The Sportsdrome Gun Range: Mystery or Myth?

[Charles Collins]

I really think the reasons are to be found in the conspiracy-prone mindset, and I don't know how I would go about checking that out. I do have a lot of experience (perhaps I should be embarrassed!) with "weirdness" communities, from religion to UFOs to the Shroud of Turin, to Near Death Experiences, to all variety of anomalous phenomena. At one time, I was one of less than 100 U.S. members of the (British) Society for Psychical Research. I realized at some point that I have at least a mild case of conspiracy-prone mindset and am drawn to "weirdness." I've experienced enough myself and have enough close relatives and friends who have experienced it that I am by no means a naysayer or debunker. On the other hand, I have somehow remained rational enough to recognize the vast amount of silliness and to stay alert to my own tendencies and confirmation biases.

No one believes me, but I truly would LOVE it if Oswald were a patsy of a conspiracy extending from LBJ on down. (Confession: Just this morning I was watching "The Men Who Killed Kennedy" and lapping it up.) That just simply isn't where the evidence points. It just isn't. If someone has actually looked at the EVIDENCE and still thinks there was any sort of sophisticated or elaborate conspiracy, I can only explain this on the basis of a bad case of conspiracy-prone mindset.

Look at our favorite CT loon on this thread. Look at the stuff he believes. Look at his inability to see anything other than the CT perspective on any issue. It is literally the Flat Earth version of JFKA conspiracy theorizing. And yet, even the Flat Earthers include many highly educated, very intelligent people who are by no means just having fun with their nonsense as I once assumed they were. (I also just visited the Flat Earth Society this morning, where the forum is way more active than this one. Wade into the fray, as I once did, and you won't emerged unscathed because these people have a superficially plausible-sounding answer for everything.) I have no explanation other than that something is going on inside these folks' heads that is very different from what's going on inside yours or mine, which is what the psychological and sociological literature on the conspiracy-prone mindset suggests.

When you encounter the lunatic fringe of the conspiracy-prone mindset, as we do here, you are WAY into the ozone. And then it becomes almost a religion, which is why one denomination of CTers despises another almost to the extent the Southern Baptists despise the Mormons. If someone like our favorite loon would put his intelligence to work on the development of a rational, plausible, evidence-based theory, we'd have something to talk about. Because of what's driving him, however, he literally CAN'T.

Anyway, I don't know of anything a trainee factoid-buster can do except say "That sounds interesting and a bit unlikely - I wonder if it's true?" and go to the primary sources. As Steven has pointed out, however, and as you can see from my efforts, it's WAY more effort than it's worth unless you just enjoy the hunt (which I do while I'm laid up with my Achilles). But this thread will disappear in a few days, the loons will go right on with their "Sports Drome" nonsense, and this will all have been strictly for my own amusement. Aaarghh ...

Yes, I think I understand what you are saying. There are a lot of people who I believe tend to live and make most decisions based on their feelings instead of reasons. I suppose if we all thought alike this would be a much duller world and we wouldn't have much (if anything) to argue about.   

[Benjamin Cole]

Let me add, one can also go back and read primary materials written by President Kennedy, or even watch his speeches and media presentations on Youtube.

JFK was an ardent anti-communist, warned frequently about the complacency of liberal democracies in the face of rising totalitarianism, and spoke at West Point, Annapolis and elsewhere about the value of military service. JFK promoted a vivified Green Beret, and started AID as a bulwark against global communism.

Lance P. has done excellent work herein, showing the value of looking at primary materials.

I advise readers do the same with JFK's speeches, letters to leaders, documents, and even recorded White House conversations with Ambassador Lodge, and others.

James Douglass' version of JFK is fiction.

IMHO, caveat emptor and draw your own conclusions. But draw your own conclusions by augmenting your understanding by reading primary materials.

[Lance Payette]

I’ll finish with an amusing example of what a CTer does with the Sportsdrome story. Lawyer Bill Simpich is probably regarded by many as one of the more reputable, thorough researchers. Here’s what he does with the Sportsdrome in “The Twelve Who Built the Oswald Legend,” https://aarclibrary.org/the-jfk-case-the-twelve-who-built-the-oswald-legend-part-12-the-endgame/. His work is in italics, my responses are in bold:

Garland Slack at the Sports Drome rifle range

Johnny King, the editor of the Dallas Morning News, reported that Paine drove Oswald to a rifle range a few days before the assassination. When asked about the story, the editor refused to reveal his source, describing him as “an investigator”.

