i am certain these will have been debated before but i think it would be a good idea to do so again for the new readers / members who have joined the forum or who are just starting out on their JFK assassination journey . another poster posted the following from the book reclaiming history . i hope people will chime in and show how accurate or inaccurate these claims are . are the accurate , true and fact ? or inaccurate , untrue , merely opinion masquerading as fact etc etc ? .
here are Vincent Bugliosi so called 53 pieces of evidence .
1 . Whenever Oswald had Wesley Frazier drive him out to visit his wife and daughters at the
Paine residence in Irving, he'd go on a Friday evening and return to Dallas on Monday morning. The
assassination was on Friday, November 22, 1963. For the very first time, Oswald went to Irving with
Frazier on Thursday evening, November 21, obviously to pickup his Mannlicher-Carcano rifle for
the following day.
2. Oswald told Wesley Frazier he was going to Irving to pick up some curtain rods for his
apartment in Dallas. But Oswald's landlady testified that the windows in Oswald's room on North
Beckley already had curtain rods and that Oswald never discussed getting curtain rods with her. 16
Indeed, Allen Grant, a photographer for Life magazine, took a photo of Oswald's room on the
afternoon of the assassination, and it clearly shows the curtain rods that were already in his room.
Additionally, Ruth Paine had two flat, lightweight curtain rods in her garage, and they were still
there after Oswald's arrest. Oswald never asked Ruth Paine about curtain rods at any time. When
Marina was asked in her Warren Commission testimony, "On the evening of the 21st, was anything
said about curtain rods or his taking curtain rods to town the following day?" she answered, "No, I
didn't have any." Question: "He didn't say anything like that?" "No." And no curtain rods were
found in the Book Depository Building after the assassination.
If Oswald, as he claimed, brought curtain rods to work, whatever happened to them? We know
from witnesses (on the bus, the cabdriver, and Earlene Roberts) that he wasn't carrying any long
package after he left the Book Depository Building. And, as indicated, no curtain rods were found in
the building after the assassination. As with the supposed killer behind the picket fence on the grassy
knoll whom no one saw run away, and the bullet that exited Kennedy's throat without going on to hit
Connally or anything else in the presidential limousine, did the curtain rods simply vanish into thin
air? One would think that things like this would at least give the Oswald defenders and conspiracy
theorists pause, but instead, their eyes blazing with certainty, they tell you that you just don't
understand.
In addition to the evidence showing that Oswald's curtain rod story was a fabrication, the story,
all by itself, is inherently implausible. If Oswald did want to pick up curtain rods at Ruth Paine' s
home for his apartment, why would that require him to go there on a Thursday evening? Could he only
pick them up if he went there on a Thursday evening, not a Friday evening?
3. When Oswald told Wesley Frazier why he was coming to Irving on a Thursday night — to pick
up curtain rods — Frazier said to Oswald, "Oh, very well," then added, "Well, will you be going
home with me tomorrow also?" and Oswald replied, "No."
4. Oswald and his wife, Marina, shared an abiding interest in President Kennedy and his family
and spoke of them often. Yet on Thursday evening, the night before the assassination, when Marina
brought up in conversation with Oswald the president's scheduled visit to Dallas the next day, she
said, "He just ignored a little bit, you know, to talk about [it] . . .maybe changed subject about talking
about. . .new born baby or something like that. . .It was quite unusual that he did not want to talk about
President Kennedy being in Dallas that particular evening. That was quite peculiar."
5. Friday morning, before leaving Ruth Paine 's house in Irving, Oswald left behind his wedding
ring and $170, believed to be virtually all of his money, for Marina, demonstrating that he realized he
might never see her again — that is, he might not survive the assassination he was contemplating.
Moreover, as he left Marina that morning, Oswald told her to use the money to buy shoes for their
new baby, Rachel, and "anything" else that she felt was necessary for the children. Marina thought
this to be strange since Oswald had always been "most frugal" and hardly allowed her to spend any
money at all.
6. Before Oswald got into Frazier's car that Friday morning, the day of the assassination, he
placed a long, bulky package on the rear seat, telling Frazier it contained the curtain rods.
7. Wesley Frazier said that on the way to work on the morning of the assassination, he noticed
that for the very first time Oswald did not bring his lunch.
8. When Frazier and Oswald arrived in the parking lot for the Book Depository Building on the
morning of the assassination, Oswald picked up the long package on the backseat and, for the first
time ever, walked quickly ahead of Frazier all the way into the building, Oswald being approximately
fifty feet ahead at the time he entered the building. Always previously, they had walked the three
hundred or so yards from the car to the building together.
