Great New Movie Spells out the Case for Oswald as Prayer Man

[Thomas Graves]

shoddy outline gets the idea across.

A film clip helps,

Here is PM doing what everyone else is doing, sheilding the bright sun from their eyes.

https://pbs.twimg.com/tweet_video/CQLoDOPWIAA5MrP.mp4

Ed, I wondered why you had a long sleeve on the right arm of PM. If it's a long sleeve the sleeve must be two tone.

It's too bad that everyone here hates Duncan so much that they refuse to look at the excellent images and GIFs he's posted.

One of the images he's recently posted shows pretty darn clearly the 'hanging" cuff at the end of Prayer Person's sleeve, something I noticed a long time ago, BTW.

Oh well, like they say, "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him (or was it her?) DRINK."

--Tommy

Edited December 15, 2015 by Thomas Graves

[Robert Prudhomme]

Here is something to think about. How many times in a 50 year period does the following happen in the space of a minute?

1. The POTUS goes by the TSBD in a limo.

2. Three rifle shots are heard in Dealey Plaza.

3. A uniformed, white helmeted motorcycle cop roars up to the curb, hops off his motorcycle and goes tearing up the steps of the TSBD.

Kind of a semi-memorable moment in time, no?

Let's assume Pauline Sanders actually did see Baker go up the steps, as the FBI stated she did in their report of 24/11/63. As she seems to be the only witness on the steps who saw Baker, do you think she just calmly said to herself "Oh my, well, you certainly don't see that every day" and quietly went back to her desk? I hardly think so. If she was anything like the women I know, she would have shared this strange sighting with her neighbours on the steps (which included Molina and Frazier) and everyone on the steps would have been talking about the cop running into the building within 30 seconds; where he was going, why he ran into the building, was it connected to the shots they heard, etc.

When Joe Molina and Buell Wesley Frazier were asked, at their appearance before the WC, if they had seen Baker enter the TSBD, don't you think it likely they might have at least offered "Well, I never actually saw the cop myself, but Pauline Sanders saw him, and everybody on the steps was talkin' about him within the next minute or so."

[Robert Prudhomme]

It's not like the group on the steps of the TSBD were not a friendly, affable bunch that didn't speak to each other. According to Buell Wesley Frazier's WC testimony, they were all chatting quite amiably before the arrival of JFK.

"Mr. BALL - Did you go out there with somebody?

Mr. FRAZIER - Yes, sir; I did.
Mr. BALL - Who did you go out there with?
Mr. FRAZIER - I stayed around there pretty close to Mr. Shelley and this boy Billy Lovelady and just standing there, people talking and just talking about how pretty a day it turned out to be, because I told you earlier it was an old cloudy and misty day and then it didn't look like it was going to be a pretty day at all.
Mr. BALL - And it turned out to be a good day?
Mr. FRAZIER - Pretty sunshiny day.
Mr. BALL - Warm?
Mr. FRAZIER - Yes, sir; it was pretty warm.
Mr. BALL - Then let's see, there was Billy Lovelady and you were there.
Mr. FRAZIER - Right.
Mr. BALL - Anybody else you can remember?
Mr. FRAZIER - There was a lady there, a heavy-set lady who worked upstairs there whose name is Sarah something, I don't know her last name.
Mr. BALL - Were you near the steps?
Mr. FRAZIER - Yes, sir; I was, I was standing about, I believe, one step down from the top there."

So, this friendly old bunch was just talking and talking about what a pretty day it was, but three shots ring out at the POTUS, a white helmeted cop runs through their midst, and everyone on the steps doesn't know about the cop within a minute???

Edited December 16, 2015 by Robert Prudhomme

[Clive Largey]

Clive,

You may be misunderstanding my point, or I didn't present it all that well. I typed that entry (Baker's March 20th blurb) from Bill Kelly's article The Doors of Perception- Why Oswald is Not Guilty, which included Bill's underlining. My bad in replicating that underlining.

The point I was trying to make was that Baker ran right to the top of the entranceway landing- in a beeline from his motorcycle. The Couch film shows him in the process of doing that, up to Baker's almost touching the first step. There is no doubt in my own mind- picturing him as a basically honest cop- that what he did then (in this portion of the re-enactment) was what he had done on November 22nd.

I'm not married to the notion that he was up there at Z-313 plus 15 seconds. It would be nice, but not essential, to have another look at Sean's 2007 Lancer study, just to see how he arrived at that figure of 22+ seconds for when Baker hit the first step. Sean singlehandedly outdid Gary Mack's desperation bid to put that at 45 seconds, so maybe some compromises were settled on when tallying & appraising, just to thwart Mack. I'm not suggesting that did or did not happen.

