Earlene Roberts WC Testimony Amazing To Me Yet Disturbingly Ignored.

[Guest]

One last reality check:

Mrs. JOHNSON. No, sir; I let Mrs. Roberts go a time or two, then I would hire her back.
Mr. BALL. there some reason why you let her go?
Mrs. JOHNSON. Well, she would just get to being disagreeable with renters and I don't know, she has a lot of handicaps. She has an overweight problem and she has some habits that some people have to understand to tolerate.
Mr. BALL. What are they?
Mrs. JOHNSON. Talking just sitting down and making up tales, you know, have you ever seen people like that? Just have a creative mind, there's nothing to it, and just make up and keep talking until she just makes a lie out of it. Listen, I'm telling you the truth and this isn't to go any further, understand that? You have to know these things because you are going to question this lady. I will tell you, she's just as intelligent--I think she is a person that doesn't mean to do that but she just does it automatically. It seems as though that she, oh, I don't know, wants to be attractive or something at times. I just don't know; I don't understand it myself. I only wish I did.

Gladys Johnson was as salt of the earth as Earlene, but she is lying because “they" got to her.  We all know who "they" are.

Earlene gave the names of the two officers she thought might have been in the car.  One had never heard of her.  One, however, had:  Officer Floyd J. Alexander, who Dale K. Myers tracked down.  He had left the DPD in 1957 but had employed Earlene as a housekeeper.  Some 30 years after the assassination, he told Myers that Earlene:

“wasn't very bright, had a limited number of friends, and would do almost anything to get attention."

Pretty consistent with Johnson's testimony 30 years earlier.  Presumably “they” got to Alexander too.  And Myers, of course, is such a shill that he may be regarded as part of the ongoing cover-up conspiracy.

Conspiracy theorists love Earlene.  She had Oswald in a "darker" jacket than the one the WC showed her.  But she was not simply mistaken.  No, that was not Oswald she saw at all.  The guy who dumped his tan jacket after killing Tippit?  Well, obviously, that wasn’t Oswald either.

See how this works – all because old Earlene is confused about the jacket color?

Earlene vanished from the rooming house in the dead of night, terrified of “them.”  This is standard conspiracy lore.  Gladys Johnson’s version is rather more plausible: 

Mr. BALL. Do you know any reason why she should have left you?
Mrs. JOHNSON. Mrs. Cheek, the sister, says when she was talking to her she brought up a little old lady that does room with me and she is a retired woman who is drawing her social security and she was a housekeeper previous to this last time Mrs. Roberts was there – Katy Gage, a precious woman, gets along with everybody. She's got children but doesn't want to live with them. She prefers living with my husband and I, renting a room and lives with us. She tells – and Mrs. Cheek says first thing she brought up was Katy. She says she's jealous of Katy and I don't know why she is. There is no reason to be.

For that matter, Earlene's explanation is rather more plausible:

Mrs. ROBERTS. Yes; I got sick the first time---I'm a diabetic and wasn't able to do the work and one day she called me again and wanted to know if I would do it and I went back and stayed again and I went in a coma and had to leave, and the reason why I left this time, she cut me down so low and the work was too heavy - I wasn't able to do the work.
Mr. BALL. You mean she cut you down on your money?
Mrs. ROBERTS. Oh, yes; and I can't pay my doctor bill and buy my medicine at that price.
Mr. BALL. You mean, she didn't pay you enough--that's the reason you quit?
Mrs. ROBERTS. That's the reason why I quit--the work was too heavy and I wasn't able to do it and not enough pay.

Earlene’s shifting story about the car number being 207 or maybe 107 or maybe 106?  In the real world, this is the hallmark of a dissembling or very confused and unreliable witness.  In the hands of a dedicated conspiracy theorist, however, it becomes a positive, the stuff of which dark and sinister speculation is made:

As Sylvia Meagher notes, Roberts “was confused about the number on the vehicle and gave several different versions.  In some of the three-digit combinations, she suggested, the first two figures were a 1 and a 0; Tippit’s car was ‘No. 10.’”

I actually believe that Earlene was simply weaving tales.  The taxi explanation, which I believe is entirely plausible, would be my fallback position and an avenue of further research if I really cared.

I love the way, in a thread on an obscure internet discussion forum 55 years after the assassination, conspiracy theorists are personally offended that anyone would dare to question the veracity of dear old Earlene, whom they worship like a Russian Orthodox icon.  Any attempt to discuss the issue in a rational manner immediately descends into “How dare this heretical Lone Nutter voice doubts about this icon of our faith?”  One can only laugh.

