Read Reclaiming History Online
Authors: Vincent Bugliosi
Question: “Coming from what way?”
“Toward the window up front where the shots were fired from.”
35
So we see that although Givens’s testimony was inconsistent—at least on the face of it—with an earlier statement he made to the FBI, it is in fact entirely consistent with an even earlier statement he made to Dallas Police Department detectives.
All totaled, the foregoing sightings of Oswald account for only a few minutes of the four and a half hours he was in the building that morning, which means that Oswald had ample time to hide the package he brought to work, retrieve it later, remove the rifle from the bag, assemble it,
*
and prepare the sniper’s nest—all without being detected. In fact, two employees, Carl E. Jones, an order filler, and Troy West, a wrapper in the shipping department, reported that they usually saw Oswald every day somewhere in the building, but oddly, on the day of the assassination, they didn’t see him at all—an indication, though certainly not conclusive, that he might have been making himself a little more scarce than usual.
36
Although there are no credible reports that anyone saw Oswald on the sixth floor during the thirty-five-minute period between 11:55 a.m. and the time of the shooting at 12:30 p.m., there can be little doubt that he was on the sixth floor preparing for his murderous deed. In addition to Oswald’s Mannlicher-Carcano rifle being found on the sixth floor, and the expended rifle shells (fired in and ejected from Oswald’s rifle to the exclusion of all other weapons) being found by police in the sniper’s nest on the sixth floor, there is other circumstantial evidence that points to Oswald’s presence in the sixth-floor sniper’s nest.
First, Oswald’s finger and palm prints were found on two of the four boxes inside the sniper’s nest. When Dallas police, around 1:00 p.m. on November 22, located the place where the shots were fired, they found a large carton of books at the foot of the windowsill; a smaller, lighter carton marked “Rolling Readers” sitting on top of it; and a third, Rolling Readers carton lying in front of the other, resting partially on the windowsill. Behind these three boxes was another carton on the floor on which someone could sit and look in a southwesterly direction down Elm Street over the top of the two Rolling Readers cartons.
37
The large carton on the floor
38
at the foot of the windowsill, and the Rolling Readers carton on the windowsill
39
did not contain any identifiable fingerprints.
40
The other Rolling Readers carton,
41
however, contained prints identified by FBI fingerprint expert Sebastian Latona (after comparison with inked fingerprint and palm print exemplars of Oswald’s) as coming from Oswald’s left palm and right index finger, Latona finding thirteen points of similarity between the left palm print and Oswald’s exemplar, and ten points on the right index fingerprint.
42
Oswald’s left palm print and right index fingerprint were both pointed in a southwesterly direction, the same direction the presidential limousine was proceeding down Elm Street
.
43
Three other fingerprint experts, Arthur Mandella of the New York City Police Department, and Ronald G. Wittmus and Cortlandt Cunningham of the FBI, also conducted independent examinations of the finger and palm prints found on the boxes. All concluded that the two prints were Oswald’s.
44
Another palm print of Oswald’s, his right palm print,
45
was found by Dallas police lieutenant J. C. Day on the top northwest corner of the fourth box inside the sniper’s nest, the large carton on the floor located behind and to the east of the three cartons stacked near the windowsill.
46
*
An FBI fingerprint expert and an expert from the New York Police Department came to the same conclusion.
47
Eleven points of similarity were found.
48
Vincent J. Scalise, a fingerprint expert for the HSCA from the New York City Police Department, also concluded that Oswald’s right index and left palm print were found on one of the cartons in the sniper’s nest, and his right palm print on another carton.
49
(See photo section for location of Oswald’s prints inside the sniper’s nest.)
Of course, conspiracy theorists are quick to emphasize that the fact that Oswald’s finger and palm prints were found on some of the boxes in the sniper’s nest doesn’t prove Oswald was the assassin since the prints can’t tell us precisely
when
he might have touched them. Oswald was, after all, an order filler at the Depository, which meant that his duties involved handling many boxes throughout the warehouse, including those stored on the sixth floor, where nearly all of the books that Oswald was most familiar with—and therefore more likely to handle in the course of his work—were located.
