Lack Of Damage To CE-399

[Jon Banks]

This may come as a shock to some but J Edgar Hoover's FBI was corrupt.

We can be almost certain that the FBI, like the CIA, covered up some things about the JFK assassination.

[Martin Weidmann]

Let's examine what we know;

1. General Walker is on record with his firm denial that the bullet now in evidence as the Walker bullet is not the one he saw and held after it was taken out of the wall. Several contemporary police reports describe a bullet which is clearly different that the one now knowns as the Walker bullet.

2. Late Friday evening, an FBI team arrives at the Secret Service garage to examine the limo and they are given bullet fragments which were allegedly already found in (and removed from) the car.

3. The bullet now known as CE399 does not have a credible chain of custody until it arrives at the FBI lab, where it's evidentiary life starts when SA Todd marks a bullet given to him by Secret Service Chief Rowley. The first four men to handle the bullet found at Parkland Hospital (Tomlinson, Wright, Johnson and Rowley) are unable to identify CE399 as the bullet they had handled. In a memo (included in CE2011) an unidentified FBI officers claims that SA Odum showed CE399 to Tomlinson and Wright, but the evidence suggests that never happened.

4. A wallet was taken from Oswald by Paul Bentley in the car on the way to the police station. In a television interview, the next day, Bentley claims he found a drivers license and credit card in the wallet. He, nor any of the three other officers in the car, ever say a word about finding a Hidell ID in the wallet. Only at the police station where Detective Rose had just started working a wallet shows up with a Hidell ID in it. Not one contempory DPD report exists from those early days in which there is any mention of a Hidell ID being found in Oswald's wallet.

5. At the Texas Theater, Detective Hill is given a revolver after Oswald's arrest. He allegedly carries that revolver on him for nearly two hours before presenting it to several officers in the lunchroom of the police station. Those officers have no way of knowing if this is the same revolver that was taken from Oswald, yet they initial it anyway.

6. A unidentified police officers calls in that a white jacket was found under a car in a carpark near the Tippit murder scene. He passes that jacket to Westbrook who in turn gives it to yet another unidentified officer. The jacket then disappears and somehow shows up, some two hours later in the possession of Westbrook who places it in the evidence locker after it was also initialed by officers who never handled the jacket. But now the jacket is suddenly grey. Strangely enough, Buell Frazier saw Oswald wear a grey jacket to Irving on Thursday evening...?.

7. Oswald is supposed to have taken the bus, after leaving the TSBD.... It took the DPD several hours to find a bus transfer in Oswald's shirt! The same goes for the bullets that Oswald is supposed to have had in his pockets.

8. A paper bag is allegedly found at the TSBD, but there is no photo of it in situ, despite the fact that there is a photo of a DPD officer looking at the area where bag was allegedly found.

The list goes on and on and on..... Move along, nothing to see here 

[Jerry Organ]

Now Jerry...you've been out there and know better than that. For those who haven't--- A brief 15 sec. clip shows the area pretty well. We know where all the persons mentioned were located. Sitzman looking east to the right of the frame at the motorcade moving west...How would she be able to see a 'figure' behind her? There is abundant blockage in the parking lot behind. A perfect lair for an assassination.

[tr[/t] Sitzman was roughly looking SE at the moment of the headshot. To see the view above, she merely had to turn her head to face roughly SW. In filming, Zapruder had no problem swinging his camera that way. If there had been a shot from the picket fence, she would have heard it. She not only didn't hear a shot (recall that Holland claimed to have heard a noise from there as well) but she failed to see a puff of smoke (it would have been in her field of vision even if she kept her head facing SW). Nor did she see any figures present or moving behind the fence.

[Walt Cakebread]

Why so disingenuos, Tim? Why are you asking only for Odum's statement and not Tomlinson's?

You know full well that there is no testimony or deposition from Odum. But that doesn't mean he didn't say what he said, does it now?

As we have discussed this before, I also know that you know full well where the information came from. If you didn't, you wouldn't have been able to incorrectly claim earlier that "Bardwell Odum had no recollection of handling CE-399 four decades prior".

