Andrej Stancak

It is all about the detailed timing of Lee Oswald's movements which, unfortunately, is not known. Given the uncertainty of the exact moments of Lee Oswald's arrival into doorway and of duration of his stay there, multiple statements can be correct as none contains an exact time stamp.

My analysis of Hughes, e.g., the frame often shown by David Josephs, tells me that Prayer Man was not at his spot when the Presidential limousine was just passing the depository building and before the shots rang out. So, yes, Lee did not watch the parade with other people, he was not in the doorway minutes before, he did not have chat with other employees.  This is consistent with Inspector Kelley's report. Lee came, if he was Prayer Man, into doorway during the moments after President's limo passed and was certainly at his spot just after the last shot - this is documented in Wiegman. So, yes, he also saw the tail of the motorcade, the pandemonium, the commotion and the excitement. This fits with what he told during his very first interrogation and what Agent Hosty has recorded. 

As to the timing, I have calculated that Lee would need 12 seconds to walk briskly (not run) at 6 km/hour speed from the 1st floor lunchroom to the doorway (21 meters in my reading of the 1st floor plan) and thinking of Wiegman's first doorway frame W014 or W015 showing the doorway to coincide with Z313 + 1 second, we can estimate the likely time of his departure from the first floor lunchroom. I can be wrong, however, Lee may have reacted to the noise of the crowd which had augmented when the motorcade got to Houston Street. That would be the go signal making him leave the 1st floor lunchroom. He would be still in the building when the first shot rang out (thus, he was IN the building) on his way out, approaching the glass door, and he would reach his spot just a second before the last shot. It takes up to 3 seconds to squeeze through the semi-open glass door and get to Prayer Man's spot.

Prayer Man was watching the cars passing the Depository in Wiegman but he was completely uninterested in events evolving around him in Darnell. His behaviour is very odd - all doorway occupants optimise their vantage points and view angles to see the most of the area around the Tripple Underpass. None of the doorway occupants behaved like Prayer Man.

The spot at the western wall was the only spot which Lee could take if he entered the doorway late. Please mind that as he exited  through the semi-open glass door, he could not go left because that route was blocked by Mrs. Sanders. He could not stay at the centre of the doorway, as there was the huge Mrs. Stanton and the tiny Mr. Shelley who occupied these premium posts. He could not stay just there slightly west of Mrs. Stanton and Mr. Shelley, because of Buell Wesley Frazier. He was standing close to the western pane of the glass door in the shadow, almost touching the door (his Wiegman location). Billy Lovelady at that point was at his Altgens6/early Wiegman location, on the second step, so Lee needed to move still further to the west and front of the top landing - to his Prayer Man location. At that spot, Lee would not obstruct the views of any of the people standing on the top landing.

Late edit: Lee reacted to the noise of the crowd when he decided to go out, to see the commotion, the excitement, not to the shooting. I am inclined to believe that he did not anticipate any shooting to occur. However, the shooting which did occur had a very different meaning to him compared to other people in the doorway. Instead of going to the island or railroad tracks, or at least gazing to that general area, he watched in an indefinite way towards East Elm or Houston - he was thinking and pondering his next steps. The scenario may have been the one described in Chris Fulton's Inheritance: he was an intelligence asset and he was possibly informed about a mock assassination attempt which, however, he was told had been called off on the last minute (bad whether reason?). Therefore, he was not expecting anything to happen and quietly ate his lunch and went out to see the crowds when it looked like the motorcade is approaching. However, once he was out, he knew that the called-out action actually took place and was even hijacked to be a real assassination. He knew the people who had been preparing the mock attempt and who called it off, and this could be on his mind as he stood there staring to nowhere. 

The two men can hardly be Bill Shelley and Billy Lovelady:

1. Bill Shelley was 2-4 inch shorter than Billy Lovelady. None of the GIF frames confirms this.

2. The alleged Lovelady had a different head posture compared to real Lovelady. Billy Lovelady had an orthopaedic problem called forward head posture causing the front plane of his head to be quite in front of his chest (a hunch). This problem is not seen in alleged Lovelady in Couch/Darnell.

