Oswald Leaving TSBD?

[Robin Unger]

Interesting thread. I seem to remember this being discussed briefly way back in the early days of Rich Delarosa's forum.

I can't get all the pages to load so I apologize if this has been already discussed. Billy Lovelady had his sleeves rolled down that day.

Hi James

Good to see you posting again.

Cheers.

Robin.

[Robert Prudhomme]

Yea, I neither take credit for being the first to call attention to this photo frame or think any forum rules were broken, as ridicule and sarcasm are valid forms of critique, if used correctly. I didn't even recognize it as a backhand slap at Duncan and his forum.

If they have discussed this issue over there, the direct links to the subject should be made, so we don't have to duplicate the research, but i couldn't find it on the board on the link previously presented.

BK

Bill and Raymond,

A moderator removed the offending posted comment this morning where Prudenhomme openly admitted that he posted that I allow paid LN's to rule the other forum.

Anyway, enough of that, this issue is far more important.

Here is a direct link to a thread containing static images and moving Gifs ot the man and the area in question.

It's a long thread with many interesting diversions and fantastic graphical analysis by some of the most talented and dedicated photo analysis people in the JFK community.

Here is one example of the standard of stabilized Gif construction which is a major feature at my forum.

This one shows clearly the man in question, and Baker running towards the entrance.

Credit Gerda Dunckel

Enjoy the thread - Link Below

http://www.jfkassassinationforum.com/index.php/topic,6724.0.html

Hello Duncan

I went to the link you posted to your forum, the JFKAssassinationForum.com. The thread the link connected to there had twenty-four pages of posts and discussed many people in front of the TSBD at the time of the assassination. However, only ONE reference is made to Prayer Man. This is in a post on page twenty-two by Gerda Dunckel. She refers to our man as "Prayer Man" and inquires as to who this person may be. Strangely, no one responds to her question.

Is this what you meant by the following, "Finally, this man has been discussed many many times at http://www.jfkassass.../board,2.0.html and many enhancements have been made there and are still available for viewing." I would hardly call one poster inquiring about PM's identity, and no one answering, to be "discussed many many times".

Perhaps you posted a link to the wrong thread, and there are many many other threads dealing with PM on your forum, hmm? Would you be so kind as to link us to one of these threads? I am especially interested in seeing the "many enhancements" that "have been made there and are still available for viewing".

Cheers

[Sean Murphy]

Darnell Zip file (110=Frames ) 5.9MB

Taken from "JFK The movie (Blu-Ray) version"

https://app.box.com/s/xqv9vkhpeztayt8pxizk

Very nice slide show, Robin. I've studied it, or at least the portions with Prayer Man in them, for half an hour now, looking for clues that PM may be a woman. Could you point out to me what you found in these frames that raised this possibility? Thanks.

I could be mistaken Robert

It wouldn't be the first time.

My conclusion was reached BEFORE i had time to go in and really have a good look at a Larger higher resolution version of the frames.

The single most important thing to note about these Darnell frames--and I say this having (like Robert) carefully inspected several times every frame Robin uploaded yesterday--is that in one frame, and one frame only, does Prayer Man's head come into any kind of clear focus.

The moment when that happens is a startling one--

--for it shows us not just that this is a man but that it is a man with Lee Oswald's hairline.

The lingering doubts I had when looking at previous images of Prayer Man related chiefly to his apparent baldness: where was the Oswald hair?

The middle frame above puts paid to that question, and definitively:

Now all things being equal this man would be a toss-up between Billy Lovelady and Lee Oswald.

But all things are not equal.

We know--for an absolute irrefutable fact, one backed up by the hard evidence of Wiegman movie frames--that Billy Lovelady was standing next to Prayer Man during the actual shooting.

So this can only be Lee Oswald.

And the man near him can only be Buell Wesley Frazier (who was put forward several times earlier in this thread as a candidate for Prayer Man)--his hairline and hairstyle are just too distinctive to allow any serious doubt on that score

Game over.

Edited September 8, 2013 by Sean Murphy

[Sean Murphy]

Thanks for the Comments J. Raymond

Sean

Correct me if i am wrong, but i don't ever recall seeing Oswald in a shirt with his sleeves " Rolled Up " ?

