Post by Gil Jesus on Oct 23, 2021 17:19:28 GMT -5
THE CAB RIDE
William Whaley, a taxicab driver, told his employer on Saturday morning, November 23, that he recognized Oswald from a newspaper photograph as a man whom he had driven to the Oak Cliff area the day before. Notified of Whaley's statement, the police brought him to the police station that afternoon. He was taken to the lineup room where, according to Whaley, five young teenagers, all handcuffed together, were displayed with Oswald. He testified that Oswald looked older than the other boys. The police asked him whether he could pick out his passenger from the lineup. Whaley picked Oswald. -- (Report, Page 161)
On November 22, 1963, William Whaley worked for the City Transportation Company as a cab driver. He was a veteran driver with 37 years of experience. At 12:30, he was in his 1961 Checker cab parked at the Greyhound Bus Station when he saw a man walking south on Lamar St. headed in his direction. The man was dressed in blue pants, a brown shirt with a silverlike stripe and a blue work jacket. The man asked if he could have the taxi. (2 H 253-255)
Problems With The Cab Timesheet
An examination of William Whaley's timesheet indicates that the fare the Commission said was Oswald was picked up at the Greyhound Bus station at 12:30 PM, exactly the time that the shots were being fired in Dealey Plaza. How could Oswald be firing his rifle at the motorcade and be in a cab heading home at the same time?
The Commission explained this away by stating in its report that the 12:30 entry was not precise, that Whaley logged in times in 15-minute intervals.
"Whaley testified that he did not keep an accurate time record of his trips but recorded them by the quarter hour.." (Report, pg. 161)
But that was a lie. Looking at the timesheet one can see numerous entries that were NOT in 15-minute intervals. (red squares)
The Commission never questioned the witness about his entries of 6:20, 7:50, 8:10, 8:20, 9:40, 10:50, or 3:10, even though it had the above copy of his timesheet. Instead, it used Whaley's lack of " an accurate time record" to have Oswald entering Whaley's cab at 12:47 or 12:48 and leaving it at about 12:54. (Report, pg. 163)
The Commission never explained why it's timing sequence for Oswald's entry into the cab was BEYOND the 15-minute interval of 12:30-12:45 nor did it explain how it had Oswald entering the cab at a time AFTER the timesheet had him already at his destination and long gone.
Problems With Whaley's Description Of His Passenger
One of the more obvious examples that Whaley's passenger was NOT Oswald comes in his description of the clothing of that passenger.
"He was dressed in just ordinary work clothes. It wasn't khaki pants but they were khaki material, blue faded blue color, like a blue uniform made in khaki. Then he had on a brown shirt with a little silverlike stripe on it and he had on some kind of jacket, I didn't notice very close but I think it was a work jacket that almost matched the pants. (2 H 255)
But shortly later in his testimony, Whaley changed his mind about the blue faded work pants and identified Commission Exhibit 157, Oswald's light grey pants, as the same color as the pants his passenger wore:
Mr. BALL. Here are two pair of pants, Commission Exhibit No. 157 and Commission Exhibit No. 156. Does it look anything like that?
Mr. WHALEY. I don't think I can identify the pants except they were the same color as that, sir.
Mr. BALL. Which color?
Mr. WHALEY. More like this lighter color, at least they were cleaner or something.
Mr. BALL. That is 157?
Mr. WHALEY. Yes, sir. (2 H 259-260)
gil-jesus.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/pants.jpg
Whaley never did identify any of Oswald's pants as the pants worn by his passenger. His testimony was only to the COLOR of the pants, and as we have seen, that changed considerably as his testimony continued.
Keep in mind that Whaley wavered in describing the color of his passenger's pants in spite of the fact that his passenger sat in the FRONT seat of the cab. (2 H 256)
But if Whaley's credibility was lacking in regard to the color of his passenger's pants, his description of his passenger's jacket leaves no doubt that this witness' credibility ends up in the garbage heap.
Mr. BALL. Here is Commission No. 162 which is a gray jacket with zipper.
Mr. WHALEY. I think that is the jacket he had on when he rode with me in the cab.
Mr. BALL. Look something like it? And here is Commission Exhibit No. 163, does this look like anything he had on?
Mr. WHALEY. He had this one on or the other one.
Mr. BALL. That is right.
Mr. WHALEY. That is what I told you I noticed. I told you about the shirt being open, he had on the two jackets with the open shirt.
Mr. BALL. Wait a minute, we have got the shirt which you have identified as the rust brown shirt with the gold stripe in it.
Mr. WHALEY. Yes, sir.
Mr. BALL. You said that a jacket--
Mr. WHALEY. That jacket now it might have been clean, but the jacket he had on looked more the color, you know like a uniform set, but he had this coat here on over that other jacket, I am sure, sir.
Mr. BALL. This is the blue-gray jacket, heavy blue-gray jacket.
Mr. WHALEY. Yes, sir. (2 H 260)
After not being able to decide which jacket his passenger had on, Whaley's testimony was that his passenger wore BOTH JACKETS AT ONCE, the blue jacket, Commission Exhibit 163 over the grey jacket, Commission Exhibit 162.
