Having just picked up his daughter from school, Jack Tatum was driving north on Denver toward the intersection with Tenth. Author Dale Myers interviewed Tatum in 1983 and again in 1984. Tatum told Myers that when he got to the stop sign at the intersection, he looked to his right and saw a pickup truck approaching (the truck driven by Domingo Benavides). He (Tatum) then looked to his left and noticed Tippit's patrol car pulling over to the curb. Tatum also told Myers that he saw a man walking east (towards Tatum) along the sidewalk. Tatum turned left onto Tenth. Benavides was directly behind Tatum in his truck.
Tatum told Myers that as he was beside the stopped patrol car, the man who had been walking on the sidewalk was over at the patrol car on the passenger side. The man was looking in the passenger-side window and Tippit was facing toward the window to talk to the man. Tatum said the man had his hands inside the pockets of the jacket. Tatum continued on Tenth toward the intersection with Patton.
As Tatum was going through the intersection, he heard the gunshots coming from behind him. Tatum told Myers that when he looked back, he saw that the man had a gun in his hands and Tippit was on the ground. Tatum stated that the man started to leave the scene but then hesitated and then went around the back of the patrol car toward Tippit, who was on the ground out in the street toward the front of the patrol car.
According to Tatum, the man hurried to Tippit, approached cautiously and then shot him in the head. The killer then started to leave the scene (trotting toward Tatum's position). Tatum put his car in gear and took off. Tatum, after watching the killer turn south onto Patton, stopped his car, backed up, got out and went over to Tippit.
Helen Markham was already there with Tippit by the time Tatum got there. Tatum noticed the blood and that Tippit was lying "kind of on his side" with his revolver underneath him. Once the police arrived and were asking for witnesses, Tatum walked Markham over to one of the police officers.
Tatum's story never came out until 1978 when HSCA investigators interviewed him. Tatum's version (of a final shot separated from the original outburst of shots) is at direct odds with the other eye and ear witnesses. Benavides was sitting in his truck very close to Tippit's body. If Oswald began to flee the scene before turning back and going around the back of the patrol car and over to Tippit's body, he (Oswald) would have been heading directly toward Benavides, who made no mention of such an action by the killer:
"Then [after firing the shots from across the hood of the patrol car] I seen the man turn and walk back to the sidewalk and go on the sidewalk and he walked maybe 5 foot and then kind of stalled. He didn't exactly stop. And he threw one shell and must have took five or six more steps and threw the other shell up, and then he kind of stepped up to a pretty good trot going around the corner." - Domingo Benavides (Warren Commission testimony)
Ted Callaway, on the front porch his office about three-quarters of a block south of the scene, heard the shots. He stated that he went off the porch of his office and ran over to the sidewalk on Patton and looked up the street toward Tenth. Callaway got to the sidewalk in time to see Oswald cutting across Patton:
Mr. CALLAWAY. I heard what sounded to me like five pistol shots.
Mr. BALL. Five pistol shots?
Mr. CALLAWAY. Five shots, yes, sir.
Mr. BALL. From the sound, could you tell the source of the sound?
Mr. CALLAWAY. Yes, sir, I could tell it was back of the lot over toward 10th Street.
Mr. BALL. And what did you do?
Mr. CALLAWAY. I ran out to the sidewalk on Patton.
Mr. BALL. And what did you see?
Mr. CALLAWAY. Well, I could see I was still--before I got to the sidewalk, I could see this taxicab parked down on Patton. I saw the cabdriver beside his cab, and saw a man cutting from one side of the street to the other. That would be the east side of Patton and over to the west side of Patton. And he was running. And he had a gun in his hand, his right hand.
Callaway's office was almost exactly as far from the sidewalk on Patton as was Tippit's stopped patrol car. Therefore, Callaway (from the porch of his office) and Oswald (from his position at the patrol car) would have almost the exact same distance to cover to get to the sidewalk on Patton. Point being, if Oswald would have double-backed to fire a final shot into Tippit, then he would have eventually made it to the sidewalk on Patton much later than Callaway, i.e. Callaway would have made it over to the sidewalk much quicker than Oswald since Callaway had no reason to "double-back" after he left his office and ran to the sidewalk.
Also, Callaway described hearing five shots and although gave many interviews, never once described the last shot separated by the original outburst of shots. This is the same with all of the witnesses who heard shots. None of them describe one shot happening after the initial volley of shots.
It should be noted here that Tatum, unlike other so-called witnesses who we don't hear from until decades later, did not seek out investigators to tell his story and wasn't seeking "fifteen minutes of fame", so to speak. HSCA investigators Jack Moriarty and Joe Basteri interviewed Tatum in February of 1978 at his place of employment (Director of Photography, Baylor University Medical Center). Tatum told investigators that the reason he didn't hang around and give his name to police at the scene was because "there were more than enough people there and I did not see what I could contribute". HSCA investigators interviewed over three hundred local residents and business owners around Oak Cliff in a search for any new witnesses. Investigator Moriarty was told of Tatum by a local Oak Cliff business owner who was aware that Tatum had seen the Tippit killing.
