Post by Rob Caprio on Oct 20, 2022 18:45:40 GMT -5
All portions are ©️ Robert Caprio 2006-2024
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The Warren Commission (WC) said Lee Harvey Oswald (LHO) shot and killed President John F. Kennedy (JFK) all by himself. They further claimed he did this by firing three shots in a span of 5.6 seconds.
As we saw in a previous post, despite the WC claiming three shots were fired based on three spent cartridges being found on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository (TSBD) the official evidence only reflected TWO spent cartridges being found. How do we balance this out?
This post will also look at this issue from another angle—their discovery by Deputy Sheriff Luke Mooney.
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Here is what the WC wrote about the discovery of the spent cartridge cases.
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Around 1 p.m. Deputy Sheriff Luke Mooney noticed a pile of cartons in the front of the window in the southeast corner of the sixth floor. Searching that area he found at approximately 1:12 p.m. three empty cartridge cases on the floor near the window. When he was notified of Mooney’s discovery, Capt. J.W. Fritz, chief of the homicide bureau of the Dallas Police Department (DPD), issued instructions that NOTHING BE MOVED OR TOUCHED until technicians from the police crime laboratory COULD TAKE PHOTOGRAPHS and check for fingerprints. (WC Report, p. 79) (Emphasis added)
www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wr/html/WCReport_0052a.htm
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Note: See this photograph for more details on what Mooney supposedly saw near the window.
Commission Exhibit (CE) 723: www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh17/pages/WH_Vol17_0265b.jpg
Just a quick comment about the photograph above the one that I provided a link to. In CE 722 you again see why so many people have asked over the years why LHO (or any singular shooter) did NOT fire at the limousine as it approached him on Houston Street as the photograph shows how much easier that shot would have been. So far, NO reasonable explanation has been provided by the WC, the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) or the WC defenders.
Now, back to the topic at hand for this post. Notice how it says Luke Mooney discovered the three empty cartridges by the window, but as we saw in the previous post ONLY two were recorded by Lieutenant Day of the crime scene unit. Some people say Captain Will Fritz picked up a shell and put it into his pocket so that is why only two are noted in the official evidence inventory. IF Fritz picked up a bullet and pocketed it then he violated the rules of crime scene procedures as well as tampered with the evidence which is a crime. There is no doubt that only two shells were found based on the Dallas Police Department's (DPD) own evidence inventory.
historymatters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh24/pages/WH_Vol24_0135b.gif
The above inventory list is supported by what the FBI listed when they took the evidence from the DPD.
historymatters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh24/pages/WH_Vol24_0140b.gif
This apparently is a note signed by FBI Agent James Hosty listing things he received from Captain Fritz and included in this list is a shell from a 6.5 mm rifle. O.K. The next piece of evidence we have comes from reporter/cameraman Tom Alyea from WFAA-TV as he said this many years ago about what he saw in the TSBD.
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Fritz then walked to the casings, picked them up and held them in his hand over the top of the boxes for me to get a close-up shot of the evidence. I filmed about eight seconds of a close-up shot of the shell casings in Captain Fritz's hand. I stopped filming, and thanked him. I do not recall if he placed them in his pocket or returned them back to the floor, because I was preoccupied with recording other views of the crime scene. I have been asked many times if I thought it was peculiar that the Captain of Homicide picked up evidence with his hands. (Tom Alyea, , Facts and Photos From Connie Kritzberg's Secrets from the Sixth Floor Window, pp. 39-46)
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We see here he mentions Captain Fritz may have put them, or one of them, in his pocket so this supports the claim made by WC defenders, but it also sinks the claim written by the WC in their report as they said Fritz told people NOT to move or touch the cartridges UNTIL the crime scene unit arrived. Obviously if Alyea is correct he did NOT follow his own orders!
The paragraph quoted from the WC Report (WCR) is important as it shows the PROPER procedure for preserving a crime scene, but in this case we see numerous times where this was NOT followed either supposedly (i.e. paper bag, clip, palm print, etc…) by the DPD and Sheriff’s department.