Of course, this is ridiculous because Oswald's blue jacket was found in the Texas School Book Depository after the assassination.
At this point, Commission counsel should have recognized that Whaley's passenger was not Oswald, thanked him for his appearance before the Commission, and excused him from further testimony. There was no need to waste the Commission's time and the taxpayers' money on a witness whose testimony was so in conflict with the evidence.
But that didn't happen.
With regard to the shirt his passenger was wearing, here is where Whaley shined. He identifies Oswald's rust brown shirt, the shirt he was arrested in ( Commission Exhibit 150 ) , as the shirt his passenger wore.
Mr BALL. I have some clothing here. Commission Exhibit No. 150, does that look like the shirt?
Mr. WHALEY. That is the shirt, sir, it has my initials on it.
Mr. BALL. In other words, this is the shirt the man had on?
Mr. WHALEY. Yes, sir; that is the same one the FBI man had me identify.
Mr. BALL. This is the shirt the man had on who took your car at Lamar and Jackson?
Mr. WHALEY. As near as I can recollect as I told him. I said that is the shirt he had on because it had a kind of little stripe in it, light-colored stripe. I noticed that. (2 H 259)
As one can see, Commission Exhibit 150 has no stripe. In addition, Whaley testified that he told the FBI that the shirt had a stripe in it, then during his testimony, he says that he "just noticed" the stripe.
Mr. WHALEY. .... I wouldn't be sure of the shirt if it hadn't had that light stripe in it. I just noticed that. (2 H 260)
Commission counsel never established when exactly Mr. Whaley "noticed" the stripe that wasn't there.
In addition, counsel puts words in the witness' mouth by claiming that the witness identified the rust brown shirt with a gold stripe:
Mr. BALL. Wait a minute, we have got the shirt which you have identified as the rust brown shirt with the gold stripe in it.
Mr. WHALEY. Yes, sir. (ibid.)
The witness never identified the stripe as being gold. He described the stripe as "silverlike" and "light".
In his affidavit (below) , he described the passenger's shirt has being a "dark shirt with white spots of something on it".
What we have in the case of William Whaley is a witness who was caught between what he actually saw and his desire to cooperate with the authorities-- in other words, to tell them what they wanted to hear.
And nowhere was that more evident than in Whaley's selection of Oswald from a police lineup.
Problems With Whaley's Selection Of Oswald
On Saturday afternoon 11/23/63, Whaley, along with another cab driver named William Scoggins, viewed a police lineup that included Oswald, two teenagers and a Mexican-American. Whaley testified that he chose the # 2 man in the lineup as his passenger from the Greyhound Bus Station to the 500 block of North Beckley in Oak Cliff. But his affidavit indicated that the man in the lineup he chose was # 3.
The Commission questioned Mr. Whaley on the discrepancy:
Mr. BELIN. All right. Now in here it says, "The No. 3 man who I now know is Lee Harvey Oswald was the man who I carried from the Greyhound Bus Station* * *" Was this the No. 3 or the No. 2 man?
Mr. WHALEY. I signed that statement before they carried me down to see the lineup. I signed this statement, and then they carried me down to the lineup at 2:30 in the afternoon. (6 H 430)
Whaley then changes his testimony by saying that the police wrote out a HANDWRITTEN statement and in the middle of that statement, he was made to go down to view the lineup. When he came back, he signed a TYPEWRITTEN statement.
Mr. WHALEY. Let me tell you how they fixed this up. They had me in the office saying that. They were writing it out on paper, and they wrote it out on paper, and this officer, Leavelle, I think that is his name, before he finished and before I signed he wanted me to go with him to the lineup, so I went to the lineup, and I come back and he asked me which one it was, which number it was, and I identified the man, and we went back up in the office again, and then they had me sign this. That is as near as I can remember. (ibid.)
But there's only one thing wrong with Whaley's explanation: if he viewed the lineup mid-statement, there should only be one handwritten version of his statement.
Problems With Whaley's Affidavit
The problem is the there are TWO handwritten affidavits alleged to have been taken from Whaley.
The first one appears to be the actual affidavit taken by Detective L.D. Montgomery. His initials are at the bottom.
If Whaley's TYPEWRITTEN affidavit was copied from THIS handwritten version, why isn't Whaley's alleged selection of # 3 ( Oswald ) on this version ? Why is this version missing the account of the woman who came up to the cab ?
Montgomery testified that he was the one who took the affidavit from Whaley:
Mr. MONTGOMERY. I didn't take an affidavit from him (Scoggins) --no, sir; I took one from Mr. Whaley.
Mr. BALL. Now, did you attend a showup?
Mr. MONTGOMERY. No, sir; I didn't attend any showups.
Mr. BALL. You didn't?
Mr. MONTGOMERY. No.
Mr. BALL. But you took an affidavit from Mr. Whaley?
Mr. MONTGOMERY. From Mr. Whaley--yes, sir. (7 H 99)
But there is a second handwritten version of Whaley's statement and it doesn't take a handwriting expert to see that this one was not written by Montgomery.
I've purposely underlined the phrase "south on Beckley" to show that these handwritten versions are not the same.
