Tuesday, 08 October 2024 13:47

Death to Justice: The Shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald - Part 2

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Paul Abbott's forthcoming book, Death to Justice: The Shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald provides the most in-depth analysis yet on the murder of the alleged assassin, Lee Oswald. Using witness statements, evidence and visual records, that are scrutinized for the first time in this book. New light is also shed on Oswald's actual shooting, proving that the the topic, largely seen as the most open-and-shut aspect of that weekend in November of 1963, is not. Below is an excert from the book:


CIVILIANS OVERLOOKED

Having laid out the geography of City Hall and the Annex Building basement levels and examining the many points not guarded, therefore could be accessed through, it is now important to focus on the accounts of those present in and around the basement prior to and during Lee Oswald’s shooting.  Given there were just under three hundred statements made regarding the Oswald shooting, it will be useful to group as many present as possible into categories: citizens, law enforcement, and media. And beyond those, specific instances and locations of events. With this approach, we can focus in depth on the many narratives that took place across City Hall during the hours leading up to Oswald’s shooting. 

The most under-represented cohort of witnesses that day were the civilian employees of both City Hall and the Dallas Police Department. While it is true that none were present to directly witness Jack Ruby shooting Oswald, their testimonies regarding the preparations for the transfer and the aftermath provide important pieces to the overall picture of the puzzle, as it were. However, other than in records of the DPD investigation and the Warren Commission, there is little to no reference to be found regarding these people and their stories – until now. 

Below is the list of non-Police and media personnel that were at or outside City Hall that morning and who provided at least one statement to the subsequent investigations:

 

Fred Bieberdorf – First Aid Attendant

Wilford Ray Jones - Bystander

Frances Cason - Dispatcher

Edward Kelly - Maintenance

Napoleon Daniels – Former police officer

Louis McKinzie - Porter

Nolan Dement - Bystander 

Johnny F. Newton – Jail Clerk

Doyle Lane – Western Union Supervisor

Edward Pierce – Engineer

Harold Fuqua – Parking Attendant

Alfreadia Riggs – Porter

Michael Hardin – Ambulance Driver

   John Servance – Head Porter

 

   Jerry D. Slocum – Jail Clerk

   

Any reasons behind the seemingly random nature of who was and was not interviewed by which investigation remains anybody’s guess particularly when it came to who the DPD did not interview. Consider, for instance, how crucial the testimonies of Dallas locals Fred Bieberdorf, who provided Oswald with first aid after he had been shot, and Michael Hardin, who drove the ambulance that rushed Oswald to Parkland Hospital, ought to have been considered but were not taken. 

That aside, we will first focus on a group of workers who were employed to ensure the smooth running of all infrastructure across both buildings of the City Hall complex including the basement car park. They were:

Harold ‘Hal’ Fuqua

Alfreadia Riggs

Edward Kelly

John Servance

Louis McKinzie

Edward Pierce

For the porter and parking workers, their base of work was clearly the car park in the City Hall basement. Their jobs were focused on keeping the area in order, getting police personnel cars parked or ready for use and keeping the general public from parking down there – which was most prevalent when it came to jail inmate arrivals and departures. For the maintenance and engineer workers, their work would take them to all parts of both buildings including the utilities spaces across the sub-basement level. There was also a female standing with the workers who was identified as a telephone operator by the name of Ruth – surname unknown – and it is not evident what her movements were after that point. 

Once the search of the basement began, all media personnel were apparently cleared out but the City Hall workers remained in the far eastern end of the basement where the stairs and elevators went up to the Annex Building, having already stopped work to watch the comings and goings in preparation for the transfer. To this point, Harold Fuqua even testified to the FBI of observing car trunks being opened and searched.(1)

Edward Pierce also thought they could stay and watch the proceedings that morning up to and including Oswald’s transfer if they kept out of the way. On the face of it, this was a fair assumption given where they were all positioned: nowhere near the transfer route and out of sight of the television cameras. But they were ordered to clear out of the basement and not just for the time it took police personnel to search it. In his own testimony to the DPD, it was Reserve Officer Brock who gave these orders.(2) And presumably this was done a few minutes after he arrived in the basement for assignment at around 9:30am.

