JFK Assassination Forum

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

Wow. 35 years research and this is the best you can do.

It's the best I need in this case.

In all those years of intense study you must have noticed that different witnesses were located in different positions.

Yes I did. I noticed Sitzman was behind Zapruder.

JBC had just passed the front of the TSBD building and was clearly in LoS of the shooter so, of course he would have heard the shot clearly. There are other witnesses positioned in front of the building who describe the shots as being very loud.
However, and here you might have to consult your copious notes made over the years, Zapruder and Sitzman were located on the west side of the building, not directly in front.
This affected how they heard the shots.

So you think sound only travels in a vector?

This is from Sitzman's Oral History interview given in '93:

"The last shot that we heard was right in front of us and it was like the same sound—far off and to the left...
...the sound we heard… the third sound still sounded a distance because if it had been as close as everybody’s trying to tell us...we would have jumped sky-high.
[referring to a young couple sat a few feet away] ...they were sitting in a park bench and they dropped their pop bottle on that cement there and cracked it. That’s what kind of woke us up, and that’s when we got down off of the concrete. But that sound was, like, five… eight feet from us. That, yeah, we did hear, but that’s the only other sound other than that far away sound that we heard."

Oh, goody. Another version of what happened from an ear witness. Just how many different ways do you think the JFKA happened?

Here we have a witness, stood next to Zapruder, describing the sound of the shots as "far off".
Because you are a Tinfoil Nutter any witness that undermines or disproves any fraction of your spoon-fed beliefs about this case, is dismissed or are talking nonsense.

Eye and earwitness accounts don't prove anything unless you can prove the witness' account is accurate. I trust people's observed reactions far more than I trust their recollections. The Newmans, who were not far from Zapruder reacted by pushing their kids on the ground and shielding them with their bodies.

I've no doubt you believe you treat all the evidence fairly but this is not the case. Here is a witness who completely undermines your naive approach to the issue of the shots but, because you are so utterly deluded, you believe you know better 

You're so gullible you think one witness undermines a wealth of evidence which is contrary to their account. I always get a chuckle when somebody starts and argument with, "So-and-so said....." as if what so-and-so said. People choose to believe the witnesses who support what they want to believe. Because there are so many differing versions of what happened, it's not hard to find a witness who will support your argument. I don't accept any witness' account that can't be corroborated through other evidence. We have visual evidence that Zapruder's camera shook noticeably 7-8 frames after the second shot was fired and 7-8 frames after the third shot was fired. Is that just a coincidence? It would have taken about 4 frames for the sound of the muzzle blast to reach Zapruder's ears which leaves another 3-4 frames for a startle reaction, about what that should take.

Funnily enough, in an interview with Josiah Thompson Sitzman disagrees with the notion of jiggle analysis, presumably because the sound of the shots was so distant it couldn't have caused a startled reaction.

That is one of the dumbest things I have read on this forum. It is silly to think the sound of the muzzle blast would have dissipated in just 90 yard. You want to be all your eggs in the Sitzman basket as if her account is the definitive story of the JFKA. Foolish.

Zapruder was an old man with vertigo stood on a narrow plinth taking a home movie. To expect a completely smooth tracking shot is ridiculous. Jiggle Analysis is over as a method of analysing the Z-film. Get over it.

Funny how his vertigo only kicked in 7-8 frames after the second and third shots.

Martin Weidmann— I did not realize you were proposing a crime scene wallet might be the one turned in later as the Oswald wallet in evidence, and not the one said to have been taken from Oswald in the car. That removes some of my objection of irrelevance to the crime scene issue. But may I ask, are you meaning this as evidence Oswald was present at the crime scene with Hidell ID? Do you think Oswald shot Tippit? Do you think he accidentally dropped his wallet at the scene, or handed his wallet to Tippit? I’m having trouble seeing where you go with this.

