Oswald's Escape Route Time Trial

[Martin Weidmann]

Except Callaway didn’t say how long it was before he ran up to 10th. He supposedly watched the man go down to Jefferson and turn the corner first. Also, how can you tell by any of the radio recordings when Callaway got there, or how much time had elapsed since the shots?

Except Callaway didn’t say how long it was before he ran up to 10th.

After hearing the shots, you mean? True, he did not say specifically, but from his testimony it becomes clear that he started running towards 10th street after he watched the man with the revolver was on West-Jefferson.

Mr. DULLES. May I ask what course he was taking when you last saw him?
Mr. CALLAWAY. He was going west on Jefferson Street.
Mr. DULLES. West on Jefferson Street?
Mr. CALLAWAY. Yes, sir.
Mr. BALL. What did you do?
Mr. CALLAWAY. I hollered to this guy behind--B. D. Searcy.
Mr. BALL. What did you say to Mr. Searcy?
Mr. CALLAWAY. I told him to keep an eye on that guy, I says, "Keep an eye on that guy, follow him. I am going to go down there and see what is going on." So I ran, a good hard run, from here down around the corner.
Mr. BALL. 10th and Patton?

As the distance the man with the revolver had to run was one block (between 10th street and Jefferson) and Callaway's was less than a block, it is fair (IMO) to assume that it took less than 3 minutes. Considering the fact that Callaway said in his testimony that he ran, ,not only to 10th street, but also to the location where he was when he saw the man with the revolver, it seems unlikely to me that Callaway would have wasted much time between the two runs.

Mr. BALL. And when you heard the shots, what did you do?
Mr. CALLAWAY. I just hurried--I don't know whether I really ran or not.
But I hurried off the side of this porch and came to this position.

Is it a slam dunk? No of course not. One can also argue that Callaway just stood there for several minutes before he ran to 10th street, but that seems as unlikely to me as him drinking a coffee with his mates between the two runs.


Also, how can you tell by any of the radio recordings when Callaway got there, or how much time had elapsed since the shots?

You can't. All you can conclude from the radio recording is that Bowley's call took 48 seconds. There are only two things you can say; (1) when Callaway arrived at the scene Bowley had already finished his call and (2) the ambulance arrived at the scene when Callaway was making his call. Somewhere inbetween these two events Callaway must have arrived at the scene.

[Fergus O'Brien]

Oswald was suddenly concerned with wearing "dirty clothes" that day?  He didn't have a problem wearing them before he fled the assassination.  He put them on that morning expecting to wear them for the entire day unless he knew that he would be assassinating the president and knocking off early for the movies.

what his concerns may or may not have been are well in main unknown to us , because in the murder case of the century the police , fbi etc ensured that we got to hear zero of what oswald said behind closed doors . i know what they said he told them , but that is not good enough . we know for sure what he said when he was moved around the police station and in front of the media .

but the fact is he was noted in interrogation notes saying he changed his shirt and slacks , as i have said i can personally vouch for how dirty his job would have made him .you not only have print ink but dust and dirt also .now here is the thing . if i was oswald , i had just shot two men , a president and a cop . and i feared evidence such as GSR was on my clothing which i had taken off , would i then be stupid enough to tell the cops i had taken off those clothes and further told them where they could find them ? . not a chance .if they believed the clothing i was wearing were the clothes i wore all day i would let them believe that and say nothing .

i of course understand why lone nut advocates dont want oswald to have changed his shirt and slacks . because if he did indeed change his shirt at his rooming house well it cant have been the shirt he wore at 12.30 in the depository .so there then can be zero evidence of any crime to be found on that shirt .and mrs bledoe cant possibly have seen that shirt on the bus at 12.40pm . oswald changing his slacks and shirt create problems that LN simply prefer to ignore .

[Fergus O'Brien]

"i must assume that as he went home thursday night to marina that the clothes he wore on friday morning were the same clothes he wore to work on thursday "fergus

"Why must you assume that? Marina did his washing, so it's not unlikely some of his clothes were at Ruth Paine's house. " martin

i said assumption , i said so for a few reasons . one being he had not been to the paines house the previous week if my memory serves .and because he had argued with marina , and by her own admission on the evening of thursday november 21 she gave him a hard time . while i can agree with you that he could have had work clothes at the paines , given that most of his week and the previous week he was not at the paines and went to work from his rooming house that my logic dictates that he likely had his work clothes at his rooming house . so while its not impossible he had some work clothes at the paines i simply dont know that for certain , and im not aware of any specific testimony from marina that he put on fresh clothing that friday morning and left his dirty clothing behind . but you can feel free to correct me on that if you feel i am wrong .

some times there are things we dont or cant know for certain , so we can only go by what little info we have , by applying some logic and yes at times maybe adding a bit of assumption . but as a rule i dont like to assume , but a little speculation has its place . thanks for your reply martin .

[John Iacoletti]

As the distance the man with the revolver had to run was one block (between 10th street and Jefferson) and Callaway's was less than a block, it is fair (IMO) to assume that it took less than 3 minutes. Considering the fact that Callaway said in his testimony that he ran, ,not only to 10th street, but also to the location where he was when he saw the man with the revolver, it seems unlikely to me that Callaway would have wasted much time between the two runs.

Ok, but once we enter the realm of deciding what’s “likely”, then it’s no longer an evidence-based argument. Bill Brown bases many arguments surrounding Tippit on his contrived notions about how long things “likely” took, rather than what was actually said.

You can't. All you can conclude from the radio recording is that Bowley's call took 48 seconds.

I wouldn’t even say that — given that the extant recordings are known to be edited and non-continuous.

There are only two things you can say; (1) when Callaway arrived at the scene Bowley had already finished his call

How do we know this?

and (2) the ambulance arrived at the scene when Callaway was making his call.

And how do we know this?

[Martin Weidmann]

Ok, but once we enter the realm of deciding what’s “likely”, then it’s no longer an evidence-based argument. Bill Brown bases many arguments surrounding Tippit on his contrived notions about how long things “likely” took, rather than what was actually said.

I wouldn’t even say that — given that the extant recordings are known to be edited and non-continuous.

How do we know this?

And how do we know this?

Ok, but once we enter the realm of deciding what’s “likely”, then it’s no longer an evidence-based argument.

Depends on what you call an evidence-based argument. Evidence is always open to interpretation. In this case, the basis for my conclusion, is Callaway's witness testimony which could have been - but wasn't - verified (at least not by the investigators) by checking the actual distances involved in his testimony, which would result in circumstantial evidence about the time required to cover the distance. Callaway obviously did not have a stopwatch, but when he says he ran to 10th street and you know the distance he had to run is less than a block, it doesn't make a great deal of sense to assume that it could have taken him more than a couple of minutes.

Bill Brown bases many arguments surrounding Tippit on his contrived notions about how long things “likely” took, rather than what was actually said.

Ok, but I'm only using what was actually said and known knowledge about the location and distances to reach (IMO) the most likely conclusion. Unless, of course, I missed something that was actually said. Did I miss something?


I wouldn’t even say that — given that the extant recordings are known to be edited and non-continuous.

We do indeed know that the recordings are non-continuous, because of the way they were actually recorded. How we know that the recordings were edited is another matter. I am curious how you can say we know that. Having said that, there is no doubt in my mind that the Bowley conversation with the dispatcher itself was indeed a continuous recording, lasting 48 seconds.

How do we know this?

We know this because Callaway testified that when he arrived at the scene he did not know if anybody had called it in, so he got on the radio. As we know for a fact that Bowley did make a call, that means that he either made that call (and ended it) prior to Callaway's arrival or he made his call after Callaway was already on the scene. I don't see how the latter could have happened. Even less so because when Callaway got on the radio he was told by the dispatcher that they already knew about the shooting. During the Bowley call, it is obvious that the dispatcher was not yet aware of the shooting.

Unless you can give be a different evidence-based scenario, all the evidence combined allows (IMO) for the conclusion that Bowley made his call before Callaway arrived at the scene, causing the ambulance being called. Callaway then arrives the scene and makes his call to the dispatcher at the time the ambulance arrived.

And how do we know this?

