Pat Speer

I think he said he found the bullet on top of the seat. This isn't actually news. He's been saying this for a decade. What is new is that he now says he took the bullet inside and put it on JFK's stretcher. There are problems with this. But you never know. Perhaps Jackie saw the bullet laying on the floor of the limo and put it on top of the seat as Clint Hill was climbing out of the limo. Perhaps Landis then brought it inside Trauma Room One, only to have someone else (perhaps even a nurse) take it outside and put it on what this person thought had been Connally's stretcher. Perhaps this person was worried Jackie would go insane if she saw the bullet there in the room. Or perhaps this person thought of keeping it as a souvenir but then thought better of it. Who knows?

A couple of points. 1. Yes, Connally was corrupt. He was exposed as such in the 70's, when a former LBJ assistant turned lobbyist (Jake Jacobsen) testified as to his taking bribes from milk producers. 2. Perhaps "Nick" was simply "Frank". Memories slide over the years. A one syllable name with a k sound at the end could easily be interchanged.

Oh my. That's nonsense. As you can see, Mantik has placed the Harper fragment, which everyone agrees was missing at the autopsy, in the center of the back of the head. Well, how many witnesses--Parkland or Bethesda--said they saw a gaping wound directly in the middle like that, stretching well onto the left side of the occipital bone? This problem becomes more apparent when Mantik tries to match it up with the mystery photo. In order to have the large defect stretch to the left side, he has the presumed bullet hole on the left side. Hogwash.

I recently had my laptop--a top of the line Apple product--make a short sizzling sound and go black. My wife--a tekkie--is convinced my hard-drive died and that it's toast. Fortunately, I had a back-up drive from a few months back. So I only lost the last few months of downloads and documents. But if I hadn't had that back-up drive, and much of my stuff online or on the cloud, it would have been gone forever. It happens.

To be clear, I don't think Horne was pulling a con. Just desperately flailing. He was not in attendance at the conference, nor at the break-away session with 20 or so of us in a room. His source was Mantik. As I recall, Jenkins said he wasn't sure the photos were legit, and Mantik told this to Horne, who turned around and rushed out an article/blog post claiming Jenkins's statements supported his own theories. Well, this was nonsense seeing as Jenkins had specified that the back of the head was not blown out and that the body was not altered at Bethesda.

FWIW, I saw Jenkins speak at a couple of conferences, and spoke to him in person on two occasions. He was consistent from day one that NO body alteration occurred prior to the start of the autopsy. He was clear that this did not happen, and when I offered that maybe it had been done in another room he corrected me and pointed out that there was no other room in which it could have occurred. He said the ONLY way it could have occurred was if it occurred prior to the body's arrival at Bethesda, and by someone other than Humes. Well, this sinks Horne's boat. I was surprised for that matter when Horne wrote an article making out that Jenkins' statements supported that the back of the head was blown out and that Humes performed surgery to the head before the beginning of the autopsy. This was bizarre. Jenkins had told myself and others, including the source for Horne's article, the exact opposite of what Horne claimed he'd said. .

That's the point I've been trying to make for what seems like forever. There was no bullet track from the EOP entrance to the presumed exit. There was missing brain along the top of the right cerebrum, and there was massive tears in the lower brain. This is proof--scientific proof---that the bullet creating this wound impacted at the top of the head. But it's worse than that. When I did a deep dive into brain injuries I realized that a number of the articles about impact wounds to the top of the head were written by Fisher and Lindenburg. So it would appear that members of the Clark Panel and Rocky panel were well aware that the evidence pointed to an impact at the top of the head. It seems probable, moreover, that this was one of the reasons why Fisher moved the entrance up towards the top of the head. It just made no sense for a bullet to enter where the autopsy doctors saw an entrance wound and exit where the autopsy doctors saw a large wound which they took to be an exit, (but which Dr. Clark in Dallas thought was a tangential wound). The trajectory made no sense and the brain injuries made no sense. So Fisher had to make a choice...tell Ramsey Clark that Thompson and the CTs were right about there having been two headshots OR conclude the autopsy doctors and participants were wrong about their having seen a bullet entrance low on the back of the head. Being the suck-up that he was he did the latter.