In this version, Whaley identifies the # 3 man in the lineup and we have the woman coming up to the cab at the Greyhound station. Notice in this version, the grammar is terrible-- the writer writes that the passenger "walked at and (sic) angle" rather than "at an angle" as Montgomery wrote. Also, there's no indication who the author was.
It's obvious that this version was not written by Montgomery.
The procedure for taking affidavits involved city officers or sheriff's deputies handwriting witness statements, then a typist would type it out and the witness would swear that the information in it was correct.
While some may argue that the affidavits were taken incomplete and finished after the witness viewed the lineup, there should still only be one handwritten affidavit.
Why in this case were there two completely different affidavits ?
In addition, an affidavit is a sworn statement. You can't add to it once it has been signed. Adding is altering and altering is illegal. You can swear out another affidavit correcting the first one, but you can't alter the original.
Commission counsel pressed Whaley over what the HANDWRITTEN affidavit said, Whaley confessed that he hadn't read it:
Mr. BELIN. Now, when you signed it--what I want to know is, before you went down, had they already put on there a statement that the man you saw was the No. 3 man in the lineup?
Mr. WHALEY. I don't remember that. I don't remember whether it said three or two, or what.
Mr. BELIN. Did they have any statements on there before you went down to the lineup?
Mr. WHALEY. I never saw what they had in there. It was all written out by hand. The statement I saw, I think, was this one, and that could be writing. I might not even seen this one yet.
Then he dropped a bomb on the Commission by implying that he was not allowed to read it:
"I signed my name because they said that is what I said." (6 H 431)
The fact is that the Dallas Police never gave the witness an opportunity to proofread the typewritten version of his affidavit before signing it.
In addition, the typed affidavit IN EVIDENCE naming the # 3 man ( Oswald ) as the man he chose was contrary to his testimony before the Commission that he chose # 2.
To cover up this discrepancy, Commission Counsel tried to confuse the witness between Numbers 2 & 3 in the lineup :
Mr. BELIN. Do you remember what number he was in the lineup at all?
Mr. WHALEY. There was four of them, sir, and from the right to the left, he was No. 3.
Mr. BELIN. Starting from the right to the left, from his right or your right.
Mr. WHALEY. From your right, sir, which would have been his left. There were numbers above their heads, sir.
Mr. BELIN. Mr. Whaley, what number did you say the man was in the lineup?
Mr. WHALEY. No. 2.
Mr. BELIN. From the right or from your right?
Mr. WHALEY. From my left.
Mr. BELIN. No. 2?
Mr. WHALEY. They brought out four of them and stood them up there, and he was under No. 2. I mentioned he was the third one that come out. There were four and all handcuffed together. (6 H 430)
But in this case, Whaley's memory of how the lineup was conducted was without error. The numbers on the stage were numbered from left to right.
Mr. BROWN. .... numbering, facing the stage from your left to right.
Mr. BELIN. You mean your left, the observers left?
Mr. BROWN. Yes; the observers left to his right. (7 H 249)
When the participants in the lineups entered the stage, they entered from left to right, with # 4 entering first, then # 3, then # 2 and finally # 1 entering last. (red arrow)
This is reflected in the testimony of Dallas Officer Walter Potts' description of lineup # 4 in which Daniel Lujan, who was # 4 in that lineup, entered the stage first:
Lujan went on first, because he would be No. 4. (7 H 200)
So Whaley could not have mistaken # 2 for # 3.
But instead of investigating this conflict further, the Commission contended that Whaley's memory of the lineup simply was in error:
Whaley's memory of the lineup is inaccurate......Whaley said that Oswald was the man under No. 2. Actually Oswald was under No. 3. ( Report, Chap. 4, pg. 161 )
Whaley never said Oswald was # 2. He said that the man he CHOSE was # 2.
Representative FORD. Did you point him out with your hand?
Mr. WHALEY. No, sir; I did not. They asked me which number he was standing under and he was standing under No. 2. ( 2 H 294)
Whaley's "inaccurate memory" served to save the Commission the trouble of explaining how William Scoggins, who viewed the same lineup as Whaley did ( 3 H 337 ), testified that Oswald was under # 3.
Mr. BELIN. What number man in the lineup did you identify as having seen on November 22?
Mr. SCOGGINS. Number 3. (3 H 335)
So if Oswald was under # 3 and being identified as # 3 by Scoggins, who was under number 2 ?
18 year old David Edmond Knapp was the # 2 man in that lineup (7 H 200). Knapp lived at 2922 Alabama Ave (7 H 201). The interesting thing about Whaley's selection of Knapp is that Knapp's house was almost a straight shot down Beckley from where Whaley claimed he had given the cab ride to.
It is my opinion that Whaley's passenger was someone whose destination was further south on Beckley, someone who thought they could make it to the 500 block on a dollar but had him stop short of it because he was watching the meter and couldn't afford to go any further.
This hypothesis is strengthened by the fact that Whaley consistently described his passenger's destination as the "500 block", rather than a specific address or name of a business, which one would normally give the cab driver.
