There are several other inaccuracies, among them Butler's incorrect placement of the murder site closer to Denver than Patton, and his call number was 602, not 601. Also, the examining physician, Dr. Liquori, stated there were three wounds, not four. Of greater interest is Butler's statement, "if there had been any Officers at the scene, I would have asked one of them to ride with me." Reserve Seargent Croy's claim of being at the scene before the ambulance left looks a little shaky.
Neither Davenport nor Bardin could have been the officer who "brought the gun [Butler] had placed on the squad car to the hospital in a plastic bag with the barrel inside his belt," and there are no clues as to his identity. Butler said he could not name or describe him. It is also baffling as to why D & B said they were at the hospital before any officers had arrived.
There are several other inaccuracies, among them Butler's incorrect placement of the murder site closer to Denver than Patton, and his call number was 602, not 601. Also, the examining physician, Dr. Liquori, stated there were three wounds, not four. Of greater interest is Butler's statement, "if there had been any Officers at the scene, I would have asked one of them to ride with me." Reserve Seargent Croy's claim of being at the scene before the ambulance left looks a little shaky.
Neither Davenport nor Bardin could have been the officer who "brought the gun [Butler] had placed on the squad car to the hospital in a plastic bag with the barrel inside his belt," and there are no clues as to his identity. Butler said he could not name or describe him. It is also baffling as to why D & B said they were at the hospital before any officers had arrived.
p39
"There are obviously two separate and distinct paths the pistol travels once back at the DallasPolice Station on November 22, 1963: 1. McDonald/Carroll > Hill > (initials from McD, Carroll, Hill, Bentley supposedly etched inhandle by screw, yet no photo in evidence shows these initials) > Fritz > T.L. Baker >gone 2. Fritz > Davenport & officers > Doughty/Barnes > SA Vincent Drain > FBI"
For the same reasons Croy and Westbrook, Sawyer and Boone, Curry and Lumpkin, Gannaway, DECKER and Stringfellow... lied about virtually everything....
Croy claims he was the first on the scene.... Yet not a soul corroborates this...
Mr. GRIFFIN. I see. Now, I am just referring to the street you found him on. When you got there, was Tippit's car there? Mr. CROY. Yes. Mr. GRIFFIN. Was Tippit there? Mr. CROY. They were loading him in the ambulance. Mr. GRIFFIN. Were other officers on the scene? Mr. CROY. None that I saw.
Croy even claims to have spoken to Markham.... Mrs. Holan even confirms the presence of another police car at the time of the shooting...
So I feel it is a good bet NOT to take the DPD evidence as gold, in fact I'd say th DPD evidence shows off the Conspiracy, not the Crime...
(Both DECKER and STRINGFELLOW were listed FBI Informants - as is Holmes, Revill and Bringuier)
I am of the opinion that these names (all related to Military intelligence and/or the FBI) represent the majority of those on the DPD "helping to frame the patsy"
Once in a while you get shown the light
in the strangest of places if you look at it right..... R. Hunter
Exceptional work, especially the JosephsPistol essay, covers Oswald's snub-nosed #510210 very well. The movement of Tippit's service revolver #138278 remains a mystery. The two are easy to mix up! I believe the scribbled note on p.36 ("R A Davenport took gun & bullet from Tippit") refers to #510210 and the bullet removed from Tippit in the ER that had struck his button, and not #138278. How did the latter come into the possession of Bardin?
Quote:So I feel it is a good bet NOT to take the DPD evidence as gold, in fact I'd say th DPD evidence shows off the Conspiracy, not the Crime...
So, how can all these people take the same gun? Callaway takes it, Scoggins takes it, Croy takes it…
JASPER CLAYTON BUTLER
Direct conflict with Callaway…
Mr. CALLAWAY. I picked the gun up and laid it on the hood of the squad car, and then someone put it in the front seat of the squad car. Then after I helped load Officer Tippit in the ambulance, I got the gun out of the car and told this cabdriver, I said, "You saw the guy didn't you?" He said, yes.
I said, "If he is going up Jefferson, he can't be very far. Let's see if we can find him." So I went with Scoggins in the taxicab, went up to 10th, Crawford, from Crawford up to Jefferson, and down Jefferson to Beckley. And we turned on Beckley. If we had kept going up Jefferson, we probably--there is a good chance we would have seen him, because he was headed right towards the Texas Theatre. But then we circled around several blocks, and ended up coming back to where it happened.
Royal Blue Coat?? that would have been Tippit's from this car? Croy? No one mentions or photographs a coat anywhere near the Tippit scene... ??
Large White man? Bowley? His Affidavitstates:
I looked at my watch and it said 1:10 pm. Severalpeople were at the scene. When I got there the first thing I did was try tohelp the officer. He appeared beyond help to me. A man was trying to use the radio in the squad car but stated he didn't know how to operate it.
