JFK Assassination Forum

Greg, I read on The Education Forum (now shut down) that you had information on the security guard Holmes who took the pistol and wallet from Callaway and returned it to Officer Croy. Can you post what you know about this here?

WC defenders ignore or summarily brush aside the fact that on November 16-17, five days before the assassination, David Ferrie spent the weekend with Mafia kingpin Carlos Marcello at Marcello's Churchill Farms estate. Supposedly, the two were discussing "defense strategy" for the final week of Marcello's deportation trial in federal court. However, strangely enough, Marcello’s attorneys were not there.. Humm. . . . Ferrie was no lawyer. It is very hard imagine what legal strategy Marcello and Ferrie could have discussed for two entire days; it is also hard to fathom how a weekend-long legal defense strategy meeting would not have included at least one of Marcello's attorneys. Dr. Richard Mahoney correctly and logically suspects that Marcello and Ferrie were finalizing some of the details of the planned assassination of JFK in Dallas (The Kennedy Brothers: The Rise and Fall of Jack and Bobby, 2017 edition, p. 386).

Let’s see how MTG’s Mahoney Factoid holds up.

Ferrie was a highly intelligent guy and enough of a pilot to have flown for Eastern Airlines. When he was fired by Eastern on morals charges in 1961, he was represented by very high-profile New Orleans attorney G. Wray Gill in his efforts to be reinstated. When the initial effort to get Ferrie reinstated failed, Gill hired him as an investigator and law clerk from March 1962 to December 1963, with Gill continuing to represent Ferrie throughout 1963 in his efforts to be reinstated by Eastern. The hiring of Ferrie was in lieu of Ferrie paying Gill’s steep attorney fees. Gill's clients had included Carlos Marcello since 1951, and Gill would continue to represent the mobster until Gill's own death in 1972.

Ferrie was interviewed by the FBI on 11-25-63 and volunteered that "since the end of August, 1963 and up until November 22, 1963 he has been working on a case involving CARLOS MARCELLO who was charged in Federal Court in connection with a fraudulent birth certificate. FERRIE stated that the trial of MARCELLO began in Federal Court in New Orleans, Louisiana on November 4, 1963 and ended on November 22, 1963 and that he was in New Orleans working with Attorney G. WRAY GILL on the case during this period. He stated that on November 9 and November 16, 1963 he was at Churchill Downs which is a farm owned by CARLOS MARCELLO, mapping strategy in connection with MARCELLO's trial." (Marcello was acquitted of all charges.)

Ferrie was present at the defense table in the courtroom during the trial, which means he was intimately involved with the case. Gill told the FBI on November 27 that he worked closely with Ferrie on trial strategy. Churchill Farms was a secluded 4,000-acre estate used by Marcello for all sorts of dubious purposes. It’s apparently still in the Marcello family.

Lamar Waldron says in The Hidden History of the JFK Assassination that Ferrie was with Marcello at Churchill Farms on November 9-10. He says nothing about November 16 and does not say who was in attendance. Exhaustive searches on Google and specifically at the Ed Forum turned up no discussion whatsoever about the supposed Mahoney bombshell or who was or was not in attendance when Ferrie met with Marcello.

November 9-10 and 16-17 were both weekends (Saturday and Sunday), so the court was not in session. The 32-page HSCA report on Marcello does not mention Ferrie at all and mentions Gill only once (in relation to something that occurred in 1970). The HSCA report on Ferrie says he was at Churchill Farms both weekends, ostensibly working on trial strategy, but says nothing further.

Richard D. Mahoney is a respected JFK author (and former Arizona Secretary of State!) who endorses a two-gunman “crossfire” view of the JFKA without attempting to flesh out the conspiracy. Mahoney’s book The Kennedy Brothers says only that “Marcello had spent that weekend [November 16-17] at Churchill Farms closeted [closeted?] with Lee Harvey Oswald’s associate and Cuban exile activist David Ferrie [Oswald’s associate?]. The source for this is Mafia Kingfish by John H. Davis. Mahoney says the HSCA “reached a similar conclusion about Marcello’s and Ferrie’s weekend together” (what conclusion, apart from the fact they were together?). The only other thing he says is “Strangely, Marcello’s attorneys were not present” – for which he cites no source. There is no explicit suggestion that Ferrie and Marcello were hatching JFKA plans.

