Oral History Collection

Transcript: J. “CARL” DAY Interview Date: 8/15/1996 Interview Conducted By: BOB PORTER

The following interview is part of the Oral History Collection of The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza. The Oral History Collection preserves personal recollections regarding the life, times, death, and legacy of President John F. Kennedy. The interviews also provide insight into the cultural history of Dallas and the impact of the assassination. The Oral History Collection includes the memories of eyewitnesses, local law enforcement, local and national members of the media, civic and political leaders, White House officials, Kennedy family acquaintances, Dallas schoolchildren, filmmakers and researchers, Parkland Hospital personnel, and others related to the events of November 22, 1963. These candid and informal interviews provide future generations with a tangible link to the past.

All oral history videos and audio recordings are available for research and may be viewed by appointment in the Museum’s Research Center. Transcripts of select oral histories are available upon request for research. As an ongoing program, the Museum continues to actively record and transcribe oral history interviews year round. For more information, to schedule a research appointment, to request a research transcript, or to volunteer for an interview, please contact Stephen Fagin, Oral Historian, at OralHistory@jfk.org or call 214-747-6660, ext. 6678.

This transcript is unrevised and may contain typographical errors.

This transcript is intended for personal research and reference only. Any further reproduction or distribution of any portion of this transcript must be specifically authorized in writing by The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza. To request citation information, contact OralHistory@jfk.org. Please include contact information, project title, reason for citation, and approximate number of lines to be cited.

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Oral History

Interview

J. “Carl” Day

August 15, 1996 By Bob Porter

Researchers Note: Mr. Day recorded a follow-up interview on 7/11/2006.

Researchers Note: Mr. Day passed away on 10/16/2008.

Bob: (0:00:00) Today is August 25

th, 1996. Today we are interviewing Mr. Carl

Day, formerly with the Dallas Police Department. And this is Bob Porter, and this

interview is part of the Oral History Project for the Dallas County Historical Foundation,

and Mr. Day, we thank you for coming into the museum today to do the interview. And

we‟ll begin if you‟ll just give me your full name and date and place of birth, and we‟ll go

from there.

Carl: My name is John Carl Day. I‟m commonly known as Carl Day. I

was born January 31st, 1914, in Dallas. I‟ve lived here all my life.

Bob: Well, what was Dallas like as a youngster? That kind of goes back

a ways. What about growing up in Dallas? What part of Dallas did you live in?

Carl: I lived in what they called Trinity Heights. It‟s in the southern part

of Oak Cliff.

Bob: Yes.

Carl: Of course, at that time, there were a lot of horses and wagons still.

I remember the delivery men coming by in a wagon instead of trucks. Not many of the

streets were paved out in our area. Usually, you had to wade mud up to your ankles if it

rained.

Bob: Kind of a rural atmosphere it seemed like.

Carl: Yes, it was kind of far out. Actually, the area was not inside the

city limits at that time.

Bob: Uh-huh. Well, where did you go to school?

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Carl: I went to grade school, Trinity Heights Grammar School, and then

I went to Sunset High School.

Bob: OK…which is also in the Oak Cliff area.

Carl: Yes.

Bob: Yeah. When did you get interested in law enforcement?

Carl: Oh, just kind of stumbled into it. I had never had much thought

about being a police officer when I was a kid…you know, no family connections. But

during the Depression years, ‟29 on up to ‟40, it was a little bit hard to get work of any

kind. What you did was pretty low paying, and sometimes it didn‟t last long. I was not

particularly trained in any area. I was working at a machinery company very near here,

down on the West End…Fairbanks Morse Company…the building is still down there at

Market and Corbin Street in the West End area. And at that time, the police department

paid about twice what I was making in the machinery company, and the advances there

that I could have made seem to be traveling…and I wasn‟t much interested in being a

traveling salesman, so I took this civil service examination to go to work for the City of

Dallas in 1939.

Bob: Were you married then?

Carl: No, I was single at that time. And at the…I happened to place on

the civil service list both for the fire department and the police department. I had been

raised around the fire station out there in Trinity Heights and really thought I wanted to

go there. But the police department opportunity came up first, and so I went ahead and

took it. That was on October 4, 1940. I was age 26 at that time. So I went to work there.

I liked it after I got into it. Different from anything I ever been around. And it seemed I

fit fairly well there, so I stayed there until 1942. Of course, the war had started by then. I

was still single, so it was obvious I was going to have to go into the service somewhere.

So I chose to go into the Navy before they drafted me and put me where they wanted me.

I was lucky in that there was a Naval Air Station here in Dallas that was just expanding,

expanding for a spell out there faster than they could train them at the regular Naval

Training Stations. There was 7 of us from the police department that went in on the same

day. I believe it was June 22, 1942. And we were assigned to the Naval Air Station out

here in Dallas. I didn‟t even leave home. Well they didn‟t have barracks for us, so they

gave us what they called subsistence and you provided your own lodging. So I didn‟t

even leave home to go into the Navy.

Bob: That‟s very unusual.

Carl: (0:05:27) I was in the Navy for three and a half years. After about a year at

the Naval Air Station, they established a Shore Patrol Unit in most of the areas of the

larger cities, under the 8th

Naval District, which was attached to the Naval Headquarters

in New Orleans. They moved me on to shore patrol, which was tantamount to being

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transferred to New Orleans. But New Orleans moved me downtown here in Dallas and

put me on Shore Patrol. So, I served the rest of my time in the Navy here in Dallas on

Shore Patrol. I didn‟t see a ship and not many airplanes.

Bob: And never got near an ocean?

Carl: I was… I was lucky in one way in not having to even leave town.

By that time I had married too, and fortunately we just stayed here at home.

Bob: So when you got out of service, did you go directly back into the

Dallas Police Department?

Carl: Yes, I went directly back into the police department in January

1946.

Bob: Same department? What department were you working in then?

Carl: Well, yes, I was in the, of course everyone starts out as patrol, or

did at that time, in uniform and patrol car. And that‟s where I was assigned when I went

back. I hadn‟t been there long, though, and they put me in the dispatcher‟s office. And a

few months later, they had openings in the detective office. At that time, and it still is,

the civil service promotion, you had to take examination, and the higher on the list were

assigned to that duty. I happened to place high enough that I made detective. Of course,

I went in plain clothes then. So actually in my uniform days, I didn‟t serve oh probably

less than two years, but I had credit of course for three years in the Navy, which was

connected with time. 1947…I was placed in the burglary division, worked there awhile,

then I was assigned to homicide division. And there I worked a year, I worked under

Captain Fritz, who was in charge of the homicide division. Well at that time, if you went

to court, even though you were working nights, you still went to court and you worked

that night. There was no such thing as overtime or time off. You were on duty 24 hours

a day. If you were unfortunate enough to be off when these long murder cases came on

or something, why you spent all day in court, and all night in a squad car trying to stay

awake. So in 1948, they had an opening here in the Identification Bureau. Well at that

that time, they did not have a midnight shift, just worked mornings, 7-3 in daytime, and

3-11 at night. Well that sounded pretty good getting away from those nights and having

to go to court so much. I didn‟t have to go to court as much there, and I took the

examination and again, was fortunate enough that I was put in the Identification Bureau,

which later was developed into the Crime Lab. And I stayed there for 28 years. I wasn‟t

moved out; I went into the Fingerprint Division.

Bob: The Identification Division did what, what does that cover?