The bottom line is this, while there is some evidence showing Captain Fritz may have pocketed one shell it is OUTWEIGHED by the total destruction of evidence (and the preservation of evidence) this act would have done. So even if the WC defenders are correct they are sunk.
So we are back to why did Day only record TWO shells if three were found if we don’t buy the Fritz excuse (if you do buy this then you are sunk already)? Before we move onto even more issues, let’s consider a claim that was made by Sergeant Gerald Hill. He is the guy that said he was mistaken about radioing out that an automatic was used in the murder of Dallas police officer J.D. Tippit (JDT) because of the arrangement of the shells he saw. He would claim to be involved in the discovery of these shells as well (he was all over the place on November 22, 1963). Here is what he told the WC about this.
Mr. BELIN. All right, they moved over to the east side?
Mr. HILL. We hadn't been there but a minute until someone yelled, "Here it is," or words to that effect. I moved over and found they had found an area where the boxes had been stacked in sort of a triangle shape with three sides over near the window.
Two small boxes with Roller books on the side of the carton were stacked near the east side of the window.
Notice he said the boxes were shaped like a “triangle” as this is not what CE 723 seems to show, although in all fairness it could in front where we can’t see. But how do we balance this claim with what Tom Alyea said about the shape of the boxes in front of the window?
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The barricade on the sixth floor ran parallel to the windows, extending in an "L" shape that ended against the front wall between the first and second twin windows. The height of the stack of boxes was a minimum of 5 ft. I looked over the barricade and saw three shell casings laying on the floor in front of the second window in the two window casement... (Tom Alyea, , Facts and Photos From Connie Kritzberg's Secrets from the Sixth Floor Window, pp. 39-46)
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He says the boxes were in a “L” shape, NOT a triangle shape. How do we balance this issue? I would like to hear from others on this. Also, the “official” photograph (CE 723) doesn’t appear to depict an “L” shape either as there are boxes on both ends. Let’s resume with Hill’s testimony.
Mr. BELIN. What did you see over there?
Mr. HILL. There was the boxes. The boxes were stacked in sort of a three-sided shield. That would have concealed from general view, unless somebody specifically walked up and looked over them, anyone who was in a sitting or crouched position between them and the window…Then, on the floor near the baseboard or against the baseboard of the south wall of the building, in front of the second window, in front of the, well, we would have to say second window from the east corner, were three spent shells.
This is actually the jacket that holds the powder and not the slug. At this point, I asked the deputy sheriff to guard the scene, not to let anybody touch anything, and I went over still further west to another window about the middle of the building on the south side and yelled down to the street for them to send us the crime lab.
Almost everything he says can be disputed with other testimony. He again says the boxes were in a “sort of three-sided shield” when Alyea and the official photograph don’t say or show this easily. He then says the shells were on the floor near the baseboard or AGAINST the baseboard, but Alyea said this about the location of the shells.
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They were scattered in an area that could be covered by a bushel basket. They were located about half way between the inside of the barricade. I set my lens focus at the estimated distance from the camera to the floor and held the camera over the top of the barricade and filmed them before anybody went into the enclosure. (Tom Alyea, , Facts and Photos From Connie Kritzberg's Secrets from the Sixth Floor Window, pp. 39-46)
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Again, how do we balance these different description of what the evidence looked like when it was found? He then says he asked the deputy sheriff to guard the scene, but we see no mention of Hill or this happening in Mooney’s testimony.
Mr. MOONEY. …So I stood guard to see that no one disturbed anything until Captain Will Fritz approached with his group of officers, city officers. At that time, of course, when I hollered, of course Officers Vickery and Webster, they came across and later on several other deputies--I believe Officers McCurley, A. D. McCurley, I believe he came over. Where he came from--they was all en route up there, I assume.
