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Warren Commission Hearings: Vol. VII - Page 49« Previous | Next »

(Testimony of Gerald Lynn Hill)

Mr. Hill.
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.
The next place I went was, I walked up the street about half a block to a church. That would have been on the northeast corner of 10th Street in the 400 block, further west of the shooting, and was preparing to go in when there were two women who came out and said they were employees inside and had been there all the time. I asked them had they seen anybody enter the church, because we were still looking for possible places for the suspect to hide. And they said nobody passed them, nobody entered the church, but they invited us to check the rest of the doors and windows and go inside if we wanted to.
An accident investigator named Bob Apple was at the location at that time, and we were standing there together near his car when the call came out that the suspect had been seen entering the Texas Theatre.
Mr. Belin.
What did you do then?
Mr. Hill.
We both got in Apple's car and went to Jefferson, made a right on Jefferson, headed west from our location, and pulled up as close to the front of the theatre as we could. There were already two or three officers at the location. I asked if it was covered off at the back.
They said, "We got the building completely covered off."
I entered the right or the east most door to the south side of the theatre, and in the process or in the meantime, from the time we heard the first call to the time we got to the theatre, the call came on over the radio that the suspect was believed to be in the balcony.
We went up to the balcony, ran up the stairs, which would have been also on the east side. And the picture was still on. I remember yelling to either the manager or the assistant manager or an employee, maybe just an usher, to turn on as many lights as they could. Went up to the balcony, and Detective Bentley was up there, and a uniform officer, and here again their was another deputy sheriff. He was a uniform man.
There were some six people in the balcony, and we checked them out and none of them appeared to fit the physical description that we had of the man that shot Tippit.
I went over and opened the fire escape door or fire exit door and stepped out on the fire escape, and Capt. C. E. Talbert was down on the ground. He said,"Did you find anything?"
And I said, "Not up here."
He said, "Have you checked the roof?"
There was a ladder leading from the fire escape that goes on up to the top of the roof, and the deputy sheriff said, "I will get that for you." And he started up it.
The captain said words to the effect that, "Make sure you don't overlook him in there." So we went back inside and we didn't find him in the balcony. We started downstairs and these would have been the west stairs on the west side of the balcony. About the time I got to the lower floor, I heard a shout similar to a "I've got him," which came from the lower floor. And I ran through the west door from the lobby into the downstairs part of the theatre proper.
Mr. Belin.
Let me stop you right there. When you say it is the west door, as I remember this theatre, the entrance faces to the south, is that correct?
Mr. Hill.
Right.
Mr. Belin.
But then when you walked in, you walked in straight headed north, and then you had to turn to the right?
Mr. Hill.
So once you turned, I went up. That would have made me come down the north, go up the south stairway to the balcony, and come down the north stairway.
Mr. Belin.
All right. Now, you got down to the first floor. As you go in to face the screen, the right side of the theatre when you are facing the screen, you are facing roughly east?
Mr. Hill.
Right side of the theatre would have been south.
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