Greg Doudna

Some more comments on Prayer Man and the seeming oddity of lack of witness identification of Prayer Man either as Oswald or not Oswald

Because of Prayer Man's holding his right arm up in a position similar to the way women's arms look in photos holding purses, I went through every woman employee of TSBD systematically, one by one (Bart's site is a great help in collecting documents relevant to each TSBD employee from a scroll-down menu at top), just to see if possibly some woman possibility had been missed. I found every one is accounted for other than in Prayer Man's position; every woman TSBD employee is ruled out as Prayer Man. Sarah Stanton I have shown why she is Large-Framed Figure to the left of Frazier in Darnell. Pauline Sanders said she was at the far east end with Stanton to her immediate right, which makes Pauline Sanders the short figure (therefore a woman not a man) at the far east end in Darnell, correctly so identified by Stancak.

Ruth Dean with distinctive dark or black hat and dark or black coat was on the steps but is visibly identifiable in both Wiegman and Darnell approximately second step up in the middle of each of those photos, so she was not Prayer Man. And Madelaine "Madie" Reese who accompanied Ruth Dean is identifiable in Altgens6 standing at about the lowest step level, top of her head over the parade car. 

Avery Davis said she was on the steps and has not otherwise been identified elsewhere on the steps, but she is ruled out as Prayer Man because of photos of her in the minutes and hour or so following the shots. Her ear does not show under her hair whereas Prayer Man's ear shows. Her neckline up around her neck does not look like Prayer Man's which is compatible with either a lower round neckline or the way Oswald and other working men wore shirts with the top button or two unbuttoned over a white T-shirt underneath. And Avery Davis told of seeing Clint Hill run to the limousine which would not be possible standing where Prayer Man is. 

As for where Avery Davis was on the steps, she said she started to run west after the shots along with other people, which would account for her not being in Darnell. She would have been on the steps when Altgens6 and Wiegman were taken.

Lacking a better identification, one possibility is that a trace of Avery Davis might be just behind Lovelady's left ear in Altgens6.

I spent a lot of time puzzling over what Fetzer used to always claim was evidence of tampering of Altgens6 due to Lovelady's left shoulder and I wondered at one point whether there was a white towel over Lovelady's left shoulder covering part of the shoulder in front. I finally realized that was no towel or tampering in that location. There indeed is a long necktie of a man with a white shirt and jacket on either side of the necktie. A particular print of Altgens6 shown on Bart Kamp's page for Lovelady clears up the optical illusion and shows nothing of the white in front of Lovelady's actual left shoulder. Instead there is blackness above Lovelady’s actual left shoulder that illusorily looks like part of his shirt in other prints (see here: http://www.prayer-man.com/tsbd/billy-nolan-lovelady/). 

And speaking of "long necktie man" next to Lovelady, I see that man commonly identified as Shelley, but I think that is Molina. The man is heavyset, and Shelley was lean or skinny whereas Molina was heavyset. That has to be Molina I conclude. 

But between Lovelady and Molina (necktie man), next to Lovelady's left ear, there is something there that I believe Stancak correctly identified as a trace of another person—is it a trace of a face looking toward the street and camera direction, the rest of that person covered up by Lovelady and necktie man (Molina) in front of that person? Sometimes I almost think I can see two eyes but that is probably artifacts from poor photo quality and/or imagination. Prayer Man is probably ruled out as that person due to how low the line of sight is.

Could that be the otherwise-unidentified Avery Davis? Avery Davis needs positioning somewhere on the steps, and that unexplained person behind Lovelady and Molina (necktie man) needs identification, q.e.d.?

Avery Davis said she was on the steps with Judy McCully who was to her (Avery's) left, but Judy McCully has never been identified, and is a very strange case in that she (Judy McCully) told the FBI first she was on the fourth floor not on the steps, then months later told the FBI that was wrong, she wanted to correct that, and she was on the front steps with Avery Davis (as Avery Davis said). That is truly bizarre and there has been no satisfactory explanation for that change in Judy McCully's statement of where she was.

The enigma of Judy McCully

That Judy McCully might have been Prayer Man herself I believe is ruled out because: photos of her show her with glasses but Prayer Man does not seem to have glasses; she said she started running immediately after the shots to see what was happening but hearing a woman screaming (Gloria Calvery?) returned back into the building, which is inconsistent with Prayer Man who has not moved in position in Darnell (ca. 20-30 seconds after the shots); and Avery Davis said Judy McCully was to Avery's left (east) on the steps, which is not possible as Prayer Man in the top west corner. 

And why would Judy McCully possibly want to lie about being in Prayer Man's position, if it was her? McCully's change in her story makes no sense on that hypothesis.

Bart Kamp discusses that puzzle and contacted and spoke with McCully's daughter about it in later years. McCully's original FBI statement, in which she told that she was on the 4th floor and also denied knowing who Oswald was and denied ever having seen Oswald in the building ever, was taken by two FBI agents one of whom by coincidence was her uncle. According to Kamp, McCully's daughter said her mother did not talk about it but had changed her story on advice of the FBI. That could go a couple of ways in interpretation, but here is one interpretation: 

• McCully was on the steps (testimony of Avery Davis; and later testimony of McCully herself)
• Her original prevarication/denial stating that she was not on the steps in her initial statement had to have some compelling reason; why would an everyday woman TSBD employee lie about something like that?
• A clue to that reason may be in another change in her two stories: the change in whether she had ever seen Oswald before. No, never, she said originally, not that day or ever (in the statement in which she said she was on the 4th floor not on the front steps). Yes, she later says, in her correction statement in which she says she was on the front steps, not on the 4th floor.
• Since there is no other good explanation for the very odd behavior of falsely denying where one was when the presidential parade passed by--to deny she was on the front steps--is it too much to suggest: could it have been because she saw Oswald on those front steps? (Scared her to death?)
• She later says she did recognize Oswald by sight and had seen him on a number of occasions in the preceding weeks (she still sticks to she did not see him on the day of the shots when she was on the steps). But her later statement that she did recognize and had seen Oswald numerous times in the past is undoubtedly truthful, and establishes that if she was on the front steps (which she was), and if she had seen Oswald standing in that corner (Prayer Man), she was capable of recognizing him. (Contrary to her original FBI statement in which she would not have recognized him.)
• My proposed interpretation of the strange change in stories, and the role of her uncle FBI agent who took her original FBI statement, is this, in the absence of a better explanation: she saw Oswald, and as the news came out about the assassination was scared to death by that. On her own, she lied saying she was not on the steps when she was. On her own, she lied saying she had no recognition of Oswald and had never seen Oswald in previous days either. Later, she has pangs of conscience, she tells someone, maybe her uncle the local FBI agent, who advises her to make the correction and how to do it, advises her once she has made the correction then just say no more to anyone about it. (Or, it could work the other way, in which her uncle cooperated with her telling the original false story, and she on her own had pangs of conscience when asked later by different FBI agents taking statements, and told most of the truth then--except for the detail about having seen Oswald on the steps, the original cause for her falsely stating she had never seen Oswald, and not having been on the steps where she was, when she saw him that morning.)

In other words, the highly odd saga of Judy McCully's untruthful denial that she was on the front steps, then doing the right thing and telling truthfully later that she was, calls for explanation. Her untruthful denial that she had ever recognized or remembered seeing Oswald ever before, later corrected, calls for explanation. What is the explanation? 

Could the explanation be the same for both untruthful representations in her original statement--that she had seen Oswald on the front steps in the position of Prayer Man, and was terrified by that since that wasn't supposed to be true from all that she knew and heard on the news? And this was how she coped with that?

Some thoughts on how so many witnesses on the front steps could say they had not seen Oswald there, if he were Prayer Man

One factor could be because of the effect of the sun blinding the eyes or causing poor vision in the dark shaded area where Prayer Man was standing. 

Another factor could be sheer accident of not noticing. One TSBD woman witness (don't recall which one at the moment) testified that she was standing next to some fellow employees but did not pay any attention who they were and could not say. 

A third factor could be the kind of fear that in extremis led one witness, Judy McCully, to falsely deny she was even there on the steps.

For example, Molina (as long-tie man next to Lovelady in Altgens6) was standing right below Prayer Man. He says after the shots he looked around, and he says he did not see Oswald that day. Molina repeated that to HSCA in 1978 (that he did not see Oswald that day). While I assume that is probably a truthful statement on Molina's part, perhaps explicable from not noticing Prayer Man at all, Molina was given much grief that weekend over accusations aired in public that he was a communist at the height of the Cold War in the Deep South, and as such, suspected of involvement in the assassination itself. It is not far to imagine Molina deciding he did not need to pile on more grief to himself and his family.

Frazier, who pointedly does not identify Prayer Man as anyone else (but also does not remember Oswald being there), may have a factor not previously given much attention. Frazier tells somewhere that upon hearing the shots he moved to the west in direction from where he was standing at the top (or next-to-the-top) step (with Stanton and Pauline Sanders to his left/east). Also, Frazier refers to speaking back and forth to Stanton standing next to him to his left, meaning except for when he was facing the parade some of the time he was facing east--toward Stanton, away from Prayer Man--and also a little more physically distant from Prayer Man than in Darnell after he may have moved a little westward.

These are all factors, added to the poor vision looking into shade/darkness after eyes adjusted to bright direct sunlight, and not paying attention, which could go some way toward accounting for witnesses not noticing Prayer Man, or Oswald as Prayer Man if so, if Oswald was there on the steps (briefly, and in the shade and darkness, and behind most of the witnesses).

Every single other person on the front steps was a TSBD employee, yet all women and nearly all if not all other men TSBD employees are ruled out as Prayer Man. Who then was Prayer Man? The little that is apparent of Prayer Man's physical description agrees as far as it goes with and does not clearly falsify that it was Oswald, and Oswald spoke to his interrogators of being out front. Lacking a different solution to the identity of Prayer Man it is a live issue, and for reasons stated the objection that nobody noticed Oswald there is less substantial than it may at first seem.

It is just needless mystification to suppose Benavides wasn't where he said he was at the Tippit crime scene, for no good reason or evidence, dismissal of the most important Tippit crime scene witness in terms of physical description of the Tippit killer--credible because of how close Benavides was to the killer.

Benavides' physical description of the killer is exculpatory in favor of Oswald's innocence on three specific matters of description from a witness who was only ca. fifteen feet away from the killer, in excellent position to have gotten these three points right.

• Benavides testified the Tippit killer, though a white man, was darker than average complexion for a white man, about like his own Latino complexion. Oswald was light-skinned.
• Benavides testified the Tippit killer had a block cut hairline in the back of his head. Oswald had a tapered, not block cut, hairline in back, from all photos that weekend. 
• Benavides testified the Tippit killer had "curly" hair. Oswald's hair was in no way curly.

What is this business of implying or suggesting Benavides--an average working man with no record of criminal behavior--was suborned to wholesale perjury, suborned to fabricate his testimony out of whole cloth, by never-identified shadowy marionette-string-pulling conspirators wanting so badly to have Oswald exculpated by Benavides' physical description testimony?

Does that make sense as a plausible conspiracy theory? Invisible handlers intent on having Benavides give fabricated testimony showing Oswald was innocent?

On the radio transmission, Gil Jesus's experience with police radio as a police officer is good enough for me to settle that point, that the notion of 90 seconds of mashing of the radio heard on the police radio tapes is a myth. 

