Oswald Leaving TSBD?

[Robert Prudhomme]

Robert,

Agree, but even if it had been the wrong building... Baker was simultaneously exceedingly heroic and incredibly inept. Is there any precedent for hunting a sniper armed with a rifle by charging into a building armed with a .38 (I assume a .38)? I think if he had actually found what he was looking for he would have been the first dead cop that day. I could see two cops moving methodically, covering each other and being very wary of any "glimpse" of someone moving around. What happened to "come out with your hands up" when he glimpsed Oswald through the door?

Marvin Johnson's account of what Baker told him as he gave his affidavit within hours of the assassination is suggestive of a more physical--and realistic--confrontation

I'm lost again, Sean. Who is Marvin Johnson again?

Edit: Just found his WC testimony. Detective Marvin Johnson, DPD, Homicide and Robbery

Edited November 18, 2013 by Robert Prudhomme

[Sean Murphy]

Robert,

Agree, but even if it had been the wrong building... Baker was simultaneously exceedingly heroic and incredibly inept. Is there any precedent for hunting a sniper armed with a rifle by charging into a building armed with a .38 (I assume a .38)? I think if he had actually found what he was looking for he would have been the first dead cop that day. I could see two cops moving methodically, covering each other and being very wary of any "glimpse" of someone moving around. What happened to "come out with your hands up" when he glimpsed Oswald through the door?

Marvin Johnson's account of what Baker told him as he gave his affidavit within hours of the assassination is suggestive of a more physical--and realistic--confrontation

I'm lost again, Sean. Who is Marvin Johnson again?

Robert, he's the DPD detective who took Baker's affidavit at City Hall that day.

[Robert Prudhomme]

Thanks, Sean. I should have done a little searching before I asked.

[Thomas Graves]

Hi Greg,

You are correct. Coke bottles were "deposit" bottles back in 1963 (and long after).

One of the lunchroom photos shows a wooden crate on the floor near the Coke machine just about full of empties.

And regarding Chris's question about 2 cokes, in an earlier post, I mentioned that many Coke machines were still dispensing the 6.5 ounce bottles in 1963. Two of those gives you about the same amount of product as one twelve ounce can does today.

Richard, Greg,

There was a Dr. Pepper machine located right by the rear stairs, right beside which was a crate for Pepper and Coca Cola empties. Apparently one did not have to go back up to the second floor to dispose of an empty Coca Cola bottle that had earlier been dispensed from the second-floor lunchroom.

I've speculated that the "storage room on the first floor"/ "small storage room on the ground floor" where Ochus Campbell is quoted as locating on 11/22 a post-shooting Oswald sighting is the small storage room just off the front lobby.

However it's also worth keeping in mind the possibility that Campbell was talking about the small alcove in the photo above.

Did Oswald, after the Baker-Truly encounter at the front entrance, go to the rear of the first floor and dispose of his coke bottle there before leaving the building?

**

Interesting in this light that two Canadian journalists visited Dallas a few days after the assassination and were given to understand by a member or members of DPD that Oswald had been seen "sulking around" the first floor just after the shooting.

From the Toronto Daily Star 11/28/63 (click to enlarge):

[emphasis added by T. Graves]

Sean,

I can't find this "alcove" on the first floor plan.

It's supposed to be in the northwest corner by the stairway, right?

--Tommy

PS I found it!

In the Warren Commission photo you posted above entitled "Northwest Corner, First Floor," it looks like the infamous elevator shafts, up which Truly claimed to have looked and seen both elevators stuck on the fifth floor, are enclosed by the wall that juts out toward the viewer on the right side of the photo. Notice the closed "overhead door" that's barely visible between the infamous "up" stairs (which Baker and Truly claimed to have taken to the second floor) and the elevator area. This corresponds with the floor plan (which I seem to be unable to post here from the MF site), and the walls of the Dr. Pepper machine "alcove" are shown on the plan, too. The entrance to the stairway going down to the basement is partially visible at the far left edge of the photo.