LOL. I was speaking on the actions of others, not myself. The Oswald-did-it all by hisself solution to the Kennedy assassination didn't pass many a person's smell test. So they went looking for proof of conspiracy. Aha! Some witnesses rant to the knoll! Aha! Some people saw smoke on the knoll! Aha! Some of the Parkland witnesses thought the large head wound was on the back of the head! This then led to an ongoing effort to prove a shot came from the knoll. I saw both the problems with the evidence and the problems with this approach (which had led to all too-many CTs denouncing the witnesses upon whom their claims had been built). I spent years full-time reading and studying the statements and testimony regarding the shooting scenario and medical evidence related to the JFK assassination, as others had done, but added into this mix dozens of forensics books and hundreds of forensics articles. And I came away with a number of realizations--many if not most unexpected and previously unexplored. The witness statements regarding the shooting strongly suggest... 1. The last two shots were fired closely together around the time of the head shot. (This is something many, including members of the Warren Commission, had noticed.) 2. The first shot hit Kennedy. While this was the scenario pushed in the aftermath of the shooting, it had fallen out of favor over the years with both LNs and CTs. LNs wanted the first shot to miss so they could pretend a single-assassin had more time to fire his shots, while CTs wanted the first shot to miss so they could claim there were more shots than could be fired by a single-assassin, seeing as there were two shots fired around the time of the head shot, and separate shots hit Kennedy and Connally. (This conclusion was largely expected, as I'd read articles by Barb Junk and Doug DeSalles showing this to be likely.) 3. The last shot missed. By following Tink Thompson's lead and sorting the witness statements by their location at the time of the shooting, it became clear that a large proportion of the closest witnesses to JFK at the time of the head shot, heard a shot after the fatal shot. (This conclusion was not widely held at the time and was totally unexpected.) As far as the medical evidence, my study of statements and textbooks led me to conclude... 1. The single-bullet theory is highly unlikely. (This conclusion had been reached by many others, but I thought I would find more wiggle room where it was slightly possible. Going in I thought it was let's say 10% possible, but coming out I concluded it was less than 1% possible, which is to say highly unlikely.) 2. A bullet entered the back of JFK's head by his EOP, as claimed in the autopsy protocol. (While this conclusion was not unexpected on my part, it was a minority opinion at the time. LNs clung to the cowlick entrance because they wanted to be in alignment with the HSCA FPP, being so official and all, and CTs gravitated to it because it felt right to side with a civilian panel and dump on the military doctors who'd performed the autopsy. Since that time, 20 years now, the work of myself and a number of others, including the LN John Canal, has led to a reversal of attitude on this subject, whereby most with an interest in the case, LN and CT alike, have come to believe the autopsy doctors were right and the Clark Panel wrong, regarding the location of this wound.) 3. The large exit was at the top of JFK's head, above his right ear. (I went into my study with an open-mind on this issue, but came away quite convinced of the authenticity of the x-rays and photos. Strangely, my concluding as much has led to some claiming I refused to follow the evidence by following the evidence. This has been discussed on many threads and has become quite boring, IMO. In any event, I came away convinced the photos are legit.) 4. I concluded, furthermore, that the large head wound was a tangential wound of both entrance and exit. This conclusion, in turn, supported my conclusion re the authenticity of the photos, x-rays and Z-film. They depict, after all, a separate impact from the impact at the EOP, and suggest more than one shooter. So why would a government intent on convincing the public there was but one shooter, fake evidence that demonstrates the opposite? (This conclusion was totally unexpected. After coming to this conclusion, I expected a large backlash, but instead found wide acceptance among well-known writers on the subject. I suppose this was because it didn't negate what they had already come to believe. They simply ignored the evidence leading me to suspect the bullet came from behind and incorporated the tangential nature of the wound into their own theories of a bullet fired from the knoll. I'm actually fine with this. I believe the realization the evidence accepted by the mainstream is actually clear-cut evidence--forensic proof--for a second head shot and will someday lead some mainstream doctor to write an article on it that will get covered in the press and maybe on TV and maybe even lead to a realignment in the mainstream media, whereby it is acknowledged that the medical evidence was misinterpreted, and that it's possible if not likely there was a second shooter.) In any event, I continued researching the case against Oswald and so on, but the bulk of my research came in a 5-6 year period and led me to a number of unexpected conclusions. So, no, I didn't go looking for proof of conspiracy. I started out by double-checking most of what I'd read, and discovered that much of it--material written by both CTs and LNs--was weak sauce, wishful thinking, and total bs. I then put it back together using textbooks as a guide. This trip dow the rabbit hole led me to conclude there was more than one shooter, and that Oswald was not one of them.

