Justification For Killing (69 page)

Lineup complete, Oswald
returned to Captain Fritz’s office.

Lee Harvey Oswald was
officially charged with the murder of J. D. Tippit. Time on the
official charge: 7:00 p.m.

The police began Oswald’s
third interrogation session. He was still not representing by
counsel, no one was there to represent him. A number of Secret
Service agents, and, at least four FBI Special Agents question him.
Again they do not use a stenographer and do not tape record the
interrogation. One Secret Service agent noted the time was 7:40
p.m.

He placed another phone
call to Ruth Paine. Mrs. Paine will later say the time was 8:00
p.m.

Oswald was taken to the
Robbery and Homicide Office for fingerprinting, again.

Captain Fritz signed a
formal complaint at 11:26 p.m. charging Lee Harvey Oswald with the
murder of John F. Kennedy.

Saturday, November 23,
1963, 12:04 a.m.: Oswald met with the press in the basement
assembly room of the Dallas Police department.

Lee Oswald was moved to
his cell – Cell Number 2 on the fifth floor of the Dallas City
jail. He notices the wall has been freshly painted. The clock at
the end of the hall shows 12:20 a.m.

Ten minutes later he is
fingerprinted once again and photographed. Why another set of
fingerprints?

Oswald was formally
charged with the murder of JFK. The time was 12:34 a.m.

Lee Harvey Oswald was
returned to Captain Fritz’s office for more questioning. Oswald has
not been provided with counsel, and the interrogating officers
keeps no notes and no tape recording were prepared.

He was returned to his
cell on the fifth floor. He notices the clock’s time was 1:10
a.m.

His mother Marguerite
Oswald, and his wife Marina Oswald visit Oswald. Marina says the
time was 1:30 a.m.

He was carried downstairs
for yet another lineup.

Returned to his cell after
his 4th line up. It was now 2:30 a.m.

Dallas detectives come to
Oswald’s cell and obtain samples of hair from all portions of his
body.

Oswald calls Ruth Paine
again. She said it was around 3:15 A.M.

Sunday, November 23, 1963
at 2:15 a.m. - The Dallas FBI receives an anonymous phone call
stating during the transfer to the county jail later this morning
someone was going to kill Lee Harvey Oswald. The Dallas Sheriff’s
office also receives a similar phone call; however, there was no
significant change of plans. They write the calls off as a
prank.

A few minutes after ten
o’clock Dallas Police Chief Jesse Curry stated during a press
conference Oswald would be moved by armored car, and he gave a
general description of the security measures.

Captain Fritz finished
interrogating Oswald and asked what clothes he wanted to wear.
Oswald only chose a black pullover sweater then indicated he was
ready to go. It was almost eleven o’clock.

Dallas police detectives
escorted Oswald down the elevator and into the narrow corridor of
the basement of the city jail. The time was 11:19 a.m.

One minute later Jack Ruby
came down the ramp from Main Street into the basement of the Dallas
City Hall. The Dallas Police Department was housed in the City Hall
building. No police office challenges him nor questions his
authority for being present.

Lee Harvey Oswald was
handcuffed to Detective Leavelle on the right, and Detective Graves
on his left arm. Captain Fritz and Lieutenant Swain followed by
Detective Montgomery lead the procession from the elevator out into
the basement.

No one had seen Jack Ruby
before he shot Oswald. The time was 11:21 a.m. As the bright
television cameras were switched on, blinding the policemen for a
moment, Jack Ruby stepped forward and used a Colt Cobra .38 caliber
snub-nosed revolver – murders Lee Harvey Oswald – all caught live
on nationwide television.

Lee Harvey Oswald died at
Parkland Hospital.

The time: 2:07 Sunday
afternoon, November 24, 1963.

Chapter
Fifty-Two

“
WE’VE GOT TO GET THE HECK
OUT OF DODGE”

Exactly forty-nine
hours and thirty-four minutes earlier. Lee Harvey Oswald left the
Texas School Book Depository and inadvertently bumps into Bud and
Lou. Two short days later Oswald will think these two men were
Secret Service agents.
Darn what luck! Now
Oswald will know what we look like. This is going to make following
him more difficult,
thought
Bud.