Carl: (0:09:41) That of course was keeping the criminal records, fingerprinting the

prisoners, and at that time, we made a few calls out to the crime scene to check for

fingerprints and take pictures and collect physical evidence. Did very little of it up until

about 1954 when they started hitting pretty heavy on crime scene search they called it.

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That was going to the scene of the crime, checking fingerprints, taking photos, and

collecting and preserving physical evidence. I was promoted to lieutenant in ‟54.

Bob: Well, that made you head of the Crime Lab at that time?

Carl: Yes, I was the immediate supervisor of the crime scene search

division.

Bob: How many people did you have working for you, do you recall?

Carl: There was twelve that made the outside calls. I had concurrent

jurisdiction over that with another lieutenant at the identification site, which had to do

with fingerprinting the prisoners. But there was twelve of us that was responsible for the

outside calls or the crime scene. At that time, they referred to us as the Crime Lab. But I

don‟t know just when it was, but they finally established the crime lab, really an actual

crime lab at Parkland Hospital. Dallas Forensic Sciences or something, I forget what it is

right now. And they took over the homicides - they came out to the scene of the crime,

and we no longer had to examine the bodies and get them to Parkland, where they had a

medical examiner. He wasn‟t over the crime lab, per se, but we referred… At that time

they had a Justice of the Peace system. The Justice of the Peace acted as a coroner. Then

they established the, let‟s see, I guess, what‟d they call it, the crime lab took over the

duties of the coroner, in some of the larger cities, and the doctor in charge of it. And his

man answered the calls to the crime scenes where we had a body. Of course if there was

a question as to whether the body was still alive, we didn‟t wait for them; we rushed it on

to the hospital. And if the person died, they took over out there. But if it was obvious

that the person was deceased, we checked the crime scene, took photos, but we didn‟t

examine the body or move it in any way. We let them take over there. And that was the

situation in 1963, when the president was assassinated here.

Bob: Before we get into that, let‟s…and we‟re talking about, say, the

late 1950s. Some people, not police related, in some of the interviews recall that Dallas

in that time period as being kind of a small town-big city or something…not what it is in

the 1990s. How was the police department in those days, how would you describe the

police department in those days? Did the department, was it…

Carl: I think, it tried to keep up to date at that time. It tried to keep up

the latest developments in making investigations, and take advantage of any laboratory

work or chemical or physical examination of evidence. Our job was to collect that

evidence, I mean get it to the laboratory. We didn‟t try to examine it ourselves, using

microscopes or examine the bodies or anything like that. That was left up to the medical

examiner. That‟s what they called it then - the medical examiner‟s office. From ‟54 on

up to the early „60s when they established the medical examiner, we kind of worked with

them as well as we could. It was a learning process, and a developing process, both here

and in other cities. They didn‟t have the medical examiner, they still used the old Justice

of the Peace. And they still do that in the smaller counties now. The Justice of the Peace

is the coroner…he declares the body dead. In the larger cities, where they have the

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medical examiner, the medical examiner is the one that determines whether it was a

murder or natural death or whatever.

Bob: Well, getting into say, 1963, and the visit of President Kennedy to

Dallas. There had been some widely publicized incidents in the city. I'm thinking about

Adlai Stevenson and some demonstrators when he was here a month or so before that.

There was some political turmoil in the city. Do you remember that affecting the police

department in particular?

Carl: (0:16:00) No. It had no affect on the police department that I could see. Our

job, of course, was to preserve law and order. If there was demonstrations that got out of

hand, we were called on to take over and try to prevent any disturbances. As far as

demonstrations was concerned, it wasn‟t our job to keep people from peaceful

demonstration. Nor was it our job to protect the president, that was not a police function;

that‟s a Secret Service duty. It‟s there job to protect the president or any other important

figures that were connected with the government. When the president did come to town,

it wasn‟t our job to tell him where he could go or what he could do. The Secret Service

got with us, or with the chief of police, and told the police chief what they needed. We

tried to provide all their backup they needed. But as far as protection of the president, it

was not a police function.

Bob: This was not just for President Kennedy…this would be any time

the president came to town? Any time a president visited, this would be the role the

police would play?

Carl: Yes. Any time we had other important people come in, oh,

Admiral Nimitz and other people like that. They had their own protective services,

especially the president. I think other presidents had visited here. Secret Service job was

to protect the president. Our role was simply assist them in any way we could.

Bob: Do you remember what you, just as an individual, thought when

you heard President Kennedy was coming to town? Did it have any particular

significance to you?

Carl: No, I didn‟t particularly think much about it. Of course, it‟s always

an exciting event when the president comes to town. You have a lot of demonstrations

most of the time, some agree and some don‟t agree with any of them that come in. But

we, we knew we had our hands full in trying to control the crowds and so forth.

Bob: Do you remember any conversations, say within the department, in

the rank-and-file, talking about it?

Carl: (touching Chief Jesse Curry‟s book, JFK Assassination File) No,

not in the rank and file. Now Chief Curry, he was concerned because of…learned this in

his book, he was conferred with by the Secret Service, told what they needed, and tried to

provide traffic control and the route he was taking and so forth, secure it as well as he

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could. But it wasn't a police function to know who is in every building, whether there‟s a

dangerous person in town trying to harm the president or not; it just wasn‟t our function.

Bob: Well, that day, I would assume that the Crime Lab, that‟s where

you were when the parade took place, wasn‟t it? You were not out with the people who

were covering were you?

Carl: (0:20:00) No, that‟s primarily a uniformed officer‟s job. I was in the

Identification Bureau or the Crime Scene Search Unit, or whatever you want to call it, at

the City Hall. Our headquarters were there. And so…

Bob: Do you remember what you were doing that day? Was it a busy

day for you otherwise?

Carl: No, it was just a routine day. The parade did happen to come by

the City Hall…

Bob: At Harwood and Main?

Carl: Harwood and Main. I incidentally, when that was first set up, the

president was supposed to go directly, if I‟m correct, was supposed to go directly from

Love Field to the, uh…

Bob: Trade Mart.

Carl: Trade Mart. It was only 2, 3, or 4 days before he came in that

politics, I guess, worked, started working, and they wanted him to parade through town

on the way out there, so that is the reason he came through town. I guess you would call

it a political thing. This may be a little bit off the subject, but there‟s been people

suggested or written something similar in their books that Oswald was placed in that

building, because the president was coming by there and he had a chance to shoot him.

Well, no one knew that he was coming by that building at the time that Oswald went to

work in the School Book Depository; he‟d been there a month or two. To the best of my

knowledge, there was no parade planned, or no one knew that a parade was going to go

by this building. But getting back to where I was when it happened, the parade came by

there, oh, sometime before one o‟clock. Of course the employees at my office wanted to

see the parade as it came by the building. I, we were on the fourth floor, and the way that

building‟s constructed, you can‟t see the ground from the fourth floor windows. So they

all took off to the third floor. I just stayed in the office, to take care of the office. I didn‟t

even go to the window because I would have to leave the office and go to another floor.

And as the parade passed, I guess it had been 5 or 10 minutes, and we were still in the

office when we got a call from the police dispatcher that he‟d been shot, and we were

sent there. They called me in on the crime scene to search it out at the scene of the

shooting.

Bob: So, do you remember your reaction when that call came in?

