The best evidence of Oswald's ability to reach the crime scene within the timeframe of the murder is that multiple witnesses place him there. There is no doubt that Oswald was at the scene when the murder occurred. If he was there, then debating whether he had time to be there is pointless. The thing proves itself. The CTer mindset is to ignore multiple eyewitnesses who place Oswald at the scene with a gun and instead nitpick the timeline. It's laughable kook logic.
I don’t have any issue on timing, but you should be aware there are grounds for doubt Oswald was at the crime scene. The single strongest crime scene witness of all, because of how close he was, from only 15-20 feet away, testified he had an excellent view of the back of the killer’s head and described a block cut rear hairline which, as it stands, is highly credible stand-alone exonerating testimony, given that all photos of Oswald show him with a taper rear hairline. For good measure this single best crime scene witness of all at the crime scene was a barber. Hard to beat that for a witness favorable to reasonable doubt.
No less than 8 (!) crime scene witnesses or witnesses of the fleeing gunman testified that that gunman was wearing a white or light-colored shirt, underneath a partly open zippered jacket. As you know Oswald was seen by Brewer and arrested in a dark brown shirt. This is not an easy massive number of witness testimonies that can easily be accounted for as mistakes. Reasonable doubt grounds number two.
Multiple witness reports had the gunman’s hair described as “black” or very dark brown. Oswald’s appears to have been medium brown, and I am not aware of any independent testimony to seeing Oswald’s hair as “black”.
There is a good argument that two sets of fingerprints lifted from the Tippit patrol car 20 minutes after the crime were left by the killer. Those prints have been found by an expert analysis to be conclusively not a match to Oswald. Those prints hsve never been proven to not be the killer’s.
The witnesses who identified the gunman as Oswald are less decisive than it appears. For some reason few seem aware that since the 1964 time of the Warren Commission studies have established—this is mainstream and not too controversial—that witness facial recognition (in cases where the witness does not know the person already) is not reliable at over 50 feet. Reason: the human eye loses detail with distance, necessary for facial recognition. This lack of reliability overrides even when the witness expresses confidence or certainty. There goes Callaway (56 feet) and all of the Warren Reynolds auto place witnesses, right there. The Davis sisters in law both said they saw the killers face only in profile not full face.
This is not to say there isn’t a case against Oswald from the shell hulls weapon ID if one does not consider chain of custody issues with those hulls to be significant, and there is an argument from coincidence that Oswald was nearby in the midst of a live shooter police manhunt. But the eyewitness identifications incriminating Oswald range from poor to medium quality, none exceptionally strong, with the argument for incrimination relying on the number of them more than their quality.
There is zero weight toward incrimination of Oswald from the killer’s jacket (CE 162)’s fibers, from any expert testimony. Thst is why neither the FBI nor WC who knew of those fibers ever claimed they were positive weight evidence of a match to Oswald’s brown shirt, because no expert ever testified to that and it is unlikely any would. Non-expert interpretations don’t count. It is like saying common cooking ingredients prove a certain kind of cake was made. As for the jacket itself, Marina testified it was Lee’s, and Buell Frazier testified even more emphatically that it definitely was not—that he knew Lee’s gray work jacket and it was woolen and gray, not the off-white light tan cloth CE 162 which would easily pick up dirt and not be too practical as a daily work jacket in dusty or dirty surroundings doing manual labor. One is not right between Marina and Buell, take your pick.
I personally believe there is a case Oswald may not have been the gunman despite appearances, and that Tippit’s killer was a professional, Craford. Craford was a self-confessed hitman at this stage of his life, he was left-handed as the fingerprints, if they were from the killer, indicate the killer was. He had a full head of hair so dark brown that it appeared black. Craford’s own daughter told me that as a child growing up for years she thought his hair was black until belatedly learning it was actually dark brown. EXACTLY the police description of the killer’s hair color in the first hour, from Callaway and one other witness I believe as the police sources on that, who saw and told the color of the killer’s hair. And the daughter told me her father had a habit of talking to himself, compare Scoggins hearing the killer doing that (not a practice or habit known of Oswald).
I wrote a bit on a case for Craford instead of Oswald on Tippit in a way that has not previously been argued, ie original stuff, though I have not had time to write the rest of the case and don’t know when I will have time. But if interested you can see the start of the case here:
https://www.scrollery.com/?p=1850.
And Craford is known independently to have been mistakenly identified as Oswald by sincere witnesses, and there goes the perception of strength of the witnesses’ Oswald identifications some more, if it’s between Oswald and Craford, could be either one from the witness evidence.
Tippit’s killer came to the crime scene walking from the east on foot consistent with an origin point in the approximate vicinity of Jack Ruby’s apartment. Craford was driven home from the Vegas Club by Ruby at ca 3 am the night before and Ruby could have driven him to his apartment instead of to the Carousel Club as normally. Both Ruby and Senator, from his separate bedroom, left the apartment Friday morning. Craford could have been in Ruby’s room without Senator knowing it, then had the empty apartment to himself until the time came to walk to the crime scene 4 blocks west for an expected arrival of Tippit to flag down as he arrived and kill him as a contract execution. Just saying.
Also, Oswald did have a loaded gun on him at his arrest, he did resist arrest and he did punch an officer. But he did not attempt to shoot an officer, and he did not say “it’s all over now” when he first stood up. He said that after he was subdued and had stopped resisting. And the failed attempt to shoot evidenced by the “click” everyone heard was McDonald attempting unsuccessfully to shoot Oswald with Oswald’s own gun. This is not speculation but fact, from confession of McDonald that he got control of Oswald’s revolver, pointed it intentionally into Oswald’s stomach, and started intentionally to pull the trigger to shoot him. That’s not speculation, that’s McDonald himself on YouTube. But Bentley’s hand was injured blocking the hammer which is why McDonald’s attempt to shoot Oswald failed. It wasn’t premeditated on McDonald’s part, to shoot Oswald with his own gun. It followed Oswald punching McDonald in the face. Oswald no more pulled that trigger than Anthony Pretti in Minneapolis tried to shoot the iCE officers. McDonald claimed Oswald did but McDonald clearly did once the matter is studied, and it is not even ambiguous. Not that this point is decisive on the Tippit case but just to clear the deck on that particular long-standing claim.
Anyone is still free to consider Oswald guilty on Tippit. I’m just saying there is another possible side to the story on serious evidence grounds having nothing to do with conspiracy theorizing. There are grounds for reasonable doubt on Oswald on Tippit. I won’t be spending a lot of time defending this further at this time, but for what it’s worth, a few things to think about here.