Collectively, it is clear that the workers followed this directive by taking the service elevator up to the First Floor of the Annex Building. This was because the two public elevators had their power cut and were not functioning. Porter, Louis McKinzie, who was responsible that day for running the service elevator took the group up that way to the First Floor. From there the group would walk across to the City Hall Building to find a place to watch the transfer. Soon, Brock called for McKinzie to bring the service elevator back down so he (McKinzie) could escort, according to Brock’s own testimony to the Warren Commission, ‘one of the TV men over there, (who) wanted to go up the fourth – fifth floor to do some kind of work with the equipment there.’ Both Brock and McKinzie would corroborate that the repair man only spent a few minutes doing whatever it was he was doing up in the upper floors of the Annex Building before being brought back down by McKinzie. There is no testimony from any of the media personnel present that day to explain who this person was and what it was they were doing. After that, Brock told McKinzie to leave the service elevator locked on the First Floor and not bring it back down to the basement. McKinzie did so by locking it in place with a key, then hung it on a hook within as was common practice. In his testimony to the Warren Commission, the time was 10:00am.(3) He then walked along the hallway on the First Floor of the Annex Building to the City Hall Building. McKinzie confirmed in his testimony to the Warren Commission that there were three ‘passageways’ that connected the two buildings. They were on the First (Ground), Second and Third Floor and each could be locked with a metal, accordion-style expanding gate. Over nights and on the weekends, these gates were routinely locked so it is easy to imagine that they were in all probability locked on that day too and that is when Edward Pierce noticed as much and at least unlocked it so he and the others could get through.

Once in the City Hall Building, the workers, not wanting to miss any of the happenings surrounding Oswald’s transfer, had stayed on the First Floor, and walked to the Commerce Street entrance. From there, behind the locked glass doors they stood and watched the activity outside on Commerce Street and waited to watch Lee Oswald be driven away. This is where Louis McKinzie would rejoin them. 

It appears that the group stayed together in this location for up to one hour. At which point, Harold Fuqua(4) and Alfreadia Riggs(5) decided to leave to find a television to watch the coverage of the transfer instead. 

A Circuitous Journey

Having decided to leave the other workers at the Commerce Street entrance, Harold Fuqua and Alfreadia Riggs set off to find a television. Having both been long-serving employees of City Hall (Fuqua – 6 years, Riggs – 7 years) they would have known that the nearest television was down in the Locker Room in the sub-basement level – two floors directly below. However, given they had been ordered out of the basement as a security measure, and Oswald had still not been transferred, it is understandable that they chose to avoid taking a direct route to the Locker Room as it would have likely resulted in them being turned away or worse, in trouble.

Instead, they retraced the way they had come with the other workers from the Annex Building. From there, they continued along the First Floor of the Annex Building to the far eastern end where the elevators and stairwell were. As McKinzie had left the service elevator locked on the First Floor, it was in position for them to walk through it and exit through the rear door and out to the fire escape and passage that led directly to the outer door. According to both Riggs and Fuqua in their testimonies to the Warren Commission, it was Riggs who used the keys that McKinzie had left hung up in the elevator to unlock the outer door. He kept them with him but said that he made sure the alleyway door was locked by shaking on the door handle. This is an important point that we will revisit later. 

Riggs and Fuqua walked through an alleyway to Main Street and began to walk west – along the front of the Annex Building. They then came to the top of the ramp that led from the street down to the basement. This is where Officer Roy Vaughn had been standing guard for at least the last hour. And it was this point where Jack Ruby was most commonly purported as entering the basement in time to shoot Oswald. We will also revisit this location and the comings and goings of people there in more detail. However, Vaughn did confirm in his testimony that ‘some city hall janitorial’ staff approached on foot from the east (6) – which is the direction Riggs and Fuqua would have come from. And they said they stopped at the top of the ramp for only a few moments to look down into the basement before walking on. Vaughn also corroborated this. 

Riggs and Fuqua rounded the corner of Main and Harwood Streets and stopped below the steps up to City Hall. According to Riggs, Fuqua asked him to go down the steps and check to see if ‘it would be all right for us to go down because we (they) were under the impression they had the police – had a police officer on the door.’ Riggs did so and discovered that there weren’t any officers guarding the basement entrance from there into City Hall so he turned around and told Fuqua to come down. This further reiterates the fact that all public entrances into City Hall that morning were not guarded and therefore secure. Riggs and Fuqua walked down the hallway and got as far as the door before the jail office. There they got close enough to see all of the media assembled. They turned right and headed down the corridor that led to the Records Room, Assembly Room, and the stairs down to the Locker Room. Once down there they encountered someone who was all alone. Let’s pick it up with Riggs’ recollection to the Warren Commission’s counsel, Leon Hubert with what happened next:

Hubert:  You mean you went down into the locker room? That is where all the policemen have their lockers and there’s a recreation room and television and ---

Riggs:     Yes, sir, and television and – and there was a jail attendant down there, actually he didn’t work in the jail office, he’s not a policeman, but he works in the jail office. 

