Evidence the jacket of Tippit's killer was white

" At 1:22 p.m. the Dallas police radio described the man wanted for the murder of Tippit as "a white male about thirty, five foot eight inches, black hair, slender, wearing a white jacket, white shirt and dark slacks." According to Patrolman Poe this description came from Mrs. Markham and Mrs. Barbara Jeanette Davis. Mrs. Markham told Poe that the man was a "white male, about 25, about five feet eight, brown hair, medium," and wearing a "white jacket." Mrs. Davis gave Poe the same general description: a "white male in his early twenties, around five foot seven inches or eight inches, about 145 pounds," and wearing a white jacket."

Two jackets in two black and white films.

On the left is a still from a video taken in a parking lot a block from the Tippit murder scene. It shows a policeman displaying what Dallas Police radio broadcasts described as a white jacket which was recovered from underneath a 1955 Olds that was parked in the lot. Initial police broadcasts identified Tippit's murderer as wearing a white jacket. The same police broadcasts describe the jacket found under the car as being white.

On the right is Commission Exhibit 162, a gray jacket allegedly belonging to Lee Harvey Oswald. The WC said that this was the jacket recovered from under the car.

"The chain of custody is defined as the witnessed, written record of all of the individuals who maintained unbroken control over the items of evidence. It establishes the proof that the items of evidence collected at the crime scene is the same evidence that is being presented in a court of law" - Mike Byrd , Miami-Dade Police Department Crime Scene Investigations

At the time of a trial, the court will want to be assured that the item submitted as evidence is the same as that found at the scene. Therefore, the court will want to know exactly what has happened to the evidence and in whose custody it has been from the time it was found until it was presented to the court. This process is termed "Chain of Custody." The Officer(s) who found, marked, packaged, and booked the evidence will not be the only person to handle it (Detectives, etc.). A record must be kept of all these contacts. Police must keep track of what happened to the evidence from the time they found it until the time it appears in court.

Without a record of who had control of the evidence, there is no way to establish that the evidence presented in court is the same evidence found at the scene.

If you look at the photo of the gray jacket from NARA, you'll notice that it contains the initials of the authorities who handled it.

But the initials of the person who found the jacket at the scene of its discovery are missing.

The Commission, in its report, credited the finding of the jacket to Dallas police captain W. R. Westbrook.

"At 1:24 p.m., the police radio reported, "The suspect last seen running west on Jefferson from 400 East Jefferson." Police Capt. W. R. Westbrook and several other officers concentrated their search along Jefferson Boulevard. Westbrook walked through the parking lot behind the service station and found a light-colored jacket lying under the rear of one of the cars. Westbrook identified Commission Exhibit No. 162 as the light-colored jacket which he discovered underneath the automobile."

Mr. WESTBROOK. Actually, I didn't find it--it was pointed out to me......someone pointed out a jacket to me that was laying under a car and I got the jacket and told the officer to take the license number.

In fact, Capt. Westbrook couldn't remember WHO found the jacket:

Mr. WESTBROOK. Yes; behind the Texaco service station, and some officer, I feel sure it was an officer, I still can't be positive pointed this jacket out to me and it was laying slightly under the rear of one of the cars.

Mr. BALL. What was the name of the officer?

Mr. WESTBROOK. I couldn't tell you that, sir.

( 7 H 117 )

He also couldn't remember who the officer was who he turned the jacket over to.

Mr. BALL. And you turned it over to whom?

Mr. WESTBROOK. Now, it was to this officer--that got the name.

Mr. BALL. Does your report show the name of the officer?

Mr. WESTBROOK. No, sir; it doesn't.

( 7 H 118 )

Police Officer Thomas Hutson was present when the jacket was found and added nothing.

Mr. BELIN. Do you know the name of the officer that found it?
Mr. HUTSON. No, sir; I don't know.
Mr. BELIN. What happened to the jacket?
Mr. HUTSON. The last time I saw this jacket, the officer had it in his possession.
Mr. BELIN. Do you know who he gave it to?
Mr. HUTSON. No, sir; I don't.
Mr. BELIN. You don't know if he gave it to Captain Westbrook?
Mr. HUTSON. I don't know. Captain Westbrook was there behind the house with us, and he was there at the time this was picked up with the man, but I don't know who had it in their hands. The only time I saw it was when the officer had it.