9. Every morning after arriving for work at the Book Depository Building, Oswald would go to
the domino room on the first floor of the building and read the previous morning's edition of the
Dallas Morning News, which another employee had brought in. On the morning of the assassination,
for the first time, he did not do this.
10. Despite the fact that the president's visit and route received enormous and inescapable
attention in the Dallas papers and on radio and TV, and that Oswald usually read both daily
newspapers each day and had to know what was happening, he asked co-worker James Jarman
somewhere between 9:30 and 10:00 on the morning of the assassination why people were gathering
around the corner of Houston and Elm When Jarman said the president was going to pass by the
building, Oswald asked if he knew which way he was coming, whereupon Jarman told Oswald the
president's route was from Main to Houston to Elm Obviously, Oswald was trying to create the
false impression that he knew nothing about the president's visit. If not, these were just two nervous,
pointless questions by someone who knew he was about to change history.
11. After the first and second shots rang out in Dealey Plaza, a motorcade witness, Howard
Brennan, sitting on a short concrete wall directly across the street from the sixth- floor window,
looked up and actually saw Oswald in the window holding his rifle. Only 120 feet away from
Oswald, he got a very good look as he watched, in horror, Oswald (whom he had seen in the window
earlier, before the motorcade had arrived) take deliberate aim and fire the final shot from his rifle.
At the police line up that evening, Brennan picked Oswald out, saying, "He looks like him, but I
cannot positively say," giving the police the reason that he had since seen Oswald on television and
that could have "messed me up." However, Brennan signed an affidavit at the Dallas sheriffs office
within an hour after the shooting and before the line up saying, "I believe that I could identify this man
if I ever saw him again." On December 18, 1963, Brennan told the FBI he was "sure" that Oswald
was the man he had seen in the window. And he later told the Warren Commission that in reality at
the line up, "with all fairness, I could have positively identified the man" but did not do so out of fear.
"If it got to be a known fact that I was an eyewitness, my family or I. . .might not be safe." Although
Brennan did not positively identify Oswald at the line up, he did say, as we've seen, that Oswald
looked like the man. And we know Brennan is legitimate since the description of the man in the
window that he gave to the authorities right after the shooting — a slender, white male about thirty
years old, five feet ten inches — matches Oswald fairly closely, and had to have been the basis for the
description of the man sent out over police radio just fifteen minutes after the shooting.
12. Apart from Brennan, we know that Kennedy's assassin was at the subject sixth-floor
window. Among other evidence, the rifle that was used to murder Kennedy was found on the sixth
floor of the Book Depository Building, witnesses other than Brennan saw a rifle sticking out of the
southeasternmost window on the sixth floor, a sniper's nest was found around the subject window,
and three cartridge casings from the murder weapon were found on the floor beneath the window.
13. Although in his interrogation on Friday afternoon, November 22, Oswald said he was having
lunch on the first floor of the Book Depository Building at the time of the assassination, during
Sunday's interrogation Oswald slipped up and placed himself on the sixth floor at the time of the
assassination, making him the only employee of the Book Depository Building who placed himself
on the sixth floor, or was placed there by anyone else, at the time we know an assassin shot
Kennedy from the sixth floor. In his Sunday-morning interrogation he said that at lunchtime, one of
the "Negro" employees invited him to eat lunch with him and he declined, saying, "You go on down
and send the elevator back up and I will join you in a few minutes." He said before he could finish
whatever he was doing, the commotion surrounding the assassination took place and when he "went
downstairs,'" a policeman questioned him as to his identification, and his boss stated that he was one
of their employees. The latter confrontation, of course, refers to Officer Marrion Baker, in Roy
Truly' s presence, talking to Oswald in the second-floor lunchroom within two minutes after the
shooting. Where was Oswald at the time the Negro employee invited him to lunch, and before he
descended to the second-floor lunchroom? The sixth floor. Charles Givens testified that around
11:55 a.m., he went up to the sixth floor to get his jacket with cigarettes in it and saw Oswald on the
sixth floor. He said to Oswald, "Boy, are you going downstairs. . .it's near lunchtime." He said
Oswald answered, "No, sir. When you get downstairs, close the gate to the elevator."
There is another very powerful reason why we can know that Oswald, at the time of his
confrontation with Baker in the second- floor lunchroom, had just come down from the sixth floor, not
up from the first floor, as he claimed. It is an accepted part of conspiracy dogma to believe what
Oswald told Fritz during his interrogation — that he had been eating lunch in the lunchroom on the first
floor at the time of the shooting and had walked up to the second floor to get a Coke from the Coke
machine just before Baker called out to him. Assassination literature abounds with references to
"the Coca-Cola machine in the second floor lunchroom." And indeed there was a Coca-Cola machine
in the subject room. But to my knowledge, there is no direct reference in the assassination literature
to a second soft drink machine in the Book Depository Building, and in a phone call to Gary Mack,
the curator at the Sixth Floor Museum in the building, he told me he was "unaware" of any other soft
drink machine in the building at the time of the assassination. What prompted my call to him was not
the frequent references in the literature to the Dr. Pepper bottle found on the sixth floor after the
shooting, since some soft drink machines contain a variety of drinks, but a reference in stock boy
Bonnie Ray William's testimony before the Warren Commission to his getting "a small bottle of Dr.
