Kennedys and King Test host626

Tag: EYEWITNESSES

  • These Are Your Witnesses?

    Priscilla Johnson McMillan has been against Oswald from the start. But who is she? And why wasn’t the public allowed to know until 1993?

    Hugh Aynesworth The former Dallas newspaper reporter says rejecting a conspiracy in the JFK assassination is his life’s work.

    Gerald Posner As Harold Weisberg once said, “All hail Gerald Posner!” Find more evidence of faulty research on the part of ABC, in a collection of articles examining the author of Case Closed.

    Ed Butler Among the suspect talking heads from the ABC special was an anti-Communist activist with links to Lee Harvey Oswald.

  • Rose Cheramie: How She Predicted the JFK Assassination

    From the July-August 1999 issue (Vol. 6 No. 5) of Probe

    On November 20, 1963, Lt. Francis Fruge of the Louisiana State Police received a phone call from Moosa Memorial Hospital in Eunice. A Mrs. Louise Guillory, the hospital administrator told him that there was an accident victim in the emergency ward. Guillory knew that Fruge worked the narcotics detail and she felt that the woman was under the influence of drugs.

    Fruge immediately left for the hospital. When he got there he encountered a middle-aged white female sitting down in the waiting room outside emergency. There were no serious injuries; only bruises and abrasions. She was only partly coherent. But Moosa was a private hospital and since the woman seemed bereft of funds, Guillory had called Fruge to see what he could do to help. The woman identified herself to Fruge as Rose Cheramie.

    Fruge had no choice at the time except to place Cheramie in the Eunice City Jail. He then went out to attend the Eunice Police Department’s Annual Ball. About an hour later a police officer came over to the function and told Fruge that Cheramie was undergoing withdrawal symptoms. Fruge came back and, after recognizing the condition, called a local doctor, Dr. Derouin, from the coroner’s office. Derouin administered a sedative via syringe to calm her down. The doctor then suggested that she be removed from the jail and taken to the state facility in Jackson. After Fruge agreed, Derouin called the facility at about midnight on the 20th and made arrangements for her delivery there. Afterwards, Fruge called Charity Hospital in Lafayette and ordered an ambulance for the transport to the hospital.

    Fruge accompanied Cheramie to the hospital. And, according to his House Select Committee deposition, it was at this point that Rose began to relate her fascinating and astonishing tale. Calmed by the sedative, and according to Fruge, quite lucid, she began to respond to some routine questions with some quite unusual answers. She told him that she was en route from Florida to Dallas with two men who looked Cuban or Italian. The men told her that they were going to kill the president in Dallas in just a few days. Cheramie herself was not part of the plot but apparently the men were also part of a large dope ring with Rose since Cheramie’s function was as a courier of funds for heroin which was to be dropped off to her by a seaman coming into the port of Galveston. She was to pick up the money for the drugs from a man who was holding her child. It seemed a quite intricate dope ring since she was then to transport the heroin to Mexico. The two men were supposed to accompany her to Mexico but the whole transaction got short-circuited on Highway 190 near Eunice. In the confines of a seedy bar called the Silver Slipper Lounge, Cheramie’s two friends were met by a third party. Rose left with the two men she came with. But a short distance away from the bar, an argument apparently ensued. And although some have written that she was thrown out of the vehicle and hit by an oncoming car, according to Fruge, Rose said that the argument took place inside the Silver Slipper, and that the two men and the manager, Mac Manual, threw her out. While hitchhiking on the 190, she was hit by a car driven by one Frank Odom. It was Odom who then delivered her to Moosa. As Fruge so memorably recalled to Jonathan Blackmer of the HSCA, Cheramie summed up her itinerary in Dallas in the following manner: “She said she was going to, number one, pick up some money, pick up her baby, and to kill Kennedy.” (p. 9 of Fruge’s 4/18/78 deposition)

    At the hospital, Cheramie again predicted the assassination. On November 22nd, several nurses were watching television with Cheramie. According to these witnesses, “…during the telecast moments before Kennedy was shot Rose Cheramie stated to them, ‘This is when it is going to happen’ and at that moment Kennedy was assassinated. The nurses, in turn, told others of Cheramie’s prognostication.” (Memo of Frank Meloche to Louis Ivon, 5/22/67. Although the Dallas motorcade was not broadcast live on the major networks, the nurses were likely referring to the spot reports that circulated through local channels in the vicinity of the trip. Of course, the assassination itself was reported on by network television almost immediately after it happened.) Further, according to a psychiatrist there, Dr. Victor Weiss, Rose “…told him that she knew both Ruby and Oswald and had seen them sitting together on occasions at Ruby’s club.” (Ibid., 3/13/67) In fact, Fruge later confirmed the fact that she had worked as a stripper for Ruby. (Louisiana State Police report of 4/4/67.)

