Search and seizure

      Some charge that the FBI photograph of the classified documents on a carpeted floor at Mar-a-Lago during its search and seizure there were staged to suggest improper handling.  

       But in fact, the usual procedure in search and seizures is to photograph the items seized individually and collectively.  The photographs below were taken of everything seized in Lee Harvey Oswald's room in Dallas after the assassination. When the Dallas police got to the rooming house where Oswald had been living and confirmed it was his room, they had to wait for a justice of the peace to drive to the house to issue a search warrant.  They then collected everything in the room that Oswald owned and took it to the police station where they had special camera arrangements to photograph items individually.  They also laid everything seized out on the floor and photographed it.  

      Although books on the assassination rarely talk about these photographs, I found them useful.  For one thing, it appears that about the only things Oswald had at the rooming house were the items he had taken with him to Mexico City. That stands to reason since he only lived with Marina at Mrs. Paine's for a few days after returning from Mexico City.  He moved out once he rented a room in Dallas and then moved again.  For another thing, the photograph shows various possessions of his that are talked about in the Warren Report, and this photograph lets you visualize how it got them. You will also notice that although the seizure was on November 22, this photograph wasn't taken until the next day.

      The two items that still pique my curiousity were the radio, which I discuss in Murder, Inc., and Oswald's shoes.  Note that the shoes seem to have been worn in the rain and have mud on them.  I checked the weather in Dallas the week of November 17.  There was a heavy rain on Wednesday, November 20. That would explain why the shoes look like they've gotten wet.  Oswald probably had walked through the rain on his way home that night, and they were too wet to wear the next day, November 21, when he went to work. Then he had spent that night with Marina at Mrs. Paine's.  The next morning he went straight from there to the book depository.  

        But how to explain the mud?  Walking through the rain on sidewalks doesn't get shoes muddy. It has always made me wonder if he had an outdoor antenna for his Turist radio to listen to Cuban radio and if he got his shoes muddy by going out in the yard on the night of November 20 to take the incriminating antenna down. Of course, no antenna wire was found in his room.