JFK Assassination Forum

Official time of death is not always stated precisely as evidenced by JFK's official time of death as 1:00pm CST. The priests who entered the ER to administer the last rights before that time said he was already covered with a sheet when the last rights were administered to the body.

The only reason that I know of why a precise time of death might be important is the provisions of some wills. As executor of my father's will, I know there was a provision that excluded the named heirs in the event they preceded him in death. It also stated that if the order of their deaths could not be determined, it was to be presumed they preceded him in death. I think it would be highly unusual that such a provision would come into play. Perhaps if the people question were both killed in a car or plane crash and both were declared dead at the scene. Hard to say from just a few examples but it looks to me like it might be a common practice to round off the time of death to the nearest 15 minute time frame.

Official time of death is not always stated precisely

That's probably true, but it doesn't mean that the official time is always wrong.

Official time of death is not always stated precisely as evidenced by JFK's official time of death as 1:00pm CST. The priests who entered the ER to administer the last rights before that time said he was already covered with a sheet when the last rights were administered to the body.

The only reason that I know of why a precise time of death might be important is the provisions of some wills. As executor of my father's will, I know there was a provision that excluded the named heirs in the event they preceded him in death. It also stated that if the order of their deaths could not be determined, it was to be presumed they preceded him in death. I think it would be highly unusual that such a provision would come into play. Perhaps if the people question were both killed in a car or plane crash and both were declared dead at the scene. Hard to say from just a few examples but it looks to me like it might be a common practice to round off the time of death to the nearest 15 minute time frame.

Why is the precise time of death the least bit irrelevant to the question of who shot Tippit?

Your attitude toward everything JFKA-related seems to be little more than "Oswald shot JFKA and there's nothing else to talk about" and "Oswald shot Tippit and there's nothing else to talk about." It's not just the proverbial 30,000-foot level, but more like the 120,000-foot level. Yet here you are, day after day, defending your particular version of the LN narrative with a zeal the Jehovah's Witnesses would envy. "There's nothing to talk about" - but you manage to talk about it pretty much all day every day.

The fact is, it seems to me pretty obvious that Oswald shot Tippit. As with all things JFKA-related, however, there are an almost supernatural number of quirks and discrepancies - an extremely tight timeline, odd behavior by Tippit, conflicting witness accounts, yada yada. Greg Doudna has spent a great deal of time on a scenario, which other CTers of reasonably high quality agree with, that doesn't have Oswald shooting Tippit at all. It sounds wildly implausible to me, but at least it suggests there is something worth talking about. The "precise time" at which several things occurred is pretty critical if it potentially pushes the encounter to a time impossible for Oswald to have been there.

To me, it's at least interesting at the level of trying to assess whether there is any "there" there. That's why I'm also interested in the "why" questions that you find irrelevant: Why did Tippit stop Oswald, if that's what occurred? Why did Tippit get out of his car? Why did Oswald shoot him, if that's what occurred? If the most plausible answer to those "why" questions is something other than the standard LN narrative, then where might that lead?

If one just wants to keep parroting the JFKA equivalent of "The Bible is true and you're going to hell," then I don't see the point.

But if the DOA time isn't a major issue, as you say, can you come up with an explanation for the FBI pestering hospital workers for days about this exact matter?

FWIW: DVP's site has this explanation of the time discrepancy from Dale Myers:

https://jfk-archives.blogspot.com/2010/06/tippit-timelines.html

Due to the inaccuracy of the clocks at Methodist Hospital, there clearly was a time discrepancy. I had seen an interview (or perhaps testimony) with a Methodist Hospital nurse who explained the problem and the FBI's efforts to clarify with Dr. Moellenhoff - but now, naturally, I can't find it. Is this the "pestering" you're referring to? I suppose I can see the FBI trying to nail down a reasonably accurate timeline for exactly the reasons being discussed here. Someone probably saw the 1:15 on the Authorized Permit for Autopsy Form and said "That can't be right" (in terms of a death determination at the hospital). Since Tippit was taken to the ER, there presumably did have to be an official determination that "He's gone," but it sounds like that was sometime between 1:15 and 1:30.

It isn't. If Tippit was indeed at the hospital being declared D.O.A. at 1:15 PM, he couldn't have been shot at 1:14:30. It must have happened earlier.

As to the relevance, ask the FBI who pestered the hospital staff for days why it was relevant to them.

The key word being "IF".