Mrs. PAINE. When I translated. I then stepped off of it and the officer
picked it up in the middle and it bent so.
Mr. JENNER. It hung limp just as it now hangs limp in your hand?
Mrs. PAINE. And at this moment I felt this man was in very deep trouble
and may have done----
Mr. McCLOY. Were the strings still on it?
Mrs. PAINE. The strings were still on it. It looked exactly as it had
at previous times I had seen it. It was at this point I say I made the
connection with the assassination, thinking that possibly, knowing
already that the shot had been made from the School Book Depository,
and that this was a rifle that was missing, I wondered if he would not
also be charged before the day was out with the assassination.
Mr. JENNER. Did you say anything?
Mrs. PAINE. No; I didn't say that.
Mr. JENNER. When the officer picked up the blanket package, did you
hear any crinkling as though there was paper inside?
Mrs. PAINE. No crinkling.
Mr. JENNER. None whatsoever. When you stepped on the package, did you
have a feeling through your feet that there was something inside the
package in the way of paper.
Mrs. PAINE. Not anything in the way of paper.
Mr. JENNER. Or wrapping.
Mrs. PAINE. Or anything that crinkled; no. I did think it was hard but
that was my cement floor.
Mr. JENNER. But definitely you had no sensation of any paper inside?
Mrs. PAINE. No such sensation.
Mr. JENNER. Of the nature or character of the wrapping paper you
identified yesterday.
Mrs. PAINE. No; and when he picked it up I would think such paper would
rattle, but there was no such sound. Marina said nothing at this time.
She was very white, and of course I judged----
Mr. JENNER. Did she blanch?
Mrs. PAINE. She is not a person to immediately show her feelings
necessarily. She was white. I wouldn't say that it was a sudden thing.
I can't be certain that it was sudden at that point.
Representative FORD. How close was she standing to it.
Mrs. PAINE. From here to there, about 6 feet.
Mr. JENNER. Proceed.
Mrs. PAINE. The officers then said they would like me and Marina to go
down to the police station, and I said well, I would seek to try to
get a baby-sitter to come to stay with the children so that we might
accompany them. About this time, we then left the garage as I recall,
because then Michael Paine arrived at the front door. I was in the
living room when he came. And I said "Did you know to come" and he said
that he had heard Oswald's name mentioned on the radio, and had come
over directly, for which I may say I was very glad.
Mr. JENNER. How far away from your home--where did he live?
Mrs. PAINE. It would take about a half hour drive--he was working--from
where he was working to come, 20 minutes perhaps.
Mr. JENNER. Do you have the address at the tip of your tongue?
Mrs. PAINE. Where he works; no. I don't know the address. I know how to
get to it.
Mr. JENNER. Do you know where he lived?
Mrs. PAINE. Yes.
Mr. JENNER. What was the address?
Mrs. PAINE. He lived at the Villa Fontaine Apartments, apartment 217,
2377 Dalworth.
Mr. JENNER. D-A-L-W-O-R-T-H?
Mrs. PAINE. D-A-L-W-O-R-T-H, in Grand Prairie, Tex.
Mr. JENNER. Where is Grand Prairie, Tex.
Mrs. PAINE. Grand Prairie is suburban to Dallas, between Dallas and
Fort Worth, nearer to Dallas, and it was a location very near to where
he worked.
Mr. JENNER. What distance in miles from your home?
Mrs. PAINE. You measure distance in minutes in Texas; driving time. I
don't know; 20 minutes to where he lived.
Mr. JENNER. All right, proceed.
Mrs. PAINE. The police officers then asked if Michael would also
accompany us to the police station and he said he would. I changed
clothes to a suit from slacks, and went to the house of my babysitter.
She has no telephone. I need to walk to her.
Mr. JENNER. Where was Marina in the meantime?
Mrs. PAINE. Marina remained in the house with the children. Lynn by
this time had awakened as I recall. Christopher was still sleeping and
I think June was also. And I said I would walk over to my neighbors to
ask if--there was something that intervened I just remembered. I first
went and asked my immediate neighbor, Mrs. Roberts, if she could keep
the children for a short time in the afternoon, but she was just on
her way to go somewhere. She couldn't. So then I went to the home of
the person I normally have for a baby-sitter. It was now after school
or this babysitter would not have been there, which brings us to 3:30
perhaps. And I asked the mother if the young girl, teenage girl, could
come and stay at the house. I was accompanied to the house by one of
the officers. As we left the house I said "Oh, you don't have to go
with me." Oh, he said, he'd be glad to. And then it occurred to me
he had been assigned to go with me, and I said "come along." It was
the first I have ever experienced being in the company of people who
suspected me of anything, and of course that is their business.
We did arrange then for the girls to come back, one or two, I forget
whether it was two of the daughters or one that came then to my house
to stay with the children. As I came back, I noticed the officers
carrying a number of things from the house, and I looked into the back
of one of the cars. It was across the street from my house, and saw
he had three cases of 78 records of mine, and I said, "You don't need
those and I want to use them on Thanksgiving weekend. I have promised
to lead a folk dance conference on the weekend. I will need those
records which are all folk dance records and I doubt that you might get
them back at that time."
And I said, "that is a 16 mm projector. You don't want that. It is
mine."
And he took me by the arm and he said, "We'd better get down to the
station. We have wasted too much time as it is." And I said, "I want a
list of what you are taking, please." Or perhaps that was before. As
much answer as I ever got was "We'd better get to the station." Then
I evidently had made them nervous because when we got back from this
car to the house, Marina wanted to change from slacks as I had already
done to a dress. They would not permit her to do that. I said "She
has a right to, she is a woman, to dress as she wishes before going
down." And I directed her to the bathroom to change. The officer opened
the bathroom door and said no, she had no time to change. I was still
making arrangements with the babysitters, arranging for our leaving the
children there, and one of the officers made a statement to the effect
of "we'd better get this straight in a hurry Mrs. Paine or we'll just
take the children down and leave them with juvenile while we talk to
you."
And I said "Lynn, you may come too" in reply to this. I don't like
being threatened. And then Christopher was still sleeping so I left him
in the house and Lynn, my daughter, and Marina took her daughter and
her baby with her to the police station, so we were quite a group going
into town in the car. Michael was in one car, Marina and I and all the
children were in another with three police officers as I recall. One
of them spoke some Czech, tried to understand what was being said. The
one in the front seat turned to me and said "Are you a Communist,"
and I said, "No, I am not, and I don't even feel the need of a Fifth
Amendment." And he was satisfied with that. We went on then to the
police station, and waited until such time as they could interview us.
They interviewed Michael at one point separately.
Mr. JENNER. Separately?
Mrs. PAINE. And they interviewed Marina while I was present.
Mr. JENNER. Did you interpret for her?
Mrs. PAINE. They had an interpreter there, a Mr. Ilya Mamantov whom I
was very glad to see. He is the son-in-law of a woman who has tutored
me in Dallas, so I had met him before. I was very glad to have someone
whose skill in Russian was greater than mine, and Marina had said even
in the car going down to the station, "your Russian has suddenly become
no good at all." She had asked me again in the car, "isn't it true that
the penalty for shooting someone in Texas is the electric chair" and I
said "yes, that is true."