On Friday evening, November 22, 1963, David Ferrie drove to Houston with two of his friends, Al Beauboeuf, and Mel Coffey. This trip has become the stuff of legends!
Just have a look at page 7 of Garrison s
On The Trail of The Assassins, and you ll find skepticism about the trip: And the more he talked, the less his story held together. For example, when I asked him the reason for his departure from New Orleans only one hour following the assassination, he responded that he had driven to Houston to go ice skating. When I asked him why he had chosen one of the heaviest thunderstorms in many years as the occasion for his ice skating trip, he had no adequate answer.
Russo failed the first two questions and the polygraph operator, Roy Jacob, thought he was a psychopath. Jacob knew he had to tell somebody that things were amiss but he also knew his job at the Jefferson Parish sheriff s office would be at risk.
Here is the internal report of the test sent to Jim Garrison (note that many documents use Jacobs, but his name was Jacob):
The polygraph test was administered on March 8, 1967, well before the preliminary hearing on March 14, 1967. The memo was typed up two months later. Garrison put Russo on the stand despite the report from Roy Jacob.
Judge Herbert Christenberry held three days of hearings from January 25-27, 1971 to determine if Clay Shaw should stand trial for perjury. We ve already posted highlights of Jim Garrison s testimony. Today, we post the entire testimony of Lt. Edward O Donnell who conducted lie detector tests for Garrison in the 1960s.
Before we start, here is the report that O Donnell submitted to Garrison regarding Perry Russo s lie detector test:
This was actually the second attempt to give Perry Russo a lie detector test More on the first test tomorrow.
Here is Lt. Edward O Donnell s testimony from January 26, 1971:
In 1993, Patricia Lambert spoke to Captain James Kruebbe who confirmed that Vernon Bundy did indeed fail his lie detector test. Clay Shaw s attorneys were not notified of this until they were approached by Edward O Donnell - and he only approached them after the trial started. He ended up testifying on behalf of
The Curious Case of Cedric Younger Von Rolleston From:
This is a story of false identification and the fact that many people, in any large investigation, come forward with stories that are just not believable. In this case, a Mr. Cedric Rolleston told Garrison investigators that he saw Clay Shaw with Lee Harvey Oswald in 1963. Clay Shaw s legal team had to run down the lead and eventually Mr. Rolleston recanted. Yet, even today, conspiracy books don t quite tell you the whole story about Mr. Rolleston.
Mr. Rolleston enters our story in 1963 when he contacts the FBI regarding Lee Harvey Oswald.
Thomas Beckham claimed he was friends with Lee Harvey Oswald in New Orleans. This post examines what he told the New Orleans grand jury in 1968, what he told the HSCA in 1978 and what he published in his book,
Remnants of Truth, in 2008.
When I read Beckham s testimony - well, I just can t believe he knew Oswald. But, as we will see, conspiracy author Joan Mellen believed him.
Let s start with Beckham s testimony before the New Orleans grand jury in 1968. He was asked three times if he knew Oswald and he said no all three times:
Page 56.
page 151.
Now, let s have a look at his testimony before the HSCA on May 24, 1978.