lame
Frazier was sure of what he saw:
Mr. BALL - You say he had the package under his arm when you saw him?
Mr. FRAZIER - Yes, sir.
Mr. BALL - You mean one end of it under the armpit?
Mr. FRAZIER - Yes, sir; he had it up just like you stick it right under your arm like that.
Mr. BALL - And he had the lower part--
Mr. FRAZIER - The other part with his right hand.
Mr. BALL - Right hand?
Mr. FRAZIER - Right.
Mr. BALL - He carried it then parallel to his body?
Mr. FRAZIER - Right, straight up and down.
Representative FORD - Under his right arm?
Mr. FRAZIER - Yes, sir.
FBI conclusions on markings and fibers in the bag:
Mr. CADIGAN. "There were no marks on this bag that I could say were caused by that rifle or any other rifle or any other given instrument."
DPD on the prints on the bag:
Mr. BALL. You say you dusted it?
Mr. STUDEBAKER. With that magnetic powders.
Mr. BALL. Did you lift any prints?
Mr. STUDEBAKER. There wasn't but just smudges on it - is all it was.
There was one little ole piece of a print and I'm sure I put a piece of tape on it preserve it.
Not very overwhelming. Is it?
Nice job of cherry picking the WC testimony. Is there a reason you left out this passage from Studebaker's testimony?
Mr. BALL. What sort of training did you have for the crime lab work that you are doing?
Mr. STUDEBAKER. It's just on - the - job training - you go out with old officers and learn how to dust for prints and take pictures and fingerprints.
Mr. BALL. Have you had any special training in identification fingerprints?
Mr. STUDEBAKER. No, sir; we don't classify prints too much where we are. We just compare them.
Why would you site a technician rather than an actual expert in fingerprint identification? Somebody like FBI fingerprint expert Sebastian Latona?
Mr. EISENBERG. Returning to the prints themselves, you stated I believe that you found a palmprint and a fingerprint on this paper bag?
Mr. LATONA. That is correct.
Mr. EISENBERG. Did you find any other prints?
Mr. LATONA. No; no other prints that we term of value in the sense that I felt that they could be identified or that a conclusion could be reached that they were not identical with the fingerprints or palmprints of some other person.
Mr. EISENBERG. Did you attempt to identify the palmprint and fingerprint?
Mr. LATONA. The ones that I developed; yes.
Mr. EISENBERG. Were you able to identify these prints?
Mr. LATONA. I--the ones I developed, I did identify.
Mr. EISENBERG. Whose prints did you find them to be?
Mr. LATONA. They were identified as a fingerprint and a palmprint of Lee Harvey Oswald.
As for Frazier's testimony, assuming he was being truthful, established Oswald carried a long paper bag into the TSBD. It did not establish the length of the bag because Frazier never measured it. He guessed at its length from memory. The way he described Oswald carrying the bag is consistent with where the prints were found, on the bottom of the bag. Frazier thought the bag extended above Oswald's shoulder but by his own admission he wasn't paying close attention to it. Why would he? Why would he think the length had any significance AT THE TIME.
The fact is that a bag with Oswald's palm and fingerprint on the bottom of it was found by the sniper's nest which also contained fibers matching the blanket Oswald used to store his rifle. If you want to believe that wasn't the same bag Frazier saw Oswald carry into the TSBD, that means Oswald would have carried the sniper's nest bag into the TSBD at some other unknown time and that the bag Frazier saw Oswald take into the building was never found. I don't have that problem. All I have to do is believe Frazier was just wrong about the length of the bag and that it protruded above Oswald's shoulder. That is very easy for me to believe.