Upon review, I’ve changed my opinion about Detective C.N. Dhority, who was a close companion of Detective C.W. Brown. Both worked for Captain Fritz whom I regard as central to the JFK/LHO plot. I now maintain that Detective Dhority’s behavior on 11/22/1963 is in question, insofar as he helped C.W. Brown amass bogus evidence against LHO.
First, let’s briefly review his WC testimony:
1. Off-duty, Detective Dhority was called to help at City Hall around 2 PM. He came in to answer telephones.
2. Around 5 PM, Dhority received a visit from Mary Bledsoe, claiming that she had seen LHO on the bus that she was riding when JFK was shot. When another passenger exclaimed that JFK had been shot, LHO laughed out loud, and she became angry with him. She knew it was LHO, she said, because LHO had rented a room in her house during the first week of October 1963, and she didn’t like him then, and she kicked him out.
3. Dhority quickly identified her bus and driver, namely, Cecil McWatters, and immediately sent Dallas police to pick him up to join Mary Bledsoe at a line-up. McWatters arrived at the station around 6:30 PM.
4. At the line-up, Mary Bledsoe identified LHO quickly, but McWatters was uncertain.
5. McWatters knew the laugher personally, and he knew the laugher wasn’t LHO. So, McWatters wouldn’t identify LHO.
6. Dhority kept pushing. He produced a bus ticket and claimed that he’d found it in LHO’s pocket. He asked if McWatters could identify it, knowing that every bus driver has a unique ticket punch.
7. McWatters had his puncher with him, and he punched a blank piece of paper to compare with the bus ticket. They matched exactly.
8. Dhority concluded that McWatters had positively identified LHO, no matter what McWatters said.
9. Then, Captain Fritz give Dhority three spent 6.5 rifle shells to deliver to Lieutenant Day at the Crime Lab.
10. Fritz told Dhority to bring one shell back. So he did, in an envelope, and Lieutenant Day kept two empty shells.
11. At about 7 PM Dhority drove out to Oak Cliff to bring Virginia and Jeanette Davis to the station.
12. They provided Dhority with a .38 caliber shell which they claimed they found in their front yard.
13. Dhority organized another LHO lineup for the Davis sisters, who positively identified LHO as the man they saw reloading his pistol while running across their front lawn. ‘‘
14. On Saturday, Dhority organized another LHO line-up for two cab drivers. Will Whaley claimed he drove LHO from a bus to his rooming house in Oak Cliff. Bill Scoggins claimed he saw LHO at the Tippit murder scene. They both identified Oswald.
15. On Sunday, at about 9:30 AM, Dhority brought LHO down to Captain Fritz’s office one last time.
16. Around 11 AM, Captain Fritz gave Dhority keys to a car to transport LHO to County Jail. Officers walked LHO behind Captain Fritz as Dhority backed the car up. Captain Fritz reached the car door at the same moment that Jack Ruby shot LHO.
17. Dhority rode in the ambulance with LHO to the hospital, where LHO died. Dhority drove Oswald to the morgue.
So, there’s the testimony of Dallas Detective C.N. Dhority. It seems professional on the surface, but I see inconsistencies. Like Detective Brown, Detective Dhority worked directly for Captain Fritz who was pushing hard to hold LHO on any suspicion, and he told his subordinates to push hard. I think Dhority and Brown pushed too hard.
So, here’s my interpretation of these same events:
1. Off-duty, Dhority was called to help at City Hall around 2 PM. He answered telephones, and nothing dramatic happened until around 5 PM.
2. Around 5 PM, Mary Bledsoe came to the Dallas police station claiming that she had seen LHO on the bus that she was riding at the time that JFK was shot. When another passenger exclaimed that JFK had been shot, she said, LHO laughed out loud and she became angry with him. She knew it was LHO, she said, because LHO had rented a room in her house during the first week of October 1963, and she didn’t like him then, and she kicked him out.
2.1. SUSPICION #1. It’s too much of a coincidence that the laugher was also LHO. More likely, she had complained to her son that afternoon about the laugher, and then on TV they saw a photo of LHO after his arrest. Mary Bledsoe was stunned to realize that this infamous murderer was in her house only seven weeks prior! She’d rented a room to him! Mary wanted public recognition. She convinced herself that LHO must have been the laugher on the bus, so her son rushed her to the Dallas police station to make a report. That is the more likely scenario.
2.2. Detective Dhority was all-too eager to file her report as an eyewitness in the JFK assassination, if she could identify LHO as the laugher on the bus. Dhority kept her at the station to arrange a line-up as soon as possible. Were there any more passengers who would testify? No?
3. Dhority quickly identified her bus and driver, namely, Cecil McWatters, and immediately sent Dallas police to pick him up to attend a line-up. McWatters arrived at the station around 6:30 PM.
3.1. SUSPICION #2. How did Dhority identify her bus driver so quickly? The likely answer is that Mary Bledsoe brought her bus ticket with her as evidence. She showed it to Dhority, who quickly called the bus company with the bus route number printed on the ticket. The bus company looked up the route driver’s name and address and handed that over to Dhority.
