6th floor window

Texas school book depository. The JFK assassination crime scene exactly how it was found.

 

At 12:30 PM on November 22, 1963, after Lee Harvey Oswald shot at the President three times but hitting him twice, he took his Mannlicher-Carcano rifle from his sniper’s nest at the southwest corner of the 6th floor of the Texas School Book Depository north along the east aisle to the northwest corner of the floor, then west to the top of the northwest corner staircase, and hid the rifle between some boxes very close to the stairway. He was supposed to take one of the two freight elevators but they were not available.

 

Officer Marion L. Baker, one of the motorcycle escorts riding in the motorcade, had been pretty sure that the shots came from the roof of the TSBD, turns his motorcycle and parked it in front of the building. He turns and runs toward the front steps of the Depository jostling with the spectators at the entranceway. He met up with Roy S. Truly, the TSBD superintendent and right away understood Officer Baker’s intentions, and guided him up the stairwell after finding that both freight elevators were unavailable.

Truly was on his way up the third floor but Baker was just at the second floor landing. Just as the officer leaves the stairway and steps out onto the second floor, he caught the glimpse of a man walking away from him through the second floor door. Baker opened the door and saw the man going towards the second floor lunchroom, drew his gun and accosted the man.

 

By then Truly realized that Office Baker was no longer following him and went down the second floor where he saw Baker talking to a man. Truly recognized him as Oswald, and said so to the officer. Baker let Oswald go and went back up the stairwell to the roof. It was 12:32 PM.

[While many conspiracy theorists insist that Oswald could not have made it from the sixth floor to the second floor lunchroom in less than two minutes, experiments made by the Warren Commission and the HSCA proved that it was possible. If Oswald was just walking down the stairs, it would have taken him anywhere between 70–90 seconds (Chief Justice Earl Warren did a test himself and did not find it difficult even though he was 72 at the time). If Oswald was running, it would have taken him less than 50 seconds.]

 

Baker himself observed that Oswald was not out of breath when he found Oswald, indicating that he had walked down the stairs.] It was at this time that Mrs. R.A. Reid, a clerical supervisor saw Oswald cutting through the big central office space at the second floor, holding a full bottle of Coke that he bought from the Coke machine in the lunchroom. She said a few words saying that the President was shot, to which Oswald mumbled something incoherent in reply. Although Mrs. Reid found a little strange that an order filler like Oswald would be at the office at that time, but shrugged it off while Oswald headed to the stairs leading to the building’s front entrance. It was 12:33 PM.

 

Robert MacNeil, a reporter from NBC who later became a household name by cohosting the popular MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour on PBS, let himself off the press bus following the motorcade and eventually headed to the TSBD in search of a telephone. When he ran up the steps at the entranceway, he saw a young man wearing shirt sleeves coming out the building and asked him where he could find a phone. “Better ask inside,” the man said. [Many assumed that it was Robert MacNeil who encountered Oswald at that time, based on Oswald’s interrogation; he mentioned running into a man “with a crew cut” and asked for a phone. Oswald thought the man was the Secret Service or some other branch of law enforcement. However, MacNeil did not seem to recognize Oswald when the former saw him on television later that day. There is evidence to suggest that the man that Oswald encountered was Pierre Allman, a reporter for WFAA-TV who was there at about the same time and asked a white man for a telephone, just like MacNeil. Allman sported a crew cut, while MacNeil’s hair, although short, did not.]

 

At around 12:39 PM, a Dallas Transit Company bus plying the Marsalis-Munger route was at a complete stop at the corner of Elm at Murphy (just beside Griffin), which was a short distance east of the TSBD. Driver Cecil McWatters let a man aboard the bus after the latter banged on the door although he was not at a bus stop and promptly paid the 25-cent fare. The man seated himself at the second seat back as the bus went west towards the direction of Dealey Plaza. Mary E. Bledsoe, a former landlady of Oswald’s, recognized the young man as a boarder who rented a room from her back in October but had to ask him to leave because she did not like him and his attitude. She was also afraid that Oswald would recognize her.

 

At 12:44 PM, the bus was stuck between Paydras and Lamar St. because of the traffic brought about by the assassination. The driver of a car in front of the bus knocked on the door of the bus and told the driver that he heard from his radio that the traffic jam was due to the President having been shot, much to the disbelief and shock of the passengers. Seeing that the bus would not be going anywhere soon, Oswald decided to ask for a bus transfer, which McWatters was happy to oblige. Mary Bledsoe was relieved and hoped that it would be the last she would see of him. [The bus transfer was later found in his pocket upon his arrest.]

 

At this time a description of the shooter was broadcast simultaneously on both channels of the Dallas police radio based on the information given by Howard Brennan.

At 12:48 PM cabdriver William Whaley pulls his cab up to the cabstand at the Greyhound bus station on the northwest corner of Jackson and Lamar St. He was supposed to go into the station to buy a pack of cigarettes when a man walked towards him asking for a ride. Whaley acquiesced, and Oswald got in the front seat. [This was uncharacteristic of Oswald, who was not known to spend money on cab fare.]