But Benavides was there at that police radio trying to figure out how to radio for help before Bowley took over and radioed in the call with Bowley's voice heard on the police tapes.

That is just fact.

Because it is not just that Benavides told of it. Bowley told of it too, and what reason would there be for Bowley to lie? Who else is the "Mexican man" spoken of by Bowley than Benavides? 

"Bowley advised that on the afternoon of November 22, 1963, the day President Kennedy was assassinated ... <tells of driving by and seeing the fallen officer near the patrol car, and stopping> ...

"[Bowley] noticed other people in the neighborhood beginning to gather near the car and body. Bowley stated that he and another man, who he described as a Mexican male, were the first ones to go to the assistance of the man on the ground. He also remembered seeing a white female wearing a white uniform and a nurse type name place ... The radio of the scout car was on and the Mexican man was attempting to use it to call for help. Bowley informed the man that he was familiar with two-way radio's and if he'd let him, he could get the call for help through. Using the police radio in the scout car, Bowley notified the police dispatcher that an officer had been shot and gave his location ..." (HSCA interview of Bowley, https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=149247#relPageId=4)  

37 minutes ago, Gil Jesus said:

As someone who has had years of experience using two-way communications, including police radios, I suggest it is YOU who has no idea what you're talking about.

Here's the dictabelt recording 31 seconds before Bowley called on the radio. There was no one keying the mic for 90 seconds before his call. The transmissions were loud and clear, which they would not have been had someone been keying the mic. 

https://gil-jesus.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/bowley-call.mp3

Interesting, thanks Gil. 

A “factoid” debunked? 

I don’t doubt Benavides was there, because he says he was and his account of picking up and handing over shell hulls where he saw the killer toss them is corroborated, but it is good to not have misinformation contaminating things. 

What about you Bill—willing to consider (and thank Gil) for this minor correction of fact in Myers?

4 hours ago, Pat Speer said:

While I am not an expert on photography I feel certain there is a zero chance of clarifying the Prayer man images to the point one can make a convincing positive identification. There just aren't enough pixels. The NASA images are of relatively close-up objects. By increasing the contrast and layering the images, details can be brought from the shadows. But the Prayer Man image is not buried in darkness. It is simply too small to be enlarged and clarified. 

On my website, I have dozens if not hundreds of evidence photos. One can zoom in and find new things on the hi-res large format Dallas Police photos. (Thank you, UNT!) But you cannot zoom in on the low res images published by the Warren Commission and find anything new besides blurry blobs. A 16 mm film taken from a moving car is not gonna have a clear image of someone a hundred feet away. But I guess people will just have to see this for themselves. (I know some already have.)

Wouldn't it be accurate to say the existing photo information of Prayer Man is already close to individual-recognition-match quality, just not close enough? For example there seems to be a hairline, it looks male pattern (receding hairline at the temples, early stage male baldness progression), but just hard to be certain. Just a slight sharpening of that hairline could do wonders, rule in or out large numbers of individual TSBD employee possibilities including the one of interest, no? There already is enough clarity to establish Prayer Man is not wearing a necktie like many of the TSBD male employees--that is something already (and since everyone else on those steps, without a single known exception, is a TSBD employee there is a good argument that Prayer Man probably was too).

And does Prayer Man have long-sleeved shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows similar to the way Buell Wesley Frazier has his sleeves rolled up in the same photos? Seems to maybe look that way but hard to be sure--just a slight increase in sharpness could do wonders there, in addition to distinguishing a shirt from a dress, and maybe clarifying the neckline and whether a T-shirt is visible under a partly open shirt at the neckline. And this is only anecdotal, but a person with photographic expertise told me privately that although he said it was uncertain due to the poor quality photo he thought Prayer Man looked heavyset to him. But a couple days later after running one of the online Prayer Man photos through some basic photo processing and sending me examples he said he now no longer thought Prayer Man was heavyset, that there was blackness around the hips area that may be making it look that way illusorily.

From an article titled "Scanning film -- What is different?"

"Simply put, scanning film often gives better results than scanning prints. One obvious reason is because the film is the original image instead of a second generation copy. This means that film contains much greater detail than is possible in prints. Film also has much greater dynamic range (contrast) than prints. Prints have already been manipulated, some tonal range lost, some color data has been modified, the total area has been cropped, etc, and we cannot get that data back from prints. These differences are very real, and critical commercial work normally scans film, usually slides." (https://scantips.com/basic13b.html)

Imagine on a scale of 1-10 in sharpness that one can get to recognition of some individual humans at a threshold of, say, 4.0, and Prayer Man right now is at say 3.5. The gap in increased sharpness needed may not be that much. But digital scans of the original Darnell and Wiegman films have never been done, at least to anyone's knowledge, or if they have been done are not accessible for professional analysis of experts like Andy Saunders the maestro of NASA photos fame. Your saying "some already have" seen this "for themselves" does not seem accurate, since no one has been able to work with, digital scans from the original Darnell film because none are known to exist. From an article from a Manhattan photo processing business: "Scanning your film negatives versus prints--What's better?":

"The negative film strips preserve the original information from when the image was first captured and are the best option to scan. Even though negatives may look odd to the naked eye because the colors are inverted, they contain the recorded image data needed for a quality print or digital copy. Go straight to the source material if you have it!" (article, , https://www.dijifi.com/blog/scanning-your-film-negatives-vs-prints-whats-better)

 

Another way to put it: there are ten thousand theories on the JFK assassination, and half of America has never been convinced the full truth is known on the JFK assassination. Given that, would it be worth doing a simple check from available photographs on the theory of Oswald as to Oswald's whereabouts at the time of the shots?

Is Oswald's theory of where Oswald was, worth a check of the photos? If for no other reason than out of an abundance of caution, or to humor quaint, old-fashioned notions that a suspect's claim of a verifiable exculpatory alibi merits checking?

It is not as if the theory of Oswald as to where he was, is conveniently unverifiable.

It is not that no photographs exist by which Oswald's theory can be checked.

It is not that Oswald's theory concerning his whereabouts at the time of the shots has already been checked and refuted long ago by the photographs that exist.

(By referring to checking photographs, of course what is meant is the kind of analytical professional work that could be done with digital scans of the Darnell original analogous to what was done with the NASA archives photographs, of the article Tom Gram cited above.)

It is of no relevance Oswald's brief answer in the hallway to a reporter's shouted question asking if he was in the building answered with "Naturally if I work in that building, yes sir". 

Because: what is relevant is that Oswald told his interrogators under interrogation that he was out front, and that is an absolute fact, and nobody is denying that or can deny that, because it is in handwriting of Fritz, and handwriting of Hosty. 

"to 1st floor had lunch/ out with Bill Shelley in/ front/ left work..." (Fritz notes)

"O stated he was present for work at TBD on the morning of 11/22 and at noon went to lunch. He went to 2nd floor to get Coca Cola to eat with lunch and returned to 1st floor to eat lunch. Then went outside to watch P. Parade" (Hosty notes)

Is Oswald's verifiable theory of what Oswald was doing at the time JFK was assassinated, this terrible crime in American history, worth checking? 

Is that an unreasonable request on the part of a suspect?

To ask for a check of a verifiable alibi in photographs that are known to exist?

But it requires a digital scan of the original of the relevant Darnell frames, not digital scans of prints or copies of the original, according to the experts on this.

In order to do a check of the JFK assassination suspect's verifiable claimed alibi for the first time from photographs which have existed since 1963.

From an original of Darnell which exists.

And this could be done, if the right one or two or three persons in positions of authority in America decided to do so, just like NASA let professional Andy Saunders work on its archived photographs with amazing results. To discover what is there, in the interests of history, in the interests of a public interest in knowing the truth of a high-profile crime in our nation's history, and in the interests of long-overdue delayed fairness to the suspect and the living family members of that suspect, who was denied a trial by being killed while in police custody. 

3 hours ago, Tom Gram said:

It’s not really some big mystery. There are scans from that alleged first-gen copy of Darnell on Bart’s website. It’s definitely inconclusive. There’s also supposedly a first-gen copy of Darnell at the 6FM, which has been reported as also inconclusive. 

That doesn’t change the fact that NBC is still withholding the original films. HD scans of the original Darnell and Weigman films with modern image processing should be more than enough to identify features in PM that would rule out Oswald as a candidate, if those features actually exist.

EDIT: Here’s an informative article posted on ROKC a while back that shows what’s possible these days with image restoration. ROKC members actually reached out to this guy, and he supports the effort to identify PM, but stated that obtaining the original films is a “must” as a starting point. 

https://emulsive.org/articles/projects/one-giant-leap-remastering-high-resolution-images-of-nasas-race-to-the-moon

Very interesting Tom!

Digital scans of the original film being a "must", but the possibility of information from that is breathtaking--if one finds it of interest to check for the first time by means of photographs Oswald's claim in interrogation that he was out front, which if that were true would be expected to show up in photographs. 

Those for whom it is of no interest to see done a first-ever-in-history check of Oswald's alibi claim done from film footage of the front of the Book Depository entrance, or who are opposed to checking for the first time a dead man's claimed alibi after the man has been duly and justly convicted in court (oh, wait...), can skip over the below.

But for those who think the accused Oswald's claim of an alibi merits a first-ever check against photographs showing the only figure he could be if he were there, Prayer Man, in posthumous fairness to the deceased suspect and in the interests of history, the below should be a shocker. The below should put to rest claims confidently voiced even by some here that there is not and never will be anything to see in Prayer Man beyond an indeterminate Rorschach Inkblot.

To draw an analogy from the (semi-fictional) story of Galileo's opponents being urged futilely by Galileo, and refusing, to "please, just look through the telescope, please?".  

The telescope in Galileo's time, capable of making possible visual verification to the human eye of what Galileo was arguing in the absence of visual verification made possible by the telescope, is analogous to the work the expert below has done on NASA photographs and could do with the Darnell film of Prayer Man if allowed to make a digital scan of the original which exists and use the same expertise on Prayer Man. A difference is Galileo had looked through his telescope before asking opposing scientists, whereas in the case of Darnell no one is known to have yet looked through this telescope. 

Is there a willingness to allow a "look through the telescope" to allow a first-time check against existing photographs of Oswald's long-ago claimed alibi. Is there willingness to allow a first check of a suspect's claimed alibi that could easily be done, in the interests of history, even though it is too late for the suspect himself who was killed long ago in police custody before be could be brought to trial. Is there willingness to look through the telescope on a matter of historic significance which a majority of Americans at all social and political levels has long believed remains not fully explained: the John F. Kennedy assassination. Does a suspect morally deserve, even posthumously, to have his or her claim of innocence in the form of a claim of a specific alibi checked out via photographs, if such can easily be done? Or not? Read of this amazing work on NASA-archived photographs carried out in recent years, and marvel at what could be possible with analysis of a digitized image of the original of Darnell:

START EXCERPT (bolding is added) from the article "One Giant Leap ... Remastering high-resolution images of NASA's race to the Moon" (https://emulsive.org/articles/projects/one-giant-leap-remastering-high-resolution-images-of-nasas-race-to-the-moon)

AS [Andy Saunders, photograph detail expert]: The real driver, and the thing that started it all was my frustration for many decades with the absence of a decent image of Neil Armstrong undertaking arguably the most important event in the history of humankind! As he held the camera during EVA (Extra Vehicular Activity) on the Lunar surface, all the photographs, bar a few glimpses of Neil’s back, or foot etc., are of Buzz Aldrin. Also, the video footage we typically see is the air-to-ground live footage which is notoriously fuzzy/ghostly.

