10 Reasons to Believe That Oswald Was Innocent

[John Corbett]

No.11 reason: the 24” bag (give or take a couple of inches) as Buell W. Frazier described the way he saw Oswald  carrying the bag under  his armpit and in the  cupped palm of his hand.

When did Frazier measure the bag?

No.12 reason: per BW Frazier, Oswald was wearing the GRAY jacket that Friday morning. Oswald had only 2 jackets, a gray jacket and a blue jacket. Oswald left TSBD wearing no jacket according to John Corbett because he believes Bledsoe saw Oswald on McWatters bus wearing  only the brown shirt with a hole in the sleeve. Ok, if that is true then how does Oswald’s gray jacket which he must have left in the TSBD get to under a car in a parking lot to be pointed out by some unnamed person? Oswald leaving the boarding house zipping up a jacket (per Earlene Roberts), could therefore only be the BLUE jacket. The description of the Tippit shooters “tan” jacket does not fit the  BLUE jacket Oswald had on when he left the boarding house. If Oswald discarded this blue jacket before he was seen by Brewer, how does that BLUE jacket wind up being found in the TSBD in the Domino room? And Who found BLUE jacket anyway?

Why do you think Frazier would even take note of, much less remember how long Oswald's bag was or which jacket he wore that morning. In my entire time I was in the workforce, it would have been very seldom I would have made a mental note of what my co-workers were wearing or would have been able to tell you what they were wearing if you asked me the next day. I'll never understand why so many people place so much faith in witnesses' ability to remember mundane details of things they would have no reason to make note of at the time they observed them.

[Michael T. Griffith]

Michael,

What do you make of the observation made during the autopsy that the bullet that entered the President's back (several inches below the shoulder and to the right of the spine) had hit JFK at an angle of 45 to 60 degrees

This comes from the Sibert-O'Neill report on the autopsy. It is not in the autopsy report. According to Sibert and O'Neill, at one point Humes voiced the view that the back-wound bullet hit at a 45-60-degree downward angle. Obviously, either Humes was unbelievably incompetent or he could not have been looking at the back wound seen in the autopsy photo of the wound. The wound in the autopsy photo has an abrasion ring around it that is wider on the bottom half than on the top half, proving an upward trajectory at the time of impact, as the HSCA FPP correctly noted:

A red-brown to black area of skin surrounds the wound, forming what is called an abrasion collar. It was caused by the bullet's scraping the margins of the skin on penetration and is characteristic of a gunshot wound of entrance. The abrasion collar is larger at the lower margin of the wound, evidence that the bullet's trajectory at the instant of penetration was slightly upward in relation to the body. (7 HSCA 175)

Dr. Spitz had already made the same point, in writing, four years earlier in his report to the Rockefeller Commission:

There is no doubt that the bullet which struck the President’s back penetrated the skin in a sharply upward direction, as is evident from the width of the abrasion at the lower half of the bullet wound of entrance. The term "sharply upward direction" is used because it is evident from this injury that the missile traveled upwards within the body. (Report of Werner Spitz, 4/24/75, p. 1, Rockefeller Commission papers, see https://websites.umich.edu/~ahaq/correspondence.pdf)

Could Humes have been so utterly incompetent as not to recognize that an abrasion ring that is wider on the bottom than on the top proves the bullet struck at an upward angle? I don't think Humes was that incompetent. Finck surely recognized what the abrasion ring indicated. Yet, not surprisingly, this crucial information never made it into the autopsy report, just as the 6.5 mm object and the high fragment trail did not make it into the autopsy report.

For all the covering up that the FPP did (read: what Baden and Weston led them to cover up), the FPP members deserve enormous credit for admitting that the bullet hit at an upward angle. My guess is that Baden would have preferred not to acknowledge this devastating fact, but Dr. Wecht was on the panel and he easily recognized what the abrasion collar meant, and, surprisingly, Dr. Spitz, who was ardently pro-WC, backed up Wecht on this crucial point. The other FPP members recognized the obvious implication of the abrasion collar as well, and so this was one of the FPP's unanimous findings. This was something Baden could not keep out of the record.

Furthermore, Baden acknowledged -- indeed, demonstrated -- that the only way to make the back wound's upward trajectory line up with the sixth-floor window was to assume that Kennedy was leaning nearly 60 degrees forward at the moment of impact. On one occasion, Baden leaned far forward for the cameras to demonstrate the point. He almost looked like he was doubled over.

and did not penetrate more than an inch or so?