What puzzles me is Howard Roffman's contention in another Bill Kelly blogpost, Howard Roffman's "Presumed Guilty" on p. 3- and the investigator would be well-served by reading from about one page previous to this excerpt (in the JULY 2013 section)- from where it states: To begin with, the reconstruction of Baker's movements started at the wrong time...

...From Couch's testimony and the scenes depicted in his film, in addition to the testimony of others in the same car, it can be determined that Couch began filming no more than 10 seconds after the last shot.

Establishing a different time for Baker's first-step arrival, say at Z-313 plus 15 seconds, is not that critical. But it would add fuel to the contention (mine & Michael T. Griffith's) that Baker made it to the 2nd-floor landing by Z-313 plus 50 seconds.

I have some free time today and hopefully will be able to comment on other parts of this thread.

Richard,

no problem, I do happen to agree with you that he is going straight for the entrance and to me it seems as though if he did not veer to the right he would have ran straight into Truly.

That's the point I make about "Truly's house", anyone else would move out the way, Roy moves not an inch so that Baker actually has to raise an arm to protect himself and it looks the same to me, from the position of his bike, the direct route to the entrance is right through where Truly stopped. Baker most likely called out for people to move but Truly having no idea what has just happened wants to ask him what he's after.

With the timing, I think I read that 22 seconds post too but that matches the revised timing of Mack, revised after he realised that Wiegman's Plaza footage is not one complete segment of film but three separate instances, so only the first part is used now, when it ends, Wiegman ran down the grass then started filming again.

It's not perfect but I would humbly suggest that it's far better than relying on "guesstimony".

If Couch spotted a rifle and he started filming five seconds later he would have had to fight his hand incredibly hard to stop it directing his camera up to the windows.

Twenty seconds gives Baker around ten to pause and view the reactions down the street, perfectly reasonable considering that's what he remembered doing.

[Clive Largey]

There's no nefarious conclusion to be drawn from his quick semi-parallel maneuver to go up via the right-hand side of the railing, as the film clip implies. Are researchers hoping there was a "very good lead" that diverted Baker east of the steps, and so consumed Bakertime that ate into his Bakerpath toward the freight elevators & 2nd-floor landing?

Richard,

the "very good lead" I mentioned yesterday was/is a reference to the legend.

The birds coming up off the roof.

My point was, that that's what they had to reconstruct.

Baker heard unmistakable gunfire, looked up towards the sounds and saw evidence of disturbance, he then pulled up and immediately ran inside. Very straightforward.

But we now have an alternative because if Couch does begin at twenty two seconds after Z313 and that is his bike parked further down the street and literally past the entrance then it strongly suggests that his first instinct was not to run inside at all and his best lead may have come to him whilst he was sitting on his bike taking it all in.

Completely logical.

[Thomas Graves]

There's no nefarious conclusion to be drawn from his quick semi-parallel maneuver to go up via the right-hand side of the railing, as the film clip implies. Are researchers hoping there was a "very good lead" that diverted Baker east of the steps, and so consumed Bakertime that ate into his Bakerpath toward the freight elevators & 2nd-floor landing?

Richard,

the "very good lead" I mentioned yesterday was/is a reference to the legend.

The birds coming up off the roof.

My point was, that that's what they had to reconstruct.

Baker heard unmistakable gunfire, looked up towards the sounds and saw evidence of disturbance, he then pulled up and immediately ran inside. Very straightforward.

But we now have an alternative because if Couch does begin at twenty two seconds after Z313 and that is his bike parked further down the street and literally past the entrance then it strongly suggests that his first instinct was not to run inside at all and his best lead may have come to him whilst he was sitting on his bike taking it all in.

Completely logical.

Robert Prudhomme thinks Baker ran down to the corner or intersection of Elm and Houston to talk with a policeman or two for a couple of minutes.

--Tommy

Edited December 16, 2015 by Thomas Graves

[Clive Largey]

What's this now, a list of some sort? Okay...

Thomas Graves thinks Duncan MacRae supplied us some excellent images of Prayerman.

Who goes next?

[Thomas Graves]

What's this now, a list of some sort? Okay...

Thomas Graves thinks Duncan MacRae supplied us some excellent images of Prayerman.

Who goes next?

Dear Clive,

Just trying to help, Clive.

