Mr. Griffin.

Well, you certainly must have thought it was something. You told your husband.

Mrs. Helmick.

No, I didn't tell him. I thought it was something, I just thought it was gossip, so I gossiped. They went down and talked to the police the day that Jack Ruby got arrested, so I didn't think it was anything.
I thought surely that they would tell them, so what was the use of me telling them?

Mr. GRIFFIN. Well, you knew that now when you followed the Ruby trial, you knew that none of this came out in the Ruby trial?
Mrs. HELMICK. I didn't follow the Ruby trial. My TV has been broke. Well, it is not really broke but the antenna is messed up on it, and I haven't had a good TV antenna in 2 or 3 months.
Mr. GRIFFIN. How about in the newspapers, didn't you follow the newspapers?
Mrs. HELMICK. No, I don't take a newspaper. But Ralph Paul wasn't brought out in any of this.
Mr. GRIFFIN. How do you know that?
Mrs. HELMICK. I just know that he wasn't because I never heard his name mentioned by anybody else. I mean, I got the gossip. But right after the trial, I guess I don't know when the trial was, but the FBI soon found me.
Mr. GRIFFIN. They didn't find you until sometime in June, did they?
Mrs. HELMICK. I don't know, but these people that I worked for, they was trying to keep everything so much of a secret, and I didn't see anything wrong with what they had said. I mean, they was trying to keep Ralph Paul hid sort of.
Mr. GRIFFIN. What efforts were they making to hide it, as you say?
Mrs. HELMICK. Well, whenever the newspaper would call on the telephone, they would say that he doesn't own this place any more, or he isn't here any more. Even if he was there, they would say he wasn't there.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Was that the same day that Oswald was shot, or was that later on?
Mrs. HELMICK. I believe it was that afternoon.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Is there a fellow by the name of Jackson that works there?
Mrs. HELMICK. Jackson, I believe that was that tall fellow's name that I mentioned.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Is that the fellow that Ralph Paul lived with?
Mrs. HELMICK. I don't know. I didn't know he lived with anyone.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Was he living with Tammi?
Mrs. HELMICK. I didn't know he lived with anyone at all.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Was there anybody in that--how many waitresses did he have? Carhops and so forth?
Mrs. HELMICK. Carhops, there was me and Toyo, and 4 waitresses---this is during the daytime?
Mr. GRIFFIN. Yes.
Mrs. HELMICK. There was Bonnie and Rose.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Who did he have in the evening?
Mrs. HELMICK. I believe his name was Joe, and his wife was working nights. She had just started right after I started to work there. I don't remember if there was anybody else working there as a waitress, but there was a girl named Joe, a tall blond-headed girl, and a girl had just gotten out of the hospital and was coming back to work about three or four nights after I was working there. I can't remember her name, but we all chipped in to buy her something, some kind of gift. It was a nightgown. And she started to work there again after I did,
but I don't remember her name. But I would recognize all them people if I saw them again.
Mr. GRIFFIN. Have you thought of anything else that might be helpful to us in this regard?
Mrs. HELMICK. Now I may not know anything that would help you, but surely I am not the only one that heard this. I know that I am not, and Rose and everybody that was standing around there at that counter hearing Ralph talk, they all know what I have just said. But whether they heard the conversation on the telephone that night, if they did, I don't know. They wouldn't tell me but I didn't ask any of them. But they never did say. Them people were quiet.