The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy – part 7: The Investigation of the 6th floor of the Texas Schoolbook Depository building, on November 22-25, 1963

Reading time: 15 Minutes

Reading guide: Together with the captions, the pictures provide the essence of the story

Dallas, November 22, 1963 at 12:30 p.m.

At half past twelve on Friday afternoon, President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas. Sitting in the back of a car, he was hit by several gunshots. It was not immediately clear where the shots had come from. Several police officers ran up a grassy knoll bordering a parking lot and railroad yard.

Almost instantly officers also entered the seven-story Texas Schoolbook Depository building from which the shots had allegedly been fired. In this building a number of textbook publishers had their books stored on the top four floors, while their offices were on the lower floors. Approximately 50 employees worked in the building. Some of them were ‘order fillers’: they walked the floors with order lists to find the requested books. One of them was Lee Harvey Oswald, who had been working there for about a month.

Half an hour after Kennedy’s assassination, Dallas police discovered an empty space surrounded by stacks of boxes (later known as the “sniper’s nest”). Inside the sniper’s nest lay three casings on the floor. After twenty minutes, a rifle was discovered hidden behind stacks of book boxes. The next day, it appeared that the gun belonged to Lee Harvey Oswald.

Oswald’s alibi and the investigation of the 6^th floor

Motorcycle officer Marrion Baker was the first officer to run into the School Book Building. Together with the building’s manager Roy Truly, he rushed straight into the building, ran up the stairs at the back of the building and encountered Lee Harvey Oswald in the lunchroom on the second floor. The question now is whether Oswald had reached the lunchroom via the stairs in the front of the building, next to the entrance. Or had he taken the same stairs as Baker and Truly? Those stairs were at the back of the building (see Fig.2). If Oswald had been the gunman on the 6th floor, he could only have used the backstairs to get to the second floor lunchroom.

The Warren Commission re-enacted Baker’s and Truly’s route and found that it had taken them 75 seconds to reach the lunchroom. The question now is whether Oswald, descending from the 6^th floor could have reached the second floor ahead of Baker and Truly, within 75 seconds. If it had taken him longer than 75 seconds, he would not have been able to reach the lunchroom in time via the back stairs. Since Baker and Truly met him in the lunchroom, in that case Oswald must have taken the stairs next to the building’s entrance (see Fig.2). But that would mean he had an alibi and therefore he would not have been able to kill President Kennedy.

To figure out the time it would have taken Oswald to get to the lunchroom, we need answers to two questions. Firstly, how quickly could Oswald have left the sniper’s nest with the rifle in his hands? And secondly, did it take him a long time to hide the rifle? To put it differently, what did the 6^th floor look like at one o’clock on Friday afternoon, November 22? The floor had been occupied by many stacks of heavy book boxes that might have been obstacles for Oswald. Perhaps the 6^th floor investigation conducted by Dallas police will provide the answers.

How to investigate a crime scene?

Discussing the investigation, Sherry Fiester cites an American police manual from 1953, which explains how such an investigation should be conducted. First, the crime scene must be secured so that outsiders cannot change it. Then, photographs, a map and a detailed description of the crime scene should be made. Only then is it allowed to search for possible traces, such as fingerprints.

This procedure was endorsed worldwide. For example, Moolenaar, Chief of Police in my hometown Groningen (The Netherlands), gave almost exactly the same rules in his Criminal Tactics, a 1955 textbook for police officers. He too points out that the crime scene should not be visited by unauthorized persons. Finally, in his 1962 Criminal Investigation, Richard Jackson gives a warning that makes you wish Dallas detectives had adhered to it:

“In this connection there is one golden and inviolable rule: Never alter the position of, pick up, or even touch any object before it has been minutely described in an official note, and a photograph taken of the scene. (…) The natural impulse is immediately to touch any object of apparent significance, e.g. an object left on the scene of the crime by the criminal. It is laid hold of and moved about, and only afterwards is it recognised that the object in itself signifies very little, but that everything depends on its position – which can no longer be fixed.”

Source: Richard Jackson, Criminal Investigation (1962), p. 81-82.

According to Jackson, a thorough examination of the crime scene will prevent investigators from making grave mistakes. Besides taking pictures and making a map of the crime scene, it is essential to make a detailed description of the scene of the crime.

Flooded crime scene in Dallas

Were these textbook principles applied in Dallas on November 22? The officers who ran into the School Book Building, just minutes after President Kennedy’s assassination, did not know whether the sniper was still in the building. But even so, according to the manuals, it was essential that officers who were looking for the perpetrator, should not alter the situation. On Nov. 22 that was difficult, if not impossible: initially, no one was in charge of the investigation, and in addition to many police officers, journalists and press photographers were also present. According to a Dallas police report, there were even more people present on the 6^th floor: an FBI agent, an agent of the Secret Service (the agency responsible for the President’s security), five employees of the School Book Building, and two officials of the Alcohol Tax Department. At half past one, there were about 75 officers in the building.