Pepper from the Dr. Pepper machine ," and stock boy Wesley Frazier's testimony that "I have seen
him [Oswald] go to the Dr. Pepper machine by the refrigerator and get a Dr. Pepper."
Neither Williams nor Frazier expressly said what floor this machine was on, and I was aware,
from a photo, that there was a refrigerator next to the Coca-Cola machine on the second floor.
Through a few phone calls I was able to reach Wesley Frazier, whom I hadn't talked to since 1986,
when he testified for me at the London trial. Still living in Dallas, he told me that "there was a Dr.
Pepper machine on the first floor." Where, specifically, was it? "It was located by the double freight
elevator near the back of the building." Was there a refrigerator nearby? I asked. "Oh, yes, right next
to it." (And indeed, I subsequently found proof of the existence of the machine, with the words "Dr.
Pepper" near the top front of it, in an FBI photo taken for the Warren Commission of the northwest
corner of the first floor, and it is located right next to the refrigerator.)
Frazier said that "almost all the guys would get their drinks for lunch from this Dr. Pepper
machine. It mostly had Dr. Pepper, but also other drinks like orange and root beer." I asked him,
"What about the Coca-Cola machine in the second- floor lunchroom? Did it have other drinks too?"
He said it "only had Coca-Cola in it" and "the only time anybody would go to that machine is if they
wanted a Coke, which I did from time to time." When I asked him whether or not "it was rare" for the
workers to go to the second floor to get a Coke, he said, "Yes. We had our own machine on the first
floor, where we ate our lunch. It was more convenient to use the machine on the first floor." Frazier
said he could not say whether Oswald ever went to the second floor to get a Coke or ever drank soft
drinks other than Dr. Pepper, but "I only recall seeing him with a Dr. Pepper." Author Jim Bishop,
in his book The Day Kennedy Was Shot, writes (without a citation, however) that Oswald
"invariably drank Dr. Pepper." And we know that Marina told her biographer, Priscilla McMillan,
that when he was working at Jaggers-Chiles-Stovall in Dallas in 1963, "after supper" he would walk
down the street as he often did "to buy a newspaper and a bottle of Dr. Pepper."
So we see that apart from all the conclusive evidence that Oswald shot Kennedy from the
sniper's nest, and therefore had to have descended from there to the second floor, his story about
going up to the second floor to get a Coke doesn't even make sense. Why go up to the second floor to
get a drink for your lunch when there's a soft drink machine on the first floor, the floor you say you
are already on, particularly when the apparent drink of your choice is on this first floor, not the
second floor?
14. There is yet another reason why Oswald's statement that he was on the first floor eating
lunch at the time of the shooting makes no sense at all. If he had been, once he heard the shots and the
screaming and all the commotion outside, if he were innocent, what is the likelihood that he would
have proceeded to go, as he claims, up to the second floor to get himself a Coke? How could any
sensible person believe a story like that?
15. Though Oswald was probably more politically oriented than all thirteen other
warehousemen at the Book Depository Building put together, if we are to believe Oswald's story, he
apparently was the only one who had no interest at all in watching the presidential motorcade go by,
either from out on the street or from a window, claiming in one version that he was having lunch on
the first floor of the Book Depository Building at the time of the shooting, and in another version that
he was working on the sixth floor. Indeed, Oswald, the political animal, was so uninterested in the
fact that the most powerful politician on earth had just been shot that he had no inclination to stick
around for a few minutes and engage in conversation with his co-workers about the sensational and
tragic event. Does that make any sense?
16. After the shooting in Dealey Plaza, nearly all of the sixteen warehousemen who worked in
the Depository Building returned to the building and were present at a roll call of employees. Only
Lee Harvey Oswald and Charles Givens were not present; Givens was located shortly thereafter.