Yes, this was positively established with the ARRB materials and other disclosures in the 1990s. One of the med-techs, James Jenkins, had already revealed this in the 1970s in a recorded interview, noting that he could see the end of the probe pushing up against the lining of the chest cavity. This was corroborated in the materials disclosed in the 1990s.

We now know that the pathologists even removed the chest organs so they could have a clear view of where the probe was going, and they saw that it only went a few inches and ended at the lining of the chest cavity. That's why the first two drafts of the autopsy report said nothing about the throat wound being an exit point for the back wound.

Dr. Robert Karnei was a resident surgeon at Bethesda Naval Hospital in 1963 and witnessed the autopsy. In a 1991 recorded interview, Karnei said the autopsy doctors positioned the body in multiple ways to facilitate the probing of the back wound, and that “the men” who saw the probing commented that they could see the end of the finger and then the end of the probe “from inside the empty chest”! He added that the pathologists worked “all night long with the probes” to find the bullet’s path through the body:

A: They did have the body--trying to sit it up and trying to get that probe to go. . . .
Q: Why didn't they turn the body over?
A: Well, they did. They tried every which way to go ahead, and try to move it around. . . .
Q: But this was after the Y incision?
A: Yes. The men described being able to see the end of the finger and the probe from inside the empty chest. They were working all night long with probes trying to make out where that bullet was going on the back there. (Interview transcript, p. 10)

In his 3/10/97 ARRB interview, Karnei said that by around midnight the autopsy doctors "had not found a bullet track through the body, nor had they found an exit wound for the entry in the shoulder" (p. 001476).

In James Jenkins' 8/29/1977 HSCA interview, he said that Dr. Humes found that the bullet tract had not "penetrated into the chest" and that Humes had been able to "reach the end of the wound." Jenkins specified that the back wound "was very shallow" and that "it didn't enter the peritoneal cavity [the chest cavity]. He noted that there was quite a “controversy” because the doctors “couldn’t prove the bullet came into the chest cavity” even though they probed the back wound “extensively” (pp. 5, 7, 10-11, 13).

In a 1979 filmed interview, Jenkins explained that he could see the end of the probe pushing up against the lining of the chest cavity (pleura):

Commander Humes put his finger in it, and, you know, said that ... he could probe the bottom of it with his finger. . . . I remember looking inside the chest cavity and I could see the probe . . . through the pleura. You could actually see where it was making an indentation. . . . It was pushing the skin up. . . . There was no entry into the chest cavity.

Again, this is why the first two drafts of the autopsy report said nothing about the throat wound being an exit point for the back wound. They knew the back wound had no exit point.

Did this bullet fall out and became CE 399? The ammo was presumably as ancient as the rifle, like more than 20 years old, and perhaps the bullet wasn't discharged properly?

Yes, a squib bullet is an entirely plausible, reasonable explanation. This would explain why so many witnesses said one of the shots sounded different than the others. Another possible explanation is that a fragment from a bullet that hit the pavement behind the limo caused the back wound.

No, that bullet wasn't CE 399. As SBT believers used to love to point out, what damage there is on CE 399 proves that the bullet hit an object while traveling sideways. SBT believers, even in this forum, used to love to point this out because they were going with Lattimer's and Myers' bogus enlarged size for Connally's back wound, because they didn't know that the wound track through Connally was remarkably narrow, and because they assumed the magic bullet nicked JFK's tie knot as it allegedly exited his throat.

What is your theory about the location of the assassin to the rear of JFK?

I definitely believe that a gunman was firing at JFK from the rear, quite possibly two gunmen. There is no credible doubt that a man with a rifle was seen in the sixth-floor window.

[John Corbett]

This comes from the Sibert-O'Neill report on the autopsy. It is not in the autopsy report. According to Sibert and O'Neill, at one point Humes voiced the view that the back-wound bullet hit at a 45-60-degree downward angle. Obviously, either Humes was unbelievably incompetent or he could not have been looking at the back wound seen in the autopsy photo of the wound. The wound in the autopsy photo has an abrasion ring around it that is wider on the bottom half than on the top half, proving an upward trajectory at the time of impact, as the HSCA FPP correctly noted:

A red-brown to black area of skin surrounds the wound, forming what is called an abrasion collar. It was caused by the bullet's scraping the margins of the skin on penetration and is characteristic of a gunshot wound of entrance. The abrasion collar is larger at the lower margin of the wound, evidence that the bullet's trajectory at the instant of penetration was slightly upward in relation to the body. (7 HSCA 175)

