Sean Murphy

Vicki Adams worked on the fourth floor of the TSBD and watched the assassination from a south-facing window on that floor in the company of several colleagues.

She claimed to have run down the back stairs to the first floor with her colleague Sandra Styles, and insisted that she and Sandra had left the fourth floor window within just seconds of the last shot being fired and had gone downstairs immediately.

For many years, conspiracy theorists have pointed to the eyebrow-raising fact that she didn't see or hear Oswald coming down the stairs.

In more recent years however, and in particular since the appearance of Barry Ernest's provocative book The Girl on the Stairs, WC defenders have pointed to a no less eyebrow-raising fact: she didn't see or hear Mr. Truly and a police officer coming up the stairs.

How, these WC defenders have asked, and not without good reason it has to be said, could the two pairs of people have possibly missed each other entirely if Adams and Styles had really hit those rear stairs as quickly as Adams claimed? Does not this prove that Adams was mistaken and must have gone downstairs at some point after Baker and Truly had gone past the fourth floor?

**

This was my own view at one time, for I had had a lengthy telephone conversation with Sandra Styles in 2008.

Sandra told me that her recollection was that she and Vicki had gone downstairs significantly later than Vicki had claimed.

That, I thought, was that. Oliver Stone would have to cut those memorable frames from his next edit of JFK.

**

Then Barry's book came out. In it he gave details of a telephone conversation he had had with Sandra several years earlier (and long before my contact with her). Sandra, he reported, said that she and Vicki had left the front window just as the Presidential limousine was about to enter the triple underpass.

I immediately went on to a couple of JFK assassination research forums and, in so many words, accused Barry of being a xxxx. For Sandra had given me a very different timeline.

**

But something was bothering me.

It was a certain document which Barry had discovered and reproduced in his book--a registered letter, dated 2 June 1964, sent by Martha Joe Stroud, assistant U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas, to J. Lee Rankin, WC general counsel:

Miss Garner, Miss Adams' supervisor, stated this morning that after Miss Adams went downstairs she (Miss Garner) saw Mr. Truly and the policeman come up: did not these words offer sensational vindication of Vicki Adams's unwavering claim to have gone downstairs at once?

**

I decided to re-contact Sandra Styles, this time by email, and put to her the information contained in the Stroud document.

She seemed genuinely taken aback, if not nonplussed, by Garner's reported claim.

She then restated several times something that she had said in our original conversation and in the follow-up emails, something that I had heard but not really processed, putting it down to the lady's self-effacing modest personality: she could not rule out the possibility that Vicki's recollection was the more accurate one. Memory, she said, plays funny tricks and all she could tell me at this point was that "logic tells me" that it was later than Vicki said.

She also, for the first time, mentioned that the authorities who interviewed her had told her that the police had not started their search of the TSBD building until some 15-20 minutes (!) after the assassination. This had always bothered her, and seemed to have played a role in fixing her 'memory' of having gone downstairs minutes rather than seconds after the shooting.

**

Vicki Adams's claim was suddenly back in contention, at least for me.

But the Stroud document, even as it supported her timeline, only undermined her story all over again:

for, if Baker and Truly came up on to the fourth floor landing after Adams and Styles left it for the stairs down, how in heaven's name did they all manage to miss one another?

There was, it is true, a tiny window (pun half-intended) in which this could conceivably have happened: Baker and Truly over at the second-floor lunchroom entrance while Adams and Styles are running across the second-floor landing. But it was a tiny and, truth be told, rather ludicrous one--the sound of two women in high heels hurrying down the noisy wooden stairs from three to two, across the landing and then down the stairs from two to one would not have gone unnoticed.

**

In June 2011 Barry Ernest managed to track down Dorothy Garner, the Scott, Foresman & Co. office supervisor mentioned in the Stroud document.

What she told him bears transcribing at length:

Did Miss Adams and Miss Styles leave the window right away, I asked her.

"The girls did," she responded. "I remember them being there and the next thing I knew, they were gone."

They had left "very quickly…within a matter of moments," she added.

What did Mrs. Garner do after that?

"There was this warehouse or storage area behind our office, out by the freight elevators and the rear stairway, and I went out there."

Her move to that area clearly put her into a position where she could have observed activity on the back stairs as well as on the

elevators. But how fast had she arrived there?