Butler would know how to work a radio no? So this cant be him
I know how and took the radio from him. I said, "Hello, operator. A policeofficer has been shot here." The dispatcher asked for the location. Ifound out the location and told the dispatcher what it was. A few minutes lateran ambulance came to the scene. I help[B]ed load the officer onto the stretcherand into the ambulance. As [/B]we picked the officer up, I noticed his pistollaying on the ground under him. Someone picked the pistol up and laid it on thehood of the squad car. When the ambulance left, I took the gun and put itinside the squad car. A man took the pistol out and said, "Let's catchhim." He opened the cylinder, and I saw that no rounds in it had beenfired. This man then took the pistol with him and got into a cab and drove off. And then we have CROY again claiming he took Tippit's gun... with no conclusion other than "A" pistol arrives at Methodist.. Butler would have no way of knowing it was the same pistol or not...
Mr. GRIFFIN. Do you remember what his name was? Mr. CROY. No; I didn't get his name. There was a private detective agency. There was a report that a cabdriver had picked up Tippit's gun and had left, presumably. They don't know whether he was the one that had shot Tippit, or whether the man, I think it was he, brought someone out there, something. Anyway, he saw it and he picked up Tippit's gun and attempted to give chase or something like that. Mr. GRIFFIN. There was a detective who was an eyewitness?
Mr. CROY. No; he brought the taxi driver back to the scene.
Mr. GRIFFIN. But the taxicab driver was an eyewitness?
Mr. CROY. As far as I know.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Did you talk to the taxicab driver?
Mr. CROY. No; I took Tippit's gunand several other officers came up, and I turned him over to them and they questioned him. WCXII p202
We do know it did not go in the Ambulance with Tippit...
Milo - have you been able to find out in the DPD statements who went to Methodist?
15. CSS Form (Crime Scene Section), by R. A. Davenport. Original form concerning a Smith & Wesson SN Special, (Original), 11/22/63. 00002560 1 page 09 01 015 (no scan)
Once in a while you get shown the light
in the strangest of places if you look at it right..... R. Hunter
Quote:Milo - have you been able to find out in the DPD statements who went to Methodist?
I'm finding nothing in the statements, but a familiar name is on record as witnessing the ambulance's arrival at Methodist and showing up at the murder scene thereafter. Surprisingly consistent statements from Hill appear in the radio log and his WC testimony --
Radio (1:26):
Dispatcher Have you been to the scene?
550/2 The officer was already gone when I got there. He was driving car number 10.
Dispatcher Do you know what ambulance took him? We had three going.
550/2 (Sgt. G.L. Hill) No. Dudley Hughes passed in front of me going to Beckley. He looked like he might have had him.
WC: 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.
It puts him in the right places at the right time, and there is no reason to believe his yarn about tooling around the block in Poe's car. It's a short trip to Methodist where he could have given the service revolver to a uniformed officer.
At this point I have no explanation as to why he would have kept this secret.
I guess the real question is what happens to the pistol after Callaway returns to 10th/Patton...
And I have yet to find anything...
FWIW the "unidentified uniformed officer" who brings "a" or "that" pistol to Methodist might be CROY since he never seems to be named specifically in any statements....
What do you think is the significance of Tippit's pistol and it's strange journey ??
DJ
Once in a while you get shown the light
in the strangest of places if you look at it right..... R. Hunter
I guess the real question is what happens to the pistol after Callaway returns to 10th/Patton...
And I have yet to find anything...
FWIW the "unidentified uniformed officer" who brings "a" or "that" pistol to Methodist might be CROY since he never seems to be named specifically in any statements....
What do you think is the significance of Tippit's pistol and it's strange journey ??
DJ
Sure it might be Croy, no telling exactly what he did. The pitfall is to treat him as a plug-in character, inserting him into a scenario without producing anything in the way of evidence to support the insertion.
The question is a big one, hoping to come up with a big answer some day...
Perhaps all accounts of Tippit's gun movements involve Scoggins (unless to deny it altogether), and he was on Leavelle's list of eyewitnesses after belatedly backing into that role. Leavelle's Supplementary Offense Report devotes a long paragraph to Callaway, Markham & Guinyard as eyewitnesses followed by Benavides as a non-eyewitness, the quartet united by their presence at DPD HQ on 11/22. Next paragraph talks about Scoggins:
There is another witness who has not viewed this suspect, who I have talked to on the phone, who stated that he was driving Oak Cliff Cab, Number 213, and he was parked about 20 feet away at the time shooting took place, that the suspect ran past him in a matter of a few feet, that he heard the man mumble, "The poor dumb cop" about twice. He will be able to identify this man. The witness's name is W. W. Scoggins, 3138 Alaska, FR 4-2955.
