When did the Coke Appear?

[Sandy Larsen]

9 hours ago, David Von Pein said:

When we look at all of the 1964 statements by Lovelady and Shelley that you, yourself, quoted in an earlier post, we can easily see that those statements themselves are all over the place as far as how many minutes the two men took to get back inside the TSBD. In their '64 statements, we find ALL of these various estimates....

"...approximately five minutes..."

"...about three minutes..."

"...about ten minutes later..."

"...about three or four minutes after the shots..."

"...we...watched them searching for a while..."

[End Quotes.]

They were all over the map in their estimates, ranging from "about three minutes" all the way up to "about ten minutes".

 

Yeah, they were all over the map changing not only their times but where they went and in what order! You know, as their stories evolved. It wasn't till their WC testimonies that their stories gelled into one.

 

9 hours ago, David Von Pein said:

So why you think both men changed their statements to an exact figure of "three minutes" is a mystery to me, because they did no such thing.

 

Yes they did... in their Warren Commission testimonies they both said three minutes.  (I think one of them said "three or four minutes.")

 

[Sandy Larsen]

9 hours ago, David Von Pein said:

Go tell that to your pal Sean Murphy....

"Sandra Styles...claimed she told [Barry] Ernest what she was now telling me: that she and Victoria Adams did *not* go
to the rear stairs anything close to as quickly as Victoria had claimed." -- Sean Murphy; January 27, 2011

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/alt.assassination.jfk/W7McW4aaYMc/rmbO883N__wJ

 

That's hearsay David, and it put Sean Murphy in an embarrassing position. (Ironically Sean Murphy was, I believe, the originator of the "second floor encounter didn't occur" thesis.) Here is what what Sean Murphy posted later about what Sandra Styles told him:

 

On 4/29/11 Sean Murphy wrote:

A couple of years back, I made contact with Sandra Styles. She told me
that she felt Victoria Adams had significantly exaggerated the speed
with which the pair descended from the fourth to the first floor after
the shooting.
In the light of Barry Ernest's new book 'The Girl on the Stairs', I
decided to contact Sandra once again to discuss this matter. She has
some rather interesting things to say.
Rather than summarise them (and risk putting words in Sandra's mouth),
I shall simply offer the relevant text from Sandra's own emails. In a
number of places I've asterisked key details.
Before doing so, however, I would like to apologise to Barry Ernest
for having on a previous occasion called his integrity as a researcher
into question. The gap between what Sandra has told me and what Barry
says she told him is not at all as large as I had alleged. My
apologies, Barry.

Sean Murphy

***

In my first email I asked Sandra to respond to the following words
from Barry (as posted on a research forum), who was himself responding
to what Sandra had told me a couple of years back:

'When I interviewed Sandra Styles in 2002, she said absolutely nothing
of the kind to me. What she did say was, she couldn't be sure exactly
how quickly she left the window and went down the stairs, but she
recalled she did so "rather quickly," in her words, and "when Vicki
did," again in her words. Why she would say otherwise now, especially
when she said what she did then and added, "Vicki was the more
observant one," is beyond me.'

Here was Sandra's response:

'First of all, I do not recall that Barry put much emphasis on the
timing or that we spent time discussing that aspect.  I stand by what
I said to you.  *At the time, I first thought we went downstairs
quickly; but in thinking about it further, I came to the conclusion
that it was not immediately.  I told an interviewer (FBI?  not sure)
that when we got downstairs, the police were there so I assumed we
went down quickly; however, the interviewer told me that it took the
police 15-20 minutes to get to the Depository, so I accepted that we
must have taken longer to get downstairs than I first thought.* I went
with what Victoria said because she spoke with such certainty; since I
couldn't say for sure, I didn't argue with her.  *She also told office
workers that on the way down, she noticed the freight elevator cables
were moving.*  I'm not sure what that would prove; but since I did not
notice that, that is what I meant when I said she was more observant.
Barry was working closely with her, and I didn't want to get into it
with her when I couldn't prove it either way.