No, King did not “report” this at all. His paper, the Dallas Morning News, on December 11 ran a short non-bylined article, which I linked, saying an unnamed DPD investigator had said that an unnamed 24-year-old who knew Oswald had admitted driving him. When pressed by the FBI the same day, King gave Michael Paine’s name. Paine was 35, not 24. Moreover, the original article said nothing about "a few days before" the JFKA and merely said the unnamed 24-year-old had admitted driving Oswald to "the range area."

Bob Odum asked Paine if it was true. Paine denied it. The story never went any further.

Lee’s brother Robert Oswald said shortly after the assassination that “I still do not know why or how, but Mr. and Mrs. Paine are somehow involved in this affair.” When asked to explain, Robert told the Warren Commission that he had read in the paper about a man passing a rifle to Oswald over a fence where he was standing inside the rifle range. “As I read this description in the newspaper, I reached the conclusion from that description that it was Mr. Paine.” Robert recalled Paine as about 6 feet tall and weighing 160-165 pounds.

Dead wrong. Read the December 10 Dallas Morning News article that I linked. Malcolm Howard Price is quoted as saying, “somebody, I don’t know if it was a man or a woman,” had passed a wrapped rifle over the fence to “Oswald.” The only other person mentioned in the article was the huge, big-footed guy who later proved to be Michael Bentley Murph. Nothing in either article I linked could have brought Michael Paine to Robert’s mind.

Price is also quoted in the article as saying that on the first encounter “Oswald” drove in alone in a battered old black car, “probably a Ford or Chevrolet.” The article reports Garland Slack as observing “Oswald” in a “desert sand” colored auto, “at least 10 years old.” These descriptions don’t match – not even close – any of the vehicles owned by Michael Paine or Ruth.

Simpich doesn't tell you what Robert really said at the Warren Commission. Robert's suspicion about Michael being involved was in a notebook entry of December 6, when he had met Michael precisely ONCE, for FIVE MINUTES, at the police station the night of the JFKA. Robert took an instant dislike to Michael. At the WC, he was totally confused about the newspaper story, thinking he read it before December 6 but not being sure (he clearly read it after that date). He then did say that he had made the connection when he read the "description" in the newspaper - but THERE WAS NO DESCRIPTION. Price was quoted as saying he wasn't even sure if the person handing the rifle to "Oswald" was a man or a woman. At the time of his WC testimony, Robert had seen Michael on precisely one other occasion - in mid-December, when he went to the Paine home with Martin and Thorne to pick up the belongings of Lee and Marina. Robert simply couldn't stand Michael, and the questioning suggests the WC recognized this.

After Lee’s arrest, Robert says that he told his brother at the jail house that “I don’t think they’re any friends of yours.” According to Robert, Lee told him, “Yes, they are.”

The incident under discussion appears to be at the Sports Drome in Grand Prairie, Texas, where Oswald supposedly engaged in target practice on November 9, 10 and 17, with someone handing Oswald his rifle over the fence on at least one occasion. Grand Prairie is the town where Michael Paine moved to after his break-up with Ruth.

This is classic CT innuendo. Michael did indeed rent an apartment in Grand Prairie. His job with Bell Helicopter was at 3255 S. Norwood Dr. in Hurst, Texas, just west of both Irving and Grand Prairie. His apartment was at 2377 Dalworth St., 12 miles from Bell. The Paine home was 15 miles from Bell, so he was three miles closer to his work while still near Ruth and his children. Highly suspicious – ya think?

What I find so intriguing about the reports by Johnny King and Robert Oswald is that a gun owner named Garland Slack reported that on November 17, 1963, a man who looked like Oswald was firing at his target at the Sports Drome. Slack reported that accompanying Oswald was a man identified as “Frazier, from Irving, Texas“.

You know from my original post how bogus this is. For starters, using the term “reports” in reference to King and Robert is, as you can see above, absurdly misleading.

You also know the “Frazier” story is a silly factoid. Garland Slack didn’t “report” this – he came up with it almost a year after the JFKA when his wife Lucille called him in the midst of a follow-up interview with the FBI. Garland had originally thought the real Oswald on TV was someone he recognized as a truck driver for the Dallas City Water Works. Lucille, who was with her husband the entire time – from noon to dark – saw no one who looked like Oswald but did recall the big guy (Murph) and thought he was alone (as he was). (Read Garland’s December 1 FBI interview – he gives an extremely more detailed description of Murph than of the supposed blond “Oswald.” Odd, no?)

