Originator: HSCA
From: D'AVY, LEANDER
Document date: 00/00/0000
Document type: PAPER-TEXTUAL DOCUMENT

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JFK Assassination System

Identification Form

Agency Information

Date:

10/1/201

AGENCY: HSCA

RECORD NUMBER :

180-10114-10154

RECORD SERIES: NUMBERED FILES

AGENCY FILE NUMBER: 004253

Document Information

ORIGINATOR: HSCA

FROM: D'AVY, LEANDER

TO :

TITLE :

DATE:

PAGES:

SUBJECTS :

00/00/0000

COURT OF TWO SISTERS

D'AVY, LEANDER

SHAW, CLAY

OSWALD, LEE, NEW ORLEANS

RUBY, JACK

FERRIE, DAVID

DOCUMENT TYPE: OUTSIDE CONTACT REPORT

CLASSIFICATION: Unclassified

RESTRICTIONS: Open in Full

CURRENT STATUS: Redact

DATE OF LAST REVIEW:

08/13/1993

OPENING CRITERIA :

COMMENTS :

Box 89.

v9.1

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004253

INVESTIGATION INTERVIEW SCHEDULE

1.

Identifying Information:

Name LEANDER D'AUS

Address 890 E. SANDOZ ST

city/state OpELousAs LA

Date of Birth 1-26-24

Social Security -433-32-8393

2. Physical Description:

Height_

5 10"

Weight 180/BS.

Ethnic Group

Date /2-16-7.7

Place PATio Motil Rount 165

PhoNE# 368-942-2727

Mores

Spouse®

Children

Color Eyes_

Hair

Special Characteristics

3.

4.

Personal History:

a. Present Employment: Aie FoRCE [RETierD 1960 20 peS)

Address

Telephone

b.

Criminal Record

1. Arrests

NONE

2. Convictions

Additional Personal Information:

Relative(s) : Name

mes D'Aiy [mothie)

Address 890 E. SANDOZ ST ARKA-318

Opelouses, hat Phone 89412-272)

b. Area frequented:

c. Remarks:

Investigator

Date

FOrM #4-B

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(2)

On Saturday December 16, 1977 at approximately 10:00AM Investigators Bob

Buras and L. J. Delsa met Leander D'Avy at the Greyhound Bus Station in

New Orleans, La.

Mr. D'avy was interviewed that day in room 65 of the Patio

Motel located at 2820 Tulane Ave, N.O. La.

Mr. D'Avy was shown approximately 60 photographs and asked to identify those

that he knew. He identified the following photographs as people that seem

familiar to him but that he can not remember anything specific about:

Lendido Richante

Miguel Mariano Cruz

Roy Hargraves

Gordon Novel

John B Meadows

William Brady

Norberto Fernandez

Leonard Walle

Florencio Villurea

Roberto Cortez

The following people were identified by photograph that Mr. DAvy positively

remembered as having seen them around the Court of Two Sisters Restaurant

loca ted at

613 Royal St. New Orleans, La.

This Restaurant and bar has an

entrance in the 600 block of Bourbon St. also, Mr. D'Avy worked

as a door-

man at this entrance from 1961 to 1963.

Harold B. Sandoz Jr.

Jose Mayoral & Pepe

David Ferrie

Sergio Arcacha

Smith

Thomas Beckham

Clay Shaw

Lawrence Howard

Fred Lee Crisman

Jack Ruby

Mr. D'âvy also knows Mr. Eugene Davis but the investigators did not have a

photograph of him at this time.

Mr. D'Avy also identified Lee Harvey Oswald

and the first and second "tramps" as having been in his company.

Eugene "Gene" Davis was the manager, Margaret Tannebaum was the bookeeper

and Nick Karno was the owner of the Court of Two Sisters.

As the doorman

on Bourbon St. Mr. D'Avy did not see the customers in the Patio or the res-

taurant and osyter bar. He did see people occasionally in the front bar.

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(5)

killed a man in the La Strada Lougne, a Bourbon St. nightclub that he owned.

His trial has been postponed due to his having a serious heart condition.

The investigators did not talk-to Nick Karno relative to this matter.

The investigators talked with Eugene Davis several times during October and

November of 1977. He is cordial and states that he is willing to help in

this investigation. He was not interviewed but in general conversation he

denied knowing or ever having seen Lee Harvey Oswald. He does not know any

thing about Clay Shaw and can not understand why Andrews named him as Clay

Berttrand.

Gene Davis now owns Wanda's Bar located at 704 Iberville St. in

the French Quarter.

This bar is a homosexual hangout, Eugene Davis stated

that there were rooms above the Court of Two Sisters Patio but they were

used as storerooms and Nick Karno had an apartment up there that no one could

use except Karno.

As stated above Gene Davis denies knowing Clay Shaw or Lee Harvey Oswald or

anything about their activities.

He also deneis knowing Jack S. Martin.

In an interview with Thomas Beckham on November 8, 1977 the reporting inves-

tigators were told that Eugene "Gene" Davis attended parties with Shaw, Beck-

ham, Ferrie and Martin in David Ferrie's apartment. Beckham was asked to

get phony degrees and certificates for Gene Davis in 1963. He did and gave

them to Jack S. Martin to give to Gene Davis.

with Mr. Davis further and any additioanl information will be reported.

End

Of

Memo

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(3)

The restaurant goes thru the entire block and was at that time and still

is one of the better places to eat in the French Quarter. It is a favorite

with the tourist trade which the doorman attempts to introduce to the people

wlking on Bourbon St. It is not a neighborhood type bar and very few people

nould just hang around in any part of the business. Anyone not dressed 1or

andevening meal would not be allowed to come into the place.. It was not a

black tie affair but people in work clothes would not be allowed in.

Mr. D'Avy@worked only at night and was paid in cash by Gene Favis. Ten dollars

a night.

One night while he was working the door a young man that he later

realized was Lee Harvey Oswald came up to him and asked him if he knew where

Clay Bertrand was,

D'Avy replied that he did not know and inquired of Mrs.

Margaret Tannebaum if anyone by that name worked in the place. Gene Davis

was standing nearby and told Diavy that he would speak with the young man.

Oswald and Davis then went into the restaurant for a while. Later as Oswald

was leaving DiAvy heard Gene Davis tell a waitress (unknown name but tall

and blonde, " See that young man there. He just returned from behind the

Iron Curtain.". That was the first time

that D'Avy saw Oswald. He can not

put a time or date

to this meeting.

The second time that D'Avy saw Oswald was sometime near Nov. of 1963. D'Avy

missed Gene Davis the night before and did not get paid. He went to the Court

of Two Sisters in the day sometime after noon and asked where he could find

Gene Davis.

A waiter told him that Gene Davis was in the storeroom.

The

waiter had to tell D'Avy how to get to the storeroom because he had never been

there before. D'Avy went into the restaurant and up a spiral staircase anto

a porch that was on the second floor of a building that ran alongside of the

Patio where customers ate.

He walked to the last two doors near the Bourbon

St. side ( the staircase was on the Royal St. side). He knocked on the door

and someone said to come in. He walked into the second room from the Bourbon

St. side and saw Gene Davis in that room with Oswald laying on an iron posted

bed wearing black pants.

David Ferrie was looking out of a window towards the

back of the rooms.

Ferrie was sitting on the bed as if they and been talking

and stopped when he came in.

To his left was another room and thru the door

he could see that it was a kitchen and there were two army type cots set up

with covers on them as if some one was using them as beds.

In this room he

saw two Americans. The man he saw best looked like the photograph of the

first tramp. The otherman looked like the second tramp. No one except Gene

talked and he only said " see you later".

That was the only other time that

he saw Oswald. D'Avy stated that Oswald looked " different" the second time.

He couldn't elaborate any furhter on the description but he insisted that

that he looked different.

Mr. D'Avy stated that he had seen Ferrie around there four of five or more times.

He usually had a Cuban guy with him when he came there. He never saw who Ferrie

talked to because of his position out front. He only saw him come in and

leave.

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(4)

Jose "Pepe" Mayoral was the head waiter and is now back in Miami, Fla. Pepe

was good friends with Harold Snadoz Jr.

Mr. D'Avy would take Jose Mayoral

and Harold Sandoz around to the Cuban bars on Decatur St. after they got

off of work.

The place that they would go to that he can remember best is

the Casa de Las Marinas located at 601 Dectur St. He also seems to remem-

It is located in the 400 Blk

of Decatur St. D'avy didnut know many cubans but he says that after the

Bay of Pigs invasion that a lot of them came to work at the restaurant.

D'avy

remembers seeing Sergio Arcacaha Smith, Thomas Beckham, and Clay Shaw but.

never talked to them and can not put them together in the business.

He

identifies the photo of Fred Lee Crisman as a man that came around almost

every weak during 1963 and Gene Davis used to introduce him as "my daddy"

in a joking manner.

Crisman said that he was from Baton Rouge.. D'Avy did

not remember the name he only recognized the face. He said that he remem-

bers Fred Crisman had a white car and he used to park it in the no parking

zone in front of the netrance and would give D!Avy four or five dollars for

watching it for him.

One night a car parked in the zone with a Texas license tag and he went to

the street side and politely told the driver that this was a restricted zone.

The driver unpolitely slapped him in the face and laughed at him then drove

off. He heard the girl on the passenger side ask " why did you do that Jack".

He could not remember what the other people in the car looked like. He states

that this was the only time that he saw the guy and when he saw photos of

Jack Ruby he recognized him.

Mr. D'Avy stated that he called Mr. Jim Garrison in 1967-68 and took a trip

to New Orleans and told him about the above related incident involving Oswald

and Clay Bertrand.

He did not tell Mr. Garrison about the upstairs meeting

bedause he was afraid at the time.

At that time he took a polygraph examina-

tion adminstered by the D.A.'s office and passed and would do the same again

for this investigation. He was not called to testify in the Clay Shaw trial.

Eugene " Gene" Davis was named by New Orleans Attorney Dean Andrews as the

Clay or Clem Bertrand that called him on Nov. 22, 1963 and asked him to re-

present Lee Oswald in Dallas, Texas,

Then District Attorney Jim Garrison

charged and convicted Dean Andrews for perjuring himself when he testified

before the Orleans Parish Grand Jury for identifying Davis and Bertrand, as

being the same person.

Dean Andrews testified before the Wanren Commission

and claimed not to know who the man was that retained him to represent Oswald.

The owner of the Court of Two Sisters Nick Karno is a close associate of

Carlos Marcello and is alledged to have his names on businesses in the French

Quarter that are actually Marcello's. Nick Karno is presently fighting trial

dates which his attornies have been sucessfully putting off since Karno was

indicted by the Orleans Parish Grand Jury for murder in 1974. He shot and

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