JFK Assassination Forum
JFK Assassination Plus General Discussion & Debate => JFK Assassination Plus General Discussion And Debate => Topic started by: Lance Payette on October 24, 2025, 10:01:32 PM
-
At every turn, including the Tippit murder, I bump my head on those pesky and inconvenient questions, How would that have worked? and What sense would that have made?
I can answer them easily from the LN perspective: Oswald had already killed JFK, was in panic escape mode, knew the jig was up when Tippit got out of his car, and thus eliminated Tippit in furtherance of his escape. "Poor dumb cop," but it had to be done.
But how do we answer these pesky questions from the CT perspective? Anyone?
As with Dealey Plaza, CTers are stuck with the scene of the crime. Tippit was murdered and Oswald was there with a gun in his pocket. Hence, all we ever seem to get are criminal defense attorney arguments: Tippit was shot with an automatic, witnesses saw one or more shooters who didn’t look like Oswald, an Oswald wallet was planted, every eyewitness didn’t describe exactly the same thing. These arguments are intended to create reasonable doubt (for what purpose?), not answer the pesky questions.
The prevailing theories seem to have the Tippit murder being an attempt to frame Oswald. I have seen other theories: Innocent patsy Oswald recognized Tippit as someone connected with the conspiracy that had framed him and thus made himself an actual murderer by killing Tippit before Tippit did something evil to him. Or the conspirators were eliminating Tippit (but not Oswald?) because he knew too much. These seem extremely far-fetched.
We’ll concentrate on Oswald being framed. At the Other Forum, it is being postulated that lowly Curtis Laverne Craford (a/k/a “Larry,” a/k/a “Crafard”) killed Tippit and leaped into a getaway car. OK, let’s consider our pesky questions in that context. (I think it’s being posited that Craford may have killed JFK as well, but we’ll let that slide.)
Let’s get the propinquity out of the way right up front: Craford’s middle name was LaVerne; Clay Shaw’s middle name was LaVergne. Craford and Shaw were both Pisces (as is your correspondent here). Craford was buried in – no, really – Dallas Cemetery in tiny Dallas, Oregon. Propinquity, I tell ya!
The fact is, Craford was the ultimate nobody. He was a 22-year-old high school dropout at the time of the JFKA. He had been in the Army for 13 months before receiving a dubious discharge "under honorable conditions" (a euphemism for "less than honorable"). He worked at a comical assortment of low-level jobs. He died at age 70 in 2011, never having accomplished anything even mildly notable (excluding the JFK assassination and Tippit murder, course). He is about as unlikely a candidate for a recruit into a Presidential assassination as one could imagine. After doing the deed(s), he immediately hitchhiked – hitchhiked! – out of town. If he had done what he is alleged to have done, he would have been the ultimate candidate for a JFK “mystery death.” But, no, he lived out his placid life in Dullsville, Oregon, showing no evidence of having been compensated in any way for doing the dastardly deed(s).
So, there’s a problem right off the bat: Inserting Craford into the JFKA/Tippit scenario is fundamentally insane, but we’ll let that slide. Craford did have the one thing going for him that is the sine qua non for inclusion in conspiracy theories: he did bear a vague resemblance to Oswald, so this is sufficient to include him somewhere in the plot. One has to wonder why the conspirators would have chosen as a key player a lowly character so closely associated with Jack Ruby, but we’ll let that slide as well. There is also the problem that Craford’s resemblance to Oswald means he doesn’t resemble the stocky, hairy shooter described by Acquilla Clemons, but we’ll let that slide as well because we’re trying to be CT-friendly here.
Regardless of who murdered Tippit, Craford or some Kirby vacuum salesman who looked like Oswald, Craford and Lovelady, these questions beg to be answered:
1. How did “they” know Oswald would be walking down the Tenth Street sidewalk? Did “they” instruct him to do so after he escaped the TSBD? Did “they” tail him from the rooming house? How did “they” have any idea what he would do upon exiting the TSBD?
2. How could the Tenth Street sidewalk have been the best location for this frame-up to occur? There were witnesses all over the place, and there could have well been more than there actually were. Why did “they” pick this unlikely, highly public location?
3. What was the deal with Tippit? Was he part of the conspiracy – obviously an expendable part if he was – and instructed to stop Oswald? Why would Tippit be shot with an automatic when Oswald’s gun was a revolver? If you’re going to shoot Tippit, why not shoot Oswald as well? Why not just have Tippit shoot Oswald and be a hero cop? Why not have Tippit just be wounded and provide eyewitness testimony that the shooter was Oswald? I’m lost here.
