Roger Craig

[Jim Brunsman]

Walt, I have no idea why you think Craig had a particularly large ego and it is of highly questionable relevance to the discussion here. He described carefully who was present when the Mauser was found and they included Fritz, Weitzman and Boone. I'm not surprised those three failed to report the Mauser, but the press reported it was a Mauser for two days. You seem to think that this is the same weapon as the Carcano. I believe multiple weapons were found and I also think the Mauser is a much better choice for an assassin's rifle.

[Rick Plant]

Why don't you believe your own eyes ??

There are many many photos of the rifle as Detective Day retrieved and examined the---- C-A-R-C-A-N-O.......

I'm not disputing the photos.

Craig and Weitzman both stated they witnessed a Mauser. Craig identified the Mauser stamp embedded on the rifle.

What happened to that rifle?

Why did Weitzman change his story for his testimony?   

[Rick Plant]

If you don't see the inherent contradiction between Craig's 1968 story ("I didn't know what it was") and his '70's videotaped interview ("stamped on the barrel was '7.65 Mauser'), it can only be because you are trying very, very, very, very, very hard not to.

If you don't at least wonder why Craig failed to mention seeing the '7.65 Mauser' stamp on the rifle in his Shaw trial testimony, it's because you simply wish to be incurious.

If you don't think twice as to why Craig didn't mention the stamp in When They Kill a President , you just don't want to think.

Craig not mentioning a stamp on the rifle years later doesn't mean he "changed his story".

Craig already stated he witnessed a Mauser and he saw the stamp. Weitzman agreed with Craig about the rifle being a Mauser. That Mauser stamp tells you it's not another make.

So, why did Weitzman change his story for his testimony?     

[Rick Plant]

Someone in Weitzman's position would certainly be expected to  know how much a particular item cost to purchase, how much it sold for, the customer base for the item, how well it sold, and how many were in stock. Beyond that, I wouldn't count on anything.

Anyone in business would be familiar with the products they sell especially when they are handling rifles and showing them to customers.

Even the most inept shoe salesman knows what the merchandise looks like from a Nike to a Converse.   

The man was in law enforcement so he would know weapons plus the stamp on the rifle tells him that the rifle is a Mauser.

I would hope they would know something about firearms, but I wouldn't expect any randomly-selected officer to be able to determine --on sight-- the manufacturer and caliber of any gun they might see.

You wouldn't expect an officer not to be able to read an embedded stamp on a rifle to determine the manufacturer? Even Barney Fife could at least do that. 
       

I would expect that someone who saw the word "Mauser" on the rifle would have said so from the get-go. I would not expect for them to spend the next ten years spewing out a number of contradictory stories about the rifle.

Why did two men in law enforcement (Craig and Weitzman) both agree that the weapon was a Mauser?

Why did Weitzman changed his story and later claim it wasn't a Mauser?   

[Walt Cakebread]

I'm not disputing the photos.

Craig and Weitzman both stated they witnessed a Mauser. Craig identified the Mauser stamp embedded on the rifle.

What happened to that rifle?

Why did Weitzman change his story for his testimony?

Craig and Weitzman both stated they witnessed a Mauser. Craig identified the Mauser stamp embedded on the rifle.


Weitzman stated that he mistakenly identified the rifle that was lying on the floor beneath the stack of books on a pallet.
He could see only a small portion of the butt of the rifle and he made a wag that the rifle "looked like a  mauser."     

Roger Craig heard Weitzman say that, and assumed that the rifle was a mauser.   It's as simple as that.....

Many many photos, that were taken when the rifle was retrieved by detective Day,  clearly show that the rifle he picked up from the floor was in fact a CARCANO.

[John Iacoletti]

Many many photos, that were taken when the rifle was retrieved by detective Day,  clearly show that the rifle he picked up from the floor was in fact a CARCANO.

What "many photos"?  There's the Alyea film and there's the 2 reconstructed police photos that were taken after things were moved around.  There's nothing clear about any of these.

[Walt Cakebread]

What "many photos"?  There's the Alyea film and there's the 2 reconstructed police photos that were taken after things were moved around.  There's nothing clear about any of these.

If you break the Alyea film down frame by frame you have "many photos"....

I don't know how much film Alyea exposed ....??....  But the rifle is clearly a C-A-R-C-A-N-O in the film.   The film of detective  Day checking the rifle for prints behind the brightly illuminated window is an excellent verification that the rifle is a Carcano.

[Mitch Todd]

Craig not mentioning a stamp on the rifle years later doesn't mean he "changed his story".

Craig already stated he witnessed a Mauser and he saw the stamp. Weitzman agreed with Craig about the rifle being a Mauser. That Mauser stamp tells you it's not another make.

So, why did Weitzman change his story for his testimony?   

Not only did Craig change his story, but these different stories were mutually exclusive of his claim to have seen "Mauser" on the rifle. As I've already mentioned, in '68 he said that he didn't know what the rifle was. That simply can't be true if he'd seen "Mauser" stamped into the rifle barrel, as he later claimed. The next year, he was shown a Carcano at the Shaw trial and testified under oath that it looked like the TSBD rifle. No mention of seeing the word "Mauser" anywhere, even though this is exactly the kind of story that the prosecution (for which Craig was a witness) was looking for. And, what better place for Craig to bring up the Mauser stamp than in is poison pen expose of the Dallas authorities? So why does Craig not mention it?

Craig already stated he witnessed a Mauser and he saw the stamp

Craig didn't mention the stamp until the early 1970s. The rifle isn't mentioned in his DCSD affidavit, nor in any of the FBI interviews that followed.  In his WC testimony, the make and model of the rifle were never mentioned. In '68, he said he didn't know what kind of rifle it was. In '69, it looked like the Carcano he was shown on the stand. It became a Mauser in '71, but only because that's what Weitzman said it was. Only after that did Craig mention that he'd seen the word "Mauser" on the rifle.

As for Weitzman, he was simply wrong, as he has said he was.

Anyone in business would be familiar with the products they sell especially when they are handling rifles and showing them to customers.

Even the most inept shoe salesman knows what the merchandise looks like from a Nike to a Converse.   

Weitzman was "general manager" of a "discount operation" that was a chain of stores spread out from Louisiana to New Mexico. He worked in what we would now call the "C-Suite." He wasn't a gun salesman, and never claimed to have been. Somehow, you've managed to demote the poor guy in an attempt to give him expertise that he never claimed.

The man was in law enforcement so he would know weapons plus the stamp on the rifle tells him that the rifle is a Mauser.

Being a law enforcement officer does not make one an expert in firearms identification. Again, this level of qualification is nothing more than an empty assertion on your part.

You wouldn't expect an officer not to be able to read an embedded stamp on a rifle to determine the manufacturer? Even Barney Fife could at least do that. 

You're begging the question here.

       
Why did two men in law enforcement (Craig and Weitzman) both agree that the weapon was a Mauser?

Why did Weitzman changed his story and later claim it wasn't a Mauser?

Again, Craig didn't claim that the rifle was a Mauser until 1971. That was at the tail end of a trail of tales that turn out to be mutually contradictory.

As for Weitzman, he realized he was wrong, and had the sense to admit it. You would do well to follow his example. I'm not holding my breath.