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The Kennedy Curse, Part 12 - Lee Harvey Oswald & the Assassination of JFK
42 Plays19 days ago
We talk about Lee Harvey Oswald's movements in the days, hours, and minutes before the assassination of JFK and after, up to his arrest.
Check out our YouTube channel, Fixate Today: Grey Matters
Sources (there's a lot):
Books: The Kennedy Curse by Edward Klein, Rosemary: The Hidden Kennedy Daughter by Katie Clifford Larson, The First Kennedys: The Humber Roots of an American Dynasty by Neal Thompson, After Camelot: A Personal History of the Kennedy Family 1968 to the Present by J. Randy Taraborrelli, Ask Not: The Kennedys and the Women They Destroyed by Maureen Callahan, The Kennedy Imprisonment: A Meditation on Power by Garry Wills, Black Water by Joyce Carol Oates, RFK Jr.: The Rise and Fall by Vincent Isabel, Marina and Lee by Priscilla Johnson McMillan
Media: Grey Gardens (1975 documentary), JFK (1991 film), Thirteen Days (2000 film), Murder in Greenwich (2002 television film), Bobby (2006 film), Grey Gardens (2006 musical), Grey Gardens (2009 film), Parkland (2013 film), 11.23.63 (2016 series), Jackie (2016 film), Chappaquiddick (2017 film), Cover-Up (2018 podcast), The RFK Tapes (2018 podcast), The Last Podcast on the Left, Episodes 400-405: JFK (2020 podcast), The Last Podcast on the Left, Episode Relaxed Fit: Marilyn Monroe & The President’s Aspirin (2020 podcast), The Last Podcast on the Left, Episode Side Stories: The Bullet in the Backseat (2023 podcast), Wine & Crime, Episode 366: Lobotomy Crimes (2024 podcast), The Last Podcast on the Left, Episode 1046: The Miseducation of Ed Larsen - JFK & Government Conspiracies (2025 podcast), United States of Kennedy (2025 podcast), Dead Certain: The Martha Moxley Murder (2025 podcast), Wine & Crime, Episode 456: Family Curses (2026 podcast), Love Story (2026 series)
Websites: historyhit.com, Scientific America, CNN, PBS, CBS News, BBC, Autistic Self Advocacy Center, InStyle, Best Buddies International, All Things Interesting, USA Today, Today in Civil Liberties, Cambridge Dictionary, Kennedys and King, RJP Books, New York Post, Boston Magazine, Time, The Moth, Vanity Fair, Voices Center for Resilience, Reddit, Washington Association of Black Journalists, NPR, The Ringer, The Daily Express, The Harvard Crimson, Wikipedia
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Transcript
Introduction to Hosts and Topic
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome to Fixate Today Gone Tomorrow. I'm Nikki and I have ADHD. Joy is autistic and we are letting our hyper fixations fly. Today we are fixating on the Kennedy curse.
00:00:13
Speaker
Music
00:00:22
Speaker
Hello. Welcome back. So we are continuing to talk about Lee Harvey Oswald this episode. Now let us say we do know this is about the Kennedy curse, but again, this is also about our fixations. And once we both started learning about Lee Harvey, well, maybe me. Once I started learning about Lee Harvey Oswald and the assassination theories and conspiracies, kind of got a little sucked in. Yeah. We knew this part would be a lot of episodes when we're talking about just Jack Kennedy and and um then all the things. Because we haven't even gotten to ah the conspiracy parts of it.
00:01:01
Speaker
So you guys have a few more episodes after this one, I'm sure. But Nikki, I did some extra research. Of course.
Joy's Visit to Dallas
00:01:10
Speaker
i spent the weekend in Dallas.
00:01:15
Speaker
Okay, to be fair, I just live right outside Dallas. But we went to the sixth floor museum, the Book Depository Museum, and drove around all over there. And also I drove out to Ruth house.
00:01:28
Speaker
ruth pains old house. Yes. And what did our editor slash your daughter say about Ruth's house? Something. yeah Everyone was pretty unimpressed. Yeah. It's like, oh, it's just a house. Yeah. Everyone was pretty unimpressed. It was, it was nothing special.
00:01:45
Speaker
You would never know. It was, but, but, um, I'm glad I did. And actually I'm glad we took the drive too, because it did put into perspective, like the length of time, like how far it was to drive from Dallas to Now at the time, everyone yeah the car was just annoyed that I made us go do that.
00:02:02
Speaker
You know what? that's That's part of the research is annoying our loved ones. Oh, exactly. Exactly. But it was fun. It was fun going to – it was fun like seeing the actual, you know, like the the building and that actual like the grassy knoll and all that. and I had seen it before, but I mean kind of looking at it with a different perspective since we've learned. Yeah. Yeah. Very cool. i was very jealous. I think I was – Yeah. Doing something I didn't feel like doing. And I was like, I want to be Dallas. It was Okay. So last week, okay. We talked to Lee and we kind of went through yep
00:02:37
Speaker
His early life, troubled childhood, crazy mother. Mm-hmm. Yep. He's entry into the military. We talked ah him leaving the military, wanting to live in Russia, but probably really not wanting to live in Russia, just wanting to be a contrarian and and leaning too hard into an idea that went too far, perhaps.
Lee Harvey Oswald's Life and Return
00:03:00
Speaker
Yeah. And maybe you and I have slightly different perspectives on that one. But yes, moving to Russia under the guise of being a defector or... as a defector. And, ah but then returning to the U S with his Russian wife,
00:03:16
Speaker
Marina, who wrote a wonderful book. She she wasn't the author, but ah helped create a ah biography, Marina. Isn't it marina and Marina and Me? Marina and Lee. Marina and Lee. Okay.
