The testimony of Robert Lee Studebaker was taken at 3:45 p.m., on April
6, 1964, in the office of the U.S. attorney, 301 Post Office Building,
Bryan and Ervay Streets, Dallas, Tex., by Messrs. Joseph A. Ball, John
Hart Ely, and Samuel A. Stern, assistant counsel of the President's
Commission. Dr. Alfred Goldberg, historian, was present.
Mr. BALL. Do you solemnly swear the testimony you give before this
Commission to be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth,
so help you God?
Mr. STUDEBAKER. Yes, sir.
Mr. BALL. Will you state your name, please?
Mr. STUDEBAKER. R. L. Studebaker--Robert Lee.
Mr. BALL. And you have been requested to appear here to give testimony
in this inquiry, have you not, by your Chief of Police, who told you
that we had a matter requiring your testimony?
Mr. STUDEBAKER. Yes.
Mr. BALL. The subject of the testimony is the assassination of
President Kennedy.
You made certain investigations on November 22 and 23 and 24 with
respect to that, did you not?
Mr. STUDEBAKER. Yes, sir.
Mr. BALL. What I want to ask you is what you did at that time. Can you
tell me something about yourself, where you were born, where you went
to school, and what your training is?
Mr. STUDEBAKER. I was born in Niles, Mich., and attended several
schools and have been in Dallas and I have been in the Air Force and
came to Dallas in 1950, and have been in the Police Department since
February 8, 1954, and right now I am a detective in the Crime Scene
Service Section of the ID Bureau of the Dallas Police Department.
Mr. BALL. What sort of training did you have for the crime lab work
that you are doing?
Mr. STUDEBAKER. It's just on-the-job training--you go out with old
officers and learn how to dust for prints and take pictures and
fingerprints.
Mr. BALL. Have you had any special training in identification
fingerprints?
Mr. STUDEBAKER. No, sir; we don't classify prints too much where we
are. We just compare them.
Mr. BALL. What is the technique of lifting a print, as you call it?
Mr. STUDEBAKER. Well, it's just using the regular dusting powder that
we have and if you find something that you want to dust, you dust for
the print. We used on this special case up there on those boxes and
things, we have a special powder that we used on that.
Mr. BALL. Then you take a picture of the print--a photograph?
Mr. STUDEBAKER. Of this area, we just taped it to preserve it. We just
lift the print and then tape it to preserve it.
Mr. BALL. By "lifting a print," you mean to make it stand out?
Mr. STUDEBAKER. Raising it up; yes, sir.
Mr. BALL. By means of your dusting powder?
Mr. STUDEBAKER. By a chemical, yes. This certain print that was up
there, we used this special powder for cardboard and paper. That's what
it's used for.
Mr. BALL. Now, on the 22d of November 1963, were you on duty that day?
Mr. STUDEBAKER. Yes, sir.
Mr. BALL. What time did you go to work?
Mr. STUDEBAKER. 7 a.m.
Mr. BALL. In the morning?
Mr. STUDEBAKER. Yes.
Mr. BALL. What are your hours--7 to 3?
Mr. STUDEBAKER. 7 to 3.
Mr. BALL. Did you get a call to go down to the Texas School Book
Depository?
Mr. STUDEBAKER. Yes.
Mr. BALL. What time did you go down there?
Mr. STUDEBAKER. I believe we got the call about 1:05--we was down there
about 1:15.
Mr. BALL. And whom did you go with?
Mr. STUDEBAKER. Lieutenant Day and I answered the call.
Mr. BALL. What equipment did you take with you?
Mr. STUDEBAKER. We took our camera and fingerprint kits and our truck.
We have a truck that is equipped with all that stuff--a station wagon.
Mr. BALL. Each one of you had a camera, did you?
Mr. STUDEBAKER. No, sir; we just had one camera.
Mr. BALL. What kind of camera was it?
Mr. STUDEBAKER. It's a Graflex, a 4 by 5 Speed Graflex.
Mr. BALL. Have you had some experience in operating a camera?
Mr. STUDEBAKER. Yes.
Mr. BALL. How much?