Why is there no mention of Hill here? In fact, in his affidavit to Sheriff Decker Mooney says he was ALONE on the sixth floor when he searched it! Also, there is a discrepancy about the part where Hill says he went to the window to holler down for a crime scene lab unit to come up.
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I was the only person on the 6th floor when I searched it and was reasonably sure that there was no one else on this floor as I searched it and then criss-crossed it, seeing only stacks of cartons of books. (Luke Mooney Report to Sheriff Decker, Decker Exhibit 5323, p. 528)
www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh19/html/WH_Vol19_0273b.htm
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So how could Hill be there when Mooney found the shells as he claimed? I don’t know, and I’m not saying Hill was not there since he was photographed hanging out of one of the windows, but was it a window on the sixth floor shortly after the shells were found? Mooney said this about the window in his WC testimomy.
Mr. MOONEY. So, at that time, I didn't lay my hands on anything, because I wanted to save every evidence we could for fingerprints. So I leaned out the window, the same window from which the shots were fired, looked down, and I saw Sheriff Bill Decker and Captain Will Fritz standing right on the ground.
Well, so I hollered, or signaled I hollered, I more or less hollered. I whistled a time or two before I got anybody to see me. And yet they was all looking that way, too except the sheriff, they wasn't looking up.
And I told him to get the crime lab officers en route, that I had the location spotted.
Mooney is pretty emphatic about leaning out the window and shouting for Sheriff Decker and this would be corroborated by others as well.
Meanwhile, others make no mention of Hill being there at this time either. Deputy Sheriff Ralph Waters said this in his report to Sheriff Decker.
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www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh19/pages/WH_Vol19_0262b.gif
They had, by this time, ascertained that there was no one on this floor [seventh], so we started a thorough search of the 6th floor and almost immediately, Deputy Luke Mooney called out that he had found some shells in the southeast corner of the floor. I was approximately 8 feet away from Mooney when he discovered the shells…Mooney then leaned out the window and called down to Sheriff Decker who was standing on the sidewalk in front of the building, requesting the Sheriff to come upstairs, that he had found the shells. (Ralph Walters Report to Sheriff Decker, Decker Exhibit 5323, pp. 505-506)
www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh19/html/WH_Vol19_0262a.htm
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We see again that there is no mention of Hill being around and that it was Mooney, NOT Hill, who yelled down about the shells being found. Further corroboration comes from Deputy Harry Weatherford.
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…I came down to the 6th floor and while searching this floor, Deputy Luke Mooney said, “here are some shells”. I went over to where he was and saw 3 expended rifle shells…advising Mooney to preserve the scene for the Crime Lab. (Harry Weatherford Report to Sheriff Decker, p. 1, Decker Exhibit 5323, p. 502)
www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh19/html/WH_Vol19_0260b.htm
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He too did NOT mention Hill at all and he said he told Mooney to guard the crime scene. Reporter Jim Ewell would say Hill shouted out the window about the killer eating chicken and not the shells being found. Keep in mind that Ewell rode to the TSBD with Hill in Car #207 (yes, the same one that the WC said went to LHO’s roominghouse) so he was in good with him.
Hill would also claim to direct Lieutenant Day to the sixth floor in this testimony as well.
Mr. HILL. …About the time I got to the street, Lieutenant Day from the crime lab was arriving and walking up toward the front door. I told him that the area we had found where the shots were fired from was on the sixth floor on the southeast corner, and that they were guarding the scene so nobody would touch anything until he got there. And he said, "All right."
But that is NOT how Lieutenant Carl Day remembered it. He told the WC this.
Mr. BELIN. What did you do when you got there [the TSBD]?
Mr. DAY. I was directed to the sixth floor by the police inspector who was at the front door when I arrived.
Mr. BELIN. Do you know who that was?
Mr. DAY. Inspector Sawyer.
So again we see something Hill said was NOT true as Day said Inspector Sawyer directed him to the location of the shells on the sixth floor. Another inconsistency comes from this testimony by Hill.