30 years later for a first mention of something that would be expected memorable from the beginning is the key fact making this urban legend genre. Not all witness claims are equal. Analogy that comes to mind is the claim of Secret Service agent Mike Howard that a torn out page in Oswald’s address book had a death list of four people Oswald intended to kill, that Howard claimed he saw the first week. The problem is there is no verification and Howard first mentioned it nearly 30 years after the fact. Sure he said it. Still does. But nobody believes it (I sure don’t) because of the 30-yr delay for a first witness claim that has no other verification. This Oswald wallet at the crime scene very parallel to the Mike Howard claim. They’re both equally unbelievable and for exactly parallel reasons.

Those may be valid questions but are of no relevance to the issue under discussion, the claim of Oswald ID in the WFAA-TV wallet filmed at the crime scene. It is not logical to link objections to a vanishingly weak case on Claim A to a “what about” over somewhere else where there is no linkage at all. The point about the Oswald ID claim at the crime scene is if there had been such a thing it would have been told, Leavelle in charge of the investigation would have known, that wallet would have been marked by officers, or bagged and labeled, and turned in as evidence to the crime lab at the crime scene right then instead of returned to whoever its civilian owner was at the scene. It would not wait 30 years for a claim of such to first come out from anyone. There is not a single witness in their living lifetime who is on tape or in print or statement signed in their own name saying they saw Oswald ID at the crime scene. Think about that. Even Croy’s posthumous autograph inscription if one thinks about it is at best a claim of belief (anyone can believe anything, that’s not evidence), not a claim of having firsthand witness evidence to offer.

There is no known record that Scoggins was ever asked about that wallet, and it is not clear (to me anyway) that Callaway ever was asked directly or directly denied. The reason for a little uncertainty here is Myers never reports a Callaway denial in his book, but at one point seemed to do so in a passing comment on his blog, but when I tried to ask him for clarification on that—because it is an important point if true—he did not answer my question. And I don’t think it even was written by Myers top level in a blog post but in one of the appended comments after, and he never repeated it. So I at least am uncertain if that is actually Callaway did deny, or whether that was maybe Myers’ interpretation of something less clear from Callaway. And of course there is no exact quote, transcript or tape of Myers’ Callaway interview to consult to fact-check the point. Bottom line: it seems likely—in light of the factual linkage of that wallet to the Tippit revolver filmed in the same officer’s hand—that that wallet was from either Callaway or Scoggins, and WFAA-TV filmed it just moments before it was returned to the citizen, probably Callaway or Scoggins, as its rightful owner, of no evidential interest or relevance to the Tippit murder case.

That it was not turned in as evidence at the time indicates it was a citizen’s, not considered evidence in the murder case. Since it is abnormal for a civilian to give an officer a wallet itself instead of ID pulled out from a wallet, this was not a normal routine citizen’s ID check. But it is factually part of the return of the Tippit revolver which had factually been taken from the crime scene by Callaway, with Callaway seen having done so causing witnesses to at first suspect Callaway, and Callaway and Scoggins were stopped and the Tippit revolver retrieved from Callaway at gunpoint, or in a hostile and embarrassing encounter. Since the wallet is linked to that Tippit revolver’s recovery from Callaway (evidence: the WFAA footage), that wallet makes sense as obtained from Callaway at the same time as the Tippit revolver, both turned in to the police, the police realize Callaway was not the gunman, and give him back his wallet. It’s a reconstruction but it is a plausible explanation of the wallet which accounts for the facts, and whose else would that wallet be than one of those two—a wallet linked to the Tippit revolver recovery episode and which police do not consider physical evidence in the crime case.

A lot of nothing to do with Scoggins or Callaway as related to the wallet. They left the scene.

Think about that. Even Croy’s posthumous autograph inscription if one thinks about it is at best a claim of belief (anyone can believe anything, that’s not evidence), not a claim of having firsthand witness evidence to offer.

