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Nomenclature of an Assassination Cabal
Chapter 12
William Seymour, Agent for the Defense Industrial Security Command, Participates in a Murder
William Seymour came out of the rear of the Depository Building about fifteen minutes after the assassination, ran around the building across Dealey Plaza to enter a car and take flight. Gordon Novel, the other fabricated Oswald, has been shown to have been elsewhere at the times in question. All of the following is taken from the Warren Commission evidence. A witness, J.R. Worrel, at the time of the shooting was in the general area across Elm Street from the Depository Building. He saw the gun being fired from the sixth floor window but did not get a look at him while he was firing. After the shooting, Worrel remained in the vicinity for a while and then proceeded across Elm Street continuing straight ahead and traversed the east side of the Depository Building along Houston Street.
Shortly after he arrived at the rear of the Depository Building, a man Worrel identified as Lee Harvey Oswald hurried out of the rear door to the first floor of the Depository Building, ran to the west corner of the building and turned to the south disappearing behind the west side of the Depository Building in the direction of the Dealey Plaza Lawn and Elm Street. Dallas County Officer, Roger Craig, saw Seymour coming from the west side of the Depository and cross the Dealey Plaza Lawn to enter a car on Elm street. Officer Craig heard Seymour whistle loudly as he came across the lawn. Officer Craig was the last person to see Seymour and he testified before the Commission as follows:
Mr. Belin: Now, about how many minutes was this after the time that you had turned that young couple over to Lummie Lewis that you heard this whistle?
Deputy Sheriff Roger D. Craig: Fourteen or fifteen minutes. Craig: Yes.
Belin: Was this you mean after the shooting?
Craig: After the - from the time I heard the first shot.
Belin: All right.
Craig: Yes. So I turned and - uh - saw a man start to run down the hill on the north side of Elm Street, running down toward Elm Street.
Belin: And, about where was he with relation to the School Book Depository Building?
Craig: Uh - directly across that little side street that runs in front of it. He was on the south side of it.
Belin: And he was on the south side of what would be an extension of Elm Street, if Elm Street didn't curve down into the underpass?
Craig: Right, right.
Belin: And where was he in relation to the west side of the School Book Depository Building?
Craig: Right by the - uh - well, actually, directly in line with the west corner - the southwest corner.
Belin: He was directly in line with the southwest corner of the building?
Craig: Yes.
Belin: And he was on the south curve of that street that runs right in front of the building there?
Craig: Yes.
Belin: And he started to run toward Elm Street as it curves under the underpass?
Craig: Yes, directly down the grassy portion of the park.
Belin: All right. And then what did you see happen?
Craig: I saw a light-colored station wagon driving real slow, coming west on Elm Street from Houston. Uh - actually, it was nearly in line with him. And the driver was leaning to his right looking up the hill at the man running down.
Belin: Uh-huh.
Craig: And the station wagon stopped almost directly across from me. And - uh - the man continued down the hill and got in the station wagon. And I attempted to cross the street. I wanted to talk to both of them. But the - uh - traffic was so heavy I couldn't get across the street. And - uh - they were gone before I could ---
Belin: Where did the station wagon head?
Craig: West on Elm St. Belin: Under the triple underpass? Craig: Yes.
Belin: Could you describe the man you saw running down toward the station wagon?
Craig: Oh, he was a white male in his twenties, five nine, five eight, something like that; about 140 to 150;, had kind of medium brown sandy hair, you know, it was like it'd been blown - you know, he'd been in the wind or something - it was all wild looking; had on - ju - blue trousers.
Belin: What shade of blue? Dark blue, medium or light?
Craig: No; medium, probably; I'd say medium. And, a - uh - light tan shirt, as I remember it.
Belin: Anything else about him?
Craig: No, nothing except that he looked like he was in an awful hurry.
Belin: What about the man who was driving the car?
Craig: Now, he struck me, as being a colored male, He was very dark complected, had real dark short hair, and was wearing a thin white-looking jacket - uh , it looked like the short wind-breaker type, you know, because it was real thin and had the collar that came out over the shoulder (indicating with hands) Like that - just a short jacket.