Mr. HILL. … When I got toward the back, at this time I heard the freight elevator moving, and I went back to the back of the building to either catch the freight elevator or the stairs, and Captain Fritz and his men were coming up on the elevator.
I told him what we found and pointed out the general area, pointed out the deputies to them, and told him also that I was going to make sure the crime lab was en route.
The men with Captain Fritz were Detectives Elmer Boyd and Richard Sims and neither would corroborate this alleged encounter with Hill. Here is what Boyd said before the WC.
Mr. BALL. Now, when you arrived down here at the building, what did you do?
Mr. BOYD. Well, we went outside the building and we made two or three stops going up, you know, at different floors, and when we got up to the top floor--I believe it was the top one I think it's the seventh floor, and someone called us and said they had found some hulls, rifle hulls, down on the sixth floor, I believe it was the sixth floor.
Mr. BALL. And you were with whom at that time?
Mr. BOYD. I was with Captain Fritz and Detective Sims.
He clearly says he was on the SEVENTH floor when someone yelled up that the shells were found. Here is what Sims said about the incident.
Mr. BALL. And where did you go then?
Mr. SIMS. …we got off at the seventh floor each floor as we passed would have officers on it, and we hadn't been on the seventh floor very long--for just a while until someone hollered that they had found the hulls on the sixth floor, so we went back to the sixth floor.
Mr. BALL. Someone on the seventh floor told you they had found the hulls?
Mr. SIMS. No, sir; someone hollered from the sixth floor that the hulls had been found.
Mr. BALL. And you could hear them?
Mr. SIMS. Yes, sir; you could hear them.
He too discounts the claim of Hill regarding how they heard about the shells being found. Captain Fritz just says he was told by “them” that cartridges had been found.
Mr. MCCLOY. Which floor did you start with?
Mr. FRITZ. We started at the bottom; yes, sir. And, of course, and I think we went up probably to the top. Different people would call me when they would find something that looked like something I should know about and I ran back and forth from floor to floor as we were searching, and it wasn't very long until someone called me and told me they wanted me to come to the front window, the corner window, they had found some empty cartridges.
So no one recognized or mentioned Hill as the source for the shell notification. He received NO corroboration from any of them. What does all this mean you may be asking yourself. Well, it means for one thing Hill was most likely lying about what he did in the TSBD that day. Why would he do this? Well, consider this comment from Tom Alyea and maybe you might figure it out for yourself.
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Actually, that was the first thought that came to me when he [Fritz] did it, but I rationalized that he was the homicide expert and no prints could be taken from spent shell casings. Therefore, any photograph of shell casings taken after this, is staged and not correct. It is highly doubtful that the shell casings that appear in Dallas police photos of the crime scene are the same casings that were found originally. The originals by this time were probably in a plastic bag at police headquarters. Why? Probably this was a missing link in the report the police department had to send to the FBI and they had to stage it and the barricade box placement to complete their report and photo records. (Tom Alyea, , Facts and Photos From Connie Kritzberg's Secrets from the Sixth Floor Window, pp. 39-46)
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The bottom line is this, the spent cartridges photographed by Lieutenant Day are highly suspicious and did NOT accurately depict how they were found according to Tom Alyea. Furthermore, none of the claims by Sgt. Hill could be corroborated or supported by others, so one has to wonder what he was REALLY DOING THERE since he seemed to lie about what he said he was doing there. Also, the box configurations do NOT seem to match among the witnesses or the official photograph provided to us by the WC either so this also is suspicious as we should see a consistent description and look if it was genuine. IF they staged the shell casing location and the box configuration then what else did they STAGE? Think about that one for a little while.
Given all of this, how can anyone have faith in the two (actually probably) or three (claimed by WC—and they based their number of shots on this) cartridge cases found in the TSBD on November 22, 1963? I sure can’t. We can also add in the dented lip of CE 543 for even more doubt.
