Post by John Duncan on Apr 5, 2024 20:03:11 GMT -5
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All the Depository Was Fritz' Stage
By Donald Willis 8/2023
Homicide Captain J.W. Fritz is famous for saying that he arrived "at the scene of the offense at 12:58", after leaving Parkland Hospital "at 12:45". (V4, p. 204) Elsewhere, however, he calls his arrival time into question: "I hadn't heard a broadcast of a description [of the suspect in the shooting] when I went into the building. So, if one went out, it probably was after I went in." (V4, p. 236) Busted--by Fritz himself. Equally famous is the time of the first suspect description in the case: by DPD Inspector J.H. Sawyer, at 12:44. So Fritz was in the depository by 12:44, about 15 minutes before he testified that he was. And, indeed, Fritz was not on the police radio between 12:44 and 1:00.
Fritz testified that he went from the Trade Mart to the hospital with Dets. Sims and Boyd (V4, p. 204), but that part of his story is demonstrably false. At 12:40, the DPD dispatcher asks Sims and Boyd (303), "Where are you?" They reply, "Parkland Hospital". And, separately, Fritz (300) tells the dispatcher, "300 enroute". The dispatcher then asks, "300, are you enroute to Elm & Field to that store?" He answers, "Enroute to the hospital." (CE 705, pp. 74-75) At 12:40, then, he's not with Sims & Boyd, and it's doubtful that the latter two were actually at Parkland, or that Fritz was enroute to the hospital, since they're shown, on film, with Fritz, disembarking at the depository together. (KRLD, "The Lost Tapes" (National Geographic). So, sometime between 12:40 and 12:44, the three hooked up again.
By 1 o'clock, Fritz was already directing traffic in the building. At 12:58, Dets. Johnson and Montgomery were enroute to the depository (DPD radio transcription, CE 1974, p. 40), and Johnson testifies that "we walked into the building, and there was a uniform officer on duty there at the door, and we asked him if Capt. Fritz was there, & he said, Yes, and we asked him where, & he said he went on up to the sixth floor." (V7, p. 101) [This officer could not have been Sawyer, who later radioed that "empty rifle hulls" were found "on the 3rd floor of this book company" (DPD radio, CE 1974, p. 176), which could mean either the third floor (counting up from the bottom) or fifth floor (counting down from the top).]
As stated above, Fritz would have us believe that he did not enter the building until 12:58, and that he and Sims & Boyd then "started at the bottom" in their search (V4, p. 205), then worked their way up, floor by floor, to the 7th floor. (Sims & Boyd report p. 2) Busted again: Johnson & Montgomery were directed to Fritz, on the 6th floor, at about 1 o'clock. A search of the whole building in two minutes! He could hardly have been on the 6th floor at about 1 o'clock if, at about 12:58, he started the search on the first and second floors.
But what *did* happen at about 12:58? Asked what time of day he found the empty hulls, Deputy Sheriff Luke Mooney answered, "Well, it was approaching 1 o'clock. It could have been 1 o'clock." (V3, p. 285) Mooney's estimate checks out: At 12:58 or 12:59, DPD Sgt. Harkness radios, "Give us 508 (the Crime Lab station wagon) down to the depository." At 12:59, the dispatcher radios, "508 is enroute." (CE 1974, p. 42) What does not check out is Mooney's assertion that when he stuck his head out the window to call for 508, he saw "Captain Will Fritz standing right on the ground." (V3, p. 284) We know from Fritz's admitted ignorance of early suspect descriptions on the police radio that he was already in the building by 12:44.
Why would Fritz not want to admit that he entered about 15 minutes earlier? Perhaps because he did not want it thought that he was stage-managing the activity inside, that he was controlling the scenario, in real time, in person. What was beyond his control, in some cases, was what was said later, in testimony, or written down, in reports.
Lt. Day and Det. Studebaker of the Crime Lab arrived at about 1:12 (Day/V4, p. 249) or 1:15 (Studebaker/V7, p. 138), about 15 minutes after the empty hulls had been found. Day seemingly properly answers--when asked to confirm Counsel Belin's "You were informed when you got there that they had located some hulls?"--"Yes, sir". (V4) But then he and Sims have the devil's own time coordinating the finding of the shells and the finding of the rifle.