3. These two men, alleged Shelley and Lovelady, do not know each other, they move independently. Please note that the alleged Lovelady came later than alleged Shelley who is moving kind of slow. "Lovelady" goes toward railroad tracks while "Shelley" seems to linger around the island.

4. Shelley stood on the top landing while Lovelady was already descending the steps in Wiegman. Yet, in Couch/Darnell, "Lovelady" is arriving after "Shelley" who was standing behind him on stairs and who had to pass several people. Shelley is still on the top landing in Darnell, so how can he be in front of the building?

5. Carl Jones stood on the second step and had an easy exit from the doorway. Yet, he arrives at the island in front of the building later than either "Shelley" or "Lovelady". In reality, Carl Jones should be the first to come. 

Mr. Larry Rivera sounds like a very nice gentleman. Unfortunately, he has it all very wrong and he does not know about it. Mr. Rivera does not seem to be interested in knowing the truth and sticks to the ancient misinterpretation of Billy Lovelady as Lee Oswald. Mr. Rivera does not know the name of the cameraman who took Prayer Man, yet considers the Prayer Man case for lost because his "Doorman" rules. 

I spent time modelling Altgens6 and also  modelling Billy Lovelady based on the FBI mug shot photographs. I then fitted the 5'8'' Billy Lovelady's figure into the doorway and it matched exactly the figure of who else - Lovelady. 

Here is my overlay of Altgens6 and the 3D model. This overlay is the essential sanity check - if there is a mismatch here, any subsequent fitting or height estimates may not be correct.

And here is my model of Billy Lovelady:

Finally, the doorway with Lovelady. In A: the reconstructed doorway with Lovelady modelled based on the FBI photographs. You can see that something is wrong here: Lovelady stands on the top landing, and that would yield his figure to be too high compared to how we see him in Altgens6. B. This view and this location of Mr. Lovelady is correct - he stood on the second step. Notably, he told the Warren Commission to have stood on the top landing. (This is the advantage of 3D modelling - one can experiment and test different alternative locations). C. Overlay of the model and Altgens6. D. A zoomed view of Lovelady and Mr. Shelley (the man in dark suit), and Carl Jones (the Afro-American man), Otis Williams (white long sleeve) and Joe Molina (short-sleeved shirt). Please note how the person standing behind Billy Lovelady perspires: her partial face can be seen in the space between Billy Lovelady's and Bill Shelley's head. Another small piece of the person standing behind Lovelady can be seen above his right shoulder.

More to come soon when I finish fitting Mrs. Stanton as the person behind Mr. Lovelady.

I hope this settles the question of "Doorman" once and forever. Not the "Prayer Man" people have it wrong, the "Doorman" people blew it badly.

David:

the sketch you show is a part of the official WC plan of the first floor and it is very inaccurate. Please look at the depths of the six treads, how unequal they are. I started with this sketch four years ago when my project started and had to abandon it soon thereafter.

2 minutes ago, Chris Davidson said:

Andrej,

What was your source for this information?

Gary Murr was kind enough to share the original measurements of the top landing taken by the FBI agents.

1 hour ago, Ray Mitcham said:

I believe the mortar bed was usually 1/4" thick.

I used the value of 1 cm for the mortar in those initial estimates, slightly more than 1/4 and slightly less than 1/2.

11 hours ago, Chris Davidson said:

Andrej,

For accuracy's sake.

Chris:

I am not sure what do you want to say. You took my 2016 model which I then stopped using because I felt I could not make high-quality overlays. The reason was the absence of realistic dimensions of the doorway at that time. I was on a project for some 5 months and have estimated various dimensions solely based on photographs. For instance, the height of the doorway was estimated by counting the number of bricks on the western wall and multiplying this figure by the size of a standard US brick. The depth of the doorway was estimated to be 3'6'' but in reality, it was 3'9''. 