More support for my hypothesis comes from Whaley's affidavit that says "the boy got out of the car and walked in front of the cab at an angle SOUTH on Beckley St." ( 21 H 27 ). It becomes obvious from this evidence that the passenger's destination was further south but he may not have had the funds to continue in a taxi.
More importantly, it shows that the passenger was NOT Oswald, whose roominghouse was NORTH of the drop off point. (see CE 1119-A, below)
My hypothesis makes a lot more sense than the Commission's version of Oswald taking the cab PAST his roominghouse and walking back to it.
But then again, I'm not trying to prove Oswald guilty, I'm just trying to get to the truth.
If all of this makes sense to you, remember that this is just my opinion based on the evidence.
The Commission dealt with Whaley's selection of Knapp by concluding that Whaley's memory was "inaccurate" as to who he selected in the lineup and its assurance in spite of evidence to the contrary, that "he chose Oswald".
The evidence, however, shows that he never chose Oswald.
Problems With The Drop Location
Besides the timesheet problem, his failure to describe Oswald's clothing and his selection of the wrong man at the lineup, there's another reason why I believe Whaley's passenger wasn't Oswald.
The main problem with the drop location was the location itself. If Whaley dropped his passenger at the 500 block of North Beckley Ave., it created a timing problem. The passenger could not have walked the five blocks and made it to Oswald's roominghouse before 1pm. The timing would have made it impossible for Oswald to have been that passenger and more importantly, to have been at the Tippit murder scene before 1:15 pm.
His original affidavit indicated that he dropped his passenger off in the 500 block of Beckley. (7 H 727, above) In his March testimony before the Commission, he affirmed that, calling the intersection of Neches and Beckley "the 500 block of Beckley". (2 H 258)
The testified that he dropped his passenger off on the northwest corner of the intersection. (ibid., pg. 259)
The timing problem was created during a re-enactment in which Whaley drove from the Greyhound station, where he picked up his passenger, to the 500 block of Beckley.
The trip alone took 9 minutes (ibid.).
The FBI knew there was a timing problem so they sent an agent to ride with Whaley over the route.
Lo and Behold, this second re-enactment revealed that Whaley didn't even get to the 500 block of Beckley, that instead he dropped his passenger off at the corner of Neely St. and Beckley, in the 700 block of Beckley. ( 6 H 433 )
This time, the trip took only 5 1/2 minutes. (ibid., pg. 434)
The 3 1/2 minute difference made it possible for Whaley's passenger to have walked to Oswald's roominghouse. The walk from the 700 block to the roominghouse took 5 minutes and 45 seconds, ( Report, pg. 650 ) making the whole trip, taxi ride and walk 11 mins. and 15 seconds.
This got Oswald to the roominghouse right at 12:58-1:00 pm range.
But there is another problem, one the Commission never addressed.
During his March 12th testimony, he said that he dropped his passenger on the west side of Beckley and his passenger crossed the street and he didn't see which way he went. (2 H 256)
But if you look at the affidavits listed above, you'll see that in all versions given on the day after the assassination, Whaley swore his passenger crossed over in front of the cab and walked in an angle SOUTH on Beckley.
This is significant because Oswald's rooming house was NORTH of where Whaley let his passenger out.
CONCLUSION
The Commission failed to show why Whaley would have entered a time of 12:30 in his log for a fare that started at 12:47 or 12:48 as it claimed. If Whaley made entries in his log in 15-minute intervals, why was THIS 12:47 fare entered in the log at 12:30-12:45 instead of 12:45-1:00pm?
Why weren't ALL of the entries in 15 minute intervals?
And what of Whaley's description of his passenger?
Even though the man sat in the front seat, Whaley could not identify either of Oswald's work pants as those the passenger wore.
He claimed that the passenger wore BOTH of Oswald's jackets, one over the other.
He went to a live lineup, selected someone other than Oswald, then signed a sworn affidavit that had been altered without reading it first.
And if that wasn't enough, he swore his passenger left the taxi and walked in the OPPOSITE direction of Oswald's rooming house.
How in God's name could any reasonable and prudent person believe that this passenger was Oswald ?
Author/researcher Harold Weisberg summed up Whaley as a witness nicely:
While this "cab ride" continues to be considered historical fact, it's obvious that Oswald was not the passenger Whaley picked up at the Greyhound station. The time was wrong, the clothing was wrong, the destination was wrong and the selection from the lineup was wrong.
The Commission tried to paint Mr. Whaley as some sort of a buffoon who was wrong about the details but ultimately chose Oswald.
Let me say that he was neither a buffoon nor did he choose Oswald. To me, he comes off as a hero in the search for the truth.
He was a veteran cab driver with 37 years of experience shuttling passengers around the streets of Dallas. With that much experience, it's safe to say that he knew the city and its streets. And as any professional would be, he was observant with his passengers.
He wasn't lacking in credibility, he was simply wrong about his passenger being Oswald.
And yet there IS a positive side to his story.
Mr. Whaley's insertion into this case exposed the corruption and dishonesty of the Dallas Police and their framing of Oswald for a crime he did not commit.
From their lies that Oswald didn't want a lawyer to their unfair lineups to their having witnesses sign affidavits before they saw the lineups, his testimony served to reveal the injustice that Oswald suffered after his arrest.