Sims: "Capt. Fritz left Montgomery & Johnson to stay with the hulls. Capt. Fritz, Sims, and Boyd went over to... where... someone said the gun had been found... Sims went back to where Lt. Day was and told him the gun had been found. (Sims & Boyd report p.3)
Day: "Mr. Sims picked up [the three hulls] by the ends & handed them to me. I processed each of the three... Capt. Fritz sent word for me to come to the NW part of the building--the rifle had been found." (V4, p. 253)
Fritz sends SIMS over to tell Day, who's currently working closely with SIMS, the big news about the rifle. What's right with this picture? Two Oswalds, now two Sims. In his Commission testimony, Sims says nothing to clear up this confusion. (V7, p. 161) Did he, initially, stay with Day or go with Fritz? No one seems to know what to do with Sims, how to credibly inject him into the shells/rifle scene. So, he gets injected into it twice.
A clue to the solution of the Day/Sims mystery is found in Studebaker's answer to one of Commission counsel Ball's questions.
Studebaker: "We went to the [depository] entrance, and they said it [referent unclear--referring perhaps to the "nest"] was on the sixth floor and we went directly to the sixth floor."
Ball: "Then were you directed to some place on the sixth floor, as soon as you arrived there?"
Studebaker: "No, they hadn't found anything when we got there." (V7, p. 139)
Recall that Studebaker and Day testified that they had gotten to the building sometime around 1:12 or 1:15. As documented, above, the shells had been found by 12:59. So, why was Studebaker left in the dark some 15 minutes later? No one on the sixth floor seems to have known anything about shells or "anything" as late as 1:15, if we're to believe Studebaker. Even Sawyer, now outside the building, knew of a find of "empty rifle hulls" there by 1:11, when he so radioed. ("Pictures of the Pain" p. 523) How could Sawyer have known where the hulls were found BEFORE anyone on the sixth floor knew, the floor where they were supposedly found? (Erroneously, the Warren Report picks up the time of Sawyer's radio transmission as the time of the finding of the shells. WR, p. 79)
Day disagrees with Studebaker, as noted above. But Day has his own hull problem with Sims, as noted. And a much bigger problem with Montgomery. As noted above, Day testified that he arrived at the depository about 1:12 and was informed that "they had located some hulls... on the sixth floor."
Belin: "What did you do then?"
Day: "I went to the NE corner... SE corner of the building, and first made photographs of the three hulls."
Belin: "After you took the pictures of the shell casing [sic], what did you do then?"
Mr. DAY. "After these were taken, I processed these three hulls for fingerprints, using a powder. Mr. Sims picked them up by the ends and handed them to me. I processed each of the three, did not find fingerprints." (V4, p. 248)
So, Day and Sims were hard at work in the "nest" processing the casings, beginning about 1:15. The "nest" was not very big. Mooney: "an area of perhaps two feet" (V19, p. 528)--two feet square, one assumes.
Switch to Montgomery's report "re The President's Murder": As noted, Johnson & Montgomery arrived at the depository about 1 o'clock, "and went directly to the 6th floor where we contacted Captain Fritz. Captain Fritz put... myself protecting the part of the scene where the window was that the shooting took place. I remained at this location... until Det. Studebaker... had dusted the windows and surrounding boxes for prints." Montgomery was there until about 2:30. (CE 2003, p. 223)
First, note that Montgomery dutifully mentions Studebaker's presence, and his duties. Second, note that, in his entire report, he doesn't mention the other Crime Lab officer, Day, at all--yet, he refers to Studebaker several times. Not even, in passing, a "Day was dusting the shells". Third, note that he doesn't mention empty shells at all. (Meanwhile, for his part, Johnson reports, "The window that the shot was fired from was open..."/CE 2003, p. 210: "shot", singular--sounds like Johnson saw no shells.) Yet, Montgomery, Day, and Sims are all there at the same time, circa 1:15, supposedly all crammed together in that two-foot-square space. ("Pardon my elbow." "Hey, that's my foot you're standing on, mister!") Tellingly, *Day* doesn't mention Montgomery's presence either. All the bees so very busy that they don't notice each other not two feet away. Picture the stateroom scene in "A Night at the Opera". Maybe not as funny, though.
