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The Death of Tippit – Part 2 – The Timeline and Tapes

By John Washburn

Both Hill and Westbrook’s testimonies confuse the sequences and timelines of particular events. The discovery of the jacket behind Ballew is a particularly relevant marker, as are the various false alarms. Hill even put the jacket discovery in the wrong place.

To help unpick the confusion, listed below are events from the 12:44 All Points Bulletin (APB) to the time officers announced they were outside the Texas Theater. 

Times are taken from the DPD tapes, adjusted to real-time between 12:54 and 1:16 pm (where time was tampered slowly) and again after 1:16 where time was tampered fast.

12:44          APB with description of suspect

12:48          Hill “enroute” to TSBD, in car 207 arrives by 12:50 pm 

12:53         Tippit says he’s at “Lansing 8^th” 

12:56         260 (Harkness) “Get us 508 (Barnes – Crime Lab) down to Texas School Book Depository”. Shells have been found.

12:56         508 (Barnes) is en route to deal with the shells found and ‘crime scene’. 

1:00           Unanswered call to Tippit

1:04           “91 clear” Mentzel. (Per CE2645 at Luby’s) time 3 minutes difference)

1:04           “78” Tippit. Appears twice on CD 280 transcript but disappears in subsequent transcripts. (1:07 DPD time 3 minutes difference)

1:07           Mentzel is asked to do traffic call. Does not go to accident as offloads to Nolan. Is at Beckley and 10^th per CE 2645, a Mobil gas station (1:11 DPD time 4 minutes difference)

1:09           Tippit was shot, driving eastwards from direction of Beckley and 10^th, the Mobil gas station.

1:10           Bowley at the shooting scene arrived having left RL Thornton School Singing Hills at 12:55 pm with daughter (a 13–15-minute drive mainly on freeway). Waits for safety until making radio call (Bowley affidavit of 2 December 1963)

1:10           Fugitive ran onto Jefferson (Lewis, Patterson, Russell, and Reynolds FBI interviews and Warren Commission testimony of Reynolds.) 

1:11           Lewis called DPD. Russell arrived at murder scene. Said Police car arrived in 5 minutes

1:11/1:12  Bowley call. (1:18/1:19 DPD time 7-8 minutes difference). Ambulance arrives exactly 1 minute after Bowley has given the location as, “What’s, what, 404 E10th” 15 seconds after he started his call.

1:14           “Suspect running west on Jefferson”. (Lewis has phoned and Dispatch put the call out) (19:30 DPD time 5:30 minutes difference)

1:14           “19 is en route” (DPD time 1:19-1:20)

1:15           “19 will be en route shortly”

1:16           “85 (RW Walker): “We have a description on this suspect over here on Jefferson, last seen about 300 block of East Jefferson. He’s a white male, about 30, 5’8”; black wavy hair, slender, wearing a white jacket, white shirt, and dark slacks”. (DPD 1:22).

1:16           Poe and then Owens arrive at 410 E10th. “105, we’ve arrived”. “19 is code 6”. (1: 22. DPD 6 minutes difference*). Westbrook and Alexander were with Owens.

1:20           279 says “got jacket in parking lot of garage across from Dudley Hughes.”. (DPD 1:25 5 minutes difference*). Westbrook had found the jacket under a car.

1:20           Hill says on patrol radio he’d already been at the scene and saw the ambulance pass in front when Hill was on his way. 

1:21           Hill says at 12th Beckley with ‘a witness’. (DPD 1:26-1:27 5 minutes difference*)

1:21           Owens is at Ballew “One of the men here at the service station that saw him seems to think he’s in this block, the 400 block of East Jefferson behind this service station. Would you give me some more squads over here?”
DPD (DPD 1:26 5 minutes difference*) told Warren Commission a jacket had been thrown down. Russell for second FBI interview said he went back to that scene with a policeman.

1:28           111 (Officer Pollard said suspect was seen running west in the alley between Jefferson and 10^th) (DPD 1:32 4 minutes difference*)

1:29           Owens. “We’re shaking down these old houses here in 400 Block E Jefferson.” (DPD 1:33 4 minutes difference*). Per WC testimony Owens stayed outside covering. Per WFAA-TV Dallas footage (Reiland the reporter – see later), Hill instigated that search, and then the search moved to the Marsalis Library) *

1:29           Channel 2 221 (Patrolmen R. HAWKINS and E. R. BAGGETT) Can you give Captain WESTBROOK any information as to where he was shot?

1:29           McDonald “Send squad over here to Tenth and Crawford to check out this church basement” *.” (DPD 1:33 1:27 4 minutes difference*)

1:30           CT Walker. “223, he’s in the library at Jefferson — east 500 block Marsalis and Jefferson” * (DPD 1:34 4 minutes difference). That is the time Hutson, Hawkins, and Baggett (see later) were at the Mobil gas station, 10^th and Beckley.

1:31           Owens. “We’re all at the library” (DPD 1:34 3 minutes difference)

1:35           Westbrook (550) made a call “What officer have you got commanding this area over here where this officer was shot?” Then Owens and others return to 410 E 10^th. There is then more WFAA-TV (Reiland) footage which showed Westbrook, Poe, Owens, and Croy examining a wallet at the scene. 

1:40           Westbrook put out a call “and work to North Jefferson. We’ve got a witness that seen him go north. *

1:41           Hill 550/2: The shells at the scene indicate that the suspect is armed with an automatic .38, rather than a pistol.

1:42           Hill (550/2) put out a call on Channel 2. “A witness reports that he was last seen in the Abundant Life Temple about the 400 block. We are fixing to go in and shake it down”*

1:42           Owens (19) asks where 80 (Davis is).

1:44           Hill (550/2) put out a call on Channel 2. “No that’s not the right one.” The Abundant Life Temple was a false alarm.

1:44           Stringer (551 put out a call on Channel 2. “The jacket the suspect was wearing over here on Jefferson bears a laundry tag with the letter B 9738. See if there is any way you can check this laundry tag.” Per Ewell that was at the curb of Crawford Street.

1:45           Radio call that suspect seen entering Texas Theater.

1:47           Hawkins (call sign 211) put out a call “there’s about five squads back here [rear of the Texas Theater] with me now”. 

The asterisked events at 1:29,1:30,1:40 and 1:42 were all false alarms (covered later).

II

As set out in my Tippit Tapes article [https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/the-tippit-tapes-a-re-examination] time was tampered with before the shooting of Tippit with the effect of placing Bowley’s call at 1:11 pm as 1:18-1:19 pm. After 12:55 pm most time stamps are missing, and a few erroneous time stamps appear. Time was slowed down. The reason for that is that anyone leaving 1026 N Beckley at 1:04 pm on foot couldn’t have arrived to kill Tippit at 1:09 pm. 

Researcher Dale Myers says he timed the tape and a stopwatch and put Bowley’s call as at 1:17 pm 41 seconds. However, it’s difficult to reconcile that exercise with the Minnesota Library version of the patrol radio tapes on YouTube. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1-CXd9qdIQ&t=1551s]

That tape starts at 12:15 pm and runs for 1 hour 1 minute with a minute of a stuck repeat just before Bowley’s call which was 3 ½ minutes before the end of the tape. Hence by simple arithmetic, with only an hour of calls, there could be no events on the tape that occurred after 1:15 pm. Bowley’s is 56 ½ minutes from the start, making it 1:11 pm. 

The tape has a 7-minute discrepancy by 1:11 pm which gradually accumulates after 12:54 pm when time stamps begin to disappear systematically. A real interval of 17 minutes was stretched to 24 minutes. 

With time having been sped up, the opposite effect can be observed after Bowley’s call. The consequences of that are apparent in at least two places. By the speeded-up tampered time, Owens appears to have arrived only 3 minutes after the start of Bowley’s call. But in real time it took 4-5 minutes. Owens appears, by DPD time, to have arrived at the library false alarm only one minute after he was “shaking down the houses” in 400 E Jefferson, and simultaneously to CT Walker calling the false alarm. But in real time the interval is 2 minutes.

That can be explained as the tamperers needing to resynchronize with real-time at approximately 1:45 pm because of third-party verifiability of the time of events at the Texas Theater. Time speeds up, thus a real interval of 34 minutes is condensed to 27 minutes.

The 3 December 1963 statement of Hutson correctly put the time of the 1:45 pm call saying a suspect had entered the Texas Theater as 1:45 pm. This is where real-time and DPD time resynchronized in the first transcript, Secret Service Copy CD-290.

But on  December 5, 1963, Hill said that the radio message that a suspect was in the theater was 1:55 pm. McDonald said on December 2, 1963, that 2:00 pm was the time of entering the Texas Theater. C.T. Walker said on 2 December 1963 the 1:45 pm radio call was 2:00 pm.

The date of those officers asserting these false timings is relevant. The first transcript appeared as Secret Service Copy CD-290 dated December 3, 1963. That version did have a 1:45 pm time stamp as the relevant time. But time stamps for 1:18, 1:40, and 1:45 present in CD 290 disappear in the 6 March and 11 August transcripts and from the tape. The 1:45 call sits midway between the 1:44 and 1:46 time stamps in these later versions.

By that evidence, the tampering strategy was still fluid in the first week of December 1963. Therefore some officers, who presumably knew they had to add 10 minutes to time to give a false account for Tippit’s time of death, carried on adding 10 minutes to the time of events at the Texas Theater not knowing that time would end up not tampered! 

Only Hutson didn’t lie on time and as set out later Hutson was only in on Oswald’s arrest by chance. Was Hutson a reason why Oswald left the Texas Theater alive?

OWENS’ VS EWELL’S ACCOUNT VS WESTBROOK’S

Back to the discrepancies in how people arrived at the Tippit murder scene.

Ewell said:- “I left the location at the School Book Depository and jumped into a car driven by Captain Westbrook with Sergeant Stringer. I rode in the back seat as we sped across into Oak Cliff by taking the Houston Street Viaduct right beside the Dallas News.

When we arrived in Oak Cliff, I got a chance to go into a convenience store, McCandles’ Minute Market it was called in those days, just down from the Marsailles [sic] Public Library, and I did get to make a phone call to the city desk asking them to send me a photographer. They didn’t know what I was doing in Oak Cliff. This particular editor was too overpowered by what was going on downtown to pay any attention to what I was trying to tell him, and I know I came out saying, “You know I’ve got to have a photographer out here!”

As I stepped out of this convenience store, next door to it was a two-story boarding house, and there I saw Bill Alexander with an automatic pistol stalking across the balcony very carefully. Alexander always impressed me because, being an assistant district attorney, he was one of those guys from the prosecutor’s office that you saw with the cops. He was a squad car prosecutor. You very seldom saw the district attorney outside of his office.

From there we proceeded to a side street down from where they said J.D. Tippit had been shot not far from East Jefferson. There was another police car there as they were examining a jacket next to the curb which had apparently been located by one of the policemen after Oswald had thrown it down as he ran toward Jefferson. I had a jacket just like it. I remember it as being a light tan windbreaker. I was with Westbrook as we all went over to examine the jacket because it was the only tangible thing we had at the moment that belonged to the killer. In fact, I held the jacket in my hands. I remember that they were talking about a water mark on it that was obviously made by a dry cleaning shop.

They were discussing it when the report came in that the person they thought might be the police officer’s assailant had gone into the Texas Theatre. Now we were on East Jefferson, so I’m thinking that we were about five blocks from that location. Immediately, Captain Westbrook and Sergeant Stringer ran back to their car, which was across the street, and I ran to jump in the backseat. By that time, they were already turning out and accelerating. When I got in the backseat with the door still hanging open, I came out of the car hanging onto the door. They slowed down long enough for me to get back in, as I could have been flung out against the gravel into a curb if I hadn’t held on.