When interviewed on December 1, Garland said the vehicle was an old “jalopy” but could remember nothing more. By the time of the newspaper article on December 10, it was “sand colored” and at least ten years old. Alas, this does not fit any of the Paine vehicles or Frazier’s black Chevrolet.

Simpich, for whom I have gradually lost all respect, is a fellow lawyer who unfortunately doesn’t even do paralegal-quality work when it comes to the JFKA. Why is this? Because he’s being driven by an obsessive, conspiracy-prone mindset and the facts are entirely secondary to the conspiracy narrative. He should be embarrassed.

[Tom Graves]

I’ll finish with an amusing example of what a CTer does with the Sportsdrome story. Lawyer Bill Simpich is probably regarded by many as one of the more reputable, thorough researchers. Here’s what he does with the Sportsdrome in “The Twelve Who Built the Oswald Legend,” https://aarclibrary.org/the-jfk-case-the-twelve-who-built-the-oswald-legend-part-12-the-endgame/. His work is in italics, my responses are in bold:

Garland Slack at the Sports Drome rifle range

Johnny King, the editor of the Dallas Morning News, reported that Paine drove Oswald to a rifle range a few days before the assassination. When asked about the story, the editor refused to reveal his source, describing him as “an investigator”.

No, King did not “report” this at all. His paper, the Dallas Morning News, on December 11 ran a short non-bylined article, which I linked, saying an unnamed DPD investigator had said that an unnamed 24-year-old who knew Oswald had admitted driving him. When pressed by the FBI the same day, King gave Michael Paine’s name. Paine was 35, not 24. Moreover, the original article said nothing about "a few days before" the JFKA and merely said the unnamed 24-year-old had admitted driving Oswald to "the range area."

Bob Odum asked Paine if it was true. Paine denied it. The story never went any further.

Lee’s brother Robert Oswald said shortly after the assassination that “I still do not know why or how, but Mr. and Mrs. Paine are somehow involved in this affair.” When asked to explain, Robert told the Warren Commission that he had read in the paper about a man passing a rifle to Oswald over a fence where he was standing inside the rifle range. “As I read this description in the newspaper, I reached the conclusion from that description that it was Mr. Paine.” Robert recalled Paine as about 6 feet tall and weighing 160-165 pounds.

Dead wrong. Read the December 10 Dallas Morning News article that I linked. Malcolm Howard Price is quoted as saying, “somebody, I don’t know if it was a man or a woman,” had passed a wrapped rifle over the fence to “Oswald.” The only other person mentioned in the article was the huge, big-footed guy who later proved to be Michael Bentley Murph. Nothing in either article I linked could have brought Michael Paine to Robert’s mind.

Price is also quoted in the article as saying that on the first encounter “Oswald” drove in alone in a battered old black car, “probably a Ford or Chevrolet.” The article reports Garland Slack as observing “Oswald” in a “desert sand” colored auto, “at least 10 years old.” These descriptions don’t match – not even close – any of the vehicles owned by Michael Paine or Ruth.

Simpich doesn't tell you what Robert really said at the Warren Commission. Robert's suspicion about Michael being involved was in a notebook entry of December 6, when he had met Michael precisely ONCE, for FIVE MINUTES, at the police station the night of the JFKA. Robert took an instant dislike to Michael. At the WC, he was totally confused about the newspaper story, thinking he read it before December 6 but not being sure (he clearly read it after that date). He then did say that he had made the connection when he read the "description" in the newspaper - but THERE WAS NO DESCRIPTION. Price was quoted as saying he wasn't even sure if the person handing the rifle to "Oswald" was a man or a woman. At the time of his WC testimony, Robert had seen Michael on precisely one other occasion - in mid-December, when he went to the Paine home with Martin and Thorne to pick up the belongings of Lee and Marina. Robert simply couldn't stand Michael, and the questioning suggests the WC recognized this.

After Lee’s arrest, Robert says that he told his brother at the jail house that “I don’t think they’re any friends of yours.” According to Robert, Lee told him, “Yes, they are.”

