D. V. Harkness Oral History
"The Three Tramps" has become one of the most pervasive conspiracy theories in the history of the Kennedy assassination....and it was thoroughly discredited in the late 1980s.
Nearly two hours after the assassination, Dallas Police officer D.V. Harkness arrested three vagrants in a railroad car just south of Dealey Plaza. Harkness, Marvin Wise, and Billy Bass escorted the men through Dealey Plaza where they were photographed by George Smith of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Jack Beers of the Dallas Morning News, and William Allen of the Dallas Times Herald.
The pictures were never published, but researcher Richard Sprague obtained prints of some of them in the mid-60s and speculated the men and their arrest were suspicious, mostly because there was no reference to the event by the Warren Commission. In the Watergate era of the 70s, some researchers noticed a similarity between two of the Watergate burglars, Frank Sturgis and E. Howard Hunt, both of whom were connected to the CIA. In later years, researchers noticed the men resembled other bad guys such as actor Woody Harrelson's convicted hit man father, Charles.
Then in 1989, city of Dallas archivist Cindy Smolovik located and made available Dallas Police records from the 1960s and among them were the three tramps' arrest records. Texas researcher Mary LaFontaine noticed the documents two years later. The men were Charles Gedney, Gus Abrams, and Harold Doyle. Abrams was deceased by then but the other two were quickly found and they, along with Abrams' sister, confirmed their arrest and real identities: tramps, just trying to ride the rails west after spending the night in a shelter and cleaning up on the morning of the assassination. The men were jailed that afternoon and released the following Monday. Since they were never connected to the Kennedy assassination, the arrest records were not forwarded to other investigators and that is why no one knew about the tramps for more than 25 years. - Gary Mack, Curator
