Five issues:
- Brewer didn’t see anybody enter the cinema. The doors weren’t visible from his position.
- Postal didn’t see anybody enter the cinema. She was out on the sidewalk looking west on Jefferson.
- Brewer didn’t immediately go talk to Postal. He went back into his store and talked to the IBM men first.
- Postal told both Brewer and the FBI that she wasn’t sure if she sold the man a ticket or not.
- Just because Brewer thought the man he saw was Oswald, doesn’t mean that the man he saw was Oswald, anymore than the man that Burroughs saw or the man that Jack Davis saw.
Brewer testifies that he sees this guy acting suspiciously at the front of his shop while police sirens are blaring outside. As the sirens pass the guy moves on:
"He turned and walked out of the lobby and went up West Jefferson toward the theatre, and I walked out the front and watched him, and he went into the theatre."The suspicious looking guy enters the Texas Theatre. Does Brewer need to see this guy actually enter the door to know he has entered the building? Brewer watches the man turn into the building and knows he has entered the theatre:
Mr. Brewer: No; he just turned and walked right straight in.
Mr. Belin: When he walked right straight in, could you see the box office?
Mr. Brewer: Well, the box office is right in the middle in front of the theatre, and he turned right at the corner and went in. You could see him if he was buying a ticket, because the box office is flush with all the other buildings.
Mr. Belin: If he had purchased a ticket, would you have seen him purchasing the ticket from where you were standing or walking?
Mr. Brewer: I could have seen him, yes; standing in front of the box office."...he just turned and walked right straight in...he turned right at the corner and went in."
The doors of the cinema are recessed from the front of the building. Brewer does not see Oswald pass through the doors but he does see him walk into the large recessed area at the entrance of the cinema.
Even though Postal doesn't see Oswald enter the theatre, she does provide us with the information that Oswald never passed her position as she was looking west, up Jefferson. Postal was stood on the sidewalk just in front of the Box Office, checking out the police cars blaring by. She actually sees Oswald approaching from the east but then she turns to look west and doesn't see him ducking into the theatre:
Mr. Ball: The last time you had seen him before he ducked in, he was just standing outside of the door, was he?
Mrs. Postal: No, sir; he was still just in----just off of the sidewalk, and he headed for the theatre.She has no idea Oswald has gone into the theatre, she turns around to find Brewer there asking about the suspicious guy who ducked into the theatre.
Brewer sees the man turn into the building and Postal confirms the man she saw approaching her never passed by her position at the front of the Box Office. Brewer and Postal confirm each others account of talking about whether the man who had entered the theatre had paid for his ticket:
Postal - I was right at the box office facing west, because I thought .the police were stopping up quite a ways. Well, just as I turned around then Johnny Brewer was standing there and he asked me if the fellow that ducked in bought a ticket, and I said, "No; by golly, he didn't," and turned around expecting to see him.Brewer - I walked up to the theatre, to the box office and asked Mrs. Postal if she sold a ticket to a man who was wearing a brown shirt, and she said no, she hadn't. It is agreed that Brewer will go inside to see if he can find the man who ducked inside:
Brewer - I said that a man walked in there, and I was going to go inside and ask the usher if he had seen him.
Postal - I said, "Go in and see if you can see him,"It is agreed to get Butch Burroughs involved:
Mr. Brewer: ... So I walked in and Butch Burroughs.----
Mr. Belin: Who was Burroughs?
Mr. Brewer: ...he operated the concession ... I asked him if he would come with me and show me where the exits were and we would check the exits.
Postal - I told Johnny this, don't tell him [Burroughs], because he is an excitable person, and just have him, you know, go with you and examine the exits and check real good
Butch never saw the man who ducked in without paying:
Brewer - He was behind the counter. He operated the concession and takes tickets. He was behind the concession stand and I asked him if he had seen a man in a brown shirt of that description, matching that description, and he said he had been working behind the counter and hadn't seen anybody.Burroughs - ...I had a lot of stock candy to count and put in the candy case for the coming night, and if he had came around in front of the concession out there, I would have seen him, even though I was bent down, I would have seen him, but otherwise I think he sneaked up the stairs real fast.Brewer's account of following Oswald into the Texas Theater is confirmed by both Postal and Burroughs as are other details. Brewer checks the back exit which is locked (this can only be done from the inside) so he knows no-one has left through that exit. He and Burroughs go back through the cinema but can't see the man they are looking for and return to Postal at the front who decides to call the police:
Brewer - When we first went down to the exit by the stage, we heard a seat pop up, but couldn't see anybody. And we never did see him. But we went back and upstairs and checked, and we came down and went back to the box office and told Julia that we hadn't seen him ... and she called the police, and we went----Butch went to the front exit, and I went down by the stage to the back exit and stood there until the police came.Postal - I told Johnny [Brewer] this ... just have him [Burroughs], you know, go with you and examine the exits and check real good, so, he came back and said he hadn't seen anything although, he had heard a seat pop up like somebody getting out, but there was nobody around that area, so, I told Johnny about the fact that the President had been assassinated. "I don't know if this is the man they want," I said, "in there, but he is running from them for some reason," and I said "I am going to call the police, and you and Butch go get on each of the exit doors and stay there."
Other aspects of Brewer's account are confirmed by various officers. Brewer has taken up a position guarding the back exit:
Brewer - I heard a noise outside, and I opened the door, and the alley, I guess it was filled with police cars and policemen were on the fire exits and stacked around the alley, and they grabbed me, a couple of them and held and searched me and asked me what I was doing there, and I told them that there was a guy in the theatre that I was suspicious of, and he asked me if he was still there.
And I said, yes, I just seen him. And he asked me if I would point him out.
And I and two or three other officers walked out on the stage and I pointed him out, and there were officers coming in from the front of the show, I guess, coming toward that way, and officers going from the back.Officer Hutson - We pulled up to this location and I was the first out of the car to hit the ground. As I walked up to the fire exit doors, Officer Hawkins and Baggett were getting out of the car, and the door to the theatre opened, and this unknown white male was exiting.
I drew my pistol and put it on him and told him to put up his hands and not to make a move, and he was real nervous and scared and said: "I am not the one. I just came back to open the door. I work up the street at the shoestore, and Julia sent me back to open the door so you could get in. I walked up and searched him briefly and I could see by the description and his clothes that he wasn't the person we were looking for."Officer Walker - I went in the alley up to the back door. When I arrived there, there was several officers there ... around the back of the theatre, and myself, and/McDonald, and Officer Hutson went in the back door. And this man told us, or this boy told us that there was someone, said the person that he had seen was inside the theatre, and that he had changed seats several times, and he thought he was out there in the middle now.Brewer's account of what happened seems completely credible and is corroborated by multiple witnesses and there is no doubt in Brewer's mind that the man he saw outside his shop and who ducked into the Texas Theater was the man he pointed out to police and who was subsequently arrested in the cinema - Lee Harvey Oswald.
