The testimony of Mrs. Frances Cason was taken at 4:10 p.m., on April
1, 1964, in the office of the U.S. attorney, 301 Post Office Building,
Bryan and Ervay Streets, Dallas, Tex., by Mr. Leon D. Hubert, Jr.,
assistant counsel of the President’s Commission.
Mr. HUBERT. This is the deposition of Mrs. Frances Cason [spelling]
F-r-a-n-c-e-s?
Mrs. CASON. Yes, sir.
Mr. HUBERT. Mrs. Cason, my name is Leon Hubert, I am a member of the
advisory staff of the General Counsel on the President’s Commission.
Under the provisions of the Executive Order 11130, dated November 29,
1963, the Joint Resolution of Congress No. 137, and the rules and
procedure adopted by the Commission in conformance with the Executive
order and joint resolution, I have been authorized to take a sworn
deposition from you. Mrs. Cason, I state to you now that the general
nature of the Commission’s inquiry is to ascertain, evaluate and report
upon the facts relating to the assassination of President Kennedy and
the subsequent violent death of Lee Harvey Oswald. In particular as to
you, Mrs. Cason, the nature of the inquiry today is to determine the
facts you know about the death of Oswald and any other pertinent facts
you may know about the general inquiry.
In particular, with reference to your duties as a dispatcher of the
Dallas Police Department.
Now, Mrs. Cason, you have appeared here today by virtue of an informal
request made by the General Counsel of the staff of the President’s
Commission, and under the rules adopted by the Commission you would
normally be entitled to a 3-day written notice prior to the taking of
your deposition, but those rules also provide that that 3-day written
notice may be waived, and I ask you if you are willing to waive that
notice at this time?
Mrs. CASON. Yes, I will.
Mr. HUBERT. All right, stand and raise your right hand, please, Ma’am,
so as to be sworn.
Do you solemnly swear that the testimony you are about to give will be
the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?
Mrs. CASON. I do.
Mr. HUBERT. State your name, please.
Mrs. CASON. Frances Cason.
Mr. HUBERT. Your age?
Mrs. CASON. Age 26.
Mr. HUBERT. Are you married, Mrs. Cason?
Mrs. CASON. Yes, I am.
Mr. HUBERT. Then I suppose we should have your husband’s name?
Mrs. CASON. Jimmy D. Cason.
Mr. HUBERT. What was your name prior to the marriage?
Mrs. CASON. Shanz [spelling] S-h-a-n-z.
Mr. HUBERT. Where do you reside?
Mrs. CASON. 2822 Greene [spelling] G-r-e-e-n-e, in Irving, Tex.
Mr. HUBERT. What is your occupation?
Mrs. CASON. Telephone clerk in the telephone dispatcher’s office at the
Dallas Police Department.
Mr. HUBERT. How long have you been so employed?
Mrs. CASON. Since September 6, 1963. Before that I had a 6 months’
leave of absence and was employed for the police department for 2½
years.
Mr. HUBERT. Were you on duty between the hours of 7 a.m. and 3 p.m., on
November 24, 1963?
Mrs. CASON. Yes, I was; actually, it is 6:30 to 3:30.
Mr. HUBERT. Now, Mrs. Cason, I have marked for the purposes of
identification a document which is to be found in Commission’s report
81-A, which is entitled “Investigation of the Operational Security
Involving the Transfer of Lee Harvey Oswald on November 24th, 1963.”
On page 14, thereof, I have also marked Exhibit EE in that document,
the following for the purposes of identification, “Dallas, Texas, April
1, 1964. Exhibit 5135, Deposition of Frances Cason and C. E. Hulse.” I
have signed my name below that and ask you if you have not signed your
name, for the purposes of identification, also on this same document?
Mrs. CASON. Yes; I did.
Mr. HUBERT. Will you state in your own words just exactly what part you
had to do with this Exhibit 5135, which you now have before you?
Mrs. CASON. You want me to just go ahead?
Mr. HUBERT. Yes.
Mrs. CASON. At approximately 11:20, or 11:21, I received a call from
the basement of city hall there from Officer Slack, who works in the
jail office.
Mr. HUBERT. Did you know Officer Slack prior to this time?
Mrs. CASON. Yes; I did.