So only Oswald left the building and was unaccounted for. Dallas Morning News reporter Kent
Biffle, who was inside the Depository Building, wrote in his journal that day, "I listened as the
building superintendent [Roy Truly] told detectives about Lee Oswald failing to show up at a roll
call. My impression is that there was an earlier roll call that had been inconclusive because several
employees were missing. This time, however, all were accounted for but Oswald. "
17. After exiting the front door of the Book Depository Building, if Oswald hadn't just murdered
the president but still wanted to go home, he only had to turn left on the sidewalk in front of the
building, cross Houston, and wait for the Beckley bus, which stopped at the northeast corner of
Houston and Elm. 51 This is the same bus that he took every weekday to and from work, picking it up
almost directly in front of his rooming house 52 and getting off at Houston and Elm, and on the way
home getting off diagonally across the street from his rooming house on the northwest corner of the
intersection of Beckley and Zangs Boulevard.
But instead of waiting at the bus stop at Houston and Elm for his Beckley bus, Oswald walked
past the bus stop and continued walking east on Elm, apparently wanting to get as far away as he
could and looking for the very first Oak Cliff bus that came along, eventually boarding the Marsalis
bus, which was proceeding westbound on Elm about seven blocks from the Book Depository
Building. 54 But the closest the Marsalis bus could possibly take him to where he lived was Marsalis
and Fifth Street, requiring him, if he had stayed on the bus, to walk five blocks to the west and one
block north to get to his home. 55 Why would Oswald take a bus that he knew couldn't take him closer
than a half mile from his home (when he knew the next bus, the Beckley bus, would take him to his
front door) if he weren't in a frenzied flight from the scene of where he had done something
terrible?
18. When the Marsalis bus he had boarded got snarled in traffic, Oswald got off after just a few
blocks, again demonstrating he was in flight from the scene of a crime. Flight, in the criminal law, is
always considered circumstantial evidence of a consciousness of guilt.
19. When Oswald got in the cab shortly after getting off the bus for the trip to Oak Cliff, and the
cab drove off, the cabdriver, seeing all the police cars crisscrossing everywhere with their sirens
screaming, said to Oswald, "I wonder what the hell is the uproar?" The cabdriver said Oswald
"never said anything." Granted, there are people who are very stingy with their words, and this
nonresponse by Oswald, by itself, is not conclusive of his guilt. But ask yourself this: If a thousand
people were put in Oswald's place in the cab, particularly if they, like Oswald, were at the scene of
the assassination in Dealey Plaza and knew what had happened, how many do you suppose wouldn't
have said one single word in response to the cabby's question?
20. Instead of having the cabdriver, William Whaley, drop him off at his residence, 1026 North
Beckley, Oswald had him drive directly past his residence and continue on for about almost blocks
before dropping him off close to the intersection of Neely and Beckley. Since we know Oswald
was going home, this was obviously a feeble but incriminating effort to prevent the cabdriver from
telling the authorities where the passenger he drove that day lived, and/or Oswald, in driving past his
residence, was checking to see if the authorities had zeroed in on him yet. So instead of getting out of
the cab in front of his residence, Oswald has the cabdriver, William Whaley, drive right past it. And
this is the person who conspiracy theorists believe was as innocent as a new born baby of the
assassination that had taken place about a half hour earlier.
21. Oswald entered his rooming house around 1:00 p.m. on the day of the assassination, and per
the testimony of the housekeeper, Earlene Roberts, before the Warren Commission, he seemed to be
"walking unusually fast. . .he was all but running." When she said to him, "Oh, you are in a hurry," he
did not respond. The first person who interviewed Roberts on the afternoon of the assassination
was Dallas Morning News reporter Hugh Aynesworth. Roberts told Aynesworth, "He came in
running like the dickens, and I said to him 'You sure are in a hurry' but he didn't say anything. . .just
ran in his room, got a short tan coat and ran back out."
22. Oswald picked up his revolver at the rooming house, not a normal thing to do unless he felt
he had a need to protect himself in light of some terrible act he had just committed. That he had no
nonincriminating reason for getting his revolver was proved by the fact that when police later asked
him why he picked up his revolver, he lamely answered, "You know how boys do when they have a
gun, they just carry it."
23. In addition to picking up his revolver at the rooming house, Oswald changed his trousers.
So Oswald changed his clothing, in the middle of the day, after the assassination.