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Carl: Well, it was just a reaction you would take with any shooting; of

course it‟s going to be a little more notoriety to it. The president‟s shot at, but I didn‟t

know how bad he was hurt or anything; just the president had been shot. And there was

two of us in the office at the time; the rest of them were out on other calls. A man named

Studebaker was one of the crime scene police officers. And I got in the car and came

down here, to the School Book Depository were the shooting occurred.

Bob: What did you bring with you?

Carl: Our usual equipment -- cameras and little boxes that we carried in

our kits to collect evidence; fingerprint equipment to check for fingerprints.

Bob: And so do you remember the scene coming into Dealey Plaza here,

in front of the building?

Carl: Yes. Of course it was quite a turmoil all around the building. I

parked up on the sidewalk across the street here at Houston and Elm. The only place I

could find to park. And they directed me to the sixth floor. At that time they had

determined the shots had been fired there.

Bob: In that area. This was about, do you remember what time?

Carl: Well, as I remember, it was around one…

Bob: The shooting was, say, at 12:30. So it was a little later.

Carl: I thought it was around one o‟clock. Well, as I remember it was

some 20, 25 minutes after the shooting we drove, got here from City Hall, it‟s about 12

blocks up…with a little bit of traffic.

Bob: So when you came into the entrance of the building, they directed

you to the sixth floor?

Carl: Yes.

Bob: And when you got off that elevator, then it was just an old freight elevator kind of

thing, somebody met you there and took you over to the southeast corner window?

<There is about a minute of technical problems in which Carl accidentally turns off his

microphone which is immediately corrected by Bob>

Carl: At the front door, we came in the front door, and we had to go up

to the second floor. If I remember right, the offices were on the second floor. We went

up there, then we were directed on back to the northwest corner where the stairs were,

and we went on up there to the sixth floor.

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Bob: You took the stairway, okay.

Carl: Well, I remember we came up the stairs. There was a freight

elevator there, but I think we used the stairs, but it‟s been so long, I can‟t remember.

Bob: It could have been on another floor and you couldn‟t call it, I

know, but people were going up and down the stairs as well.

Carl: Do what?

Bob: People were going up and down the stairs because the elevators, I

think, you couldn‟t call them if they weren‟t on your floor, and I think that many people

were having trouble getting around the building.

Carl: If I remember right, that freight elevator was the only elevator up

here. The other elevator, seems to me like, only went to the second floor, where the

office was.

Bob: Oh, okay. I‟m not familiar with that, I don‟t know. So when you

got on the sixth floor you were directed over to the southeast corner window?

Carl: Yes. The stairs and the elevator were in the northwest corner, what

I call the northwest corner of the building. Well I was directed to the southeast corner

where they had found three spent hulls or cartridge cases under the window, and

discovered that that was where the shooting had occurred.

Bob: Who was there, do you recall when you walked over there who

was on the scene?

Carl: No! Actually, there was people all over the building; really too

many. Not trying to be critical of anybody, but the building really was not very secure.

They didn‟t know, apparently, where the shots came from, and officers, Secret Service

people, and sheriff‟s office, deputies, were kind of running helter smelter trying to figure

out what was going on.

Bob: All us media guys were there too?

Carl: Sir?

Bob: There was some media guys, some press guys, there too—a

couple.

Carl: Yes, I don‟t remember many of them being upstairs, though.

Bob: They weren‟t, for awhile. They blocked it off, and there was one

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Channel 8 photographer and a Dallas News reporter. I think they were the only two on

the sixth floor at that time. What did you… there‟s been controversy in some different

stories about, say…where were the shells when you got there? Were they on the floor?

Somebody, some claim that they were picked up before you photographed the location

there.

Carl: We photographed the location. Actually there‟s a photograph of it

where they were found up there on the sixth floor now. You can‟t…

Bob: And that‟s where they were found?

Carl: There was three spent shells there, and we have photographs of

them both in this book here and up… (tapping Jesse Curry‟s book)

Bob: In the museum.

Carl: There‟s one in the museum, if you know what you‟re looking for.

You can‟t see them very easy.

Bob: I see. And then also some question about movement of the boxes

before any photographs were made. Do you know anything about that?

Carl: As far as I know, the boxes were not moved, but I can‟t… I wasn‟t

there 20…25…30 minutes after the shooting. People running through there looking for

this that and the other, it is possible somebody moved them.

Bob: But nobody said, oh well we had to move these, but we‟ll move

them back for the picture you‟re going to take. Nothing like that happened?

Carl: Well, I don‟t know. After I got there of course, we took pictures of

the boxes exactly where they were. I didn‟t know if any of them had been moved, I

couldn‟t say if they were or not. There was one instance where they took and showed me

a picture when I was before the Warren Commission, and it had been taken from outside

of the building, out on the plaza out there somewhere, and he called my attention to the

fact that that picture didn‟t look exactly like the ones we took. Well, I had to agree with

him, it looked like somebody might have moved a box from the time somebody had taken

that picture outside till I got there. There was still boxes stacked up around the window.

Bob: Does it look to you like? (holding up photograph of “sniper‟s

nest”)

Carl: That? Yeah.

Bob: Why don‟t you just kind of hold that up in front of you a little bit

there.

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Carl: (holding photo up) You have a better picture of this somewhere.

Bob: Yeah.

Carl: (0:31:07) This is the way that I found the boxes when I got there. You

notice the three in the window. There‟s one there in the background. Right here.

(pointing to particular spot in photograph). Apparently that is what Oswald used to sit on

while he was waiting for the president to come by.

Bob: And the wall of books that kind of shields that area from...

Carl: Uh, there‟s another picture somewhere that shows, if I can find it

now, shows how the books were stacked up there at the time.

Bob: Well, the way they‟re arranged in the museum today, does that

look kind of close to it, but not exactly?

Carl: Not exactly. There‟s been a wall built around there that wasn‟t

there before.

Bob: You don‟t remember that?

Carl: That wall that comes down where the window is that blocks off the

area - that was not there. It was all opened; the whole floor was opened. I can find it

somewhere in here, it‟s, there‟s a picture of it in one of these books; I‟ve forgotten which

one it is. It‟s a good picture of the view as it was from back away from the window.

Bob: Back from the other angle. So then you started doing finger

printing around that area?

Carl: Well, first of course, we took pictures. We didn‟t move anything

after we got there until we took the pictures. We took several pictures. In a case like

that, we had a practice of making duplicate shots, or in important cases, we might even

make 3 or 4 or half a dozen shots. We‟d shoot…he‟d shoot one then I‟d shoot one. Then

we‟d change the aperture opening on the camera.

Bob: And the camera was, I‟m guessing, a 4 by 5 graphic? That‟s what

they used most in those days.

Carl: Yes, an old 4 by 5 press camera that had the slide in it and you had

film on each side, and you had to pull the slide out, turn it over, pull the slide out to take

your picture, put the slide back in, turn it over to use the other side of the film.

Bob: Awkward process and prone to accidentally double exposures or

stuff like that. So, you tried to duplicate . . .?

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Carl: Yes, in a case like that, you only have one time to get that picture.

You can‟t go back and take it again. So in important cases we made it a practice to go

back and take at least duplicate shots. The more serious the case, the more film we shot.

We didn‟t particularly worry about the cost of film. We may have made a dozen pictures

around there. I know we had more negatives up there than we knew what to do with after

we got through, and we went through and destroyed a lot of the duplicates after we got

them developed. This was to be sure that we got at least one good one, that‟s all it was.