To what end? Stringer denied that the back of the head was blown off. The autopsy protocol, supplemental report, x-rays, photos, and Z-film combine to make an extremely strong case for more than one shooter, and thus, a conspiracy. Focusing on Stringer's latter-day recollections of the film used at the supplemental exam does little to prove conspiracy--seeing as Stringer said nothing about having a problem with these photos when shown them over the years before being asked about them by Gunn, and stood by the back of the head photos showing NO blow-out wound on the back of the head. And it distracts from the far bigger problem--that the "official" evidence fails to support the scenarios pushed by the government's investigations.

Thanks, Tom. I have been reluctant to read research papers these days but this one proved no problem. In any event, this almost entirely supported my arguments. Kennedy's large head wound was described as an absence of scalp and bone. This article describes and depicts soft tissue wounds in which the skin split at exit, where the exit wounds (the wounds apparent when the skin flaps were opened) were of varying size, depending on the position of the temporary cavity within the subject. Note conclusion number 3.

Perhaps it should be pointed out that an assistant (in this case Jenkins or O'Connor) would normally be tasked with the removal of the brain. Sad to say, some of the confusion could stem from this. Perhaps Jenkins would normally infuse the brain right after weighing. Perhaps he failed to realize that when Humes told him to infuse the brain that it had not been weighed. Or perhaps people were so horrified that it just didn't occur to them. Or perhaps they avoided it for the same reason they failed to report on his adrenals--because it would have been embarrassing to the President's memory, . As stated, this idea that the (possibly inaccurate) brain weight was intended to hide the nature of Kennedy's wounds becomes ridiculous, once one realizes what was shared in the autopsy protocol and supplemental exam. I spent years full-time researching the medical evidence, then later went back and spent 3-4 months researching gunshot injuries to the brain. This is reported on my website. Below are two photos presenting what would be typical damage to the brain from a high-velocity bullet on the left, and a low velocity bullet on the right. Note that in neither case does the top of the brain explode while leaving no sign of passage below. One of the most important facts about the medical evidence--perhaps the most important fact--is that the top of JFK's brain had a gutter running across it for nearly the whole length...that did not connect back to the EOP entrance. This is extremely strong evidence for a tangential wound at the top of the head. Full-metal jacketed bullets don't enter low and travel upwards at an angle, then EXPLODE an inches-long groove from the top of the head stretching both forward and rearward of its exit. In all cases, the damage is centered along the trajectory of the bullet. But not in this case? When one reads through all the statements, etc, one realizes that this fact did not escape the attention of the Clark Panel on down. They KNEW the brain injuries were inconsistent with an EOP entrance heading upwards. So they conjured up an alternative entrance near the top of the head that was not observed by anyone in Parkland or Bethesda. THIS is the real scandal involving the medical evidence. The failure of the Bethesda staff to write down and/or accurately report the brain weight is minor in comparison.

Stringer's testimony re the brain photos just isn't all that significant, I'm afraid. 1. It was more than 30 years after the fact. 2. He had been shown the photos several times before and had said nothing. 3. In the same testimony in which he expressed doubts about the brain photos he signed off on the authenticity of the back of the head photos. Well, you can't have it both ways. You can't say his expressing doubts about the brain.photos means the photos were switched because the bullet exited the far back of the head when he repeatedly said no such thing occurred, and that his problem with the photos were photographic i.e. the kind of film used, etc, and not substantive, i.e. that the photos failed to show a large wound low on the back of the brain.