Barry's main discussion with me concerned the outlay of the office:
the exact location of the back stairs in relation to the other
elevator, which direction the building faced, etc.  Since I didn't
have scanning capabilities, I had to describe all that verbally in
several emails.  We were all interviewed several times by different
entities over the next year.  I always said the the same thing to each
one:  that I had nothing of importance to help their investigation.
Their concern was whether I knew Oswald, had ever seen him, etc.  As
to the timing of the whole thing, I wasn't sure then and can't say for
certain now.  I only go by what seems reasonable. I can only report my
personal recollections the best I can.  I was easily led back then,
lol.  *If she said we went down immediately, I thought that must be
true.  If the interviewer said that was not possible due to the amount
of time it took the police to get over there, I re-thought it and
accepted HIS assessment.* The truth may lie somewhere in between.
What is logical is that, in all the pandemonium, it is unlikely that
we would hear shots and head for the back stairs!'

***

In my reply, I put two points to Sandra:

1) The authorities' claim that it took 15-20 minutes for police to get
to the Depository was way off.
2) Barry had come across the so-called Stroud document, in which
Dorothy Ann Garner is reported to have told authorities she saw Baker
and Truly come up onto the fourth floor AFTER Adams and Styles had
left it.

Sandra's response:

'Hmmmmmmm, points to ponder.  At this point, I'm wondering whether I
was even there!  hahaha
1.  My initial sense was that we went down soon after, and the 15-20
minute delay given by the investigator DID seem a bit long, but I took
his word for it.  We did linger at the window a bit trying to sort it
out, and I'm sure it was Vicki's idea to go find out what was going
on; therefore we wouldn't have waited a long time to make the decision
to  go downstairs.  I am certain that we went to the public elevator
first, but may not have waited long there either.  My hesitancy on the
timing in all the interviews probably accounts for why they did not
pursue further information from me.  As I told everyone who ever
asked, I had no real sense of that aspect of the investigation.
Still, logic tells me it had to take a couple of minutes at least for
things to sink in and to make the decision to go.  Therefore, *I'll
give up a few of those minutes but still don't remember it's being a
matter of a few seconds.  However, I yield to wiser heads if the
evidence is there.*

2.  I know nothing of Dorothy Garner's part.  I don't know where she
was at the time.  Her office was near the front elevator, but she
could have been in the lunch area on the other side near the back
stairs.  It seems odd to me that if the two men ran up the back stairs
a minute or so after the shooting, we did not encounter them on our
way down even if we had left immediately and even more strange that
Mrs. Garner would have been in a position to see them coming up.  It
all goes back to the fact that I could be totally off on my
calculations, and anything is possible.  I cannot swear in any venue
that what I thought was actually true.  I still see it all in my
mind's eye and have not changed my opinion about what we did and when,
but I could be mistaken about the number of minutes.  I suppose I
could blame the fact that I am 71 and let it go at that!!  No, that
would be too easy.'

***

In my reply, I asked Sandra a number of follow-up questions:

a) Could she recall what her initial time estimate for their going to
the stairs was - i.e. before she was told that the police didn't get
to the Depository for 15-20 minutes?
Her answer: 'Not less than a minute, I thought more like a couple.  I
do realize that time takes on feet of its own in a situation like a
shooting or other catastrophe, and witnesses have different takes on
it.  I am glad to have the 15-minute thing put to rest; even then it
didn't make sense that it would take the DPD that long to cross the
street.'

Could she describe the layout of the fourth floor?
Her answer: 'Here is the layout of the office:  Mr. Bergen's office
was in the SE corner and opened into the reception area, as did the
publlic elevator and Dorothy's office.  Directly across from Dorothy's
office was a small conference room.  Behind the reception area were
the desks of the Customer Service Reps (I was one of those) and
Records (Elsie's job).  Then there were the stacks where free teacher
aids and supplies were kept.  On the other side of the stacks was the
break/lunch area (not a separate enclosed room), which had a table,
coffeepot and a refrigerator (no drink machine).  It was all open; the
only doors were in the bosses' offices, the conference room, and the
back.  The elevator opened directly into the reception area.  The door
in the NW corner of the breakroom led to the stairs/freight elevator/
storage area.'

c) Could she give any more detail on Victoria's observation about the
elevator cables moving?
Her answer: 'I don't remember any of that.  She didn't mention it to
me on the way down or up.  As I recall, she only mentioned it later
offhandedly, but I don't recall the circumstances as to how or exactly
when it came up in conversation.'

