02-08-2021, 07:54 PM
Next up were Callaway, Guinyard and Benavides, employees of Dootch Motors where Leavelle stopped after taking Markham home. They reported to DPD HQ where all three gave statements. Guinyard's is brief and of no particular interest while Benavides' vanished, probably discarded because of later developments. Callaway's is hardly expansive but contains the curious detail regarding Tippit's gun and his participation in a chase of the murderer.
Callaway said many things on this subject in the course of his life, both to authorities & private researchers. The latter's cumulative efforts well into this century have produced a sprawling oral tradition regarding the Tippit murder.
Based on a look at the official documents two problems immediately present themselves. 1) Callaway changed the route radically between 11/22 & 12/3; and 2) The cabdriver's identity, unknown on 2/26, was provided to WC on 3/26 without prompting.
DPD Affidavit (11/22/63) -- 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 [south] to Jefferson and looked all around, but did not see him.
SS Affidavit (12/3/63) -- We turned west on 10th and south on Crawford to Jefferson and then west on Jefferson to Beckley where we turned north. During the time we were on Jefferson, we did not see the man with the pistol.
FBI DL 100-10461 (2/26/64) -- He said he then got a cab driver who was driving Oak Cliff cab number 213 to drive with him to look for the man he had seen earlier. He said that he never learned the identity of this cab driver, and after they were unable to locate the man he had observed with the pistol, he and the cab driver returned to the scene where Patrolman TIPPIT had been shot and he turned TIPPIT's gun over to Dallas police officers who were at the scene and told them what he knew about the shooting.
WC 3H354 (3/26/64) -- 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.
The oral tradition does not clarify any of this. It is vast, created by both WR partisans & opponents (often featuring Callaway), but unreliable and close to useless in terms of arbitrating among the various versions of events. It actually makes things worse. One example: Callaway's eventual claim that he drove the cab and Scoggins handled the gun. Another: the confrontation between Callaway & Holmes, Sr. at the end of the chase which exists in at least two versions that have very little in common.
Trying to sort this is hopeless, but the question of why the detail involving Tippit's service revolver received attention in Callaway's original DPD affidavit is more germane to an analysis of the Tippit case than getting caught up in a mess of decoys.
Callaway said many things on this subject in the course of his life, both to authorities & private researchers. The latter's cumulative efforts well into this century have produced a sprawling oral tradition regarding the Tippit murder.
Based on a look at the official documents two problems immediately present themselves. 1) Callaway changed the route radically between 11/22 & 12/3; and 2) The cabdriver's identity, unknown on 2/26, was provided to WC on 3/26 without prompting.
DPD Affidavit (11/22/63) -- 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 [south] to Jefferson and looked all around, but did not see him.
SS Affidavit (12/3/63) -- We turned west on 10th and south on Crawford to Jefferson and then west on Jefferson to Beckley where we turned north. During the time we were on Jefferson, we did not see the man with the pistol.
FBI DL 100-10461 (2/26/64) -- He said he then got a cab driver who was driving Oak Cliff cab number 213 to drive with him to look for the man he had seen earlier. He said that he never learned the identity of this cab driver, and after they were unable to locate the man he had observed with the pistol, he and the cab driver returned to the scene where Patrolman TIPPIT had been shot and he turned TIPPIT's gun over to Dallas police officers who were at the scene and told them what he knew about the shooting.
WC 3H354 (3/26/64) -- 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.
The oral tradition does not clarify any of this. It is vast, created by both WR partisans & opponents (often featuring Callaway), but unreliable and close to useless in terms of arbitrating among the various versions of events. It actually makes things worse. One example: Callaway's eventual claim that he drove the cab and Scoggins handled the gun. Another: the confrontation between Callaway & Holmes, Sr. at the end of the chase which exists in at least two versions that have very little in common.
Trying to sort this is hopeless, but the question of why the detail involving Tippit's service revolver received attention in Callaway's original DPD affidavit is more germane to an analysis of the Tippit case than getting caught up in a mess of decoys.