Andrej Stancak

Paul: thank you for your encouraging comments. Sketchup is a professional architect design software and very suitable for modelling a space such as Depository doorway. It struggles a bit with human models as those require a notoriously large number of triangles to render the curved shapes and details, e.g, face. Therefore, I used Poser 11 program to model the most important persons, such as Oswald. It is encouraging to have among us someone who is familiar with Sketchup. Chris could speak for himself if he could endorse my analysis. I remember he determined the height of the plane crossing the top of Prayer Man's head as 5' 3'' which is in almost perfect agreement with my estimate of 5' 2 5/8''. However, I always provide an independent validation of model-based height estimate. The height of the plane crossing Prayer Man's top of the head can be determined by comparing the height of that plane with Buell Wesley Frazier body. The plane of interest crosses Frazier's body at the height of his shoulders or lower aspect of his chin. As Frazier's body height is known (6' or 6' 1/2''), it is possible to arrive at a reasonable height estimate using an online tool allowing to compare appearances of two people of known heights, in our case 6' 1/2'' and 5' 1/2'', for instance here: https://www.mrinitialman.com/OddsEnds/Sizes/compsizes.xhtml , and this would be the outcome: Independent validation is always useful and adds to the validity of the model-based analysis.

As far as the other lady or ladies shown in Chris'es last post is concerned, obviously there are glaring mismatches in the shape of hairline and clothing between that lady and Prayer Man. For instance, if this lady had the part of her arm above the elbow joint naked (and I can see this to be the case), this detail would exclude her as Prayer Man because Prayer Man has only his forearms exposed. However, there are more fundamental reasons for refuting the possibility that a woman could be Prayer Man. The main reasons are the body height, location and the posture. The overlay of my 3D model with original Darnell shows that a man 5' 9 5/8'' standing with his right foot on the step below the top landing would fit Prayer Man figure very accurately. There is no satisfactory solution for any person, man or woman, standing with both his or her feet on the top landing. I will explain it in a narrative, however, am also willing to prepare a model of a lady 5' 2 1/2'' with a light-coloured decolt and fit her as Prayer Man for everyone to see the problems. A lady 5' 2 1/2'' standing with both her feet on the top landing would appear tiny, simply because she would be 7+'' shorter than Prayer Man and therefore her head and limbs and trunk would appear proportionally smaller compared to a person 5' 9 5/8''. As she would be standing with both her feet on the top landing, the vertical plane crossing her right elbow would be at least a 1/2 foot away from the same vertical plane crossing the right elbow of a man having one foot on the first step (or Prayer Man in Darnell). As person 5' 2 1/2'' would be tiny, she would need to be pushed a bit inward into the doorway toward the post of the glass door at the western wall to achieve her head be crossed by this post (seen in Darnell). This would cause additional increase of the distance between Prayer Man's right elbow and her right elbow. In an overlay of Darnell and a model having a lady 5' 2/12'' on the top landing, a glaring mismatch would be seen in the area of right elbow. To continue, a person 5' 2 1/2'' would be able to show a good correspondence between the top of Prayer Man's and this person's head, however, the rest of their bodies would not match because a person 5' 2 1/2'' has shorter arms than a person 5' 9 5/8'' standing 7 1/8 inch lower than the short person, and her crossed arms would appear 2 inches too high compared to Prayer Man's arms. Of course, I did test a possibility of a person 5' 2 1/2'' being Prayer Man, and saw the mismatches mentioned above. Prayer Man was one concrete person, whoever he was, and therefore we cannot have two alternative solutions (5' 9 5/8'' and 5' 2 1/2'') fitting Prayer Man equally well. Only one solution is possible. After spending more than 5 years on this project I can see that the only solution matching Prayer Man figure is the one having him standing with his right foot on the step below, and having his left foot slightly bent in the knee joint and resting on the top landing. Any other solution (e.g., a person standing with both his/her feet on the top landing) would not fare. For the reasons explained here, I see not purpose in highlighting problems with every new lady identified in the doorway in historic photographs. No lady or man 5' 2 1/2'' would fit Prayer Man figure as that person would have to stand on the top landing causing incurable mismatches with Prayer Man figure in Darnell.

