Glen Sample

Glen,

In your dealings with Factor, did he ever mention the name John Sawtooth?

Sawtooth was a Texan legend when it came to tracking and the like. He was the guide Paul Rothermel used when hunting. Rothermel was an expert marksman with many trophies for Boone and Crockett Club events.

Sawtooth and Factor were supposedly friends.

James

James,

No mention of John Sawtooth was made by Loy. It appears to me they were in

vastly different leagues....

Glen

I have decided to review Vincent Bugliosi's book "Reclaiming History" in reference

to the comments and criticism he makes towards "The Men on the Sixth Floor"

Please feel free to follow the following link to Amazon and comment on the article

or even vote on it. I also welcome your input on this forum.

Thanks,

Glen Sample

http://www.amazon.com/gp/community-content...mp;x=6&y=11

Six mistakes Bugliosi makes regarding my book.

April 13, 2009

A response By Glen Sample to Vincent Bugliosi's critique of "The Men on the Sixth Floor" contained in his Book "Reclaiming History."

Vincent Bugliosi's "Reclaiming History", a five pound monster of a book, is thought by many to be the nail in the coffin of conspiracy theorists. Indeed, his experience as a prosecutor has served him well in his response to some of the silly JFK assassination theories that have been forwarded over the decades. Like shooting fish in a barrel, Bugliosi takes them all on, dismissing them one after another. For this I applaud him.

I have a few problems, however, with the way he has described my research. Let me explain. I am the author of "The Men on the Sixth Floor", a book that Mr. Bugliosi describes as a "pathetic story" that no rational person would believe. Lets see.

The second paragraph contains the first annoying problem. He misnames my main character.

He calls Loy Factor "Lawrence Lloyd Factor, a Chickasaw Indian from Fillmore, Oklahoma.

Actually, Lawrence Loy Factor was his name. Now, this may seem a small point, but it was definitely a red flag for me, because after all, this is supposed to be the last word in the JFK case; the crushing blow to "conspiracy buffs" the world over. Lets not start the process by misnaming the story's main character.

The second bone I have to pick with Mr. Bugliosi is the liberty he takes in explaining the details of our book. For example in the same paragraph as the misnamed Loy Factor occurs, he says that Factor, for "some undisclosed reason" decided to tell his cellmate, Mark Collom, the "Whopper" of a story about his participation with the assassins of JFK.

Actually, the reason was disclosed.

Mark and Loy were both quarantined for a period of many weeks together in the prison hospital. Their friendship grew, and thus Loy's trust in Mark allowed him to disclose this secret that previously had only been revealed to Loy's deceased wife. Mark helped Loy by reading his trial transcripts and helping Loy with his case. Decades later, when Mark and I found Loy in rural Oklahoma, it was obvious that a bond still existed between the two men. Bugliosi strives to give the impression, that Factor was spinning this tale to anyone who would listen, when the opposite is true. Factor told no one else this story. Twenty years later, when Mark and I eventually found and interviewed him, he was afraid to talk and even refused further interviews. It was only through our patience, gentle coaxing and Loy's trust in his old friend, that he agreed to talk further.

Thirdly, a description of Loy Factor's initial introduction to Mac Wallace lacks integrity and is a thinly disguised arrogant barb, designed to malign Loy and his story. Mr. Bugliosi describes wrongly that Wallace approached Factor at the funeral of U.S. Senator Sam Rayburn's funeral and "asked about Loy's ability as a marksman." Factor, he says, responds by saying "it was right good." That is not what happened. Wallace introduced himself to Factor and the two men conversed for some time, until finally President Kennedy arrived by limousine. It was then that Loy made the observation that the president lacked security. Then the conversation turned to Loy's interest in guns and hunting. It was Loy who broached the subject of his ability as a marksman, not Mac Wallace. And Loy never responded by saying it was "right good."

Bugliosi then takes his fourth punch with a rather silly observation. In our acknowledgements, Mark and I express our thanks to the many researchers, writers and witnesses who have helped us along the way. We also thank our wives, who, as one can imagine, were inconvenienced by our long ordeal of travel, research, interviews, time and expense etc. in compiling the information for our story. "They not only allowed us our fantasy, but they encouraged it", is what we wrote. Mr. Bugliosi describes this as a "Freudian slip", saying that the statement actually meant that the authors didn't believe what they themselves were writing. I can assure you that the authors did believe their story. Hundreds of e-mails and letters from all over the world have voiced the same sentiment from others also. Actually "Reclaiming History" quotes Robin Ramsay's ("Who Shot JFK?) statement that the authors (Sample & Collom) have "solved the case".

The fifth misrepresentation that Mr. Bugliosi makes is concerning the murder trial of Mac Wallace in 1952. He writes:

(quote) "In 1952, he (Wallace) was convicted in Austin, Texas, of murdering a golf pro, John Douglas Kinser, who had been having an affair with Wallace's estranged wife. He received a five-year suspended prison sentence. The authors see the dark hand of LBJ in the very light sentence, since Wallace's lawyer, John Cofer, was one of LBJ's main lawyers in his successful post-election legal battle for the U.S Senate against former governor Coke Stevenson in 1948. How Cofer would have the power to bring about Wallace's light sentence, the authors don't say. In a 1986 interview with the Dallas Times Herald, D. L. Johnson, one of the jurors in the Kinser case, said that he was the only juror who favored an outright acquittal for Kinser and that he forced the guilty-with-a-suspended-sentence verdict by threatening to cause a hung jury if he didn't get his way." (end quote)

While most of the above quote is true, Bugliosi asserts that our "seeing the dark hand of LBJ" is a strange assumption on our part! Attorney Cofer was one of many players in this trial, tightly manipulated by Lyndon Johnson and his Texas connections. Bugliosi neglects to tell his readers that D.L. Johnson was the first cousin and good friend of Gus Lanier, who during the trial sat at the defense table of Wallace and his main lawyers. (Who also included another LBJ friend - Polk Shelton) He also leaves out an important snippet from an intelligence file included in our book:

(quote from "The Men on the Sixth Floor")

"And apparently the Johnson influence went even deeper. In Wallace's Naval intelligence file, supplied to us, (dated 20 July, 1961) Johnson is alluded to as bribing Bob Long, the prosecuting attorney in the case. The following quote is from page 4 of the 19 page file, paragraph 10. The SUBJECT referred to is Malcolm Wallace:

"Billy Roy WILDER and Richard C. AVENT, both assistant district attorneys who assisted in the procurement of SUBJECT's file, added their comments concerning rumors which persisted at the time of SUBJECT's trial. WILDER alleged that Bob LONG, former district Attorney, was reported to have been the recipient of valuable property in the city of Austin as a result of his suppression of certain aspects involving political ramifications." (end quote)

Also William Barrett, the famous newspaper writer from Dallas, was convinced of LBJ's involvement in the Wallace murder trial. We report on this in our book:

(Quote from "The Men on the Sixth Floor") I was able to contact Mr. Barrett when I returned from Dallas. He confirmed the above information, and told me without hesitation that in his own mind, he is absolutely sure, beyond doubt, that Malcolm Wallace had the help of Lyndon Johnson in his legal battle.

Much later, we found The Texas Observer article (Nov. 7, 1986) by Bill Adler, which added further support to a "fixed" jury in the Wallace case:

"Not long after the trial, several of the jurors telephoned Doug Kinser's parents to apologize for voting for a suspended sentence, but said they did so only because threats had been made against their families, according to Al Kinser, a nephew of Kinser's who along with his father, still runs the Pitch and Putt golf course." (end quote)

Mr. Bugliosi implies that anyone "seeing the dark hand of LBJ" in the murder trial of Mac Wallace is irrational. I disagree. In fact, the "dark hand of LBJ" can be seen in another murder - that of Henry Marshall.

And that was the sixth mistake that Mr. Bugliosi makes in reference to our book - that there is no credible evidence that Malcolm Wallace murdered Henry Marshall. But there is ample reason to believe that Wallace was the murderer. One very strong reason is found in chapter 13 in our book - The Estes Documents. Although Mr. Bugliosi valiantly tries to discredit the source of these letters to and from the U. S. Justice Department and Billie Sol Estes, the fact remains that in 1984 Billie Sol Estes names Malcolm Wallace as the killer. But prior to these letters, Estes appeared before a Robertson County Texas grand jury and testified under oath to the same thing. Below is a news story of the confession that Mr.Bugliosi for some reason left out:

(quote)

By David Hanners Staff writer of The News. Franklin, Texas -

"Convicted swindler Billie Sol Estes told a grand jury that Lyndon B. Johnson was one of four men who planned the 1961 murder of an agriculture official, three sources close to the grand jury said Thursday. The sources said Estes testified that the group feared the official would link Estes' illegal activities to Johnson.

Estes, who was given immunity from prosecution to testify before a Robertson County grand jury Tuesday, told grand jurors that Johnson felt pressure to silence Henry Harvey Marshall of Bryan, a regional U.S.... Department of Agriculture official in charge of the federal cotton allotment program, sources said....