Odum told Gary Alquiler on 09/12/02 that he never had CE399 or showed it to anyone.

We find confirmation for this in two statements made by Tomlinson. On March 23, 1964 Tomlinson gave a deposition to Specter in which he said;

Mr. SPECTER. Have you been interviewed about this matter by any other Federal representative?
Mr. TOMLINSON. Yes.
Mr. SPECTER. Who interviewed you about it?
Mr. TOMLINSON. I don't remember the name of either one of them, but one was the FBI man and one was the Secret Service man.
Mr. SPECTER. How many times did the FBI interview you?
Mr. TOMLINSON. Once.
Mr. SPECTER. How many times did the Secret Service interview you?
Mr. TOMLINSON. Once.
Mr. SPECTER. When did the FBI interview you?
Mr. TOMLINSON. I believe they were the first to do it.
Mr. SPECTER. Approximately when was that?
Mr. TOMLINSON. I think that was the latter part of November.
Mr. SPECTER. And when did the Secret Service interview you?
Mr. TOMLINSON. Approximately a week later, the first part of December.

Btw, the Secret Service interview, which took place on December 4 - 5, 1963, is recorded in a report by SA Roger C Warner dated December 5, 1963

The second interview was with Raymond Marcus on July 25, 1966. In the verbatim report of the interview, which is held by the National Archives as part of the HSCA files, Tomlinson clearly says that he was only shown the bullet once, which was by SAC Shanklin about a week after the murder. 

Combined, these two statements made by Tomlinson make it beyond obvious that Odum never showed Tomlinson CE399, which in my mind not only shows that the reference in CE2011 to Odum showing both men the bullet is a lie. It also provides an explanation for why SAC Shanklin wrote in his airtel that Tomlinson and Wright could not identify the bullet. I am convinced that when Shanklin received the bullet now in evidence as CE399 in mid 1964 he instantly knew that it wasn't the same bullet he had seen and shown to Tomlinson and Wright in December 1963. There was no need for Odum to show the bullet to Tomlinson and Wright (and risk a firm denial from two key witnesses) and it was far easier to deal with the matter as he did in the airtel.

"Odum" was one of the names in Lee Oswald's address book.....

[Walt Cakebread]

This may come as a shock to some but J Edgar Hoover's FBI was corrupt.

We can be almost certain that the FBI, like the CIA, covered up some things about the JFK assassination.

J Edgar Hoover's FBI was corrupt.

I'd like to rephrase that statement....  J.Edgar Hoover controlled a very corrupt group...  But the rank and file FBI agents were NOT part of that group.

The vast majority of the FBI agents were good, honest, loyal, Special Agents....   But there were a small number of  EXTRA Special agents who were fanatically loyal to JEH, and  they answered directly to J.Edgar Hoover.   They were totally unconcerned about any legal aspects of their actions.... If Hoover wanted it done...That's all that mattered...   

Adolph Hitler also had the same kind of loyal "soldiers"   

[Jon Banks]

Let's examine what we know;

1. General Walker is on record with his firm denial that the bullet now in evidence as the Walker bullet is not the one he saw and held after it was taken out of the wall. Several contemporary police reports describe a bullet which is clearly different that the one now knowns as the Walker bullet.

2. Late Friday evening, an FBI team arrives at the Secret Service garage to examine the limo and they are given bullet fragments which were allegedly already found in (and removed from) the car.

3. The bullet now known as CE399 does not have a credible chain of custody until it arrives at the FBI lab, where it's evidentiary life starts when SA Todd marks a bullet given to him by Secret Service Chief Rowley. The first four men to handle the bullet found at Parkland Hospital (Tomlinson, Wright, Johnson and Rowley) are unable to identify CE399 as the bullet they had handled. In a memo (included in CE2011) an unidentified FBI officers claims that SA Odum showed CE399 to Tomlinson and Wright, but the evidence suggests that never happened.

