Touring the Tippit Scene

[Bill Brown]

Here's a little walking tour I gave back in March of 2020.  We discuss the Tippit shooting, the witnesses and some of the evidence.  We begin close to the location where Tippit's patrol car stopped, go all the way down Patton to Jefferson and we end up in the alley behind the former Ballew's Texaco (where the jacket was found).

[Steve M. Galbraith]

Bill: Are you familiar with or heard of a Elcan Elliott? Gus Russo interviewed him for his book "Live by the Sword." Elliott told Russo that shortly after the assassination that he was out driving in search of his daughter who was away from home. He says he saw a man - acting suspiciously (he saw the man "relieving himself" near a bush) - that he later identified as Oswald before the shooting of Tippit near North Beckley.

It's not very credible to me - the Russo interview was in 1994 - and Elliott apparently never told anyone at the time of the shooting of his experience. It's less than not very; it's not credible at all.

A fuller account is here:  https://www.jfkassassinationforum.com/index.php/topic,2759.msg101861.html#msg101861

[Charles Collins]

Here's a little walking tour I gave back in March of 2020.  We discuss the Tippit shooting, the witnesses and some of the evidence.  We begin close to the location where Tippit's patrol car stopped, go all the way down Patton to Jefferson and we end up in the alley behind the former Ballew's Texaco (where the jacket was found).

Well done Bill. Coincidentally, I recently took a virtual tour of that area using the street view on google maps. And I was a little surprised at how many changes have taken place to the structures there since 1963. We can still get a feel for how it was 57-years ago by looking at photos and visiting and walking it like y’all did. But that area hasn’t been preserved like Dealey Plaza has, so it takes a little more imagination.

[Bill Chapman]

Here's a little walking tour I gave back in March of 2020.  We discuss the Tippit shooting, the witnesses and some of the evidence.  We begin close to the location where Tippit's patrol car stopped, go all the way down Patton to Jefferson and we end up in the alley behind the former Ballew's Texaco (where the jacket was found).

Nice walkabout, a real eyeopener re just how close things were to each other.
I wonder how feasible it would be to have a couple of people who would be stand-ins for Oswald and whichever witness was being depicted re distance. That would give the onlooker a better idea of how difficult it might be to ID the killer.

[Walt Cakebread]

Nice walkabout, a real eyeopener re just how close things were to each other.
I wonder how feasible it would be to have a couple of people who would be stand-ins for Oswald and whichever witness was being depicted re distance. That would give the onlooker a better idea of how difficult it might be to ID the killer.

Do you believe that an eye witness couldn't identify the perpetrator when there was a mere forty feet between them?

Domingo Benavides was about forty feet from the killer when they looked at each other face to face. Then the killer turned sidewise to Benavides and started walking away and removing a shell from his revolver.  That revolver was NOT a Smith and Wesson....and Dom Benavides said that the killer had his hair cut in a fashion that made the back of his head appear to be flat.
That type of hair cut was called a "Cochise" and was popular back in the day.   Lee Oswald's hair was tapered and the back of his head appeared to be conical....   Virtually ALL witnesses who saw the killer removing spent shells from the revolver said he removed the shells one at a time.... The shells in a S&W revolver are removed all at the same time with one push of the ejector rod.....  So obviously the killer was NOT unloading a S&W.

[Richard Smith]

Excellent job Bill.  Your memory for detail is amazing.  Have you ever come across any pictures or maps of the interior of the Texas Theatre at the time of Oswald's arrest?  The balcony report has always been interesting to me since it appears to derived right from the beginning.  It seems to come from the fact that no one saw Oswald go through the lobby and the assumption was made that he went straight to the balcony because he wasn't seen by Burroughs.  There was some indication that the balcony could be accessed immediately upon entering the lobby and some teenagers had apparently done so on prior occasions to avoid the ticket taker.  But I've never seen any confirmation that the balcony could be so accessed.  I've been there but the balcony is long gone.  It's entirely possible that Oswald just made his way unseen through the lobby, but I also wonder if he might have gone up to the balcony and somehow gone down another set of stairs to access the main level without being seen.

[John Iacoletti]

[Richard Smith]

Excellent picture.  Any idea if there was another set of stairs that would have enabled someone to cross the balcony area and exit out of sight of the lobby and enter the main lower seating area where Oswald was found?