They take photos because witness statements and recollections are notoriously inaccurate. In Hill's case, he has been consistent since day one that there was a large wound on the top of the back of the head--which he has clarified to mean above and slightly behind the right ear. (The use of him to indicate there was a blow-out wound low on the back of the head--overlying the occipital bone--is a con job, IMO.) He has also been consistent in that it looked like a scoop had been taken to the brain, i.e. that a lot of substance was missing from the top of the brain. This is both consistent with the autopsy photos and autopsy protocol. It is also inconsistent with the subsequent statements of Dr. Baden--that a largely intact bullet exited the brain and broke up on the windshield strut. FWIW, The HSCA FPP knew that having missing scalp overlying missing brain meant death to the single-assassin solution, and so conjured up the claim very little scalp was actually missing, and that it could be folded back into place. They admitted, moreover, that Humes et al said scalp was missing, but said they must have been mistaken. They hid of course that Dr. Clark had previously and separately concluded that scalp was missing over the large defect. The missing scalp is the smoking gun, IMO. Missing scalp designates an impact location. The bullet impacted at the the large defect. it's a scientific fact. It's a pity that so much time has been wasted trying to prove the medical evidence is fake when the medical evidence has been clear-cut proof of conspiracy...from day one.

Yes, there are photos of the brain. The Dox drawing published by the HSCA is one of them. I have looked at the photos of dozens if not hundreds of brains of gunshot victims. And JFK's brain is severely damaged, not at all what one would expect for a brain in which a largely intact bullet traversed from low to high, while leaving a small round hole at exit. And yes, I know, that last bit sounds curious. The "official" solution pushed by Baden et al was that the bullet exited largely intact and broke up after hitting the windshield strut. They needed to say this in order to avoid what I believe is an over-looked issue regarding the medical evidence. This issue is the large fracture emanating from the large defect. IF the bullet exited in pieces, this fracture would not have been so large. So the HSCA FPP mused that the exiting projectile must have been at least as large as the two recovered fragments. Well, this was SMOKE, seeing as they'd suggested that the large fragment on the x-rays was a slice from the middle of the bullet. (I mean, how else can one explain that this slice was 6.5 mm?) When subsequently confronted on this, moreover, Baden blew more smoke. He said it was incorrect to assume the supposedly 6.5 mm fragment came from the middle, and that it actually rubbed off the back of the bullet. What the?

FWIW, the injuries to the brain as described in the autopsy protocol and supplemental report are inconsistent with the shooting scenario (low entrance/high exit) described in the report, which was deemed necessary for the single-assassin solution. And the brain shown in the Dox drawing is consistent with these descriptions. Well, this makes it clear to me no switcheroo occurred, of the photos or of the brain. They are, in fact, strong evidence for more than one shooter. So why the discrepancies about the timing of the supplemental exam? Age. If you go back and ask the coaches of a high school basketball team a series questions--some 30 years later--about what was said at half-time of a championship game--you are bound to get some discrepancies, to the extent even that you might question if they were in the same locker room. And what about the brain weight? Well, it seems clear no one was gonna write down the weight of the brain at autopsy--that would be like writing down the height of a man whose legs had been amputated in an accident as 3'8." And it seems clear the brain had been soaked and infused with formalin at the time of the supplemental exam. So it's totally possible the brain weighed close to 1500 gm and they rounded up, or even that they just put down a number. In any event, it's unlikely they put down the 1500 gm to try to cover up the damage to the brain when the report and photos showed a severely damaged brain, with damage incompatible with the single-assassin solution.