Bob: One of the questions that I think has come up is the bag that

Oswald‟s rifle was in. There weren‟t any pictures made of that? Do you remember

seeing that in that area?

Carl: Yes, there was a bag, a brown bag, there. It was made out of

wrapping paper, and we collected that bag.

Bob: You did collect it, but you didn‟t photograph it?

Carl: There should be a picture of it somewhere.

Bob: Now where was it now, where was it? Kind of behind the boxes,

do you remember?

Carl: To the best of my knowledge, it was to the right on the floor of

where he was sitting, on the box that I showed you a minute ago. It may have been the

right, it may have been the left, but there was a bag there.

Bob: Left would be like in the corner…

Carl: Yes, in the corner out back towards the north side of the building,

where you headed up to it.

Bob: What did it look like to you, then, if you collected it, did you not

know what it was?

Carl: I didn‟t know anything about a bag at that time. There was a bag

laying there, at the first thing, there was a brown paper bag, it was too big for that. Later

examination indicated that it was a bag had been made out of wrapping paper. It

appeared to be shipping paper, and there was a roll in the shipping department downstairs

that sent me the paper. Of course at that time, we didn‟t know anything about Oswald,

didn‟t know anything about what happened. There was a bag there and it was collected.

Bob: Well, you spent how long a time period? An hour or something

like that on the scene?

Carl: We were there possibly I‟m guessing, 20, 25 minutes. It‟s been a

long time, I don‟t remember exactly. But we were working on the, working in the area,

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fingerprints and so forth of the area where the shooting occurred.

Bob: How successful were you, were you finding prints?

Carl: We found one good palm print on top of that box, which Oswald

was sitting on. It was right on the edge of the box. If you‟re sitting in a, we‟ll say this

was the box (Carl demonstrates). He was sitting here. The palm print was right on the

edge of that box, like when you‟re sitting on a chair leaning out like this or sitting…

Bob: Bracing yourself?

Carl: That palm print, this part of the palm, was right on the corner of

that box. It popped up pretty good. I say it popped up, it appeared pretty good when we

put powder on it. Whoever had put it there used a lot of pressure and got a lot of oil off

his hand on the box. We didn‟t at that time find prints on any other boxes that I

remember. Of course, powder is not the best way to check a print on a cardboard box.

You need a chemical there. We did find that one using the powder, and we selected that

print because it looked like it might have been left by someone sitting on the box.

Bob: Oh, go ahead. I didn‟t mean to interrupt.

Carl: We collected the three spent cartridges, cases. I used the powder

on them and didn‟t find any prints there, which is not unusual on a cartridge case or

bullet. You just don‟t handle or hold them hard enough to leave a print there.

Bob: You collected them from the floor?

Carl: Yes, I picked them up from the floor. I kept two of them, if I

remember correctly, and gave one of them to, maybe, Detective Simms.

Bob: Why was that? Who was he? Who was Detective Simms? What

was he doing?

Carl: (0:39:26) Well, he was one of the homicidal investigators that worked under

Captain Fritz. He was up there. The reason he kept one or we gave him one - they

wanted to take that cartridge and check all sources they could think of where it might

have come from to see if they knew who bought it. Of course at this time we still don‟t

know anything about Oswald. While we were working with that, Captain Fritz sent word

for me to come to the north-east…north-west corner of the building where the elevator

and stairs were. They had found the gun. So we took our camera and went over there

and made several shots of that. And to the best of my knowledge, that was not handled at

all after it was found. I understood it had not been, it still looked like it was down right

where it lay between the boxes by the staircase.

Bob: Who was it that kind of misidentified apparently at first? Thought

it was a Mauser or…

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Carl: I don‟t know where that Mauser business came from. I don‟t

know.

Bob: Did you recognize it?

Carl: I didn‟t know what it was. There was no name on the gun. It had

a telescopic sight, but there was no name on that gun. Visually you could tell it was what

we called a war-time finish. After the war, the country was flooded with those cheap

guns. They were rough, kind of a rough finish. They‟d shoot accurately, but they

weren‟t polished. And this gun was a very rough finish, the stock was rough. It wasn‟t

the best place to find a finger print to start with. But after we made our pictures, I made

two or three, Studebaker made two or three. And then I got back and pointed to where it,

he took my picture, and I also took his picture with it. The one that I‟ve seen was of me

pointing to the area where the gun was found. And picture‟s there that show the gun,

actually it was between the boxes.

Bob: And nobody saw, like it was several days later when Oswald‟s

clipboard was found in that same general area, but you didn‟t see that at that time

obviously.

Carl: I don‟t know. A clipboard?

Bob: Well, that had his, Oswald‟s, you know, what you were supposed

to be doing that day in terms of filling orders. But I think that was three or four days later

that that was found, that same general area, but not close to the rifle.

Carl: I‟m not familiar with that.

Bob: So you took the rifle…

Carl: Anyway, after we got the pictures taken, I reached down and

picked the rifle up. It had a leather strap on it. It was apparent that you could not get a

fingerprint off that leather strap - it was entirely too rough. I picked it up by the leather

strap. I took a little powder if I remember correctly and put it on the knob of the bolt, that

you pull the bolt back to eject the shell. It was too small to do anything with, there was

no print there. So I held the gun by the strap, and Captain Fritz got a hold of that bolt and

pulled it back and opened it, and a live round fell out. It was ready to fire again. I put a,

I think I put a little powder on the gun at the time, but I told Captain Fritz this is not the

place to try to work on this gun. I took it back to the City Hall and locked it up. This

must have been maybe 2 p.m., best of my memory.

Bob: When you left the building, you attracted a lot of press, I know,

attention. Weren‟t you kind of leading a bunch of press people down the street in the

back of your car?

15

Carl: Not too much. There was a few people out there and there was

Inspector Sawyer standing there…Herbert Sawyer, who‟s a police officer, more or less in

charge of that area down there. And I was carrying the gun by the strap, and he, I told

him I needed a ride back to City Hall. I couldn‟t hold that gun without messing up any

fingerprints, but I could safely hold it by the strap. I knew I couldn‟t find any prints on

the strap, so I held it that way. An FBI man named Odom, I believe was his name, was

standing there. He said, “I‟ll take you.” So he drove me to the City Hall. And in route to

the FBI…to our office, he got on his radio to his office, and he gave a description of the

gun and gave them the serial number on it, if I remember. But there was no name on that,

no name on the gun…it had a serial number, beginning with C. He gave them that

information to his office, but I went ahead…and he took me on to City Hall, and I locked

it up in an evidence box up there. We have an evidence room, and then we have some

boxes with keys on it. In that particular box, I had a key to that box, and Captain Dowdy

had a key to the box…the actual box inside the evidence room. We were the only ones

who had keys to that, or access to that box. I placed it in there and came back to the

School Book Depository, and I was here until, oh, it must have been close to dark.

Bob: You came back just to look for more…?

Carl: Down here to finish up what we were doing here - we had an awful

lot of work here. Drawings, and photos and so forth; the whole area on the sixth floor,

not just that one area which we were working in. When I came back from the City Hall,

after I‟d placed the gun up there, I came up on the second floor, and I run into Mr. Truly,

who was the manager of this School Book Depository. It so happened that he and I went

to the same church. I didn‟t really know him, but he and I both went out there to my

church. And he started walking back with me, and he told me that an officer came in

after the shooting, and he started up the stairs, they walked, on the second floor, they

walked back to the back wall, and then west to the northeast corner where the stairs and

the elevator were. Well, on that floor there was a little lunchroom. Mr. Truly said that as

he and the officer came up to that lunchroom, Oswald was standing there by the Coke

machine or some vending machine. The officer drew his gun, and he asked Mr. Truly if

he knew the man, and Mr. Truly told him, yes, he worked there. They just let him go on,

walk on out the building. Apparently he had just come down from the sixth floor after

the shooting and when they approached him, he just acted like he was getting something

out of the machine there.

