Andrej Stancak
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Posts posted by Andrej Stancak
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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.
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22 minutes ago, Pat Speer said:
No. I was involved in the original Prayer Man thread. At that time I raised the possibility it was Sarah Stanton, who Buell Frazier said was standing beside him at this time. This was rejected for silly reasons, as Stanton could not be identified in any other image. But the Stanton possibility--some would say probability--has never been refuted.
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.
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5 minutes ago, Henry Frost said:
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.
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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.
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1 hour ago, Pat Speer said:
So, no, your studies confirmed that the figure is not 5'9"
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.
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16 minutes ago, Chris Davidson said:
It's sleep time.
I can only reiterate that using images with no traceable history floating on internet for serious research is a big risk.
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11 hours ago, Chris Davidson said:
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?
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36 minutes ago, Pat Speer said:
The two Darnell images are the same image but of different quality and put through different filters.
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.
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2 hours ago, Adam Johnson said:
If someone could get the cleaned up images to Buell Frazier quick smart perhaps he may recognise this woman, she looks like she belongs mixed in with other workers from the TSBD on that landing. Maybe she worked there and he might put a name to the image.
Adam:
do you mean the alleged woman which the fake image brough by Chris appears to show, or do you mean the male figure seen in the original Darnell still? Or do you refer to the coloured photograph showing two ladies in the company of police officers, also brought up by Chris?
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Here are the cropped views of Prayer Man in the original Darnell still (from prayer-man.com, left) and from Alan Ford's version of Darnell (right). The differences are glaring and disturbing. Among others, the arms in the right picture are thinner, appear crossed and touching a very bright object, and are orientated upwards in a sharper angle compared to the left image. The face and hair, and the neck area have clearly been manipulated. The head tilt is not the same in this pair of pictures. The whole Prayer Man's figure appear thinner in the right image than the left image.
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19 minutes ago, Denis Morissette said:
«but they first made sure that the eager researchers never see the true figure of that unknow person at the western wall. »
Are you implying a cover-up?
Well, I only speculate about this possibilty. I would need to be able to view the Sixth Floor Museum version of Darnell myself before reaching that conclusion. However, if the picture brought here by Chris was photographed from the video system at SFM, then I am sure that the picture made available to researchers by the NBC/SFM is a fake. Based on the link provided by Chris earlier in this thread, it seems that Mr Hackerott from jfkassassinationforum.org had seen this particular picture when viewing Darnell in SFM.
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Could it be that the picture provided by Alan Ford was photographed in the Sixth Floor Museum as displayed by the viewing system the Museum offers for viewing Darnell film? If this is the case, we are in big trouble because the NBC did grant viewing rights to the Sixth Floor Museum but they first made sure that the eager researchers never see the true figure of that unknow person at the western wall.
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Chris:
thanks for posting the Darnell picture. It is obvious that the photograph submitted by Alan Ford has been heavily worked out, this is not the original Darnell still. It is a great risk to use photographs of uncertain origin (we know Alan retrieved it but where from?), and it even opens the possibility that someone squeezes in a tampered version of the photograph. I would only use Prayer Man related pictures from jfkassassinationgallery.org or from prayer-man.com. If there are other sources of validated photographs, we should be able to review the history of these pictures.
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Chris:
where did you retrieve the "original" (the left-most one) from? It does not look like any of Darnell stills I ever saw. Can you please post a full-sized original still and a link to a page from which you have downloaded it? Thanks.
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The conundrum around Prayer Man is frustrating, indeed. The impact of the positive identification of Prayer Man as Lee Oswald would be overwhelming and totally devastating for the Warren Commission report, hence the urgency of this question. Yet, the images themselves do not offer any intuitive confirmation of Prayer Man's identity due to heavy motion blur in most of the frames in Darnell or lack of signal in the critical area of the doorway in Wiegman.
I would just keep cool. We may not be able to answer the question now but it does not mean we would not be able to do so in future. We already have positive data regarding Prayer Man's figure and those bits of data will come handy.
However, I would not bet all my money on a decisive effect of a better, high-resolution copy of either Wiegman or Darnell or both. In Darnell, the problem is mostly the motion blur in most of the frames which problem cannot be alleviated by scanning the frames at a higher resolution. The best of Darnell stills is free of motion blur but it has Prayer Man's face burnt out; there is a chance that a new high-quality scan would retrieve some details in the facial region in this frame, however, this is not a guarantee.
Eventually, the identification of Prayer Man will possibly be based on circumstantial data. This would be similar to the identification of Buell Wesley Frazier in Darnell film. His facial features are not detailed enough to offer unequivocal identification and yet, nobody disputes his identity in Darnell based on details such as: 1. body height and overall body build, 2. shape of his hairline and hair tone, 3. clothing, 4. consistency with his self- and other-people reports of where he was while in the doorway. The convergent effect of all these features and his testimony are enough to decide, even without a detailed view of his facial features. A similar process can be applied to Prayer Man even with the copies of Darnell/Wiegman film we currently have.
So, what information do we have and what information we can still hope to find out regarding Prayer Man's figure?
1. He was a white Caucasian, excluding as candidates about 20% of general population in Dallas (and a large number of TSBD employees).
2. His hairline matches Type II male baldness pattern. Lee Oswald sported this type of hairline.
3. The top of Prayer Man's head is at the height of 5' 2 1/2'' above the top landing. This height was verified by 3D modelling and independently by comparing the known height of Buell Frazier (6') with Prayer Man's figure. The top of Prayer Man's head aligns with the lower aspect of Frazier's chin, meaning that Prayer Man's top of the head is about 9 1/2'' lower than the top of Frazier's head knowing that the height of human head in a person of Frazier's body height is 9 1/2''. I take the distance of the top of Prayer Man's head from the top landing as a fact.
4. If the top of Prayer Man's head was 5' 2 1/2'' above the top landing, there are only two possibilities as to the overall body height: 1) he stood on the top landing and was therefore a tiny person sized 5' 2 1/2''. 2) he stood on the step below the top landing in which case his body height would be 5' 2 1/2'' + the height of the first step (7 1/4'') giving the total body height of 5' 9 3/4''.
5. The possibility of Prayer Man being a tiny person standing with both his feet on the top landing would not give Prayer Man's figure as we see it in Darnell. This is because (A) his right elbow would appear to be too far from the brick pillar on the western wall, and (B) his arms would be located too high relative to the arms as seen in Prayer Man.
6. The solution which came out as the most plausible had Prayer Man standing with his right foot firmly on the first step, no slouching, and his left foot on the top landing with his left leg bent in the knee joint. This stance resembles Lee's stance in a number of his photographs (including the infamous BY photograph), and this stance was amplified by having the feet on two different platforms. The plausibility of this solution can be evaluated by overlaying the realistic model of Lee Oswald with Darnell still. Some Darnell stills show Prayer Man's left leg bent in knee joint.
7. The body height of 5' 9 3/4'' would fit Lee Oswald's body height of 5' 9'' plus the height of a shoe hill. Of course, there is a limited precision to my estimates, and I would say 1 cm (less than 1/2'') would be the possible error of my height estimates.
8. As Prayer Man was 5' 9'', he only could be a male because the probability of a female measuring 5'9'' in 1963 is negligible (the normal body height of females in the U.S.A in 1963 was 5'2'' with a standard deviation of 1'').
9. We come to Prayer Man clothes. In Darnell, we see almost a continuous grey throughout his garment from shirt to his trousers. This is consistent with the grey tones of his shirt (CE 151) and Lee's work trousers he had on him on Friday morning. I did a back reconstruction of possible colours which the grey tone of Prayer Man's shirt would yield after adjusting the shade of grey for luminance (the shirt was photographed in the shadow). The most likely colour was maroon, followed by green and other colours.
10. The absence of a clear transition between the shirt and trousers on Prayer Man's figure suggests that Prayer Man wore his shirt as a work shirt - with the front facings pulled out of his trousers. Also, we see his bare forearms (both in Darnell and Wiegman), which suggests that the short sleeves were rolled up to the elbows. This man was a manual worker, not a white collar employee or an office lady.
