Roger Craig

[Bill Chapman]

Sunny-side up & and watch the bandwidth if you please
(550kb v 1.5mb)

[Walt Cakebread]

Thank you for posting the photo of a mauser that is stamped 7.65 MAUSER on the RECEIVER.... And of course the receiver is NOT the barrel....

[Jack Nessan]

It was never mentioned that the crest on the receiver was ground off so crudely. That would have been more distinguishable and noticeable to a sporting goods store salesman like Weitzman. It would truly have been a unique characteristic. And like Walt said it is not the barrel.

[Rick Plant]

Three. Boone did as well.

Yes John, that's correct.

[John Iacoletti]

Thank you for posting the photo of a mauser that is stamped 7.65 MAUSER on the RECEIVER.... And of course the receiver is NOT the barrel....

So three deputies can confuse a Carcano for a Mauser, but one can't confuse a "receiver" for a "barrel"?

[Rick Plant]

What Mauser has a Mauser stamp on the barrel? Maybe the 22LR. What was stated was it "appeared" to be a Mauser which the 1891 carcano looks like the 1891 argentine, which was a 7.65 x 53 caliber rifle designed by Mauser. No where on the rifle does it state 7.65 Mauser especially the barrel which would be covered by the hand guard.

Two law enforcement officers stated they witnessed a Mauser and one stated he witnessed a stamp. That's a positive identification of a weapon. Two men said they saw the same weapon.   

[Jack Nessan]

Two law enforcement officers stated they witnessed a Mauser and one stated he witnessed a stamp. That's a positive identification of a weapon. Two men said they saw the same weapon.   

Weitzman stated it "appeared to be a Mauser". Not exactly an overwhelming identification. Maybe had never seen a carcano and had no idea what a carcano looked like.

Boone, who found the rifle, stated he watched Fritz come and pick up the rifle and eject the cartridge which is known to be a carcano cartridge--- CE 141. Boone then watched Day come immediately, take the rifle from Fritz and photographed the rifle, which is known to be part of the evidence collected. What Fritz handled and Day photographed in front of Boone was a 6.5 carcano.

Craig's only statement was supposedly about having seen the "mauser stamp" on the barrel. There is no such thing and also seems very similar to all his other fairy tale encounters that day.

If you have real witnesses who positively identify the rifle as a Mauser and the actual model of the Mauser that would be helpful. There are lots of Mauser models and calibers built for many different countries. Claiming it was either a Mauser or 7.65 Mauser is an extremely large and very broad and diverse description.

[Walt Cakebread]

Weitzman stated it "appeared to be a Mauser". Not exactly an overwhelming identification. Maybe had never seen a carcano and had no idea what a carcano looked like.

Boone, who found the rifle, stated he watched Fritz come and pick up the rifle and eject the cartridge which is known to be a carcano cartridge--- CE 141. Boone then watched Day come immediately, take the rifle from Fritz and photographed the rifle, which is known to be part of the evidence collected. What Fritz handled and Day photographed in front of Boone was a 6.5 carcano.

Craig's only statement was supposedly about having seen the "mauser stamp" on the barrel. There is no such thing and also seems very similar to all his other fairy tale encounters that day.

If you have real witnesses who positively identify the rifle as a Mauser and the actual model of the Mauser that would be helpful. There are lots of Mauser models and calibers built for many different countries. Claiming it was either a Mauser or 7.65 Mauser is an extremely large and very broad and diverse description.

Boone, who found the rifle, stated he watched Fritz come and pick up the rifle and eject the cartridge

This simple statement could be a crucial clue about the validity of the claim that the carcano was the murder weapon.....

There is film of Captain Fritz removing the live round from the carcano. And in addition there are eyewitness who described the removal of that live round...   

The live round was not EJECTED.....  It simply fell out at Captain Fritz's feet....   This is a crucial point, because if the rifle had been fired during the assassination that live round would have been served up to the bolt and stripped from the clip by the forward stroke of the bolt.  Thus the live round would have been married to the face of the bolt and locked in the breech of the rifle and the rifle would have been ready to fire that live round.

However...The live round was NOT married to the face of the bolt....We can know this because the live round merely dropped to the floor at Captain Fritz's feet, IT WAS NOT EJECTED and flipped away from the rifle by the action of the ejector as Captain Fritz retracted the bolt of the carcano.   

The fact that the live cartridge simply dropped at Captain Fritz's feet is strong evidence that the carcano was not fired during the assassination.

PS..... If the live round had been the last round (bottom most ) in the clip,  the cartridge elevator would have scratched that live round every time the rifle was fired and reloaded. There are no scratch marks on the live round which indicates that the live round was not the last cartridge in the rifle....  And it was merely dropped into the breech and the bolt was closed BUT NOT LATCHED behind it .    We can know that the bolt was NOT closed to the latched position by examining photos of the rifle as it was picked up from the floor and held up to Captain Fritz..... The bolt can be seen to be in the UNLATCHED position.