4. Since Oswald was about as “framed” as he could be with his Carcano planted in the TSBD and his subsequent escape, what was the point of framing him for the Tippit murder? Was it supposed to somehow make him “even more” guilty – icing on the cake, as it were? In planning the assassination, why would “they” have said, “Let’s have him murder a cop, too”? I’m lost here.
5. If your postulated Tippit murderer wasn’t Craford, I congratulate you for your rationality – but then who was the murderer(s), and why? Who this side of the ubiquitous Three Stooges would have thought that exponentially complicating the plot in this manner was a good idea?
Does any CTer have answers to these pesky questions that will collectively answer How would that have worked? and What sense would that have made? Please, astonish me. I’m admittedly not much of a student of the Tippit murder, but all I see are the usual criminal defense attorney claims that don’t really add up to anything resembling a coherent theory as to what occurred and why.
OK, that's all. See ya down the road.
-
At every turn, including the Tippit murder, I bump my head on those pesky and inconvenient questions, How would that have worked? and What sense would that have made?
I can answer them easily from the LN perspective: Oswald had already killed JFK, was in panic escape mode, knew the jig was up when Tippit got out of his car, and thus eliminated Tippit in furtherance of his escape. "Poor dumb cop," but it had to be done.
But how do we answer these pesky questions from the CT perspective? Anyone?
As with Dealey Plaza, CTers are stuck with the scene of the crime. Tippit was murdered and Oswald was there with a gun in his pocket. Hence, all we ever seem to get are criminal defense attorney arguments: Tippit was shot with an automatic, witnesses saw one or more shooters who didn’t look like Oswald, an Oswald wallet was planted, every eyewitness didn’t describe exactly the same thing. These arguments are intended to create reasonable doubt (for what purpose?), not answer the pesky questions.
The prevailing theories seem to have the Tippit murder being an attempt to frame Oswald. I have seen other theories: Innocent patsy Oswald recognized Tippit as someone connected with the conspiracy that had framed him and thus made himself an actual murderer by killing Tippit before Tippit did something evil to him. Or the conspirators were eliminating Tippit (but not Oswald?) because he knew too much. These seem extremely far-fetched.
We’ll concentrate on Oswald being framed. At the Other Forum, it is being postulated that lowly Curtis Laverne Craford (a/k/a “Larry,” a/k/a “Crafard”) killed Tippit and leaped into a getaway car. OK, let’s consider our pesky questions in that context. (I think it’s being posited that Craford may have killed JFK as well, but we’ll let that slide.)
Let’s get the propinquity out of the way right up front: Craford’s middle name was LaVerne; Clay Shaw’s middle name was LaVergne. Craford and Shaw were both Pisces (as is your correspondent here). Craford was buried in – no, really – Dallas Cemetery in tiny Dallas, Oregon. Propinquity, I tell ya!
The fact is, Craford was the ultimate nobody. He was a 22-year-old high school dropout at the time of the JFKA. He had been in the Army for 13 months before receiving a dubious discharge "under honorable conditions" (a euphemism for "less than honorable"). He worked at a comical assortment of low-level jobs. He died at age 70 in 2011, never having accomplished anything even mildly notable (excluding the JFK assassination and Tippit murder, course). He is about as unlikely a candidate for a recruit into a Presidential assassination as one could imagine. After doing the deed(s), he immediately hitchhiked – hitchhiked! – out of town. If he had done what he is alleged to have done, he would have been the ultimate candidate for a JFK “mystery death.” But, no, he lived out his placid life in Dullsville, Oregon, showing no evidence of having been compensated in any way for doing the dastardly deed(s).
So, there’s a problem right off the bat: Inserting Craford into the JFKA/Tippit scenario is fundamentally insane, but we’ll let that slide. Craford did have the one thing going for him that is the sine qua non for inclusion in conspiracy theories: he did bear a vague resemblance to Oswald, so this is sufficient to include him somewhere in the plot. One has to wonder why the conspirators would have chosen as a key player a lowly character so closely associated with Jack Ruby, but we’ll let that slide as well. There is also the problem that Craford’s resemblance to Oswald means he doesn’t resemble the stocky, hairy shooter described by Acquilla Clemons, but we’ll let that slide as well because we’re trying to be CT-friendly here.
