Mr. CROWE. I think I sat and read maybe.
Mr. HUBERT. Well, did you see anyone or talk to anyone after returning
to your apartment?
Mr. CROWE. I don’t know whether it was that night or the night after
I called a friend of mine’s house, Tom Palmer. I spoke with his wife
about the incident.
Mr. HUBERT. Did you talk to Jack Ruby at any time between the
assassination of the President, and the time Oswald was shot?
Mr. CROWE. I never spoke to or seen Jack Ruby again from Thursday night.
Mr. HUBERT. And you did not talk to him by phone?
Mr. CROWE. No; no.
Mr. HUBERT. Do you know George Senator?
Mr. CROWE. Yes.
Mr. HUBERT. Do you know Ralph Paul?
Mr. CROWE. Yes.
Mr. HUBERT. Did you know a man by the name of Breck Wall----
Mr. CROWE. Yes.
Mr. HUBERT. Who was staying at the Adolphus?
Mr. CROWE. Yes.
Mr. HUBERT. Do you know a man by the name of Joe Peterson?
Mr. CROWE. He was a musician, I believe.
Mr. HUBERT. You said you knew Armstrong. Did you know Larry Crafard?
Mr. CROWE. I don’t recall the name.
Mr. HUBERT. Do you remember a young man that seemed to be working
around the club there and sleeping on the premises?
Mr. CROWE. Yes; yes.
Mr. HUBERT. How did you know him, by what name did you know him?
Mr. CROWE. I don’t recall, I believe his name was Larry. I didn’t know
what his last name was.
Mr. HUBERT. Did you see or speak to any one of those persons during the
period from the time the President was shot until the time Oswald was
shot?
Mr. CROWE. Who all did you call off again?
Mr. HUBERT. George Senator, Ralph Paul, Breck Wall, Joe Peterson, Andy
Armstrong, and Larry Crafard?
Mr. CROWE. Andrew Armstrong is about the only one I can think of.
Mr. HUBERT. When did you talk to him?
Mr. CROWE. Let’s see, I called--maybe that wasn’t--Saturday, Sunday
morning, there wasn’t much time, it must have been after Oswald was
shot before I even spoke to Andrew.
Mr. HUBERT. Well, as I understand it then, there was no contact of any
sort whatsoever between you and any of those persons I mentioned, and
I will mention them again so that the record can be straight: George
Senator, Ralph Paul, Breck Wall, Joe Peterson, and Larry Crafard, there
was no contact between you and Andrew Armstrong, no contact between you
whatsoever, between the time the President was shot and the time Oswald
was shot, of any sort whatsoever?
Mr. CROWE. No.
Mr. HUBERT. How did you learn that the show would not go on on Saturday?
Mr. CROWE. Well, I didn’t figure it would go on on Saturday. I wasn’t
going to go down there until they called me, or somebody called me, and
they knew where I was, and if I did not get a call, why I wasn’t going.
Mr. HUBERT. When was payday, when were you supposed to be paid?
Mr. CROWE. Sunday.
Mr. HUBERT. Did you make any inquiry Sunday about your pay?
Mr. CROWE. No; there was nobody to ask.
Mr. HUBERT. Well, you mentioned that you did speak to Armstrong. When
did you do so?
Mr. CROWE. Monday; I believe Monday evening he called me on the phone
and told me to come to work.
Mr. HUBERT. Come to work on Monday evening?
Mr. CROWE. I didn’t figure I would go in until Tuesday, I figured they
would be out for a while. I think there was something in the Saturday
paper that Jack Ruby had put, stated immediately that the club would be
closed for 3 days.
Mr. HUBERT. Did you see that yourself?
Mr. CROWE. Yes; I believe I did.
Mr. HUBERT. Did you know Eva Grant?
Mr. CROWE. The name sounds familiar.
Mr. HUBERT. Well----
Mr. CROWE. Isn’t that Jack Ruby’s sister?
Mr. HUBERT. Yes; it is. Do you know her?
Mr. CROWE. Yes; in a way. I met her.
Mr. HUBERT. Have you ever been to the Vegas Club?
Mr. CROWE. Vegas Club; yes.
Mr. HUBERT. Have you been there?
Mr. CROWE. Yes.