The so-called "Domino Room" was on the other side of the room in the northeast corner.

Now if I could just find a good photo of that darn (free) "pay telephone" on the first floor for Bill Kelley. LOL

Edited November 18, 2013 by Thomas Graves

[Neville Gully]

The phone is next to the pillar. This photo was incorrectly labelled as Truly's office. It is in fact looking from the area of the freight elevators to the south east. Truly's office is in the background.

Eddie Piper's statement mentioning Oswald's short lunchtime calls.

http://jfk.ci.dallas.tx.us/34/3420-001.gif

Edited November 18, 2013 by Neville Gully

[Richard Hocking]

With the 50th anniversary just a few days away, there should be numerous forum members in Dallas.

I have a request for anyone who will be visiting the TSBD (Sixth Floor Museum), and would consider taking a few moments to help out (will require a tape measure):

I am still looking to verify three measurements in the TSBD Entrance.

They are:

1. step riser height of the top step

2. porch floor to ceiling height

3. depth of the porch in front of the door (distance from door to first step)

Would be very grateful to any samaritan willing to assist.

Edit: Alternately (if you do not have a tape measure handy), have someone take a picture of yourself standing in the top NW corner of the entrance (backed into the corner). That combined with your height would be a decent ballpark measurement.

Edited November 19, 2013 by Richard Hocking

[Richard Hocking]

...

I believe this document confirms that Jack Dougherty took the rear stairs down from the fifth floor, not the west elevator.

How was the massive problem of the west elevator's movements, as flagged in this memorandum, solved by the WC?

By getting Dougherty to testify--quite falsely--that he was the person responsible for the movements of the west elevator.

The reality, as I have already argued, is that the west elevator was used by Truly and Baker to ascend from the first floor to the fifth floor.

They never went up the rear stairway.

They never set foot on the east elevator on the fifth floor.

While they were ascending the building in the west elevator, the assassin(s) came down in the east elevator.

Sean, as part of this scenario (last line bold-faced above), there is an issue which needs to be addressed. The back walls of each elevator were 3/4 walls, with a wire mesh on the remaining 1/4 to the roof. Both elevators were in a single, open air shaft. There was no barrier between them. This means occupants in one elevator could look into the shaft and see the other elevator. Truly certainly would have observed the descending East elevator passing them as the West elevator was ascending. In fact, it would also be difficult for Baker not to have noticed.

I am not saying this could not have happened, but rather that the narrative needs to be expanded to encompass this information. It would also imply that Truly and Baker omitted a rather important detail from their testimony.

FWIW, there are similar issues to be addressed concerning the elevators movements in the WC version which has the two men going up the stairs.

[Sean Murphy]

...

I believe this document confirms that Jack Dougherty took the rear stairs down from the fifth floor, not the west elevator.

How was the massive problem of the west elevator's movements, as flagged in this memorandum, solved by the WC?

By getting Dougherty to testify--quite falsely--that he was the person responsible for the movements of the west elevator.

The reality, as I have already argued, is that the west elevator was used by Truly and Baker to ascend from the first floor to the fifth floor.

They never went up the rear stairway.

They never set foot on the east elevator on the fifth floor.

While they were ascending the building in the west elevator, the assassin(s) came down in the east elevator.

Sean, as part of this scenario (last line bold-faced above), there is an issue which needs to be addressed. The back walls of each elevator were 3/4 walls, with a wire mesh on the remaining 1/4 to the roof. Both elevators were in a single, open air shaft. There was no barrier between them. This means occupants in one elevator could look into the shaft and see the other elevator. Truly certainly would have observed the descending East elevator passing them as the West elevator was ascending. In fact, it would also be difficult for Baker not to have noticed.

I am not saying this could not have happened, but rather that the narrative needs to be expanded to encompass this information. It would also imply that Truly and Baker omitted a rather important detail from their testimony.

