Video: Eddie Barker Interviews With Domingo Benavides and Ted Callaway

[Duncan MacRae]

Broadcast Journalist Eddie Barker 1967 interviews with eyewitnesses Domingo Benavides and Ted Callaway.

The conversations detailed the murder of Dallas Police Officer J.D. Tippit on November 22

[John Mytton]

Joseph D. Nicol, Superintendent of the Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation for the State of Illinois, determined that one of the bullets found in Tippit came from Oswald's revolver.

Mr. EISENBERG. Mr. Chairman, may I have this admitted? That would be 625.
(The item described was marked Commission Exhibit No. 625 and received in evidence.)
Mr. EISENBERG. These arrows, Mr. Nicol, can you explain why they are different?
Mr. NICOL. This was one I made up originally and then decided that the illustration would be ample with one arrow in that one position.
Mr. DULLES. The one that is being admitted is the one-arrow photograph.
Mr. EISENBERG. The arrows are placed on mechanically after the photograph is developed?
Mr. NICOL. That is correct.
Mr. EISENBERG. And therefore it can vary?
Mr. NICOL. Yes. This is not a part of the photographic process.
Mr. EISENBERG. What is the magnification here, Mr. Nicol?
Mr. NICOL. It would be pretty close to 25 to 30 diameters. I cannot measure exactly the magnification.
Mr. NICOL. This illustrates some of the lines, not all of them, that I saw on a comparison of 502 and K-3. At the position of the arrow, you are looking at the top of the groove; adjacent to it in the lower portion is a land impression. And on that shoulder there are approximately five or six matching lines. They are very fine striations. These would be indicative of the fact that the same portion of the barrel had ridden on both projectiles.
Mr. EISENBERG. Well, now, there seems to be significantly less markings here than on the bullets which were seen earlier, which had come from the rifle. Does that same condition pertain when the bullet is viewed under the microscope?
Mr. NICOL. Yes. Of course, we are dealing with two different types of ammunition. One is a lead projectile, and the other is a metal-case projectile. And the ability of the metal-case projectile to pick up and retain fine striations, even in spite of distortion and mutilation, far exceeds what the lead projectile will do. Furthermore, the lead being a soft and low-melting-point material is more subject to erosion of hot gases. So that there are many more variables in the reproduction in terms of a lead projectile as over against a metal-case projectile.
Mr. EISENBERG. You found enough similarities to satisfy yourself that there is an identification here?
Mr. NICOL. I am satisfied that the two projectiles came from the same weapon.

[John Corbett]

It all comes down to the standards the FBI and State of Illinois crime labs use to establish a positive match between a bullet and a firearm. The FBI, while recognizing all the bullets had the same characteristics as the test bullets fired from Oswald's rifle, they could not say positively the recovered bullets came from Oswald's gun and they do no speculate on probabilities. If they can't say with certainty that a bullet did or did not come from a particular firearm, they rule it is inconclusive. The examiner for the State of Illinois believed one of the bullets fired did have enough matching markings to say it positively came from Oswald's gun. Because the bore of the Oswalds revolver was slightly smaller than the diameter of the .38 Special bullets Oswald fired, the revolver did not produce consistent markings on the bullets.

Oswald's revolver was manufactured for shipment to the UK as part of the Lend Lease Act. It fired the S&W .38-200 which was the same diameter as the British .380 Enfield so it could use the same ammo. After the end of WWII, these revolvers were returned to the US. The revolver that Oswald would eventually purchase was rechambered for the slightly smaller .38 Special which had a true caliber of .357, .023 inches smaller than the bore of the revolver. This is why a .357 Magnum revolver can fire .38 Specials. For some reason, the gun industry does not always state the true diameter of a bullet when they name it.

[John Mytton]

Cortlandt Cunningham, from the FBI laboratory in the Firearms Identification Unit determined that one of the revolver shells that Oswald discarded at the Tippit crime scene came from Oswald's revolver.

Mr. EISENBERG. Is that all the photographs?
Mr. CUNNINGHAM. No, there is one more.
This photograph is a photograph of the firing-pin impression of the C-49 cartridge case, and the firing-pin impression on the test from Oswald's revolver, and this is Commission document 600.
Mr. EISENBERG. And the magnification?
Mr. CUNNINGHAM. 120 times, approximately.
Now, here you have very distinctive marks, but it is much more difficult for a layman to pick them out. That is the reason I have circled these marks and numbered them, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, on each side of the hairline. On the left is C-49, and on the right is the cartridge case obtained from C-143.
You have this very large, very distinctive imperfection.
Mr. EISENBERG. You are pointing to circle number 1?
Mr. CUNNINGHAM. In number 1. Also, in number 2, it looks like a little set of railroad tracks, and this one with the same shape coming down through. You can see this little piece and this little piece. Over here you have a real small "railroad track."
Mr. EISENBERG. That is number 3?
Mr. CUNNINGHAM. That is number 3. And it looks like a little hump or bump, and that is very distinctive.
There is a slight overlapping here, but you can see it is sort of a V shape--in number 4, very distinctive. Down here you have a Z line with a line through it, number 6. I only brought those out to show six of the similarities. If you go through you can pick out places in the firing-pin impressions, that are similar, by yourself.
Mr. EISENBERG. On the top of each of these photos, C-49 and C--15, there is a large comma- shaped indentation, or comma-shaped mark. What is that caused by, Mr. Cunningham?
Mr. CUNNINGHAM. That is caused by a very large imperfection--a very distinctive imperfection in the firing pin itself. And here it is.
Here I am looking at Commission document 601, the breech face and firing pin. If you will look at the firing pin in this photograph, you will see over on this side, this very large imperfection. It is like a facet--it is a flattened side. It shows up in the photograph of the firing pin.
It is indented--since it is missing from the firing pin, it will show as a flattened area in the firing-pin impression. In other words, what is concave on the firing pin itself, will be convex in the firing-pin impression.
Mr. EISENBERG. If there are no further questions on the cartridge cases, I will move on to the bullets.
Representative FORD. Mr. Boggs?
Representative BOGGS. Just one question. What you are saying is that there is no doubt about the fact that the cartridges that you examined came from this revolver?
Mr. CUNNINGHAM. That is correct.