For this reason, the outer doorway in my 2016 model does not align perfectly, however, the inner part of the doorway seems to hold well. More importantly, the body height of Prayer Man has been estimated correctly with his head 5'2'' above the top landing and the connecting line touching the top of his head pointing to Frazier's chin. Prayer man's head is just a tiny bit above your blue 5' line, which is just fine. More importantly, the article defined the landmarks which any fitting of Prayer Man's figure needs to observe, such as his head crossing the aluminum frame, his right elbow at a certain distance from the red brick column (or "touching" the head of the man below) , etc.

After completing this model, I stopped my work as I felt that some inaccuracies in alignments of my model and Darnell can only be resolved with modelling the doorway with realistic measures. The realistic model was available maybe about in summer 2017, and you can find some overlays of this model in my January 2018 article on thejfktruthmatters.wordpress.com. However, even this model uses a slightly wrong depth of the doorway (3'8'') because the true dimension of the depth of top landing popped up only after publishing the article. You can see a revision comment in my January 31 article to this effect. I then embarked on reconstruction of Altgens6 and simultaneously worked on a realistic figure of Lee Oswald. Both projects are close to finishing, however,  due to my job duties I cannot find a single day, not even a weekend, to be able to resume and finish - and one day would not suffice anyway. 

5 hours ago, David Von Pein said:

How are you, Andrej, so absolutely certain that "Prayer Man" is exactly 5-feet, 9-inches tall? Have you considered every possible factor involving posture that could affect how the height of a person can be distorted in a photograph or film? And how can you determine the exact posture (or stance) of "Prayer Man"?

David:

I have constructed a 3D model of the doorway using realistic measures of the doorway. I then modelled the 3D model of Lee Harvey Oswald to show Prayer Man posture and fitted this figure into the doorway in the way that it matches Prayer Man figure. Then I read Prayer Man's figure height using a tape measure tool, and it showed the height of 5'9''. The posture of Prayer Man is tightly related to his location.

I showed my data on many occasions starting April 2016 when I started to post, and lastly when I reconstructed the alternative solution testing the possibility of Jack Dougherty being Prayer Man. For the very early work, please see my article from April 19, 2016: https://thejfktruthmatters.wordpress.com/2016/04/19/prayer-man-in-darnells-film/ .  This article defines the landmarks which any reconstruction of Prayer Man needs to observe. It is not my random decision where to put Prayer Man or how tall he could be. As far as my last estimate, please see the measuring stick crossing Lee Harvey Oswald's body as Prayer Man in my last work. There are at least 10 posts of mine in various threads addressing Prayer Man's body height. I explained to you specifically in one of my recent posts how can you get a rough estimate of Prayer Man's body height by comparing the top of his head with Mr. Frazier's head. 

However, I think this discussion is futile. It leads nowhere as whatever I write in response to you, it will be questioned by quite silly, sorry,  comments. Do you really want to discuss Prayer Man's height or only provoke? Please show your calculations, estimates, measurements, whatever.

4 minutes ago, David Von Pein said:

But there's the rub right there, Andrej. How do we decide what is truly "known", vs. factors (or "matches") that are merely pure guesses? Such as Male vs. Female and the weight of the individual, to name just two factors?

It's a guessing game to a large degree.

The weight cannot be elaborated from a picture, however, the gender can. It is simple: the distribution of body heights of US population in 1963 for people of a certain age is known. Prayer Man was 5'9'' and the probability is approaching zero for such a person being female. 

Besides my concerns about Shelley and Lovelady and the presence of power supply in the front of the building, there is also a question of the assassins' exit from the building. John suggests they exited the lift on the first floor. How could they be certain that they would not be seen by people standing close to the lift? They could not know who would stand there, this was beyond their control. No assassin would agree to a venture with uncertain escape. Further, how could they restore the wooden floor from below the floor - there would be certain signs that the wooden floor was tempered with, e.g. missing nails or similar. 

David:

my odds ratio is preliminary, just to illustrate where it would be now with existing matches as they are known. The method is straightforward - calculation of conditioned probability with multiple features. For instance, Prayer Man was a white Caucasian as was Lee Oswlad, The probability of being white Caucasian in Dallas in 1963 was 0.86 as 14% of the population were other races. Of course, there are features which are more difficult to estiimate (e.g., the probability of  Prayer Man and Lee having the same shape of hairline) and for those it will be more correct to use a range of probabilities rather than a single probability value. Once finished, I would post the probability figures for everyone to check.

3 hours ago, François Carlier said:

Apparently, on this forum (whose moderators are conspiracy believers) conspiracy theorists can insult those who disagree with them at will, They can mock whomever they want. They risk nothing. But if I post just a bit of humor, Mister Mark Knight feels the need to block the thread and then threatens me to expell me from the forum (so easy to brag through a computer screen !…).
OK.
I'm leaving.
For good.
I bet some people will be happy.
Good luck to everybody ! 
I wish you well !

François:

no reasons for leaving. This is far the best JFK Forum with some great experts and writers on board, and outside is just misery. Your views are appreciated as they put real demands on people to answer. If it helps you, I have been already reprimanded by one of the moderators for recommending one past member to seek psychiatric help, and I had to apologise. The debates are sometimes heated and not every joke is good. Just take some rest and consider resuming when you feel like. Take care. 

2 hours ago, Tony Krome said:

My first thought when I saw this picture, was that person had just taken a photo with a very small camera, and had just lowered his arms

I saw a few similar overlays of Lee Harvey Oswald's heads onto Prayer Man, however, yours appears to show the best match.  I do not know how much enhancements were put into it.

2 hours ago, David Von Pein said:

Well, I have some other versions of the Prayer Man image saved on my computer too [below], if they will help. (You might not believe me, but I too would like to be able to find out who "Prayer Man" is, if at all possible.)

David:

The top picture is the same or very, very similar to what I use. The one you posted previously shows Prayer Man with eyes which I was never ever able to see or achieve in the original pictures or enhancements made using original pictures.

David Joseph's projection of Lee Oswald's hairline on Prayer Man shows an excellent match, would you agree? 

The identity of Prayer Man as Lee Oswald is in probability terms unless clear facial features will pop up after a high-res copy shows them. However, with the matches listed in my previous post, a preliminary probability estimate in terms of odds ratio comes to about 1:700,000 (this figure may still change as different features are being added or withdrawn). This would be the odds that any random person would show the same matches with Prayer Man as Lee Harvey Oswald. 1:700,000 is the chance of dying due to being hit by a meteorite. The number of inhabitants in Dallas in 1963 was about 670,000. 

Gary:

I have downloaded your Volume 1 and had a chance to scroll through some of the chapters. This work appears complete and unusually well researched and documented. Would there still be a chance to maybe publish it as a book, even if as a Kindle book? It is a great achievement and a published book would be an appropriate way to crown your great effort.

I will read your book with great interest.

Thanks for giving us chance to read.

Many things are possible. However, besides seeing lights in the front part of the building where the 1st floor lift was, the assumed roles of co-conspirators Bill Shelley and Billy Lovelady defies me. I always understood that Shelley and Lovelady had left the steps after the shooting and before returning to the building, they went to the island infront of the building and maybe even walked in direction to railroad tracks, and only then returned to the building. This information is both in their Warren Commission testimonies, and it has been confirmed by Buell Wesley Frazier in one of his interviews - he saw them on the steps after the shooting and witnessed how they went out to that island. I would also not interprete Vicki Adams' description she gave to Barry Ernest as confirming that these two men were in the back of the building when she reached the 1st floor. She only saw one Afro-American men there. She actually denied seeing these two men when she reached the firts floor. Am I missing something?

4 hours ago, Tony Krome said:

I have no experience in this field, but after reading the above, is there any way that you can enter all frames, that show PM, into some graphics software, that could generate an optimum single image? 

Tony:

averaging images would help if the problem would be a random digital noise which could be cancelled by averaging. Unfortunately, the random noise is not the problem in Darnell, it is the motion blur waht makes problem. Motion blur unlike random noise deforms objects in specific directions and therefore, averaging would only strengthen the problem. Darnell should be motion-blur corrected, however, the present film quality - to my layman eye - does not make this possible. I am not an expert in removing motion blur in  films. A great expert could maybe accomplish it with the current version.

The frame we use, fortunately, has a minimal motion blur.

37 minutes ago, David Von Pein said:

Nobody can say for sure who the so-called "Prayer Man" person is ---- not even Marina Oswald.

And anyone who thinks she can positively I.D. LHO as PM is only fooling themselves.

We will see about it. I am sure we can do a lot for clarifying the possibility of Lee Oswald being Prayer Man even with the versions of Darnell available now, and even more if a high-resolution copy of Darnell film will be available to researchers.

I would not recommend using the copy of Darnell's still which pops up after hitting the link in your message. I am afraid this version is already a processed image in which the contrasts have been increased. My preferred Darnell images are those obtained by disassembling Darnell film into individual frames.

David:

there were two phono calls. The earlier phone call, I gather, happened after Marina received a pack of Darnell and Wiegman stills which apparenly also contained Barnebei sketches, and Ed and Marina went through the sketch while having other Darnell and Wiegman photographs around. It was at that point when Marina confirmed "J" person to be Lee. There was no association with Altgens6 during the first conversation. The second phone call was the one which was recorded. Marina was not well, she did not read Prayer Man book but she browsed through the book and realised she might not be able to understand because there were too many characters mentioned in the book, and she felt that was too much on her. Those having grandparents around their 80th year of life would understand right away what was the problem. She clearly was a bit confused at that moment and mentioned Lovelady and came back in her mind to Algens6 which picture she had seen many times. However, she did not think that she was identifying  from Altgens6, she gave her approval to something which has been discussed during the first conversation, and that was Darnell' Prayer Man.

Ed is a member on this forum and can shed more light on the problem. I may not interpret the course of events accurately as I was not the one making the calls.

22 hours ago, François Carlier said:

You mean standing up ? Come on ! Your item 7 is weak.

François:

my point 7 is both strong and interesting. Our posture, the way how we stand, how we position our feet arms, and how we tilt the head is hardwired in our brains. You may have seen the famous movie "Forrest Gump" with Tom Hanks. Forrest had a specific way how he tilted his head to one side, and his little son did the same. Posture is determined by motor programs in the oldest parts of the brain - basal ganglia and reticular formation (linked to the vestibular system) -  and individual aspects of posture will manifest especially when we are distracted. If a neurologist wants to provoke a reflex on a patient, the doctor may ask patient to make some simple arithmetic counting or connect the fingers of both hands and pull them forecefully apart (Jendrassik manouvre). That keeps the patient's conscious brain busy and the old motor reflex programs can be tested. Prayer Man clearly was thinking, pondering what to do next. He did not even watch what is going on at Tripple Underpass as the rest of doorway occupants did. It would be a lousy decision to watch the motorcade from that spot anyway, you would take that spot only of there would not be a better spot which would not obstruct view of another person, for instance when you come to the doorway too late and all good spots have been taken already. Thus, Prayer Man shows his natural stance.

I have analysed Darnell picture and Prayer Man' s stance for almost 4 years now, and posted during this time a number of pictures revealing similarity between Prayer Man's stance and Lee' stance. Please find here one of them. It has been made with the old mannequin which was not modelled according to realistic body proporions of Lee Harvey Oswald, however, I hope you can spot the similarities between the posture captured in the backyard ptotograph and the reconstructed Prayer Man's posture. In both, the left leg is bent and pushed forward, and the body weight rest on the right foot which is placed backward. The arm posture in both pictuers is unusually similar too.

David:

Marina was sent Prayer Man pictures, not Altgens6. She was taken through the schematic drawing of the doorway figures (Barnabei) and stopped at the one labelled "J", not at Lovelady or Shelley or anyone else. This was in context of previous Darnell and Wiegman pictures she received by mail. It is true that the recorded conversation includes Marina's using the name Lovelady, in the sense that one only needs to understand the difference between the two men, Lovelady and Lee - she was not saying that Lovelady in Altgens6 was Lee. That part may raise some questions and it would be very useful to sit with Marina, show her both Altgens6 and Darnell and record the responses. However, I also gather that Marina may not be able to do it due to her health issues which she has mentioned at the beginning of the phone conversation. Under such circumstances, Marina could be severely distressed and confused even in things which healthy people of younger age find easy or trivial. I appreciated that Ed had chosen to make the call short once Marina told she was unwell.

It may be worthy to prepare two (sets of) pictures, one with Altgens6-Lovelady and one with Darnell-Prayer Man , shuffle them and ask if any of the figures in any of the photographs resembles Lee. Give her enough time and put her at ease. I would say this should be done by someone who can visit  Marina and can see if she is all right on the day. Maybe David Lifton or Gary Shaw?

So, we are half-way through here. Some will interpret Marina's statements as a positive identification and some will point to uncertainty in her statements.

Gary:

I look forward to reading your book,  it will have an honorary place in my digital library. I wonder if you also covered any associations between Connally and Earle Cabell in the time preceding assassination, and Connally's role in making Trade Mart the luncheon venue.

7 minutes ago, David Von Pein said:

Why on Earth can't it be a "stranger"?

And that stranger would just like that:

1. be identified by his wife to be Lee Oswald.

2. would be 5'9'' tall, the body height of Lee Oswald.

3. would be a male.

4. would be a white Caucasian.

5. would have dark hair and a hairline matching accurately Lee's hairline.

6. would wear a worker type of shirt, pulled out of pants, and of colour (light red) corresponding to Prayer Man's grey shirt if converted into grey scale.

7. would assume a posture which Lee Oswald had often displayed.

This looks like too many coincidences for one man, would you agree?

38 minutes ago, David Von Pein said:

You think that batch of worthless fuzziness can tell us ANYTHING at all?

Get real.

David:

I do not concur with Bart's localisation of Mrs. Stanton in Darnell and think it does not make any good service to Prayer Man cause to insist on this solution without further supporting evidence. Mrs. Stanton's location in the doorway is pretty simple to understand once you know that she was very tall 5'6'' and that she had thick light grey hair. So, you can ask yourself a question: where in the doorway in Darnell still is a grey strip which Mrs. Stanton's hair would cause in a black-and-white photograph? It should be sought at the level of Mrs. Frazier nose. Why? Because Mrs. Stanton's son Larry was just about 1 or 1/2 inch taller than Mr. Frazier and in the family photograph with her son Larry, Mrs. Stanton's grey hair reaches just to Larry's nose.  And yes, Darnell indeed shows such a light grey strip just to the left of Buell Frazier where he always placed her in his interviews. Please see below Darnell still with a yellow line (orientated in parallel with the horizontal door frame) connecting the grey  band to his left with his nose. The other picture is the family photograph in which the yellow connecting line points to the top of Stanton's grey hair and Larry's nose.

The family picture of Mrs. Stanton,  you may appreciate, completely excludes her as Prayer Man even if Debra Conway or Mr. Frazier would say the opposite. Prayer Man has his head too low compared to where it should be if s/he would be 5'6'' and likewise: where is Mrs. Stanton's thick grey hair in Prayer man?

33 minutes ago, David Von Pein said:

From Duncan MacRae's forum.... 

"I just had a nice half hour phone conversation with Debra Conway and she told me Buell Frazier has told her several times that Prayer Man is Sarah Stanton. Conway then told me, "I know Buell, and I don't think he would lie about a thing like that"." -- Brian Doyle; February 17, 2019

David: you would not believe anything that Mr. Doyle says, would you? Mrs. Stanton had thick grey hair on the top of her 5'6'' body. She was seriously obese and she was, of course, a woman. Where can you see these features in Prayer Man?