The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy – Part 10: Where Did It Go Wrong in the Interrogations Led by Joe Ball and David Belin?

Reading Time: 12 minutes

Reading Guide:

• This part, along with parts 9 and 11, revisits the topic from part 8 (regarding the forged photos of the sniper’s nest by Dallas police) but from a different perspective.

• Parts 9, 10 and 11 form a whole and can be read independently of part 8.
• The figures, along with their captions, summarize the essence of the story.

Dallas, November 22, 1963 – The Falsified Photos of the Sniper’s Nest

Half an hour after President Kennedy’s assassination, three rifle casings were found on the 6^th floor of the Texas School Book Depository. They lay in front of a window overlooking Elm Street, where Kennedy’s car had passed. Three stacks of book boxes stood by the window, behind which a shooter could have hidden (see Fig. 1). This space would become known as the sniper’s nest.

According to Inspector Carl Day and Detective Robert Studebaker, they had taken three photos of the sniper’s nest at half past one. However, in part 8 of this series, we concluded that the photos had actually been taken at half past three. Between 2 and 3 o’clock, Studebaker, while searching for fingerprints on the boxes, had dismantled the sniper’s nest.  After 3 o’clock, both detectives reconstructed the sniper’s nest, put the casings on the ground, and then took the photos. Therefore, we simply do not know what the sniper’s nest actually looked like at the time of Kennedy’s murder.

A Thought Experiment: What Must They Have Missed?

On behalf of the Warren Commission (which investigated President Kennedy’s assassination), staff members Joe Ball and David Belin conducted the most important part of the investigation: to determine who had assassinated Kennedy. To that end, they also paid (some) attention to the police investigation of the sniper’s nest. In part 8, we assumed that Ball and Belin knew that Studebaker had dismantled the sniper’s nest and that the photos had been staged, and that Ball and Belin had deliberately concealed this. In part 9, we introduced a thought experiment to reassess our conclusion by an alternative approach. We assumed the hypothesis that Ball and Belin acted in good faith and did not know that Studebaker had demolished the sniper’s nest. Consequently, they sincerely believed the photos were real. In part 9, it was determined that, if this were the case, Ball and Belin must have overlooked a significant amount of crucial information.

Botched Interrogations

However, the information Ball and Belin had overlooked, would not be compensated for by sharp and thorough questioning of the witnesses. They failed to ask the officers what Studebaker had actually been doing in the sniper’s nest. Even though the crime scene had been contaminated—one of the boxes had mysteriously disappeared—Ball and Belin made no serious effort to solve this mystery. They also ignored the many shortcomings of the investigation conducted by Inspector Day. For example, no chronological list of the photos  was compiled. A floor plan nor a description of the crime scene were provided. Finally, Belin failed to notice that less than two hours after having photographed the sniper’s nest, Lt. Day did not remember its location. We will now discuss these points in greater detail.

The Missing Box

1. Tom Dillard, a photographer for the Dallas Morning News, was in one of the press cars that were part of Kennedy’s motorcade. Shortly after the last shot, he took a photo of the Texas School Book Depository because a colleague said he saw something that looked like a rifle in one of the windows. As shown in Fig. 3, there is a box in the open window, from which the shots were allegedly fired. However, in the official police photograph, taken 50 minutes later (Fig.4), the box is no longer there.

Belin asked Day whether the missing box had been removed before the official police photograph (CE 715 – Fig.4) was taken. Day said he did not remember a box being there. Belin settled for that and made the following remark:

“For the record, I should add one other thing at this point. There is testimony by the deputy sheriff that found the shells, that after he found them he leaned out of the window to call down to try and tell someone that he found something and it is conceivable that he moved a box, although he did not so testify.”

Source: Hearings Warren Report, Volume 4, p. 252; interrogation on April 22, 1964.

He was referring to the statement of deputy sheriff Luke Mooney, who had been questioned the previous month by Joe Ball.

“So I leaned out the window, the same window from which the shots were fired, looked down, and I saw Sheriff Bill Decker and Captain Will Fritz standing right on the ground. Well, so I hollered, or signaled – I hollered, I more or less hollered. I whistled a time or two before I got anybody to see me. And yet they was all looking that way, too – except the Sheriff, they wasn’t looking up. And I told him to get the crime lab officers en route, that I had the location spotted.”

Source: Hearings Warren Report, Volume 3, p. 284; interrogation on March 25, 1964.