Belin: You say that he first struck you that way. Do you think that he was a Negro?
Craig: Well, I don't - I didn't get a real good look at him. But my first glance at him I was more interested in the man coming down the hill - but my first glance at him he struck me as a Negro.
Belin: Is that what your opinion is today? Craig: Well, I - I couldn't say, because I didn't get a good enough look at him.
Belin: What kind and what color station wagon was it?
Craig: It was light colored - almost - uh - it looked white to me.
Belin: What model or make was it?
Craig: I thought it was a Nash.
Belin: Why would you think it was a Nash?
Craig: Because it had a built-in luggage rack on the top. And - uh - at that time, this was the only type car I could fit with that type luggage rack.
Belin: A Nash Rambler - is that what you're referring to?
Craig: Yes; with a rack on the back portion of the car, you know.
Belin: Did it have a Texas license plate or not?
Craig: It had the same color. I couldn't see the - uh - name with the numbers on it. I could just barely make them out. They were at an angle where I couldn't make the numbers of the -uh- any of the writing on it. But - uh - I'm sure it was a Texas plate . . .
Belin: Anything else about the assassination that you think might be important that we haven't discussed here?
Craig: No; except - uh - except for the fact that it came out later that Mrs. Paine does own a station wagon and -uh- it has a luggage rack on top. And this came out, of course, later, after I got back to the office. I didn't know about this. Buddy Walthers brought it up. I believe they went by the house and the car was parked in the driveway.
Seymour and the dark complected driver vanished under the same underpass the stricken President passed through and Seymour remains at large. At 5:30 pm the same day, Craig went to City Hall where Lee Harvey Oswald was being questioned and identified Oswald as the man running across the lawn who entered the Nash automobile. While at City Hall, Craig or Fritz asked Oswald who owned the Nash (which Seymour had entered). Oswald inadvertently revealed that he was aware of Seymour's impersonation when Oswald replied, "That station wagon belongs to Mrs. Paine. Don't try to tie her into this. She had nothing to do with it." At the time Craig saw the person whom he thought to be Oswald and who, in fact, was Seymour leaving the scene of the assassination.
Oswald was taking a bus and cab to his room in Oak Cliff. The Commission found this to be so and the evidence sustaining the whereabouts of Lee Harvey Oswald at this time is substantial. Seymour and the dark complected driver had gone to his rendezvous as had Emilio Santana and Manuel Gonzales, the other gunmen who had fired from the stockade fence on Dealey Plaza and the Dal-Tex Building. Oswald, himself, was calm and unhurried in his trip from the Depository Building to his room but after a police car honked in front of his rooming house, his actions changed to indicate some type of involvement.
After knowing of the assassination, Oswald was calm and unhurried. According to the reconstruction of time and events which the Commission found most credible, Lee Harvey Oswald left the building approximately three minutes after the assassination. He walked east on Elm Street for seven blocks to the corner of Elm and Murphy where he boarded a bus which was heading back in the direction of the Depository Building, on its way to the Oak Cliff section of Dallas. When Oswald was apprehended, a bus transfer marked for the Lakewood-Marsalis route was found in his shirt pocket. The transfer was dated "Fri. Nov. 22, '63" and was punched in two places by the bus driver. McWatters, a bus driver, was able to testify that the transfer had been issued by him on a trip which passed a checkpoint on St. Paul and Elm Streets at 12:36 pm. McWatters was sure that he left the checkpoint on time and he estimated that it took him three to four minutes to drive three blocks west from the checkpoint to Field Street, which he reached at about 12:40 pm. McWatters' recollection is that he issued this transfer to a man who entered his bus just beyond Field Street.
About two blocks later, he got off the bus. The man was on the bus approximately four minutes. Riding on the bus was an elderly woman, Mary Bledsoe, who confirmed the evidence of the transfer. Oswald had rented a room from Mrs. Bledsoe about six weeks before, on October 7th. On November 22nd, Mrs. Bledsoe came downtown to watch the Presidential motorcade. She boarded the Marsalis bus at St. Paul and Elm Streets to return home. Mrs. Bledsoe stated that she was certain it was Oswald; who boarded the bus.