Robin,

Oswald is reported as having told Fritz that he changed shirts at his N. Beckley apartment, which would make the arrest shirt irrelevant to Prayer Man images.

The shirt he's wearing in the Prayer Man frames is either short-sleeved or long-sleeved with sleeves rolled up.

I went with the latter because Bookhout's contemporaneous interrogation notes (whose contents we know thanks to Fritz's handwritten copy) make mention of a longsleeve red[dish] shirt.

It's hardly a stretch to imagine Oswald rolling up his sleeves while getting stock.

And the reason we don't have any images of him with sleeves rolled up is that we don't have any images of him engaged in manual labour.

Edited September 8, 2013 by Sean Murphy

[Sean Murphy]

quote:

Buell Wesley Frazier knew--knows--Lee is innocent.

Sean

Are you saying that there was a GIANT conspiracy of silence, from every TSBD employee seen in this frame

that they were NEVER mention the fact that Oswald was actually standing in the Doorway entrance, as Baker entered the building. ?

Robin,

No, I'm not saying that.

I'm saying that the above frame shows that Buell Wesley Frazier cannot but have noticed Lee there. No wonder they gave him such a hard time down at DPD HQ that night.

I think it's perfectly possible that not a single other employee noticed Lee

• slipping out on to the steps just in time for the motorcade

or

• standing by the front-entrance vestibule door just after the shooting.

I use the word 'employee' advisedly: Roy Truly did notice Lee there just after the shooting, for that's where and when the Baker encounter really happened.

Edited September 8, 2013 by Sean Murphy

[Sean Murphy]

Hello Sean

I, too, find it odd that Dougherty would only hear one shot while on the 5th floor. If all three shots came from above him (albeit on the far kitty corner of the TSBD), one would think they would be equally audible.

Is the connection with Dougherty using the stairs to descend to the 1st floor related to the fact Dougherty only testified to hearing a single shot?

Robert,

Here's how I see it. If Jack were inventing the trip up to the fifth floor, why on earth would he be telling us he heard just one shot --and then going on to point up the strangeness of this fact by telling us that Eddie Piper told him he had heard three shots? Surely if he were inventing he would make sure to harmonise the number of shots he heard with the number of shots he subsequently learned there had been?

No, I'm suggesting we take Dougherty's first-day affidavit statement at face value and see where its contents lead us.

**

Now how could a man be at the rear of the fifth floor, some ten feet west of the west freight elevator, and only hear one shot?

Our options are pretty limited. Tell me if I've missed any:

1. There was only one shot fired from the sixth floor.
2. Due to adjustments in the position of the rifle at the window, only the first shot boomed loudly within the building.
3. Jack's reaction to the first shot was to stick his head deep inside a box full of cotton wool, plug his fingers in his ears or do something to make it possible for a man on the fifth floor to stop hearing loud noises.
4. Jack's reaction to the first shot was to make a terrified dash to the noisy, wooden-planked and enclosed rear stairway and run downstairs for his life.

Re. #1: I know this view has some adherents, but I'm not one of them. Bonnie Ray Williams's earliest statements speak of two shots sounding as if they came from just over him.

Re. #2: There may have been some variation in the inside-the-room boom levels, but I find it very hard to believe that Jack could have remained standing there on the fifth floor after the first shot and heard nothing else by way of bang, pop, what have you.

Re. #3: Non-starter.

Re. #4: Jack's description of his location some ten feet west of the west elevator is also a description of his location very near the down stairs.

If there was one place in his vicinity where the noise of a subsequent shot or shots might have failed to reach his ears, it was the very noisy stairwell down which a man (he himself) was stomping.

But why would Jack react so quickly to that first shot?

Because he knew it was a rifle shot.

For, just prior to this, he had had the misfortune of wandering up to the sixth floor to get a bird's eye view of the motorcade only to see several strangers up there, including at least one man holding a rifle.

That's why, the instant he heard the loud bang upstairs while down on the fifth floor, he knew exactly what it was.

And ran.