You can read Mahoney’s latest (March 2026) conspiratorial effort, “Will we ever get the truth about the JFK assassination?”, here: https://journals.econsciences.com/index.php/JSAS/article/download/2721/3469/8949. There is a fair amount about Ferrie in connection with his book but, alas, nothing about being “closeted” with Marcello to hatch JFKA plans.

So is this a busted factoid? Eh, maybe, maybe not. The fact is, Marcello was in the middle of a criminal trial. Ferrie was the investigator for Marcello’s prominent attorney, who said he worked closely with Ferrie on trial strategy. Ferrie may have had a pilot relationship with Marcello dating back to 1961 (according to the HSCA), so perhaps the invitation was partly social. Churchill Farms was a huge estate used for lots of purposes. We don’t really know who was present when Ferrie met with Marcello; Mahoney cites no source for his claim that “Marcello’s attorneys were not present.” Ferrie is such a strange and mysterious figure, and Marcello figures so prominently in any Mafia-did-it JFKA scenario, that I would “never say never” – but to call it a "correct and logical" conclusion that Ferrie and Marcello were "finalizing some of the details" of the JFKA seems exceedingly far-fetched - albeit entirely MTG-like - to me; moreover, the conclusion is MTG's, not Mahoney's.

You just can't trust this MTG character. Someday the light bulb will go on for even the most trusting of you.

I think one would be hard pressed to find any other gunshot case where a group of people refuse to believe the person who actually experienced the shooting and who identified the moment of impact after carefully studying a high-quality print of the film of his shooting frame by frame and under high magnification.

Getting back to Connally's stiffening and frowning, which SBT believers implausibly interpret as a wound reaction, the HSCA's photographic experts determined that the stiffening and frowning actually starts at Z222 (6 HSCA 17), and I agree with them. This poses yet another unsolvable problem for a Z224 SBT hit, and also for a Z220-223 SBT hit. Since Connally begins to stiffen his shoulders and upper trunk and frown at Z222, this means the bullet could not have hit him any later than Z218, since it takes humans at least 4 frames (220 milliseconds) to physically react to "severe external stimulus."

Obviously, Connally stiffens and frowns starting in Z222 (if not before) because he has just heard a gunshot. Naturally, this would have caused him to tense up and frown. He explained that he turned to try to see JFK because he had heard a shot, and we see him starting to finish his rightward turn in Z222, when he reemerges from behind the freeway sign. So, yes, of course, he was worried about hearing a gunshot, and so he tensed up and frowned as a result.     

Of course, Connally carefully studied all the frames after he reemerges from behind the freeway sign for any indication of wound reaction and bullet impact. He said he saw no indication before Z229 that he was hit, and he chose Z234 as the moment of impact. He said he was certain about this.

But, even if you want to reject the conclusion of the guy who actually experienced the wounding and who knew himself better than anyone else, you are still left with the fact that the reaction that starts at Z222 could not have been in response to a Z220-221 hit (and obviously not to a Z223-224 hit either).

 

Yes, I've read John Corbett's latest reply. It is so loaded with evasion, distortion, deception, and error that it's not worth answering. If anyone has any questions about any of his statements, feel free to message me or post them here. Anyway, moving on. . . .

For those who might be interested, another worthwhile discussion on some of the major problems with the autopsy evidence is presented in chapter 8 of Dr. Don Thomas's 2010 book Hear No Evil: Politics, Science, & the Forensic Evidence in the Kennedy Assassination. Dr. Thomas is a retired USDA research scientist. He's had over 100 articles on biology, entomology, DNA, phylogeography, and ionizing radiation published in peer-reviewed scientific journals.

He discusses the impossibility of an FMJ bullet "shearing off" a sizable fragment (or any fragment) at its entry point on a skull, the photographic and x-ray evidence of a frontal shot, the conflict between the head photos and the skull x-rays regarding missing frontal bone, and other important issues relating to the autopsy evidence. 

I have no training in dealing low-IQ people.

You mustn't have any mirrors in your house.
Remember, Oswald killing JFK is just a theory. Is that low-IQ enough for you?
Do you understand the reality of this?
Or is it the case that Oswald killing JFK is a fact like gravity is, or the earth being an oblate spheroid?
I'm actually interested - do you believe these are the same class of 'facts'?

Without a doubt.