William Whaley, a taxicab driver, told his employer on Saturday morning, November 23rd, that he recognized Oswald from a newspaper photograph as a man whom he had driven to the Oak Cliff area the day before. The man asked, "May I have the cab?", and got into the front seat. Whaley described the ensuing events as follows; "And about that time, an old lady, I think she was an old lady, I don't remember nothing but her sticking her head down past him in the door and said, 'Driver, will you call me a cab down here?' She had seen him get this cab and she wanted one, too, and he opened the door a little bit like he was going to get out and he said, 'I will let you have this one, ' and she said, 'No, the driver can call me one'."
On November 22nd, Oswald told Captain Fritz that he rode a bus to a stop near his home and then walked to his rooming house. When queried the following morning concerning a bus transfer found in his possession, he admitted receiving it. And when interrogated about a cab ride, Oswald also admitted that he left the slow-moving bus and took a cab to his rooming house. The Greyhound Bus Station at Lamar and Jackson Streets, where Oswald entered Whaley's cab, is three to four blocks south of Lamar and Elm. If he was discharged at Neely and Beckley and walked directly to his rooming house, he would have arrived there about 12:50 to 1:00 pm. From the 500 block of North Beckley, the walk would be a few minutes longer, but in either event he would have been in the rooming house at about 1:00 pm. This is the approximate time he entered the rooming house, according to Earlene Roberts, the housekeeper there. While Oswald was in the house, Mrs. Earlene Roberts, his housekeeper, testified that a police car containing two men drove up and honked.
Ball: When was that? (Police car honking)
Mrs. Roberts: He came in the house. (Oswald)
Ball: When he came in the house? Mrs. Roberts: When he came in the house and went to his room....
Ball: Yes.
Mrs. Roberts: Right direct in front of that door - there was a police car stopped and honked. . . . Ball: You mean, it was not the car of the policemen you knew?
Mrs. Roberts: It wasn't the police car I knew, because their number was 170 and it wasn't 170 . .
Ball: Where was it parked?
Mrs. Roberts: It was parked in front of the house . . .
Dr. Goldberg: Which way was the car facing?
Mrs. Roberts: It was facing north.
Dr. Goldberg: Toward Zangs? Mrs. Roberts: Towards Zangs . . .
Ball: Did this police car stop directly in front of your house?
Mrs. Roberts: Yes - it stopped directly in front of my house. . . .
Ball: Where was Oswald when this happened? Mrs. Roberts: In his room. Ball: You remembered the number of the car?
Mrs. Roberts: I think it was - 106, it seems to be like it was 106 . . .
Ball: Did you report that number to anyone, did you report this incident to anyone?
Mrs. Roberts: Yes, I told the FBI and the Secret Service both when they was out there . . . Ball: Did you say there were two uniformed policemen in the car?
Mrs. Roberts: Yes, and it was in a black car. It wasn't an accident squad car at all. Ball: Were there two uniformed policemen in the car?
Mrs. Roberts: Oh, yes.
Ball: And one of the officers sounded the horn?. . . .
Oswald then left the house and the Commission found he killed Dallas Police Officer Tippit about a mile from the room. Although there is compelling evidence that someone else killed Tippit, the Commission cited sufficient evidence to sustain their conclusion. At approximately 1:15 pm, Tippit, who was cruising west on 10th Street, passed the intersection of 10th and Patton about eight blocks from where he had reported at 12:54 pm. About one hundred feet past the intersection, Tippit stopped a man walking east along the south side of Patton. The man was bushy headed and stocky built. Tippit stopped the man and called him to his car. The bushy headed and stocky man approached the car and apparently exchanged words with Tippit through the right front or vent window. Tippit got out and started to walk around the front of the car. As Tippit reached the left front wheel, the man pulled out a revolver and fired several shots. The bullets hit Tippit and killed him instantly .
The gunman started back toward Patton Avenue, ejecting the empty cartridge cases and leaving them to later inculpate Oswald. About twelve persons saw the man with the revolver in the vicinity of the Tippit crime scene at or immediately after the shooting. By the evening of November 22nd, seven of them had refused to identify Lee Harvey Oswald in police lineups as the man they saw. Several said the murderer was short and squat - Oswald was thin and medium height - and another said that two men were involved.