In short, the actual crime scene (the 6^th floor) had never been secured. Photographer Tom Alyea, as well as William Shelley, one of the employees, even participated in the search of the building. The main entrance to the building on Elm Street was closed off almost immediately: employees who wanted to re-enter were stopped by police officers. But at one o’clock (i.e. half an hour after Kennedy’s assassination) Forrest Sorrels of the Secret Service entered the rear entrance to the building without having to identify himself. There was no one on guard there: any gunman could therefore have left the building unimpeded.

Captain Fritz on the 6^th floor

For more than 30 years, Captain Will Fritz had been head of the homicide and robbery department of Dallas police. He arrived at the Texas School Book Depository building at one o’clock and was almost instantly summoned to the 6^th floor where three rifle casings had been found. Fritz was the highest ranking officer on the 6^th floor and thus responsible for securing the crime scene. However, he had assumed responsibility only by ordering officers to guard the locations where the casings and the rifle had been found, until the police photographers, Lt. Carl Day and Robert Studebaker arrived. The casings having been found, officers were ordered to search for the rifle. By that time, Day and Studebaker had taken only three pictures of the casings.

A video by Tom Alyea shows the capers the officers cut to find the gun: https://youtu.be/SsnIeaAWFfo (from 2.25 to 2.40). The comment of someone who had watched the video is striking: “How not to secure a crime scene.” On top of that, the clip also shows a smoking officer. Flip de Mey is right in stating that – given the flammable material on the 6^th floor – it was a miracle that the entire building did not go up in flames. It was not without reason that ‘NO SMOKING’ signs hung all over the 6^th floor.

Two pictures were taken of the location where the rifle had been discovered. An accurate map of the 6^th floor was not made until Monday, November 25. A detailed description (as mentioned by the manuals) of the locations where the casings and the rifle had been found, let alone of the entire 6^th floor, was never provided.

A few minutes after the rifle had been found, Lt. Carl Day casually checked it for fingerprints. A few minutes later, he took it to the police station for further examination later that day. He would be absent for nearly an hour: at three o’clock he returned to the 6^th floor. Who had been in charge after Day took the gun to the police station at two o’clock? After all, ten minutes earlier, Captain Fritz (Fig. 5) had already left the building. Fritz and Day had left no instructions for the officers who had remained at the crime scene.

The Texas Schoolbook Depository building after 3 o’clock on Friday afternoon

Once Carl Day had left, his assistant Robert Studebaker – just six weeks in training at the homicide unit – started searching for fingerprints on the boxes stacked around the casings. Together with Day he had taken three pictures of the casings, but none of them shows where and in what way the boxes actually had been stacked in the area where the casings were found. Looking for fingerprints, Studebaker removed the boxes from the “sniper’s nest” and, having processed them, stacked them in the window or on the ground. Thus, the actual configuration of the crime scene had been wiped out.

A few minutes before three o’clock, Lt. Day had returned to the School Book Building. We do not know how he reacted when he saw the havoc wrought by his subordinate. As a matter of fact, Day too had been confused. Ten minutes after three o’clock, he took a picture from a window overlooking Houston Street. When the Warren Commission asked why he had taken that picture, he replied that he initially thought the shots had been fired from that particular window. Earlier that afternoon, together with Studebaker he had already taken photographs of the actual window (where the casings lay) from which the shots had been fired. Day had not yet come to grips with the situation, to say the least.

Putting back the heavy boxes around the window near the sniper’s nest must have taken Day and Studebaker quite some time. This way they tried to reconstruct the original crime scene. Although Day admitted – after some prodding by the Warren Commission – that they had totally lost track of the way the boxes had previously been stacked, Studebaker stated that they had been returned to their original location. Joe Ball (who led the interrogation on this subject on behalf of the Commission) failed to ask him how he could in fact know where those boxes had been originally. And that is odd: after all, Ball had previously asked whether Studebaker had taken pictures of the boxes which enclosed the sniper’s nest. Studebaker stated he had not taken any.

Apparently, Day and Studebaker did not consider making a map was of prime importance: they postponed it till Monday. Instead, they went outside to take pictures of the building and its surroundings. That is odd too: the building itself wasn’t likely to change, but – as we will see – the situation on the 6^th floor surely was.