Edited December 20, 2018 by Guest

[Guest]

10 hours ago, Joe Bauer said:

And I have really read a lot that has been posted here for many years. Easy to read 10 to 50 line postings versus entire books.

Your posts on this thread alone average 478 words (exclusive of quoted testimony), including posts of 742, 843, 898, 1,119 and 1,241 words.

I guess it depends on whether what is being published is a Lone Nut "book" or a conspiracy "book."

Lawyers are maddening, aren't they?

[Ron Bulman]

Joe, glad to hear your ok.  Looks like lance has hijacked your thread.  Such is frustrating.  But we must carry on.  Even when overwhelmed by long diatribes.

[Joe Bauer]

I'll have to take responsibility for seeming a little disingenuous in stating that I won't be posting here again, at least for awhile.

Maybe I should have said, I will be significantly cutting back.

I recently self-evaluated my time and efforts in posting here ( and the worthiness of such) as much as I was. Too much time I realized as I was neglecting other matters in my personal and family life. 

The forum is addicting for me and I am sure many others who have always carried a deep and sincere life long feeling of loss about JFK's murder combined with an equally troubling concern that the "official government" investigation finding ( in classifying this murder as the work of  just "one" frustrated, angry, attention seeking lone nut who got lucky ) was a preposterously illogical, untrue  and U.S. democracy damaging and undermining one.

This forum provides a platform of engagement with very intelligent and highly informed others who share this JFK truth and justice questioning and searching mind-set as well as those who embrace the official government finding and are willing to debate ( or argue ) the validity of their opposite view, which is all very stimulating.

Mr. Payette is of this opposite ( lone nut) mind set and in posting his postulations and arguments for this conclusion seemingly gets some added stimulation by occasionally throwing in little insulting digs about the mental health and other character flaws of those he is debating.

No problem, debates about serious subjects often slip into the personal . Simple human nature.

However, it's still a tricky line to cross that sometimes undermines the credibility of the person most taking of this tact.

I want to end my latest " no more posting" posting here with a contemplation regards the rationality of carrying a life long concern about the JFK assassination to the point of still studying and talking about the event, even 55 years after it's occurrence. 

If JFK's murder was the result of a conspiracy, then it is "completely rational" to never stop searching for the true reality truth, because such a scenario and it's successful cover up means our nation has been controlled by groups and individuals for the last 55 years who have known this truth but have kept it from our citizenry, completely undermining every democratic principal and foundation that we have assumed our nation and government was and still is all about.

That we are much more a corrupted shell of this cherished institutional ideal versus a still thriving example of it than we ever imagined. And that we are all living in a false reality bubble regards this perversely sad and sick dichotomy.

On the other hand, if Oswald truly was the guilty lone nut solely responsible for the killing of JFK, then we can all finally relax and realize that as much as JFK and RFK were hated and reviled and looked upon as a great threat to segregationists, organized crime, right wing commie obsessed groups, hot headed Cubans who felt JFK had betrayed their cause, military and covert action hardliners, big oil and other military industrial complex corporate interests, colonial interest protectors, UFO/ET secret holders, jilted husbands, JFK and RFK hating LBJ, J.Edgar Hoover, Allan Dulles, foreign government adversaries, Castro himself and even Marilyn Monroe honor defending Joe Dimaggio ... and who knows who else ... they ALL got instant and complete relief from their deep and heavy weight JFK and RFK hate and feeling of threat by the incredible lucky opportunity taking actions one little ole nobody ... Lee Harvey Oswald.

There you have it. We could finally lay this exhausting conspiracy obsession to rest and get on with our lives.

You know, I think I'll swallow this Oswald Lone Nut happy pill for once today just to see what it feels like.

And I think I'll play one of my favorite old songs to enhance and celebrate this possible new found relief.

Here goes nothing ...

 

 

 

 

The Rascals - It's A Beautiful Morning - YouTube

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

Edited December 22, 2018 by Joe Bauer

[Roy Wieselquist]

17 hours ago, Joe Bauer said:

...............

................

On the other hand, if Oswald truly was the guilty lone nut solely responsible for the killing of JFK, then we can all finally relax and realize that as much as JFK and RFK were hated and reviled and looked upon as a great threat to segregationists, organized crime, right wing commie obsessed groups, hot headed Cubans who felt JFK had betrayed their cause, military and covert action hardliners, big oil and other military industrial complex corporate interests, colonial interest protectors, UFO/ET secret holders, jilted husbands, JFK and RFK hating LBJ, J.Edgar Hoover, Allan Dulles, foreign government adversaries, Castro himself and even Marilyn Monroe honor defending Joe Dimaggio ... and who knows who else ... they ALL got instant and complete relief from their deep and heavy weight JFK and RFK hate and threats by the incredible lucky opportunity taking actions one little ole nobody ... Lee Harvey Oswald.