The Warren Commission's own chronology of Oswald's movements fails to allow him sufficient time to reach the scene of Tippit's murder from the Book Depository Building. Four cartridges were found at the scene of the slaying. Revolvers do not eject cartridges, so when someone is shot, you don't later find gratuitous cartridges strewn over the sidewalk - unless the murderer deliberately takes the trouble to eject them. Of the four cartridges found at the scene, two were Winchesters and two were Remingtons - but of the four bullets found in Officer Tippit's body, three were Winchesters and one was a Remington.
The real killer of Tippit hid in a cavernous building at the corner of Tenth and Crawford which in 1963 was known as the Abundant Life Temple. In an aerial view of the area, the Commission traced the killer's escape path from the scene near Tenth and Patton to Jefferson Boulevard one block south, thence to the Texaco service station one block west at Jefferson and Crawford. A "white jacket" was found at the rear of the station, which the Commission said was Oswald's. Consequently it had to have the killer reverse his path so as to bring him back onto Jefferson. The killer proceeded straight ahead from the rear of the Texaco station, across an alley and into the rear door of the Abundant Life Temple. This view is corroborated by police radio logs.
Shortly after 1:40 pm, Sergeant Hill came on the air: "A witness reports that he last was seen in the Abundant Life Temple about the 400 block. We are fixing to go in and shake it down." On an alternate channel, Car 95 ordered, "Send me another squad over here to Tenth and Crawford to check out this church basement." The Texas Theatre is on the north side of Jefferson Boulevard, approximately fourteen blocks from the scene of the Tippit shooting and twelve blocks from where several witnesses last saw Tippit's killer running toward the Abundant Life Church one block north of Jefferson.
At 1:45 pm, patrol cars bearing at least fifteen officers converged on the Texas Theatre. Patrolman M.N. McDonald, with Patrolmen R. Hawkins, T.A. Hutson and C.T. Walker, entered the front door and searched the balcony. The man arrested was Oswald. He was sitting alone in the rear of the main floor of the theatre near the right center aisle. About six or seven people were seated on the theater's main floor and an equal number in the balcony. McDonald gave the binding proof that Oswald could not have murdered Tippit. Oswald snapped the trigger and his gun could not fire because the firing pin was broken. Oswald's pistol could not fire so he could not have killed Tippit a few minutes before his arrest in possession of the useless pistol which could not be fired under any circumstances.
There is a rule of evidence in American jurisprudence concerning a pattern of events showing a design or plan. "A design, plan or intention may be evidenced circumstantially by conduct showing it. The kinds of conduct usable for this purpose are infinite in variety. In general, however, it may be said that any act which under the circumstances and in the light of experience would indicate a probable design is admissible." Every experienced trial lawyer and criminal investigator is well versed in the doctrine of "the Red Herring". The oldest and most common of tactics is the employment of a device or artifice in leading the minds of pursuers of the true facts, whoever they might be, from the trail of logic leading to the perpetrator of an unlawful act. Such arts and wiles have been with the human race since there has been one. The devices may vary but their pattern never does. It appears that the first and principle red herring in the present case was Lee Harvey Oswald.
The various actions of Oswald, Seymour and Novel were designed to lead anyone looking at them to take the actions as all being the actions of Oswald and thus, lead the investigators to believe Oswald was the perpetrator in the assassination of President Kennedy and that he was acting alone. It further appears that the second and substitute red herring was to go into effect only in the event it should be discovered that a conspiracy existed. The various connections of Oswald with the pro-Castro organization and Seymour with the anti- Castro Cubans and others was likely designed to lead a false trail of evidence to suspects other than the person or persons responsible. In any event, it is not necessary that the theory of the secondary red herring be correct in order to convict Seymour for the murder of President Kennedy. Seymour was weaving a web of culpatory evidence tying Oswald to the assassination for at least five months before it occurred.
