The Brown Paper Bag

[Michael Capasse]

  Still, no reason to think the rifle was ever broken down and put into that bag.

[John Corbett]

Still, no reason to think the rifle was ever broken down and put into that bag.

No reason? Seriously? If you were Oswald and you had made a 38 inch bag to conceal your rifle and then discovered your rifle was 40 inches long, not the 36 inch rifle you had ordered, what would you do at that point?

We know for fact that the rifle had been disassembled and handled by Oswald because that is the only way his palm print could have been placed on the underside of the barrel. Oswald's palmprints were on both the rifle and the bag, proof positive that he had handled both. The presence of the fibers on the bag that matched his rifle blanket are prima facie evidence that the bag was used to hold the rifle.

Conspiracy hobbyists taken the ridiculous position that every piece of evidence must be 100% conclusive to be probative and accepted. That is absurd not just in this case but in all cases. Prosecutors base their cases on an accumulation of evidence that is probative but rarely 100% conclusive by itself. There will always be possible alternative explanations for any given piece of evidence but that does not take away from the probative value of the evidence.

I haven't bothered to count them but Vincent Bugliosi identified over 50 pieces of evidence that indicated Oswald was the assassin. Not one of these pieces of evidence is conclusive by itself of Oswald's guilt, but taken collectively, they leave no doubt. When the most likely explanation for any one piece of evidence is that Oswald is guilty, there is no reasonable argument for his innocence when you have that many pieces pointing to his guilt.

In the past, I've drawn an analogy to a jigsaw puzzle. No one piece of the puzzle can tell us what the picture looks like, but the pieces of the puzzle can only fit together one way. When we put the pieces of evidence together, the picture unmistakenly presented is that Oswald was the assassin. It is the only way the individual pieces will fit together. We might have a few missing pieces, such as where to the missed shot go and what did it hit. The biggest missing piece is Oswald's motive. That we will never know for sure, but we can still get a very clear picture of what happened without that piece. Conspiracy hobbyists never want to put the pieces of the puzzle together. They look at one piece and say it doesn't look like anything. Of course it doesn't until you put it together with the other pieces and then the picture becomes crystal clear.

[Michael Capasse]

No reason? Seriously? If you were Oswald and you had made a 38 inch bag to conceal your rifle and then discovered your rifle was 40 inches long, not the 36 inch rifle you had ordered, what would you do at that point?

We know for fact that the rifle had been disassembled and handled by Oswald because that is the only way his palm print could have been placed on the underside of the barrel. Oswald's palmprints were on both the rifle and the bag, proof positive that he had handled both. The presence of the fibers on the bag that matched his rifle blanket are prima facie evidence that the bag was used to hold the rifle.

Conspiracy hobbyists taken the ridiculous position that every piece of evidence must be 100% conclusive to be probative and accepted. That is absurd not just in this case but in all cases. Prosecutors base their cases on an accumulation of evidence that is probative but rarely 100% conclusive by itself. There will always be possible alternative explanations for any given piece of evidence but that does not take away from the probative value of the evidence.

I haven't bothered to count them but Vincent Bugliosi identified over 50 pieces of evidence that indicated Oswald was the assassin. Not one of these pieces of evidence is conclusive by itself of Oswald's guilt, but taken collectively, they leave no doubt. When the most likely explanation for any one piece of evidence is that Oswald is guilty, there is no reasonable argument for his innocence when you have that many pieces pointing to his guilt.

In the past, I've drawn an analogy to a jigsaw puzzle. No one piece of the puzzle can tell us what the picture looks like, but the pieces of the puzzle can only fit together one way. When we put the pieces of evidence together, the picture unmistakenly presented is that Oswald was the assassin. It is the only way the individual pieces will fit together. We might have a few missing pieces, such as where to the missed shot go and what did it hit. The biggest missing piece is Oswald's motive. That we will never know for sure, but we can still get a very clear picture of what happened without that piece. Conspiracy hobbyists never want to put the pieces of the puzzle together. They look at one piece and say it doesn't look like anything. Of course it doesn't until you put it together with the other pieces and then the picture becomes crystal clear.

Blah Blah Blah.
There is no mistaking this rifle for curtain rods and there is no way to carry it without looking like a fishing pole, baseball bat or a RIFLE.
Frazier did not see a rifle.

[John Corbett]

Blah Blah Blah.
There is no mistaking this rifle for curtain rods and there is no way to carry it without looking like a fishing pole, baseball bat or a RIFLE.
Frazier did not see a rifle.

Of course Frazier did not see a rifle. That's why Oswald made the bag so neither Frazier nor anybody else could see the rifle. Did you really need me to explain this to you.