00:03:29
Speaker
Which I read. it was really good. gave great Gave her perspective on everything. Yeah. i really want to find it. I can't find a copy anywhere and I don't want to spend $40 buying it. So I'm still looking. I'll read it eventually. No, was really good. And then like we were up until we kind of talked about their return. mean, really, it was just what, like a year, little over a year since they had been back in the U.S. They had by this point, the point of the assassination, which is where we'll begin, two kids.
00:03:58
Speaker
together. Tumultuous for Marina and the kids, certainly. yep Lee had a lot of almost like harebrained schemes. I almost see it as like a ah dad who's like, this is what will make us rich. Except for him, it's like, this idea will make me happy. Yeah. And a lot of trouble holding down a job. Yeah. And he was abusive yeah to his wife. Very interesting
Oswald's Employment and FBI Interactions
00:04:24
Speaker
character. Yeah.
00:04:25
Speaker
And that brings us up to the latest job he just got, which was about a month prior to the assassination, in six weeks, at the book depository. um And their friend, I'm going to put that in quotations, that they've been living with, ru Ruth Payne, was the person who helped him through a neighbor obtain this job at the book depository. Yeah.
00:04:48
Speaker
And also around the same time, the FBI started getting a little bit more interested in Lee and had visited twice, I believe. And Ruth and Marina agreed to not tell him about the second time because it was starting to kind of amp up his paranoia again. Okay. So that is where we left off.
00:05:09
Speaker
um For all of the sources, check the show notes because there's a bajillion stories. And let's get into the days before the actual assassination. And then we'll start talking about kind of how we did in the um assassination episode about Jack. We just kind of talked about the, like, I even have a hard time being like the facts because everything is so confusing. But what we know or what's been reported on is like what happened instead of getting to conspiracy-y yet. So that's what we're going to do with Lee as well. We're going to try. Let me just say that this, yeah Nikki and I have a lot of discussions and um I, you know, our podcast was about history and these,
00:05:55
Speaker
fixation and these things, but, but it's also about how our brains work very differently. yeah And so as we've been researching, you know, this is, this is a topic that she was very interested in, had done all the research. And then kind of the premise of our show is that then I go and make myself be interested in it or try.
00:06:14
Speaker
Well, of course it worked. um But I saw a lot of the same information and like, it's just the way my brain works. I am more conspiratorial, more questioning if things are the truth than if it's real. So you will go back through like, yes, what the history books all say, but I will say like, it may seem like I'm being a little argumentative, but I do, cause I, I do um the sources and a lot of the different areas I researched kind of had some different thoughts and different ideas. So I may throw them out there. Yeah.
Conspiracy Theories and Assassination
00:06:46
Speaker
And we even like, we were, don't even remember what day was. We were, we always talk through the script, um, before we record, we were talking through it and you were like, but i I saw somewhere it was this. and I was like, well, I saw somewhere there's this and I sent you an article and you're like, that's exactly what I read.
00:07:02
Speaker
and it's like, oh, we just understand it differently. Like, that's just like, it was like such an like obvious, like, oh, we have completely different brains and that's really cool. And this was the craziest thing because we both like separately, I think like went and pulled up an article. Now, granted, I know this is AI and Google search and all that kind of set to the same. But as I was reading the article, I like I did it right afterwards. And you could see exactly how we were looking at the same things and looking at differently to the point where I almost thought, well we could just scrap this ah next show we wrote and just read this article and, you know, paragraph by paragraphs. Like this is how I yeah interpret that. And but yeah,
00:07:42
Speaker
Yes. So, and then, but on top of that, also with this, all of this, like there is crazy conspiracies around it. There are differing witnesses. All, all these things are different. So even just now, Joy was like, I have a correction. It was this person, not this person. And I was like, everything I read said it that it was like, it was this person. And so that's not even our brains working differently. That is just like how convoluted this is.
00:08:11
Speaker
So there are a few places. Yeah. So anyways, if it seems like I am being argumentative, we're just trying to show you all the different sources out there. And I think, I think you should, you, you always say you're argumentative. I don't think you're argumentative. I think you are saying how you see things.
00:08:28
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, and I do. And I, I mean, and I'm older. not that much older. Okay. Well, I'm I've seen more in life. I mean, that's probably true.
00:08:38
Speaker
but
00:08:44
Speaker
You tried to defect to Russia during COVID. You've seen more. Okay. okay I went to... Okay. Well, don't get into that, but I will get into it because actually that does, there are parts that headset honestly does, have not that I didn't tie into that, but there are parts of my, honestly, actually my experiences oh yeah that do like play into, oh for sure I think, how I like things. So, or I just want to be bragging and talk about my travels because I have a job.
00:09:13
Speaker
Also disclaimer, Joy didn't try to defect to Russia during COVID. Okay. I was in Russia during COVID. Happened to be in Russia. All right, let's get into it.
00:09:26
Speaker
Lee Harvey Oswald was 24 years old at the time of the assassination. Okay, not to inter not not to intercede right from to the beginning, but that's young. That's so young. When we started looking, like, learning about this, i started researching Lee. I'm just going call him Lee. Um...
00:09:44
Speaker
That, know, shocked me how much he had been through in his life and how young he was at the time. Yeah, I know. And everything we talked about basically like from the military to the assassination is a very short amount of time. Oh, yeah. Yeah.
00:09:59
Speaker
I mean, hed they'd only only been back in the U.S. after the defection for just a year, just over a year. And we've talked, I mean, so much has happened, you know, the trip to New Orleans and yeah all these new people they've met. So um I do think that that's ah an important thing to keep in mind is just how young he was. Yeah. And Marina was even younger. She was several, like several, I think she was 20, 21, maybe at this time. She was, she was very, very young too.