Chris: the lady labelled #2 in your composite appeared to be too tall to fit Prayer Man figure. I have overlaid the relevant part of her figure onto Darnell still; the yellow line crosses the top of her head and shows how much taller she would be compared to Prayer Man. It does not mean that the lady would be 5' 7'' when barefoot. Almost all young ladies working in the TSBD wore high, 3.5'' heel shoes. Thus, she could well be of usual body height of 5'2''-5'3'' but her body heigth as it appears in this photograph would be inflated by about 3 inches owing to her high heels.

Here are a few views of the Depository doorway in Darnell illustrating a solution for locations of doorway occupants. The top picture is the the original Darnell still with the 3D model of the doorway overlaid onto the original picture, and the bottom pictures are different views of Darnell doorway. Mrs Stanton in Darnell still stood just in front of glass door, to the left of Buell Wesley Frazier, and her light-coloured hair, modelled according to the family photograph, matches the original picture accurately. It is the overlay of the 3D model and the original picture which allows to validate a particular solution. It is a very punishing process because any mismatch due to a wrong model solution is instantly visible. It takes many iterations (adjustments of body heigt, orientation, limbs positions) to obtain an overlay that sits well.

I would like to make some sense out of this thread. It started with Chris posting Willis #21 slide with two ladies, perhaps suggesting that one of them could be "Prayer Person", three question marks. There was also a hint from the past that another woman, Sarah Stanton, could be Prayer Man. I hope all agree that each of these ladies has been rightfully discarded as Prayer Man. The pink lady in Willis 21# was too short and her light-coloured dress would not match Prayer Man clothes. The lady behind the glass door would not match Prayer Man owing to her rich hair creating a roof and a specific hairline so much different to Prayer Man. Sarah Stanton had rich, light-coloured hair and her hair exclude her as a candidate right away. Thanks to everyone who helped in bringing on her photograph which eventually was the decisive piece of data to exclude Sarah Stanton as Prayer Man. There are good hints and witness testimonies allowing to estimate Sarah Stanton's location quite precisely given limited resolution of the photographs, especially in areas at the back of the top landing. Then there were two futher "versions" of Darnell still which were also brought here from another forum, with a comment and a drawing by Mr. Hackerott pointing to very feminine features of Prayer Man, making a case for Prayer Man being actually a Woman. These pictures have never been discussed previously on our Forum, causing me to think what was going on. It appears that the "versions" of the famous Darnell still we all used to view and analyse are actually different frames of Darnell film. In the left-hand panel, cropped views of three pictures are shown, labelled "jfkassfor.", "red-arrow", and "2013", with two former pictures being those brought here from jfkassassinationforum.com, and the latter being the best version of Darnell still available from the very start of Prayer Man saga. The right-hand panel shows the corresponding frames identified in Darnell film (the version of Darnell film posted on this forum by Robin Unger in "Oswald leaving the TSBD?" thread about in 2016). Clearly, we deal with three different frames of Darnell film, not with different versions of the same frame. The two frames brought here recently have never been analysed because of motion blur distortions. To show Prayer Man in all three frames, in Darnell original film and in their parallel versions, the next figure shows cropped views of Prayer Man in six variants. The lower row are the frames from original Darnell film - I have resized them and added a bit of light equally to each of three frames for better visibility. It is possible to appreciate the heavy distortions in Prayer Man's figure in frames "jfkassfor." and "red-arrow", and absence of this distortion in "2013". The top panel shows Prayer Man in the pictures that have been brought here from the other forum. Heavy photograpic manipulations were needed to get from original film frames to "jfkassfor." and "red-arrow", with "red-arrow" being processed much more than "red-arrow". Please note Prayer Man's thin right forearm in "red-arrow"; this were the dues needed to be paid to reach the figure we see.

Mr. Frazier did not change his story "a bit". He changed it to the extent that he did not speak the truth under oath by saying he did not see Lee Oswald in the Depository on Friday except couple times in the morning. Many years later he started to claim he did see him minutes after the shooting when Lee was walking south on Houston street to Elm street. In his recent autobiography, he came with a story that he had seen an unknown man stashing a rifle into a car in front of the Depository building within minutes of assassination. Would this information not be relevant to the Warren Commission or law inforcement officers? He told nothing to anyone. Did he speak right there with Police about a man with a rifle in front of the Depository couple of minutes after the shooting, the APB could have gone in direction of this man. These are not human errors, these are big memory lapses in critical parts of the case. I agree with Mark that Mr Frazier cannot recall seeing Lee Oswald around the time of assassination. The reason is the postraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) he very likely developed feeling extreme danger to himself and his sister. It was interesting to listen to Mr Frazier recent interviews that followed his book. He said he experienced severe discomfort while writing, and made long (months) breaks before resuming his writing. People differ in their chances to develop postraumatic stress disorder and those being subject to abuse and hardship in early childhood having an increased risk. Mr Frazier described in detail what abuse he received from the hands of his stepfarther when he was a child. The symptoms of PTSD are memory lapses, attentional deficits, avoiding conversations on the stressful event, experiencing physiological arousal when talking about stress-related events, and other symptoms. If all was right with Mr Frazier's mental state, Mr. Frazier would say: "The lady who works in one of the publishing offices, her name was Sarah, stood to the left of me, and the person XY (or somebody whom I did not know) stood at the western wall just in front of me." Instead, Mr Frazier only admitted seeing Sarah Stanton to his left and blinked the person to his right completely.

The latest arrivals of processed versions of Darnell, advertised as original stills, look so similar to actions of the intelligence/media in other facets of the case. To tackle a promising trail, one or more alternative stories to the true one are made up, and the researchers themselves then bury both the valid and invalid piece of evidence.

But both the one shown here and the one linked were tampered with. The quality of both images is much worse than of the ones discussed from 2013.

To identify Mrs Stanton in Altgens6 is more difficult compared to Darnell. I cannot explain the full process better than my video, therefore, please watch using this link if you are interested: Notably, Mrs Stanton stood closer to the glass door window in Darnell than in Altgens which on itself is not surprising because at least 30 seconds had elapsed between these two snapshots. However, only her location in the front part of the top landing (ger Altgens6 location) would allow a person exiting the first floor through the glass door to pass beside her and to occupy a spot at the western wall. Once Mrs Stanton slid back, no one would squeeze through.

Taken all data together, we search for a light-colour rectangular object (the top of Sarah's hair) at the height of about 5'6'' above the floor of the top landing, in the central area of the doorway in front of glass door, and slightly to the right of Bill Shelley. Here is a cropped view of Darnell still showing Buell Wesley Frazier in the left part of the picture and a light-coloured object at the height compliant with the height of 5'6'' - 5'7''. The middle panel shows Frazier's head overlaid with a high-resolution image of his head for a better comparison, and a line crossing the top of the light-coloured rectangle. To recall, Mr Frazier (6' 1/2'') was of practically identical body height as Larry (6' - 6' 1'') and therefore, it is possible to compare the line crossing his face (middle panel) with that crossing Larry's face in the family photograph (lower panel). It is very likely that the light-coloured rectangular object floating at a height of about 5'7'' in Darnell belonged to Sarah Stanton, confirming her location in the middle of the top landing, in front of glass door, and to the left of Buell Wesley Frazier. I am working on the details of hair seen in Darnell, and will post when finished.

The statements listed below are from the transcript of the interview of Mr Brian Doyle with members of Stanton's family on June 18, 2018. This interview can be replayed from: https://soundcloud.com/user-788101711/oswald-was-in-the-lunch-room?utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing This is what the members of Mrs Stanton's family, Rosa and Wanda, had to say regarding Mrs Stanton's appearance and body height during the interview: 01:36: "Sarah Stanton was a very big woman." 14:07: Confirmed that Sarah was about 5'5''. 14:37: "Sarah could also be 5'6'' ". 14:49: "Sarah herself said she was 5'4'' - 5'6'' ". 15:36: "Sarah weighed at least 300 pounds. She was over 300 pounds." 16:11: "Sarah was big at the bottom and her hips, less so at her top. Her arms were big." Besides conferring data on Mrs Sarah Stanton's body height and appearance during the interview, Mrs Stanton's step-daughter also gave this recommendation for identification of Mrs Stanton's figure: "And the way to find her is, she was a very big woman." The large stature of Mrs Stanton was also confirmed to me by Mrs Stanton's grand-daughter, Wanda in our email exhange dated April 4, 2020: "My grandmother was obese to the point she could barely fit through a doorway." To arrive at the best possible estimate of Mrs Stanton's body height, it is possible to use Larry's body height as a natural measuring stick. Larry stood next to Sarah in their family picture, and he was 6' or 6'1'' according to members of Stanton's family. The yellow line in the picture below crosses the top of Sarah's head and Larry's face at a height of about 1/3 of his ear. The figure below was produced from an online application allowing to compare appearances of two people of known body heights. I have set Larry's height to 6' (left) or 6' 1'' (right) and the adjusted the height of the other person to reproduce the yellow line in the family picture. Mrs Stanton was either 5'6'' if Larry was 6', or 5'7'' if Larry was 6' 1''.

Mrs Stanton's appearance provides further clues as to her location in the doorway. Her hair showed four remarkable features which may help in her identification. The four features are highlighted with red symbols in the picture below. The right panel highlights (1) a rectangular shape of the front part of Sarah Stanton's hair above her forehead. A circle (2) points to a dark spot on the front surface of Stanton's hair. Sarah Stanton's hair was of large volume not only on the front part above the forehead but also on the lower part of her hair creating asymmetric wings (3), with a larger volume of hair in the lower back aspect of the head on the right than on the left. The arrows in the left-hand panel point to curles (4) that are visible on parts of Sarah Stanton's hair. These curls created puffy, semi-transparent blobs on the surface of Stanton's hair.

The location of Sarah Stanton in the doorway appears to remain enigmatic. Let us review the basics. First, what did the witnesses, including Sarah Stanton, report regarding her location. Here are excerpts from the relevant testimonies or interviews. Paula Sanders (FBI report, WC Exhibit 1381, 3/19,1964): I took up a position at the top of the front steps of the Depository building facing Elm Street. To the best of my recollection, I was standing on the top step at the east end of the entrance. I recall that while standing there I noticed Mrs. Sarah Stanton standing next to me, but I am unsure as to the others. Paula Sanders (FBI report, WC Exhibit 1434, 11/24/1963): She said she did not see OSWALD during this time and she stood in the last line of spectators nearest the door to the Texas School Book Depository building. Sarah Stanton (FBI report, WC Exhibit 1381, 3/18/1964): When President John F. Kennedy was shot I was standing on the front steps of the Texas School Book Depository Building with Mr. William Shelley, 126 South Tatum, Dallas, Mr. Otis Williams, 3429 Southwestern, Dallas, Mrs. R.E. Sanders, 4226 Delmar, Dallas, and Billy Lovelady, 7722 Hume Drive, Dallas. Billy Lovelady (WC testimony): Mr. BALL – Who was with you? Mr. LOVELADY – Bill Shelley and Sarah Stanton, and right behind me Mr. BALL – What was that last name? Mr. LOVELADY – Stanton. Mr. BALL – What is the first name? Mr. LOVELADY – Bill Shelley. Mr. BALL – And Stanton’s first name? Mr. LOVELADY – Miss Sarah Stanton. Bill Shelley, (WC testimony): Mr. BALL - And who was out there? Mr. SHELLEY - Well, there was Lloyd Viles of McGraw-Hill, Sarah Stanton, she's with Texas School Book, and Wesley Frazier and Billy Lovelady joined us shortly afterwards. Mr. BALL - You were standing where? Mr. SHELLEY - Just outside the glass doors there. Mr. BALL - That would be on the top landing of the entrance? Mr. SHELLEY - yes. Buell Wesley Frazier his video-recorded interviews: "Buell Wesley Frazier drove Lee H. Oswald to work on Nov. 22", 1963 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5OnbKATeSE&t=6s "Interview with Buell Wesley Frazier (21 June, 2002)", https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSjJAhJ4J4g It is clear from the testimonies that Sarah Stanton stood on the top landing. Here is a graphic illustration of the top landing and two first steps with shoeprints representing the relevant persons. The circles around each person define the space of the doorway where Sarah Stanton needed to be with the condition that that space includes the top landing. The grey-shaded area is the intersection of all four circles. In order for all four testimonies to be true, Sarah Stanton would need to stand in that grey-shaded area, labelled "SS". Notably, Sarah Stanton herself indicated as her neighbors people who stood immediately in front of her: Bill Shelley, Otis Williams, and Billy Lovelady. BL = Billy Lovelady; JM = Joe Molina; PM = Prayer Man; BS = Bill Shelley; BWF = Buell Wesley Frazier; PS = Pauline Sanders; SS = Sarah Stanton; OW = Otis Williams

Denis: Of course, it is.

Yes, this picture appeared in June 2018 when Brian Doyle contacted from members of Mrs Stanton's family. Linda Zambanini was instrumental in indentifying the family members.

This looks like an own goal. We should not be disseminating any doctored (one can say "filtered") images as people may consider them to be original assassination pictures and will likely draw incorrect conclusions. There is no benefit in showing the altered Darnell picture anywhere within the JFKA community.

