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

Fibers Linking Bag to Rifle Blanket

FBI Laboratory examiner Paul M. Stombaugh found a single brown delustered viscose fiber and several light green cotton fibers inside the paper bag. The blanket in which the rifle was stored contained brown and green cotton, viscose, and woolen fibers. The fibers recovered from the bag matched corresponding fibers from the blanket in all observable microscopic characteristics, though not every fiber type present in the blanket was found in the bag. Stombaugh therefore could not definitively state the fibers originated from the blanket, but he confirmed the rifle could have transferred such fibers to the bag’s interior. The Commission regarded this testimony as probative when considered alongside the other evidence.

Conclusion: Oswald Carried the Rifle

The Commission concluded that the preponderance of the evidence establishes that Lee Harvey Oswald told Frazier the curtain rod story to account for both his Thursday return to Irving and the bulky package he intended to bring to work; obtained paper and tape from the Depository’s wrapping bench and constructed a bag large enough to hold the disassembled rifle; removed the rifle from the blanket in the Paines’ garage on Thursday evening; carried the rifle into the Depository concealed in the bag; and left the bag alongside the southeast corner window from which the shots were fired.

Oswald at the Window

Lee Harvey Oswald was hired on October 15, 1963, as an order filler at the Texas School Book Depository. His duties took him principally to the first and sixth floors, giving him ready access to the sixth floor and the southeast corner window from which the shots were fired. The Commission evaluated both the physical evidence recovered from the window area and the testimony of eyewitnesses to determine whether Oswald was present at the window at the time of the assassination.