00:10:27
Speaker
Oh, with two kids. ah Like just your brain's not done cooking. Oh, and yeah. In the country where you so don't speak the language and you're completely dependent on. Yeah.
00:10:39
Speaker
A lot to unpack. Dependent on your abusive spouse. Gosh. ah gosh In the days before, Lee had been scouting for the best vantage point, maybe looking for a spot that could give him a 10 to 15 second view of the back of the motorcade.
00:10:56
Speaker
This is one of those things that like I read in multiple sources and Joy was like, how do you know? Like, how do we know that? How do we know that that was his goal? Like that was what he was doing at that. And we can say both are valid. I mean, to me, honestly, he worked at the book depository. He was looking out the window every day. Was that scouting?
00:11:15
Speaker
I don't know. Right. And then in all the sources I read that said that, how do we know? You know, so it's just like, yeah. Now, I will say something just um again from my little visit. it It was very cool being up in the window. Right. So you can stand in the window and look out. And and and as you just said, um he was scouting places um with the view of the back of the motorcade.
00:11:36
Speaker
And one thing that's been said um throughout history or throughout this conspiracy is that when you're actually in the depository, there's the the parade route came ah directly toward the depository, then took a hairpin turn and and drove away. And many of the conspiracy theorists or people through history have said the much cleaner logical shot would have been the drive, like while they were driving directly toward the building rather than the more difficult shot while they were driving away.
00:12:13
Speaker
Take it for what it is. But yeah, and that was, it was clear and I could, it was great to be able to see that. And they had a kind of a cool little ah and like diorama that like showed it. And I had never, I had never fully envisioned exactly how that.
00:12:26
Speaker
The motorcade kind of went. yeah Yeah. Yeah. Also just while we're at that, um, very interesting to me was that when they were driving away, like during the assassination, had just, how the parade crowds were completely dissipated. Like they were leaving. That was the end. And, and again, I don't like, it's like, I can hear that a hundred times, but, but seeing the visual of just how few people, people were out there. We're really there. Yeah.
00:12:49
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. And how they, at that it's like such a triangular area and where, you know, how close the grassy knoll is. So I'll stop at that point. But yes, that just, in the in talking about the scouting, i i I don't understand. And I don't know if you get why The theory would be it would be better to the vantage point from the back. You know, the only thing I can think of is getting it done earlier, if that makes sense. like It would be later.
00:13:20
Speaker
Then I don't know. Because they're driving that because what they do is it's they're driving towards the road. Toward the book depository, which seems like which of clearer shot. Yeah. Yeah. Then they do like a hairpin turn and drive away. And it was when they were driving away. Yeah. In that case, the only thing I can think of would be like the human side of it, of perhaps getting too nervous with that better shot.
00:13:47
Speaker
And then being like, okay, I have to do it. This is like almost getting a second chance. But like that is obviously purely speculation. I have no idea. And I'll throw my pure spec also in there is that that's where the grassy knoll and the fence. Yep. The fence are. So that's where the the conspiracy comes into because it's around it's well as they're driving away. There's the shot from the grassy knoll. And so, you know, that's that's what that that's where the questions in in lies. Yeah.
00:14:15
Speaker
right. Well, we've gotten um five lines into this. So doing great. Lee went to Ruth's house where Marina and his kids were staying. He was living in a boarding house at the time that was closer to his job.
00:14:30
Speaker
So he would drive out to Ruth's house normally on the weekends. Yeah. just to and and And he had lived in a lot of different boarding houses. Yeah. This was kind of his thing.
00:14:41
Speaker
He had moved around a lot. Maybe a little weird, but also, i mean, I do understand it was a little far from the city and they didn't have a car. Yeah. And um I don't know, like, what a boarding house cost or anything, but it could also be he was getting paranoid again and was like, I have to move around. I have to keep moving. Yes. Because Marina had discovered that he was using aliases again.
00:15:05
Speaker
yep As he had previously when he kind of had a bit of a break, a mental break. Mm-hmm. um So she had discovered he was doing this again. But during this visit, he was being extra kind to Marina and the kids in an an effort to reconcile. And she had declined his offer at that time. She wasn't ready, especially when she discovered the aliases were being used again. And he was getting kind of that paranoia ratcheting up.
00:15:31
Speaker
It's during this visit that Oswald retrieved his disassembled rifle along with his last four bullets and and put them in a paper bag and then left.
00:15:42
Speaker
So the part about the reconciliation and the weekend, I think because we have direct, ah a direct account from Marina in her book, it is really, it's exactly how she kind of explained it. We have it in her own words.
00:15:54
Speaker
I mean, I wouldn't question as far as retrieving the rifle. I mean, nobody saw him do it it. It's assumed that he did at this point. I mean, we know it was gone. Like we knew I had been there at some point and we know that it was gone at some point. Yeah. um ah The last four bullet thing. I'm like, okay, how are we, how do we know there's the last four bullets other than he used, had four bullets. So anyways, I like, like it's details like that. Then like, okay, there's nothing that really.
00:16:22
Speaker
The thing that, makes me think that like he did get his weapon at this time was he was acting so uncharacteristically nice to his family. ah Almost like a front for why he's there type of thing. Like, so that's kind of my, like, i don't know. though but but's And I'm not disagreeing that he
Oswald's Actions on Assassination Day
00:16:43
Speaker
probably did get it there. He probably did.
