THE PRE-ARRANGED MURDER OF OFFICER J.D. TIPPIT

BACK AT THE BOOK DEPOSITORY, LEE OSWALD LEAVES DEALEY PLAZA WEARING A WHITE T-SHIRT.


After shots were fired at President Kennedy, LEE Oswald walked through the office of the Book Depository and was seen by Mrs. Reid carrying a coke and wearing a white t-shirt.  As he left the building three woman who worked across the street in the Dal-Tex Building saw Jack Ruby give him a pistol. LEE then walked west on the Elm Street extension in front of the TSBD and waited. At 12:40 PM a light colored Nash Rambler station wagon, with a chrome luggage rack, pulled over to the curb and stopped. Deputy Sheriff Roger Craig heard a shrill whistle, which attracted his attention, and watched as a young man wearing a white t-shirt walked over to the car and got in. Craig identified the man as (LEE) Harvey Oswald. Marvin Robinson was driving his Cadillac directly behind the Nash Rambler when it suddenly stopped. Robinson saw a white male hurry over to the car and get in. Robinson's employee, Roy Cooper, was following him in a different vehicle and also saw the man hurry over and get into the car. Both men told the FBI the man who got into the Nash Rambler was (LEE) Harvey Oswald, but neither man was interviewed by the WC. Helen Forrest saw the same man run toward the Nash Rambler and get in. She said, "If it wasn't Oswald, it was his identical twin." Helen Forrest was never interviewed by the WC nor was her statement published in the WC volumes. The Nash Rambler was last seen driving under the triple overpass with LEE Oswald, who may have been told by his handlers to meet DPD Officer JD Tippit at Ruby's apartment, or at his (LEE Oswald's) apartment at 507 E. 10th or somewhere along 10th St. After getting into the Nash Rambler, but before meeting up with Officer Tippit near 10th & Patton, LEE Oswald acquired a light colored medium-size jacket which he wore over his white t-shirt.


LEE Oswald on East 10th St. in Oak Cliff

About 1:03 PM LEE Oswald was seen by several witnesses in the Oak Cliff suburb of Dallas walking west near the corner of 10th St. & Marsalis--over a mile away from HARVEY Oswald's rooming house. LEE Oswald was only three blocks north of Jack Ruby's apartment (223 S. Ewing), where he had been seen the night before by a guest of Ruby's next door neighbor (Helen McIntosh). Four blocks from Ruby's apartment was a small, single story house at 511 E. 10th that was owned by attorney Dick Loomis, Sr., and his wife. Mrs. Loomis was a housewife and President of the Oak Cliff Fine Arts Club. She told FBI agents Griffin and Carter that a young couple, who were identical to LEE Harvey and Marina Oswald, lived next door in an apartment complex at 507 E. 10th (13 apartments) about one week before the assassination. She saw Marina and her infant child in front of her home and recalled that Marina had jet black hair. She said Marina wore very plain clothing and on one occasion wore a light blouse and plaid skirt and on another occasion a dark blouse and the same plaid skirt. She once saw a heavy-set man visit the apartment next door and presumed it was Ruby. FBI agent James Hosty, who never met Oswald face-to-face prior to November 22, 1963, told fellow FBI agent Carver Gayton that he left notes under Oswald's apartment door. But the Warren Commission reported that Oswald lived either at his rooming house (1026 N. Beckley) or at Ruth Paine's house in Irving, TX, neither of which was an apartment. Hosty could have left notes under the door at several of LEE Oswald's previous apartments including 507 E. 10th, 1106 Diceman Avenue, or an apartment in Oak Lawn that Ruby rented for Oswald (according to DPD informant T-1).


Mr. Clark worked as a barber at the 10th Street Barber Shop, 620 E. 10th, two blocks north of Jack Ruby's apartment. Clark told FBI agent Carl Underhill (11/29/63) that he "had seen a man whom he would bet his life on was Oswald passing the shop in a great hurry and had commented on same to a customer in the chair." (SEE MAP) Construction worker William Lawrence Smith was walking east toward the Town and Country Cafe (604 E 10th) for lunch shortly after 1:00 PM. Smith "felt sure that the man who walked by him going west on 10th St. was LEE Harvey Oswald" (interview of Smith by SA Brookhart 1/13/64). Jimmy Burt, 505 E. 10th, was across the street from the construction site where Smith was working and watched the same man as he continued walking west. Burt described the man (LEE Oswald) as a white male, approximately 5'8", wearing a light short jacket (interview of Burt by SA Christianson and Acklin 12/16/63). William Arthur Smith was with Burt at the time and described the same man as "a white male, about 5'7" to 5'8", 20 to 25 years of age, 150-160, wearing a white shirt, light brown jacket and dark pants (interview of Smith by SA Ward and Basham 12/13/63). Both Burt and Smith watched this unknown man as he continued walking toward 10th & Patton, and saw him walk over to a black police squad car and begin speaking with the officer (circa 1:08 PM). After the assassination, both men were shown (HARVEY) Oswald's photograph and both men said this was not the man who shot Tippit.



At left is LEE Oswald photographed by his brother Robert in 1958.  At right is the jacket allegedly found
under a car near the Texaco station after the Tippit slaying. Are the jackets the same? 


At approximately 1:15 PM an ambulance was dispatched from Dudley Hughes Funeral Home and arrived at 10th & Patton within a minute. Tippit's body was quickly loaded into the ambulance by Clayton Butler and Eddie Kinsley and driven to a nearby Methodist Hospital where he was pronounced dead on arrival by Dr. Liquori around 1:22 PM. Among the items removed from Tippit at the hospital and taken to the police station was one "black billfold." At 1:22 PM a DPD dispatch reported: "Last seen about the 300 block East Jefferson. He's a white male about 30, 5'8," Black hair, slender, wearing a white jacket, white shirt and dark slacks."


