The Brown Paper Bag

[Michael Capasse]

IOW, you have no response. You have no means to prove that Frazier's recollections about the length of the bag and how Oswald carried it are precise.

Why don't you just admit that and we can move on.

  I believe what he said. - He knows what he saw.
Here is a picture of him demonstrating exactly what he saw.



You weren't there. He was.

[Martin Weidmann]

This is the whole point. Eye and ear witnesses are not a reliable way to establish facts. We KNOW that witnesses often get important details wrong. They don't get everything wrong and they can be useful in the gathering of information but it is foolish to accept their statements as factual without corroboration. I am always suspect of any statement that starts out "So-and-so said that..." because without corroboration there is no way to tell for sure if so-and-so is right. In a situation where a witness tells us something that contradicts the forensic evidence, I'm going with the forensic evidence every time.

I've never said we should write of witness statements. I'm saying we need to determine if what a witness tells us can be corroborated or refuted by other evidence. In this case both Frazier and Randle are refuted by the forensic evidence because the bag was found and measured to be 38 inches long, plenty long enough to hole the 34.8 inch stock. Are we supposed to believe that Oswald brought two bags into the TSBD, the one Frazier and Randle saw and the other one next to the sniper's nest? If you choose to believe that, then we still have the means for Oswald to have smuggled his rifle into the TSBD. I find it far more likely that the two bags were one and the same but if you think it is more likely that Oswald brought two different bags into the TSBD at two different times then that's an argument you need to make.

He SAID Oswald carried it under his armpit. That doesn't establish that Oswald carried it under his armpit. I will never understand why people choose to put absolute faith in an eyewitness statement that isn't corroborated by physical evidence and in this case is refuted by it.

It puts no such limit on the objects in the bag unless you can prove Frazier's and Randle's memories and estimates are accurate. Do you have any such proof.
If one witness can be wrong about something then two people can be wrong. In the case of the earwitnesses in Dealey Plaza, we have two groups which gave mutually exclusive descriptions of where the shots originated from. One group or the other had to be wrong so we have an instance in which a whole lot of people got something very important very wrong. 
Your argument presumes to know at what level Oswald's hand was at when he was holding the bag. Do you have such knowledge? It would make a big deal of difference whether his hand was at waist height, chest height, or somewhere in between.
Why would you second guess Oswald's choice when what he did worked?
Tell us why it isn't possible.

I've never said we should write of witness statements. I'm saying we need to determine if what a witness tells us can be corroborated or refuted by other evidence. In this case both Frazier and Randle are refuted by the forensic evidence because the bag was found and measured to be 38 inches long, plenty long enough to hole the 34.8 inch stock.

This is just about the most stupid statement I've seen you make so far. You have no evidence whatsoever that the bag found on the 6th floor ever left the TSBD, ever held a broken down rifle (an FBI export could find no markings in the bag that would be expected to be there if a broken down rifle had been in it) or that Oswald carried that bag on Friday morning. All you have are self-serving assumptions you call "forensic evidence". You do understand that with enough assumptions you can make anybody look guilty of anything, right.

So why don't you stop assuming and get back to us when you have some actual proof that the bag found on the 6th floor was indeed the bag Oswald was carrying (between the cup of his hand and his armpit) on Friday morning. This LN crap is getting so tiresome!

Randle corroborates Frazier when it comes to the maximum size of the bag. Accept it and get over it!

[Bill Brown]

Randle corroborates Frazier when it comes to the maximum size of the bag. Accept it and get over it!

For what it's worth, there certainly is an FBI report which states that Linnie Mae Randle originally stated (on the afternoon of the assassination) that the bag she saw Oswald carry that morning was 36 inches long.

[John Corbett]

I've never said we should write of witness statements. I'm saying we need to determine if what a witness tells us can be corroborated or refuted by other evidence. In this case both Frazier and Randle are refuted by the forensic evidence because the bag was found and measured to be 38 inches long, plenty long enough to hole the 34.8 inch stock.

This is just about the most stupid statement I've seen you make so far. You have no evidence whatsoever that the bag found on the 6th floor ever left the TSBD, ever held a broken down rifle (an FBI export could find no markings in the bag that would expected to be there is a broken down rifle had been in it) or that Oswald carried that bag on Friday morning. All you have are self-serving assumptions that you call "forensic evidence". You do understand that with enough assumptions you can make anybody look guilty of anything, right.

No evidence? Seriously? How do you suppose the bag contained Oswald's prints and fibers matching the blanket Oswald used to store his rifle in the Paine garage. Maybe it was by PFM (Pure Freaking Magic)

So why don't you stop assuming and get back to us when you have some actual proof that the bag found on the 6th floor was indeed the bag Oswald was carrying (between the cup of his hand and his armpit) on Friday morning. This LN crap is getting so tiresome!