Edited September 8, 2013 by Sean Murphy

[J. Raymond Carroll]

JFK's Favorite Tune

According to Jackie

Played today, Sunday, September 8 of 2013

for our very own

Sean Aloysius Murphy

May his shadow

Never grow less!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqAPAsqTwyI

Edited September 8, 2013 by J. Raymond Carroll

[J. Raymond Carroll]

I use the word 'employee' advisedly: Roy Truly did notice Lee there just after the shooting, for that's where and when the Baker encounter really happened.

Sean is nearly always right

But sometimes even Homer nods,

Like in his refusal to accept

The sworn, UNCONTRADICTED testimony

Of Mrs Jereldean Reid.

Edited September 8, 2013 by J. Raymond Carroll

[Richard Hocking]

Observations about the Elevators from Pictures and Testimony:

1. West Elevator was “automatic”. If both gates were shut, it could be called from any floor by pushing the button on that floor.

2. East Elevator was not automatic. It had a single gate and was operated with a “hand pedal”. Someone had to be in the elevator to operate it from floor to floor.

3. Both elevators made enough noise that you could hear them when they were moving, if you were paying attention. The East Elevator hand pedal made a “bang” noise when released ¹

4. You could hear and see out of the elevators from inside as they moved from floor to floor. ²

5. Views from the West Elevator would have included the “landing” area between both stairways, with a relatively restricted view beyond the NW corner of the floor. West Elevator had wooden slats in back wall. ³

6. The East Elevator had a Metal Back side with no view of the NW stairs area, but offered a more open view to the South and East on each floor. ⁴

7. It was possible to look through the gates into the elevator shaft and see the elevator(s) on floors above, across or below you. ⁵

8. On the 2^nd floor, the East Elevator opens into a room that is adjacent to the Lunch room and the conference room. If door to Conference room was shut, the East Elevator would only be visible from that one room adjacent to it.

9. On the 5^th floor, there was a pile of cartons that partially obscured the Elevators and the stairs when viewed from BRW’s position at the 5^th floor window from which he is alleged to have watched the motorcade.⁶

10. Elevators could go from the 7^th floor to the 1^st floor in 30 seconds, or roughly 5 seconds per floor. ⁷

Citations:

1. Williams WC, http://jfkassassination.net/russ/testimony/williams.htm

2. Truly WC, http://www.jfk-assassination.de/warren/wch/vol3/page223.php

3. Lovelady WC, http://www.jfk-assassination.de/warren/wch/vol6/page338.php

photo: http://mffprodos5.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=10484&relPageId=117

4. Truly WC, http://www.jfk-assassination.de/warren/wch/vol3/page228.php

photo: http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=10896&relPageId=11

5. Truly WC Volume 3 p229; Baker WC Volume 3 p255

6. Williams WC, http://jfkassassination.net/russ/testimony/williams.htm

7. Lovelady WCD 5, p333, http://www.maryferrell.org/mffweb/archive/viewer/showDoc.do?docId=10406&relPageId=338

*Note: I am dual-posting a copy of this post into the "Photos of Elevators" thread

Edit: Update to the Data and citations. Thanks, Richard Gilbride.

Edited September 8, 2013 by Richard Hocking

[J. Raymond Carroll]

DOES ANYONE KNOW IF JERALDEAN

IS IN ANY OF THESE IMAGES?

https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&site=imghp&tbm=isch&source=hp&biw=1280&bih=685&q=jereldean+reid+oswald&oq=jereldean+reid+oswald&gs_l=img.12...4742.11569.0.14745.21.8.0.13.0.0.77.469.8.8.0....0...1ac.1.26.img..14.7.428.ku4avB2PpoY#facrc=_&imgdii=RyNeIG0KUtkn0M%3A%3BU1QS4YjahpBO_M%3BRyNeIG0KUtkn0M%3A&imgrc=RyNeIG0KUtkn0M%3A%3BKGnA0HFbWvPCEM%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Frockportky.com%252FMiscellaneous%252FRckptTelephone%252FMabelSBoard640Fr.jpg%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.jfklancerforum.com%252Fdc%252Fdcboard.php%253Faz%253Dprinter_friendly%2526forum%253D3%2526topic_id%253D84605%3B668%3B520

Edited September 8, 2013 by J. Raymond Carroll

[Robin Unger]

Two stabilized Darnell GIFS made using my frames.

showing Baker running to the right of the image, and Joe Marshall Smith running to the left.

Credit: Martin Hinrichs.

Click on images to view full size:

Edited September 8, 2013 by Robin Unger

[Robert Prudhomme]

Hello Sean

I, too, find it odd that Dougherty would only hear one shot while on the 5th floor. If all three shots came from above him (albeit on the far kitty corner of the TSBD), one would think they would be equally audible.

Is the connection with Dougherty using the stairs to descend to the 1st floor related to the fact Dougherty only testified to hearing a single shot?

Robert,

Here's how I see it. If Jack were inventing the trip up to the fifth floor, why on earth would he be telling us he heard just one shot --and then going on to point up the strangeness of this fact by telling us that Eddie Piper told him he had heard three shots? Surely if he were inventing he would make sure to harmonise the number of shots he heard with the number of shots he subsequently learned there had been?

No, I'm suggesting we take Dougherty's first-day affidavit statement at face value and see where its contents lead us.

**

Now how could a man be at the rear of the fifth floor, some ten feet west of the west freight elevator, and only hear one shot?

Our options are pretty limited. Tell me if I've missed any:

1. There was only one shot fired from the sixth floor.
2. Due to adjustments in the position of the rifle at the window, only the first shot boomed loudly within the building.
3. Jack's reaction to the first shot was to stick his head deep inside a box full of cotton wool, plug his fingers in his ears or do something to make it possible for a man on the fifth floor to stop hearing loud noises.
4. Jack's reaction to the first shot was to make a terrified dash to the noisy, wooden-planked and enclosed rear stairway and run downstairs for his life.

Re. #1: I know this view has some adherents, but I'm not one of them. Bonnie Ray Williams's earliest statements speak of two shots sounding as if they came from just over him.

Re. #2: There may have been some variation in the inside-the-room boom levels, but I find it very hard to believe that Jack could have remained standing there on the fifth floor after the first shot and heard nothing else by way of bang, pop, what have you.

Re. #3: Non-starter.

Re. #4: Jack's description of his location some ten feet west of the west elevator is also a description of his location very near the down stairs.

If there was one place in his vicinity where the noise of a subsequent shot or shots might have failed to reach his ears, it was the very noisy stairwell down which a man (he himself) was stomping.

But why would Jack react so quickly to that first shot?

Because he knew it was a rifle shot.

For, just prior to this, he had had the misfortune of wandering up to the sixth floor to get a bird's eye view of the motorcade only to see several strangers up there, including at least one man holding a rifle.

That's why, the instant he heard the loud bang upstairs while down on the fifth floor, he knew exactly what it was.

And ran.

Hello Sean

I see exactly what you mean now. Yes, it is possible he returned to work early enough on the 6th floor to stumble upon the proceedings in the Sniper's Nest. And he may have just had time to descend to the 5th floor when the first shot went off. He certainly could not have spent much time on the 5th floor, or, no doubt, he would have been spotted by Williams, Norman and Jarman.

Yes, when you explain it like this, it makes perfect sense. He hears the first shot, covers the ten feet to the stairwell and is heading downstairs, making a great deal of noise, before the second shot is fired, which, of course, he does not hear.

Brilliant bit of deduction, Sean.

[Robert Prudhomme]

While we are on the topic of Buell Wesley Frazier, he mentions, in his WC testimony, a "heavy-set lady who worked upstairs there whose name is Sarah something".

From his WC testimony:

"Mr. FRAZIER - I stayed around there pretty close to Mr. Shelley and this boy Billy Lovelady and just standing there, people talking and just talking about how pretty a day it turned out to be, because I told you earlier it was an old cloudy and misty day and then it didn't look like it was going to be a pretty day at all.
Mr. BALL - And it turned out to be a good day?
Mr. FRAZIER - Pretty sunshiny day.
Mr. BALL - Warm?
Mr. FRAZIER - Yes, sir; it was pretty warm.
Mr. BALL - Then let's see, there was Billy Lovelady and you were there.
Mr. FRAZIER - Right.
Mr. BALL - Anybody else you can remember?
Mr. FRAZIER - There was a lady there, a heavy-set lady who worked upstairs there whose name is Sarah something, I don't know her last name.
Mr. BALL - Were you near the steps?
Mr. FRAZIER - Yes, sir; I was, I was standing about, I believe, one step down from the top there.
Mr. BALL - One step down from the top of the steps?
Mr. FRAZIER - Yes, sir; standing there by the rail.
Mr. BALL - By steps we are talking about the steps of the entrance to the Building?
Mr. FRAZIER - Yes, sir."

Has this woman ever been identified and do we know where she is outside the TSBD at the time of the assassination?

Edited September 9, 2013 by Robert Prudhomme

[Ian Kingsbury]

sample frame

Robin,

Thank you so much for uploading these higher-quality frames from Darnell.

I certainly will not be renaming Prayer Man 'Prayer Woman', because the frame above puts the matter pretty much beyond doubt:

This is Lee Oswald.

The womanly appearance is due to the fact that

a ) his sleeves are rolled up;

b ) the eye is confusing the back of a woman's head with part of Lee's torso.

Here's the woman in question's lower leg and foot:

If you place your finger to the screen to cover where her head should be, the chief source of the 'Prayer Woman' illusion becomes apparent.

This is Lee Oswald.

Just look at the hairline.

**

And speaking of hairlines, this frame tells us something else:

Buell Wesley Frazier knew--knows--Lee is innocent.

Someone urgently needs to show this image to him.

Sean

Somebody should show this to the public and let them decide?

BWF will speak through others from now on or suffer a nasty "accident"

Ian

[Sean Murphy]

Many pages back in this thread it was established beyond doubt that the only TSBD employee Prayer Man could conceivably be is Lee Oswald.

All other candidates--Frazier, Lovelady, Molina, Otis Williams, Bill Shelley--were definitively ruled out.

We all remember how quickly poor David von Pein found other things to do once he realised his wiggle room on this issue was precisely zilch.

Each improvement in Darnell image quality has only made the case for this being Oswald more and more compelling.

Now let's not kid ourselves here as to the magnitude of what has just happened.

If a bona fide image even a quarter as clear as this one had emerged in recent days of a man at the SN window at assassination time, this would have been hailed by WC defenders as the final nail in the kook coffin.

Well, things have not turned out quite that way, have they?

It seems the WC defenders are left with one pitiful option if they are to avoid the checkmate reality that faces them:

resort for dear life to the argument from incredulity and insist that Prayer Man just has to be someone other than Oswald.

The argument from incredulity will run as follows:

It's just plum ridiculous to claim that Oswald could have been on those steps for the motorcade and the aftermath without being noticed by any of his co-workers. Sheesh.

This argument, being silly, is easily disposed of.

Prayer Man is a fact.

He was there.

His presence there is not however recalled by a single witness in on-the-record statements or sworn testimony.

And yet--did I mention this?--he is a fact.

He was there.

The lack of attestation as to his presence puts not a dent, not even a scratch, in the integrity of that fact.

Prayer Man was there.

To claim that Prayer Man is not Oswald is to claim that the presence of Oswald--a quiet and unexceptional worker in the building-- would have been more liable to notice up there at the entrance amongst the other TSBD folk than the presence of a total stranger-- someone who didn't work in that building, had no business being there amongst the TSBD folk, would have had to walk up those steps from the street in order to end up in the Prayer Man position.

And to claim that is to take terminal recourse to kook logic.

Which, of course, is what the kook WC defenders will now do.

After that? Well, one can only look forward to Dave Perry's next time trial on Discovery Channel where Usain Bolt will demonstrate that Oswald could have fired off all three rounds from the SN window and still have made it comfortably down in time to catch the motorcade from the front entrance.

Equally stimulating will be Max Holland's National Geographic spot showing that Prayer Man's posture is not at all inconsistent with the posture of a man firing a rifle at traffic poles and street signs, and at an angle not entirely inconsistent with a deflection-to-the-Presidential-limousine scenario.

Meanwhile the rest of us can be getting on with the job at hand: evidence-based research.