Mr. FRITZ. That would be showup No. 3.
Mr. BALL. That is showup No. 3.
Mr. FRITZ. Showup No. 3 was held for Barbara Jean Davis.
Mr. BALL. And Virginia Davis.
Mr. FRITZ. Virginia Davis.
Mr. BALL. Were you there at the time of the showup?
Mr. FRITZ. No, sir; I don't believe I was there, Mr. Hall, Mr. Sims,
Mr. Boyd, and Mr. Moore.
Mr. BALL. Do you know who chose the people for the showup there?
Mr. FRITZ. Who showed the people; yes, sir.
Mr. BALL. Who chose the people. There is a Walter, Richard Walter
Borchgardt.
Mr. FRITZ. Are those the people you mean for the showup?
Mr. BALL. Yes.
Mr. FRITZ. No, sir; I don't know who chose those people.
Mr. BALL. Don Braswell and John Abel.
Mr. FRITZ. No, sir; that would be done by my officers.
Mr. BALL. And you don't think you were present at that?
Mr. FRITZ. No, sir; I don't believe so.
Mr. BALL. Did you ever ask him if he had kept a rifle in the garage at
Irving?
Mr. FRITZ. Yes, sir; I did. I asked him and I asked him if he had
brought one from New Orleans. He said he didn't.
Mr. BALL. He did not.
Mr. FRITZ. That is right.
I told him the people at the Paine residence said he did have a rifle
out there, and he kept it out there and he kept it wrapped in a blanket
and he said that wasn't true.
Mr. BALL. Do you remember when that was that you asked him?
Mr. FRITZ. No, sir; during some of those questions.
Mr. BALL. It was after Stovall and Adamcik had come back?
Mr. FRITZ. I believe so.
Mr. BALL. Now, during the evening, did you question him some more?
Mr. FRITZ. Well, I am sure that I did. Let me see.
Mr. BALL. It shows he was fingerprinted at 8:55.
Mr. FRITZ. I probably talked to him a little bit more after that. It
shows he was fingerprinted at what time?
Mr. BALL. 8:55. Or 9 o'clock, around 9 o'clock. Fingerprinted, at that
time there was a paraffin test of the hands and face.
Mr. FRITZ. I don't believe he was fingerprinted. I think we made the
paraffin test in my office.
Mr. BALL. There was a paraffin test.
Mr. FRITZ. I allowed them to use any office right there to make a
paraffin test.
Mr. BALL. And your records show he was fingerprinted there, too.
Mr. FRITZ. It is possible, I didn't stay there with him. He could have.
I don't think they fingerprinted him at that time. I wouldn't see any
need for it.
Mr. BALL. Did you ever talk--you remember Wesley Frazier who came into
the department and made a statement, do you, the boy who----
Mr. FRITZ. I think I remember some man. I believe that is his correct
name, some man who came in with some story about seeing Oswald run from
the building.
Mr. BALL. No.
Mr. FRITZ. That is not the one?
Mr. BALL. A boy who lived in Irving who drove Oswald weekends back and
forth from Irving.
Mr. FRITZ. Yes.
Mr. BALL. You remember you talked to him that night and he told about
a package that Oswald carried into the Texas School Book Depository
Building that morning.
Mr. FRITZ. Yes, sir; that is right.
Mr. BALL. Do you remember what that was?
Mr. FRITZ. He said he asked him what it was and he told him it was
curtain rods.
Mr. BALL. Did you ever talk to Oswald about that?
Mr. FRITZ. Yes, sir; I did.
Mr. BALL. When?
Mr. FRITZ. I talked to him about that on the last morning before his
transfer.
Mr. BALL. That was on Sunday morning?
Mr. FRITZ. Sunday morning, that would be the 24th, wouldn't it?
Mr. BALL. Yes.
Mr. FRITZ. And I asked him about that and he denied having anything
to do with any curtain rods. It is possible that I could have asked
him that on one of those other times, too, but I know I asked him that
question the last morning.
Mr. BALL. Well, you learned about it on Friday night according to your
reports here when Mr. Frazier came in and you gave Frazier a polygraph
test.
Mr. FRITZ. I hesitated to ask him about those curtain rods and I will
tell you why I hesitated, because I wanted to find out more about that
package before I got started with the curtain rods because if there
were curtain rods I didn't want to mention it to him but we couldn't
find--I talked to his wife and asked her if they were going to use any
curtain rods, while I was talking to her that afternoon and she didn't
know anything about it.
No; I believe I talked to Mrs. Paine, one of them.
Mr. BALL. Do you think you talked to Oswald before Sunday morning about
curtain rods?
Mr. FRITZ. It is possible but I know I talked to him Sunday morning.
Mr. BALL. Now, did you tell him what Frazier had told you?
Mr. FRITZ. I don't know that I told him what Frazier had told me but I
told him someone had told me.
Mr. BALL. What did you tell him?
Mr. FRITZ. I told him he had a package and put it in the back seat and
it was a package about that long and it was curtain rods. He said he
didn't have any kind of a package but his lunch. He said he had his
lunch and that is all he had, and Mr. Frazier told me that he got out
of the car with that package, he saw him go toward the building with
this long package.