00:16:45
Speaker
You know, I mean, there's, you know, in history, there's a question about, did anyone see him take it He very well may have. But and I do think like, like those are the things that we are told in history books, but like,
00:16:57
Speaker
Marina didn't say that. Like she, I mean, she's like, she's like just said it was gone later when the FBI came. And the other thing I think that's important, and this isn't about Marina at all, because I actually think her account of everything in her, in that book is accurate. But as we'll get into with the conspiracy stuff, everybody has an agenda and that's not to say it's a good or a bad agenda, but especially after the fact that,
00:17:26
Speaker
everybody's spin on this event is self-serving in a ways to even just get what they experienced and they saw out into, you know, the world.
00:17:39
Speaker
So, It's like every every little thing like this, we could be hearing it for someone who has a reason to be sharing it, if that makes sense.
00:17:50
Speaker
Oh, yeah. And in this case, probably nobody has more reason, um specific or reason than Marina, who is here in the U.S. from the Soviet Union, basically could be sent home.
00:18:03
Speaker
at any time, cannot speak for herself, does not speak the language, um is terrified of being sent back. um She didn't have a whole lot of family and connections back in the USSR. So there's you know there's a lot of reasons.
00:18:18
Speaker
Again, speculation means that like her you know her story has changed over time. I mean, that could just be what happens when you're recalling events. you know But they can also throw out that you know she said what she needs to say to be able to stay in the US too. So- Yeah. it's my Lee left Marina $175 and he left behind his wedding ring.
00:18:41
Speaker
It was lunchtime at the book depository. So nobody was on his floor with him. um Generally, not a lot of people were on his floor, but it was quieter at that time. So he, yeah, as I understood, there's, yeah, there was a second floor lunch room, but there were a lot of people. i mean, a lot of the other employees were there and watching with the intent to watch the parade And they're including yeah several like that were in different windows along that same side of the building ah for the purpose. But it's safe to say that nobody would have noticed him. Yeah. Because it's either lunchtime or people are waiting for the motor. Yeah. And there's multiple floors. Right. So people are dispersed. He he didn't generally work on the sixth floor, but he would go up there for like books. these boxes like to Yeah. Right. So, yes, he definitely could have been up there alone. People outside did see him in the sixth floor window, but many assumed he was a Secret Service sniper or just simply somebody watching from the windows that worked in that building.
00:19:46
Speaker
The last words spoken before the first shot rang out was Governor Connolly's wife, saying to Jack, quote, Mr. President, you can't say that Dallas doesn't love you.
00:19:57
Speaker
The first shot missed hitting a tree and ricocheting to the ground, chipping a piece of concrete that hit bystander James Tate in the cheek. No one at this time thought that it was gunfire. They assumed it was a car backfiring.
00:20:13
Speaker
Have you ever been in some sort of situation where like you hear a gunshot, but you're not sure that's what it was? Um, yes. And the opposite, right? Like I've been, uh, I was in Miami when there was like, I don't know. I don't, when there was a bunch of shootings happening in the U S.
00:20:31
Speaker
But, um, and I was in Miami in a CVS and all of a sudden what seemed to be shots running out and it was yeah firecrackers and it wasn't the 4th of July. You know what I mean? But in everyone in the store is like, yeah, yeah that moment of like, that's what, cause I've, yeah, I've also been in a similar situation that like you hear something And my brain goes to fireworks because that's the that's the thing that I have experienced more, but that makes sense. so I can totally see how everybody's like, a car's backfire. Like, it's like your brain does everything to protect you. And it's like, this is the most obvious thing.
00:21:12
Speaker
It's not a gun. It's a car. And you know what i mean? Like back then, I mean, cars did backfire. Yeah. and they don't A lot. And you're right. I mean, I think if I was standing out there, I don't think my mind would go to a gunshot. No, it happened pretty fast. So and where this gentleman was was staying standing, it would have been a direct shot coming from the book depository that that angle where he he was.
00:21:36
Speaker
was Yeah. But it would have been a pretty bad shot. 2.7 seconds later, another shot rang out and struck Jack in his upper back just to the right of his spine at a downward angle.
00:21:47
Speaker
It exited his body through his lower throat and hit Governor Connolly in the back. So at this point, if you watch the the video, Jack kind of brings his hand up to his throat so you can tell something happened. Yeah. Yeah.
00:22:03
Speaker
The bullet exited Connelly's chest, hit his wrist, and lodged into his thigh. This is the bullet that would come to be known as the, quote, magic bullet.
00:22:16
Speaker
And this is part of where you lose me on this. ah Now, come on. Let's be real. That's a lot of stuff for that bullet to do.
00:22:27
Speaker
That's a lot of stuff for that bullet to do. um I just think that seems like a huge stretch. especially when then they supposedly recover this bullet, they like find it at the hospital and it's, c it's a seemingly unblemished bullet.
00:22:46
Speaker
it's It's just not realistic. I don't think. um I think I can see it a little bit more given. ah So Connelly and his wife were in folding jump seats in the limo and they were actually lower than Jack and Jackie. And they were, a bit like the left of center facing Jack and Jackie.
00:23:06
Speaker
that i I also, listen, I can't imagine any of this. Like none of it makes sense to me. I can't pick a Tupperware that's the right size for leftovers. So none of this makes sense to me. Yeah. And I mean, i see sort of how they kind of justify the angle. It's a stretch. Again, this is like seven different bullet wounds from this one supposed, ah bullet yeah um and again let's go like through his like through jfk's like back out his neck then through connelly's back hits his wrist which they say was in the like raised position because he had his cowboy hat out it was like
00:23:49
Speaker
holding it in front of his face. Okay. Then continues on through that wrist down to his leg. Let's keep in mind also that Lee, with or the supposed weapon was a bolt action rifle, which I, neither of us are big gun buffs, but that's the kind where you're like, you kind of have to go like, eh, eh.