2.bp.blogspot.com/-JbkbBN6KJKE/TZEOJYRVCNI/AAAAAAAATcc/D0i89sUs91Y/s726/CE510--Three-Bullet-Shells-On-The-Floor.jpg
The Warren Commission (WC) said Lee Harvey Oswald (LHO) shot and killed President John F. Kennedy (JFK) all by himself. They further claimed he did this by firing three shots in a span of 5.6 seconds.
As we saw in a previous post, despite the WC claiming three shots were fired based on three spent cartridges being found on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository (TSBD) the official evidence only reflected TWO spent cartridges being found. How do we balance this out?
This post will also look at this issue from another angle—their discovery by Deputy Sheriff Luke Mooney.
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Here is what the WC wrote about the discovery of the spent cartridge cases.
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Around 1 p.m. Deputy Sheriff Luke Mooney noticed a pile of cartons in the front of the window in the southeast corner of the sixth floor. Searching that area he found at approximately 1:12 p.m. three empty cartridge cases on the floor near the window. When he was notified of Mooney’s discovery, Capt. J.W. Fritz, chief of the homicide bureau of the Dallas Police Department (DPD), issued instructions that NOTHING BE MOVED OR TOUCHED until technicians from the police crime laboratory COULD TAKE PHOTOGRAPHS and check for fingerprints. (WC Report, p. 79) (Emphasis added)
www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wr/html/WCReport_0052a.htm
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Note: See this photograph for more details on what Mooney supposedly saw near the window.
Commission Exhibit (CE) 723: www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh17/pages/WH_Vol17_0265b.jpg
Just a quick comment about the photograph above the one that I provided a link to. In CE 722 you again see why so many people have asked over the years why LHO (or any singular shooter) did NOT fire at the limousine as it approached him on Houston Street as the photograph shows how much easier that shot would have been. So far, NO reasonable explanation has been provided by the WC, the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) or the WC defenders.
Now, back to the topic at hand for this post. Notice how it says Luke Mooney discovered the three empty cartridges by the window, but as we saw in the previous post ONLY two were recorded by Lieutenant Day of the crime scene unit. Some people say Captain Will Fritz picked up a shell and put it into his pocket so that is why only two are noted in the official evidence inventory. IF Fritz picked up a bullet and pocketed it then he violated the rules of crime scene procedures as well as tampered with the evidence which is a crime. There is no doubt that only two shells were found based on the Dallas Police Department's (DPD) own evidence inventory.
historymatters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh24/pages/WH_Vol24_0135b.gif
The above inventory list is supported by what the FBI listed when they took the evidence from the DPD.
historymatters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh24/pages/WH_Vol24_0140b.gif
This apparently is a note signed by FBI Agent James Hosty listing things he received from Captain Fritz and included in this list is a shell from a 6.5 mm rifle. O.K. The next piece of evidence we have comes from reporter/cameraman Tom Alyea from WFAA-TV as he said this many years ago about what he saw in the TSBD.
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Fritz then walked to the casings, picked them up and held them in his hand over the top of the boxes for me to get a close-up shot of the evidence. I filmed about eight seconds of a close-up shot of the shell casings in Captain Fritz's hand. I stopped filming, and thanked him. I do not recall if he placed them in his pocket or returned them back to the floor, because I was preoccupied with recording other views of the crime scene. I have been asked many times if I thought it was peculiar that the Captain of Homicide picked up evidence with his hands. (Tom Alyea, , Facts and Photos From Connie Kritzberg's Secrets from the Sixth Floor Window, pp. 39-46)
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We see here he mentions Captain Fritz may have put them, or one of them, in his pocket so this supports the claim made by WC defenders, but it also sinks the claim written by the WC in their report as they said Fritz told people NOT to move or touch the cartridges UNTIL the crime scene unit arrived. Obviously if Alyea is correct he did NOT follow his own orders!
The paragraph quoted from the WC Report (WCR) is important as it shows the PROPER procedure for preserving a crime scene, but in this case we see numerous times where this was NOT followed either supposedly (i.e. paper bag, clip, palm print, etc…) by the DPD and Sheriff’s department.
