RIP to the Single-bullet theory?

[Charles Collins]

Is there any evidence that “these men” ever mentioned this prior to supposedly telling Gary Savage in the 90s?

I don’t know. But the names are included below. It would be interesting to find their oral history transcripts, etc (if any exist). It is amazing to me that no one (especially CT researchers) apparently ever interviewed any of these officers (before Gary Savage). I know that Larry Sneed indicates that most of the DPD officers involved that day were normally very reluctant to talk about the assassination.

Here is a snip from page 77 of “JFK First Day Evidence” by Gary Savage. The quotation marks indicate that these are the words of Rusty Livingston.

“After that [the arraignment of LHO for the murder of JFK] was over with, I went into the Lab Office and talked to the officer who was on duty during the three to eleven shift. He was showing me some of the pictures that they had taken and printed and also pictures of everything that was taken from Oswald’s house, or rooming house. He had all kinds of things that they had taken from there and photographed. They photographed the rifle there too. It was on the counter in the Crime Lab Office where I worked when they photographed it. This had happened sometime during the day. I am sure that Lieutenant Day, who was in charge of the Crime Lab, dusted the rifle that was found on the sixth floor of the School Book Depository, and lifted a partial palm print off the underside of the barrel after the rifle was taken apart. 2 They had the actual print there in the office that night. I compared it myself with Oswald’s palm print, and it looked to me like there was enough there to say yes, it was Oswald’s palm print. I think all the other people on the day shift had already looked at the palm print before I arrived that night, but I went ahead and looked at the palm print myself and was satisfied that it was Oswald’s.”
Rusty went on to tell me that many times, when a print had been lifted at a crime scene and been brought back to the lab for analysis, it would be looked at by the other detectives. “That happened all the time.” He told me. “After we had made a comparison and felt as though we had a match, if someone else was in the office, they’d usually take a look too and help to verify the match.”
.
.
.
Today some assassination researchers do not believe that Lieutenant Day actually did lift the palm print of Oswald from the rifle. He’d did, however, and most if not all other Crime Lab Officers saw and compared the palm print themselves, including Rusty, Pete Barnes, H.R. Williams, and Bobby Brown. Ample opportunity to compare the palm print lifted from the rifle existed since it remained in the Crime Lab Office for several days, and each officer recalled the lift and had no doubt that it was Oswald’s.
Bobby Brown told Rusty and me that he remembered looking at the palm print lifted by Lieutenant Day. He stated that there was no doubt that it was Oswald’s palm print and said he looked at the palm print the day after the shooting. His scheduled hours for work on Saturday were from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. Brown said that he didn’t come in on the day of the assassination.

[John Iacoletti]

If all of that is true, then as Martin already pointed out, it’s even more remarkable that they didn’t bother to tell the FBI about this and just mailed the index card several days later, unidentified. And that Fritz and Curry were publicly saying on Saturday that they had no matching prints.

[Charles Collins]

If all of that is true, then as Martin already pointed out, it’s even more remarkable that they didn’t bother to tell the FBI about this and just mailed the index card several days later, unidentified. And that Fritz and Curry were publicly saying on Saturday that they had no matching prints.

There was no reason for them to tell the FBI about it (it wasn’t until the FBI received it and started their questioning that any controversy arose). And Day stated that he was instructed to stop his processing before he was able to state for certain whether or not it was Oswald’s print. So, if Fritz and Curry said that, they were apparently being honest.

[Dan O'meara]

I don’t know. But the names are included below. It would be interesting to find their oral history transcripts, etc (if any exist). It is amazing to me that no one (especially CT researchers) apparently ever interviewed any of these officers (before Gary Savage). I know that Larry Sneed indicates that most of the DPD officers involved that day were normally very reluctant to talk about the assassination.

Here is a snip from page 77 of “JFK First Day Evidence” by Gary Savage. The quotation marks indicate that these are the words of Rusty Livingston.