Mr. HUBERT. Did you ever play there?
Mr. CROWE. No.
Mr. HUBERT. As an artist?
Mr. CROWE. No.
Mr. HUBERT. Did you go there during the last engagement we have been
talking about which commenced on November 11?
Mr. CROWE. Yes, yes; I did. About the week before, I guess.
Mr. HUBERT. Did you go there on more than one occasion or just once?
Mr. CROWE. Maybe twice.
Mr. HUBERT. Who did you go there with?
Mr. CROWE. Jack and a couple of girls from the club.
Mr. HUBERT. Do you remember the girls’ names?
Mr. CROWE. Little Lynn and there was another one, it is a redhead. Very
good dancer, too. There was a joke about her name, something to do with
Christmas.
Mr. HUBERT. That would be one occasion. Do you remember who you went
with on the other?
Mr. CROWE. Well, I always went with Jack but I don’t know whether there
was anybody else--there probably was, but I don’t recall who was along
the second time.
Mr. HUBERT. Do you remember when you first made any announcement
concerning the possibility, at least, that Oswald was in the Carousel?
Mr. CROWE. Sunday afternoon.
Mr. HUBERT. Who did you make the observation to and how did it come
about?
Mr. CROWE. To a television reporter, I guess it was.
Mr. HUBERT. Do you know his name?
Mr. CROWE. A newspaperman.
Mr. HUBERT. Do you know the names of these people?
Mr. CROWE. No.
Mr. HUBERT. Did you approach them or did they approach you?
Mr. CROWE. Both. I had just parked my car at the garage right aside of
the club because I went down there to see about my equipment which was
in the club and I had known, from things I had heard, Jack had done
what he did. I was concerned about my equipment, you know, whether I
would get it out.
Mr. HUBERT. What time was it that you went to the club?
Mr. CROWE. Around noon, I guess.
Mr. HUBERT. Do you think it would be about a half hour after Oswald was
shot?
Mr. CROWE. About a half hour after Oswald was shot.
Mr. HUBERT. How did you hear that Oswald was shot?
Mr. CROWE. I was in the office of the motel and it was on television.
Mr. HUBERT. I see. Then you became concerned about your equipment and
you went immediately down?
Mr. CROWE. Down to the club.
Mr. HUBERT. And you think it was about noon when you got there. Did you
have a key to get in?
Mr. CROWE. No, no.
Mr. HUBERT. Did you get in?
Mr. CROWE. No.
Mr. HUBERT. How did you expect to get in?
Mr. CROWE. Well, I don’t know. I had called down there, and the line
was busy, so I figured there was somebody there. But when I----
Mr. HUBERT. Did you knock when you went there?
Mr. CROWE. No; I never even got that far.
Mr. HUBERT. Tell us what happened?
Mr. CROWE. When I drove into the garage a newspaperman pulled up in
front.
Mr. HUBERT. Is that the Nichols Garage, the garage right next to----
Mr. CROWE. Right next, I don’t know what the name is.
Mr. HUBERT. Do you know a man by the name of Hugh Reed who ran the
place? All right, sir, you drove into the garage?
Mr. CROWE. And a newspaperman drove up front, and television drove up
across the street, and the newspaperman, I think, and somebody else,
and they started to ask the garage attendant if he knew where Jack
Ruby lived, and I came forward and I said I knew where he lived, at
least I thought I did, but I didn’t know he had moved, so I didn’t know
actually.
Mr. HUBERT. But in any case you gave them an address?
Mr. CROWE. Well, I didn’t know the address but I knew how to get there.
Mr. HUBERT. I see.
Mr. CROWE. And I went out with some newspaper reporter in his
Volkswagen and drove out to the apartment out by the zoo where he used
to stay.
Mr. HUBERT. Then you found he was not there?
Mr. CROWE. Not there, he had moved.
Mr. HUBERT. What happened then?
Mr. CROWE. I went to the television station, the newspaperman drove me
by the television station, and the television man who followed us out,
wanted me to stop by and talk to them.
Mr. HUBERT. Now, what did the television man want to talk to you about,
do you know? Or what did you talk to him about?