Sandy: many thanks for your comments; your opinions are important to me.

The woman behind the glass door appears to have quite a rich hair shaped as a roof. In the picture below, the contour of her hair is plotted with yellow line, along with the contour of Prayer Man's hair. Prayer Man has a male hairline with receding hair around the temple. This is known as type II male baldness. The woman's hair may even continue further down to the neck, however, I was not sure. How similar are the two hair contours? And here is the typology of male baldness according to Hamilton et al., 1951. Lee Oswald's hairline would also be of type II.

Pat: Sarah Stanton can be identified in Darnell and partly in Altgens6 at a spot to the left of Frazier. But if you would like to make your case regarding the possibility of Sarah Stanton being Prayer Man, please help yourself with her photograph. Sarah was 5' 6'', more than 300 pounds, a huge lady. But the detail that may be of interest to you when fitting her figure as Prayer Man is her thick, blonde hair.

The woman behind the glass door would fit the height if 5' 2 1/2' if she stood on the top landing, however, the shape of her hair and clothing does not fit Prayer Man, at least in my opinion. The problem is that no person 5' 2 1/2'' could fit Prayer Man because of the geometric issues pertaining to the location and appearance of that person on the top landing (explained in one of previous posts). A photograph of this woman with more details would be of great help.

I spent a bit of time analysing the picture that Chris has posted at the start of this thread. The picture showing pink-dressed lady is Willis #21. I made a cropped view and enhanced the contrast in the picture below. The picture shows Willis #21 doorway next to Darnell doorway. Both doorways are aligned in such a way that the top left corners of the doorway, the horizontal bar on the aluminum door, and the level of the top in both pictures match. The yellow lines serve to check the alignment. The purple line crosses the top of Prayer Man's head. I may be wrong but it seems to me that the pink-dressed lady is a bit too short to match Prayer Man's figure. This difference is beyond further disparities between this lady and Prayer Man such as the light colour of her garment and light-coloured female hair not seen on Prayer Man.

I am afraid that you are misinterpreting my research. My studies did confirm that the person is 5'9 5/8''. Prayer Man could only be 5' 2 1/2'' if he stood with both feet on the top landing or 5' 9 5/8'' if he stood straight with his right foot on the step below the top landing. The former possibility had to be discarded because: 1) the short person (5' 2 1/2'') would have his/her arms about 2 inches higher than a taller person (5' 9 5/8'') standing with one foot on the step below the top landing, 2) the right elbow of that person would be too far from the red brick column on the western wall. 3) the figure of a person 5' 2 1/2'' standing on the top landing would appear tiny and would not fit Prayer Man's figure. The doorway is a physical object, a space, of known dimensions, and it therefore can be reproduced in a digital model exactly as it was in 1963. Therefore, it is possible to check the locations and sizes of individual doorway occupants and test if they would match a historic photograph satisfactorily. A small deviation in size or location of a candidate person results in a mismatch between historic picture and the projected model. It would be difficult to test the locations of Prayer Man or other people without a 3D model because it is almost impossible to check just visually or in own imagination the details such as distances of one person from other people or the distribution of shadows. Only thanks to the 3D model was it possible to see that a person 5'2 1/2'' standing on the top landing could not be a good fit for Prayer Man in spite of the top of that person's head matching Prayer Man's head correctly. I hope this helps. Late edit: I have corrected the fractions in height values to match my original posts in "Prayer Man is a Man" thread.

I can only reiterate that using images with no traceable history floating on internet for serious research is a big risk.

Chris: I am not a member of that Forum, and if I click on your links, a log in screen pops up. What did Alan say about the provenance of his Darnell still?

Pat: this is not correct. The one on the left is the untouched, original image showing a person having male characteristics. It has not been filtered or adjusted in any way. The image on the right is an image which popped up basically now, and it shows clear signs of manipulation. This image should be ignored and treating it as of the same value as the original Darnell still is a travesty. The coloured photograph shows two women, however, neither could be Prayer Man as that person was 5' 9'', had a male type of hair, and wore a worker type of shirt. I cannot understand the logic which says that if there is a woman in the doorway some 20-30 minutes after shooting, that woman should be considered as Prayer Man. Your comment says a lot about your attitudes toward the possibility that Prayer Man was Lee Oswald, but it has no substance, I am afraid.