00:24:08
Speaker
Yeah. Like where you have to like. You have to do the thing. you're nu it's not It's not in any way automatic. There's there's like a ah physical maneuver you have. And we probably aren't even. We have no idea. If you guys can see us, we're doing the thing with our hand. but But so we do have to keep in mind. I think they say that just the action alone as fast, like the bolt loading, whatever, that takes a little over two seconds. So, I mean, again, like this is what, 2.7 seconds later. 2.7 seconds, yeah.
00:24:37
Speaker
And he had to aim in that time. ah So these two bullets were full metal jacket bullets um that are designed to pass through bodies. I believe like in combat, they're designed to go through. Yeah. And I, yeah, I mean, I have never i never knew that was even a real term. i thought it was just a movie.
00:24:59
Speaker
I know. I learned it from root this. re I also was like, oh, I know that movie. The third shot hit Jack directly in the head. The rear side of his skull exploded.
00:25:12
Speaker
Jack's body jerked back with the third bullet. This bullet destroyed the cortex, causing a neuromuscular spasm. His body contracted upward and to the rear. And this is where you get the infamous phrase, back and to the left.
00:25:29
Speaker
His hands are seen kind of shooting up. And you can see in the video, Jackie trying to push his arms down, but they like kept going up. And it was like a, again, that that spasm.
00:25:43
Speaker
reaction If he had survived, he for sure would have been paralyzed. He was likely wearing a back brace because of his constant pain. Anytime in in public was usually in a back brace. Again, that Kennedy thing of not showing weakness, pain is weakness. You have to pretend like everything's fine.
00:26:03
Speaker
um the brace probably would have kept him from falling forward because his 1960s back brace is pretty much just a... It's like a corset. I don't even know what it's made of. Yeah, basically.
00:26:16
Speaker
yeah The kinetic energy of the bullet exploding out of his skull would have pushed him backwards. Okay, can I jump in now and say this is where it gets really crazy? This is where you 100% lose me on this being ah just leaked.
00:26:32
Speaker
shooting from the a one a one yeah i agree all you have to do mean i we can go through point by point like you know the amount of time because what they say ah um that between the first and the third shot uh there was some sources there's a kind of a different time some say between anywhere between six seconds eight point i heard eight point four and Again, that's one of those things I suppose it's, you know, what do you time it? for How you time it? or if you But yes, in that time frame, which would be very difficult to get three shots off.
00:27:07
Speaker
Very difficult in a bolt-action rifle. but um but But to me, it's just look at the video. Like you can, yeah to me, when you look at the video, and it is heart-wrenching, and I don't mean to. I was going to say, like, don't actually watch the video. it yeah It's heart-wrenching and it's very graphic.
00:27:25
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And we have to remember at the beginning, like right after the shooting, that was not released to the public by any means. But it very clearly to me shows that the bullet entered from the front of his forehead, jerked him backwards as the Connecticut energy would, and quite literally blew the back of his skull off. Yeah.
00:27:54
Speaker
It's horrifying. But yeah, yeah.
00:27:58
Speaker
you can see You can see the matter splattering. yeah Yeah. And I just, no matter what a back brace is made of, I just don't see how there's any possibility that a bullet that came from behind you could create that motion, which was clearly pushing it, as you said, back into the left. Yeah.
00:28:27
Speaker
you know So that I have to say out of anything, and and we're talking conspiracy next time. Yeah. But that's where i I really struggle with this. So, yeah. Jackie turned around and tried to retrieve a piece of Jack's skull from the trunk area of the vehicle.
00:28:44
Speaker
Secret Service agent Clint Hill pushed her back into the limo. It is very likely she would have fallen out and possibly been run over because at that point, everyone was taking off. it was going very, very fast. If she had fallen out of that car, she would have been run over. They wouldn't have been able to stop in time.
00:29:00
Speaker
They were said to be going about 80 miles per hour at that, um as they, as they entered the highway and, which they did right soon after and, were driving toward the Parkland hospital.
00:29:11
Speaker
Yeah. It's also said that she in recover the piece of the skull, um, that was shot off and was holding it to his, hair yeah, to his head and his, ah yeah. Yeah.
00:29:22
Speaker
yeah I think we talked about that last time. it was just like, she, yeah. Like she even handed, matter to the doctor. She's like in shock to be like, can you put this back? Immediately after the fatal shot, Oswald hid his rifle and headed downstairs, leaving three spent shell casings behind.
00:29:43
Speaker
He stopped on the second floor at the cook machine for a drink. So yeah, it was interesting. Again, when at the at the depository, so he, I mean, kind of hit his, but his they they showed exactly like the setup and it was kind of across the room. i mean, he kind of like,
00:29:59
Speaker
tossed his rifle behind some book boxes so it wasn't hidden too well if that's what his intent was yeah right so remember the second floor is where like the lunchroom is so the majority of people are there at this point because it's lunchtime and a co-worker did like witnessed and put in an affidavit that she did see him actually in the lunchroom drinking this coke so we know for sure yep He was eerily calm in this like complete utter chaos.
00:30:33
Speaker
A police officer stopped him with his boss, Roy Truly, and asked him if he worked there. And he's just like, yeah, I work here. So they let him go. He went down to the first floor lobby where he was asked by reporter for directions to the nearest phone, which he gave and walked away.
00:30:52
Speaker
When asked why he left, he said he assumed they'd they'd be given a half day work. And he did. Yeah. yeah Yeah. So he just, yeah, decided. I mean, what he said is he decided to leave and go to a movie.