“After that [the arraignment of LHO for the murder of JFK] was over with, I went into the Lab Office and talked to the officer who was on duty during the three to eleven shift. He was showing me some of the pictures that they had taken and printed and also pictures of everything that was taken from Oswald’s house, or rooming house. He had all kinds of things that they had taken from there and photographed. They photographed the rifle there too. It was on the counter in the Crime Lab Office where I worked when they photographed it. This had happened sometime during the day. I am sure that Lieutenant Day, who was in charge of the Crime Lab, dusted the rifle that was found on the sixth floor of the School Book Depository, and lifted a partial palm print off the underside of the barrel after the rifle was taken apart. 2 They had the actual print there in the office that night. I compared it myself with Oswald’s palm print, and it looked to me like there was enough there to say yes, it was Oswald’s palm print. I think all the other people on the day shift had already looked at the palm print before I arrived that night, but I went ahead and looked at the palm print myself and was satisfied that it was Oswald’s.”
Rusty went on to tell me that many times, when a print had been lifted at a crime scene and been brought back to the lab for analysis, it would be looked at by the other detectives. “That happened all the time.” He told me. “After we had made a comparison and felt as though we had a match, if someone else was in the office, they’d usually take a look too and help to verify the match.”
.
.
.
Today some assassination researchers do not believe that Lieutenant Day actually did lift the palm print of Oswald from the rifle. He’d did, however, and most if not all other Crime Lab Officers saw and compared the palm print themselves, including Rusty, Pete Barnes, H.R. Williams, and Bobby Brown. Ample opportunity to compare the palm print lifted from the rifle existed since it remained in the Crime Lab Office for several days, and each officer recalled the lift and had no doubt that it was Oswald’s.
Bobby Brown told Rusty and me that he remembered looking at the palm print lifted by Lieutenant Day. He stated that there was no doubt that it was Oswald’s palm print and said he looked at the palm print the day after the shooting. His scheduled hours for work on Saturday were from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. Brown said that he didn’t come in on the day of the assassination.

Of all LN researchers I feel that you are the one who is most genuinely interested in what actually happened that day.
You must concede that there are two incredibly perplexing aspects to this particular aspect of the case.

1) Day could not make a positive identification of the print he had lifted.
    His claim is that he didn't have enough time to work on it but the fact of the matter is that he had the print for days. The importance of this
    print cannot be understated - above all evidence it connected Oswald to the murder weapon. It must have been a priority. Yet Day claims
    he didn't have enough time to work on it. Yet here we have Rusty making an immediate 'satisfactory' identification.
2) Day is absolutely insistent there was a print on the underside of the barrel when he sent it off with Drain. He was so confident they would
    be able to identify the print from the rifle he kept the print he had lifted. Yet, by the time it reached Latona, the morning of the next day,
    the print had completely vanished. There was no trace of it. Not the slightest part left. And no indication that any attempt had even been
    made to lift a print.

The tinfoil element of CTer's is on full display as far as this forum is concerned, but any reasonable-minded person would look at this and say there is something really not right.

[Martin Weidmann]

There was no reason for them to tell the FBI about it (it wasn’t until the FBI received it and started their questioning that any controversy arose). And Day stated that he was instructed to stop his processing before he was able to state for certain whether or not it was Oswald’s print. So, if Fritz and Curry said that, they were apparently being honest.

And Day stated that he was instructed to stop his processing before he was able to state for certain whether or not it was Oswald’s print.

And, according to his WC testimony and his Oral History interview, that's exactly what he did. He stopped, gave the rifle to Drain later that same evening and allegedly put the evidence card with the print on it into his desk's drawer.

Obviously this completely contradicts what Rusty Livingston is supposed to have told Gary Savage, because if he is to be believed just about everybody at the entire forensic department examined the print and compared it to Oswald's prints.

[Michael Capasse]

There was no reason for them to tell the FBI about it...

 

[Charles Collins]

Of all LN researchers I feel that you are the one who is most genuinely interested in what actually happened that day.
You must concede that there are two incredibly perplexing aspects to this particular aspect of the case.

1) Day could not make a positive identification of the print he had lifted.
    His claim is that he didn't have enough time to work on it but the fact of the matter is that he had the print for days. The importance of this
    print cannot be understated - above all evidence it connected Oswald to the murder weapon. It must have been a priority. Yet Day claims
    he didn't have enough time to work on it. Yet here we have Rusty making an immediate 'satisfactory' identification.
2) Day is absolutely insistent there was a print on the underside of the barrel when he sent it off with Drain. He was so confident they would
    be able to identify the print from the rifle he kept the print he had lifted. Yet, by the time it reached Latona, the morning of the next day,
    the print had completely vanished. There was no trace of it. Not the slightest part left. And no indication that any attempt had even been
    made to lift a print.