50
In addition, Oswald’s prints were
not
the only ones found on the four cartons examined by police. The FBI also discovered twenty-five additional finger and palm prints, which they felt were of sufficient clarity that they could be identified, along with “many extremely fragmentary latent impressions” that were impossible to identify.
51
They subsequently compared these additional prints with those obtained from sixteen Depository employees (according to Roy Truly, the building superintendent, the only employees, including himself, besides Oswald who could possibly have handled the cartons) as well as with the prints of members of the Dallas police and FBI who handled the boxes in the course of their investigation.
52
All but one print were subsequently identified as belonging to either Dallas police crime-lab detective Robert Lee Studebaker or FBI clerk Forest L. Lucy.
53
The remaining print—a palm print—remains unidentified to this day.
54
*
This fact shouldn’t cause anyone to begin imagining the presence of some unknown assassin lurking in the sniper’s nest. These cartons were handled by many people throughout the normal course of manufacturing, warehousing, and shipping, and consequently could have contained the fingerprints of many people having nothing to do with the assassination.
55
In addition, any number of unknown individuals handled these boxes after the shooting and before they were turned over to the Dallas police crime laboratory on the morning of November 25, 1963, three days after the assassination.
56
Roy Truly, the building superintendent, told the FBI that a number of newspaper, radio, and television reporters from all over the world had access to the sixth floor after the assassination and might have handled the four cartons.
57
Dallas police lieutenant J. C. Day concurred, telling the FBI that many unknown individuals had been on the sixth floor on Saturday, November 23, taking photographs, as evidenced by the fact “that he noticed many empty film pack cartons near where the boxes were located, and
the boxes had been re-arranged, apparently for the purpose of taking photographs
.”
58
Detective Studebaker confirmed Day’s observations and added that dozens of newspaper and television people from England, France, Spain, and Germany were “all over the building, particularly on the sixth floor,” on Sunday, November 24, taking photographs and “generally looking for and
examining anything
that might have been related” to the assassination.
59
In evaluating the significance of finding Oswald’s prints on two of the boxes in the sniper’s nest, it’s important to remember that although a person could handle a carton and not leave identifiable prints, being too fragmentary or smudged for comparison purposes,
60
no Depository employees other than Oswald left identifiable prints on the sniper’s nest boxes even though none of them wore work gloves.
61
Roy Truly testified that the two, small, lightweight cartons marked “Rolling Readers” found at the sixth-floor window were ordinarily stored “40 feet away or so.”
62
William Shelley, the Depository foreman, testified that the Rolling Readers cartons were normally stored “at least halfway across the building from [the southeasternmost] corner.”
Question: “Would it have been unusual for two Rolling Readers to be out of the stack and over there?”
Shelley: “Very unusual, because they are different size cartons…from any box on that floor…They were little boxes. The rest of them are pretty good sized.”
63
The fact that those two smaller cartons, which were obviously put there for the purpose of creating a gun rest, were even there suggests that they were moved by someone who not only was familiar with the different-size cartons available on the sixth floor but also knew where to find them—in other words, a Depository employee. The likely candidate, of all the Depository employees, was of course Oswald.
Finally, the handmade paper bag found on the floor of the southeast corner of the sniper’s nest alongside the window was determined by fingerprint experts Latona, Wittmus, Cunningham, and Mandella to have Oswald’s right palm print and left index fingerprint on it. Oswald’s palm print was on the bottom of the paper bag, indicating not only that he had carried the bag but also that he had done so with his right hand, the same hand with which Wesley Frazier saw him carrying a bag into the Book Depository Building.
64
Fifteen points of similarity were found on the right palm print,
65
and nine points of similarity were found on the left index fingerprint.
66
Perhaps one of the most damning pieces of circumstantial evidence indicating Oswald’s presence on the sixth floor at the time of the shooting is the fact that the clipboard he’d been carrying around all morning was later discovered on the sixth floor. Whether Oswald had actually filled
any
orders at all that day (outside of the one James Jarman asked him to correct) is a matter of conjecture. Roy Truly testified that there wasn’t any way to determine how many orders, if any, Oswald might have actually filled on November 22.