From chapter 11: Although Dr. Shaw indicated that the wound was really 1.5 x .8 cm to the HSCA's investigators, and was even quoted on this in the report of Baden's Panel, Dr. Baden oversold the significance of this ovoid shape in his testimony before the committee and produced a stench all his own in his 1989 book Unnatural Death. While an HSCA report written by Baden records the length of Connally's back scar as 1 1/8 inches (or 2.9 cm), Baden told Unnatural Death's readers the back wound scar was 2 inches long (or 5 cm). Now, let's be clear. This was almost certainly a lie, and not a simple mistake. Dr. Shaw's operative report in which he first claimed Connally's wound was 3 cm made clear that he extended the wound beyond its original size when he excised damaged skin. He subsequently testified that he doubled the size of the wound when doing so, and that the wound was originally 1.5 cm before he extended it to 3 cm. Lattimer and Baden, of course, insist Shaw was mistaken, and that the wound was 3 cm before it was extended. If this is true, however, Shaw's sworn testimony suggests he extended the wound to about 6 cm. As a 6 cm bullet wound would be unlikely to shrink back to a 2.9 cm scar in less than 15 years, Baden's measurement of Connally's scar supports Shaw's statements, and not Lattimer's and Baden's contention the wound was 3 cm before Shaw excised the damaged skin. By increasing the size of Connally's scar from 2.9 cm to 5 cm, however, Baden lent support to Lattimer's nonsense. The impact of Lattimer's and Baden's lies has been palpable. In 1992, in the mock trial of Oswald put on by the American Bar Association and televised on Court TV, Dr. Martin Fackler, testifying for the prosecution, repeated the 3 cm lie, and made matters worse by incorrectly testifying--when it was pointed out to him that Dr. Shaw had told the HSCA that the wound was really 1.5 cm--that Dr. Shaw had only changed his recollection "later on." This was not true. Shaw had testified before the Warren Commission--in his very first testimony on the subject--that the wound was 1.5 cm. Even so, Fackler's testimony was quite revealing. When one reads the 9-19-75 letter from Lattimer to researcher Emory Brown preserved in the Harold Weisberg Archives, one finds that Lattimer told Brown that Shaw originally claimed the wound was 3 cm long but then "changed his story gradually to make it 1-1/2 cm in latter versions." Well, heck, did Fackler confer with Lattimer before testifying? You can bet on it. In 1992, Fackler published a three-page article on the one small test he performed for the trial. He published this in his own publication, Wound Ballistics Review. Well, the bulk of this issue was gobbled up by a 25 page article in which Lattimer recounted the numerous tests he'd performed while trying to prove the single-bullet theory. Fackler, it seems clear, was a willing convert to Lattimer's cause, and a more-than-willing repeater of Lattimer's lies.

To my recollection Burkley didn't advise Sprague of anything. It was his lawyer, Illig, who told him Burkley told him he suspected there was more than one shooter. Unfortunately, there was no immediate follow-up, and Sprague stepped aside. Blakey then took over with a whole new approach: have "experts" re-interpret the evidence. As these experts were all over the place, this, sadly, resulted in a muddled mess.

No, because that never happened.

Certain phrases stand out..."under wraps" "minor assignments" and so on, that sound like something a CT would say, but not like something the head of the CIA would say. But even beyond that, the whole idea of the document defies common sense. Would MCCone have been told the whole story? And would he have taken notes on what he'd been told or read? To the extent he could recount it in a memo to Rowley? That's highly doubtful, IMO. IF Rowley had in fact expressed an interest in Oswald, and had asked McCone to tell him the truth, it seems highly likely McCone would have sent someone--probably Helms--to meet with Rowley and bring him into the loop. Putting this stuff down in a memo, and then sending this memo to another agency, just doesn't pass the smell test, IMO. As I recall, the bigwigs did not do their own typing. Well, this means that, if the memo is real, McCone brought a typist--a secretary--into the loop. Well, why? When he could have just called up Rowley and told him this stuff over the phone, or in person, or have someone else already in the loop tell him in person.

FWIW, I remember a number of discussions of this memo over the years. I remember a few of us going through it in detail on at least one occasion and deciding that it just plain stinks, i.e. it presents info in a way that just isn't credible. As I recall this came out around the same time as the Operation Zipper docs. Well, hell, just think of all the new documents on the way, many if not most created by artificial intelligence. Yippee!!! "Hey, Siri, create a document in the fashion of CIA documents from 1964, and have it say Lyndon Johnson ordered JFK's assassination. No, disregard. Hey, Siri, search the internet for an actual document discussing an operation approved during JFK's era that ends on an incomplete page, and then add a paragraph written in the same font in the blank space reading as follows: "Note: The actions described above have been approved by Vice-President Johnson, and will only become operational should he become President by November 24, 1963."

I'm sorry about any confusion. I meant to clear this up earlier. My years-long study of the evidence against Oswald, culminating in chapter 4 through 4h on my website, and a number of appearances at Lancer, led me to believe Oswald was not a shooter, and was not on the sixth floor at the time of the shooting. My first years of research involving the medical evidence and Dealey Plaza witnesses had led me to believe there was more than one shooter. I then went back to study the evidence against Oswald, only to discover a ton of stuff that had been over-looked, and to realize he was almost certainly innocent of JFK's murder.

You are correct of course: Dorothy Ann Garner not Peggy Ann Garner. As far as the transcript, my (quite possibly faulty) memory is that Adams told Ernest she'd never signed any transcript. Is it your contention that her signature is legit but the bits about Shelley have been added in, and that other stuff was removed so that Stroud's notes about what was changed and where would still be accurate? If so, that would have been an awful lot of work, and unnecessary work at that--when one considers they could have just thrown Stroud's letter in the trash.

Let's review. The Stroud memo is a memo noting that Vickie Adams has reviewed and signed her testimony. The memo then notes that she talked to Dorothy Ann Garner who supported Adams' testimony. Well, there is a transcript in the archives and available online that reflects the changes described by Stroud that bears Adams' signature. It is bizarre, IMO, to hold that the signed transcript, with the changes described by Stroud, is a fake. The Stroud memo specifies that Adams signed the transcript. If one is to hold the first part of this memo is a fake, one should acknowledge that the second part--the problematic discussion of Garner--was included in a fake memo for no reason and in opposition to the supposed purpose of the memo. As it stands, Garner later confirmed what she'd told Stroud. So we have every reason to believe the memo is legit. As far as Adams, it should not be surprising to the members of this forum--most of whom are 50+--that a lot of people young and old deny saying or doing things that brought them grief. I know of a woman--a smoker back in the 60's--who accidentally set her kid's hair on fire while stretching her arm. For years she acknowledged it, and expressed remorse, but she later took to saying it was just a story told by her kid to get attention. That's what people do, as often as not. They filter their memories. Thus, we have seniors saying they never said stuff, or never handled specific pieces of evidence, etc. Well, sad to say, their latter-day denials just aren't reliable. P.S. The idea Adams' testimony was manipulated to discredit her re Shelley and Lovelady is also curious. Shelley and Lovelady's testimony placed them in the back part of the building within seconds of when Adams said she saw them. Ball/Belin knew this, because they'd run a re-enactment of Baker's run into the building which had him at the front steps in seconds, and both Shelley and Lovelady had said they were long gone at that time. It only makes sense, then, that if Adams' testimony was altered to make it seem she was wrong, that Shelley and Lovelady's testimony would have been altered as well to hide that they'd walked briskly around the building and had left the front steps well before Baker's arrival. Now, perhaps they'd thought Shelley and Lovelady's estimates were enough to sink Adams. But they were both lawyers, and knew damn well that witness' estimates of elapsed time in stressful situations are notoriously inaccurate. They had, after all, run a re-enactment of Baker's movements. That they failed to do so for Shelley and Lovelady, then, suggests what we should already know. That Ball/Belin were gunning for Adams, and were set on discrediting her. Still, that said, there was no reason to fake her testimony--which would have got them dis-barred should it ever have come to light. There was no reason to. Warren had given them permission to sculpt testimony by asking questions to see what could be a problem and then striking the problematic questions when on the record. In this case, Shelley and Lovelady may have answered questions off the record that would have been more supportive of Adams, that were as a result not asked when on the record.

Here's an excerpt from Chapter 4: Pinning the Tale on the Oswald Well, what are the odds? A woman claims she saw two men together at a specific place and time. They admit to being at that place, but one thinks he was at that place a bit later, and isn't completely sure she was the woman he saw when he was at that place, and the other thinks he was at that place a bit later, and remembers seeing the woman, but thinks maybe he saw her a bit later on a different floor entirely, when he wasn't with the other man. Well, it should be readily apparent that she was right and they were wrong. Or, if not, that a little bit of thinking and/or digging could have resolved this conflict. I mean, Lovelady remembered there being a woman when he came in the building. Well, was any effort made to identify this woman? No, of course not, because a study of the witness statements makes it pretty freakin' clear no women outside of Adams and Styles were by the back entrance of the depository in the minutes after the shooting. And Shelley thought maybe he talked to Adams on the fourth floor. Well, was any effort made to back this up--by establishing the time Shelley was on the fourth floor, and the time Adams returned to the fourth floor, to see if these times over-lapped? Or even to ask Adams' co-workers who remained on the fourth floor to see if they recalled her talking to Shelley? No, of course not. Because...Ball and Belin didn't want to know the truth. That much is clear, if nothing else. Here, again, is the passage in the Warren Report in which they pretend to resolve this issue: "Lovelady and Shelley moved out into the street. About this time Shelley saw Truly and Patrolman Baker go into the building. Shelley and Lovelady, at a fast walk or trot, turned west into the railroad yards and then to the west side of the Depository Building. They reentered the building by the rear door several minutes after Baker and Truly rushed through the front entrance. On entering, Lovelady saw a girl on the first floor who he believes was Victoria Adams. If Miss Adams accurately recalled meeting Shelley and Lovelady when she reached the bottom of the stairs, then her estimate of the time when she descended from the fourth floor is incorrect, and she actually came down the stairs several minutes after Oswald and after Truly and Baker as well. " While Shelley testified to Baker and Truly's running up the front steps 3 or 4 minutes after the shooting, and Lovelady testified to Gloria Calvary's running up to Shelley and himself 3 minutes after the shooting (and that this happened before Baker and Truly ran up the steps), Ball and Belin knew they couldn't use this to discredit Adams, because they'd already performed a re-enactment of Baker's run to the steps, and had concluded it concluded around 15 seconds after the last shot, and not 3 or 4 minutes. So they relied instead on Shelley and Lovelady's estimates regarding how long they spent in the train yards. But this, too, was a problem. And a pretty big one at that. While Shelley and Lovelady were purported to have told the FBI they spent 5-10 minutes in the train yards before re-entering the building, those claims were made in unsigned statements. So how did they testify? Well, when asked how long they spent by the railroad tracks, Shelley said he "wouldn't say over a minute or minute and a half" and Lovelady said "just a minute, maybe minute and a half." Now, wait a second. It would have taken Shelley and Lovelady but 15 seconds or so to reach the train yards, and another 15 seconds or so to re-enter the building via the side door. And they had already left the steps when Baker and Truly ran up to the steps. So let's cut 5 seconds off that 30. So...by their own approximation, Shelley and Lovelady were back inside the building within 85-115 seconds of Baker and Truly's entering the building (as opposed to the "several minutes" claimed in the report). Well, this nearly overlaps with the re-enactment performed by Baker on 3-20-64, which Baker thought was a bit faster than it had been in reality. That re-enactment placed Baker on the second floor 60-75 seconds after entering the building. As it would take but 8 seconds or so to climb the stairs from the bottom of the elevators to the second floor, furthermore, this put Baker and Truly at the back elevators 52-67 seconds after entering the building. Well, that's just 18 seconds or so before Shelley and Lovelady said they were near the back elevators. Now, okay, Shelley and Lovelady would have to have been there 10 seconds or more before Baker and Truly ran up to be seen by Adams, and not have Adams see Baker and Truly, so that's 28 seconds. Which is pretty damned close, when you think of it. I mean, Shelley and Lovelady thought they re-entered the side of the building 85-115 seconds after Baker and Truly entered the front of the building. Let's say they were wrong. And that it was more like 71 seconds. Now let's add-in that Belin's re-enactment (which Baker thought was on the short side) placed Baker by the back elevators 75 seconds or so after he entered the building. Well, what if he was wrong? And that it was more like 89 seconds? Well, that gives Shelley and Lovelady an 18 second window in which to get to the back of the building, be addressed by Adams and Styles, and observe Baker and Truly run up to the elevators. That's right, a 14-second mis-estimation on the part of both Belin/Baker, and Shelley/Lovelady, changes everything. Now consider the opposite. For Adams to have been wrong, and for her to have descended AFTER Baker and Truly ran up the steps, she would have to have been off by 90 seconds or so in her estimation, that is, what she thought took 60 seconds or so would have to have taken 150 seconds or so. And not just her, but Lovelady. Let's recall that Lovelady placed his return into the building at 85-115 seconds after Baker and Truly entered the building, and that he thought he saw Adams upon entering. Well, the scenario propped up in the Warren Report holds that he, too, was wrong, and that he'd really returned 165-180 seconds after Baker and Truly entered the building. So what makes more sense? That the re-enactment and the recollections of Shelley and Lovelady were slightly off, or that the recollections of Lovelady and Adams were far off--not even close? I mean, this isn't rocket science. Ball and Belin had to choose between two scenarios--one in which the estimates of Baker, Shelley and Lovelady were slightly off and one in which the estimates of Adams and Lovelady (and presumably Styles who they never bothered to interview) were far off, and they choose the latter and refused to investigate further. They believed because they wanted to believe--or, more accurately, disbelieved because they wanted to disbelieve. If Adams was on the stairs when she claimed, it shot a hole in their belief Oswald ran downstairs, which in turn shot a hole in their belief he fired the shots, which in turn shot a hole in their belief Jack Dougherty was on the elevator that descended while Baker and Truly were running up the stairs. In other words, Vickie Adams, much as Arnold Rowland, Jack Dougherty and Eddie Piper, was an obstacle to the goals of the commission, that needed to be smashed. AND SO...One might more than wonder if it was just a coincidence that FBI photo 9--the one showing the warehouse phone presumably used by Shelley upon his return to the building--and the one right by where Vickie Adams said she saw him--was a mis-labeled mess, at least as presented within the commission's records...one might suspect foul play. And I know. That might seem a bit of a stretch. Photos get mislabeled and are sometimes badly reproduced, etc... But...there was no upside in the commission letting the public see this phone. Let's recall here that Pierce Allman claimed he'd arrived at this phone (a phone in "an open area," according to Allman, and a phone "by a pillar," according to MacNeill) shortly after the assassination, and that no one was around when he came in besides the person now presumed to have been Oswald. Well, think about it. Allman, who has become semi-famous for 1) running into Oswald as he came in the building, and 2) claiming all the shots came from the building, and that Oswald must have acted alone, is actually one of the best witnesses for Oswald's innocence. He would have to have arrived on the scene within a few minutes to have bumped into Oswald. And yet he would almost certainly have noticed, or been noticed by, Adams, Styles, Shelley and Lovelady, should THEY have come through the side door, or down the stairs, after his arrival at the location of the phone. Well, it follows, then, that they had skedaddled BEFORE Allman came into the building, and not after. Allman, let's remember, stayed on the phone for 25 minutes or so... And that means they had skedaddled BEFORE Oswald reached the front door, where Allman asked him about a phone...

