Twenty points of evidence indicating LHO killed JFK

[Tom Graves]

ME: Please list twenty points of evidence that indicate Lee Harvey Oswald killed JFK.

GROK: Here are twenty points of evidence, drawn from the official findings of the Warren Commission, FBI investigations, and supporting forensic and ballistic analyses, that indicate Lee Harvey Oswald assassinated President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963.

1) Oswald purchased the 6.5 mm Mannlicher-Carcano rifle (the identified murder weapon) by mail order on March 12, 1963, using the alias “A. Hidell.”

2) Handwriting analysis confirmed that the mail-order coupon and related forms for the rifle were written by Oswald.

3) The rifle was shipped to Post Office Box 2915 in Dallas, which was rented in Oswald’s name.

4) Oswald’s palm print was found on the barrel of the rifle in a position consistent with it having been disassembled.

5) Microscopic fibers recovered from the rifle matched the shirt Oswald was wearing when arrested on November 22.

6) A photograph taken by Marina Oswald in the backyard of their Dallas home in March 1963 showed Oswald holding the same rifle (and the pistol later used to kill Officer Tippit).

7) The rifle remained in Oswald’s possession and among his personal belongings from purchase until the day of the assassination.

8 ) On the morning of November 22, Oswald carried a long, heavy package wrapped in brown paper into the Texas School Book Depository (TSBD), telling a coworker it contained “curtain rods.”

9) A brown paper bag, matching the size and description of the package Oswald carried, was found near the sixth-floor sniper’s nest; it bore Oswald’s fingerprint and palm print on the inside.

10) Oswald’s fingerprints and palm prints were found on cardboard boxes stacked as a gun rest in the southeast corner window of the sixth floor (the sniper’s nest).

11) Oswald was seen by a coworker in the vicinity of the sixth-floor southeast corner window approximately 35 minutes before the motorcade passed.

12) Three spent cartridge cases recovered from the sniper’s nest were fired from Oswald’s Mannlicher-Carcano rifle to the exclusion of all other weapons.

13) The nearly whole bullet found on Governor Connally’s stretcher (CE 399) and two large bullet fragments recovered from the presidential limousine were ballistically matched to Oswald’s rifle.

14) Eyewitness Howard Brennan observed a man matching Oswald’s description firing a rifle from the sixth-floor window and later identified him in a police lineup.

15) Oswald was the only TSBD employee unaccounted for immediately after the shooting; he left the building within minutes and was never seen inside again.

16) Roughly 45 minutes after the assassination, Oswald shot and killed Dallas Police Officer J.D. Tippit with four shots at close range.

17) The .38-caliber Smith & Wesson revolver used to kill Officer Tippit had been purchased by Oswald under the same alias “A. Hidell” and was in his possession when arrested.

18) Four cartridge cases found at the Tippit murder scene were ballistically matched to the revolver recovered from Oswald.

19) The same Mannlicher-Carcano rifle had been used by Oswald in an unsuccessful attempt to assassinate retired General Edwin Walker in Dallas on April 10, 1963; a bullet recovered from that scene was later matched to the rifle.

20) Oswald’s post-assassination behavior—leaving the TSBD, going to his rooming house to retrieve the revolver, shooting Tippit while fleeing, and resisting arrest—aligns with the actions of the shooter attempting to escape.

These points collectively formed the basis for the Warren Commission’s conclusion (and the FBI’s independent finding) that Oswald fired the shots that killed President Kennedy and wounded Governor Connally from the sixth floor of the TSBD, acting alone.

Subsequent reviews, including by the House Select Committee on Assassinations, reaffirmed the physical and ballistic links to Oswald while examining (and ultimately finding insufficient evidence for) any broader conspiracy.

[John Mytton]

ME: Please list twenty points of evidence that indicate Lee Harvey Oswald killed JFK.

GROK: Here are twenty points of evidence, drawn from the official findings of the Warren Commission, FBI investigations, and supporting forensic and ballistic analyses, that indicate Lee Harvey Oswald assassinated President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963.

