affidavit--he was young, white, male, and that is the entire description present in the affidavit at that time.
I spoke with the deponent, the eyewitness, Helen Louise Markham, and Mrs. Markham told me Miss or Mrs, I didn't ask her if she was married--told me that she was a hundred feet away from the police car, not the 50 feet which appears in the affidavit. She gave to me a more detailed description of the man who she said shot Officer Tippit. She said he was short, a little on the heavy side, and his hair was somewhat bushy. I think it is fair to state that an accurate description of Oswald would be average height, quite slender, with thin and receding hair.
Helen Markham said to me that she was taken to the police station on that same day, that she was very upset, she of course had never seen anyone killed in front of her eyes before, and that in the police station she identified Oswald as the person who had shot Officer Tippit in the lineup, including three other persons. She said no one pointed Oswald out to her--she was just shown four people, and she picked Oswald.
She said--when I asked her how she could identify him--she indicated she was able to identify him because of his clothing, a gray jacket and dark trousers. And this was the basis for her identification--although Oswald physically does not meet the description which she indicated.

Representative Ford.

When did you have this conversation with the deponent?

Mr. Lane.

Within the last 5 days.

Representative Ford.

Some time in late February 1964?

Mr. Lane.

Or perhaps even early March, yes, sir.
Now, I inquired--I told her that I was coming here today, and that I was completing my investigation as Oswald's lawyer, and asked her if she would discuss the matter with me, and she said she would. I asked her if anyone had asked her not to discuss this matter with me. At first she seemed reluctant, and she said she was reluctant because I called her at her place of employment, the Eat Well Cafe in Dallas. I tried her at home many times before then, but her phone was always busy. I believe it is a phone which is not her personal one, but is a common phone shared by others in the building where she resides.
I apologized for calling her at her place of employment. And she seemed reluctant to talk to me. I asked if anyone had asked her not to talk about this case with anyone. She said yes, she had been told by the FBI, by Secret Service agents, and by Dallas police, all three groups, not to discuss anything in relation to this case, and that by and large she had not.
I told her that somewhere it occurred to me that I had seen an article in a newspaper in which she described the assailant of Oswald as short, stocky, and with bushy hair--I'm sorry, the assailant of Tippit--as being short, stocky, with bushy hair. And she said she did talk to a reporter, she thinks, for one of the Dallas newspapers, the Dallas Times-Herald or the Dallas Morning News--but that is the only time she talked to anybody.
I would like to call to the Commission's attention the entire brief narrative of the entire case, as presented by the district attorney's office at this point, or at least on the 24th, because it seems to me to be so full of incredible happenings, that it would be very difficult to submit such a story to a jury by a prosecution generally.
If everything that the prosecution in this case says is true, one must conclude that Oswald behaved in a very, very unusual manner from the beginning to the end.
He decided on Thursday, November 21, that he was going to assassinate the President, and so he decided to go back to Irving, Tex., to secure a rifle there, in order to carry out that purpose. He had on his person some $13 when arrested, and almost $150 in cash in the top drawer of his dresser--so we can assume that on Thursday, the 21st, he had roughly that amount of money present.
One can purchase a rifle for less than $13 in many stores in Dallas. There is no question about that. By using a small portion of that $150, he could have Purchased a rifle absolutely superior to the Italian carbine at home in Irving in many respects. And there are gun magazines which have had editorials

« Previous | Next »

Found a Typo?

Click here

Last Update: Wed, 3 Aug 2016 21:56:32 CET