Anyway, when we arrived at the Texas Theatre, we parked right in front and everybody jumped out and went into the lobby. There were other police cars getting there, too. I was very familiar with the Texas Theatre, having lived close by back when we were a younger married couple. At that time, they had some kind of stairway up to the balcony, and I remember somebody kept shouting, “Turn on the house lights! Will somebody please turn on the house lights?”

At 1:44 pm there was this call on Channel 2, which corroborates what Ewell said, which is particularly relevant to time. 

551 (Sergeant H.H. Stringer)         “The jacket the suspect was wearing over here on Jefferson bears a laundry tag with the letter B 9738. See if there is any way you can check this laundry tag.”

The place Ewell describes his arrival, “McCandles Minute Market”, and where he made a phone call can be deduced. It was adjacent to the building Alexander was investigating, a “furniture store”. 409 E Jefferson was described in the 1961 Dallas Directory as “One Stop Drive in Grocery” (later to become Dean’s Dairy Way). Next to that, westwards, was 401 E Jefferson, the Texaco garage. Next to it eastwards 413 ½ an apartment building, and then 417 S&J Used Furniture Exchange. 

Ewell’s account is consistent with patrol radio and also WFAA-TV reporter Ron Reiland. Reiland in the TV film described Sgt. Hill as instigating the search of what Reiland called “antique shops”. Reiland says:-. 

“Another man, Officer Hill, and several others ran into the front of the building with drawn pistols. I ran around the back of the building with my camera in hopes that if they flushed this man that we were looking for, he would come out the back door right into the face of the camera.”

This is from the WFAA-TV broadcast, “A Year Ago Today”, November 22, 1964, at 36.20 minutes. [https://youtu.be/DBOvB5RKDOo?si=TYNIGZLvlzZb0DJa]

Ewell describes the examination of the jacket on the curb, which would be Crawford Street. Ewell was not describing the discovery of the jacket as that occurred in the parking lot near the alley before 1:21 pm.

Ewell’s description of events around the time of his arrival – which he said was with Westbrook driving – places it no earlier than the events around 1:30 pm (real-time). Whereas Owens said he arrived in Oak Cliff with Westbrook and that time was 1:16 pm. 

Owens and Ewell could both have been telling the truth if Westbrook had done the journey twice in quick succession. The first journey was exactly as Owens said, and arriving at 1:16 pm in Owens’ car. The second journey was exactly as Jim Ewell said, and for that second journey, Westbrook had acquired the unmarked car that Ewell said Westbrook later drove to the front of the Texas Theatre. 

A need, and the means, for Westbrook to go back to the Depository would be car 207. The car would have to be removed from Oak Cliff, or else it would stick out like a sore thumb. I therefore posit that Westbrook very shortly after arriving with Owens rendezvoused with car 207 (Hill) somewhere near the alley west of Crawford and took car 207 back to the Depository. 

If Westbrook revealed how he’d arrived twice it would destroy the alibi for car 207. That explains why in his evidence he would conflate the two journeys into one. Thus turning Owens into an unknown officer, leaving out Ewell and Alexander, but adding Stringer. 

By doing that, Westbrook would also have to lie about his method of arriving at the Texas Theater. He couldn’t admit – which was Ewell’s account – that he’d driven the unmarked car parked at the front. That would undermine everything, including his dubious story of walking from City Hall. 

WESTBROOK – THE ALLEY AND THE JACKET

In the extract of his testimony above Westbrook omitted his activities during the 14 minutes after he had arrived with Owens (1:16 pm). Westbrook first tried to mention only the library debacle (1:30 pm). Counsel Ball was aware of that omission, so he asked a question he knew the answer to.

Mr. BALL. So, what did you do after that?

Mr. WESTBROOK. I went back to the city hall and resumed my desk.

Mr. BALL. Did you ever find some clothing?

Mr. WESTBROOK. That was before, Mr. Ball.

Mr. BALL. When was that?

Mr. WESTBROOK. Actually, I didn’t find it-it was pointed out to me by either some officer that-that was while we were going over the scene in the close area where the shooting was concerned. Someone pointed out a jacket to me that was laying under a car and I got the jacket and told the other to take the license number.

Mr. BALL. When did this happen? You gave me a sort of a resume of what you had done. But you omitted this incident.

Mr. WESTBROOK. I tell you what-this occurred shortly-let me think just a minute. We had been to the library and there is a little bit more conversation on the radio-I got on the radio and I asked the dispatcher about along this time, and I think this was after the library situation, if there had been a command post set up and who was in charge at the scene, and he, told me Sergeant Owens, and about that time we saw Sergeant Owens pass. 

Mr. BALL. What do you mean by “command post”?

Westbrook was struggling. Why? Because the call announcing that the jacket of the fugitive was found in the parking lot of Ballew Texaco Service Station, 401 E Jefferson, was ten minutes earlier than the library incident – at approximately 1:20 pm. (Call sign 279 being Officer Mackie or Griffin.) 

279   We believe we’ve got this suspect on shooting this officer out here. Got his white jacket. Believe he dumped it on this parking lot behind this service station at 400 block East Jefferson across from Dudley Hughes and he had a white jacket on. We believe this is it.

DIS:   10-4. You do not have the suspect. Is that correct?

279: No, just the jacket, laying on the ground. 

DIS:   10-4.

Having been caught out Westbrook then said:

Mr. BALL. Was that before you went to the scene of the Tippit shooting?

Mr. WESTBROOK. Yes, sir; that was before we went to that scene.

Mr. BALL. That was after you left the library?

Mr. WESTBROOK. After we left the library. I got out of the car and walked through the parking lot.

Mr. BALL. What parking lot?

Mr. WESTBROOK. I don’t know-it may have been a used-car lot.

Mr. BALL. On what street?

Mr. WESTBROOK. It was actually on Jefferson, but the place where this jacket was found would have been back closer to the alley, Mr. Ball.

Mr. BALL. The alley of what?

Mr. WESTBROOK. Between Jefferson and whatever the next street is over there.

Mr. BALL. Tenth Street is the street north.

Mr. WESTBROOK. What street?

Mr. BALL. You see, the street directly north of Jefferson is 10th Street.

Mr. WESTBROOK. It would be between Jefferson and 10th Street?

Mr. BALL. And where with reference to Patton?

Mr. WESTBROOK. Well, it would be toward town,

Westbrook was obfuscating and changing the subject and there is a sense of exasperation in the tone of Ball. Westbrook couldn’t have gone to the parking lot to find the jacket after the library incident, as the jacket had been found before. What occurred after the library incident was it being discussed on Crawford Street. 

But making matters worse for him he: did find the jacket. An FBI report of 3 December 1963 states:

“Captain Doughty stated that this jacket was found by Captain Westbrook of the Dallas Police Department in an open parking lot west of Patton Street between 10^th and Jefferson Streets, Dallas, Texas.”

[https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=10672#relPageId=209&search=%22doughty%22_and%20%22westbrook%22]

The police record of the jacket was filed by Westbrook at 3 pm on the 22nd. Note it has Westbrook’s name at the top. [https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth339366/m1/1/]

But the same document submitted to the Warren Commission has Westbrook’s name obscured by a tilted strip attached over his name, in a way no other documents are.  (Vol XXIV CE2003, p117.) [https://www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh24/pdf/WH24_CE_2003.pdf]

If one looks carefully, only the words at the top “SUBMITTED TOO”, survived for the Warren Commission. The words “DPD Personnel Office” have not survived, despite being darker ink strikes in the original DPD version of the document. Those words cannot have been obscured accidentally, merely by a strip placed over those words at that angle. Nor by a parallel strip, as the words “OFFICER” and “OF” would also have survived. 

The words on the strip that say it was released from “our” – DPD – Crime Lab on 28 November 1963 are superfluous. Both versions lower down state that the evidence was released to Vince Drain of the FBI on 28 November 1963.

III

For the HSCA in 1978, Westbrook admitted to finding the jacket. He said: “[he] was behind this location [Ballew] with Stringer when they found the jacket under the parked car across the alley from the rear of the church. Doesn’t recall disposition of the jacket.”

So, by this, Westbrook found the jacket in the parking lot. Before the radio call at 1:20 pm, announcing it had been found. If Westbrook for the HSCA was correct, then how did Stringer arrive? Was he the other person in car 207 with Hill that tooted outside 1026 N Beckley?

When Westbrook was interviewed by author Larry Sneed in 1988 he’d again forgotten Stringer’s name. But he placed himself finding the jacket having been in the alley. 

“…I started walking up the alley, and I can’t even remember who the officers were at the time, one officer, whether he was with me or whether he was coming the other way, I can’t recall; but he said, ‘Look! There’s a jacket under the car.’ I think it was an old Pontiac sitting there if I remember right. So, I walked over and reached under and picked up the jacket, and this eventually turned out to be Oswald’s jacket.”

To summarise. Westbrook, who had arrived at the scene with Owens, has a hole in his story, concerning his whereabouts from 12:45 pm to 1:11 pm and then again after 1:16 pm to at least 1:30 pm. He tried to not mention the jacket to Ball and is defensive when it is brought up. He oscillates between the finding of the jacket just before 1:21 pm, with the discussion of the jacket at 1:44 pm. That is consistent with his conflating his two arrivals.

All references on patrol radio Channel 1 describing the fugitive who ran down Patton and then E Jefferson including the finding of the jacket at 1:21 pm say it was white and that the fugitive had a white shirt. There was no mention of tan, gray, or any other color. But the jacket Westbrook submitted as evidence with the cleaning tag was gray. Jacket-less Oswald himself was wearing a brown shirt when arrested.

If Westbrook falsified the jacket submission in his submission of 3:00 pm on November 22, 1963, it would follow he may have falsified other evidence submitted at the same time. The question, therefore, arises whether Westbrook did find a jacket before 1:20 pm because he’d rendezvoused with car 207 and essentially planted it to then announce finding it. A corollary then arises: whether by the time he’d left Oak Cliff and then come back, he had a reason to switch the jacket. (A reason for there being two jackets is offered later.) 

A map is useful to place the alley into perspective, as it’s the same alley where Doris Holan saw a police car shortly before Tippit was shot.

WESTBROOK AND THE WALLET

Westbrook omitted another incident from his testimony. At approximately 1:35 pm, WFAA-TV Dallas filmed police officers looking at a wallet Owens was holding. The news coverage referred to it as Oswald’s wallet.

FBI agent Bob Barrett asked him, ‘Do you know who Lee Harvey Oswald is?’ And, ‘Do you know who Alek Hidell is?’

Barrett confirmed that in this video interview of 22 February 2011. [https://emuseum.jfk.org/objects/33007] At 34 minutes in, Barrett describes driving to the Tippit murder scene in his own car and seeing Westbrook with the wallet in his hand. 

FBI Agent Hosty said: “Westbrook called Barrett over and showed him the wallet and [the] identifications…Westbrook took the wallet into his custody [and] Barrett told me [Hosty] that if I had been at the scene with Westbrook, I would have immediately known who Oswald was.”

There is no reference to any wallet on the radio tapes, the Warren Commission Report, papers, or police records. It does not feature in the evidence in CE 2003 that was filed by Westbrook at 3:00 pm on 22 November 1963. 

The account that Westbrook found the wallet is consistent with the radio call from Westbrook at 1:35 pm asking where Owens is, Owens then returning to the murder scene from the library to deal with it, and then Westbrook – inconveniently – being filmed. 

Westbrook discovering the wallet that no other bystander or officer had found in the previous 26 minutes after Tippit was shot is suggestive of more evidence planting. And in this case then losing it before 3:00 pm, as it does not appear in the report that recorded the finding of the jacket filed at 3:00 pm. The official account was that the link with Oswald and 1026 N Beckley as an address was not made until after 3:00 pm when police and sheriffs arrived at the Paine residence in Irving. 