Mr. STUDEBAKER. Well, on this certain camera?
Mr. BALL. Yes.
Mr. STUDEBAKER. About 2 months.
Mr. BALL. But you have had photography in your crime lab work?
Mr. STUDEBAKER. Yes.
Mr. BALL. For how long?
Mr. STUDEBAKER. Was about 2 months.
Mr. BALL. How long have you done photography altogether?
Mr. STUDEBAKER. In my lifetime?
Mr. BALL. No, as one of the assistants in the crime lab, what period of
years?
Mr. STUDEBAKER. 2 months. I went to the crime lab in October, the 1st
of October.
Mr. BALL. You did--had you done any photography before that?
Mr. STUDEBAKER. Just home photography.
Mr. BALL. And the fingerprint equipment, is that the dusting powder you
mentioned?
Mr. STUDEBAKER. Yes.
Mr. BALL. And what else?
Mr. STUDEBAKER. Just anything we had in the truck. We have the truck
complete.
Mr. BALL. You have different kinds of fingerprint dusting powder for
different substances?
Mr. STUDEBAKER. Yes.
Mr. BALL. How many different kinds of powder do you have?
Mr. STUDEBAKER. Well, we have a gray powder that we use for lifting
prints and use under an ultra-violet light and we have a black volcano
powder that we use on white or grey surfaces, and then just recently we
purchased this new powder--it's a magnetic powder. It's a new type of
powder that you just use something like a pen to lift your powder out
of the jar that it's in and it will lift a print off of a paper better
than your regular dusting powder. It's more accurate in lifting a print
than anything I have ever seen. It's a new type powder--a magnetic
powder is what it is, and they have a jet black and a gray and a
silver-gray and different types of powder in there that you can use on
different types surfaces.
Mr. BALL. By "lifting the prints," you mean it stands out?
Mr. STUDEBAKER. Raising the print up, raising the invisible print which
is a latent print and it will raise the moisture out of the paper that
it is pressed on. It takes 7 pounds of pressure to leave a latent
fingerprint and the moisture in your fingers, in the pores of your
skin, is what leaves the print on the paper, but it is invisible until
you put your powder on there and then it raises it.
Mr. BALL. Now, on this day when you went to the Texas School Book
Depository Building, did you go directly to some particular floor?
Mr. STUDEBAKER. We went to the entrance and they said it was on the
sixth floor and we went directly to the sixth floor.
Mr. BALL. Then, were you directed to some place on the sixth floor, as
soon as you arrived there?
Mr. STUDEBAKER. No; they hadn't found anything when we got there.
Mr. BALL. After you were there a little while, did somebody find
something?
Mr. STUDEBAKER. They found the empty hulls in the southeast corner of
the building--they found three empty hulls and we went over there and
took photographs of that.
Mr. BALL. Do you have that photograph with you?
Mr. STUDEBAKER. Yes.
Mr. BALL. Could I see it, please?
Mr. STUDEBAKER. Now, I took two of the photographs and Lieutenant Day
took two. We took double shots on each one. These are the ones I took
myself--these pictures. There's the two pictures that I took. This one
was right before anything was moved. There is a hull here, a hull here,
and a hull over here.
Mr. BALL. Now, this picture you have just identified as the picture you
took, we will mark it as Exhibit "A" in your deposition.
Mr. STUDEBAKER. Yes, sir.
(Instrument referred to marked by the reporter as "Studebaker Exhibit
A," for identification.)
Mr. STUDEBAKER. Yes, sir; now, on this negative right down here in the
bottom corner of this negative, there is another hull--you can just
barely see the tip of it right here, and when this picture was printed,
the exposure of the printing left this out, but I have one--I didn't
know this was like that, but I have another one that shows this hull
this way.
You see these boxes all right stacked up here, and you couldn't get
over here to take another picture in that way, without getting up on
everything and messing everything up. This is exact before anything was
ever moved or picked up.
There are just two different views there. You probably got one or two
recopies. We printed a bunch of them.
Mr. BALL. Is this the same picture?
Mr. STUDEBAKER. That's the same picture, only you don't have it there
either.
