Southwest Window of School Book Depository

[Chris Newton]

I'm wondering if there are any photos looking down at Elm St. from either of the last two windows on the southwest side of the sixth floor of the School Book Depository?

I've seen the photos in the WC exhibits that look down the aisles inside at the "snipers nest" - why at that early date, before they knew all the facts, wouldn't they have taken photos from each window toward the crime scene on elm?

A couple things would be explained by a shooter located nearer or in the southwest corner.

... like why the alleged SBD shooter didn't take the "best shot" before the turn onto elm.

... if the SBD shooter did get a head shot - maybe from that angle the temple area would have been exposed and the kill shot possible to explain. As well as some of the wounds Connolly suffered.

... closer to stairs/elevators.

A conspirator could still have planted the "patsy" evidence in the southeast corner before heading to the southwest corner.

I know the museum has sealed off the southeast corner but are the windows to the southwest accessible today?

[Bernice Moore]

Chris; there is a clear view within this video, that might help,but i do not have the captures of the frames....sorry, perhaps David or someone could do that for you, ..

take care...b

jFK Assassination secret service Re-Enactment part 2 - YouTube

[James R Gordon]

... if the SBD shooter did get a head shot - maybe from that angle the temple area would have been exposed and the kill shot possible to explain. As well as some of the wounds Connolly suffered.

... closer to stairs/elevators.

Chris,

If you have followed the "Inside the Target Car" you will have noticed I have commented on the Sixth Floor West window.

It is a really interesting window. Because of the angle that JFK has turned his head from the 90º forward position as well as the decline in the head, there are problems with the Oswald window.

This has been raised by Don Roberdeau in his map. In early trajectories I have placed on my 3D model I concur.If the bullet were to fly in a straight direction and enter as per HSCA position, then it would exit somewhere around the right ear. This is simply because the head is not in line with the angle and slope of JFK' head. Of course I accept bullets do not always travel in a straight line.

However if you run a line from the West window the trajectory line is compatible with the angle and slop of the head. Now I am not saying that means the west window was the origin of the shop, but it is a curious point.

The boxes on the 6th floor are also an interesting point. I already have the sniper's nest created. However I noticed that the Secret Service film of the recreation describes the state of the sixth floor in some detail. Along with the Friday film of the 6th floor, I believe it might be possible to recreate the positions of the boxes as they were that day. Looking at these films, it was clear that there was no direct line from the Oswald window to the stairs. It would have been an extremely twisted route....and that does not take into account the time required to hide the gun. I am thinking it might be really interesting to see just what the floor actually looked like and what sort of route would have had to have been taken in order to escape.

James.

[Karl Kinaski]

Lee Farley: Also curious is the fact that the Sixth Floor Museum has an exhibit (their conspiracy exhibit to be precise) in the Southwest corner that blocks the view of Elm Street from those windows.

On 22.1163 that spot was the working place of Jarmann Norman and Williams...I have always wondered, if they were watching the motorcade from here...that would put the TSB shooter above them at the seventh floor: a floor we still don't know who occupied it...after half a century...(Could have been a "save floor"...)

Joesten had something on that point:

quote O. ASSASSIN OR FALL GUY:

I learned that

the first floor is a general shipping area and the second holds the

cafeteria and the company's administrative offices. The third floor as

well as part of the fourth are occupied by publishers' manufacturing

representatives, 'i.e., by people who are not on the staff of Mr. Cason's

firm. The fifth floor, I understand, is also used for the purpose of

filling book orders. Why Mr. Cason did not mention it in his above­

quoted statement I don't know. Nor have I been able to find out who

occupies the seventh floor and for what purposes.

close quote

Edited October 3, 2012 by Karl Kinaski

[Chris Newton]

Bernice,

Thank you very much for that! Are you using a Mac? if so, you have a utility that will capture anything on your screen called "Grab" (/applications/utilities/grap.app). I used it to capture the images below. If you're using Windoze, well, I won't get into that here...

If the following snapshot is, in fact, taken from the southwest window then I think the headshot is still problematic. It seems way to far away to have been an effective alternative, as far as that particular shot, (but maybe it was filmed that way to support the southeast window theory). I'd have to see a better image or see it for myself, which according to Lee's comment would be considerably difficult at this stage. If a shooter was present in that corner, I can imagine that the presence of a "conspiracy exhibit", blocking the view, would result in some ironic glee in the minds of any surviving conspirators. What better way to shut down that conversation?

In the same video of the re-enactment there is a portion taken through a scope while the Limo is turning onto Elm. This, to me, is the best evidence that a "lone shooter" in the southeast corner window is preposterous. There is no logical explanation as to why a shot would not have occurred at this moment. I don't mean to offend but, If I were in a deer stand and a 20 pointer strolled by; I would not sit idly with my thumb up my yahoo when my target reached the closest possible point and I had no obstructions. This was the "kill" shot.

If a shooter has this scenario, the only possible explanation that I can come up with, is that there are other shooters and the limo hasn't entered the "killzone".

On the subject of the found rifle location, between boxes by the stairs... why would a shooter leave boxes arranged as a shooting stand and spent cartridges in the southeast corner and not hide the weapon there as well? Would common sense indicate that the shooter would walk through the entire sixth floor with a weapon in their hand and then stash it before they go downstairs? Watch the clip Bernice cited above and tell me what you think about the agent's "fast walk". I'm surprised that he didn't stop to smell the yellow roses.

One other thing.... If a conspirator set up the sniper's nest boxes and used boxes that Oswald had handled so that his prints would be found then that conspirator must have known what boxes Oswald in fact handled. Which logically points to one of Oswald's coworkers being a conspirator. That also leads to that conspirator being a shooter or assisting the shooter. Just a thought...

edited for punctuation.

Edited October 3, 2012 by Chris Newton

[Bernice Moore]

CHRIS QUOTE..''If a shooter was present in that corner, I can imagine that the presence of a "conspiracy exhibit", blocking the view, would result in some ironic glee in the minds of any surviving conspirators. What better way to shut down that conversation.''...

and what better way to please the LNrs as they trip along through the exhibits...it appears it is one more clog in the wheel, exhibited by the authorities of yee old TSBD.....agreed that was the kill shot, it would appear to be a definite much easier kill, than shooting after the limo has turned the corner and becomes therefore more a series of difficult angles,traveling away from instead of towards..people have been scratching their heads over that all these years.Though when thinking about it, it would not have been such a dramatic kill, if it had been accomplished in one shot.and i believe they wanted it perhaps accomplished as dramatic as possible, as they knew the whole world would be paying attention and watching and they wanted all to know, they were in charge....

i have gone through just about all now, and have found no, southwest photo, from a window, the only i know of is the one showing Officer Weatherspoon, i believe it is, who crawled out a west window...yes one would think there would have been a conspiratory aid , as the framing of the ''patsy'' simply all came together too pat, and too quickly...i think someone was on the payroll on that sixth floor, and not just baby sitting..lho.....

Thanks for the interesting thread Chris, carry on, if anything pops up i will be back with whatever,and yes this is a doozy of a dozy windows....with a mind of it's own, and not mine, it seems too often..take care...b

Edited October 3, 2012 by Bernice Moore

[Bernice Moore]

FWIW Chris you might have a look within a fbi FREE BOOKLET.. there may be some of interest...

Photos from a

Commission Document 496 - FBI Booklet Entitled "Texas School Book Depository

http://www.maryferre...bsPageId=349620

Edited October 3, 2012 by Bernice Moore

[Chris Newton]

Bernice thanks for that link.

I found this on the Sixth Floor Museum Site:

Charles A. Briggs

The former Executive Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Briggs spent one year working on research for The Sixth Floor project in Washington, D.C. offices of exhibition designers Bob Staples and Barbara Charles.

Wow, can I use "WTF?" here because that was my first reaction when I read that.

Edited October 3, 2012 by Chris Newton

[Bernice Moore]

now that's bingo...wonderful news.....though i do not think the adm of the tsbd will be thrilled.......I am.. ''' Briggs spent one year working on research for The Sixth Floor project in Washington, D.C. offices of exhibition designers Bob Staples and Barbara Charles.''

i came back to post this info on weatherford and the , it was a west end window..it simply shows i believe that there were w end windows that could be opened....thanks to martin hindrichs..b

• Chris do you happen to have the link ???? thanks...b ...You've been found out...already...THE GARY is below checking up on you, already...
  

The film shows Deputy Sheriff Harry Weatherford climbing into a TSBD window on the west side of the building several minutes after the assassination. The film was shot by WFAA photographer Mal Couch and Weatherford explained his actions in a report the next day: http://mcadams.posc....ny/weatherf.htm

Edited October 3, 2012 by Bernice Moore

[Richard Hocking]

...

A couple things would be explained by a shooter located nearer or in the southwest corner.

... like why the alleged SBD shooter didn't take the "best shot" before the turn onto elm.

... if the SBD shooter did get a head shot - maybe from that angle the temple area would have been exposed and the kill shot possible to explain. As well as some of the wounds Connolly suffered.

... closer to stairs/elevators.

A conspirator could still have planted the "patsy" evidence in the southeast corner before heading to the southwest corner.

I know the museum has sealed off the southeast corner but are the windows to the southwest accessible today?

Chris,

A couple more things that add credibility to a shooter from a West facing/ SW Corner of the TSBD:

• Connally's wounds (trajectory and angle of entrance wound in the back) are better explained by a shot from this location.

• The shooter would be hidden from the vast majority of the crowd along Main St., Houston, and Elm. The crowd thinned out dramatically after the Limo passes the front TSBD area.

• It explains why the two signalmen (TUM and DCM) were needed. A shooter on the West Window would not see the Limo until it was already passing him. So one signal would be needed for Limo approaching Kill Zone (umbrella going up?), and another signal to indicate if the President had been hit by a head shot (DCM?).

A man posing in the 6th floor SE window with a rifle would serve as a visible crowd distraction for a sniper looking out a West window.

[John Dolva]

Karl, re the seventh floor. It just ocured to me that that floor was added after a fire. I wonder if backtracking to why it was added may lead to an answer.

[Chris Newton]

John,

I think there's a link on McAdam's site to the SBD History but I won't link there. It's written by Jerry Organ.

Related to this thread I found it's interesting that in an article in the Dallas Observer, Aubrey Mayhew, who once owned the SBD and also tried to make it into a museum, made this remark about the window that Byrd had removed:

Shortly after he bought the building, the Texas School Book Depository moved out. But not before one of their employees gave him an affidavit, he says, confirming that D. Harold Byrd had instructed a workman to remove a window from the Sixth Floor. But "he went to the wrong side of the building," Mayhew claims, "and took it from the southwestern corner."

http://www.dallasobs.../stained-glass/

Maybe there should have been a "wink" and "nod" from Mr. Byrd who may have known more than Mayhew thought he did.

Edited October 4, 2012 by Chris Newton

[Karl Kinaski]

OT:

This Byrd-Window, Gordon Wing and his Nash Rambler, Kennedys lost watch, the lost Harper fragment, his lost brain: seems to me there are always many hunters out there looking for a trophy...

(It was said, that Deputy Seymour Weitzman had in his possession a piece of Kennedys scull...)

KK

[Bernice Moore]

Karl, re the seventh floor. It just ocured to me that that floor was added after a fire. I wonder if backtracking to why it was added may lead to an answer.

John; i believe the 7th was always there..here is info on the second fire...fwiw...b

Monday, Sep. 03, 1984

Fire Strikes a Grim Monument

Perhaps the most morbid of America's national landmarks was set ablaze last week in Dallas. Arsonists started a fire in the basement of the old Texas School Book Depository, the red brick seven-story structure, now the Dallas County administration building, from which Lee Harvey Oswald shot and killed President Kennedy in 1963. Because the decades-old sprinkler system had been turned off for repairs, flames made their way through the building walls. It took 100 fire fighters two hours to control the blaze, which damaged only the first two floors of the structure. "Whoever did it might have had a key or hid in the building," said Fire Marshal Jim Badgett. In the basement where the fire originated, assassination memorabilia, including old photographs, were destroyed.

The arson occurred in the early morning of the Republican Convention's final day. Earlier in the week, Mary Kay Ash, the cosmetics tycoon, embarrassed many of her fellow Dallas residents with remarks she made about the School Book Depository in a nationally televised interview. "I think what we should [do] is tear that building down," she said, "and make a parking lot out of that thing and not have it there for people to remember."

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,951277,00.html

[John Dolva]

Ok, Bernice, thank you, I didn't know about that fire.

I was thinking about the 60 odd years earlier fire from a lightning strike (thanks Gary re details) when the 7th floor was added in rebuilding with the idea of seeing what its purpose was then and then following its use over time to see if a possible answer to JJ's puzzle about what it was for in '63.

edit correction re years

Edited October 4, 2012 by John Dolva