MikhailT/lj-speech huggingface dataset:
Barbara Jeanette and Virginia Davis viewed a group of four men in a lineup and each one picked Oswald as the man who crossed their lawn while emptying his pistol.
Barbara Jeanette Davis testified that no one had shown her a picture of Oswald before the identification and that she had not seen him on television.
She was not sure whether she had seen his picture in a newspaper on the afternoon or evening of November 22 prior to the lineup.
Her reaction when she saw Oswald in the lineup was that, quote,
I was pretty sure it was the same man I saw. When they made him turn sideways, I was positive that was the one I seen, end quote.
Similarly, Virginia Davis had not been shown pictures of anyone prior to the lineup and had not seen either television or the newspapers during the afternoon.
She identified Oswald, who was the No. 2 man in the lineup, as the man she saw running with the gun:
she testified, quote, I would say that was him for sure, end quote.
Barbara Jeanette Davis and Virginia Davis were sitting alongside each other when they made their positive identifications of Oswald.
Each woman whispered Oswald's number to the detective. Each testified that she was the first to make the identification.
William Arthur Smith was about a block east of 10th and Patton when he heard shots.
He looked west on 10th and saw a man running to the west and a policeman falling to the ground.
Smith failed to make himself known to the police on November 22.
Several days later he reported what he had seen and was questioned by FBI agents.
Smith subsequently told a Commission staff member
that he saw Oswald on television the night of the murder and thought that Oswald was the man he had seen running away from the shooting.
On television Oswald's hair looked blond, whereas Smith remembered that the man who ran away had hair that was brown or brownish black.
Later, the FBI showed Smith a picture of Oswald. In the picture the hair was brown.
According to his testimony, Smith told the FBI, quote, It looked more like him than it did on television, end quote,
He stated further that from, quote, What I saw of him, end quote, the man looked like the man in the picture.
Two other important eyewitnesses to Oswald's flight were Ted Callaway,
manager of a used-car lot on the northeast corner of Patton Avenue and Jefferson Boulevard, and Sam Guinyard, a porter at the lot.
They heard the sound of shots to the north of their lot. Callaway heard five shots, and Guinyard three.
Both ran to the sidewalk on the east side of Patton at a point about a half a block south of 10th.
They saw a man coming south on Patton with a revolver held high in his right hand. According to Callaway, the man crossed to the west side of Patton.
From across the street Callaway yelled, quote, Hey, man, what the hell is going on? End quote.
He slowed down, halted, said something, and then kept on going to the corner, turned right, and continued west on Jefferson.
Guinyard claimed that the man ran down the east side of Patton and passed within 10 feet of him before crossing to the other side.
Guinyard and Callaway ran to 10th and Patton and found Tippit lying in the street beside his car.
Apparently he had reached for his gun; it lay beneath him outside of the holster.
Callaway picked up the gun.
He and Scoggins attempted to chase down the gunman in Scoggin's taxicab, but he had disappeared.
Early in the evening of November 22,
Guinyard and Callaway viewed the same lineup of four men from which Mrs. Markham had earlier made her identification of Lee Harvey Oswald.
Both men picked Oswald as the man who had run south on Patton with a gun in his hand.
Callaway told the Commission, quote, So they brought four men in.
I stepped to the back of the room, so I could kind of see him from the same distance which I had seen him before. And when he came out I knew him, end quote.
Guinyard said, quote, I told them that was him right there. I pointed him out right there, end quote.
Both Callaway and Guinyard testified that they had not been shown any pictures by the police before the lineup.
The Dallas Police Department furnished the Commission with pictures of the men who appeared in the lineups with Oswald,
and the Commission has inquired into general lineup procedures used by the Dallas police as well as the specific procedures in the lineups involving Oswald.
The Commission is satisfied that the lineups were conducted fairly.
As Oswald ran south on Patton Avenue toward Jefferson Boulevard he was moving in the direction of a used-car lot
located on the southeast corner of this intersection.
Four men -- Warren Reynolds, Harold Russell, Pat Patterson, and L. J. Lewis
were on the lot at the time, and they saw a white male with a revolver in his hands running south on Patton.
When the man reached Jefferson, he turned right and headed west.
Reynolds and Patterson decided to follow him.
When he reached a gasoline service station one block away he turned north and walked toward a parking area in the rear of the station.
Neither Reynolds nor Patterson saw the man after he turned off Jefferson at the service station.
These four witnesses were interviewed by FBI agents 2 months after the shooting.
Russell and Patterson were shown a picture of Oswald and they stated that Oswald was the man they saw on November 22, 1963.
Russell confirmed this statement in a sworn affidavit for the Commission.
Patterson, when asked later to confirm his identification by affidavit said he did not recall having been shown the photograph.
He was then shown two photographs of Oswald and he advised that Oswald was, quote, unquestionably, end quote, the man he saw.
Reynolds did not make a positive identification when interviewed by the FBI, but
he subsequently testified before a Commission staff member and, when shown two photographs of Oswald, stated that they were photographs of the man he saw.
L.J. Lewis said in an interview that because of the distance from which he observed the gunman he would hesitate to state whether the man was identical with Oswald.
When Oswald was arrested, he had in his possession a Smith & Wesson 38 Special caliber revolver,
serial number V510210.
Two of the arresting officers placed their initials on the weapon and a third inscribed his name.
All three identified Exhibit No. 143 as the revolver taken from Oswald when he was arrested.