24. Forty-five minutes after the shooting in Dealey Plaza, out of the close to three-quarters of a
million or so people in Dallas, Lee Harvey Oswald is the one who just happened to murder Dallas
police officer J. D. Tippit on Tenth Street near Patton in the Oak Cliff area, only about nine-tenths of
a mile from his rooming house. One witness, Helen Markham, identified Oswald in a line up later in
the day as the man she saw shoot Tippit. (Years later, the HSCA found another witness, Jack Tatum,
who saw Oswald shoot and kill Tippit). Another witness, William Scoggins, identified Oswald as
the man he saw approach Tippit' s car after it pulled up alongside Oswald, who was walking on the
sidewalk. He lost sight of Oswald behind some shrubbery, but heard the shots that killed Tippit, saw
Tippit fall, and then saw Oswald, with a pistol in his left hand, run away south on Patton Street in the
direction of Jefferson Boulevard. Another witness, William Smith, heard some shots, looked up,
and saw Oswald running west on Tenth Street out of his sight. Two other witnesses, Virginia and
Barbara Davis, identified Oswald as the man they saw cutting across the front lawn of their apartment
house right after they heard the sound of gunfire from the Tippit murder scene and a woman
screaming. Oswald had a revolver in his hand and was unloading the shells from his gun on their
lawn. They saw Oswald proceed down Patton toward Jefferson Boulevard. 66 Four other witnesses
(Ted Callaway, Sam Guinyard, B. M. Patterson, and Harold Russell), from their position on two
used-car lots at the intersection of Patton and Jefferson, identified Oswald as being the man who,
right after the Tippit shooting, ran past them on Patton toward Jefferson Boulevard (where the Texas
Theatre was located) holding a revolver in his hand. Two men who were on one of the lots, Warren
Reynolds (the owner of the lot) and Patterson, followed Oswald until they lost him behind a Texaco
gasoline station on Jefferson. Mrs. Mary Brock, the wife of a man who worked at the gas station,
identified Oswald as the person she saw walk past her, at a fast pace, into the parking lot behind the
station.
One of the canards of the conspiracy theorists that they've sold to millions is that there was only
one eyewitness to Oswald killing Officer Tippit, Helen Markham, and she wasn't a strong one. But in
addition to Jack Tatum also being an eyewitness to the killing, for all intents and purposes there were
eight other eyewitnesses. For instance, with the Davis women, can anyone make the argument that
although someone else shot Tippit, it was Oswald who was seen running from the Tippit murder
scene with a revolver in his hand unloading shells? And when Scoggins saw Oswald approach
Tippit's car and then lost sight of him for a moment, Tippit's true killer appeared out of nowhere, shot
and killed Tippit, then vanished into thin air, whereupon Scoggins then saw Oswald again, running
away from Tippit's car with a pistol in his hand?
So there were ten witnesses who identified Oswald as the murderer. And we know that the
physical evidence was all corroborative of their testimony.
Granted, mistaken identity has resulted in many wrongful convictions. But here, and not counting
Mrs. Brock, there were many eyewitnesses who identified Oswald. Show me any other case where
ten eyewitnesses were wrong.
I argued to the jury in London that "Oswald's responsibility for President Kennedy's
assassination explains, explains why he was driven to murder Officer Tippit. The murder bore the
signature of a man," I argued, "in desperate flight from some awful deed. What other reason under the
moon would he have had to kill Officer Tippit?" It should be noted that even if we assume just for
the sake of argument that Oswald didn't murder Officer Tippit, then who in the world did? The
conspiracy community never says. And although we know why Oswald would have had a reason to
kill Tippit, what possible reason would the phantom killer have had?
25. Within minutes after the murder of Tippit, the manager of a shoe store on Jefferson
Boulevard that was located several doors down from the Texas Theatre, hearing police sirens on
Jefferson and having heard over the radio of the shooting of the president and Officer Tippit, saw a
man enter the recessed area of the store off the sidewalk and stand with his back to the street. After
the sirens grew fainter, the man looked over his shoulder, turned around, and walked up the street
toward the Texas Theatre. The shoe store manager positively identified the man as Oswald. Because
Oswald's hair was "messed up and he looked like he had been running, and he looked scared," the
manager "thought the guy [Oswald] looked suspicious" and followed Oswald to the theatre.
26. The cashier at the theatre said that Oswald had "ducked in" to the theatre without buying a
ticket.
27. Responding to a call from the cashier, the police approached Oswald in his seat in the
theatre. When the lead officer told Oswald to stand up, Oswald rose and said, "Well, it is all over
now." What else could he have possibly meant by these words other than that he knew the police had
been in pursuit of him and were there to arrest him? And how would he have known they were after
him if he hadn't killed Kennedy and/or Tippit?
28. After saying, "It is all over now," Oswald immediately struck the officer in the face with his
left fist and drew his loaded revolver, but he was subdued by other officers after a struggle and
placed under arrest. If Oswald hadn't just murdered Kennedy and Tippit, not only wouldn't he have
been likely to have a loaded revolver on him, but there wouldn't have been any reason for him to
draw that revolver on the arresting officer and strike him Is that what an innocent person normally
does when a police officer approaches to arrest him — pull a revolver on the officer and physically
resist arrest? Or does he say words to the effect, "What's going on? What have I done? Why are you
doing this to me?"
29. After Oswald's arrest at the Texas Theatre, he refused to give even his name to the Dallas
police officers who captured him. As a pretty consistent general rule, when a person is innocent of a
crime, he cooperates with law enforcement.
