Switching guns

[Richard Coleman]

I may be behind the curve here, but if I understand Jos. McBride on the BOR episode entitled Additional Facts on the Tippit Shooting, Capt. Westbrook switched out the pistol taken from LHO after his arrest for the pistol actually used by the real killer. But doesn't there have to be a paper trail for the gun? A record from the store that sold it, a receipt for payment, something? And wouldn't it be different from the gun in evidence if they were switched? Serial numbers and all that.....or am I missing something?

[David Josephs]

With regards to the documentation of that pistol... there is very little and it basically proves that if a pistol was shipped to REA... Oswald had nothing to do with it.

https://statick2k-5f2f.kxcdn.com/images/...Pistol.pdf

I had not seen that discussion but I did write a pretty extensive article with the same conclusion...


The most simple answer to the Pistol delivery is that REA - the shipping company - receives the package at ITS facility and sends a postcard to the recipient's address...

There is no REA postcard in evidence or any proof at all that anything was ever actually shipped, received and picked-up...


In terms of the big switch... what I show are the 2 separate and distinct paths of personnel the two diff pistols took...

WESTBROOK was head of PERSONNEL.... his 1st job after Tippit's shooting SHOULD have been to contact the family... they find out about it on TV/Radio...

WESTBROOK - on the other hand - is amazingly at every single important location that day.... quite amazing...

and it's in his office that the switch occurs...

Path #1 regarding the pistol:
- McDonald grabs it, and seeing Carroll hands it to him (or Carroll grabbed it)
- Carroll keeps it until he hands it to Gerald Hill
- Hill holds this pistol for the next sixty to ninety minutes (while we will learn Oswald still
has 5 live rounds in his pockets even after being searched)
- Hill, in the presence of McDonald and Carroll, marks it and gives T.L. Baker the pistol
(Paul Bentley also claims to have initialed this pistol and was present when it was handed
to Baker)
o McDonald says no such thing about Hill, Bentley, Baker or Carroll
o Carroll says no such thing about Hill, Bentley, Baker and McDonald
o Bentley says no such thing about McDonald or Carroll
o T.L. Baker says no such thing in his report of the day's activities
o T.L. Baker, with pistol in possession, does not fill out a CSSS report on Nov 22nd
listing this pistol.

Path #2.
Fritz > Davenport & officers > Doughty/Barnes > SA Vincent Drain > FBI



Could the pistol which Hill gives to Baker in front of Bentley and Fritz be the same pistol which
Davenport gives to Doughty? and what about Barnes?

The one thing of which to take note: initials on items found in the field - ie outside the DPD - seem always to finally get their initials back at HQ... usually not until many hours have passed as well...

Placing initials on "hulls" in the evidence room breaks almost all the rules of Authentication of Evidence.... if there is no chain of custody from the field to this point, which there isn't - or at least it is contradicted by yet another chain of custody - then the evidence is pretty much worthless in court... it has no weight since it cannot be authenticated.

All Barnes says he did was make a sketch.... and finally put his mark on later...

and we're missing a key player: J M POE... who was ordered by a detective (HILL)



[FONT=&amp]Mr. HILL. Right. And Poe showed me a Winston cigarette package that contained three spent jackets from shells that he said a citizen had pointed out to him where the suspect had reloaded his gun and dropped these in the grass, and that the citizen had picked them up and put them in the Winston package. I told Poe to maintain the chain of evidence as small as possible, for him to retain these at that time, and to be sure and mark them for evidence, and then turn them over to the crime lab when he got there, or to homicide.

Mr. BALL. Did he hand you the hulls?
Mr. POE. Yes, sir.
Mr. BALL. Did you put any markings on the hulls?
Mr. POE. I couldn't swear to it; no, sir.
Mr. BALL. What did you do with the hulls?
Mr. POE. I turned the hulls into the crime lab, which was at the scene.
Mr. BALL. Do you know the name of the man with the crime lab or from the crime lab?
Mr. POE. I couldn't swear to it. I believe Pete Barnes, but I wouldn't swear to it. [/FONT]

In essence, POE not doing what HILL asks makes it virtually impossible to claim with proof that the shells in evidence and those supposedly found, are the same...

[FONT=&amp]Mr. BELIN. The two that the patrolman gave you were the ones that you put this identification mark on the inside of? [/FONT]
[FONT=&amp]Mr. BARNES. Yes. [/FONT]
[FONT=&amp]Mr. BELIN. What instrument did you use to place this mark? [/FONT]
[FONT=&amp]Mr. BARNES. I used a diamond point pen. [/FONT]
[FONT=&amp]Mr. BELIN. You put it on Q-74 and Q-75? [/FONT]
[FONT=&amp]Mr. BARNES. It looks like there are others that put their markings in there too.

[/FONT]

[FONT=&amp]Mr. BELIN. Did you have anything to do with identifying either the slugs that were eventually removed from Officer Tippit's body, or the pistol? [/FONT]
[FONT=&amp]Mr. BARNES. No. [/FONT]
[FONT=&amp]Mr. BELIN. You never put any identifying marks on those. Is there anything else that you did out at the crime scene? [/FONT]
[FONT=&amp]Mr. BARNES. We made a crime sketch of the scene. [/FONT]
[FONT=&amp]Mr. BELIN. You made a crime sketch of the scene? [/FONT]
[FONT=&amp]Mr. BARNES. Yes. [/FONT]
[FONT=&amp]Mr. BELIN. Anything else? [/FONT]
[FONT=&amp]Mr. BARNES. No; not that I can recall at this time. [/FONT]
[FONT=&amp]Mr. BELIN. What did you do with those cartridge case hulls, Q-74 and Q-75? [/FONT]
[FONT=&amp]Mr. BARNES. We placed them in our evidence room, and turned them over to the FBI.[/FONT]

[Jim DiEugenio]

What David is saying about the REA shipment is correct.

This is a key point that the first generation of researchers largely missed. The delivery of firearms to Oswald is highly questionable.

To my knowledge, John Armstrong was the first person to delve into the lack of documentation for the Smith and Wesson 38 Victory modification. And its the complete lack of documentation for the transaction that leaves the whole issue of evidence modification with the handgun a distinct possibility.

Not only is there no evidence that Oswald ever picked up that revolver, but I have never been able to find any evidence that the FBI ever went to REA. If that is true it is really something.

If Joe still frequents this forum, maybe he can refer us to the part of his book where he deals with this issue.

[Joseph McBride]

What David is saying about the REA shipment is correct.

This is a key point that the first generation of researchers largely missed. The delivery of firearms to Oswald is highly questionable.

To my knowledge, John Armstrong was the first person to delve into the lack of documentation for the Smith and Wesson 38 Victory modification. And its the complete lack of documentation for the transaction that leaves the whole issue of evidence modification with the handgun a distinct possibility.

Not only is there no evidence that Oswald ever picked up that revolver, but I have never been able to find any evidence that the FBI ever went to REA. If that is true it is really something.

If Joe still frequents this forum, maybe he can refer us to the part of his book where he deals with this issue.

***********


Jim, thanks for your excellent article and your kind comments on my research into the Tippit case for iNTO THE NIGHTMARE.
On pp. 406-7 I discuss Armstrong's thorough demonstration that there is no proof that Oswald owned the pistol entered into evidence. I go into
the problems with the physical evidence in the Tippit case in detail on pp. 252-59, including the key fact that the ballistics evidence does not implicate
Oswald but tends to exonerate him (even if it were his pistol, which was not proven). I also discuss the pistol (or the automatic) elsewhere in the book, e.g., pp. 115, 231, 447, 481.