The Tippit Shooting At 1:15-1:16, FACT

[John Corbett]

I basically agree with this. The Tippit murder has really never interested me beyond the level of the broad questions: Where was Oswald going? Why did Tippit stop? Why did Oswald shoot him?

Whys ask why. Both men are dead. They are never going to tell us why.

In another thread, I pointed out that the WC answered the key questions of who, where, when, and how. I purposely left off why from that list because we can never know the why nor do we need to know why. It's fun to speculate about the why and we might even guess right, but we can never know if we have guessed right.

All of the "problematical minutiae" has just never really interested me. The notion that this was some conspiratorial frame-up of Oswald just strikes me as so fantastically improbable that I've really never got past the threshold question, "What sense would that have made?" I read a great quote from a presentation that Paul Hoch gave in 1993: "We [CTers] have identified twelve of the three gunmen." I think this is the problem with much conspiracy thinking - there is just "too much" to be plausible. Hence my thread about focusing on plausibility, quality rather than quantity.

The WC took all the fun out of the game by giving us the answers to the important questions. I think that is what drives many CTs. They don't want a pat answer. They want something more interesting. It is rather boring to accept the answer that the DPD gave us about 12 hours after these double murders were committed. We aren't entitled to an interesting story. We are entitled to know the truth. In 62 years, I have seen nothing that makes me doubt the answers the WC provided us with.

[Mitch Todd]

So, if we can't rely on clocks and thus time stamps, how can LNs say with any kind of certainty that Tippit was shot at around 1:14:30?

Even more so, as there is evidence that Tippit's ambulance arrived at the hospital at 1:15. This time is given for the time of D.O.A. and also confirmed by police officer Davenport who followed the ambulance.

Btw, Tippit's murder wasn't a federal crime, yet the F.B.I. pestered hospital employees for days about the time of D.O.A.. Why would the F.B.I. even be interested in that, when they could simply have accepted the time on the death certificate?

MW: Even more so, as there is evidence that Tippit's ambulance arrived at the hospital at 1:15. This time is given for the time of D.O.A. and also confirmed by police officer Davenport who followed the ambulance.

As you are well aware, two members of the Methodist staff on hand for Tippit's arrival have said that the clocks in Methodist ER were unreliable. Dr Mollenhoff said, any discrepancy was due to issues with Methodist's time system.


MW: Btw, Tippit's murder wasn't a federal crime, yet the F.B.I. pestered hospital employees for days about the time of D.O.A.. Why would the F.B.I. even be interested in that, when they could simply have accepted the time on the death certificate?

At the time it occurred, JFK's murder was also not a federal crime. So why was the FBI investigating it?

[Martin Weidmann]

MW: Even more so, as there is evidence that Tippit's ambulance arrived at the hospital at 1:15. This time is given for the time of D.O.A. and also confirmed by police officer Davenport who followed the ambulance.

As you are well aware, two members of the Methodist staff on hand for Tippit's arrival have said that the clocks in Methodist ER were unreliable. Dr Mollenhoff said, any discrepancy was due to issues with Methodist's time system.


MW: Btw, Tippit's murder wasn't a federal crime, yet the F.B.I. pestered hospital employees for days about the time of D.O.A.. Why would the F.B.I. even be interested in that, when they could simply have accepted the time on the death certificate?

At the time it occurred, JFK's murder was also not a federal crime. So why was the FBI investigating it?

As you are well aware, two members of the Methodist staff on hand for Tippit's arrival have said that the clocks in Methodist ER were unreliable. Dr Mollenhoff said, any discrepancy was due to issues with Methodist's time system.

Since when are hospital workers experts on time systems? Show me their statements, please? I can't find their affidavits. Or did they simply express an opinion that you find convenient?

If the time system was indeed having problems, they could have easily get it repaired and obtain a written confirmation of what the problem was. I have never seen or heard this was ever done.

