JFK Assassination Plus General Discussion & Debate > JFK Assassination Plus General Discussion And Debate
What Was Oswald Thinking After Firing The Shots?
Bill Brown:
I don't think Oswald had a "Mexico plan" beforehand. Once he got out of the building, what does he do? Does he head toward Oak Cliff right away? Nope. He heads east on Elm, deeper into the downtown area (and completely away from Oak Cliff). This one fact alone tells me that he had no escape plan; only to indeed escape.
I believe that once Oswald made it to Whaley's cab, the idea of going to retrieve his revolver appealed to him. Once he had his revolver, does he head to the theater and/or south into Oak Cliff? Nope. He stands at a bus stop outside the rooming house, very near the corner of Beckley and Zangs. This particular bus stop would allow him to catch a bus going north, back toward the downtown area, NOT south into Oak Cliff or Mexico. I believe he wanted to board the first bus to get him the hell out of the area.
Then, after standing near that very busy intersection (Beckley & Zang is an incredibly busy intersection), he thought better of it. He was on full display standing out there at that particular bus stop. He left his rifle behind. He was missing from the building in which he was supposed to be working. Has his face been on the news already? He's been on foot, bus and taxi for a half hour. He doesn't know what has (or has not) transpired during those thirty minutes. Obviously we know his face wasn't on the news but he doesn't know that. In my opinion, he shows the same paranoia when he doesn't pay for a ticket at the theater. He doesn't want Julia Postal to see his face. Has his face been on the news? What if she immediately recognizes him? Or, perhaps she'll see his face on the news while he's hiding out inside the theater and recognize that face as belonging to a guy she sold a ticket to earlier. By the way, it is this same paranoia (has my face been on the news already?) which I believe causes him to switch directions as he's walking along Tenth Street. He doesn't want the approaching officer (Tippit) to see his face. In my opinion, he also avoids walking past a law enforcement vehicle (Deputy Sheriff Unit #109) moments before the Tippit encounter as he's walking toward the library and/or bus stop outside the library.
My opinion is that the Jefferson Branch Library and/or the bus stop right outside that library was his goal once he decided to bail on the idea of standing at the very busy intersection of Beckley & Zangs. If one is standing outside the rooming house at 1026 N. Beckley and the goal is now the library and/or the bus stop outside that library, walking east on Tenth at Lansing Street (exactly where Tenth Street makes it's drastic curve) is the most direct route, along with another route which would have him walking down Marsalis for most of the way. But he doesn't want to walk down Marsalis, a very busy street.
I guess my point in all of this is that, again, in my opinion, maybe making a run for Mexico is only something which occurred to him once he decided to bail on the bus stop outside the rooming house. Obviously there is no way to know for sure. Only Oswald himself knows the answer. When it comes to trying to determine Oswald's thoughts and movements after the assassination, all any of us can do is speculate. However, some of us speculate based on what we know while others (like the "Oswald never got on the bus" crowd) discard the known facts and speculate with no basis or foundation.
As for the sixth floor...
As I've always seen it play out in my head, Oswald has the brown shirt tied around his waist, as people typically do when they're originally wearing two shirts but it becomes too warm for both. I believe Oswald is still contemplating which end of the sixth floor to shoot from and is over at the southwest end of the sixth floor when Bonnie Ray Williams unexpectedly arrives up on the floor, surprising him. Oswald is standing near the southwest corner as Williams is eating his chicken on the bone sandwich (what's up with that, by the way?) over near the southeast corner. The south face of the Depository is captured in aftermath photos and the far west sixth floor set of windows are open. Arnold Rowland sees a guy with a rifle standing back from that west end window and says the guy is wearing a light-colored shirt opened at the neck. Perhaps Oswald still has the brown shirt (CE-150) tied around his waist.