I asked him, I said, "Did you go toward the building carrying a long
package?" He said, "No. I didn't carry anything but my lunch."
Mr. BALL. Did Frazier ever tell you how long the package was?
Mr. FRITZ. He just measured, told me about that long.
Mr. BALL. Approximately how long?
Mr. FRITZ. I am guessing at this, the way he measured, probably 26
inches, 27 inches, something like that. Too short for the length of
that rifle unless he took it down, I presume he took it down if it was
in there, and I am sure it was.
Mr. BALL. Do you remember what time you--was it the way Frazier showed
it to you--was it the size of a rifle that was broken down?
Mr. FRITZ. Yes, sir; it would be just about right.
Mr. BALL. Later that night you took him down to the showuproom again,
didn't you, when you had a press interview?
Mr. FRITZ. No, sir; I didn't have a press conference.
Mr. BALL. You didn't?
Mr. FRITZ. No.
Mr. BALL. Did you give any instructions to the press conference?
Mr. FRITZ. Yes, sir; the chief told me he wanted him brought down for a
press conference, and I told my officers to take them down and I asked
the chief to let me put it on the stage. I was a little bit afraid
something might happen to him in front of that stage, someone in the
crowd might hurt him but he said no, he wanted him out there in the
front, and I told him I would like to put him on the stage so that the
officers could jerk him inside the jail office if anything happened but
he said no, he wanted him in front, so I told the officers to take him
down.
I went down later to see how everything was going but I couldn't get
in. The crowd had jammed clear back out into the hall.
Mr. BALL. Do you know what time you sent him up to the jail?
Mr. FRITZ. I have it here, I think--12:05; yes, sir.
Mr. BALL. 12:05?
Mr. FRITZ. Yes, sir.
Mr. McCLOY. May I ask you a question?
Mr. FRITZ. Yes, sir.
Mr. McCLOY. Where was the--where did you first see the gun that was
presumably used in the murder of Tippit?
Mr. FRITZ. Of Tippit?
Mr. McCLOY. Tippit, yes; .38-caliber pistol.
Mr. FRITZ. The officers brought that in, you know, when they brought
him in from the arrest at Oak Cliff.
Mr. McCLOY. And they had that, you had seen it at about the time you
first saw Oswald?
Mr. FRITZ. Well, a few minutes later.
Mr. McCLOY. A few minutes later?
Mr. FRITZ. Yes, sir.
Mr. McCLOY. It did show signs from your experience of having been
recently fired?
Mr. FRITZ. I don't believe you can tell about that too well any more.
You know the old style ammunition you could tell if a gun had been
fired recently by the residue left in the barrel and smelling the
barrel, but with the new ammunition they don't have that.
Mr. McCLOY. And this was new ammunition that he was using?
Mr. FRITZ. Yes, sir; he was using new ammunition.
Mr. McCLOY. Was the gun fully loaded when it was taken from him?
Mr. FRITZ. I didn't see it loaded, of course, it would have been
unloaded. I understood it was fully loaded, but I didn't see it.
Mr. DULLES. That is he had replaced the bullets that he had used, is
that it?
Mr. FRITZ. Yes, sir; the people told us as he ran across the yard he
was reloading the gun as he ran across the yard. Yes; the witnesses
told us that.
Mr. McCLOY. If I can take you back a little further also.
Mr. FRITZ. All right, sir.
Mr. McCLOY. Did you see the gun in the position, the rifle I am talking
about now.
Mr. FRITZ. Yes, sir.
Mr. McCLOY. Did you see the rifle in the position in which it was found?
Mr. FRITZ. Yes, sir; I did.
Mr. McCLOY. Where was it found?
Mr. FRITZ. It was found back near the stairway in a little--some boxes
were stacked about this far apart, about that far apart. The rifle
was down on the floor and partially under these boxes back near the
stairway in the corner of the building.
Mr. McCLOY. This was on the sixth floor?
Mr. FRITZ. Sixth floor; yes, sir.
Mr. McCLOY. Nobody had touched it by the time you saw it?
Mr. FRITZ. No, sir; nobody touched it. They called me as soon as they
saw it and I went back there and I saw it.
Mr. McCLOY. Then you say the rifle was then dusted?
Mr. FRITZ. Yes, sir.
Mr. McCLOY. Does that mean the laboratory people had already come there
then?
Mr. FRITZ. He came down from where he had been; he was on the same
floor checking the empty cartridges, and he came back.
Mr. McCLOY. Oh, yes.
Mr. FRITZ. To the back, when I called him, and he came back there and
checked the rifle; yes, sir.
Mr. McCLOY. When you went up to the sixth floor from which Oswald
apparently had fired these shots, what did it look like there, what was
the--how were things arranged there? Was there anything in the nature
of a gun rest there or anything that could be used as a gun rest?
Mr. FRITZ. You mean up in the corner where he shot from, from the
window?
Mr. McCLOY. Yes.
Mr. FRITZ. Yes, sir; there were some boxes stacked there and I believe
one box, one small box I believe was in the window, and another box was
on the floor. There were some boxes stacked to his right that more or
less blinded him from the rest of the floor. If anyone else had been on
the floor I doubt if they could have seen where he was sitting.