William Pitzer

[Martin White]

Now in the Pitzer case, they paraffin tested the corpse. If the test is known to have no evidentiary value by investigators, why would they take paraffin casts of the hands of a dead man?

Is there any other "suicide" by gun case where the corpse was paraffin tested?

Martin,

To answer your first question: We should differentiate between evidentiary value (admissibility in a court proceeding) and investigative value (significance as a clue pointing to the solution of an unsolved mystery/crime).

As to the second: My guess -- and it's only that -- is yes. Especially those cases in which there is good reason to suspect foul play.

Thanks Charles. Researchers such as Harold Weisberg have historically said about the paraffin tests that it can give false positives (such as from handling printed items like books) but that the negative test on Oswald was exculpatory.

Then along come the Defenders of the Faith to say "no, the paraffin tests are known to have false negatives too. That's why it wasn't being used - even by 1963 - as legally admissible evidence. It was done primarily to scare the suspect into a confession".

Oh yeah? Good luck getting a confession from a dead man, then. That might take a while.