The incident under discussion appears to be at the Sports Drome in Grand Prairie, Texas, where Oswald supposedly engaged in target practice on November 9, 10 and 17, with someone handing Oswald his rifle over the fence on at least one occasion. Grand Prairie is the town where Michael Paine moved to after his break-up with Ruth.

This is classic CT innuendo. Michael did indeed rent an apartment in Grand Prairie. His job with Bell Helicopter was at 3255 S. Norwood Dr. in Hurst, Texas, just west of both Irving and Grand Prairie. His apartment was at 2377 Dalworth St., 12 miles from Bell. The Paine home was 15 miles from Bell, so he was three miles closer to his work while still near Ruth and his children. Highly suspicious – ya think?

What I find so intriguing about the reports by Johnny King and Robert Oswald is that a gun owner named Garland Slack reported that on November 17, 1963, a man who looked like Oswald was firing at his target at the Sports Drome. Slack reported that accompanying Oswald was a man identified as “Frazier, from Irving, Texas“.

You know from my original post how bogus this is. For starters, using the term “reports” in reference to King and Robert is, as you can see above, absurdly misleading.

You also know the “Frazier” story is a silly factoid. Garland Slack didn’t “report” this – he came up with it almost a year after the JFKA when his wife Lucille called him in the midst of a follow-up interview with the FBI. Garland had originally thought the real Oswald on TV was someone he recognized as a truck driver for the Dallas City Water Works. Lucille, who was with her husband the entire time – from noon to dark – saw no one who looked like Oswald but did recall the big guy (Murph) and thought he was alone (as he was). (Read Garland’s December 1 FBI interview – he gives an extremely more detailed description of Murph than of the supposed blond “Oswald.” Odd, no?)

When interviewed on December 1, Garland said the vehicle was an old “jalopy” but could remember nothing more. By the time of the newspaper article on December 10, it was “sand colored” and at least ten years old. Alas, this does not fit any of the Paine vehicles or Frazier’s black Chevrolet.

Simpich, for whom I have gradually lost all respect, is a fellow lawyer who unfortunately doesn’t even do paralegal-quality work when it comes to the JFKA. Why is this? Because he’s being driven by an obsessive, conspiracy-prone mindset and the facts are entirely secondary to the conspiracy narrative. He should be embarrassed.

Over the years I've pointed out to Simpich several of the mistakes he made in "State Secret," but when I last checked, he had yet to correct them.

He never has clarified that the "Byetkov" which he mentions in Chapter 5 of "State Secret" -- because James Angleton had mentioned "Byetkov?" on page 16 of his 19 June 1965 Church Committe testimony

https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=1447#relPageId=16&search=byetkov

(and referred to as "the other hangnail" in his 6 February 1975 testimony) -- was none other than KGB officer Ivan Obyedkov, the guy at the Soviet Embassy in Mexico City who "volunteered" to Oswald or "Oswald" on 10/1/63 over a sure-to-be-tapped-by-CIA phoneline the Department 13-radioactive name "Kostikov" -- which name had been made radioactive a year earlier by a Kremlin-loyal triple agent at the FBI's NYC field office by the name of KGB Major Aleksei Kulak -- J. Edgar Hoover's shielded-from-CIA FEDORA -- who duped the Bureau for fifteen years.

Which identity Simpich, in a Facebook private message, said he'd been trying to determine for a long time and which he congratulated me for finally figuring out.

[Lance Payette]

This will never end! Be sure to look for my forthcoming book, The Sportsdrome Gun Range: The Most Interesting Place in the World.

Actually, what follows is kind of interesting since it set me off on a previously unexplored tangent.

You would logically think that flocks of Oswald impersonators at the Gun Range would be right down John Armstrong’s Harvey & Lee alley – and you would be right! See https://harveyandlee.net/Patsy/The_Patsy.html.

In Armstrong’s theory, all the “Oswald” sightings were of LEE. His doppelganger HARVEY (Armstrong always capitalizes the names) was doing things like visiting the Paine home or hanging out at the rooming house.

As far as I can tell, Armstrong doesn’t deal with the issue as to whether LEE might have been expected to be more convincing than these “Oswald” sightings sound. A bulldogger hat with a big chaw of tobacco? A yellow snap-button Western shirt and wire-rim glasses? A flame-spewing rifle that Dr. Wood described as a “howitzer?” Well, perhaps.

He does deal with the big question as to what sense it would have made: “The conspirators were able to show that HARVEY had allegedly purchased a mail order rifle and, after repeated visits to the Sports Drome Rifle Range, was a very capable marksman.”