00:31:09
Speaker
He walked seven blocks and then flagged down a bus. His adrenaline was wearing off and he was realizing what he had done. Or was his Manchurian candidate wearing off? Or can we know any of that?
00:31:25
Speaker
like Or is that full on
00:31:29
Speaker
Because I'm telling if my if I had just shot the president, I don't know if 10 blocks later my my adrenaline would to be wearing off. Yeah, I don't know. But I guess, yeah. I mean, I guess that that to me that's just like, okay, well, it's good narrative, but I don't think there's any way we could know one way or another whatever was going on. So this is one of the things that you and I found different ah different information on.
00:31:52
Speaker
i' read that Ruth Payne, his who Marina and the kids were living with, happened to be on the bus and she said he looked like a maniac.
00:32:03
Speaker
And I thought that sounded... Crazy. So it was one of the things I looked up again. What I found was that a land an old landlady of his.
00:32:14
Speaker
So what I was able to find was that it was a different landlady of his. Her name was Mary Bledsoe, who claims to have seen him on the bus and said he looked like a maniac.
00:32:28
Speaker
Yeah. It's just, like we kind of said at the beginning, everything is so convoluted. Like, well, I don't think we're ever going to know. Yeah. Yeah. Any true, any like 100% true. And I mean, then you take it to the next level and then you're like, well, this person said this or, you know what I mean? Like they, then we take it to the next level of conspiracy. Yeah. Was he really even on the bus?
00:32:48
Speaker
But But yeah, that's one of those places we did different information. So on the bus, he realized that the bus was heading back in the direction he had just came. So he got off and then waved down a taxi.
00:33:00
Speaker
Oswald claimed that the driver of the taxi's name was Daryl Click. The taxi company later said that no one by that name worked there.
00:33:12
Speaker
So the like, is this, ah is click Oswald CIA contact? Yeah, so that was – I think there was a misunderstanding with the police officer reporting it and when he said Daryl Click.
Post-Assassination Confusion and Arrest
00:33:29
Speaker
He was actually referring – saying something about hugh Oak Cliff, which is the part of town or the street that he that Lee a Oswald was going – heading to. But there is an actual affidavit from – the cab driver um that actually you can find a copy of the original yep um i think his name is william wayne whaley good alliteration
00:33:53
Speaker
yeah and so it was kind of kind of interesting the little the actual affidavit you're gonna read a little bit of it so we're gonna read some of it it's long but we'll just do it yesterday 11 22 63 eleven twenty two sixty three I was sitting at Lamar and Jackson at the Greyhound bus station at 1230 p.m.
00:34:14
Speaker
waiting for a fair. This boy walked up to the cab. He was walking south on Lamar from Commerce. He asked if he could get a cab. I told him yes and opened the back door.
00:34:26
Speaker
He shut the back door and said he wanted to sit in the front. The boy said he wanted to go to the 500 block of North Peckley?
00:34:37
Speaker
Peckley? think it's Beckley. Beckley, which after we had gotten into the cab, I had turned my meter on. A lady came up to the cab and asked if she could get this cab. As I recall, I said, there will be one behind me very soon. I'm not sure whether the man passenger repeated this to her or not, but I think he may have. I then drove away. I asked him, asked him what all the sirens were about and he didn't say anything. So I didn't say h any more to him. he and So, okay, so so when I was reading this, and because I looked this up, right, because I had read somewhere, they talk about, first of all, I'm thinking, how in the world did this cab driver open the back door?
00:35:18
Speaker
door seat these are the things that go through my mind when i'm like is this too specific to me when ah when you know when when they're talking about false claims and all that so that's what i was originally thinking was like i'm not quite sure how he got to ever open the back door i don't know maybe he walked around but then while i was checking that they specifically did say that yes the affidavit said that he uh that lee got in the front Because that's more of the Russian, the way it was written out, because that's the Russian custom would be to sit in the front seat, which I read on because I've been to Russia and I didn't notice anything about people sitting in the front seat. And I certainly did not sit in the front seat. But um because, you you know, the Russian, is the tradition is being little chattier. And I'm thinking, all right we're in 1963.
00:36:10
Speaker
In the Soviet Union. i guess I'm not seeing a lot of chattiness going on. I'm not seeing a lot of people taking cabs who aren't part of the government.
00:36:20
Speaker
but The Soviets just don't seem to be a chatty bunch. Now, ironically, I will say... I think they are so, I mean, when I was there, they oh the people of Russia were much warmer than I thought. I mean, 1963 Soviet Union. and free Yeah. And to be fair, he was in, ah um Lee was in Belarus, actually, not in Russia. But but anyways, I just thought like, again, like in thinking of that whole like how things are presented where, you know, like getting and you know as if to say this was clearly him because he got in the front seat because this is the Russian tradition. i'm like, OK, feel like we're getting a little too much information here that or we're trying too hard, maybe.
00:37:05
Speaker
yeah But anyway, or you could see it as it was very specific. And yeah, see, I'm an overshare. So I would have said things like that because I'm in a panic. And I can see you both ways.
00:37:16
Speaker
That is for sure. Like, oh my goodness, I will tell you every little detail being like, it all matters. Yeah. No, no, I get it. Like, no, it doesn't.
00:37:28
Speaker
And it may. But also, I mean, the same things, can you can take them two ways, right? You can see it as like, almost like trying to share too hard, trying to lay out a narrative too much is what made me.
00:37:41
Speaker
But anyway, we don't. yeah It goes on, but essentially yeah he gets in a cab and goes for a cat, right? Yes. The cab dropped him off at his boarding house where he grabbed his jacket, a revolver, and filled his pockets with more bullets. And now this is another one of those areas i was i read that he was dropped off about a 10-minute walk away from his boarding house.