And for that, we can be eternally grateful to him.
Postscript:
On December 18, 1965, Willam Whaley was killed when his taxi was involved in an accident. On Helmer Reenberg's Youtube channel, there is a video of the damage to the taxi as it gets towed away from the scene:
On November 22, 1963, William Whaley worked for the City Transportation Company as a cab driver. He was a veteran driver with 37 years of experience. At 12:30, he was in his 1961 Checker cab parked at the Greyhound Bus Station when he saw a man walking south on Lamar St. headed in his direction. The man was dressed in blue pants, a brown shirt with a silverlike stripe and a blue work jacket. The man asked if he could have the taxi. (2 H 253-255)
Problems With The Cab Timesheet
An examination of William Whaley's timesheet indicates that the fare the Commission said was Oswald was picked up at the Greyhound Bus station at 12:30 PM, exactly the time that the shots were being fired in Dealey Plaza. How could Oswald be firing his rifle at the motorcade and be in a cab heading home at the same time?
The Commission explained this away by stating in its report that the 12:30 entry was not precise, that Whaley logged in times in 15-minute intervals.
"Whaley testified that he did not keep an accurate time record of his trips but recorded them by the quarter hour.." (Report, pg. 161)
But that was a lie. Looking at the timesheet one can see numerous entries that were NOT in 15-minute intervals. (red squares)
The Commission never questioned the witness about his entries of 6:20, 7:50, 8:10, 8:20, 9:40, 10:50, or 3:10, even though it had the above copy of his timesheet. Instead, it used Whaley's lack of " an accurate time record" to have Oswald entering Whaley's cab at 12:47 or 12:48 and leaving it at about 12:54. (Report, pg. 163)
The Commission never explained why it's timing sequence for Oswald's entry into the cab was BEYOND the 15-minute interval of 12:30-12:45 nor did it explain how it had Oswald entering the cab at a time AFTER the timesheet had him already at his destination and long gone.
Problems With Whaley's Description Of His Passenger
One of the more obvious examples that Whaley's passenger was NOT Oswald comes in his description of the clothing of that passenger.
"He was dressed in just ordinary work clothes. It wasn't khaki pants but they were khaki material, blue faded blue color, like a blue uniform made in khaki. Then he had on a brown shirt with a little silverlike stripe on it and he had on some kind of jacket, I didn't notice very close but I think it was a work jacket that almost matched the pants. (2 H 255)
But shortly later in his testimony, Whaley changed his mind about the blue faded work pants and identified Commission Exhibit 157, Oswald's light grey pants, as the same color as the pants his passenger wore:
Mr. BALL. Here are two pair of pants, Commission Exhibit No. 157 and Commission Exhibit No. 156. Does it look anything like that?
Mr. WHALEY. I don't think I can identify the pants except they were the same color as that, sir.
Mr. BALL. Which color?
Mr. WHALEY. More like this lighter color, at least they were cleaner or something.
Mr. BALL. That is 157?
Mr. WHALEY. Yes, sir. (2 H 259-260)
gil-jesus.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/pants.jpg
Whaley never did identify any of Oswald's pants as the pants worn by his passenger. His testimony was only to the COLOR of the pants, and as we have seen, that changed considerably as his testimony continued.
Keep in mind that Whaley wavered in describing the color of his passenger's pants in spite of the fact that his passenger sat in the FRONT seat of the cab. (2 H 256)
But if Whaley's credibility was lacking in regard to the color of his passenger's pants, his description of his passenger's jacket leaves no doubt that this witness' credibility ends up in the garbage heap.
Mr. BALL. Here is Commission No. 162 which is a gray jacket with zipper.
Mr. WHALEY. I think that is the jacket he had on when he rode with me in the cab.
Mr. BALL. Look something like it? And here is Commission Exhibit No. 163, does this look like anything he had on?
Mr. WHALEY. He had this one on or the other one.
Mr. BALL. That is right.
Mr. WHALEY. That is what I told you I noticed. I told you about the shirt being open, he had on the two jackets with the open shirt.
Mr. BALL. Wait a minute, we have got the shirt which you have identified as the rust brown shirt with the gold stripe in it.
Mr. WHALEY. Yes, sir.
Mr. BALL. You said that a jacket--
Mr. WHALEY. That jacket now it might have been clean, but the jacket he had on looked more the color, you know like a uniform set, but he had this coat here on over that other jacket, I am sure, sir.
Mr. BALL. This is the blue-gray jacket, heavy blue-gray jacket.
Mr. WHALEY. Yes, sir. (2 H 260)
After not being able to decide which jacket his passenger had on, Whaley's testimony was that his passenger wore BOTH JACKETS AT ONCE, the blue jacket, Commission Exhibit 163 over the grey jacket, Commission Exhibit 162.
Of course, this is ridiculous because Oswald's blue jacket was found in the Texas School Book Depository after the assassination.
At this point, Commission counsel should have recognized that Whaley's passenger was not Oswald, thanked him for his appearance before the Commission, and excused him from further testimony. There was no need to waste the Commission's time and the taxpayers' money on a witness whose testimony was so in conflict with the evidence.