FWIW, there are similar issues to be addressed concerning the elevators movements in the WC version which has the two men going up the stairs.

It's a fair point, Richard.

The short answer is, they may very well have noticed the east elevator moving but did nothing about it.

Just as the story they told the WC has them noticing the west elevator gone by the time they reach the fifth floor--and doing nothing about that.

Had Baker and Truly not been leaned on to rewrite their experience on 11/22 and subsequently, the moving east elevator might very well have featured in their statements.

All the more so if there had been a way of putting Oswald on that elevator.

[Sean Murphy]

Either Prayer Man is Lee Oswald or he is a non-TSBD person.

The first option makes sense:

Oswald, being a TSBD man, emerges from the vestibule to the front steps just as the President is passing the building. At this time everyone else's attention is riveted on the motorcade, so the presence back in the shadows over on the west side of nondescript grunt Oswald goes unremarked.

The second option does not make sense:

A stranger to the building cannot emerge from the first floor vestibule. They must walk up the front steps in full view of everyone already there and, instead of sticking out like a sore thumb like they might be expected to do, have their presence go completely unnoticed and unremembered.

Now why would a total stranger go up the front steps all by their lonesome amidst all these TSBD people?

To get a better view than is obtainable from down on the street?

Well, if that's the reason then isn't it just a teeny weeny bit odd that Prayer Man, as evidenced in Wiegman and Darnell, makes absolutely no effort to keep the Presidential limousine in view as it proceeds down Elm Street?

That Prayer Man is conspicuous precisely by the fact that he has by far the poorest line of sight down Elm Street of anyone in the doorway?

Way to secure yourself a better view, non-Oswaldian Prayer Man!

**

I'm sorry, but the smart money is still on Prayer Man's being Oswald:

Edited November 19, 2013 by Sean Murphy

[Thomas Graves]

Here are Towner and Hughes around the "splices"

Hughes was more WEST than Towner so the angles are off... and we are talking about a single frame versus 6-8 from Towner. Since HUGHES does not continue to where Zapruder starts

this frame may have simply been a coincidence - that it's at exactly the same place is puzzling though.

From the work I did with Chris Davidson, the removal of those TOWNER frames create the correct starting point and ending point for Towner and Zapruder to sync.

Having watched some of Max Holland's LOST BULLET ... I found HICKEY looking at the road just after the limo makes this filmus interuptus turn..

and still believe a shot was fired prior to the Elm Tree.. we also see JFK's impossible head turn at 157...

I alos seem to remember witnesses stating they saw a spark and dust kick up off the ground at that spot as well... just as the limo passed

DJ

Incredibly, David, I have never seen JFK's head turn at z157 pointed out before, or even heard of it, for that matter. I'm a bit confused, though. Does he make a lightning fast snap in both directions, or just one? It's a bit hard to tell from the gif.

How many oddities, and outright contradictions of eyewitnesses, have to be pointed out before it is admitted the Z-toon is a lie?

It's interesting that JFK snaps his head to his right (in response to an audio stimuli?), whereas the SS agent seems to be visually interested in something on the other side of the car.

[edit]

I just found this on the Richard Randolph Carr Spartacus page :

From the Staff Report of the Select Committee on Assassinations (March, 1979)

[...]

110. In an FBI interview on November 24, 1963, Mrs. Virgie Baker (nee Rackley) reported that at the time she heard the first shot, she looked in the direction of the triple underpass and saw what she presumed to be a bullet bouncing off the pavement. Mrs. Baker was located immediately across the street from the depository when she heard the shots. She thought they came from the direction the triple underpass. In the FBI report, no further details or information were given by Mrs. baker about the location or direction of the object she believed to be a bullet.

