Judyth Vary Baker: Living in Exile

[James H. Fetzer]

JUDYTH DISCUSSES LEE'S "MISSING TOOTH" AND DAVID FERRIE

NOTE: Judyth has provided much more about the man she know and his activities,
including information that helps to round out our understanding of his life in New
Orleans. Lee had met David Ferrie even before he joined the Marine Corps and, as
"The Many Faces of Lee Harvey Oswald" suggests, their relationship may have been
one of the factors that would contribute to his becoming involved in covert activities.
When he returned to New Orleans in 1963, he resumed his relationship with Ferrie.
Part of this was a bit garbled, so Judyth will review it and correct it as appropriate.
Her discussion of "the missing tooth" removes another prop from "HARVEY & LEE".

JUDYTH ADDRESSES "THE MISSING TOOTH":

We have to use some common sense when it comes to claiming that the Oswald skull
should have had a missing tooth. This implies that “Harvey” lost his tooth, which is
supported by one of the photographs that appears in the White/Armstrong collection:



which appears to be contradicted by the denture of the skull that was later exhumed:



But the apparent contradiction arises from considering only two of three possibilities:

1) never replaced it and went with an unnoticed hole in his mouth the rest of his life

2) had an expensive implant done at some time after it was knocked out

Or the real answer—

3) a teenager who cared about losing a front tooth followed directions given to him and
placed the knocked-out tooth in a half-pint carton of milk, or other container and, as
soon as he could, went to the dentist and has the tooth reseated in his mouth.

CONSIDER THE FOLLOWING SUPPORTING EVIDENCE;

We have a dental bill paid by his aunt on record and her version of what happened:

"Another time they were coming out of school at 3 o’clock, and there were boys
in back of him and one of them called his name, and he said, “Lee,” and when
he turned around, this boy punched him in the mouth and ran, and it ran his tooth
through the lip, so she had to go over to the school and take him to the dentist,
and I paid for the dentist bill myself, and that’s all I know about that, and he
was not supposed to have started any of that [fighting] at that time.

"Now, at the Beauregard School at that time, they had a very low standard,
and I had no children going there and never did. My children went to Jesuit
High and Loyola University, but they did have a very bad bunch of boys going
to Beauregard and they were always having fights and ganging up on other
boys, and I guess Lee wouldn’t take anything, so he got in several scrapes like
that."

Lee told me that Dave Ferrie had hit him in the mouth, too, and I do not wish to
argue whether it occurred before or after the hit to the mouth at Beauregard School.
I am not responsible for the exact timing. Why? I wasn’t given enough details and
got jumped on for trying to establish a date. I was simply trying to establish the
dates for two incidents that occurred, concerning Lee getting hit in the front of his
mouth. But exactly which incident occurred first, I don’t know.

1) One incident involved Dave Ferrie beating Lee because Lee thought Ferrie was
making a pass at him, and it infuriated Ferrie; Lee had gone on Ferrie’s Harley
motorcycle to Dave’s house after a CAP meeting. I brought up the ownership of
the Harley and nobody said a peep, but then later Blackburst posted mention of it.
Nevertheless, they said Ferrie could not have known Lee. That’s simply not true.

Ferrie then became terrified as he realized Lee’s mother was dating organized crime
people. He begged Lee not to tell. Lee said, “I never want to see your ugly face again.”
The incident loosened Lee’s tooth and there was a deep cut in the gum that needed
a stitch. Ferrie was afraid Lee might lose it, so he gave Lee some money and I was
under the impression that Dave said he advised Lee that, if it did fall out, he should
put it into milk to save the tooth and get a dentist to reseat it. I always remember
such medical details. Lee told me that he was anxious to save the tooth, but didn’t
tell me if it fell out or not—we got distracted and began talking about how Ferrie
decided to help Lee get early into the Marines, he was so impressed because Lee
never told on him (it didn’t work).

2) Another incident involve a kid who walked up to Lee at school and smacked him
in the face--and others have details about that… Lee’s tooth, I was told, was knocked
out by his blow. I decided that would not have happened unless Dave Ferrie’s hit to
the mouth hadn’t loosened it. But I could have been the other way around, that the
tooth had been reseated and was still loose when Ferrie hit him, and there was danger
it would fall out.

The fact is, though the tooth was knocked out, Lee Oswald, a teenager, had the tooth
saved in milk. I may have mixed up such small details and it happened that a teacher
told him to save it in milk, but save it in milk he did.

Note that reseating a tooth does not mean that it will reseat ‘straight’ due to bone
damage. And indeed, that bone damage was noted on the exhumation dental record
where it says #9 tooth was ROTATED – moved out of its original position.

Are we being asked to believe that “Harvey” Oswald had a false tooth nobody
knew about? Because later photos show no missing tooth. We are told that this
is a way to distinguish LEE from HARVEY.

JUDYTH ELABORATES UPON THE STORY OF LEE'S "MISSING TOOTH":

Here's the photo showing Lee with possible missing tooth (again)—but would he have
just thrown the tooth away? That’s not what he told me. He said he saved it in some
milk and I believed it was after lunchtime, but perhaps it was after school, that his
mother came for him and took him to the dentist. There was some worry that the
tooth would turn black, but it did not. It was saved.





Interestingly, there is a large bulge in Lee Oswald’s pocket. He told me he saved the
tooth in milk, and I decided to blow up the photo—no, you can tell what he blob is,
except that its general shape is octagonal...The same shape as a milk carton with both
both ends pulled out…Just a thought…a mere conjecture, but this might be the milk
carton with Oswald’s tooth inside….

To believe that HARVEY Oswald went all his life without a front tooth being detected as
missing defies logic. And because I learned that Dave Ferrie and Lee Oswald actually
became friends over his incident—Ferrie had intended no harm he said—Lee had gone
to be by himself upstairs to look a Ferrie’s scientific stuff in a upper room, while Ferrie
had a party going on for he CAP boys—they all left and Lee needed a ride home…Dave
came up to get him, and Lee saw him lock he door…Dave said the door-locking was
automatic and he did not mean to frighten Lee, who knocked out a window with his
elbow and grabbed a piece of glass o defend himself. Dave was then furious and
decided to teach Oswald a lesson.

ON THE SCIENCE OF SAVING DISLODGED TEETH:



A tooth inserted into the space and kept in the socket can also survive. Lee may be
holding the tooth temporarily in his left hand. He had about two hours to get to a
dentist from the time the tooth was knocked out, to save it. Obviously, he met the
timeline, and we have the dental record showing the “rotated” notation to prove it.

SOME DENTAL REFERENCES:

“a tooth that suffers physical trauma but does not necessarily break can become
rotated or shifted, occlusally…” www.dental--health.com/bad_teeth_broken.html
(“avulsed” tooth means “knocked –out” tooth) Exarticulation (”avulsed tooth”).
3 Post trauma complications ... 180 degrees rotated
www.jokstad.no/avulsed.pdf

Live Well Live Long
Avulsed (dislodged) teeth. A whole permanent tooth that is ... to its placement so
that it looks like it is in its normal position (i.e. not rotated). ...
www.livewelllivelong.com/Dental%20health.html

12 Jun 2008 ... The occlusal and mandibular planes were rotated more ....
of coconut water: a new storage media for avulsed teeth in Triple O Feb 2008 issue ...
www.healthmantra.com/blog/2008_06_01_archive.html