Day's Sims problem suggests that it's Day and Sims who are the odd men out here. That their hull processing did not take place in the time frame which they said it did. Right place, wrong time--that is, while Montgomery was "protecting" the "nest". Sims couldn't quite fit into the scenario without seemingly duplicating himself. And Day doesn't fit there either, not without Montgomery tripping over him. And the shells... Where oh where have my little shells gone? Deputy Sheriff Jack Faulkner reported that the shells were "given" to stage-manager Fritz. (V19, p. 511) That's where.
Go back to Sawyer's transmission re the "third floor", where he said that "empty rifle hulls" had been found. "Third" cannot mean "sixth", in no way, shape or form. If they were indeed found there, that is, on the third or fifth floor, they could not have been photographed there, outside the fabled "nest". Hence the Fritz connection here and Day's time-frame dilemma. Redirect Day's processing of the hulls to sometime later in the... day.
As I have said, Fritz was actually in the building by 12:44, stage-managing the whole affair. But certain events were still beyond his control. For instance, Mooney leaning out a window to announce the finding of the hulls, circa 12:58. A third or fifth-floor window. (Apparently, no photo of this event survives. Surprise! *That* was under Fritz's control.) Fritz perhaps panicked a bit, but he was, after all, upstairs at the time, and he had some handy tools at his disposal, such as other police officers. Apparently, Sgt. Gerald Hill was the closest tool, circa 1 o'clock. Scene: probably the fifth rather than the third floor. Dialogue: "Sgt. Hill, do me a favor. Run up to the sixth floor and shout out the second set of windows facing Elm, second from the southeast corner, something like, We found empty rifle hulls here, and point to that SE corner. Witnesses like visuals. Remember, dammit--point." ("Yes, Captain.") Hence, the photo of Hill on the sixth floor pointing to the SE corner. (See page Picture of the Pain, page 502.) Situation resolved; the sanctity of the "nest" preserved.
Note: Hill's shout out re the shells--"prior to 1:05" (POTP p. 502)--was either completely, and properly, ignored or otherwise not taken into consideration when the Warren Report pegged the discovery time as 1:12.
dcw
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All the Depository Was Fritz' Stage
By Donald Willis 8/2023
Homicide Captain J.W. Fritz is famous for saying that he arrived "at the scene of the offense at 12:58", after leaving Parkland Hospital "at 12:45". (V4, p. 204) Elsewhere, however, he calls his arrival time into question: "I hadn't heard a broadcast of a description [of the suspect in the shooting] when I went into the building. So, if one went out, it probably was after I went in." (V4, p. 236) Busted--by Fritz himself. Equally famous is the time of the first suspect description in the case: by DPD Inspector J.H. Sawyer, at 12:44. So Fritz was in the depository by 12:44, about 15 minutes before he testified that he was. And, indeed, Fritz was not on the police radio between 12:44 and 1:00.
Fritz testified that he went from the Trade Mart to the hospital with Dets. Sims and Boyd (V4, p. 204), but that part of his story is demonstrably false. At 12:40, the DPD dispatcher asks Sims and Boyd (303), "Where are you?" They reply, "Parkland Hospital". And, separately, Fritz (300) tells the dispatcher, "300 enroute". The dispatcher then asks, "300, are you enroute to Elm & Field to that store?" He answers, "Enroute to the hospital." (CE 705, pp. 74-75) At 12:40, then, he's not with Sims & Boyd, and it's doubtful that the latter two were actually at Parkland, or that Fritz was enroute to the hospital, since they're shown, on film, with Fritz, disembarking at the depository together. (KRLD, "The Lost Tapes" (National Geographic). So, sometime between 12:40 and 12:44, the three hooked up again.
By 1 o'clock, Fritz was already directing traffic in the building. At 12:58, Dets. Johnson and Montgomery were enroute to the depository (DPD radio transcription, CE 1974, p. 40), and Johnson testifies that "we walked into the building, and there was a uniform officer on duty there at the door, and we asked him if Capt. Fritz was there, & he said, Yes, and we asked him where, & he said he went on up to the sixth floor." (V7, p. 101) [This officer could not have been Sawyer, who later radioed that "empty rifle hulls" were found "on the 3rd floor of this book company" (DPD radio, CE 1974, p. 176), which could mean either the third floor (counting up from the bottom) or fifth floor (counting down from the top).]
