state of his hair, a description fully supported by a photograph of Oswald taken at the time of his arrest. (See Pizzo Exhibit No. 453-C, p. 177.) Although in the phone conversation she described the man as "short," 527 on November 22, within minutes of the shooting and before the lineup, Mrs. Markham described the man to the police as 5'8" tall. 528

During her testimony Mrs. Markham initially denied that she ever had the above phone conversation.529 She has subsequently admitted the existence of the conversation and offered an explanation for her denial.530 Addressing itself solely to the probative value of Mrs. Markham's contemporaneous description of the gunman and her positive identification of Oswald at a police lineup, the Commission considers her testimony reliable. However, even in the absence of Mrs. Markham's testimony, there is ample evidence to identify Oswald as the killer of Tippit.

Two young women, Barbara Jeanette Davis and Virginia Davis, were in an apartment of a multiple-unit house on the southeast corner of 10th and Patton when they heard the sound of gunfire and the screams of Helen Markham. They ran to the door in time to see a man with a revolver cut across their lawn and disappear around a corner of the house onto Patton.531 Barbara Jeanette Davis assumed that he was emptying his gun as "he had it open and was shaking it." 532 She immediately called the police. Later in the day each woman found an empty shell on the ground near the house. These two shells were delivered to the police.533

On the evening of November 22, Barbara Jeanette and Virginia Davis viewed a group of four men in a lineup and each one picked Oswald as the man who crossed their lawn while emptying his pistol.534 Barbara Jeanette Davis testified that no one had shown her a picture of Oswald before the identification and that she had not seen him on television. She was not sure whether she had seen his picture in a newspaper on the afternoon or evening of November 22 prior to the lineup.535 Her reaction when she saw Oswald in the lineup was that "I was pretty sure it was the same man I saw. When they made him turn sideways, I was positive that was the one I seen." 536 Similarly, Virginia Davis had not been shown pictures of anyone prior to the lineup and had not seen either television or the newspapers during the afternoon.537' She identified Oswald, who was the No. 2 man in the lineup,538 as the man she saw running with the gun: she testified, "I would say that was him for sure." 539 Barbara Jeanette Davis and Virginia Davis were sitting alongside each other when they made their positive identifications of Oswald.540 Each woman whispered Oswald's number to the detective. Each testified that she was the first to make the identification.541

William Arthur Smith was about a block east of 10th and Patton when he heard shots. He looked west on 10th and saw a man running to the west and a policeman falling to the ground. Smith failed to make himself known to the police on November 22. Several days later he reported what he had seen and was questioned by FBI