Mrs. Garner said she immediately went to this area, following "shortly after…right behind" Miss Adams and Miss Styles. She

couldn't remember exactly why she went out there, other than to say, "probably to get something." Mrs. Garner said she did not actually see "the girls" enter the stairway, though, arriving on the fourth- floor landing seconds after. When I asked how she knew they had gone down, Mrs. Garner said, "I remember hearing them, after they started down. I remember the stairs were very noisy."

Were the freight elevators in operation during this time?

"I don't recall that," she answered. "They were very noisy too!"

Mrs. Garner said she remained at that spot and was alone for a moment before "several came out back from the office to look out those windows there."

Anyone doubting that Barry is giving us a fair rendition of what Ms. Garner told him should consider very carefully what he says happened when he raised the crux question:

Did she remember seeing Roy Truly and a police officer come up the stairs together?

"I could have," she answered, "but there was so much confusion. It was, after all, a few years ago!"

**

It is, I submit, a testament to Barry's honesty as a researcher that he has given us faithfully what must have been for him a hugely anti-climactic answer from Dorothy Garner. After all, the Truly-Baker-coming-up-the-stairs issue was the chief reason for Barry's call to her.

I also submit that Garner's answer, when understood in proper context, is in fact far from anti-climactic.

For had she told Barry that yes, she clearly remembered seeing Truly and Baker coming up the stairs together, then we would be back to square one. How did they not see Baker and Truly while descending, etc.

Garner's 'failure' to confirm what the Stroud document says may be no failure at all.

It may be inviting us to take another look at that document:

Dorothy Garner did indeed see Mr. Truly and the police officer come up.

But can someone please show me where it says she saw them come up the stairs?

Just a thought re the Wiegman.........Assume that Prayer Man is holding a bottle of Coke in his right hand. As Prayer Man proceeds to take a sip from the bottle, he brings it up to his mouth and tilts the bottle back (so that the bottle is almost horizontal as he is taking his sip). The round, light area in front of Prayer Man's lower facial region could be a reflection of light off of the round base of a Coke bottle.

Exactly, Michael, glint off a coke bottle is a very strong possibility.

The fact that Wiegman shows one hand up to the face while the other is still kept raised to chest level is IMO extremely significant, for it suggests

a ) he cannot have been using a camera

b ) he was holding something in both hands.

What I'm seeing is either this--

--or its reverse (i.e. drinking the coke using one hand and holding the sandwich in the other).

Again we must remind ourselves of Fritz's words during his WC testimony:

Mr. FRITZ. He said he was having his lunch. He had a cheese sandwich and a Coca-Cola.

I believe that's exactly what Lee Oswald did tell Fritz he was doing--only he didn't say he was doing it in the second-floor lunchroom, he said he was doing it out front.

If so, then Fritz has just seconds before his comment above committed a major boo-boo:

Mr. FRITZ. Well he told me that he was eating lunch with some of the employees when this happened, and that he saw all the excitement...

He was having his lunch ... he was eating lunch: same timeframe, same claim.

I believe Oswald named one of the "employees" he had been eating lunch with, and it wasn't 'Junior' [Jarman] or the short 'negro' [Norman] (whose names did come up in a different context). It was Bill Shelley.

With all due respect to Ray Carroll, could I ask that this recent and rather bizarre string of music-related posts be deleted by the mods as off-topic and distracting?

I was thinking about that myself. Sorry, Ray, but I agree with Sean. Your posts were not about Oswald or the building, but about your favorite Irish songs. If you'd like to start such a thread, please do so on the appropriate section of the forum.

Thanks, Pat.

**

There is an interesting exchange towards the end of Roy Truly's first appearance before the WC:

Mr. McCLOY. From what you know of these young men who testified before you today, are they trustworthy?
Mr. TRULY. Yes, sir; I think they are. They are good men. They have been with me, most of them, for some time. I have no reason to doubt their word. I do know that they have been rather, as the expression goes, shook up about this thing, especially this tall one, Bonnie Williams. He is pretty superstitious, I would say.

Truly has good reason to describe Bonnie Ray Williams, one of his 'niggers' (his word, not mine), as superstitious.