The bottom line is this, while there is some evidence showing Captain Fritz may have pocketed one shell it is OUTWEIGHED by the total destruction of evidence (and the preservation of evidence) this act would have done. So even if the WC defenders are correct they are sunk.
So we are back to why did Day only record TWO shells if three were found if we don’t buy the Fritz excuse (if you do buy this then you are sunk already)? Before we move onto even more issues, let’s consider a claim that was made by Sergeant Gerald Hill. He is the guy that said he was mistaken about radioing out that an automatic was used in the murder of Dallas police officer J.D. Tippit (JDT) because of the arrangement of the shells he saw. He would claim to be involved in the discovery of these shells as well (he was all over the place on November 22, 1963). Here is what he told the WC about this.
Mr. BELIN. All right, they moved over to the east side?
Mr. HILL. We hadn't been there but a minute until someone yelled, "Here it is," or words to that effect. I moved over and found they had found an area where the boxes had been stacked in sort of a triangle shape with three sides over near the window.
Two small boxes with Roller books on the side of the carton were stacked near the east side of the window.
Notice he said the boxes were shaped like a “triangle” as this is not what CE 723 seems to show, although in all fairness it could in front where we can’t see. But how do we balance this claim with what Tom Alyea said about the shape of the boxes in front of the window?
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The barricade on the sixth floor ran parallel to the windows, extending in an "L" shape that ended against the front wall between the first and second twin windows. The height of the stack of boxes was a minimum of 5 ft. I looked over the barricade and saw three shell casings laying on the floor in front of the second window in the two window casement... (Tom Alyea, , Facts and Photos From Connie Kritzberg's Secrets from the Sixth Floor Window, pp. 39-46)
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He says the boxes were in a “L” shape, NOT a triangle shape. How do we balance this issue? I would like to hear from others on this. Also, the “official” photograph (CE 723) doesn’t appear to depict an “L” shape either as there are boxes on both ends. Let’s resume with Hill’s testimony.
Mr. BELIN. What did you see over there?
Mr. HILL. There was the boxes. The boxes were stacked in sort of a three-sided shield. That would have concealed from general view, unless somebody specifically walked up and looked over them, anyone who was in a sitting or crouched position between them and the window…Then, on the floor near the baseboard or against the baseboard of the south wall of the building, in front of the second window, in front of the, well, we would have to say second window from the east corner, were three spent shells.
This is actually the jacket that holds the powder and not the slug. At this point, I asked the deputy sheriff to guard the scene, not to let anybody touch anything, and I went over still further west to another window about the middle of the building on the south side and yelled down to the street for them to send us the crime lab.
Almost everything he says can be disputed with other testimony. He again says the boxes were in a “sort of three-sided shield” when Alyea and the official photograph don’t say or show this easily. He then says the shells were on the floor near the baseboard or AGAINST the baseboard, but Alyea said this about the location of the shells.
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They were scattered in an area that could be covered by a bushel basket. They were located about half way between the inside of the barricade. I set my lens focus at the estimated distance from the camera to the floor and held the camera over the top of the barricade and filmed them before anybody went into the enclosure. (Tom Alyea, , Facts and Photos From Connie Kritzberg's Secrets from the Sixth Floor Window, pp. 39-46)
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Again, how do we balance these different description of what the evidence looked like when it was found? He then says he asked the deputy sheriff to guard the scene, but we see no mention of Hill or this happening in Mooney’s testimony.
Mr. MOONEY. …So I stood guard to see that no one disturbed anything until Captain Will Fritz approached with his group of officers, city officers. At that time, of course, when I hollered, of course Officers Vickery and Webster, they came across and later on several other deputies--I believe Officers McCurley, A. D. McCurley, I believe he came over. Where he came from--they was all en route up there, I assume.