But that didn't happen.
With regard to the shirt his passenger was wearing, here is where Whaley shined. He identifies Oswald's rust brown shirt, the shirt he was arrested in ( Commission Exhibit 150 ) , as the shirt his passenger wore.
Mr BALL. I have some clothing here. Commission Exhibit No. 150, does that look like the shirt?
Mr. WHALEY. That is the shirt, sir, it has my initials on it.
Mr. BALL. In other words, this is the shirt the man had on?
Mr. WHALEY. Yes, sir; that is the same one the FBI man had me identify.
Mr. BALL. This is the shirt the man had on who took your car at Lamar and Jackson?
Mr. WHALEY. As near as I can recollect as I told him. I said that is the shirt he had on because it had a kind of little stripe in it, light-colored stripe. I noticed that. (2 H 259)
As one can see, Commission Exhibit 150 has no stripe. In addition, Whaley testified that he told the FBI that the shirt had a stripe in it, then during his testimony, he says that he "just noticed" the stripe.
Mr. WHALEY. .... I wouldn't be sure of the shirt if it hadn't had that light stripe in it. I just noticed that. (2 H 260)
Commission counsel never established when exactly Mr. Whaley "noticed" the stripe that wasn't there.
In addition, counsel puts words in the witness' mouth by claiming that the witness identified the rust brown shirt with a gold stripe:
Mr. BALL. Wait a minute, we have got the shirt which you have identified as the rust brown shirt with the gold stripe in it.
Mr. WHALEY. Yes, sir. (ibid.)
The witness never identified the stripe as being gold. He described the stripe as "silverlike" and "light".
In his affidavit (below) , he described the passenger's shirt has being a "dark shirt with white spots of something on it".
What we have in the case of William Whaley is a witness who was caught between what he actually saw and his desire to cooperate with the authorities-- in other words, to tell them what they wanted to hear.
And nowhere was that more evident than in Whaley's selection of Oswald from a police lineup.
Problems With Whaley's Selection Of Oswald
On Saturday afternoon 11/23/63, Whaley, along with another cab driver named William Scoggins, viewed a police lineup that included Oswald, two teenagers and a Mexican-American. Whaley testified that he chose the # 2 man in the lineup as his passenger from the Greyhound Bus Station to the 500 block of North Beckley in Oak Cliff. But his affidavit indicated that the man in the lineup he chose was # 3.
The Commission questioned Mr. Whaley on the discrepancy:
Mr. BELIN. All right. Now in here it says, "The No. 3 man who I now know is Lee Harvey Oswald was the man who I carried from the Greyhound Bus Station* * *" Was this the No. 3 or the No. 2 man?
Mr. WHALEY. I signed that statement before they carried me down to see the lineup. I signed this statement, and then they carried me down to the lineup at 2:30 in the afternoon. (6 H 430)
Whaley then changes his testimony by saying that the police wrote out a HANDWRITTEN statement and in the middle of that statement, he was made to go down to view the lineup. When he came back, he signed a TYPEWRITTEN statement.
Mr. WHALEY. Let me tell you how they fixed this up. They had me in the office saying that. They were writing it out on paper, and they wrote it out on paper, and this officer, Leavelle, I think that is his name, before he finished and before I signed he wanted me to go with him to the lineup, so I went to the lineup, and I come back and he asked me which one it was, which number it was, and I identified the man, and we went back up in the office again, and then they had me sign this. That is as near as I can remember. (ibid.)
But there's only one thing wrong with Whaley's explanation: if he viewed the lineup mid-statement, there should only be one handwritten version of his statement.
Problems With Whaley's Affidavit
The problem is the there are TWO handwritten affidavits alleged to have been taken from Whaley.
The first one appears to be the actual affidavit taken by Detective L.D. Montgomery. His initials are at the bottom.
If Whaley's TYPEWRITTEN affidavit was copied from THIS handwritten version, why isn't Whaley's alleged selection of # 3 ( Oswald ) on this version ? Why is this version missing the account of the woman who came up to the cab ?
Montgomery testified that he was the one who took the affidavit from Whaley:
Mr. MONTGOMERY. I didn't take an affidavit from him (Scoggins) --no, sir; I took one from Mr. Whaley.
Mr. BALL. Now, did you attend a showup?
Mr. MONTGOMERY. No, sir; I didn't attend any showups.
Mr. BALL. You didn't?
Mr. MONTGOMERY. No.
Mr. BALL. But you took an affidavit from Mr. Whaley?
Mr. MONTGOMERY. From Mr. Whaley--yes, sir. (7 H 99)
But there is a second handwritten version of Whaley's statement and it doesn't take a handwriting expert to see that this one was not written by Montgomery.
I've purposely underlined the phrase "south on Beckley" to show that these handwritten versions are not the same.
In this version, Whaley identifies the # 3 man in the lineup and we have the woman coming up to the cab at the Greyhound station. Notice in this version, the grammar is terrible-- the writer writes that the passenger "walked at and (sic) angle" rather than "at an angle" as Montgomery wrote. Also, there's no indication who the author was.
It's obvious that this version was not written by Montgomery.
The procedure for taking affidavits involved city officers or sheriff's deputies handwriting witness statements, then a typist would type it out and the witness would swear that the information in it was correct.
While some may argue that the affidavits were taken incomplete and finished after the witness viewed the lineup, there should still only be one handwritten affidavit.
Why in this case were there two completely different affidavits ?
In addition, an affidavit is a sworn statement. You can't add to it once it has been signed. Adding is altering and altering is illegal. You can swear out another affidavit correcting the first one, but you can't alter the original.
Commission counsel pressed Whaley over what the HANDWRITTEN affidavit said, Whaley confessed that he hadn't read it:
Mr. BELIN. Now, when you signed it--what I want to know is, before you went down, had they already put on there a statement that the man you saw was the No. 3 man in the lineup?
Mr. WHALEY. I don't remember that. I don't remember whether it said three or two, or what.
Mr. BELIN. Did they have any statements on there before you went down to the lineup?
Mr. WHALEY. I never saw what they had in there. It was all written out by hand. The statement I saw, I think, was this one, and that could be writing. I might not even seen this one yet.
Then he dropped a bomb on the Commission by implying that he was not allowed to read it:
"I signed my name because they said that is what I said." (6 H 431)
The fact is that the Dallas Police never gave the witness an opportunity to proofread the typewritten version of his affidavit before signing it.
In addition, the typed affidavit IN EVIDENCE naming the # 3 man ( Oswald ) as the man he chose was contrary to his testimony before the Commission that he chose # 2.
To cover up this discrepancy, Commission Counsel tried to confuse the witness between Numbers 2 & 3 in the lineup :
Mr. BELIN. Do you remember what number he was in the lineup at all?
Mr. WHALEY. There was four of them, sir, and from the right to the left, he was No. 3.
Mr. BELIN. Starting from the right to the left, from his right or your right.
Mr. WHALEY. From your right, sir, which would have been his left. There were numbers above their heads, sir.
Mr. BELIN. Mr. Whaley, what number did you say the man was in the lineup?
Mr. WHALEY. No. 2.
Mr. BELIN. From the right or from your right?
Mr. WHALEY. From my left.
Mr. BELIN. No. 2?
Mr. WHALEY. They brought out four of them and stood them up there, and he was under No. 2. I mentioned he was the third one that come out. There were four and all handcuffed together. (6 H 430)
But in this case, Whaley's memory of how the lineup was conducted was without error. The numbers on the stage were numbered from left to right.
Mr. BROWN. .... numbering, facing the stage from your left to right.
Mr. BELIN. You mean your left, the observers left?
Mr. BROWN. Yes; the observers left to his right. (7 H 249)
When the participants in the lineups entered the stage, they entered from left to right, with # 4 entering first, then # 3, then # 2 and finally # 1 entering last. (red arrow)
This is reflected in the testimony of Dallas Officer Walter Potts' description of lineup # 4 in which Daniel Lujan, who was # 4 in that lineup, entered the stage first:
Lujan went on first, because he would be No. 4. (7 H 200)
So Whaley could not have mistaken # 2 for # 3.
But instead of investigating this conflict further, the Commission contended that Whaley's memory of the lineup simply was in error:
Whaley's memory of the lineup is inaccurate......Whaley said that Oswald was the man under No. 2. Actually Oswald was under No. 3. ( Report, Chap. 4, pg. 161 )
Whaley never said Oswald was # 2. He said that the man he CHOSE was # 2.
Representative FORD. Did you point him out with your hand?
Mr. WHALEY. No, sir; I did not. They asked me which number he was standing under and he was standing under No. 2. ( 2 H 294)
Whaley's "inaccurate memory" served to save the Commission the trouble of explaining how William Scoggins, who viewed the same lineup as Whaley did ( 3 H 337 ), testified that Oswald was under # 3.
Mr. BELIN. What number man in the lineup did you identify as having seen on November 22?
Mr. SCOGGINS. Number 3. (3 H 335)
So if Oswald was under # 3 and being identified as # 3 by Scoggins, who was under number 2 ?
18 year old David Edmond Knapp was the # 2 man in that lineup (7 H 200). Knapp lived at 2922 Alabama Ave (7 H 201). The interesting thing about Whaley's selection of Knapp is that Knapp's house was almost a straight shot down Beckley from where Whaley claimed he had given the cab ride to.
It is my opinion that Whaley's passenger was someone whose destination was further south on Beckley, someone who thought they could make it to the 500 block on a dollar but had him stop short of it because he was watching the meter and couldn't afford to go any further.
This hypothesis is strengthened by the fact that Whaley consistently described his passenger's destination as the "500 block", rather than a specific address or name of a business, which one would normally give the cab driver.
More support for my hypothesis comes from Whaley's affidavit that says "the boy got out of the car and walked in front of the cab at an angle SOUTH on Beckley St." ( 21 H 27 ). It becomes obvious from this evidence that the passenger's destination was further south but he may not have had the funds to continue in a taxi.