Regardless of who murdered Tippit, Craford or some Kirby vacuum salesman who looked like Oswald, Craford and Lovelady, these questions beg to be answered:
1. How did “they” know Oswald would be walking down the Tenth Street sidewalk? Did “they” instruct him to do so after he escaped the TSBD? Did “they” tail him from the rooming house? How did “they” have any idea what he would do upon exiting the TSBD?
2. How could the Tenth Street sidewalk have been the best location for this frame-up to occur? There were witnesses all over the place, and there could have well been more than there actually were. Why did “they” pick this unlikely, highly public location?
3. What was the deal with Tippit? Was he part of the conspiracy – obviously an expendable part if he was – and instructed to stop Oswald? Why would Tippit be shot with an automatic when Oswald’s gun was a revolver? If you’re going to shoot Tippit, why not shoot Oswald as well? Why not just have Tippit shoot Oswald and be a hero cop? Why not have Tippit just be wounded and provide eyewitness testimony that the shooter was Oswald? I’m lost here.
4. Since Oswald was about as “framed” as he could be with his Carcano planted in the TSBD and his subsequent escape, what was the point of framing him for the Tippit murder? Was it supposed to somehow make him “even more” guilty – icing on the cake, as it were? In planning the assassination, why would “they” have said, “Let’s have him murder a cop, too”? I’m lost here.
5. If your postulated Tippit murderer wasn’t Craford, I congratulate you for your rationality – but then who was the murderer(s), and why? Who this side of the ubiquitous Three Stooges would have thought that exponentially complicating the plot in this manner was a good idea?
Does any CTer have answers to these pesky questions that will collectively answer How would that have worked? and What sense would that have made? Please, astonish me. I’m admittedly not much of a student of the Tippit murder, but all I see are the usual criminal defense attorney claims that don’t really add up to anything resembling a coherent theory as to what occurred and why.
OK, that's all. See ya down the road.
Another post that shows a severe lack of balanced research and an apparent unawareness of a large body of evidence that contradicts the case against Oswald in the Tippit shooting.
-
Another post that shows a severe lack of balanced research and an apparent unawareness of a large body of evidence that contradicts the case against Oswald in the Tippit shooting.
Do you have any actual rebuttal to anything Lance said?
-
At every turn, including the Tippit murder, I bump my head on those pesky and inconvenient questions, How would that have worked? and What sense would that have made?
I can answer them easily from the LN perspective: Oswald had already killed JFK, was in panic escape mode, knew the jig was up when Tippit got out of his car, and thus eliminated Tippit in furtherance of his escape. "Poor dumb cop," but it had to be done.
But how do we answer these pesky questions from the CT perspective? Anyone?
As with Dealey Plaza, CTers are stuck with the scene of the crime. Tippit was murdered and Oswald was there with a gun in his pocket. Hence, all we ever seem to get are criminal defense attorney arguments: Tippit was shot with an automatic, witnesses saw one or more shooters who didn’t look like Oswald, an Oswald wallet was planted, every eyewitness didn’t describe exactly the same thing. These arguments are intended to create reasonable doubt (for what purpose?), not answer the pesky questions.
The prevailing theories seem to have the Tippit murder being an attempt to frame Oswald. I have seen other theories: Innocent patsy Oswald recognized Tippit as someone connected with the conspiracy that had framed him and thus made himself an actual murderer by killing Tippit before Tippit did something evil to him. Or the conspirators were eliminating Tippit (but not Oswald?) because he knew too much. These seem extremely far-fetched.
We’ll concentrate on Oswald being framed. At the Other Forum, it is being postulated that lowly Curtis Laverne Craford (a/k/a “Larry,” a/k/a “Crafard”) killed Tippit and leaped into a getaway car. OK, let’s consider our pesky questions in that context. (I think it’s being posited that Craford may have killed JFK as well, but we’ll let that slide.)
Let’s get the propinquity out of the way right up front: Craford’s middle name was LaVerne; Clay Shaw’s middle name was LaVergne. Craford and Shaw were both Pisces (as is your correspondent here). Craford was buried in – no, really – Dallas Cemetery in tiny Dallas, Oregon. Propinquity, I tell ya!
The fact is, Craford was the ultimate nobody. He was a 22-year-old high school dropout at the time of the JFKA. He had been in the Army for 13 months before receiving a dubious discharge "under honorable conditions" (a euphemism for "less than honorable"). He worked at a comical assortment of low-level jobs. He died at age 70 in 2011, never having accomplished anything even mildly notable (excluding the JFK assassination and Tippit murder, course). He is about as unlikely a candidate for a recruit into a Presidential assassination as one could imagine. After doing the deed(s), he immediately hitchhiked – hitchhiked! – out of town. If he had done what he is alleged to have done, he would have been the ultimate candidate for a JFK “mystery death.” But, no, he lived out his placid life in Dullsville, Oregon, showing no evidence of having been compensated in any way for doing the dastardly deed(s).