00:38:06
Speaker
That, it again, narrative being that he probably did this... to be sneakier kind of thing. Right. Yeah. At the same time, a deputy sheriff had discovered the rifle and shell casings.
00:38:21
Speaker
30 years later, the partial fingerprints on the items were confirmed to be Lee's fingerprints. Okay. Let's stop here. Number one, yes, the housekeeper at the boarding house did see him and and saw him go and did see him just for she remembered that her soap opera started. Yeah. It started right as he was walking in, which is so funny because I don't know if you can remember, but I remember like as the world turns, like coming on it.
00:38:48
Speaker
Yeah. ever four I'm actually reading, um total side note, I'm reading hey ah Hayden Panettiere's book right now. And I grew up watching her on Guiding Light with my mom every day after school. yes and it all came down from like my mom. Your grandmother.
00:39:05
Speaker
As the world turns in guiding light. Uh-huh. Oh, my gosh. So anyways, back to that being. so the boarding house ah housekeeper, yes. So she remembers specifically that one of these shows, and it was one of those two, had come on and it came out at one. So he must have entered the the boarding house right ah after one ah one o'clock.
00:39:25
Speaker
and and And at that point when he grabbed his revolt, the police did a roll call for everyone who worked at the book depository. And Lee was the only one not there. A physical description of him was released. now let's remember what the physical description is. He is a white.
00:39:41
Speaker
He's a far nine white man with brown hair, white. so Sure. The eye color. mean, i that you know, very specific. Yep. Oswald left the boarding house with no plan, knowing that his absence at work would be noticed by now.
00:39:57
Speaker
i'm going to interject. Really? Do we know that? No idea about But I think ah the train of thought's gone. It's fine. Move on. I totally had a point and then it was gone.
00:40:09
Speaker
Police officer J.D. Tippett spotted Oswald and stopped him. Oswald shot him three times in the chest and once more in the head before walking away saying, quote, poor dumb cop.
00:40:23
Speaker
The neighbors in the Oak Cliff, not Daryl Click neighborhood, chased him. Oswald dumped the spent shells by the body and ran off to reload.
00:40:35
Speaker
Two witnesses picked him out of a lineup and the casings were matched with the weapon. Some witnesses, though, say that Oswald was not the shooter of Tippett. There is a theory that Tippett was killed by the husband of the woman he was having an affair with.
00:40:52
Speaker
and But if if it was Oswald, he very unintentionally drew even more attention to himself by killing a cop. You know, throughout this whole thing, I think... reading all the different conspiracies, all the... Officer Tippett killing is one part that I don't get. and i And honestly, even with every conspiracy, it doesn't really make sense. And with the Warren report, it doesn't really make sense. I agree.
00:41:19
Speaker
I mean, basically, was Warren reports showed that if he killed Officer Tippett, then that was proof that he killed JFK. have no idea how that that that theory would pan out.
00:41:30
Speaker
But I will say a few things. um I'm not sure about the poor, dumb cop thing. I never read that. But there are some and the neighboring i again, the witnesses, you know, whenever we start getting into witness accounts,
00:41:42
Speaker
um You know, they're all over the board and you read one thing, one place and another, another place. There is a woman by the name of Helen Markham is one of the witnesses who has been or who was at the time and has continued to be throughout her life most vocal about what she saw that day.
00:42:01
Speaker
And she was one of the witnesses who who did say she was able to pick him up out from a lineup. You've got to listen to this. this is This is her talking to the reporters that day, but it it just cracks me up. It's worth a minute listen. so Then he got out of the car, slow motion.
00:42:22
Speaker
He calmly crawled out of this car, and he started around to the front of the car. And just as he got even with the front wheel on that's on the driver's side, this man shot him three times.
00:42:38
Speaker
In the wink of your eye. In the wink of the eye. And then he he turned and he was shooting with this gun and he came back down ah tenth Street toward me.
00:42:50
Speaker
And he saw me. He stopped. And he looked at me. i looked at him. And he was furious. His eyes were big. Of course, mine were too. And yeah all it was, I put my hands up on my face like this real tight, closed my eyes, and I stood there.
00:43:07
Speaker
And then I opened my fingers, opened my eyes, and gradually pulled them down. Well, I don't know what happened to him, but he he just went off in a little trough across the vacant lot out here.
00:43:20
Speaker
And then the police came. They take me down to the city hall. And course, they got the statement. And then I identified him in the line-up. Cracks me up.
00:43:31
Speaker
First of all, the accent's amazing. Take me down to the city hall. And you have to see it. like She like puts her hands over her eyes and peeks out like through her fingers. like Anyways, she cracks me up. And apparently throughout her life, like every few years, the stories come up. And she like repeats it exactly the same way. she was it was definitely her five minutes.
00:43:58
Speaker
yes well And we'll actually talk about her in the conspiracy episode. So I'm actually glad you brought her up because... But also I have to say in this video, she's so like, she's dressed in like pencil skirt, little tucked in blouse. So pretty.
00:44:12
Speaker
Did housewives dress like that on daily basis? I don't know. I know. Sometimes my husband gets home from work and I'm sweatpants that are like three sizes too big. And I'm just like, he's blessed. Yeah.
00:44:24
Speaker
was going to say sometimes. like Every now and then my husband comes home and I'm dressed in half my hair and makeup done. She's like, what's going on? ah where who or Do we have plans later? No, I just towered today.
00:44:37
Speaker
um So, I mean, Officer Tippett, again, i think that this – has been, this is, I think, one of the most confounding parts of this story. And I i did, I dug into it.