30. While being led by Dallas detectives down the hallway of police headquarters on the day of
the assassination, Oswald suddenly lifted his manacled right hand in a clenched- fist salute of some
nature (see photo section). One would expect an innocent person to have an expression on his face
conveying bewilderment or anger or a plea for help. Instead, it's clear Oswald is making some type
of statement by his clenched- fist salute, one closer to that of defiance, satisfaction, even triumph. In no
way would he confess to Kennedy's murder, which would ensure his execution, but by the body
language of his clenched fist (for which he would suffer no consequences), he seems to be telling
posterity that he did it. If not, ask yourself how many people charged with a murder they did not
commit would respond the way Oswald did — with a clenched- fist salute? One out of a thousand? One
out of a million?
31. When asked to, Oswald refused to take a lie detector test. By contrast, Ruby volunteered to
take one. In view of all the other evidence of Oswald's guilt, his refusal to take a lie detector test,
though certainly not conclusive, goes in the direction of showing a consciousness of guilt on his part.
32. No one knew Oswald as well as his wife, Marina, and after the assassination, Marina never
cooperated with any writer or journalist as much as she did with Priscilla McMillan, who ended up
writing the very well-received Marina and Lee, a 659-page anatomy of their life together. Marina
told McMillan that when she visited her husband in jail on the day after the assassination, she came
away knowing he was guilty. She said she saw the guilt in his eyes. Moreover, she said she knew that
had he been innocent, he would have been screaming to high heaven for his "rights," claiming he had
been mistreated and demanding to see officials at the very highest levels, just as he had always done
before over what he perceived to be the slightest maltreatment. For her, the fact that he was so
compliant, that he told her he was being treated "all right," was an additional sign that he was
guilty. In Marina's appearance before the Warren Commission on February 3, 1964, she testified, as
she later told McMillan, that when she visited with her husband on November 23 at the jail, "I could
see by his eyes that he was guilty." In her September 6, 1964, testimony before the Warren
Commission, she said "I have no doubt in my mind that Lee Oswald killed President Kennedy."
The Physical Evidence
33. A Mannlicher-Carcano rifle, serial number C2766, was found on the sixth floor of the Book
Depository Building shortly after the shooting in Dealey Plaza. Handwriting experts determined that
the writing on the purchase order and money order for the rifle was Oswald's. And the seller shipped
the rifle to Oswald's post office box in Dallas. So Oswald owned the Carcano. Also, photographs
taken by Oswald's wife, Marina, in April of 1963 show Oswald holding the Carcano, and Oswald's
right palm print was found on the underside of the rifle barrel following the assassination. * So we
know that Oswald not only owned but possessed the subject rifle.
In the same vein, a tuft of several fresh, dark blue, gray-black, and orange-yellow cotton fibers
was found in a crevice between the butt plate of the Carcano and the wooden stock. The FBI
laboratory found that the colors, and even the twist of the fibers, perfectly matched those on the shirt
Oswald was wearing at the time of his arrest. Though such fibers could theoretically have come
from another identical shirt, the prohibitive probability is that they came from Oswald's shirt.
34. Firearms identification experts from the Warren Commission and the HSCA concluded that
two large bullet fragments found in the presidential limousine were parts of a bullet fired from
Oswald's Carcano rifle to the exclusion of all other weapons. Likewise, the firearms experts found
that the whole bullet recovered from a stretcher at Parkland Hospital, believed to be the stretcher
Governor Connally was on, was fired from Oswald's rifle to the exclusion of all other weapons.
35. Firearms experts determined that the three expended cartridge shells found on the floor
beneath the southeasternmost window on the sixth floor of the Book Depository Building were fired
in and ejected from Oswald's Mannlicher-Carcano rifle to the exclusion of all other weapons, j:
So we know, not just beyond a reasonable doubt, but beyond all doubt, that Oswald's rifle was
the murder weapon, the weapon that fired the bullets that struck down the thirty-fifth president of the
United States. If there were no other evidence against Oswald, the fact that the murder weapon
belonged to him, and that there was no evidence or even likelihood that anyone else had come into
possession of the weapon, would be devastating evidence of his guilt.
But likewise, it should be realized that even if, hypothetically, Oswald had succeeded in
secreting his weapon and law enforcement never found it, and hence, the murder weapon could never
be connected to him, as can be seen from all the preceding pages and those that follow, the evidence
against him would still be much more than enough to prove his guilt beyond all doubt. Convictions are
secured every day without the prosecution finding the murder weapon.