Absolute proof is not available nor does it need to be in order to be probative. Oswald carrying the rifle into the TSBD in the bag Frazier and Randle saw him with is simply far and away the most likely explanation and fits perfectly with all the other available evidence pointing to Oswald as the assassin. The rifle found on the 6th floor was probably his. It was matched to the shells in the sniper's nest and the only two recovered bullets from the shooting to the exclusion of all other weapons in the world. Oswald's palm and fingerprints were found on the boxes at the window where a shooter was seen. To believe Oswald brought his rifle into work that morning in the brown paper bag Frazier saw him with, I only have to believe that both Frazier and Randle misjudged the length of the bag, which is not a stretch at all. It's the kind of mistake witnesses routinely make. People simply aren't that observant about details and our brains are not equipped with DVRs.

Randle corroborates Frazier when it comes to the maximum size of the bag. Accept it and get over it!

One fallible witness is not much corroboration for another fallible witness.

[Martin Weidmann]

For what it's worth, there certainly is an FBI report which states that Linnie Mae Randle originally stated (on the afternoon of the assassination) that the bag she saw Oswald carry that morning was 36 inches long.

It isn't worth much.

Indeed there is. Bookhout wrote the FD 302 for internal use. Randle never saw it and it can hardly be described as evidence.
But even if it could be considered to be evidence, it contradicts all other statements Randle ever made and it's only mentioning an estimation.

Isn't the LN clan allergic to estimates?

There is no way a 36 inch bag would fit between Oswald armpit and the cup of his hand, and it would have been impossible to be carried they way Randle described and not hit the ground.

You're flogging a dead horse.

[Martin Weidmann]

No evidence? Seriously? How do you suppose the bag contained Oswald's prints and fibers matching the blanket Oswald used to store his rifle in the Paine garage. Maybe it was by PFM (Pure Freaking Magic)

Absolute proof is not available nor does it need to be in order to be probative. Oswald carrying the rifle into the TSBD in the bag Frazier and Randle saw him with is simply far and away the most likely explanation and fits perfectly with all the other available evidence pointing to Oswald as the assassin. The rifle found on the 6th floor was probably his. It was matched to the shells in the sniper's nest and the only two recovered bullets from the shooting to the exclusion of all other weapons in the world. Oswald's palm and fingerprints were found on the boxes at the window where a shooter was seen. To believe Oswald brought his rifle into work that morning in the brown paper bag Frazier saw him with, I only have to believe that both Frazier and Randle misjudged the length of the bag, which is not a stretch at all. It's the kind of mistake witnesses routinely make. People simply aren't that observant about details and our brains are not equipped with DVRs.
One fallible witness is not much corroboration for another fallible witness.

No evidence? Seriously? How do you suppose the bag contained Oswald's prints and fibers matching the blanket Oswald used to store his rifle in the Paine garage. Maybe it was by PFM (Pure Freaking Magic)

This has already been explained to you. Oswald's print on a bag made in the TSBD, found in the TSBD, on the floor where Oswald worked isn't remarkable at all. There are all sorts of ways his print could have gotten on that bag.

No matter how often you keep making this bogus claim, there are no fibers found in the bag that matched anything. At best the fibers are similar. And those fibers could easily have gotten on and in the bag as evidence photos show the bag and the blanket lying direct next to eachother at the DPD and at the FBI Lab. Only the possibility of cross contamination makes all this fiber nonsense obsolete and invalid.

As for Oswald using the blanket to store "his rifle" in Ruth Paine's garage, there isn't a shred off evidence for that at all. All we really know is that Marina said she looked in the blanket about a week after coming back from New Orleans and saw the wooden stock of a rifle. That was in late September 1963. Since then nobody has seen any rifle in Ruth Paine's garage.

You talk about it being magic, but in fact it is pure imagination on your part.

So, here's a question for you. Let's see if you can imagine an answer. When Oswald allegedly took a rifle to New Orleans by public transport nobody saw the damned thing. Considering he had allegedly just tried to kill General Walker with that rifle, taking it with him would have been a massive risk.

Now, we are to believe that when Ruth Paine, who wanted nothing to do with weapons, picked up Marina, in New Orleans, Oswald just wrapped a rifle in a blanket and put it in the back of Ruth's car, giving up total control over the weapon and risking that Ruth Paine would find the rifle. But that's not all, because enter Michael Paine, who said he took the blanket out of the car without noticing there was a rifle in it. He also said he had moved the package several times and never noticed anything wrong. He just thought that it was camping equipment. Yeah right! Years later Paine confirmed that he had seen Oswald with a rifle at Neely Street. So, he claims to have known that Oswald had a rifle yet he couldn't figure out that it might not be camping equipment in the blanket after all.

Absolute proof is not available nor does it need to be in order to be probative. Oswald carrying the rifle into the TSBD in the bag Frazier and Randle saw him with is simply far and away the most likely explanation and fits perfectly with all the other available evidence pointing to Oswald as the assassin. The rifle found on the 6th floor was probably his. It was matched to the shells in the sniper's nest and the only two recovered bullets from the shooting to the exclusion of all other weapons in the world. Oswald's palm and fingerprints were found on the boxes at the window where a shooter was seen. To believe Oswald brought his rifle into work that morning in the brown paper bag Frazier saw him with, I only have to believe that both Frazier and Randle misjudged the length of the bag, which is not a stretch at all. It's the kind of mistake witnesses routinely make. People simply aren't that observant about details and our brains are not equipped with DVRs.
One fallible witness is not much corroboration for another fallible witness.

