Duke Lane

There is reason to doubt that Norman heard shells being ejected AT the time of the shOOTING. He did not mention this in his initial report, and his Warren Commission testimony came after he had participated in a reenactment during which he DID hear shells hitting the floor above him. http://groups.google.com/group/alt.assassi...amp;lnk=ol& This link discusses the "debris" - supposedly plaster or dust? - that was on Bonnie Ray Williams' head. This is an interesting topic, especially in light of my contention that BRW was on the sixth floor while the shooters were there (and did I say "not hidden from them?"). What possible sources of the debris could there have been? There is a possibility that it fell on his head when something moved upstairs - possibly a box being dropped, as Patricia Lambert posited? - but one wonders why it didn't also fall on Junior Jarman's head, only a few short feet from where Bonnie Ray was crouched in the window. Another possibility is that it was sawdust raised during the course of the morning's work cutting plywood. In any case, there is nothing that even actually suggests that it came to rest on BRW's hair during or after the shooting other than the fact that that's when someone noticed it. When one parses the amount of time that BRW was actually around Hank and Junior prior to the shooting - two, possibly three minutes, just before the parade came into sight, excitement abounding - there really was neither time nor cause to have noticed it any sooner: it was probably only after the shooting that the other two even paid any real attention to him other than maybe to say "hi" and turn back to the windows in anticipation of JFK's arrival, which both Hank and Junior knew to be imminent. If we presume that the "white stuff" on BRW's head was there prior to his arrival at the window - that is, while he was still on the sixth floor - can we then postulate that Bonnie Ray may have been the "elderly Negro" seen by Arnold Rowland in the SE sixth floor window? While Bonnie Ray (see below; that's Bonnie Ray under the arrow, Danny Arce behind him; I don't know who it is at the far left of the photo, does anyone?) would not normally be a candidate to be called "elderly," if you consider Rowland's distance from the sixth floor window, plus the fact that it was darker inside the building than out, Bonnie Ray's clear complexion might not have been so evident. The whiteness of whatever was in his hair might have stood out, though, leading to the impression that the man was elderly. This possibility eluded the WC, who sought only to show that Eddie Piper and Troy West - the only two black men in the building who could've been deemed "elderly" tho' they were only in their mid-50s - were not and could not have been on the sixth floor. What's more intriguing, however, is the fact that Amos Euins - a 14-year-old black boy who'd seen a "pipe thing" in the window as JFK arrived and watched it fire at least twice as the President passed - said that the man he'd seen shooting the gun had "a white spot in his hair." He did not say that the man was white, nor that he was bald (despite what was recorded in his statement ... which goes a long way in telling us that initial reports, written by others, are not always the "best evidence" of what someone saw). In his WC testimony, given before the Commission itself in Washington DC (undoubtedly daunting to any 14-year-old, enough so not to lie repeatedly with a straight face!), he was adamant that he did not tell the deputy who took his statement that the man was white or that the man was bald, but only that the man had a white spot in his hair. So we have Bonnie Ray on the fifth floor, having just come down from the sixth floor, with white stuff in his hair ... and we have an "elderly Negro" seen through the sixth floor window (a man with "white hair?"), AND a man with a "pipe thing" in the sixth floor window also with a "white spot" in his hair. Is it then a reasonable question to ask where all this white stuff actually came from? Damned sure it didn't fall on someone's hair on the sixth floor from the fifth floor ceiling! I for one will be looking forward to Duke's OPUS on this topic. Said "opus" already exceeds 40 pages, absent cites, and is only about 2/3 completed. Tentatively "The Great Elevator Shuffle, the Three Blind Mice and the Invisible Man." Watch your email for a draft of parts one and two.