11. Finally, the front faces of Prayer Man's shirt show quite large dark spots which appear to be diagonally shaped, orientated from top right to bottom left. These dark spots may provide the unique identification clue as to who Prayer Man was. Of course, a high-resolution copy of Darnell still would help to delineate this shape better than a low-resolution copy. however, even now it is possible to evaluate the similarity of dark spots on Prayer Man's shirt and on shirt CE151. This task is not trivial at all and while I have posted the highlighted spots in a number of my previous posts, the real work of comparing the dark spots on CE151 with Prayer Man's shirt remains to be done.
12. And what about the missing self-identification? Unfortunately, this will not be possible to achieve given the nasty treatment Lee Oswald had received from the hands of Dallas Police. Being dead, Lee Oswald cannot identify himself. However, we have Hosty's notes; those notes say what Lee wanted to say - he was initially in Domino room, went to the 2nd floor to get soda, returned back to the first floor and then went to watch P. parade. Thus, did he speak truth, at one point he should have been photographed standing in the doorway. This is just what Darnell and Wiegman films indicate to us.
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58 minutes ago, Sandy Larsen said:
That was his real alibi. Too uncomfortable for the authorities. So they covered that up and claimed he said he was inside on the first floor.
Exactly. Lee did say he was out when the motorcade passed the building (or rather the tail of the motorcade) and this has been effectively sanitised by not taking any voice or stenographic recordings of the interrogation sessions. Hosty's note on watching P. parade is the one minor crack that was somehow overlooked by the law enforcement and the Warren Commission. It took some 56+ years to retrieve at least this one bit of information.
A couple of obvious question that may have be pertinent:
Describe what you have seen when you were outside the building to watch the motorcade. Who was there with you ?- list all people you remember.
How exactly did you get from 1026 North Beckley to the Texas Theatre? Please show your route on the map. Did anyone see you?
There would be no lying if a trial would follow and Lee's alibi could have been verified.
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14 hours ago, Michael Davidson said:
The PM figure looks to me like he has his arms folded and reminds me of some footage from one of the TMWKK episodes
Michael:
you may wish to consider the following solution based on 3D modeling of Darnell doorway using realistic modelof Lee Harvey Oswald. In my view, Prayer Man did not have his arms fully crossed, rather both hands were infront of his chest but not touching.
Here is an overlay of such 3D model solution with Darnell still. Absence of disparities between the two overlayed images (the 3D model and Darnell still) offers validation of this solution. It is debatable if the hands were exposed to sun light directly or whether the hands were in shadow but very close to the sun lit area of the doorway. This solution has both hands reflecting the sun but there would not be a problem to tuck both hands 1-2 cm backwords in which case the hands would be in the shadow.
And this is a close up view of Prayer Man's location and posture (not from Darnell perspective). This man was 5' 9 3/4''.
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2 hours ago, David Josephs said:
He also should be gone from the stairs and wandering with SHELLEY in the above Prayerman image yet many claim he is the balding man on the right just above the woman's head.
David:
I would concur with your proposition that the man on one of the lower steps and close to the western wall in Darnell was Lovelady. Billy Lovelady did dance around the doorway a lot over the period of time covered by Hughes film-Altgens6-Wiegman-Darnell. In Darnell, Shelley should be the man in the centre of the doorway, on the doorway landing.
Here is my solution from my earlier reconstruction of the best still from Darnell film:
And here is Shelley's description of what he was doing right after the final shot (this time period was covered by Darnell film):
Mr. SHELLEY. Sounded like a miniature cannon or baby giant firecracker, wasn’t real loud.
Mr. BALL. What happened; what did you do then?
Mr. SHELLEY. I didn’t do anything for a minute.
Mr. BALL. What seemed to be the direction or source of the sound?
Mr. SHELLEY. Sounded like it came from the west.
Mr. BALL. It sounded like it came from the west?
Mr. SHELLEY. Yes.
Mr. BALL. Then what happened?