More importantly, it shows that the passenger was NOT Oswald, whose roominghouse was NORTH of the drop off point. (see CE 1119-A, below)
My hypothesis makes a lot more sense than the Commission's version of Oswald taking the cab PAST his roominghouse and walking back to it.
But then again, I'm not trying to prove Oswald guilty, I'm just trying to get to the truth.
If all of this makes sense to you, remember that this is just my opinion based on the evidence.
The Commission dealt with Whaley's selection of Knapp by concluding that Whaley's memory was "inaccurate" as to who he selected in the lineup and its assurance in spite of evidence to the contrary, that "he chose Oswald".
The evidence, however, shows that he never chose Oswald.
Problems With The Drop Location
Besides the timesheet problem, his failure to describe Oswald's clothing and his selection of the wrong man at the lineup, there's another reason why I believe Whaley's passenger wasn't Oswald.
The main problem with the drop location was the location itself. If Whaley dropped his passenger at the 500 block of North Beckley Ave., it created a timing problem. The passenger could not have walked the five blocks and made it to Oswald's roominghouse before 1pm. The timing would have made it impossible for Oswald to have been that passenger and more importantly, to have been at the Tippit murder scene before 1:15 pm.
His original affidavit indicated that he dropped his passenger off in the 500 block of Beckley. (7 H 727, above) In his March testimony before the Commission, he affirmed that, calling the intersection of Neches and Beckley "the 500 block of Beckley". (2 H 258)
The testified that he dropped his passenger off on the northwest corner of the intersection. (ibid., pg. 259)
The timing problem was created during a re-enactment in which Whaley drove from the Greyhound station, where he picked up his passenger, to the 500 block of Beckley.
The trip alone took 9 minutes (ibid.).
The FBI knew there was a timing problem so they sent an agent to ride with Whaley over the route.
Lo and Behold, this second re-enactment revealed that Whaley didn't even get to the 500 block of Beckley, that instead he dropped his passenger off at the corner of Neely St. and Beckley, in the 700 block of Beckley. ( 6 H 433 )
This time, the trip took only 5 1/2 minutes. (ibid., pg. 434)
The 3 1/2 minute difference made it possible for Whaley's passenger to have walked to Oswald's roominghouse. The walk from the 700 block to the roominghouse took 5 minutes and 45 seconds, ( Report, pg. 650 ) making the whole trip, taxi ride and walk 11 mins. and 15 seconds.
This got Oswald to the roominghouse right at 12:58-1:00 pm range.
But there is another problem, one the Commission never addressed.
During his March 12th testimony, he said that he dropped his passenger on the west side of Beckley and his passenger crossed the street and he didn't see which way he went. (2 H 256)
But if you look at the affidavits listed above, you'll see that in all versions given on the day after the assassination, Whaley swore his passenger crossed over in front of the cab and walked in an angle SOUTH on Beckley.
This is significant because Oswald's rooming house was NORTH of where Whaley let his passenger out.
CONCLUSION
The Commission failed to show why Whaley would have entered a time of 12:30 in his log for a fare that started at 12:47 or 12:48 as it claimed. If Whaley made entries in his log in 15-minute intervals, why was THIS 12:47 fare entered in the log at 12:30-12:45 instead of 12:45-1:00pm?
Why weren't ALL of the entries in 15 minute intervals?
And what of Whaley's description of his passenger?
Even though the man sat in the front seat, Whaley could not identify either of Oswald's work pants as those the passenger wore.
He claimed that the passenger wore BOTH of Oswald's jackets, one over the other.
He went to a live lineup, selected someone other than Oswald, then signed a sworn affidavit that had been altered without reading it first.
And if that wasn't enough, he swore his passenger left the taxi and walked in the OPPOSITE direction of Oswald's rooming house.
How in God's name could any reasonable and prudent person believe that this passenger was Oswald ?
Author/researcher Harold Weisberg summed up Whaley as a witness nicely:
While this "cab ride" continues to be considered historical fact, it's obvious that Oswald was not the passenger Whaley picked up at the Greyhound station. The time was wrong, the clothing was wrong, the destination was wrong and the selection from the lineup was wrong.
The Commission tried to paint Mr. Whaley as some sort of a buffoon who was wrong about the details but ultimately chose Oswald.
Let me say that he was neither a buffoon nor did he choose Oswald. To me, he comes off as a hero in the search for the truth.
He was a veteran cab driver with 37 years of experience shuttling passengers around the streets of Dallas. With that much experience, it's safe to say that he knew the city and its streets. And as any professional would be, he was observant with his passengers.
He wasn't lacking in credibility, he was simply wrong about his passenger being Oswald.
And yet there IS a positive side to his story.
Mr. Whaley's insertion into this case exposed the corruption and dishonesty of the Dallas Police and their framing of Oswald for a crime he did not commit.
From their lies that Oswald didn't want a lawyer to their unfair lineups to their having witnesses sign affidavits before they saw the lineups, his testimony served to reveal the injustice that Oswald suffered after his arrest.
And for that, we can be eternally grateful to him.
Postscript:
On December 18, 1965, Willam Whaley was killed when his taxi was involved in an accident. On Helmer Reenberg's Youtube channel, there is a video of the damage to the taxi as it gets towed away from the scene: