Andrej Stancak

While I have no doubts that the fatal head shot came from the front, I am not sure where from it actually came. President had his head turned slightly towards his left, and a shot from the front from Grassy Knoll would likely exit from the left part of the brain. There would be a risk to Jackie Kennedy too. The trajectory would rather point to the South Knoll as the late Sherry Fiester suggested. There could be a shooter in Grassy Knoll area, however, that could either deliver a different front shot (neck?) or serve as a decoy.

Actually, I wrote a blog article addressing the weight of President's brain. https://thejfktruthmatters.wordpress.com/2016/03/04/1500-g/

This is an amazing interview which explains and nails down several important acpects of the medical part of President Kennedy's death. First, the wound in the parietal region with a missing bone was, according to James Jenkins's report, practically the same as Parkland doctors had described. Second, there was a surgery on President's head possibly to cover the parietal wound with the scalp. Third, the situation in the neck wound was very unlikely the situation which Dr. Perry left after making his tracheotomy. According to Dr. Jenkins, a tracheotomy would never be done in a way possibly damaging other neck organs. Fourth, Mr. Jenkins confirmed that President's body arrived in a shipping casket and early on, maybe 6.30PM and via the back entrance. Thanks for posting this link, and thanks to Mr. Jenkins and Mr. Bet-David for this revealing interview.

This is an important piece of work and it will take me a while to go through it slowly and carefully. Jim, do you think that the JFK's pro-integration policy had actually mobilised the Dallas police against him so that it was then natural for many of them to collude in the assassination plot? I read books about Dallas history and about the roots of white supremacy in Texas in the sixties and earlier, and have also contacted Bill Minutaglio to ask him if he could explain me the weight of the integration issue in Dallas in the sixties. It was a major issue, maybe the leitmotif of Dallas life in 1963. Many police officers had their houses in Oak Cliff and the housing integration threatened to de-evaluate their homes and push them out. Further, a police officer 1960' would be right- or ultra-right, a racist, a member of a Baptist community, possibly a member of KKK, and he would not treat black people as equal. With JFK stepping on gas with integration, the aversion towards JFK in the ranks of Dallas police grew too.

Steve: it seems I did not understand your joke. Or was your last post a joke?

Francois: thanks for explaining your views. I reckon that we cannot help each other too much at this stage.

Fracois: NEVER is too a strong word. Not having a better picture of the doorway is not due to lack of interest of conspiracy researchers but owing to the objective difficulties. I only have tried to get to a better version of Wiegman film and failed like all other researchers. Others have been searching for the original Darnell film and were not successful so far. Will we NEVER get access to better versions of the films? Maybe, if we make a solid case for Lee Oswald being outside the building and not on the sixth floor, the ice will break, similar to establishing the ARRC after Oliver Stone movie. Maybe the living witnesses would be able to say then who was the unknown man standing at the western wall. Whatever colour the truth is, I want to know. Of course, the whereabouts of Lee Oswald during the shooting are the cornerstone of the whole case, with this the official story would crumble. As far as Oswald's behaviour is concerned, Lee did have some awareness of some clandestine operation to which he was either lured or forced. The hypothesis I work with is that Lee brought the rifle to work but that he did not shoot from it. He realised that President's killing was not in the script and since he was involved in some sort of a plot, he fled, possibly using the door at the back of the building. Lee still continued to play according to the script even after his arrest, although, towards the end of interrogations, he was willing to talk with Secret Service after talking first to a lawyer. The lawyer whom Lee would evetually acquire, the future uncontrolled testimonies given to many law enforcement, these are the things which needed to be prevented by all means. Oswald was willing to talk after being left abanoned by people who got him to the situation. Oswald would not talk to Dallas police as he knew they were in on it. And he was silenced in the Dallas police at the last possible moment. Ruby's getting to the basement on time was not too difficult to achieve - his approach to the City Hall building was synchronised with the decision to eventually start the transport, and Ruby's shooting was synchronised with Oswald's arrival by two car honking sounds. I am not going to details of Prayer Man story here as the present thread is maybe a more general thread in which people from two opposing camps stick to their arguments, none of the parties expected to sway. I appreciate that the discussions are polite and civilised in spite of the deep disagreement with each other's positions.

Thanks, Lance, for explaining your mental set again. To explain the mental set of a conspiracy thinker: nothing, even seemingly the most simple and trivial aspect of the assassination case, adds up. We see reflections of what really happened back then mixed with multiple versions of the same. Those multiple versions were often produced by the law enforcement agencies during the assassination weekend or later, by genuine researchers who discovered something palpable, by genuine researchers committing honest errors, or by frauds. It is very difficult to find the truth, and it requires considerable investment of own time and intellectual resources to get a clearer picture. A conspiracy theorist is not satisfied with how the case has been solved and keeps searching. Conspiracy theorists are not waiting for someone to discover something on their behalf, rather they focus on some aspect of the case and try to get to the bottom of it. Sometimes, an aspect can be quite essential - for instance, where was Lee Harvey Oswald during the shooting. A conspiracy thinker has not resigned from investigating the case to disclose, however slim the chance is, maybe new facts or information. If there is anything out there which will completely turn the table, conspiracy researchers but none of lone-nut researchers will find it because these are not searching. Reading JFK assassination books or watching videos is important but not enough. I look forward to having you back in our rows sometimes soon.

Interesting. I took it as a complete intellectual resignation by Lance who explains why he wishes to live in a state of a limbo.

I see, you would just question the credibility of these witnesses. Actually, I trust all these people and appreciate their bravery when facing the lack of understanding or even a direct pressure to retract or change their reports.

I asked Fred on September 16 about how he as a LN defender assimilated into his LN theory the reports of several witnesses seeing people and/or puffs of smoke on Grassy Knoll during the shooting. In my view, the witness reports of Jean Hill, S.M. Holland, Lee Bowers, Bill and Gale Newman, J.C. Price, and Ed Hoffman (my list is not complete) cannot be dismissed. Newman's only heard bullets being fired from their right and behind, they did not see any shooters, but they were clear about shots arriving from the Grassy Knoll. How does the LN theory fare with these data? Fred did not answer. And so I still do not know what a LN theorist thinks about data which so clearly disprove the LN view.

This is a list of 106 Dallas Police officers who were Klansmen. The list names one Chief, one Assistant Chief, three Captains and 10 Sergeants of police and the patrolmen. This list is stored as Mss0016, Earle Cabell: Family History, Box 1, Folder 41, Ben E. Cabell Ku Klux Klan. I am thankful to the staff of the DeGolyer library for finding this document based on my very approximate information. Although the list is undated, it is possible to identify the probable year based on the Chief of Police name, L.W. Brown. Chief Brown was the first man in Dallas police only for a short period of time in the year 1923. Chief Brown was preceded by J.H. Tanner and succeeded by C.W. Trammel (Partners in Blue. 100 Years of History of Dallas Police Department, by C. Stowers, 1983). It is not clear why was Ben E. Cabel associated with the list of Klansmen in DeGoyler collection. Ben Elias Cabell (father of Earle Cabell) was Dallas City Mayor in 1900-1904, and the list is clearly from a much later time than Ben E. Cabell’s his mayoral period. There was a big Klan Day at the State Fair Park in 1923 which was attended by 75,000 Klansmen who were addressed by Hiram Evans, the Imperial Wizard. Chief Brown pioneered the installations of the traffic lights in Dallas. A big tower with traffic lights, man operated, was positioned at the intersection of Elm and Ervay street. However, KKK had a fiest in Dallas as flogging of black people and Jews in Trinity River and lynching black people (e.g., Alex Johnson) was blooming in Dallas during 1922-1924. On one occasion, a Dallas police officer took flogging into his own hands, and was indentified later by his victim Phillip Rothblum. The police officer was acquitted and returned to the force shortly. There are couple of names which are relevant to the investigation of President Kennedy’s death, found by comparing each of 106 names with the Assistant Chief Batchelor list of Assignments, Commission Exhibit 5002. W. Fritz, or Will Fritz – Captain in the Homicide and Robbery Bureau. Fritz joined the Dallas police force in 1921, and he was 27 years old in 1923. Smith, B.B. – Deputy Chief of Police, Director, Civil Defence and Disaster Commission Frasier, W.N. - Captain of Police Doughty, M. – could probably be George M. Doughty, Captain of Police (not confirmed) ? Abbott, R.E. – Forgery Bureau The name “Curry, J.” is listed, however, this cannot be Chief Jesse Curry of fame as he joined the police department only in 1936, and he would be 10 years old 1923. Curry’s father was shortly a member of Dallas police before he became a minister for a Baptist church. Could he be the J. Curry in the list of Klansmen? The list of Klansmen in Dallas police refers to the period of the mid-20th when KKK enjoyed its resurrection, started by William Joseph Simmons and the film Birth of the Nation. The Klan 66 in Dallas was practically disbanded after 1928 and it would be a stretch to take for granted that the people in the list were Klansmen also in the fiftieth and sixtieth of the last century when the issue of integration engulfed another surge of KKK activities. However, it is certainly not impossible. The Dallas police counted 130 officers in 1920’ and the 106 names in the list means that almost every police officer was a Klansman during those times. In the overall US population, about 35% of white males of Christian religion and of non-immigrant status were members of KKK in the 20th of the last century. Thus, police officers were Klansmen more often than average population. I always wondered why did Captain Fritz asked Lee Oswald whether Lee had believed in a “deity” during one of the interrogation sessions. Lee answered : “What religion am I? I have no faith, I suppose you mean, in the Bible. I have read the Bible. It is fair reading, but not very interesting. As a matter of fact, I am a student of philosophy and I don't consider the Bible as even a reasonable or intelligent philosophy. I don't think of it. . . . “ (Mae Brussel, The Last Words of Lee Harvey Oswald, http://www.maebrussell.com/Mae Brussell Articles/Last Words of Lee Oswald.html). The reason for asking could be the Klansmen instinct which despised people who were black or Jews (especially in Dallas), immigrants (especially south-European) and were of other religion than south-protestant. Lee obviously blew it in the last item. Lee offered one more statement which had to enrage every true Klansman: "Life is better for the colored people in Russia than it is in the U.S." While it was normal to be a Klansman in the 20th of the last century, the KKK membership in the fiftieth and sixtieth was less open to an outside view. The scarce information we have, such as Joseph McBride’s interview with officer Brumley may be one of the few remaining bits of information about KKK in the Dallas Police in 1963, although archives may still contain valuable documents such as this list. The attached document is of relatively poor quality because it was converted from a PDF to JPEG. Anyone wishing to see the original PDF, please drop me your email address via a private message.

Joseph: I was able to obtain one list of Klansmen, and am posting it in a new thread.

Thanks for your comment. I will keep searching for a list of DPD Klansmen, just in case. If we knew who from the Dallas Police force was in KKK, it would give a better idea who was in the inner circle within the force, connected more than by their work duties. These officers would cover each other's backs during any investigation.

Joseph: this is a great podcast and a great book of yours, one of my favorite JFK assassination books. I wonder if there is any chance to view the list of Dallas police officers (1960') who were KKK members? Both Chief Curry and Captain Fritz were in KKK during their young years (and maybe even later).

Fred: welcome to the Forum, and congratulations on your new book. While I am one of the conspiracy buffs, I understand how much work it takes to write a book. This particular Forum is a place to debate issues related to JFK assassination. While it is possible to also discuss books on the topic, this assumes that people have purchased a book and wanted to review. There are hundreds of books on JFK assassination and only a very small number of books have been debated here. I would like to know how can a lone-nut explanation deal with the observations of several witnesses seeing people and/or puffs of smoke on Grassy Knoll during the shooting. In my view, the witness reports of Jean Hill, S.M. Holland, Lee Bowers, Bill and Gale Newman, J.C. Price, and Ed Hoffman (my list is not complete) cannot be dismissed. Newmans only heard bullets being fired from left and behind, they did not see any shooters, but they were clear about shots arriving from Grassy Knoll. Did you consider this issue in your conclusions?

Jim: I do not approve your posting of messages by a person who has been banned from this and other forums because of his insulting behaviour towards the moderators and other forum members. This person confuses his impressions and speculations with facts, and keeps repeating his false information without any ability to correct himself. Anyway: 1. The top of Prayer Man's head reached to 5'2'' in Darnell. This is an indisputable fact since the vertical and horizontal dimensions of the doorway are known and it is therefore possible to project the realistic dimensions of the doorway onto Darnell stills. Therefore, Mrs. Stanton who was 5'5'' could not pose as Prayer Man - she would be too tall. Period. After not passing the height criterion, the whole idea of Mrs. Stanton being Prayer Man collapses. The hair colour and the body build and Prayer Man's bent leg are further points refuting Sarah Stanton as Prayer Man. However, this is what the person you represent likes: to argue constantly about some perceptions and subjective assessments. 2. Mrs. Stanton, being a heavyset lady, required some space while on the top landing. The necessary space to accommodate her body was at the back of the doorway, close to the glass window. Please see here the top view of the top landing. It is an earlier version of the doorway with Mrs. Stanton still represented as a relatively thin lady wearing a light-colour shirt. Mrs. Stanton could not see much of events unfolding in front of her from that vantage point and this might have been the reason for a quick return to her office after the shooting. However, there is a "smudge" at the spot behind Bill Shelley's right shoulder in one of Darnell stills (top panel in the figure below) which would correspond to a person 5'5''. 3. As far as the presence of Mrs. Stanton in other films or pictures is concerned, Altgens6 shows the face of a person standing behind Billy Lovelady and close to Bill Shelley's right shoulder, which means to the left of Buell Wesley Frazier and consistent with all statements of Mr. Frazier. I am working on the 3D reconstruction of this scene for some time, and hope to be finished soon.

This is the transcript of the relevant part of the interview with Mrs. Stanton's family members: 02:08: Sarah Stanton saw Lee Oswald on stairs. She asked if she was going down, and he said he is going upstairs.02:32: "No, I am going upstairs" "I came down to get the soda and I am going back ... to the room where he was working" 03:12: Sarah saw Lee Oswald holding a soda in his hand.04:26: Lee got the soda from the machine there.05:03: Sarah said Lee was going to eat and he just came to get a soda.05:48: Sarah asked if Lee was going to have lunch. He said: "No, I am going back to my room."06:09: "The reason ... She wanna to talk to him because he was a very quiet person... and he was not going to... to have a conversation with nobody".06:23: "So, she said he never talked, so she asked him if he was going out to lunch. And he said, "No, just a soda". "07:19: Sarah went down because President was already coming but he was not there yet. So she went to prepare herself and be on the stairs where she met Oswald.08:15: "He went upstairs". Sarah Stanton met Lee Oswald while he was already holding a Coke in his hand. Lee was on stairs during their encounter although this is a bit confusing as it is not clear outright if the stairs were between the first and second floor or the second and third floor. Lee holding a Coke before the motorcade was a big problem for the second floor encounter between Marrion Baker and Lee Oswald. Buying a Coke before the motorcade renders Lee's presence in the second floor lunchroom after the shooting entirely meaningless. This was the reason for suppressing Mrs. Stanton's statements by the law enforcement, even if her statements had played into the cards of Warren Commission: Lee, according to Mrs. Stanton, said he was going up to the room where he was working, which could be the fifth or sixth floor, the floors to which Warren Commission would have loved to pin Lee Oswald. There is also a problem with the time at which the encounter between Mrs. Stanton and Lee Oswald happened. Billy Lovelady's and Bill Shelley's testimonies for the Warren Commission suggest that both these men came out to the doorway early on, not some 5 minutes before the shooting, and Mrs. Stanton was already out when they came out. Mrs. Stanton was out much earlier than 12.25, possibly 12.10 or 12.15. The figure of Prayer Man in Darnell contains sufficient details to accept the possibility of Lee Oswald being Prayer Man. I understand that you see it differently and hope you will change your views later after you see more analyses of Prayer Man's figure.

It is all right, Ken. I understand your disappointment. People had invested their time, funds, careers, family lives, sleepless nights, and fears to find out what happened to John Kennedy, Lee Oswald and Officer Tippit. I have the highest appreciation for these people. Yet, someone may say that it was all in vain as the plotters and the killers have not been brought to justice. I say it all had a purpose. It is like when millions of sperm cells are making their way to the egg but only one can succeed and very often not even one. However, the one which made it would not make it without those million cells around. I am convinced that the case can be solved and that a breakthrough will come. One of the theories (and each is supported by a stamp club, you are right) is correct, we only do not know which one and what cross-talk there is between multiple theories.

I like your natural and logical approach to the height problem, and appreciate your approval.

Chris: The most correct line is the one taking into account the perspective which is the top edge line of the orange-yellow wall. Of course, the wall is 5'2'' and sits on the top landing.This line would connect with the lower aspect of Mr. Frazier's chin. The blue lines crossing Prayer Man's head were all right in the sense that they highlighted an important landmark but they ended just below the chin.

The next figure shows an overlay of Darnell still, the 3D model with the slab, and the blue horizontal line. The top right corner of the slab was slightly higher than the left corner. However, the height of the slab was exactly at the top of Prayer Man's head at about 1/3 of the horizontal length of the slab. While the blue horizontal line is a good approximation of the relative height of Prayer Man compared to Mr. Frazier, the horizontal line of the slab is still a better choice. The result is the same for each of the two solutions (blue line or the horizontal line of the slab) albeit more accurate if the perspective factor is taken into account. The top of Prayer Man's head, if perspective is taken into account, reached to the the lower aspect of Mr. Frazier's chin. I would be grateful for expressing any doubts about the correctness of my analysis and reasoning as if I do not hear any I am inclined to assume that the 5'2'' estimate has been accepted.

The height of the human head is 9.1'' in a male of an average body height, however, it gets to 9.7'' - 10'' in very tall people such as Mr. Buell Wesley Frazier. Here is a copy of a Wikipedia page labelled "Human head": Thus, the height of Mr. Frazier's head was about 10''. Not 7 1/2'' or 8'', it would be a mistake to assume such a small head in an adult male. In Darnell still, the top of Prayer Man's head reaches to the lower edge of Mr. Frazier's chin, and it is therefore reasonable to assume that the height Prayer Man's head reached to was 72'' (Mr. Frazier's body height) - 10 (height of the head) = 62'' or 5'2'' above the plane of the top landing. This is illustrated with the horizontal blue line in the figure below: The question is if drawing this line is justified given the effect of perspective which can alter apparent dimensions of distant and close 3D objects. To check the appropriateness of the simple drawing above, I have placed a slab, a 3D object, into the doorway in such a way that it would cover Prayer Man's head. Recall, Prayer Man stood in the front part of the top landing. The vertical plane crossing the riser of the top step would cross Prayer Man's head about in the centre. The slab is thick enough to also cover the head of Mrs. Stanton should she stay on the top landing at Prayer Man's location (she did not!). And a top view of the slab:

Thanks, Ken, for your comment which I do not know if it was intended to point to the lack of deep research interest on my part of on somebody else's part. I am maybe a fourth-generation researcher. Of course, I would love to speak to the witnesses or to the pioneers of JFK research such as Harold Wiseberg or Mark Lane, unfortunately, this possibility was not given to me. As a fourth-generation researcher, however, I do what I can do and what my predecessors could not do: I am reconstructing the old photographs using 3D modelling, and am able to extract information which previous researchers did not see. I see a big progress in the understanding of what was happening in the doorway during the shooting in spite of many people downplaying or twisting it. As far as Mrs. Sanders and Mrs. Stanon are concerned, I would have hoped that the researchers living in Dallas/Texas had contacted the two ladies in the sixties or seventies when they were both alive and had good memories. In fact, the family members of Mrs. Stanton confirmed that Mrs. Stanton had been approached but she did not want to speak to anyone. It could have been the same with Mrs. Saunders. The FBI testimony of Mrs. Stanton differs from what she told to the family members in several important points indicating that she knew that there was a difference between what happened and what she had told to the FBI. We at least have their photographs which are extremely helpful. The testimonies of the family members will inevitably have limited accuracy and would be filtered not only by memory lapses but also by the fact that they are reported by someone else. Actually, the stakes are high in this or similar now scattered threads related to Prayer Man. The question is whether the person standing close to the western wall in Darnell just after the shooting could be Lee Oswald. The whole official story of the Warren Commission hangs on it and this is not a small or unimportant thing.

John: your camera interpretation certainly has a number of defenders, as does the coke in Prayer Man's hand. It also can be that he did not hold anything and it was the back of his right hand which caused a reflection. My current view is that it is the bottom of a coke bottle orientated flat towards the sun what could cause the contrasting light spot in Wiegman. If so, Prayer Man may have put the bottle into the recess on the second step between Wiegman and Darnell because I cannot see any bottle in Darnell stills. Of course, this is a speculation, I have no data to prove the coke or anything else.