    Fruge had discounted Cheramie’s earlier comments to him as drug-induced delusions. Or, as he said to Blackmer, “When she came out with the Kennedy business, I just said, wait a minute, wait a minute, something wrong here somewhere.” (Fruge, HSCA deposition, p. 9) He further described her in this manner:

    Now, bear in mind that she talked: she’d talk for awhile, looks like the shots would have effect on her again and she’d go in, you know, she’d just get numb, and after awhile she’d just start talking again. (Ibid.)

    But apparently, at the time of the assassination Cheramie appeared fine. The word spread throughout the hospital that she had predicted Kennedy’s murder in advance. Dr. Wayne Owen, who had been interning from LSU at the time, later told the Madison Capital Times that he and other interns were told of the plot in advance of the assassination. Amazingly, Cheramie even predicted the role of her former boss Jack Ruby because Owen was quoted as saying that one of the interns was told “…that one of the men involved in the plot was a man named Jack Rubinstein.” (2/11/68) Owen said that they shrugged it off at the time. But when they learned that Rubinstein was Ruby they grew quite concerned. “We were all assured that something would be done about it by the FBI or someone. Yet we never heard anything.” (Ibid.) In fact, Cheramie’s association with Ruby was also revealed to Dr. Weiss. For in an interview with him after the assassination, Rose revealed that she had worked as a drug courier for Jack Ruby. (Memo of Frank Meloche to Jim Garrison, 2/23/67) In the same memo, there is further elaboration on this important point:

    I believe she also mentioned that she worked in the night club for Ruby and that she was forced to go to Florida with another man whom she did not name to pick up a shipment of dope to take back to Dallas, that she didn’t want to do this thing but she had a young child and that they would hurt her child if she didn’t.

    These comments are, of course, very revealing about Ruby’s role in both an intricate drug smuggling scheme and, at the least, his probable acquaintance with men who either had knowledge of, or were actually involved in, the assassination. This is a major point in this story which we will return to later.

    Although Fruge had discounted the Cheramie story on November 20th, the events of the 22nd made him a believer. Right after JFK’s murder, Fruge “…called that hospital up in Jackson and told them by no way in the world to turn her loose until I could get my hands on her.” (Fruge’s HSCA deposition, p. 12.) So on November 25th, Fruge journeyed up to Jackson again to talk to Cheramie. This time he conducted a much more in-depth interview. Fruge found out that Cheramie had been traveling with the two men from Miami. He also found that the men seemed to be a part of the conspiracy rather than to be just aware of it. After the assassination, they were supposed to stop by a home in Dallas to pick up both around eight thousand dollars plus Rose’s baby. From there Cheramie was supposed to check into the Rice Hotel in Houston under an assumed name. Houston is in close proximity to Galveston, the town from which the drugs were coming in from. From Houston, once the transaction was completed, the trio were headed for Mexico.

    How reliable a witness was Cheramie? Extermely. Fruge decided to have the drug deal aspect of her story checked out by the state troopers and U. S. Customs. The officers confirmed the name of the seaman on board the correct ship coming into Galveston. The Customs people checked the Rice Hotel and the reservations had been made for her under an assumed name. The contact who had the money and her baby was checked and his name showed that he was an underworld, suspected narcotics dealer. Fruge checked Cheramie’s baggage and found that one box had baby clothes and shoes inside.

    Fruge flew Cheramie from Louisiana to Houston on Tuesday, the 26th. In the back seat of the small Sesna 180, a newspaper was lying between them. One of the headlines read to the effect that “investigators or something had not been able to establish a relationship between Jack Ruby and Lee Harvey Oswald.” (Fruge’s HSCA deposition p. 19) When Cheramie read this headline, she started to giggle. She then added, “Them two queer sons-of-a-bitches. They’ve been shacking up for years.” (Ibid.) She added that she knew this to be true from her experience of working for Ruby. Fruge then had his superior call up Captain Will Fritz of the Dallas Police to relay what an important witness Cheramie could be in his investigation. Fruge related what followed next:

    Colonel Morgan called Captain Fritz up from Dallas and told him what we had, the information that we had, that we had a person that had given us this information. And of course there again it was an old friend, and there was a little conversation. But anyway, when Colonel Morgan hung up, he turned around and told us they don’t want her. They’re not interested.

    Fruge then asked Cheramie if she wished to try telling her tale to the FBI. She declined. She did not wish to involve herself further. With this, the Cheramie investigation was now halted. Rose was released and Fruge went back to Louisiana. So, just four days after the assassination, with an extremely and provably credible witness alive, with her potentially explosive testimony able to be checked out, the Cheramie testimony was now escorted out to pasture. Eyewitness testimony that Ruby knew Oswald, that Ruby was somehow involved in an international drug circle, that two Latins were aware of and perhaps involved in a plot to kill Kennedy, and that Ruby probably knew the men; this incredible lead – ;the type investigators pine for – ;was being shunted aside by Fritz. It would stay offstage until Jim Garrison began to poke into the Kennedy case years later.