Across from TSBD on the
north side of Dealy Plaza Lonnie Joe and Rocky were beginning to
make their way across Elm Street toward the TSBD entrance where
they had just seen Oswald exiting. Bud turned and gave a motion
toward Oswald to his two partners as they hurried toward his
location. He was afraid they might not have seen Oswald coming out
of the building. Rocky nodded his head signaling he had seen Oswald
and had him in sight.

Oswald crossed Houston and
began walking east on Elm Street; Rocky was shadowing him from a
half block back. The crowds were heavy – many panicky people were
fleeing trying to escape the scene of the recent carnage, curious
others were just as swiftly attempting to make their way toward
Dealy Plaza to see what happened.

Rocky blended into the
mass of hysterical humanity becoming just another face in the
crowd. From previous historical reports, Rocky knew Oswald would
head east about seven blocks then board the Dallas City Transit
bus. The bus would continue west toward Dealy Plaza, but after two
blocks, Oswald will get off at the corner of Lamar Street and Elm,
and head for the bus station. Instead of closely following Oswald
Lonnie Joe turns right on Houston Street and goes one block south
to his parked car at the Stephen Austin Hotel. A short three block
drive east on Wood Street finds him at the corner of Lamar. A left
and one block he arrives at the Greyhound bus terminal. A row of
taxis is lined up at the taxi stand.

Lonnie parked where he
could observe anyone entering one of the yellow cabs, realizing it
would be just a matter of minutes until Lee Harvey Oswald walks
down from Lamar and enters William Whatley’s cab. Before Oswald
could arrive Rocky swiftly came walking down the east side of
Lamar, seeing Lonnie Joe parked at the curb on the northwest corner
of Jackson and Lamar, he quickly crosses Jackson and got into the
car with Lonnie Joe.

Only a few minutes
remained until Oswald arrived to ask Whatley to carry him to the
500 block of Beckley Avenue in Oak Cliff.

While Lonnie Joe and Rocky
sat waiting for Oswald to make his appearance at the bus station a
startling development was beginning to take place back at the TSBD,
Bud and Lou had followed Lonnie Joe back to their cars at the
Austin Hotel. Rocky and Lonnie Joe would follow Oswald from the bus
station; meanwhile, Bud and Lou would be driving to the vicinity of
10th Street and Patton. At this location, they are going to witness
the murder of J. D. Tippit.

As Captain Scarburg,
Forrest and Olive Marie turn the northwestern corner of the Texas
School Book Depository from Elm onto Houston they observe something
quite unusual.

As they began to cross
Houston Street to the Dal-Tex building heading towards their truck
and Army Jeep parked in the lot just north of the Dal-Tex building,
they watched a black ’62, four-door, Cadillac, Sedan DeVille pull
up to the curb next to the TSBD building. A young man, of slender
build, with dark hair, wearing a brown ‘Ike’ jacket with dark
trousers, appeared from the back of the building and quickly jumped
into the back seat of the car. The driver appeared to be an older
gentleman with a dark complexion. Black? Hispanic? Asian? They
could not see clearly enough to tell. The car door had not quite
slammed shut when the car ‘tore out like a scalded dog’ headed
south on Houston. A mile or so south and over the Houston Street
viaduct the car and its passengers would be in the suburb of Oak
Cliff.

Forrest turned to the
Captain, “Grandpa, did you see that? Was that Lee Harvey
Oswald...wasn’t that him? Did you all see him?”

“
Yes... yes... but this
can’t be right,” answered Captain Scarburg. “I know he is walking
east on Elm Street at this very minute – Rocky is following
him!”

“
Hurry guys, we’ll follow
that car and see where it goes,” demanded Captain Scarburg
beginning to run north on Houston Street toward their vehicles. By
the time they arrived at the parking lot the station wagon with
“Lee Harvey Oswald” had disappeared into the mass of traffic headed
south on Houston. The Cadillac was completely out of sight. A quick
input of Lonnie Joe’s phone number validated their assumption that
LJ’s Lee Harvey Oswald was at that very minute, getting into Mr.
Whatley’s cab at the Greyhound bus station. Turning back to Forrest
and Olive Marie, “LJ and Rocky are watching Oswald as we speak,
what is the meaning of this? Who was the “Oswald” that just got
into that car?”