As stated above, Fritz would have us believe that he did not enter the building until 12:58, and that he and Sims & Boyd then "started at the bottom" in their search (V4, p. 205), then worked their way up, floor by floor, to the 7th floor. (Sims & Boyd report p. 2) Busted again: Johnson & Montgomery were directed to Fritz, on the 6th floor, at about 1 o'clock. A search of the whole building in two minutes! He could hardly have been on the 6th floor at about 1 o'clock if, at about 12:58, he started the search on the first and second floors.
But what *did* happen at about 12:58? Asked what time of day he found the empty hulls, Deputy Sheriff Luke Mooney answered, "Well, it was approaching 1 o'clock. It could have been 1 o'clock." (V3, p. 285) Mooney's estimate checks out: At 12:58 or 12:59, DPD Sgt. Harkness radios, "Give us 508 (the Crime Lab station wagon) down to the depository." At 12:59, the dispatcher radios, "508 is enroute." (CE 1974, p. 42) What does not check out is Mooney's assertion that when he stuck his head out the window to call for 508, he saw "Captain Will Fritz standing right on the ground." (V3, p. 284) We know from Fritz's admitted ignorance of early suspect descriptions on the police radio that he was already in the building by 12:44.
Why would Fritz not want to admit that he entered about 15 minutes earlier? Perhaps because he did not want it thought that he was stage-managing the activity inside, that he was controlling the scenario, in real time, in person. What was beyond his control, in some cases, was what was said later, in testimony, or written down, in reports.
Lt. Day and Det. Studebaker of the Crime Lab arrived at about 1:12 (Day/V4, p. 249) or 1:15 (Studebaker/V7, p. 138), about 15 minutes after the empty hulls had been found. Day seemingly properly answers--when asked to confirm Counsel Belin's "You were informed when you got there that they had located some hulls?"--"Yes, sir". (V4) But then he and Sims have the devil's own time coordinating the finding of the shells and the finding of the rifle.
Sims: "Capt. Fritz left Montgomery & Johnson to stay with the hulls. Capt. Fritz, Sims, and Boyd went over to... where... someone said the gun had been found... Sims went back to where Lt. Day was and told him the gun had been found. (Sims & Boyd report p.3)
Day: "Mr. Sims picked up [the three hulls] by the ends & handed them to me. I processed each of the three... Capt. Fritz sent word for me to come to the NW part of the building--the rifle had been found." (V4, p. 253)
Fritz sends SIMS over to tell Day, who's currently working closely with SIMS, the big news about the rifle. What's right with this picture? Two Oswalds, now two Sims. In his Commission testimony, Sims says nothing to clear up this confusion. (V7, p. 161) Did he, initially, stay with Day or go with Fritz? No one seems to know what to do with Sims, how to credibly inject him into the shells/rifle scene. So, he gets injected into it twice.
A clue to the solution of the Day/Sims mystery is found in Studebaker's answer to one of Commission counsel Ball's questions.
Studebaker: "We went to the [depository] entrance, and they said it [referent unclear--referring perhaps to the "nest"] was on the sixth floor and we went directly to the sixth floor."
Ball: "Then were you directed to some place on the sixth floor, as soon as you arrived there?"
Studebaker: "No, they hadn't found anything when we got there." (V7, p. 139)
Recall that Studebaker and Day testified that they had gotten to the building sometime around 1:12 or 1:15. As documented, above, the shells had been found by 12:59. So, why was Studebaker left in the dark some 15 minutes later? No one on the sixth floor seems to have known anything about shells or "anything" as late as 1:15, if we're to believe Studebaker. Even Sawyer, now outside the building, knew of a find of "empty rifle hulls" there by 1:11, when he so radioed. ("Pictures of the Pain" p. 523) How could Sawyer have known where the hulls were found BEFORE anyone on the sixth floor knew, the floor where they were supposedly found? (Erroneously, the Warren Report picks up the time of Sawyer's radio transmission as the time of the finding of the shells. WR, p. 79)
Day disagrees with Studebaker, as noted above. But Day has his own hull problem with Sims, as noted. And a much bigger problem with Montgomery. As noted above, Day testified that he arrived at the depository about 1:12 and was informed that "they had located some hulls... on the sixth floor."
