John Platko wrote:proudfootz wrote:I suspect Frazier was mistaken - perhaps recalling another occasion.
The bag Frazier describes could not have concealed a 40 inch rifle.
really?
Oddly, this trophy being paraded outside of the TSBD was not photographed at the so-called 'sniper nest' where it was supposedly found. Another weak link in the chain of evidence.
But this paper wrapping displayed by the police is not an ordinary grocery bag as described by Frazier.
So, yes. Really.
It's certainly true that the bag Frazier describes is too small for the rifle, but the bag Frazier describes is a silly big bag
for lunch. And it's not that he just saw a bag but there's the curtain rod story that we have to account for.
We just have a he said/he said here: Oswald told police he simply brought his lunch in a sack.
Asked him if he brought a sack out when he got in the car with this young fellow that hauled him and he said, “Yes.”
“What was in the sack?”
“Well, my lunch.”
“What size sack did you have?”
He said, “Oh, I don’t know what size sack. You don’t always get a sack that fits your sandwiches. It might be a big sack.”
“Was it a long sack?”
“Well, it could have been.”
“What did you do with it?”
“Carried it in my lap.”
“You didn’t put it over in the back seat?”
“No.” He said he wouldn’t have done that.
“Well, someone said the fellow that hauled you said you had a long package which you said was curtain rods you were taking to somebody at work and you laid it over on the back seat.”
He said, “Well, they was just mistaken. That must have been some other time he picked me up.”
That’s all he said about it.
https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.htm ... PageId=315
I don't know why Frazier told this curtain rod story. It seems to have come out when Frazier was arrested as an accomplice.
There were curtain rods in the Paine garage, so perhaps Oswald mentioned that he'd like to pick them up at some time for his room. Perhaps Frazier jumped on that idea because he had some previous experience at a job in a department store where he handled curtain rods.
And we have
two people who saw Oswald put a package in the car that day.
from
Linnie Randle was Wes Frazier's sister. The two lived together in her house in Irving, Texas. Wes Frazier was one of Oswald's co-workers and since the Paine residence, where Marina Oswald was staying, was near Randle's house, Oswald would ride with Frazier to Irving every Friday night and the back to Dallas on Monday morning. The morning before the assassination, Oswald asked Frazier if he could have a ride to Irving to pick up curtain rods from the Paine's for his room in Dallas (2H222). Frazier said he could. The next morning as Oswald walked over to Randle's house, Randle happened to be looking out her window and saw Oswald carrying a heavy package (2H251). Frazier also saw the package in his back seat on their way to work. He asked Oswald what was in the package and Oswald said it was the curtain rods (CE 2009). When questioned later about the length of the package, both Frazier and Randle testified that is about 27 inches long while the longest part of the rifle when disassembled is 34.8 inches (CE 2009, 2H250, 3H395).
While Frazier testified the bag was only 24 inches long, give or take several inches, he made it clear he was very unsure about the length of the bag and constantly mentioned that he "didn't pay too much attention" (2H226-7, 240). When Oswald told Frazier it was curtain rods he remembered "the main reason he [Oswald] was going over there that Thursday afternoon when he was to bring back some curtain rods, so I didn't think any more about it when he told me that" (2H226). Oswald "had never lied to me before so I never did have any reason to doubt his word" (13H441). So Frazier clearly was not paying attention to the package. He even stated in an affidavit that the bag from the Depository "could have been the sack or package which he saw in the possession of Oswald on the morning of November 22, 1963, but that he does not feel he is in a position to definitely state that this original is or is not the sack" (CE 2009). [Emphasis added]
Randle's testimony was inconsistent. Randle drove over to the Paine house while police were there on the afternoon of November 22. Detective Stovall testified that she told him "that her brother had taken Oswald to work that morning and she said that she had seen him put some kind of a package in the back seat of her brother's car. She told us it could have been a rifle is what she said" (7H192 — emphasis added). She also stated on the day of the assassination that the bag was "approximately 3 feet by 6 inches" (Commission Document 5, p. 320). Randle later participated in a simulation with an FBI agent walking toward her kitchen window as Oswald had, and estimated the bag to be 27 inches long. She then stuck with that estimate (Commission Document 7, pp. 298-9). On the day of the assassination she stated (in the words of an FBI interviewer) that "the Dallas Police Department had exhibited to her some brown package paper, however she had not been able to positively identify it as being identical with the above-mentioned brown package, due to the fact she had only observed the brown package from her residence window at a distance" (Commission Document 5, p. 320, emphasis added). Later when she testified, she was very sure that about the length of the bag.
So on the one hand we might conclude: Yes, there was a big package, but the two weren't too good at estimating it's length. That happens, my wife is always underestimating size.
Not exactly sure why Randle would support this story for her brother that helped get him off the hook.
And on the other hand we might conclude: there was no package because there's no witness to Oswald bringing in a package to work. We must then think both Frazier and his sister were wrong about the day this happened - even though this happened on the same day JFK was killed, so they were recalling what happened that morning as they watched the events with Oswald unfold.
There are a lot of possibilities. Were they 'recalling' or were they just trying to get themselves out of a pickle?
I can't wrap my mind around "the other hand." But Frazier's insistence on the size of the package is interesting. I'm a pretty stubborn person who doesn't easily let go of something I believe to be true but if I found myself in the situation Frazier found himself that day, I would have to admit that I can't be exactly sure of the size of the package - and I'm sure my bias influences why I think "on the one hand" is the more reasonable conclusion.
Yes, it's a bit of a puzzle to try and solve at this distance in time. If Frazier and his sister were inventing or going along with a story simply to get themselves out of trouble, then why insist the alleged bundle was too small to hide a rifle? Maybe that was their way of resisting. In the end it didn't matter how big or small they said it was, the narrative against Oswald was fixed and little details didn't matter much.
Unlike the 'open and shut case' imagined by some, there is a lot of conflicting testimony and evidence which renders making and quick conclusion unsafe.
by 
