A previous blog post looked at Dr. Wayne Owens who conspiracy theorists maintain was a witness to Cherami's prediction. However, the evidence is clear that he did not directly speak to Cherami, but heard an account second or third-hand. Lt. Francis Fruge spoke to Cherami on the trip from Eunice to Jackson, but all she said was that she was going to Dallas to kill the President.
And, that's if we believe Fruge who has his own credibility issues. For instance, Fruge, along with his investigative partner Anne Dischler, was involved in an expenses scandal:
Opelousas Daily World, April 30, 1968
Did anybody at the Hospital in Jackson hear Rose Cherami predict the JFK assassination? Earlier this week, we included the statement of Mr. A. H. Magruder who told Garrison investigators that Dr. Victor Weiss had told him Cherami said that "the President and other Texas officials were going to be killed on their visit to Dallas."
But, in another Garrison memo, Weiss was not sure if he talked to Cherami before or after the assassination:
This is the only Garrison memo that reports on a conversation with Dr. Victor Weiss. He says he cannot remember if he spoke to Cherami before or after the assassination. Surely, had he talked to her before the assassination, he would not only remember it, but there would be some record of the discussion. No nurse or other personnel at the hospital has ever come forward a statement about what Cherami said before the assassination.
What I find striking is that Dr. Weiss and Mr. Magruder both decided not to inform the FBI or the Warren Commission about Rose Cherami. That suggests to me that whatever she did say did not bother them too much. - probably because whatever she said was after the assassination.
Dr. Victor Weiss was interviewed by the HSCA. He told them that he was asked by Dr. Bowers to see Rose Cherami on November 25, 2963 - after the assassination. He spoke to Cherami and she said she had worked for Jack Ruby. However, she did not have any specific details on an assassination plot and she said that "word in the underworld" was that Kennedy would be killed.
The HSCA did not talk to Dr. Bowers. But Dr. Bowers did speak to researcher Robert Dorff. Here is a letter from Dr. Bowers:
Dear Bob,
This letter is intended to set the record straight regarding my alleged statements concerning Rose Cherami in conjunction with her November 1963 stay at East Louisiana State Hospital in Jackson, Louisiana. You and I discussed this quite extensively during a series of telephone calls in early 2002. At that time you read a section on page 200 and 201 of Appendix 10 to the House Select Committee on Assassinations, which stated, quote:
"The commission [sic] interviewed one of the doctors on staff at the East Louisiana State Hospital who had seen Cheramie during her stay there at the time of the Kennedy assassination. The doctor corroborated aspects of [the Cheramie allegations]. Dr. Victor Weiss verified that he was employed as a resident physician at the hospital in 1963. He recalled that on Monday, November 25, 1963, he was asked by another physician, Dr. Bowers, to see a patient who had been committed November 20 or 21. Dr. Bowers allegedly told Weiss that the patient, Rose Cheramie, had stated before the assassination that President Kennedy was going to be killed."
Dr. Weiss’s statement is untrue. I was not at the hospital on Monday, November the 25th. I spent that day working at my regular job at the Baptist Hospital in New Orleans, Louisiana. My regular tenure at East Louisiana State Hospital ended in July, 1963, when I moved to New Orleans and commenced work at the Baptist Hospital in that city. I worked weekdays Monday through Friday. On weekends I would drive to Jackson to earn extra money working in the medical division at the East Louisiana State Hospital.
I never saw Rose Cherami and only found out about her allegations on Sunday, November the 24th, 1963, during a dove hunting engagement with Dr. Weiss. It was he who told me what she allegedly told Weiss and possibly others. I was never contacted by anyone from the House Select Committee on Assassinations.
When I began getting telephone calls from assassination researchers informing me about the statements attributed to me, as memorialized [in Weiss's HSCA testimony], I called Dr. Weiss and asked him why he had said these things. Weiss rebuffed my inquiry and flatly refused to discuss it. I found that very odd as I had known and respected him for many years. I still cannot understand why he made those statements.
On mature reflection I recalled that, during our dove hunting foray on Sunday, November the 24th, Dr. Weiss told me about Cherami’s allegations. That was the first time I heard any of this. I remember that incident because, while driving back to New Orleans that day, I heard on the radio that Oswald had been shot in the basement of the Dallas Police Department. Years later I personally reviewed Rose Cherami’s hospital records at the East Louisiana State Hospital and was unable to find any reference to her alleged remarks about an impending assassination of President Kennedy.
I’m sorry I was unable to attend the JFK Lancers [sic] forum in Dallas and hope this letter makes clear that I had no contact with Rose Cherami.
Sincerely,
Donn E. Bowers, MD
Dr. Bowers contradicts Dr. Weiss, but there is still no evidence that either of them spoke to Rose Cherami before the assassination.
Francis Fruge went back to the hospital in Jackson to speak to the nurses. There are no statements from any of the nurses amongst the Garrison papers - and no nurses have ever come forward with a statement about Cherami. We do know from the HSCA that hospital records "gave no reference as to alleged statements made by Cheramie."
The whole Cherami story doesn't make much sense. The conspirators, driving from Florida to Dallas, stop in Eunice, Lousiana. With them is a drug-addled prostitute. They then throw her out of the car, despite her foreknowledge of the assassination plot, and not only continue to Dallas to kill JFK, but then go on to Houston for a drug deal. That's a busy week, no?