Johnny Brewer told police that he first saw Oswald suspiciously lurking near his doorway at Hardy's Shoe Store around 1:30 PM. But Brewer did not see the man who was arrested by the police, wearing a brown shirt and lurking near his doorway at 1:30 pm, because the man wearing the brown shirt (HARVEY Oswald) had been inside the Texas Theater for the past 20 minutes. Brewer may have seen someone "lurking" near Hardy's Shoe Store, and he apparently followed that person (LEE Oswald) to the Texas Theater. Around 1:30 PM, cashier Julia Postal was watching her boss leave the theater walking west. At the same time LEE Oswald hurried past Postal, without buying a ticket, and ran up the stairs to the balcony. Brewer followed him into the theater and told Butch Burroughs about the suspicious man. Both men checked to make sure the two exit doors, which opened onto the alley at the rear of the building, had not been opened. While Burroughs stood by the west exit door, Brewer walked to the front of the theater and told Julia Postal to call the police because the man was still somewhere inside the theater. Burroughs remembered that Brewer appeared about 20 minutes after he (Burroughs) first saw HARVEY Oswald in the theater. Brewer then walked to the east exit door and remained there until the police arrived.


After running into the theater there is a good possibility that LEE Oswald was going to quickly leave the theater through one of two exit doors that opened into the alley, leaving HARVEY Oswald in the theater. Burroughs and Brewer, watching the exit doors, may have prevented his departure. In the alley, behind the theater, a young man was standing next to a pickup truck with the engine running. After the police arrived Captain C.E. Talbert and some officers questioned the young man and searched the pickup, but made no police reports about the incident. Talbert testified before the Warren Commission, but at no time in over 20 pages of testimony was he asked, nor did he volunteer, anything about the Texas Theater, Oswald's arrest, or the young man in the alley (24H242). We will probably never know the name of this man nor will we know what he was doing in the alley while LEE Oswald was hiding in the balcony.



THE WALLET AT 10TH & PATTON

Following the shooting, eight or nine people walked to Tippit's patrol car and saw him lying on the street. A few minutes later ambulance attendants Clayton Butler and Eddie Kinsley arrived and removed Tippit's body. DPD officers began to arrive at the scene and started to question witnesses as on-lookers gathered. But not one witness, not one ambulance driver, not one neighbor, not one on-looker and not one trained police officer saw a wallet lying on the street or in Tippit's car.


Dallas Police Captain Westbrook, along with Sergeant Calvin Owens and assistant DA Bill Alexander, arrived a few minutes later. Westbrook heard over the police radio that a suspicious person had been seen running into a nearby library, and was immediately driven to that location. After returning to 10th & Patton a wallet suddenly appeared in Westbrook's hands with identification for Lee Harvey Oswald, which linked Oswald to Tippit's murder, and with identification for Alek Hidell that linked Hidell (Oswald) to the rifle found on the 6th floor of the Book Depository. Westbrook called out to FBI agent Bob Barrett and asked him if he knew anything about Oswald or Hidell. Barrett was unfamiliar with these names, but saw the wallet, along with Captain George Doughty, Sergeant Calvin Owens, Sergeant Kenneth Croy, accident investigator Howell Summers, and WFAA TV cameraman Ron Reiland. Reiland filmed police officers as they inspected and handled the wallet. The Dallas Police officers at 10th & Patton now knew, thanks to identification found in the wallet, that "Lee Harvey Oswald" was the prime suspect in Tippit's murder. Their next stop was the Texas Theater where HARVEY Oswald, wearing a long-sleeve brown shirt, was sitting in the 4th row in the lower level, while LEE Oswald, wearing a white t-shirt, was hiding in the balcony.




A frame from WFAA newsreel footage



Captain Westbrook was the ranking officer at 10th & Patton and knew police procedure as well as anyone. If Westbrook was not the person who brought the wallet to 10th & Patton, then he should have insisted on police reports to establish a "chain of custody" for the wallet, written a detailed report about the wallet and its contents, entered the wallet into evidence at DPD headquarters, and discussed the wallet with the Warren Commission. But not a single police report was written about the wallet and neither Westbrook, Owens, nor Croy mentioned nor was asked about the wallet by the FBI, Secret Service, or the Warren Commission. The fact that Captain Westbrook totally ignored police procedure about a crucial piece of evidence is reason to believe that Westbrook was the person responsible for bringing the wallet to 10th & Patton and, according to FBI agent Barrett, it was Westbrook who kept the wallet. This wallet was the single most important piece of evidence ever found prior to Oswald's arrest, yet ten minutes after it appeared this wallet disappeared and was never seen again.


This disappearing wallet is PROOF that Tippit's murder was pre-planned. If Westbrook, or anyone else, had identification in their possession that would be used to identify a suspect in a murder, PRIOR TO THE MURDER, then that person had prior knowledge of a pre-planned assassination. The real significance of this wallet is that it shows that Westbrook knew, IN ADVAVCE, that HARVEY Oswald would be accused of Tippit's murder and that he would be linked, from identification in the wallet, to the assassination of President Kennedy. The only reason for the wallet to appear at 10th & Patton was to identify and frame Oswald. And the only reason for this wallet to disappear is that DPD officers removed HARVEY Oswald's wallet from his pants pocket while en route to the police station. Two wallets that contain nearly identical identification are unexplainable. After the assassination Captain Westbrook relocated to South Vietnam, where he served as a CIA special advisor to the Saigon Police.