Warren Commission (04 of 26): Hearings Vol. IV (of 15)United States. Warren Commission
History
Warren Commission (04 of 26): Hearings Vol. IV (of 15)
United States. Warren Commission
Kennedy, John F. (John Fitzgerald), 1917-1963 -- Assassination; Oswald, Lee Harvey
Mr. EISENBERG. So you identified the fibers you found on the butt plate
as matching the fibers you found in the shirt, not only as to color but
as to shades within those colors, out of a range going from 25 in the
gray-black or black area to 50 to 100 in the yellow and blue areas?
Mr. STOMBAUGH. That is correct.
Mr. EISENBERG. And degrees of twist were all the same?
Mr. STOMBAUGH. They were the same.
Mr. EISENBERG. Any other characteristics?
Mr. STOMBAUGH. Just type of fibers, they were all cotton fibers.
Mr. EISENBERG. On the basis of these examinations, did you draw a
conclusion as to the probability of the cotton fibers found in the butt
plate having come from the shirt pictured in Exhibit 673?
Mr. STOMBAUGH. Yes, sir; it was my opinion that these fibers could
easily have come from the shirt.
Mr. EISENBERG. Could you go into that in a little more detail, Mr.
Stombaugh?
Mr. STOMBAUGH. Yes. Mainly because the fibers or the shirt is composed
of point one, cotton, and point two, three basic colors. I found all
three colors together on the gun.
Now if the shirt had been composed of 10 or 15 different colors and
types of fibers and I only had found 3 of them, then I would feel that
I had not found enough, but I found fibers on the gun which I could
match with the fibers composing this shirt, so I feel the fibers could
easily have come from the shirt.
Mr. EISENBERG. Mr. Stombaugh, I asked you a hypothetical question
before concerning whether the rifle could have been a mechanism for
transferring fibers from the blanket into the paper bag, and as I
recall you said it could have.
Now, is it inconsistent with that answer that no fibers were found on
the gun which matched the fibers in the blanket?
Mr. STOMBAUGH. No; because the gun was dusted for fingerprints and any
fibers that were loosely adhering to it could have been dusted off.
The only reason, I feel, that these fibers remained on the butt plate
is because they were pulled from the fabric by the jagged edge and
adhered to the gun and then the fingerprint examiner with his brush, I
feel, when brushing and dusting this butt plate, stroked them down into
that crevice where they couldn't be knocked off.
In time these fibers would have undoubtedly become dislodged and fallen
off the gun.
Mr. EISENBERG. Mr. Stombaugh, is there anything you would like to add
to your testimony?
Mr. STOMBAUGH. No, sir; I can think of nothing else.
Mr. DULLES. And you found no other pieces of fabric or other foreign
material on the gun?
Mr. STOMBAUGH. Nothing that I could associate with either the blanket
or the shirt. I found----
Mr. DULLES. Or the paper bag?
Mr. STOMBAUGH. Or the paper bag; no, sir.
Mr. EISENBERG. Just one further question. You said something like, "It
was possible the fibers could have come from the shirt." Could you
estimate the degree of probability that the fibers came from the shirt,
the fibers in the butt plate?
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