However, it seemed that Oswald was in no hurry because he offered the cab to an elderly lady who walked up at the same time. The lady declined and the cab was on its way. Oswald told Whaley to go to 500 North Beckley.

 

At 12:54 PM Oswald told Whaley to pull over to the curb at the northwest corner of Neeley and North Beckley at the 700 block, not the 500 block that Oswald told Whaley earlier. Oswald gave the cabbie a dollar bill for a 95-cent fare. Oswald then walked three blocks north to his rooming house at 1026 North Beckley in Oak Cliff at approximately 12:59–1:00 PM. [He rented a room there under the name of “O.H. Lee”.]

 

Earlene Roberts, the housekeeper of the rooming house was adjusting the antenna of the TV set to get a clearer picture when Oswald came in. In an interview that she gave shortly afterwards:

I got word about the President being killed...and he come in, in a hurry. I said ‘Ooh, you're in a hurry’. He never parted his lips....he went to his room, got a short coat to put on, and then he walked on out to the bus stop....and that's the last I saw of him. Oswald was in his room long enough to get his .38 Special revolver and hid it by donning a jacket and zipped it up and rushes out at around 1:02 or 1:03 PM.

 

At 1:08 PM, Officer J.D. Tippit was working beat number 78, his normal patrol area in south Oak Cliff. He was going in the general direction of Jefferson Blvd. in central Oak Cliff when he spotted a man wearing a light-colored jacket walking on the right side of the street in front of him and saw that he vaguely fit the physical description of the suspect that was being broadcast over the Dallas police radio network at intervals from 12:45 PM. He radioed dispatch to get further details of the suspect but did not get a reply. He decided to tail Oswald.

 

At 1:11 PM Officer Tippit was driving slowly eastward on East 10th Street—about 100 feet past the intersection of 10th Street and Patton Avenue—when he pulled alongside the man who resembled the police description. Oswald walked over the police squad car, leaned over, and placed his arms on the open window sill. Then the officer began to get out of his car and had not yet removed his gun from his holster when Oswald fired four shots in rapid succession, hitting Tippit three times, killing him instantly, all in view by several witnesses. As they looked on, Oswald trotted off, emptying shells from the pistol (they would be recovered by three of the witnesses), and discarded his jacket, perhaps to prevent identification. It was 1:14 PM.

 

At 1:29 PM the Dallas Police saw a possible connection between the assassination of the President and the murder of Officer Tippit, based on the description given by witnesses of the latter shooting.

 

At around 1:35 PM, Johnny C. Brewer, a 22-year old manager of Hardy’s Shoe Store in West Jefferson Blvd. was listening to his little transistor radio when he saw a young man wearing a brown sports shirt over a white T-shirt, his shirttail out stepping into the lobby of the store behaving very strangely. Brewer thought he recognized the man as a particularly annoying customer who took an inordinate amount of time to buy a cheap pair of black crepe-soled shoes. It turned out that Brewer was right.

 

Brewer observed the man with his back to the street, as if he didn’t want to be seen from the outside. He was also short of breath as if he was running and looked scared as police car after police car screamed past the street. When the man saw that the coast seemed to be clear, he stepped out of the foyer and continued west on Jefferson. His suspicions more than aroused, Brewer decided to go out to the street and see where the man was going. He saw the man going to the Texas Theater at 231 West Jefferson, which was showing a double-feature, Cry of Battle and War is Hell. He then saw the man duck into the theater without paying. It was 1:40 PM.

Brewer rushed to the theater and found Julia E. Postal who was working at the theater. Brewer asked Mrs. Postal if the man who went inside paid for a ticket. “No, by golly, he didn’t,” she replied. After Brewer told Mrs. Postal his story and suspicions and she called the police at around 1:44 PM.

 

According to Mrs. Postal:

So, well, I called the police, and he wanted to know why I thought it was their man, and I said, “Well, I didn't know,” and he said, “Well, it fits the description,” and I have not---I said I hadn't heard the description. All I know is, “This man is running from them for some reason.”

 

Brewer and theater concessionaire Warren “Butch” Burroughs were pretty sure that the man was still inside the theater because the lock bars of the two ground-floor exits were still down.

 

The police showed up in force at 1:48 PM and while many of the police was organizing outside crowd control, the officers ordered the theater staff to turn up the house lights. Brewer spotted Oswald at the center section, and as soon as the lights came on he stood up and scooted to the aisle on his right, but instead of escaping, he sat down in another row.

Brewer opened one of the exit doors and let the police in who were waiting outside and told them where was the man they were looking for.

 

After a brief scuffle, including an attempt to shoot Patrolman M.N. “Nick” McDonald, Lee Harvey Oswald was apprehended shouting “They’re violating my civil rights!” “Police brutality” before he was hauled off amidst a crowd of people shouting “Murderer! Kill the son of a bitch! Hang him!”

 

Oswald was arrested at 1:50 PM.

Done