Oh please... enough with the crappy story. There is no evidence that Oswald carried a rifle into the TSBD, regardless of what you think is the most likely explanation.

The rifle found on the 6th floor was probably his.

Hilarious! Now you don't even know for sure it it was Oswald's rifle. HAHAHAHAHAHA

To believe Oswald brought his rifle into work that morning in the brown paper bag Frazier saw him with, I only have to believe that both Frazier and Randle misjudged the length of the bag, which is not a stretch at all.

You can believe all you want, but when you have two witnesses who corroborate eachother, not on size estimates, but on the maximum size that package could be for it to be carried in the way they had seen it being carried, you need for more that assumption and what you believe.

And not the only thing you have to believe.

You need to believe there was a rifle stored in Ruth Paine's garage om 11/22/63
You need to believe that Oswald carried that rifle in a - according to Frazier - flimsy supermarkt bag that was too small to fit the broken down rifle
You need to believe that Frazier and Randle were wrong about the way they saw Oswald carry the parcel he had with him.

And all this believing doesn't give you an iota of evidence or proof. If you want to believe something, go to church!

One fallible witness is not much corroboration for another fallible witness.

They are only fallible in your biased mind, because you need them to be!

[John Corbett]

I believe what he said. - He knows what he saw.
Here is a picture of him demonstrating exactly what he saw.



You weren't there. He was.

I didn't ask if you believe Frazier. My question was why you believe him. How can you be sure Frazier got this detail right? What sets Frazier apart that makes his recollections more credible than eyewitnesses as a whole?

[John Corbett]

I've never said we should write of witness statements. I'm saying we need to determine if what a witness tells us can be corroborated or refuted by other evidence. In this case both Frazier and Randle are refuted by the forensic evidence because the bag was found and measured to be 38 inches long, plenty long enough to hole the 34.8 inch stock.

This is just about the most stupid statement I've seen you make so far.

You say that about most of the things I write.

[qiuote]

You have no evidence whatsoever that the bag found on the 6th floor ever left the TSBD, ever held a broken down rifle (an FBI export could find no markings in the bag that would be expected to be there if a broken down rifle had been in it) or that Oswald carried that bag on Friday morning. All you have are self-serving assumptions you call "forensic evidence". You do understand that with enough assumptions you can make anybody look guilty of anything, right.
[/quote}

The choice seems to be whether Oswald carried one bag into the TSBD that morning and Frazier simply misjudged the length of the bag
                                                                               or
Frazier brought a bag about 2 feet long into the TSBD that morning which disappeared without a trace and at some other time, Oswald carried a 38 inch long bag in the TSBD which was long enough to hold the disassembled rifle and had Oswald's prints on it and fibers matching the blanket Oswald used to wrap his rifle in when it was in the Paine's garage. If you offered that choice to 100 people, you'd be lucky to find two who believed the latter.

So why don't you stop assuming and get back to us when you have some actual proof that the bag found on the 6th floor was indeed the bag Oswald was carrying (between the cup of his hand and his armpit) on Friday morning. This LN crap is getting so tiresome!

As I've told you before, the proof is in the entire body of evidence, not treating the bag as a standalone piece of evidence. The explanation that Oswald brought his rifle into the TSBD that morning in the bag Frazier saw dovetails with all the other evidence that indicates Oswald was the shooter. His rifle was the murder weapon. It had his palm print on it. It had fibers matching the shirt he wore that day on the butt plate of the rifle. The rifle was positively matched to the 3 shells in the sniper's nest and the two recovered bullets. Following the assassination, Oswald fled from his workplace, returned to his rooming house to fetch his revolver, shot and killed a cop about 45 minutes after the assassination, fled from that scene and was arrested a short time later in a theater a short distance from the scene of the cop killing with the murder weapon in his possession as well as the same two makes of bullets recovered from the dead cop's body. If you can come up with a plausible explanation for the above evidence that doesn't have Oswald as a double murderer, I'd love to hear it. I've asked that of more conspiracy hobbyists than I can count over the past 35 years and not one has even attempted to offer an alternative explanation that is the least bit plausible. It's easy to offer a plausible alternative for any one piece of evidence which is why the conspiracy hobbyists almost always resort to that ploy. It's impossible to come with a plausible explanation for the entire body of evidence other than the one the WC gave us. I'll predict right now, you won't even try. Prove me wrong.

Randle corroborates Frazier when it comes to the maximum size of the bag. Accept it and get over it!

That's nice but two people can be wrong about a detail just as easily as one can, especially when they live together and have had ample time to discuss what it is they saw. According to FBI Special Agent Bookhout's report of 11/23/63, Randle's estimate of the size of the bag was 3 feet by 6 inches. When testifying before the WC, she indicated Oswald was gripping the bag near the top with part of if folded over his grip. If Oswald's right hand was at the mid-thigh level, there would have to be about 30 inches below the grip to be almost touching the ground. if we add the 30 inches to the amount of the bag that was in his hand and the amount of the bag that was folded over, we are pretty close to 38 inches which was the length of the bag in the TSBD.