Bob: Do you know the time frame on this? How long it was after the

shooting? Was it…

Carl: Sir?

Bob: Do you know the time frame…how long it was after the shooting

at that time?

Carl: (0:48:21) That was immediately after the shooting that the officer came in or

very shortly. And Oswald hadn‟t gotten out of the building then. But we suspect that

16

after the shooting, that he went back either to the stairs or the elevator, he put the gun

down between the boxes there close to the stairs, came on down to the second floor and at

that time, Truly and the officer were headed back that way. And he stepped into that

little lunchroom which was just to the left of the stairs, the exit, and was getting

something, was acting like he was getting something out of the machine. But apparently

he just, they let him go on, he walked out, and they went on up.

Bob: You didn‟t really begin working on the gun until that night?

Carl: No, it was later that night. We collected a sack and a few other

things, but we didn‟t collect all the boxes. Well now at that time, when I was talking to

Mr. Truly going back in there, he said they had one of his men, that was the first that I

knew, well wait, it was before that. When I was going to City Hall with Mr. Odom, with

the gun, I asked him then, how badly is he hit? He said the president is dead. Well that

was the first I knew that the shot had been fatal. And then of course when I got back to

the building, after taking it up there - I guess it took me 30 minutes to go up there and

back - Mr. Truly told me that one of his men had been arrested. And I didn‟t at that time

know that Mr., Officer Tippit had been killed.

Bob: Yeah, I was going to ask you how…

Carl: I didn‟t know at that time.

Bob: …that kind of figured in.

Carl: I don‟t know just when I found out Tippit had been shot.

Bob: Well did anybody from your department go out to the scene?

Carl: Yes.

Bob: Not yourself? You were busy…

Carl: (flipping through the book JFK: First Day Evidence) Captain

Dowdy and Sgt. Pete Barnes…their pictures are in here, that car, and I recognize them.

Bob: This book is, for the purpose of identification, is First Day

Evidence. This is the book you‟re referring to, is First Day Evidence?

Carl: (turning around book so camera can see pages of black and white

photographs) Yes. See there‟s pictures that we took at the time…when we were here.

There‟s various pictures here showing those boxes and various…

Bob: Can you kind of turn that maybe and kind of hold it to the camera?

Carl: (turning book around and flipping through it) Let‟s see, just a

17

minute here.

Bob: OK.

Carl: (holding up book and showing picture of stacked boxes) This is the

way the boxes were stacked around that window, where the shooting occurred. Some of

them, I think, had been moved here.

Bob: Do you think that‟s where, as is shown in the museum today, there

were more boxes than were actually there that day?

Carl: These boxes were there at the time of the shooting. I don‟t

remember just what‟s up there now.

Bob: OK, OK, all righty. Thank you.

Carl: But there‟s numerous boxes, you can see looking down one of the

aisles there how they were stacked up all over that floor up there, and aisles between

them to walk down.

Bob: Do you remember Mr. Truly saying anything other than one of his

men had been arrested?

Carl: I don‟t remember exactly what he said. But that was the first I

knew, I didn‟t even know his name at that time; the first I knew that one of his men had

been arrested as a suspect. Of course, I hadn‟t been in contact with anybody during my

work and wasn‟t on the radio or anything like that. I don‟t think I knew Tippit had been

shot at that time; I don‟t believe I did.

Bob: Did you know Tippit personally?

Carl: No. Well, I knew him when I saw him, but that was about all.

Bob: I see. So, what did you find on the rifle? I believe you were still

working on the rifle, weren‟t you, when the FBI, when that was turned over to the FBI?

Or not?

Carl: Yes. Now that was another situation that, it seemed like you

couldn‟t do anything right due to the pressure of the public wanting to know. They were

trying to keep the public informed.

Bob: Meaning they had to have pretty open access to the press?

Carl: (0:53:52) Yes. The Dallas Police Department at that time had a policy of

cooperating with the press. And they tried to give them all the information they could as

fast as they could. And also they… Of course that‟s what led to debacle there on the

18

second floor when they finally moved him. They were trying to cooperate with the press

and possibly at the same time keep him in the public eye to keep down any criticism of

him being mistreated or anything like that. But Chief Curry was working with the press

as well as he could to keep them informed of what was being done.

Bob: Were you having to…answer questions about what you were

doing, what you were finding, stuff like that?

Carl: No, I was on the fourth floor, all the activity was on the third floor.

I didn‟t really know what was going on down there. I hadn‟t been down there. But I was

isolated where people couldn‟t get in to me. I was working after I got, left the School

Book Depository Building. I went back, got the gun out, and started trying to process it.

At that time, I suspect, Oswald had become a suspect. And they had his prints - finger

and palm prints - and that palm print off the box that I collected, I tore it off, it was

definitely his palm print; no doubt about it. Now the gun, as I said before, was rough, it

was tough. On the side of the, well the type of gun that it was, the metal, the barrel, and

working mechanism set into a stock, held on there to the strap with screws. You could

lift it right out of the stock, the wooden stock, when you loosened the screws. The stock

itself is weather-beaten and too rough to find any fingerprints. On the side of the trigger

guard, I guess you call it a trigger guard, there‟s a flat place there, that I could see traces

of prints. The metal was pretty rough, but I could see traces of it. I applied the powder,

and there was prints there that could have been Oswald‟s. The shape of them, roughly

the shape of them looked like they could have been, oh, I believe it was these three

fingers, or two fingers on his one hand, I forgot which hand. I spent an awful lot of time

with that. I couldn‟t get them to where I could definitely say they were his, working at it

that length of time, I wasn‟t able to say one way or the other, although I suspected they

were his, but there was no way of saying they was his. Then I took that gun out of the

stock and started putting powder on the rest of the gun. Down toward the end of the

stock I found traces of a fingerprint that extended out from, well actually I found the print

before I removed it from the stock. Find this gun if I can here. I thought I had a picture

of the gun. (looking for photograph for a minute, then giving up) There‟s one here

somewhere, but I don‟t know where it is right now. Anyway, I found traces of a print

that extended out on the barrel, part of them apparently went up under the barrel between

the barrel and the stock. So then I took the gun off and finished dusting the area, and

then I found a piece of a palm print there. It looked reasonably good for comparison

purposes. The usual method of collecting those prints after you develop them and can see

them, is take a piece of Scotch tape and mash down over it good. And the powder will

cling to the tape when you pull it off, and you can put the powder on a 3 by 5 card like

this, (holding up a small card) put it on the back. And then you‟ve got the print under

that tape, and you can take it and compare it. But this was very dim, which indicated that

was not a new print. It didn‟t take much powder. But reflection of the light showed the

dried print on the barrel. I looked at the print and it looked like this part of his palm

where the gun had been laying across his hand. I‟ve forgotten now which hand it was,

but I was pretty sure that this part of the palm was what I‟d collected. But it was a very

dim print, and for presentation to a jury, you like the best print you could show. I could

see it, but I don‟t think a jury could. But the reflection of the light when I shined it on