Those are two different ends of the spectrum, with the center being the shooting. I'm not drawing the connection between my saying that BRW was on six "to within three minutes of the shooting" (i.e., before the shooting, since he was clearly on the fifth during and after the shooting) and your suggestion that nobody would stay upstairs for three minutes after it. I think we'd agree, however, that JFK was due at the Trade Mart for a 12:30 luncheon, and therefore that it was a good presumption that he'd have come by the TSBD before 12:30, wouldn't we? And also that, just as it was possible for him to be late - as he was - it was also possible for him to have been early; agreed? Would we also agree, then, that the shooter/s would have wanted to have been ready to do the deed at whatever time JFK were to have come by, and would therefore have been in place at least a couple of minutes before his scheduled arrival, and possibly a few minutes earlier in case he was early? Up to this point, I don't see any issues since, after all, the general attribution is that LHO spent half an hour upstairs, undetected, prior to the shooting, preparing to do the deed. If he could have remained undetected - and "apparently" did, if it was him - then so could someone else. LHO's only supposed advantage is that he worked there, and his presence in his place of employment wouldn't have aroused much suspicion. Unless, of course, someone who saw him also happened to see the rifle in his hand .... I don't believe that the shooters were undetected. What I'm saying is that BRW was upstairs on six while the shooters were setting up (I'm confident more than one person was there, so I'll stick to the plural), that he saw them and they saw him, and that "they" did not include Lee Oswald. Even if it did include Oswald, he wasn't alone. But Oswald wasn't there. I'll even go so far as to say that BRW was not allowed to go down to five until the parade's arrival was imminent so that he couldn't raise an alarm against them, or even if he'd tried, it would've been too late. (Trying, however, would've been stupid on his part.) That's always a tough question, tho' I'm not sure the question is whether "the unfolding drama" is what kept them from doing anything. At least two out of three of them testified that they'd felt it was "dangerous" upstairs, and thus didn't go to investigate said shells falling and rifle booming ... and two of them recognized it as rifle fire, especially Junior Jarman, who'd done two separate three-year stints in the Army. He was the first to effectively dive for cover, taking the others with him. "Dangerous" was probably a good word. After all, someone had just done some shooting upstairs; that much was fairly obvious. Would you rush to confront an armed man who had the guts to shoot at the President of the US of A? Yet at the same time, wouldn't your curiosity be at least a little piqued to find out who'd done that shooting without putting yourself in harm's way, sort of the old "look without looking like you're looking" trick? I've already said that I believe that BRW had already looked the shooters in the eye, so what he did or didn't claim to see on the fifth floor is of relatively little consequence. The other two guys professed no curiosity whatsoever, more intent on finding out who'd apparently done the shooting over by the railroad tracks that everyone was rushing to, than in getting a glimpse of whoever had been shooting directly over their heads, shells falling on the floor. Probably a wise move on their parts under the circumstances: hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil ... just give me three steps, mister, and you'll never hear from me no more! (For shor'!) Of course, you'd have to believe that they held no curiosity and saw nothing, purposely or otherwise, true or not. Bonnie Ray, at least, said that he'd kept an eye on what was going on over by the elevators and stairwell, as best as he could see the area. WC counsel, of course, meticulously went about proving that he couldn't have even seen what little he did claim to see, Marrion Baker's white motorcycle helmet. Wouldn't it have been a windfall if he'd said that he'd seen - or at least heard - Lee rushing down the stairs? But the supposition presented was that they didn't hear anyone running upstairs - despite being able to hear shells hitting the floor - because they themselves were running and making noise. Maybe so, but I think it's more likely that Bonnie Ray - who was going to "get out of the building" (a perfectly strange thing or an onlooker who only wanted to watch a parade to say!) if he hadn't come across Junior and Hank on the fifth floor - had already told them what was going on upstairs. They knew, and purposely didn't look - or at least said they didn't - because what ya don't know won't get ya killed. (Bonnie Ray said that he'd thought they might've been there because he heard their footsteps while he was eating his lunch, or maybe "the windows moving" - being opened, probably. Odd, don't you think, that he could hear footsteps falling on a floor ten feet below him through the floor he was sitting on, but nobody could hear footsteps falling on a floor only about five feet above their heads with nothing in between? The whole business about the heavy boxes on the floor above muffling the sound doesn't hold water since there were heavy boxes on the fifth floor to muffle footsteps there, too.) I'm not disputing someone shooting from the sixth floor. I'm simply saying that if it was LHO, who had to be downstairs (by pure happenstance: who'd have known Baker would rush into the building?) within 90 seconds, he could not have done so without passing within two feet of Jack Dougherty, if not actually bumping into him. Jack heard one sound (which he took to be a backfire from the parade he'd have "loved to see," but which this "great big husky fellow" "would never have been able to see" because of the crush of people outside the TSBD; in other words, nothing to be concerned about, that backfire) and was standing on the fifth floor, "ten feet west of the west elevator," at the "X" I'd marked in the diagram above. While he may undoubtedly have moved about from that exact spot, he did not leave the immediate environs of the elevator and stairwell, as evidenced by the fact that none of the three other men on the fifth floor - or even just BRW - claimed to have seen him. That he wasn't concerned about a "backfire" is further evidenced by the fact that Jack also did not leave the area by taking the elevator anywhere until after Roy Truly had looked up the elevator shaft on the first floor, and saw the bottoms of both elevators at the fifth floor, together, fully a minute after the shooting had stopped. By this point, LHO was either in or almost in the second floor lunchroom, regardless of where he'd come from. If he'd come from the sixth floor, though, he'd have had to pass almost literally within inches of Jack Dougherty without being seen, heard or even felt (as the air eddied behind him, or even as his feet vibrated the floor as he passed) by Jack. Jack's testimony could've been another windfall ("I was standing there by the elevator when that Lee fellow came barrelling down the stairs at a dead run"), but wasn't ... and that simply because he did not see, hear or feel Lee Oswald run by him, and that in turn is simply because Lee didn't run by him. If he had, Jack would've said so. He was not deaf and blind. Bear in mind here that I'm not saying that nobody saw anybody, I'm simply saying that nobody saw Lee Oswald do what he was purported to have done. BRW ate his lunch within 15 feet of the "sniper's nest" window, but claimed not to be able to see anything from where he sat, effectively because (get this!) the sniper's nest boxes were in the way. He was on the sixth floor until at least 12:25, and probably as late as 12:27-28; that's provable. And, that being the case, Bonnie Ray Williams therefore did see the shooter/s. If that were LHO, acting alone, what's the harm in saying so? What was Lee going to do: rise from the dead and kill his family? A gunman (or gunmen) who hadn't been caught, on the other hand, is a completely different keg of beer. Can gunmen who weren't Lee Oswald have gotten into and out of the building undetected? The answer is a resounding "yes," with the caveat that they were detected, even if only by Bonnie Ray Williams. Chances are, however, that they were also seen by others, but their still being at large would certainly cause a wee bit of hesitancy on anyone's part in saying so. I can actually show how it could've been done, both in and out, based on long-available evidence. The question is whether anyone else who'd seen them was an observer or an abettor. They'd have at least the same incentive as Bonnie Ray not to have said anything. Since the shooters weren't constrained by the time limits of having to be in the second floor lunchroom 90 seconds after the shooting, it becomes all the more possible, even plausible ... and also explains why nobody was heard running across the sixth floor after the shooting: because nobody was running up there! As it was, they had - at the least - all the time it took for Baker and Truly to run up four or five flights of stairs ... and it wasn't even a given that Baker or anyone else would've rushed into the building, just like nobody rushed into the Dal-Tex building. All that was absolutely necessary was to prevent anyone who did come in to search the building from having access to the elevators, which was done whether by accident or design. And lo, don't you know that by the time Baker and Truly got to the fifth floor (where, remember, Truly had seen the bottoms of the elevators), one of those two elevators had left the floor? Is it not therefore possible if not probable that said gunmen had only to finish their business upstairs, walk down a single flight of stairs, walk about 15 feet straight forward from the stairs, and exit via the elevator going down from the fifth floor while Baker and Truly were noisily running up in an enclosed wooden stairwell? Oddly, while the elevator was certainly a potential means of escape, and while Truly had seen both of them on the fifth floor when he'd looked up the shaft, he did not call Baker's attention to the fact of the west elevator's absence when they'd reached the fifth floor, and did not himself investigate where it had gone, but instead led Baker over to the far side of the elevator shaft to the non-automatic east passenger elevator, and then bypassed the sixth floor to get to the seventh and the roof. (Granted that Baker's destination had always been the roof, but this nevertheless does create additional time and opportunity for an escape.) In all, the shooters had as much as three to five minutes to clear out of the sixth floor. A reasonable question is whether they ever intended or even needed to clear completely out of the building. What if, a la Patrolman Smith's "Secret Service" guy on the knoll, they had dressed up as to be confused with cops who'd presumably be searching the building after the shooting? Even if nobody had come in to search the building, if they looked like cops, they'd only have to say that they were searching the building. "Search" complete, out they went. As a matter of fact, there were two men - seen by two witnesses - who were believed to have been plainclothes cops seen on and coming down from the fourth floor even before Luke Mooney - the first law enforcement type to actually go out onto the sixth floor (Baker had only looked out from the elevator area) - had gotten upstairs. Between Baker's coming down and Mooney's going up, however, there is no record of any police officers on the upper floors of the building, and certainly not any who'd gone up, searched the place and were already leaving by the time Mooney started up. If I'm wrong about that, correct me.