...................

You know, I think I'll swallow this Oswald Lone Nut happy pill for once today just to see what it feels like.

And I think I'll play one of my favorite old songs to enhance and celebrate this possible new found relief.

Here goes nothing ...

 

 

The Rascals - It's A Beautiful Morning - YouTube

 

 

Joe B.!

Could you diagram that first sentence above?  Just kidding. 

Also, that's a heckuva statement.  It would be awesome if someone could put it to a well-known tune, e. g., the tune of "It's a Beautiful Morning,"  except the new title would be "Total Suspension of Disbelief."  Or maybe it would go better with a longer song like the mournful "American Pie."

Going back over this topic about Earlene Roberts on that fateful fatal day, I'm reminded of the integrity and courage of women bystander witnesses who were drawn into this Charybdis.  They were all happy, minding their own business, when the public slaughter of the First Citizen (and the attendant chaos, the murder of J D Tippit, and worse) fell on them like a Steinway grand.  Jean Hill, Aquilla Clemmons, Julia Ann Mercer, Wilma Tice, Earlene Roberts, to name a few.  They had wildly different stations in life but they had one thing in common: they didn't know how to be dishonest and cowardly.  It came as such a shock to them, at first, that someone, anyone around them had ulterior motives, anything other than the clear, simple truth.

 

Great to see you back, Joe.  There's something to be said for taking a little break.  It is said that Michael Jordan would not touch a basketball once the season was over.  A couple of weeks, once three I heard.  Until his hands were itching for it.  We can get stale, we can overdo it. Moderation in all things, even the virtues I say.  Which begs the question, Why are you so kind and considerate?  Though now that I think of it, it's good you are that way.  We've all had enough unnecessary ugliness.  But do you actually read LP's entire posts?  After a point when he's talking about himself and his snotty, quack psychology of "the conspiracy mindset", it's all the same nothing, sometimes a waste of space beyond belief.  It's fairly easy to scan past it, though again, you are probably too nice for that.  "I must give the other 'point of view' a fair, if tedious, hearing."  There ain't no point of view there.  More like an ocean of laughable, arrogant, intentional blindness.  Man, if I have time tonight, I'm gonna tear him a new one, metaphorically speaking, over that last post blowing his nose on a good old struggling housekeeper. 

It's sad to see you hurt by the digs regarding "mental health, character flaws."  Consider the source and it will make you swell with pride.  When a skunk says you smell funny it means you don't stink.

You have a good and unique take on these matters, both rare.  There aren't many of us left.  Mort Sahl and Michael Parenti won't be with us forever.  Who will take their place?

Edited December 22, 2018 by Roy Wieselquist
for the fun of it, and spelling

[Steve Thomas]

3 hours ago, Roy Wieselquist said:

Going back over this topic about Earlene Roberts on that fateful fatal day, I'm reminded of the integrity and courage of women bystander witnesses who were drawn into this Charybdis.  They were all happy, minding their own business, when the public slaughter of the First Citizen (and the attendant chaos, the murder of J D Tippit, and worse) fell on them like a Steinway grand.  Jean Hill, Aquilla Clemmons, Julia Ann Mercer, Wilma Tice, Earlene Roberts, to name a few.  They had wildly different stations in life but they had one thing in common: they didn't know how to be dishonest and cowardly.  It came as such a shock to them, at first, that someone, anyone around them had ulterior motives, anything other than the clear, simple truth.

 

Roy,

 

Amen.

I can't say they were all happy, but they were minding their own business.

You could throw in Lillian Spangler, who was just selling tickets to a parrot tourist place.

http://flashbackmiami.com/2016/01/06/parrot-jungle/

 

Steve Thomas

[Guest]

Current Directions in Psychological Science is a bimonthly peer-reviewed scientific journal from the Association for Psychological Science.  Current Directions in Psychological Science is ranked among the top 10 psychology journals worldwide.

The Psychology of Conspiracy Theories

Karen M. Douglas, Robbie M. Sutton, and Aleksandra Cichocka

Current Directions in Psychological Science, Volume 26, issue 6, pages 538-542 (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0963721417718261), linked at the U.S. National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, National Center for Biological Information, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5724570/. 

Over a third of Americans believe that global warming is a hoax (Swift, 2013), and over half believe that Lee Harvey Oswald did not act alone in the assassination of John F. Kennedy (Jensen, 2013).  These are examples of conspiracy theories—explanations for important events that involve secret plots by powerful and malevolent groups (e.g., Goertzel, 1994).  In recent years, there has been growing interest in the psychological factors that drive the popularity of conspiracy theories, and in this article, we draw together and organize findings from this burgeoning research.  This research suggests that people may be drawn to conspiracy theories when—compared with nonconspiracy explanations—they promise to satisfy important social psychological motives that can be characterized as epistemic (e.g., the desire for understanding, accuracy, and subjective certainty), existential (e.g., the desire for control and security), and social (e.g., the desire to maintain a positive image of the self or group). This taxonomy, derived from system-justification theory (Jost, Ledgerwood, & Hardin, 2008), serves as a useful heuristic to classify the motives associated with conspiracy belief. However, the comparatively scarce research examining the consequences of conspiracy theories does not indicate that they ultimately help people fulfill these motives.

[Jake Hammond]

On 12/20/2018 at 1:07 PM, Lance Payette said:

One last reality check:

Mrs. JOHNSON. No, sir; I let Mrs. Roberts go a time or two, then I would hire her back.
Mr. BALL. there some reason why you let her go?
Mrs. JOHNSON. Well, she would just get to being disagreeable with renters and I don't know, she has a lot of handicaps. She has an overweight problem and she has some habits that some people have to understand to tolerate.
Mr. BALL. What are they?
Mrs. JOHNSON. Talking just sitting down and making up tales, you know, have you ever seen people like that? Just have a creative mind, there's nothing to it, and just make up and keep talking until she just makes a lie out of it. Listen, I'm telling you the truth and this isn't to go any further, understand that? You have to know these things because you are going to question this lady. I will tell you, she's just as intelligent--I think she is a person that doesn't mean to do that but she just does it automatically. It seems as though that she, oh, I don't know, wants to be attractive or something at times. I just don't know; I don't understand it myself. I only wish I did.

Gladys Johnson was as salt of the earth as Earlene, but she is lying because “they" got to her.  We all know who "they" are.

Earlene gave the names of the two officers she thought might have been in the car.  One had never heard of her.  One, however, had:  Officer Floyd J. Alexander, who Dale K. Myers tracked down.  He had left the DPD in 1957 but had employed Earlene as a housekeeper.  Some 30 years after the assassination, he told Myers that Earlene:

“wasn't very bright, had a limited number of friends, and would do almost anything to get attention."

Pretty consistent with Johnson's testimony 30 years earlier.  Presumably “they” got to Alexander too.  And Myers, of course, is such a shill that he may be regarded as part of the ongoing cover-up conspiracy.

Conspiracy theorists love Earlene.  She had Oswald in a "darker" jacket than the one the WC showed her.  But she was not simply mistaken.  No, that was not Oswald she saw at all.  The guy who dumped his tan jacket after killing Tippit?  Well, obviously, that wasn’t Oswald either.

See how this works – all because old Earlene is confused about the jacket color?

Earlene vanished from the rooming house in the dead of night, terrified of “them.”  This is standard conspiracy lore.  Gladys Johnson’s version is rather more plausible: 

Mr. BALL. Do you know any reason why she should have left you?
Mrs. JOHNSON. Mrs. Cheek, the sister, says when she was talking to her she brought up a little old lady that does room with me and she is a retired woman who is drawing her social security and she was a housekeeper previous to this last time Mrs. Roberts was there – Katy Gage, a precious woman, gets along with everybody. She's got children but doesn't want to live with them. She prefers living with my husband and I, renting a room and lives with us. She tells – and Mrs. Cheek says first thing she brought up was Katy. She says she's jealous of Katy and I don't know why she is. There is no reason to be.

For that matter, Earlene's explanation is rather more plausible:

Mrs. ROBERTS. Yes; I got sick the first time---I'm a diabetic and wasn't able to do the work and one day she called me again and wanted to know if I would do it and I went back and stayed again and I went in a coma and had to leave, and the reason why I left this time, she cut me down so low and the work was too heavy - I wasn't able to do the work.
Mr. BALL. You mean she cut you down on your money?
Mrs. ROBERTS. Oh, yes; and I can't pay my doctor bill and buy my medicine at that price.
Mr. BALL. You mean, she didn't pay you enough--that's the reason you quit?
Mrs. ROBERTS. That's the reason why I quit--the work was too heavy and I wasn't able to do it and not enough pay.

Earlene’s shifting story about the car number being 207 or maybe 107 or maybe 106?  In the real world, this is the hallmark of a dissembling or very confused and unreliable witness.  In the hands of a dedicated conspiracy theorist, however, it becomes a positive, the stuff of which dark and sinister speculation is made:

As Sylvia Meagher notes, Roberts “was confused about the number on the vehicle and gave several different versions.  In some of the three-digit combinations, she suggested, the first two figures were a 1 and a 0; Tippit’s car was ‘No. 10.’”

I actually believe that Earlene was simply weaving tales.  The taxi explanation, which I believe is entirely plausible, would be my fallback position and an avenue of further research if I really cared.

I love the way, in a thread on an obscure internet discussion forum 55 years after the assassination, conspiracy theorists are personally offended that anyone would dare to question the veracity of dear old Earlene, whom they worship like a Russian Orthodox icon.  Any attempt to discuss the issue in a rational manner immediately descends into “How dare this heretical Lone Nutter voice doubts about this icon of our faith?”  One can only laugh.

NIce work Lance. The time between 12.30 and 2.00p.m is my interest, and this incident has always been anomalous. It is simultaneously impossible to fit into a logical timeline or a likely common sense explanation. There are so many IF's and BUT's thrown up, yet, remove the E.R testimony and you then can start putting together timelines and motives that make sense. In addition, the lack of exclusion from the Warren commission and FBI in her testimony show that they weren't worried about the incident. Not like other witnesses....

Lastly, like so many red herrings in this case , like 'Badgeman', 'Oswald in the doorway' etc.... they have no significance even if they were true and exist independently of the known facts, rendering them void. However, I do not disparage researchers who have believed in these Red herrings ( as I have done many times along the way) because they need to be investigated, understood and reconciled. The problem is that if you really believe in something and really research it, it then becomes incredibly difficult to be unbiased, objective and productive in the long term.Especially if you , or others fond evidence to the contrary. 

[Guest]

Thanks to Malcolm Blunt.

 

[Guest]

Thanks to Malcolm Blunt

 

[Guest]

Thanks to Malcolm Blunt

 

 

[Joe Bauer]

Is there any record of Earlene Roberts stating whether she ever observed Oswald taking or being dropped off by any city buses?  Was she even asked about Oswald's comings and goings on a regular weekday basis outside of the small rooming house where both she and Oswald resided for many weeks?

Perhaps the bus route wasn't even on N.Beckley?

If B. W. Frazier ever dropped off Oswald or picked him up at the Beckley address, and especially more than once or twice, there is a reasonable chance that Ms. Roberts would have seen a departing Oswald getting into or arriving back out of a car in front of her unobstructed street facing view windowed residence.

[Rob Clark]

On 12/23/2019 at 1:56 PM, Joe Bauer said:

Is there any record of Earlene Roberts stating whether she ever observed Oswald taking or being dropped off by any city buses?  Was she even asked about Oswald's comings and goings on a regular weekday basis outside of the small rooming house where both she and Oswald resided for many weeks?

Perhaps the bus route wasn't even on N.Beckley?

If B. W. Frazier ever dropped off Oswald or picked him up at the Beckley address, and especially more than once or twice, there is a reasonable chance that Ms. Roberts would have seen a departing Oswald getting into or arriving back out of a car in front of her unobstructed street facing view windowed residence.

Certainly sounds like Frazier....

 

Edited March 9, 2020 by Rob Clark

[Ron Bulman]

That last part about Slack's wife caught my attention in particular.  I have to say I'm skeptical of any of the FBI statements from late 1963 through 1964.  I can't name them off the top of my head but if I'm not mistaken multiple assassination witnesses have stated since their testimony was altered.  Maybe I do remember one.  Was Vickie Adams statement to the FBI or Warren Omission or both?  I can't remember, need to pull the book. 

[David Andrews]

Two thoughts:

Mr. BALL. Did this police car stop directly in front of your house?
Mrs. ROBERTS. Yes--it stopped directly in front of my house and it just "tip-tip" and that's the way Officer Alexander and Charles Burnely would do when they stopped, and I went to the door and looked and saw it wasn't their number.

1) Maybe the two uniformed police who stopped in front of the N. Beckley house on 11/22/63 knew that Earlene Roberts would come out to talk to Alexander and Burnley, and hoped she would come out and talk to them.  (She didn't.)  Roberts may have been an Oswald babysitter, or just a known source of scuttlebutt about her tenants or the neighbors.  So, the car may have tapped its horn for Roberts, not to pick up Oswald (or "Oswald") for a rendezvous.
 

Mr. BALL. And you say that there were two uniformed policemen in the car?
Mrs. ROBERTS. Yes, and it was in a black car. It wasn't an accident squad car at all.

2) Roberts apparently means that it was a detectives' car, without a patrol car's cherry top, and unmarked except for a number on the side.  Are there photos of DPD detectives' cars to compare?  Were these cars in the low numbers?

 

Edited December 25, 2019 by David Andrews