Hubert:  What is his name? Do you know?

Riggs:     No, sir. I really don’t. He told us that he didn’t think they were going to show it on television. He imagined they were going to run a tape and show it later on. Said, “Well, we should have stayed up there. Maybe we could have seen him when they brought him out—”

Riggs and Fuqua testified to the Warren Commission on the same day – April 1st 1964. This was no coincidence as witnesses were organised into categories, particularly when the WC lawyers travelled to take testimonies. Riggs gave his testimony at 10:30am that day and Fuqua, at 3:55pm. Yet Counsel Hubert, who interviewed both men, did not pursue the question of the unidentified man in the Locker Room with Fuqua. But thankfully, Fuqua corroborated the encounter with the man and that he said he thought the transfer would be shown as reruns only. Yet, Hubert did not ask Fuqua if he could identify him. It can only be chalked up as another thread of questioning that was cut frustratingly early at the quick. So, we are left with some clear questions to consider: 

-       Who was the man Riggs and Fuqua encountered in the Locker Room? Per Riggs’ speculation it well could have been any kind of a police officer that he saw or associated with the jail office. And this could feasibly have been any officer from reserve to patrol officer to detective – as all had reason to be there during normal times of operation. But, as we will uncover in later chapters, there is a clear candidate for who the man was that Riggs and Fuqua encountered.

-       Why would the man urge Riggs and Fuqua to go somewhere else to observe Oswald’s transfer? The locker room was large enough for them all to sit and watch whatever coverage was broadcast so what was the big deal with redirecting Riggs and Fuqua away?

Riggs bought a can of chilli from a vending machine, and he ate from it as he and Fuqua left there to go back upstairs. According to both men, they stood in the Harwood Street hallway and were there when Oswald was shot. They both would testify to not seeing it take place, just to hearing and seeing the chaos that broke out. In terms of other people mentioned so far in this book, their position was approximately a couple of metres behind cameraman, James Davidson. 

After the shooting, Riggs and Fuqua kept out of the way but were able to note that all entrances had been sealed. When things had calmed down, Fuqua testified to the WC that he asked Captain George Lumpkin to escort he and Riggs across the basement car park to the service elevator and stairwell. None of the seven City Hall workers listed earlier in this chapter were interviewed for the Dallas Police investigation, despite being among the most accessible of people to do so. Perhaps, it was because they were all presumed to have not been in the immediate vicinity of the shooting. But Riggs and Fuqua were mentioned in others’ testimony to the DPD such as Roy Vaughn. And others in the basement hallway would have seen them to identify them if only for the uniforms Riggs and Fuqua were wearing. Yet they were still not noted and considered for interviewing. But this does not diminish the fact that their movements reinforce the point of how lax security was across multiple points of the City Hall complex. 

The Attorney

Dallas Attorney, Tom Howard’s law firm was situated in one of the buildings across Harwood Street from City Hall. On the morning of Oswald’s transfer, as he would have done, no doubt, many times before, he walked over to the City Jail. On this occasion, he would tell the FBI, he did so because he had received a call from someone in the jail office on behalf of someone else, presumably an inmate.(7) He was able to enter down into the basement level of City Hall from Harwood Street – down the same steps that Harold Fuqua and Alfreadia Riggs had. He did so with the intention of taking the elevator up to the Fifth Floor from the jail office. The obvious inference being that the main entrance from Harwood Street would have been locked – like the ones on Commerce and Main Streets. 

Having walked down to the jail office, Howard testified that he did get to the elevator there and punch the button to go to the Fifth Floor. He said that he then turned to someone he presumed was a detective and asked if they were ‘fixing to take him (Oswald) out of here?’ Oddly, Howard couldn’t recall if the detective said anything in response. 

In any event, Howard did not go up in the elevator. Instead, he found his way back out into the hallway. Soon he would notice a ‘sudden jostling and shoving among the newsmen’ and then he heard a shot. He did not see Lee Oswald or Jack Ruby or any of the shooting. Instead, according to his own words, he turned around and simply walked back along the corridor he had entered from, then out onto Harwood Street and stood on the sidewalk. There he would confer with his legal partner, Coley Sullivan, before returning over the road to their offices. 

 Using the testimony of others, we can apply some firm question marks to Howard’s one and only account of his movements in the City Hall basement in the moments prior to Oswald emerging and being shot. 