Did you actually read what I wrote, Jim, or are you arguing with a straw man? Yes, the timing was possible. Gary wasn't the only one involved in that timing, and I'm fully aware of it, even have the address where it was done. So? It has nothing to do with the timing. It has nothing to do with being winded. "Would not have," "would have been," "must have been," "could have been." I just want to know how someone going at any speed can go from point "a" to point "b" without being seen by someone who testified to standing at point "X" on this image: If there's no explanation for that, I'm not sure what the point of "reconstructions" is.

OK, color me stupid (me being the LN'er that I'm supposed to be) ... Is there an original image showing JFK's right hand on the back seat? If there is, why was it substituted? To what end? If there isn't, how do we know anything was substituted if we don't know - or at least can't prove (since there appears to be a difference) - what was there originally?

Actually, I don't find any real difference between Hankins, Newman and Miller that can't be attributed to perspective: Hill's position is about the same in all photos. There's only a distance of 1.6 miles from the entrance to Stemmons from DP, to the exit at Industrial (now called Market Center) Blvd, about .4 from the Oak Lawn exit to the Industrial/Market Center exit, which is, of course, where the limo would no longer have been on the highway. At "speeds approaching 80 mph," that only puts the limo on the freeway for a minute, minute and a half total; less than a minute from DP to Oak Lawn, and less than that to Industrial. Here's something from another thread: This is just a short distance from where I'd remembered the old Corham building being; it's actually just south(bound) from the entrance going from Oak Lawn onto Stemmons southbound. What's even more interesting is that, based on a 50 mph drive-by observation of the cityscape to the north of the freeway around that location, it appears as if the Hankins photo was taken almost directly across Stemmons from Miller. That is, Miller was taking the photo from the northbound side of the highway looking roughly southwest, while Hankins was taking his from the southbound side looking roughly northeast. In fact, if anything, I'd say that the signs we see in Hankins are actually the signs over the exit to Oak Lawn - note how there is one sign (to our right) that's over the highway, while the other (our left) is smaller and on the opposite side of the post, the post being on the median, the big sign probably being the "Industrial Blvd - 1/2 Mile" sign, and the smaller one being the "Oak Lawn" sign - meaning that these are probably pretty close to the positions the two occupied using Google Earth: If that's so, then there are probably less than 10 seconds between the two photos ... and Hill is in the almost-exact same position in Miller as in Hankins.