4. A wallet was taken from Oswald by Paul Bentley in the car on the way to the police station. In a television interview, the next day, Bentley claims he found a drivers license and credit card in the wallet. He, nor any of the three other officers in the car, ever say a word about finding a Hidell ID in the wallet. Only at the police station where Detective Rose had just started working a wallet shows up with a Hidell ID in it. Not one contempory DPD report exists from those early days in which there is any mention of a Hidell ID being found in Oswald's wallet.

5. At the Texas Theater, Detective Hill is given a revolver after Oswald's arrest. He allegedly carries that revolver on him for nearly two hours before presenting it to several officers in the lunchroom of the police station. Those officers have no way of knowing if this is the same revolver that was taken from Oswald, yet they initial it anyway.

6. A unidentified police officers calls in that a white jacket was found under a car in a carpark near the Tippit murder scene. He passes that jacket to Westbrook who in turn gives it to yet another unidentified officer. The jacket then disappears and somehow shows up, some two hours later in the possession of Westbrook who places it in the evidence locker after it was also initialed by officers who never handled the jacket. But now the jacket is suddenly grey. Strangely enough, Buell Frazier saw Oswald wear a grey jacket to Irving on Thursday evening...?.

7. Oswald is supposed to have taken the bus, after leaving the TSBD.... It took the DPD several hours to find a bus transfer in Oswald's shirt! The same goes for the bullets that Oswald is supposed to have had in his pockets.

8. A paper bag is allegedly found at the TSBD, but there is no photo of it in situ, despite the fact that there is a photo of a DPD officer looking at the area where bag was allegedly found.

The list goes on and on and on..... Move along, nothing to see here 

9. No documentation proving that Oswald?s palm print was found on the rifle before the FBI Lab looked at it, found no Prints, and sent it back to Dallas.

I?ll also add that most of the problems with the First Day evidence are due to either errors or malice by members of the Dallas PD while the FBI seems to have destroyed, omitted, and manipulated evidence after Day 1.

[Walt Cakebread]

[tr[/t] Sitzman was roughly looking SE at the moment of the headshot. To see the view above, she merely had to turn her head to face roughly SW. In filming, Zapruder had no problem swinging his camera that way. If there had been a shot from the picket fence, she would have heard it. She not only didn't hear a shot (recall that Holland claimed to have heard a noise from there as well) but she failed to see a puff of smoke (it would have been in her field of vision even if she kept her head facing SW). Nor did she see any figures present or moving behind the fence.

she failed to see a puff of smoke (it would have been in her field of vision even if she kept her head facing SW)

This would depend on the background .....From Sam Holland's point the background would have been dark and the light colored smoke would have been visible.....

The light colored concrete of the overpass or sky, in the background would have made the smoke difficult to see, and the smoke could easily have gone unnoticed.....

[Andrew Mason]

It is not an assumption that Tomlinson found CE399.

Wrong. It is not an assumption that Tomlinson found a bullet. It is a massive assumption to say that bullet is the one now in evidence as CE399.

It is based on evidence.

No it isn't. There isn't a shred of evidence that shows the bullet found by Tomlinson is the same one that is now in evidence as CE399.

There is certainly evidence that CE399 was the bullet found by Tomlinson. You just don't think it is reliable because you think that someone switched the bullet withd CE399. You have no evidence or a rational theory of why someone would do that let alone evidence that someone did.

The only assumption is that no one in the chain is lying and was part of a conspiracy to falsify evidence.  Somehow you think it is reasonable to assume that someone was lying and was part of a conspiracy. That is not reasonable.

I disagree. It is perfectly reasonable. The five people provided mutually consistent statements and had no reason to lie. This whole discussion is based on acceptance of Liam Kelly's statement .  Since you reject it we don't really have anything to discuss here.

How in the world is assuming that nobody was lying more reasonable than assuming that someone was lying? Both are assumptions

It is not an assumption. It is an inference based on evidence.  We can conclude that they are not part of a conspiracy because there is no evidence of a conspiracy.  If you see horse hoof prints in the mud do you conclude that a zebra made them?  Juries understand this. I am not sure why you do not.