Why is there no mention of Hill here? In fact, in his affidavit to Sheriff Decker Mooney says he was ALONE on the sixth floor when he searched it! Also, there is a discrepancy about the part where Hill says he went to the window to holler down for a crime scene lab unit to come up.
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I was the only person on the 6th floor when I searched it and was reasonably sure that there was no one else on this floor as I searched it and then criss-crossed it, seeing only stacks of cartons of books. (Luke Mooney Report to Sheriff Decker, Decker Exhibit 5323, p. 528)
www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh19/html/WH_Vol19_0273b.htm
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So how could Hill be there when Mooney found the shells as he claimed? I don’t know, and I’m not saying Hill was not there since he was photographed hanging out of one of the windows, but was it a window on the sixth floor shortly after the shells were found? Mooney said this about the window in his WC testimomy.
Mr. MOONEY. So, at that time, I didn't lay my hands on anything, because I wanted to save every evidence we could for fingerprints. So I leaned out the window, the same window from which the shots were fired, looked down, and I saw Sheriff Bill Decker and Captain Will Fritz standing right on the ground.
Well, so I hollered, or signaled I hollered, I more or less hollered. I whistled a time or two before I got anybody to see me. And yet they was all looking that way, too except the sheriff, they wasn't looking up.
And I told him to get the crime lab officers en route, that I had the location spotted.
Mooney is pretty emphatic about leaning out the window and shouting for Sheriff Decker and this would be corroborated by others as well.
Meanwhile, others make no mention of Hill being there at this time either. Deputy Sheriff Ralph Waters said this in his report to Sheriff Decker.
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www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh19/pages/WH_Vol19_0262b.gif
They had, by this time, ascertained that there was no one on this floor [seventh], so we started a thorough search of the 6th floor and almost immediately, Deputy Luke Mooney called out that he had found some shells in the southeast corner of the floor. I was approximately 8 feet away from Mooney when he discovered the shells…Mooney then leaned out the window and called down to Sheriff Decker who was standing on the sidewalk in front of the building, requesting the Sheriff to come upstairs, that he had found the shells. (Ralph Walters Report to Sheriff Decker, Decker Exhibit 5323, pp. 505-506)
www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh19/html/WH_Vol19_0262a.htm
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We see again that there is no mention of Hill being around and that it was Mooney, NOT Hill, who yelled down about the shells being found. Further corroboration comes from Deputy Harry Weatherford.
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…I came down to the 6th floor and while searching this floor, Deputy Luke Mooney said, “here are some shells”. I went over to where he was and saw 3 expended rifle shells…advising Mooney to preserve the scene for the Crime Lab. (Harry Weatherford Report to Sheriff Decker, p. 1, Decker Exhibit 5323, p. 502)
www.history-matters.com/archive/jfk/wc/wcvols/wh19/html/WH_Vol19_0260b.htm
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He too did NOT mention Hill at all and he said he told Mooney to guard the crime scene. Reporter Jim Ewell would say Hill shouted out the window about the killer eating chicken and not the shells being found. Keep in mind that Ewell rode to the TSBD with Hill in Car #207 (yes, the same one that the WC said went to LHO’s roominghouse) so he was in good with him.
Hill would also claim to direct Lieutenant Day to the sixth floor in this testimony as well.
Mr. HILL. …About the time I got to the street, Lieutenant Day from the crime lab was arriving and walking up toward the front door. I told him that the area we had found where the shots were fired from was on the sixth floor on the southeast corner, and that they were guarding the scene so nobody would touch anything until he got there. And he said, "All right."
But that is NOT how Lieutenant Carl Day remembered it. He told the WC this.
Mr. BELIN. What did you do when you got there [the TSBD]?
Mr. DAY. I was directed to the sixth floor by the police inspector who was at the front door when I arrived.
Mr. BELIN. Do you know who that was?
Mr. DAY. Inspector Sawyer.
So again we see something Hill said was NOT true as Day said Inspector Sawyer directed him to the location of the shells on the sixth floor. Another inconsistency comes from this testimony by Hill.