Dr. Spitz had already made the same point, in writing, four years earlier in his report to the Rockefeller Commission:

There is no doubt that the bullet which struck the President’s back penetrated the skin in a sharply upward direction, as is evident from the width of the abrasion at the lower half of the bullet wound of entrance. The term "sharply upward direction" is used because it is evident from this injury that the missile traveled upwards within the body. (Report of Werner Spitz, 4/24/75, p. 1, Rockefeller Commission papers, see https://websites.umich.edu/~ahaq/correspondence.pdf)

Could Humes have been so utterly incompetent as not to recognize that an abrasion ring that is wider on the bottom than on the top proves the bullet struck at an upward angle? I don't think Humes was that incompetent. Finck surely recognized what the abrasion ring indicated. Yet, not surprisingly, this crucial information never made it into the autopsy report, just as the 6.5 mm object and the high fragment trail did not make it into the autopsy report.

Humes was not a forensic pathologist so his lack of knowledge about what an abrasion ring indicates is perfectly understandable. He was asked to perform a task he was not adequately trained for. The mistake was failing to have the autopsy performed by an experienced forensic medical examiner. I don't know who made that call but apparently they deferred to Jackie's choice of having he autopsy performed at a Naval facility. I can't imagine any other widow of a homicide victim being offered such a choice but that is what happened. It was a silly mistake but one we can't undo and will just have to live with the results.

[Michael T. Griffith]

No.11 reason: the 24” bag (give or take a couple of inches) as Buell W. Frazier described the way he saw Oswald  carrying the bag under his armpit and in the  cupped palm of his hand.

Yes, this is a serious problem for the case against Oswald.

Two people saw Oswald enter the TSBD that morning, Jack Dougherty and Buell Wesley Frazier. Dougherty said Oswald's hands were empty when he saw Oswald enter the building. Frazier said Oswald came into the TSBD carrying a brown bag with one end cupped in his palm and the other end tucked under his armpit.

The alleged murder rifle was 35 inches long when disassembled. If the package contained the rifle, Oswald could not have carried the package in the manner described by Frazier. The package would have extended well above his armpit, making it impossible to carry it with one end in his hand the other end under his armpit.

Even more problematic for the case against Oswald is the length of the package/bag that Frazier saw Oswald bring to work that morning. Frazier told the Warren Commission (WC) that the bag he saw Oswald carrying was about 2 feet long, and that it was the kind "you get out of the grocery store." On December 1, 1963, FBI agents asked Frazier to mark the spot on the back seat of his car where the bag reached when it was placed there with one end up against the door. The agents measured the distance between that spot and the door and found it was 27 inches. Frazier's sister, Linnie Randle, who also saw the bag, also said it was 27 inches long.

Thus, according to both Frazier and his sister, the bag was at least 8 inches shorter than the disassembled Carcano rifle. In addition, in order for Oswald to have carried the package in the manner Frazier described, Oswald's height and arm length indicate the bag would have needed to be no more than 24 inches long.

In response to this dilemma, the WC reflexively said that both Frazier and his sister were "mistaken" about the length of the bag. Posner pounces on Frazier's admission that he was not absolutely certain about the length of the bag, but he ignores the fact that Frazier had no doubt about how Oswald carried the bag, and he dismisses the fact that Frazier's sister said the bag was right around 27 inches long.

The WC claimed that Oswald made the brown paper bag from wrapping paper available to him at the Book Depository. However, an FBI lab report written shortly after the assassination said that the paper from the Depository "was examined by the FBI laboratory and found not to be identical with the paper gun case. . . ." (emphasis added).

But this report was later "corrected," and the "corrected version" said, "This paper was examined and found to have the same observable characteristics" as Oswald's paper bag. When asked to explain the contradiction, the FBI said the initial report was "inaccurate" and was "mistakenly passed along to the Warren Commission." Yeah, uh-huh. You bet.

The brown paper bag did not have a drop of oil on it, yet the alleged murder weapon was described as well oiled. Anyone who has handled a rifle after it's been lubricated/oiled knows you have to be careful not to let the lubed part of the rifle touch your clothes or else you'll get oil on your clothes.

