In order to see how contrived some of the story is you might wish to read my article

Who Speaks For Roscoe White?

Marrs Group Meeting ~ University of Texas at Arlington ~ September 4, 1990

Much to our suprise, this meeting was attended by Ricky White, Gary Shaw and Larry Harris. After some opening remarks, we were allowed to question Ricky. What follows is a synopsis.

Ricky was working for Orkin Pest Control in Midland and was friends with Andy Austin Burke. Ricky had explained some of his father's story. At one point Ricky was painting the house of John Houghton (a young oil man) who was an officer of Matsu. Houghton was interested in Ricky's story. He advanced Ricky and Andy $30000 to investigate the story. The "money ran out" so another $30000 was invested.

Somehow they found a literary agent in San Antonio (Charles Nabors) and ended up making contact with Viking and Doubleday. Neither organization was interested. They also had contacts with Hugh Ainsworth, Mike Cochran, Richard Abshire and at least two other people (Ricky couldn't remember their names). At some point Ricky felt he was being "pushed aside" and Andy was "looting the story" so that Andy Burke and Charles Nabors would write it. It was somewhere at this point that Ricky went to Larry Harris.

Ricky gets $1600 per month from Matsu. His father-in -law wants Ricky to run his business in Paris, Tx. but Ricky wants to pursue his father's story.

On Finding The Foot Locker

In 1982 after his grandfather's death, the family gathered at the residence to divide possessions. On of his aunts asked that Ricky and one of his cousins load an old piano located in an outbuilding into a pickup truck. When he pulled out the piano he saw the foot locker which he recognized as his fathers. It was too big to fit in his car so a relative loaned him a siutcase to take the contents away in sections.

On The Fire At M&M In Which His Father Died

Acetylene as a gas is heavy. It collected near the floor and his father could not smell it. When his dad lit the torch it flared up igniting a can of flammable liquid under his father's workbench. Dick Adair was also burned. Roscoe got the fire out and left the building. He had to wait in the street for the ambulance with nothing left but his belt buckle. The ambulance took Roscoe to Baylor first, but they were turned back to Parkland as Baylor had no burn unit. All this happened during rush hour traffic.

While in the hospital Don Rasmusen ,who now lives in Prichard, Tx., and was the owner of M&M came in and got Roscoe to make an "X" on some papers. It turned out that Rasmusen had Roscoe sign away a $5000 "Key Man" insurance policy as well as a $200000 life insurance policy.

In the hospital Roscoe filed a complant against the unknown person who he felt was responsible for setting up the "accident".

On The Stolen Pictures

At some point Roscoe gave a packet of pictures to the family friend (Phillip Jordan). The family friend gave the pictures back to Geneva after Roscoe's death. Ricky remembers (as a child) finding the pictures in a closet at home when he and some friends were looking around. In 1975 two men, one black and one white, broke into the house. They forced his mother to open a small safe and hand over the pictures. They were interested in nothing else and took nothing else. (From his reaction it may be that his mother was also raped.)

His mother contacted his "Uncle Willy" who was on the Paris, Tx. Police Force. When Willy heard of the nature of the pictures, he told Geneva to contact the FBI. Three days after Geneva reported the incident to the FBI, they recovered the photos and apprehended the thieves in Phoenix, Az. The claim was made that they had stolen the pictures for a "collector" in California. There has never been any mention of who these people were of if they ever stood trial.

The pictures were turned over to the Schweiker Committee and of course resulted in the discovery of the third Oswald backyard photo. Ricky believes the packet contained a total of 42 pictures. When returned three were missing. A photo of his father in swim trunks in the ocean with three other men, the Oswald photo with Roscoe in the background and a large mug shot of Jack Ruby.

On The Diary And The Tippit Shooting

The diary started in 1957 and consists of about 400 pages. It is black with gold trim and has a locking buckle that wraps around to a lock on the top. There is writing in pen as well as pencil.

"It got interesting starting in 1960 because of my father's special assignments."

"He probably wrote in the assassination story a few days after it happened."

Order of Shots

At this point we found Ricky has seen the movie "Executive Action."

Ricky states his father (per the diary) at some point handed the 7.65 Mauser to a second man standing beside him. Roscoe then"hurled over the fence" to obtain the film from the "military man" and "whorled" around the fence.

Roscoe headed over the tracks and down onto Stemons where he got into his car and headed for Oak Cliff. It was there "his father ran into an officer." I have trouble determining from Ricky if this was planned. Larry Harris indicated that it "was a chance encounter." It is difficult to equate this with Tippit being moved out of his assigned area by Murray Jackson. At this point Ricky also stated that no names are ever given in the diary. NEVER.

Roscoe gets into the policeman's car and they head to a house where they toot the car horn twice (Earlene Roberts?). Noboby comes out so they head for a phone for the policeman to make a call (Top Ten Record Store?). They then head away to pick up the man again. Once they pick up this man, the man becomes nervous and bolts from the car.

At this point Roscoe decides he has to kill the policeman. The diary states he "had to shoot and kill an officer at 10th and Patton." Also Ricky now states the policeman was an acquaintance instead of a friend.

The diary states after the shooting Roscoe "returned to Parkland Hospital." Later he returns to the police department to become part of the witness elimination team.

As a result of a request from someone on the West Coast, Gray Mack asked Ricky if he could read. Ricky stated he could and gave a demonstration.