19

there, I could still see pretty good impressions of that print on that barrel. So I was fixing

to set up my cameras to try to take a photograph of that print, and of course on something

round the light makes a streak right down one part. If you‟ve got a light here, it won‟t

light up the whole thing. You‟ll see a streak of light and if you move that light a little,

the light on the barrel will move around. I was going to set up a time exposure, and get it

set, and then take that light and move it around the barrel to get all of the print, what I

was fixing to do. About that time, I got orders from my captain, Captain Dowdy…don‟t

do anything else to the gun. Stop what you‟re doing, [unclear Drain], the FBI will be in

at 11:30 to pick it up. Well it, of course it caught me right in the middle of the stream. I

didn‟t know just exactly what to do. I had powder all over it. They say, “Don‟t do

anything else to it,” and that‟s what I do. I followed orders (chuckling). But it was kind

of a frustrating thing when you‟re working with it and be interrupted in mid stream that

way. I don‟t think the chief‟s office at that time knew just exactly where I stood on

checking that. But anyway, I stopped and stripped it back in the stock and put it aside. I

didn‟t try to wrap it up or anything because you could mess those prints up wrapping

them up and handling them. I didn‟t have time to write reports or anything like that, it

must have been after ten o‟clock then, so I just put the gun back in the evidence room and

left it alone until Drain came in at 11:30. He had two or three people with him.

Bob: Did you know him, or was this just a…

Carl: Yes, I‟d known Drain a long time. And I told him at the time,

there‟s a print here. I showed him where it is, where it was. But I don‟t know whether it

registered with him or not. Anyway, he took the gun. But that‟s all that I turned over. I

didn‟t turn over the lift that I‟d previously made of that dim print, because I thought that

they would find that under there and come up with their own print. My orders were turn

over the gun, and so I don‟t remember if I gave them anything else or not - there may

have been one or two other things. But I didn‟t even thing of giving them this print that I

had lifted off of there. Well, the gun was taking about 11:30 that night. I worked all

night - I didn‟t come in the next day. Sunday the gun was returned, but I wasn‟t there

when it was returned, and it was in a box, a big box. But again, I was directed not to do

anything else with it, just leave it alone. And I didn‟t open the box. And I never did get

back to checking the print, they told me not to do anything else with it, and I didn‟t. I felt

sure it was his print when I briefly examined it…that palm print that I got off the barrel.

Bob: Yes.

Carl: And when I went to, no I‟m getting ahead of myself. I didn‟t hear

anymore of the gun after I gave it to Drain. I knew it came back and was in our evidence

room. But I didn‟t examine it or do anything else with the evidence at all.

Bob: You didn‟t find any prints either on the gun or what‟s come to be

called the Sniper‟s perch - that window -- that indicated anybody else other than Oswald,

did you? Were there other prints? I mean, you know, some of the theories that have

developed over the years, of there were two people up there; other theories that Oswald

wasn‟t even - of course Oswald himself was saying that he was a patsy - and then people

20

cried that wasn‟t even him with the gun, that was somebody else. Did you find any

evidence . . .?

Carl: No, I didn‟t find any… in fact, at that time, I found no prints on the

window. That was again a pretty rough window.

Bob: Down in the area of the boxes or anything?

Carl: Not the boxes at that time, I didn‟t. I put powder a little on these

here. You can see some black marks on it - that‟s powder. But they didn‟t show up any

on the boxes. All of the other boxes that were stacked up there. Prints at that time really

didn‟t mean too much to me because he worked there. But the one on the box is

somebody had apparently been sitting on, that palm print, did mean something. That

meant something. The way it was on there, it didn‟t look like somebody had picked it up.

It looked like they was just resting on it. And they really put pressure on it to put a lot of

grease, oil on their hand. About three or four days later, two days something, I don‟t

remember, but I got another directive from the chief‟s office…release everything you

have to the FBI. I hadn‟t done anything with any of that other stuff. I think they did have

us go back and collect those boxes, many of those boxes down there. I don‟t remember

exactly when that was. But they were given to the FBI also. It was my understanding

that they did find prints on those boxes belonging to Oswald, but they used a chemical

rather than the powder. But I never did get around to using chemicals.

Bob: The relationship with the FBI at that point was…I mean you

already said you were frustrated, understandably…you were in the middle of checking

out the rifle when they came and took it away from you…but kind of what was the

relationship with the Dallas Police and the FBI?

Carl: (1:07:37) I thought we got along with them fine. I didn‟t have any problems

with them at all. Apparently from articles I‟ve read in the paper…now that‟s not a very

good place to get information, I‟ve found that out, that there some officer named Revel

and some FBI man had had exchanges. There was some argument, or rather some

unfavorable comment that the FBI didn‟t let the police department know Oswald was in

town. Well, I don‟t really know why they should. It wasn‟t our job to find Oswald or

protect the President. That‟s Secret Service…that‟s their job. And I guess it might be

FBI‟s…oh, more of their line to check out people if the Secret Service didn‟t. Anyway,

there was a little, oh, it seemed like a little friction or something at the higher levels there.

But as far as I was concerned.

Bob: You weren‟t aware of it?

Carl: I got along fine with all those fellows - I worked with them years.

I never had any problem whatever with them. One thing that did kind of maybe… if we

could do anything right at any time… after I turned this gun and when I gave them the

gun the second time, I sent that palm print that I lifted up there. I never had heard what

the results were of the FBI investigation. I never knew what they found out when the gun

21

came back.

Bob: Shouldn‟t they let you know as a professional courtesy if nothing

else?

Carl: Well, they were busy doing this, that, and the other, and they may

have let somebody else know, I don‟t know, but I didn‟t hear it.

Bob: OK.

Carl: Two or three days after I gave them that gun and the palm print, an

FBI man came to my house. He wanted to know where I got that palm print. It had been

identified as Oswald‟s. I gathered that they thought I had lifted that palm print off the

gun after it came back, which wasn‟t so. I lifted it before. But they apparently were a

little excited; they thought they‟d missed it or something up there. But that was not the

case. Now, I thought there was a print on that gun that was better than the one I‟d lifted.

I thought I could see it. And that was what I was going after at the time they stopped me.

The, I doubt the man who did the finger print work in Washington, had any information

as to what I had done or had found. He gets the gun; it‟s got black powder all over it.

Obviously somebody has been messing with it. Frankly if somebody brought me a gun

like that, already been powdered, worked with, and want me to check it for fingerprints,

I‟d probably shove it aside and not even mess with it because you don‟t know what

you‟ve got. It‟s already been messed up. I can find no fault with the man in Washington

not finding the print that I thought was there, if it was there - I can‟t say definitely it was

there. I think I could have gotten a photograph, I may not. I figured with their equipment

up there, they probably would come up with it. Anyway, they didn‟t find it. And I can

find no fault with him not finding it, due to the conditions under which he was working.

In fact, I can‟t really fault anybody in this whole investigation…

Bob: Well, I assume you think it‟s unfair the criticism that fell on, well

it fell a lot of places, but fell on the Dallas Police Department, also fell on the press about

what happened that weekend.

Carl: Well, again, I have no criticism with the way it was handled. It

was just one of those things were you had so much publicity, the trauma following the

shooting of an American president. I can look back and see, we weren‟t prepared for

such a thing. The public, or the police agencies, just weren‟t prepared for the trauma

following the shooting of an American president. Three agencies involved here - too

many cooks in the kitchen. The Secret Service has a responsibility for protecting the

President. They have the body, they have the car. They are not the investigators though.