So, there’s a problem right off the bat: Inserting Craford into the JFKA/Tippit scenario is fundamentally insane, but we’ll let that slide. Craford did have the one thing going for him that is the sine qua non for inclusion in conspiracy theories: he did bear a vague resemblance to Oswald, so this is sufficient to include him somewhere in the plot. One has to wonder why the conspirators would have chosen as a key player a lowly character so closely associated with Jack Ruby, but we’ll let that slide as well. There is also the problem that Craford’s resemblance to Oswald means he doesn’t resemble the stocky, hairy shooter described by Acquilla Clemons, but we’ll let that slide as well because we’re trying to be CT-friendly here.
Regardless of who murdered Tippit, Craford or some Kirby vacuum salesman who looked like Oswald, Craford and Lovelady, these questions beg to be answered:
1. How did “they” know Oswald would be walking down the Tenth Street sidewalk? Did “they” instruct him to do so after he escaped the TSBD? Did “they” tail him from the rooming house? How did “they” have any idea what he would do upon exiting the TSBD?
2. How could the Tenth Street sidewalk have been the best location for this frame-up to occur? There were witnesses all over the place, and there could have well been more than there actually were. Why did “they” pick this unlikely, highly public location?
3. What was the deal with Tippit? Was he part of the conspiracy – obviously an expendable part if he was – and instructed to stop Oswald? Why would Tippit be shot with an automatic when Oswald’s gun was a revolver? If you’re going to shoot Tippit, why not shoot Oswald as well? Why not just have Tippit shoot Oswald and be a hero cop? Why not have Tippit just be wounded and provide eyewitness testimony that the shooter was Oswald? I’m lost here.
4. Since Oswald was about as “framed” as he could be with his Carcano planted in the TSBD and his subsequent escape, what was the point of framing him for the Tippit murder? Was it supposed to somehow make him “even more” guilty – icing on the cake, as it were? In planning the assassination, why would “they” have said, “Let’s have him murder a cop, too”? I’m lost here.
5. If your postulated Tippit murderer wasn’t Craford, I congratulate you for your rationality – but then who was the murderer(s), and why? Who this side of the ubiquitous Three Stooges would have thought that exponentially complicating the plot in this manner was a good idea?
Does any CTer have answers to these pesky questions that will collectively answer How would that have worked? and What sense would that have made? Please, astonish me. I’m admittedly not much of a student of the Tippit murder, but all I see are the usual criminal defense attorney claims that don’t really add up to anything resembling a coherent theory as to what occurred and why.
OK, that's all. See ya down the road.
Not all CTer's are crazy, there are a few of us sane ones around. Oswald killed Tippit case closed. Wrong place, wrong time, big time.
-
At every turn, including the Tippit murder, I bump my head on those pesky and inconvenient questions, How would that have worked? and What sense would that have made?
I can answer them easily from the LN perspective: Oswald had already killed JFK, was in panic escape mode, knew the jig was up when Tippit got out of his car, and thus eliminated Tippit in furtherance of his escape. "Poor dumb cop," but it had to be done.
But how do we answer these pesky questions from the CT perspective? Anyone?
As with Dealey Plaza, CTers are stuck with the scene of the crime. Tippit was murdered and Oswald was there with a gun in his pocket. Hence, all we ever seem to get are criminal defense attorney arguments: Tippit was shot with an automatic, witnesses saw one or more shooters who didn’t look like Oswald, an Oswald wallet was planted, every eyewitness didn’t describe exactly the same thing. These arguments are intended to create reasonable doubt (for what purpose?), not answer the pesky questions.
The prevailing theories seem to have the Tippit murder being an attempt to frame Oswald. I have seen other theories: Innocent patsy Oswald recognized Tippit as someone connected with the conspiracy that had framed him and thus made himself an actual murderer by killing Tippit before Tippit did something evil to him. Or the conspirators were eliminating Tippit (but not Oswald?) because he knew too much. These seem extremely far-fetched.