36. A large brown handmade bag of wrapping paper and tape of the appropriate size to contain
Oswald's disassembled Carcano rifle, undoubtedly the bag Wesley Frazier saw Oswald carry into
the Book Depository Building on the morning of the assassination, was found inside the sniper's nest
on the sixth floor close to the three cartridge cases ejected from Oswald's rifle. Oswald's left index
fingerprint and right palm print were found on the bag.
37. Oswald's left palm print and right index fingerprint were found on top of a book carton next
to the windowsill of the southeasternmost window on the sixth floor of the Book Depository Building.
The carton appeared to have been arranged as a convenient gun rest. Both prints were pointing in a
south-westerly direction, the same direction the presidential limousine was proceeding down Elm
Street. 81 A print of his right palm was found on top of the northwest corner of another carton just to
the rear of the gun rest carton.
38. The revolver in Oswald's possession at the time of his arrest at the Texas Theatre was a
Smith & Wesson .38 Special calibre revolver, serial number V510210. Handwriting experts found
that the mail-order coupon for the revolver contained the handwriting of Lee Harvey Oswald, and the
seller of the revolver sent it to Oswald's post office box in Dallas.
39. Four bullets were recovered from the body of Officer Tippit. A firearms identification
expert for the Warren Commission concluded that one of the four bullets was fired from Oswald's
revolver to the exclusion of all other weapons, and another expert acknowledged that all four bullets
"could have been" fired from the revolver, since the bullets recovered from Tippit had the same
general characteristic as those test-fired from Oswald's revolver — five lands and grooves (including
the same width of the lands and grooves) with a right twist. (Recall that the bullets were .38 Special
bullets, not .38 Smith & Wesson bullets, and the barrel of Oswald's revolver was slightly oversized
for such a bullet. Therefore, during the passage of these slightly smaller bullets through the barrel, the
barrel did not clearly imprint its signature striations or markings on the sides of the bullets to enable a
positive identification.)
40. Four expended cartridge cases were found near the site of the Tippit killing. Firearms
experts from the Warren Commission and the HSCA concluded that all four were fired in and ejected
from Oswald's Smith & Wesson revolver to the exclusion of all other weapons. At the time of his
arrest, then, Oswald owned and had in his possession the revolver used to kill Tippit. Also at the
time of his arrest, he was carrying in one of his pockets five live .38 Special cartridges.^
So we know that not only was Oswald the owner and possessor of the rifle that killed
Kennedy, but he was also the owner and possessor of the revolver that killed Tippit. In a city of
more than 700,000 people, what is the probability of one of them being the owner and possessor of
the weapons that murdered both Kennedy and Tippit, and yet still be innocent of both murders? Aren't
we talking about DNA numbers here, like one out of several billion or trillion? Is there a
mathematician in the house?
41. Dallas police performed a paraffin test on Oswald's hands at the time of his interrogation to
determine if he had recently fired a revolver, and the results were positive, indicating the presence of
nitrates from gunpowder residue on his hands.
42. When Oswald left the Book Depository Building within minutes after the shooting in Dealey
Plaza, he left his blue jacket behind, the jacket being found on December 6, 1963, in a depressed area
beneath the windowsill in the domino room on the first floor. Marina Oswald identified the jacket
as one of two he owned, the other being a light-coloured gray jacket. 85 Several brown head hairs found
inside the bluejacket had the same microscopic characteristics as a sample of hair taken from
Oswald. 86 Leaving one's jacket behind, particularly where Oswald did, can only go in the direction
— though certainly not conclusively — of a consciousness of guilt, not innocence.
43. When Oswald left his rooming house around 1:00 p.m. on the day of the assassination, the
housekeeper noticed that he was zipping up his jacket, which he had not been wearing a few minutes
earlier when he arrived at the rooming house. When he was arrested around forty-five minutes later,
he did not have a jacket. Shortly after Tippit' s murder and after Oswald was seen running toward the
rear of a Texaco gas station on Jefferson Boulevard, police found a light-coloured jacket with a zipper
under one of the cars in the parking lot behind the gas station. The last time anyone saw Oswald
before he appeared near the Texas Theatre was when Mary Brock, the wife of an employee at the gas
station, saw him, wearing a light-coloured jacket, walk past her into the parking lot at a fast pace.
Marina Oswald later identified the jacket as being the second one her husband owned. What is
additionally damning to Oswald is that the jacket was found along the path (from Tenth and Patton,
south on Patton to Jefferson, then right or west on Jefferson, with a slight detour behind the gas
station, then on to the Texas Theatre) we know the murderer of Officer Tippit took after the slaying.
Finally, dark blue, gray-black, and orange-yellow cotton fibers were found in the inside areas of the
sleeves of the jacket, and their microscopic characteristics matched those of the dark blue, gray-
black, and orange-yellow cotton fibers composing the brownish shirt that Oswald was wearing at the
time of his arrest.