The FBI does not have jurisdiction under laws at that time. It was not against federal law

to shoot the President. Jurisdiction for the investigation fell with the Dallas Police

Department. But without thinking or, I really understand why they acted like they did;

they loaded the President‟s body, the automobile, and everything onto the airplane to take

it to Washington. Well, it‟s out of the hands of the investigators, Dallas Police

Department. The FBI sure were vitally interested in it. We worked with them. I have

22

every respect for their abilities and their equipment. When we needed something, we

sent it to them and the examined it. And they were always ready to help when you called

them. Well at that time, we hadn‟t called them in; we were conducting our own

investigation. Well the body of course was sent to Washington, and the autopsy was

performed up there. From what I‟ve read, it didn‟t answer some questions.

In my experience…

Bob: Do you think it could have been more competently done down

here, just your experience with the process of doing that in Dallas? Do you think they

could have done a better job?

Carl: Yes. See, you‟ve got three agencies involved. They‟ve got the

evidence in Dallas and in Washington. There‟s really nobody in charge of this thing right

now, no central person handling it. The communications are not the best between the

departments in a case like that. One knows what one‟s doing and the other one is doing

something else, and it was just all, it was just kind of a difficult situation to handle. It

would have been best, looking back, it would have been best if whoever started it

finished it. If the FBI was going to handle it, they should have taken it from the start.

Bob: Well, there was confusion about jurisdiction at that point.

Carl: Sir?

Bob: There was confusion about jurisdiction at that point, too…whether

local, federal, or what. Did you come in contact, any personal contact, with Oswald?

Did you have to go fingerprint him or do anything like that after he was arrested?

Carl: I did not talk to him. I was present when he was fingerprinted. He

was fingerprinted, if I remember, more than once.

Bob: It was somebody in your department - you didn‟t do that

personally?

Carl: Yes. The first print‟s they made I believe was by Barnes and

Hicks - made prints on him. Then he was brought back to Identification Bureau later.

And I was present when this picture was taken (showing picture of Oswald in custody on

the cover of JFK: First Day Evidence). I was standing back over there. If I remember

correctly there was more fingerprints made then.

Bob: Okay. What was your impression - how would you describe

Oswald when you saw him? What he looked like, what his manner was…

Carl: He was surly…kind of cocky and surly. He didn‟t seem to, well,

he was denying everything…wasn‟t cooperating at all. There was one other incident that

happened there. While I was working with the gun, I didn‟t know what was going on, on

the third floor - the executive office. Captain Fritz had Marina Oswald in his office and

23

he wanted her to look at the gun. He came up to my office and said he wanted her to look

at the gun to see if she could identify it, but he didn‟t want to bring her out into the

reporters out there in the hall. Well, I‟m accustomed to four, five, six reporters hanging

out in that hall all the time in any major case. And if I wrapped the thing up, likely to

mess up the powder or prints that are on there. So I just picked it up by the straps, or the

strap and the stock, I‟d already determined that nothing could get anything off there, and

I decided I‟d carry it like that down, and go through a few reporters and show it to her.

Well when I got off at the third floor, I was shocked. There was television cameras and I

don‟t know how many people were there- it was loaded. And here I am with a piece of

evidence, standing there holding it over my head, and all these people around, I didn‟t

know whether to run or what. But Captain Fritz and his men spread them out, and I

walked on through holding the gun over my head so nobody would touch it. And showed

it to Marina Oswald in the office. She was across the hall, I mean across the room from

me. I didn‟t know what she said, whether in English or Russian. But they asked her

something and finally I took the gun on back upstairs. But they got that television picture

of me holding it over my head and everything else. Looked to me like I was trying to

show the thing off, which was, it was a poor way of handling evidence. Poor way of

handling evidence. Another one of those things seemed like you just couldn‟t seem to do

anything right; just kind of sneaked up on me, and I didn‟t know people were down there.

Bob: What did Marina look like? Did she…she was a very attractive

young woman wasn‟t she?

Carl: Yes, of course under the circumstances, she looked a little worried

I guess. If I remember right, she had her child with her.

Bob: She was not distraught, crying, or anything like that?

Carl: No, no. She talked to you, or talked to them. And she wasn‟t

hysterical or anything like that, that I could tell.

Bob: Did you know who Jack Ruby was? Had you ever come in contact

with him?

Carl: (1:21:27) I knew of him, but I was not familiar with him. I didn‟t know him.

I don‟t think I was ever in his nightclub. The officers, of course, that worked traffic

around that corner all knew him, and I heard he came around City Hall pretty often, but I

wasn‟t familiar with him.

Bob: Not in your area?

Carl: No, not in Identification Bureau.

Bob: Well, he came around, I worked at the Times Herald, and he‟d

hang out there.

24

Carl: Sir?

Bob: I said I worked at the Dallas Times Herald. He would hang around

the newspaper like that, too, you know, so we were familiar with who he was, in that

way.

Carl: But I just didn‟t know the man.

Bob: Well, you‟ve brought a couple of books with you. There have been

any number of books over the years, but before we get to that, maybe, back to the bag.

The paper bag connected with the rifle…did you work with that, or the FBI?

Carl: No, I didn‟t do anything to that. I turned it over to the FBI. I don‟t

have my records. I can‟t tell exactly what I gave them, but I know it was given to the FBI

and the boxes. They process all that stuff and mark it. Now back to this autopsy, we had

a fellow here, a medical examiner who was a corker. I don‟t know whether you knew

him or not, Earl Rose. He was in charge of the medical examiner‟s office at that time.

Bob: Just know the name.

Carl: My experience has been, the medical examiner, for instance,

forensic medical examiner, needs to know everything he can about the crime scene and

how it happened. Then he can stick what he finds with what he knows about it. And

come up with a pretty accurate statement exactly of what happened. I seriously doubt

that the men in Washington who performed the post up there was a forensic medical

examiner. And I doubt that he had all the information he needed; he should have been

able to determine, it would seem to me, if he had the proper information exactly where

the shots hit and so on. I often wished that Rose had done that - he would have come up

with some answers. Cause he would have had all the information he needed from the

crime scene and everything in front of him could have… The man in Washington was at

a disadvantage. So the way things turned out, I really don‟t want to appear critical of

anyone. It was just one of those things that happened; we weren‟t prepared for it; they

were all doing the best they could. But I don‟t, I just don‟t have any complaints against

any of them. The only people that kind of aggravated me were the out-of-town news

hounds. That was a rude bunch of people. Local people - we‟d always gotten along with

them fine. We‟d give them everything they wanted. They would come in, sit down and

talk with me about a case, I‟d tell them everything I knew about it. If it was something I

didn‟t want printed, I‟d say I don‟t want that printed yet, and it wouldn‟t be printed. So

the policy of the department was to cooperate with the press, and we did. And that‟s

what I think Chief Curry was trying to do when they transferred Oswald, but there was

too many of them and it back-fired on him. And there‟s no excuse, of course, letting a

man get killed in your custody. You can‟t defend that.

Bob: Well, I was going to ask you what, how did, maybe, the

department change after that, and one very obvious point, obviously you already talked

about the relationship between the police department and the press. I never covered

25

police department, but I was aware as a newspaper man at the time, that there was a

pretty open relationship between the press and the police, and it seemed to kind of work

well. But, then after the assassination and everything changed. That relationship became

more adversarial I guess.

