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Naming the Dallas Deputies (Part 3) -- Luke Mooney

Let's take an impartial look at the WC testimony of Dallas Deputy Luke Mooney, a 40 year old plainclothes officer who had been working for the County Sheriff only six years. (He had been a Texas A&M student, then a WW2 Army veteran, then an automobile salesman, for 17 years before this.)

Notice how his WC testimony entails only a single hour of the day JFK was killed in Dallas -- from about 12:30 PM to 1:30 PM. I will summarize that hour as briefly as I can, to begin, with approximate minutes:

. 12:30 . Mooney and several Dallas Deputies were milling around as mere spectators outside the Sheriff's Department (about one block south of the TSBD). JFK passed by. That was that.

. 12:31 . They heard shots, so they ran as fast as they could, about one block, to the Grassy Knoll. They jumped over the picket fence.

. 12:32 . They saw nobody in the parking lot behind the picket fence except other Dallas Deputies and Police. Mooney couldn't remember who they were. They tried to keep the spectators out.

. 12:35 . Deputies Mooney, Vickery and Webster got orders from Sheriff Decker (through some Deputy whose name Mooney couldn't recall) to go and "cover" the TSBD building. They ran there -- maybe 100 feet.

. 12:36 . They first tried to seal off the back entrance which was wide open, and they left a civilian in charge of that, as they headed to the top of the TSBD. Mooney couldn't recall why they chose the top floors. Some took the stairs; some took the elevator.

. 12:37 . As Luke Mooney ran up the stairs, he saw two plainclothes Deputies coming down the stairs. He couldn't remember who they were.

. 12:38 . Mooney stopped at the 6th floor, all alone. He couldn't recall why he stopped there, yet he was certain that nobody else was on the floor. He criss- crossed the South side of the floor and said he saw nothing at all. So he went up to the 7th floor, where all the other Deputies were, including Vickery and Webster.

. 12:45 . Mooney sat there with some Deputies, while Deputies Boone, Walters and Craig walked back to the Sheriff's Office to get some flashlights.

. 12:50 . News reporters with cameras came snooping around for any news. Nobody had anything yet.

. 13:00 . Mooney decided to return to the 6th floor with Webster and Vickery. This time, in the Southeast corner, he saw a large sniper's nest of boxes stacked up high in a semi-circle. Mooney went behind the nest and he saw three expended shells scattered about the floor. He also saw three boxes stacked by the open window, like a rifle rest. The top box had a "crease where the assassination rifle could lay, at the same angle that shots were fired."

. 13:01 . Mooney didn't touch any of the evidence, but he carefully leaned out the window "where the shots were fired," and he saw Sheriff Bill Decker and Captain Will Fritz on the sidewalk below, talking to each other. Mooney hollered, signaled and whistled until Sheriff Decker looked up. He hollered to get the Crime Lab officers, because he "had the location spotted."

. 13:02 . Then Mooney stood guard to see that no one disturbed anything until Captain Will Fritz and his people could get to the 6th floor and take over. Vickery and Webster joined him, as did Deputy McCurley.

*** Later Mooney said that CE 508 is a photo of that scene, right around 1 PM. CE 509 shows the three boxes. CE 510 shows only two shells, but CE 512 shows all three shells. He said he remembered the scene slightly differently than the official photos show them.

. 13:05 . Captain Fritz and his people arrived. Fritz went over and picked up the shells with his hands.

. 13:12 . Dallas Crime Lab experts, JC Day and Lee Studebaker, arrived to take fingerprints.

. 13:20 . Mooney decided to leave the TSDB, because the floor was crowded with news cameras and officers searching for the weapon. He had done his part.

. 13:22 . On his way to the Northeast stairs, Deputy Boone hollered out that he "found the rifle." Mooney looked, and, sure enough, there was Oswald's rifle between some book cartons. CE 514 shows the rifle there; but Mooney recalled that "it had more cartons around it than that."

That's basically all there is to the WC testimony of Deputy Luke Mooney. Now, before I offer my personal opinion and interpretation, I will preface my remarks as before, by saying that as I name Dallas Deputy Luke Mooney as a suspect in the JFK Assassination, I have no animosity toward him at all. He seems like a nice family man and a patriot.

I am expressing an opinion based upon what I see, without emotion. I'm following in the tradition of Dallas resident, Ricky White, who named his own father, Dallas policeman Roscoe White, in the JFK Assassination. (I will note here that when Ricky White chose to make public what he and his mother knew about his father, some journalists rewarded him handsomely.)

I emphasize, further, that none of the Dallas plotters in the JFK Assassination received any money at any time. This was an all-volunteer conspiracy, and patriotism was the only motive. (We may disagree with their politics, but not with their sincerity, in my honest opinion.)