The sources, who asked to remain anonymous because grand jury testimony is secret under state law, said Estes testified that he had attended at least three meetings with Johnson - two in Washington and one at the Driskill Hotel in Austin - during which they discussed the need to stop Marshall from disclosing Estes' fraudulent business dealings and his ties with Johnson.

Estes testified that he later balked at the idea of killing Marshall, according to sources. Marshall had resisted attempts to transfer him from Bryan to Agriculture Department headquarters in Washington in order to silence him. Sources said Estes' testimony implicated:

Johnson, who had just been elected vice president. Estes and his family have repeatedly said that Estes was a political ally of LBJ, and that Estes made repeated campaign contributions to LBJ's campaigns. Johnson assumed the presidency on the death of John F. Kennedy, on Nov. 22, 1963. He was elected in 1964 to a full term, but chose in 1968 not to seek re-election. He died at his ranch in Stonewall, Texas, on Jan. 22, 1973.

Clifton C. Carter, a close Johnson political aide and troubleshooter who later served as Executive Director and Treasurer of the Democratic National Committee. Carter died of natural causes in Arlington (Va.) Hospital Sept. 21, 1971.

Malcolm Everett (Mac) Wallace, the president of the 1945 student body at the University of Texas at Austin and a onetime U. S. Agriculture Department economist. Wallace, whom sources said Estes identified as Marshall's killer, previously had avoided a prison term on a 1952 murder conviction in Austin. Wallace died, sources said, in a Northeast Texas automobile accident in 1971.

A relative found Marshall's body June 3, 1961, on his Robertson County ranch. He had been shot five times, and his bolt-action .22 caliber rifle was found nearby. (NOT a shotgun as Bugliosi states) His death originally was ruled a suicide by a local justice of the peace, but the ruling came into question a year later when news broke of Marshall's investigation of Estes' cotton allotments.

U.S. Marshall Clint Peoples, who as a Texas Ranger captain began investigating the Murder in 1962, said Thursday that Marshall "was blowing the whistle" on Estes' scheme to defraud the government's cotton allotment program.

Peoples, who persuaded Estes to testify before the grand jury Tuesday, refused to name the people whom Estes implicated in the conspiracy.

"I asked him (Estes) why he didn't testify at the first grand jury in 1962, and he said if he had, he would have been a dead man," said John Paschall, the district attorney.

Paschall said records from the 1962 grand jury revealed that Marshall approved 138 cotton allotments for Estes from Jan. 17 to June 3, 1961. But, Peoples said, "The facts are that Henry Marshall was told to approve them (Estes' cotton allotments)." Before 1961, Estes, a Pecos millionaire who had made much of his money through federally subsidized farm programs, had become a key Democratic power broker and fund-raiser for the campaigns of Johnson, Yarborough and then-Gov. John Connally. Less than a year later, Estes' multi-million dollar empire - built on non-existent grain storage elevators and cotton allotments he obtained fraudulently - collapsed.

In March 1962, Estes was indicted on fraud charges. Two months later, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Orville Freeman said Marshall had been the only man who could provide some of the answers to questions about Estes' involvement in the cotton allotment program.

Days later, a state district judge in Bryan authorized the exhumation of Marshall's body. An autopsy by Harris County Medical Examiner Joseph Jachimczyk revealed that Marshall suffered not only five gunshot wounds to his lower left abdomen but also carbon monoxide poisoning and a head injury. The bruise to Marshall's head occurred before his death, Jachimczyk said, and would have been incapacitating."

Sybil Marshall, the wife of the slain Agriculture Department official, said Thursday, "I'm kind of shocked. I don't know what to think."

Mrs. Marshall said her family always believed her husband had been murdered. "I can't believe he would do that to himself (commit suicide), she said. "He was a good man."

Estes, despite two federal trials and subsequent prison terms in the following two decades, steadfastly had refused to discuss his relationship with Lyndon Johnson or the Marshall murder. Called to testify before a 1962 grand jury investigating Marshall's death, Estes repeatedly invoked his constitutional right against self-incrimination, according to press reports at the time.

"Daddy's silence... allowed Lyndon Johnson to become president," Estes' daughter, Pam Estes, wrote in a book about her father titled BILLIE SOL, which was released last week.

"During that time, Daddy had been supplying Lyndon Johnson with large infusions of cash, not only for his own political needs but for people Johnson himself chose to help.

"Sometimes Johnson would send people like Ralph Yarborough directly to Daddy for fund-raising help. On other occasions, Johnson would get bundles of cash from Daddy and distribute it himself. Since those transactions were all cash, there is no reliable way of knowing how much money went to Johnson or what became of it.

"Daddy has steadfastly refused to talk about that part of his life with anyone, even me," she wrote. Wallace, whom sources said Estes named as the triggerman in Marshall's murder, at one time had dated Johnson's sister, Josefa, according to a friend of the Johnson family who asked not to be identified. Johnson's sister died in 1961.

However, Horace Busby, a close friend of Johnson's, said Johnson met Wallace only once, when Carter brought Wallace to Johnson's home in Washington. Wallace was convicted in 1952 of killing John Douglas Kinser of Austin. Testimony in that case revealed that Kinser had been having an affair with Wallace's wife. Wallace was sentenced to a five-year prison term, which was suspended.

Wallace was represented in his 1952 trial by Austin criminal defense lawyer John Cofer, now deceased. Cofer, a longtime LBJ confidant, had represented Johnson in the Jim Wells County "Box 13" voter fraud case in 1948. Because of the slim edge of 87 votes he received from Box 13, Johnson won a runoff election against Coke Stevenson for the U.S. Senate.

Cofer defended Estes in his 1962 fraud trial. Ms. Estes said in her book that Cofer was hired "at the insistence of Lyndon Johnson."

Cofer rested Estes' case without calling any defense witnesses. "I feel that that was done to make sure there was no opportunity of implicating Lyndon Johnson during any testimony or cross examination," Ms. Estes wrote.

"It should be clear by now that it was Lyndon Johnson who paved the way for the preferential treatment Daddy received from the Agriculture Department," she wrote..."

(end quote)

There is more evidence that Malcolm Wallace was the murderer of Henry Marshall, but space on this venue does not allow for it.

These are six examples of how Vincent Bugliosi's "Reclaiming History" has distorted the facts of our book. It makes me wonder how many other distortions exist within his books pages.

Glen Sample

Robin,

Yes thanks, that is exactly the one I was looking for!

Thanks so much.

Glen

Hello all.

Recently, somewhere on this forum, I saw a photograph of Lt. J. C. Day, pointing to the northwest corner of the

TSBD where he says the Carcano was found. I have been unable to find it again.

Does anyone know where this rare photograph can be found?

I'm interested in what appears behind Lt. Day. A clear shot of the southwest corner of

the TSBD, unobstructed by any stacks of books.

At least that is what I Think it shows!

Glen

Glen,

Regarding the Marshall murder, do you know anything about a man named Wiley Robertson who lived very close to where Marshall's body was found?

James

James,

Sorry, I'm not familiar with that name. (but Roberson was the name of the county)

Glen

The following e-mail from "booger county" presents a new twist in the death of Henry Marshall. I wish Floyd Stephens was still among us. He was

researching the involvement of his late father in the murder of Marshall. He would have loved this!

I have done a little name redacting here.

Quote:

"To answer your questions here ... First of all, _______ personally told her story to her youngest sister (my mother), _______, around 1975 ... That's apparently how frightened she was for her own safety and that of her family ... to have waited so long to share it with anybody else. I knew her well --- and though she lacked a higher education, she was of average intelligence. However ... Robertson County is also called "Booger County" for a very good reason! It has a long-standing (and well-deserved) reputation for corruption of every sort imaginable ... and being a life-long resident there, ______ was very aware of the dangers and the risks involved for herself ... with very little to gain from it ... by speaking openly about it, or worse --- going to the so-called "authorities" there. But the details of it that she eventually shared with my mother -- which doesn't completely "jive" with the video documentary -- is that while she was out on her farm property that day -- she first witnessed a helicopter flying overhead, which circled around widely as though "searching" for someone, then she noticed that it landed (outside of her visual range), disappearing behind some trees which were situated between herself on the Rabe property and the Marshall property. Shortly thereafter, she heard several quick successive shots of gunfire, immediately followed by the departure of the helicopter. Ofcourse, she didn't fully realize what was going on with all that until Marshall's bullet-ridden body was later discovered by others ... in the same general vicinity of where she had witnessed the helicopter land behind the trees. I asked my mother this evening if she is certain that ______ told her that there was a helicopter involved in the actual murder ... and not a "search" helicopter used at some point later on to find Marshall's body. (Because quite frankly ... sometimes my mother gets details a little bit mixed up ... She is 77 years old now.) However, she is adament that ______ told her that she had noticed the helicopter first, followed by the gunshots, then the helicopter lifted up and departed. Which, upon reflection, explains how it happened that Henry Marshall was easily "located" out in a large foliage-laden stretch of property by the murderer(s) in the first place. I suppose that such transportation would not negate the hitman (fitting Wallace's description) from first driving into town and inquiring with a local gas station attendant regarding where the Marshall farm was located. Practically the entire county consists of farmland, so obviously he needed to locate the farm first ... and then go find Mr. Marshall out on it. So the quick use of a helicopter to thereafter effectively carry out the deed is plausible, in my view. And as far as I know, ______ did not mention whether she witnessed more than one person in the helicopter. She simply stated that there was a helicopter involved. She also did not mention the distance involved ... only that it happened within earshot, and that the trees obscured her view.

To answer your question about Don Marshall ... I have never met him. But I'll wager that if you ask him whether he knew the Rabe family ... or even the old 'Moody's Cafe' in Franklin ... he will respond that he does. All close kin to me ... the Moodys, the Lewises, the Andersons, the James, the Davidsons, the Rabes --- both sides of my family (maternal and paternal) have lived in that area since the mid-1800's. And ofcourse ... several of them are buried in the same Franklin Cemetery where Mr. Marshall was laid to rest. I feel very badly for the Marshall family ... and cannot even imagine their pain and the high level of frustration they must have endured, and still do. Awful!"

Francesca,

Yes, I'm still out here.....

I am not aware of any aliases used by Malcolm Everett Wallace. Just Mac.

While we're at it, has anyone ever heard of Mac ever having a pilot's license, flying a

plane or helicopter? I have an interesting story that the neighbor to Henry Marshall's

"place" has related in connection with the day of his murder.

Should I start a new thread on this?

Glen Sample

$100,000 will get you the window that D. H. Byrd had removed from the TSBD and displayed at his home.

http://cgi.ebay.com/John-F-Kennedy-Assassi...1QQcmdZViewItem

From the auction description:

Up for auction for the first time, the actual window and frame from the shooter’s nest on the 6th floor of the Dallas Texas School Book Depository where Lee Harvey Oswald fired off those fatal shots that took the life of our 35th President of the United States - John F. Kennedy. Here is your opportunity to own a piece of history. This window and frame was on display for over ten years at the Sixth Floor Museum in Dallas, Texas. The window and frame has been picked up by it's owner Caruth Byrd and is now in his possession. This valuable historical artifact is now being offered for sale to an avid JFK collector by Caruth Byrd, whose family owned the Texas School Book Depository at the time of the assassination, Nov. 22, 1963. Also included in this auction is a leather booklet with all the official documentation and contracts related to the window and frame's authenticity. The assassination of John F. Kennedy changed history and this is perhaps the most famous window ever offered up for sale in the world. This authentic, documented piece of American history will only become more valuable with time. Don’t miss this opportunity to own a piece of history.

Several researchers are inclined to be very suspicious of Floyd's heart attack.

He was writing a book on some very serious matters that have already lead to

several deaths in TX. That good 'ole Tx Connection.

Dawn

I received two emails from Floyd Stephens last year and provided him with any information that I had that might help him in his research project. In response to my encouraging him to post in the forum what he had learned, he wrote that for the time being he wanted to proceed quietly without drawing too much attention to his endeavor. I respected his desire to do so.

However, in light of his passing, I think it might be his wish that the contents of his two emails to me be posted now as a means of furthering research into a great historical event, JFK's assassination. These are reproduced below. Of course, there is no way of knowing what he learned subsequently to writing his emails that might have changed the content of these.

------------------------------------------

A couple of questions about Billie Sol, Jun 24 2006, 02:35 AM

Mr. Caddy

My name is Floyd Stephens and I am a new member of the forum. I have read your bio and wonder if you would be open to a couple of questions about your contact with Mr. Estes.

I have seen your correspondence to the department of justice and their replies via the net , but how and when did you come to know and represent Mr. Estes. I guess what I am getting at is did you represent Mr. Estes at Franklin, were you at the 1984 grand jury hearing with him.

Secondly, were you present for Mr. Estes' short lived meeting with the FBI agents. Is there any light you can shed as to his change of mind concerning that meeting.

Do you still represent or keep in touch with Mr. Estes any more.

I have talked to Glen Sample in California a couple of months ago, we had a real nice conversation and he has an amazing story. A puzzle he started piecing together that led him to Johnson by way of Mr. Estes via Malcolm Wallace via Loy Factor.

This puzzle is still yet in complete, in talking with Glen I ask what's the next piece to which he responded find out about Mr. Estes' meeting with Marina Oswald Porter. In his recent book Mr. Estes writes of his meeting with Marina and he made a curious statement.... You see Marina knew both Jack Ruby And Malcolm Wallace, and I'll say no more than that.

I attempted to bring this up to Mr. Carroll and seek his response through the Marina Oswald topic within this forum, but was immediately shot down in his usual holier than thou attitude. I did not think that this question was out of line, but he did. Do you have views to Mr. Estes' statement?

I never paid that much attention to the assassination, until about two years ago right after my Fathers passing. Two days after his funeral his house was burnt and the next day the rest of the structures that were adjacent to his home were torched also. I was told that the house was burnt to destroy any old evidence my father may have had that would connect him or the sheriffs department to the death of Henry Marshall, say what! And then there's that strange suicide, the mortician had some concerns of foul play, but the authorities closed the case any way that very afternoon. And this time I'm not talking about Henry Marshall in 1961 , but rather one of the sheriffs departments main suspects in the above mentioned arson in 2004, some things never change when your form Booger County.

I thank you in advance for any reply you may have, and wish only the best for you in your endeavors.

Respectfully,

Floyd Stephens

Class of 1977, Franklin, Texas

----------------------

May our conversation continue?, Jun 25 2006, 01:21 AM

Dear Mr. Caddy

I was delighted to receive your response and look forward to anything that you can provide me with.

About three months after my Fathers death I sought out and found Mr. Estes up in Grandbury. We talked of Franklin and Henry Marshall it seems he was also a little curious about what I know. Mr. Estes and I have talked on the phone about 7 or 8 times, in fact he called me last week while he was killing time up at Scott and White Hospital in Temple Texas. His wife was up there for a couple of days and his other daughter Cathy lives in Leander Texas about 8 miles from me. Mr. Estes said that he is still having a little trouble with his leg that he broke last year.

I am going to visit him in Grandbury in a couple of weeks. He hasn't elaborated much on his discussion with Marina, but I am working on him.

One of my old friends in Franklin told me of a visit that Mr. Estes paid to Sheriff Howard Stegall the morning of his first grand jury appearance in Robertson County back in 1962. He remembered the white caddies pulling up his Fathers driveway, it only took a minute or so before Howard ran them off, yelling don't you ever come back here again. I haven't related this story to Mr. Estes yet , but I plan to try to get his version of it. He has recently been discussing the Henry Marshall thing in much more detail speaking of my Father and the Sheriff as he knew or knew of them. I don't press him too hard, but yet I long to know what he knows.

I first became aware of the Henry Marshall thing over twenty-five years ago when my Mother told me that my father was involved in a killing with some of his law enforcement buddies there in Franklin. She had no details for me of the crime but knew for sure that my Father was involved.

This stunned me, because I had spent my highschool years in Franklin and never heard of Henry Marshall or any kind of killing to which she referred. I was in the same class as the son and daughter of L M Owens the brother-in-law that found Henryand I delivered eggs to the sheriffs son-in-law Pryce Metcalf's egg processing facility. I hauled hay with the son of the local game warden who was on the scene June 3 1961.

Could every one know but me? I left Texas when I was 4 or 5 and didn't return until I was in highschool. The people were always nice to me and everyone knew who I was and knew my Father. I now that they did know. A year or two after my Mothers revelation I heard a story as related to by my father to another person from my past. This was the story of what happened that afternoon that Henry Marshall died. It was a tell of a botched payoff that got out of hand, everything was going OK, then Henry said that he would be part of it and he was leaving, he began to fight with the group and that's when someone hit him in the head with a rifle. The whack caved in his orbital bone and left his eyeball dangling, that's when they knew Henry must die and that's when he died.

I have shared this story with only a select few. No one in Franklin knows that I know what went down back then. I continue to research on a low key, slowly piecing together what I may find along the way. I noticed a generations theme forming within the story that I am putting together, sort of a Sin of The Fathers type of premise. I believe that Franklin and what happened there is the geniuses of the conspiracy. One thing lead to another and it kept compounding until it consumed a president and forever tainted the fabric of our country. To me Franklin has became a microcosm, sort of a biopsy of the conspiracy to be studied and understood. From this knowledge I hope to better understand what happened in a broader since to our nation as a whole, how the Sin of The Fathers has transpired through the generations to bring us to the point where we are at today.

Douglas, please hold these things I communicate to you in confidence. I find it much easier to do what I am doing with out drawing attention to myself.

Respectfully,

Floyd Stephens

Hello Douglas,

Nice to hear from you. Your letters from Floyd show the kind and respectful researcher he was.

Glen Sample

This is indeed bad news. Floyd and I communicated many times by phone and e-mail. I am not

a paranoid person, but this makes me a little concerned. Floyd was working on the Marshall murder

aspect of this case. He has some solid information and I personally warned him about the direction

that he was heading. He was also trying to make contact with Marina Oswald concerning the statement in

Billie Sol's book that Marina KNEW Malcolm Wallace. He mailed Marina Billie Sol's book along with my book

and asked her to respond. Floyd's Father, I am convinced, was somehow connected to the Marshall

murder. Floyd was a "phisically involved" researcher. How sad.

Glen Sample

Glen:

He did make contact with Marina and mainly with Mr. Porter, her husband. While he (Mr. Porter) was in the hospital Marina threw out the books Floyd sent. She told him on the phone that she did not wish to discuss this matter. Floyd relayed this to me in our last conversation, less than two weeks ago. I am posting this because secrecy in matters as grave as these can be most dangerous.

Dawn

Dawn, I found this in yesterday's Austin American-Statesman:

"Also Monday, Floyd Collins Stephens, 47, was driving a pickup north on Research Boulevard near Jamestown Drive about 4:30 p.m. when he lost control and hit two retaining walls, police said. Stephens was taken to Brackenridge Hospital, where he died."

Is this the right Floyd? If so, chalk up another single car accident in Texas.

Glen

Glen:

Yes, that is him. But there was an autopsy and it was a heart attack. I am in the process of trying to obtain further information, just got off the phone with the woman who called me last night. She had no idea that he was involved in this research. His wife also may not know. Ed Tatro told me today to have them look through his personal effects for Tic Tacs.

Do you know if the book he was working on may be on his computer? When we talked last it was just about his dealings with Marnia and Ralph Porter. I was planning to call him this week to re-schedule a trip to see Billie Sol.

Dawn

**************

I'm sure that his book was on his computer. He sent me some of his work in e-mail attachments.

I was looking through past e-mails and noticed that he was a friend of the Stegall family. Went to school with Sheriff Stegall's son, etc. Stegall was the Sheriff that found Marshall's body and called it a suicide. Floyd Felt that his own father was involved somehow in the Marshall murder. He was working on his book with a goal of finishing it in 2010.

Glen

This is indeed bad news. Floyd and I communicated many times by phone and e-mail. I am not

a paranoid person, but this makes me a little concerned. Floyd was working on the Marshall murder

aspect of this case. He has some solid information and I personally warned him about the direction

that he was heading. He was also trying to make contact with Marina Oswald concerning the statement in

Billie Sol's book that Marina KNEW Malcolm Wallace. He mailed Marina Billie Sol's book along with my book

and asked her to respond. Floyd's Father, I am convinced, was somehow connected to the Marshall

murder. Floyd was a "phisically involved" researcher. How sad.

Glen Sample

Glen:

He did make contact with Marina and mainly with Mr. Porter, her husband. While he (Mr. Porter) was in the hospital Marina threw out the books Floyd sent. She told him on the phone that she did not wish to discuss this matter. Floyd relayed this to me in our last conversation, less than two weeks ago. I am posting this because secrecy in matters as grave as these can be most dangerous.

Dawn

Dawn, I found this in yesterday's Austin American-Statesman:

"Also Monday, Floyd Collins Stephens, 47, was driving a pickup north on Research Boulevard near Jamestown Drive about 4:30 p.m. when he lost control and hit two retaining walls, police said. Stephens was taken to Brackenridge Hospital, where he died."

Is this the right Floyd? If so, chalk up another single car accident in Texas.

Glen

I was greatly saddened to learn last night that my friend Floyd Stephens suffered a fatal heart attack on

New Years day. Floyd was working on a book about the TX. connection, with emphasis on Mac Wallace et al.

RIP friend.

Dawn

This is indeed bad news. Floyd and I communicated many times by phone and e-mail. I am not

a paranoid person, but this makes me a little concerned. Floyd was working on the Marshall murder

aspect of this case. He has some solid information and I personally warned him about the direction

that he was heading. He was also trying to make contact with Marina Oswald concerning the statement in

Billie Sol's book that Marina KNEW Malcolm Wallace. He mailed Marina Billie Sol's book along with my book

and asked her to respond. Floyd's Father, I am convinced, was somehow connected to the Marshall

murder. Floyd was a "phisically involved" researcher. How sad.

Glen Sample

Glen:

Re your fingerprint expert out there who said there was no match. I have a couple of questions: Everything I know about your work on the print came from J. Harrison. The times we spoke on the phone I meant to ask you these questions but got sidetracked. (Should have made notes to self

1. How was your guy's study done? By this I mean was he presented with the latent and the known Wallace print, in a "blind" fashion, like Nathan Darby was? Or did he know exactly what he was observing?

**********************************

I e-mailed a regional fingerprint organization called SCAFO http://www.scafo.org/ and requested assistance in identifying a

print from an old crime scene. My request was answered by a young Police officer from San Bernardino P.D. The prints I had were horrible. The young officer and his superior did what they could do with what I had. To that point, I had not mentioned the

JFK case. Later, I did mention the circumstances of the prints, something I now realize to be unprofessional and counterproductive.

However, the intrigue moved these two officers to request a better fingerprint from Austin. When they received the print, they again examined for a match, but to no avail. I was not permitted to keep the print. No mention was made to me about any violation of department rules, but I got the impression that they were stretching something to get this print. I was totally convinced by these men that the print was not a match, although they did admit that there were several points that did match.

As they explained it, there were also several points that did not match.

*************************************

2. What were his credentials? You know of course that Nathan was not only a top certified expert, but that he taught the science of fingerprinting to police officers in Austin for many years. Did your guy even remotely compare?

*************************************

I am well aware of Nathan's career and his experience. Brilliant indeed! My guys were fingerprint officers, who routinely investigated crime scenes. Nothing spectacular, but I was totally convinced that we had reached a dead end with the prints.

What's more, I had nothing to go on, since the austin print was kept by the S.B. officers and they later told me that they were ordered not to go any further with the case. Eventually I later came into possession of clearer prints from various individuals involved with J. and his group. How I wish that I would have made contact with Nathan Darby a long time ago.

**************************************

3. J told me many times that because you obtained this known Wallace print from Austin's Department of Public Safety "with no case to which to attach said print" (J. Harrison) , that this consitituted a violation of DPS' policy, which has since rendered a dead end for anyone else to now obtain this print. I tried, at Nathan's request, many avenues to obtain a second print for him after his home was illegally entered and this entire Wallace file was stolen. (A burglar alarm was bypassed and nothing else was taken, causing Nathan to fear that his life may have been in danger). Can you comment on how you obtained the print? And the alleged ramifications of same?

***************************************

That may be true, I'm not aware of any of these ramifications, but I'm pretty sure that the Wallace print we now have, the one

nathan worked with, is clear enough. What is NOT clear, however, is the box print latent. That is, in my opinion, where the problem is. Nathan told us about the break in of his home. I felt bad for him as he was home alone for much of the time and

this would be disturbing to anyone.

By the way, J and I had many wonderful dialogues for quite a long period of time. What a splendid researcher! Did he ever tell you that it was I who put him in touch with Stephen Pegues? J. was terribly upset and shaken the day Stephen died, as was I. Pegues was one of the sources of the "Estes" letters that Mark and I made public and later included in a later edition of "The Men on the Sixth Floor." The other source of those long secret files is a member of this forum........

***************************************

4. When you visited Nathan what was it that caused you to change your mind and agree that there was indeed a match?

******************************************

Well, first and foremost was Nathan's 100% positive assurance that there was a match. I first noticed that in the "Guilty Men" documentary, and then again when I reached him by phone. When Mark and I visited him, he was no less confident in his work.

Step by step he took us through the process. I still have many pages of his hand written notes and diagrams. And while I am

convinced that there is a match, the quality of the box 29 print is such that we may never get a concensus. But in my mind, Nathan IS the concensus!

Let me also appologize for not answering sooner. I could not find this thread.

Glen

I probably have more questions, but thank you, in advance, for responses to these.

Dawn

Stained Glass

by Ann Zimmerman

Article Published Nov 27, 1997

From

http://www.dallasobserver.com/issues/1997-11-27/feature.html

The man on the phone speaks in conspiratorial tones. His name is Martin Barkley, a 40-something divorced father of two who has devoted so much of his life to a single purpose--proving that Lee Harvey Oswald did not kill John Kennedy from the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository on November 22, 1963.

His research qualifications amount to having worked security for several large companies and spent time in Army intelligence. His personal link to the assassination was that his uncle was the longest-serving Dallas police officer when Kennedy was shot--and, of course, he whispered something conspiratorial at Thanksgiving dinner days after the assassination.

Barkley is a true believer, and he talks in elliptical phrases and vague pronouncements. On this day, he says he wants to share his theory that Dallas' powers-that-be are perverting the information presented in the Sixth Floor Museum, Oswald's alleged sniper's perch--and this city's biggest tourist attraction. Barkley argues that those in charge of the museum are toadies for the Warren Commission.

"The way to control an issue is to manage information on both sides so nothing gets out of control," he says, espousing a typically muddy slogan.

He says he will prove this all with a guided tour of the Sixth Floor, where he used to work as a security guard. Barkley was a seasonal hire two years ago and was laid off--ostensibly when tourist traffic slowed down, he explains. But he's convinced that he was, in fact, terminated because he answered visitors' probing conspiracy questions too honestly, too carefully, too knowledgeably. Of course, he can't prove it.

Barkley insists we meet late on a Sunday, when we would arouse the least amount of suspicion.

When he arrives that afternoon, he wears an overcoat over his tall frame and a fedora that doesn't obscure piercing blue eyes. Still, the disguise doesn't work: Two minutes after we step inside the building, security guards surround him and want to know why he's there.

"See what I mean," he whispers, as the guards escort us up in the elevator.

He reels off an enormous list of ways the museum subtly controls the mind of the visitor. He is suspicious of a sign that directs visitors to begin the tour with the panels and videos highlighting Kennedy's early years; Barkley believes the "flow" of the exhibit--which winds through Kennedy's all-too-brief presidency, his fateful visit to Texas, then the assassination--is intentionally misleading and exhausting.

"By the time the visitor gets to the end," Barkley insists, "he's too tired to read about conspiracies."

Barkley's rant is a fairly predictable and obvious one. Indeed, place a museum on the sixth floor of the old School Book Depository, and you're pretty much admitting you think Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. It's not like the county opened a Grassy Knoll Museum.

Yet Barkley is not all hushed whispers and vague hypotheses.

Displayed halfway through the tour in the Sixth Floor Museum is one of the most famous windows in the world--the perch from which Oswald allegedly killed Kennedy with a cheap Italian mail-order rifle. Behind a thick wall of Plexiglass, the window has been exhibited here since 1995, and since then, more than a million visitors have scrutinized it, studied it, even venerated its tragic place in history.

The window, located in the southeast corner of the museum, sits only a few feet from where Oswald killed Kennedy--allegedly, of course. It bears the caption "The Original Window from the Sniper's Perch."

But is it?

Barkley believes the infamous perch that hangs in the museum is a fake...a fraud.

He may be right.

Just a cursory look at the window on display reveals that it differs significantly from pictures taken of the window moments after the assassination.

For instance, the window on display has a thick smudge of paint and putty on a pane of glass at its top half. But there is no such smudge on any pictures of the original sniper's perch. Also, old photos of the window--photos that are on display at the museum--show markings on the green wooden sash along the bottom portion of the window. The window encased in the Plexiglass exhibit has no such markings.

Of course, conspiracy theorists say they never believed it was the real window all along.

So here's one more riddle for the theorists to solve: If this isn't the real window, and it likely isn't, then where is it--and how did this impostor wind up enshrined in this museum? We're through the looking glass, as Kevin Costner's Jim Garrison drawled in JFK, where every answer spawns a dozen more questions.

"There is just no end to this," says Robert Groden, a prominent local conspiracy theorist who served as a photo analyst on the 1978 U.S. House of Representatives Select Committee on Assassinations. "It's just mystery after mystery."

For more than two decades, the window--or what one man believed was the famous sniper's perch window--hung like a trophy, or a deer's head, in the banquet room of one of the wealthiest men in Dallas.

Col. D. Harold Byrd kept it in his University Park home as a souvenir, a tragic keepsake he ordered removed from the building on Elm and Houston streets that he owned and leased to the Texas School Book Depository. Byrd kept it there until his death in 1986, at which time it fell into the hands of his son Caruth--who, the story goes, kept the window out of public view for almost a decade.

Caruth Byrd wanted to keep the window buried, forgotten about. He rejected enormous financial offers from those who collect such morbid artifacts, and refused the requests from those who wanted to place the window in a Dallas museum commemorating the assassination--fearing the museum would be an embarrassment to the city. He preferred to keep hidden this reminder of Dallas' shame...until one day, in 1994, he had a change of heart and turned the window over to the Sixth Floor Museum.

On February 21, 1995--President's Day--more than 100 elected officials, members of the Dallas County Historical Foundation, and assassination eyewitnesses gathered at the Sixth Floor Museum for the window's dramatic unveiling.

"I thought and thought about what to do with it," the garrulous, barrel-chested Byrd told the assembled crowd during the unveiling ceremonies. "I've had offers for a lot of money for it, but I decided the best thing to do was bring it home where it belongs."

The window has remained on display here ever since, an authentic piece of history that offers its own special peek into a tragic day in this city's history.

At least, that's what half a million visitors a year believe.

There are those who doubt Byrd's tale--those who have photographic evidence right in the museum that proves the window on display is not the real sniper's perch, those who have spent months studying the discrepancies.

And there is at least one man who claims to own the window itself.

First, there is Barkley and his band of conspiracy theorists, including James Bagby, another former security guard at the museum. After overhearing some museum visitors question the authenticity of the window last March, Bagby studied the window for himself. He first noticed that the one-inch thick, salmon-colored smudge of paint and putty on the display window isn't apparent on an old picture of the real window.

The smudge, which is on what would have been the outside of the glass, matches the color of the wooden trim on the outside of the window. A note on the exhibit points out that the "paint on the exterior trim is original to the time of the assassination."

After studying pictures of the real window taken the day of the assassination, Bagby also noticed the distinct markings on the wooden sash along the bottom of the window that do not appear on the window on exhibit.

Bagby first brought these discrepancies to the attention of museum archivist Gary Mack eight months ago.

"'What you've discovered is quite important,'" Bagby says Mack told him. "'But I wouldn't be telling anyone about this.'"

Jeff West, executive director of the Sixth Floor, and Mack now admit they have questions about the authenticity of the window--no, make that doubts.

"We have concerns," West says. "It definitely bears scrutiny."

"It's a corner window," Mack adds. "Whether it's the window where shots were fired, we're not sure."

What makes all this speculation significantly more intriguing is that Conover Hunt, the museum consultant who helped put the Sixth Floor Museum together, knew from the beginning that there was someone else out there who claimed to own the real window.

His name is Aubrey Mayhew, a music producer from Nashville who may be the one person who can repair this jagged puzzle--or bust the whole thing into a million pieces.

The tale of the sniper's perch is not only a whodunit, but a whogotit. And with any mystery, perhaps it's easier to begin at the beginning, during those moments just as the echo of gunfire began fading in Dealey Plaza on November 22, 1963, and Dallas police ran inside the brick building at the corner of Elm and Houston.

They were directed there by witnesses who thought they saw what appeared to be the barrel of a rifle jutting out of a half-opened window on the sixth floor of the building, which housed the Texas School Book Depository, one of two textbook distribution sites for the state.

On the cavernous sixth floor, filled with stacks of book-filled boxes, police said they found three shell casings in front of the open window in the southeastern-most corner of the building. They also claimed to find a rifle, which Oswald was said to have bought through mail order, stashed under boxes diagonally across from the window.

Until the end of the 1960s, the Texas School Book Depository Company remained in the building, which was owned by Col. D. Harold Byrd. Byrd was an oil millionaire and husband of Mattie Caruth, whose family once owned most of the land from downtown Dallas to Park Lane. The Caruth family, after whom Caruth Haven Road is named, donated all the land for Southern Methodist University and leased the land for NorthPark Mall.

Afraid that curiosity seekers would carve off pieces of the sniper's-nest window, Byrd instructed his employee, Buddy McCool, to remove the window six weeks after the assassination, according to interviews with McCool and Byrd filmed in the early 1970s.

Whether McCool removed the right window is the question at the heart of this mystery.

The location of the sixth-floor sniper's perch is among the most infamous points of interest in the whole world. Yet it's conceivable that six weeks after the assassination, Byrd's lackey could have been confused about its exact location. There is no one alive who can verify which window McCool took out that day.

Byrd obviously took it on face value that he had the right one. He decorated the bottom half of the window with newspaper clippings of the assassination and postcard pictures of Kennedy, Dealey Plaza, and the book depository; then he had the whole thing framed.

He hung it in the banquet room of his Vassar Street mansion--later bought by oilman T. Boone Pickens--next to photos and mementos of his long, colorful career, which included co-founding the Civil Air Patrol, drilling numerous wildcat oil wells in East Texas, and funding the Antarctic explorations of his cousin, Admiral Richard E. Byrd, who named an Antarctic mountain range after the Texas colonel.

Byrd held onto the former book depository building until 1970, when he auctioned it off to a Nashville music producer named Aubrey Mayhew. Mayhew was a Kennedy memorabilia collector who planned to turn the structure into a commercial museum commemorating Kennedy's life. Still reeling from the fallout of the assassination that branded Dallas as "The City of Hate" and placed the blame for Kennedy's murder on Dallas' hostile environment, local city fathers recoiled at the idea of a museum that would consecrate the town's darkest hour. They also found Mayhew's intention to profit off the tragedy distasteful.

Mayhew tried several times to get city permits to start building his museum, but he was repeatedly turned down. A group called Dallas Onward, formed to protest turning the building into a national Kennedy landmark, helped thwart Mayhew's efforts.

By 1973, Mayhew defaulted on his loan, and Byrd repurchased the building after the bank foreclosed on it. He immediately put it back up for sale, this time asking $1.2 million for it. At the time, he said, he hoped whoever purchased the site "would use the building in a way that would not be a slam on Dallas...that would not blame Dallas for having the right environment for causing Kennedy's death," according to a filmed interview with Byrd.

The city passed an ordinance preventing the building from being torn down. Several city leaders, including real-estate developer Ray Nasher, were conducting their own campaign to create a private, nonprofit museum and monument to Kennedy on the site.

In 1977, Dallas citizens voted to use bond money to purchase the building from Byrd. The first five floors were refurbished for Dallas County administrative offices.

But little did anyone know that before Aubrey Mayhew vacated the premises, he hired two carpenters to remove two windows from the southeast corner of the sixth floor and replace them with windows from the north side of the building. He says he sneaked off with the sniper's-perch window--"the ultimate piece of Kennedy memorabilia"--while no one noticed.

Or so he claims.

If there is anyone to blame for this predicament, perhaps you should look no further than Conover Hunt.

A museum consultant from Marshall, Hunt first got involved with converting the sixth floor into a museum in the early 1980s. Hunt immediately noticed the sniper's-perch window was missing.

The entire casement that contained the two windows on the southeast corner had been replaced with windows from the north side of the building. She wasn't sure she would ever get her hands on the real ones.

Then, in 1987, two men contacted her, both claiming to have possession of the sniper's perch window. Caruth Byrd called Hunt and told her he had inherited the window from his father, who had died the previous year. Caruth said he stashed it behind some drawers in his house on a sprawling ranch in Van, just east of Canton. Hunt says she asked Byrd to send her proof that he had it, but he wasn't forthcoming.

Still, Hunt says she was inclined to believe Caruth, because she knew several people, including Joe Dealey Sr., late publisher of The Dallas Morning News, who had seen the window hanging in Colonel Byrd's house.

Caruth Byrd eventually allowed Hunt to see the window, which he moved to a vault in Inwood Village. But he refused to donate it or loan it to the museum. The Sixth Floor Museum was still two years away from opening, and Byrd, echoing concerns his father had uttered years earlier, was afraid the museum would be tacky and an embarrassment to the city.

Not long after Byrd met with Hunt, Aubrey Mayhew sent Hunt a letter. He, too, said he had the window--both windows, in fact--from the sniper's perch, and he wanted $250,000 for them. Hunt says she asked Mayhew to send her a picture and measurements of the windows.

"He never did," says the whiskey-voiced Hunt. "I was naturally cautious. If someone wants to sell it, the least they can do is send a picture and the exact measurements."

Hunt explains that she never flew to Nashville to see Mayhew's windows because she couldn't justify the expense without first having some proof that Mayhew actually had the windows.

In 1994, Caruth Byrd suddenly changed his mind about burying the past and let the museum know he was willing to loan out the window. Hunt retrieved it from Byrd's ranch and analyzed it. She says the paint color matched the other windows along the southern wall, and the shape led her to believe it was one of the two corner windows that were missing.

"And the provenance--the history of ownership--was excellent," she says. She admits she did not compare Byrd's window with pictures of the original.

Although the window on display touts it as "The Original Window from the Sniper's Perch," leading visitors to believe it was the window through which Oswald allegedly shot Kennedy, Hunt also admits that she was never certain of that. "There were two windows missing, so there was a 50-50 shot that this was the one through which the gunman fired."

Now that questions are being raised about the window's authenticity, Hunt defends herself by claiming that both windows are historically significant--even though there's a good chance the museum isn't advertising the truth.

"Until you have both windows together and have them professionally examined, you won't have an answer," she insists. "The fact that people are studying the window, examining the evidence, is healthy. These things happen all the time in my business."

It's now early November 1997, just weeks before the 34th anniversary of Kennedy's assassination, and Caruth Byrd has no idea the Sixth Floor Museum has any concerns about the window he loaned them.

A Confederate flag and a flag of John Wayne fly over his 150-acre ranch in Van, the Caruth Byrd Wildlife Compound. A large man with white hair and bulging blue eyes, Byrd divides his time between his private wild kingdom, where more than 3,000 exotic and endangered animals roam, and his Hollywood home next to Gene Autry, where Byrd produces movies and TV specials.

"Watch out for the kangaroo xxxx," he warns as we approach the front porch of his house, which resembles a huge dude-ranch lodge. He and the kangaroo, he explains, shared a morning doughnut on the porch.

A self-professed mortician, veterinarian, gourmet cook, and "the best organ player in the world," Byrd is a hard man to characterize, at once grandiose and earthy. He describes himself as a man "who was born with a silver spoon up my ass," but who despises the phony airs of the Dallas rich. His main residence on his compound, where he lives alone, is covered with hundreds of pictures of him with such Hollywood notables as Burt Reynolds and Lee Majors.

Among the photos lining the walls is a picture of him donating the window to the Sixth Floor Museum. Byrd launches into the story about how his father ordered an employee to remove it, and he rolls a videotaped interview with the worker that confirms his story.

Byrd says he decided to loan the window to the Sixth Floor after he got a call from The Smithsonian Institute, asking him to donate it to the Washington museum. "I decided if it went anywhere, it should stay in Dallas," Byrd says of his decision.

He has no doubts that his window is the real sniper's perch, and he is shocked to learn that the people running the Sixth Floor now have questions about its authenticity.

The name Aubrey Mayhew makes Byrd bristle. "He's a nut who tried to buy the building from my dad," Byrd says. "If he says he has the window, then where in the hell is it? He can't produce one."

Mayhew is the equivalent of the sniper's-perch second gunman, the man who may or may not hold the answer to the mystery of the missing window. But if he does possess the proof, making him produce it may be impossible.

Mayhew is a bitter fellow who believes a cabal of powerful Dallasites conspired to take away from him the building that houses the Sixth Floor Museum. Mayhew claims he lost everything in pursuit of creating a Kennedy museum here--his livelihood, his wife and two children--and he blames Dallas for those losses.

So it's not surprising that when finally reached in Nashville, Mayhew almost explodes when asked about the authenticity of the window on display in Dallas.

"Of course it's not the real window!" he bellowed over the phone. "I've been telling you people this for 30 years. I'm really a low-profile, non-publicity guy. All I can tell you is that Mr. Caruth Byrd is an idiot, and his father is an idiot and a thief."

Mayhew went on to insist that he still has the real window in storage in Detroit. When asked why he never showed it to the people at the Sixth Floor when they asked, he shot back: "I don't have anything to prove."

A 70-year-old music publisher who once worked with jazz great Charlie Parker and produced and co-wrote songs with outlaw country singer Johnny Paycheck ("Take This Job and Shove It"), Mayhew said over the phone that he was planning to come to Dallas the following week to see some of the songwriters with whom he still works. It was just a coincidence, he said, that it would be the day before the 34th anniversary of Kennedy's death, and he promised to call when he got to town.

He phoned a few days later and agreed to meet, but warned he might not have much to say. Three hours into a meal of coffee and apple pie at the Grand Hotel, he was still talking.

A short man in a windbreaker, Mayhew says he is "neither rich nor crazy." He explains that he was a coin and metal collector in the early 1960s when he became fascinated with all the metal objects that were created with Kennedy's likeness after his death. He produced a book on the subject, then went on to collect all manner of Kennedy memorabilia. It's a hobby he likens to a disease.

He was in search of more memorabilia when he came to Dallas in 1970 and attended an auction of 20 parcels of D. Harold Byrd's real estate, including the building leased to the Texas School Book Depository. He wasn't even a registered bidder, he says, but wound up offering $650,000 for the property. He claims he beat out two other bidders, including an entrepreneur who was going to raze the building and sell it off at a dollar a brick.

"It was just a piece of real estate everyone wanted to forget," Mayhew says.

Mayhew explains he wasn't sure what he was going to do with the building--or how he was going to pay for it. At the time, he says, he was making $100,000 yearly working for a music company. He eventually seized on the idea of turning the building into a "first-rate museum."

Shortly after he bought the building, the Texas School Book Depository moved out. But not before one of their employees gave him an affidavit, he says, confirming that D. Harold Byrd had instructed a workman to remove a window from the Sixth Floor. But "he went to the wrong side of the building," Mayhew claims, "and took it from the southwestern corner."

Afraid that a vacant building was more susceptible to vandals, Mayhew says he hired two carpenters to remove the two windows and the surrounding casement that comprised the sniper's nest and replace them with identical windows from the building's north side. Mayhew says he stored the original windows in Dallas for 20 years.

Mayhew insists that several wealthy Dallasites, whom he refuses to name, initially backed his plans for a museum. He quit his job to work on it full-time, spending weeks on end in Dallas and living in the building, where he began housing assassination artifacts. He claims to have spent more than $10,000 on architectural renderings of the proposed museum.

But the city hated his idea. The Dallas Times Herald, he says, ran a full-page cartoon lampooning his idea with a caricature of a museum showing a neon arrow pointing up to the sixth floor sniper's perch. Esquire magazine chided his plans in its annual Dubious Achievement Award issue, asking who was going to get the JFK chicken franchise.

Mayhew says that while the local campaign against him raged, he was also fending off an attempt by the state's Commission to Commemorate JFK to get the Texas Legislature to seize the building from him. Meanwhile, Mayhew recalls that city planners repeatedly rebuffed his attempts to get building permits, once claiming that the building's wooden interior was not fit for refurbishing.

His backers eventually pulled out, and he was hard-pressed to find new ones. He was falling behind on his $6,000-a-month payments, but he claims that the president of Republic National Bank was going to give him an extension. He says he vowed to fight foreclosure on the grounds that the building was his homestead.

"I had no income, a building producing no revenue that was costing me $6,000 a month, and all I ever received was constant blows from the city and state," Mayhew says. "The pressure was mounting."

In the summer of 1972, a small fire broke out in the building. The police charged one of Mayhew's employees, Winfred Anderson, with arson. Anderson pleaded guilty and received probation; he also implicated Mayhew as the person who was behind the fire--which Mayhew vehemently denies. The police, Mayhew insists, let him know that they would arrest him if he set foot in Dallas County again.

Not only does Mayhew profess his innocence, he claims he was framed in a convoluted plot to keep him away from Dallas so he would lose the building. Two weeks after the fire was set, the bank foreclosed on the building, which D. Harold Byrd promptly re-purchased. The city, Mayhew says, confiscated Mayhew's memorabilia left inside the building.

Mayhew says he went back to Nashville a broken man. His wife left him and took his two children to live in New York. He still nursed his idea of building a museum: A year or two later, he hooked up with Gerald Jay Steinberg, a Washington, D.C.-area dentist who claimed to have the largest Kennedy collection in the world. Together they opened an antique store in Georgetown, while they set about cataloging their combined collection for future display. On weekends, Mayhew says, he commuted by bus to New York to try and patch up his marriage--to no avail.

Mayhew's relationship with the dentist soured after just five months. Both men accuse each other of stealing a chunk of their respective collections. Steinberg says that Mayhew claimed to have the sixth-floor window back then, but Steinberg says he never saw it.

Mayhew went back to Nashville to begin rebuilding his music career. He also says he opened a small but classy JFK museum that was eventually burglarized. In 1987, "in a moment of weakness," Mayhew says, he wrote to Conover Hunt, who was organizing the Sixth Floor Museum.

"I told her I had the window and wanted $250,000 for it," Mayhew says. "I just wanted to recoup just some of the money I felt this city owed me."

He is asked why, then, he didn't send Hunt the pictures and dimensions she requested.

Mayhew claims it wasn't that simple. He says Hunt didn't respond to his letter for some time, and that when she first contacted him, she really didn't seem interested. He felt she was just blowing him off.

And maybe she had good reason. After all, he never offered one bit of proof that he has the windows. If there's any reason at all not to dismiss Mayhew, it's the simple fact that the window on display on the Sixth Floor is not the real deal. Maybe, just maybe, Mayhew's telling the truth.

"We know there are two windows, and you've proven that one's not it," he says. "So you take it from there."

For the last decade, Mayhew has had no contact with the Sixth Floor Museum. Then, several months ago, he says he received a letter from the museum's archivist, Gary Mack, a former Dallas television station announcer and JFK researcher--and one of those who isn't sure anymore that the window on display is so authentic. Mayhew says Mack told him he was interested in his collection.

"He said things had changed, and he understood the difficulties I had in the past," Mayhew says. "He said he wanted to come to Nashville and see my collection and that maybe we could join forces." Mayhew says he eventually responded to Mack's letter, writing that perhaps they would meet if the museum had indeed changed. Mayhew says he wants the museum to acknowledge that he once owned the building: A plaque on the outside of the building only mentions Byrd. He also wants the museum's historical information to mention him and acknowledge that he saved the building from being destroyed. Mayhew believes that had the other bidders gotten the building instead of him, they would have torn it down.

At the bottom of the letter, Mayhew added: "P.S. In case we do join forces, I get the chicken franchise"--a reference to the Esquire Dubious Achievement Award 25 years earlier. Mack never responded to Mayhew's letter.

Marian Ann Montgomery's title at the Sixth Floor Museum is--no kidding--director of interpretation. All that means is that she's the museum's chief curator, but it's still a creepy job description to put on one's resume. Maybe the conspiracy theorists are right; maybe we're not paranoid enough.

As visitors stream into the Sixth Floor Museum, looking at the window they assume is real, Montgomery must now consider that someone has interpreted this relic all wrong.

"Well, obviously there's some difference between the window and pictures of it," Montgomery says. "We're in the process, as museums always are, of checking to see if we need to change the caption."

This included Montgomery phoning Caruth Byrd a few days ago and asking him some pointed questions about the window that once hung in his father's house. Montgomery asked Byrd if he had any explanation for why there were no marks on the bottom of the window.

"Hell, maybe my father had it cleaned up," Byrd says he told her.

During our conversation, I mentioned to him that another concern was that smudge of paint and putty that appears on his window, but is not on the window photographed after the assassination.

"Maybe my dad broke the glass and it was repaired," he offers this time.

Byrd is clearly agitated by this line of inquiry. "Hell, if they don't want it at the museum, I'll take it back," he barks. "I'll sell it to someone. I'll sell it to Michael Jackson."

Montgomery also contacted Mayhew by phone. Montgomery says that Mayhew had "some relations with the museum that were less than friendly before. We have to rebuild that relationship before we can get close to him."

She told him she was coming to Nashville and wanted to see his collection and his window. He told her she couldn't come.

"They just want to use me," Mayhew says. "They don't have anything I want."

But this man from Tennessee might well have something the Sixth Floor folks want--them, and the millions who only think they've seen, and seen through, a little bit of history.

Mayhew says he eventually responded to Mack's letter, writing that perhaps they would meet if the museum had indeed changed. Mayhew says he wants the museum to acknowledge that he once owned the building: A plaque on the outside of the building only mentions Byrd. He also wants the museum's historical information to mention him and acknowledge that he saved the building from being destroyed. Mayhew believes that had the other bidders gotten the building instead of him, they would have torn it down.

At the bottom of the letter, Mayhew added: "P.S. In case we do join forces, I get the chicken franchise"--a reference to the Esquire Dubious Achievement Award 25 years earlier. Mack never responded to Mayhew's letter.

Marian Ann Montgomery's title at the Sixth Floor Museum is--no kidding--director of interpretation. All that means is that she's the museum's chief curator, but it's still a creepy job description to put on one's resume. Maybe the conspiracy theorists are right; maybe we're not paranoid enough.

As visitors stream into the Sixth Floor Museum, looking at the window they assume is real, Montgomery must now consider that someone has interpreted this relic all wrong.

"Well, obviously there's some difference between the window and pictures of it," Montgomery says. "We're in the process, as museums always are, of checking to see if we need to change the caption."

This included Montgomery phoning Caruth Byrd a few days ago and asking him some pointed questions about the window that once hung in his father's house. Montgomery asked Byrd if he had any explanation for why there were no marks on the bottom of the window.

"Hell, maybe my father had it cleaned up," Byrd says he told her.

During our conversation, I mentioned to him that another concern was that smudge of paint and putty that appears on his window, but is not on the window photographed after the assassination.

"Maybe my dad broke the glass and it was repaired," he offers this time.

Byrd is clearly agitated by this line of inquiry. "Hell, if they don't want it at the museum, I'll take it back," he barks. "I'll sell it to someone. I'll sell it to Michael Jackson."

Montgomery also contacted Mayhew by phone. Montgomery says that Mayhew had "some relations with the museum that were less than friendly before. We have to rebuild that relationship before we can get close to him."

She told him she was coming to Nashville and wanted to see his collection and his window. He told her she couldn't come.

"They just want to use me," Mayhew says. "They don't have anything I want."

But this man from Tennessee might well have something the Sixth Floor folks want--them, and the millions who only think they've seen, and seen through, a little bit of history.

I posted the entire article because these thing's have away of disappearing once it upset's a few people.

Aubry Mayhew claims to have the actual window, but He wasn't the owner in '63 when Byrd removed the "snipers nest" window and took it to his home. I have heard from individuals who visited Byrd's home in the past and saw the window, proudly displayed in his "trophy" room.

Glen Sample

http://www.jfkphenomenon.com/window.html

Glen, Welcome to the forum. Does this mean you're getting back into the case?

Hope so.

Dawn

Thank you Dawn. I've been reading this forum for quite a while and hope to

contrubute more in the future. I think I feel more "at home" here than some

of the other forums.

I was not aware of Nathan Darby's death until I read some of your posts.

Sadly, my good friend and co-author Mark Collom passed awy also, on Nov. 9th.

He lived in Burleson, Tx, and our last trip together was to Austin to visit Nathan.

Glen

Nigel Turner once told me about someone who introduced himself as one of the former jury members on the Malcolm Wallace murder trial. He had carried with him a burden of guilt because of the outcome of the trial, but explained that the jury members, each one, had been threatened. Describing the period of time during the trial, he said that one evening during dinner, he and his wife were interupted by two well dressed men who knocked at his door. As he responded to the callers, he noticed that one of them held a shotgun in his hands. After cocking the gun, the visitor pointed the weapon and the man and pulled the trigger. Click. The weapon was empty. "This gun could just as easily have been loaded" warned the visitor. "Be very careful about your decision" And then the men were gone.

These kind of men were plentiful, and Johnson had the knack of finding them and keeping them loyal.

Welcome to the Forum. I am a great admirer of your work on Mac Wallace. (Would you be willing to discuss 'The Men on the Sixth Floor' on the Forum?).

The jury found Wallace guilty. Wasn't it the judge who gave him 5 years probation? That wouldn't be the fault of the jury. It looks to me like it was the judge who gave in to a threat (or accepted an offer he couldn't refuse).

True. The judge, Charles O. Betts, was clearly under the control of LBJ. According to Bill Adler of The Texas Observer, several of the jurors telephoned John Kinser's parents to apologize for agreeing to a "suspended sentence, but said they did so only because threats had been made against their families."

*********************

John, I would be happy to discuss anything you would like.

Let me also add to the mix this quote from my book concerning the Wallace trial and verdict:

(quote)

On November 18, 1951, Wallace was indicted for murder by the grand jury, and his ten day trial began February 18, 1952 in the 98th District Court of Travis County, with Judge Charles Betts presiding. Defending Wallace was none other than John Cofer and Polk Shelton, both with long-standing ties with Lyndon Johnson. Cofer had been legal counsel to LBJ in the legal maneuvering surrounding his questionable 1948 election to the U. S. senate. Strangely, it was also Cofer who "defended" Billie Sol Estes in his trial a decade later. The strange trial is described nicely in the J. Evetts Haley book: A TEXAN LOOKS AT LYNDON in this way:

The case went to trial. District Attorney Bob Long- notwithstanding the identity of the car, a bloody shirt and a cartridge of the same caliber as used in the shooting, found in Wallace's possession, and witnesses who heard the shots and saw the departure of a man who fit Wallace's description - described it as "a near perfect murder."

Wallace did not take the stand. No evidence was presented to suggest cause of extenuating circumstances. Cofer simply filed a brief, one-page motion for an instructed verdict, pleading that there was no evidence upon which the State could "legally base a judgment of guilt." Long said nothing whatever in rebuttal. After less than two hours of testimony which was shut off so "abruptly" that it "left the packed courtroom with jaws ajar." Long urged the jury to "punish Wallace in whatever degree you can agree upon."

Thus after one of the briefest and most perfunctory trials of a prominent murder case on record, even in Texas, the jury nonetheless found, March 27, 1952, (actually Feb.) that Wallace was, as charged, guilty "of murder with malice aforethought." Its penalty, a five-year suspended sentence - for murder in the first degree....

Wallace returned to his work in Washington and five years to a day later appeared back in the 98th District Court to have his record wiped clean, citizenship restored.

It is difficult, if not impossible, to read these accounts and not believe that Malcolm Wallace had friends in high places. Clint Peoples recounts that the prosecutor, Bob Long, had made the statement, "I lost it (the trial) because I let a sinker get on the jury."

A sinker is another word for "fixer," and rumors abounded in Austin for years that there had been a "fixer" on the jury to ensure that Wallace never served any time for the killing. But according to William Barrett, the rumor turned out to be true. In an article in the Dallas Times Herald, dated March 31, 1986, Barrett wrote:

One of the biggest mysteries in the Kinser killing is how the jury could convict Wallace of murder with malice, but recommend only a suspended sentence. In a recent Times Herald interview, juror D. L. Johnson, 68, a retired Highway Department employee, acknowledged he was the first cousin and good friend of Gus Lanier, who during the trial sat at the defense table of Wallace and his main lawyers.

D. L. Johnson, who is not related to LBJ, also said he alone among the jurors favored acquittal and that he forced the guilty-with-suspended-sentence verdict by threatening to cause a hung jury.

I was able to contact Mr. Barrett when I returned from Dallas. He confirmed the above information, and told me without hesitation that in his own mind, he is absolutely sure, beyond doubt, that Malcolm Wallace had the help of Lyndon Johnson in his legal battle.

Much later, we found The Texas Observer article (Nov. 7, 1986) by Bill Adler, which added further support to a "fixed" jury in the Wallace case:

"Not long after the trial, several of the jurors telephoned Doug Kinser's parents to apologize for voting for a suspended sentence, but said they did so only because threats had been made against their families, according to Al Kinser, a nephew of Kinser's who along with his father, still runs the Pitch and Putt golf course."

(end of quote)

I might add that I also have been contacted by John Douglas Kinser's daughter, who has sent me a copy of her mother's newspaper scrap book of the trial. She concurs with the above scenario.

Glen Sample

I have had this email. Can anyone help with this story?

I've been reading, Master of the Senate, the third book in Robert Caro's biography of LBJ and was curious to see that Bille sol Estes wasn't listed in the index although he certainly was dealing with LBJ during the time period that the book covers. Looks like I'll have to wait another five or ten years to see what Caro has to say about Estes and LBJ when his last book comes out. This absence of info led me to look up Estes on the web where I found the plentiful mentions of him in JFK conspiracy websites.

Reading through them reminded me of a remarkable news story I read 15 or 20 years ago but have subsequently lost track of. The story was about a death bed confession from a Texan who said he had participated in the murder of a man on LBJ's orders to prevent the man from disclosing politically embarrassing information about LBJ. I don't recall that this alleged murder was connected to JFK's assassination so much as it was connected to various Estes-like scams that Johnson didn't want revealed.

The JFK sites make Malcolm Wallace seem like a good candidate for Henry Marshall's murder but I'm not sure who the supposed victim in my lost news story was.

It was such an intriguing story I was surprised that I never saw a follow up story either confirming or discrediting the confession or the confessor. The murder victim in my lost news story could very well have been Marshall but I've found no reference to anyone having confessed to his murder.

Do you know anything about a death bed confession from the 70's or 80's which tied LBJ to a murder?

John and Harry,

Nigel Turner once told me about someone who introduced himself as one of the former jury members on the Malcolm Wallace murder trial. He had carried with him a burden of guilt because of the outcome of the trial, but explained that the jury members, each one, had been threatened. Describing the period of time during the trial, he said that one evening during dinner, he and his wife were interupted by two well dressed men who knocked at his door. As he responded to the callers, he noticed that one of them held a shotgun in his hands. After cocking the gun, the visitor pointed the weapon and the man and pulled the trigger. Click. The weapon was empty. "This gun could just as easily have been loaded" warned the visitor. "Be very careful about your decision" And then the men were gone.

These kind of men were plentiful, and Johnson had the knack of finding them and keeping them loyal.

Glen Sample

I am co-author of “The Men on the Sixth Floor” a book that introduces Malcolm Wallace to the world of assassination researchers. I also am proud to say I was interviewed by Nigel Turner for his segment: “The Guilty Men” which lasted about two evenings on the History Channel. I appear briefly in the segment, but more importantly, my research, clippings, photos and other important information that my co-author Mark Collom and myself uncovered also aired to the American public albeit ever so briefly…..

I have had the pleasure of working with, interviewing or communicating with Madeleine Brown, Larry Howard, Billie Sol Estes, Barr McClellan, Jay Harrison, Stephen Pegues, Nathan Darby, Doug Caddy, Peter Dale Scott, Ian Griggs, William Weston, Lyle Sardie, William Reymond, Debra Conway, Larry Hancock and many many others.

I am more convinced than ever before that JFK was killed by a small group of people. It was not a vast conspiracy, but it was a conspiracy. It was not our government that did it. It was perpetrated by a loose cannon that happened to be IN government. Barr McClellan phrased it best “Blood, Money and Power” (That's) How LBJ Killed JFK.

That’s what I think. How about you?

I live in Orange County, Southern California. I have been checking on this forum from time to time, just to keep abreast of the current communications in the assassination research community. I must say that what really caught my eye was some of the terrific posts by Douglas Caddy, a man I admire and who has given me much encouragement over the years. Others also have made this a really lively place, and I want to be able to add my two cents in occasionally too.

I am co-author of “The Men on the Sixth Floor” a book that introduces Malcolm Wallace to the world of assassination researchers. I also am proud to say I was interviewed by Nigel Turner for his segment: “The Guilty Men” which lasted about two evenings on the History Channel. I appear briefly in the segment, but more importantly, my research, clippings, photos and other important information that my co-author Mark Collom and myself uncovered also aired to the American public albeit ever so briefly…..

I am not very active in research these days as I am quite busy running my graphic art business, along with my oldest son Tyler.

My wife has convinced me to take a lower profile (not that I ever was HIGH profile) So my involvement is limited to reading, responding to an occasional e-mail and getting “The Guilty Men” film into a few hands.

I have had the pleasure of working with, interviewing or communicating with Madeleine Brown, Larry Howard, Billie Sol Estes, Barr McClellan, Jay Harrison, Stephen Pegues, Nathan Darby, Doug Caddy, Peter Dale Scott, Ian Griggs, William Weston, Lyle Sardie, William Reymond, Debra Conway, Larry Hancock and many many others.

I am more convinced than ever before that JFK was killed by a small group of people. It was not a vast conspiracy, but it was a conspiracy. It was not our government that did it. It was perpetrated by a loose cannon that happened to be IN government. Barr McClellan phrased it best “Blood, Money and Power” (That's) How LBJ Killed JFK.

That’s what I think. How about you?