Williams finally leaves for the fifth floor and Oswald decides that the southeast corner window is the easier shot (which it certainly was, study sniper fire and lead). Whether he still has the brown shirt tied around his waist or it's simply lying on the floor in the sniper's nest or atop one of the boxes doesn't matter. After firing the shots, he grabs the brown shirt and uses it to wipe the rifle as he makes his way across the floor. This is why a tuft of fibers matching that shirt were found in the crevice of the rifle between the metal butt plate and the wooden stock. He reaches the stairs, stashes/hides the rifle haphazardly and proceeds to put on the brown shirt as he's going down the stairs. He probably has the shirt on by the time he reaches the fifth floor.
Charles Collins:
--- Quote from: Bill Brown on August 16, 2025, 06:21:03 AM ---I don't think Oswald had a "Mexico plan" beforehand. Once he got out of the building, what does he do? Does he head toward Oak Cliff right away? Nope. He heads east on Elm, deeper into the downtown area (and completely away from Oak Cliff). This one fact alone tells me that he had no escape plan; only to indeed escape.
I believe that once Oswald made it to Whaley's cab, the idea of going to retrieve his revolver appealed to him. Once he had his revolver, does he head to the theater and/or south into Oak Cliff? Nope. He stands at a bus stop outside the rooming house, very near the corner of Beckley and Zangs. This particular bus stop would allow him to catch a bus going north, back toward the downtown area, NOT south into Oak Cliff or Mexico. I believe he wanted to board the first bus to get him the hell out of the area.
Then, after standing near that very busy intersection (Beckley & Zang is an incredibly busy intersection), he thought better of it. He was on full display standing out there at that particular bus stop. He left his rifle behind. He was missing from the building in which he was supposed to be working. Has his face been on the news already? He's been on foot, bus and taxi for a half hour. He doesn't know what has (or has not) transpired during those thirty minutes. Obviously we know his face wasn't on the news but he doesn't know that. In my opinion, he shows the same paranoia when he doesn't pay for a ticket at the theater. He doesn't want Julia Postal to see his face. Has his face been on the news? What if she immediately recognizes him? Or, perhaps she'll see his face on the news while he's hiding out inside the theater and recognize that face as belonging to a guy she sold a ticket to earlier. By the way, it is this same paranoia (has my face been on the news already?) which I believe causes him to switch directions as he's walking along Tenth Street. He doesn't want the approaching officer (Tippit) to see his face. In my opinion, he also avoids walking past a law enforcement vehicle (Deputy Sheriff Unit #109) moments before the Tippit encounter as he's walking toward the library and/or bus stop outside the library.
My opinion is that the Jefferson Branch Library and/or the bus stop right outside that library was his goal once he decided to bail on the idea of standing at the very busy intersection of Beckley & Zangs. If one is standing outside the rooming house at 1026 N. Beckley and the goal is now the library and/or the bus stop outside that library, walking east on Tenth at Lansing Street (exactly where Tenth Street makes it's drastic curve) is the most direct route, along with another route which would have him walking down Marsalis for most of the way. But he doesn't want to walk down Marsalis, a very busy street.
I guess my point in all of this is that, again, in my opinion, maybe making a run for Mexico is only something which occurred to him once he decided to bail on the bus stop outside the rooming house. Obviously there is no way to know for sure. Only Oswald himself knows the answer. When it comes to trying to determine Oswald's thoughts and movements after the assassination, all any of us can do is speculate. However, some of us speculate based on what we know while others (like the "Oswald never got on the bus" crowd) discard the known facts and speculate with no basis or foundation.
As for the sixth floor...
As I've always seen it play out in my head, Oswald has the brown shirt tied around his waist, as people typically do when they're originally wearing two shirts but it becomes too warm for both. I believe Oswald is still contemplating which end of the sixth floor to shoot from and is over at the southwest end of the sixth floor when Bonnie Ray Williams unexpectedly arrives up on the floor, surprising him. Oswald is standing near the southwest corner as Williams is eating his chicken on the bone sandwich (what's up with that, by the way?) over near the southeast corner. The south face of the Depository is captured in aftermath photos and the far west sixth floor set of windows are open. Arnold Rowland sees a guy with a rifle standing back from that west end window and says the guy is wearing a light-colored shirt opened at the neck. Perhaps Oswald still has the brown shirt (CE-150) tied around his waist.
