from
"VINNIE IT IS ROUND"
by Mark Lane
"The Commission claimed that Mrs. Markham identified Lee Harvey Oswald as the man who shot
the policeman at a line up on November 22 and that in testimony before the Commission, Mrs. Markham confirmed her
positive identification of Lee Harvey Oswald as the man she saw kill Officer Tippit. Captain Fritz - who needed that
identification real quickly -- testified that the lineup was hurriedly arranged at 4:30 that afternoon, less than three
and a half hours after Tippit's death and less than that after Oswald's arrest. Mrs Markham was "quite hysterical"
when she arrived at police headquarters. Her state and the atmosphere in the lineup room are best described by the
record of her testimony."
Q: Now when you went into the room you looked these people over, these four men?
Markham: Yes , sir.
Q: Did you recognize anyone in the lineup?
Markham: No, sir
Q: You did not? Did you see anybody-I have asked you that question before-did you recognize anybody from their face?
"Counsel wished to remind Mrs. Markham that when he had prepared her for her testimony, before
a record of her answers was made, the matter had been discussed. To prepare a witness for testimony may
be acceptable where adversary and hostile cross-examination is expected, and it is also a legitimate way of
preventing repetition and irrelevant conjecture. The record of the Warren Commission, however, reveals no
such cross-examination and was burdened to such a degree by repetition and irrelevance that the initial
preparation seems to have been for the purpose of leading the witness to give an appropiate answer."
Markham: From their face, no.
Q: Did you identify anybody in these four people?
Markham: I didn't know nobody.
Q: I know you didn't know nobody, but did anybody in that lineup look like anybody you had seen before?
Markham: No. I had never seen none of them, none of these men.
Q: No one of the four?
Markham: No one of them.
Q: No one of the four?
Markham: No, sir.
"At this point counsel, a teacher of criminal law and procedure at the University of Southern California and
a member of the U.S. Judical Conference Advisory Committee on Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, asked a
rather leading question. Mrs. Markham said that she recognized no one at the lineup; counsel tried five times for a
more acceptable answer. Then, departing a little from the legal procedure he teaches, he next asked his friendly but
disconcerting witness, "Was there a number two man in there?" Mrs. Markham replied, "Number two is the one I
picked." Counsel began another question:"I thought you just told me that you hadn't, but Mrs. Markham interrupted
to answer inexplicably, "I thought you wanted me to describe their clothing."
Counsel then inquired:
Q: You recognized him from his appearance?
Markham: I asked-I looked at him. When I saw this man I wasn't sure, but I had cold chills just run all over me.
"A mystical identification at best. However, the Commission was satisfied that its lawyer had at last
obtained the right answer: "Addressing itself solely to the probative value of Mrs. Markham's contemporaneous
discription of the gunman and her identification of Oswald at a police lineup, the Commission considers her
testimony reliable."
The bane of an attorney is a befuddled witness. Note the difference in demeanor between the Warren Commission testimony of Helen Markham and that given in relaxed circumstances... her own home.
For the purpose of historical investigation, Helen Markham's statement recorded by KRLD TV in Dallas and broadcast on 27 September 1964 by CBS is conclusive. She identified Lee Harvey Oswald as the man who killed Officer Tippit. No revisionist history by contrarians can change that.