“
What do we do,
Grandpa?”

“
Nothing, there is nothing we can do... we will just have to
see if we can put these pieces together when we get back home.
Maybe we can make some sense out of it all once we get Bud, Lou,
Lonnie Joe and Rocky’s reports. Right now we’ve got to get the heck
out of Dodge.” Forrest pulled his cell phone out and put in a call
to Bud and Lonnie Joe. He reminded them that once they had wound up
their surveillance to meet them at the Ponderosa if they have time,
if not, he cautioned, they must be, and he reemphasized - must be
at the cow pasture not later than 11:55 a.m. tomorrow.
Pegasus
will leave at
precisely high noon, with or without them. “Hmmm,” Captain Scarburg
said hearing Forrest talking on his end of the conversation, “I
liked that movie,” as he began quietly singing,

♪“
Do not
forsake me, oh, my darlin’ on this our weddin’
day...
♪

The background song
for the old western favorite, ‘
High
Noon
’ sung originally by Tex Ritter.
Walking up to their Ford truck, the Captain did his best imitation
of the swagger of the star of High Noon, Gary
Cooper.

“
Cut it out, Grandpa, act
your age!” Olive Marie said rolling her eyes.

“
Grandpa, don’t give up
your day job!!” replied Forrest.

TENTH AND PATTON
STREET

Leaving the parking
lot next to the Austin Hotel, Bud and Lou traveled the 2.7 miles to
Tenth
and Patton in a matter of minutes.
The pulled into the driveway of 326, the small white framed,
unoccupied house on the north side of Tenth Street where the night
before a small “For Sale” sign had been, they replaced the sign and
sat and waited. Waited for Lee Harvey Oswald to come walking down
Tenth Street. They knew from the official records that Oswald
killed J. D. Tippit near the corner of Tenth and Patton. Now they
would wait... wait for the inevitable murder they knew would occur.
They both felt bad... they knew it was a murder they could
prevent.

What is this? A black
Cadillac sedan had pulled up to the curb about a half a block west
of the Tenth and Patton intersection. A man got out. “What! This
cannot be!” Bud said. “That is Lee Harvey Oswald, he is supposed to
be walking! Quick Lou, grab the camera with the telephoto lens, we
must get a picture of this.” As Lou began to adjust the camera’s
prodigious, telescopic lens they both noticed this “person” began
walking west toward the next block. That would be Denver Street.
Denver Street was only three blocks from the apartment of Jack Ruby
– was this man attempting to get to Ruby’s apartment? Or was he
trying to leave the impression Ruby’s place was where he was
headed? If so, why get out of the car he was riding in?

“
Hold on Lou, look to your
left... there’s a police car coming down Tenth. That must be
Tippit.”

Both men slide down in
their car seat until only their eyes protruded above the bottom of
the door window. “Lou, you have to get pictures!”

“
Okay, Bud, okay... I’ll
get ’em, don’t worry.”

The police cruiser
approached the man walking on the south sidewalk; it slowed and
pulled up beside “Oswald.” The man on the sidewalk walked over to
the patrol car and began conversing with the policemen through the
open passenger’s window. Officer Tippit opened his driver’s door
and stepped out onto the asphalt pavement. He took one step around
his door and started around the front of the squad car. A passenger
riding in the patrol car slid out onto the street from the driver’s
side also.

This man, without taking
aim fired three bullets into Officer J. D. Tippit. Bud and Lou
would later describe the mystery man as short and fat with black
curly hair. Tippit crumpled on the roadway, probably already dead
before hitting the asphalt; however, the assassin was not
finished... he walked up to the policemen and without hesitation
fired another round, point blank into Officer Tippit’s head. This
one shot tore a gaping hole in the right rear of his head. Almost
an identical wound that was inflicted on President John Kennedy’s
head a mere few minutes earlier at Dealey Plaza; however, the wound
to the President’s head was a bullet to the front that exited in
the rear, on Tippit the bullet entered the rear and exited the
front.