I would pose the question to any conspiracy involving LHO as "A" shooter - or any non-conspiracy theory involving LHO as the shooter - how did he get downstairs? That is not "how did he get downstairs in 90 seconds, calm and unwinded," etc., but simply how did he get downstairs? Consider that there were three men - Bonnie Ray Williams, Hank Norman and Junior Jarman - directly underneath the SE 6th floor window who did not hear anyone running - or even walking - upstairs, nor did they see or hear anyone - anyone at all - near the NW stairwell and elevators during or after the time they had run to the western windows to look out over the railroad yards, and certainly didn't see anyone shooting from the fifth floor. There is a supposition that they didn't hear anyone overhead because they, too, were running. Their vision directly to the stairwell was blocked by a rack of shelves. But LHO having to hurry (if not exactly run) down the wooden stairs in an enclosed space that was noisy enough to prevent Roy Truly from noticing if an elevator was operating on his way upstairs with Officer Baker, would likewise have created a fair amount of noise. The boys on five weren't running anymore. How did they not hear him coming down then? Consider also that Jack Dougherty, another order-filler, was standing on the fifth floor approximately 10 feet west of the west elevator - that is, just about directly between the stairwell coming down from six and that descending to four - when he heard the first shot, which he said he thought (at one point) was a simple backfire, no cause for alarm or curiosity. Without going anywhere else on the floor - which was also occupied by the three men above, who did not see anyone at all on five - he then boarded the west elevator and rode it down to the first floor. Here we also know that, when Roy Truly followed Baker into the building, as much as a minute or so after the last shot, he looked up the elevator shaft and saw both elevators on the fifth floor, meaning that Jack hadn't begun his descent yet. Since he hadn't been seen by the men on five - meaning he hadn't left the vicinity of the west elevator, for had he, he would have been visible to the men - it means that Jack was still roughly in the path of the supposedly fleeing Oswald even as late as when Oswald was in or going into the second floor lunch room. Since Lee didn't run by Jack (who nobody has ever claimed was deaf or blind), and since he didn't and couldn't have taken either elevator and managed to get it back upstairs by the time Roy Truly looked up the shaft, how did Lee get downstairs? Simple answer: he couldn't have ... ergo he couldn't have been a shooter from any floor above the fourth, which was all offices across the front, not to mention the fact he'd have had to walk by a handful of women who were watching out the SW corner window of four at the time of the shooting, one of whom went down the stairs at the same time Lee would've had to have gone down, too, no matter what floor he'd been shooting from, yet she testified to not having seen or heard anyone on the stairs. Perhaps it was the noise of her high heels, or having to look down to be sure of her footing? But wait! We know he did, so therefore, somehow, he did. As Sherlock Holmes is credited with saying, "when you eliminate the impossible, you're left with the fact that Lee Harvey Oswald did it." Or words to a similar effect ....(!)

There is a slightly different version - different aspect ratio, anyway - here. Is there no such thing as an original, or original copy, of this photo someone can look at through a lupe, maybe scan at very high res and crop to see what's really there or not? Ditto the "man with rifle" image. I can almost understand why some people might want to add the rifleman artifact, but to what end add the shoe? And by whom? Depends where on Lemmon the image was taken. Here are a couple of possibilities, all in residential areas and prior to the turn onto Turtle Creek. Bear in mind that Miller needn't have parked his car directly on Lemmon and could've taken any of a number of sidestreets to get where he eventually got, in much less time than it took the motorcade to travel through downtown: The destination location is based on my recollection of where the Corham store was located, approximately opposite where the InfoMart is today, but clearly before the motorcade would've exited Stemmons. I could be off a little since recollection sometimes fails, eh? Google maps (from which these images were taken) estimates the drive to be no more than 5-6 minutes. Do-able? I'd say "eminently!" Curious question, tho': I've seen the "Corham" image described as Miller #3; you call the one above his "first" image; what was the second photo he took?

For myself, I'll be simply satisfied that my name is in the book, even if it's not there in reference to me!

I think it's unquestionable that he was there as xxxx was going down, tho' exactly what he saw ...? He saw whoever was there, whether that was Lee Oswald or half the Olympic Rifle Team, and I don't believe that he escaped their notice either. Can we say "fear of God," boys and girls? If we can, that eliminates one Lone Nut Assassin anyway, eh? Walt Brown also told me Bonnie Ray had died, tho' I haven't confirmed it yet with an obit or anything. I know Slim Givens is dead, but I'm not sure about Hank and Junior. I suspect that many of the lies were ass-coverings, mixed in with a few broad hints that there was more to the story than met the eye. Until and unless I meet people he knew personally - and I don't know of anyone who's done anything like that - I suspect that information about what he was "all about" will remain about as forever shrouded in mystery as my neighbor's outlook on life! The views of most "average Joes" don't gain wide publicity, and often I wonder at the wisdom of delving too deeply into witnesses' personal lives, if only from the standpoint that it must be pretty wierd to have people you don't even know telling you things about yourself that you've long since forgotten or shrugged off as unimportant. It strikes me that Walt Brown wrote a short albeit posthumous piece about BRW in Deep Politics Quarterly some time ago. I'm not sure if he's got an index to DPQ online or not, but may have it on CD. Not as yet, tho' in truth, I don't know exactly what they might have. It seems I'm never in the neighborhood at a convenient time, am not being sure what I'm specifically looking for anyway, "convenient times" probably need to be arranged in advance, and I almost never know in advance when I'll be able to do that. Perhaps some lurker somewhere will shed some light on the subject ...?