Finally:
All of the above witnesses, with the exception of Scoggins, made affidavits. Witness Callaway took the officer's pistol and got in the cab with Scoggins and persued [sic] suspect, but was unable to catch him.
The last reference to Callaway is echoed in Callaway's 11/22 DPD affidavit, likewise terse.
I got the officer's gun and hollered at a cab driver to come on, We might catch the man. We got into his cab, number 213 and drove up Patton to Jefferson and looked all around, but did not see him.
This role remains almost unchallenged despite evidence to the contrary (previously discussed) and lack of corroboration, unless Benavides' quip to WC about Ted's ignorance of the escape route qualifies as such, but I don't think so. Instead Benavides was saying that Callaway was the wrong man.
Leavelle was curiously lax about Scoggins, not taking an affidavit until the 23rd, garbling the information received over the phone on the 22nd, and never confirming the identity of his passenger, the man who commandeered the cab, purportedly the same who worked across the street from Scoggins' club. Why so soft?
Because Callaway was not the passenger, and it was necessary to conceal the true identity of the man who commandeered the cab, a cop in need of a quick exit from the scene. Hill & Olsen were both in the area at the right time.
Scoggins is a fit for the former's 1:26 radio transmission ("I'm at 12th and Beckley now - have a man in the car with me that can identify the suspect if anybody gets him, the one."). Russell was taken into a squad car but never left the scene, and nobody else mentioned anything similar until Scoggins testified as follows to WC questioning:
After I had got in the car and toured the neighborhood and then the policemen came along and I left my cab setting down there and got in a car with them and left the scene.
IIIp337
This clears up two things. One, it establishes the identity of Hill's eyewitness. Two, it eliminates Hill from consideration as the man who commandeered the cab.
Harry stands alone, the man who lied about everything including his address on his marriage license. He's there but so elusive as to be almost ethereal. Very strong Ruby ties and resident at 321 N. Ewing where Scoggins took a fare before breaking for lunch, a point rubbed into his WC testimony three times. Scoggins never said where he drove but came closest in the 12/2/63 SS statement:
We proceeded north on Patton and possibly turned west on 10th. We cruised an area north of 10th street looking for the man I had seen, but we did not see him. When we left the intersection of 10th and Patton we did not go to Patton and Jefferson, but went in a northerly direction which would be opposite from the intersection of Patton and Jefferson streets.
Going north to look for the fugitive cop-killer made no sense at all, but is the obvious route back to Olsen's apartment -- north on Patton then a right on 8th to N. Ewing, less than a mile. An easy trip, although Olsen in the next seat imposing injunctions at the point of a gun may not have been pleasant company. It didn't last long, a quick return and he was off to 12th and Beckley with Hill.
An interesting note... the "Gentlemen's Club" which Scoggins walks back to in getting his coke is directly in line with the alley where the 2nd Police car entered and presumably exited... but the entering should have been just around the same time Scoggins is wandering around there...
He says he dropped of 325 N Ewing around 1pm... 3 mins to Patton, and a few minutes in and out of the car... one would think he saw much more than he said... or said things that were not exactly truthful...
Olsen claims he walked the 4 blocks from the mystery estate to 325 N Ewing... in a cast with a busted knee...
Also means this "estate" was north of Stemmons
North on the B&W map below follows N Ewing.
Here is the trip Scoggins most likely took from Ewing to Patton
Mr. BELIN. All right. Did you see the police car go across right in front of yours? Mr. SCOGGINS. Yes; he went right down the street. He come from the west, going east On east Tenth. Mr. BELIN. Then what did you see? Mr. SCOGGINS. I noticed he stopped down there, and I wasn't paying too much attention to the man, you see, just used to see him every day,
Doesn't "every day" suggest Scoggins eat his lunch there often and Tippit would visit his GF after a quick lunch at home with the wife?
David Josephs Wrote:Doesn't "every day" suggest Scoggins eat his lunch there often and Tippit would visit his GF after a quick lunch at home with the wife?
Exactly, familiar faces in the neighborhood.
Olsen admirably fits the minimum cab-commandeer requirements:
1. Young (29)
2. Looked like a cop
3. Unknown to Russell
The last is critical, close to impossible that Russell would not have recognized Callaway at the scene.
BTW Olsen had bushy hair. Photo taken when he was a teen, attributes otherwise unknown. I cannot locate info as to his height & weight.
As for Tippit's gun, the trail grows cold after Scoggins returns to 10th and hands it off to DPD. There's no indication as to how it came into Bardin's possession, but the topic loses much of its interest at this point.