1) Oswald purchased the 6.5 mm Mannlicher-Carcano rifle (the identified murder weapon) by mail order on March 12, 1963, using the alias “A. Hidell.”

2) Handwriting analysis confirmed that the mail-order coupon and related forms for the rifle were written by Oswald.

3) The rifle was shipped to Post Office Box 2915 in Dallas, which was rented in Oswald’s name.

4) Oswald’s palm print was found on the barrel of the rifle in a position consistent with it having been disassembled.

5) Microscopic fibers recovered from the rifle matched the shirt Oswald was wearing when arrested on November 22.

6) A photograph taken by Marina Oswald in the backyard of their Dallas home in March 1963 showed Oswald holding the same rifle (and the pistol later used to kill Officer Tippit).

7) The rifle remained in Oswald’s possession and among his personal belongings from purchase until the day of the assassination.

8 ) On the morning of November 22, Oswald carried a long, heavy package wrapped in brown paper into the Texas School Book Depository (TSBD), telling a coworker it contained “curtain rods.”

9) A brown paper bag, matching the size and description of the package Oswald carried, was found near the sixth-floor sniper’s nest; it bore Oswald’s fingerprint and palm print on the inside.

10) Oswald’s fingerprints and palm prints were found on cardboard boxes stacked as a gun rest in the southeast corner window of the sixth floor (the sniper’s nest).

11) Oswald was seen by a coworker in the vicinity of the sixth-floor southeast corner window approximately 35 minutes before the motorcade passed.

12) Three spent cartridge cases recovered from the sniper’s nest were fired from Oswald’s Mannlicher-Carcano rifle to the exclusion of all other weapons.

13) The nearly whole bullet found on Governor Connally’s stretcher (CE 399) and two large bullet fragments recovered from the presidential limousine were ballistically matched to Oswald’s rifle.

14) Eyewitness Howard Brennan observed a man matching Oswald’s description firing a rifle from the sixth-floor window and later identified him in a police lineup.

15) Oswald was the only TSBD employee unaccounted for immediately after the shooting; he left the building within minutes and was never seen inside again.

16) Roughly 45 minutes after the assassination, Oswald shot and killed Dallas Police Officer J.D. Tippit with four shots at close range.

17) The .38-caliber Smith & Wesson revolver used to kill Officer Tippit had been purchased by Oswald under the same alias “A. Hidell” and was in his possession when arrested.

18) Four cartridge cases found at the Tippit murder scene were ballistically matched to the revolver recovered from Oswald.

19) The same Mannlicher-Carcano rifle had been used by Oswald in an unsuccessful attempt to assassinate retired General Edwin Walker in Dallas on April 10, 1963; a bullet recovered from that scene was later matched to the rifle.

20) Oswald’s post-assassination behavior—leaving the TSBD, going to his rooming house to retrieve the revolver, shooting Tippit while fleeing, and resisting arrest—aligns with the actions of the shooter attempting to escape.

These points collectively formed the basis for the Warren Commission’s conclusion (and the FBI’s independent finding) that Oswald fired the shots that killed President Kennedy and wounded Governor Connally from the sixth floor of the TSBD, acting alone.

Subsequent reviews, including by the House Select Committee on Assassinations, reaffirmed the physical and ballistic links to Oswald while examining (and ultimately finding insufficient evidence for) any broader conspiracy.

Unlike most CT's who are just contrarians and have limited critical thinking skills, I'm a level headed LNer who just looks at the evidence through an unbiased set of eyes.
So let me analyse these GROK conclusions with my usual honesty!