Mr. SHELLEY. Gloria Calvary from South-Western Publishing Co. ran back up there crying and said “The President has been shot” and Billy Lovelady and myself took off across the street to that little, old island and we stopped there for a minute.
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It is possible that the lady in dark clothes facing the man standing on the steps could be Gloria Calvary. The important point is though that both Lovelady and Shelley are still on steps in Darnell fillm, and only then, after a very short period of time, they started their excursion toward the railroad yard.
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2 minutes ago, Pat Speer said:
OK. The story as I was told had a number of prominent researchers being shown a clear copy of the film. Some thought it showed Oswald, some thought it was inconclusive. My point is that if those who thought it showed Oswald really believed it showed Oswald, to a certainty, they would have arranged for the purchase of the film, or found some other way to get it or a similar copy of the film released. They didn't. They all moved on to other things. This suggests to me that a crystal clear copy of the film is inconclusive, at best.
As to why these men have kept their silence... The owner of this film was trying to make money. He didn't want word to leak out that the film was inconclusive, as it might cut into its future value. So he made at least some of those in attendance sign NDAs in which they promised to not disclose what they had seen. Pretty awful, I know. But it appears to have worked. I know that at least one of those in attendance has read this thread. And has opted to say nothing...
Thanks, Pat, for clarifying it further, however, I am not interested in this story any longer. I do not care who allegedly saw this or that and whether he/she was certain about Prayer Man's identity or not because I want to have a high-resolution copy made from the original film on my hard drive. I would analyse the film in a very detailed manner and for an extensive period of time by myself, I would reconstruct Prayer Man's figure with even more realism than I was able to do, and only then I would draw any conclusions as to whether the footage is conclusive or not, and if there is enough evidence for accepting the hypothesis of Lee Oswald being that unknown person standing at the western wall.
As it stands now, it is possible to say a lot about various features of Prayer Man's figure, however, a high-resolution copy would add important details such as a more precise shape of the dark pattern seen on Prayer Man's shirt which may be a decisive clue in accepting or refuting Oswald as Prayer Man.
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11 hours ago, Pat Speer said:
But rest assured that a clear version of the film has been viewed--by people who claimed it showed Oswald--and that none of them followed up on it in anyway. I'm not inside their heads, but to me it strongly suggests that they knew, deep down, that the film is far from conclusive.
Sorry, we cannot build the Prayer Man case on a story like this. It is a shame you brought it here. It suggests that people pursuing the hypothesis of Prayer Man being Oswald would not admit they had seen clear evidence to the contrary and chose to suppress it. That would make them fraudsters.
We need to know who Prayer Man was, and if it turns out it was not Lee Oswald, we admit it and move on. For now though, there is enough of hints both from visual analysis of Darnell still and from written records (such as Hosty's notes) to pursue this trail. The hints globally strengthen the case of Prayer Man being Lee Oswald, and there is no single visual cue that would allow to dismiss Oswald as Prayer Man. For instance, if Prayer Man would show light coloured hair, blonde or light grey, we would be able to discard Oswald as a candidate right away because Oswald had dark hair. However, no elimination cue is available, at least I am not aware of it.
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2 hours ago, Pat Speer said:
Now, as to the Darnell and Wiegman films... People keep saying that maybe maybe someday we'll get a better copy and it will prove the issue one way or another. But they are in the dark. A copy reported to be extremely clear was located several years ago in a private collection, and this collector offered it to some of the mucky-mucks who are way too cool to post here. And they refused to buy it from him, or even attempt to raise the money from a go-fund-me or anything. And what's worse, these same people stopped clamoring for access to a better copy of the film, once they saw a copy they claim was crystal clear.
Some evidence is needed for your claims. Who was the collector in posession of better copies, who were the people allegedly seeing the "extremely clear" copy of the film (Darnell or Wiegman?). Else, your story is a hearsay and it should be ignored as such.
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2 hours ago, Roger Odisio said:
Andrej: you don't mention Darnell. Is there a reason for that?
Roger:
of course, Prayer Man is best featured in Darnell film, however, the relevant sequence of that film started only about 30 seconds after the last shot. The presence of Prayer Man (Lee Oswald?) in the doorway in Darnell film poses no issue regarding the question of whether Lee could watch the motorcade because the motorcade was already gone by that time.
It is my conjecture that Prayer Man who could be Lee Oswald stayed in the doorway for a very short time, basically, he left the doorway to return to the building right after the end of Darnell film sequence. Thus, the total time for which Prayer Man could have stood in the doorway would be less than a minute or so, which also explains why no one had spotted him (except Buell Frazier who had to see that person as the two men stood only about 3 feet apart). As Prayer Man (Lee Oswald?) had left the doorway so early, it was still possible for him to get to the 2nd floor lunchroom via the front stairs to meet the Superintendent Roy Truly and Officer Marrion Baker. Actually, the only possibility for Baker to be able to spot Lee Oswald (via the small door window) entering the lunchroom was that Lee would be just approaching the 2nd floor lunchroom from the hallway (office area).
The question is why would Lee return to the 2nd floor lunchroom if he had already been there earlier and bought his soda for lunch. I speculate that Lee wanted to know what was going on as he had some kind of foreknowledge. If you analyse Prayer Man's stance and direction of his gaze, he seemed like a person not interested in retrieving as much information from the Dealley Plaza as possible like all other doorway occupants were; he looks like a person contemplating his options, and he looks in direction of Elm/Houston street, the direction in which Lee left the Depository.
It was entirely possible that Lee was enticed to participate in a "second plot" which aimed to bring him to the Redbird airfield and then to Cuba, with JFK's visit being a welcome distraction allowing him to depart unnoticed. But now, while in the doorway, he realised that JFK has been shot and Lee being a smart guy understood that his "second plot" may actually be connected with the killing of the President and that he (Lee) would be a potential fall guy. Thus, Lee may have been on his way up to the upper floors to clarify the situation but his plan was scuppered when he saw that both Officer Baker and Roy Truly were already on their way up. Lee was scared to death and he left the building immediately, retrieved his pistol from his room at 1026 North Beckley, and moved to the Texas Theatre where he was supposed to meet the person or persons who would take him to the airfield, still following the "second plot".
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I have just added my bit. I guess James would wish to be relieved from the administering the payments and this should be respected. I guess we would not be short of funds if annual calls for donations would be issued when a dedicated EF account runs below a certain threshold, e.g., three monthly payments.
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4 minutes ago, Pat Speer said:
Oh my. The paper discovered by Kamp was not Hosty's notes from the first interview, it was a draft of a report prepared sometime afterward. In Assignment Oswald Hosty says he grabbed a piece of paper and wrote down the time. He even presents this paper in his book. It has 3:15 written at the top of the page. The draft, however, has a sentence reading "On 11/22 at 3:15" blah blah blah. That's not what Hosty said he wrote. There is also the additional problem of the draft having complete sentences. That's not how one takes notes.
In his WC testimony, Hosty was asked why the FBI didn't retain their notes. And he answered by asserting that reports are more valuable than notes.
Mr. STERN. Did you give any consideration to retaining the notes in view of the turn that the case had taken?
Mr. HOSTY. No.
Mr. STERN. The intervening assassination?
Mr. HOSTY. No; because this is the record and the notes would not be as good as this record, because the notes are not written out fully as this is. It would just be abbreviations and things of that type.The point of my post was that Hosty's statement written not on any sheet of paper but on a sheet he admitted to have taken in Fritz's office was authentic. Whether Hosty scribbled his notes on this sheet of paper while in Fritz's office or transcribed them moments after the interrogation session on this sheet of paper is tangential to the question of whether Lee Oswald told them during the 3.15 PM session that he went out to watch the P. parade.
The other point I developed in my post was that it was possible for Lee Oswald to respond to the noise of the crowd he heard while sitting in Domino room and move toward the front of the building and into the doorway in time to be filmed by Dave Wiegman. That would be the scenario that Agent Hosty described in his hand-written notes bearing the DPD affiliation.
PrayerPerson ???
in JFK Assassination Debate
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Sandy:
many thanks for your comments; your opinions are important to me.