Carl: (1:26:33) Well, we weren‟t allowed to . . . There was an order issued. They

established an Office of Information. And some of the newspaper men that would come

in and talk to me later, I‟d talk to them like always, they were friends of mine, I‟d like to

tell you everything I can, but you have to go through the information office now to get

your information. I‟m not allowed to anymore. That was the only change. We just quit

giving information out except through the public information officer. But I still

occasionally would work with them. I could work with them at the scene of the crime.

I‟ve had a lot of newsmen out there, photographers, when I was working crime, and I

remember one instance, I picked up a bunch of dynamite out of the top of a closet in a

house. Well they wanted pictures of it. Well I just walked by one, I said, I‟m going to

the fire station around here and talk to them about this dynamite. Well he got the

meaning, and he went on around there and he got his pictures. I still got along with them

famously, I didn‟t have any problem with them. But I was prohibited to giving

information except through the information office. But I didn‟t have trouble with any of

the people at all.

Bob: Dallas, you know, got criticized really in general, Dallas is the city

that killed the president, and all that kind of stuff. Do you remember any kind of

personal incidents?

Carl: No, I could never figure out why they figured the Dallas Police

Department was responsible for him being killed. It wasn‟t their duty to protect the

president. All in the world that they did was to assist the Secret Service. And I just never

could see why they felt the Dallas Police Department was at fault or had anything to do

with the shooting of the President. It just didn‟t make any sense to me.

Bob: At the end of these interviews, we leave it open, offering if there‟s

something we haven‟t covered, if you want to set the record straight - I think you

probably have set the record straight on some things already here in the interview …

Have you read many of the books over the years? Or do you read things, things you‟ve

read that maybe have stuck in your mind or stuck in your crawl, that need to be

straightened out that we haven‟t already covered? Anything else you want to talk about

at this point?

Carl: I can‟t think of anything in particular right now. There‟s been

many books and articles written. I haven‟t read them.

Bob: Have you been approached over the years by people who say

they‟re working on a book and are wanting to interview you?

Carl: Yes, I guess there‟s been about 50 people over the 30 years that

26

contact me. It seems like every year around November, I get two or three or four of them

come in. I always try to show them the courtesy of answering their questions and talk to

them. I didn‟t object. Most of them treated my testimony or my statements fair. Of

course any time you‟re talking with people there‟s a little semantics that seem to get

mixed up in there. I say something one way and you interpret it another way. It‟s just

something that you have to expect. I‟ve never had any problems with any of them.

They‟re always courteous. I try to be courteous and answer their questions.

Bob: When did you retire with the police? Did you stay with the Dallas

Police until you retired?

Carl: Yes. I stayed until January of ‟77.

Bob: Well, that‟s been 20 years. What have you been doing in the last

20 years here?

Carl: Nothing that I didn‟t have to. I didn‟t really want to work.

Occasionally some of the old defense attorneys call me and want me to look at some

fingerprints. I haven‟t tried to work any, but when they call, I always go examine it and

give them my opinion on it. But when I left, I was ready to retire.

Bob: And you were still head of the crime lab at that point?

Carl: Yes. I was still retired lieutenant in charge of the crime scene

search section of the Identification Bureau.

Bob: Well, once again, we thank you for taking part in this project. And

if you feel like it, and have time, we might go up into the museum where some of the

pictures you were…

Carl: Well I have time if you…

Bob: Well good. Let me turn this off now and we‟ll resume when we get

upstairs.

Carl: Okay.

Bob: Is there something else in one of those books you want to show?

Carl: Let me see. Well, they‟ve got a picture upstairs of I think, of

where the rifle was.

Bob: Yeah.

Carl: (showing picture in First Day Evidence) Here it is here. See it‟s

down between the boxes. That is our picture, it was, one that either Studebaker or myself

27

took. We both took pictures of it. At the same time, the picture of me pointing to the

area where the gun was taken. There‟s one other thing here that I would like to tell you,

you don‟t necessarily have to put it on the film. It‟s interesting.

Bob: And what is this?

Carl: You know in ‟79 or something, Congress…

Bob: House Select Committee?

Carl: Yeah, House Select Committee. Well, I was in the deputy‟s

bureau up at the office at the police department, oh a little while later on. (holding up a

copy of Law Enforcement Magazine). This magazine came in to the department up there

all the time. They got it every month. It was kind of a trade journal, you might say.

They handed it to me and referred me to an article in here that was…

Bob: Can you hold that up maybe in front of you, yeah, that‟s good, just

like that. That‟s great.

Carl: (holding up magazine, turned to an article on the assassination). In

it, the Select Committee had gone to these people here, who are described as experts, I

believe the Washington Police Department, experts on forensic science. And they had

been asked to determine whether or not the fingerprint lift or the palm that I made came

from the gun. Of course by that time, the tape had turned and they could not tell anything

about the fingerprints - they were all gone. But what they did, they took that tape, to the

place where I said I had lifted it, and they determined that the defects or whatever you

want to call them in, that showed on the tape, matched up the places on the barrel. And

they were able to say that tape had been in contact with that barrel. It substantiated the

fact that the tape had been against the barrel where the palm print was lifted.

Bob: Well, we haven‟t stated this directly, but assume that in your mind,

you are satisfied that Lee Harvey Oswald was the assassin?

Carl: (1:35:55) I‟m satisfied. And if anybody wanted to know the truth, me and

the officers that were working with Oswald, would like to know the truth. We wanted the

truth. There‟s no doubt in my mind it was Oswald. He acted alone. He was not with

anyone. I don‟t think the man could work with anyone. He wanted to be the whole

cheese. I don‟t think he was capable of working in a conspiracy. And had it been a

conspiracy, I don‟t think they would have left him up there by himself to get out of all of

it. Because most anybody you get the screws on them, they‟re going to start talking.

Say, yeah, I was with him, with him, and somebody else. I don‟t think he was, worked

with anybody at all. I don‟t think he was capable of it. I sometimes think I‟ll write a

book - you can have that if you want it (handing Bob a Xerox copy) - and my theory was

he was trying to shoot the President and get to Cuba where he would be received as a

hero. That‟s just my theory.

28

Bob: And the fact that he was denying he shot anybody when you were

around him, that didn‟t have any significance in terms of…

Carl: No. Of course, I wasn‟t around him a whole lot. But he was

awfully, well, how do you describe it - cocky, or sulky…

Bob: And that was not unusual behavior for somebody who‟d been

arrested for, not killing the president, but somebody who‟d been arrested for killing

somebody, they would deny they had done it?

Carl: It didn‟t seem to bother him much that he had killed someone.

And he was trying to deny everything. I remember the Justice of the Peace that arraigned

him told him he could have a lawyer. He mentioned that he wanted some outfit in New

York. He called the name, it was a way out group he wanted to represent him. But no, I

didn‟t, my time around him, he just looked like a misfit in society. And you look back

over his history, when he was in Russia and everywhere, he just didn‟t fit in with

anybody.

Bob: Well okay…

Oral History interview concludes.

Running Time: 1:38:53

There is an additional four minutes of footage taken on the sixth floor of the former

Texas School Book Depository building (The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza), in

which Mr. Day points to photographs and exhibits and makes some additional

commentary.

Total Running Time: 1:42:57

Transcribed by Stephen Fagin, May 24, 2001

Unrevised

For Research Purposes Only

The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza