A picture I took during my April 2022 trip to New Orleans
His article alleges that Lee Harvey Oswald had an escort who accompanied him on many occasions. Bleau believes that the escort "was often described as short, stocky, in his early to mid-twenties, dark complected and he spoke little English or English with an accent."
I have actually dealt with this ridiculous allegation in this blog post: Who Exactly was the Man with a Scar? Somehow Bleau missed the scar.
Bleau presents 30 witnesses to this supposed escort, and I want to highlight his #13 - Leander D'Avy and Eugene Davis. A future blog post will examine his other witnesses.
Here is what Bleau writes:
13.
Leander D’Avy and Eugene Davis – (Garrison Files, Memo Sciambra to Garrison, August 14 1967, Interview with Leander D’Avy and Eugene C. Davis (Gene Davis), Grand Jury testimony June 28, 1967)
Leander D’Avy was a doorman at the Court of the Two Sisters, a well-known gay establishment at the time. In May or June 1963, he was approached by someone looking for a Clay Bertrand, whom he did not know. He saw the manager Eugene Davis talk to this person. Interestingly, even though he estimated the weight of this person to be 185 lbs, he believed he looked like Oswald. D’Avy goes on to say that he saw Eugene Davis talk to Clay Shaw, who began frequenting his place of work at about this time. D’Avy also makes this connection which caught Garrison’s attention:
Mr. D’AVY also said that GENE DAVIS was very close friends with a Cuban waiter who worked there and whose name was PEPE or JOSE. He said PEPE or JOSE was around 29 to 30 years old with black hair and palled around with a fellow named HAROLD SANDOZ, who was stocky, muscular and had some previous military training and appeared to be rugged.
Lisa Pease and Jim DiEugenio investigated this further and added the following:
“Davis spoke to Oswald at the bar and later told D’Avy that the man had been behind the Iron Curtain… In early November 1963… He found Davis in an upstairs storeroom that was being used as a makeshift apartment. With Davis were Oswald, Ferrie, a Cuban, and three unidentified men… Davis was an active informant for the FBI, designated symbol informant 1189-C, as of October, 1961.”
Davis did admit to Garrison that he knew Clay Shaw very well.
Bleau is wrong to claim that Pease and DiEugenio investigated this claim. While the quote above is indeed taken from page 115 in their book, The Assassinations: Probe Magazine on JFK, MLK, RFK and Malcolm X, it actually is in an essay by John Armstrong.
So, who was Leander D'Avy? He was the doorman at the Court of Two Sisters, a bar/restaurant in New Orleans. He first contacted Jim Garrison's office on August 14, 1967. And he had a variety of stories to tell about what he had seen at the Court.
The quote from DiEugenio and Pease says that D'Avy found Davis in a storeroom with Oswald, Ferrie, a Cuban, and three unidentified men.
Here is a question for Mr. Bleau. Who were the three men?
It is clear that Mr. Bleau did not read Leander D'Avy's testimony before the HSCA where he did identify the three men. Who were they? Why they were the three tramps! And one of the tramps now had whiskers! Here is an excerpt from his testimony on June 23, 1977:
A few pages later, he repeats the allegation:
You can download D'Avy's HSCA testimony here:
D'Avy was again interviewed by the HSCA in December of 1977. He repeated the story about the tramps:
The problem with Mr. Bleau's research is that he just accepts documents in the Garrison files as truthful. All sorts of people came out of the woodwork to speak to Garrison and spin their tales. His office was inundated with letters from prisoners who had important information. None of this stuff panned out.
I went to the National Archives to get Leander D'Avy's deposition before the HSCA. Perhaps Mr. Bleau should spend some time in the National Archives before making grand pronouncements about Garrison's files.
You can read the whole Leander D'Avy story here. He was just another fabulist telling Garrison stories he wanted to hear.
Previous Relevant Blog Posts on Paul Bleau
Bleau's analysis of Garrison's files is full of errors.
Bleau believes there were seven plots against JFK before Dallas.
Bolden's allegation that there was a plot against JFK in Chicago has changed over the years.
There is no evidence that there was a plot against JFK in Tampa.
There is no evidence that there was a plot against JFK in Chicago.