    …

    The rest of this article can be found in The Assassinations, edited by Jim DiEugenio and Lisa Pease.

  • The Magician’s Tools

    From the November-December, 1995 issue (Vol. 3 No. 1) of Probe

    “The most important tools of the magician are diversion and timing.”
     ~ Anonymous Victorian conman, inspiring his class of beginning pickpockets with the secrets of a loftier trade.

    Seriously Out of Synch

    Three shells, three shots. When was shot #2? According to the government, Kennedy and Connally, hit by shot #2, are wounded five seconds before the head shot. Yet, shots #2 and #3 have been called “close together.” Shots fired five seconds apart might be called “close together” but never a “flurry.”

    The vast majority of witneses said they heard only one shot before the two or more “close together” shots. Many of these witnesses were not only explicit about what they meant by close together (“simultaneous”), they were also clear about when the flurry occurred – during the time the head exploded. Before that, they heard only one shot, apparently the one that struck Kennedy in the throat. What happened in between?

    By all accounts, the first shot was fired before the limousine disappeared behind the Stemmons Sign (from Zapruder’s viewpoint). Most of us believe he reacts to the throat wound at this time. Kennedy emerges from behind the sign and, as others have noted, he goes forward a few inches – violently. This little movement, obscured by his suddenly rising arms, may indicate a separate shot to the back. Soon after, Connally is hit. Kellerman said he heard only one shot, then no more until the time of the “flurry.” Clint Hill said he heard one shot before the “double sound” he associates with the head wound, and nothing in between. (In the Altgens photo, the equivalent of Z-255, Hill has not yet reacted.) Samuel A. Kinney heard one shot, then a second, and “the second shot was fired and I observed hair flying from the right side of his head.” I’m assuming this second shot was a head shot because of the similarity between his testimony and George Hickey’s: “I heard a loud report…[then] I heard two reports which … appeared to me completely different in sound than the first report and were in such rapid succession there seemed to be no time element between them. The first shot of the second two seemed as if it missed because the hair on the right side of his head flew forward and there didn’t seem to be any impact against his head. The last shot seemed to hit his head…” Again, a second shot associated with disturbing Kennedy’s head. Rather than “hair” flying forward, I think what they saw was the bone flap that appears seven frames before the acknowledged head shot on the Nix film (I describe corroborating evidence for this in “The Magic Skull,” The Fourth Decade, July, 1995).

    Some witnesses seemed unaware of even the first shot. Mary Moorman, for example. She took two Polaroid photos of Kennedy. By the time she took the second picture (the head shot), at least two shots had already been fired. Yet, she said she heard a shot for the first time as she took this second picture. Charles Brehm is another witness who seemed unaware of the shots at first. As noted by David Lifton, Brehm is clapping his hands as the car passes him, a time when at least two shots had been fired.

    An Apparent Contradiction

    Governor Connally said he did not hear the shot that hit him. Neither, apparently, did Mrs. Connally. She said she heard a shot, turned around, saw Kennedy in distress, and kept her eyes on him until her husband was hit.

    “I never again looked in the back seat of the car after my husband was shot. My concern was for him…” The strange thing is, except for a quick glance at Connally as he changes posture, Mrs. Connally continuously stares at Kennedy – for two full seconds of surviving film after her husband has been hit. Another oddity: Governor Connally said he cried out, “Oh, no,no,no,” after he was hit. Mrs. Connally claimed he said it before he was hit.

    I think they were both right.

    Mrs Connally could have meant that before she heard the second shot, Connally cried out. What she really heard was probably the first of the flurry that struck Kennedy’s head.

    Evidence of Subsonic Bullets

    Robert Shaw, MD described the hole through Connally as a “small tunneling wound,” noting the “neat way in which it stripped the rib out without doing much damage to the muscles that lay on either side of it.” Kennedy’s back wound was apparently even less. A supersonic bullet would have done much more damage. One thing that would render a supersonic bullet subsonic is a silencer.