Besides Mooney, Officer Gerald Hill had also called about the  casings. In doing so, he was photographed by William Allen—see Fig. 5. Hill chose the adjacent window to avoid disturbing the crime scene, so he had no reason to remove the box. According to Hill, no one had heard him, so he went downstairs to deliver the message in person. Interestingly, Mooney and Hill were unaware that they had both called down. Their accounts of events do not align in other respects either. However, Belin did not pursue this discrepancy, nor did he try to figure out where Mooney might have put the box.

Another photo taken by William Allen (Fig. 6) probably provides evidence that the box was still there after Mooney and Hill had been hollering from the windows. Allen specifically photographed the window from which the shots had supposedly been fired: in fact, Fig. 6 is not an enlargement. So, he probably took the photo after it became apparent that the shooter had fired from this window. The people in front of the building only learned this after both Hill and Mooney had called down, or, if neither of them was heard, a few minutes later, after Hill had gone downstairs to report the discovery of the casings.

In that case, it is very likely that the box was moved by Studebaker. If so, he must have put the other dusted boxes on top of this box on the windowsill (see Fig. 10). Then, he would have used all the boxes, including the “missing” box, to reconstruct the sniper’s nest. Because Belin did not question Day and Studebaker more thoroughly, and apparently did not know Allen’s photo (Fig. 6), he failed to realize that moving the box fit seamlessly with the extremely careless manner in which Day and Studebaker had conducted their work.

No Criticism of the Police ‘Investigation’

2. According to the textbook principles at the time, drawing a floor plan and describing the crime scene were part of the standard operating procedure for detectives. However, Studebaker did not make a floor plan of the southeast corner of the 6^th floor until Monday, November 25—see Fig. 7. By then, however, the crime scene had already been badly contaminated, if only because journalists, who had free access over the weekend of November 23, had moved stacks of boxes. Thus, Studebaker’s floor plan (as does Fig. 2) shows only two stacks of boxes in the sniper’s nest, instead of the three stacks that had been there on Friday (see Fig.1). Ball and Belin failed to ask Day and Studebaker why the floor plan of the southeast corner of the 6^th floor had not been made right away November 22. A description of the crime scene was never provided, but Ball and Belin did not pursue this matter.

3. Belin also failed to ask Day about the absence of a list recording the timestamps of the photographs. Although Belin did ask in the course of the interrogation at what time photos had been taken, Day sometimes did not remember. Incidentally, this  proved the usefulness of making a list. Sometimes, Belin did not ask about the time at all, and some photos did not come up in the interrogation. This is all the more troublesome, because many photos were not taken untill Monday, November 25, when the crime scene had been badly contaminated. Because of this approach by Belin (and by Day!), we are left with many photographs of which the exact time of capture is not known.

4. Day and Studebaker stated that they had taken only three photos by half past one. However, their focus was mainly on the shell casings. Belin did not ask why they had not taken photographs of the entire sniper’s nest as well of its surroundings. Additionally, at half past one, no photos were taken of the arrangement of the three boxes right in front of the window. That was only done after they had been removed to check for fingerprints. Day candidly admitted that they did not know how the three boxes had actually been positioned and therefore they had put them back rather randomly. Belin did not inquire about the reason for this careless procedure.

Cautious Questioning

5. Ball and Belin had the photographs of the sniper’s nest in front of them on the table and had already used them for their interim report late February. Nevertheless, they made a tentative attempt to verify whether other officers had observed the taking of the photographs. However, they were extremely careful in questioning the officers on this matter. For example, Belin asked Officer Marvin Johnson whether he (Johnson) was present when Day and Studebaker came to take photographs. “Yes,” Johnson replied. The cautiousness became apparent when Belin failed to ask whether Johnson had actually seen the photographs being taken. Moreover, Johnson had just stated that, in his opinion, the shell casings had not been positioned as they appeared in the photos taken by Day and Studebaker. This would have been an additional reason to follow up with questions about the photography process. But Belin did not pursue this matter.

6. When it turned out that no one of the officers had actually seen the photographs being taken, Ball and Belin did not realize that something might have been wrong with the photos. Officers Montgomery and Johnson had remained in the vicinity of Studebaker and the sniper’s nest until half past two on November 22. They could not have seen the photographs being taken (since they were not taken until later), but they must have seen Studebaker dismantling the sniper’s nest in search of fingerprints. However, Ball and Belin did not ask them anything about Studebaker’s activities.

