[Alan Ford]

Two inarguable statements:

1. It is firmly established that multiple witnesses saw the gunman go off into the alley off Patton.

2. It is firmly established that multiple witnesses saw the gunman go all the way down Patton to Jefferson.

How on earth can both of these things possibly be true?

They can't.

But change the wording ever so slightly, and the solution comes into view--------------------

1. It is firmly established that multiple witnesses saw a man with a gun go into the alley off Patton.

2. It is firmly established that multiple witnesses saw a man with a gun go all the way down Patton to Jefferson.

 

Which brings us to a curiously insistent little motif in the key shooting eyewitness stories: partial and/or momentary blindness.

Mrs. Markham covers her eyes with her hands
Mr. Scoggins' view is obscured by a bush and then he scrambles to hide outside his cab
Mr. Benavides ducking down in his truck

Not a single person gets a continuous view of the unfolding events: Officer pulls over - officer talks to man - officer gets out of car - man shoots officer - man stands over officer - man flees the scene

Everywhere we look-------or rather: everywhere the witnesses look--------we get ellipses.

Look, for example, at the curiously ambiguous wording in Mr. Scoggins' 3/16/64 FBI interview report:



It's almost as if Mr. Scoggins cannot quite state categorically that there weren't in fact TWO men rather than just one

[Alan Ford]

And then there's this, from Mr. Scoggins' affidavit for the SS:

"As the man went by me it appeared that he was trotting. He proceeded a short distance south on Patterson towards Jefferson"

A little later:

"I saw a man using the radio in the police cruiser and a few seconds later he appeared in the street with a gun in his hand and said to me "let's go hunt him". We got in my cab and left. We proceeded north on Patton and possibly turned west on 10th. We cruised an area north of 10th street looking for the man I had seen, but we did not see him. When we left the intersection of 10th and Patton we did not go to Patton and Jefferson, but went in a northerly direction which would be opposite from the intersection of Patton and Jefferson streets."

Huh? A truly bizarre way to look for a man you have seen going south on Patterson towards Jefferson.

Fast forward to Mr. Scoggins' WC testimony:

Mr. BELIN. What route did you take as you drove over the neighborhood?
Mr. SCOGGINS. I couldn't tell you.
Mr. BELIN. You can't tell us the route you took over the neighborhood?
Mr. SCOGGINS. I was doing the driving and he was doing the directing.
Mr. BELIN. He directed you where to go?
Mr. SCOGGINS. Actually, I couldn't say where he was going.
Mr. BELIN. All right.

"All right." 

[Alan Ford]

Not wholly unrelated!:

Mr. BENAVIDES - And so Ted then got in the taxicab and the taxicab came to a halt and he asked me which way he went. I told him he went down Patton Street toward the office, and come to find out later Ted had already seen him go by there.
Mr. BELIN - Did Ted tell you later he had seen him go by?
Mr. BENAVIDES - Yes; then we had a colored porter that said he-had seen him go by.

Why did Mr. Callaway need to ask Mr. Benavides which way the shooter had gone?

What or who had Mr. Callaway really seen on Patton?