Mr. CROWE. Well, they had asked me who I was, and what I had to do with
the club. I told them my name, what my job was, and I had mentioned
that it was quite a series of coincidences as far as I was concerned
because I had been in Washington during the inaugural of the President
and then being in Dallas during the assassination of the President,
and then having what I had thought or recalled, to have possibly seen
Oswald in the club the week before and then working for the man who
shot Oswald.
Mr. HUBERT. Now, who did you mention that series of coincidences to?
Mr. CROWE. The newspaperman and the television man.
Mr. HUBERT. Did you mention it to the newspaperman first when you were
driving out to what you thought was Ruby’s house?
Mr. CROWE. No. Another newspaperman, the one who drove up in the car, I
mean the radio man.
Mr. HUBERT. That was after you had left the place that you thought was
Ruby’s house. In other words, what I am trying to get is the time that
you first mentioned this series of coincidences, and the person to whom
you mentioned it?
Mr. CROWE. At the front door of the club.
Mr. HUBERT. That was before you left to go to the apartment?
Mr. CROWE. Before I left to go.
Mr. HUBERT. Did----
Mr. CROWE. To me it was just a series of coincidences, I never even
thought anything about it.
Mr. HUBERT. What was the reaction of the newspaperman when you told him
that you thought you had seen Ruby--I mean, Oswald in Ruby’s club?
Mr. CROWE. Well, they got all excited and picked that out and started
snow-balling it, and that was about it.
Mr. HUBERT. What are the facts concerning your possibly having seen
Oswald in that club?
Mr. CROWE. Well, I wouldn’t say there was any, just facts. Like I
stated before, the face seemed familiar as some faces do, and I had
associated him with a patron that I had seen in the club a week before.
That was about it.
Mr. HUBERT. Wasn’t there some aspect of the story that had to do with
a memory act that was supposed to be your specialty or one of your
specialties?
Mr. CROWE. Well, it is one of the bits that I did to fill time, but----
Mr. HUBERT. What are the facts concerning that?
Mr. CROWE. They asked me in what--how I had seen him in the club, and
I said I thought I had used him as one of the people that was--that I
would use him in my memory bit.
Mr. HUBERT. What was your memory bit. Would you describe it, please,
sir?
Mr. CROWE. I have 20 people cross the front, those that I can see by
the stage there, and call out an object and then I have them raise
their hand at random and I call the object back to them. That was it.
Mr. HUBERT. Is there a gimmick to this or does it----
Mr. CROWE. Association.
Mr. HUBERT. In other words, it is a special form of training; do you
have to train yourself to associate?
Mr. CROWE. To a small degree.
Mr. HUBERT. What mental process do you actually go through actually to
accomplish this?
Mr. CROWE. What system do I use?
Mr. HUBERT. Yes.
Mr. CROWE. Or how is it done?
Mr. HUBERT. Yes. I don’t want to get your professional secrets.
Mr. CROWE. That is what you are asking. [Laughter.]
Mr. HUBERT. On the other hand, what I am trying to get at is whether or
not your memory bit, as you call it, would enable you to recognize or
remember faces more than the ordinary person?
Mr. CROWE. No. No, my memory actually is no better, maybe it is as good
as the ordinary persons. I know the system which is Spencer Thornton’s
to use in this memory bit and I concentrate on using it, and after it
is over I have forgotten.
Mr. HUBERT. I am sure you recall that the press shortly after 24th
played up, snowballed, I think perhaps, as you called it, the fact
that your memory act or memory gimmick as you now call it, gave you
a special expertise, if it is called that, or special ability, in
remembering faces that you had seen. Is that a fact or not? I mean, is
it a fact that your act does give you that extra abnormal ability or
not?
Mr. CROWE. No; it does not give me anything special. Using a gimmick
or a method to do the memory stunt and that is it. They built up the
memory thing and they built up the bit of having seen Oswald in there,
and I never stated definitely, positively, and they said that I did,
and all in all, what they had in the paper was hardly even close to
what I told them.
Mr. HUBERT. What did you tell them?
Mr. CROWE. Exactly as I have just stated to you.
Mr. HUBERT. Well, I don’t know that I followed you about what exactly
you remembered about Oswald. I think perhaps we can better repeat it
then. What did you, in fact, irrespective of what you stated to them,
what did you, in fact, remember then about seeing Oswald in Ruby’s club?