Four cartridge cases were found in the shrubbery on the corner of 10th and Patton by three of the eyewitnesses -- Domingo Benavides,
Barbara Jeanette Davis, and Virginia Davis.
in Oswald's possession to the exclusion of all other weapons.
Cortlandt Cunningham, of the Firearms Identification Unit of the FBI Laboratory, testified
that he compared the four empty cartridge cases found near the scene of the shooting with a test cartridge fired from the weapon in Oswald's possession when he was arrested.
Cunningham declared that this weapon fired the four cartridges to the exclusion of all other weapons.
Identification was effected through breech face marks and firing pin marks.
Robert A. Frazier and Charles Killion, other FBI firearms experts,
independently examined the four cartridge cases and arrived at the same conclusion as Cunningham.
At the request of the Commission, Joseph D. Nicol, superintendent of the Illinois Bureau of Criminal Identification Investigation,
also examined the four cartridge cases found near the site of the homicide and compared them with the test cartridge cases fired from the Smith & Wesson revolver
taken from Oswald.
He concluded that all of these cartridges were fired from the same weapon.
Cunningham compared four lead bullets recovered from the body of Patrolman Tippit with test bullets fired from Oswald's revolver.
He explained that the bullets were slightly smaller than the barrel of the pistol which had fired them. This caused the bullets to have an erratic passage through the barrel
and impressed upon the lead of the bullets inconsistent individual characteristics which made identification impossible.
Consecutive bullets fired from the revolver by the FBI experts could not be identified as having been fired from that revolver.
Cunningham testified that all of the bullets were mutilated, one being useless for comparison purposes.
All four bullets were fired from a weapon
with five lands and grooves and a right twist which were the rifling characteristics of the revolver taken from Oswald.
He concluded, however, that he could not say whether the four bullets were fired from the revolver in Oswald's possession.
Quote: The only thing I can testify is they could have on the basis of the rifling characteristics -- they could have been, end quote,
Nicol differed with the FBI experts on one bullet taken from Tippit's body.
He declared that this bullet was fired from the same weapon that fired the test bullets to the exclusion of all other weapons.
But he agreed that because the other three bullets were mutilated, he could not determine if they had been fired from the same weapon as the test bullets.
The examination and testimony of the experts enabled the Commission to conclude that five shots may have been fired,
even though only four bullets were recovered.
Three of the bullets recovered from Tippit's body were manufactured by Winchester-Western, and the fourth bullet by Remington-Peters,
but only two of the four discarded cartridge cases found on the lawn at 10th Street and Patton Avenue were of Winchester-Western manufacture.
Therefore, one cartridge case of this type was not recovered.
And though only one bullet of Remington-Peters manufacture was recovered, two empty cartridge cases of that make were retrieved.
Therefore, either one bullet of Remington-Peters manufacture is missing
or one used Remington-Peters cartridge case, which may have been in the revolver before the shooting,
was discarded along with the others as Oswald left the scene.
If a bullet is missing, five were fired. This corresponds with the observation and memory of Ted Callaway, and possibly Warren Reynolds,
but not with the other eyewitnesses who claim to have heard from two to four shots.
Ownership of Revolver
By checking certain importers and dealers after the assassination of President Kennedy and slaying of Officer Tippit,
agents of the FBI determined that George Rose & Co. of Los Angeles was a major distributor of this type of revolver.
Records of Seaport Traders, Incorporated, a mail-order division of George Rose & Co.,
disclosed that on January 3, 1963,
the company received from Empire Wholesale Sporting Goods, Ltd., Montreal, a shipment of 99 guns in one case.
Among these guns was a .38 Special caliber Smith & Wesson revolver, serial No. V510210,
the only revolver made by Smith & Wesson with this serial number. When first manufactured, it had a 5-inch barrel.
George Rose & Co. had the barrel shortened by a gunsmith to two and one quarter inches.
Sometime after January 27, 1963,
Seaport Traders, Incorporated, received through the mail a mail-order coupon for one, quote, point three-eight
S T. W. 2 inch BBL, unquote, cost $29.95.
Ten dollars in cash was enclosed.
The order was signed in ink by, quote,
A. J. Hidell, aged 28, end quote. The date of the order was January 27. No year shown.
and the return address was Post Office Box 2915, Dallas, Texas.
Also on the order form was an order, written in ink, for one box of ammunition and one holster, but a line was drawn through these items.
The mail-order form had a line for the name of a witness to attest that the person ordering the gun was a U.S. citizen and had not been convicted of a felony.
The name written in this space was D. F. Drittal.
Heinz W. Michaelis, office manager of both George Rose & Co., Incorporated and Seaport Traders, Incorporated.
identified records of Seaport Traders, Incorporated, which showed that a, quote, point three eight
S and W Special two-inch Commando, serial number V510210, end quote,
was shipped on March 20, 1963, to A. J. Hidell, Post Office Box 2915, Dallas, Texas.
The invoice was prepared on March 13, 1963; the revolver was actually shipped on March 20 by Railway Express.
The balance due on the purchase was $19.95.
Michaelis furnished the shipping copy of the invoice, and the Railway Express Agency shipping documents, showing that
$19.95, plus $1.27 shipping charge, had been collected from the consignee, Hidell.
Handwriting experts, Alwyn Cole of the Treasury Department and James C. Cadigan of the FBI,
testified before the Commission that the writing on the coupon was Oswald's.
The signature of the witness, D. F. Drittal,
who attested that the fictitious Hidell was an American citizen and had not been convicted of a felony, was also in Oswald's handwriting.
Marina Oswald gave as her opinion that the mail-order coupon was in Oswald's handwriting.