So here it is, something I did not think I would be putting together, a book! Especially after finishing my papers just over a year ago, ‘blame’ Malcolm Blunt who said to me in June 2022 “You should do a book.” It meant more research and many more hours of work, which enabled me to conclude on some things I had not thought thought of, like the fingerprints, palm prints and above all the connection between the rifle and Lee Oswald on Nov 22nd.
That editing and finalising the book was going to be such a slog (10 weeks) and that stressful was unbeknown to me, but hey I am an experience richer. Same goes with publishing it thru Amazon, which was virgin territory as well.
I hope you enjoy it, like the ones who have ordered it already!
I had the pleasure once again to talk with Doug Campbell about my forthcoming book “Prayer Man: More Than A Fuzzy Picture”. This time we talk about what happened in front and inside the TSBD. Click the picture below to go to Spreaker to listen to the podcast.
I will be doing a one hour presentation remotely at the 27th Annual JFK Lancer Conference!
This event is being held on November 17th – 19th, 2023 at the Lorenzo Hotel, Dallas, Texas.
So when I finished my papers last year in June Malcolm Blunt said to me “you should do a book”. And that was something I had not planned on doing at all. I was completely against it when I set off on this ‘journey’ of writing it all down in 2016. I enjoyed the approach of the interactive papers with its inserted evidence right there and then.
Had it been anyone else I would not have heeded much notice to that remark, but in this case I did nothing until September 2022 and then started to look into what needed to be done to add and turn it into a book. Producing a book is not really something I have done before, it’s my first.
So here goes….
Since Autumn 2022; the fingerprints, palm prints and nitrate tests have been dug into. Oswald’s psych reports at Youth House in 1953 as well. There will be partial transcripts of interviews done by Ed Ledoux with Roy Edward Lewis in 2018 & 2022. On top of that some serious finds added purely based on the documented evidence at hand from the Malcolm Blunt archive and not brought forward before on this website or anywhere else.
The e-book version will have all its evidence ( 1,200 foot notes) linked but for the hard copy book version I refer you to this website’s special section of the book. Which is a set of pages that has the book chapters’ numbered links to all evidence neatly organised for those that are interested. So you can use your electronic device at the same time to check out the foot notes while reading on that particular page of your hard copy.
This section I put together instead of having to go back and forth within book.
The book will have three chapters:
Prayer Man.
Inside the TSBD.
The Interrogations.
Setting up this whole thing is virgin territory to me and took a few weeks longer than originally thought, but now I hope to release the e-book by July 10th and the hard copy version to be released a week later.
Time for another chat with Doug Campbell & Rob Clark of the Quick Hits podcast. I think it was my fifth time and as always great fun to attend to. Talked about a few bits that will appear in the forthcoming book, which I hope will see the light of day by the end of this month in e-book shape and a hard copy version to follow in June/July.
Click the pic below to take you to that episode. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did in partaking it.
I had a chat with Robbie Robertson two weeks ago. Was not really in the mood, but got ‘chatted’ into doing it. I ended up talking about the fingerprints, palm prints and the nitrate tests and also a bit on Oswald at Youth House. An article on that is in the works. It is an element that had to be added to the interrogations chapter.
Furthermore I am working hard on the book. I hope to have it done in electronic form in about 2-3 weeks (famous last words….). A physical copy follows in and around May/June. There will be some exclusive content in that book. Watch this space.
Also I am doing another Quick Hits show with Doug Campbell and Rob Clark in April, so more to come.
The paraffin casts are interesting as it appeared to be able to confirm whether Oswald had fired a weapon or not. I will share all my available information that I have managed to gather and my special thanks go to Malcolm Blunt for the documentation. I thank Terry Martin for the scans of the hallway photographs. I also used documents from NARA, MFF, AARC, History Matters and UNT.
The Warren Report states on page 561: In fact, however, the test is completely unreliable in determining either whether a person has recently fired a weapon or whether he has not.
A positive reaction is, therefore, valueless in determining whether a suspect has recently fired a weapon. Conversely, a person who has recently fired a weapon may not show a positive reaction to the paraffin test, particularly if the weapon was a rifle. A revolver is so constructed that there is a space between the cylinder, which bears the chambers, and the barrel. When a revolver is fired, nitrate-bearing gases escape through this space and may leave residues on the hand. In a rifle, however, there is no gap between the chamber and the barrel, and one would therefore not expect nitrates to be deposited upon a person’s hands or cheeks as a result of his firing a rifle.
An agent of the FBI, using the C2766 rifle, fired three rounds of Western 6.5-millimeter Mannlicher-Carcano ammunition in rapid succession. A paraffin test was then performed on both of his hands and his right cheek. Both of his hands and his cheek tested negative.
The paraffin casts of Oswald’s hands and right cheek were also examined by neutron-activation analyses at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Barium and antimony were found to be present on both surfaces of all the casts and also in residues from the rifle cartridge cases and the revolver cartridge cases. Since barium and antimony were present in both the rifle and the revolver cartridge cases, their presence on the casts were not evidence that Oswald had fired the rifle.
In short the Warren Commission wasn’t too impressed with the paraffin tests from an evidentiary point of view. Oswald, while working at the TSBD that morning definitely had gotten into contact with printing ink (nitrates). Which would have been enough to have contaminated the paraffin test from the beginning.
W.E. Barnes
Jim Murray/Black Star. Scanned by Terry Martin/ROKC from the Richard E Sprague archive at NARA.
When W.E. Barnes is photographed in the corridor after applying the casts it becomes clear that he has an empty(!) tin of wax in his hands (here is a close-up), but there are no paraffin casts on display, allegedly he dropped these off on the fourth floor, as per his WC testimony, and the three of them did their appearance in the corridor with the evidence afterwards.