3.2. That best explains Dhority’s quick ID of bus driver McWatters, and the instant dispatch of police to pick him up at his address and bring him to the station so quickly.
4-5. At the line-up, Mary Bledsoe was able to identify LHO right away -- not because he was really the laugher, but because LHO had been her renter seven weeks prior, and she knew his face from that experience. McWatters, however, knew who the laugher really was! McWatters knew him personally -- he was a regular on the route! So McWatters knew for a fact that the laugher wasn’t LHO, and he said so. So, McWatters wouldn’t identify LHO.
5.1. Kudos to Cecil McWatters for his honesty, despite the Dallas Police pushing hard for a positive ID.
6. Dhority kept pushing. He produced a bus ticket and claimed that he’d found it in LHO’s pocket. He asked if McWatters could identify it, knowing very well that every bus driver has a unique ticket punch.
6.1. SUSPICION #3. It is more likely that Dhority fooled McWatters, by showing him a bus ticket that he knew for a fact was from McWatter’s bus, namely, Mary Bledsoe’s own bus ticket. Dhority told McWatters that this bus ticket was found on LHO. The idea was that if LHO had this bus ticket, and if this bus ticket came from McWatter’s bus, then it is proof that LHO was on McWatters’ bus at the printed date and time.
6.2. Yet, McWatters knew that LHO wasn’t the laugher, and McWatters couldn’t remember LHO on his bus. He couldn’t agree, although he wasn’t going to call a policeman a liar. He just said he was still uncertain.
7. Dhority insisted on an “experiment.” Since McWatters had his puncher with him, Dhority asked him to punch a blank piece of paper to compare with the bus ticket. He did. They compared. The ticket punch and the paper punch matched exactly.
7.1. SUSPICION #4. Of course, they matched exactly, because that ticket came from Mary Bledsoe, who truly was on that bus at that date and time. There was no material connection between that ticket and LHO. There were no other bus passenger witnesses. The Dallas Police only had Mary Bledsoe’s hysterical claim that LHO was the laugher. The Dallas Police added a further story – that the bus ticket came from LHO’s pocket.
7.2. Kudos again to Cecil McWatters for standing firm and remaining “uncertain” despite all the pressure.
8. Dhority concluded that McWatters had positively identified LHO, no matter what McWatters said.
8.1. This matches the official WC conclusion. It also satisfied Captain Fritz’s demand to collect any eyewitnesses against LHO in order to hold LHO on suspicion. It sounds like Dallas Police SOP, to hold a suspect at any cost, and let a Judge work it out later.
9. The next strange event of Detective Dhority’s evening began when Captain Fritz allegedly gave Dhority 3 spent 6.5 rifle shells to deliver to Lieutenant Day at the Crime Lab. These were allegedly the 3 spent hulls recovered from the TSDB 6th floor window.
10. For some unexplained reason, Captain Fritz told Dhority to bring one shell back. So Dhority did that, he said, in an envelope, and he left Lieutenant Day holding 2 empty hulls.
10.1. SUSPICION #5. This story keeps changing between many WC witnesses and their FBI interviews. What is consistent in the material evidence is that there were only 2 spent hulls to begin with. Dhority put his initials on the 2 spent hulls, to keep the chain of evidence. There was no 3rd hull at that time -- because that was a later invention.
10.2. I will dig deeper into this important discrepancy in my forthcoming analysis of the WC testimony of Lieutenant Day. In my opinion, Detective Dhority just did and said what he was told. That is, Dhority delivered 2 spent hulls to Lieutenant Day, then later Fritz made him change his story to claim that he really delivered 3 spent hulls and returned one to Captain Fritz. He knew that was untrue, but he would obey orders and stick with the team. There’s my opinion.
11. Now let’s switch to the murder of Officer J.D. Tippit from the viewpoint of the Davis sisters, and the role of Officer Dhority in that.
11.1. At about 7 PM Dhority and Brown got orders to drive out to Oak Cliff to bring Virginia and Barbara Jeanette Davis to the station.
11.2. These sisters claimed that they had found yet another spent .38 caliber shell in their front yard, across the street from the Tippit murder. They searched their lawn because they had seen LHO running across their front lawn after the shooting, emptying his gun.
12. Dhority claims that he received that shell when he visited them, and he brought them to the station.
12.1. SUSPICION #6. Let’s move slower, please. Start with the younger sister, a teenager, Virginia Davis. She saw her sister-in-law Barbara Jeanette Davis pick up a spent shell on their front lawn around 3:15 PM. Barbara herself testified that this was about two hours after Tippit was shot. Virginia saw Barbara give it to a detective. Then, said Virginia, she also found another spent shell on their lawn, “after all the police had gone...around 4 PM.”
12.1.1. What we see here is that Dallas Police remained at the Tippit murder site until about 4 PM. They had been interviewing eyewitnesses and searching for material evidence with the help of local residents. Barbara also said that several policemen and detectives entered their home and interviewed them at length with Barbara’s husband present. So, why did it take Barbara two hours to find empty shells? Were policemen looking in her lawn, too? If not, what were they doing there? Why did Virginia find a spent shell only after all the police had left? Did the Dallas Police select Barbara and Virginia to look for shells?