    Perception of Gunfire

    There is usually variation among witnesses in the perception of anything, especially gunfire. Variation in hearing ability, attention span, the location of witnesses compared with the location of the marksmen, all could create apparent inconsistencies. A shot fired from 100 yards away is 20 decibels softer than one fired 10 yards away [20xlogarithm (base 10) of the ratio of the distances], all other factors being equal. Furthermore, loud noises are deafening, just as bright lights are blinding, temporarily. The pupil contracts in bright sunlight and takes time to adjust to a dark room, and muscles supporting the eardrum contract in self defense following a loud noise, making the ear deaf to quieter sounds. Thus, two shots could sound like one, depending on the witness’s location. And one shot can sound like two if the location is conducive to echo. Three shots from the same place, fired five seconds apart, would produce either three echoes, or no echo. That sound follows impact isn’t a factor here because of the distances involved. How to know which sounds go with which wounds? Will Greer said the last two shots were fired “simultaneously,” and that Connally moved at that time. Hit earlier, Connally was probably only flinching, or reacting to yet another shot. Greer’s assumption is probably “witness confusion,” a real phenomenon, but it could mean any testimony that does not agree with your theory.

    Prying Apart the Last Two Shots

    “Close together” could mean “closer together,” if the time between shots #1 and #2 could be lengthened, which may be why some claim shot #1 came as early as Z-160. But another solution to the problem is this hypothetical statement:

    “You only heard an echo. Look at this map. There were only three shots, and witnesses say the car was clear over here near this sign, when Connally fell. That was shot #2. And the car was down here several feet away when the head opened up. That was shot #3. You couldn’t have heard a flurry, the car didn’t move that fast. We even have it on film.”

    Zapruder was on his perch well before the motorcade arrived, and he could have been removed “for security reasons.” And surely they knew in advance that people film such motorcades. Did they want a record of it, one they could edit? One that would record the “second” shot? Bang……..Bang…….Bang?

    BANG…………..BANG-BANG

    The following people heard only one shot before the flurry, which occurred at the time the head exploded:

     

    Jack Bell (AP): “in quick succession” (NYT 11/23/63, p.5)
    George Hickey: “in rapid succession…no time element between” (18H762)
    Roy Kellerman: “flurry…plane breaking the sound barrier…bang, bang”; (2H76)
    Clinton Hill: “The second shot had “an echo…double sound” (2H144)
    Mary Woodward: “The second two shots were immediate…as if one were an echo of the other… with the second and third shot…I saw the head explode” (A∓E,II )
    Will Greer: “simultaneously” (2H118)
    Glenn Bennett: “A second shot followed immediately and hit the right rear high of the President’s head.” (18H760)
    Rufus Youngblood: “in rapid succession.” Rufus Youngblood (Robert MacNeil’s The Way We Were, 1988, Carroll ∓ Graf)
    Warren Taylor: “in the instant that my left foot touched the ground, I heard two more bangs” (CE1024)
    Seymour Weitzman: “simultaneous” (7H106)
    Linda Kay Wills: “two real fast bullets together” (7H498)
    Lee Bowers: Rapped his knuckles on a table showing the near simultaneity of the last two. (Mark Lane 1966 Tape)
    Junior Jarman: “third shot was fired right behind the second” (3H204)
    Carolyn Walther: “almost at the same time” (C.E.2086)
    Toney Henderson: “in rapid succession” (C.E.208)
    Mrs. Lyndon Johnson: “in rapid succession.” (H565)

     

    Mr. and Mrs. William Newman who stood on the curb slightly to the left of Zapruder describe the opposite pattern, BANG-BANG, nothing, then BANG. This may be related to location.

    Conclusion

    The purpose of silently creating wounds between audible shots #1 and #2 may not have been to disprove the closeness of shot #2 to shot #3, but one thing seems certain: what did the majority of witnesses hear when Connally was shot? Nothing.

  • Perry Raymond Russo: 1941-1995

    From the July-August, 1995 issue (Vol. 2 No. 5) of Probe

    Just as we went to press, we were told by New Orleans sources that Perry Russo had passed away of a reported heart attack on August 16th.

    Russo, of course, was the witness at the Shaw trial who stated that Ferrie, “Leon” Oswald, and a man he later identified as Clay Shaw, discussed the assassination of President Kennedy at Ferrie’s apartment in New Orleans in September of 1963. Russo surfaced after Ferrie’s death (Ferrie had threatened his life previously) and became a witness for Garrison at the preliminary hearing of Clay Shaw in March, 1967. Perry was brutally maligned by local Shaw allies like Rosemary James, and national media reporters who ended up having government ties e.g.Walter Sheridan, Hugh Aynesworth, and James Phelan (see p. 7, col. 1). Because he would not turn on Garrison he underwent a four year onslaught that altered his life permanently. He later became a taxi driver, working 80 hour weeks. He would always give researchers access to him and was a font of information on Ferrie, anti-Castro Cubans, and the New Orleans scene in general. In the summer of 1994, Perry got researchers Jeff Caufield and Romney Stubbs into Ferrie’s apartment and reconstructed the scene at Ferrie’s apartment that he testified to at the Shaw trial.