Williams finally leaves for the fifth floor and Oswald decides that the southeast corner window is the easier shot (which it certainly was, study sniper fire and lead). Whether he still has the brown shirt tied around his waist or it's simply lying on the floor in the sniper's nest or atop one of the boxes doesn't matter. After firing the shots, he grabs the brown shirt and uses it to wipe the rifle as he makes his way across the floor. This is why a tuft of fibers matching that shirt were found in the crevice of the rifle between the metal butt plate and the wooden stock. He reaches the stairs, stashes/hides the rifle haphazardly and proceeds to put on the brown shirt as he's going down the stairs. He probably has the shirt on by the time he reaches the fifth floor.
--- End quote ---
That all makes very good sense to me Bill. And it is pretty much the way I think (and speculate) about it. I would add that Hugh Aynesworth wrote in his book that the housekeeper told him on 11/22/63 that LHO hurried out of the rooming house and went the other way (away from the bus stop and toward the Tippit murder scene). She didn’t say anything about seeing him at the bus stop to Aynesworth. So, I think it is okay to believe either story. I spoke to the late Hugh Aynesworth on the phone for a few minutes a few years ago about another aspect. Hugh was pleasant and seemed like he was a straight shooter. Have you ever met Hugh Aynesworth? I would tend to believe Hugh Aynesworth and think that the housekeeper probably just got a little confused about this.
The other small difference is that I do think LHO intended to shoot from the SE corner window all along. I think he probably stashed the rifle in the bag near the stairwell on the sixth floor when he arrived that morning. Stashing it there gave him an option to sneak up to the seventh floor if a group of workers came back to the sixth floor to watch the motorcade. He could have simply have been in the process of retrieving the rifle from the hiding place when BRW came back up. Then I think he just quietly stayed on that end out of sight. The noise (siren, etc) of the ambulance approaching Dealey Plaza might have caused LHO to expose himself long enough to see what was going on outside when Rowland saw him. I think that LHO probably would have fired his shots from one of the western windows if it had been the motorcade instead of the ambulance.
One other thought is that when LHO boarded the bus just after the assassination he would have known it was going to pass right by the scene of his crime. Many criminals have been known to pass back by the scenes of their crimes. It makes me wonder if LHO did that at the Walker residence also.
Richard Smith:
That sounds about right. Here are my working assumptions when thinking about Oswald's post-assassination acts:
1) There is no good plan for escaping after assassinating JFK.
2) Oswald knew that he was likely going to be killed or arrested. He accepted that outcome as part of his decision to carry out the act. That doesn't mean he was just going to give himself up, however. Like most every criminal, he kept moving while he had the ability to do so until he was caught. Nothing to lose from playing out his hand.
3) Oswald would have known that he would quickly be identified as a suspect based on his background and prior connections with the FBI once they discovered that he worked in the building and was missing. He only had a brief window to make tracks before being a wanted man. He had to operate on the assumption that he was a suspect and perhaps his picture had been disseminated to the public by the time he encounters Tippit.
4) Oswald was familiar with bus routes including the drill to get to Mexico. Maybe he would be welcomed as a hero if he could reach Cuba. That was a hopeless fantasy, but the best of a lot of bad options. It is not inconceivable that in 1963 he could have gotten out of Dallas and perhaps made his way to the border. Holding out hope that Cuba or Russia might give him asylum if he could reach their embassy. Cuba gave asylum to other murders.
5) If caught, he would play the victim of some rush to judgement theory that the police were targeting him because of his political beliefs. He becomes a martyr for the Marxist cause. He would have been convicted or pled guilty to avoid the death penalty. If James Earl Ray is any guide, he would spend the rest of his life teasing that others were involved to garner sympathy and bargain for privileges.
Sean Kneringer:
Never thought he'd leave the building alive and made it up as he went along.
Royell Storing:
It is possible that Oswald took his shirt off and laid it on a box or on the floor, and then put it back on in order to alter his apparel immediately following the shooting. But, this would indicate premeditation on his part and therefore Not explain his leaving behind a murder weapon that traced directly back to him.
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