Since mentioning Tom Alyea here are his own words from Tom Alyea Facts and Photo's from Connie Kritzbergs "Secrets from the Sixth Floor Window pg 39-46.
"I do however know that Officer Mooney was present when the rifle was found because I took film of him at the scene. He is shown talking to another detective, but this was nearly an hour after the sniper's location was found at the window."
"Fritz then walked to the casings, picked them up and held them in his hand over the top of the boxes for me to get a close-up shot of the evidence. I filmed about eight seconds of a close-up shot of the shell casings in Captain Fritz's hand. I stopped filming, and thanked him. I do not recall if he placed them in his pocket or returned them back to the floor, because I was preoccupied with recording other views of the crime scene. I have been asked many times if I thought it was peculiar that the Captain of Homicide picked up evidence with his hands. Actually, that was the first thought that came to me when he did it, but I rationalized that he was the homicide expert and no prints could be taken from spent shell casings. Therefore, any photograph of shell casings taken after this, is staged and not correct. It is highly doubtful that the shell casings that appear in Dallas police photos of the crime scene are the same casings that were found originally."
"Nothing in the way of evidence was found so we retraced our search back down, floor by floor. Shortly after we arrived back on the 6th floor, Deputy Eugene Boone located the assassin's rifle Salmost completely hidden by some overhanging boxes near the stairwell. I filmed it as it was found. In my shot, the figure of Captain Fritz is standing within the enclosure next to the rifle."
It was over an hour before they found the rifle. So for those of you who think Alyea was Johnny on the spot filming he himself said this in regards to the time of finding finding the rifle. While I admit I used the wrong words in saying "recreated" the more accurate way of saying gun and bullets were staged. I was thinking of how the famous photograph of raising the US flag on Iwo Jima was recreated to mark the event for photo and filming. I do acknowledge staging is a better phrase then recreating the scene. For that I apologize.
Here is Alyea's take on Kritzberg's book. Not exactly an endorsement.
A correspondent asked Tom Alyea about the accuracy of the above material and forwarded Alyea's response:
Thanks for sending me the material from Connie Kritzberg's "Secrets from The Sixth Floor." I never read the book. Many years ago she interviewed me about what I saw during the search. I gave her some pictures to use in her story. This is the first time I have seen the story. I regret to say that there are some inaccuracies, which is to be expected in an interview. You must remember that she was not on the sixth floor. She was at her desk in the city room at the Dallas Times Herald newspaper. It is disjointed and out of sequence, which makes it difficult to follow. This is often the case when the interviewer asks the questions and was not at the scene. Connie is a friend of mine, and a good reporter, but I did not see the final draft before it went to press. There is always the possibility that I failed to make my answers clear, and she derived a different meaning. Please remember that these short statements contained little detail and circumstances behind the situation.
"...I ran on upstairs with the Secret Service men. Then other units came in - the Riot Squad. I thought I was going to film a gun fight. They ran to the 4th floor and I went with them. Some of the other units went to the top of the building. They were conducting a systematic search. It boiled down to the sixth floor. After awhile it was obvious that the assassin was not in the building. They looked for the gun. I filmed 400 ft. of film of the Secret Service men looking for the assassin, climbing over boxes, over the rafters, and the actual finding of the gun. At the time it was suspected that the assassin had stayed quite a time there. There was a stack with a stack of chicken bones on it. There was a Dr. Pepper bottle which they dusted for fingerprints. The fingerprints were not Oswald's. You know how he piled the boxes up? The gun was found across the length of the room from where he fired. It was stashed between boxes. I had difficulty in filming. They did not want me closeto the window or to the gun. I asked permission to go to the window to film. A Secret Service man said, 'You are close enough.' I asked the Secret Service man to take pictures of the stashed gun. I set the camera but he wiggled the camera. I got a picture of them taking the gun from the hiding place and dusting it for fingerprints. After this the Crime Lab man, Captain Will Fritz - and I have footage of this - pulled the bolt back and a live round came out. They dusted the gun for fingerprints. This was my third camera. They wouldn't let me out of the building and they wouldn't let anyone else in. I never saw my film on the air because I had to get the film to someone outside. This was the first film from there. We had Mal Couch's film of the crowd but not of the President being hit. [How did you get the film out?] There's a story for you. I actually handed it out through the door but it had been publicized over the air and established everywhere that I had thrown it out of the building through a window. I hesitate to tell you the real story. I started to throw it out of the building but being so close and knowing that we had the other film, I wanted our station to be the first to show a film of the assassination. A A.J. L'Hoste was under the window. I yelled out to him. In actuality I tossed the film out the front door to Ron Reiland who had gotten back from covering the apprehension of Oswald at the Texas Theater. This was another ABC exclusive. There were 2 policemen at the Depository door. They were not sure that I should get things outside. Ron was outside and I was inside. One of the policemen there called a Lieutenant and while they were calling him, I threw the film out....."