We’ll concentrate on Oswald being framed. At the Other Forum, it is being postulated that lowly Curtis Laverne Craford (a/k/a “Larry,” a/k/a “Crafard”) killed Tippit and leaped into a getaway car. OK, let’s consider our pesky questions in that context. (I think it’s being posited that Craford may have killed JFK as well, but we’ll let that slide.)
Let’s get the propinquity out of the way right up front: Craford’s middle name was LaVerne; Clay Shaw’s middle name was LaVergne. Craford and Shaw were both Pisces (as is your correspondent here). Craford was buried in – no, really – Dallas Cemetery in tiny Dallas, Oregon. Propinquity, I tell ya!
The fact is, Craford was the ultimate nobody. He was a 22-year-old high school dropout at the time of the JFKA. He had been in the Army for 13 months before receiving a dubious discharge "under honorable conditions" (a euphemism for "less than honorable"). He worked at a comical assortment of low-level jobs. He died at age 70 in 2011, never having accomplished anything even mildly notable (excluding the JFK assassination and Tippit murder, course). He is about as unlikely a candidate for a recruit into a Presidential assassination as one could imagine. After doing the deed(s), he immediately hitchhiked – hitchhiked! – out of town. If he had done what he is alleged to have done, he would have been the ultimate candidate for a JFK “mystery death.” But, no, he lived out his placid life in Dullsville, Oregon, showing no evidence of having been compensated in any way for doing the dastardly deed(s).
So, there’s a problem right off the bat: Inserting Craford into the JFKA/Tippit scenario is fundamentally insane, but we’ll let that slide. Craford did have the one thing going for him that is the sine qua non for inclusion in conspiracy theories: he did bear a vague resemblance to Oswald, so this is sufficient to include him somewhere in the plot. One has to wonder why the conspirators would have chosen as a key player a lowly character so closely associated with Jack Ruby, but we’ll let that slide as well. There is also the problem that Craford’s resemblance to Oswald means he doesn’t resemble the stocky, hairy shooter described by Acquilla Clemons, but we’ll let that slide as well because we’re trying to be CT-friendly here.
Regardless of who murdered Tippit, Craford or some Kirby vacuum salesman who looked like Oswald, Craford and Lovelady, these questions beg to be answered:
1. How did “they” know Oswald would be walking down the Tenth Street sidewalk? Did “they” instruct him to do so after he escaped the TSBD? Did “they” tail him from the rooming house? How did “they” have any idea what he would do upon exiting the TSBD?
2. How could the Tenth Street sidewalk have been the best location for this frame-up to occur? There were witnesses all over the place, and there could have well been more than there actually were. Why did “they” pick this unlikely, highly public location?
3. What was the deal with Tippit? Was he part of the conspiracy – obviously an expendable part if he was – and instructed to stop Oswald? Why would Tippit be shot with an automatic when Oswald’s gun was a revolver? If you’re going to shoot Tippit, why not shoot Oswald as well? Why not just have Tippit shoot Oswald and be a hero cop? Why not have Tippit just be wounded and provide eyewitness testimony that the shooter was Oswald? I’m lost here.
4. Since Oswald was about as “framed” as he could be with his Carcano planted in the TSBD and his subsequent escape, what was the point of framing him for the Tippit murder? Was it supposed to somehow make him “even more” guilty – icing on the cake, as it were? In planning the assassination, why would “they” have said, “Let’s have him murder a cop, too”? I’m lost here.
5. If your postulated Tippit murderer wasn’t Craford, I congratulate you for your rationality – but then who was the murderer(s), and why? Who this side of the ubiquitous Three Stooges would have thought that exponentially complicating the plot in this manner was a good idea?
Does any CTer have answers to these pesky questions that will collectively answer How would that have worked? and What sense would that have made? Please, astonish me. I’m admittedly not much of a student of the Tippit murder, but all I see are the usual criminal defense attorney claims that don’t really add up to anything resembling a coherent theory as to what occurred and why.
OK, that's all. See ya down the road.
A fellow named Cory Hughes claims that Kerry Thornley murdered Tippit. I kid you not. Hughes wrote a book on the JFK assassination and the Tippit murder. He also has a podcast. On the JFK assassination, he has Jack Valenti firing the fatal headshot from the grassy knoll and then running over the triple overpass and getting on the sideboard of the limo, which had stopped to allow him to get on. Jack Ready had taken a seat in the limo and Valenti took Ready's place on the running board.
John Barbour, of TV fame, calls Hughes the most thorough, dedicated, and passionate researcher on the subject of the assassination. Apparently, he's never heard of Michael T. Griffith.