Don't know, but try searching through this index: http://jfkmurderphotos.bravehost.com/photos.html

Absolutely, unequivocally not ... unless he was shooting from one of the offices on the lower floors, or perhaps from the loading dock. I've been working the past couple of months on something I'm tentatively calling "The Great Elevator Shuffle, the Three Blind Mice, and the Invisible Man." It is practically a moment-by-moment dissection of what all of the "main players" in the TSBD did from about 11:45 until a few minutes after the shooting. Close - one might even say minute - attention is paid to what these people said they did, what they said other people did, and what other people said they did: The floor-laying crew: Danny Arce, Billy Lovelady, Hank Norman and Bonnie Ray Williams; Supervisors Bill Shelley and Roy Truly; Order-fillers Charles "Slim" Givens and Jack Dougherty (and to a lesser extent, Lee Oswald); Order-checker James Earl "Junior" Jarman; Shipper Troy West and janitor Eddie Piper; and Street-level witnesses Arnold Rowland and Amos Euins, among a handful of others. The results are quite surprising. Among the more surprising are that: Lee Oswald absolutely, positively could not have gone down the stairs from the sixth floor to the second, nor could he have taken an elevator (unless he had a helper ... which is the only way he could've been a shooter); and Bonnie Ray Williams was very probably on the sixth floor to within three minutes of the shooting, most likely saw the shooter(s), was seen by the shooter(s), and knew full well that Lee Oswald wasn't on the sixth floor with them. All of this - about 60 pages to date, and the "Invisible Man" part isn't even started yet! - is undergoing fact-checking and some pretty critical review, so far with no strong dissent. This is where I'm supposed to go into "blurb" mode, gush about "astounding" discoveries, "astonishing" facts, "shocking" new evidence, and other "startling" stuff "never before discussed in any medium," but I'll save that for someone else once I've finished this thing.

Thanks, John. So far, I'm under the impression that I'm not going to find what I'm looking for since there doesn't seem to be anything either in WC Documents pertaining to the results of the examination, nor can I find anything in the HSCA or other files. It almost seems as if this piece of evidence - whatever value it may have had - ceased to exist when the prints on it turned out not to be Oswald's, without a clue as to whose they may have been. What's interesting - did I say this elsewhere? - is that Bill Shelley had first reported (to the FBI, I think) that he had seen another employee, "who was not Oswald" but who otherwise remained unidentified, eating something on the sixth floor earlier in the morning, around 9:30 or 10:00. Shelley thought it was chicken because, he said, "those colored boys are always eating chicken." When he testified several months later, he recalled this and noted that Charles Givens had been saying of late that it was he who was eating up there that morning - "or so he says" - which Givens denied doing in his own testimony, that day or any other. There seems to be more to the story than all of this, but what exactly it may have been is only open to speculation.

Thanks. Is there more info out there, tho'?

As everyone knows, the remains of a chicken lunch and a Dr Pepper bottle were found on the sixth floor after the shooting. These were widely purported to have belonged to the assassin, depicting someone who calmly ate his lunch while waiting patiently to shoot the President of the United States, a clear psychopath. The bottle was photographed being removed from the TSBD being held by a pencil. It was presumably taken to DPD for fingerprint analysis, but the prints did not belong to Lee Oswald. Eventually, Bonnie Ray Williams claimed to have eaten eaten the lunch and drank the Dr Pepper while awaiting the arrival of his friends to watch the parade. This claim has been debated by at least two authors, Sylvia Meagher and Patricia Lambert. My questions, specific to the Dr Pepper bottle, are these: 1) If DPD examined the bottle and found prints, is there a record of the prints they found? I've not been able to find anything on the Dallas Archives site, if so. 2) If such a record exists, have the prints been compared with those taken by the FBI in 1964 - eleven employees in all, I recall, just those who'd have had any contact with the boxes and other items on six - and, if so, are they in fact Bonnie Ray's? Interestingly, Bill Shelley recalled having seen "an employee other than Oswald" eating chicken on the sixth floor early that morning, around 9:30 or 10:00; he didn't name that employee. He testified to this, and also noted that Slim Givens had been claiming to have been the one eating upstairs that morning - "or so he says" - but Slim denied not only having made the claim, but also having ever eaten on the sixth floor that day or any other. Does anyone have any insight into this?

Not a dumb question at all Gene. SOB man was an unidentified individual carrying a placard that said 'SOB Kennedy.' He has also be referred to as 'Gin and Tonic Man' - which isn't really funny if you look at the z-film and see why. Where's the sign in the z-frame? And how come we don't know SOB's ID, along with the young couple standing near him, or the young man standing opposite on the stairs? This guy would be in a perfect location to be providing a signal to the folks behind the fence. Robin's crop from the Cancellare at left, and the one frame of SOB that wasn't blurry from a high quality z-frame. Hasn't Gary Mack said that everyone in DP at the time has been identified? If so, there should be little question here. Because I don't know, who's the guy in the hat with the camera, and what's the deal on what he was filming?

