Mr. DAY. One might be smeared where the other would not.
Mr. BELIN. Based on your experience, I will ask you now for a
definitive statement as to whether or not you can positively identify
the print shown on Commission Exhibit 637 as being from the right palm
of Lee Harvey Oswald as shown on Commission Exhibit 629?
Mr. DAY. Maybe I shouldn't absolutely make a positive statement without
further checking that. I think it is his, but I would have to sit down
and take two glasses to make an additional comparison before I would
say absolutely, excluding all possibility, it is. I think it is, but I
would have to do some more work on that.
Mr. BELIN. Could you do that here in Washington before you go back,
sir, or would this necessitate going back to Dallas?
Mr. DAY. If I had the proper equipment I think I could do it here. I
don't have very good equipment for making comparisons here. I need two
fingerprint glasses.
It was my understanding the prints had been identified by the FBI. I
don't have official word on it.
Mr. BELIN. Is there any other thing that you did with regard to the
rifle that you haven't discussed this far that you can remember right
now?
Mr. DAY. No, sir; I released it to the FBI then, and they took
possession of it.
Mr. BELIN. Did you ever hear this rifle referred to as a 7.65 Mauser or
as any type of a Mauser?
Mr. DAY. Yes, sir; it wasn't referred to as that. Some of the newsmen,
when I first carried the rifle out, asked me if it was a .30-06, and at
another time they asked me if it was a Mauser. I did not give them an
answer.
Mr. BELIN. Were there newsmen on the sixth floor at the time the rifle
was found, if you know?
Mr. DAY. I think there was.
Mr. BELIN. Did you ever describe the rifle as anything but a
6.5-caliber with regard to the rifle itself?
Mr. DAY. I didn't describe the rifle to anyone other than police
officers.
Mr. BELIN. Is the description that you used with the police officers
the same that you dictated here into the record from your notes?
Mr. DAY. Yes, sir.
Mr. BELIN. Anything else with regard to the rifle?
Mr. DAY. I can't think of anything else that I did with it at the time.
I don't know whether you are interested in this or not, but about,
it must have been about 8:30 I was processing the gun on the fourth
floor----
Mr. BELIN. Of the police department there?
Mr. DAY. Of the police department where my office is. The
identification bureau. And Captain Fritz came up and said he had Mrs.
Oswald in his office on the third floor, but the place was so jammed
with news cameramen and newsmen he did not want to bring her out into
it.
Mr. BELIN. Was this the wife or the mother of Lee Harvey Oswald?
Mr. DAY. That was Marina, Oswald's wife. She had her baby with her, or
babies, and there was an interpreter down there. He wanted her to look
at the gun to see if she could identify it, didn't want to bring her
in through the crowd, and wanted to know if we could carry it down. He
said, "There is an awful mob down there."
I explained to him that I was still working with the prints, but I
thought I could carry it down without disturbing the prints, which I
did.
We waded through the mob with me holding the gun up high. No one
touched it. Several of the newsmen asked me various questions about
what the gun was at that time. I did not give them an answer.
When I went back to the office after Marina Oswald viewed the gun, they
still were hounding me for it. I told them to check with the chief's
office, he would have to give them the information, and as soon as I
got back to my office I gave a complete description, and so forth, to
Captain King on the gun.
Mr. BELIN. Were you there when Marina Oswald was asked whether or not
she could identify it?
Mr. DAY. Yes, sir. But I didn't understand what she said. I was
standing across the room from her where I couldn't understand. The
interpreter said something to her and said something to Captain Fritz.
I didn't catch what was said. I mentioned that because there was some
talk about a Mauser and .30-06 at the time and various other things,
that is the reason I mentioned it.
Mr. BELIN. You just refused to answer all questions on that, is that
correct?
Mr. DAY. Yes, sir. It wasn't my place to give them that information. I
didn't know whether they wanted it out yet or not.
Mr. McCLOY. There was never any doubt in your mind what the rifle was
from the minute you saw it?
Mr. DAY. No, sir; It was stamped right on there, 6.5, and when en route
to the office with Mr. Odum, the FBI agent who drove me in, he radioed
it in, he radioed in what it was to the FBI over the air.
Mr. BELIN. What else did you do, or what was the next thing you did
after you completed photographing and inspecting the rifle on the sixth
floor of the Texas School Book Depository Building for whatever prints
you could find, what did you do next?
Mr. DAY. I took the gun at the time to the office and locked it up in a
box in my office at Captain Fritz' direction.
Mr. BELIN. Then what did you do?
Mr. DAY. I went back to the School Book Depository and stayed there.
It was around three that I got back, and I was in that building until
about 6, directing the other officers as to what we needed in the way
of photographs and some drawing, and so forth.
Mr. BELIN. What did you do when you got back, what photographs did you
take?
Mr. DAY. We went, made the outside photographs of the street, we made
more photographs inside, and did further checking for prints by using
dust on the boxes around the window.
Mr. BELIN. I hand you what has been marked as "Commission Exhibit 722"
and ask you to state if you know what this is.
Mr. DAY. Yes, sir. This is a view of Houston Street looking south from
the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository Building.
Mr. BELIN. Do you know when that was taken?
Mr. DAY. About 3 or 3:15, somewhere along there, on November 22, 1963.
Mr. McCLOY. You say from the sixth floor; was it from the farthest east
window?
Mr. DAY. The south window on the east end of the building.
Mr. BELIN. You don't mean that. State that again. What side of the
building was the window on?
Mr. DAY. It was on the south side of the building, the easternmost
window.
Mr. BELIN. At the time you took Exhibit 722 had any boxes been moved at
all?
Mr. DAY. Yes, sir.
Mr. BELIN. Here is Exhibit 724, and I will ask you to state if you know
what that is.
Mr. DAY. This is a view from the same window looking southwest down Elm
Street. Actually this is the direction the shots were fired. When this
picture was made----
Mr. BELIN. When you say this picture you are referring to--I think I
have skipped a number here.
Mr. McCLOY. This is 722.