Sean Murphy

In addition to the testimony of their locations on the steps, Molina was a Credit Manager, and Williams was a Book Keeping Supervisor. Both of these men would be expected to wear Tie/Dress Shirt/Suit to work. Prayer Man is wearing an unbuttoned shirt and has the appearance of a manual laborer. I think it is safe to dismiss Molina and Williams from consideration. It is indeed, Richard--especially as both Williams and Molina can be fairly easily identified in the Altgens and Wiegman images standing just east of the centre rail.

There does seem to be a glint here. A bottle?

Further confirmation that Prayer Man cannot be Otis Williams. From Williams's March 1964 FBI statement: On November 22, 1963 at the time the Presidential Motorcade passed the Texas School Book Depository Building, I was standing on the top step against the railing on the east side of the steps in front of the building. This also further confirms that Prayer Man cannot be Joe Molina either: Molina told the WC that Otis Williams was "[r]ight next left of me" on the steps.

Pretty much, yes. He said he was INSIDE the building when President Kennedy was being shot. Do you think the front steps are INSIDE the building? He confirmed that his location at the time of the shooting was the Texas School Book Depository, his place of work.

Yes, Richard, BWF's own testimony rules him out as Prayer Man. Looks like David lacks the grace to admit he was wrong. I agree with you that Prayer Man's position--a pretty dreadful vantage point--is curious. Curious also that Billy Lovelady's position in Altgens and Wiegman is that bit further from the western side wall than it was just seconds before in Hughes. What happened? Looking closely at a terrific gif Gerda Dunckel put together from the Hughes film, which covers the turn of the Presidential limousine onto Elm Street, are we seeing Lovelady being distracted by something just behind him to his right? Might this something be the arrival of Prayer Man out onto the front steps? And might Prayer Man's arrival help account for the nudging of Lovelady ever so slightly east?

Is it okay with you if I just pretend that the films are fakes? (That explanation usually works for the conspiracy theorists. Maybe I should try that approach more often and see how far it gets me.) :-) Question for you, David: who would you say is closer to the wall--Lovelady or Prayer Man?

Oh sure. That center rail is MILES from where "Praying Man" is saying grace. Oh dear. Let's have a look at what Wesley actually said, shall we? Mr. BALL - When you stood out on the front looking at the parade, where was Shelley standing and where was Lovelady standing with reference to you? Mr. FRAZIER - Well, see, I was standing, like I say, one step down from the top, and Mr. Shelley was standing, you know, back from the top step and over toward the side of the wall there. See, he was standing right over there, and then Billy was a couple of steps down from me over toward more the wall also. Question for you, David: who would you say is closer to the wall--Lovelady or Prayer Man?

As to the identity of "Praying Man" -- I do not know. But I'm not quite sure why it couldn't be Wesley Frazier. Wesley even stated specifically at the 1986 mock trial that he was standing "back up in the shadows", a few steps behind Lovelady. BUELL WESLEY FRAZIER'S MOCK TRIAL TESTIMONY It's not Frazier, David. His WC testimony unequivocally puts him by the centre rail, not over by the wall. Now, do you agree that it is reasonable to assume that Prayer Man is a TSBD employee? have any idea which TSBD employee he might be?

But that's just the problem--no-one can say who this man is. It seems reasonable to assume him a TSBD employee. Yet he's none of the TSBD men we know, from all the pertinent snippets of testimony, to have been on the steps at that time: he's not Lovelady he's not Shelley he's not Frazier he's not Otis Williams he's not Joe Molina. Any ideas who he might be, David?

Pat, it would be great to identify Prayer Man as Lovelady but it just isn't possible: i) The Wiegman film shows that during the shooting Prayer Man is standing beside Lovelady in the very same spot that he will show up in seconds later in the Darnell film. Wiegman: Darnell: ii) By the time the post-shooting Darnell frames are being taken, Lovelady and Shelley have--by their own testimony--left the front entrance and are out on the Elm St. 'island' where they will look back and see Truly and Baker about to enter the front entrance.

I don't know if its Oswald either, but if that is Baker in the Couch film running to the front door and past this guy at 40 seconds after the last shot, the guy - if it was Oswald, could have turned around, gone up the steps next to the front door, walked through the offices and into the second floor lunchroom vestibule where he was seen by Baker walking past the window in the door. After the encounter with Baker and Truly - cool, calm, not out of breath or hyper as he would have been had he just killed someone, bought the coke and backtracked through the door he entered and into the office where the secretary was, her having just arrived from being out front on the curb. She sees Oswald with the coke and says something about the president being shot, and Oswald mumbling something she didn't hear, and he goes down the steps and out the front door - where the second film picks up and follows him down the steps. If Prayer Man is Oswald, then it may perhaps be physically possible for him to make it up to the second floor in time for an encounter with Baker (though he'll have to be mighty fast about it). The problem is that such a scenario makes no sense: Oswald is out front, standing unnoticed in the shadows... he hears shots... watches the ensuing pandemonium... sees a cop and Mr. Truly rush into the building and... hurries upstairs to buy a coke? What marks Prayer Man out is precisely how phlegmatic he appears. In neither Wiegman (i.e. during the shooting) -- --nor Darnell (i.e. seconds after it) -- --does he appear to show the slightest curiosity as to what is happening. Frozen in shock? Just possibly. Overtaken by a sudden thirst? Hardly.

Just to clarify: I'm not claiming that Prayer Man is Oswald, just that it's one possibility meriting serious consideration. Where exactly on the first floor did Oswald tell Fritz he was at the time of the shooting? We don't know. Those early interrogation reports are weirdly vague on that score--which is damn odd given that this would surely be the single most important question the suspect in the assassination could have been asked. Something Billy Lovelady told a reporter several years after the assassination has also stuck with me: on the weekend of the assassination a couple of FBI men paid him a visit to show him the Altgens photo and were mightily relieved that it was him rather than Oswald in the doorway. If Oswald wasn't even claiming to have been out front, why the relief? Why, in other words, would Oswald's being caught in an assassination-time image of the front entrance even have been considered a live possibility? One thing we do need to be clear on however: if Baker and Truly encountered Oswald by the second-floor lunchroom when and how they said they did, then it's highly unlikely that Prayer Man can be Oswald.

How on earth does Gary Mack know that Prayer Man is "too short to be the 5'9" Oswald"? Is he just guessing? And where is he getting "it took Baker 40 seconds after the first shot to reach the front door of the TSBD" from? Has he already forgotten the argument he lost--and lost badly--on the Lancer forum back in 2007 over the Baker timeline? Good grief.

Hi Sean, I know we have discussed "prayer man" in previous postings, but the enhanced film clip has thrust this figure to a higher level of interest. We know the fourteen individuals who identified themselves in testimony as being on the TSBD steps during the assassination. We can use the process of elimination to narrow down the choices of who prayer man might be: 7 women were on the steps, so we can eliminate all of them. As you noted, we can eliminate Shelley, Lovelady and BWF. We can also eliminate the 2 African American males That narrows the field down to 2 men, Joe Molina and Otis Williams. In a letter from Shirley Martin to Harold Weisberg, (7/8/67, Weisberg Archives) (Quoting Shirley) Joe Molina claims to be the man in suit standing next to Lovelady-Oswald figure in Altgens photo. Since prayer man appears to be wearing a shirt, that should eliminate Molina. (For myself, I have serious doubts that Molina was even on the steps. No one else in the step group identified him as being there. But that is another discussion ...) That leaves Otis Williams. But there are also some issues with Williams. He was a "Bookkeeping supervisor" at the TSBD. Would a supervisor be wearing an unbuttoned shirt at work? In a quote from No More Silence, by Larry Sneed, pp 117-118, Williams says: "Fact is, as soon as the third shot happened, and everybody commenced milling around, I thought it came from the underpass. I entered the building immediately, climbed up the stairs where the warehouse elevator was which led to the 6th floor and went up to the 4th floor, which was the first one I could see from to see the underpass ..." This makes is highly unlikely the man in the photo is Williams. Any photos of Otis Williams or Joe Molina would have been valuable for comparison, but from the available information, I don't believe either of them match the visible requirements of prayer man. Thanks for your thoughts Richard. Yes, I agree it's neither Molina nor Williams. Incidentally Williams told Larry Sneed he had JFK's car in view until it "went behind a little wall going toward the underpass"--a vantage point not available to Prayer Man.

Thanks, Duncan, marvelous gif by Gerda. And what do you know, here's Roy Truly: Watch the gif closely and you see Baker actually push him out of the way.

Sean: Did you notice this man BEFORE Bill posted the picture? Did anyone else? Has it been discussed elsewhere on the net? I am excited about this (to me) brand new discovery. Can you briefly outline, for the historical record, how you came to eliminate Shelley, Lovelady and Frazier? Ray, I nicknamed this guy 'Prayer Man' a few years back (on account of the posture of his arms). He is standing in this spot in the doorway during the shooting. He is standing in this spot in the doorway as Baker reaches the front steps. He can't be Billy Lovelady, whom he rather looks like. Lovelady shows up beside him in the Altgens photo and the Wiegman film. And besides, Lovelady recalled looking back from the 'island' out on Elm and seeing Baker and Truly about to enter the building. He can't have still been in the front entrance way as Baker was reaching the steps. He can't be Shelley--who was (again, per his own and Lovelady's testimony) with Lovelady out on the 'island' at this time--and who has been pretty securely identified in 11/22 images as having worn a dark suit and tie that day. He can't be Buell Wesley Frazier who was wearing a dark blue jacket and looked nothing like 'Prayer Man'. Long story short: we still don't know who this man was.

Duncan, it's not from Couch it's from Darnell. Robert Groden spliced the two films together and labelled the result 'Couch'.

Right you are, Ray. This is a frame from the Darnell film which shows Marrion Baker dashing to the front entrance. http://jfkcountercoup2.blogspot.ie/2013/08/oswald-leaving-tsbd.html The man in the photo was in the very same spot as the shots were being fired. We know this because he can be seen right there in the Wiegman film taken just seconds earlier. We still don't know who he is. He's not Lovelady. He's not Bill Shelley. He's not Buell Wesley Frazier.

So now I'm being taught how reliable and spot-on accurate Jack E. Dougherty's testimony is by a person who made the following statement just 2 hours and 15 minutes prior to writing the post quoted above: "The reliability of Dougherty's testimony is open to serious doubt." -- Sean Murphy; July 19, 2013; 3:46 PM EDT What a difference two hours can make, eh Sean? The irony is hilarious indeed. Huh? You've missed the point of my questions completely. How about you answer them this time and confirm what is already pretty clear, namely that you believe the fundamentals of Dougherty's "complete-disaster-area" testimony to be... well, pretty much sound: Dougherty testified he was on the fifth floor at the time of the assassination: do you have any serious doubts about whether he was indeed there at that time? Dougherty testified the reason he was there was to get stock: do you have any serious doubts about whether that was indeed the reason he was there? Dougherty testified he took the west freight elevator down to the first floor shortly after this: do you any have serious doubts about whether he did indeed do this?

Oh sure, that must be why I said this a few posts back (which obviously means I do NOT accept Dougherty's testimony about being very near the elevator at 12:30): "Dougherty said he did NOT hear anyone yelling up the elevator shaft. .... Therefore, it seems fairly clear to me that Jack Dougherty was not REAL CLOSE to those freight elevators at approximately 12:31 PM, which means he would not necessarily have been in a position to see Lee Harvey Oswald coming down the stairs from the sixth floor at just about that very same time when Truly was yelling "real loud" up that elevator shaft -- a loud yell that Dougherty never heard. .... From the available testimony, it seems pretty obvious to me that Jack Dougherty was not within earshot of Truly's yells. Which means, ergo, that Dougherty was probably somewhere else on the fifth floor, further away from the elevators/stairway, when Truly was yelling and when Oswald was descending." -- DVP Sure--as already noted, you accept the basics of his testimony but make sure to tweak this one bit in order to satisfy the requirements of your theory.

I've already said that I think it was "probably" Jack Dougherty who took the elevator downstairs. Why isn't that good enough for you? It's quite clear that you can't give us a credible scenario whereby someone other than Jack Dougherty might have needed to take that elevator off the fifth floor at that time. You have failed miserably to back up your claim that "regardless of WHO took the elevator downstairs, it doesn't have to lead to 'conspiracy' (which is something you unquestionably think it leads to if Dougherty didn't use the elevator)".

You don't know what you're talking about. You now seem to believe that all of the stuff I ridicule Dougherty for in my article below is now stuff that I deem 100% "reliable". You're hilarious.http://jfk-archives.blogspot.com/2010/06/jack-dougherty.html And, FYI, everybody in JFK research "picks & chooses" the testimony they like best. We all do it. It's inevitable. Otherwise, every single witness would likely have to be thrown in the trash can, because there's almost always some part of each witness' testimony or statements or affidavit that we don't think is perfectly accurate (whether it be a "CTer" or an "LNer" doing the evaluating). So, to some degree, we always "pick and choose" the statements that best fit our overall beliefs regarding the case. You do believe the essential points of Dougherty's testimony as to his whereabouts and doings at the time of the assassination. Let's do a quick check: Dougherty testified he was on the fifth floor at the time of the assassination: do you have any serious doubts about whether he was indeed there at that time? Dougherty testified the reason he was there was to get stock: do you have any serious doubts about whether that was indeed the reason he was there? Dougherty testified he took the west freight elevator down to the first floor shortly after this: do you any have serious doubts about whether he did indeed do this?

Good. We finally agree on something. No we don't agree on this. Post-U-turn, you longer believe the basic reliability of Dougherty's testimony is open to serious doubt. What a difference a day makes. Now back to the question you keep running away from: Can you give us a credible scenario whereby someone other than Jack Dougherty needed to take that elevator off the fifth floor at that time?

OK, so I'll ask you again to give us a credible scenario whereby someone other than Jack Dougherty needed to take that elevator off the fifth floor at that time.

Sure--the reliability of Dougherty's testimony is open to serious doubt.