For Bonnie has been going on the record with the silliest little story about having seen a ghost:

The text is hard to make out so here's a transcription:

While we were standing at the west end of the building on the fifth floor, a police officer came up on the elevator and looked all around the fifth floor and left the floor. I did not see anyone come down from the fifth floor via the stairs.

And there we have it, in eight little nuclear words:

...a police officer came up on the elevator...

Note that these are not Bonnie Ray's reported words, they are his own first-person account.

And what they do is expose the lie at the heart of the Baker-Truly story (or should that be: stories).

Baker and Truly will, as we know, tell the WC that they ran upstairs from the first floor via the rear stairway and only found an available elevator on--what a coincidence!--the fifth floor.

Bonnie is telling us that something quite contrary to that happened: the fifth floor was where they, or at least one of them, got off the elevator. (How Baker & Truly continued on up after that is not stated in Williams's interview.)

**

Joseph Ball rather foolishly draws attention to Williams's explosive FBI interview statement when questioning Williams for the WC:

Mr. BALL. Now, when you were questioned by the FBI agents, talking to Mr. Odum and Mr. Griffin, they reported in writing here that while you were standing at the west end of the building on the fifth floor, a police officer came up on the elevator and looked all around the fifth floor and left the floor. Did you see anything like that?

Bonnie Ray, no doubt having had word or two in his ear in recent weeks from his boss Mr. Truly, does the decent thing and 'clarifies':

Mr. WILLIAMS. Well, at the time I was up there I saw a motorcycle policeman. He came up. And the only thing I saw of him was his white helmet.
Mr. BALL. What did he
Mr. WILLIAMS. He just came around, and around to the elevator.
Mr. BALL. Which elevator?
Mr. WILLIAMS. I believe it was the east elevator.
Mr. BALL. Did you see anybody with him?
Mr. WILLIAMS. I did not.
Mr. BALL. You were only able to see the top of his helmet?
Mr. WILLIAMS. Yes, sir.
Mr. BALL. You could only see the top of his helmet
Mr. WILLIAMS. Yes, sir; that is the only thing I saw about it.

But it's too little too late. The cat is already out of the bag.

**

We must therefore refine our understanding of the circumstances behind Marrion Baker's 11/22 affidavit.

He goes back to DPD HQ on the afternoon of the shooting with a disastrously underachieving and under-dramatic story to tell his bosses: I and the building manager took the rear elevator upstairs and... saw no-one.

Fritz and co. find themselves saddled with a suspect who is not only claiming to have been at the front entrance having lunch at the time of the shooting but in relation to whom it is proving damnably difficult to establish an incriminating sighting anywhere near the assassin's escape route.

So Baker is coaxed into giving an affidavit which invents not merely an encounter with an (in hindsight, anyway) obviously fleeing employee by the rear stairway but an entire climb up four flights of stairs.

**

It's an audacious gambit, and it nearly comes off.

If only Baker had not been both seen (by BRW) and not seen.

**

Enter Vicki Adams.

To recapitulate:

Oswald comes down from the fifth or sixth floor shortly after noon.

He goes for lunch in the first-floor domino room and picks up his apple and cheese sandwich.

Several minutes before the assassination, he goes upstairs to the second-floor lunchroom and buys a coke.

BK:: Sean, We know he didn't buy the coke until AFTER he encountered Baker and Truly. We know his from and can time it to the half-minute because of what Truly, Baker, Oswald and Reid tell us.

He brings the coke downstairs and, hearing the crescendo of applause and cheering for the motorcade, goes out onto the front steps.

BK: I'm not convinced Oswald is 'Prayer Man" yet, though he's sill in he running. If Oswald is "Prayer Man" he went out front to see what all the commotion was about and then after Baker and Truly ran past, went up to buy his coke and fateful rendezvous with Baker and Truly a minute and half later and with coke meets Reid two minutes later.

If Oswald is "Prayer Man" and has a coke in his hand, then he had to go back for another one, highly unlikely.

Bill, we don't "know" that Oswald bought a coke after he encountered Baker/Truly.

We do know that Baker, Truly and Truly's clerical supervisor who had watched the assassination outside with him went belatedly on the record with a certain story.

We don't know that this story is reliable and have good grounds for doubting that it is.

**

BK If Oswald is "Prayer Man" and has a coke in his hand, then he had to go back for another one, highly unlikely.

If Oswald is "Prayer Man" and has a coke in his hand, then it is highly unlikely he had to go back for another one.