Detective Homer McGee told both the DPD(8) and FBI investigations(9) that he was standing inside the jail office. There was an information desk and window which was opposite the elevator that faced out into the hallway. He noticed Tom Howard walk up to the window out in the hallway from either the Commerce or Harwood Street doors. Recall the layout of the basement because, even at that junction, it really was possible to access the basement level from the steps that ran down under both the Commerce and Harwood Street steps. According to McGee, Oswald then emerged from the elevator to be led out for the transfer. As that was happening, McGee said that Howard waved through the window, said that he’d seen all he’d needed to see and walked back up the hallway. Moments later, Oswald was shot. 

Detective H. Baron Reynolds was the only other person to positively identify Tom Howard in the ‘lobby’ outside of the jail office in the moments just prior to the shooting.(10) And all Reynolds could add was that Howard was standing behind two uniformed officers. Tom Howard is just another case that exemplifies how easy the basement in City Hall was to access, right up to when Oswald was shot. However, what is even more strange about the case of Howard is the fact that, in barely a matter of hours, he would be acting as Jack Ruby’s lawyer. 

If  Detectives McGee, and to a lesser degree, Reynolds, are to be believed, they put massive holes in Howard’s account of him being in the jail office, getting as far as the elevator, saying something to a ‘detective’ but not recalling what was said to him. So, if Howard was lying about his movements in the crucial moments prior to the shooting, the question must be asked, why? His stake in the events of the day would apparently only come into play after Ruby had shot Oswald. He and his movements were allegedly of no consequence before that point of time. He could have had genuine reason, as a defence attorney, for being at City Hall Jail. His offices were across the road and clients of his were in the jail. But the coincidence of him being there at that point in time and his saying that he had ‘seen everything he had needed to see’ before exiting certainly is curious. 

We will revisit the matter of Tom Howard in a later chapter but while we are focusing on the vicinity of the jail office, let’s account for the two civilian clerks that were working in there on the morning of Oswald’s shooting.

The Rest

Johnny F. Newton(11) and Jerry D. Slocum(12) were not police officers - both were civilian clerks for the jail office. According to their testimonies, that morning was business as usual in terms of the processing of incoming and outgoing jail inmates. Neither testified to venturing away from their workstations, down to the Locker Room for instance, or that they had received any special instructions nor experienced any changes to their workplace. Only Newton would comment about the build-up of police officers and media and his impressions of the shooting aftermath. However, one of his and Slocum’s colleagues, Information Desk clerk, Melba Espinosa, according to Detective Buford Beaty, was not allowed to enter the jail office, where she worked.(13) Frustratingly and confusingly, she would be turned away near the basement car park giving her claim as one of the few people on the receiving end of any kind of strict police guard work that morning. 

Nolan Dement was one of many civilians who had stopped on Commerce Street across from the ramp opening. It appears that the DPD chose to interview him because he had a camera, and they wanted to ascertain if he had been in the basement and taken any pictures there. He testified that he had not entered the basement and that he did not take any pictures ‘or have anything of worth for the investigation’.(14) He was one of only two bystanders who were interviewed. One can only wonder again why, if Dement was deemed important enough to interview, then why were a multitude of others who witnessed the before, during and aftermath of the shooting overlooked? The other bystander interviewed, Wilford Jones, wandered between the Main Street and Commerce Street ramp openings before and after the Oswald shooting. He was interviewed by the DPD and stated that he was near the Main Street ramp entrance before walking around City Hall to the Commerce Street entrance.(15) When the shooting took place, he walked to a nearby parking lot for no apparent reason before going back to the Main Street entrance where he saw former police officer, Napoleon Daniels, who we will focus on in a later chapter. Interestingly, he recalled then seeing Attorney Tom Howard telling reporters that he heard of the Oswald shooting while on his way home.

The remaining civilians listed in the table earlier in this chapter will be discussed in the context of what they were interviewed for by at least one of the subsequent investigations. However, as we have already touched on, there are numerous people that witnessed the events that enveloped the shooting of Lee Oswald but were not called on for any of the investigations. So, as we continue to peel back the layer of the onion by scrutinising the many narratives that took place across Dallas City Hall on the morning of November 24, those that have lain obscured will finally be focused on to help piece together more of the overall puzzle. 

Last modified on Wednesday, 09 October 2024 13:02
Paul Abbott

Paul Abbott is from Perth, Western Australia and has been fascinated with the assassination of President Kennedy since the age of 11. Growing up, he would gather all pieces of information he could find on the subject, which before the internet, were slim pickings in Australia.

Over the years, he has benefited from the hard and detailed work of many others to shed light on the facts of JFK assassination but the indexing of the remaining Garrison folders is his first contribution to the research community.

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