Release of the crime scene: at 4 o’clock on November 22

It goes without saying that a crime scene should not be released until the investigation and the recording of the situation (taking photographs and making a floor plan together with an accurate description) are completed. In the course of the interrogation, Day said he had been in the building until 6 o’clock. But he had apparently finished the investigation by four o’clock. A few minutes after 4 o’clock, Ira Beers (a photographer of the Dallas Morning News) had been admitted to the 6^th floor, together with other journalists:

“… at the time the police had finished their investigation there in the building and then admitted the press to the building. and we were taken to the sixth floor and allowed to photograph the area where the rifle was found, and shown and allowed to photograph the area in and around the window and make pictures from the window where the assassination was supposedly – where the assassin was supposed to have fired shots from.”   

Source: Hearings Warren Report, Volume 13, p. 105; interrogation on April 14, 1964.

Judging by Figure 6, Day had spent part of the time between four and six hour o’clock, explaining the crime scene to the journalists. All in all, Day’s investigation on Friday, November 22, lasted barely two hours: from a quarter past one till two o’clock and from three o’clock till four o’clock. However, the wording ‘investigation’ clouds the issue. Because, after three o’clock, Day and Studebaker had to put back the stacks of book boxes, in order to make a ‘reconstruction’ of the area around the sniper’s nest.

Further contamination of the crime scene on Saturday, November 23 and Sunday, November 24

Once Day and Studebaker had gone, the 6^th floor was not secured, for instance by  placing an officer on guard. On Saturday, November 23, the School Book Building had evidently been freely accessible:

“Lt. Day stated that on Saturday, November 23, 1963, many persons unknown to him had apparently been on the sixth floor of the Texas School Dep. building and had taken a lot of photographs, in view of the fact that he noticed many empty film pack cartons near where the boxes were located, and the boxes had been re-arranged, apparently for the purpose of taking photographs.”

Source: Hearings Warren Report, Vol. 26, p. 805 (FBI report, Sept. 3, 1964); emphasis added.

However, on Sunday, November 24, the crime scene had also been visited by many people.  On Saturday and Sunday, for reasons unknown, Studebaker himself had also been in the building.

“Studebaker stated that on Saturday, November 23, newsmen were all over the building and particularly on the sixth floor, photographing and generally looking and examining everything. (…) Studebaker stated that on November 24, 1963, he was again at the Texas School Book Depository and observed dozens of newsmen in the TSBD building.”

Source: Exhibits Warren Report, Vol. 26, p. 807 (FBI report Sept. 9, 1964).

Continuation of the investigation by Dallas police on November 25, 1963

On Monday, November 25, after the crime scene had been badly contaminated over the weekend, Studebaker and Day returned to the Texas Schoolbook Depository building, Because Day and Studebaker had taken only a few photographs on November 22, they tried to remedy their mistake on November 25. In addition, they took four boxes with them, which had been left on November 22, because at that time they had not found fingerprints on them. These boxes had been in the sniper’s nest and had possibly served as a support for the rifle. According to Day, these boxes were no longer in the location where they had left them on Friday. It may well be that they were able to recognize the boxes by the black powder that had been used to search for fingerprints. However, given Studebaker’s modus operandi, it is questionable that they were the same boxes that had been in the sniper’s nest.

Not until November 25 did Studebaker make a map of the area surrounding the sniper’s nest they way as it looked at that time. As a matter of fact, he should have done that right away on November 22, before he had tampered with the crime scene and before journalists had moved boxes over the weekend. Therefore, the value of the floor plan (see Fig. 7) is debatable.

Conclusions

On November 22, Dallas police had violated just about every principle regarding the investigation of a crime scene. The 6^th floor had not been closed off to the public, and immediately after the murder, between a quarter to one and two o’clock, only five photographs had been taken. Indeed, more photographs had been taken after three o’clock on November 22, but at that time the crime scene had already been doctored. Even over the weekend, the scene of the crime had not been locked off or guarded by police officers. Only after the 6^th floor had been visited by many journalists on Saturday and Sunday,  additional photos were taken by Day and Studebaker on Monday. That same day the map of the southeast corner of the 6^th floor was drawn. An accurate description of the crime scene was never provided. As a result, the photos and the floor plan do not give a correct picture of the 6^th floor as it was at one o’clock on Friday.

How on earth is it possible that such a casual procedure happened? Annually, more murders were committed in Dallas alone than in the whole of the United Kingdom, even though Britain’s population was 50 times higher. It is very likely that Dallas police were overwhelmed by all these murders. As a result, there would not have been ample time in Dallas to investigate murders as meticulously as described by the police textbooks. Because of all the murders Day and Fritz had investigated before 1963, their methods had apparently become increasingly careless. Therefore, they probably were no longer able to put the official principles into practice when the most important murder in their careers had been committed.

