Report of the President's Commission on the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy

CHAPTER III

This chapter documents eyewitness testimony surrounding the assassination in Dealey Plaza, the murder of Dallas Police Officer J. D. Tippit in Oak Cliff about forty minutes after the President’s death, and the rapid apprehension of Lee Harvey Oswald at the Texas Theatre. Multiple witnesses in and around Dealey Plaza offered accounts of what they saw and heard. Howard L. Brennan, watching from the south side of Elm Street, reported seeing a slim man fire a rifle from a sixth-floor window of the Depository Building. Amos Lee Euins, who had run into the building moments after the shots, also testified to observing a man with a rifle at that window. Other witnesses—Depository employees Ronald Fischer, Robert Edwards, James Jarman Jr., Harold Norman, and Bonnie Ray Williams—similarly reported seeing a man matching Oswald’s general description or observed unusual activity on the upper floors. Photographs taken during the assassination, including the famous frames captured by James Altgens of the Associated Press and motion picture footage by Abraham Zapruder, were carefully preserved and analyzed as crucial evidence.

Approximately forty minutes after the shooting, Officer Tippit was killed on East Tenth Street in Oak Cliff. Witnesses Helen Markham, Barbara Davis, Virginia Davis, and Domingo Benavides all observed and later identified the gunman as Lee Harvey Oswald. Markham testified that she saw Oswald shoot Tippit three times as the officer approached his vehicle. After the shooting, Oswald fled on foot and was spotted by Dallas Police Sergeant M. N. McDonald on patrol near the Texas Theatre. McDonald called for backup and pursued Oswald into the theater, where the officer wrestled him to the floor and took him into custody. A .38 caliber Smith & Wesson revolver recovered from Oswald’s possession was identified through ballistic comparison as the weapon used to kill Officer Tippit. Texas Theatre witnesses, including Jack Dougherty, Eddie Piper, and others, confirmed that Oswald had been present and had not been watching a movie.

Eyewitness testimony regarding the precise timing and number of shots in Dealey Plaza varied considerably, with some witnesses reporting two shots and others three. The Commission catalogued dozens of these accounts and used sound-recording analysis from police Dictabelt tapes and eyewitness reconstructions to estimate the timing between the three shots as approximately 5.6 seconds, 3.0 seconds, and either a similar interval or a closely-paired volley depending on interpretation. The shooter’s location was consistently placed at the sixth-floor southeast corner window of the Depository Building. James Tague, standing near the triple underpass, was grazed in the cheek by a fragment from a missed shot that struck the pavement nearby, providing independent confirmation of the shot trajectory.

CHAPTER IV

This chapter presents a comprehensive examination of the physical and documentary evidence collected during the investigation, including fingerprint and palm print evidence, photographic analysis, fiber and hair examinations, rifle and shell casing analysis, and witness testimony. The Commission’s forensic investigation centered on the Texas School Book Depository Building, where a 6.5mm Mannlicher-Carcano Italian military rifle, Model 91/38, was recovered from the sixth floor along with three spent cartridge cases, paper bag fragments, and other items. Sebastian Latona of the FBI’s Identification Division compared latent prints recovered from these items with the known prints of Lee Harvey Oswald, Marina Oswald, and other Depository employees. Latona positively identified the palm print on a paper bag found near the southeast corner window as Oswald’s, and identified Oswald’s fingerprints on the rifle and cartridge cases, excluding other employees.

The firearms examination, conducted by FBI experts Robert A. Frazier and Charles L. Killion, established that the recovered rifle had been manufactured in Italy in 1940 and ordered through Klein’s Sporting Goods in Chicago by mail under an alias, with the receiver sent separately to facilitate concealment. Recovered bullet fragments from Governor Connally’s wounds and the President’s wounds were microscopically compared to test bullets fired from the recovered rifle; both Connally’s bullet and the two major fragments from the President’s wounds were identified as having been fired from the recovered weapon to the practical exclusion of all other weapons. The defective four-power telescopic sight was identified and tested at FBI laboratories.

Lyndal L. Shaneyfelt conducted extensive photographic analysis, focusing on the backyard photographs showing Oswald with the rifle and newspapers. The images show Oswald holding the rifle with one hand, what appeared to be a clenched fist in another frame, along with a copy of The Militant and a paper showing the masthead and p. 32 of The Worker (formerly the Daily Worker). Using photographic expertise, dark-room procedures, and detailed comparisons, Shaneyfelt concluded that these photographs had been taken with an Imperial Reflex camera and had not been altered by paste-over techniques. The recovery of a single undeveloped negative in the Paine garage in April 1964, identified as the negative from which one of the backyard photographs had been printed, provided striking corroborative evidence.

FBI laboratory experts examined textile fibers and hairs found in connection with the rifle and paper bag, comparing cotton and rayon fibers from a blanket in which the rifle had been wrapped, jute fibers from the bag, and Caucasian head hairs. Marina Oswald testified that the rifle had been stored in their garage in a blanket she had made, and at the Paine home in Irving, both of which were searched and produced corroborative trace evidence connecting Oswald’s residence to the weapon.

Documentary examination focused on Selective Service records and the controversial Selective Service card (CE 788) found among Oswald’s belongings. FBI document examiners Alwyn Cole and James Cadigan concluded that this card had been altered through paste-over techniques to change the original classification stamp. The Commission also examined the chain of custody of every key item of physical evidence including the rifle, spent cartridges, bullet fragments, paper bag, blanket fibers, and Oswald’s clothing.

The forensic investigation encompassed Oswald’s clothing, particularly the brown shirt Marina Oswald identified as the garment her husband wore on November 22, 1963. Marina testified regarding the shirt’s history, while Robert Oswald provided testimony concerning his brother’s clothing and personal effects during his defection to the Soviet Union and subsequent repatriation. Ruth Paine, in whose garage in Irving Oswald’s belongings had been stored, corroborated aspects of the chain of custody. Commission Exhibit 1357 documented the shirt, and supporting exhibits (CE 1402, CE 2007) provided photographic records and additional chain-of-custody documentation. FBI examiners analyzed the shirt microscopically for trace evidence, comparing any fibers, hairs, or other materials with samples from the Depository Building, the Paine residence, and other locations. The Commission found that the trace-evidence examination did not produce evidence definitively linking the shirt to the assassination scene, though it contributed to the comprehensive forensic profile.