How could this be? Can you imagine if this happened today, especially in this selfie/image-driven era?

Fortunately one more source existed — one of two Maurer 16mm DACs (Data Acquisition Cameras) recorded the EVA from the window of the Lunar Module (LM). When this was transferred to HD by Stephen Slater in the early 2000s, a glimpse of a face I’d noticed years earlier on SD copies of this small format film led me to re-examine the film, frame by frame.

I found a magic moment where Neil’s gold visor is briefly up (as he’s partly in shadow) and his head is tilted forward in his visor — it’s right at the beginning of the moon walk. He’s also close to the LM / camera and the angle of the sunlight illuminates his face such that subtle facial details are briefly visible. This still wasn’t enough for a decent image but crucially he’s so focused on the task that he remains almost motionless long enough for me to be able to lift several separate clean frames from the film.

I then had the idea of stacking the frames on top of each other and optimising the image by improving the signal-to-noise ratio. This is a technique used by astronomers to reveal details of distant objects. If it works for Mars why not for Neil Armstrong!? When I then started to process and enhance the output, I simply couldn’t believe the detail that I was able to reveal — I could even see his eyelid. 

More importantly, I could recognise Neil himself. It was an amazing moment and I almost felt like I’d gone back in time and was the only person watching this incredible historic moment unfold. Perhaps a little like an archaeologist brushing the dust off some long forgotten artefact.

Above, the image created from a stack of multiple 16mm ‘movie’ frames. The recognisable features of Neil Armstrong can be seen clearly for the first time, 50 years later.

I became hooked on improving more of the imagery from this incredible era and when it became front page news I realised there continues to be a fascination among the wider public too.

~ ~ ~ END EXCERPT ~ ~ ~

4 minutes ago, Pat Speer said:

Wait, it appears that Stancak has your Large-Framed Figure as Shelley.  Is that correct?

Yes that is correct that is what Stancak says. I believe that is incorrect and that Large-Framed Figure is Sarah Stanton for reasons argued. I believe Stancak's identification of Pauline Sanders, distinct issue, is correct. 

3 hours ago, Pat Speer said:

Greg, two women claimed to be on the top step: Stanton and Saunders. If the woman to Frazier's left is Stanton, then who's to say Prayer Person isn't Saunders? Has she been identified elsewhere? It would make a bit more sense, moreover if it was Saunders, seeing as Frazier couldn't ID Prayer Person, and he may not have known Saunders. 

Pauline Saunders (11-24-63 FBI report, 22H844) “advised she arrived at work at 8:45 A.M. on November 22, 1963 and immediately reported to main office where she was employed...she went outside to watch the presidential parade about 11:25 A.M...she stood in the last line of spectators nearest the door to the School Book Depository building…she could not recall the exact time but immediately after the Presidential parade passed she heard three loud blasts and she immediately realized that the shots or whatever it was came from the building above her…Mr. Campbell, Office Manager, arrived shortly after the police officer entered the building and she told him the blasts came from the upper part of the building however he insisted the shots came from the embankment.” (3-19-64 statement to the FBI, 22H672) “I am a caucasian female...I...was born November 6, 1908...At approximately 12:20 PM on November 22, 1963, I left the lunchroom on the second floor of the building and went out the front entrance to await the arrival of the presidential motorcade which I knew was due to pass the Depository about 12:30 PM. 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. Mrs. Stanton is likewise an employee of the Texas School Book Depository. To the best of my recollection I did not see Lee Harvey Oswald at any time on November 22, 1963, and although I knew him by sight as an employee of the building I did not know him by name and had never spoken to him at any time. I do not recall seeing any strangers in the Texas School Book Depository Building at any time on the morning of November 22, 1963. After the motorcade car carrying President John F. Kennedy passed, I remained a moment on the steps, then walked out to the concrete island in front of the Depository Building to see what had happened. I remained there a moment and then returned to the Depository Building through the main entrance. I then walked to the second floor where I usually worked.” 

 

Pat S. (bold added): "Greg, two women claimed to be on the top step: Stanton and Saunders. If the woman to Frazier's left is Stanton, then who's to say Prayer Person isn't Saunders? Has she been identified elsewhere? It would make a bit more sense, moreover if it was Saunders, seeing as Frazier couldn't ID Prayer Person, and he may not have known Saunders."

Pat, yes, Pauline Sanders has been identified in a Darnell photo, by Stancak, as a figure, very short (therefore a woman), standing at the far east end of the top level of the landing, in the exact position Pauline Sanders says she was standing.

The software will not let me post the photo here but see it at this page on Stancak's site: it is the upper photo of his Figure 3 on this page: https://thejfktruthmatters.wordpress.com//?s=sanders .

Compare that with Pauline Sanders' description of her position:

"she stood in the last line of spectators nearest the door to the School Book Depository building" (FBI, Nov 24, 1963)

"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," (FBI, March 19, 1964)

Sarah Stanton "standing next to me" becomes Large-Framed Figure to her right and Frazier's left, in agreement with Frazier locating Sarah Stanton to his left.

Incidentally, trivia detail but a minor correction to Stancak's reconstruction of the posture of the man standing in front of and just below Large-Framed Figure (Sarah Stanton). Stancak has that man shielding his eyes from the sun by having his right arm and forearm up and shading his eyes, with left arm hanging down at his left side.

I am convinced from looking at the photo that the man has both of his arms up over his head involved in the shielding from the sun. His left arm is raised with his left hand wrapped around the back of his head or back of his neck for support, and his left elbow jutting upward at his left. His right arm is up and right forearm shielding his eyes as Stancak has it. As reconstructed, it was tiring to have the right arm held hanging in mid-air that way for an extended period. The left elbow up and left hand around the back of the neck for support enables the right hand to rest on the inner left arm at the left bicep. If you can follow my word description. The point is, a certain mark at the front of LFF (Large-Framed Figure) looking like it might relate to LFF's clothing is actually the raised left elbow of the man in front of her.

Some comments on Prayer Man that may be new, in support of Bart Kamp's book's thesis

Who is Large-Framed Figure standing immediately to the left of Buell Wesley Frazier on the same top landing level in Darnell?

I wrote a fuller discussion of this above to Pat Speer who has not as yet responded, maybe others might wish to address this. It is astonishing to me that I do not see prior proposals that Large-Framed Figure (LFF) to Frazier's immediate left, in the Darnell film, is Sarah Stanton. The width of LFF's body frame corresponds to Sarah Stanton's obesity. The height of LFF at 5'6" (hair included) agrees with Sarah Stanton's height. And LFF is in exactly the position that Buell Wesley Frazier said Sarah Stanton was, and Pauline Sanders said Sarah Stanton was, to Frazier's left as Frazier explicitly said (not to his right where Prayer Man was)--no, LFF is exactly where Frazier located Sarah Stanton to his immediate left, with whom Frazier exchanged words back and forth as she stood next to him. Large-Framed Figure is exactly a match to Sarah Stanton. 

Yet surprisingly LFF has not been so identified (as Sarah Stanton) previously so far as I can tell. Andrej Stancak in his discussions identified Large-Framed Figure (LFF) as Shelley. But if Shelley is correctly identified in the Crouch film as walking with Lovelady west in front of the TSBD, as I believe most now consider that more or less settled, Shelley is not LFF. Others have identified LFF as Molina. Superficially there is a case for this match because Molina testified that he was right in front of the door, on the top step, when he saw Truly come in to the TSBD, which Molina estimated was 20-30 seconds after the shots, at about the same time as Darnell.

But a Molina identification for LFF is not right for the following reasons. First, look at the hair on LFF. It looks like at least an inch up from the head all over the head, consistent with a photo of Sarah Stanton's hair. LFF's hair matches Sarah Stanton's hair. It does not match Molina who from photos appears semi-bald or with thinning flat hair. Second, LFF is extremely wide in body, more than normal, consistent with Sarah Stanton's obesity, but not obviously in agreement with Molina who I think was a more normal build. Third, I don't have height data for Molina but 5'6" height of LFF, including hair, 5'5" or even 5'4-1/2" actual height to the top of the head not counting hair, is at the heart of the bell-curve of women's heights, not most men's heights. Fourth, Molina is identified in the Altgens6 photo as a figure standing a step or two down in the sun with his arm raised and shielding his eyes from the sun, and the same posture and figure, that is, Molina, appears in Darnell distinct from and a little lower and to the left of LFF, therefore is not LFF. And fifth, Molina's language in his Warren Commission testimony of being outside in front of the door is well understand as general language which would be used for being anywhere outside on that landing or steps, and it is overprecision to say that Molina's testimony of being out in front of the door can only mean LFF's position.

If Large-Framed figure is Sarah Stanton, then Sarah Stanton was not Prayer Man, in agreement with Frazier who has always remembered Sarah Stanton at his left but is unable to identify Prayer Man to his right. If Prayer Man were Sarah Stanton, Frazier would identify her. The simplest explanation for why he does not identify PM as Stanton is because he knows Sarah Stanton was to his left, where she visibly IS in the Darnell photos, as Large-Framed Figure.

With Sarah Stanton excluded as Prayer Man (if the LFF Sarah Stanton identification is accepted as convincing), and with no other good identification for Prayer Man in place, the possibility that Oswald was that figure receives heightened focus.

To spell it out: removal of Sarah Stanton as Prayer Man (because she is Large-Framed Figure to Frazier's left) removes the only major claimed alternative to Oswald himself as the leading candidate for identification of Prayer Man.

Did Prayer Man come out through the doors of the front entrance before, during, or after the shots?

It is usually assumed that the Prayer Man photograph in Wiegman was taken a few seconds before the fatal head shot of JFK of Z312. While that may be correct, it is possible that photograph was taken an unknown number of seconds after the shots were fired, according to a technical analysis of Stancak although Stancak does not draw a post-Z312 Wiegman conclusion directly. Stancak presents an argument that there was frames removal of some sort in the Zapruder film on the basis of comparison with two checkpoints in Wiegman, and discrepancies between Altgens6 and a conventional assumption of match to the time of a frame in Wiegman: https://thejfktruthmatters.wordpress.com/2023/04/10/the-timing-of-wiegman-film-and-altgens6-photograph-questions-the-continuity-of-frames-in-zapruder-film/.

Wiegman himself said he remembered the second shot of the JFK shooting happening as he stepped out of his car in the parade, and then started running with movie camera running, but could not remember whether he started the film running before or after he left the car. If there were some seconds, say as much as 10 seconds before Wiegman got his movie camera started recording, combined with the hypothesis of removal of an unknown quantity or segment of frames from Zapruder at some point later than Z255 which Stancak argues was the case on independent grounds from analysis of Wiegman and Altgens6, one could get a scenario of Wiegman's Prayer Man not being a photo at the same moment as Altgens6 but a little later, perhaps after the fatal shot of Z312.

The reason this might matter is, on the one hand, Oswald said in his interrogations that he had gone to the second floor to get a coke with his lunch before the assassination, then (following that) he went out front "to watch the P. Parade" (Hosty notes) or "out with Bill Shelley in front" (Fritz notes). 