1. True.
2. True.
3. True.
4. True
5. True but with some caveats, matching fibers are not exclusive evidence but this form of evidence is still used today because the chances of someone else wearing the exact same clothing and touching a very specific object is extremely small. The three types of fibers in Oswald's arrest shirt matched the colour and twist of three types of fibers found on the rifle. "Though such fibers could theoretically have come from another identical shirt, the prohibitive probability is that they came from Oswald’s shirt."RHVB
And just because the fibers matched they didn't necessarily have to come from the 22nd.
6. True and maybe. The HSCA photographic panel who had McCamy and Kirk testify, agreed that the rifle in the backyard photos was exclusively C2766 but the revolver wasn't exclusively matched.
7. Mostly true. Marina saw a rifle in her blanket on the floor of the Paine garage a couple of months before the assassination, and on the afternoon of the assassination the blanket was empty. On the 6th floor of Oswald's workplace Oswald's rifle was discovered, the same floor that witnesses saw a man with a rifle and on the same floor 3 shells were discovered that exclusively matched Oswald's rifle.
8. True, But Frazier keeps insisting that Oswald when seen from behind carried the rifle a certain way even though in his testimony he repeatedly says he never payed attention to the bag. At the London Mock trial Frazier under oath admits that the rifle could have been out in front.
9. True. At least six Police Officers recall seeing a long brown paper bag, others didn't notice a brown paper bag next to brown boxes. In my opinion some less observant Police Officers not noticing and remembering an at the time insignificant object is easy to understand.
10. True. I will add that the rifle rest boxes were moved halfway across the floor and had relatively fresh prints from Oswald, and according to FBI expert Latona these prints were made somewhere within 1 to 3 days.
11. True, and also worth noting is that other workers saw or heard Oswald remaining on the 6th floor.
12. True.
13. True.
14. False with caveats, Brennan didn't identify Oswald in a line-up but he did say at the time that Oswald was the closest match. Later on after he felt safe for his family, he said the man was Oswald. And Brennan's initial description which is no doubt the description on the Police Radio at 12:15 is very close to Oswald. And contrary to CT's who say that this description matches half of Dallas are sadly deluded.
15. True in relation to the warehouse workers. Givens tried to get back in and it's probably more accurate and incriminating to say that Oswald was the only employee that was in the building that immediately fled, as he was in flight from the scene of his crime.
16. True.
17. True.
18. True.
19. True but the bullet wasn't ballistically matched. The recovered bullet has  markings that Lt. Day testified were made at the time, and even though the bullet was described by some as being steel jacketed, Lt. Day testified that copper coated bullets were often described as being steel coated.
20. True True True, and I'll add his provable lies regarding the rifle at the interrogations is powerful consciousness of guilt!!

JohnM

[David Von Pein]

Here's my list....

[Benjamin Cole]

JM--

#19---

Verily, DPD reported, in forms signed by two detectives and two patrol officers, they had found a "steel-jacketed" bullet at the Walker home. Likely wartime surplus, from the US military temporarily used unpopular steel-jacketed bullets due to wartime copper shortages.

CE-573, the slug in evidence for the WC, is one of the most obviously copper-jacketed bullets in police annals, having been torn asunder as it purportedly passed through a wall of the Walker manse. Anyone can see it is a copper-jacketed bullet through and through, and not a steel-jacketed bullet with a copper coat (aka copper plating).

Lt. Day's marks are not visible on CE-573. Day's testimony before the WC is a bit comical on this matter.

Guns and ammo are tools of the trade in police-detective work. Have you ever talked to a cop about guns? Casually mixing up steel and copper-jacketed slugs, in a murder investigation...in fact, the highest-profile assassination attempt in Texas history, up until the JFKA...seems rather unlikely.

Day seems positively evasive, to the WC, when he says he is referring to his paperwork to ID the slug-CE-573.

My guess is LHO took a potshot at Walker, but using a 30-06, and likely had a ride to and from the scene. I can't prove any of that.

Back on LHO-JFKA...the 20-list is generally solid, with your caveats and amplifications.

I think it is likely LHO was the TSBD6 sniper.

My guess is LHO had help, another shooter, and the GK smoke-and-bang show.

[John Corbett]

JM--

My guess is LHO had help, another shooter, and the GK smoke-and-bang show.

There is no forensic evidence of a shooter on the GK or anywhere other than the TSBD sniper's nest. The only indication of such are the impressions of the earwitnesses in DP. To make sense of it, we have to look at the earwitness accounts as a whole. We can't just point to the ones who pointed to the GK as where they thought the shots came from. With few exceptions, the earwitnesses who expressed an opinion indicated they thought all the shots came from one and only one direction. A plurality of opinion indicated the GK as the source of the shots and a slightly smaller group thought the shots came from the direction of the TSBD. If that is all we had to go on, the logical conclusion would be that it is more likely the shots came from the GK than from the TSBD. In order for both groups of witnesses to be correct, we would have to conclude the GK earwitnesses did not hear the shots from the TSBD and the TSBD earwitnesses did not hear the shots from the GK. If we are not willing to accept that ridiculous conclusion, and I am not, then we have to figure out which group got it wrong and which group got it right. Fortunately, we have plenty of other forms of evidence that tell us where the shots originated from. For starters, we have an eyewitness who saw the finals shot fired from the sniper's nest and informed a cop within minutes of the shooting. He was later corroborated by the discovery of empty shells by the window he pointed to as the source of the shots. We have spent shells found in the sniper's nest and a rifle found elsewhere on the floor. The rifle was positively matched to the shell found on the floor of the sniper's nest and the only two recovered bullets. We the medical evidence which conclusively indicates the shots that hit JFK and JBC were fired from behind them. We have no eyewitnesses and no forensic evidence of shots fired from the GK. My question then becomes, why would any thinking person with knowledge of the above facts conclude any shots were fired from the GK?

[Benjamin Cole]

JC-

Thanks for your comments.

I think there was a shot fired at the GK---the smoke-and-bang show as witnessed by Sam Holland and other railroad workers, and some other witnesses.

The indisputable telltale scent of gunsmoke in Dealy Plaza in the immediate aftermath of the JFKA, despite the fact there was a breeze blowing towards the TSBD from the Triple Overpass---we know that from the breeze-blown direction of women's coats and skirts.

Ergo, LHO/TSBD6 gunsmoke was blowing away from the JFK limo. The nose-witnesses in the DP smelled gunsmoke, and it did not come from the TSBD.

The wound to Gov. JBC's wrist remain inexplicable---so says Dr, Robert Shaw, JBC surgeon, who worked on 700 wartime gunshot victims. How did a bullet leave JBC's chest and then enter the volar side on JBC's wrist and then enter JBC's thigh? Try holding the face of a wristwatch, on your right arm, to your navel. You will see the problem that emerges.

Maybe the GK smoke-and-bang show was only a diversion.

Yes, the shots that entered JFK and JBC came from behind them (with the possible exception to the wound to JBC's wrist). That does not rule out a second gunsel in the TSBD or possibly the Dal-Tex building.

I conclude LHO is the most likely suspect for the visible TSBD6 sniper.

If LHO acted alone...less sure of that. I lean towards LHO as part of very small group, acting on their own. 

I have tried to contact Gus Russo on his sources that LHO was in play in New Orleans with G-2 characters, but he has not responded.

G-2 had also penetrated Alpha-66 and apparently every other exile organization.

Caveat emptor, and draw your own conclusions.

This Russo on LHO-Cuba ties. Russo thinks LHO did it.

[John Corbett]

JC-

Thanks for your comments.

I think there was a shot fired at the GK---the smoke-and-bang show as witnessed by Sam Holland and other railroad workers, and some other witnesses.

That argument might make sense if the GK shooter was firing a flintlock. Modern ammo emits very little smoke and it dissipates only immediately. No one on the overpass would have seen smoke from a weapon fired from the GK.

The indisputable telltale scent of gunsmoke in Dealy Plaza in the immediate aftermath of the JFKA, despite the fact there was a breeze blowing towards the TSBD from the Triple Overpass---we know that from the breeze-blown direction of women's coats and skirts.