44. Oswald's clipboard was found on the sixth floor after the assassination. Three orders for
Scott, Foresman & Company books were on the clipboard, all dated November 22, 1963. Oswald
had not filled any of the orders.
Oswald's Own Words during His Interrogation
I told the jury in London that during his interrogation, "Oswald, from his own lips, told us he was
guilty. Almost the same as if he had said, 'I murdered President Kennedy.' How did he tell us? Well,
the lies he told, one after another, showed an unmistakable consciousness of guilt." Oswald tried
very hard to lie his way out of the quickly developing evidence against him Let's look at some of the
more important lies he told, each of which, alone and by itself, is evidence of his guilt because if he
were innocent, he wouldn't have had any reason to tell even one of the lies. More often than not in a
criminal case, the means a criminal employs to conceal his guilt (here, Oswald's words) are the
precise means that reveal his culpability.
45. Oswald lied when he denied purchasing the Carcano rifle from Klein's Sporting Goods
Company in Chicago. He even denied owning any rifle at all. Since Oswald knew he had killed
Kennedy with that Carcano rifle, he knew he had no choice but to deny that the rifle was his. (It's
interesting to note that although Oswald himself knew the obvious, that ownership of the murder
weapon was tantamount to identifying himself as Kennedy's killer, his countless defenders in the
conspiracy community apparently do not realize this.)
46. When Oswald was shown a backyard photograph of himself holding the Mannlicher-Carcano
rifle, he lied and said it was not he holding the rifle, that someone had superimposed his face on
someone else's body.
47. He also lied when he said he had never seen the photograph before, even though handwriting
experts concluded it was Oswald's handwriting on the back of a copy of the photograph that was
found among the personal effects of a friend of Oswald's who later died.
48. Oswald consciously tried to distance himself from the murder weapon so much that he
apparently even went to the following extreme: He and Marina and their daughter June lived at the
apartment on Elsbeth Street in Dallas for exactly four months (November 3, 1962, to March 3,
1963), 95 and then moved to the apartment on Neely Street for close to two months (March 3, 1963, to
April 24, 1963). 96 However, when he was asked to furnish all of his previous residences since his
return from Russia, and the approximate time he lived at each, he gave all of them (including his
residences in Fort Worth and New Orleans) with one notable exception. He omitted any reference to
the Neely residence, the residence, of course, where he knew his wife had photographed him with the
murder weapon in the backyard. He cleverly accounted for the close to two months at Neely by saying
he lived seven months (not the actual four) at Elsbeth. And when Captain Fritz, during his
interrogation of Oswald, asked Oswald about the Neely address, Oswald flat-out denied ever living
there. All of this, of course, shows a consciousness of guilt on Oswald's part.
49. Oswald denied telling Wesley Frazier that the reason he came to Irving on Thursday night
was to get curtain rods for his Dallas apartment.
50. He also denied putting any kind of long package or bag on the backseat of Frazier's car on
the morning of the assassination, saying he only brought a cheese sandwich and some fruit to work
with him. But unfortunately for Oswald, not only did Frazier see him put the long package in the car,
but Frazier's sister, Linnie Mae Randle, also saw him put such a package in the car. Oswald also
denied carrying any long package or bag into the Book Depository Building, which Frazier saw him
do. He also denied telling Frazier that curtain rods were inside the large bag.
Warren Commission critics and defenders of Oswald have always steadfastly maintained that
the brown paper bag was too short to contain even a disassembled Carcano. But if the Carcano was
not in the bag that Frazier and his sister, Linnie Mae Randle, saw Oswald place in the backseat, and
something nonincriminating was, instead of lying and saying he never placed a large bag or any other
bag on the backseat, why didn't Oswald admit placing the bag there and simply tell Captain Fritz
what was in the bag? To put it succinctly, if Oswald's rifle wasn't in that bag, he wouldn't have had
any reason to lie and say that he did not put the bag on the backseat of Frazier's car and did not carry
it into the building that day.
51 . Oswald told Fritz that the only thing he brought to work on the morning of the assassination
was his lunch, but we know from Frazier that this was the only day he noticed that Oswald did not
bring his lunch.
52. Oswald told Fritz that at the time the president was shot, he was having lunch on the first
floor with "Junior" (James Jarman Jr.) and another employee he did not identify, but Jarman testified
that he did not have lunch with Oswald, that he ate alone.
53. Oswald told Fritz he had bought his .38 calibre Smith & Wesson revolver in Fort Worth,
when he actually purchased it from a mail-order house in Los Angeles.
Bugliosi, Vincent (2007), Reclaiming History: The Assassination of John F Kennedy, ISBN 978-0-393-07212-9