No.12 reason: per BW Frazier, Oswald was wearing the GRAY jacket that Friday morning. Oswald had only 2 jackets, a gray jacket and a blue jacket. Oswald left TSBD wearing no jacket according to John Corbett because he believes Bledsoe saw Oswald on McWatters bus wearing  only the brown shirt with a hole in the sleeve. Ok, if that is true then how does Oswald’s gray jacket which he must have left in the TSBD get to under a car in a parking lot to be pointed out by some unnamed person? Oswald leaving the boarding house zipping up a jacket (per Earlene Roberts), could therefore only be the BLUE jacket. The description of the Tippit shooters “tan” jacket does not fit the  BLUE jacket Oswald had on when he left the boarding house. If Oswald discarded this blue jacket before he was seen by Brewer, how does that BLUE jacket wind up being found in the TSBD in the Domino room? And Who found BLUE jacket anyway?

Yes, the jacket evidence is a ball of confusion for the case against Oswald.

Oswald's shirt is equally problematic for the WC's case. Four of the five witnesses who saw a man in the sixth-floor window said the man was wearing a "light-colored" regular shirt or jacket; the remaining witness said it was either a T-shirt or a regular shirt. This does not even come close to matching the description of the brown, rust-colored shirt that Oswald wore to work that day, and Oswald was seen in that rust-colored shirt less than 90 seconds after the shooting.

And then there are the shirt fibers that were "found" on the Carcano. The fibers were reportedly found in the crevice between the rifle's butt plate and its wooden stock. The WC noted that these fibers were found to match the shirt that Oswald was wearing when he was arrested at the Texas Theater.

However, Oswald was not wearing that shirt at the Book Depository. The DPD or the FBI must have rubbed the butt of the Carcano against the shirt Oswald was wearing at the theater, not realizing it was not the same shirt he had worn to work that day. Not a single fiber from the shirt that Oswald wore to work was found on the Italian rifle, nor were any fibers from his T-shirt found on the rifle.

The WC erroneously claimed that Oswald did not change shirts after the shooting. However, the facts indicate otherwise. Officer Marrion Baker noted that Oswald was wearing a different shirt at the police station than the shirt he was wearing when Baker saw him on the second floor 75-90 seconds after the shooting. Oswald stated during his interrogation that he wore a long-sleeved shirt and gray pants to work, and that he changed clothes after he arrived home. The interviewing agent said Oswald described the shirt as "reddish." A rust-colored brown, long-sleeved shirt and gray pants were found in Oswald's apartment by the Dallas police after the shooting.

[John Corbett]

Yes, this is a serious problem for the case against Oswald.

Two people saw Oswald enter the TSBD that morning, Jack Dougherty and Buell Wesley Frazier. Dougherty said Oswald's hands were empty when he saw Oswald enter the building. Frazier said Oswald came into the TSBD carrying a brown bag with one end cupped in his palm and the other end tucked under his armpit.

This is a perfect example of why we shouldn't trust witnesses to remember mundane details when they had no reason to make note of them at the time they observed them. These two witnesses give mutually exclusive versions of Oswald entering the building and yet you offer both as evidence of Oswald's innocence.

The alleged murder rifle was 35 inches long when disassembled. If the package contained the rifle, Oswald could not have carried the package in the manner described by Frazier. The package would have extended well above his armpit, making it impossible to carry it with one end in his hand the other end under his armpit.

That would be a problem if Frazier accurately remembered how Oswald carried the package. You have offered nothing that establishes he did.

Even more problematic for the case against Oswald is the length of the package/bag that Frazier saw Oswald bring to work that morning. Frazier told the Warren Commission (WC) that the bag he saw Oswald carrying was about 2 feet long, and that it was the kind "you get out of the grocery store." On December 1, 1963, FBI agents asked Frazier to mark the spot on the back seat of his car where the bag reached when it was placed there with one end up against the door. The agents measured the distance between that spot and the door and found it was 27 inches. Frazier's sister, Linnie Randle, who also saw the bag, also said it was 27 inches long.

I always chuckle when someone offers a witness' recollection as if it is an established fact. Eyewitnesses are notoriously unreliable especially when trying to recall detains that wouldn't have seemed the least bit important at the time. When a witness tells us something, the only proper reaction should be, "Maybe that's true. Maybe it's not".
Most witnesses don't deliberately lie nor do they have perfect recall. Typically they remember bits and pieces of an event and the minds fill in the blanks, usually inaccurately.

