As did the WC before them, the LNers constantly claim that Buell Wesley Frazier and his sister Linnie May Randle were simply mistaken about the size of the paper bag they had seen Oswald carry. They argue that Frazier said in his testimony several times that he wasn't really paying much attention and that he simply could have gotten the size wrong.
Never mind that Frazier also said that the package he saw Oswald carry fitted between the cup of his hand and underneath his armpit or that FBI agent Odum's measurement from the door to the point on the backseat of the car where Frazier said the package reached was roughly the same as Frazier's own estimate. And never mind that a reconstruction by the FBI of the way she had seen Oswald carry the package resulted in a similar measurement and they were all to small to conceal even a broken down MC rifle. Never mind all that..
Let's just look at this "not paying much attention" claim for a second. There is another take on that whole thing but is never discussed. Frazier said it (for the first time) during his WC testimony, months after the event. I am not aware of any record that shows he said it any time earlier than that. I don't know this for a fact (I will make sure to ask him when I meet him later this year) but it seems possible to me that by that time it was pretty obvious to Frazier that his statements about the bag were not being believed. Perhaps it was even clear to him that they wanted him to give a larger estimate or some sort of other identification of the bag, and he just simply did not want to go there because he knew what he had seen and was sticking by that.
In fact, he is still saying the same thing today as he did on day 1. So, what better way of getting out of a jam, without having to alter his testimony, than simply saying "I wasn?t paying much attention"?
Whenever this subject is being discussed, it is always about the size estimates and how they could have been wrong, but it is never about what Frazier told his DPD interrogators on day 1. I have mentioned this in another thread and will repeat and expand on it here;
At 11.30 pm on 11/22/63 Frazier was being polygraphed by DPD detective R.D. Lewis. During this session, Frazier was shown the paper bag that had been found at the TSBD, which at that time (except for the fact that it had been dusted in vain for prints at the TSBD) was still in its original state. Frazier could not identify the bag as the one he had seen Oswald carry, some 16 / 17 hours earlier and the polygraph did not register an anomaly.
According to a report by FBI agent Vincent Drain, dated December 1, 1963, the polygrapher R.D. Lewis stated that Frazier had told him that the "crickly brown paper sack" Oswald had carried did not resemble the "home made heavy paper gun case" the DPD officers had shown him. Drain added that Lewis referred to the bag as "paper gun case" because "the DPD is of the opinion the brown heavy paper was used by Oswald to carry the rifle into the building".
A memo from FBI agent James Anderton to SAC Dallas, dated 11/29/63, reveals the desperation of Lt. Day after Frazier failed to identify the heavy bag found at the TSBD. Anderton writes that, according to Lt Day, Frazier described the bag Oswald had carried as "definitely a thin, flimsy sack like the one purchased in a dime store". The memo then goes on to say;
"Lt. Day states that he and other officers have surmised that Oswald, by dismantling the rifle, could have placed it in the thick brown sack folder over, and then placed the entire package in the flimsy paper sack"
The obvious question is why Day was so desperate to explain the discrepancy between the heavy bag allegedly found on the 6th floor of the TSBD and the flimsy bag Frazier had seen that he would come up with this silly theory. Even more so, if Oswald's prints had really been found on the heavy bag and the MC rifle ......
So, what else did Frazier say or do in those early days? Well, for one thing he corrected and initialed his own affidavit. Where it used the word "bag" he crossed it out and replaced it with "sack". For some reason that distinction was important to him.
And then of course there was the Odum and McNeely report of December 2, 1963. They quote Frazier as saying that "the package was wrapped in a cheap, crinkly, thin paper sack, such as that provided by Five and Ten Cent Stores"
So we have at least two occasions shortly after the event where Frazier qualifies the paper bag as "definitely a thin, flimsy sack like the one purchased in a dime store" and "a cheap, crinkly, thin paper sack, such as that provided by Five and Ten Cent Stores".
None if this was ever a topic in the subsequent "investigation" for obvious reasons, but as it is day 1 evidence, I would like to see some sort of explanation about this evidence which was clearly ignored when the thin, flimsy, crinkly paper sack somehow morphed into a heavy duty paper bag made from TSBD materials. No doubt the LNers will try to spin this, but to reasonable people it is beyond obvious that Frazier knew exactly what he had seen and it wasn't the bag the DPD claimed to have been the "gun sack".
After that, things probably got messy for Frazier, resulting in his "I didn't pay much attention" ticket out of the mess.
Any thoughts?