The two employees - actually, three - were James "Junior" Jarman, Harold "Hank" Norman, and Bonnie Ray Williams. Bonnie Ray was initially on the 6th floor, where he said he'd eaten the chicken lunch with the Dr Pepper; Junior and Hank had gone out front and, upon hearing that the motorcade was on Main Street, went up to the 5th floor. Bonnie Ray said he thought he might've heard them walking around down there, so went down and joined them.All of this and more is the subject of an upcoming two-part essay, "The Great Elevator Shuffle" and "The Three Blind Mice and the Invisible Man," each about 20-25 pages. It's pretty in-depth - almost annoyingly so! - and arrives at different conclusions than have been presented before. It is why I'm trying to find out about the disposition of the pop bottle. Worrell's story is a different deal, but as far as worrying about being shot, that much never seemed to have entered his mind. He was transported to DPD the next morning by the Carrollton PD, and was later interviewed by the FBI. He had nothing to do with the assassination. I did a piece on him - the first of three parts - in Deep Politics Quarterly in, I think, the Spring 2007 issue.

Oh? Is there testimony, or other evidence to corroborate this, Duke? As you well know, there isn't any, but as you question below ... So their job descriptions rule them out as potential suspects? Interesting way to proceed... Really ... a guy who sits in one place wrapping stuff and a guy who cleans up after people ... really, where's the impetus here to shoot POTUS? I'm clearly missing something. The fact that something can't be disproved does not a fact make.I have a different theory, which will come to light soon enough. Right now, I'm 40 or 50 pages into providing what I think constitutes proof, and haven't even gone back to make the citations yet. I got called on how I "felt" about Ed Hoffman, and spent considerable time - extemporaneously - putting together Freeway Man to defend my "gut feeling" ... which, as it turned out had much greater substance than that "feeling." Greg, if you can put them on the sixth floor, then so be it. Until you do, there's nothing to it other than a 14-year-old boy's fleeting observation of an "elderly Negro." I submit that the only way he could have know if whomever he observed was "elderly" was not by his age - 150 feet or so away - but by the color of his hair. Are there photos of either man extant that show either with white or gray hair? And what about Rowland's of seeing a man standing there are "port arms?" Testimony indicated an elderly Negro was at the "snipers nest" up to 5 minutes before the shooting. A description was even given. Shelley told the FBI only two men fit that description: Piper and West. That neither had an alibi which stands up to even the slightest scrutiny - and that they were the only two black men in the building without a good alibi, is worth considering. If you don't feel the same way, so be it. We will leave aside the fact that Amos Euins only described such a person in that location taking aim and firing at JFK with a "pipe thing;" he did not indicate having seen anyone earlier. Said Amos: Mr. Euins. I was standing here on the comer. And then the President come around the corner right here. And I was standing here. And I was waving, because there wasn't hardly no one on the corner right there but me. I was waving. He looked that way and he waved back at me. And then I had seen a pipe, you know, up there in the window, I thought it was a pipe, some kind of pipe. Mr. Specter. When had you first seen that thing you just described as a pipe? Mr. Euins. Right as he turned the corner here. And later: Mr. Specter. Of what race was he, Amos? Mr. Euins. I couldn't tell, because these boxes were throwing a reflection, shaded. Mr. Specter. Could you tell whether he was a Negro gentleman or a white man? Mr. Euins. No, sir. Mr. Specter. Couldn't even tell that? But you have described that he had a bald-- Mr. Euins. Spot in his head. Yes, sir; I could see the bald spot in his head. Mr. Specter. Now, could you tell what color hair he had? Mr. Euins. No, sir. Mr. Specter. Could you tell whether his hair was dark or light? Mr. Euins. No, sir. Mr. Specter. How far back did the bald spot on his head go? Mr. Euins. I would say about right along in here. Mr. Specter. Indicating about 2 1/2 inches above where you hairline is. Is that about what you are saying? Mr. Euins. Yes, sir; right along in here. Mr. Specter. Now, did you get a very good look at that man, Amos? Mr. Euins. No, sir; I did not. Mr. Specter. Were you able to tell anything about the clothes he was wearing? Mr. Euins: No, sir. In his statement on November 22 to Dallas County sheriffs, he said "this man was a white man." In his testimony with Uncle Arlen, he said "I told the man [the sheriff] that I could see a white spot on his head, but I didn't actually say it was a white man. I said I couldn't tell. But I saw a white spot in his head." Asked "did you tell the people at the police station that he was a white man, or did they make a mistake when they wrote that down here?" Amos responded, "They must have made a mistake, because I told them I could see a white spot on his head." Actually, it's killing me that I can't even find a reference to an "elderly" anything in Walt Brown's Global Index! Where the heck is this reference, or is it merely "lore" anymore?!? So why would these two "elderly" black men - or for that matter, any black man - want to kill that particular POTUS? Realize, too, that NONE of the women had alibis either, and they had to wear girdles back then, and here JFK was ... well, nevermind: I've done all the offending I intend to do this week! The last thing I need is bras burning on my lawn!! On the other hand, we have people like William Manchester quoting people like Roy Truly, who - Manchester says - said that "except for my n****s, the boys are conservaitve, like me — like most Texans," and doubted that "half his boys would have gone out to see the parade if it hadn't been lunchtime." He - like most Texans? - "disapproved of Kennedy's policies abroad and believed he was a 'race mixer' at home," and Truly personally "didn't believe the races were meant to mix." ... Thus explaining why a black man who never left his work area or one who swept up after people would go shoot the SOB? Because ...??? FWIW, I agree, you just said it like it was back when (and maybe so still in some parts). This is my last foray into this thread. I understand you have a hot date with a Dr Pepper you'd like to get to, and I don't want to hold you up any further. Perhaps when I post the other thing, we should engage. Meanwhile, if anything, I'd think this topic should enhance your position if there's any merit to it. If Bonnie Ray's prints were on the Dr Pepper bottle (I doubt they could be pulled from the bones or the sack), then it was his lunch; if not ...?As far as I've ever learned, the bones and bottle were pulled from the sixth floor and vanished into the ether without any sort of resolution. Maybe I'm wrong, and if so, that's what I'm trying to find out.

I apologize if any of my comments offended you; they were not intended to reflect my own opinions, but the "tone" and - I'm sorry to say - the reality of the times. That they were wrong realities doesn't make them any less realistic. We've moved well past the day when going to the back of the bus, watching movies from the balcony and drinking from a separate water fountain were the accepted norm; but 1963 was "the day when," and those things were "accepted" - even if not acceptable in everyone's eyes - in large measure, including by those victimized by them.Were that not so, the name Rosa Parks would never have entered our consciousness: she would've just been someone doing what everyone else did, no big deal. The point is, tho', that they didn't, and that's why her name will be forever memorialized. Removing anything "of color" from the discussion, neither Troy West nor Eddie Piper were by nature men who were aggressive, and shooting a gun at someone is definitely aggressive. I'm referring to a man who sat in one place all day long and wrapped packages because "that's where his work was." The other's job was as janitor, and what I described him doing is exactly what was described in official reports to be his job. If "scrubbing commodes" sounds less than glamorous, if that's what your job is, there's nothing "derogatory" or "demeaning" about someone saying that that's what you do, even if actually doing the job is. As to their participation in any conspiracy that day, I reject the possibility out of hand unless and until someone can come up with something a lot better than "I don't think their 'alibi' is good enough," as if they even needed one. Once again, please accept my apologies for anything offensive; it wasn't intended to be.

Lighten up; we don't have to be serious all the time!I agree regarding the "accusations" made against West and Piper; they're totally indefensible and unsupportable beyond my analogy that if they can't prove they were in New Hampshire, then they must've been in California. My original question stands unanswered: My primary curiosity here is to determine what, if any, results came about from the dusting of the Dr Pepper bottle that Bonnie Ray Williams left on the sixth floor. The bottle along with other "remains of the chicken lunch" were removed from the 6th floor on the afternoon of November 22, 1963; I'm not personally aware of the disposition of those items of evidence; can anyone elucidate them? Does anybody know the answer?

Are you kidding? You mean - you're saying - you're trying to tell me that Bonnie Ray's nickname of "Insinkerator" - pulverizing chicken bones - is - isn't - you mean - it's not - it's not true?!?Oh ... My ... Gawd. This sheds a whole new light on things, doesn't it. To imagine someone put whole chicken legs onto a couple of slices of bread - or peeled the meat off the bones before making a sandwich of it ... and here all this time, I'd thought the man was someone who bit soda bottles open (after all, no evidence of a church key, right?). I'm devastated. Deflated. Derailed. Deranged. Debunked. But mostly just deranged .... Where's that emoticon with the balloon flying around at when ya need it most?

You are mistaken. Neither had what could be considered a rock solid alibi. And there is also this from the Victoria (Texas) Advocate of Nov 24: "A building porter said he took Oswald to the 6th floor in an elevator. When he got out, Oswald asked the porter to send the car back up for him. The porter went to the ground floor to watch the Kennedy motorcade." I would think it would take a heck of a lot more speculation than simply not having a "rock solid alibi" to make suppositions like this. By that measure, everyone who couldn't account for every second of their time and have someone to back them up is de facto under suspicion, and nobody is completely innocent anyway? I said that you can't place them there, and you responded by saying that you didn't believe what else they said was necessarily true. That I may not have been in New Hampshire yesterday does not mean that I was in California or Idaho.As to newspaper articles, they are purveyors of absolute fact? If written, it is proven? What's a "building porter" anyway? Did anyone describe anywhere what a "building porter" did? Did he park cars? Act as the "elevator man" like this article portrays? If so, why didn't anyone ever mention anything about someone doing this task for anyone other than Lee Oswald, ever, at any time, for anyone? Nobody - especially reporters - got any of their stories mixed up during the weekend, is that it? Nobody told whoppers to get their names in print? I know of one who got a free trip to Washington - and a supposed night out on the town in Earl Warren's limo - for that very same thing. Fifteen minutes of fame is all some of it is, at best. According to Euins, firing on the motorcade. And why were they doing that? Because they could? And none of the Texas white boys wouldn't have loved to see a Negro hang for this? This is a tough sale. What's the motive? If you recall... I don't believe Williams went back up there at all. The weight of everything suggests otherwise. If he didn't go onto the sixth floor during the lunch break, what idiot - knowing that that's where the authorities said shots came from - would put himself there if he wasn't, casting suspicion on himself? Especially with the "elderly Negro" thing: you know that they were sawing plywood on 6 that day, which creates sawdust, and which can fall in one's hair, right? Appearance of white hair from a hundred feet away? Telling the cops and FBI that he'd been on the floor would've dipped him in it; a dumb story to tell if it wasn't true. What was the impetus? Fifteen minutes of fame? Free trip to Washington? Gets to keep his job? The point of all this being ...? That it's all well and good to "believe" what you want to - like I simply "believed" that Ed Hoffman was full of it - but there remains the need to state your case. (I think I did, on that point.) You're advocating on the one hand that a Southern Negro who was born near the turn of the century - intrinsically subservient - lied about what he was doing - either eating his lunch at the wrapping table, or sitting on a box at the front window; one a guy who did nothing but wrap books all day, the other who delivered mail, swept floors, and flushed commodes - when he was actually taking pot shots at POTUS. On the other hand, another Southern Negro, substantially younger and theoretically more brazen, who said he was "where the action was," albeit not at that time, was NOT where he said he was, on the sixth floor, because ... why? Right next to the exploding cigar emoticon, no doubt... Really, when you get down to it, I've only asked about fingerprints on the bottle. Is it simply that nobody has an answer? At the very least, if Bonnie Ray wasn't on the sixth floor, someone else's fingerprints on the bottle should go a long way toward proving that, eh? On the other hand ...?