Because Callaway said in his testimony that when he was making his call "an ambulance was coming"

[John Iacoletti]

Callaway obviously did not have a stopwatch, but when he says he ran to 10th street and you know the distance he had to run is less than a block, it doesn't make a great deal of sense to assume that it could have taken him more than a couple of minutes.

The problem is, we don’t know how much time elapsed between the shots and the start of his run up to 10th street.

We do indeed know that the recordings are non-continuous, because of the way they were actually recorded. How we know that the recordings were edited is another matter. I am curious how you can say we know that.

Because any extant recording available for us to listen to has been spliced together from multiple dictabelts or audiograph discs. That involves editing. Particularly on the overlapping sections and the stylus skips.

Having said that, there is no doubt in my mind that the Bowley conversation with the dispatcher itself was indeed a continuous recording, lasting 48 seconds.

Why?

Because Callaway said in his testimony that when he was making his call "an ambulance was coming"

Not exactly. What he said was,

“So I got on the police radio and called them, and told them a man had been shot, told them the location, I thought the officer was dead. They said we know about it, stay off the air, so I went back. By this time an ambulance was coming.”

Callaway’s “so I went back” happened first, then an ambulance was coming. We don’t know how much time elapsed there.

[Martin Weidmann]

The problem is, we don’t know how much time elapsed between the shots and the start of his run up to 10th street.

Because any extant recording available for us to listen to has been spliced together from multiple dictabelts or audiograph discs. That involves editing. Particularly on the overlapping sections and the stylus skips.

Why?

Not exactly. What he said was,

“So I got on the police radio and called them, and told them a man had been shot, told them the location, I thought the officer was dead. They said we know about it, stay off the air, so I went back. By this time an ambulance was coming.”

Callaway’s “so I went back” happened first, then an ambulance was coming. We don’t know how much time elapsed there.

The problem is, we don’t know how much time elapsed between the shots and the start of his run up to 10th street.

We don't know exactly to the second, that's true, but we have enough information to arrive at a reasonable conclusion.

We know that after the shots were fired, the killer ran towards the corner of 10th and Patton and then one block down Patton to Jefferson. By the time the killer arrived at Jefferson he had already had his encounter with Callaway. I have walked and ran that distance and thus know from first hand experience it's a matter of seconds rather than minutes.

Callaway testified that after seeing the man on Jefferson, he ran "a good hard run" to 10th street.

Mr. DULLES. May I ask what course he was taking when you last saw him?
Mr. CALLAWAY. He was going west on Jefferson Street.
Mr. DULLES. West on Jefferson Street?
Mr. CALLAWAY. Yes, sir.
Mr. BALL. What did you do?
Mr. CALLAWAY. I hollered to this guy behind--B. D. Searcy.
Mr. BALL. What did you say to Mr. Searcy?
Mr. CALLAWAY. I told him to keep an eye on that guy, I says, "Keep an eye on that guy, follow him. I am going to go down there and see what is going on." So I ran, a good hard run, from here down around the corner.
Mr. BALL. 10th and Patton?

So, unless you want to argue that Callaway stood there motionless for several seconds or even minutes, it is (IMO) fair to say that the time that elapsed between the shots and Callaway's arrival at the scene, must be the time it takes to run the one block between 10th street and Jefferson twice.

Because any extant recording available for us to listen to has been spliced together from multiple dictabelts or audiograph discs. That involves editing. Particularly on the overlapping sections and the stylus skips.

I wasn't aware that the known recording was spliced together from various sources, but if it is, that would indeed make it utterly unreliable.

Why?

Because I had a good quality recording of Bowley's conversation examined by a friend who is a highly qualified sound engineer and he could find no edits.

Not exactly. What he said was,

“So I got on the police radio and called them, and told them a man had been shot, told them the location, I thought the officer was dead. They said we know about it, stay off the air, so I went back. By this time an ambulance was coming.”

Callaway’s “so I went back” happened first, then an ambulance was coming. We don’t know how much time elapsed there.


I think you are reading too much into this. And I don't really understand why you interpret of "by this time" as "then", when the first implies two events happening at the same time whereas "then" clearly implies a sequence of events.

Besides, this has nothing to do with how long it took for Callaway to get to the scene after the shots were fired.