( 7 H 33 )

If you look at the jacket, the initials of the authorities who handled it are on it. We see Capt. George Dougherty's initials, the initials of W.E. "Pete" Barnes, the Dallas PD crime scene photographer, the FBI's hair and fiber expert, Paul M. Stombaugh, and the FBI's Spectrographic expert, John F. Gallagher. The "K42" designation is for FBI use and the initials "CK" and "JH" are those of FBI forearms experts Charles Killion and Cortlandt Cunningham, respectively.

The initials of Westbrook, who the Commission credited with finding it, do not appear on the gray jacket.

The interesting thing about all of these initials is that not one single person who initialed this gray jacket was asked any questions about it. No questions were asked of Dougherty, Barnes, Stombaugh Gallagher or Cunningham. Killion was never even called to testify. Cunningham used the initials "JH" to avoid confusing his initials with the term "carbon copy".

Evidence that the jacket in evidence did not match the description of the jacket of the Tippit murderer

The original Dallas Police broadcast of the description of the Tippit shooter was made about 1:24 pm and described the shooter's jacket as being white. Commission Exhibit 705 is the transcript of the radio transmissions that day and the description can be found on page 374 of Volume 17:

Evidence that the jacket in evidence did not match the description of the jacket found

The police broadcast of the discovery of the jacket described the jacket found as white . It is found on page 411 of Volume 17:

Officer Hutson described the jacket as white:

Mr. BELIN. All right, now, prior to that time had there been any recovery of any items of clothing?

Mr. HUTSON. Yes, sir.

Mr. BELIN. When did that occur?

Mr. HUTSON. That occurred while we were searching the rear of the house in the 400 block of East Jefferson Boulevard at the rear of the Texaco station. Behind cars parked on a lot at this location, a white jacket was picked up by another officer. I observed him as he picked it up, and it was stated that this is probably the suspect's jacket. The original description was that he was wearing a white jacket.

In fact, at no time did police broadcast a description of a gray or tan jacket being found.

This is crucial evidence that puts to rest any notion that ALL of the witnesses who saw the jacket and described it was white were in error. Had the jacket police found been tan or gray they would not have described it as white or connected it to a suspect who was wearing a white jacket.

Evidence that the witnesses failed to identify the gray jacket as the jacket the killer wore

Eyewitness to the Tippit murder, Helen Markham testified that she had never seen Oswald's gray jacket before and the Tippit killer's jacket was darker..

Mr. BALL. I have here an exhibit, Commission Exhibit 162, a jacket. Did you ever see this before?

Mrs. MARKHAM. No; I did not.

Mr. BALL. Does it look like, anything like, the jacket the man had on?
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       Mrs. MARKHAM. It is short, open down the front. But that jacket it is a darker jacket than that, I know it was.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 Mr. BALL. You don't think it was as light a jacket as that?
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    Mrs. MARKHAM. No, it was darker than that, I know it was.

( 3 H 312 )

Barbara Davis heard the shots and ran to the window to see a man with a gun running across her lawn.

Mr. BALL. I have a jacket, I would like to show you, which is Commission Exhibit No. 162. Does this look anything like the jacket that the man had on that was going across your lawn?

Mrs. DAVIS. No, sir.

( 3 H 347 )

Wiiliam Scoggins was a cab driver who was parked at the corner of Tenth and Patton and witnessed the Tippit murder. He testified that the murderer of Tippit wore a jacket that was darker than Oswald's gray jacket.

Mr. BELIN. Mr. Scoggins, handing you Exhibit 162, have you ever seen any jacket on any person in that area of East 10th and Patton that looks familiar to, or looks anything similar to this exhibit, or does this appear to be lighter or darker than the jacket?
Mr. SCOGGINS. It appears to be a little lighter, but the sleeves look familiar all right, the type of sleeve. He had on a jacket, the type of sleeve of that, but I thought it was a little darker.

Domingo Benavides witnessed the Tippit murder from his truck. He was shown Oswald's blue jacket ( CE 163 ) and identified that as the same as the killer's.

Mr. BELIN. I am handing you a jacket which has been marked as "Commission's Exhibit 163," and ask you to state whether this bears any similarity to the jacket you saw this man with the gun wearing?

Mr. BENAVIDES. I would say this looks just like it. Looks like he had laundried it, but it looks like it was a newer coat than that.

Skeptical witness identification of the gray jacket as the one the killer wore

Identification of the gray jacket ( CE 162 ) as the jacket the Tippit killer was wearing by witnesses who claimed to have seen him is somewhat questionable. The first witness is Sam Guinyard, a porter at a used car dealership who claimed to see the gunman pass by after the shooting.