The tinfoil element of CTer's is on full display as far as this forum is concerned, but any reasonable-minded person would look at this and say there is something really not right.

1) Day could not make a positive identification of the print he had lifted.
    His claim is that he didn't have enough time to work on it but the fact of the matter is that he had the print for days. The importance of this
    print cannot be understated - above all evidence it connected Oswald to the murder weapon. It must have been a priority. Yet Day claims
    he didn't have enough time to work on it. Yet here we have Rusty making an immediate 'satisfactory' identification.


Dan, I think that some of your words could be better selected. It wasn’t that Day said that he could not make a positive ID. But rather that he hadn’t yet spent enough time on it to say for certain one way or the other. He believed that it was a match based on his preliminary comparison. But it would have taken him some significant more time to be able to document everything so that he could say for certain that he had enough similarities to satisfy the requirements for certainty. Sadly, he was told to stop the processing that he was in the middle of. And even sadder is that Day followed just orders without standing up for himself and saying to his superiors that he was in the middle of processing the best print that he had found on the gun and that he would like to finish his work (or at least come to a good stopping point) on that portion of his work. Day had earlier been told not to do any more work on the rifle, he had had to interrupt his work to let Marina see the rifle, then he had been requested to continue his work on the prints by Captain Fritz, and finally was again interrupted in the middle of the work on the palm print and told to cease all work on the rifle. Working in the ranks of a police department is somewhat like working in the military in as much as one is expected to follow orders from their superiors regardless of whether or not they make any sense. Second guessing after the fact is easy, but I sure wish that Day had at least tried to explain his predicament to his superiors instead of apparently getting frustrated and disgusted enough to just stop right in the middle of an important process. Rusty’s and the others’ IDs were only for their own satisfaction, and, if needed, another opinion.  I think that if they had needed to document their IDs enough to testify that the match was certain, their IDs would have required more time also. Day has said that if he hadn’t been instructed to stop, that he would probably have spent the entire night processing the evidence. Instead he went home shortly after the arraignment of LHO for the murder of JFK.


2) Day is absolutely insistent there was a print on the underside of the barrel when he sent it off with Drain. He was so confident they would
    be able to identify the print from the rifle he kept the print he had lifted. Yet, by the time it reached Latona, the morning of the next day,
    the print had completely vanished. There was no trace of it. Not the slightest part left. And no indication that any attempt had even been
    made to lift a print.

I think that there was a very faint print left on the underside of the barrel. And that the FBI probably just missed seeing it. Now if Latona had been told there was a print under the fore stock and still couldn’t find it, you might have a point. Sadly, Latona had no way of knowing to look for anything under the fore stock because Day only verbally told Drain and Drain failed to make it known to Latona. Now, remember that the FBI did later scientifically confirm that the print was lifted from where Day said he lifted it. This can be viewed as a concession (without Latona having to admit it) that they missed what was left on the barrel.

[Martin Weidmann]

<>

2) Day is absolutely insistent there was a print on the underside of the barrel when he sent it off with Drain. He was so confident they would
    be able to identify the print from the rifle he kept the print he had lifted. Yet, by the time it reached Latona, the morning of the next day,
    the print had completely vanished. There was no trace of it. Not the slightest part left. And no indication that any attempt had even been
    made to lift a print.

I think that there was a very faint print left on the underside of the barrel. And that the FBI probably just missed seeing it. Now if Latona had been told there was a print under the fore stock and still couldn’t find it, you might have a point. Sadly, Latona had no way of knowing to look for anything under the fore stock because Day only verbally told Drain and Drain failed to make it known to Latona. Now, remember that the FBI did later scientifically confirm that the print was lifted from where Day said he lifted it. This can be viewed as a concession (without Latona having to admit it) that they missed what was left on the barrel.

Now if Latona had been told there was a print under the fore stock and still couldn’t find it, you might have a point. Sadly, Latona had no way of knowing to look for anything under the fore stock

It doesn't matter if Latona was told or not. His job was to examine the entire rifle and that's what he did;

Mr. LATONA. I was not successful in developing any prints at all on the weapon. I also had one of the firearms examiners dismantle the weapon and I processed the complete weapon, all parts, everything else. And no latent prints of value were developed.

Day only verbally told Drain and Drain failed to make it known to Latona.

There is not a shred of evidence that Day actually told Drain.