Mr. BALL. It doesn't show it?
Mr. STUDEBAKER. It doesn't show the third hull laying beside this box.
Mr. BALL. We have a picture which shows the three hulls, which is
Exhibit A, and a picture showing the two hulls, will be marked "Exhibit
B."
(Instrument referred to marked by the reporter as "Studebaker Exhibit
B," for identification.)
Mr. STUDEBAKER. The first pictures was shots on the southeast facing
west, and this one here is facing east.
Mr. BALL. In other words, Exhibit A was filmed from the east, with the
camera facing west?
Mr. STUDEBAKER. Yes, sir.
Mr. BALL. And Exhibit B is what?
Mr. STUDEBAKER. Facing east.
Mr. BALL. You are facing east?
Mr. STUDEBAKER. We have a jacket we made up that has all of those
pictures numbered in there, and I believe he made an explanation on
every one of those.
Mr. BALL. We will identify your Exhibit A as your No. 20 and your
Exhibit B as your No. 19. Now, what other pictures did you take?
Mr. STUDEBAKER. Of the rifle?
Mr. BALL. Yes.
Mr. STUDEBAKER. Yes, sir; that's why, right after these were taken,
they said they had found a rifle and to bring the cameras over to the
northwest corner of the building where the rifle was found and I loaded
everything up and carried it over there.
Mr. BALL. Did you take a picture of that?
Mr. STUDEBAKER. Yes, sir; on these, Lieutenant Day also took pictures
of those, and he also took pictures of this gun. We took two shots
apiece.
Mr. BALL. Let's see the shots you took of the place where the gun was
located?
Mr. STUDEBAKER. I know it's mine because my knees are in the picture.
Mr. BALL. Do you remember the name of the deputy sheriff that found the
gun?
Mr. STUDEBAKER. No, I don't.
Mr. BALL. You have handed me a picture now that I will have marked as
"Exhibit C" and it is your No. 22.
(Instrument marked by the reporter as "Studebaker Exhibit C," for
identification.)
Mr. BALL. That is a picture taken by you of the location of the
gun--that was before anyone moved it?
Mr. STUDEBAKER. Yes.
Mr. BALL. Do you have another shot of that other picture?
Mr. STUDEBAKER. No, we took two from the same location when we was up
on top of the stack of boxes shooting down at it, before they picked it
up. Actually, there was four negatives of them of the gun, but they are
all in the same location, shooting straight down and they were taken on
different exposures.
Mr. BALL. You took some other pictures, didn't you?
Mr. STUDEBAKER. Yes, sir.
Mr. BALL. Did you take a picture of the window in the southeast corner?
Mr. STUDEBAKER. Yes, sir.
Mr. BALL. Were there any boxes on the ledge of this window?
Mr. STUDEBAKER. Yes.
Mr. BALL. Did you take some pictures showing those boxes?
Mr. STUDEBAKER. Yes.
Mr. BALL. Was that before any of them were moved?
Mr. STUDEBAKER. That picture right there is the one that shows them,
and the other pictures show them before they were moved.
Mr. BALL. You mean Exhibit A and B?
Mr. STUDEBAKER. A and B.
Mr. BALL. Do you have a picture that shows the boxes themselves, just a
shot of those boxes in the window?
Mr. STUDEBAKER. This one, Exhibit A, shows that--this is the
exact--now, this print here isn't too good, but you can see the
indentation in this box right here. This is before it was ever moved,
and right down below here, you can see a staple on another box or
another negative, this isn't too good a negative here. If I had known
what you wanted, I would have brought you a better print--picked out a
better print.
Mr. BALL. Now, you say on Exhibit A it shows a box in the window?
Mr. STUDEBAKER. These boxes [indicating], yes, sir.
Mr. BALL. Is that the way they were piled up?
Mr. STUDEBAKER. Yes, just exactly like that.
Mr. BALL. And you say there is an indentation on that box?
Mr. STUDEBAKER. Right here.
Mr. BALL. That shows in the picture.
Mr. STUDEBAKER. Yes.
Mr. BALL. Will you take this pen and sort of surround that and make it
look a little heavier?