Mr. BELIN. At the time you carried back the paraffin casts?
Mr. BARNES. No. We came back and got the palm prints after I delivered the paraffin tests upstairs.
W.E. ‘Pete’ Barnes and his empty tin of paraffin wax. Pic.: Ft Worth Star Telegram.
Effectiveness of a paraffin cast on a cheek to determine whether a rifle had been fired
W. E. ‘Pete’ Barnes who had been doing these tests for quite a few years, had not applied this test to a suspect’s face ever before. He did this test on orders of Will Fritz. And it would not have made any difference in determining whether Oswald had fired a rifle that day! For this I refer you to Barnes’ W.C. testimony.
Mr. BELIN. Well, let me ask you this. Of the paraffin tests that you have made, how many have you made of a cheek or cheeks?
Mr. BARNES. One.
Mr. BELIN. Was that with Lee Harvey Oswald?
Mr. BARNES. It was.
Mr. BELIN. Other than that, you have never made a paraffin test of anyone’s cheek?
Mr. BARNES. No.
Mr. BELIN. Any particular reason why you might not have in any other case?
Mr. BARNES. It has never been requested of me before.
Mr. BELIN. Based on your knowledge and information about the science of paraffin tests, do you know whether or not it is a common practice or not a common practice to make it of one cheek?
Mr. BARNES. It is not a common practice.
Mr. BELIN. Any particular reason it is not a common practice that you can think of or know of?
Mr. BARNES. Firing a revolver, should he fire a revolver, I would say the revolver most likely would be far enough away where powder residue wouldn’t reach his cheek.
Mr. BELIN. What about a rifle?
Mr. BARNES. Firing a rifle, you get your chamber enclosed with steel metal around it, and the chances of powder residue would be very remote.
Mr. BELIN. Have you fired a bolt-action rifle at all before?
Mr. BARNES. Many times.
Mr. BELIN. How close would the chamber be to the cheek as you would be looking through the sight of the gun?
Mr. BARNES. Be several inches to the rear of the chamber.
Mr. BELIN. Would this have any effect on the paraffin test at all?
Mr. BARNES. It sure would.
Mr. BELIN. What about telescopic sights? Would that push your face back further or not?
Mr. BARNES. Push it even further back.
Mr. BELIN. Would this have an effect on the paraffin test?
Mr. BARNES. The further you get from the chamber, the less possibility of getting powder residue on it would be.
A little later during the same testimony.
Mr. BELIN. Did Lee Harvey Oswald say anything to you as you were removing these casts, that you remember?
Mr. BARNES. Very little, other than what I repeated to you before, that he knew what I was trying to do, and that I was wasting my time that he didn’t know anything about what we were accusing him of.
Carl Day says pretty much the same during his C. testimony:
Mr. DAY. I directed them to make it, and also paraffin casts or just of a piece of paraffin on the left side of the face to see if there were any nitrates there.
Mr. BELIN. On the left side or right side of the face?
Mr. DAY. Right side.
Mr. BELIN. Do you know what the results of the paraffin tests were?
Mr. DAY. The test on the face was negative.
Mr. BELIN. Had you ever done a paraffin test on a face before?
Mr. DAY. No; actually–had it not been for the particular type of case and this particular situation here we would not have at this time. It was just something that was done to actually keep from someone saying later on, “Why didn’t you do it?” Actually, in my experience there, shooting a rifle with a telescopic sight there would be no chance for nitrates to get way back or on the side of the face from a rifle.
Mr. BALL. Is it usual to find any trace of nitrate on the face if a rifle has been fired?
Mr. HICKS. That is the first time that I had the opportunity to make a paraffin test on a person’s face. Mr. BALL. You never made one before? Mr. HICKS. Never before.
Mr. BALL. The other tests were always on the hands?
Mr. HICKS. Yes, sir.
Mr. BALL. Was there some reason for that?
Mr. HICKS. I had never had the occasion arise that I know of where anyone had that suggested, that a paraffin test be made of a cheek. On other occasions they were only interested in the hand.
The admissions during the W.C. testimonies of Barnes and Day mean that the paraffin cast of Oswald’s right cheek was not going to give them the confirmation of Oswald’s connect to the rifle.
Paraffin test before or after fingerprints?
Then there is the small, but pivotal matter of whether the fingerprints and palm print were taken before the paraffin tests. During Barnes’ testimony something jumps out. And that is whether the finger prints and palm prints were administered before or after the paraffin tests. If they did them before then these paraffin tests would have been useless from the beginning due to the nitrates from the ink being present.
Mr. BELIN. Sergeant, did you make any other tests or obtain any other evidence or information from Lee Harvey Oswald other than the paraffin that you made?
Mr. BARNES. I obtained palm prints from Lee Harvey Oswald. Mr. BELIN. When did you do this?
Mr. BARNES. Immediately before we made—no, immediately after, I am sorry, immediately after we made the paraffin test. Mr. BELIN. I would assume you did it afterwards?
Mr. BARNES. That is right. It was after we made the tests.
Barnes is also interviewed for the HSCA on April 17th 1978. And he does not misspeak again and sticks to the order of the paraffin casts being taken first on Oswald and then having his finger and palm prints taken. At the end of the statement it says that J.B. Hicks was not present to be interviewed since he had left town to go fishing.
The findings get repeated in another FBI document alongside the mention of Louie L Anderson, of the Dallas City Council Criminal Investigative Laboratory who washed and taken the paraffin casts home since they were marked to be discarded.
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