***

 

 

[Sandy Larsen]

Just now, Sandy Larsen said:

I would like to apologise to Barry Ernest
for having on a previous occasion called his integrity as a researcher
into question. The gap between what Sandra has told me and what Barry
says she told him is not at all as large as I had alleged. My
apologies, Barry.

 

My take on what Sandra Styles says is that she is not too sure of her own sense of timing.

But regardless, my research has been on others... Calvery, Lovelady, Shelley, Baker, and Frazier. My analysis of their testimonies alone and what we see in the Darnell film leads me to conclude that the second floor encounter did not occur. That conclusion does not depend on the claims of Victoria Adams'. What she claims, however, does help in explaining the need for the second-floor deception.

BTW, I believe that Sandra Styles did corroborate Victoria Adams' claim that they didn't see Lovelady and Shelley when they reached the first floor. That is the part that corroborates my research, not their timing.

 

[Sandy Larsen]

10 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

Sandy,

That is some really good work and it shows just how intent the WC was to discredit Victoria Adams.

 

Thanks Jim.

 

10 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

If you read RH--no need to, and you will be a  worse person if you do--whenever VB admitted a problem in the evidence in text of the book, he usually did one of three things:

Um, no, I won't be reading Rewriting History anytime soon. 

But you make good points about Bugsy's tactics.

 

[James DiEugenio]

Too bad Sandy, I was going to send you a copy for Xmas.

[Ron Bulman]

Hi Sandy.  I've never read the part about Sandra saying they went to the public (front) elevator first.  "but may not have waited there long either."   Was Vicki impatient or was it not working, I. E. the power may have been off as mentioned by others?  They then went to the back stairs where Vicki noticed the freight elevator cables moving.  I've wondered for years how the sixth floor shooter or team got away.  If the power was off during the shooting as the first floor receptionist said, when did it come back on?  Was it shut off again by the time Truly may have looked up the shaft and saw them stuck on the Fifth floor?  Or could one or both have been disabled by someone leaving the gate up?  Maybe one by someone who rode one back up then was seen by Baker on the fourth floor?  I guess no one ever timed how long it took for one of the freight elevators to descend from the 6th floor to the first.  Or maybe back up to the fifth.  Per Truly it was working again by the time he and Baker ran up the stairs (pausing on the 4th to "call a man back" per Baker") to the 5th floor and took it to the top floor.  Electricity off, on, off, on?  Who ever shot from the 6th floor got away somehow.  Between the noise of the narrow wooden stairs and going through two doors on each floor I've questioned that story for years.  I should re read 'Girl on the Stairs" for starters.  

[David Von Pein]

22 hours ago, Sandy Larsen said:

Shelley and Lovelady didn't specify in their very first 11/22/63 statements how quickly they left the steps. But they did get more specific in their very next statements (Lovelady's being on the very same day, 11/22/63):

• Shelley:  "IMMEDIATELY following the shooting, Billy N. Lovelady and I accompanied some uniformed police officers to the railroad yard..."
• Lovelady (as recorded by the FBI):  "....IMMEDIATELY after hearing the shots {Lovelady] and Shelley started running towards the presidential ca...."

I think that most people would use the word "immediately" for something that happened within a few seconds.... and certainly nowhere near as long as three minutes.

But for skeptical you, I will prove that they did indeed leave the steps at pretty much zero seconds.

The Darnell frame showing Gloria Calvery talking to Lovelady at the TSBD steps has been timed to be about 25 to 30 seconds after the shooting. (Officer Baker is running across the street in that frame, BTW.) According to Shelley's first-day statement, after the shooting he ran across Elm Street extension to the corner concrete island, bumped into Gloria Calvery, then ran back and went inside to call his wife. Suppose he trotted across the street and arrived at the island in 7 seconds. He met Gloria there and surely exchange a few words, let's say about 5 seconds worth. He then trotted back and went inside. Gloria, not having an athletic build, took longer to cross back over. Lets say 12 seconds. By the time we see her in Darnell she has ascended some steps and is already conversing with Lovelady. Let's add 2 seconds for that. The amount of time elapsed from when Shelley left the steps to when we see Gloria talking to Lovelady is 7 + 5 + 12 + 2 = 26 seconds.

This means that Shelley left the steps between 0 and 4 seconds after the shooting.

It was not until their WC testimony that they inflated that to 3 minutes. And made other changes.

 

But the time they left the steps to go to the concrete island doesn't really help your argument at all. You don't think it was possible for 3 measly minutes to have elapsed between the time they left the Depository steps until the time they re-entered the building? You can't be serious! Because THAT'S the key "timing" issue here---the amount of time it took Shelley and Lovelady to RE-ENTER THE BUILDING, not merely the amount of time it took the two men to START their journey to the concrete island and then to the railroad yards. And you don't DENY that they DID travel to both of those locations, correct? So how could it have taken much LESS than three minutes, Sandy? Or do you think they both just LIED about going to those locations right after shooting? Seems to me as if 3 minutes would be a minumum amount of time to do what Lovelady and Shelley always said they did. Why would you disagree with that?

And once again --- How did you CONFIRM without doubt that the lady we see in the Darnell Film is Gloria C.? You don't allow for even the POSSIBILITY that it could be someone else?

Edited December 26, 2017 by David Von Pein

[David Von Pein]

Also....

The video Jim DiEugenio posted featuring Sandra Styles does NOTHING to contradict or undermine the quote I posted earlier from Sean Murphy. And Sandy Larsen's post containing additional correspondence between Murphy and Styles only tends to buttress the notion that Sandra thinks she and Adams started down the stairs LATER than what Vickie Adams has claimed, mainly due to this comment from Styles:

"I only go by what seems reasonable. I can only report my personal recollections the best I can. I was easily led back then, lol. If she [Vickie Adams] said we went down immediately, I thought that must be true. If the interviewer said that was not possible due to the amount of time it took the police to get over there, I re-thought it and accepted HIS assessment. The truth may lie somewhere in between. What is logical is that, in all the pandemonium, it is unlikely that we would hear shots and head for the back stairs!" -- Sandra Styles [DVP's emphasis]

 

Edited December 26, 2017 by David Von Pein

[Ron Bulman]

1 hour ago, Ron Bulman said:

Hi Sandy.  I've never read the part about Sandra saying they went to the public (front) elevator first.  "but may not have waited there long either."   Was Vicki impatient or was it not working, I. E. the power may have been off as mentioned by others?  They then went to the back stairs where Vicki noticed the freight elevator cables moving.  I've wondered for years how the sixth floor shooter or team got away.  If the power was off during the shooting as the first floor receptionist said, when did it come back on?  Was it shut off again by the time Truly may have looked up the shaft and saw them stuck on the Fifth floor?  Or could one or both have been disabled by someone leaving the gate up?  Maybe one by someone who rode one back up then was seen by Baker on the fourth floor?  I guess no one ever timed how long it took for one of the freight elevators to descend from the 6th floor to the first.  Or maybe back up to the fifth.  Per Truly it was working again by the time he and Baker ran up the stairs (pausing on the 4th to "call a man back" per Baker") to the 5th floor and took it to the top floor.  Electricity off, on, off, on?  Who ever shot from the 6th floor got away somehow.  Between the noise of the narrow wooden stairs and going through two doors on each floor I've questioned that story for years.  I should re read 'Girl on the Stairs" for starters.  

I've thought about it many times.  After the last shot, run to the elevator, toss the gun in the pre determined spot, 20-30 seconds?  Spotter with radio says '"on".  Down to first floor, out the back door...?

[James DiEugenio]

This is what Styles says:

In her first  televised interview, Styles says that  they watched the car turn onto Elm Street, and after the fusillade, she thought the car stopped and Jackie was leaning over and twisting around in the seat.

At that point Adams told her, let us go down and see what happened.

 

Pretty plain and simple if you ask me.  No other person translating for her as Murphy did.  But then, DVP even had to censor and cherry pick that.

Edited December 26, 2017 by James DiEugenio

[Sandy Larsen]

6 hours ago, Ron Bulman said:

Hi Sandy.  I've never read the part about Sandra saying they went to the public (front) elevator first.  "but may not have waited there long either."   Was Vicki impatient or was it not working....

Hi Ron,

I haven't studied much about Sandra Styles and Victoria Adams, or the goings on inside the building. What I have studied in great detail is what happened with Lovelady, Shelley, and Baker right after the shots. And how the Oswald interrogation relates to that. Sorry I can't be of any help.

 

[Sandy Larsen]

6 hours ago, David Von Pein said:

On 12/25/2017 at 12:02 AM, Sandy Larsen said:

This means that Shelley left the steps between 0 and 4 seconds after the shooting.

It was not until their WC testimony that they inflated that to 3 minutes. And made other changes.

 

But the time they left the steps to go to the concrete island doesn't really help your argument at all. You don't think it was possible for 3 measly minutes to have elapsed between the time they left the Depository steps until the time they re-entered the building?

Sure it is possible that Shelley and Lovelady waited three minutes somewhere before entering the building. But if that is really what happened, why did they keep changing their stories? And why did they ultimately lie about it?

Given the fact that finally, in the end, their stories matched, right down to the point that they BOTH said they waited on the steps for THREE MINUTES before Gloria Calvery arrived (WHEN IN FACT SHELLEY LEFT THE STEPS IMMEDIATELY AND MET GLORIA ELSEWHERE) tells me that their WC testimony was contrived. By then the truth no longer mattered.

In addition, it wasn't till 1964 that they added the part about entering the west end of the building. And it's a convenient thing that they did, so that Victoria Adams could have seen them... notably not right away but after several minutes. When in fact Victoria Adams didn't see them at all. (Which incidentally means her testimony was change.) I mean, David, it shouldn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what really happened.

But hey, maybe I am wrong. Maybe it does take a person with certain skills to figure things like this out. I have spent most of my life as a troubleshooter. I began repairing televisions when I was in 8th grade. That wasn't like it is today where a repairman blindly slides in replacement circuit boards until the thing is working again. We had to use oscilloscopes and other diagnostic tools, trace signals, measure voltages and currents, and use deductive reasoning to narrow down the cause of the failure. Troubleshooting is much like detective work. And I happen to have a strong aptitude for it.

But I'm not certain at all that that is the reason I happen to have figured this out. In your case you can't figure it out clearly because you don't want to know anything other than what the WC concluded, and you'll close a blind eye to anything that challenges it.

 

[Sandy Larsen]

7 hours ago, David Von Pein said:

How did you CONFIRM without doubt that the lady we see in the Darnell Film is Gloria C.? You don't allow for even the POSSIBILITY that it could be someone else?

 

Tommy Graves and I had a number of threads going on at the same time regarding this, last summer I think. After drawing our conclusions, we were in the process of formalizing some presentations that people could read without having to read all our threads to see how we came to our conclusions. Unfortunately Photobucket crapped out and other things happened to stopped us in our tracks. But at least before Photobucket quit displaying graphics, others could follow our work.

This is how it worked out...

First Tommy proved that three of the women spectators in the Z-film had been misidentified by Robin Unger and someone else (whose name I forget). This made the status of three women spectators on the north side of Elm Street UNIDENTIFIED. We had already known that Gloria Calvery was misidentified, because she had fair skin and the woman marked with her name had tan skin. Of the three newly unidentified woman, one looked like she could be Gloria Calvery... because of her chubby body. (We had multiple photos of Calvery.) In fact there was no other candidate who was chubby in her declared vicinity, so we figured that that woman must be her.

Tommy noted that Gloria Calvery and the women she was standing with all were wearing scarves. According to the affidavits, three of these women were friends. This scarf thing will become important later.

In the mean time we had discovered Billy Lovelady standing on the TSBD steps in the Darnell frame, which I posted above. (This frame was taken during the time Officer Baker was running across the road).

