Report of the President's Commission on the Assassination of President John F. KennedyUnited States. Warren Commission
History
Report of the President's Commission on the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy
United States. Warren Commission
Kennedy, John F. (John Fitzgerald), 1917-1963 -- Assassination; Oswald, Lee Harvey
Two young women, Barbara Jeanette Davis and Virginia Davis, were in an
apartment of a multiple-unit house on the southeast corner of 10th and
Patton when they heard the sound of gunfire and the screams of Helen
Markham. They ran to the door in time to see a man with a revolver
cut across their lawn and disappear around a corner of the house onto
Patton.[C4-531] Barbara Jeanette Davis assumed that he was emptying his
gun as “he had it open and was shaking it.”[C4-532] She immediately
called the police. Later in the day each woman found an empty shell
on the ground near the house. These two shells were delivered to the
police.[C4-533]
On the evening of November 22, Barbara Jeanette and Virginia Davis
viewed a group of four men in a lineup and each one picked Oswald as
the man who crossed their lawn while emptying his pistol.[C4-534]
Barbara Jeanette Davis testified that no one had shown her a picture
of Oswald before the identification and that she had not seen him
on television. She was not sure whether she had seen his picture in
a newspaper on the afternoon or evening of November 22 prior to the
lineup.[C4-535] Her reaction when she saw Oswald in the lineup was that
“I was pretty sure it was the same man I saw. When they made him turn
sideways, I was positive that was the one I seen.”[C4-536] Similarly,
Virginia Davis had not been shown pictures of anyone prior to the
lineup and had not seen either television or the newspapers during the
afternoon.[C4-537] She identified Oswald, who was the No. 2 man in the
lineup,[C4-538] as the man she saw running with the gun: she testified,
“I would say that was him for sure.”[C4-539] Barbara Jeanette Davis
and Virginia Davis were sitting alongside each other when they made
their positive identifications of Oswald.[C4-540] Each woman whispered
Oswald’s number to the detective. Each testified that she was the first
to make the identification.[C4-541]
William Arthur Smith was about a block east of 10th and Patton when
he heard shots. He looked west on 10th and saw a man running to the
west and a policeman falling to the ground. Smith failed to make
himself known to the police on November 22. Several days later he
reported what he had seen and was questioned by FBI agents.[C4-542]
Smith subsequently told a Commission staff member that he saw Oswald
on television the night of the murder and thought that Oswald was the
man he had seen running away from the shooting.[C4-543] On television
Oswald’s hair looked blond, whereas Smith remembered that the man
who ran away had hair that was brown or brownish black. Later, the
FBI showed Smith a picture of Oswald. In the picture the hair was
brown.[C4-544] According to his testimony, Smith told the FBI, “It
looked more like him than it did on television.” He stated further
that from “What I saw of him” the man looked like the man in the
picture.[C4-545]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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