From Dale Myers: "The death certificate "discrepancy" - as I noted in "With Malice" - was explained during a 1983 interview I conducted with the late Dr. Paul Moellenhoff, who attended Tippit at Methodist. He told me that the clocks within the emergency area at Methodist showed different times - neither of them accurate as it turns out.
He used the 1:15 p.m. time shown on one of the clocks. The time reported to the FBI by Dr. Liquori (With Malice [WM], 2013 [edition], p.557) - 1:24 pm - is probably the accurate one based on the recorded timing of Bowley's call, the recorded departure of the ambulance from 10th and Patton, and the known drive time from 10th and Patton to Methodist Hospital.
DPD Officer Davenport noted that Moellenhoff removed one slug from Tippit's body at 1:30 pm (WM 2013 p.536). That same time (1:30 pm) made its way into Leavelle's homicide report (WM 2013 p.519) as the time Tippit was pronounced DOA (which couldn't possibly be true, right? You don't pull a slug from a body until after he's pronounced dead). This matches up with Moellenhoff's 1983 recollection that he removed a slug from the body within ten minutes of declaring Tippit DOA.
My caption under the death certificate (WM 2013 p.506) seeks to clarify the discrepancy between the Time of Injury (1:18 pm) and the time Death Occurred (1:15 pm). Again, it stems from my conversation with Dr. Moellenhoff. The 1:18 pm time, of course, probably refers to the time that Bowley's radio call was received - not the actual time Tippit was shot.
The 1:15 p.m. notation (although close in time to the actual moment of the shooting, as far as I can calculate) probably stems from Dr. Moellenhoff's use of an inaccurate Methodist emergency room clock.
Interesting, huh? All this fuss because no one at Methodist bothered to synchronize the clocks to actual time (some running fast, some running slow).
Can you imagine how many other death certificates were marked with times that were off by a few minutes? But what does it matter in those cases? Not one whit."
The time reported to the FBI by Dr. Liquori (With Malice [WM], 2013 [edition], p.557) - 1:24 pm - is probably the accurate one based on the recorded timing of Bowley's call, the recorded departure of the ambulance from 10th and Patton, and the known drive time from 10th and Patton to Methodist Hospital. Except for the fact that (1) Bowles tells us the DPD dispatcher times are not reliable, (2) there is no "recorded departure time of the ambulance from 10th/Patton", and (3) Bowley looked at his watch when he arrived and it said 1.10. In his affidavit Bowley also said, upon arrival, he first tried to help the officer and when he noticed he was beyond help he made the radio call to the dispatcher. If the radio call happened just prior to 1.18 (when - according to the transcript - Tippit's shooting was announced on channel 2) it means that Bowley must have been some 7 to 8 minutes late in picking up his daughter from school and never noticed it.
It also means that the combined timeline of Markham, Bowley and Callaway pushes back by 7 to 8 minutes, as the sequence of their arrival at the scene is documented in their statements. So a - 1.18 radio call by Bowley would also mean that Markham must have arrived at 10th/Patton between 1.13 and 1.15, which seems highly unlikely as (1) she said she left to house just after 1 and only needed to walk one block (about 3 minutes) to get to 10th street and (2) it does not give her enough time to be at Jefferson at 1.15 to catch her bus.
DPD Officer Davenport noted that Moellenhoff removed one slug from Tippit's body at 1:30 pm (WM 2013 p.536). That same time (1:30 pm) made its way into Leavelle's homicide report (WM 2013 p.519) as the time Tippit was pronounced DOA (which couldn't possibly be true, right? You don't pull a slug from a body until after he's pronounced dead). This matches up with Moellenhoff's 1983 recollection that he removed a slug from the body within ten minutes of declaring Tippit DOA. This contradicts Myers claim that "
the time reported to the FBI by Dr. Liquori (With Malice [WM], 2013 [edition], p.557) - 1:24 pm - is probably the accurate one". If Moellenhoff removed a slug from Tippit's body at 1.30, as Davenport said in his supplementary offense report, and if Moellenhoff's 10 minute estimate is correct, the declared time of death can not be 1.24 but must be earlier.
My caption under the death certificate (WM 2013 p.506) seeks to clarify the discrepancy between the Time of Injury (1:18 pm) and the time Death Occurred (1:15 pm). Again, it stems from my conversation with Dr. Moellenhoff. The 1:18 pm time, of course, probably refers to the time that Bowley's radio call was received - not the actual time Tippit was shot. Nice bit of speculation. I seriously doubt the author of the death certificate would be aware of the time of a radio call only recorded on a DPD dictabelt.
The 1:15 p.m. notation (although close in time to the actual moment of the shooting, as far as I can calculate) probably stems from Dr. Moellenhoff's use of an inaccurate Methodist emergency room clock.More speculation.