The official document authorizing an autopsy (written on November 22, 163 at 3:00 PM) says that Tippit was declared D.O.A. at 1:15 PM. If you want to dispute that time you will need a little bit more than an alleged statement by one or two hospital workers. Even more so as the officers Davenport and Bardin observed the doctors trying to revive Tippit before declaring him dead at 1:15 PM (which implies that the ambulance actually arrived at the hospital before 1:15 PM). They also mention in their report that 15 minutes later Dr. Moellenhoff removed a bullet from Tippit's body. The only problem is that we don't know which time piece Davenport and Bardin used.

Btw, another contemporary document that confirms the times reported by Davenport and Bardin is the receipt for the submission of a an uniform button and a bullet to the DPD evidence room, issued at 3:10 PM, on 11/22/63 On that document it is noted that Dr Liguori pronounced Tippit D.O.A. at 1:15 PM and Dr. Moellenhoff removed a bullet at 1:30 PM.

And before I forget to ask; you haven't answered my question about the FBI pestering hospital staff for days about the D.O.A. time. What would possibly have been the reason for that, when they simply could have accepted the time of death specified by the doctor? In other words, what reason would they have had to doubt the time given?


At the time it occurred, JFK's murder was also not a federal crime. So why was the FBI investigating it?

That's a good question. Dr. Earl Rose objected to the removal of Kennedy's body from Parkland Hospital on exactly that ground, but the Secret Service broke the law and took the casket anyway.

Where Kennedy differs from Tippit is that he was a federal employee and Tippit was a state officer. I'm only guessing that this could be the reason that FBI got involved, but a more likely scenario is that Hoover simply wanted to control the investigation and leaned on Chief Curry to ask the FBI for "assistance".

[Bill Brown]

Humm, well, the previous supposedly definitive analysis of the timing of the Tippit shooting, i.e., Dale Myers' "stop-watch" analysis in his book With Malice, says that Oswald did not have time to walk to 10th and Patton in time to shoot Tippit and theorizes that Oswald got a ride from an unknown person. Myers says Tippit was shot at 1:14:30, but you say he was shot between 1:15 and 1:16.

Is there a reason you failed to mention that T. F. Bowley said he arrived at the Tippit scene at 1:10 and that he knew this because he checked his watch when he got there? That's an important fact to omit, wouldn't you say?

Is there a reason you failed to mention that Helen Markham said she got to the Tippit scene no later than 1:08 and that Tippit had already been shot when she arrived? This is why she was certain Tippit was shot at 1:06 or 1:07. Markham said she always left her apartment at 1:00 to catch her regular 1:12-1:15 bus. She said she glanced at the laundry room clock after she left her apartment and that it read 1:04. She said it took her about two minutes to reach 10th and Patton.

Is there a reason you failed to mention that Domingo Benavides said that he did not try to use the police car's radio until "a few minutes" after Tippit had been shot because he was (quite understandably) afraid for his life?

You guys claim that Benavides waited in his truck for only a matter of seconds and not for a few minutes. But this flies in the face of common sense and ignores what Benavides himself initially said. If you were only 25-50 feet away from a shooting and feared you could be the next target, how long would you wait until coming out into the open? Nobody in their right mind would have come out of hiding so quickly in that situation.

Benavides told the WC he waited in his truck for "a few minutes" after he heard the shots and before he tried to use the police car's radio. Moreover, according to fellow witness Ted Calloway, Benavides told him the day after the shooting that

When I heard that shooting, I fell down into the floorboard of my truck and I stayed there. It scared me to death.

Years later, Benavides changed his story and told CBS he only waited a few seconds, not a few minutes. Predictably, you guys choose to accept Benavides' belated change of story and reject his original statements.

Two witnesses at the Texas Theatre, Butch Borroughs and Jack Davis, independently said that Oswald entered the theater before 1:10, and that he remained in the theater until he was arrested.

You place great emphasis on the police dispatch transcripts, but even Dr. Paul Hoch, one of the most careful scholars in the JFKA research community, acknowledged there is evidence the police dispatch tapes were edited, which renders the transcripts useless for determining when Tippit was shot. BTW, Dr. Hoch doubted the authenticity of the transmissions that supposedly explain why Tippit was in Oak Cliff in the first place, far out of his area.

