The paper bag
Commission Exhibit No. 142, received November 23, 1963, showed only fingerprint powder and insignificant white cotton fibers on its exterior. Inside, examiners found a minute wood fragment, a waxy particle, a single brown delustered viscose fiber, and several light-green cotton fibers. The brown viscose fiber matched blanket viscose fibers in shade, diameter, and delustering agent distribution, and each green cotton fiber matched blanket green cotton fibers in shade, twist, and unmercerized condition.
The shirt
Commission Exhibit No. 150, received November 23, 1963, was composed of gray-black, dark blue, and orange-yellow cotton fibers. The orange-yellow and gray-black fibers were uniform in shade, while the dark-blue fibers came in three different shades. All fibers were mercerized with substantially uniform twist.
The C2766 rifle
Commission Exhibit No. 139, received the morning of November 23, 1963, had been dusted for fingerprints, causing Stombaugh to doubt finding exterior fibers. Most fibers found were dirty, old, fragmented, and lodged in crevices or on greasy deposits. However, a “fresh” tuft of clean, unfragmented fibers had caught on a jagged edge where the metal butt plate met the wooden stock and was folded into the crevice by the fingerprint brush. The tuft contained six or seven orange-yellow, gray-black, and dark-blue cotton fibers that matched comparable shirt fibers in shade and twist. Stombaugh concluded the fibers could easily have come from the shirt, though identical shirts could not be excluded.
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