You and Richard seemed to be talking about different things. He wanted to know what possible "diversion" could have motivated Barker to run past the front steps. At least that's what I thought he was asking.

Then you mentioned the pigeons flying off the roof of the TSBD.

And I'm suggesting, as a devil's advocate (arguing for Prudhomme), that maybe Baker wanted to ask the policeman or policemen down at the intersection whether or not they thought the shots had come from the TSBD, and that's why he ran down there right away, instead of up the steps.

Why the sarcasm? Did you think I was attacking you?

Why don't you like Duncan's images? What if I told you his recent GIF shows Prayer Person's sideburns, so must be a man?

--Tommy

Edited December 16, 2015 by Thomas Graves

[Robert Prudhomme]

The crazy thing about Baker's testimony is he actually states the pigeons were flying up to the roofs, not off the roofs, and he was not even sure which building it was.

[Richard Gilbride]

That's not what I saw in the movie.

[Thomas Graves]

That's not what I saw in the movie.

Richard,

Huh?

Could you please elaborate?

What movie?

--Tommy

[Sandy Larsen]

After carefully viewing this video, I have to agree with Robert P. that Baker is running parallel to the front steps of the TSBD, not toward them. Not only that, but that he had no intention of entering the TSBD. Yes, that can be determined without being clairvoyant.

Here are my observations, measurements, and line of reasoning:

There is a woman running toward the right side of the stairway (our right). Baker is clearly running rather perpendicular to her path. By taking measurements among the individual frames of the video, I concluded that Baker's path intersected the woman's path at the point in time where neither of her feet is planted on the ground, just before the point where her right foot strikes the ground (in frame 7 of 28). We can use this information to determine approximately how far Baker is from the stairway.We can see the woman take two steps after her right foot strikes the ground before the video ends. It is clear to me that she has at least two more steps to go, after the video ends, before reaching the stairway. Probably more like four. But let's be conservative and say it required just two more steps. So a total of four steps after we see her right foot first strike the ground.

So Baker crossed the woman's path 1/2 step (the woman's step) before her right foot had struck the ground. So we know that Baker was (at least) 4 1/2 of the woman's steps away from the stairway.

Women running a slow, 10-minute mile (which is a "jogging" speed) do so in 1709 steps. (Source here, Table 2.) A mile is 5280 feet in length, so the distance between steps would be 5280/1709 = 3 feet. So the (minimum) distance she ran, starting where she intersected Baker's path, ending at the bottom step, was 4.5 x 3 = 13.5 feet. This is how far Baker was from the stairway when the video ends.

If we draw a straight line down the center handrail of the stairway, we see that Baker was pretty close to the middle of the width of the stairway when the video ends.

Therefore, Baker was running parallel to, and not toward, the stairway, and was at least 13.5 feet away from it when he was right in front of its middle handrail. This is where the video ends. Baker clearly had no plan on entering the TSBD, because doing so would have required an abrupt left turn that probably would have toppled him over had he not slowed down significantly first.

Edited December 16, 2015 by Sandy Larsen

[Robert Prudhomme]

That's not what I saw in the movie.

?????

[Chris Davidson]

Sandy,

It appears that neither Baker nor the running lady has reached the curb yet.

The sidewalk is 10ft wide.

These are my only conclusions so far.

chris

[Robert Prudhomme]

Here is something to think about. How many times in a 50 year period does the following happen in the space of a minute?

1. The POTUS goes by the TSBD in a limo.

2. Three rifle shots are heard in Dealey Plaza.

3. A uniformed, white helmeted motorcycle cop roars up to the curb, hops off his motorcycle and goes tearing up the steps of the TSBD.

Kind of a semi-memorable moment in time, no?

Let's assume Pauline Sanders actually did see Baker go up the steps, as the FBI stated she did in their report of 24/11/63. As she seems to be the only witness on the steps who saw Baker, do you think she just calmly said to herself "Oh my, well, you certainly don't see that every day" and quietly went back to her desk? I hardly think so. If she was anything like the women I know, she would have shared this strange sighting with her neighbours on the steps (which included Molina and Frazier) and everyone on the steps would have been talking about the cop running into the building within 30 seconds; where he was going, why he ran into the building, was it connected to the shots they heard, etc.

When Joe Molina and Buell Wesley Frazier were asked, at their appearance before the WC, if they had seen Baker enter the TSBD, don't you think it likely they might have at least offered "Well, I never actually saw the cop myself, but Pauline Sanders saw him, and everybody on the steps was talkin' about him within the next minute or so."

Well?