67
However, Frankie Kaiser, who had given Oswald the clipboard to use when he first came to work at the Depository, found it on December 2, 1963, lying behind a stack of books between the west elevator shaft and the back stairwell, a few feet from where police found Oswald’s Mannlicher-Carcano rifle. There were three orders on the clipboard. Oswald had not filled any of them.
68
C
ritics have argued for over four decades that
none
of this evidence—the fact that Oswald brought a mysterious package to work the morning of the assassination, and it was found in the sniper’s nest with his finger and palm prints on it; the fact that Oswald was seen on the sixth floor around thirty minutes before the shooting in Dealey Plaza; the fact that the clipboard Oswald was carrying all morning was found on the sixth floor; the fact that two of Oswald’s palm prints and one of his fingerprints were found on two of the sniper’s nest boxes; even the fact that Oswald’s rifle, the proven murder weapon, and the three expended rifle shells fired in and ejected from that same weapon, were found on the sixth floor—
proves
Oswald was the one who actually pulled the trigger. Anthony Summers, author of the book
Conspiracy
and one of the more respected critics, writes, “The evidence does certainly cast enormous suspicion [only suspicion?!?] on Oswald. Quite apart from the evidence linking him to the rifle, his own statements—above all the implausible ‘curtain rod’ tale—leave him looking guilty of
something
. The evidence does not, on the other hand, put him behind a gun in the sixth-floor window. A mass of information, indeed, suggests that others were manning the sniper’s perch.” But Summers doesn’t go on to say, because he can’t, what this “mass of information” is or whom else it points to. He merely adds, “Oswald
may
have been, as he claimed so urgently before he died, ‘just a patsy.’”
69
If we were to accept Summers’s logic, the
only
thing that could connect Oswald to the assassination would be an eyewitness seeing Oswald shoot Kennedy. And the inescapable extension of that logic is that if a killer can make sure that no one sees him kill the victim, he cannot be convicted of the murder, no matter how much other powerful evidence shows he killed the victim.
The reader should already know by now that even if there were an eyewitness to Oswald killing Kennedy, this would never satisfy the conspiracy theorists. They would simply attempt to savage the credibility of the witness, including making the allegation that the CIA or whoever else was really behind the assassination put the witness up to his testimony. Indeed, even if Oswald were shown on film shooting at Kennedy, the conspiracy theorists would argue either the film was a hoax or the man in the window was simply an Oswald look-a-like.
The essence of conspiracy theorists’ argument is that they apparently want us to believe that some mysterious stranger or strangers were up on the sixth floor shooting at the president with Oswald’s rifle while Oswald himself was elsewhere. And where do conspiracy theorists say Oswald was if he wasn’t on the sixth floor shooting the president? For over forty years, critics have accepted Oswald’s own claim to police that he was on the first floor eating lunch at the time of the assassination. To support Oswald’s rather weak alibi, conspiracy theorists cite a handful of witnesses who said they saw him on the first and second floors between 12:00 and 12:30. They also offer up what they believe is the linchpin in Oswald’s alibi—a chance encounter between Oswald and Dallas police officer Marrion Baker in a second-floor lunchroom less than ninety seconds
after
the last shot was fired—which they believe proves Oswald didn’t kill Kennedy. But, as you’ll see, these so-called proofs of Oswald’s innocence all vanish, like shadows before sunlight, when exposed to scrutiny.
B
efore I begin, I should point out that in virtually every criminal case that doesn’t result in a plea bargain and actually goes to trial, the defendant presents evidence of his innocence to the trier of fact (a judge in a court case, a jury in a jury case). Many times the evidence is fabricated, but sometimes it is legitimate, even when the defendant did, in fact, commit the crime and is ultimately found guilty. The latter is possible because of two reasons. First, the reality in life is that even when a person is guilty, he very often engages in an act or makes a statement that, when looked at in isolation, incongruously points toward his innocence. Second, evidence is not synonymous with proof. Evidence is that which is offered (legitimate or not, whether it is believed or not) to prove a fact in dispute. Proof, on the other hand, occurs when the trier of fact is satisfied that the fact in dispute has been established by the evidence. In other words, if the evidence offered proves the fact for which it is offered, it is proof. If it doesn’t prove the fact, it isn’t. But
proof of guilt is never dependent on a showing of no evidence of innocence.