Sam Guinyard identified CE 162 as the jacket the man with the gun he saw fleeing the scene was wearing:

Mr. BALL. Now, the next exhibit here is Commission Exhibit No. 162; have you ever seen this before?

But in his affidavit to Dallas Police, Guinyard made no mention of the gray jacket. In fact, Guinyard gave no description of the man he saw with the gun, except to say that he was a "white man".

Below is the handwritten copy of Guinyard's affidavit as taken by Dallas Detective Sgt. James Leavelle.

The reader will notice that I've taken the liberty to put a blue lined box around the last paragraph, which identified the "# 2 man" ( Oswald in the police lineup ) and was added not by the police sergeant, but later in shorthand.

Mr. BALL. I have a jacket here Commission's Exhibit No. 162. Does this look anything like the jacket that the man had on that you saw across the street with a gun?

Mr. CALLAWAY. Yes; it sure does. Yes, that is the same type jacket. Actually, I thought it had a little more tan to it.

But like Guinyard's written statement, Callaway's gave no description of the jacket and in fact only describes the man with the gun as a "white man".

When Callaway gave the Secret Service his affidavit on 12/3/63, he again gave no description of the man he saw with the gun, implying only that the man was white ( "he appeared to be very pale" ).

So here we have two alleged eyewitnesses, neither of which described the man they saw in their sworn affidavits taken before their testimony.

Dallas detective Sgt. James Leavelle claimed that both men were shown the jacket at the police station by him and both men identified the jacket:

Mr. LEAVELLE. Yes; I took them to the fourth floor and asked them to look at a jacket which----

Mr. BALL. I show you Commission Exhibit 162. Does that look anything like the jacket?

Mr. LEAVELLE. He said this was definitely the jacket or one exactly like it.

The first is, if the witnesses were shown the gray jacket and identified it as the jacket the man with the gun wore, why weren't their identifications noted in their sworn affidavits ?

The second is, since Oswald was still alive at the time the witnesses allegedly identified the jacket and the case was going to trial, why didn't the police have the witnesses mark the jacket once their identifications were made ?

My third problem between these two witnesses is that according to Leavelle, Callaway ID'd the jacket at the police station, but when shown it during his deposition, he failed to positively identify it. The best he could do was to say that it was the same type jacket.

How do you fail to identify something that you've already seen and positively identified ?

Then there was William Smith, who testified that Tippit's murderer was wearing a "sport coat", then identified CE 162 as the jacket he saw.

Mr. BALL. What kind of clothes did he have on when he shot the officer?
Mr. SMITH. He had on dark pants--just a minute. He had on dark pants and a sport coat of some kind. I can't really remember very well.
Mr. BALL. I will show you a coat----
Mr. SMITH. This looks like it.
Mr. BALL. This is Commission's Exhibit 162, a grey, zippered jacket. Have you ever seen this before?
Mr. SMITH. Yes, sir; that looks like what he had on. A jacket.
Mr. BALL. That is the jacket he had on?
Mr. SMITH. Yes.

Talk about leading a witness. From a sport coat, to "I can't remember very well" to it "a jacket" to a positive identification.

Below are photographs of two jackets. On the left is a typical sport coat, on the right is Commission Exhibit 162, Oswald's gray jacket. There's no way that anyone could mistake a button-down sport coat for a zipper-down jacket. There are wide differences in style, fabric and general appearance, making such an error impossible.

The Commission was forced to admit that, "The eyewitnesses vary in their identification of the jacket." ( pg. 175 )

One witness who cast doubt on whether or not Oswald was wearing that gray jacket that day, was his landlady, Mrs. Earlene Roberts, who was present when he left the roominghouse. She was shown CE 162 and failed to identify it as the jacket Oswald was wearing when he left.

Mr. BALL. I'll show you this jacket which is Commission Exhibit 162---have you ever seen this jacket before?
Mrs. ROBERTS. Well, maybe I have, but I don't remember it. It seems like the one he put on was darker than that.

"Marina Oswald also identified Commission Exhibit No. 162, the jacket found by Captain Westbrook, as her husband's second jacket."

The Commission's conclusion that the gray jacket in evidence belonged to Oswald rested solely on the word of his wife Marina, who told so many contradictory accounts that she had to appear before the Commission four times. But the evidence indicates that she may have been mistaken in her testimony regarding Oswald's ownership of the gray jacket.