This part is just made up

Yes, it would indeed be memorable to find a wallet on Oswald containing the Hidell ID. So, why did none of the officers that were in the car with Oswald mention such a find in any report? For months none of the officers said anything. Bentley wasn't called to testify and Gerald Hill said in his testimony, six months later, that he vaguely remembered the Hidell name being mentioned. Now isn't that weird?

Everything else you have written is pure speculation, so I won't bother to reply to it.

What I will ask you is; can you produce a solid chain of custody for the wallet taken from Oswald by Bentley?

Also, who was the unidentified officer that gave Guy Rose a wallet that contained the Hidell ID, and where did he/she get that wallet?

Mr. BALL. Did you search him?
Mr. ROSE. He had already been searched and someone had his billfold. I don't know whether it was the patrolman who brought him in that had it or not.
Mr. BALL. And the contents of the billfold supposedly were before you?
Mr. ROSE. Yes.

If there is no chain of custody for the wallet, how can it be determined conclusively that the wallet given to Rose is the same one that Bentley took from Oswald in the car?

Those may be valid questions but are of no relevance to the issue under discussion, the claim of Oswald ID in the WFAA-TV wallet filmed at the crime scene. It is not logical to link objections to a vanishingly weak case on Claim A to a “what about” over somewhere else where there is no linkage at all. The point about the Oswald ID claim at the crime scene is if there had been such a thing it would have been told, Leavelle in charge of the investigation would have known, that wallet would have been marked by officers, or bagged and labeled, and turned in as evidence to the crime lab at the crime scene right then instead of returned to whoever its civilian owner was at the scene. It would not wait 30 years for a claim of such to first come out from anyone. There is not a single witness in their living lifetime who is on tape or in print or statement signed in their own name saying they saw Oswald ID at the crime scene. Think about that. Even Croy’s posthumous autograph inscription if one thinks about it is at best a claim of belief (anyone can believe anything, that’s not evidence), not a claim of having firsthand witness evidence to offer.

There is no known record that Scoggins was ever asked about that wallet, and it is not clear (to me anyway) that Callaway ever was asked directly or directly denied. The reason for a little uncertainty here is Myers never reports a Callaway denial in his book, but at one point seemed to do so in a passing comment on his blog, but when I tried to ask him for clarification on that—because it is an important point if true—he did not answer my question. And I don’t think it even was written by Myers top level in a blog post but in one of the appended comments after, and he never repeated it. So I at least am uncertain if that is actually Callaway did deny, or whether that was maybe Myers’ interpretation of something less clear from Callaway. And of course there is no exact quote, transcript or tape of Myers’ Callaway interview to consult to fact-check the point. Bottom line: it seems likely—in light of the factual linkage of that wallet to the Tippit revolver filmed in the same officer’s hand—that that wallet was from either Callaway or Scoggins, and WFAA-TV filmed it just moments before it was returned to the citizen, probably Callaway or Scoggins, as its rightful owner, of no evidential interest or relevance to the Tippit murder case.

That it was not turned in as evidence at the time indicates it was a citizen’s, not considered evidence in the murder case. Since it is abnormal for a civilian to give an officer a wallet itself instead of ID pulled out from a wallet, this was not a normal routine citizen’s ID check. But it is factually part of the return of the Tippit revolver which had factually been taken from the crime scene by Callaway, with Callaway seen having done so causing witnesses to at first suspect Callaway, and Callaway and Scoggins were stopped and the Tippit revolver retrieved from Callaway at gunpoint, or in a hostile and embarrassing encounter. Since the wallet is linked to that Tippit revolver’s recovery from Callaway (evidence: the WFAA footage), that wallet makes sense as obtained from Callaway at the same time as the Tippit revolver, both turned in to the police, the police realize Callaway was not the gunman, and give him back his wallet. It’s a reconstruction but it is a plausible explanation of the wallet which accounts for the facts, and whose else would that wallet be than one of those two—a wallet linked to the Tippit revolver recovery episode and which police do not consider physical evidence in the crime case.