Mr. CROWE. I had--it seemed to me that his face was familiar, and I
had possibly seen him in the club the week before and used him in
association with the memory routine that I did.
Mr. HUBERT. You told that to the press?
Mr. CROWE. Right.
Mr. HUBERT. And you told it actually as one of four events which you
have described as a series of coincidences?
Mr. CROWE. Right.
Mr. HUBERT. I think that later you were shown a picture of Oswald, were
you not?
Mr. CROWE. I don’t recall that. I had seen a picture in the newspaper.
But I don’t recall being shown a picture.
Mr. HUBERT. Do you recall being interviewed by the FBI and Secret
Service?
Mr. CROWE. Yes.
Mr. HUBERT. At that time, didn’t they display a picture of Oswald to
you?
Mr. CROWE. They may have, I don’t remember.
Mr. HUBERT. Do you recall what your recollection concerning the
identification of Oswald in Ruby’s club was when you spoke to the FBI
and the agents of the Secret Service?
Mr. CROWE. That I had thought possibly I had seen Oswald the week
before.
Mr. HUBERT. By the week before you mean the week commencing on the 11th?
Mr. CROWE. Right.
Mr. HUBERT. Can you now or have you ever been able to fix the time of
that possible event more closely than just simply the week before?
Mr. CROWE. No, no.
Mr. HUBERT. Now when did it first occur to you that you had seen Oswald
in the club?
Mr. CROWE. When I saw his picture in the paper Saturday or Sunday
morning, I guess it was.
Mr. HUBERT. Did you convey your impression to anyone?
Mr. CROWE. Not before the radio newsman in front of the club.
Mr. HUBERT. Is there any reason why you did not?
Mr. CROWE. I had seen no one before then. Hardly anybody to speak to.
Mr. HUBERT. I am thinking from this point of view. You tell me that you
had on Saturday come to some tentative conclusion that possibly you had
seen this man in the Carousel Club the week before.
Mr. CROWE. Yes.
Mr. HUBERT. Did it occur to you that that information could be valuable
to the police?
Mr. CROWE. No.
Mr. HUBERT. And you spoke to no one at all from the time you woke up on
the afternoon of the 22d at 4 o’clock, until you met these radio people
in front of the club?
Mr. CROWE. Oh, yes, I had been out at Tom Palmer’s house that Saturday
night.
Mr. HUBERT. Was that the only person you saw or conversed with?
Mr. CROWE. Actually, yes.
Mr. HUBERT. Did you mention to him that you had thought you had seen or
it was possible that you had seen Oswald?
Mr. CROWE. No.
Mr. HUBERT. Can you tell us why not, because may I suggest to you that
it would have been quite a topic of conversation. Also the coincidences
that you mentioned were almost there at that time?
Mr. CROWE. I never drew up the series of coincidences until Sunday
morning, because the fourth coincidence didn’t happen until then.
Mr. HUBERT. But the third one had that is to say--I guess it is the
second one, the shooting of the President by Oswald.
Mr. CROWE. Yes; which was only two.
Mr. HUBERT. And your recognition that you had seen Oswald or thought
you had, or it was possible that you had, in the club the week before.
Mr. CROWE. And I never put them together until Sunday morning.
Mr. HUBERT. But you tell us now that you have a distinct recollection
of having thought to yourself when you saw Oswald, Oswald’s picture in
the paper that “I have seen this man and I saw him, I think, in the
Carousel Club last week.” Although you didn’t convey that to anybody?
Mr. CROWE. No.
Mr. HUBERT. That actually occurred, that thought went through your mind?
Mr. CROWE. I would say so, yes.
Mr. HUBERT. Is it at all possible that it first crystallized in your
mind as a conscious thought when you were speaking to the radio people?
Mr. CROWE. I thought of it the whole series of coincidences, and all of
it together when I was driving from my hotel to the club that Sunday
afternoon.
Mr. HUBERT. Do you mean to tell me then that prior to that time----
Mr. CROWE. I never gave it much thought.
Mr. HUBERT. You had not specifically thought that Oswald might have
been in the club?
Mr. CROWE. Specifically, I never gave it too much thought. The face was
familiar, and that was about it.