The conspirators took all these risks, with a LEE who doesn’t sound a whole lot like Oswald and a rifle that pretty much no one thought matched the assassination weapon, just to establish that HARVEY was a highly capable marksman? But wait, isn’t it Conspiracy Gospel that Oswald (oops, sorry – HARVEY) lacked the requisite skills and could not have accomplished the JFKA with his clunky Carcano? Perhaps they were just covering all bases. He could've done it, he couldn't have done it, whatever.

But wait, if the whole thing was a fraud, why not just dummy up an order for a more plausible assassination weapon in the first place, have LEE practice with it at the Gun Range while looking and sounding like HARVEY would have been expected to look and sound, and then plant it in the TSBD to frame HARVEY? Wouldn’t that be much less Three Stooges-like? Well, let’s not ask impertinent questions.

I will give Armstrong credit for one thing: He correctly has the first Price encounter on October 26, not September 28. He had been touting the September 28 date at conferences, but at least now the website has the correct date.

Armstrong just takes the sightings at face value, untroubled by the weirdness: Price saw LEE on October 26 driving a 1940 or 1941 Ford. On November 9, Price saw LEE in an old model Chevrolet and using a rifle on which all markings other than the serial number had been filed off, equipped with the clearest scope Price had ever seen. On November 10, Price saw LEE firing with a heavy-bore rifle and Slack tried several times to get him to participate in the turkey shoot contest. On November 16, Armstrong accurately describes the Woods’ sighting but repeats Dr. Wood’s version of how he and Sterling later recognized Oswald on TV (which was, of course, HARVEY) without noting that Sterling had a different version and Mrs. Wood didn’t confirm her husband’s version. On November 17, Price saw LEE and handled his “Mauser-type” military rifle with a Tascosa (Japanese) scope, on which Price could see nothing but a serial number. After Price had left, Slack complained to Floyd Davis that two young men, one in the booth occupied by LEE, were shooting at his targets.

The above is simply Armstrong’s reasonably accurate account. I am ignoring all the discrepancies and un-Oswald-like things that he ignores because you already know about them.

In short, Armstrong is simply hellbent to find LEE’s handlers setting up poor schmuck HARVEY anywhere and everywhere he can, without regard to whether it makes any sense or whether LEE sounds like a very convincing HARVEY.

But wait (did I already say that?), Greg Doudna, self-styled researcher extraordinaire, said at the Ed Forum, “On independent analysis it is clear he [i.e., “Oswald”] was gunsmith and gun dealer John Thomas Masen, who looked like Oswald, and was mistaken at the Rifle Range for Oswald.” (Greg just returned from a two-week suspension for insulting Nieder-wacky, so he’s OK in my book.)

OK, so who was John Thomas Masen and why did he arrive at the Gun Range in so many different vehicles looking so different each time?

Armstrong was aware of Masen – there is a thin file on him in the John Armstrong Collection at Baylor. More to the point, the FBI was very aware of him, too. I quote from Chapter 6 of the Final Report of the ARRB:

John Thomas Masen was a Dallas area gun dealer who was arrested on gun smuggling charges two days before the assassination of President Kennedy. During the fall of 1963, Masen supplied arms to the Directorio Revolucianario Estudiantial (DRE), an anti-Castro group based in Miami. The FBI interviewed Masen during the assassination investigation regarding allegations that he may have sold 6.5 mm Mannlicher-Carcano ammunition to Lee Harvey Oswald. Some researchers have alleged that Masen had connections to Oswald. The Review Board requested access to FBI files on John Thomas Masen from the following locations: Headquarters, San Antonio, Dallas, and Miami. The FBI reported that the Miami field office file had been destroyed, but the Review Board designated as assassination records the Headquarters, San Antonio, and Dallas field office files in their entirety. These files describe the FBI's investigation of Masen in 1963 and 1964, and his association with the DRE.

Wow, huh? I am not going very far down that rabbit hole, thank you, but you can read a breathlessly conspiratorial version of the story in a very long article in the Washington Post of August 7, 1994 by – wait for it – Ray and Mary La Fontaine, authors of the fabled (if that’s the word) Oswald Talked. No, really: https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/1994/08/07/the-fourth-tramp/1f58fbe9-a0fa-4fc2-8ebf-d62694845bbe/.