00:44:51
Speaker
I just don't understand the connection. And then this part of me like, does this work? Does this maybe have nothing to do with it? Is also, could this have just been a separate random accident? There were some questions. One of the big questions were the bullets, the bullets in the bullet casings.
00:45:10
Speaker
the bullet casings that you mentioned were actually handed over by another witness to the police when they arrived, but the casings didn't exactly match the bullets found in in his body.
00:45:25
Speaker
um That's never really, they like they were different manufacturers and that's never really been able, even though there's never been a full explanation for that. So don't know what it means.
00:45:38
Speaker
The Officer Tippett shooting happened about a 10-minute walk from his boarding house. um And it was kind of between the boarding house and, as we'll get to, the theater that he's in.
00:45:55
Speaker
They are also seen, I'm sorry, also at the scene was his wallet, which, again, i'm like either... Like was really obviously reason that would um connect him to this shooting or fully planted because it seems so ridiculous.
00:46:15
Speaker
So yeah, his wallet was found there yeah and his what like supposed like his jacket was found stashed in like a ah like somewhere up the road, not too far away. Also questions about whether that was really his jacket or they wasn't. So um yeah.
00:46:34
Speaker
You know, the other two pieces of of information that they say tied him to this, this crime. is Very convenient or very dumb.
00:46:46
Speaker
Yeah. And that's the thing, right? Right. As Oswald continued walking, he still appeared to be calm in the midst of because it's still panic and kind of chaos in the area.
00:46:59
Speaker
It's, of course, settled down because the president's been taken elsewhere. But it was... I just think about, like, 9-11 and how on September 11th, like, everything felt chaotic even far away from where...
00:47:14
Speaker
you know, the attacks, you know what i mean? Yeah, I was going to say, let's remember at this point, he's four or five miles away from there, which doesn't seem like much in today's, you know, day and also with all the information. But, you know, at the time that information didn't flow quite as quickly. So I could see how would still be. I mean, yeah, the infamous news reports had gone out. There is a bulletin from CBS News.
00:47:40
Speaker
In Dallas, Texas, three shots were fired at President Kennedy's motorcade in downtown Dallas. The first reports say that President Kennedy has been seriously wounded by this shooting.
00:47:53
Speaker
More details just arrived. United Press says that the wounds for President Kennedy perhaps could be fatal. i was gonna say all the housewives watching their soap operas knew about it, but i that all the, all the people, um but, but, you know, I do see how, you know, still, still five miles out and half an hour later. Right. right see how there's still a little bit of calm. that It would have taken little while for.
00:48:20
Speaker
Right. The craziness to spread. i can't remember if I posted on social media for last episode or if it's going to be for this episode. But I think it was last episode. i post I shared a picture of a row of men on a train all holding their newspapers that say different headlines.
00:48:39
Speaker
But it's all about Jack's assassination. Oh, my gosh. I yeah can imagine. My mom has the newspaper somewhere. She saved it. Really? Yeah. But I don't know.
00:48:50
Speaker
I don't know where. um But I know she's showed it to me before and it's packed away. I would love to have gotten it out like while we've been doing this and read it. But it's packed away somewhere. We'll find it eventually. Lee stopped in front of a shoe store pretending to be interested in a window display when he heard sirens. So he would just kind of turn around and be like, oh, you know, just.
00:49:12
Speaker
Don't look at my face. Everything's fine. However, the owner of the shoe store noticed him and saw him being suspicious, kind of looking like that very vague description that had been released and started to follow him as Oswald ducked into a movie theater, which was showing the matinee of the film War is Hell.
00:49:35
Speaker
The owner, in a bit of a panic, convinced the theater employee to call the police. The police arrived at the theater to arrest the person who had killed the police officer, not Jack's assassin.
00:49:50
Speaker
When the police descended onto him, he shouted, quote, this is it.
00:49:56
Speaker
I hear it in my head. He punched one officer and attempted to swipe somebody's pistol. He was knocked in the head with a shotgun and arrested.
00:50:07
Speaker
He kept shouting, quote, don't hit me anymore. I'm not resisting. Police brutality. I'm just a patsy. Why are you doing this to me? And was taken out of the theater and brought to jail.
00:50:22
Speaker
Okay, so he was so so he was arrested at the theater. And according to Lee, he just, you know, left work because assumed there was no more work going to go on for the day and headed out to a movie and, you know, grabbed his loaded gun on the way. Yeah, as you do.
00:50:45
Speaker
So that's, you know, that's what, the you know, his story is. That's what history so tells us. and And then there's a lot, you know, I guess in between that people view differently. And we'll get into a little bit more.
00:50:59
Speaker
Yeah. But, ah you know, I had full intentions of finishing the Lee Harvey Oswald's ah episodes, and we definitely didn't. We've recorded for over an hour, and there is still a lot. So we're going to stop here.
00:51:16
Speaker
Guys, I'm sorry about the chattiness, but I hope it's worth it. It's better to have the conversation in and and hash it out, right? It for sure is. It for sure is. And that's what we do. So, yeah. Next week, we will talk about um kind of what happened with Marina.
00:51:35
Speaker
Interrogation. We're going to get into the Jack Ruby of it all. And... Then we will move on to the plethora of conspiracy theories. We're going to actually like I have a I've basically compiled a list.
00:51:52
Speaker
I gave like a real brief description of each conspiracy. And i it's going to be a fun time being like that one is absolutely insane or being like, maybe. so I'm actually very excited for the conspiracy ones. It really. yeah I can't wait.
00:52:09
Speaker
i won't i will I won't start because otherwise I'll go on for another 20 minutes.
00:52:15
Speaker
All right. Well, thank you, everybody. we will wrap I swear we will wrap up Lee Harvey Oswald next week. Bye.