Any non police witnesses who saw Oswald with the gun in the theater?
Bernard Haire, owner of a hobby shop two doors from the theater, walked out the rear of his shop shortly before 2:00 PM and saw police cars backed up to Madison Street. He watched as the police escorted a man from the rear of the Texas Theater wearing a "white pullover shirt." They placed the man in a squad car and drove away. He noticed the man was very "flush" in the face as though he had been in a struggle. Haire's description of this man-"white shirt" with a "flush face"-is consistent with witness statements of Tippit's killer before, during and after the shooting
Shortly after 2:00 PM, Mr. T. F. White observed a man sitting in a 1961 red Ford Falcon, with the engine running, in the El Chico parking lot behind his garage. This is five blocks north of the Texas Theater. As Mr. White approached the car, the driver turned and looked at him. The driver then sped off in a westerly direction on Davis Street. Mr. White, who later saw Oswald's picture on TV, said the man in the Falcon was identical to Oswald and wore a "white T-shirt." When told by the FBI that Oswald was in jail at 2:00 PM, White still maintained that the man he saw driving the red Falcon was "possibly identical" to the Oswald he had seen on TV after the assassination. This Oswald "sighting" shortly after Harvey Oswald's arrest at the Texas Theater could have been a case of mistaken identity. But Mr. White, who had been given police training, wrote down the vehicle's license plate number. The plates belonged to a blue 1957 Plymouth 4 door sedan-not a 1961 red Ford Falcon. The Plymouth belonged to Carl Mather, a long time employee of Collins Radio and close friend of J.D. Tippit. Newsman and former Dallas Mayor Wes Wise heard of the unusual Oswald sighting. Mr. Wise and fellow news reporter Jane Bartell questioned Mather about the incident over dinner. Mather was so nervous he could hardly talk and said little. In 1977 the HSCA wanted to interview Mather about this incident. He agreed, but not before he was granted immunity from prosecution by the Justice Department. Mather was interviewed by the HSCA, but most of the documents relating to that interview remain classified in the National Archives. Wh