[Michael Capasse]

Of course Frazier did not see a rifle. That's why Oswald made the bag so neither Frazier nor anybody else could see the rifle. Did you really need me to explain this to you.

The rifle will not fit under his arm.
  Did you really need me to explain this to you?

[Martin Weidmann]

No reason? Seriously? If you were Oswald and you had made a 38 inch bag to conceal your rifle and then discovered your rifle was 40 inches long, not the 36 inch rifle you had ordered, what would you do at that point?

We know for fact that the rifle had been disassembled and handled by Oswald because that is the only way his palm print could have been placed on the underside of the barrel. Oswald's palmprints were on both the rifle and the bag, proof positive that he had handled both. The presence of the fibers on the bag that matched his rifle blanket are prima facie evidence that the bag was used to hold the rifle.

Conspiracy hobbyists taken the ridiculous position that every piece of evidence must be 100% conclusive to be probative and accepted. That is absurd not just in this case but in all cases. Prosecutors base their cases on an accumulation of evidence that is probative but rarely 100% conclusive by itself. There will always be possible alternative explanations for any given piece of evidence but that does not take away from the probative value of the evidence.

I haven't bothered to count them but Vincent Bugliosi identified over 50 pieces of evidence that indicated Oswald was the assassin. Not one of these pieces of evidence is conclusive by itself of Oswald's guilt, but taken collectively, they leave no doubt. When the most likely explanation for any one piece of evidence is that Oswald is guilty, there is no reasonable argument for his innocence when you have that many pieces pointing to his guilt.

In the past, I've drawn an analogy to a jigsaw puzzle. No one piece of the puzzle can tell us what the picture looks like, but the pieces of the puzzle can only fit together one way. When we put the pieces of evidence together, the picture unmistakenly presented is that Oswald was the assassin. It is the only way the individual pieces will fit together. We might have a few missing pieces, such as where to the missed shot go and what did it hit. The biggest missing piece is Oswald's motive. That we will never know for sure, but we can still get a very clear picture of what happened without that piece. Conspiracy hobbyists never want to put the pieces of the puzzle together. They look at one piece and say it doesn't look like anything. Of course it doesn't until you put it together with the other pieces and then the picture becomes crystal clear.

The presence of the fibers on the bag that matched his rifle blanket are prima facie evidence that the bag was used to hold the rifle.

This is probably the best reason to not engage any further with this guy. Recently he has been schooled several times about the fact that it is not possible to match fibers with a particular item. Even worse, he has been shown an evidence photo showing the bag and the blanket next to each other with a high risk of cross contamination. And yet, still here he is again spewing the same old crap again.

I get it! I really do! His bible, the WC report tells him that fibers found on or in the bag matched the blanket from Ruth Paine's garage, so he has no choice. He has to blindly accept and follow what the cult book tells him. No sign of an independent or original thought, no critical thinking, just regurgitating the same BS over and over again.

Trying to have a normal conversation with this guy is a complete waste of time.

[Tom Graves]

I see you are running away as fast as you can from the white/grey jacket questions.

Roberts was obviously wrong about the shade of the jacket, but she was undoubtedly correct when she said Oswald was zipping it up when he left the rooming house.

Two men who saw a man walking towards the Tippit murder scene shortly before it happened said the man was wearing a light-colored jacket.

ME: Did anyone say that the man who was seen walking in the direction of the Tippit murder before it happened was wearing a jacket?

GROK: Yes, at least two witnesses—Jimmy Earl Burt (also referred to as Jimmy Burke in some accounts) and William Arthur Smith—described seeing a man walking west on East 10th Street toward Patton Avenue shortly before the Tippit shooting, and both noted he was wearing a jacket.

Jimmy Earl Burt (interviewed by FBI on December 16, 1963): He saw a white male, approximately 5'8", walking west on 10th Street. The man was wearing a light-colored short jacket. Burt observed him continue toward Patton, approach Tippit’s car, and later flee after the shooting. He was 50–60 yards away at the closest point.

William Arthur Smith (interviewed by FBI on December 13, 1963; with Burt at the time on a porch at ~505 E. 10th): He described the same man as a white male, about 5'7"–5'8", 20–25 years old, 150–160 lbs., wearing a white shirt, light brown jacket, and dark pants. Smith also saw the interaction with Tippit and the shooting.

These accounts place the man walking west (opposite the Warren Commission’s preferred eastbound narrative, which relied heavily on Helen Markham). Both men withheld initial statements from police due to personal legal issues (Burt was AWOL from the Army; Smith on probation), but their FBI interviews provide consistent pre-shooting clothing details matching the general description of the light/grayish zipper-style Eisenhower jacket later found and linked to the case.