Mr. HUBERT. Had you spoken to him on the telephone before?
Mrs. CASON. Yes; I have.
Mr. HUBERT. Can you state that you are able to recognize his voice?
Mrs. CASON. Yes; I did.
Mr. HUBERT. Did you recognize the voice then speaking to you as being
the voice of Officer Slack?
Mrs. CASON. Yes; I did.
Mr. HUBERT. All right; now, go ahead.
Mrs. CASON. In addition, he told me it was Officer Slack when he
called. It is not unusual for them to say, “This is Slack in the jail
office.” So he would identify himself and ask to speak to Officer
Farr, that is J. G. Farr, who is our corporal.
Mr. HUBERT. How do you spell his last name?
Mrs. CASON. [spelling] F-a-r-r. And he was in charge on that Sunday
because we did not have a sergeant there, and he had asked to speak to
Farr, and I told him Officer Farr was working channel 2, which is a
separate channel that we have, and so he told me, he said, “They just
shot Oswald,” or “Somebody just shot Oswald,” and I told him, “Okay.”
And placed him on hold and told Farr that he had a red light on 531,
and I proceeded to call the ambulance service on the hot line.
Mr. HUBERT. Please describe the hot line?
Mrs. CASON. The hot line is a straight line from our dispatcher office
to the ambulance company which requires no dialing. You just lift it up
and it rings from our office to theirs.
Mr. HUBERT. So, then, immediately upon getting this information from
Slack you passed it on to Farr by word of mouth?
Mrs. CASON. I did not tell Officer Farr that Oswald had just been shot.
I felt it was more important to get the ambulance and in time they
would know soon enough. I told them he had a red light, and I knew
Slack would tell him what happened in the basement.
Mr. HUBERT. So then you flipped the button for the hot line at O’Neal
Funeral Home?
Mrs. CASON. Yes; I did.
Mr. HUBERT. Did you get it immediately?
Mrs. CASON. Yes.
Mr. HUBERT. What happened then?
Mrs. CASON. It is just a matter of seconds until they answered, and I
told them that someone just shot Oswald in the basement, and we needed
a white ambulance, code 3, to the basement.
Mr. HUBERT. What does code 3 mean?
Mrs. CASON. Code 3, red lights and sirens, as fast as possible.
Mr. HUBERT. What did the man on the other end say to you?
Mrs. CASON. He told me he would send ambulance 607, from his office,
and I told him, “Okay,” and hung up the phone.
Mr. HUBERT. Now, who were you speaking to, do you know?
Mrs. CASON. I do not know. Sometimes they will give their names when
they answer, and sometimes they do not, and I do not remember if he did
or not.
Mr. HUBERT. He told you that 607, ambulance 607, would answer this call?
Mrs. CASON. Yes; he did.
Mr. HUBERT. And answer it under conditions of code 3, that is to say,
as fast as possible, red lights and sirens.
Mrs. CASON. Yes, sir.
Mr. HUBERT. What happened next?
Mrs. CASON. Apparently I must have told Officer C. E. Hulse, who was
on the radio, that Oswald had just been shot, and I had ordered an
ambulance, and by then I proceeded to make up the call sheet, which is
just routine work that we do in the office on every call that we take.
Mr. HUBERT. All right. Now, you have before you Exhibit 5135, which
is the call sheet we are talking about, and I notice written in hand,
“605 on air,” and it seems to be next to the initials, “F.C.” Is that
language, to wit, “Ambulance 605 on air,” in your handwriting?
Mrs. CASON. Yes; it is.
Mr. HUBERT. Are the initials “F.C.” your initials?
Mrs. CASON. Yes; they are.
Mr. HUBERT. Now, can you tell us about when you made up that card?
Mrs. CASON. Immediately after ordering the ambulance I made up the call
sheet. I did not have to look up the district or any of the information
because I knew it all by memory, and we have a lot of calls to city
hall, and normally use 2000 and Main, and I knew, of course, it was
district 102, and----
Mr. HUBERT. And the top of the card shows it is district 102?
Mrs. CASON. Yes, sir.
Mr. HUBERT. Now, there is also on that Exhibit 5135, and it appears
in blue ink printed by someone in the column entitled, “Ambulance
ordered,” the following: “C--11:12 a.m., November 24th----”