7. Ball and Belin showed remarkably little interest in the investigation of the sniper’s nest. This is all the more surprising since, in their interim report, they had determined that it should be investigated whether the three stacks of boxes in the sniper’s nest had been put  there by employees or by someone else (Oswald?). They noted that perhaps Day or Studebaker knew more about this. But they were never asked. Nevertheless, in his 1988 book, Belin suggests the possibility that Oswald had put the three stacks of boxes there by himself:

“Bonnie Ray Williams [one of Oswald’s colleagues] testified that as the new floor was laid, he and other employees moved cartons from the west side of the sixth floor to the east side. Oswald was able to readily move a few of these cartons to make a ‘shield’ around the south-east corner window on the sixth floor so that it would not be seen from other portions of the sixth floor at the time of the assassination.” Bron: David Belin, Final Disclosure, p. 65-66.

But why was Day not asked by Belin in 1964 whether these boxes had also been checked for Oswald’s fingerprints? That would probably have made it apparent that the sniper’s nest had been dismantled. Possibly, Belin might have obtained the truth by showing Williams the three photos of the sniper’s nest and asking him whether they matched what he had seen. But Belin failed to do that as well.

Detectives hard at work?

8. Day and Studebaker must have accomplished a great deal of work in a very short period of time. This becomes evident when we take a closer look at the timeline. At 1:12 PM, they arrived at the Texas School Book Depository. Eleven minutes later, they had already reached the 6^th floor, checked the shell casings for fingerprints, put them in an envelope, and had written on the envelope the time indicating when all this was done.

Could they have really done that so quickly? After a brief conversation with Inspector Sawyer (who was questioning witnesses in front of the building), they had to walk to the elevators at the back of the building, carrying two cases. There was a delay because the elevators were out of order. So, they had to take the stairs all the way to the 6^th floor. On the way up, they may have briefly talked to one of the numerous officers who were searching the building. According to Day, Sawyer had told him that the casings had been found. However, instead of mentioning the 6^th floor, Sawyer had stated over the police radio, that the casings had been found on the 3^rd floor. Someone must have directed Day to the 6^th floor instead. These conversations would have taken time, as climbing the stairs would have.

Finally, arriving on the 6^th floor, they must have talked to someone who could tell them where they had to be. After all, the floor measured 95 feet by 95 feet. They put their cases on a stack of boxes in the southeast corner of the 6^th floor. Next, Day and Studebaker must have had a brief conversation with Officers Montgomery and Johnson, who, under orders from Captain Will Fritz, were guarding the sniper’s nest. Only then did they get around taking the three photographs. They picked up the shell casings, dusted them for fingerprints, and put them in an envelope. Day wrote the time on the envelope when he stored them: 1:23 PM.

Simply reading these activities aloud takes a few minutes. How much more time did it really  take to carry them out? However, Ball and Belin did not ask Day and Studebaker how they managed to accomplish all of this in record time.

Why Did Lt. Carl Day Take Photos from the Wrong Window?

9. Finally, perhaps Belin’s biggest oversight. Between 3 o’ clock and a quarter past 3, Lt. Day, having returned to the Schoolbook building, took three pictures from one of the 6^th floor windows overlooking Houston Street. One of them is in the Exhibits of the Warren Report (see Fig. 6). The website The Portal to Texas History also features the other two almost identical photos. On comparing these pictures it appears that Day did not take them in quick succession. The lady on the left in Fig. 6, who was walking behind the carelessly parked car, is no longer there in the other two pictures. So, some time elapsed between the three photos.

Belin interrogated Day about CE 722, one of three photos Day had taken of Houston Street:

Belin: “Do you know when it was taken?”

Day: “About 3 or 3.15, somewhere about there, on November 22.”

Belin: “When 722 was made, you —-“

Day: “I did not know the direction the shots had been fired.”

Belin: “All right. [!!!] I’m going to hand you what I have already marked as 724. What about that one?”

Day: “This was made, 724 was made, some 15 to 20 minutes after 722 when I received information that the shooting actually occurred on Elm Street rather than Houston Street. The boxes had been moved at that time.” Source: Hearings Warren Report, Volume 4, p. 264-265; interrogation on April 22, 1964; emphasis and exclamation marks added.

