Whodunnit xi: More Men in the Window

While we’re on the subject, let’s not overlook, as Douglass, Salandria, and Talbot do, Ronald Fischer and Bob Edwards, county employees, directly across from the TBD, who saw a slender, casually dressed white man, in his early 20s, in a 6th floor window, kneeling or sitting, surrounded by boxes in what-would-be-called “the sniper’s nest.” Not the 5th or 7th floor. Not with someone beside him. Not heavyset, in a hat and glasses.
Douglass does mention Howard Brennan, a 45-year-old pipefitter, who, according to Bugliosi, was 120 feet from the TDB – and farsighted. Before the motorcade arrived, Brennan saw a man on the sixth floor, seated on a window’s sill. After the first two shots, Brennan looked again and saw the same man, now standing, fire a rifle. Within the hour, Brennan described the man to the police: – slender, white, about 30 years old, and 5’10.” That evening he picked Oswald out of the police line-up. Douglass rejects this evidence because the window was only partially open, meaning the shooter had to have been kneeling or squatting, so Brennan could not have estimated his height. (The WC also reached this conclusion.)
Still, three out of four isn’t bad – and, actually, if you have seen someone’s head and torso, it isn’t out of the question, you could estimate his height. The Greeks, you will recall, believed you only needed a head to proportion someone exactly.