The Warren Report does not mention the chaotic situation on the 6^th floor. Although the Commission’s investigation had mainly been focused on Carl Day’s careless activities, the Report made it appear as if there had been no problems. Only half a page is devoted to the investigation of the School Book Building. The Warren Commission covered the shortcomings of Dallas Police with the cloak of charity. The conclusion drawn by Harold Weisberg, as early as 1965, reflects not only the Warren Commission’s dilemma, but also the clumsiness of how it was handled:

“The investigation of the assassination at the Book Depository alone was of so highly dubious a character and accompanied by so many faults that, in itself, it would be the subject of more than one long book. (…) The Commission inherited this botch and formalized it into fact and history with the imprint of its approval.”

Source: Harold Weisberg, Whitewash, 1965, p. 31.

Because of the flawed police investigation, it must have been difficult for the Warren Commission to figure out what the 6^th floor had looked like immediately after Kennedy’s assassination. However, being convinced of Oswald’s guilt, the Commission made little effort to do so. On the basis of the few lines from the Warren Report, it cannot be determined  whether Oswald had been able to leave the sniper’s nest quickly and hide his rifle without losing too much time. Thus, the Commission’s conclusion that Oswald had been able to reach the lunchroom before Baker and Truly (and therefore would have been the perpetrator) is unreliable.

Sources

Literature: Warren Report p.79; S.W. Moolenaar, Criminele Tactiek. Leerboek voor Opspo-ringsambtenaren (Dokkum 1955); Richard Jackson, Criminal Investigation: A Practical Textbook for Magistrates, Police Officers and Lawyers (London 1962, 5^th ed.), p. 81-88; Harold Weisberg, Whitewash: the Report on the Warren Report (1965), p. 31-35; Sylvia Meagher, Accessories After the Fact: The Warren Commission, The Authorities & The Report (New York 1992; orig. 1967); Gary Savage, JFK First Day Evidence (Monroe 1993); Connie Kritzberg, Secrets from the Sixth Floor Window (Tulsa 1994); Sherry P. Fiester, Enemy of the Truth: Myths, Forensics, and the Kennedy Assassination (Southlake 2012), p. 1-33; Flip de Mey. Cold Case Kennedy (2013).

Fiester does not consider the possible consequences of the poor investigation by Dallas Police for Oswald’s alibi. Meagher as well as De Mey pay little attention to the quality of the investigation of the 6^th floor. Savage speaks – quite wrongly – highly of the activities of Dallas Police on November 22.

Hearings: Seymour Weitzman (7H 105-109 – April 1, 1964); Robert C.W. Brown (7H 246-251 – April 3); Studebaker (7H 137-149 – April 6); William Shelley (6H 327-334 – April 7); Ira Beers (13H 102-112 – April 14); J.W. Fritz (4H 202-249 – April 22); J.C. Day (4H 249-278 –  April 22); Forrest Sorrels (7H 332-360 – May 7); Jack Revill (5H 33-47 – May 13). The interrogations are also available on the internet.

Reports: Dallas Police report of Sims en Boyd in: Hearings and Exhibits Warren Report, Volume 24, p. 195-404 (CE 2003); FBI-reports about Day and Studebaker in: Hearings and Exhibits Warren Report, Volume 26, p. 799-809 (CE 3131).

Sources of the pictures

Fig. 3: Dallas (Tex.). Police Department. [Texas School Book Depository [Print]], photograph, 1963; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth49604/m1/1/?q=%22Dallas%20Police%20Department%22: University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Dallas Municipal Archives.

Fig. 4: Portal to Texas History.

Fig. 5: Allen, William. [Dallas Police officers exiting the Texas School Book Depository], photograph, November 22, 1963; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth184787/m1/1/: University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza.

Fig. 6: (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth184774/m1/1/?q=%20Sixth%20Floor%20of%20Texas%20School%20Book%20Depository: University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza.

Fig. 7: Dallas (Tex.). Police Department. [Map of Texas School Book Depository #2], map, November 25, 1963; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth338691/m1/1/: University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Dallas Municipal Archives.

Plan for the next parts of this series

• part 8: Falsified photos and the adventures of the three casings (December 2024)
• part 9: Discovery of the rifle on the 6^th floor. (January 2025)
• part 10: Warren Commission’s reconstruction of the time it took Baker and Truly to reach the second floor lunchroom. (February 2025)
• part 11: Reconstruction of the actual time it must have taken Baker and Truly to reach the lunchroom on the second floor lunchroom. (March 2025)
• part 12: Warren Commission’s reconstruction of the time it took Oswald to get from the 6^th floor to the lunchroom.
• part 13: Reconstruction of the actual time it must have taken Oswald to get from the 6^th floor to the lunchroom.
• part 14: Discovery of the paper bag (in which the rifle had allegedly been carried by Oswald) on the 6^th floor.
• part 15: The missing hour: Oswald at the police station in Dallas between 2 and 3 o’clock on Friday afternoon, November 22, 1963.
• part 16: Interrogation of Oswald on November 22, 23 and 24, 1963.

translated by Ite Wierenga