Mr. HILL. Well, it would have been the west side.
Mr. BELIN. All right, they moved over to the east side?
Mr. HILL. We hadn't been there but a minute until someone yelled, "Here
it is," or words to that effect.
I moved over and found they had found an area where the boxes had been
stacked in sort of a triangle shape with three sides over near the
window.
Two small boxes with Roller books on the side of the carton were
stacked near the east side of the window.
Mr. BELIN. Let's talk about which window now, sir. First of all, what
side of the building? Was it on the north, east, south, or west?
Mr. HILL. It would have been on the south side near the east wall. It
would have been the window on the southeast corner of the building
facing south.
Mr. BELIN. Would it have been the first window next to the east wall or
the second window, or what, if you remember?
Mr. HILL. As near as I can remember, it was the first window next to
the east wall, but here again it is--I stayed up there such a short
time that--yes, that is the one I am going to have to say it was,
because as near as I can remember, that is the one it was.
Mr. BELIN. What did you see over there?
Mr. HILL. There was the boxes. The boxes were stacked in sort of a
three-sided shield.
That would have concealed from general view, unless somebody
specifically walked up and looked over them, anyone who was in a
sitting or crouched position between them and the window. In front of
this window and to the left or east corner of the window, there were
two boxes, cardboard boxes that had the words "Roller books," on them.
On top of the larger stack of boxes that would have been used for
concealment, there was a chicken leg bone and a paper sack which
appeared to have been about the size normally used for a lunch sack. I
wouldn't know what the sizes were. It was a sack, I would say extended,
it would probably be 12 inches high, 10 inches long, and about 4 inches
thick.
Then, on the floor near the baseboard or against the baseboard of the
south wall of the building, in front of the second window, in front of
the, well, we would have to say second window from the east corner,
were three spent shells.
This is actually the jacket that holds the powder and not the slug. At
this point, I asked the deputy sheriff to guard the scene, not to let
anybody touch anything, and I went over still further west to another
window about the middle of the building on the south side and yelled
down to the street for them to send us the crime lab. Not knowing or
not getting any indication from the street that they heard me, I asked
the deputies again to guard the scene and I would go down and make sure
that the crime lab was en route.
When I got toward the back, at this time I heard the freight elevator
moving, and I went back to the back of the building to either catch
the freight elevator or the stairs, and Captain Fritz and his men were
coming up on the elevator.
I told him what we found and pointed out the general area, pointed out
the deputies to them, and told him also that I was going to make sure
the crime lab was en route.
About the time I got to the street, Lieutenant Day from the crime lab
was arriving and walking up toward the front door. I told him that the
area we had found where the shots were fired from was on the sixth
floor on the southeast corner, and that they were guarding the scene
so nobody would touch anything until he got there. And he said, "All
right."
And he went on into the building, and I went over to tell Inspector
Sawyer, who was standing almost directly in front of the building
across the little service drive there at what would actually be Elm and
Houston. About this time I saw a firetruck come up, but I didn't pay
any attention.
I was talking to Inspector Sawyer, telling him what we found, when Sgt.
C. B. Owens of Oak Cliff--he was the senior sergeant out there that
day, and actually acting lieutenant--came up and wanted to know what we
wanted him to do, being that he had been dispatched to the scene.
Mr. BELIN. Let me stop you right there. Who dispatched him to the scene?
Mr. HILL. Apparently the dispatcher. Now his call number that day could
have been 19.
Mr. BELIN. Okay, go ahead, Sergeant Hill.
Mr. HILL. We were standing there with Inspector Sawyer and Assistant
District Attorney Bill Alexander came up to us, and we had been
standing there for a minute when we heard the strange voice on the
police radio that said something to the effect that, if I remember
right, either the first call that came out said that they were in the
400 block of East Jefferson, and that an officer had been shot, and the
voice on the radio, whoever it was, said he thought he was dead.
At this point Sergeant Owens said something to the effect that this
would have been one of his men. And prior, on our way to the location
from the city hall, a description had been broadcast of a possible
suspect in the assassination.
With the description, as I remember, it was a white male, 5'8", 160
pounds, wearing a jacket, a light shirt, dark trousers, and sort of
bushy brown hair. Captain Sawyer said, "Well, as much help as we
have here, why don't you go with Sergeant Owens to Oak Cliff on that
detail." And Bill Alexander said, "Well, if it is all right, I will go
with you." And the reporter, Jim Ewell, came up, and I said an officer
had been shot in Oak Cliff, and he wanted to go with us also.
In the process of getting the location straight, and I think it was at
this point I was probably using 19 call number, because I was riding
with him, we got the information correctly that the shooting had
actually been on East 10th, and we were en route there.
We crossed the Commerce Street viaduct and turned, made a right turn to
go under the viaduct on North Beckley to go up to 10th Street. As we
passed, just before we got to Colorado on Beckley, an ambulance with a
police car behind it passed us en route to Methodist Hospital.
