(Testimony of Eddy Raymond Walthers)
Mr. Walthers.
trunk of my car and we also found a box of pictures, a bunch of pictures that we taken. We didn't go to the trouble of looking at any of this stuff much---just more or less confiscated it at the time, and we looked at it there just like that, and then we took all this stuff and put it in the car and then Mrs. Paine got a phone number from Mrs. Oswald where you could call Lee Harvey Oswald in Oak Cliff. It was a Whitehall phone number, I believe, and they said they didn't know where he lived, but this was where they called him, and I called Sheriff Decker on the phone when I was there and gave him that number for the crisscross, so they could send some men to that house, which I think they did, but I didn't go myself. Then we put everybody in the car, the kids, Mrs. Oswald, and everyone---no; just a minute---before that, though, this Michael Paine or Mitchell Paine, whichever you call it, came home and I had understood from Mrs. Paine already that they weren't living together, that they were separated and he was supposed to be living in Grand Prairie and when he showed up I asked him what was his object in coming home. He said--well, after he had heard about the President's getting shot, he just decided he would take off and come home, and he arrived there while we were there.
Mr. Liebeler.
This was already after the time Oswald had been arrested, of course?
Mr. Walthers.
Yes.
Mr. Liebeler.
Because you had actually helped arrest Oswald at the Texas Theatre?
Mr. Walthers.
Yes.
Mr. Liebeler.
And what time was it approximately, would you be able to give us that?
Mr. Walthers.
Oh, man--I couldn't tell you; I'm sorry.
Mr. Liebeler.
Oswald was arrested about what time---it must have been around close to 2 o'clock or 1:30?
Mr. Walthers.
It was between 1:30 and 2 o'clock. This wasn't his getting off time, I remember him saying he had taken off and he had worked at Bell Helicopter.
Mr. Liebeler.
It's perfectly possible, however, that he could have heard about Oswald having been arrested in connection with the Officer Tippit shooting?
Mr. Walthers.
But he didn't say anything about that when he came in.
Mr. Liebeler.
What did he say?
Mr. Walthers.
I didn't ask him, of course, if he knew he had been arrested. I asked him if he knew Oswald and he said, "Yes"; he had known him. We were standing, I remember, on each side of the ironing board when I talked to him and he said "Yes," he had known him and I said, "How does the guy think, what is he, what does he do?" He said, "He's a Communist. He is very communistic minded. He believes in it." And he says, "He used to try to convince me it was a good thing," and he says, "I don't believe in it." And our conversation didn't go too far. It was just a matter of talk about Oswald and what he had to say about him being a Communist.
They were all put in the cars and we took them to Capt. Will Fritz' office along with the stuff we had confiscated, the files and the blanket and the other stuff, and I turned them over to Captain Fritz and left them and went back to my station.
Mr. Liebeler.
What was in these file cabinets?
Mr. Walthers.
We didn't go through them at the scene. I do remember a letterhead--I can't describe it--I know we opened one of them and we seen what it was, that it was a lot of personal letters and stuff and a letterhead that this Paine fellow had told us about, and he said, "That's from the people he writes to in Russia"; he was talking about this letterhead we had pulled out and so I just pushed it all back down and shut it and took the whole works.
Mr. Liebeler.
I have been advised that some story has developed that at some point that when you went out there you found seven file cabinets full of cards that had the names on them of pro-Castro sympathizers or something of that kind, but you don't remember seeing any of them?
Mr. Walthers.
Well, that could have been one, but I didn't see it.
Mr. Liebeler.
There certainly weren't any seven file cabinets with the stuff you got out there or anything like that?
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