Oswald in the doorway: the blog of the Oswald Innocence Campaign, by Ralph Cinque

The Case against FBI Agent James Bookhout for murdering Lee Harvey Oswald

by Ralph C. Cinque

Getting to know that James Bookhout was the real shooter of Lee Harvey Oswald was a two-step process. 

The first step was just realizing that Jack Ruby wasn't the shooter. And that is supported by many things, the clincher being collages like this one by Staffan Westerberg which shows a vivid deal-breaker in trying to equate Ruby with the shooter. You can't do it. It doesn't work. The discordance is too great. The backs of their heads don't match. 

At the time, Jack Ruby was scruffy at the back of his neck, meaning scruffy hair growth which darkened his neck. The shooter wasn't that way. His neck was clean. 

But, the shooter had hair growing closer to his ears. Ruby had a wide margin. You could drive a truck through there. 

Also, note that the shooter must have had a round face. His whole head looks very round. But, Ruby's face was not that round. 

OK, so on that basis, we know the shooter wasn't Ruby.  And by the way, note that Jack Ruby denied having any memory of shooting Oswald. He said he remembered going to the garage and then being arrested, but he didn't remember anything about shooting Oswald. Isn't that what Sirhan Sirhan said about shooting Robert Kennedy? Yes, it is. 

And, for many months, that's all we knew: that Ruby didn't do it.  

So, how did we get to Bookhout?

James Bookhout was an FBI agent who was involved in the investigation of Oswald from the very beginning. He attended the first interrogation of Oswald, and he attended many others. He attended most of them. He was there for the last interrogation of Oswald that Sunday morning right before the shooting, except that he claimed to only watch it through a glass partition. 

First, note that there is only one piece of footage that captured the image of James Bookhout. And, as I'll demonstrate, his image in that footage was altered. But, it still provides some valuable information about him. James Bookhout was short, just like the Garage Shooter.  

Below, James Bookhout is among Dallas detectives who tower over him. Bookhout is in the dark fedora hat. 

This next one gives us the clearest view of the back of his head.

Notice the high, horizontal hairline and the clean neck, just like the Garage Shooter.

Notice that Bookhout, like the shooter, had a high, horizontal hairline in back and a clean, hair-free neck below it. Bingo: it's a match. 

Now, does this lone clip of James Bookhout show his face? Yes, partially, but there are signs that it was altered. 

That's Bookhout on the left. Look at this ear. Look how weird it looks. Does that look natural? Look how his hair grows over the top of his ear. That is highly unlikely. It was 1963, and he was an FBI agent, and they didn't go around like that. All of the Dallas policemen and detectives were very clean-cut and closely cropped, and you can be sure FBI agents were too. That is very likely an alteration to cover up his ear. Then, I found this frame:

What the pluck????   What are the chances that that is real? They wiped out all his features. They were hiding his face!

And look how they altered his right ear in this frame below:

What is that on his right ear? It looks like a Q-tip stuck to it. It certainly does not look like an anatomical ear. Show me another one like it. 

The only other images we have of Bookhout are from when he was much younger, such as these. But, I have to wonder if his eyebrows were really this wavy:

I strongly believe that those "drag queen eye brows" are alterations. They are the kind of eyebrows that women get from tweezing their eyebrows or from painting them on. That's why I call them "drag queen eye brows." 

The big question is: Why are there so few images of James Bookhout, and why do the few that we have show signs of alteration?

In comparison, for the other FBI Agent who was involved, James Hosty, you can find images of him galore. 


That is all the photographic evidence I have of James Bookhout, although I am doggedly looking for more. But, in the meantime, I also ask you to consider the following:

1) We know that Jack Ruby didn't do it, and James Bookhout is currently the ONLY candidate. We know from the photo comparisons that the Garage Shooter wasn't Jack Ruby. There is currently no one else but Bookhout who meets the criteria of the shooter: a short man with a high, horizontal hairline in back and a clean, razored neck. 

2) There are no other images of James Bookhout from the assassination except the ones I showed you. Don't you think it's strange that a guy who was following Oswald around for two days should have been so absent from the films?  

3) Bookhout's alibi for the shooting was that he was hanging around the Homicide Division- doing nothing- rather than go down and watch the historic jail transfer of Oswald. If it was momentous enough to attract the national and international media, why wasn't Bookhout interested? What did he have to do instead in the Dallas Homicide Office? It wasn't even his office. He had no desk there.

4) Bookhout did not go to Parkland Hospital when Oswald was taken there. Why not? Was he not interested in that either? Or was he afraid of being captured on film? 


5) Bookhout went into virtual hiding after that. He wrote no book. He did no interviews except for the Warren Commission. He never participated in any JFK panels. He did not participate in the mock trial of LHO the way FBI Agent James Hosty did. Just look at Hosty! He wrote a book, Assignment: Oswald. He did interviews. He talked on the radio. He was more than willing to appear on television. But, Bookhout disappeared. He dropped out. He went completely out of view. No post-assassination images of Bookhout have ever surfaced. There wasn't even an image of him on his obituary. His wife Charlotte had an image but not him.  

That is the essence of the case against James Bookhout for the shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald, and I hope you agree that it is compelling. If you do, please share this article.