Again from Lambert: A witness outside the building, Arnold Rowland, testified that he saw an elderly Negro at the window of the sniper's nest five or six minutes before the shooting. In addition, there is other evidence that another witness, Amos Euins, moments after the shooting, said the man at the sniper's nest was black. (Euins later said he could not say whether the man was black or white.) The Warren Report explains that while Rowland was not regarded as a credible witness, his assertion about the elderly Negro at the sniper's nest was investigated. This investigation consisted of interviews with certain employees of the Depository which determined that the only two men who might fit Rowland's description were on the first floor "before and during the assassination". The two employees being referred to here are Eddie Piper and Troy West. This confirms for me something that I'd been trying to establish... they were not just the right age, but both both fit the descriptions. FWIW, my (curtailed) recent peek into Piper and West led to a tentative conclusion that Piper was the "Elderly Negro". This only further strengthens that conclusion. For what it's worth - and quickly approaching those magical ages myself - let me point out that the sobriquet of "elderly Negro" would only half apply to either of these two men: yes, they were black, but I hardly consider men who were 54 and 55 (or was it 55 and 56?) years old to be "elderly" anymore!Was 55 "old" back then, like 30 was in the 16th century? I've never heard Roy Truly described that way, and he was older than that. What constitutes "elderly?" Anyone over 30? 40? 50? What? Anyway, neither of them can be placed - either definitively or even speculatively - on the sixth floor (or am I mistaken?), so any such description cannot be referring to them, can it? And even if it can ... what were they doing up there, and why would they lie about it? Those questions need to be answered before that idea can be carried forward. They can't just be there solely for the sake of putting an "elderly Negro" there, can they? And if so, how did Lee Oswald force them to go up there from where they said they were, and how did he get them to lie about it after he was dead? Covering his ass, were they, you think? In any case, don't you know that Bonnie Ray Williams was on the sixth floor "five or six minutes" before the shooting (and actually within two or three minutes of it)? And that he was working around plywood being sawed up all morning? Oh: and leaving that aside, he had something white in his hair, at least after the shooting, didn't he? (Greg, do you really believe it was plaster - of which there is no other evidence - knocked loose by the falling shells?) ... But back to the fingerprints and the Dr Pepper bottle, shall we? (Where's the "here, smoke this" emoticon, anyway?)

My primary curiosity here is to determine what, if any, results came about from the dusting of the Dr Pepper bottle that Bonnie Ray Williams left on the sixth floor. The bottle along with other "remains of the chicken lunch" were removed from the 6th floor on the afternoon of November 22, 1963; I'm not personally aware of the disposition of those items of evidence; can anyone elucidate them? I'll also invite anyone who wishes to, to visit my xxxxty little website, dukelane.com, and view the articles by Sylvia Meagher and Partricia Lambert on the topics that I'm going to soon address. The fingerprints, if any, are central to the theme that I'm developing, and I appreciate any help anyone can provide.

Beer: it's not just for breakfast anymore!

I didn't "blame" COPA for bringing Bix Tex there, only for not distancing themselves from him - or him from them - and allowing him to (at least) seem to be a part of their proceedings.Maybe he was, maybe he wasn't. Nobody wanted to "claim" him, or claim to know who might: it was all a big mystery that "everyone normally on-site" made a big joke of (e.g., Bob G.: "Across town, they call him 'Big Tex;' here, we call him 'co-Tex'"). I had the opportunity to ask the folks guiding the big dummy ("put your foot over here. No, no, the other foot! ...") who'd hired them, but, well, they had their hands pretty full making sure Big Tex didn't become an ex-Tex! (Seriously: even despite the chill, I don't think I'd have wanted to have been the guy in the costume! "Cumbersome" only begins to describe it!) John Judge was too busy to even acknowledge me when I attempted just to say hello ... but of course, I do tend to travel incognito - blend into the crowd and all that (but with enough "authority" that the paper-hawkers don't bother me) - and don't really expect anyone to actually recognize me in the flesh! (Actually, I think anyone who thought that they saw me, probably mistook me for the clown wearing the FBI baseball cap and carrying a copy of the WCR! I must admit that anyone with a telephoto lens also probably did catch me commisserating with him, tho!) Long and short, nobody either claimed credit or laid blame. It's all a big mystery, sort of like the microphones in the water-collectors keeping tabs on the "Dealey denizens" that really know what happened. Maybe someday we'll find out ... if the images and documents aren't altered! Are you stating - without equivocation - that COPA had nothing to do with it? Shaking my head in wonderment, I still remain ...