And yet in the hallway to reporters when asked if he was in the building at the time (of the assassination)--and this was after he gave those answers in interrogation--Oswald did not volunteer that he was out front, but said he was inside the building.

(Note in that exchange Oswald also did not say to those reporters that he was on the first floor of the building where he would have witnesses, even though he did claim that when he was interrogated. The point is it can equally well be asked why Oswald would not say "first floor lunchroom" if he had been there, as "on the landing outside the front door"--both would potentially have witnesses.) 

Here is what Oswald said:

"to 1st floor had lunch/ out with Bill Shelley in/ front/ left work..." (Fritz handwritten notes)

"O [Oswald] stated he was present for work at TBD on the morning of 11/22 and at noon went to lunch. He went to 2nd floor to get Coca Cola to eat with lunch and returned to 1st floor to eat lunch. Then went outside to watch P. [Presidential] Parade" (Hosty handwritten notes written no later than Nov 23, 1963)

"Oswald stated that he went to lunch at approximately noon and he claimed he ate his lunch on the first floor in the lunchroom; however he went to the second floor where the Coca-Cola machine was located and obtained a bottle of Coca-Cola for his lunch. Oswald claimed to be on the first floor when President John F. Kennedy passed this building." (FBI, Bookhout and Hosty, report dated Nov 23, 1963 of Oswald interrogation of Nov 22)

The objection that no one saw Oswald out front of all the witnesses who were there--arguably not so 

The objection that no witnesses saw Oswald there, therefore he was not Prayer Man, could equally be raised in objection to the common belief that Oswald left the TSBD by the front of the building. Apart from testimony from reporter Pierce Allman that he encountered Oswald about 3 minutes after the assassination at the front doorway, in agreement with Oswald's claim to Secret Service Inspector Kelley that he had been asked by a "Secret Service" agent at that location to direct him to a phone, no other witness to my knowledge is reported to have seen Oswald at the front or leaving by the front at that time--why not? Is that much difference in principle from asking why no one is reported to have seen Oswald at the same front doorway area 2-1/2 minutes earlier as Prayer Man?

Two reports, largely overlooked, of TSBD witnesses who may have seen and told of seeing Oswald in the front doorway area at the time Prayer Man was there

(1) The first is Carolyn Arnold in a statement to the FBI of Nov 26, 1963. Note how early this is, how detailed and specific, and how contrary to interest it is on the part of the FBI to have her say this--all three details weighing in favor of a genuine report, which stands despite Carolyn Arnold in 1978 telling reporter Earl Golz she had no memory of having said it, evidently having forgotten it. But the written FBI report did not forget.

"[She] left that office [on the second floor] between 12:00 and 12:15 PM, to go downstairs and stand in front of the building to view the Presidential Motorcade. As she was standing in front of the building, she stated she thought she caught a fleeting glimpse of Lee Harvey Oswald standing in the hallway between the front door and the double doors leading to the warehouse, located on the first floor. She could not be sure that this was Oswald, but said she felt it was..." (FBI, Nov 26, 1963, https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=10406#relPageId=44)

 A later FBI statement has her saying she did not see Oswald "at that time or at any time during that day", which conflicts with that early FBI report (unless an FBI focus on her lack of certainty might have been deemed cause for leaving it out of their writeup?), and also conflicts with Carolyn Arnold's repeated insistence in later interviews that she also saw Oswald before the assassination in the second-floor lunchroom, in agreement with Oswald in interrogation who said he had gone there before the assassination to get a coke to have with his lunch on the 1st floor. Carolyn Arnold, who said she never saw the FBI reports the second of which it is alleged she signed, later expressed surprise that her second-floor lunchroom sighting of Oswald before the assassination was not in the Nov 26, 1963 interview report for she was sure she would have told it to the FBI.  

This should not be read as a discrepancy on Carolyn Arnold's part concerning the location of a single Oswald sighting. It reads to me as two distinct claims of Oswald sightings: one that she forgot (and expressed uncertainty concerning at the outset), and the other, the second-floor lunchroom sighting, of which she was never uncertain. Carolyn Arnold was not called to testify to the Warren Commission, and the above FBI statement with what she thought was her sighting of Oswald at the TSBD front doorway reportedly was not in the Warren Commission's published exhibits (http://22november1963.org.uk/carolyn-arnold-witness-oswald). 

(2) The second comes from the report of the Brian Doyle interview of Rosa Daniel and her daughter Wanda, the daughter-in-law and granddaughter respectively of Sarah Stanton, in this January 2019 article published by Richard Gilbride, https://jfkinsidejob.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/FURTHERING-THE-LUNCHROOM-EVIDENCE.pdf. I am here quoting brief passages from the Gilbride publication for purposes of research and discussion in accord with legal "fair use", with acknowledgement to the copyright owner of that article.  

Although Sarah Stanton is reported to have signed an FBI statement saying she never saw Oswald on the day of the assassination, as I understand it the FBI supplied the Warren Commission with the statements but not those signatures (even in photocopy form), and so far as I can tell no one has reported having seen the signatures. (I can certainly find no signatures for those statements on the MFF site.) But, the FBI says Sarah Stanton signed it. Even though her family told a very different story of what Sarah Stanton always said to them.

I do not have the same interpretation as Gilbride does in his article but the content of the interview could be significant in a way that has not been appreciated. 

For according to Sarah Stanton's family, Sarah Stanton met Oswald on "the stairs", where she had "went down" from the second floor, to see the President "on the stairs".

Rosa: "That, uh--she [Sarah] said, 'I went down because they said that, uh, the--that the President was going--they were already coming, but not--not there yet.' So she wanted to prepare herself and be on the stairs--where--where she met Oswald." 

Anyone can read the Gilbride article to get more of the interview. Rosa tells of what Sarah Stanton always said, how she had met Oswald that day "on the stairs".

How she had gone down "to prepare herself and be on the stairs" to see the president (front steps of the TSBD entrance?).

How she told of Oswald having a Coke when she saw him "on the stairs" (Prayer Man with a coke on the front steps?).

How she spoke to Oswald there "on the stairs" (steps?). How Oswald told her he was going to return to "his room" (the domino room?).

Gilbride interprets the "stairs" where Sarah Stanton said she wanted to go early to "prepare herself" for seeing the president's parade, as the NW stairway, rather than as the front steps of the TSBD as I am suggesting.

I believe this can be read as an instance in which one TSBD employee/witness on those front steps ("stairs") near Oswald, Sarah Stanton who had gone there to see the president, may have seen Oswald as Prayer Man, perhaps spoke to Oswald as he passed by her (perhaps after Frazier moved forward down to the sidewalk as he said he moved next). And according to the family, Sarah Stanton told of this for years to her family, of that meeting on the "stairs" with Oswald where Sarah had gone to watch the president.

Possible reconstruction: from Carolyn Arnold's contemporary report written up by the FBI on Nov 26, 1963, Oswald may have been seen by her standing inside the double doors at the entrance, coke in hand, behind the glass partition of the doorway, watching the parade go by, still "inside the building" when the assassination happened, in agreement with Oswald's answer to the reporters' question in the hallway asking where he was at the time. From that vantage position he would have been able to see, and also would have heard the shots when they happened. 

Upon hearing the shots he may have seen talking happening outside and stepped through the door and moved to the shadow area at the northwest of the landing, then forward to the edge of the shadow area one step down, in order to overhear what was being said (his reason for going out the door). Wiegman captures Oswald on film as Prayer Man. Some seconds later Darnell also captures Oswald as Prayer Man. After hearing whatever he wanted to overhear he leaves, retreats, perhaps speaking a word to Sarah Stanton as he went by in response to her speaking friendly to him (after Frazier had stepped forward down to the sidewalk area as Frazier said was his next movement). Now intent on leaving the building, Oswald goes up the NE stairwell to the second floor, with intent to go out the NW stairwell, back down and out the rear, but sees officer Baker through a glass window in the NW stairwell (and is seen by Baker). They have their encounter, followed by Oswald returning back down the way he went up, by the NE stairwell to the first floor again. 

Comment on Frazier's failure to identify Prayer Man as Oswald

Frazier's comments have been consistent--he says he does not remember and has no idea who Prayer Man was.

That is an extremely strong argument for excluding that it was Sarah Stanton.

It is not a weighty argument however for excluding that it was Oswald. Here is Frazier:

"To answer the question about Prayer Man: I have been looking at this all day, and I can tell you this: I 100% have no idea who that person is. I can also tell you 100% that is not Lee Harvey Oswald. First, Lee was not out there. I know that to be true. Second, for anyone who thinks Prayer Man is Lee, the individual has a much larger frame than Lee." (Buell Wesley Frazier, Facebook, March 28, 2021)

On his statement of knowing Oswald was not there, that may be simply explained: he may believe the second-floor lunchroom encounter of Baker and Oswald is in contradiction to Oswald as Prayer Man, therefore Oswald cannot be he because he was somewhere else. That reason, if so, is not coming from his knowledge as a witness. And it is also a mistaken conclusion or belief since as has been discussed earlier in this thread, Oswald as Prayer Man is not inconsistent in timing and logistics with Oswald going up to the second floor to make his exit out the rear of the building and encountering officer Baker.  

Frazier's second reason for negative certainty (that Prayer Man is not Oswald), that the figure looks too heavyset to be Oswald, is a simple judgment of photo interpretation of no more or less strength than anyone else's, also unrelated to his being a witness.

What Frazier has not claimed as a reason for his negative certainty that I have seen, is: if it had been Oswald he would have noticed.

But although Frazier did not notice Prayer Man's or Oswald's presence even though Prayer Man had come in from behind and was close to Frazier to his right, Carolyn Arnold and Sarah Stanton may have seen Oswald at that front doorway area of TSBD at the time of the assassination and said so.

Conclusion

It is probably not correct to claim that "no one" saw Oswald out at those front steps. I have just cited two arguably credible claims from TSBD employees who said they did (in Sarah Stanton's case as remembered by her family, interpreting "stairs" as changed in the telling from Sarah Stanton's meaning of the TSBD's front steps).   

Neither of these two women, Carolyn Arnold or Sarah Stanton were called to testify by the Warren Commission.

If Oswald was "in front" (Fritz notes) and "outside to watch P. Parade" (Hosty notes) after eating his lunch on the first floor, not only might those two women have told of seeing him there, but it might even have been captured on camera ... it would be surprising if it were not captured on camera.  

Making Bart Kamp's website and book, Prayer Man: More than a Fuzzy Picture, one of the most important issues in any current discussion of the JFK assassination (because if Oswald was Prayer Man, he did not assassinate President Kennedy, and that would be, to put it mildly, a game-changer, an Innocence Project genre outcome for the ages). 

Important to not let this go until there is a real identification of this figure who definitely existed, who has no good identification as other than Oswald, and who is where Oswald said he was at the time.   

37 minutes ago, Chris Davidson said:

Try it on another frame from a different source.

Is there some-one there?

Thanks Chris, I see it. Yes, looks like the same figure as in Darnell.  

48 minutes ago, David Josephs said:

A while back we were provided a very high resolution image of a frame of PM which I also attempted to improve.

For the person's right hand to be in the light it must extend beyond the shade border.

 

 

His presence was known for a while it seems.  Yet again, the reflected light must suggest that this person was much closer to the steps and to the East, than we think

Yes?

David, thank you for this. Is photo "1" at upper left of above after your attempt to improve? Is the faint image of what looks like a face and two forearms in that version of Weigman from information internal to Weigman and replicable by anyone? If so, so be it and that answers my question, its Prayer Man. 

Also, the bright spot of light in "1" is to the left of the vertical corner behind it where the wall meets glass partition. If this is from information internal to Weigman, that answers in the negative my question of whether that light could be shining through the glass partition from something inside the building, and verifies it has to do with a human there.

p.s. David, is "K" a second figure pulled out of the "blackness" by some (mysterious to me) processes of photo information-extraction? He is called a "tall man". Would that be Buell Wesley Frazier? 

I assume the Large-Framed Figure to Frazier's left in Darnell who agrees perfectly with Sarah Stanton, and Pauline Sanders, not identified as in the "lighted" area in front of the shadow in the lettered key of Weigman/Altgens6, must also be, like Frazier, back in the shadow darkness, and those two figures' presence not brought out in the photo enhancement of Weigman/Altgens6? 

40 minutes ago, Chris Davidson said:

I suggest you research the answers to your own questions.

GD: is this certainly from information from the Weigman frame alone, without added information or photoshopping? If so, and if that is verified and verifiable, I am happy to accept that and beg forgiveness for the "dumb question". But just for the record, is it? 

3 minutes ago, Chris Davidson said:

Discovered that person in Wiegman for Sean Murphy way back in 2007, then used what's called "shadow contrast" to enhance the image.

You discovered the existence of a person in the Darnell Prayer Man’s position in Weigman, Chris?

Why is it on all the photos of the Weigman stills on Bart Kamp’s website that I checked, I can’t see any person there, only that spot of light?

Are you sure anything of a person is there other than that light? Explain please? Using a photo(s) of Weigman alone please?

1 hour ago, Tom Gram said:

The cover of Bart’s book is from a Weigman frame. There’s definitely someone there. The timing would be pretty tight but I guess it’s not impossible that there were two different people in that spot. 

I know that’s the book cover but that’s my question: not could it be a different person in the Weigman film, but is it certain there is a person there in Weigman at all? How is that known? 

On 9/25/2023 at 12:59 PM, Pat Speer said:

It's a mystery to me why so much energy has been spent on this issue. The figure can not be identified as Oswald. And the closest person to the figure has specified numerous times that it is not Oswald. 

Pat I reread some on your site, and have done a little more thinking about this. You say Prayer Man could be Sarah Stanton whom you say has not been satisfactorily placed or identified anywhere else. You write (bold added by me):

"she [Pauline Saunders] says she stood on the east side of the top step, and noticed Sarah Stanton standing next to her. This places Sarah Stanton on the very top step of the stairs, a fact that was corroborated by Buell Frazier. Well, so what, you might say. Big deal. Sarah Stanton was on the top step. Amazingly, a cult of researchers has convinced themselves that a shadowy figure on the top step near Frazier was in fact one Lee Harvey Oswald. That this figure was more probably Stanton--who they can't quite place anywhere else--eludes them." (at discussion of witness Pauline Saunders, https://www.patspeer.com/chapter-8-pieces-of-work)

You know Frazier said Stanton, a very large woman, was to Frazier's left, next to him on that top landing--so close to him that he spoke back and forth to her standing next to him.

And you know Pauline Sanders said she was on that top landing at the far east end; and that Pauline Sanders said Sarah Stanton was immediately next to her right also on the top landing--i.e. that Sarah Stanton was between her and Frazier.

And I think you know Stancak has credibly identified a short woman in Darnell standing at the east far end of the top landing as Pauline Sanders, as a perfect match to where Pauline Sanders said she was at that position. Nothing too controversial, or should be, in any of this so far.

The $64,000 question: you know in Darnell there is a very prominently visible large-framed person standing immediately to Frazier's left, in between Frazier and Pauline Sanders at the east end, a figure who can be either a man or a woman. Let us call this figure Large-Framed Figure, LFF for short. 

Who do you think Large-Framed Figure is?

What about that large-framed figure is other than a perfect match for Sarah Stanton, in exactly the position where Frazier said she was (to his left next to him, on the top landing) and exactly where Pauline Sanders said she was (to her right next to her, on the top landing)?

What could be more obvious? What not to like about that identification?

Look how wide that figure's body is. Sarah Stanton was very obese. 

"The large stature of Mrs Stanton was also confirmed to me by Mrs Stanton's grand-daughter, Wanda in our email exchange dated April 4, 2020: "My grandmother was obese to the point she could barely fit through a doorway."  (Stancak, https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/28136-prayerperson/page/5/)

Then look at the height. The height of Large-Framed Figure matches Stanton's height exactly, here's how:

Sarah Stanton's height: 5'4 to 5'6.

Buell Wesley Frazier's height: either 6'0" or 6' 1/2".

Hairline (at top of forehead) of LFF in a horizontal line crosses Frazier at about Frazier's mouth level, between Frazier's nose and chin.

1" from level of LFF hairline to top of LFF's head (height).

7" from top of Frazier's head to between Frazier's eyes.

1" from between Frazier's eyes to bottom of Frazier's nose.

1" from bottom of Frazier's nose to horizontal line of LFF's hairline.

Frazier and LFF are standing on the same level, the top landing, so from Frazier's known height can be calculated the height of Large-Framed Figure: 5'4" or 5' 4-1/2", not counting how high her hairstyle would have gone above her head (more for a woman than for Frazier's man's hair combed flat) which could add the appearance of another inch or two in height: appearance with hair included about 5'5" or 5'6" height, good agreement with Sarah Stanton.

Agreement in height. Agreement of the wide body frame with a large woman.

And above all, the location is exactly matched to Sarah Stanton, exactly where Frazier said she was. 

What say you Mr. Pat? 

If that known, visible figure in Darnell to Frazier's left is Sarah Stanton, does that not mean your judgment that Prayer Man probably was Stanton was in error? 

(continued) Why did Ruby lie about being at Parkland? 

The lying about being at Parkland is an argument something is amiss with Ruby. If he were innocent, what would be the point in lying or denying about being at Parkland?  

Unless some other unknown factor is invoked, the obvious reason he would lie about it, and what changed, was the killing of Oswald. The killing of Oswald put Ruby front and center as a suspect in the JFK assassination (assuming law enforcement had not otherwise solved the case and was running an honest investigation of obvious suspects). Ruby would expect that. Ruby was ready for that. He did his best to be convincing that he had acted on impulse out of sympathy for Jackie so overwhelming he just could not stop himself from spontaneously walking over to the Dallas Police Station, where by a total further coincidence he happened to be just a couple of blocks away to wire $25 to a dancer at the time Oswald was being transferred, and kill Oswald dead when he was being transferred. Ruby's alibi went to the sympathy and penalty stage of the crime--he couldn't deny doing the crime itself.

The reconstruction would be that on Friday at around 1 pm, Ruby did not at that moment know he would himself be killing Oswald on Sunday. In all likelihood the expectation would be that Oswald would be killed the same day of the assassination and would not be taken into police custody to begin with. Ruby was only "asked", or "persuaded", or "given an offer he couldn't refuse", however that worked, sometime later that day or evening, after Oswald's arrest in the Texas Theatre where Oswald was likely planned to be killed but police arrived too quickly and Oswald was not killed at that moment.   

When as I have discussed, Craford tossed what I suspect was the Tippit murder weapon on a downtown street in a paper bag with fruit in it while in the back seat of Ruby's car driving him at about 6 am Saturday morning--the "paper bag revolver" of the kind that killed Tippit, ditched as a murder weapon that could be traced to the crime but not to the killer if the gun was ditched (because not ditching it risked having it be found on one's person or in one's belongings if searched).

And I have assumed Ruby was assisting and cooperating with Craford in Craford's flight from Dallas that Saturday morning, but what if that was, in the end, Craford's decision on his own after all, not expected by Ruby? Maybe Craford saved his own life by escaping Dallas when he did? And in a scenario in which Craford was not being assisted by Ruby in leaving Dallas that morning, then the Tippit murder weapon tossed out of Craford's rear seat window, inside a paper bag in which Craford was ostensibly carrying an apple and an orange to munch on in the car, would be opportunistic on Craford's part. If noticed (as a toss out the window by their rear passenger probably would have been noticed by Ruby and George Senator riding in the front seat) it would look to Ruby and Senator, unless Ruby was told otherwise, as no other than normal littering--a paper bag with fruit in it tossed as litter, only Craford knowing there was also a snub-nosed .38 Smith & Wesson revolver recently used in a murder being thrown out too with the fruit in that paper bag.

(And that could also account for the revolver not being thrown out in what some might think should be a "better" way of doing so, such as into a river or something--though if the weapon was untraceable to the person it would not matter if it was found and traced to the crime. If Craford ditched the weapon without Ruby knowing that was what Craford was doing, Craford who had no car would have to simply toss it at some point while Ruby was driving without control over where Ruby was driving.)

Conclusion 

Ruby lying about having been at Parkland, lying which happened after Ruby killed Oswald, may signal that: Ruby was part of the JFK assassination; Ruby was at Parkland related to the JFK assassination (perhaps to learn verification of death of JFK as soon as possible); and Ruby was "distancing" himself from that after he was arrested for the killing of Oswald. 

There has been a lot of thinking that Ruby, even if suspected of having been involved in a mob hit on Oswald, could not have been witting to the JFK assassination itself. It is argued he was too much of a blabbermouth to be trusted, etc and etc. Does that argument fly? According to some reports Ruby was involved in some heavy things like gunrunning and trips to Cuba and Ruby was not obviously irresponsible or untrusted about that. In the case of the JFK assassination, a lot looks like Ruby was a middleman, up to his ears in it from a mob angle who had motive and presumably a green light even if only a nod and a wink from people in positions of power that it was a "go" to proceed. And the prima facie indication that there was awareness at high levels of the likely existence of some sort of nod and wink that had been passed through layers of cutouts to proceed, is the complete lack of Warren Commission investigation of any mob angle, resolutely, by policy, failing to find any serious mob connections of Ruby himself which is like not finding gambling in Casablanca in the movie. A WC exhibit literally has whited out or disappeared the last paragraph of a document telling of a Civello connection to a witness, in what was published in the WC Exhibits, learned when the real document later came to light with the disappeared paragraph intact.    

Ruby would not have been witting of all of the assassination. He would serve as a flunky type, not an initiator or planner. But he was witting of some of the JFK assassination, and got away with it in terms of the Warren Commission investigation.

What it looks like, sixty years later. 

And when Ruby finally won his change of venue for his new trial, was he thinking if he could survive until the move there, he could speak of things he knew? And that is why his "deathbed confession" in Dallas in his final interview was another recitation of his Jackie-sympathy story as always, same old story, because he wasn't planning on that being his last confession, or dying days later, but was stalling for time? 

The HSCA under Blakey did go after the mob angle but could not find anything beyond suspicion, and when their mandate and funding from Congress ran out the FBI did not pursue further investigation as HSCA asked.

Upon news that Marcello had confessed, the FBI decided that was the appropriate time to declare the entire JFK investigation, which had been kept formally open until that moment, closed and over for good. 

[END]

Greg Parker makes this point on the ROKC forum which might or might not bear on why Oswald told reporters he was inside the building, and not out front. 

"Oswald was only out there for the briefest of times.  Certainly went back in before others starting starting streaming back in. We know that because of the report provided by Occhus Campbell that Lee was near the storage room when he (Campbell) re-entered immediately after the shots. 

"In short, Oswald was not out there long enough to realize an assassination had taken place. He connected the assassination timing to the panic that happened AFTER he re-entered. Thus his statement that he was inside when the assassination happened."

Comment on this? Is this a reasonable, or unreasonable, possible explanation?

Musings on Jack Ruby at Parkland Hospital

Seth Kantor is too credible for his testimony not to be true, plus I don't recall the details but I believe there are two, not one, additional witnesses backing up Kantor. So I take it as fact that Ruby was there. That is not my question, but different questions.

Why? And even more important, why would Ruby deny it later, after making a point to say hi to Kantor without hiding that he was there?

Why was Ruby at Parkland?

Best guess--to be on the spot for firsthand verification JFK was dead, the very question that he asked Kantor, did Kantor know whether JFK had died?

Why does he care enough about that to be on hand at the hospital to learn that? Well, it could suggest he was part of the assassination. 

And Ruby's conspiracy theory that Jews were being set up, could well be even more convincing in his mind if he had a role in the assassination, then in part because of the Jewish name on that anti-JFK billboard, suspected he and Jews in general were being set up. Perhaps he told Earl Warren that he feared he would be accused of the JFK assassination because that accusation was true. Ruby's strange statement about (wording not exact) "the world will never know the full truth of those who put me in this situation..." WHO put RUBY into WHAT situation, in Ruby's meaning?

The question of why Ruby was not himself killed if he was part of the JFK assassination: could the explanation there be as simple as Sheriff Decker's protection was effective, and Decker was not personally corrupted sufficient to be party to allowing a prisoner in his custody such as Ruby to be killed? 

Ruby feared being killed when he was behind bars in Dallas, according to Courson in Sneed, No More Silence. Why, if he had decided on his own to kill Oswald and nobody else was behind him in that, and he had nothing to do with the JFK assassination?

The old story told by fire chiefs, that in any arson case, the arsonist often turns out to be somewhere in group photos watching the place burn down. Ruby at Parkland. Getting word of the president's death just as soon as there was any news unofficial or official, even before it hit the press.

Did he set up an alibi for why he was at Parkland in advance of the assassination? Joyce McDonald (Joy Dale), dancer and rumored pregnant with Ruby's baby (that is documented as a rumor at the time, whether or not it was true, it apparently was believed true by some). Joyce McDonald, who Ruby mistakenly gave the address on 10th Street where the Tippit patrol car had stopped in front when Tippit was killed as Joyce McDonald's (Joy Dale's) address. 

Joyce McDonald, who by coincidence was at Parkland that very day with her daughter for a prearranged eye medical exam for her daughter. She told of it, claimed she and her daughter took buses both ways to get there and back.

Joyce McDonald, who with her daughter upon leaving Parkland did not do what most mothers of a small girl might do, and go, er, home, but instead--she claims with her little girl with her--went instead to the Carousel Club from Parkland. Claimed some reason like she was supposed to teach a new hire dancer some dance moves or something. In any case Joyce McDonald's consistent story is she went to the Carousel Club and was there, heard Ruby breathe violence toward Oswald out of sympathy he was so broken up over Jackie Kennedy's loss, etc.

Except Andy Armstrong who was there that afternoon said he never saw any women or dancers there. I think that answer was so surprising that in his WC testimony he was asked two or three times just to make sure. No, no, no, from Andy Armstrong to that one.  

She says she was there. Andy Armstrong, who was there, didn't know anything about it. Whose story was wrong there?

There is no record that Ruby saw or met Joyce McDonald at Parkland--but then by the time Ruby was asked about it he was denying he had been to Parkland altogether, so naturally he would not tell if he had seen Joyce there. I am not quite certain their times overlapped that day but they were both there that day and I think their times may have overlapped. Maybe its coincidence.

But why did Ruby then deny he was there? What was the point in that? 

He wasn't denying his presence to Kantor. Why was he later denying?

(continued)

4 hours ago, Pat Speer said:

Frazier has been trying to stay out of the Prayer Man squabble. I was there when a few people tried to grill him about it. He said he did not know who it was, but felt certain he would have remembered Oswald's being on the steps. As I recall I followed up by asking if it could have been Stanton and he repeated that he didn't know who it was. So he had the opportunity to say it wasn't her but refused to do so. 

As far as left or right...she had legs, and may very well have moved from her original position when  he talked to her, or moved afterwards... IOW, it would be folly to assume his recollection of her being on his left meant she was never on his right. 

"As I recall I followed up by asking if it could have been Stanton and he [Frazier] repeated that he didn't know who it was. So he had the opportunity to say it wasn't her but refused to do so."

I appreciate your bringing forward this testimony of what he said, but it seems to me that could be interpreted either way as to Frazier's sense. I can see that as Frazier starting with an implied, even if unspoken, "no", followed by a repetition of what he was saying before, he doesn't know. It is as if his repetition of what he said before was "it wasn't her" in effect, rather than a refusal to say it wasn't her.

There is another film of Frazier telling of his speaking to Sarah Stanton standing next to him on that landing, starting 5:34 here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61woNu98rlM. 

"I remember when the parade turned off of Houston Street on to Elm, and I had seen pictures of Jackie Kennedy and the President when they were somewhere else, not in Texas. And I made the remark to myself and to a lady I think by the name of Sarah that was standing beside me, and I said, 'Look, isn't she beautiful. She looks just like the pictures in the magazines.'"

I draw a couple of conclusions here, see if you agree. First, this exchange with Sarah (Stanton) is the same reference of the Sixth Floor oral history where he couldn't remember the woman's name next to him but did say, speaking from clear memory, she was to his left. And second, this exchange is timed here to when the motorcade passed by the front of TSBD, would that be maybe ca. 60 (?) seconds or so earlier than the Darnell images which have Prayer Man to Frazier's right, and only maybe ca. 30 (?) seconds earlier than the Weigman photo which also has Prayer Man in the same position to Frazier's right? 

You make a point which I do concede in the hypothetical: you suggest Sarah Stanton could in that intervening ca. 30 seconds have moved, walked from where she was on Frazier's left on the landing, around or behind Frazier to now stand in the corner to his right, the location of Prayer Man, and maybe Frazier didn't remember that movement. OK. She was definitely to his left, not in Prayer Man's position, at the only time Frazier did remember her. But because of the uncertainty, it isn't excluded that she could have walked over to be in Prayer Man's location. But Frazier seems to have lost all memory of it if so, even though Frazier spoke of speaking to Sarah Stanton standing next to him when a woman rushed up saying that JFK had been shot, which would be either just at the time of or within seconds of the time of Darnell's Prayer Man (start 35:02 at this of Frazier in 2013: https://www.c-span.org/video/?313792-1/lee-harvey-oswald-kennedy-assassination).

How could Frazier remember speaking to Sarah Stanton standing next to him, and at the same time insist he has no possible idea who Prayer Man could be, if that was who he had spoken to in the person of Sarah Stanton?

Stancak identifies Sarah Stanton as a woman standing to the immediate left of Frazier in the Darnell footage, mostly obscured by a man standing in front of her (https://educationforum.ipbhost.com/topic/24615-mrs-stanton-mrs-sanders-where-are-you/). That would agree with the only position Frazier confirms for Sarah Stanton's location.

For her to have moved to be in the Prayer Man position it would have to be reconstructed that Frazier not only did not remember that, but he actually talked to her in that opposite position on his right exactly where Prayer Man is and also no longer remembers that even after talking to her there.

Possible? Who knows, maybe. Is that what happened? Who knows.

I suppose if Oswald is judged decisively ruled out for Prayer Man on other grounds, then it almost must be by default (due to the difficulty finding any other identification) Sarah Stanton moved to become Prayer Man (even though Buell Wesley Frazier had amnesia concerning her in Prayer Man's position despite remembering having turned to Sarah Stanton and spoken to her standing next to him at one of his two sides in the seconds surrounding Darnell--the only known position for her told by Frazier in an earlier exchange being his left side).

(And back to the hairline: is that apparent male-pattern receding-temple hairline an optical illusion in the photograph? Maybe? But it looks like a receding hairline at the temple to me.)

There is also this. Bart Kamp in Prayer Man: More than a Fuzzy Picture, p. 46, quotes from a Larry Hancock comment on a blog post of Nov 5, 2015 on Larry's website at this link: https://larryhancock.wordpress.com/2015/11/05/2015-jfk-lancer-conference/#comments. That comment of Larry is at Dec 6, 2015, 9:00 pm, and there is another followup at Dec 7, 2015, 5:34 pm. First the Dec 6, 2015 of Larry Hancock, in response to someone asking, Did you get to ask him about Prayer Man? (bold added by me):

"Yes and actually he has been asked that before. We submitted a fairly long set of other questions to him and hope to actually get answers in writing, not just by way of his presentation remarks. As to prayer man, Frazier has been asked that several times during the last year as well as being shown photos, although possibly not the best available. 

"Frazier says that he went out on the steps and was intent on looking out and down, he can identify folks in front of him such as Lovelady but he does not recall ever turning around and looking to his side or behind him so he has no direct recollection of anyone at all standing where PM appears to be located. He can’t make any identification from the photo…which is no big surprise. He also has no idea of whether that person had been there for a time or might have come out when everyone else was on the steps. I did get the impression that the steps filled up with people from the building and that it was unlikely any outsider had pushed through to the top of the steps so whoever it was somebody from inside the building...

Dec 7, 2015, Larry Hancock:

"I suppose I need to make the qualification that my quoted comment is only my impression of what Frazier was saying – beyond the point that he definitely could not identify the person designated as prayer man. He stated that personally and separately to a specific question. As to the rest, that’s a composite of remarks he made and responses to various questions from the audience. He spoke at some length as to why he had decided to stay at the top of the steps and let everybody else go out and down…so he would have the best view of the street. He also said he was focused on the street and motorcade and not generally looking around himself at the time, much less behind him. That’s the best I can give on the subject at this point..."

 

 

5 hours ago, Pat Speer said:

Oh my, Greg, you lost me. I was following your reasoning until you said Prayer Man couldn't be Stanton because Frazier didn't recognize it as Stanton. Well, he said he was standing by Stanton and he hasn't pointed her out anywhere else.  So it could be Stanton. and is quite possibly Stanton, seeing as she is known to have been in the area and isn't anywhere else. As for your next point--that it is a male, I think that's lala. There is no way you or anyone can say that that blurry blob is a man. Or a woman for that matter. I am sure you are aware of this, but people are highly open to suggestion. Some have been shouting that the figure looks EXACTLY like Oswald for so long that others have begun to believe it. But it wasn't true when they began yelling it, and isn't true today. In fact, I am aware of studies and presentations claiming one can make out a bracelet on Prayer Person's wrist, and that it's Oswald's Marine Corps bracelet. Nonsense. The limited number of pixels in the image--even on the clearest copies--are not enough to make out facial features and the writing on the bracelet, etc. No. The only study of the image to hold any weight, to my knowledge,  is the study demonstrating that Prayer Man is shorter than Oswald, and could only be Oswald if were standing on a lower step, etc. And that pretty much sinks the boat, IMO. It's one thing to say Oswald was in back of his co-workers and wasn't noticed but it's another thing entirely to say he stepped forward in front of some of them...and STILL wasn't noticed. 