12.1.2. I ask because Dallas Police had possession of LHO’s pistol for three hours before the Davis sisters found their final shell and then were brought to City Hall. Three hours is plenty of time to take a pistol to the police shooting range, fire a few shots, pick up the shells, and take them to Oak Cliff to let local residents find them on their lawn.
12.1.3. I accept that LHO was probably at the Tippit murder scene – yet more than one witness saw two shooters at the scene. Also, Barbara Davis repeatedly testified that the man who ran across her yard, emptying his gun, wore a “black woolen coat.” LHO didn’t have such a coat. So, Barbara most likely saw somebody else running across their lawn.
13. Detectives Dhority and Brown brought the Davis sisters to the station for affidavits and a line-up. After hours of exposure to Dallas Police and television reports, at that 7:45 PM line-up with LHO, the sisters positively identified him.
14. On Saturday, Dhority organized another LHO line-up for two cab drivers. Will Whaley and Bill Scoggins. They both identified Oswald.
14.1. SUSPICION #7. Take it slower. The two cab drivers testified about two different scenarios. Bill Scoggins claimed that he saw LHO at close range, running from the Tippit murder scene. I accept that LHO was probably at the Tippit murder scene, so today I find no major issue with Scoggins’ testimony.
14.2. HOWEVER, I do deny that LHO took a bus and a taxicab to his room in Oak Cliff. Will Whaley claimed that just a few minutes after the JFK Assassination, he drove LHO from the Greyhound bus terminal to the 500 block of North Beckley. Let’s look closer.
14.3. Will Whaley was an older man, a cabbie in Dallas for 37 years. On Saturday, the day after the JFK murder, Whaley saw LHO’s picture in the papers, and he told his boss that LHO looked like a passenger from the previous day.
14.4. His boss called the Dallas Police, who sped over to pick up Whaley right away for a line-up. The Dallas Police were eager to have more eyewitnesses in the JFK assassination.
14.4.1. The trouble begins as Whaley tells the WC about LHO’s clothes. LHO’s pants were a “khaki material,” a “faded blue color,” he said, and LHO wore a work jacket that matched the pants. But LHO wore nothing of the kind. Here is what else Whaley said about LHO’s clothes:
“I am not sure about the pants. I wouldn’t be sure of the shirt if it hadn’t had that light stripe in it...I told you about the shirt being open. He had on the two jackets with the open shirt...The jacket he had on looked more the color, like a uniform set...But he had this coat here over that jacket, I am sure...The heavy blue-gray jacket.”
Our problem is that Buell Wesley Frazier, the boy who drove LHO to work weekly, including that same morning, said that he had never seen that blue-gray jacket – ever.
14.4.2. LHO gave his destination, “500 North Beckley,” so that’s where they went, said Whaley. (By the way, “500 North Beckley” is a half-mile from 1026 North Beckley; not “down the block” as articles usually claim.)
14.4.3. During his testimony, Whaley could not remember what day of the week he had picked up LHO. He could not remember if he had signed an official statement before or after the line-up. Here is another quote:
“When you drive a taxi that long you learn to judge people. What I actually thought of the man when he got in was that he was a wino who had been off his bottle for about two days, that is the way he looked, sir, that was my opinion of him...He looked like his clothes had been slept in...”
14.4.4. None of this matched LHO. So, bringing Whaley into this line-up was, at the mildest, a case of mistaken identity.
SUMMARY AND OVERVIEW:
To hold LHO, the Dallas Police used any means at hand. They would exaggerate and support anything. They exploited the affidavits of a wacky bus passenger (Bledsoe) a reluctant bus driver (McWatters) an obtuse taxi driver (Whaley), the passive Davis sisters and the hysterical Helen Markham. LHO must be held.
In my opinion, LHO was involved up to his neck with the JFK conspiracy. He was cooperating with Guy Banister in New Orleans. Banister and his crew were not CIA agents, but they told LHO that they were, and they promised LHO a steady job in the CIA if he cooperated. So, he did. In his final weekend on Earth, LHO behaved as if he still trusted them with his life.
Ex-General Walker, James Hosty, Will Fritz, Bill Decker and Jesse Curry were members of this same coven of Radical Right extremists, but in Dallas, not New Orleans. In my opinion, LHO was unaware that these men were working with Guy Banister.
LHO took no bus or taxi to his rooming house; he had accomplices with cars. The police car that stopped briefly outside his rooming house, honked twice and then moved on (as testified by his landlady, Earline Roberts) is a case in point.
In my opinion, Plan A proposed that J.D. Tippit was supposed to kill LHO in Oak Cliff. Instead, LHO outdrew Tippit and killed him. So, the Dallas Police needed a Plan B. They had to capture and hold LHO as tightly as possible while they hatched a Plan B.
I see Detective Dhority as a willing accomplice in this aspect of the JFK/LHO Dallas plot. He would support his boss, Captain Fritz, like a loyal soldier.
FIN