We went on to the scene of the shooting where we found a squad car
parked against the right or the south curb on 10th Street, with a pool
of blood on the left-hand side of it near the side of the car.
Tippit had already been removed. The first man that came up to me, he
said, "The man that shot him was a white male about 5'10", weighing 160
to 170 pounds, had on a jacket and a pair of dark trousers, and brown
bushy hair."
At this point the first squad rolled up, and that would have been squad
105, which had been dispatched from downtown. An officer named Joe Poe,
and I believe his partner was a boy named Jez.
I told him to stay at the scene and guard the car and talk to as many
witnesses as they could find to the incident, and that we were going to
start checking the area.
Mr. BELIN. Now, let me interrupt you here, sergeant. Do you remember
the name of the person that gave you the description?
Mr. HILL. No. I turned him over to Poe, and I didn't even get his name.
Mr. BELIN. Had anyone at anytime given you any cartridge cases of any
kind?
Mr. HILL. No; they had not. This came much later.
Mr. BELIN. Go ahead if you would, please.
Mr. HILL. All right, I took the key to Poe's car. Another person came
up, and we also referred him to Poe, that told us the man had run over
into the funeral home parking lot. That would be Dudley Hughes' parking
lot in the 400 block of East Jefferson--and taken off his jacket.
Mr. BELIN. You turned this man over to Poe, too?
Mr. HILL. Yes, sir.
Mr. BELIN. I notice in the radio log transcript, which is marked Sawyer
Deposition Exhibit A, that at 1:26 p.m., between 1:26 p.m., and 1:32
p.m., there was a call from No. 19 to 531. 531 is your home number, I
believe? Your radio home station?
Mr. HILL. Yes.
Mr. BELIN. That says, "One of the men here at the service station that
saw him seems to think he is in this block, 400 block East Jefferson,
behind his service station. Give me some more squads over here."
"Several squads check out." Was that you?
Mr. HILL. That was Owens.
Mr. BELIN. Were you calling in at all?
Mr. HILL. No. That is Bud Owens.
Mr. BELIN. You had left Owens' car at this time?
Mr. HILL. I left Owens' car and had 105 car at this time.
Mr. BELIN. Where did you go?
Mr. HILL. At this time, about the time this broadcast came out, I went
around and met Owens. I whipped around the block. I went down to the
first intersection east of the block where all this incident occurred,
and made a right turn, and traveled one block, and came back up on
Jefferson.
Mr. BELIN. All right.
Mr. HILL. And met Owens in front of two large vacant houses on the
north side of Jefferson that are used for the storage of secondhand
furniture.
By then Owens had information also that some citizen had seen the man
running towards these houses.
At this time Sergeant Owens was there; I was there; Bill Alexander was
there; it was probably about this time that C. T. Walker, an accident
investigator got there; and with Sergeant Owens and Walker and a couple
more officers standing outside, Bill Alexander and I entered the front
door of the house that would have been to the west--it was the farthest
to the west of the two--shook out the lower floor, made sure nobody
was there, and made sure that all the entrances from either inside or
outside of the building to the second floor were securely locked.
Then we went back over to the house next door, which would have been
the first one east of this one, and made sure it was securely locked,
both upstairs and downstairs. There was no particular sign of entry on
this building at all. At this point we came back out to the street, and
I asked had Owens received any information from the hospital on Tippit.
And he said they had just told him on channel 2 that he was dead. I got
back in 105's car, went back around to the original scene, gave him his
car keys back, and left his car there, and at this point he came up to
me with a Winston cigarette package.
Mr. BELIN. Who was this?
Mr. HILL. This was Poe.
Mr. BELIN. You went back to the Tippit scene?
Mr. HILL. Right.
Mr. BELIN. You went back to 400 East 10th Street?
Mr. HILL. Right. And Poe showed me a Winston cigarette package that
contained three spent jackets from shells that he said a citizen had
pointed out to him where the suspect had reloaded his gun and dropped
these in the grass, and that the citizen had picked them up and put
them in the Winston package.
I told Poe to maintain the chain of evidence as small as possible, for
him to retain these at that time, and to be sure and mark them for
evidence, and then turn them over to the crime lab when he got there,
or to homicide.
The next place I went was, I walked up the street about half a block to
a church. That would have been on the northeast corner of 10th Street
in the 400 block, further west of the shooting, and was preparing to go
in when there were two women who came out and said they were employees
inside and had been there all the time. I asked them had they seen
anybody enter the church, because we were still looking for possible
places for the suspect to hide. And they said nobody passed them,
nobody entered the church, but they invited us to check the rest of the
doors and windows and go inside if we wanted to.
An accident investigator named Bob Apple was at the location at that
time, and we were standing there together near his car when the call
came out that the suspect had been seen entering the Texas Theatre.
Mr. BELIN. What did you do then?
Mr. HILL. We both got in Apple's car and went to Jefferson, made a
right on Jefferson, headed west from our location, and pulled up as
close to the front of the theatre as we could. There were already two
or three officers at the location. I asked if it was covered off at the
back.