I mean, think about it. It's the weakest sauce imaginable. 

No one has said they saw Oswald on the steps. 

No photo exists of what is indisputably Oswald on the steps.

No photo exists of what a majority of researchers think is Oswald on the steps. 

The only images which may show Oswald on the steps are too blurry to provide a positive ID, and can not be improved upon to the extent necessary to provide a positive ID. 

Despite plentiful opportunity, Oswald never told anyone he was out on the steps when the shots were fired. 

The author of the only notes which might possibly suggest Oswald was outside when the shots were fired, wrote a report in which this wasn't mentioned, and lived a long life in which he never told anyone Oswald had said he was outside when the shots were fired. 

There's no there there. Barring a confession from Frazier, or the release of an unpublished manuscript by Hosty or some such thing, it's a dead end. 

P.S. I re-read your analysis of Marina's testimony re her supposed trip to the furniture store, and found myself believing her more than the woman claiming to have seen her at the store. The testimony you cite is 4 months after the shooting. Are there November statements by this woman which can be compared to her subsequent testimony? Because people don't remember encounters with strangers in the detail she claims for weeks afterward, let alone months. I suspect she's a fabulist, trying to insert herself into a bit of history. But I would be more inclined to believe her if she came forward on the day of or day after the shooting. In such case her recollections during testimony would be of what she said then--11 or 12 days after their supposed encounter--as opposed to being memories from the encounter itself.  

 

Pat -- on Prayer Man being a man not a woman, I got that from the hairline--a male pattern baldness receding hairline at the temple is what it looks like to me-- but I concede with you that it is possible to overinterpret the information in the fuzzy photo so won't press that point.

But on the exclusion of Sarah Stanton, I don't see how Frazier could repeatedly speak of talking with her on the steps, exchanging words, making eye contact with her next to him or nearby, etc.--yet firmly says he has no idea who Prayer Man was. How does that work? 

And it is not only that logic. In his 2002 oral history for the Sixth Floor Museum, Frazier spoke of Sarah Stanton on the landing with him and was specifically asked the important question: was she (Sarah Stanton) to his left or to his right, and he answered "left". Interviewer is Gary Mack. Starting 53:11 at https://www.c-span.org/video/?287933-1/kennedy-assassination-buell-wesley-frazier-part-1.

"You were standing on the top steps, then--"

"Yes."

"Where there was actually the landing part I would--"

"Yes."

"Was there anyone back there with you?"

"Yes, there was a lady that worked up in one of the offices. And I do not remember the name."

"Was she off to your right, or off to your le---?"

(interrupting) "Left." (pointing left with left hand and left forefinger)

Frazier's left was on his east side, the opposite side of him from Prayer Man.

 

59 minutes ago, Pat Speer said:

That's a valid point, Tom. But I think it's probably apples and oranges. 

A bunch of people in shock looking around trying to figure out what happened down the street would probably not remember the people running around on the street in front of them, and even running past them into the building. 

But this same group of people would probably remember a co-worker's standing with them, especially if they were subsequently told he was somewhere else.

Now, there is the possibility, however remote, that Oswald snuck out on the steps for a few seconds behind the others, and that no one noticed him. But my recollection is that the Prayer Man scenario has him out there for minutes, not seconds. Is that correct? 

Pat I think Tom's point is stronger than realized. If Oswald had gone out early and mingled with the others, or had been there for some time, then he would be hard to miss. But the earliest evidence Prayer Man is there is the Wiegman film and the only estimate I have seen is that earliest evidence is ca. 3 seconds before the head shot of Z313, that time estimate attributed to Gary Mack. Then the Darnell film has Prayer Man there ca. 30 seconds after Z313. If Prayer Man was Oswald then he had to have left the Prayer Man position very soon, as in not many seconds after, Darnell ends, in order to meet Baker at the doorway to the SW stairwell second floor.

Suppose Oswald steps out into that northwest corner behind everyone else, no one sees him because of where he is, because he slips in after everyone else, and because everyone's attention is focused on the parade. A small number of seconds later shots are heard. Frazier is not only transfixed by the shots, but Frazier I think has actually testified somewhere that his first instant reaction (believable to me) was to suspect there could be a connection with Oswald's package that morning that had puzzled Frazier, and (as Frazier himself described somewhere) he consciously realized he must not react or run, but stay calm and not move. The reason I think Frazier was thinking that (apart from Frazier has said so) is because the mind thinks of things in a flash like that, and because Frazier may have voiced something about the package question to his sister Linnie Mae when he saw her at home before going to visit his father that afternoon, perhaps in the background to Linnie Mae volunteering that to police officers (with the result of causing brother Wesley to come under a lot of suspicion and herself also).

The point is it is very plausible that Frazier would be momentarily shell-shocked, and it is believable he could not notice if Oswald was there to his right arriving unobtrusively after he was no longer paying attention to who was around him. In the Darnell film Frazier appears to be staring from his vantage point into the distance at where the presidential limousine was last seen at Dealey Plaza before disappearing. 

Oswald himself in this scenario, hearing the shots, can't see the president's limousine from where he is at, and perhaps that could account for stepping forward and one leg down on the next step, at a height level seen in Darnell, still not noticed by Frazier. That Frazier has no idea to the present day who that figure was is consistent with he had no idea then. 

The Prayer Man Oswald possibility does not go away easily because there is no good identification that it was anyone else that has been convincing. That doesn't mean it wasn't someone else, but in all this time no satisfactory alternative identification has come forward of that person from any of the witnesses on the steps. Frazier says he has no idea who it was. (If it were Sarah Stanton, Frazier would have remembered that, since Frazier did remember Sarah Stanton, which means Prayer Man was not Sarah Stanton, who Frazier in any case directly said in one interview was to the left of him, not to his right as was Prayer Man.)

And most other persons working in the TSBD are accounted for, and its a white male with male pattern hairline in agreement with 25% of white men of Oswald's age of whom Oswald was one of those 25%; is not wearing a suit meaning a manual worker like Oswald; if he's standing down one step with one leg on that first step the height matches Oswald's, and (again) ... not otherwise identified. 

The only real arguments at this point that it was not Oswald go back to if one believes the evidence otherwise has Oswald on the sixth floor at the time of the shots; the argument that no one on the front steps noticed Oswald there; and an objection that Oswald did not say so to news reporters instead of saying he was inside the building because he worked there. 

On the second of those, no one noticed him on the front steps is not decisive, since no one at the time noticed who that person was at all, and it remains a mystery to present day. Someone quietly entering at the back while everyone was fixated on looking at the parade, for ca. 40 seconds or whatever brief time Prayer Man might have been there, it seems to me could easily have been missed by people standing in front of and to the side of him. Again, if Frazier had said in recent years, "No that's not Oswald, that was ______, I remember him/her", that would be a different matter. But that isn't what Frazier says. He has no idea.

On why Oswald did not say he was in Prayer Man's position at the time of the shots if he was, he must have been asked where he was at the time of the shots in interrogation and arguably did give that as his answer to that question when asked. However, the objection is he did not say so to reporters in the hallway when asked did he kill the president. Did he realize the nature of the accusation against him prior to that point? Did he regard the question as coming from left field. If he was Prayer Man out for only ca. 40 seconds or so at the doorway threshold without knowing if he had been seen, was a shouted question in a hallway the place to start explaining his case for a possible alibi and suggesting possible names and details of people to ask if they had seen him? 

Unrecognized by the Warren Commission and researchers alike, I believe two studies of mine earlier this year established as a new fact that Oswald himself removed his rifle from the Ruth Paine garage on the morning of Nov 11, 1963, eleven days before the assassination, with no direct evidence the rifle was ever returned to or in that garage again after that date, a "black hole" of lack of knowledge of the whereabouts and custody of that rifle in terms of hard evidence or witnessed sighting, between Nov 11 and when it turns up next eleven days later on the 6th floor TSBD on Nov 22. My two studies which I regard as establishing that fact of an event (of removal of the rifle from the Ruth Paine garage on the morning of Nov 11, 1963), are: https://www.scrollery.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/JFK-Furniture-Mart-mystery-105-pdf2.pdf and https://www.scrollery.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Irving-Sport-Shop-109-pdf.pdf. 

Whether that fact (as I regard it) means anything or not, I do not know. But it has not previously been known or entered into consideration.

42 minutes ago, Donald Willis said:

Scoggins' reference to Callaway comes just before this:  "I had got in the car and toured the neighborhood [that would be with CALLAWAY], and THEN the policemen came along, and I left my cab setting down there & got in a car with them & left the scene."  That would be with HILL.  Two different rides.

And Scoggins was suspected, before any rides with anyone, of being the killer:  Sgt. Croy testified that maybe a "cab driver had picked up Tippit's gun... They don't know whether he was the one that had shot Tippit."  That would be why the police wanted *Scoggins'* wallet.

Good points on your second paragraph Donald. Maybe you're right.

On the criterion that the wallet is associated with the Tippit revolver (because it is so in the WFAA footage), Scoggins fits that as well as Callaway and Holmes, there at the handover of the Tippit revolver to Croy. So Scoggins is at the right time and place such that it could be his.

And if there was initial police suspicion of Scoggins as a possible suspect--as the quote from Croy says, if Croy has that right--could that cause police to, what, maybe even frisk him and/or take his wallet from his person to look through? To see what was there, on a possible suspect?

I have no idea whether that would even be technically legal or was usual police procedure, but this was 1963 and Dallas and police arriving to a fallen officer with no idea what happened ... could be. Officers took Oswald's wallet out of his pocket in the patrol car driving from the Texas Theatre, so there's a parallel to officers holding someone's wallet in their hands, going through it looking for ID or whatever else was there.

Maybe I've been looking at the wrong guy, Callaway, when it was the other one, the driver, Scoggins, whose wallet that was when they returned with Tippit's revolver?

It hangs together, makes sense. I'm not sure Callaway is excluded but I can see it now with Scoggins as easily as Callaway at this point, thanks to you. Excellent bringing that out! Thanks!!!

~ ~ ~

Separately, I think the part about Scoggins taking off in a police car after returning from the excursion with Callaway and the Tippit revolver--I think that is a mistaken interpretation of the sense of Scoggins' meaning in his WC testimony in the quotation you give. 

I rechecked Gerald Hill's WC testimony and he doesn't say anything about giving Scoggins a ride (Hill did not have a patrol car of his own there as I read it). And there is Scoggins' denial. Below is the quotation you cite, with attention to the second of three bolded lines below. As I read it, I don't think Scoggins is saying he went off with a police officer after he returned with Callaway. He is trying to explain when he saw Mrs. Markham talking to a police officer. That was after he returned with Callaway to the scene. 

I agree its a little confusing in the second bolded line but I am reading that as a restatement of the first and the third bolded lines, three ways of saying the same thing, all followed by (his point he is trying to say) he saw Helen Markham talking to an officer after that one thing told three ways. 

So I don't think its correct that Scoggins got in a police car for a second trip looking for the fleeing gunman, and that police, such as Hill, covered up that they drove Scoggins around. Its just a misunderstanding.

Mr. BELIN. Before you saw Mrs. Markham the other day, did you ever recognize her as having seen her from the time of the Tippit shooting at all or not? 
Mr. SCOGGINS. Yes, I saw her down there talking to the policemen after I came back. You see, I saw her talking to them. 
Mr. BELIN. You never actually saw her standing on the street, did you? 
Mr. SCOGGINS. I never actually observed her there. 
Mr. BELIN. All right. 
Mr. DULLES. When you say, "I came back" is that when you got into your car? 
Mr. SCOGGINS. After I had got in the car and toured the neighborhood and then the policemen came along and I left my cab setting down there and got in a car with them and left the scene. 
Mr. DULLES. At what stage did you see Mrs. Markham? 
Mr. SCOGGINS. After I had gotten back up there. After I had drove around in the neighborhood looking for Oswald or looking for this guy. 
Mr. DULLES. It was after that? 
Mr. SCOGGINS. It was after that. 

(Discussion off the record.)  

13 hours ago, Donald Willis said:

I believe I know whose wallet it was.  And it was someone hiding in plain sight, right here on this thread.  Researchers may have been thrown off the track thanks to references like this in Myers' "With Malice":  "Scoggins later testified that he didn't talk to police... after returning to the scene" with Callaway (p303).  And indeed Scoggins did testify, "I contacted my supervisor, and they wanted me to come into the office and make a statement, and so I did... the cab company.  One of the supervisors got a statement of it, and he asked me, did the police, did I give them a statement, and I told him no, because... and he said, 'Well, why didn't you?'.  I said, 'They didn't ask me.  They talked with everybody else'."  Hence, Myers' "he didn't talk to police." (Hearings v3p332)  

Myers was apparently satisfied and stopped right there as he looked over Scoggins' testimony.  If he had ventured just five pages further, he would have come across this surprising passage:  "I saw [Mrs. Markham] talking to the policemen after I came back... I had got in the car and toured the neighborhood, and then the policemen came along, and I left my cab setting down there and got in a car with them and left the scene." (p337)  

Scoggins, then, actually gives Myers two choices re his actions just after returning to the Tippit scene.  Which version is the right one?  Double checking.  Myers has Scoggins and Callaway returning to the scene about 1:23 (p385)  So, in Version One, Scoggins would have left for the office in his cab about 1:25.  Meanwhile, in Version Two, FBI agent Robert Barrett arrives at the Tippit scene--photo of that on page 155--at 1:42.  Myers:  "According to Barrett, upon his arrival in Oak Cliff he parked across from Scoggins' cab near Tenth & Patton..." (p288)  Myers makes no comment on this contradiction of Version One.  If the latter was on the money, Scoggins' cab would hardly still have been there at 1:42.  

More substantiation of Version Two:  Callaway re the cab ride with Scoggins:  "So I went with Scoggins in the taxicab, went up to 10th, Crawford, from Crawford up to Jefferson, and down Jefferson to Beckley. And we turned on Beckley." (v3p354)  Myers:  "On one of the side streets just east of Beckley private security officer Ken Holmes & his companion Bill Wheless caught up with the cab & forced it to a stop."  (p169, WM 2nd ed.)  So the Scoggins-Callaway chase was stopped near Beckley.

At 1:26, DPD Sgt. Gerald Hill radioed:  "I'm at 12th & Beckley now.  I have a man in the car with me that can identify the suspect..." (DPD radio logs)

Hill, then, was one of the "policemen" that Scoggins "left the scene" with.  And Scoggins directed him to the location where he and Callaway had been intercepted.  He had been continuing the chase.  

The wallet.  DPD Sgt. Kenneth Croy:  "There was a report that a cab driver had picked up Tippit's gun and had left, presumably.  They don't know whether he was the one that had shot Tippit..." (v12p202)  Certainly, if Scoggins was, at first, wrongly suspected of being the shooter, the police would have wanted to see his wallet.  

Very interesting Donald.

My main problem is the detail of police asking to see the wallet, as opposed to asking to see identification (e.g. driver's license).

Bill Simpich I think made the point that officers don't ask for wallets, and might even be reluctant to accept one if a witness offered to hand them one (which is not normally what a person would do when asked by police to produce identification).

Yet, there is that WFAA film of holding officer Tippit's revolver and a wallet at the same time.

The only reconstruction I can see that makes sense is to connect the wallet with Tippit's revolver, and we know Tippit's revolver was handed to Croy by Kenneth Holmes, Jr., upon Holmes' return to the scene of the crime after divesting Callaway of Tippit's revolver at gunpoint (according to Holmes, and with a bit of obfuscation, somewhat confirmed by Callaway). 

Holmes at the point he was stopping Scoggins and Callaway, was suspecting them of being the killers of Tippit. Scoggins and Callaway were quickly cleared, but in the real-time of the moment, that is what Holmes suspected, and with reasonable grounds.

That is the mechanism that explains that it was a wallet, and not simply routine identification, which was turned in by Holmes along with the Tippit revolver to officer Croy, and then filmed together in officers' hands by the WFAA footage.

Holmes not only took Tippit's revolver from Callaway, but demanded his wallet, or else demanded identification (this happened at gunpoint according to Holmes; Callaway confirms the confrontation though not the gunpoint detail), and Callaway under stress and pressure of the moment, simply handed over his entire wallet. (Callaway knows he is innocent and has nothing to hide.)

This explains everything: upon clearing Callaway, the wallet would be returned to him with no further interest in the wallet. That is why nothing about that wallet turns up in any report.

As for Scoggins telling of going away with "the policeman", I believe that is a reference to Callaway, not Hill. Callaway was not a police officer, but from Scoggins WC testimony, he thought Callaway was.

10 minutes ago, Pat Speer said:

Oh my. I did a detailed study of the statements regarding the comings and goings of the TSBD that is light years ahead of the nonsense cooked up by anyone else. Period. 

Your scenario necessitates that multiple TSBD employees lied from almost the beginning..to frame Oswald.

But it's hard to believe you studied the evidence with an open mind. 

If you had, you'd know that the bulk of the testimony--including that of Shelley and Truly, etc--suggests a scenario at odds with the Oswald-did-it scenario, one not to the Warren Commission's liking.

1. Oswald did not remain on the sixth floor after his co-workers went down for lunch. 

2. He went down to the ground floor, where he was seen by multiple witnesses. 

3. He had an alibi (and not some pretend alibi). Vickie Adams raced down the stairs just after the shots and did not see him, and her boss saw Baker and Truly run up afterwards. This precludes his racing down the stairs just before the lunchroom encounter. And it gets better. Baker and Truly--two men your theory claims are XXXXX out to get Oswald--said an elevator came down from the upper floors as they ran up after the lunchroom encounter. This puts Oswald in the clear--he was not inside that elevator. NOW, the WC got around this by pretending Jack Dougherty was in that elevator. But an honest examination of the record--a thorough examination--strongly suggests he was not. So who was it? Almost certainly a better suspect than Oswald.

In short, then, the proposal there was no lunch encounter is not only incorrect, it is counter-productive. That some believe this encounter--one of the linchpins suggesting Oswald's innocence--was a fake because...because..oh yeah, there's a blurry image of someone outside the building that doesn't really look like Oswald but gosh darn I, it could be Oswald, and that possibility means we have to rip to shreds anything and anyone that suggests he wasn't outside--is an embarrassment to the research community, and a GIANT step backwards. Period. 

Pat there is not any doubt to me at all that there was a second-floor lunchroom encounter. But as William Kelly and others long ago developed, Oswald was seen walking away from an unopened pneumatic door a moment after he was about to go out to the second floor stairwell, by officer Baker. Oswald was coming from the second-floor area out to the stairwell when he saw (and was seen by) Baker and reversed direction. That means he did not get to the 2nd floor lunchroom area by the rear stairwell at all, and it argues against his purpose there that time being to get a coke, no matter that is what he may have told Fritz in interrogation.

I regard the second-floor lunchroom encounter as certain, and Prayer Man as Oswald as a "maybe". (And I hate "maybes" and wish there was an up-or-down way of getting a yes or no answer on that. The apparent argument for a "no" answer on "Prayer Man" of course is that Frazier did not notice him there then and he rules out today that it was Oswald. I think Frazier is truthful on both of those according to his knowledge but I do not see that it can be ruled out that Oswald could have been there and unnoticed, especially since Frazier is unable today to come up with any other idea of who that might have been.)

Are the "certainty" of Oswald at the second-floor lunchroom encounter, and the "maybe" of Prayer Man as Oswald, mutually exclusive? I mean on timing and logistics issues. I don't see that is necessarily so. Suppose Oswald was Prayer Man, and about the time Baker comes charging through the front door, Oswald decides to make his exit from TSBD. But he decides not to walk out the front steps, but instead to go up the SE stairwell to the 2nd floor, then cross the 2nd floor, with intent to go out the NW door to the stairwell, back down to the 1st floor and out the rear of the TSBD building. He would arrive to the NW door to the stairwell at about the time Baker would.

The encounter happens with a jacket-less Oswald and a red-brown color-vision-challenged Baker (reconstructed explanation; affects a large number of white men statistically, something like 10% as I recall, seeing reds as brown) sees Oswald's light maroon shirt hanging out [the maroon shirt you established Pat!] as a "light brown" jacket.

Reconstructing it was actually the shirt (the maroon shirt) Baker saw and not Oswald's gray jacket, also makes possible what sounds outlandish but is the only good way to account for Mrs. Reid's seeing Oswald walk by her moments later wearing a white T-shirt: before walking in view of Mrs. Reid, out of sight, Oswald took off his maroon shirt and stuffed it down the front of his pants, then walked out in only his white T-shirt. He went back down to the first floor by the SE stairwell again, picked up his gray jacket from the domino room putting that on over his white T-shirt, and exited the TSBD, with all three of his items of clothing above the belt on him but wearing only two. 

I am not claiming there is positive evidence for the hypothesized Prayer Man to second-floor-lunchroom movement, apart from the detail that I am convinced Oswald was attempting to go out to the 2nd floor rear stairwell through that door and reversed, rather than entered the lunchroom from the stairwell.

I realize some advocates of the Prayer Man Oswald strongly hold to the no-second floor lunchroom encounter idea. I agree with you, I don't buy that, all that supposed coordinated suborning of perjury of multiple witnesses, not reasonable. (How easy is it to suborn perjury in even one witness, without a high risk of that coming to light with very serious consequences for the suborner? Let alone coordinate multiple ones? Doesn't make sense.)

But is there a necessary contradiction between the certainty of the second-floor lunchroom encounter, and the "maybe" of Prayer Man, in principle? I don't see that it is obvious that one necessarily falsifies the other. 

2 hours ago, Paul Jolliffe said:

But all in all, you and I and Greg Parker are on the same page: this guy was to be used as the designated patsy/useful idiot, a decoy to distract security while the real hit team went to work.

Not on the same page on the possibility that the setup was fake, a stunt (not on Aispiro's part but on who called and invited him to show up for a job)--not a real assassination attempt. That was Greg Parker's suggestion, that it was a stunt. 

But on the same page in wanting to know what it was about, and that RFK Jr. remain safe.