And if Oswald is "Prayer Man" and doesn't have a coke in his hand, then it is still highly unlikely he will hurry off upstairs immediately after the assassination to buy one.

Gary Mack has been in touch. It turns out the footage of Baker, Truly and others (above left) cannot be KTVT-TV 'Cooper/Cook' footage as no photographers other than Tom Alyea were allowed inside the building until about three hours after the assassination.

So it appears this is Alyea footage.

With all due respect to Ray Carroll, could I ask that this recent and rather bizarre string of music-related posts be deleted by the mods as off-topic and distracting?

To recapitulate:

Oswald comes down from the fifth or sixth floor shortly after noon.

He goes for lunch in the first-floor domino room and picks up his apple and cheese sandwich.

Several minutes before the assassination, he goes upstairs to the second-floor lunchroom and buys a coke.

He brings the coke downstairs and, hearing the crescendo of applause and cheering for the motorcade, goes out onto the front steps.

Everyone else's attention is naturally riveted on the motorcade and then the loud bangs; Oswald's presence goes unnoticed.

Within seconds of the last shot, Marrion Baker has dismounted and is dashing to the front entrance of the TSBD.

Oswald's hands are down from his mouth as he begins to take in what's going on:

Baker reaches the front door and, needing directions for the stairs, notices Oswald and asks him if he works there.

Before Oswald can answer, Roy Truly arrives at the front lobby and offers to escort Baker upstairs.

Oswald at some point goes into the small storage room located just off the front lobby.

He is noticed in there by Ochus Campbell and Jeraldean Reid as that pair are re-entering the building to take the front stairs to the second-floor office.

**

How do we get from all that to this?:

The red part is easy:

Baker is covering the time of his fleeting encounter with Oswald.

But he has no reason to remember Oswald--or, even if he does remember him, to single either the man or the encounter out for special mention.

He has, after all, got a much bigger fish to fry:

As we reached the third or fourth floor I saw a man walking away from the stairway. I called to the man and he turned around and came back toward me. The manager said, "I know that man, he works here." I then turned the man loose and went up to the top floor. The man I saw was a white man approximately 30 years old, 5'9", 165 pounds, dark hair and wearing a light brown jacket.

**

If there is one question as momentous as, Where was Oswald at the time of the assassination?, it is surely:

Did Baker encounter a man other than Oswald, a man fitting the above description, who was evidently coming down the rear stairway on (in the words of Marvin Johnson, who took Baker's affidavit) "about the fourth floor"?

There are strong arguments to be made both ways but on balance--and I'm very much open to persuasion on this--I believe a close textual analysis of Baker's affidavit statement points to the answer: no, he didn't.

My money is still on a Coca-Cola--taking a swig in Wiegman, return to two-hand clasp by Darnell.

Or... this (minus the camera!):

What was that Fritz said again?

Mr. FRITZ. He said he was having his lunch. He had a cheese sandwich and a Coca-Cola.

Thanks, Will, old buddy.

Here a closeup crop of the Wiegman film:

Superb stuff, Martin.

Looks to me like Prayer Man's right hand is significantly higher than his left here.

Contrast the 'join' in Darnell:

My money is still on a Coca-Cola--taking a swig in Wiegman, return to two-hand clasp by Darnell.

And I think that the next big JFK Assassination symposium should be held in Dublin.

No, Bill--Wexford!

• BWF ... went inside shortly afterwards to pick up and eat his lunch)

Which makes him another sociopath

like all the other employees

who went back to their workplace.

No.

Frazier stood at the front entrance for several minutes ascertaining what had happened before going back inside.

Oswald--according to you--sped off upstairs for a coke within seconds of the shooting.

Big difference.

Without speculating on scenarios and motives, I think the most rational scenario is the one that we put together from what we know.

1) "Prayer Man" is standing at the top of the steps to the side of the front and is there in the film of Baker running towards the steps. We don't have proof that Baker ran past this guy but we can suspect it.

2) "Prayer Man" is dressed (like Oswald and Frazer) in a dark, long sleeved collared shirt with t-shirt underneath and short hair.

3) Although not mentioned in the published literature "Prayer Man" appears to be a TSBD employee, though 15 of the 19 male employees are accounted for elsewhere, and it could possibly be Oswald.

4) From the timing of the other films we can estimate the time being approximately 12:30.30 and the man may have been there at the time of the assassination, and when Baker and Truly enter the building.

5) There is some speculation on the part of researchers that an interaction takes place between "Prayer Man" and Baker an Truly as they enter the building, but there is no evidence of this or a reason for it to happen.

6) Baker and Truly go the rear of the building, find the service elevators on the fifth floor and begin to ascend the steps, while "Prayer Man," if he is Oswald, or Oswald where ever he is, goes to the second floor via the front steps and either passing through the empty office - or getting change from Mrs. Hine, then goes to the second floor lunchroom where he in seen by Baker through the closed lunchroom door window and is stopped by Baker. Baker says that Oswald is not out of breath or hyper or nervous in any way, just surprised at having a .38 stuck in his belly. Truly, ahead of Baker, didn't see Oswald go through the door, as he would had Oswald done so, and Truly gives Oswald a pass as an employee, not a suspect. Truly later says he not only didn't see Oswald, but didn't know Baker saw Oswald through the window of the door until days later.

7) Baker and Truly then proceed up the steps to the third floor, fourth floor - where Baker reported he stopped a man in a brown coat, which some suspect to be the man in the Brown Sports Coat seen on the sixth floor next to the man in white shirt with the rifle by people on the street, or as Baker later said, it was a mistake and he was referring to the second floor lunchroom incident with Oswald.

8) Meanwhile Oswald bought his coke and walked out the south door to the lunchroom that he had entered a minute earlier, and crosses paths with Mrs. Reid, who notices Oswald - though she didn't know his name at the time - wearing a white t-shirt and had a full coke in his right hand. She tells him the president was shot and he mumbles something she didn't hear and wasn't interested. She described Oswald as being "cool and calm and stoic" and not in a hurry. Mrs. Reid, who had been standing next to Truly and Mr. Campbell outside on the street, later retraced her steps after the assassination from the street to her office desk on the second floor where she crossed paths with Oswald and they concluded it took 2 minutes - 120 seconds.

9) Mr. Campbell entered the building through the front door (Shelly ran around the back and reentered the rear/side door), and Campbell is quoted in a next day newspaper as saying he saw Oswald standing by the storage area next to the front steps, which he must have just descended from the second floor.

10) We then see in the third, yet unidentified film, a lot of cops outside the front door of the TSBD and a man - "College Boy" with long sleeved dark shirt with t-shirt underneath, who may or may not be Oswald or "Prayer Man," standing at the top of the steps and then descending and walking east - the action and direction that the Warren Report says Oswald took.

That's a radical alternate "non-conspiracy" scenario as to what happened, and I think its closer to the truth than the official story.

Bill,

Prayer Man was definitely on the steps during the assassination: the Wiegman frames in which he appears start just seconds before the headshot.

**

Re. point #6:

BK: while "Prayer Man," if he is Oswald, or Oswald where ever he is, goes to the second floor via the front steps and either passing through the empty office - or getting change from Mrs. Hine, then goes to the second floor lunchroom where he in seen by Baker through the closed lunchroom door window and is stopped by Baker.

SM: This still does not answer the simple question: why on earth would a man who has just heard and seen the pandemonium outside suddenly want to hurry immediately upstairs to buy a coke?

This question looms even larger when Oswald's calm demeanour is stressed, for that alleged fact, far from helping the case for Oswald's defence, only makes his behaviour seem all the more weird.

Are we seriously to believe that Oswald's reaction to the chaos and horror outside would have been one of

a ) sudden thirst

and

b ) utter calmness bordering on serene indifference?

Was Oswald a radically dissociated personality?

**

Re. point #10:

That other film is irrelevant to the Prayer Man/Oswald question, because it was taken quite a few minutes later--after the Hughes & Martin footage showing the congested front entrance. We know this because the police vehicles have not yet arrived and parked outside the TSBD when Hughes & Martin are filming.

**

I'm sorry to belabour the point, but it's not going to go away:

To invest simultaneously in the notion that Oswald could be Prayer Man and in the notion that the second-floor lunchroom incident happened just as Baker and Truly described to the WC is to portray Oswald's immediate reaction to the shooting as utterly bizarre, if not downright suspicious.

Do you really want to go down that road?

Bill,

Great questions……..wish I could help answer them, but hopefully someone else here can. Your questions, however, bring to mind another question about Officer Baker at DPD Headquarters.

Below is Officer Baker’s WC testimony about seeing LHO at police headquarters:

Representative BOGGS -Let me ask one other question. You later, when you recognized this man as Lee Oswald, is that right, saw pictures of him?

Mr. BAKER - Yes, sir. I had occasion to see him in the homicide office later that evening after we got through with Parkland Hospital and then Love Field and we went back to the City Hall and I went up there and made this affidavit.

Representative BOGGS -After he had been arrested?

Mr. BAKER - Yes, sir.

…………….

Mr. DULLES - I didn't get clearly in mind, I am trying to check up, as to whether you saw Oswald maybe in the same costume later in the day. Did you see Oswald later in the day of November 22d?

Mr. BAKER - Yes, sir; I did.

Mr. DULLES - Under what circumstances? Don't go into detail, I just want to tie up these two situations.

Mr. BAKER - As I was in the homicide office there writing this, giving this affidavit, I got hung in one of those little small offices back there, while the Secret Service took Mr. Oswald in there and questioned him and I couldn't get out by him while they were questioning him, and I did get to see him at that time.

Mr. DULLES - You saw him for a moment at that time?

Mr. BAKER - Yes, sir.

<End Quote>

I am very intrigued as to whether Officer Baker laid eyes upon LHO at DPD HQ before, during, or after giving his affidavit. When it comes to determining the timing of that, I find Officer Baker’s WC testimony to be very confusing. It seems as if Baker is saying that those questioning Oswald were physically blocking Baker’s exit from a small office after he gave his affidavit, but did Officer Baker first spot the Oswald entourage before he had completed his affidavit?

I suggest that this is a crucial question for the following reason: If Officer Baker had laid eyes upon the now suspect LHO at DPD HQ before or during the giving of his affidavit, then I find it almost impossible to believe that Officer Baker would not have mentioned the 2nd floor lunch room encounter in that affidavit if it had actually occurred.

I am hoping that some other forum member can shed some light on the timing of the DPD HQ sighting vs. the affidavit.

Sean,

Thank you for your many excellent contributions to this fascinating thread. In a methodical, step by step manner, you have cogently presented your case for Prayer Man being LHO. Great work, and please carry on!

Hi Michael,

That's very nice of you to say so, appreciate it.

In answer to your question--

Yes, Baker definitely did lay eyes on Oswald as he was giving his affidavit.

We know this not just from his own WC testimony but from Marvin Johnson's report which covers, amongst other things, Baker's giving of his affidavit:

Note Johnson's recollection that Baker tended to place the encounter with the still unnamed 'man' on the fourth floor.

The word 'later' in Johnson's report obviously caused some anxiety, because he added a curiously placed coda to his report (click to enlarge):

If Baker really did say there and then, 'That's the man I saw on the fourth floor', then it's passing strange that his affidavit fails to register the identification--it could have been so easily interpolated by hand by Johnson there and then--or that Baker didn't at least go on to formally identify Oswald in a lineup.

My best guess, is that Frazier was Prayer man

quote:

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.

--reads as a damn near perfect description of where we know Prayer Man was at that time (and where Shelley himself could not have been).

Robin,

Frazier would be the obvious candidate but I honestly don't see how it can be him.

• Prayer Man's upper garment looks far too light to be BWF's dark jacket
• BWF's comment that Billy was a couple of steps down from me over toward more the wall also makes it clear that Lovelady was closer to the wall than BWF himself--whereas Prayer Man is right over by the wall and is making no attempt to improve his already lousy view
• BWF testified that his view of the Presidential limousine went out of view as it went further down Elm St. because of all the spectators lining the street; Prayer Man cannot see any of that (cf Lovelady, who is east of Prayer Man and hence has a better view than him yet still has to move to his left and lean over just to follow the progress of the limousine)
• Prayer Man is clearly holding something; BWF gives no indication that he was holding anything (he went inside shortly afterwards to pick up and eat his lunch)

Deputy Sheriff Mooney testified to the WC that he believed the two men coming down the stairs were also plainclothes deputy sheriffs. He does not identify who they were, nor does he say whether he asked them for credentials.

Were these two men ever identified?

No, Robert, they haven't, and their presence coming down the stairs a few minutes after the shooting makes a nonsense of the WC-defender idea that it would have been impossible for a stranger or strangers to exit the building from the sixth floor undetected or unchallenged.

Can anyone identify the person who took this film, when it was taken, where in it is- what floor? and who are the guys in suits and hats that Baker and Truly are talking to?

Bill, the film was taken by Roy Cooper 11/22. It shows the rear of the first floor. The other men have not been identified. Heartbreakingly, there's no audio!

(Gary Mack gave me this information a few years back.)

I don't know if this of help, but i stabled the short Darnell sequence myself, taking care of the rotation in the frames.

This is a GIF with all frames incl all heavy blur frames:

Martin, I don't know where we'd be without you and Robin (and Gerda, if only she'd report back for duty...).

Is that a jerk in Prayer Man's arm??

While you're there--would you know how one might go about evaluating and if necessary correcting the Darnell frames for aspect-ratio distortion?

Is that you, Lee?

I hesitate to say it but it's beginning to look more like a Betty Lee to me. Is that a large purse in his/her hands?

...which 'she' was holding up to 'her' face to watch the motorcade? Hardly, Pat.

Listening to Buell Wesley Frazier's loyal protestations over the years of incredulity at the idea of Oswald's being the shooter, I cannot shake the suspicion that he saw his friend Oswald on the steps and that this fact was part of the reason he was subjected to such a gruelling interrogation regime the night of the assassination. It's as though he's been doing displaced penance ever since. Under the judicious friendly ministration of intrepidly unbiased JFK researcher Dave 'Oswald Time Trial' Perry.

Funny in this light that BWF's WC description of Bill Shelley's location at the time of the shooting--

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.

--reads as a damn near perfect description of where we know Prayer Man was at that time (and where Shelley himself could not have been).

click on the image to view full size

Frames rotated and stabilized on the Doorway

Yet more top-notch image work from Robin.

It's important to note that Prayer Man's hands--whatever he's holding in them--are raised significantly higher here, during the actual shooting, than they will be in the Darnell frames less than half a minute later.

To me this body language is suggestive of a 'WTF?' response.

My hunch is that Wiegman is showing him either sipping a coke, biting into a sandwich or--just possibly--snapping a still photograph.

So you see nothing odd about a double visit up to the second-floor lunchroom, Ray? Just how thirsty do you think Oswald was that day?

Correct me if I am wrong, Sean, but no one said he got a coke

while passing through the lunchroom before the shooting.

And no, Oswald never told us Fritz took notes. Harry Holmes told us that Oswald said that. That would be the same Harry Holmes you have already in this thread declared quite untrustworthy.

Holmes is clearly untrustworthy when he talks about matters he did not personally witness.

Beyond that you are right, I don't trust him very much generally.

But even a busted clock is right

twice a day.

While it may be true that no one else reports that Oz made this comment

(I'll have to check)

no one contradicts it either.

In my view, it is exactly the kind of irrelevant comment

(irrelevant to investigators present)

that only a layman would pick up on.

And of course, as we all know now,

Fritz lied when he claimed that he kept no notes,

while Oz was truthful.

The beautiful irony is

that it was Fritz's buddy Holmes

who let the cat

out of the bag!

Some rather Jesuitical reasoning there, Ray!

RC: Holmes is clearly untrustworthy when he talks about matters he did not personally witness.

SM: Holmes said he personally heard Oswald say X to Fritz about his having taken notes + Holmes said he personally heard Oswald say Y to Fritz about the location of his encounter with the policeman. Apples + apples.

SM: Have you ever read the "2nd Fl coke" part of Fritz's notes alongside the equivalent part of Bookhout's solo report? Try it. You may notice something strange.

out of the bag!

SM: The really beautiful irony is

that I made exactly that observation

when talking about

Holmes's revelation of

a first floor encounter!

Within a few short hours of the assassination, Marrion Baker gave an affidavit in the Homicide Office at DPD HQ.

Its central claim reads as follows:

As we reached the third or fourth floor I saw a man walking away from the stairway. I called to the man and he turned around and came back toward me. The manager said, “I know that man, he works here.” I then turned the man loose and went up to the top floor. The man I saw was a white man approximately 30 years old, 5’9”, 165 pounds, dark hair and wearing a light brown jacket.