Ergo, LHO/TSBD6 gunsmoke was blowing away from the JFK limo. The nose-witnesses in the DP smelled gunsmoke, and it did not come from the TSBD.

So why did the smell of gunpowder travel from the GK to Elm St. if the wind was blowing toward the TSBD?

This is a silly basis for postulating a gunman on the GK when Lee Bowers could see the entire area behind the picket fence and saw no gunman and a gunman on the south side of the fence would have been visible to the spectators in the median between Elm and Main. There is no forensic evidence of a shooter on the GK and no eyewitnesses who saw one even though a number of people raced to that area immediately following the shots. This imagined gunman just magically disappeared with in seconds of the shooting.

The wound to Gov. JBC's wrist remain inexplicable---so says Dr, Robert Shaw, JBC surgeon, who worked on 700 wartime gunshot victims. How did a bullet leave JBC's chest and then enter the volar side on JBC's wrist and then enter JBC's thigh? Try holding the face of a wristwatch, on your right arm, to your navel. You will see the problem that emerges.

If you want to argue that the bullet that end up hitting JBC's thigh wasn't the one that exited his chest, you need to explain it. Tells us where that bullet came from if it wasn't the same bullet that cause the other wounds. Just because you can't figure out how it happened is not evidence it was a separate bullet.

I really don't see a problem. JBC was holding his hat in his lap when the bullet struck. As such, his wrist would have been very close to his thigh.

Maybe the GK smoke-and-bang show was only a diversion.

A diversion? Seriously?

Yes, the shots that entered JFK and JBC came from behind them (with the possible exception to the wound to JBC's wrist). That does not rule out a second gunsel in the TSBD or possibly the Dal-Tex building.

I'd love to hear your explanation for how JBC's wrist could have been hit by a separate bullet. I should be a doozy.

I conclude LHO is the most likely suspect for the visible TSBD6 sniper.

That's fairly obvious.

If LHO acted alone...less sure of that. I lean towards LHO as part of very small group, acting on their own. 

A very small group for which there is zero evidence.

I have tried to contact Gus Russo on his sources that LHO was in play in New Orleans with G-2 characters, but he has not responded.

G-2 had also penetrated Alpha-66 and apparently every other exile organization.

Caveat emptor, and draw your own conclusions.

This Russo on LHO-Cuba ties. Russo thinks LHO did it.

Why don't you save yourself a lot of trouble and just accept the fact Oswald did it and didn't need any help doing it.

[Benjamin Cole]

TC--

1. You are incorrect that modern ammo (or 1960s era) does issue smoke.

Even today go to a gun range. Some cheaper ammo brands, such as Egypt, give off a lot of smoke.

The HSCA checked this also and concluded guns can and do smoke.

In addition, if a gun barrel was recently oiled (cleaned), the oil will exit the barrel with a lot of smoke.

On top of that, a snub-nose .38, with a short barrel, will give off the most smoke and noise, both of which are somewhat suppressed by longer barrels.

It is reasonable to ponder if a snub-nose .38 was fired at the GK as the JFK limo passed, giving off a lot of smoke and noise.

2. Like Dr. Shaw, an expert on the topic to who I defer, I do not know how a bullet could exit Gov. JBC's chest and then enter the volar side of his right wrist. As Dr Shaw said, it is close to anatomically impossible. In addition, JBC was still holding his hat at Z-234, and also Z-272, a bit odd if he was shot through the wrist a ~Z-222.This is yet another reason I suspect JBC was shot ~Z-295.

3. Evidence of a conspiracy. As LHO was dead before he could confess, we do not know who were his confederates. I suspect LHO alone could not have fired at JBC a ~Z-295 and the JFK at Z-313.

I don't have an answer of how JBC received his wrist wound.

JBC holding his hat Z-272 (see below): JBC's wrist appears uninjured.

This does not line up with JBC being shot at the same time as JFK, back ~Z-222.