Let's be clear. Vickie Adams said she and Styles raced down the stairs, and saw a policeman looking at the roof of the building when she came out on Houston. We know the name of this policeman, and when he went over to look at the roof of the building. This corroborates that she and Styles were on the first floor within a very short time. We have Garner's statements that she saw Baker and Truly run up after Adams and Styles ran down. This further corroborates that Adams was down within a minute or two, and was on the stairs at the same time Oswald was purported to have been on the stairs. We have Adams signed testimony in which she says she spoke to Shelley upon reaching the first floor. While it's become fashionable to claim this testimony never happened, this testimony was accompanied by the Stroud memo so damaging to the "official" story. Well, you can't have one without the other, i.e., if one is to propose the Stroud memo is a fake, and Adams never signed the testimony, well, then one must simultaneously toss Stroud's statements about Garner. We have Shelley's statement he talked to Adams. Although he couldn't recall where he talked to her, it seems likely she left the fourth floor before he went up there with Sawyer, and returned to the fourth floor after he left to help police search the building. So that leaves the first floor, where she said she saw him. We have Lovelady's testimony that he saw a girl, who he couldn't swear was Vickie, talk to Shelley on the first floor after they came in from the west. As Lovelady did not go with Shelley to the fourth floor, this strongly suggests Shelley and Lovelady ran into Adams on the first floor. And we have Lovelady's statements to the HSCA...When asked what he saw, he repeatedly mentioned Baker and Truly's running up the back stairs. Now, some have claimed and will continue to claim he was reciting something he'd been told, but the fact is he was asked what he saw, and that he mentioned Baker and Truly's running up the back stairs in the context of what he saw.