Any eyewitness account should be compared to the body of evidence as a whole to determine how reliable it is. In this case, Frazier told us Oswald carried the bag with the bottom cupped in his hand with the other end tucked under his arm. A bag was found next to the sniper's nest with Oswald's palm print on it just where it would be if he cupped it in his hand. The bag measured 40 inches long which means either it was not fully extended when Oswald carried it or Frazier was wrong about the bag being tucked under Oswald's arm. Since the bag contained fibers matching the blanket Oswald store his rifle in, that indicates Oswald had placed the rifle in the bag and it would be too long to carry tucked in his arm. Only someone desperate to argue for Oswald's innocence would conclude Frazier accurately remembered how Oswald carried the bag.

Thus, according to both Frazier and his sister, the bag was at least 8 inches shorter than the disassembled Carcano rifle. In addition, in order for Oswald to have carried the package in the manner Frazier described, Oswald's height and arm length indicate the bag would have needed to be no more than 24 inches long.

So what. Neither measured the bag and neither of them had any reason to estimate its length AT THE TIME THEY OBSERVED IT.

In response to this dilemma, the WC reflexively said that both Frazier and his sister were "mistaken" about the length of the bag. Posner pounces on Frazier's admission that he was not absolutely certain about the length of the bag, but he ignores the fact that Frazier had no doubt about how Oswald carried the bag, and he dismisses the fact that Frazier's sister said the bag was right around 27 inches long.

A perfectly logical conclusion given that the bag found by the sniper's nest MEASURED 40 inches long.

The WC claimed that Oswald made the brown paper bag from wrapping paper available to him at the Book Depository. However, an FBI lab report written shortly after the assassination said that the paper from the Depository "was examined by the FBI laboratory and found not to be identical with the paper gun case. . . ." (emphasis added).

But this report was later "corrected," and the "corrected version" said, "This paper was examined and found to have the same observable characteristics" as Oswald's paper bag. When asked to explain the contradiction, the FBI said the initial report was "inaccurate" and was "mistakenly passed along to the Warren Commission." Yeah, uh-huh. You bet.

I would gladly bet.

The brown paper bag did not have a drop of oil on it, yet the alleged murder weapon was described as well oiled. Anyone who has handled a rifle after it's been lubricated/oiled knows you have to be careful not to let the lubed part of the rifle touch your clothes or else you'll get oil on your clothes.

The mechanism was well oiled.

Yes, the jacket evidence is a ball of confusion for the case against Oswald.

Because of a confused witness.

Oswald's shirt is equally problematic for the WC's case. Four of the five witnesses who saw a man in the sixth-floor window said the man was wearing a "light-colored" regular shirt or jacket; the remaining witness said it was either a T-shirt or a regular shirt. This does not even come close to matching the description of the brown, rust-colored shirt that Oswald wore to work that day, and Oswald was seen in that rust-colored shirt less than 90 seconds after the shooting.

So you have just illustrated how witnesses don't get details right. We have conflicting witnesses describing the same shirt in different ways. This speaks to the reliability of witnesses.

And then there are the shirt fibers that were "found" on the Carcano. The fibers were reportedly found in the crevice between the rifle's butt plate and its wooden stock. The WC noted that these fibers were found to match the shirt that Oswald was wearing when he was arrested at the Texas Theater.

However, Oswald was not wearing that shirt at the Book Depository. The DPD or the FBI must have rubbed the butt of the Carcano against the shirt Oswald was wearing at the theater, not realizing it was not the same shirt he had worn to work that day. Not a single fiber from the shirt that Oswald wore to work was found on the Italian rifle, nor were any fibers from his T-shirt found on the rifle.

I like how you cherry evidence to make your case. You ignore the fact that Mary Bledsoe, his former landlady, saw Oswald on McWatters bus and said he was wearing a shirt with a hole in the elbow. The shirt Oswald was arrested in had a hole in the elbow and that is the shirt that matched the fibers found on the butt plate.

The WC erroneously claimed that Oswald did not change shirts after the shooting.

No, the error is in your FUBAR figuring. As long as you have been analyzing the evidence in this case, it's amazing how bad you are at it.

However, the facts indicate otherwise. Officer Marrion Baker noted that Oswald was wearing a different shirt at the police station than the shirt he was wearing when Baker saw him on the second floor 75-90 seconds after the shooting. Oswald stated during his interrogation that he wore a long-sleeved shirt and gray pants to work, and that he changed clothes after he arrived home. The interviewing agent said Oswald described the shirt as "reddish." A rust-colored brown, long-sleeved shirt and gray pants were found in Oswald's apartment by the Dallas police after the shooting.

Well if Oswald said it, then it must be true. What reason would he have to lie?