Context with Other Witnesses

Helen Markham (the main Warren Commission witness for the shooting itself) saw the man walking and described a light short jacket, open in front, grayish tan during the incident.

Domingo Benavides (closest witness) saw the shooter post-incident wearing a light-beige, lightweight zipper-type jacket similar to the one recovered (CE 162).

These pre- and immediate post-shooting jacket descriptions align with the gray zipper jacket found in a parking lot along the escape route (linked via fibers to Oswald’s shirt), though debates persist over exact color, fit, origin, and whether it definitively belonged to the shooter or Oswald. Witnesses like Burt and Smith provide direct evidence of a jacket on the walking man before the confrontation.

This comes from FBI interviews, Warren Commission materials, and analyses of Tippit case evidence. Discrepancies in direction, timing, and descriptions have fueled ongoing discussion.

ME: How does researcher Bill Brown, who believes Oswald was the man that Earl Burt and Jimmy Burke saw, explain the fact that they saw him walking in a direction that contradicted the Warren Commission's determination?

GROK: Bill Brown (a prominent lone-assassin researcher and frequent poster on JFK assassination forums like The Education Forum) reconciles the westbound sighting by Jimmy Earl Burt (aka Jimmy Burke) and William Arthur Smith with Oswald as the shooter through a detailed timeline reconstruction involving a brief reversal of direction by Oswald.

Brown accepts Burt and Smith’s FBI interviews and later statements (e.g., Burt’s 1968 interview with Al Chapman) as credible: from their porch at the northeast corner of 10th and Denver (~two blocks east of Patton), they saw a man (whom Brown identifies as Oswald) walking west on East 10th Street, crossing Denver, and continuing west toward Patton shortly before Tippit’s car pulled alongside him. Gunshots followed moments later.

To explain why this westbound observation contradicts the Warren Commission’s eastbound narrative (primarily based on Helen Markham’s account of the man approaching from the west/east on 10th before the stop), Brown proposes—and supports with on-site time trials (conducted May 4, 2024, with researchers Frank Badalson and Dave Ledbetter)—that Oswald did not walk a straight east-to-west path the entire way:

Oswald reached the 10th Street area and continued east past Denver toward the curve in 10th Street near Jefferson.

Near 10th and Jefferson, he spotted Sheriff’s Deputy Unit 109 (or another law-enforcement vehicle) and reversed direction, turning around and walking west back toward Patton.

Burt and Smith observed this westbound leg (after the U-turn).

Tippit, driving west on 10th, then pulled over and confronted him near 10th and Patton while Oswald was still heading west.

Brown’s time trials demonstrate this fits the overall timeline: e.g., walking east from the shooting site (10th/Patton) to the curve beyond Denver and back takes ~4 minutes 16 seconds total, placing Oswald at the confrontation around 1:15:16 p.m. (consistent with other evidence). It also aligns with Burt/Smith’s post-shooting movements (running to the scene then pursuing south on Patton and west into the alley, seeing the fleeing man near the Texaco station where the jacket was found).

In Brown’s view, this minor adjustment (a short east-then-west jog prompted by spotting police) explains the pre-shooting westbound descriptions from Burt, Smith, and others (e.g., bricklayers at 500 E. 10th) without requiring Oswald to have originated from farther east (like Marsalis, which would break the timing). It preserves Oswald as the man they saw and the shooter, while treating the Warren Commission’s eastbound emphasis as an oversimplification based on incomplete witness weighting rather than a fatal contradiction.

Brown has elaborated on these points across multiple Education Forum threads (often in response to conspiracy-oriented critiques), emphasizing witness consistency on the westbound sighting when paired with his reconstructed timeline. He contrasts this with what he sees as flawed conspiracy arguments that treat the direction discrepancy as proof of a second gunman or frame-up.


Question: When Oswald was arrested in the Texas Theater, why wasn't he wearing the jacket that Roberts saw him zipping up about half-an-hour earlier?

Answer: He tossed it under 1954 Oldsmobile about two blocks from where he'd murdered Tippit.

What evidence in de Tippit case are you talking about?

All of the evidence that you think (sic) were either really weird coincidences or fabricated and planted by the evil, evil bad guys.

[John Corbett]

The rifle will not fit under his arm.
  Did you really need me to explain this to you?

Only Frazier said the package did fit under his arm. Eyewitness accounts are notoriously unreliable and do not establish anything as a fact. At the time he observed it, he had no reason to make a mental note whether the package fit under Oswald's arm or if it was up above his shoulder. It wouldn't have seemed the least bit important to him at the time. Why do you put so much faith in Frazier's accoun?