The windows from which Day had taken the photos were close together near the sniper’s nest, as shown in Figure 8. At two o’clock Day had taken the rifle to the police station for safekeeping. At three o’clock, when Day had returned to the School Book Building, the sniper’s nest had already been cleared away by Studebaker. As so often in the course of the interrogations conducted by Belin and Ball, no further questions were asked. This also occurred in the course of Day’s interrogation. Who had told him that he had been taking pictures from the wrong window? Surely, when Day took the pictures of the casings around half past one, he must have known that this was the actual window where the sniper had been. He had even picked up the casings and checked them for fingerprints.

So, how on earth was it possible that, less than two hours later, Day could not remember from which window the sniper had fired? And why had Belin not noticed this? Was he truly such an incompetent investigator, or was he covering for Day? These questions will be addressed in the next part of this series.

Sources

Literature: Warren Report (1964) p. 137 -142; Four Days: The Historical Record of the Death of President Kennedy (1964); David Belin, Final Disclosure: The Full Truth About the Assassination of President Kennedy (New York 1988); Howard P. Willens, History will prove us right: Inside the Warren Commission Report on the Assassination of John F. Kennedy (New York 2013).

Hearings: Bonnie Ray Williams (3H 161-188 – March 24, 1964); Luke Mooney (3H 281-291 – March 25); Tom Dillard (6H 162-167 – April 1); Robert Studebaker (7H 137-149 – April 6);  Montgomery (7H 96-99 – April 6); Marvin Johnson (7H 100-105 – April 6); Gerald Hill (7H 43-66 – April 8); J.W. Fritz (4H 202-249 – April 22); J.C. Day (4H 249-278 – April 22).

Photos sniper’s nest in: Exhibits of the Warren Report: Volume 17, p. 199-226 and 499-510; Volume 21, p. 643-649. The photos included here are courtesy of the University of North Texas’ excellent database: The Portal to Texas History. The digital renderings are far better than the photos printed in the Exhibits of the Warren Report. The photos taken by William Allen are also this site. They have not been published in the Exhibits of the Warren Report.

Sources of the pictures:

Fig. 1:

William Allen, November 22,

1963; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth184779/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. 2:

Dallas (Tex.). Police Department. Boxes in the Texas School Book Depository, photograph, 1963~; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth49475/m1/1/: accessed December 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Dallas Municipal Archives.

Fig. 4:

Dallas (Tex.). Police Department. View from the Texas School Book Depository, photograph, 1963~; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth49532/m1/1/?q=%22Dallas%20Police%20Department%22: accessed October 1, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Dallas Municipal Archives.

Fig. 5:

Allen, William. [Dallas Police Sergeant Gerald Hill leaning out of a window of the Texas School Book Depository], photograph, November 22, 1963; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth184839/m1/1/: accessed October 1, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza.

Fig. 6:

Allen, William. [Window of the alleged sniper’s perch at the Texas School Book Depository], photograph, November 22, 1963; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth184844/m1/1/?q=%22sixth%20floor%22: accessed August 27, 2024), 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 Sixth Floor of Texas School Book Depository], photograph, 1963~; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth49453/m1/1/?q=6th%20floor%20police%20Dallas: accessed July 6, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Dallas Municipal Archives.

Fig. 8:

https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth338859/m1/1/?q=%22sixth%20floor%22:

University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Dallas Municipal Archives.

Fig. 9:

Dallas (Tex.) Police Department. November 22, 1963,  

https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth337079/m1/5/?q=%22sixth%20floor%22: University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Dallas Municipal Archives.

Fig. 10: Allen, William. [Exterior of the Texas School Book Depository], photograph, November 22, 1963; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth184816/m1/1/: University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza.

Plan for the next parts

• Part 11: Were Joe Ball and David Belin incompetent investigators or competent liars? (Scheduled release date: March 2025)
• Part 12: The discovery of the rifle on the 6^th floor of the Texas School Book Depository (April 2025)
• Part 13: Warren Commission’s reconstruction of the time it took Baker and Truly to reach the second-floor lunchroom (April 2025)
• Part 14: Reconstruction of the time it actually took Baker and Truly to reach the second-floor lunchroom (May 2025)
• Part 15: Warren Commission’s reconstruction of the time it took Oswald to get from the 6^th floor to the second-floor lunchroom
• Part 16: Reconstruction of the time it must have taken Oswald to get from the 6^th floor to the second-floor lunchroom
• Part 17: Discovery of the paper bag (in which the rifle would have been carried by Oswald) on the 6^th floor
• Part 18: The missing hour: Oswald at the Dallas police station between 2:00 and 3:00 PM on Friday, November 22, 1963
• Part 19: Oswald’s interrogations on November 22, 23, and 24, 1963