Belin: "What did you do then?"
Day: "I went to the NE corner... SE corner of the building, and first made photographs of the three hulls."
Belin: "After you took the pictures of the shell casing [sic], what did you do then?"
Mr. DAY. "After these were taken, I processed these three hulls for fingerprints, using a powder. Mr. Sims picked them up by the ends and handed them to me. I processed each of the three, did not find fingerprints." (V4, p. 248)
So, Day and Sims were hard at work in the "nest" processing the casings, beginning about 1:15. The "nest" was not very big. Mooney: "an area of perhaps two feet" (V19, p. 528)--two feet square, one assumes.
Switch to Montgomery's report "re The President's Murder": As noted, Johnson & Montgomery arrived at the depository about 1 o'clock, "and went directly to the 6th floor where we contacted Captain Fritz. Captain Fritz put... myself protecting the part of the scene where the window was that the shooting took place. I remained at this location... until Det. Studebaker... had dusted the windows and surrounding boxes for prints." Montgomery was there until about 2:30. (CE 2003, p. 223)
First, note that Montgomery dutifully mentions Studebaker's presence, and his duties. Second, note that, in his entire report, he doesn't mention the other Crime Lab officer, Day, at all--yet, he refers to Studebaker several times. Not even, in passing, a "Day was dusting the shells". Third, note that he doesn't mention empty shells at all. (Meanwhile, for his part, Johnson reports, "The window that the shot was fired from was open..."/CE 2003, p. 210: "shot", singular--sounds like Johnson saw no shells.) Yet, Montgomery, Day, and Sims are all there at the same time, circa 1:15, supposedly all crammed together in that two-foot-square space. ("Pardon my elbow." "Hey, that's my foot you're standing on, mister!") Tellingly, *Day* doesn't mention Montgomery's presence either. All the bees so very busy that they don't notice each other not two feet away. Picture the stateroom scene in "A Night at the Opera". Maybe not as funny, though.
Day's Sims problem suggests that it's Day and Sims who are the odd men out here. That their hull processing did not take place in the time frame which they said it did. Right place, wrong time--that is, while Montgomery was "protecting" the "nest". Sims couldn't quite fit into the scenario without seemingly duplicating himself. And Day doesn't fit there either, not without Montgomery tripping over him. And the shells... Where oh where have my little shells gone? Deputy Sheriff Jack Faulkner reported that the shells were "given" to stage-manager Fritz. (V19, p. 511) That's where.
Go back to Sawyer's transmission re the "third floor", where he said that "empty rifle hulls" had been found. "Third" cannot mean "sixth", in no way, shape or form. If they were indeed found there, that is, on the third or fifth floor, they could not have been photographed there, outside the fabled "nest". Hence the Fritz connection here and Day's time-frame dilemma. Redirect Day's processing of the hulls to sometime later in the... day.
As I have said, Fritz was actually in the building by 12:44, stage-managing the whole affair. But certain events were still beyond his control. For instance, Mooney leaning out a window to announce the finding of the hulls, circa 12:58. A third or fifth-floor window. (Apparently, no photo of this event survives. Surprise! *That* was under Fritz's control.) Fritz perhaps panicked a bit, but he was, after all, upstairs at the time, and he had some handy tools at his disposal, such as other police officers. Apparently, Sgt. Gerald Hill was the closest tool, circa 1 o'clock. Scene: probably the fifth rather than the third floor. Dialogue: "Sgt. Hill, do me a favor. Run up to the sixth floor and shout out the second set of windows facing Elm, second from the southeast corner, something like, We found empty rifle hulls here, and point to that SE corner. Witnesses like visuals. Remember, dammit--point." ("Yes, Captain.") Hence, the photo of Hill on the sixth floor pointing to the SE corner. (See page Picture of the Pain, page 502.) Situation resolved; the sanctity of the "nest" preserved.
Note: Hill's shout out re the shells--"prior to 1:05" (POTP p. 502)--was either completely, and properly, ignored or otherwise not taken into consideration when the Warren Report pegged the discovery time as 1:12.
dcw