As far as the Sportsdrome Gun Range is concerned, I didn’t find anything to connect Masen to it – but maybe Doudna knows more than I do. The FBI’s contacts with him in reference to M-C ammunition are set forth in Commission Exhibit 2694, https://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh26/pdf/WH26_CE_2694.pdf.

On March 11, 1964, Masen told the FBI that he did sell 6.5 mm M-C ammunition at his gun shop at 7402 Harry Hines Blvd. (some seven miles from Oswald’s room on Beckley and almost ten miles from the Paine home). He did not recognize Oswald and said that people in the gun repair business typically used the Trinity River bottom to test fire guns. In fact, he said he did this “frequently.” The Sportsdrome was not mentioned. Masen said he obtained his M-C ammunition from a gun dealer named John Brinegar.

On March 12, the FBI interviewed Brinegar at his shop at 11448 Harry Hines Blvd. (some 15 miles from Beckley and 11 miles from the Paine home). Brinegar had been a gunsmith more than 30 years and was a fount of knowledge about the M-C rifle, which he said sold for $3 in lots of 75. He likewise mentioned the Trinity River bottom as a likely practice site; nothing was said about the Sportsdrome. He likewise didn’t recognize Oswald.

After contacting the Western Cartridge Company, the FBI did a telephone canvass and determined that Masen and Brinegar seemed to be the only sources of M-C ammunition in the Dallas area.

On March 24, Masen told the FBI that he had purchased ten boxes of military load M-C ammunition from Brinegar in early 1963 and had sold them to individuals. He had purchased another ten boxes in the summer of 1963 in anticipation of deer-hunting season and had reloaded them with hunting loads and lead bullets; he still had two boxes. He again denied any knowledge of Oswald.

On March 26, Brinegar confirmed Masen’s story with the exception of saying that he had traded him the second ten boxes. Brinegar had likewise reloaded some of the M-C ammunition in anticipation of hunting season. He again denied any knowledge of Oswald.

The FBI took samples from both Masen and Brinegar – the hunting load from Masen, the military load from Brinegar – and these were determined not to match the assassination shells. (Masen’s and Brinegar’s interviews do suggest that finding 71 M-C shells at the Gun Range may not have been particularly unusual since it was a popular hunting round.)

Once again, you will be staggered by the amount of work the FBI did. Look at their efforts as set forth in CE 2694 to investigate the Trinity River bottom.

In Dick Russell’s The Man Who Knew Too Much, Masen is described as a “dead ringer” for Oswald and his “identical twin.” To me, he looks like Oswald in the same way that every guy with the same general features looks like Oswald, but you can be the judge: https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=16244#relPageId=43.

My question remains: What reason, if any, is there to connect him to the Sportsdrome?

[Lance Payette]

I forgot to mention: It's easy to picture Price as an old fart since all he seemed to do was hang around the gun range. He was 35!

He died at 48 in 1976: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/26533217/malcolm-howard-price.

Toothless Garland Slack was 59. He got his own age wrong at the WC, first saying he was 59 and then correcting himself to say he was 58 and would be 59 on May 4, 1964. No, he was 59 and would be 60.

Slack died at age 74, following an auto accident, in 1978: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/144382944/garland-glenwill-slack.

Some conspiracy sites describe Garland as a "prime suspect" in the assassination itself.

[Tom Graves]

I forgot to mention: It's easy to picture Price as an old fart since all he seemed to do was hang around the gun range. He was 35!

He died at 48 in 1976: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/26533217/malcolm-howard-price.

Toothless Garland Slack was 59. He got his own age wrong at the WC, first saying he was 59 and then correcting himself to say he was 58 and would be 59 on May 4, 1964. No, he was 59 and would be 60.

Slack died at age 74, following an auto accident, in 1978: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/144382944/garland-glenwill-slack.

Some conspiracy sites describe Garland as a "prime suspect" in the assassination itself.

Why do you keep mentioning that Slack was tootless?

[Lance Payette]

Why do you keep mentioning that Slack was tootless?

Golly, did I strike a nerve?  I find it his most endearing quality. Anyway, it's right on his tombstone: "He was toothless and nuttier than a fruitcake, but he was our Dad and we liked him."

Which reminds me of a great quote from a Hell's Angels book I once read. One of the Hell's Angels' badass mamas was completely toothless but told the author, "I may be ugly as hell, but I can suck the chrome off a bumper."