111. Mrs. Baker testified before the Warren Commission of July 112, 1964. At that time, she stated that the object she believed to be a bullet hit the pavement in the street at the point of the Stemmons Freeway sigh on Elm Street.She said it hit in the middle of the lane on the other side of the street, which would have been the left-hand lane going in the direction of the triple underpass. At first Mrs. Baker said the bullet hit behind the President's car. Then she said she could not remember whether it hit to either side or behind the President's car. Mrs. Baker said she was sure she saw the object hit before she heard the second shot.

112. Committee investigators were unable to locate Mrs. Baker.

113. In a sheriff's department notarized statement dated November 22, 1963, Royce Skelton stated that he also saw a bullet hit the pavement in the left or middle lane, to the rear of the President's car. Skelton gave this account of the sequence of events: We saw the motorcade come around the corner and I heard something which I thought was fireworks. I saw something hit the pavement at the left rear of the car, then the car got in the right hand lane and I heard two more shots. I heard a woman said "Oh no" or something and grab a man inside the car. I then heard another shot and saw the bullet hit the pavement. The pavement was knocked to the south away from the car.

114. In his Warren Commission testimony on April 8, 1964, Skelton said that he saw smoke rise from the pavement when the bullet hit. Skelton said also that the sound of the gunfire came from the area of the President's car. Skelton said he was located on the overpass directly over Elm Street at the time of the motorcade. He said the sound of the shots definitely did not come from where he was. Skelton also offered that the smoke he saw rising from the cement when the bullet hit "spread" in a direction away from the depository; he said the "spray" of flying cement went toward the west. On the photograph designated Skelton exhibit No. 1, Skelton marked where on the street he saw the bullet and in which direction he saw the "spray."

115. Committee investigators were unable to locate Royce Skelton.

Question: Could the phenomena that Mrs. Baker and Mr. Skelton are describing be what Secret Service agent Hickey is looking at in the video clip, above?

Based on a comparison between the full Z-film and the clip, above, and using the blue and yellow cars behind Clint Hill as a "landmark," it looks like Hickey starts looking down around Z-frame 145.

--Tommy

edited and bumped for David Josephs

(perhaps a moderator could move this to a more appropriate thread?)

Edited November 19, 2013 by Thomas Graves

[David Josephs]

Royce Skelton and Mrs Virgie Baker - Got to keep those names in memory as I KNEW there were a couple of people who said something about this...

thanks Tommy... I don't want to hijack this thread so I will make the following comment...

Does "Prayer man" seem a bit LARGE in the middle for Oswald? And I didn't think the sleeves were folded up so high.... the images I've seen all show the sleeves buttoned

And I do have a question... the JACKET OSWALD GRABS AT BECKLEY... since the "M" jacket found was not HARVEY's... what happened to the jacket Roberts sees OSWALD zipping up as he leaves - Unless this too is an "assisted" statement and the man who left 1026 never had a jacket.... If this OTHER jacket was left in Irving - it disappearing at the hands of Marina/Ruth is not so far fetched.

Have we considered the made up stories of Bledsoe, Whaley, McWatters and now Roberts to AID with the incriminating evidence against Oswald? If he did not have on a jacket when he left Roberts... the Tippit witnesses and found Jacket would have nothing to do with the man who came home that afternoon.

DJ

PS - Tommy, the Hickey gif starts right around 145 as you say

Edited November 19, 2013 by David Josephs

[Thomas Graves]

Either Prayer Man is Lee Oswald or he is a non-TSBD person.

The first option makes sense:

Oswald, being a TSBD man, emerges from the vestibule to the front steps just as the President is passing the building. At this time everyone else's attention is riveted on the motorcade, so the presence back in the shadows over on the west side of nondescript grunt Oswald goes unremarked.

The second option does not make sense:

A stranger to the building cannot emerge from the first floor vestibule. They must walk up the front steps in full view of everyone already there and, instead of sticking out like a sore thumb like they might be expected to do, have their presence go completely unnoticed and unremembered.

Now why would a total stranger go up the front steps all by their lonesome amidst all these TSBD people?

To get a better view than is obtainable from down on the street?

Well, if that's the reason then isn't it just a teeny weeny bit odd that Prayer Man, as evidenced in Wiegman and Darnell, makes absolutely no effort to keep the Presidential limousine in view as it proceeds down Elm Street?

That Prayer Man is conspicuous precisely by the fact that he has by far the poorest line of sight down Elm Street of anyone in the doorway?

Way to secure yourself a better view, non-Oswaldian Prayer Man!

**

I'm sorry, but the smart money is still on Prayer Man's being Oswald:

Sean,

Excellent point.

As is your point in your earlier post that Baker and Truly may have been prevailed upon after-the-fact to not have noticed (or put another way: to forget) the east elevator's simultaneously coming down as they were going up in the other one. ( I need to do some more "research" in order to figure out why you say that B & T took the elevator up to the fifth floor. Didn't Baker say in his same-day affidavit that he had encountered a man on the third or fourth floor who was wearing a brown jacket? ) [Never mind-- I just re-read your post and realized that you didn't say that!]

Getting back to this post, I agree that the possibility that Prayer Man was just someone from the crowd who wanted to get a better view of the motorcade is obviated by the fact that Prayer Man apparently did not change his position in an attempt to see what was going on with the President after the shots rang out.

It's also interesting that Oswald himself did nothing to see what was happening down Elm Street, if, indeed, he was Prayer Man.

I wonder why not?

Keep up the good work,

--Tommy

Edited November 19, 2013 by Thomas Graves

[Chris Newton]

Tommy & Sean,

Getting back to this post, I agree that the possibility that Prayer Man was just someone from the crowd who wanted to get a better view of the motorcade is obviated by the fact that Prayer Man apparently did not change his position in an attempt to see what was going on with the President after the shots rang out.

It's also interesting that Oswald himself did nothing to see what was happening down Elm Street, if, indeed, he was Prayer Man.

You guys are confusing me. Are you saying that "Prayer Man" and the Altgens 6 "Oswald / Lovelady Man" are mutually exclusive? Isn't the Altgens guy definitely leaning out to get a better view of the Limo after it passed the TSBD entrance?

Edited November 20, 2013 by Chris Newton

[Sean Murphy]

You guys are confusing me. Are you saying that "Prayer Man" and the Altgens 6 "Oswald / Lovelady Man" are mutually exclusive? Isn't the Altgens guy definitely leaning out to get a better view of the Limo after it passed the TSBD entrance?

Chris, the guy in Altgens is Billy Lovelady.

Oswald cannot be seen in Altgens, for he is standing slightly behind and to the right of Lovelady--as shown in the Wiegman film.

The Altgens Doorman issue has been one big decades-long distraction.

It did however throw the FBI into a panic on the evening of the assassination.

Oswald in custody was putting himself "out front" at the time of the shooting, and the presence of an Oswald-resembling man on the steps in Altgens seemed to be bearing him out.

So they made a beeline to Billy Lovelady's home and, in Lovelady's own words, gave a sigh of relief when he told them it was him.

Edited November 20, 2013 by Sean Murphy

[Bjørn Gjerde]

Maybe Oswald’ secret assignment that day was to keep a close watch on some other TSBD employee, perhaps Truly and/or Cambell (and they knew it and acted accordingly), as the parade passed by the building. That would place him behind most of the others on the front steps, so they wouldn’t notice. Moreover, placing Oswald on the front steps would make it appear that Oswald was about to leave the building soon after the shooting. However, this plan became somewhat disrupted by the fact that more than one shot had to be fired, so that people panicked and immediately rushed into the building, and particularly by the totally unexpected immediate rush into TSBD by officer Baker. Then the original plan concerning when and where Oswald was first spotted had to be revised and adapted to the new set of facts, and the lunchroom story evolved.

Bjørn Gjerde