Mr. HUBERT. Is it fair to say that if you had actually thought on
Saturday that you had seen the killer of the President in the Carousel
Club the week before that you would, might, have mentioned that fact to
Mr. Palmer whom you visited on Saturday night?
Mr. CROWE. Not necessarily. We discussed the assassination of the
President in brief, and then they taught me how to play poker and
we didn’t talk about it. I didn’t care to talk about it. It was too
unpleasant for me.
Mr. HUBERT. What I am trying to get at is whether or not this thought
that you ultimately expressed to the newspapermen shortly after noon,
I take it, on the 24th, whether that thought actually existed as a
conscious mental process prior to that time or not?
Mr. CROWE. Not strongly, no. Just as a passing thought on and off, only
after I had heard that Ruby had shot Oswald and I started summing up
the coincidences, you know, and thinking of Oswald’s picture in the
paper, and seeing it again, and putting it all together.
Mr. HUBERT. Did you have occasion to call a man in Evansville, Ind., I
think, a friend of yours on a newspaper that day?
Mr. CROWE. David Hoy.
Mr. HUBERT. The day before?
Mr. CROWE. No; I said David Hoy.
Mr. HUBERT. Do you remember that?
Mr. CROWE. Sunday.
Mr. HUBERT. Was that before or after you told the newspaper people
about the coincidences?
Mr. CROWE. Before.
Mr. HUBERT. Where did you call from?
Mr. CROWE. The hotel, I mean the motel. The motel I had just moved into
that noon.
Mr. HUBERT. I understand you to say that you saw, actually witnessed
the television film of Ruby shooting Oswald?
Mr. CROWE. No; I never said that.
Mr. HUBERT. How did you find out?
Mr. CROWE. I was in the office checking into the motel when it came on
TV and I had heard it.
Mr. HUBERT. I see. When did you speak to Hoy?
Mr. CROWE. Oh, a couple minutes right after.
Mr. HUBERT. Why did you do so?
Mr. CROWE. Well, because he was in news and a friend of mine, you know,
and I figured he would be interested in knowing if he had heard over
the teletype or something.
Mr. HUBERT. So that actually the crystallization of these four
coincidences came sooner than the time that you met the radio people in
front of the club?
Mr. CROWE. That is what I said. From the time I was driving from the
motel to the club.
Mr. HUBERT. And you placed the call from the motel?
Mr. CROWE. Right.
Mr. HUBERT. So that you called Hoy prior to?
Mr. CROWE. The crystallization of these ideas and coincidences.
Mr. HUBERT. Why did you call him then?
Mr. CROWE. Because Oswald had just been shot.
Mr. HUBERT. At that time you told me the series of coincidences had not
yet crystallized because they crystallized you said a moment ago after
this call?
Mr. CROWE. That is right.
Mr. HUBERT. Well, then what was the purpose of calling Hoy?
Mr. CROWE. Because Oswald had just been shot.
Mr. HUBERT. And solely for that purpose?
Mr. CROWE. Yes.
Mr. HUBERT. As a matter of fact though, you did mention to Hoy, didn’t
you, that you thought you had seen Oswald in the club?
Mr. CROWE. Not on that call.
Mr. HUBERT. You did not?
Mr. CROWE. Not until after. I called after that. I talked to him about
three or four times that day.
Mr. HUBERT. You mean you talked to him three or four times after the
shooting of Oswald?
Mr. CROWE. Yes.
Mr. HUBERT. The first call, therefore, within a couple of minutes after
you heard the news on TV was simply to advise him that Oswald had been
shot?
Mr. CROWE. Right.
Mr. HUBERT. And you did not at that time tell him that you thought you
might have seen Oswald in the club?
Mr. CROWE. No.
Mr. HUBERT. Your purpose, you stated, for calling Hoy the first time
then was simply to advise him of a fact, to wit, that Oswald had been
shot?
Mr. CROWE. Right.
Mr. HUBERT. Was it to advise him of the fact or to converse with him
about it?
Mr. CROWE. Well, him being a newsman you know call him and tell him
about it if he hadn’t heard about it already.
Mr. HUBERT. Didn’t it occur to you that this news event was going all
over the country simultaneously?