Mr. HILL. … When I got toward the back, at this time I heard the freight elevator moving, and I went back to the back of the building to either catch the freight elevator or the stairs, and Captain Fritz and his men were coming up on the elevator.
I told him what we found and pointed out the general area, pointed out the deputies to them, and told him also that I was going to make sure the crime lab was en route.
The men with Captain Fritz were Detectives Elmer Boyd and Richard Sims and neither would corroborate this alleged encounter with Hill. Here is what Boyd said before the WC.
Mr. BALL. Now, when you arrived down here at the building, what did you do?
Mr. BOYD. Well, we went outside the building and we made two or three stops going up, you know, at different floors, and when we got up to the top floor--I believe it was the top one I think it's the seventh floor, and someone called us and said they had found some hulls, rifle hulls, down on the sixth floor, I believe it was the sixth floor.
Mr. BALL. And you were with whom at that time?
Mr. BOYD. I was with Captain Fritz and Detective Sims.
He clearly says he was on the SEVENTH floor when someone yelled up that the shells were found. Here is what Sims said about the incident.
Mr. BALL. And where did you go then?
Mr. SIMS. …we got off at the seventh floor each floor as we passed would have officers on it, and we hadn't been on the seventh floor very long--for just a while until someone hollered that they had found the hulls on the sixth floor, so we went back to the sixth floor.
Mr. BALL. Someone on the seventh floor told you they had found the hulls?
Mr. SIMS. No, sir; someone hollered from the sixth floor that the hulls had been found.
Mr. BALL. And you could hear them?
Mr. SIMS. Yes, sir; you could hear them.
He too discounts the claim of Hill regarding how they heard about the shells being found. Captain Fritz just says he was told by “them” that cartridges had been found.
Mr. MCCLOY. Which floor did you start with?
Mr. FRITZ. We started at the bottom; yes, sir. And, of course, and I think we went up probably to the top. Different people would call me when they would find something that looked like something I should know about and I ran back and forth from floor to floor as we were searching, and it wasn't very long until someone called me and told me they wanted me to come to the front window, the corner window, they had found some empty cartridges.
So no one recognized or mentioned Hill as the source for the shell notification. He received NO corroboration from any of them. What does all this mean you may be asking yourself. Well, it means for one thing Hill was most likely lying about what he did in the TSBD that day. Why would he do this? Well, consider this comment from Tom Alyea and maybe you might figure it out for yourself.
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Actually, that was the first thought that came to me when he [Fritz] did it, but I rationalized that he was the homicide expert and no prints could be taken from spent shell casings. Therefore, any photograph of shell casings taken after this, is staged and not correct. It is highly doubtful that the shell casings that appear in Dallas police photos of the crime scene are the same casings that were found originally. The originals by this time were probably in a plastic bag at police headquarters. Why? Probably this was a missing link in the report the police department had to send to the FBI and they had to stage it and the barricade box placement to complete their report and photo records. (Tom Alyea, , Facts and Photos From Connie Kritzberg's Secrets from the Sixth Floor Window, pp. 39-46)
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The bottom line is this, the spent cartridges photographed by Lieutenant Day are highly suspicious and did NOT accurately depict how they were found according to Tom Alyea. Furthermore, none of the claims by Sgt. Hill could be corroborated or supported by others, so one has to wonder what he was REALLY DOING THERE since he seemed to lie about what he said he was doing there. Also, the box configurations do NOT seem to match among the witnesses or the official photograph provided to us by the WC either so this also is suspicious as we should see a consistent description and look if it was genuine. IF they staged the shell casing location and the box configuration then what else did they STAGE? Think about that one for a little while.
Given all of this, how can anyone have faith in the two (actually probably) or three (claimed by WC—and they based their number of shots on this) cartridge cases found in the TSBD on November 22, 1963? I sure can’t. We can also add in the dented lip of CE 543 for even more doubt.