But Earlene Roberts said the police arrived looking for Oswald at 1026 N Beckley shortly after 1:30 pm (Affidavit of Earlene Roberts, 5 December 1963 https://history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh7/pdf/WH7_Roberts_aff.pdf). She had been joined by Mr. and Mrs. Johnson, who timed their arrival 10 minutes after hearing Kennedy was dead from the radio as they were sitting in their car. CBS Radio put its announcement out at 1:22 pm, faster than Walter Cronkite on US network TV at 1:38 pm.

Not only did the Johnsons put the police there just after 1:30 pm, but Mr Johnson said it was for the murder of Tippit. 

Mr. BELIN, All right. In any case, this man, O. H. Lee, came to rent a room from you or from your wife?

Mr. Johnson. Yes.

Mr. BELIN. Could you describe how you came to find out that this man had another name other than O. H. Lee?

Mr. Johnson. Well, it was when the officers came looking for him.

Mr. BELIN. When was this?

Mr. Johnson. Uh-after Tippit was shot, the police_____

Mr. BELIN. This would have been on November 22, 1963.

Mr. Johnson. Yes.

Mr. BELIN. And can you state what happened?

Mr. Johnson. Well, they just came down there looking for-uh-Oswald.

Mr BELIN. Did they say what his full name was?

Mr. Johnson. Yes I believe they did.

Mr Belin. Lee Harvey Oswald.

Mr Johnson. I believe they did.

The Warren Commission files have a note of 8 March from Norman Redlich which says 

“it would appear that the lead to 1026 N. Beckley would have had to come from some source other than the Paines.”

[https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/6/4606/7460606/content/arcmedia/dc-metro/rg-272/605417-key-persons/johnson_a_c_mr/johnson_a_c_mr.pdf]

Note how Counsel Belin doesn’t press on Redlich’s point. Instead, Belin changed the subject after Johnson’s reference to “after Tippit was shot the police ___” by the inane interruption as to whether this was 22 November. The effect of what Belin did was to change the question from the time to the irrelevant matter of the date.

Westbrook planting “Oswald’s” wallet at the Tippit murder scene after 1:30 pm could have caused detectives to go to 1026 N. Beckley shortly after that. But the wallet by 3 pm was ‘forgotten’. Oswald had a wallet on him on his arrest and two wallets point to a frame-up.

A CONJURING TRICK?

A plan to kill Oswald inside the Texas Theater may have failed for a simple reason. Too many decent officers moved into Oak Cliff as a result of their rational response to the murder of a colleague. Some of those reached the Texas Theater, including Officer Hutson (covered later). Hutson was in physical contact with Oswald for the arrest.

A reason for two jackets – and Oswald was not wearing a jacket on arrest – can be explained by linking with the ill thought through planting of the wallet at the Tippit murder scene. Oswald was not wearing a jacket on arrest. Whoever left 1026 N Beckley had put on a jacket. It would be a logical part of a frame-up to need to have a second jacket for Oswald. That jacket would merely need to be said to have been “found” under the seat; as if Oswald had taken it off in the cinema–with the wallet in it. A frame-up would be complete by taking a dead Oswald’s own wallet from his pants pockets.

If the function of a second jacket was to perpetrate that stunt, then that particular jacket wouldn’t need to be submitted as evidence, nor be identical, given the darkened cinema. The logical one to present as evidence would be the one that the decoy had been wearing in broad daylight. Once he was secure that jacket could have been switched. The wallet with ID in it would in any case be the immediate point of focus. 

It would have helped the narrative if the decoy entering the theater had a jacket on because the evidence indicates that Oswald himself on entry didn’t. It would connect Oswald to what the decoy was wearing.

But the unplanned murder of Tippit caused an ill-thought-through mistake, The decoy wouldn’t be expected to ditch a jacket as the decoy wasn’t intended to participate in a tableau to frame Oswald for the murder of Tippit. That scenario can explain why Westbrook planted the wallet on his second return and later changed the jacket as well as that jacket. It is therefore posited that the muddle over wallets and jackets was a result of improvisation messing up the intended conjuring trick.

Given Westbrook first arrived by car with Owens, he couldn’t have carried the spare jacket – with the wallet inside –with him. It would be an obvious plant. But by approximately 1:30 pm Westbrook had acquired the spare jacket and the wallet. 

HILL AT 12^th AND BECKLEY

There is a further issue. At 1:21 pm under call sign 550/2 and attributed to Hill is:

I’m at Twelfth and Beckley now. Have a man in the car with me that can identify the suspect if anybody gets him.

 

Twelfth and Beckley is 0.6 miles away from the Tippit murder scene, and 0.4 miles from Ballew. There is no further reference on the radio to this witness. 

Hill testified regarding his response to what Owens said on the radio at 1:21 pm:

At this time, about the time this broadcast came out, I went around and met Owens. I whipped around the block. I went down to the first intersection east of the block where all this incident occurred, and made a right turn, and traveled one block, and came back up on Jefferson.

That is describing Hill moving around the sides of the blocks that contained Ballew. But if Hill was meeting Owens at Ballew at 1:21 pm, he couldn’t be at 12^th and Beckley at the same time. 12^th and Beckley is not close to where the witness and action was at Ballew Texaco, as it was a total of 6 blocks away. 

If Hill had indeed found a witness to the fugitive on the run he would not have made the mistake of mixing up Dudley Hughes’s parking lot with that of Ballew. Hill avoided any mention of 12^th and Beckley in his Warren Commission testimony. That leads to an indication that Hill, by, 1:21 pm, was at 12^th and Beckley, and was lying to cover that up. 12^th and Beckley is closer to where Mentzel put himself (see later).

A cop lying persistently in a way that was inconsistent with other honest officers must have been both comfortable being blatant and able to bat off any officer challenging him. Did Hill intimidate officers?

A researcher and Warren Commission advocate Dale Myers – rather than identifying Hill’s pattern of inconsistencies – has tried to explain that 12^th and Beckley call as Hill carrying Harold Russell. [https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/26874-the-wallet-at-the-tippit-scene-a-simpler-solution/page/4/]

Russell worked at Warren Reynolds’ garage which was near the Tippit murder scene where Jefferson is crossed by Patton. Russell was a witness to the fugitive on the run. Russell did not refer to being in a police car in his first FBI statement of 21 January 1964. Myers instead relies on Russell’s FBI interview of 23 February 1964. Russell did then refer to being in a police car. 

However, that doesn’t help the case to account for that call of Hill. Russell had run to the scene of the shooting of Tippit and said that he went in a police car from the Tippit murder scene to the location where Russell had last seen the assailant – which was Ballew at 401 E Jefferson – with officers, plural.

He stated the officers, whose names he did not know, put him in a patrol car and had him point to the area where he had last seen the man with the pistol. RUSSELL stated at this point he left the officers and then went in a nearby drug store and then went about his business and thought no more about it.

 

[https://nara-media-001.s3.amazonaws.com/arcmedia/dc-metro/rg-272/605417-key-persons/russell_harold/russell_harold.pdf])

 

Per the 1961 Dallas City Directory, the nearest drugstore was Skillern’s and Sons, 325 E Jefferson at the junction with Crawford, 10 yards from Ballew. The person to take Russell was Owens. Owens in this call at 1:21 pm was at Ballew, within 5 minutes of arriving at the Tippit murder scene.

One of the men here at the service station that saw him seems to think he’s in this block, the 400 block of East Jefferson behind this service station. Would you give me some more squads over here?

That is not evidence of Hill taking Russell to 12th and Beckley and being there at 1:21 pm. The said researcher also made a song and dance as to how witnesses at Ballew could have known a police officer had been shot by the fugitive, and also made a mystery of who had made the call to police regarding the fugitive. But the answer appears in the same FBI files that the researcher used to vindicate Hill. 

Reynolds’ employee LJ Lewis made the call. [https://nara-media-001.s3.amazonaws.com/arcmedia/dc-metro/rg-272/605417-key-persons/russell_harold/russell_harold.pdf]

While Warren Reynolds ran to Ballew, Russell ran to the murder scene. Owens then took Russell to Ballew arriving by 1:21 pm.  By which time a jacket was found. There’s no mystery in that. The mystery is why Hill was at 12^th and Beckley at 1:21 pm and why Hill was dissembling. 

Another red flag is that Lewis was asked to change his story by a letter from the Commission on 21 August 1964. [www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh21/pdf/WH21_PattersonBM_Ex_B.pdf]

The outcome of the revised affidavit is that Lewis was supposed to have made the call to the police before he saw the fugitive, i.e. merely in response to hearing the shots. But the revision actually makes matters worse. For Lewis to have seen the fugitive after making the labored call, due to the confusion at DPD HQ, the fugitive would have had to linger whilst Lewis made his call.

Of all the things the Warren Commission could have followed up on 21 August 1964 it is very odd it had to be this. And rather than dealing with a ‘discrepancy’ where none existed, it created one. 

FOG AND WITNESS INTIMIDATION

Hagiographical accounts of a tainted police force tend to miss the bigger picture. Indeed, Warren Commission apologists go to great lengths to suggest that Earlene Roberts got the number of the police car ‘207’ wrong. But for her to choose three digits at random which not only matched a DPD police car in service that day but matched the car used by the prevaricator Hill–and given an alibi by the persistently dubious Westbrook–would be statistically improbable. 

The question arises whether Hill and others ever influenced or intimidated witnesses and researchers who might have challenged the circumstances of the Tippit shooting. Someone intimidated, Acquilla Clemons, an important witness to the Tippit murder. And she said they were police.

What is also relevant is that all four witnesses at Reynolds Motors were intimidated. They were Reynolds, Lewis, Patterson, and Russell. 

Warren Reynolds himself was shot in the head on 23 January 1963 and survived. He had told the FBI on 21 January 1964 that he could not identify Oswald as the fugitive. He told the FBI on 3 March 1963 that General Walker had asked to see him, He did not oblige then, but then did see Walker on 8 July 1963. He then appeared before the Warren Commission on 22 July 1963 and said he now did recognize Oswald.

Why would General Walker be involved in such matters? Unless of course, he had an interest in keeping the lid on things. 

General Edwin Walker was the only US General to resign in the 20^th century. He was a far-right segregationist whom Robert Kennedy had committed to a mental institution. Walker was arrested for promoting a race riot at Ole Miss. riots at University of Mississippi. This was after the admission of a black student into the all-white university. Walker claimed that every US President since 1933 had been a communist. Walker had failed to secure the Democratic nomination to be Governor of Texas to John Connally. Such was the then Southern Democratic Party.

Harold Russell’s FBI statement of 23 February 1964 also addresses intimidation directly. (Note. He wrongly assumed that being shot in the head meant being dead). 

 

“RUSSELL stated about one month ago WARREN REYNOLDS, brother of the lot owner, was found shot to death at the car lot. RUSSELL stated after that he began to get worried about what he had seen, because WARREN REYNOLDS had also seen what he had seen the day of the President’s’ death and had gone in the direction where the man with the pistol had gone. When he had disappeared on Jefferson Street and had followed the man with the pistol down the street. RUSSELL stated last Monday JOHNNY REYNOLDS fired him and told him he was firing him because “he did not want to find him shot on the lot like WARREN REYNOLDS “. RUSSELL stated he did not question REYNOLDS and left the lot, but since then has worried that someone is out to shoot him like REYNOLDS because of what he saw. RUSSELL stated he had not received any threats of any kind and did not know if his life was in danger, but was worried about it because of what he saw.”

It is also interesting the reference by Reynolds to “what he saw” rather than merely a matter of identification, which would be “who he saw”. Did Reynolds in looking up the alley, or Russell, see a police car in the alley? There were other witnesses who failed to identify Oswald. Was there something else about what Reynolds saw, that Russell also knew?

What Reynolds, LJ Lewis, Pat Patterson, and Russell saw was clearly a problem. One was shot, one thought he would be too and moved out of Dallas, and the other two had to make late adjustments to their prior testimony. Patterson on 25^thAugust had to say he recognised Oswald when he previously hadn’t. [www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh21/pdf/WH21_PattersonBM_Ex_B.pdf]

From August 1964 the Commission had ceased to be an investigation of the facts and was seeking to twist facts and plug gaps to make things fit the narrative of their conclusions. Something now known to have been written into its unpublished terms of reference.

There was other substantial witness intimidation besides at the car lot. As we have seen Aquila Clemons, who saw the shooting of Tippit, said two men were involved. They ran off in different directions and neither was Oswald. She was visited afterward by a policeman who told her to shut up. Domingo Benavides—another witness to the Tippit killing had a brother who was shot dead in a bar in Dallas in 1964. (Michael Benson, Who’s Who in the JFK Assassination, p. 37) Benavides put that down to mistaken identification of himself. 

As John Kelin notes in his last essay ad Kennedys and King, Helen Markham was another witness who was intimidated. Markham said she put her hands over her eyes on witnessing Tippit being shot. By chance, she also worked at Eat Well Café right by the Carousel Club and Larry Crafard ate there every day.

Assistant Counsel Liebeler flagged the problem with Markham in this way:

I forgot to mention that some question might be raised when the public discovers that there was only one eyewitness to the Tippit killing, that is, one person who saw Oswald kill him. All the rest only saw subsequent events. Mrs.Markham is nicely buried there, but I predict not for long. [https://aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/hsca/reportvols/vol11/pdf/HSCA_Vol11_WC_3E2_Liebeler.pdf]

 

But what Liebeler didn’t deal with is the fact that Helen Markham told Officers Poe and Jez on their arrival at the scene that “When she went to the aid of the officer the suspect had threatened to kill her.” Officers Poe and Jez filed a report on 22 November to that effect. [http://www.cultor.org/Documents/JFK-Dallas/Box%201/0090-001.gif]

LET US CONJECTURE

There has to be a reason why Westbrook and Croy prevaricated. The benefit to Westbrook of the improbable claim that he had walked may be that some officers had seen him on the street along a part of Elm, at a time later than his arrival at the Depository by car with Stringer. That later time thus connected to Westbrook and Croy getting the decoy off the Marsalis bus, with Westbrook then returning to the Depository and Croy headed to 1026 N Beckley.

Mary Bledsoe (who lived on Marsalis, hence would get a Marsalis bus) said because of the delay to her bus she caught a bus that was behind. On the basis that drivers were disciplined if their buses ran early, then the second Marsalis bus she caught couldn’t have been running early. By that, the McWatters bus was late enough to fall behind the schedule of the next bus. 

With at least a 10-minute interval between buses, then the hold-up at the time and point “Oswald” got off was not less than 10 minutes. But the lady got to Union Station before 1:00 pm. That places disembarkation somewhere between 12:50 pm and 12:55 pm, later than the Warren Commission timeline. That gives a timescale that would fit with alternative arrangements for moving the decoy being triggered at approximately 12:46 pm. 

It would be logical that if there was an impromptu operation to take the decoy off the bus, and car 207 was not used for that, then another car would have dropped the decoy off. Croy’s car.

All of that sits Westbrook arriving at the Depository by or before 12:57 pm having dealt with getting the decoy off the bus who was then taken away by Croy. That timeline would have given Westbrook from 12:57 pm to 1:11 pm time to consider his next steps whilst he was at the Depository. 

By that Hill can have been given verbal command – presumably by Westbrook – at the Depository. Hill then left at 1:02 pm in car 207 and went to 1025 N Beckley.

The 12:44 pm APB description of Oswald would mean that any decoy looking similar couldn’t be waiting outside the rooming house for the indeterminate period it might take for his ride to arrive. Car 207 would need to toot to indicate it had arrived and it was safe to come out. 

Rationally too would be Croy staking out the rooming house – to ensure that the decoy did not get cold feet and disappear.

If Hill was in position behind 410 E 10^th at 1:07 pm, that would sit with Tippit at 10^thand Beckley Mobil garage – where I suggested Mentzel was, being told to set off east along 10^th at 1:07 pm.

By that assumption then it would be Hill and the other officer (Croy or Stringer) who were also seen by Doris Holan in the rear alley behind 410 E 10^th. And one or both were also seen by Virginia Davis immediately after she’d called the police before the ambulance arrived.

Then when the news of Tippit’s murder was put out on the radio, Westbrook got into Owens’ car with Bill Alexander, arriving at 410 E10th at 1:16 pm. Then immediately after arrival, running in the direction of the alley to rendezvous with the occupants of car 207. Planting a jacket. Westbrook then returned car 207 to the Depository, returning to Oak Cliff at approximately 1:29 pm, this time with Ewell and Stringer in Westbrook’s unmarked car. The round trip would take 8-9 minutes.

Trying to move the decoy by car as quickly as possible in order to allow for the elimination of Tippit as soon as possible explains the difficulty the Warren Commission had in replicating those movements, on the assumption it was lone Oswald doing all that by foot, bus, foot, cab, foot and again on foot.

With the decoy no longer in car 207, the only car for him to have been transferred to was Mentzel’s car directly, or via Hill if he had borrowed Poe’s car.

As I showed in my article on Mentzel, Mentzel was at 10^th and Beckley, the Mobil garage, from 1:07 pm. The alley behind E10th ends at Beckley at the piece of land that the garage sat on. Hill’s call makes sense if it was either to advertise to Mentzel where he was, or to advertise to confederates that the switch of cars had occurred. 

HILL AND THE SHELLS

At approximately 1:41 pm and 3-4 minutes before it was announced that a suspect had entered the Texas Theater, Hill said on the radio. 

The shells at the scene indicate that the suspect is armed with an automatic .38, rather than a pistol.

The phraseology Hill used is also unnecessary. If someone thinks someone has been shot with an automatic, then they are shot with an automatic. There’s no need to say, “rather than a pistol”, any more than say “rather than a rifle” or “rather than a shotgun”. Hill’s comment suggests he knew that Oswald would have a pistol and not an automatic, and that was a problem.

Apologists for Hill have also argued that he mistook the shells of a pistol for an automatic. But that isn’t consistent with his emphatic ruling out of a non-automatic weapon. Hill denied to the Commission that he had made that call which by the timing of the transcript was 1:40 pm.

Mr. BELIN. Now, also turning to Sawyer Deposition Exhibit A, I notice that there is another call on car No. 550-2. Was that you at that time, or not, at 1:40 p.m.? Would that have been someone else?

Mr. HILL. That probably is R. D. Stringer [note the manuscript has A.B Stringer, the relevant Stringer is HH Stringer, there was an RD Stringer in the force who does not feature that day: Author’s note ].

Mr. BELIN. That is not you, then, even though it has a number 550-2?

Mr. HILL. Yes; because Stringer quite probably would have been using the same call number, because it is more his than it was mine. Really, but I didn’t have an assigned call number, so I was using a number I didn’t think anybody would be using, which is call 550-2, instead of the Westbrook to Batchelor as it indicates here.

By that deception –which as we shall see was deliberate–he wriggled out of answering the question of automatic versus pistol. 

How do we know it was deliberate? Because later in life Hill admitted, in his 1993 Sixth Floor Museum interview, that he did make that call. He said that it was because of the close proximity of the shells at the murder scene that he assumed they were from an automatic. (Shells from an automatic are self-ejected). But that fails too. Only two shells were found near each other and those were yards apart.

The expression that code “550/2” was “more his [Stringer] than mine” is very odd. None of the police transcripts put calls out as 500/2 as Stringer. The only call of Stringer was the one on Channel 2 using 551. Hill also testified:

I told Poe to maintain the chain of evidence as small as possible, for him to retain these at that time, and to be sure and mark them for evidence, and then turn them over to the crime lab when he got there, or to homicide. 

Despite that command to maintain the chain of custody, it was Hill and Westbrook who broke the chain of custody of the pistol that was purportedly retrieved from Oswald but failed to go off as the firing pin was bent. Hill took the pistol from the Texas Theater and kept it until placing it on Field’s desk. But the personnel department—where Hill was working from at the time– isn’t a crime lab or homicide department. (Michael Benson, Who ‘s Who in the JFK Assassination, p. 185)

The cartridges that Officer Poe had acquired at the Tippit murder scene and marked with his initials disappeared. There were no marks on the ones presented as evidence. This is made even more odd by the fact that Hill allegedly told the officer to mark them for evidence. (Benson, p. 364)

Hill’s confidence in his prevarications on KCRC Radio on 22 November 1963 about his time of arrival at the Tippit murder scene would have been based on his not knowing Earlene Roberts had seen car 207.  And also not knowing there would be a Commission that would have patrol radio transcripts and decent officer testimonies which contradicted his account. 

Hill said in his interview for the Sixth Floor Museum in 1993 that he was working in Westbrook’s office not only dealing with applications but “investigating complaints”. The personnel office would be an ideal place to lean on officers by holding things against them. He may have had the power to make any officers uncomfortable without their being a collaborator. 

A question is why didn’t Hill and Westbrook synchronize their stories as to how they got from the Depository to the Tippit murder scene? There is an answer. Westbrook, by not naming the officer who drove, created wriggle room for forgetfulness as an excuse. Had he and Hill synchronized their false stories to a consistent one, then the uncovering of one as false would bring down the other, proving they were in league. Placed in an invidious position an imperfect option may be the least worst choice. 

Click here to read part 3.

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The Death of Tippit – Part 1 – Where was Westbrook?

By John Washburn

This article follows on from my prior articles. [https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/the-tippit-tapes-a-re-examination] and [https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/the-missing-calls-of-officer-mentzel-pt-1] These identified problems with the DPD tapes and transcripts, as well correcting misinformation regarding the timing of Officer J. D. Tippit being seen at Gloco gas station.

I have not regurgitated or revised anyone else’s prior analysis. I’ve used source data.

The Dallas Police Department in 1963 operated from City Hall, at Harwood and Commerce/ Main Streets. It was the parking basement of City Hall where Jack Ruby shot and killed Lee Oswald on 24 November 1963. The Presidential motorcade turned right at Main Street by City Hall, passing at 12:25pm. 

This three-part series sets out the irregular movements of a handful of police officers in Downtown Dallas from City Hall; from around 12:45pm to the time police were alerted to the murder of Tippit and then proceeded to that scene at 410 E 10th, Oak Cliff.

The command structure of southwest Dallas for 22 November 1963 was changed with Lieutenant Fulgham being sent to traffic school at Northwestern University, Illinois. Sgt. Calvin Owens stood in for him. But overt control over Tippit was changed at some time before 12:30 pm to covert control by Sgt Hugh Davis.

Owens’ Warren Commission testimony has the advantage that it is wholly consistent with what is on the radio tapes and in CE 2645, the allocation of cars and the modified command structure on 22 November 2022. Indeed, Owens was the only person who revealed to the Warren Commission that Tippit’s command had changed over the lunch break. 

Owens asked difficult questions on the radio after Tippit was shot: such as what was he doing in Oak Cliff? His evidence conflicts with that of superior officers who had testimonies that were self-contradictory. His questions also provide reinforcing evidence that the 12:45 pm radio call from dispatcher Murray Jackson calling Tippit to Oak Cliff was an after-the-event fake. Owens wouldn’t have needed to ask had he heard that call. Jackson would have been able to answer if in real time he had given such an instruction.

Owens also asked, on patrol radio in the hour after Tippit was shot, why no one had contacted Tippit’s wife and asked where was Sgt. Davis, the covert supervisor of Tippit. Davis never replied. Why? Where was Davis? 

None of those irregularities that Owens was dropping out were followed up on by the Commission.

Officer Thomas Alexander Hutson displays similar consistency as Owens. He let several cats out of the bag, including that Officers Hawkins and Baggett made a landline call from the Mobil gas station at 10^th and Beckley at approximately 1:30pm. That is the location my Mentzel article [https://www.kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/the-missing-calls-of-officer-mentzel-pt-1] placed Mentzel and Tippit at 1:07pm, two minutes prior to Tippit being shot. 

Owens and Hutson are a litmus test of how officers ought to act and testify. 

II

Contrast this to Captain William Westbrook, head of DPD Personnel. His testimony displays either deliberate lies, or the forgetfulness and cognitive dissonance of someone not suited for gainful employment in any police role. If infiltration of DPD needed a senior person with the power to co-opt, coerce and corrupt then Westbrook fits the requirements. His testimony lends itself to suspicion. 

Westbrook’s testimony regarding 22 November 1963 included not being able to remember the name of police officers who drove him to the Tippit murder scene–and later to the Texas Theater (which is and was actually a cinema). This is despite a journalist being in the same car as Westbrook on both occasions, saying the driver was Westbrook himself. The evidence presented here helps explain why Westbrook would have done that. There are also problems with the accounts of how Westbrook, Reserve Sgt. Kenneth H Croy and Sgt. Jerry Hill got to the Tippit murder scene and what they were doing once there. 

Hill was a patrol officer and former head of press relations with DPD. He said he had been seconded to Westbrook’s Personnel Department to ‘investigate complaints’ shortly before 22 November 1963 and to vet “prospective police officers”. Hill was an odd choice for any ethical role (as covered later). He was reported to the FBI by a news reporter in California for false statements made on radio news the evening of 22 November 1963.

Hill tried to attach alibis for himself as a shadow to Sgt. Owens – to account for how Hill got to the Tippit murder scene. Alibis that Owens did not reciprocate. As covered later, appropriating other people’s movements was a recurring trait of Hill.

Sergeant Owens said in his Warren Commission testimony that he drove his patrol car taking Westbrook and Assistant District Attorney Bill Alexander. Three in a car. (WC Vol. II, p. 78).

Hill’s Commission testimony said that he went with Owens driving, DA Bill Alexander and Jim Ewell (a Dallas Morning News reporter) over Commerce Viaduct, and then down Beckley. No mention of Westbrook, but four in a car (WC Vol. VII, p. 43).

Westbrook said in his Warren Commission testimony he went with Sergeant Henry Stringer (his deputy in the personnel office) and an unknown officer who drove. Three in a car. (WC Vol. VII, p. 109).

Jim Ewell said he went with Stringer and Westbrook and said Westbrook drove them over Houston Viaduct past his office at the newspaper. Three in a car and an entirely different route. [https://www.patspeer.com/chapter-4c-shining-a-light-on-day]

Adding to that are discrepancies as to how Westbrook got to the Texas Theater for the arrest of Oswald, and who he was with. 

Ewell said Westbrook took him and Stringer in an unmarked car parked at the front of the theater. Westbrook said he arrived with Sgt. Stringer and FBI Agent Bob Barrett, an unknown squad car driver and parked in the alley at the back. Stringer, in his report of 3 December 1963, said he met an unknown officer in 100 block S Patton who drove him to the rear of the Texas Theater. [https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth340278/m1/1/]

This was an exchange between three Warren Commission staff as the final report was being drafted:

‘How critical of the Dallas police should we be?”. ‘We can’t be critical enough.’: ‘That’s just the problem. If we write what we really think, nobody will believe anything else we say. They’ll accuse us of attacking Dallas’ image. The whole report will be discredited as controversial. We’ve just got to tone it way down.’(William Manchester, The Death of a President t, p. 426)

Despite any “toning down” the Warren Report begs question after question concerning some DPD officers. But the Warren Commission was a case of changing facts to fit a theory, and some DPD witnesses were allowed to make up facts by lying without effective challenge. DPD was protected from being investigated itself. 

The ace syndicated journalist and razor-sharp star of What’s My Line Dorothy Kilgallen wrote on 29 November 1963:

“The case is closed, is it? Well, I’d like to know how in a big smart town like Dallas, a man like Jack Ruby – operator of a striptease honky tonk – could stroll in and out of police headquarters as if it were a health club at a time when a small army of law enforcers was keeping a “tight security guard” on Oswald. Security! What a word for it.”

Witness evidence is not circumstantial; but in any criminal case, a key question is which witnesses to believe. Hence credible police investigation should seek out lies. The DPD didn’t do that –and remarkably – liars included a small coterie of police officers. At the Sergeant level and above to Captain. 

A reason for committing perjury is to avoid revealing worse offenses.

The approach taken here has been to:

 1) identify the stated movements of all relevant police officers from 12:45 pm to the entry into the Texas Theater at 1:45 pm 

2) identify statements and testimonies that are in direct conflict with each other, and 

3) reconcile those with the timeline per the patrol radio tapes, with weight against those officers who provably lie, and weight in favour of those that do not 

4) take statements by members of the public at face value, unless there are signs of coercion. 

The purpose of that is to assess what were the underlying actions and movements that certain officers needed to obscure. Core assumptions carried from the evidence in my prior articles are as follows. 

1. Roger Craig and Butch Burroughs were correct. Oswald left Dealey Plaza by Rambler and was in the Texas Theater just after 1:00 pm and remained there until he was arrested. 
2. Earlene Roberts did see police car 207 outside 1026 N Beckley and it tooted just before the person left at approximately 1:04 pm. 
3. There was an imposter acting as a decoy on the Marsalis bus. That person got off the bus after 12:50 pm, several minutes later than the Warren Commission’s timeline. Because the bus was held up longer because of the backup of traffic on Elm Street. There was no person of relevance in William Whaley’s cab. 
4. Tippit left Gloco gas to go to the vicinity of Lansing Street and 8^th Street where off-duty Officer Olsen was (that patrol district was depleted of its normal patrol officers). Mentzel rendezvoused with Tippit at 10^th and Beckley at 1:07 pm (real-time). Tippit was shot at approximately 1:09 pm. 

If there was premeditated involvement of some police officers in assisting the Kennedy assassination then Tippit’s murder was either similarly premeditated or it was spontaneous. For it to be spontaneous then Tippit, under the covert command of Sgt. Hugh Davis, must have done something whilst at or shortly after leaving Gloco to spark it, which both upset the role he was supposed to play and necessitated his murder. 

I posit that Tippit’s role was to assist a decoy who was playing out Oswald as a supposed ‘lone nut’ fleeing by bus. But that Tippit backed out when he heard on patrol radio that Kennedy had been shot in the head. Tippit then became a major risk to the conspirators. 

Bill Simpich says that events “went south” after the assassination of Kennedy. That is consistent with an assassination that went as planned but was followed by muddled events that weren’t planned. 

If Tippit was murdered without police involvement then it is difficult to explain why there were so many irregularities in how certain officers arrived at the murder scene and what they did when they were there. 

Let’s see how those assumptions play out. 

OWENS AND POE

By the DPD radio only two police cars left the Depository in response to T. F. Bowley’s 1:11 pm call stating Tippit had been shot. Those were the cars of Officer JM Poe with Officer LB Jez (call sign 105) and Sgt. Owens (call sign 19) said he took Westbrook and Deputy DA Bill Alexander. 

Owens said he left the Depository on hearing Bowley’s call and his time of arrival at the Tippit murder scene per the radio (see later) fits with his testimony. He arrived at 1:16 pm, seconds after Officer Poe (call sign 105) who also left from the depository in car 94. Owens’ testimony is wholly consistent with his calls on the tapes, and ambulance travel time.

Poe, like Owens, gave inconvenient testimony. Poe said he’d marked the bullet cartridges found at the Tippit murder scene, which were identified as from an automatic weapon. The cartridges, by the time of the Commission, had no such markings. Thus the story that they could have come from the nonautomatic pistol found on Oswald is now questionable.

Poe also submitted a report (covered later) with Owens on 22 November 1963 regarding murder scene witness Helen Markham. As first responders, she told them that the assailant threatened to kill her. No other subsequent statements or testimony raised that. She never raised that again. Why? If the assailant had been Oswald it would be relevant evidence. But if the assailant wasn’t the dead  Oswald then was she intimidated in giving later evidence?

PART-TIME RESERVE SERGEANT KENNETH HUDSON CROY

 

Croy, owner of a Mobil gas station in Oak Cliff, and a rodeo performer, is an example of putting a DPD hat on someone with all the implied trust that carries. But his testimony takes any credibility relying on that status away. 

Much of Croy’s testimony was made off the cuff because he was only supposed to testify regarding his role on 24 November for the shooting of Oswald. It was only because Croy let slip to the female Commission stenographer that he’d been at the Tippit murder scene that he was then asked about his movements on 22 November. He filed no report on his activities that day. He made no (surviving) announcements on patrol radio. 

His role on 24 November is not fully covered here, other than to say that the level of questioning by Counsel Griffin indicates doubts as to his version of events. Griffin was one of the more curious questioners.

Croy was the officer who organized the roster on 24 November 1963 for those in City Hall regarding the transfer of Oswald to the County Jail. He can be seen on TV footage standing immediately behind Jack Ruby. Croy moves the press pack forward and then Ruby shoots Oswald. Croy forgot the names of officers present despite compiling the roster for who would be present.

Croy’s evidence of 10 am 26 March 1964 (WC Vol XII) warrants a large extract, as his obfuscation and self-contradiction cannot be paraphrased. What is relevant are his said locations and timings. 

Mr. GRIFFIN. Well, now, tell me about the conversation that you had with our court stenographer here prior to coming in here, about Tippit?

Mr. CROY. Oh, it was at the scene over where Officer Tippit was killed, at the scene.

Mr. GRIFFIN. Were you at the scene when Tippit was there?

Mr. CROY. Yes.

Mr. GRIFFIN. Unassigned?

Mr. CROY. Yes.

Mr. GRIFFIN. I take it you are nodding your head?

Mr. CROY. Yes.

Mr. GRIFFIN. What time were you at the scene where Tippit was killed?

Mr. Croy. I watched them load him in the ambulance.

Mr. GRIFFIN. I see. Were you on reserve duty that day?

Mr. CROY. Yes. I was stationed Downtown in the, I believe it was the 1800 or 1900 block of Main Street.

Mr. GRIFFIN. Were you in a patrol car?

Mr. CROY. No; I was on foot.

Mr. GRIFFIN. Were you in uniform?

Mr. CROY. In uniform.

Mr. GRIFFIN. Where were you at the time President Kennedy was shot?

Mr. Croy. Sitting in my car at the city hall. I would guess, I don’t know, because I didn’t know he was shot until, I guess, several minutes after it was.

Mr. GRIFFIN. Is that where you were located when you heard he was shot?

Mr. CROY. No. I was on Main Street trying to go home.

Mr. GRIFFIN. You were driving your car down Main Street?

Mr. CROY. Yes.

Mr. GRIFFIN. About where were you on Main Street?

Mr. CROY. Griffin.

Mr. GRIFFIN. Griffin Street?

Mr. CROY. Yes.

Mr. GRIFFIN. What did you do when you heard that President Kennedy had been shot?

Mr. CROY. I didn’t do anything. I was right in the middle of the street with my car hemmed in from both sides. I couldn’t go anywhere.

Mr. GRIFFIN. As soon as you got unhemmed, what did you do?

Mr. CROY. I went by the courthouse there and there were several officers standing there, and I asked if they needed any help.

Mr. GRIFFIN. Did you drive your car to the courthouse?

Mr. CROY. Yes.

Mr. GRIFFIN. Which courthouse?

Mr. CROY. There was only one courthouse.

Mr. GRIFFIN. There is a county courthouse?

Mr. CROY. There is.

Mr. GRIFFIN. There is a Federal courthouse, also, but this is the one right there by the plaza and near the Texas School Book Depository?

Mr. CROY. The old red courthouse.

Mr. GRIFFIN. On Houston Street?

Mr. CROY. Yes.

Mr. GRIFFIN. Was that the corner of Houston and Main?

Mr. CROY. Houston and Main and Elm.

Mr. GRIFFIN. How long after you heard that President Kennedy was shot did you arrive there?

Mr. CROY. Oh, I guess it took me at least 20 minutes to drive those few blocks.

Mr. GRIFFIN. What time would you say it was when you arrived at the courthouse?

Mr. CROY. I don’t know.

Mr. GRIFFIN. Who did you see when you arrived there?

Mr. CROY. Oh, there was some officers standing on the corner, I don’t know.

Mr. GRIFFIN. Did you inquire of somebody there if you could be of assistance?

Mr. CROY. Yes.

Mr. GRIFFIN. Whom did you inquire of?

Mr. CROY. I don’t know. They were just standing on the corner, and I asked if I could be of any assistance.

Mr. GRIFFIN. Then, what did you do?

Mr. CROY. I proceeded on home.

Mr. GRIFFIN. Which way did you drive home?

Mr. CROY. Out Thornton to Colorado, and Colorado to-I can’t think of the street. It was Marsalis.

Mr. GRIFFIN. Was that-

Mr. CROY. Or Zangs

Mr. GRIFFIN. Thornton to Zangs?

The route Croy said he took to go home wasn’t his way home; which would have been due south from City Hall, not due west. And Inspector Sawyer’s testimony (Vol. VI, p. 315) contradicts Croy’s description of traffic conditions on Main Street. 

Sawyer said he passed down Main from the same blocks after the motorcade passed City Hall. He arrived at the Depository at 12:42 pm. But he also put out a call on the radio stating that any officers on crowd duties on Main (which included Croy) should report to the Depository. He said the only traffic issues on Main were caused by dispersing pedestrians crossing the road.

Officer Hutson also did the same route for the same time period. He said (Vol. VII, p. 26) that he went down Main, on his three-wheeler motorcycle to collect road signs after the passing of the motorcade at Main and Harwood (City Hall). Like Sawyer, he said the issue was pedestrians, not traffic.

Jim Ewell said Officer Valentine had driven him and Hill from City Hall to the Depository in “probably less than two minutes” that too was approximately 12:45 pm (as per Ewell above link [https://www.patspeer.com/chapter-4c-shining-a-light-on-day]). 

Croy said he was on Main Street hemmed in on both sides. That is demonstrably false. Main Street was not only not obstructed it was two-way, with two lanes in each direction. It was Elm Street which was three lanes one-way and became obstructed until traffic was released. Croy therefore seems to have indirectly revealed that he was actually on Elm Street, even further off his route home. Was he trying to conceal that? 

III

Croy’s reference to Griffin Street is interesting. If Croy wasn’t at Griffin and Main Street, but was at Griffin and Elm, then he can be placed close to where the Marsalis bus was held up and the person –a policeman in civilian clothes, who can’t have been uniformed Croy himself–got out of the car to tell the driver of the bus that Kennedy had been shot. 

Croy then said policemen in Dealey Plaza told him he wasn’t needed. But Inspector Sawyer had commanded on the radio that all officers on crowd duties were needed in Dealey Plaza. 

Croy next said he was at Colorado and Zang where he heard the radio call and got to the Tippit murder scene as Tippit’s body was being loaded into the ambulance. But the ambulance was dispatched after a phone call from a neighbor before the patrol radio call of 1:11 pm from Temple Bowley. The ambulance only had to travel 300 yards from the Dudley Hughes Funeral Home in the 400 block of E Jefferson and it arrived at the end of Bowley’s announcement and stayed less than a minute. Dudley Hughes said that from taking the call to delivering Tippit to Methodist Hospital took under 5 minutes. The autopsy request was timed as 1:15 pm. So how could Croy have gotten there by reacting to that call?

Added to that, the immediate neighbor to 410 E10th, Virginia Davis telephoned the police as soon as the shooting had occurred.  She then went outside. The police were already there and the ambulance arrived after that. (WC Vol VI p454). She said:

Mr. BELIN. All right, after this, did police come out there?

Mrs. Davis. Yes; they were already there.

Mr. BELIN. By the time you got out there?

Mrs. DavIs. Yes, sir.

Mr. BELIN. Then what did you do?

Mrs. Davis. Well, we just stood out there and watched. You know, tried to see how it all happened. But we saw part of it.

Mr. BELIN. Then what did you do?

Mrs. Davis. We stood out there until after the ambulance had come and picked him up.

With that in mind, did Croy arrive even earlier? That is before the Bowley radio call had been put out? Or was another police officer either in the vicinity or else very close by when the murder happened? The latter is consistent with Doris Holan seeing police officers in a car at the rear of 410 E10th at the time Tippit was shot. (Joe McBride, Into the Nightmare, pp. 494-95) 

Croy may have been present for the impromptu shooting of Tippit. At best he arrived when he said he did but was covering for another officer (or officers) who were there earlier. 

Croy then said he discharged himself from that scene to go home. He said he then happened to be driving by one block from the Texas Theater when the police first entered. He said he saw action at the front and back but Oswald was not by then arrested. He gave a more detailed description of the action and its progress than would be expected of someone driving on a major thoroughfare (Zang) looking sideways at something happening a block away. 

Croy was asked how he knew that Oswald had not been arrested by then. That tripped him up. He changed his story mid-flow to say he’d been at the Tippit murder scene and had then headed to the Texas Theater because of what he heard on the radio. He was asked why he left that scene (his third self-discharge of the day). He said he wasn’t needed. How would he know if he didn’t stop? 

Croy said he then went to Austin’s Barbecue –two miles further south from the Texas Theater.  He wanted to meet his wife for lunch. He added that she would be cross if he was late. 

When asked how he had arranged lunch he introduced another story.  He said his wife’s car passed him by in Dealey Plaza and that he asked her if she wanted lunch, conversing with her through a car window. 

Ponder this:  Mrs. Croy had been in Dealey Plaza minutes after the President had been shot. And this was followed by the murder of a Dallas policeman.  Would not Croy being late for lunch be a bit trivial? 

To say the least, Croy’s behaviour from at least 12:30 pm to after 2:00 pm is rather unusual.  

WESTBROOK’S OFFICE AND CAR 207

Deputy Chief of Police Charles Batchelor testified on 23 March 1963 and produced Batchelor Exhibit CE 5002. [https://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh19/pdf/WH19_Batchelor_Ex_5002.pdf] That is a pamphlet of DPD personnel for November 1963. It states that the Personnel Bureau comprised at officer level, Captain W.R. Westbrook (In Charge), Sgt H.H. Stringer (Deputy), WM McGee, Detective, Joe Fields, Detective and Patrolman JL Carver.

Hill claimed to have been working in Westbrook’s Bureau on the day of the assassination.  But he does not appear in CE 5002 as being attached to it for November 1963. He is shown as a patrol Sergeant for the Downtown subdistrict, 8:00 am to 4:00 pm day shift.

Also, there is Earlene Roberts’ observation of car 207 outside Oswald’s boarding house tooting at 1:04 pm. This was in her FBI statement of 29 November 1963.  It caused the need for CE 2645, an inventory of officers and cars as an attempt to rule them out of being in the vicinity of 1026 N Beckley around 1:00 pm. CE 2645 is useful evidence as it can be used to identify other discrepancies with cars and officer movements.

Some Warren Commission apologists have sought to say Earlene Roberts was confused in her Warren Commission testimony as to the car number. Well, she wasn’t confused on 29 November 1963, nor was Westbrook’s statement 5 days later. Westbrook said on 4 December 1963 car 207 was Officer Valentine’s car and it had been parked at the Depository. His statement doesn’t actually confirm that it stayed at the Depository after Valentine had arrived in it.[https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth340243/]

Hill was driven from City Hall to the Depository by Officer Valentine (call sign 104) in car 207 with reporter Jim Ewell. They arrived in about 2 minutes by a circuitous route to avoid the traffic. The arrival was also photographed. (Source: Ewell and CE 2645).  

Hill (using code 550/2) announced they were en route on the radio, immediately before the 12:48 pm time stamp. “550/2 and 104 en route to Elm and Houston, code 3.” That time fits with departure being triggered by the 12:44 pm APB with an alleged Oswald-like description in it, and its mention of the Depository. Assistant Warren Commission Counsel Wesley Liebeler said of that alert in internal correspondence about a draft of the Commission’s report on September 6, 1963: 

Following that quote it says that Brennan’s description “most probably” led to the radio alert sent out to police in which the assassin was described. Can’t this be more definite? One of the questions that has been raised is the speed with which the assassin was described, the implication being that Oswald had been picked out as a patsy before the event. The Dallas police must know what led to the radio alert and the description. If they do we should be able to find out. If they do not know, the circumstances of their not knowing should be discussed briefly.

Sgt Gerald Hill said in his testimony:

At this time I went back to the personnel office and told the captain that Inspector Sawyer requested assistance at Elm and Houston Streets. The captain said, “Go ahead and go.” 

“And he turned to another man in the office named Joe Fields and told him to get on down there. “I got on the elevator on the third floor and went to the basement and saw a uniformed officer named Jim M. Valentine doing, as he said, “Nothing in particular.” And I said, “I need you to take’ me down to Elm Street.” “The President has been shot.” 

We started out of the basement to get in his car, and a boy named Jim E. Well [sic Ewell], with Dallas Morning News, had parked his car in the basement and was walking up and asked what was going on, and we told him the President was shot.”

Of all the cars in all the DPD force, Earlene Roberts had come up with that one.

HILL – “THE BIG EXPANSION MOVE”

Hill said in 1993 for the Sixth Floor Museum that his transfer to [https://www.jfk.org/collections-archive/gerald-jerry-l-hill-oral-history/] Westbrook’s department was because the presidential visit was a ‘big expansion move for the police department’. An odd turn of phrase. 

When then asked what his role in the presidential visit was, he said “absolutely nothing”. Does this not seem like a contradiction?

Hill in that interview confirms he went with Officer Valentine to the Depository, but he puts his movements earlier than is apparent from the radio. By the radio, he is en route after 12:45 pm at 12:47 pm. Per Ewell, the ride took 2 minutes [https://kenrahn.com/JFK/History/The_deed/Sneed/Ewell.html] 

Hence Hill arrived at the Depository by approximately 12:50 pm. Hill was photographed leaning out of the window of the Sixth Floor of the Depository. Thus that could have been as early as 12:50 pm. Hill claimed to have found the snipper’s nest and three shells on the Sixth Floor after 1:00 pm with two deputy Sheriffs. Were that true then he’s ruled out of being in car 207 after 1:00 pm. But it wasn’t true.

Deputy Sheriff Like Mooney testified as being the first person to see the shells on the Sixth Floor. (Vol 3 p 19) And he testified Captain Fritz was then the first person to handle them. Mooney places the time as “approaching 1 pm” and testified that he then “hollered down” to get the crime lab on the scene. He made no mention of Hill and said he stayed there “not over 15 or 20 minutes”. Nor did Captain Fritz – head of Homicide mention Hill. Mooney’s time and story are corroborated by the radio call by Sgt. Harkness at 12:56 calling for Barnes (508 – Crime Lab section). Barnes 30 seconds later is signaled as en route. 

Hill’s story fits a pattern of his appropriating other people’s events and playing with timings. If Hill is lying, and it sure seems like he is, then he doesn’t have an alibi after 1:00 pm. But created a false one.

HOW DID HILL ARRIVE IN OAK CLIFF?

Hill’s time and method of arrival at the Tippit murder scene – he said to the Warren Commission it was with Sgt. Owens, DA Alexander, and reporter Ewell – is also a tangled web.  And this is so through his various accounts. Which are rendered dubious by the evidence of Owens, Ewell, and Poe. In fact, no one said they went with Hill. 

One problem for Hill is that the testimony of Owens is consistent with the patrol radio. But Hill’s is not. Owens’ testimony was that the trigger for his departure was Bowley’s first call (which was at 1:11 pm).

Mr. OWENS. No. I told Inspector Sawyer that I was assigned to Oak Cliff and an officer was involved in the shooting, and I was taking off, so I proceeded. I got in my car, and Captain Westbrook and Bill Alexander, an assistant District attorney, also was in the car with me and we started out to-I think the call came out at 400 East 10th or 400 East Jefferson. There was confusion there where the situation was. It was corrected and we went to the scene of the shooting.

By the radio the clarification of the precise address whilst Owens was on his way was at 1:13 pm. Owens arrived at 1:16 pm.  He was the second car responder at the scene, announcing his arrival seconds after Officer Poe, who was carrying Officer Jez. Both Owens and Poe left the Depository, and the most direct route would be over Commerce Street Viaduct, down N Beckley Avenue. Poe’s Commission account was:

Mr. BALL. And what did you find when you got there?

Mr. POE. We found-.

Mr. BALL. What did you see?

Mr. POE. Found the squad car parked toward the curb, and a pool of blood at the left-front wheel of the car. The ambulance had already picked him up and the officer had already left the scene when we arrived. We had – I don’t know how many people there were. Looked like 150 to 200 people around there; and Mrs. Markham, I talked to her first” and we got a description of the man that shot Tippit.

Poe doesn’t mention Owens’ car already being there, which is consistent with the radio calls placing Poe (car 105) arriving a few seconds before Owens (both 1:20 pm by the tape time). 

But Hill testified on the basis he’d arrived with Owens.

“Tippit had already been removed. The first man that came up to me, he said, “The man that shot him was a white male about 5’10”, weighing 160 to 170 pounds, had on a jacket and a pair of dark trousers, and brown bushy hair.” At this point, the first squad rolled up, and that would have been Squad 105 which had been dispatched from Downtown. An officer named Joe Poe, and I believe his partner was a boy named Jez. I told him to stay at the scene and guard the car and talk to as many witnesses as they could find to the incident, and that we were going to start checking the area.”

Hill cannot have been speaking to witnesses before Poe turned up, as Owens, at the earliest, arrived simultaneously with Poe’s arrival. That is in line with Owens never putting Hill in his car anyhow. And there were no other cars announcing arrival at the scene – within a 5-minute window – before or after the arrival of Poe and Owens. This leaves open the possibility that Hill was there already, but is trying to disguise his presence.

HILL INVESTIGATED FOR LYING ON NEWS RADIO

Making matters worse for Hill is that his unpublished Commission file has an FBI note reporting that he had given a false story at 6:45 pm on 22 November 1963 to KCRC-Radio Sacramento. For KCRC he said he went to the murder scene with the ‘acting lieutenant’ (Owens). Hence missing out on Ewell and Alexander. This is the transcript of what he told KCRC:

That call came out – the Acting Lieutenant in Oak Cliff and I were together standing there talking to the Inspector and he ordered us – being that we had all the police in town pulled down there on Elm Street – he ordered us to leave this investigation of the President’s shooting and go to Oak Cliff. We did. When we got out there the officer had already been picked up. We got a description of the suspect and started following his path as best we could.

 

We had information that he was in one of two houses that were vacant over on East Jefferson. We went in over there and called for some more help to cover the buildings and everything. We shook those down and he wasn’t there, and then we got a report that he was in the library at (inaudible) and Jefferson”.

[https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/70/4605/7460570/content/arcmedia/dc-metro/rg-272/605417-key-persons/hill_gerald_l/hill_gerald_l.pdf]

That event can be timed as 1:29 pm (DPD time, 1:33 pm) as Owens said.

DISP           Do you have any information for us, 19?

19                None. We’re shaking down these old houses out down here in the 400 block of East Jefferson right now.

 

But if Hill arrived with Owens that day he’d have had a similar timeline of events to that of Owens. One thing Hill missed out on is the discovery of the discarded jacket sometime before 1:21 pm. Hill did not offer to KCRC at 6:45 pm on 22 November 1963 any explanation of what he did in the intervening 13 minutes.

That KCRC transcript came to the attention of the Commission via Chet Casselman of KSFO on 10 June 1964. And that file has an FBI note of 8 June 1964 where Hill had to admit that some of what he said on the radio was so-called hearsay and false. He had said:

 “The man [Oswald], I understand has resorted to violence before and possibly shot another policeman somewhere”.

Given that Oswald was young and spent a good deal of his adult life outside of the USA and in the Marines, the idea that he had previously shot a policeman could not be credible. Shooting a policeman in the US in 1963 was a rare occurrence. Overall, Hill’s radio interview shows more concern about pinning Oswald for the shooting of Tippit than Kennedy. 

HILL AND THE JACKET IN THE WRONG PLACE

Hill’s story of arriving, and the first action being the search of the houses for KCRC was not the starting point of what he claimed to have done in his testimony to the Warren Commission.  But his testimony flounders. Per the radio transcript witnesses said the man on the run had immediately run down Patton, west along E Jefferson, and then cut through Ballew Texaco Service Station and run into the alley behind. There was then a search of houses in E Jefferson, then there were false alarms regarding the entry to a church and then the library.

The first radio call in that sequence was from Officers Griffin and Mackie at 1:20 pm. It said: “We believe we’ve got this suspect on shooting this officer out here. Got his white jacket. Believe he dumped it on this parking lot behind this service station at 400 block East Jefferson across from Dudley Hughes and he had a white jacket on. We believe this is it.”

But Hill said to the Commission  (and note he is shown the radio transcript): 

 

Mr. HILL. All right, I took the key to Poe’s car. Another person came up, and we also referred him to Poe, that told us the man had run over into the funeral home parking lot. That would be Dudley Hughes’ parking lot in the 400 block of East Jefferson-and taken off his jacket.

Mr. BELIN. You turned this man over to Poe, too?

Mr. HILL. Yes, sir.

Mr. BELIN. I notice in the radio log transcript, which is marked Sawyer Deposition Exhibit A, that at 1:26 p.m., between 1:26 p.m., and 1:32 p.m., there was a call from No. 19 to 531. 531 is your home number, I believe? Your radio home station?

Mr. HILL. Yes.

Mr. BELIN. That says, “One of the men here at the service station that saw him seems to think he is in this block, 400 block East Jefferson, behind his service station. Give me some more squads over here.” “Several squads check out.” Was that you?

Mr. HILL. That was Owens.

Mr. BELIN. Were you calling in at all?

Mr. HILL. No. That is Bud Owens.

Mr. BELIN. You had left Owens’ car at this time?

Mr. HILL. I left Owens’ car and had 105 car at this time.

Mr. BELIN. Where did you go?

Mr. HILL. At this time, about the time this broadcast came out, I went around and met Owens. I whipped around the block. I went down to the first intersection east of the block where all this incident occurred, and made a right turn, and traveled one block, and came back up on Jefferson.

Mr. BELIN. All right.

Mr. HILL. And met Owens in front of two large vacant houses on the north side of Jefferson that are used for the storage of secondhand furniture. By then Owens had information also that some citizen had seen the man running towards these houses. At this time Sergeant Owens was there; I was there; Bill Alexander was there; it was probably about this time that C. T. Walker, an accident investigator got there; and with Sergeant Owens and Walker and a couple more officers standing outside, Bill Alexander and I entered the front door of the house that would have been to the west—it was the farthest to the west of the two shook out the lower floor, made sure nobody was there, and made sure that all the entrances from either inside or outside of the building to the second floor were securely locked. Then we went back over to the house next door, which would have been the first one east of this one, and made sure it was securely locked, both upstairs and downstairs. There was no particular sign of entry on this building at all. At this point we came back out to the street, and I asked had Owens received any information from the hospital on Tippit. And he said they had just told him on channel 2 that he was dead. I got back in 105’s car, went back around to the original scene, gave him his car keys back, and left his car there, and at this point he came up to me with a Winston cigarette package.”

“The next place I went was, I walked up the street about half a block to a church. That would have been on the northeast corner of 10th Street in the 400 block west of the shooting, and was preparing to go in when there were two women who came out and said they were employees inside and had been there all the time. I asked them had they seen anybody enter the church, because we were still looking for possible places for the suspect to hide. And they said nobody passed them, nobody entered the church, but they invited us to check the rest of the doors and windows and go inside if we wanted to. An accident investigator named Bob Apple was at the location at that time, and we were standing there together near his car when the call came out that the suspect had been seen entering the Texas Theatre.”

A giveaway that Hill is not reliable here is that the jacket was not discarded in the parking lot of Dudley Hughes, it was found in the parking lot of Ballew Texaco Service Station which was across Jefferson Boulevard (opposite) from Dudley Hughes.

What Hill appears to have done is misread the transcript that was given to him at the testimony session and was trying to attach his movements to that misunderstanding. Hence, he turned the 1:20 pm call regarding the jacket at the Ballew Texaco Service Station parking lot opposite Dudley Hughes to the jacket being at Dudley Hughes parking lot, something that did not happen. 

Someone who’d been in on the real action wouldn’t make such a mistake by misreading a transcript. It would be held in their head. Hill made the same mistake later in his testimony when he was questioned about Oswald after his arrest:

Mr. BELIN. Any jacket?

Mr. HILL. No, sir; he didn’t have a jacket on at this time.

Mr. BELIN. All right, go ahead.

Mr. HILL. I understand a light-colored jacket was found in the parking lot of the funeral home, as a man had previously stated, but I don’t recall actually seeing this jacket.

 

HILL AND THE FALSE AMBULANCE STORY

 

There is a further problem with Hill’s testimony. This was Owens (19) at approximately 1:21 pm (1:26 DPD time), having arrived at the scene. 

DISPATCH: 19, where did the officer go?

19:               I saw some squads going towards Methodist real fast. I imagine that’s where he is.

That stacks up and Owens was driving. But Hill (using 550/2) had said a minute earlier per the transcript. 

DISPATCH: Have you been to the scene?

550/2:           The officer was already gone when I got there. He was driving car number 10.

DISPATCH: Do you know what ambulance took him? We had three going.

550/2:         No. Dudley Hughes passed in front of me going to Beckley. He looked like he might have had him.

The need for two calls is odd if Hill and Owens had been in the same car. Also odd is the phrase “passed in front of me” as if he was driving, and “the officer was already gone when I got there”, if Hill had been with Owens. It would be “we.” 

The only cars arriving from Downtown able to have seen the Dudley Hughes ambulance would have been Poe’s or Owens. But Owens made no reference to an ambulance, merely squad cars heading in the direction of the hospital. That indicates that by the time Owens was on Beckley the ambulance had already reached the hospital. That is consistent with Tippit having arrived at the hospital at approximately 1:14 pm and being declared dead on arrival by 1:15 pm.

But there is yet another problem. Hill said the ambulance ‘passed in front’ but an ambulance traveling north on Beckley to Methodist wouldn’t pass in front. Paths would cross. 

By the time of his Warren Commission testimony, Hill had corrected the “passed in front” to “passed us”. But he claims to have used 19 (Owens’ number) when the number Hill had used was 550/2. His testimony was:

“In the process of getting the location straight, and I think it was at this point I was probably using 19 call number, because I was riding with him, we got the information correctly that the shooting had actually been on East 10th, and we were en route there.

We crossed the Commerce Street viaduct and turned, made a right turn to go under the viaduct on North Beckley to go up to 10th Street. As we passed, just before we got to Colorado on Beckley, an ambulance with a police car behind it passed us en route to Methodist Hospital.”

Belin clearly gave Hill an easy ride. Hill’s testimony was at odds on that point with the radio transcript, and once again Hill was appropriating something Owens had done. Hill observing Poe as the first squad car to roll up does make sense if Hill had already arrived in car 207 and parked in the rear driveway of 410 E 10^th, accessed by Lansing Alley having dropped the decoy off at a point to the east of the murder scene. That is also consistent with what Virginia Davis said about seeing policemen immediately after she’d called the police, after Tippit was shot, before the ambulance arrived.

Remember, Croy and Hill lied about what they did before and after Tippit was shot. Croy in particular lied about being “hemmed in on both sides” on Main Street, whilst what he described in terms of lane configuration was Elm Street, and Griffin is near where the Marsalis bus was on Elm when “Oswald” (I posit the decoy) got off. 

Hill lied on KCRC to make Oswald look like a serial cop killer. Hill’s biggest problem though was admitting he saw Poe’s car “roll-up”. That would not have happened if he’d arrived with Owens.

On the evidence outlined, Hill had arrived at the Tippit murder scene in car 207 shortly before Tippit was shot and rendezvoused with Westbrook who arrived with Owens, then Westbrook could have told Hill what he saw on his journey in Owens’ car. But Hill only got half the story and hence put an incorrect statement on the radio at 1:20 pm concerning the ambulance. Hill’s aim in doing that was likely to create an alibi to account for how he had got to the scene.

To test that assumption further, Westbrook is relevant, as is what Hill did next. 

WESTBROOK THE FORGETTER

Westbrook said in his Commission testimony of 6 April 1963:

“Mr. WESTBROOK. I was in my office and Mrs. Kinney, one of the Dispatchers, came into the office and told us, and of course-it’s the same as everybody says- we didn’t believe it until a second look at her and I realized it was so, and so, there’s a little confusion right here because everybody became rather excited right quick, but somebody, and I don’t know who it was, came into my office and said they needed some more men at this Texas Depository Building. You know, I didn’t review my report before I came over here I didn’t have a chance. I just came off of vacation and they hit me with this this morning as soon as I got to the office. I can’t recall whether or not it was the Dispatcher’s office, but I think it was-somebody in the Dispatcher’s office had told us they needed some more men at the Texas Depository Building; so I sent the men that were in my office, which were then Sergeants Stringer and Carver, and possibly Joe Fields and McGee, if they were in there; it seems like McGee was, and I think- I sent them to the building, and then I walked on down the hall spreading the word and telling the other people that they needed some men down there, and practically everybody left immediately. I sat around a while-really not knowing what to do because of the-almost all of the commanding officers and supervisors were out of the city hall and I finally couldn’t stand it any longer, so I started to the Texas Depository Building, and believe it or not, I walked. There wasn’t a car available, and so I walked from the city hall to the Depository Building, and I would stop on the way down where there would be a group of people listening to somebody’s transistor radio and I would stop and catch a few false reports, you might say, at that time, until I reached the building. Do you want me to continue on?”

So, by that, Hill who was assigned to Westbrook, left his office at approximately 12:45 pm with Valentine then driving him. 

Westbrook continued:

Mr. Westbrook. After we reached the building, or after I reached the building, I contacted my sergeant Sgt. R. D. Stringer [sic, it is HH Stringer per the Batchelor Exhibit, R D Stringer was a different officer and not a sergeant], and he was standing in front and so then I went into the building to help start the search and I was on the first floor and I had walked down an aisle and opened a door onto an outside loading dock, and when I came out on this dock, one of the men hollered and said there had been an officer killed in Oak Cliff.

Well, then, of course, I ran to my radio because I am the personnel officer, and that then became, of course, my greatest interest right at that time, and so, Sergeant Stringer and I and some patrolman—I don’t recall his name-then drove to the immediate vicinity of where Officer Tippit had been shot and killed.

Of course, the body was already gone, the squad car was still there, and on one occasion as we were approaching this squad car, a call came over the radio that a suspicious person had been sighted running into the public library at Marsalis and Jefferson, so we immediately went to that location and it was a false-it was just one of the actually—-it was one of the employees of the library who had heard the news somewhere on the radio and he was running to tell the other group about Kennedy.

So, we returned to the scene and here I met Bob Barrett, the FBI agent, and Sergeant Stringer and Barrett and I were together, and then an eyewitness to the shooting of the officer from across the street, a lady, came to the car, and she was telling us how this happened.

Mr. BALL. Where was your car parked at that time?

Mr. Westbrook. It wasn’t my car—we didn’t have one. I don’t know where this officer went after he let us out at the scene.

Mr. BALL. An officer drove you down to the scene?

Mr. Westbrook. An officer drove us to the scene.

Mr. BALL. Where were you when this lady came up who was an eyewitness?

Mr. Westbrook. We were at the squad car-Tippit’s squad car-it had never been moved.

Mr. BALL. You were near 10th and Patton?

Mr. Westbrook. And she was telling us what had occurred.

Mr. BALL. Do you remember her name?

Mr. Westbrook. No; the other officers got it.

Westbrook trips himself up more than once. He said he “ran to his radio”, but he’d previously said he didn’t have a car as he’d walked. He refers to stopping on the way for the ““false reports as you might say””. How would he know they were false? 

How could he “start the search” at the Depository? Searching was already underway before 1:00 pm and after a 20-minute plus walk, he couldn’t have started it. (As covered later, the three shells were found before 12:56 pm). His “believe it or not” is defensive. 

Westbrook slipped out “we reached” and then corrected it to “I reached”. Also, if Stringer was already “out the front” then the “I contacted” him makes no sense. Another issue is that with so many officers sharing vehicles to get to the Depository the line that there were no cars available is not credible. 

Researcher and Warren Commission advocate Dale Myers says that:

“Sgt. Henry H. Stringer told me in 1983 that Captain Westbrook rode with him from city hall to the depository along with two other officers – Frank M. Rose, Burglary and Theft Bureau (driving) and Joe Fields, a detective in the Personnel Bureau. They split up upon arrival and helped searched [sic] the TSBD (films support Stringer’s recollection), then got back together just before the call came over the radio about the Tippit shooting. 

Of course, Stringer’s twenty-year-old recollection isn’t as strong as Westbrook’s sworn 1964 testimony, but who knows? More important, in the big scheme of things, what does it matter?” [http://jfkfiles.blogspot.com/2020/11/westbrook-croy-and-tippit-murder.html?m=1]

Myers downplays discrepancies that actually matter a lot. If Stringer was correct then he confirms that Westbrook’s forgetfulness extended beyond forgetting who he’d travelled with, to forgetting whether he walked for 20 minutes or not. And getting all that wrong under oath, plus forgetting people’s names, all this despite being head of personnel. In the “big scheme of things” the fact is that testimonies of certain senior police officers were unreliable. 

There is also a non-sequitur in the Myers extract. The first paragraph (without references in support) claims that there was photographic evidence to back Stringer’s recollection. But by the paragraph immediately afterward things were shrugged off to a ‘but who knows’ about Stringer’s recollection. 

Myers’ approach to vindicating the Warren Commission has the recurring naïve assumption that all police officers were clean and all their testimony was correct. The above demonstrates that this cannot be assumed. Either Stringer, Westbrook, or both were unreliable. In putting out information to support the Warren Commission theory, Myers actually throws up anomalies that serve to undermine it. 

                           THE DPD AND THE STOPPED BUS

Dallas’ overturned prosecutions conducted under the now notorious District Attorney Henry Wade sit with a crime clear-up rate that is consistent with the routine practice of rigging of evidence against defendants. Wade, DA in 1963, had had a prosecution conviction rate of 100% until he lost Roe v Wade (1970).  Wade had withheld evidence in cases where convictions were later overturned. (James DiEugenio, The JFK Assassination: The Evidence Today, pp. 196-98)

Had Westbrook with his “sat around a while” and “couldn’t stand it any longer” left as early as 12:50 pm – on foot stopping to hear “false reports”– then he would have arrived after at least 1:10 pm. Adding on “contacting Stringer” with some dwell time at the Depository, his timeline makes it difficult for him to have arrived by the time of Bowley’s call at 1:11 pm and immediately get into the car with the very fast responder Owens. 

Assuming there is also some truth in what Stringer said, then Westbrook didn’t walk but arrived by car at the Depository earlier than his walking story implies, and sought to disguise that, and then departed with Owens. 

Any credible independent police investigation with maps, blackboards/whiteboards, would have seen through the problems with the movements of certain police officers immediately, merely on the basis of the above. So should the Commission. 

Owens actually gave a very strong alibi for Westbrook’s presence when Tippit was shot – which also rules out Westbrook being in car 207 just before Tippit was shot. But Westbrook did not take it up. That begs the question what was Westbrook doing before and after Tippit was shot that made him prevaricate? If all he was doing was covering for Hill, then his own misrepresentations wouldn’t need to be so elaborate before Tippit was shot.

Westbrook was working in civilian clothes that day. He had also just returned to work, saying he had been on vacation. 

Mr. BALL. Do you wear a uniform? 

Mr. WESTBROOK. Well, it is optional. I don’t wear one. 

Mr. BALL. On November 22, 1963, were you assigned any special duty? 

Mr. WESTBROOK. No, sir; other than just my own routine duties. 

Mr. BALL. What were those duties that day? 

Mr. WESTBROOK. 8 15 to 5 15. 

Mr. BALL. And were you in uniform on that day?

Mr. WESTBROOK. No, sir. 

It is peculiar for Ball to have brought up the uniform. But he asked that question after Cecil McWatters testified on 26 March 1964 and 6 days after Milton Jones’ FBI statement. Westbrook’s plain clothes could account for McWatters saying a man stopped the bus, whilst Milton Jones said it was a policeman. Did Ball suspect it might be Westbrook? Croy had given his remarkable testimony prior on 26 March 1963, ten days before Westbrook appeared.

McWatters had told the story of the man stopping the bus which appeared in the Dallas Morning News on 28 November 1963. He said that the man was in work clothes and about 55. Westbrook was an old-looking 46. 

It is therefore posited that Hill and Westbrook likely knew who the intended suspect should be; and that the 12:44 pm APB was itself false evidence from within City Hall and the trigger for what was to follow next. Which was evidence planting at the Depository to frame not only Oswald, but set up the Depository as the origin of all the shots at the motorcade. 

Tippit’s covert position at Gloco immediately after 12:30 pm and Angell, Parker, Lewis, and Nelson in covert positions on other viaduct exits indicate something was planned of the nature of assistance for getaways. To assist in a getaway at a low level merely needs to turn a blind eye. 

If Tippit turned at or before 12:45 pm, and drove to the area of Lansing and 8^th, for a rendezvous with his controllers less than two minutes from Gloco, then it would be imperative to get the decoy off the bus and get him to 1026 N Beckley by whatever means as quickly as possible. That being needed to keep alive the false narrative that Oswald had reached 1026 N Beckley of his own accord.

There has to be a reason why that particular Marsalis bus was singled out, boarded, and held up for over 40 minutes. 

Click here to read part 2.