There are three competing ways of accounting for these remarkable words:

1. Baker had encountered Oswald en route to the second-floor lunchroom, as per his later WC testimony, and got badly confused afterwards as to the details.
2. Baker had encountered someone other than Oswald coming off the stairway several floors up the building.
3. Baker's words report not a real incident but a rushed first draft of what would soon become the lunchroom story.

For reasons already outlined in this thread, I do not buy explanation #1.

Both #2 and #3 do however merit serious exploration on their own terms.

One need only give the gentlest of pulls on the tiny strand of Arnold's information to watch unravel the entire weave of lies put together around the question of Oswald's assassination-time whereabouts.

Arnold's sighting of Lee before the shooting tells us nothing nothing either way

about whether he late got a coke.

And remember Oz told us Fritz took notes

and Fritz said he kept no notes.

So far Oz has been proven truthful

while Fritz is a proven xxxx.

So you see nothing odd about a double visit up to the second-floor lunchroom, Ray? Just how thirsty do you think Oswald was that day?

And no, Oswald never told us Fritz took notes. Harry Holmes told us that Oswald said that. That would be the same Harry Holmes you have already in this thread declared quite untrustworthy.

Hello Sean

It is encouraging to see that you are a researcher who maintains an open mind on the degree of involvement Oswald had in the assassination. While I do not think it likely, it is entirely possible Oswald knew all about the assassination and, while he might not have been a shooter, he might have had other roles to play. For that matter, I am even willing to entertain he was a federal agent engaged in infiltrating groups involved in whatever.

With this in mind, let us take your last scenario about Prayer Man/Oswald and go a bit further. To do so, it must be assumed Prayer Man is holding a camera, likely a movie camera.

If he is filming, is he not in the worst possible place, deep in the shadows, to catch the assassination on film? Maybe so, but what if there was a glitch in the operation and the assassination took place in the wrong spot? Let me explain.

If I was planning an assassination with rifles at a moving target, and I wanted to assure its success, I would concentrate the rifle fire at the place where my target was slowed to an absolute crawl. Between Houston St. and the Triple Underpass, where would that spot be? There is only one answer, the 120° turn from Houston St. onto Elm St. By the time the limo has reached the Stemmons Freeway sign, it is on a relatively straight stretch of road, picking up speed going downhill and, most important, able to make a quick getaway. No, that great sled of a Lincoln was completely vulnerable and almost at a standstill while making the turn.

Now, if we look at Prayer Man as an observer and recorder of this event, it makes much more sense. From deep in the shadows on the steps, he has a ringside seat of any event taking place on the corner.

So, what happened to the plan and when did Oswald know he was set up? To answer this, we have to assume Oswald was told all of the shots would be coming from the Dal-Tex Building and the County Records Building. In the time it took Baker to run to the TSBD, Oswald may have heard witnesses speaking about seeing a rifle on the 6th floor above him plus witnesses speaking of JFK being shot so much further down Elm St. If he was the only conspirator in the TSBD, and as intelligent as it is claimed he was, it may not have taken him very long to realize he had likely been set up to take the fall, especially so if he had any inkling there was a rifle in the TSBD.

Why did he go to the 2nd floor? It is possible he felt exposed on the 1st floor and needed somewhere more secluded to get his thoughts together and come up with a new plan. That plan, I believe, was for him to walk out the front door a few minutes later.

Some very interesting thoughts in there, Robert. I think he may have nipped into the front-of-house storage room for just the reason you are giving for a purported trip upstairs to the lunchroom: to get his thoughts together and come up with a new plan.

I personally doubt that Oswald knew all about the assassination, but I do imagine he was implicated in some way. Otherwise the trap that was laid would not have snapped down so viciously and tightly on him. I believe the Prayer Man frames in Wiegman and Darnell may well be showing us a man in sudden deep shock.

My point about the scenario I laid out--Oswald following Baker & Truly upstairs--is not that I believe this is what happened (I don't) but that it is the all but necessary consequence of believing both that Oswald is Prayer Man and the lunchroom incident happened. Those buying into both elements may sincerely believe that their position is doubly supportive of Oswald's innocence: what could be sinister about standing on the steps watching the motorcade or buying a Coca-Cola? The problem is that these two actions, when combined in very quick succession, become problematical.