I discuss Dr. Hoch's research at length in my article "Did Oswald Shoot Tippit?," available at https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_j_022lJYli3B5Xyw8wLs-0nl6mDLo2t/view.

Is there a reason you failed to mention that T. F. Bowley said he arrived at the Tippit scene at 1:10 and that he knew this because he checked his watch when he got there? That's an important fact to omit, wouldn't you say?

Is there a reason you failed to mention that Helen Markham said she got to the Tippit scene no later than 1:08 and that Tippit had already been shot when she arrived? This is why she was certain Tippit was shot at 1:06 or 1:07. Markham said she always left her apartment at 1:00 to catch her regular 1:12-1:15 bus. She said she glanced at the laundry room clock after she left her apartment and that it read 1:04. She said it took her about two minutes to reach 10th and Patton.

First, there is no such thing as Markham's "1:12-1:15 bus".  Nice try, though.  Intellectually dishonest much?

Second, the statements of witnesses like Mary Wright and Ted Callaway combined with the verbal time stamps on the police tapes tell us that Bowley's watch was wrong and Markham was at that corner much later than 1:07.

You guys claim that Benavides waited in his truck for only a matter of seconds and not for a few minutes. But this flies in the face of common sense and ignores what Benavides himself initially said. If you were only 25-50 feet away from a shooting and feared you could be the next target, how long would you wait until coming out into the open? Nobody in their right mind would have come out of hiding so quickly in that situation.

So your "common sense" tells you that Benavides was cowering down inside his truck while little old ladies were tending to Tippit and others were gathering around the squad car?

Two witnesses at the Texas Theatre, Butch Borroughs and Jack Davis, independently said that Oswald entered the theater before 1:10, and that he remained in the theater until he was arrested.

Nonsense.  First, Jack Davis certainly does NOT state that Oswald entered the theater before 1:10.  Ooops, you're a naughty Boy.

Secondly, Burroughs testified to the Warren Commission in 1964 that he didn't see Oswald enter the theater and he also stated that, during the search of the theater, a police officer came up to him and asked him if he had seen the guy and Burroughs told the officer that he had not seen him himself.

[Kevin Balch]

Tge time pieces that Markham and Bowley relied on were never compared with a reference or were even read/transcribed coorectly.

[Martin Weidmann]

Tge time pieces that Markham and Bowley relied on were never compared with a reference or were even read/transcribed coorectly.

Neither were the clocks that DPD dispatchers worked with, despite the fact that the supervisor of the dispatchers, J.C. Bowles is on record stating that those clocks were not synchronized and "indicated the incorrect time".

Bowley picked up his daughter from school and schools usually ring there bell on time. If school was out at 1:00 PM, which seems likely to me, and Bowley was already waiting, it is fair and safe to assume he would have left the school at 1:00 PM.
Add on 13 minutes for the drive to 10th Street and he gets there at 1:13 PM, maybe a minute or so after the shooting had taken place.

Markham took the same bus to work every day and she knew she had to be at the bus stop on Jefferson at 1:15 PM, where she would either take a delayed 1:12 bus or the next one at 1:22.
The distance of two blocks she had to walk between 9th Street and Jefferson was (according to the FBI) between 5 to 6 minutes, being approx 2,5 to 3 minutes for each block.
It is highly unlikely that Markham would still be on the corner of 10th and Patton at 1:14 when the shooting allegedly happened.

A third indication that the shooting took place earlier that 1:14 or 1:15 is the fact that the ambulance carrying Tippit arrived at the hospital and attempts were made to revive Tippit until he was declared D.O.A. on 1:15 PM, which is also the time confirmed by DPD officer Davenport, who followed the ambulance to the hospital.

The irony of the LN claim is that all the clocks were wrong except of course those used by the DPD dispatchers. Never mind that the J.C. Bowles said that the DPD clocks did not give the correct time!

[Martin Weidmann]

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