Seymour first appeared in the evidence of Attorney Dean Andrews in New Orleans during June and July of 1963. On June 5th, President Kennedy at a meeting with the Vice President and the Governor of Texas agreed to come to Texas during the latter part of November, 1963. After June 5th, the planned trip became known in many quarters. Andrews said Seymour was asking about getting his wife's citizenship papers and changing Marine Corps discharge papers. He was accompanied by two Mexican Americans who were apparent homosexuals. Andrews said Seymour was the "real guy" who killed the President.
Seymour visited Pe a's bar in New Orleans in company with a Latin man and became ill after drinking too much. This occurred around the middle of August, 1963. On September 17th or 18th, he appeared in Mexico City in the company of a Negro and Latin man and the discussed killing of someone was heard and a large sum of money was passed to Seymour. On September 25th, he was seen in Austin, Texas by three witnesses and Seymour told one of them he had been to Governor John Connally's office. On the night of the same day, a man impersonating Oswald called the leader of the Socialist Labor Party in Houston. On the night of September 26th or 27th, Seymour was a visitor under the name Leon Oswald to anti-Castroite, Mrs. Sylvia Odio and her sister in Dallas. He was accompanied by Leopoldo again and a third man called Angelo. Leopoldo told the two women "Leon Oswald" had spoke of the possibility of assassinating Kennedy and that Leon had been in the Marine Corps and was a crack shot.
This evidence standing alone is sufficient enough to convict all three of a conspiracy. Seymour and Novel were seen with Jack Ruby in the Carousel Club and other places in Dallas in October and November by such a large number of witnesses, the investigators could not locate and list them all. However, a large number testified to seeing them together and a Dallas attorney overheard them discussing Seymour's assassination of another person. Seymour impersonated Oswald in an attempt to connect Oswald to a rifle by using his name at a gun shop in Irving. He tried to show Oswald was expecting a large sum of money by saying he was while trying out a car in Dallas. He appeared at a grocery store as Oswald and at a barber shop he made leftist remarks. During the barber shop, furniture store and grocery store appearances, in Irving, Texas, he was accompanied by Marina or a woman impersonating her. Seymour gave the name Oswald and attempted to cash a large check at the grocery store. Seymour, as was necessary, kept his rifle practice dates to sharpen his precision for the assignment.
As the dates for President Kennedy's visit drew near, Seymour's rifle practice sessions increased and two a day were not unusual. The number of disinterested witnesses to his practice sessions were overwhelming. A "sporterized Mauser" was used by Seymour in many of the target practice appearances. A Mauser was brought to the School Book Depository Building, and Truly and two employees were seen with it two days before the assassination. The five police officers who first discovered the rifle on the sixth floor of the Depository Building after the murder described it as a 7.65 Mauser. Eyewitnesses described an assassin firing from the sixth floor of the Depository Building at the moment President Kennedy was killed as resembling Lee Harvey Oswald. Lee Harvey Oswald was shown in a picture taken as the shots were being fired to be standing at the entrance to the Depository Building.
Witnesses further proved that Oswald did not come downstairs past the fifth floor before Baker and Truly met him on the second floor. Then the cheek and hand paraffin test was given Oswald and it proved he had not fired a rifle. The cheek test was negative. After the assassination, a witness sees a man resembling Oswald come out the rear of the Depository Building and run around the building towards Dealey Plaza. Deputy Sheriff Craig sees the man coming from behind the building, crossing Dealey Plaza and entering an automobile which drove under the triple underpass and disappeared from view. Craig identified the person as Lee Harvey Oswald but Oswald was definitely established to have been well into his bus trip to the room on Beckley and away from the scene of the assassination at the time.
There are many rules of evidentiary law which apply, especially to the facts in Seymour's case. First, the rule which provides that if a party fabricates evidence, the act of fabrication may be used against him to show a consciousness of guilt. Next, the guilty actions or conduct of a party may be shown as evidence of guilty knowledge. Then, when a party takes flight or avoids detection, this too may be shown as evidence of a guilty conscious and of guilty knowledge. Also, when circumstances are shown which lead to no other conclusion but the guilt of the party, no direct evidence is necessary. However, in Seymour's case the direct evidence of eyewitnesses who saw him in the act of shooting the President of the United States had been documented.