I notice first that the WC testimony of Luke Mooney harmonizes well with that of Deputy Eugene Boone. Both cover the same hour, from about 12:30 to about 1:30 PM at Dealey Plaza. Both men are fairly silent about details. Luke Mooney says, "I don't recall," quite a lot. Yet he was an intelligent man.

So, I will try to fill in the blanks. Here's my reading of his role in the JFK Assassination.

(A) Deputy Mooney, on 11/22/1963, was on break on the sidewalk, watching the JFK parade with the crowds and with other staff from the Dallas County Sheriff's Department. He was aware that a plot to kill JFK was underway -- and that his boss, legendary Dallas Sheriff Bill Decker, was his leader in that event.

(B) Mooney knew which Dallas Deputies were part of the plot, and which were not. He was aware that the Dallas City Police Captain Will Fritz was the leader of those in the Police Department. Mooney was a willing part of the plot. He was an unpaid volunteer. He believed that JFK was a Communist menace to America. This was a patriotic duty, in his opinion, and in the opinion of all the plotters among the Dallas Deputies and Police.

(C) Hearing the first shot at JFK was the signal. The Deputies all ran from the Dallas County Jail to the Grassy Knoll picket fence as fast as they could. They made it there in 30-40 seconds.

(D) The Deputies knew very well that there were no Communists shooting from Dealey Plaza. They had no fear of running into a battle with active shooters.

(E) Deputy Mooney, like all the Deputies, knew very well that when they arrived at the County parking lot behind the Grassy Knoll picket fence, that they would find only Dallas Deputies and Police there -- and that the actual shooters were well-camouflaged by wearing their Dallas uniforms. Almost nobody in Dallas would suspect officers.

(F) Milling around the parking lot and the railroad yard behind the Grassy Knoll picket fence, allowed other JFK plotters in the TSDB, more time to set up a fake "sniper's nest".

(G) Deputy Mooney claims that, with Webster and Vickery, within minutes, they received "orders" from Sheriff Decker (who was at Parkland Hospital at that time) to "cover" the TSBD building. Actually, they had "orders" from Sheriff Decker the night before about what to do -- go to the TSBD sixth floor to prepare the fake "evidence discovery" which was scheduled for 1PM.

(H) As Deputy Mooney climbed up the TSBD stairs, he saw two Deputies coming down. What were they doing up there? Who were they? Mooney does not ask these questions, because he knew -- they were planting evidence. They had obtained Oswald's rifle that morning (by buying it from Oswald at twice its value, according to Gerry Patrick Hemming in conversations with A.J. Weberman).

(I) Mooney said he stopped at the 6th floor, but did not know why, and that he "criss-crossed" the floor on the South side and saw nothing. But actually, there were men there, building the "sniper's nest" and he knew them. He went there to chat briefly before joining the other Deputies on the 7th floor. Nobody else was allowed on the 6th floor at that time.

(I) Mooney went up to the 7th floor to be with the other Deputies and simply to wait until 1 PM. Mooney had been pre-selected as the man who would "find" the JFK Assassination sniper's nest and spent cartridge shells. That was his role. He did it willingly, and he knew that these were planted there by other JFK plotters.

(J) When the clock struck 1 PM, Luke Mooney came down from the 7th floor to the 6th floor, and although he had already "crisscrossed" the South side of the floor, this time he "discovered" a huge sniper's nest. Behind that nest he found three shells on the floor -- as if the assassin couldn't be bothered to pick them up!

(K) By 1 PM, Sheriff Decker and Captain Fritz were down on the sidewalk, immediately below, waiting for Mooney's signal. He leaned out the window and called for the Crime Lab, because he had "spotted the location." Everything was operating on schedule.

(L) In the next few minutes, Captain Fritz would arrive, and with him, a torrent of officers and newspaper reporters with cameras. By 1:20, Deputy Luke Mooney was ready to leave the floor.

(M) At about the same time he decided to leave, Deputy Eugene Boone found "the gun". Evidently they left the floor together, because we have no photographs of Boone on the 6th floor, though we have dozens of photographs of that place and time in the official record.

(N) In my opinion, Deputy Mooney knew the names of the plotters in the Dallas Sheriff's Department where he worked -- and some of those in the Dallas Police Department.

(O) We have no current evidence that Deputy Mooney was part of a John Birch Society chapter in Dallas, or that he was aware of Ex-General Edwin Walker as the head of the JFK Plot in Dallas. Yet we can best explain his narrow focus on that single hour of 11/22/1963 by recognizing that he knew that his co-workers in the Dallas Sheriff's Office, were key players in the JFK Assassination.

The WC testimony of Mooney and Boone fit together so tightly, we may suppose that they coordinated their WC testimony months ahead of time.

Best regards, --Paul Trejo

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