At that time I noticed a couple of women wearing scarves standing with Lovelady on the steps. I recalled Tommy's remark about Gloria Calvery and her pals in the Z-film all wearing scarves. I noticed that one of the gals wearing scarves on the steps was wearing ALL WHITE. And that the same was true of one of the Z-film spectators wearing scarves. Quite possibly a match! Plus it looked like the other one standing on the steps could be Gloria Calvery herself, because of her dark blouse and dark scarf.

I began a large project to see if we could find any other women among the spectators with scarves whose clothing matched those of Gloria Calvery and our Woman in White. We found none. This means that our Woman in White was a positive match! But not positive about Gloria Calvery because we couldn't see her skirt in the Darnell frame.

The very last thing is that Tommy found a frame in Darnell that exposed he skirt. And Guess what? That's right... same skirt color as Calvery's! (I found the same thing independently, but Tommy posted first.)

And so we had use photographic evidence to positively identify Lovelady and Gloria Calvery on the steps. We then went further, noting that Calvery and Lovelady were actually talking to one another. Lovelady bent down once so he could hear her. Our Woman in White trying to pull Gloria away from the conversation as she continues climbing the steps.

There can be no doubt in what we found.

And isn't it amazing how what we found fits in like a glove with everybody's early statements? But not so much with their 1964 statements and WC testimonies.

 

[Sandy Larsen]

8 hours ago, David Von Pein said:

Also....

The video Jim DiEugenio posted featuring Sandra Styles does NOTHING to contradict or undermine the quote I posted earlier from Sean Murphy. And Sandy Larsen's post containing additional correspondence between Murphy and Styles only tends to buttress the notion that Sandra thinks she and Adams started down the stairs LATER than what Vickie Adams has claimed, mainly due to this comment from Styles:

"I only go by what seems reasonable. I can only report my personal recollections the best I can. I was easily led back then, lol. If she [Vickie Adams] said we went down immediately, I thought that must be true. If the interviewer said that was not possible due to the amount of time it took the police to get over there, I re-thought it and accepted HIS assessment. The truth may lie somewhere in between. What is logical is that, in all the pandemonium, it is unlikely that we would hear shots and head for the back stairs!" -- Sandra Styles [DVP's emphasis]

 

 

Sandra Styles also wrote:

At the time, I first thought we went downstairs quickly....

....I assumed we went down quickly....

....I went with what Victoria said because she spoke with such certainty; since I couldn't say for sure, I didn't argue with her. ....

....My initial sense was that we went down soon after....

....We did linger at the window a bit trying to sort it out, and I'm sure it was Vicki's idea to go find out what was going on; therefore we wouldn't have waited a long time to make the decision to go downstairs. ....

....My hesitancy on the timing in all the interviews probably accounts for why they did not pursue further information from me.  As I told everyone who ever asked, I had no real sense of that aspect of the investigation. ....

 

Also worth noting.... the question is not only whether Victoria Adams and Sandra Styles could have heard Oswald coming down the stairs, but also whether they could have heard Truly and Baker going up the stairs! So even if they hesitated for a while before descending the stairs, they still should have seen or heard Truly and Baker go up. Which they didn't.

 

 

 

[Sandy Larsen]

3 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

This is what Styles says:

In her first  televised interview, Styles says that  they watched the car turn onto Elm Street, and after the fusillade, she thought the car stopped and Jackie was leaning over and twisting around in the seat.

At that point Adams told her, let us go down and see what happened.

 

Pretty plain and simple if you ask me.  No other person translating for her as Murphy did.  But then, DVP even had to censor and cherry pick that.

 

The only reason Sandra Styles CHANGED HER MIND and decided that she and Victoria Adams waited a while before coming down the steps is because:

1. She was under the impression that police were already in the building by the time they exited the stairwell on the first floor.
2. Someone told her it took 15 or 20 minutes for the police to arrive.

Therefore, she and Victoria had to have waited 15 minutes before descending the steps.

So Sandra changed her mind from the delay being several seconds to it being15 minutes. Clearly timing isn't one of her fortes.

My guess is that Sandra didn't really see police when they first arrived on the first floor. They arrived later and somehow she later mis-remembered.