Interesting, huh? All this fuss because no one at Methodist bothered to synchronize the clocks to actual time (some running fast, some running slow).No.. all this fuss, because Markham's clock used for her departure also must have been wrong (although that probably meant she would miss her bus every day!) and Bowley's watch must also have been wrong (meaning that he was late to pick up his daughter from school and never noticed it!).
Individually, the excuse of a clock being wrong might work, but in combination with the other known facts it simply makes no sense.
Helen Markham took the same bus to work on a daily basis. She estimated the departure time of her regular bus at 1.15. That could be the slightly delayed 1.12 bus or the 1.22. Either way, as far as Markham was concerned she needed to be at the bus stop on Jefferson no later than 1.15.
She testified she left her house at 9th street just after 1 pm. She only needed to walk two blocks to get to Jefferson, which would have taken her no more than 5 to 6 minutes. She would have walked one block in 2,5 maybe 3 minutes. This would have gotten her to the crossing of 10th/Patton at around 1.06 or 1.07, which fits perfectly with Tippit being shot at that time. If Tippit was shot at 1.14 or 1.15, as you claim, Markham would have been at the bus stop at Jefferson and could not have witnessed Tippit being killed!
How do we know that Markham's estimated time of 1.06 is probably correct? Simple; T.F. Bowley arrived on the scene, just after Tippit was killed. In his affidavit he said he picked up his daughter at R.L. Thornton School in Singing Hills at "about 12:55". School bells, in my experience, have a tendency to ring at the correct time every day! Next, Bowley was going to pick up his wife from work, to go on a family holiday, so he had every reason to be aware of the time! The drive from the school to 10th/Patton is about 7 miles long and takes roughly 13 minutes, depending on the route, making it absolutely possible and highly plausible for him to arrive at 10th street at 1.10 pm, just like he said he did in his affidavit. But even if we accept that Bowley didn't pick up his daughter on time (leaving her waiting for 5 minutes or longer) and did not leave the school until 1 PM, he still would have arrived at 10th/Patton at 1:13, which of course would have been prior to the shooting of Tippit at 1:15, as the WC narrative claims.
Bowley corroborates Markham's timeline. So, how do we know Bowley's arrival time of 1.10 pm is likely correct? Ted Callaway provides us with the answer. In his testimony he said, he heard the shots, saw Oswald run towards him, he then ran half a block to the corner of 10th/Patton and saw Tippit lying in the street. In other words, Callaway must have been on the scene within 2 or 3 minutes after the shooting, right? Callaway also testified that by the time he got there, a couple of cars had already stopped. He then saw the ambulance arrive (the distance from the funeral home where the ambulance came from to the crime scene was a bit more than one block) and he helped load Tippit in the ambulance and guess who helped him? T.F. Bowley said in his affidavit that he called the DPD dispatcher on the radio and then helped to place Tippit on a stretcher and into the ambulance. He then saw somebody (Callaway) take Tippit's revolver out of the police car. What does all this mean? It means that Bowley was already on the scene when Callaway, who only had to run half a block, arrived there!
So, for Tippit to be shot at 1.14 or 1.15, Markham would have had to be late by at least 5 minutes (if she was still at 10th/Patton at 1.15) to get to her bus stop, or, alternatively, it must have taken her 10 minutes to walk one block. Bowley's watch must have been wrong by at least 5 minutes (meaning he picked up his daughter too late from school and did not notice it) and, as a consequence, Callaway must have taken at least 8 (3 + 5) minutes or so to run half a block to arrive after Bowley was already there. As if that isn't enough, there is also the matter of the ambulance. DPD officers Davenport and Bardin wrote in their Supplementary Offense Report that they saw the ambulance en route to Methodist Hospital and followed it. They assisted in getting Tippit to the emergency room, where he was declared DOA at 1.15 pm, which is, of course, exactly the time of DOA stated in the authorization for autopsy, issued by Justice of the Peace Joe Brown and Tippit's death certificate, issued 29 November 1963. Can you imagine how many other death certificates were marked with times that were off by a few minutes? But what does it matter in those cases? Not one whit."Exactly right. So why did the FBI make such a fuss over the time of death that they pestered staffmembers of Methodist Hospital for days about the exact time of death. If I recall correctly, one nurse is on record saying that she received several calls per day from FBI agents about the time of death. And Tippit's murder wasn't even the FBI's jurisdiction... Go figure!
The bottom line is a simple one; just like the WC before him Myers is merely looking for a way to keep Oswald within a possible time frame for the shooting, in the knowledge that he couldn't have gotten to 10th/Patton until 1.14 at the earliest.