Mr. CROWE. Well, I knew it was in Dallas but I didn’t know whether it
was in Evansville or not.
Mr. HUBERT. How do you know Hoy?
Mr. CROWE. Whether he was watching it on television or whether he was
even watching television.
Mr. HUBERT. How well do you know Hoy?
Mr. CROWE. Very well.
Mr. HUBERT. Have you ever called him before to give him news of this
sort?
Mr. CROWE. No; I never had any news of this sort to give him.
Mr. HUBERT. Were you childhood friends or something of that sort?
Mr. CROWE. No; I met him--I knew of him and he knew of me but we
actually really first met about 1958, I suppose.
Mr. HUBERT. Are you quite certain that you did not speak to Hoy on the
first call about your impression that Oswald might have been in the
Carousel the week prior?
Mr. CROWE. No.
Mr. HUBERT. So that it is possible that you may have told him that on
the very first call?
Mr. CROWE. No; I mean no, I had not mentioned that to him on the first
call. I have heard David Hoy state to others in front of me that I was
the one that called him to tell him about Jack Ruby and what he was
like and working with him. But that is all he has ever said. He has
never said that I had called him and told him that I had seen Oswald in
the club the week before, because I hadn’t. I hadn’t mentioned that to
him until later on in the afternoon.
Mr. HUBERT. Did you speak to a man by the name of Dale Burgess on that
day who was with the radio station, I believe, or some news media in
Evansville?
Mr. CROWE. I don’t recall the name. I spoke to a newspaperman in
Evansville.
Mr. HUBERT. Who was that?
Mr. CROWE. I don’t recall.
Mr. HUBERT. When?
Mr. CROWE. That same Sunday.
Mr. HUBERT. Do you remember the time?
Mr. CROWE. No; I don’t. It would have had to have been, well, in the
late afternoon, I guess.
Mr. HUBERT. Is Evansville on central standard time or eastern time?
Mr. CROWE. Central.
Mr. HUBERT. What was the time of your second call to Mr. Hoy?
Mr. CROWE. I don’t remember.
Mr. HUBERT. Well, relative to the events which were taking place,
considering that I think you said it was about noon, well, it was about
11:30 when you first called him and then you went down to the club----
Mr. CROWE. And then went to the----
Mr. HUBERT. Were interviewed by the newsmen and went to what you
thought was Ruby’s house and came back.
Mr. CROWE. Yes; and then to the television station.
Mr. HUBERT. Television station and made a statement?
Mr. CROWE. Was interviewed there, and then went back to the motel I
guess, so that would be----
Mr. HUBERT. Was it at that time that you called Hoy?
Mr. CROWE. I guess it would be about maybe three.
Mr. HUBERT. What was the purpose of calling Hoy the second time?
Mr. CROWE. To--I don’t remember whether I did call him or he called
me. I know I spoke to him. Anyway, I told him about the series of
coincidences.
Mr. HUBERT. And that was the first time you had told him about that?
Mr. CROWE. That was the first time; yes.
Mr. HUBERT. Was that before or after you spoke to the other newsman
from Evansville whose name you couldn’t remember?
Mr. CROWE. I would say before.
Mr. HUBERT. Then after you had talked to Hoy the second time is when
you spoke to the newsman from Evansville?
Mr. CROWE. Right. I think he had the newsman call me.
Mr. HUBERT. And you are not certain whether Hoy called you or you
called Hoy?
Mr. CROWE. No. There were about 3 or 4 calls going out----
Mr. HUBERT. Were you present, where did this second call take place
from, where were you when you made the second call?
Mr. CROWE. Right at the motel.
Mr. HUBERT. You say there were some more calls that day between you and
Hoy?
Mr. CROWE. Yes.
Mr. HUBERT. What were they about?
Mr. CROWE. He had called me once, and said that the American News, I
think, or the American Broadcasting, the word American comes to my
mind, had suggested that he tell me to make myself scarce or to hide
out or to move and let my whereabouts not be known.
Mr. HUBERT. Did he say why you should take such action?
Mr. CROWE. He said that it had been expressed to him that my life would
be in danger.
Mr. HUBERT. Did he tell you why he thought or he had heard that your
life might be in danger?